Concept story

[AndersM]

Concept story:

Someone discovered a planet orbiting the star Altair (In Orion constelation, if you don't know where it is) The planet was named 2103-01. Somekind of probe was sent there, and discovered that it is suitable for an 'atmosphere project'. A base containing atmosphere processor and other gadgets was established. This base is manned by some kind of cyborgs (so they can live for the many decades it takes to set up an atmosphere and other vital stuff). A little later 200 'frozen humans where sent ther, and stored in cryo-chamers untill the planet (now renamed to Second Earth) is ready. The 'original earth is turned into coleslaw by a meteroite 5 times the size of greenland, those 200 humans are the only survivers, blah blah blah...  

The player character is one of the cyborgs (But he is programed to think he is a human)

Suddenly things begins to go wrong. humans dies in the chambers, parts of the planets life-starting procedures fails, other cyborgs dies. Is this caused by bad luck, or have someone among the cyborgs 'gone bad'? This activates a little chip in your head, and you now find out that your janitorial duties just was a cover. You must find out what is wrong before the only surviving humans (That you think you are one of) dies.

But i don't know...

C&C?

[Captain Mostly]

I think it's good right up to "The player character is one of the cyborgs (But he is programed to think he is a human)"

This (and the subsequent "suddenly things start to go wrong") is a bit of an over-used idea, and while this isn't neccessarily a bad thing (the last few humans on a terra formed planet far away is a bit over used too) I don't think there's any need to introduce this as a plot device.

Why can't the cyborg be just a cyborg who's got to come to turms with the fact it's only reason to exist is to look after frozen people, who's homeworld is gone, and thus who have no real purpose (they can't report back... so the experiment is pointless, so what are they for?) from it's point of view.

Why not have the cyborgs just leave the people frozen forever in storage just in case they come in handy? Or have the game look at the debate the cyborg society would need to face regarding what action to take over the now redundant people.

They would presumably know that if they de-frost the people, the humans would start to assume some sort of higher status than the cyborgs.

Some might want to simply destroy the humans, and embrace this as an oppertunity for cyborgs to develop their own society without it being tied to this now redundant purpose of providing a base for human experiments in habitation.

Others might say that if their existance is now pointless (since there's no point looking after the humans, if the humans are pointless) all the cyborgs should just de-activate themselves.

Others might say that if it's ok to start a new, un-directed cyborg society, why shouldn't they give the humans the oppertunity to live with them, even if their purpose of reporting on their progress is vanished.

There could be a hue number of different opinions flying around, thus providing you with a suitably historicle-esque setting for you to set a game during. A volatile pivotal moment in a history yet to be written?! Isn't that much more interesting than a murder mystery with a fairly standard "He was a robot all along" plot twist?

Or maybe not...

[AndersM]

Nice ideas, captain. I'll concider them all. Or some of them at least.

When I said that he is a cyborg that think he is a human i thaught like this: The cyborgs  will look after and take care of the humans in the cryo-chamers much better if they think that they allso are humans.

And even if the experiments they had to preform on 'Second earth' now is pointless, it's much more important to keep the humans alive now that earth is destroyed so the civilization can 'restart' here...

but like I said: I don't know...

[Sinitrena]

Well, I think its a good story. And I also think that the important part is how you make the game and not how the story goes. The story is just the first step to the howl thing. Waht you wrote is a good start, but its just the beginning of the howl story. Its much more important what will happen after this, what the charactar will do and so on. But I really think its a good beginning.

[Captain Mostly]

but WHY is it better if the cyborgs think they're human?!?!?!?

[AndersM]

but WHY is it better if the cyborgs think they're human?!?!?!?

'cos then they don't feel that the humans just are some kind of cago. It the cyborgs thinks that they are humans, they'll treat the 'frozen humans' like if they are of their own kind and so on.

If you had this choise: Pressing button A will kill 10,000 humans and pressing button B will kill 10,000 ants. which button would you press? My guess is the B-button. Why? 'cos you are human and feels more for humnans than ants. An ant would doubtles press the A-button for the same reason.

Tis is why it's better that the cyborgs think they are humans....

[Fuzzpilz]

Why, then, wouldn't they simply use humans? I gather from your first post that the idea is for the cyborgs to take care of the humans until there's an atmosphere and all that, meaning that actually using humans wouldn't work, but if the cyborgs are educated well enough to be able to keep the humans alive under all circumstances, wouldn't they very quickly notice that they're surviving conditions that humans couldn't?
You might say that, thanks to the awesome technological advances in the far future, it is possible to program them not to notice - but if that's so easy, then why couldn't they also be programmed to give the humans' lives absolute priority?

I really do think you might be better off discussing the development of the cyborgs' society, how they reevaluate their duties when they learn that what they have on their hands is all that's left of humanity - no longer important? More important than ever? And so on. What Mostly suggested, basically.
That's not to say you can't have your murder mystery. If you're not afraid of the whole Evil Conspiracy cliché, you might keep the destruction of Earth secret from the player character and most of the cyborgs for a while and see where you can go from there, for example.

Also, you never did say what your intended way of notifying the cyborgs of Earth's destruction was. Detected remotely? A magical faster-than-light message sent shortly before the end? And if this is far enough in the future for that, interstellar travel and highly developed artificial intelligence, it's likely that Mars would have been colonised by then - I think you should find some way to deal with that.

[Captain Mostly]

I too feel it doesn't quite sit that when sitting around their table, the cyborg developers would have said "what's the best way to make the cyborgs want to look after the humans as best as they can?"

"Hey I've got it! We'll tell them THEY'RE human as well!!!"

I mean, it's not the most logical decision in the world, PLUS there's a lot of history to suggest that just because people share a species, they're still happy to going to kill each other. PARTICULARLY if the cyborgs-who-think-they're-human know that when they release the humans, the humans will be in charge (even though these cyborgs are aparently physically superior in many ways, so as to be able to survive the terra-forming process...)

[AndersM]

GWAAAH! It's just a f*cking game for crying out loud

It would be incredible hard to make a game about cyborgs developing their own society
or something like that. I mean, what plot would such a game have? "Go left two rooms.
Tell the man in green jacket about your idea of an independence proclamation.
He will then tell you about his ideas of constitutional law and democratic elections.
Go right. Talk to woman. She will tell you how the tobin-tax system works."

My idea of cyborgs thinking they where humans was to get a u-turn in the plot,
and the 'hero discovering that he had an important mission. (The player would
not know this untill the character notices it)

Did you have this discussion when you first played SpaceQuest too?
"Hmmm... It's not likely that the Orat lives in a empty cave when he actually
is so civilized that he both can speak and play basketball?

[Captain Mostly]

the idea is that you set your story against this backdrop.

If you've got a lot going on in your game world, and if you've thought it all out, then the personal story of your main character will be that much more interesting.

It's just like you want a depth of characterisation to make the main player character interesting and compelling. You need a depth of history and activity in your game-world to make it more interesting.

If you've got poitical up-heaval and have to solve a murder mystery while the society around you is shifting and tearing itself apart, the game will be that much more interesting.

It's like the lord of the rings. Contrary to what Las Oranges keeps on saying, it's a well documented fact that Tolkien had an enormous sprawling history and back story for his setting. Most of the things he thought through were never touched upon in the books, but because there was so much of it, he was able to send his characters right into the heart of this imaginary world where LOADS was going on.

You needn't spend a lot of time in your game telling us about the specific details of each group of peoples ideas, but if you know what these ideas are, you'll be able to give the characters more interesting and convincing roles in the game. If you imagine what might happen in a complex setting, then plot the player's route through the game to witness the most interesting bits, your game will be exciting and interesting, and because you'll have things going on off screen, your plot will have a depth and compexity to make it convincing and compelling...

trust me!

EDIT:
ALSO: Why would you not make a game just because it would be hard? How can you expect to get ANYONE interested in playing your game when you're only going to work on projects that are easy. If Gaspop hadn't had the ambition to do something hard, we would have no Pleughburg. I don't think anyone who's made any of the AGS classics would say that their game was EASY to make. Even Rob Blanc 1 would have been a challange for Yahtzee to make at the time. And the reason the games didn't get stale was because he continually pushed himself with each sequil! Come on, give yourself a challenge!

[Fuzzpilz]

Did you have this discussion when you first played SpaceQuest too?
"Hmmm... It's not likely that the Orat lives in a empty cave when he actually
is so civilized that he both can speak and play basketball?

My post (and the Captain's posts, presumably) was based on the assumption that your game was going to be mostly serious - Space Quest is a very different matter because it's 100% humorous. Nobody would expect it to make sense when taken entirely seriously. Honestly, if you're going to make a serious "hard" science fiction game, you have to think these things through or your game will end up looking silly.