A Question for the Devs, and Apparently an Unholy One...
Aug 7, 2017 10:11:47 GMT
Moopli, crodnu, and 1 more like this
Post by jiggyfabba on Aug 7, 2017 10:11:47 GMT
Please, hear me out.
I spent a long three hours researching this particular topic. I wasn't sure where to post it, so I decided to throw it into the future game section. As for Industrial, I kinda picked that one at random. If somebody is annoyed with this, let me know what to do instead of... what I'm doing, I guess.
Sorry in advance for getting some stuff wrong. I ain't perfect.
Okay, first things first: not only did I do my best to search for all related topics, I read this thing and this entire thread which seemed to be the most extensive thread on the somewhat sensitive topic of underwater- and I mean entirely underwater, no cheating- civilization. I walked away disappointed in their conclusion: that advanced, purely underwater civilization is impossible.
I was disappointed for a couple reasons.
A: The first was that I had always been fascinated with the topic. When I first discovered this project a long while ago, I imagined all the exciting situations that could come from a water world. How would territories work? What kind of roles would currents play? What would architecture of creatures that could swim look like? Perhaps towering, maybe floating? And for later, how would weapons of mass destruction manifest? Would nuclear weapons emerge? Would hydrogen bombs be doomsday devices? Would an ocean-wide world war manifest? How do water creatures even fight modern wars? Would their tools be similar to ours, or would they function differently to anything we could imagine? What would an aquatic space empire be like? This is nowhere near all of the whimsical thoughts I had on the subject, but I figured this would be to the extent that people who are sick of the topic would care to read. Hell, maybe less. Whatever.
All this advanced stuff, according to this particular thread, is impossible. The main line of reasoning was, as I understood it: "Metallurgy underwater is impossible. Therefore, aquatic species must make use of land to create advanced tools and progress further. If the species can achieve this, they are at least amphibious. And if they're amphibious, why even stay in the water? It's more advantageous to go on land." The loophole to this was uplifting, which I found annoying for two main reasons. 1: uplifting sounds very unreliable. 2: you're skipping chunks of the game. I (presumably) bought this game to play it, why should I be forced to skip chunks I might want to play? Personally, I'm also a little off-put by it because it seems a little like cheating. Maybe I'm missing something in terms of uplifting. If so, enlighten me, please.
B: The thread discussion was almost entirely technical, and mostly ignored the game itself. There was the talk of everything from naturally-occurring flammable chemical compounds, to the exact voltage of an electric eel (from Earth) in relation to electrolysis, to the impossibility of underwater caves due to rock porousness. Everyone seemed so set on the idea that if the civilization didn't occur exactly if not similar to our own here on earth, it was impossible and no other options are considered. I felt like they weren't looking at the bigger picture. I get that it's impossible to predict how alien life and civilization would emerge, and basing it on earth stuff is a good way to try and predict, but you don't have to. The thread was so obsessed with being realistic that they shot down any creative ideas that didn't exactly fit with the rules on our own little blue marble.
The thread concluded, after a couple three-day-bans, that underwater civilization was possible but could only remain primitive. Advancement was possible, but only if amphibious, which (correct me if I'm wrong) would require a species to operate close to land, or inland, in lakes or something, or uplifted, which isn't up to the player. No deep-trench cities. No nomadic current-gliding trading towns. Nada. Needs the land. Or at the very least, air.
I felt this was misguided. The question the developers should be asking themselves is: Why are we intentionally trying to remove variety from our game?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying purely terrestrial life would be unvaried. What I'm trying to say is that why are you stopping variety? There's a whole new set of situations to explore out there, and you're ruling them out because of what? An alien civilization that develops underwater is too unrealistic?
I understand the need for realism. You're trying to simulate life, and that is one hell of a task. The real world is the best guideline you're gonna get, so by all means, use that as a starting point. But you're dealing with aliens, and in case you haven't noticed, we haven't actually observed any. This is a good thing. You're making the game, you make the rules! Maybe other people would be interested in an earth-like evolution simulator 2046, but I want to choose my own path! Isn't that what video games are for?
Realism, at some point, becomes a burden. Sure, according to what mankind knows, an underwater civilization is realistically impossible. You know what else is realistically impossible? Faster Than Light travel. But a space civilization without FTL is gonna be really boring, isn't it?
I imagine the response to this would be something along the lines of "A space empire doesn't need FTL to exist," or "FTL could be possible using uninvented technology! You can't predict exactly what kind of tech will be created in the future!" It's true, I can't. Nobody can. But I guess that means nobody can know for sure what kinds of oceans could be on alien planets. Maybe they can support some kind of underwater metals. Maybe they don't even need metals. Maybe they do everything with crystals and coral. Or, god forbid, underwater vents.
Yeah. I guess entirely underwater advanced civilization progression as detailed in the thread is realistically impossible. It drove that point home pretty thoroughly. But that's according to the real world! You don't have to do that in a game that you're creating! You don't have to follow the rules! You can make exceptions!
By ruling out underwater civilizations as described (to reiterate, entirely underwater, no uplifting), Thrive loses a large amount of variety. Variety that drew me in. Variety that would potentially draw other customers in. Variety that increases replay value. Variety that would set Thrive apart from Spore, which it will inevitably be compared to many, many times. I say that you fudge the rules a little! Make underwater metallurgy possible through some wacky function! Maybe even make it unnecessary for higher civilization! Take a leap to achieve that extra gameplay. Gameplay, in my (oh so highly valued) opinion, should take priority over simulation realism.
In the end, though, I can't know for sure why the devs ruled out 100% water civs. Maybe the workload was too much. Maybe it's unrealistic to expect from the game's mechanics. Maybe it's just a dumb idea and I'm the only idiot who likes it. I don't know. I'm just saying that you should consider taking a few creative liberties and avoid cutting yourselves off from new, unique, exciting gameplay because it isn't realistic enough.
Don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to undermine decisions you make concerning your own game that you're producing. I do love love love what you devs are doing here. I'm excited to be part of the Thrive community, and I look forward to future builds. I just don't want you to fall into some sort of mediocrity, some sort of "good enough." Gaming is already full of "Good enough." Make your game great. Shoot for the Moon. Hell, miss the moon. Land among the stars. Isn't that where we're trying to get, anyway?
I'd love to hear feedback. Tell me if I got anything wrong and/or I am a dumb stupid idiot.
I spent a long three hours researching this particular topic. I wasn't sure where to post it, so I decided to throw it into the future game section. As for Industrial, I kinda picked that one at random. If somebody is annoyed with this, let me know what to do instead of... what I'm doing, I guess.
Sorry in advance for getting some stuff wrong. I ain't perfect.
Okay, first things first: not only did I do my best to search for all related topics, I read this thing and this entire thread which seemed to be the most extensive thread on the somewhat sensitive topic of underwater- and I mean entirely underwater, no cheating- civilization. I walked away disappointed in their conclusion: that advanced, purely underwater civilization is impossible.
I was disappointed for a couple reasons.
A: The first was that I had always been fascinated with the topic. When I first discovered this project a long while ago, I imagined all the exciting situations that could come from a water world. How would territories work? What kind of roles would currents play? What would architecture of creatures that could swim look like? Perhaps towering, maybe floating? And for later, how would weapons of mass destruction manifest? Would nuclear weapons emerge? Would hydrogen bombs be doomsday devices? Would an ocean-wide world war manifest? How do water creatures even fight modern wars? Would their tools be similar to ours, or would they function differently to anything we could imagine? What would an aquatic space empire be like? This is nowhere near all of the whimsical thoughts I had on the subject, but I figured this would be to the extent that people who are sick of the topic would care to read. Hell, maybe less. Whatever.
All this advanced stuff, according to this particular thread, is impossible. The main line of reasoning was, as I understood it: "Metallurgy underwater is impossible. Therefore, aquatic species must make use of land to create advanced tools and progress further. If the species can achieve this, they are at least amphibious. And if they're amphibious, why even stay in the water? It's more advantageous to go on land." The loophole to this was uplifting, which I found annoying for two main reasons. 1: uplifting sounds very unreliable. 2: you're skipping chunks of the game. I (presumably) bought this game to play it, why should I be forced to skip chunks I might want to play? Personally, I'm also a little off-put by it because it seems a little like cheating. Maybe I'm missing something in terms of uplifting. If so, enlighten me, please.
B: The thread discussion was almost entirely technical, and mostly ignored the game itself. There was the talk of everything from naturally-occurring flammable chemical compounds, to the exact voltage of an electric eel (from Earth) in relation to electrolysis, to the impossibility of underwater caves due to rock porousness. Everyone seemed so set on the idea that if the civilization didn't occur exactly if not similar to our own here on earth, it was impossible and no other options are considered. I felt like they weren't looking at the bigger picture. I get that it's impossible to predict how alien life and civilization would emerge, and basing it on earth stuff is a good way to try and predict, but you don't have to. The thread was so obsessed with being realistic that they shot down any creative ideas that didn't exactly fit with the rules on our own little blue marble.
The thread concluded, after a couple three-day-bans, that underwater civilization was possible but could only remain primitive. Advancement was possible, but only if amphibious, which (correct me if I'm wrong) would require a species to operate close to land, or inland, in lakes or something, or uplifted, which isn't up to the player. No deep-trench cities. No nomadic current-gliding trading towns. Nada. Needs the land. Or at the very least, air.
I felt this was misguided. The question the developers should be asking themselves is: Why are we intentionally trying to remove variety from our game?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying purely terrestrial life would be unvaried. What I'm trying to say is that why are you stopping variety? There's a whole new set of situations to explore out there, and you're ruling them out because of what? An alien civilization that develops underwater is too unrealistic?
I understand the need for realism. You're trying to simulate life, and that is one hell of a task. The real world is the best guideline you're gonna get, so by all means, use that as a starting point. But you're dealing with aliens, and in case you haven't noticed, we haven't actually observed any. This is a good thing. You're making the game, you make the rules! Maybe other people would be interested in an earth-like evolution simulator 2046, but I want to choose my own path! Isn't that what video games are for?
Realism, at some point, becomes a burden. Sure, according to what mankind knows, an underwater civilization is realistically impossible. You know what else is realistically impossible? Faster Than Light travel. But a space civilization without FTL is gonna be really boring, isn't it?
I imagine the response to this would be something along the lines of "A space empire doesn't need FTL to exist," or "FTL could be possible using uninvented technology! You can't predict exactly what kind of tech will be created in the future!" It's true, I can't. Nobody can. But I guess that means nobody can know for sure what kinds of oceans could be on alien planets. Maybe they can support some kind of underwater metals. Maybe they don't even need metals. Maybe they do everything with crystals and coral. Or, god forbid, underwater vents.
Yeah. I guess entirely underwater advanced civilization progression as detailed in the thread is realistically impossible. It drove that point home pretty thoroughly. But that's according to the real world! You don't have to do that in a game that you're creating! You don't have to follow the rules! You can make exceptions!
By ruling out underwater civilizations as described (to reiterate, entirely underwater, no uplifting), Thrive loses a large amount of variety. Variety that drew me in. Variety that would potentially draw other customers in. Variety that increases replay value. Variety that would set Thrive apart from Spore, which it will inevitably be compared to many, many times. I say that you fudge the rules a little! Make underwater metallurgy possible through some wacky function! Maybe even make it unnecessary for higher civilization! Take a leap to achieve that extra gameplay. Gameplay, in my (oh so highly valued) opinion, should take priority over simulation realism.
In the end, though, I can't know for sure why the devs ruled out 100% water civs. Maybe the workload was too much. Maybe it's unrealistic to expect from the game's mechanics. Maybe it's just a dumb idea and I'm the only idiot who likes it. I don't know. I'm just saying that you should consider taking a few creative liberties and avoid cutting yourselves off from new, unique, exciting gameplay because it isn't realistic enough.
Don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to undermine decisions you make concerning your own game that you're producing. I do love love love what you devs are doing here. I'm excited to be part of the Thrive community, and I look forward to future builds. I just don't want you to fall into some sort of mediocrity, some sort of "good enough." Gaming is already full of "Good enough." Make your game great. Shoot for the Moon. Hell, miss the moon. Land among the stars. Isn't that where we're trying to get, anyway?
I'd love to hear feedback. Tell me if I got anything wrong and/or I am a dumb stupid idiot.
