Elemental and story focus

Well, I'm assuming that like GC2 the story will be mentioned a few times in various descriptions and things, but I can't see it actually influencing conditions in the sandbox mode.

The story is simply the background lore, probably focussing more on the time before the game starts.  The sandbox mode is unscripted in the same way GC2 is.

There will be a technical journal (walkthrough of the alpha) later hopefully

That's what I'm hoping, but when Frogboy says

" The scriptable engine allows each so-called sandbox game to have a truly unique life of its own because there’s just such a massive amount of lore to tap into."

it makes me wonder if the game will ship with 'default content' based on their story.  I played some of the ToA campaign and I don't really want to see this; I'm concerned sandbox-ness might be sacrified to communicate some story.

That said, that sandbox is able to draw on resources for the scriptable content is really cool and means themed mods will be awesome; statements like the above + book release just set off alarm bells.  I remember people complaining about 'lack of story' in base GalCiv2, though.

I imagine a lot of the "tapping into" will involve name generation: the "Dreadwood" in those cloth map screenshots had to come from somewhere!

I haven't read much about the quest scripting, events, etc, so I imagine there's some scope for it to 'tap into' lore there aswell.  The concern is that sandbox gets railroaded by lore/the book/etc in some way - I'm not interested in sacrificing anything scope-wise to the story.  I'm the kind of guy that is irritated by being unable to make GalCiv2 custom races that get as many bonuses as the base races.

The quote above seems contradictory; he's saying that each game is more 'unique' because there's a 'massive amount of lore'.  

"I want to make my own stories, not play tiny bits of someone else's 10,000 year fantasy story.  The ease of content creation is a great feature, so is the 'official' lore just there for people who won't mod? At worst, how hard will it be to mod out?"

Cant agree enough with the OP. I would rather there be no story, and we instead have a good dynamic random map generator, along with a solid "fantasy" focus. I will mod out most of the story crap quickly anyhow, seeing as it is a strangely self contraining feature. Why not have 15 races? or even like 5? The two races theme makes me worried... well see.

Or it could just be a scary area with woods in it...

So, you want a dry game with nothing but numbers and units with all the appeal of chess pieces? No background, no character, nothing to breathe a little life into it?

Try reading what I actually posted before you fire off the knee-jerk torpedoes, buddy.  I simply have no interest in some fixed story; I want a sandbox game.  If you think sandbox games are 'dry' and lack character or have 'all the appeal of chess pieces', that's great.  I actually enjoy these games, but I'm concerned sandbox may loose it's freeform nature to 'work in' with a story I simply don't care about.  GalCiv2 has a story that I totally ignore, preferring the stories that emerge dynamically from the sandbox mode (generally featuring Daleks).

Responding to others, I don't mind the two races for two reasons - first, the content generator means your 'humans' can be all different kinds of humans, varying dynamically over a single game which is very interesting.  Two, adding stuff with mods will I imagine be very easy.  Oh and three?  Most 'long list of races' games have races that are very generic or boring, and I'm happy to see that avoided while giving the player more power of expression.  The game doesn't need the 'choppy' race and the 'brainy' race and the 'tradey' race and the 'magicy' race; the system apparently supports this all internally which I think is fantastic.

Sure, and I haven't been keeping a close eye on development.  That's why I made the thread: so more informed people could let me know what was the go.  It did sound to me like the story (which is significant to the developers, if they're printing a book) was somehow making the sandbox stuff part of the fantasy worldbuilding they're doing.  Which isn't what sandbox is about, to my mind.

EDIT - and my quote button doesn't work.  It's probably a Chrome thing.

Meh, I'd like to see where they said the opposite? I really don't want alot of story in my game ruining the creation of my own story. I really dislike how the devs have went from posting interesting info on game mechanics and the functions of thier features to something about a book and whatnot. One would hope they havent abandoned the ideals of a player created epic to play into thier own story. The idea of playing the same story just on a different map every game... ug.

If you look to the screenshots in the latest Dev Journal you'll see there is a 'Campaign' and a 'Skirmish' button, so I'd guess the campaign will be where we'll find most of the story-elements and skirmish will be the completly random maps without any real story elements.

Some (Most?) people do like a decent story in their game, one of the negative points Sins of a Solar Empire got in a lot of reviews was that there was no real story, no campaign. I guess StarDock wants to make sure that this won't happen again with Elemental.

I have a very hard time believing that Stardock are planning to 'cripple' the Elemental sandbox in the name of story. My impression (hope?) is that one of the major advances that Elemental will make over GalCiv2 is that the sandbox will indeed have interesting, flexible, and highly replayable story-based components.

There's a big difference between building a 'maze/puzzle' version of a TBS and building a sandbox that includes back story in how things like major geographic features, champions, mysterious ruins, cataclysm-surviving Beasts, ancient artifacts, and quests are presented in the UI. A traditional implementation would leave us with some 'dullness horizon' where we'd seen all the flavor text repeatedly no matter how large the lore database is. What I want from Elemental is to see these story-linked, LEGO-like chunks able to reliably generate new-to-me games based on how they interact with each other and with how the AIs and I behave in a given game.

Agreed. That would still create a dullness horizon, simply because nobody can write an infinite amount of lore, but a LEGO system would make that horizon exponentially farther away.

I, too, generally play for the sandbox games, but the idea of a 'new' campaign aproach might change my opinion.  Look at Imperium Galactica II and it's 'campaign' mode.  Essentially, it's a sandbox onto which a semi-dynamic campaign has been grafted.  You have teh standard sandbox 'here's a few cities, now build your empire', but random events pop up, and some of those 'random' events are 'core' storyline events which randomly choose stars and ships for targets.

It's fun!

I concur with GW as well as Ron.

@Ron - I like exactly that type of sandbox game. Random events that can lead to others in a chain or not depending on what you do mixed with a host of other things...

That's all good stuff - the way they talk about the scritpable content definately suggests the sandbox will be more than 'start at turn 0 and play the same way again'.  It would simply be a shame if they lost flexibility (which they're really focusing on designwise for in-game content and external modding) because of irrelevant story.

I also hear games need strong stories.  Games like Civilization and the Sims.  :)  Sins has a lot of problems, but I really wouldn't say lack of story was a serious one.

Lack of an advancing story is Sins' problem

No, it really isn't.  Successful games don't necessarily have stories at all (let alone strong ones) so the statement a story is needed is false.  Chronic balance issues, broken diplomacy (kill xyz person who is dead or lose friendship lol) and near-irrelevant economy are real problems.  If Sins had a story, I'd never see it, particularly if it's communicated in heavily-scripted missions that are always the same.  

A bunch of problems story-wise which I imagine Stardock are trying to avoid with Elemental and their content system (if it works, isn't cut, is developed without problems, etc).  If they're as mod-friendly as they normally are, and the system lets you decide 'I want to play a vaguely Conan game this time' or whatever and still be dynamic, that's cool.

I'd assumed (sue me) that the game would ship with

* an 'official campaign' for single player

* a multiplayer map system with x number of predefined maps and/or a random map generator

*  the mod tools needed to create a custom campaign - which, by definition, would also implicitly include the ability to play a custom campaign that no predefined back-story at all, which from what I read here would very neatly suit the needs of the OP and some of the responders.

I also assume (sue me again) that we're reading too deeply into the statement:

"The scriptable engine allows each so-called sandbox game to have a truly unique life of its own because there’s just such a massive amount of lore to tap into."

I say this because my interpretation of that statement is different that what has come up in this topic.  I interpret the statement, focusing on the bold-face text, to indicate that the so-called sandbox game would (of course!) include units/structures/features that are part of the library of game objects included in the official campaign.  Another way to say this is that unless you're creating custom content through the modding tools, you're going to be re-using the same units/structures/otherstuffs that you find to be included within the official campaign.  It's up to the modder to write (or not write) new 'lore' content for his/her mod.

tl;dr: I'm not worried.  I think we're going to have options on whether or not to include all or part of the official campaign's back-story and lore into our sand-box or modded games.

Really?  Brad has expressly said - even in recent dev journals - that the game doesn't ship with units because you create them from equipment during the game.  The game clearly has building appearances, but I'm not really sure how the 'lore' is going to intrude through the appearance of a barn.  My concern was the dynamic, scripted 'event' stuff they talk about being 'this week on Stardock's silly fantasy story' instead of actually freeform, like other sandbox games.  The quest and scripted stuff is very exciting (since it's not normal for a TBS) but limiting anything due to some published book I'll never read would be bad.  For the record, 'mods will fix it' is secret code for 'it's bad'.

The quote you bold is what concerns me - being full of a preset story somehow makes each game more unique?  That seems like a contradiction.

I would prefer a dynamic content creation system for the engine i.e. a content randomizer that reliably comes up with background for the various elements of the game, each game.

For now though, no-one really knows what we are talking about. SD seems unlikely to shoot themselves in the foot like many of us are worried they will. If the games engine is good enough, mods can save it too (though they shouldn't have too...)

I did, which is why you got that reaction. Sorry man, but you come off incredibly hostile and derogatory against Brad's previous work and what he's doing now.

GalCiv 2 had - excuse me - the worst story in recent videogame history.  

'here is some more fanfiction around King Argonaut' 

tiny bits of someone else's 10,000 year fantasy story.  

If you're legitimately asking if the sandbox mode will have options to either disable or alter content, that's great. Coming in and slamming Brad's previous work and calling his upcoming work, without having even seen it, "fan fiction" is hostile and insulting. So, I treated you as you seemed inclined to treat others, with hostility and denigration.

And you continue to do so with statements like "'this week on Stardock's silly fantasy story' "

If being a hostile ass isn't your goal, then my apologies and let's start over. Your point then is actually asking, politely, that sandbox mode not include a pre-made story line. Yes? Perhaps you could leave it at that and not continue to harp on this axe you have to grind?