Why are Florans and Novakid so popular?

Huh, interesting idea. I've basically never bothered thinking any farther than 'me no likey'.
The Floran have been rubbing me just in the wrong way. I'll keep your idea in mind though, might make playing more interesting.
And what is the plural of Floran? Florans or Floran? <scratcheshead>

 

I think Floran was meant to be both single and plural, as some nations in even earth's past was like that. In all essence though really it depends on what language it was spoken from originally.

However I think even Florans would be fine if there was a slur a the end, but I think in english it would simple be Floran; just so it not sound like making fun of or provoke them. Hylotl's got the start on that with the way they speak.

 

Well the multiple S's are a speech pattern. Why should it show up in writing?

 

Nova's are the new groovy kids on the block, also due to be a voted in (fan favorite) race they are absolutely are going to be loved.
Also they have guns for default, which is nice. Also the Texan in me adores the style.
The Florans for me have always been based on their personality and looks. I love native cultures, nature/druids, also I like the diversity within their personalities.
Stabby stabby, the ones that think that the stabby's are heathens, and the neutral happy go lucky ones.

 

Somehow it sounds better without the additional S at the end. Floran really have enough S's as it is.

You know what? I've never even considered I might be reading an actual description when my character looks closely at things. I always assumed s/he is TALKING to ME.
Funny enough I have no idea if the characters mouth is moving when a description is shown. One would think after hundreds of hours with the game I knew.

 

It moves.

 

Well, if it [the mouth] moves it is not that strange for me to think the character is talking to me. So maybe Floran DO need their own descriptions because they lisp (or whatever one would call that style of theirs) when talking.

 

Technically, most PCs have unique descriptions, and the item descriptions simply act as placeholders if the game can´t find an unique quote, which is why Novakid PCs have so few unique quotes.

 

I'm pretty sure there'll be special stuff for the Novakids eventually. Look how long the Hylotl have been in the game and there's still no settlements. The Novakids are still pretty new and there's nothing much but their charming selfs.
But let's not agitate the developers - I'm still confident in their abilities.

 

Because i started as floran from begin with, because i totally liked ssships design, and even floran'ss pet as well.

 

In short, it's that these races are so unusual. Many of the other races feel like re-skinned humanoid copies. Their lore is important too.. Lore makes a HUGE difference, since no race has racial abilities. (yet) Those who enjoy the lore, either made from their own minds or official, are the same people who become personally involved in the races they choose. Any race can have a gun at some point, any race can go to any other planet, but lore makes them different. To top this off, the novakid and floran LOOK different. They are much more alien.

But lots of people will tell you that. So instead, how about I show you an example or two? I need to start with the apex to show my point, so here goes. Fair warning, this is a bit of reading.. any lore takes some explaining, so it's unavoidable.

I know! I'll add some theme music to make it a better read!



APEX:



When I first started (way back in alpha) the apex were my go to choice.. I had not read much of their lore, so formed my own based solely on observation.

I used to like apex so much because to me, it was like being human, yet not. In a sense, I always felt like they were a race that had branched off of the human race at some point. In my mind, apex were the race that wasn't supposed to be smart, but that they beat the odds and became capable in spite of everything.

However, because they were not human, their society developed differently. I always viewed it like this. Even though they had evolved past being simple monkeys, some of their more bestial instincts got ingrained in that society. Those who prove their wit and smarts are seen as "desirable" elite members of ape kind.. those who don't however?

These failures are seen as less "ape" than the others.. or rather, less than what ape kind is now. So they forced to serve another function, for all must be of use, or else "what is the point of the Apex?" These lesser beings are hidden away in facilitates where they are used for the "higher good."

The "big ape" is a concept, like a governmental god of sorts, reminding them that there is a "bigger picture" and that their actions must not reflect simplistic origins or thought. In short "big ape" is all of them. Yet he is also the malevolent punishing eye of their race, for it is he that punishes those who do not try to achieve advancement.

To add variety and because I felt it was well placed, I often made it so that this sense of simplicity in their origins would leak through at times. Although they were advanced, they were still imperfect. Perhaps because at their core they were still monkeys, or maybe because their desire for advancement made them advance far too quickly.

For example, many apex could not spell all that well, or recorded things in a simple manner, even if they were highly capable conversationalists. In other cases, some were amazing inventors, but were not mindful of the limits of these inventions and "accidents" would occur. So while many Apex tended to be scientific it had mixed results and overall made them fairly barbaric, albeit refined.

To this day I still think of them this way, because the "planet of the apes" references are not lost on me and because I feel as if this could truly fit. Anyways, after playing a barbaric race so like humans, I needed something less human to change things up.



Floran:




Ironically, when I opted for a floran character, I was looking for something totally different. Since I viewed the apex as human in essence, the idea of some alien living plant appealed to me. It had an air of mystery. I envisioned them as some self aware plant race that came from some plant heavy, nutrient rich planet.

I envisioned a world so totally devoid of animal life that for the most part the surface was nothing but a mix of soils and planet life. On this planet, gardens of various plants existed and the soil was just as varied. In time, due to this lack of natural predators certain plants became more and more aware.. more and more alive.. until they loosely resembled something humanoid.

To me, such a race would worship the sun as "the lifebringer" and would envision "the climb" as life's ultimate test. This climb would be their metaphor for all the major struggles they would face on their way to growth and ultimately, decay.

Each plant person would aspire to make themselves better, a little taller.. or at least, would try to do things that make them feel taller. Indeed, this climb was each individual's aspirations, but put into a single word. As though they were roots climbing through the darkness of the jungle to the light of the canopies in their world, they would climb towards the sun.. their life bringer.

They discovered space travel by mistake, when another alien race crash landed on their planet. Being a curious race, who often thought of going higher, towards the sun, they marveled at the contraption these travelers arrived in. While the aliens who crashed into their planet did not survive (the air was unsuitable) their ship did.

With some trial and error, the florans got a primitive spacecraft working.. before long, it was all the rage. Many florians tried making similar spacecraft, all in an attempt to get closer to the lifebringer.. perhaps even discover it's secrets.

I even had a reason for the lisp. Being plant people, their speech was imperfect, hard to detect. The hissing they are so well known was actually akin to a rustling noise they make, in which their leaves move at a high speed.

While their speech and tech was pretty basic, they had an affinity for reading the soil and air around them. Thus, they could sense danger and would often hide when anything unknown appeared. I thought it was a neat concept.. until I noticed other npc's were scared of them and read up on their lore. Boy was I surprised!

Now days I still use this back story, but with a cavet.. yes, most floran are evil "must eat you to know you" types, but a faction of them out there are peaceful. They are trying to bring their more viscous cousins around to the idea, but with limited success.. and the fact that the other races can't tell them apart from their cousins makes this especially tough.

More often than not, their cousins, who are also floran, tend to sully their good name, making inter-species relations very hard. This allows me to play a good or evil quite well.. and in a way I didn't with the apex.



Novakid:



When you look at the stories for the other races I play, you can bet my concept for the Novakid is complex. In the Novakid I found all I had wanted. They are alien.. they don't worship the sun.. they ARE the sun so to speak. They are also alternating somewhere between advanced and basic, never quite reaching one or the other.

To me, they aren't human.. but they embody the human spirit. While they have lore, it's not all set in stone. They really are an enigma. So when I play as a novakid, I actually have a lot to go off of, but I also have some room to work with.

In my case, I rejected the name "Novakid." To me, they are called starkids. Maybe this is vain of me, but I feel like it express who they are, rather than what they are. Since they are a varied race of mostly nomadic types, it;s hard to generalize them. But I feel they would fit very well in the show "cowboy bebop" if it were more about an alien race.

They tend to be self made; more about their own endeavors and the journey, rather than about any over reaching societal plan. You either love em or you hate them. I like to think that, somewhere out in the vastness of the universe, among all those thousands of stars, some of these gas bodies, these stars.. they became self aware.

And why not? Anywhere that so many of the same thing is being created over and over, there are bound to be variables. However it happened, some stars became aware of what they were and desired to move.. to change. It only took a few of them, but eventually they changed form and became what we now know as the "novakids." How they did this is unknown.

Perhaps some of these stars bonded with some advanced race of humans? Maybe some satellites even. Maybe these life forms were born from the thoughts of a dying star.

We do know this. Novakids have an insatiable curiosity.. they are born with it. Maybe it comes from their ancestors inability to travel.. perhaps, as stars in the vast empty of space, they desired to move about, to know what else is out there. Maybe we have it all wrong. Who knows?

Whatever caused it, "starkids" are extremely curious. They crave adventure, always wanting to know what comes the next day. However, they want to discover things for themselves. When the path ahead is already known, it's mystery dies and with it, the sense of adventure dies too.

This is why they don't record their history very well. They don't care about what happened, they care about what IS happening.. and don't want to waste time by stopping to write it down. They'd rather be in the midst of it, discovering it for themselves. Stories they hear are inspiring, but who wants to be the one writing it down when there is so much to do?

Sometimes starkids can be a little overzealous.. okay, more than sometimes. It's not unusual for them to speak their minds even when they shouldn't, or to cause trouble for the sake of the ensuing adventure it might cause. It takes time for them to reign in these urges and they don't do that well even then.

While social, most starkids interpersonal skills aren't so good.. though they tend to fair better with their own kind and older starkids tend to be more tame. In my mind, Starkids are actually the oldest of the playable races so far, predating the humans expansion into space.

I support this using the song "ghost riders in the sky" which one could easily say fits as some theme music for a starkid. A classic cowboy song, it can, if listened to to closely, actually be interrupted as an alien sighting by a human.. the "ghostly figures" could have been been novakids. They are gas after all.

The cattle that might've been space ships or pets. Lines like "their brands were on fire" or "riding forever on horses snorting fire" and the tone of song's message, one saying "shape up", sounds like something referring to a starkid chase. As for the cattle? Maybe the cattle they are chasing are actually alien monsters about to stampede into earth or rouge shape ships. I realized this one day while playing starbound and it changed my view of the novakid.

So now, I like to envision that alongside this desire to explore the universe, many of them have some sense justice, or perhaps, the lack thereof. For example, maybe sometimes they take an individual and make him of their own, assigning him to chase criminals "across the sky."

The process for this is unknown and they don't always do this. Generally this would be done in times of need or if they feel the being has something to atone for. While this would be an abduction, this is not done out of evil intent.. they don't really understand they are doing the individual a disservice. In fact, they'd likely view it as a jail sentence.. a "walk a mile in their shoes" kind of experience.

 

Gotta have that six shooter ready, man.

There's something slick about being a literal space cowboy that I think a lot of people genuinely enjoy. It's why I'm a novakid, at any rate.

 

Now now... let's not have another one of these...

As for Novakid, it's likely they're popular because they're freaking STAR PEOPLE.

 

Aww, but that thread was SO MUCH FUN

 

I saw a Floran hair that reminded me of a character I liked before, so I brought the game so I could play using the Floran with the hair...
Florans are dangerous and cute, so I don't mind playing and seeing the comments the Floran make, I also love snakes too. Florans don't really lie about wanting to stab something that annoys them. Or hunting... They think like us, I mean, to them we are the trees and they are the human, so hunting and killing isn't trouble to them, like us cutting trees. (I don't know if that's true I read that in a site.) But some Florans now are less salvage(?) The ones on the Outpost proof that Florans aren't really evil, they just don't see the others Races, but if they see, I doubt they are going to stab everyone, like some of them liking humans.

Humans also are a favorite, they make so many puns and are very funny, but I don't play using them... yet....

The Hylotl (that a hard and annoying name to write...) are pacifist but are a little arrogant too, and since I play as a Floran I really doubt my like for them is going to grow...

Apex Villages are really easy to find and their reaction to Florans are very funny, two differents Apex said " I...I have a bit of a thing for Florans. Oh no I'm blushing." (on a Snow Planet), one though the Floran was a bush (On a Desert Planet... and saying that on the Floran's face....) or that the Floran smelled like freshly-cut grass (Also on the Desert Planet) ... and an Evil Apex Laboratory, the guards asked for it, I waited until they attacked me.

Glitchs, I still didn't find a Village, but it was ironic that they are mean to Glitchs that have a glitch on their programming...Or the Glitchs have a glitch and the Outcast Glitch doesn't have a glitch? (Confusing, like the paradox thing...) Crazy King Glitch with they crazy ways... I didn't even know about the Castle and the Glitch attacked me calling for guards, I think that Glitch was nut since there was no one else in here... At least I got a cool Glitch Crown for winning.

Avians are like Maya, sacrificing everyone to please their god... I can't wait to find a Village of them...

Novakids are funny for forgetting that they was thinking or talking about... Hope that have a Village of them...

 

What is a snugget? *Raise an eyebrow* If that big Fluffy gas ball of fluffiness could eat me... Could it? Maybe if I was a carrot...

 

Meanwhile im the only one with a southern bell accent... Im gonna think in the shower for a couple hours with a tub of icecream and netflix.

 

Do you think with an accent?

 

I dont know how to respond to that. right now i think my life span is being destroyed by half the internet[DOUBLEPOST=1442403472][/DOUBLEPOST]

(Heres some ACTUAL input on this thread) The reason i like the floran is because.. Well. Im sort of obsessed with weaponry. Im a horror junkie and an adrenaline junkie, The floran are basically Tribal animalistic beings who live to hunt and love to kill. They're also plants. And not to mention there is even a floran in Facerig!

 

I just went with my favorite ship layout and looks that'd be either floran or avian ^_^