Devs, would you like infinite story for minimal work?

Hello all. My friends and I feel that Starbound's universe deserves a story as rich as its scope. We asked ourselves: can you harness the infinite creative potential of the fanbase to add story into the game's universe?

I propose a system that works like this:

1) Each Starbound player can mark one planet "Eligible for Canon." A posted set of guidelines informs players that well-made stories true to Starbound's lore have the highest chance of being approved for the game.

2) The player uses a quest-making toolkit that allows them to make NPCs, dialogue, and quests. Is there a toolkit like that out? I feel there must be.

3) When the player is finished with their quest, they submit it to a "User Created Planets" menu. Starbound players can give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the planet.

4) As well-made planets float to the top of the user-made planets list, Chucklefish devs skim the cream off the top, look at the top ten planets every so often to make sure they're fit for the game, and add the planets in!

Players get the chance to have their work immortalized in game, and the Chucklefish devs have a never-ending fount of stories and quests to add to the Starbound universe, making it ever more rich and interesting. What do you guys think?

 

As I was out and about today, I thought of some situations that implementing this feature would allow players to see. Imagine exploring the Starbound Universe, and seeing:

1) A desperate battle between Apex rebels and Miniknog assault forces, over a huge ruined Apex city. Whoever wins gets to keep the planet; who does the player side with?

2) An inconspicuous dungeon opening which leads to a huge labyrinth dungeon that reaches from crust to planet core. Way too much to expect the devs to make with so much already on their plate; very manageable for an enterprising player!

3) A Glitch castle, in which a dinner turns into a murder mystery!

All this, and tons more would be possible. The Starbound fanbase is a huge neural network; if we tap into this, we can fill the universe with amazing things, and all the devs have to do is give a quick nod or headshake to the best of the best that floats up through the community rating system.

Leave a note with your feedback; if you think there's something to this, let's fill the thread and let it be known!

 

There would have to be some distinction between planets that've been adopted into canon, and this ability to visit non-adopted planets that users have made. Would that work by having some kind of opt-in system like a checkbox on the options menu, that causes planet Rigel VII to swap out the default data for a set of player-made data? That way, players would have some way to say whether they want to participate in trying the user-made planets.

Starbound sorely needs development of its story, and user-created content is a good way to do that. Right now, if you're an Avian player for instance, you're told you're fleeing religious persecution, and then the development of that story is... nothing. You probably loot some Avian tombs. You don't (last time I checked, anyway) even see the intro sequence that was made around a year ago, explaining the "feathers fall dark" tradition. Same for the Apex rebel/MiniKnog conflict, the search for answers to why Earth blew up in a mass of tentacles, the quest to spread Hylotl enlightment, and so on. (Though Florian PCs' motive is apparently "stab things slightly less", so that's covered already.) Having canon worlds where your actions make a lick of difference in any of the overall plot threads, or reveal any information about what's going on, would be a big improvement. Right now the devs are focusing on features like a fossil digging interface and the addition of decorative wildlife, so bringing in players to add plot and character and setting development seems like a better direction to take the game.

 

I'd like user-made planets to be a side feature from the main menu. You select your character, select the user-made world, and the game puts you right on the planet. After you finish the adventure, you rate the planet thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and choose another from the menu. Only after a Chucklefish dev approved a planet would it then show up in the galaxy proper.

Because rating planets would be more fast-paced and more action-packed, I feel this would also provide a nice bit of excitement for Starbound players before returning to peaceful exploration and base-building. Implementing this system would not only provide a wealth of new stories for the devs to include, but it would provide appeal for action-seeking players as well!

 

I LOVE the idea, but things that complicated (not so much for the labyrinth) require CODING. I can see adding text bubbles and npcs as a possibility (especially since you sorta can make npcs already). But telling them WHAT to do, WHERE to go, and WHEN to do it, require MUCH more complicated preparation than

 

It's true that it would require coding, and would need to allow players to set triggers, give NPCs destinations and all that, but I've seen it done; Broforce gives players all the tools to do triggers, and even simple cutscenes from within the game's level editor. As a result, they enjoy a nonstop flow of user-made levels, the top picks of which are easily accessed via a "top rated levels" and "trending levels" menu.

I don't deny that there would be some work to get it up and running; however, I've seen this implemented successfully, and feel the rewards would be well worth it.

 

Such a good idea but it would have to be done in such a way that didnt take away from the sandbox feel that starbound has and the freedom to create your "perfect experience" would be a good punch line

 

Will get flooded with planets that have shock images at spawn.

 

Maybe have the user-created planet be in a separate section of the game during testing, like accessible from SAIL, so that players interested in it can test things out and those that prefer to wait for them to be canon to play can avoid them. Once chosen, the planets/dungeon/quests gets specific coordinates in the game accessible to everyone.

 

Exactly! Players go to a separate menu in order to go to planets that haven't been approved yet, and only the planets that the Devs have approved (which they can do by skimming the top user-rated worlds every so often) will have in-game coordinates.

Haynesy, I feel the sandbox experience would be preserved because nothing would force the player to go to new planets introduced through this system; from the player's perspective, you would suddenly stumble across it while exploring like you currently do with the existing towns and dungeons. It's just that now the stories and towns and things you find would be able to be bigger and richer, since creating them wouldn't sit 100% on the already-busy devs.

Narks raises a good point; lots of planets will probably show up with winkies drawn in dirt blocks as the first thing you see. However, remember that these planets are showing up in the player-rating area, not the actual game. Maybe when players give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, there's also a checkbox that allows players to flag it as inappropriate. HOWEVER, doing so doesn't remove the map, because some funsters are going to be flagging every planet as inappropriate.

This way, if you see the top rated planet has thousands of thumbs-ups, 36 thumbs-downs, and 14 "Inappropriate"s, you can reason that there's probably not actually inappropriate content. On the flip side, if a planet has 123 thumbs-ups, 345 thumbs-downs, and 156 "inappropriates," you can safely conclude that the map probably isn't good.

Finally, to prevent bitter Internet People from spending their whole evening downvoting the planet of somebody they're in an online feud with, you can only rate a planet once. What do you think of these? Do you think these would function properly and address potential issues? Let me know!

 

I personally agree with all these.

First, the sandbox experience is still present. If you find this planet and don't want to do the quest, you can just go somewhere else. Maybe there can be an indicator in the planet scan saying something like "This planet seem significant." That said, I think the lore planets should also not be too hard to find, maybe having set coordinates or spawn close to your starter system, if only so that we are sure to be able to access them.

Second, about the dirt penors, the devs should, naturally, review the lore planets themselves before accepting them. Because there is always a chance for someone to find a way to upvote a whiner planet many times over to put it in the top. So even with a high upvote rate, devs should check the planet and not just put the best in game.

And yes, just one vote per person.

Now there is one issue that appears in all this. Some people won't make quests but instead maybe make a giant sculpture on a planet, which is equally impressive. Naturally, a massive sculpture of a Halo's Elite shouldn't become a planet in game, but I think the lore planet system should allow these environment planets as long as they are related to Starbound. For other showing, we have the forums or perhaps another section specially for showing.

 

The goal for making any of this happen should be to get the devs to release some version of their tools, at least the basic system for arranging blocks to make dungeon pieces and defining how they're assembled. If they've got the resources to hire someone just to convert the game to console format, they also have the resources to release a tool they already made. Hey, call it an "unfinished beta unstable prototype" like the game itself! Worry about event triggers after proving basic competence at releasing a block arrangement tool.

 

Well fellow Starboundians, most folks seem to agree that this would be a good idea by now; I think the next logical step would be: Does anybody know how to get in touch with any of the devs to get their take on this? We'd be looking for their take on the concept, and seeing what toolsets we could get into community hands. Does anybody know how to tap their shoulder?

Don't get me wrong; I'm not under any delusions that the developers know or care about anything I've been typing; but if we just keep the discussion here no progress will be made! So, what do you all think; how do we start moving this idea in front of the devs?

 

Most folks? 10 people voted in your bias poll, only 5 people have posted, and this thread hasn't even seen a second page.

I think this is a terrible idea that would detract from actual development of the game.

Toolkit? We have almost unlimited access to the assets of the game. We have the capability of making quests already.

 

Cool, cool. Good to know quest development tools are already out there. Thanks Lazarus!

So yeah! As I'm out and about over the next few days I'll think of what a next step would be. Anybody feel free to chime in. I know this is just a few fans kicking ideas around, but I think it's a good idea and will add a lot to the setting without the devs having to personally develop hundreds of unique quests and scenarios.

 

I'm on board with this, but don't see it coming to fruition any time soon.

 

Loaded poll is loaded.

Also, i think we will be given the tools to make our own quests for modding's sake, but to expect them as starbounds lore is not the sort of thing that's expected outside of contests. CF is the final say on lore, not us. We don't own the game.

 

To be honest, as great as the idea is in theory, the application would be much more tedious than what they are doing now. They already skim our suggestions and comment on our works, but at the same time, they are also developing the updates for games that we enjoy. If they had to listen word for word, from tens of thousands of fans (the portion of their fan base that would give suggestions based on a planet) and put it into the game, it would be a nightmare for the developers. So, I would stick with posting suggestions, and hope that an idea of yours makes its way to the game. I know that having a planet that you helped bring into fruition is something that you wish to come true with games that you enjoy, but this is probably not the best way to achieve it. Sorry if I offend.

 

I see the devs' priority lately has been:
-Hats
-Another mini-biome with furniture/buildings (steampunk, not relevant to lore)
-Another mini-biome (shadows, not relevant to lore)
-Another furniture/building set for Hylotl (but not the cool underwater one from the preview screenshots in what, 2013?)
-Another furniture/building set (featuring talking maggots)
-Possibly, sometime in the future, releasing more of a rebalancing of combat
-Bugfixes to the stable update that took months to make

They've essentially abandoned characterization, setting and story, with the exception of one somewhere-in-development Apex dungeon mission, so it really is time they started using the players to do the world-building.

 

Ignorance abound!

Theyve said before, and I will say it again. They show the visual stuff because the engine work is nothing to really look at, nor very interesting to most people, so the blog posts pertain mostly to what the artists are working on at the time. You are falsly assuming that everyone at CF MUST be a programmer, but are instead only working on graphic assets, which is false. Also, you've failed to see the posts about scripted weapons like the translocater, guided rockets, and homing rockets.

Most all of the lore and story content is being withheld from stable/nightly builds because they want it to be a surprise. It would be anti-climactic to reveal the story and lore bit by bit as they create it. They are working on a "Lore update" which will contain most all of that content.

How about you actually read up on development instead of spouting false information.