"Story generator"? Ok, but get it right.

[vurt]

Tynan really seems to like to advertise the game as a story generator, e.g that its not about the skills but the story. That's fine but if its going to be advertised like that, then things needs to make sense story-wise.

Just two examples on top of my head;

Animal self-tamed. Why is an animal on the complete opposite side of the map suddenly interested in joining my colony, and it also happens to know where i am?
This should be super easy to fix. Just a delay of the text popping up should make it somewhat more immersive, so that the animal gets self-tamed once its near the base, and not miles away.

Merchants and travelers that visits you right after a combat has occurred (tons of blood everywhere, piles of dead bodies). This is not immersive and does not make a lot of sense story wise. You should get a notification that they got horrified by the scenery and decided to run off. Tons of fun could be had here with random generated text for the occasion. It could perhaps also have a chance of scaring away bandits.
This way it becomes a gameplay element, so you can either decide to clean up the mess quickly to not miss out on social interactions and deals, or perhaps you like having piles of dead bodies because you have a chance of scaring off enemies.

I do think this game could be a really, really cool story generator, but way too much of what could make up a cool story instead comes off as very poorly "written". To me it comes off more like a game that is about skill and a few random gameplay elements thrown in for the sake of adding stuff to do, more than story.

Thoughts?

[Trisapiensaurus]

I get really turned off by the fact that I get quests to vanquish bandit camps near me because they are harassing them, but they are a faction on the other side of the world and the bandits faction is not anywhere near them.

[Security Cam #7]

Originally posted by PogoBunny:

I get really turned off by the fact that I get quests to vanquish bandit camps near me because they are harassing them, but they are a faction on the other side of the world and the bandits faction is not anywhere near them.

You don't really get quests from factions that are far away. You mostly get them from nearby settlements. A faction can't be on the other side of the world, as outposts are scattered around the whole world and not in a particular area unless you play with the faction control mod, in which case it's your fault.

[olympe]

Originally posted by PogoBunny:

I get really turned off by the fact that I get quests to vanquish bandit camps near me because they are harassing them, but they are a faction on the other side of the world and the bandits faction is not anywhere near them.

Imagine the same thing happening when you've settled on a tiny island that nobody else lives on. Also imagine getting regular trading caravans and the like. Yes, it happens.

[Bullwinkle]

The whole psychic drone/soothe mechanic is total BS from a story perspective. Your crew is presented with a challenge/gift from someone somewhere for reasons unknown. Oh, and it is an invisible challenge and nothing you can do will influence when it comes around again later or how intense it will be. Yeah, gripping story element there, Tynan. Not. Thank god for the scenario editor.

Whether or not my colony thrives or dies based on something I don't understand from someone I don't know for reasons unknown is called Divine Intervention, not an interesting plot twist. Certainly not over and over.

[esculapio]

Originally posted by 𝓥𝓾𝓻𝓽:

Tynan really seems to like to advertise the game as a story generator, e.g that its not about the skills but the story. That's fine but if its going to be advertised like that, then things needs to make sense story-wise.

Just two examples on top of my head;

Animal self-tamed. Why is an animal on the complete opposite side of the map suddenly interested in joining my colony, and it also happens to know where i am?
This should be super easy to fix. Just a delay of the text popping up should make it somewhat more immersive, so that the animal gets self-tamed once its near the base, and not miles away.

Merchants and travelers that visits you right after a combat has occurred (tons of blood everywhere, piles of dead bodies). This is not immersive and does not make a lot of sense story wise. You should get a notification that they got horrified by the scenery and decided to run off. Tons of fun could be had here with random generated text for the occasion. It could perhaps also have a chance of scaring away bandits.
This way it becomes a gameplay element, so you can either decide to clean up the mess quickly to not miss out on social interactions and deals, or perhaps you like having piles of dead bodies because you have a chance of scaring off enemies.

I do think this game could be a really, really cool story generator, but way too much of what could make up a cool story instead comes off as very poorly "written". To me it comes off more like a game that is about skill and a few random gameplay elements thrown in for the sake of adding stuff to do, more than story.

Thoughts?

The selftamed animal could just be a tamed animal traveling from another sector.

As for the corpses, not really. Rimworld is not a civilized planet. There is slaughter everywhere and trade is important to survive. A trade caravan should not turn away from a recent battlefield. In our world, for example, during the middle ages seeing death was quite common and no trade carvan would shy away from an opportunity to plunder dead bodies in a battlefield.
On the contrary, I find it unrealistic that our pawns get a debuff after seeing a corpse. Come on, first we massacre a raid party and minutes later we feel sorry.

[Zane87]

Originally posted by esculapio:

On the contrary, I find it unrealistic that our pawns get a debuff after seeing a corpse. Come on, first we massacre a raid party and minutes later we feel sorry.

They don't feel sorry to see the corpse.

They just are sorry that they can't kill them a second time ^^

[Security Cam #7]

Originally posted by esculapio:

On the contrary, I find it unrealistic that our pawns get a debuff after seeing a corpse. Come on, first we massacre a raid party and minutes later we feel sorry.

PTSD exists. You get PTSD from various things, including looking at massacred bodies torn to shreds with limbs cut off and guts shot out.

[omnidextrious]

Perhaps you just aren't injecting enough of your own story to make the scenarios make sense.

Some things in the game I do feel are nonsense (like bullwinkle said earlier about the psychic drones), but that's because when I play, I like to stick to an older world scenario where such things wouldn't exist. Thankfully, these variables are editable to make these scenarios make more sense story wise.

Animals self taming from the other side of the map for no reason is another thing I usually turn off. To me, it makes sense that an animal can become accustomed to people and eventually tamed, but only through frequent interaction with people (like with the taming mechanic). But no herd of capybaras in the wild is going to wander over to your neat little village and decide that they are now your pets.

As for the merchants arriving after a massacre has just happened, I can see that happening. Merchants' lives depend on their trading. If they were too scared of the dangers of the road, they wouldn't be travelling merchants in the first place. Towns can be targets for raids, and no merchant is going to predict when that might happen, so there is always the chance that they will stumble across a town that just finished routing an enemy assault. In the eyes of a real merchant, that's good for business. That town needs resources. And guess who just showed up on their door with said resources?

It would be a neat mechanic to include the possibility of fear overpowering a potential invader or simple passersby with displays such as corpses strung up to dry. One could really play out that Vlad the Impaler aesthetic if that were the case. Perhaps a neat mod idea.

[Vattende]

Originally posted by omnidextrious:

Perhaps you just aren't injecting enough of your own story to make the scenarios make sense.


As for the merchants arriving after a massacre has just happened, I can see that happening. Merchants' lives depend on their trading. If they were too scared of the dangers of the road, they wouldn't be travelling merchants in the first place. Towns can be targets for raids, and no merchant is going to predict when that might happen, so there is always the chance that they will stumble across a town that just finished routing an enemy assault. In the eyes of a real merchant, that's good for business. That town needs resources. And guess who just showed up on their door with said resources?

It would be a neat mechanic to include the possibility of fear overpowering a potential invader or simple passersby with displays such as corpses strung up to dry. One could really play out that Vlad the Impaler aesthetic if that were the case. Perhaps a neat mod idea.

Yes, this happened to me, merchants was runing away when seeing all dead bodies, blood all over the chosen road. It was a small group, but still, the ran out of the map.

I played also other games where i could display corspes. and i think this would be a great idea in rimworld to. Actually the debuff our pawns receive when looking at corpse make us mostly clean up quick. So here should be some change to, i imagine. But yes, a mod with that i mind would be fun !

[Security Cam #7]

Originally posted by omnidextrious:

It would be a neat mechanic to include the possibility of fear overpowering a potential invader or simple passersby with displays such as corpses strung up to dry. One could really play out that Vlad the Impaler aesthetic if that were the case. Perhaps a neat mod idea.

It used to be a thing back in the old days. There was a fear mechanic and corpses raised it up. You could also put a corpse into a gibbet cage.

[vurt]

Originally posted by esculapio:

Originally posted by 𝓥𝓾𝓻𝓽:

Tynan really seems to like to advertise the game as a story generator, e.g that its not about the skills but the story. That's fine but if its going to be advertised like that, then things needs to make sense story-wise.

Just two examples on top of my head;

Animal self-tamed. Why is an animal on the complete opposite side of the map suddenly interested in joining my colony, and it also happens to know where i am?
This should be super easy to fix. Just a delay of the text popping up should make it somewhat more immersive, so that the animal gets self-tamed once its near the base, and not miles away.

Merchants and travelers that visits you right after a combat has occurred (tons of blood everywhere, piles of dead bodies). This is not immersive and does not make a lot of sense story wise. You should get a notification that they got horrified by the scenery and decided to run off. Tons of fun could be had here with random generated text for the occasion. It could perhaps also have a chance of scaring away bandits.
This way it becomes a gameplay element, so you can either decide to clean up the mess quickly to not miss out on social interactions and deals, or perhaps you like having piles of dead bodies because you have a chance of scaring off enemies.

I do think this game could be a really, really cool story generator, but way too much of what could make up a cool story instead comes off as very poorly "written". To me it comes off more like a game that is about skill and a few random gameplay elements thrown in for the sake of adding stuff to do, more than story.

Thoughts?

The selftamed animal could just be a tamed animal traveling from another sector.

As for the corpses, not really. Rimworld is not a civilized planet. There is slaughter everywhere and trade is important to survive. A trade caravan should not turn away from a recent battlefield. In our world, for example, during the middle ages seeing death was quite common and no trade carvan would shy away from an opportunity to plunder dead bodies in a battlefield.
On the contrary, I find it unrealistic that our pawns get a debuff after seeing a corpse. Come on, first we massacre a raid party and minutes later we feel sorry.

No. Corpses already gives players a negative mood so its already established in the lore that it's not something that is so common that it's considered "neutral". They also can't know fore sure what's going on, a ritual slaughter or whatever.

Needles to say it would be more immersive if it could be transformed into a story element and in turn also a gameplay element than something that's just "there".

How would a tame animal on the other side of the map wander directly to my location? No, a much more immersive way of it getting tamed, or getting interested in "joining" would be if it does that when it's near my colonists or my settlement. Such a simple thing to fix too with just a delay on the text so that it comes off as the animal got interested when it was near.

[vurt]

Originally posted by omnidextrious:

Perhaps you just aren't injecting enough of your own story to make the scenarios make sense.

No. Then it's not really a Story Generator and you could argue that Pac-Man is a story generator as well. Unlike Pac-Man Rimworld has the mechanics to creatte story elements, and unlike Pac-man Rimworld is advertised as something that is a Story Generator. Saying "why don't you just imagine stuff" is not a good argument to defend the sloppiness.

I do love Rimworld, but yeah, to me it does not come off as a great story generator, it could be SO much better at what he's trying to portray the game as. However it will obviously never get better as long as he has a fan base that says "well you could just try to imagine stuff..."

[Security Cam #7]

Originally posted by 𝓥𝓾𝓻𝓽:

Originally posted by omnidextrious:

Perhaps you just aren't injecting enough of your own story to make the scenarios make sense.

No. Then it's not really a Story Generator and you could argue that Pac-Man is a story generator as well. Unlike Pac-Man Rimworld has the mechanics to creatte story elements, and unlike Pac-man Rimworld is advertised as something that is a Story Generator. Saying "why don't you just imagine stuff" is not a good argument to defend the sloppiness.

I do love Rimworld, but yeah, to me it does not come off as a great story generator, it could be SO much better at what he's trying to portray the game as. However it will obviously never get better as long as he has a fan base that says "well you could just try to imagine stuff..."

Have you ever read a book? Without imagining events that happen in that book, the book would be... ♥♥♥♥
It's the same thing with rimworld... You have to use your imagination to make something more impactful and have sense.

[Mzlt. Minimiez]

About the drones, I always thought someone was attacking / helping someone else, and my colony was just in the vicinity of it, so got attacked / Supported too.
Makes the planet feel alive

[vurt]

Originally posted by The Wabbajack:

Originally posted by 𝓥𝓾𝓻𝓽:

No. Then it's not really a Story Generator and you could argue that Pac-Man is a story generator as well. Unlike Pac-Man Rimworld has the mechanics to creatte story elements, and unlike Pac-man Rimworld is advertised as something that is a Story Generator. Saying "why don't you just imagine stuff" is not a good argument to defend the sloppiness.

I do love Rimworld, but yeah, to me it does not come off as a great story generator, it could be SO much better at what he's trying to portray the game as. However it will obviously never get better as long as he has a fan base that says "well you could just try to imagine stuff..."

Have you ever read a book? Without imagining things that happen in that book, the book would be... ♥♥♥♥
It's the same thing with rimworld...

No it's absolutely not, it's like defending a book with very sloppy writing (or completely non-existent writing for some main parts) and saying "well you have to imagine it being written really well" when it's not there. A book has the means for story-telling so that argument would not work, only a fanboy would use it. Same in Rimworld, the game has the means for telling a story, saying "well maybe you just have to imagine it" is a really, really weak argument that doesn't work.

Why not remove all sounds and all graphics too since we can just "imagine it" in our heads.. No, give constructive criticism, everyone who likes the game will gain from that..