Suggestion: Alternate timeline events

[Greyson]

I was re-familiarising myself with the alpha yesterday and I have a suggestion for enriching the feel of the game.

Obviously, we didn't get invaded by aliens in 1979 (tin foil hat on just in case), but if we had, our culture and history would have been fundamentally impacted. As the game stands at the moment, there are 'spooky' events that happen as a result of the alien influence - for example I noticed one that said something like 'fishermen report miles of dead marine life', which is great, and really adds to the feel of a world reeling from alien contact.

What I thought would be even better would be to expand that feature to include the world events that might have changed if humanity was in a losing battle with aliens. So I did some digging and came up with some examples.

1979 examples:

Real history: USSR Invades Afghanistan

Game event: USSR pulls out of Afghanistan, troops fortify Moscow

Real history: Margaret Thatcher elected as first female Prime minister in UK

Game event: Incumbent James Callaghan retains leadership of the UK. "In times like these, we just cant have a woman in charge" - Member of parliament (please note, sexism added for illustration only)

Real history: Salt II arms limitation Talks signed by US and USSR

Game event: US and USSR sign joint weapons development program to target alien threat

Real history: Three Mile island Nuclear Accident after fire at reactor in Pennsylvania US

Game event: Evidence of alien interference at three mile island disaster, claims GPU spokesman

Real history: The Dictator Idi Amin is deposed in Uganda

Game event: Idi Amin expands militia forces in the name of 'Protecting our people'.

Real history: The Sahara Desert experiences snow for 30 minutes.

Game event: The Sahara Desert experiences snow for 30 minutes. (seems weird enough!)

Real history: Lord Mountbatten and three others assassinated by the I.R.A. on August 27th

Game event: I.R.A leaders and British forces sign ceasefire

Real history: Kramer vs Kramer top grossing film of the year

Game event: Alien opens to packed cinemas, becomes top grossing film of all time

Anyhow, you get the idea. I just thought it might be something simple enough that it could still be added, yet interesting enough to be of value.

Historical examples taken from http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1979.html and http://en.wikipedia.org

Edited July 22, 2012 by Greyson

[thothkins]

I had been looking at sort of the same thing. I was thinking that the alternate history would change as the ticker advanced and dependant on how well you were doing in the game.

For example, if the Soviet Union faced a lot of alien activity, would they then remove themselves from Afghanistan, say in 1980?

Would Argentina make a grab for the Falklands sooner than they did? Would Europe being overrun by Aliens give them an excuse?

Sort of the development of an alternate time line throughout the game, that changes the world at the end (assuming you win).

With the historical setting of the game, you know how things would have turned out normally. So, could these things be altered all the way through?

A mission at a reactor would be quite something wouldn't it? Would something like 3 mile island have happened, if the government was looking to secure such key facilities against attack and reviewing shut down procedures?

Would Ridley Scott be seen as in league with the aliens? Would the film have to be shelved? Would sci fi generally leave people cold with an invasion going on above their heads?

[raziel1981]

These are some really great ideas and a lot food for thought to (I love "what if" discussions). Personally I'd love seeing a Chernobyl style event happening in the context of the game as a part of some mission/s.

There is also the whole story about the Montauk project that could be interesting as far as alt. plot line/conspiracy theory goes. Maybe more of those kind of things happening as events in the geoscape ?

[Greyson]

I had been looking at sort of the same thing. I was thinking that the alternate history would change as the ticker advanced and dependant on how well you were doing in the game.

I had put some thought into that kind of development yes, I also thought about having a randomiser on events - so if there was 13 events in 1979, it would only show a random 6 and keep unseen events to add freshness to the next playthrough. I'd even thought about how to present them, perhaps with historical or photoshopped images of the real events, in a news item box on the lower left of the screen. However with all of these approaches (especially the one you are considering where play success or failure gives divergent endings) I think we are probably too late in the development cycle to add it.

Maybe I'm wrong, but the last I heard Chris was still talking about a release date later this year, and with the game not currently in a release state, and with the extra work the kickstarter introduced I just cant see there being time to introduce a RPG style framework on the campaign. What I was thinking was simple event messages similar to those currently in the game tied to dates that correspond to historical / alternate events. I think if we ask for more than that at this point, we are probably asking too much.

A mission at a reactor would be quite something wouldn't it?

Yeah I like the idea of it, but there would have to be an alien motivation for it, to justify building a reactor map and having aliens attacking it a lot. If aliens wanted to cut the power they could shoot if from orbit, so they would have to need something on the site to send their troops in for.

Would Ridley Scott be seen as in league with the aliens? Would the film have to be shelved? Would sci fi generally leave people cold with an invasion going on above their heads?

I cant know of course, but I'd suspect it would become a lot more popular. Of course it would be controversial, but people would get to see the alien defeated (oops, spoiler) so I think it would be taken as a very opportune message of hope and triumph for humanity.

There is also the whole story about the Montauk project that could be interesting as far as alt. plot line/conspiracy theory goes. Maybe more of those kind of things happening as events in the geoscape ?

I hadn't heard of that, I just read up on it. I'm glad I'm still wearing my tin foil hat! I don't know, if there are storyline aspects to the game's progress I'm sure crazy secret projects would fit in somewhere, but mainly I was only thinking of how real and known events would change in the context of alien invasion, events that people would recognise - but there's nothing wrong with your suggestion.

[Chris]

I don't think we have time to implement something like that, and I'm not sure I'd want to anyway. While it is interesting, we've kinda deliberately left the world a bit of a blank slate other than the human vs aliens conflict.

[Greyson]

Fair enough.

[Name]

You said this game is modder friendly so is this one to the things we can do with a script editor or is it so complicated I look silly.

[Gorlom]

Depends on how you would want it to be implemented. if you just want it to pop up randomly on the geoscape like a news item that should be doable.

If you want it to be triggered by something specific that seems unlikely.

If you want it to only pop up once that seems like it might be possible but at the same time it might not.

[Name]

Thanks. If anything I would hope it pops up once

[Gauddlike]

If Chris gets time he might have a ticker or date triggered system for specific events added.

Probably not though, I reckon the team probably aren't getting much time off at the moment as it is!

[thothkins]

It would make quite a difference if you could mod events in the game to the ticker.

- custom built maps that appear at certain points

- r&d appearing at certain points - Alien Agents have captured a MIB. Interrogate it

- Soviet Union withdraws from Afghanistan when certain ticker is reached.

- Custom mission objectives appearing at certain ticker times.

and on and on...just think of the possibilities

[Name]

I like this it does not seem complicated. It adds flavor text. It emplies that there is crap going on but Xenonauts are to busy to care their of saving the world. I hope Chris implements the ticker thing people keep talking about so this can be made easier.

[Gorlom]

The ticker is already in. It's a basic score tracker for the aliens and decides when new UFOs, terror missions or alien bases start showing up etc. But as I understand it it's still RNG if anything is spawned once the ticker reached the target number. I don't think it force spawns anything and I'm unsure if it can without modification.

I don't know if the news items showing up on the geoscape are tied to the ticker system though. And it would probably need slight modifications to accommodate some stuff like a specific custom map showing up if the map is only supposed to show up once. (you could set it in a short interval but there's the chance that it either doesn't show up at all or shows up twice anyway in that interval)

[thothkins]

Making this sort of thing easier to mod is the sort of thing that pays dividends down the road. There's an awful lot that you can do with it. Fingers crossed.

[Name]

So if you changed the ticker you could make them send battleships day one..... Regardless chris should ask how he can make said ticker more awesome .

[thothkins]

I don;t think you'd have a snowball's chance in a very hot place against a Battleship on Day 1.

Watch as it destroys your puny interceptors!

Marvel as it scoots across the globe unmolested!

Envy as it uses rare galactic minerals to get the very best items from all the good shops!

Shake your fist impotently against the sky as it departs!

I'm not even sure if you'd get as far as 2 months for a funding game over. I imagine all the nations would just fall over.

[Gorlom]

You wouldn't stand a chance but yes you could make the game send battleships day one by modding the values in the ticker.

[Name]

Hey I have godly air combat micro give me 3 starting craft and no alien escorts and I'll only lose 2.5 intercepters. That would be fun : -)