News paper

[Xenonaut]

where does X2 fit into the storyline of that universe? will we see the alien invasion from the beginning or will we start out with the weapons and equipments of the last game already developed (and I guess just need to develope stronger ones)?

I would like to suggest a News paper like feature for X2. It is a mash up of the News system we saw in X1 where it tells you of all the alien activities that you've missed, hidden away from you by aliens that are not on your radar.

The news paper allows for the "campaign" to come together as an overarching narrative. If anyone has ever played the old Sim City 2000 games you would remember the news paper feature. it tells you a bit about how you are doing, how does the populace feels about your most recent action and perhaps even hints at early signs of trouble for those that paid attention. Also for a more recent (not really) example, in that Will smith movie Men In black, where they said the tabloids were their most reliable news source. Basically the news paper feature would allow you to inject humor, lore and hints into the game without being too intrusive. X1 was a nice game, but as someone said in another thread, it was rather empty and "dead" as an interactive system. It rarely gives you feed back except for the monthly money chart and alien spotted on radar events. I have seen the gauges that you added to each continent in the closed beta. It is a nice indicator, but still "dead" in term of what it gives to players.

What if local papers are available (language optional, but i bet we could find lots of fan translators) for every major countries. They are only available (flagged by xeno staff) if it mentioned recent alien activities, meaning you do not have to constantly check for newpapers. In fact it could be ignored all together for those who felt too taxed to click into them. The usual off radar news bit will still be available in the world view.

However if you read the papers, you would see reactions of a region to your recent skirmish with the aliens. They can be Grateful, when you saved a town from massacre, outraged at the aliens while calling for more funding for you thanks to your attempt at helping out. Or, they can be angry at another recent [strafing of an oil rig] with no xenonauts in sight and Vengefully calling for a defunding of Xenonauts program. Strange lights and crop circles hinting at alien building in an area that you can patrol and possibly spot an alien base. A big win for the player such as a successful base assault could lead to strong support, leading to an extra shipment of X materials and volunteering scientists (a free recruit of scientist or engineer without wait time if you have the room) etc.

If I remember correctly, objectives like capturing a live alien or finding certain technologies were added later in X1. The News paper would be a nice way to give players "quests" like hunting down a rogue pack of aliens who were terrorizing a small town here and there, busting an alien lab that were kidnapping human specimens, taking out a ring of alien tech arms dealers (yes vs human troops), finding and recruiting a scientist that might reveal a tech tree if successful or removing an alien structure that was trying to terra form the area... So much that you can pick up through fearful rumours and eyewitness events and yet it still doesn't come out and tell you that its an Objective or a "quest". Players are encouraged to act on the news bits but they may ignore them and play through. If ignored, the quest would just disappear after some time like the events in the world view.

There could be world news like Government coming out and say things like they are happy with Xenonaut program, or they may say they think their army can do a better job etc. Basically flavored text to reinforce the fact that your are interacting with a world and not simply running a simulation.

 

 

 

 

[Chris]

Yeah, I've been toying with an idea like this for a while myself - or at least the specific stuff about having a bit more information displayed when you get the UFO events as they fly around the map.

Problem is that the setting of the game is heavily dictated by the mechanics we choose to use, so I've given up trying to nail down the story and setting too much at this point. I've got a number of variants on the basic storyline that we could use depending on what base mechanics / dropship mechanics / secrecy mechanics we end up using, but I feel I'd be wasting my time trying to write too much background stuff given quite large details could change once people start playtesting the corresponding mechanics.

That said, you also need to be careful about throwing too much unimportant text at the player - UFOs generate a lot of events as they fly around, and you don't want too much going on as a result otherwise the Geoscape ends up getting filled with information that's not relevant to the interceptions you're trying to carry out. Something like a talking head representing each region when the funding report comes around might be better.

[Xenonaut]

Thanks for the reply Chris.

Yeah i am afraid of the wall of text as well. Cutscenes would be nifty to go with something like this.

I know the beauty of X1 just as the original Xcom games were that they let you dictate your own time line and you can have your own war. What I was suggesting was perhaps equivalent of a single player campaign mode or story mode. With such, you can come up with a canon time line(if not in term of length, but in term of what happened during the war years) and series of events. It helps lay foundations for future games of the series as you can steer the story to go with the product.