Are journalists covering BE required to only ask bland/uninteresting questions?

[GenEngineer]

I'm standing by something SupremacyKing already said so you're already wrong. Also I'm not being hostile, but if people are going to snippy they should probably expect the same in kind.

It's called proportional response. Whomp Whomp.

But you were the first person to be snippy. Other people just put in their opinion's on the idea and asked how it would be implemented, since the simplest solution didn't seem interesting in their opinion. You responded by mocking the person.

And no, I'm not wrong. I said you're backing up the idea because you think it would be cool, which you are. The fact that SupremacyKing suggested it first doesn't change that. And those of us who disagree are doing so because we wouldn't find it as cool as you, so that's accurate as well.

 

[Westwall]

But you were the first person to be snippy. Other people just put in their opinion's on the idea and asked how it would be implemented, since the simplest solution didn't seem interesting in their opinion. You responded by mocking the person.

Nope. Certain people are always going to be upset and find ways to try to be offended by everything I post because I like to point out little inconvenient but poignant issues about the unfortunate trajectory of some of this game's design choices.

Take this little gem for instance:

Ignoring 98% of the post and responding to a single word just to feel right on... something?

Am I really not supposed to be equally coy and sarcastic? No one's actually upset here, everyone's putting their best point forward in the most "colorful" way they can. Am I backing something I think would be cool? Of course I am, why wouldn't I? And you better believe I'll stand by it if it's close to my heart. I wouldn't expect any less from anyone else here.

But go ahead and show me an example of where I was mocking anyone.

 

[GenEngineer]

That wasn't the post I was referring to, nor your comments on the designers.

That's the idea, how well you steal the spotlight back is predicated on how well you play the game. If you aren't able to beat the scene-stealing aliens, then frankly they deserve to bask in the rays of glory while you lament the folly of human hubris. Duh. Did you really think that was a possibility we as a species would never have to face? Time to wake up and smell the cosmic insignificance.

If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

You can't, but the designers probably can. Unless they're hacks.

And who says they need to use the affinity system? Maybe they can just be NPCs like I already said.

I honestly can't believe you feel this threatened by the possibility of intelligent aliens that you'd actually keep them out of the game.

I hope you steer clear of the GalCiv series or SMAC with expansion or most every other sci fi 4x or I bet you're really going to freak the hell out.

This was. Everyone was discussing, with disagreements, politely, until you started being hostile, and only then did people respond in kind. Your comment about responding in kind to sarcasm? Applicable, because everyone's responding to you in the first place.

 

[Doviello]

e: actually, nevermind.

posts can't be deleted, can they?

 

[Westwall]

@GenEngineer

Oh no, hyperbole.

Better call the National Guard.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Enough finger pointing! Back to topic please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Gorbles]

I'm thinking they should be fairly advanced and powerful in the sense that their units would take several of yours to defeat. There are many ways to justify why we'd be able to fight them, which shouldn't be hard considering we've found ways to justify/suspend belief not knowing the layout of the planet we landed on and satellites that don't reveal said planet, not to mention resources being equally distributed.

All for the sake of fun in a game that should be going wild with its ideas instead of setting limits; aka the thing that made it mediocre at inception. I'd rather they go overboard than underboard is what I'm getting at here.

I explained the satellite point in an earlier post, but for brevity here it is again:

Launching a satellite does not automatically guarantee instant and unrestricted coverage of a spherical world map.

Everyone finds a way to suspend belief for certain things that break immersion in video games. However, this is not an argument for everyone continuing to do so regardless of what else is proposed to be put ingame. Everyone has individual limits on their suspension of disbelief - what you can find tolerable, others may not.

Nobody is right or wrong when it comes to this; personally, I find it very hard for anything to break immersion in a fictional video game as long as it physically doesn't break the setting (i.e. Duke Nukem strolling around my Terran map, etc). Batman in my Star Wars, so on and so forth.

When we quibble about the limits of what we find scientifically-possible I mostly just roll my eyes, because not many of us will have the requisite professional knowledge to handle an in-depth argument about the subject (and I feel confident on that here because we're discussing the reality of aliens which no scientific field has been able to study with real-life samples outside of the microbial scale).

However, my arguments against an advanced alien race stem more from the mechanical. They existed in SMAC and completely wrecked balance there (tile overrides, separate and superior offensive and defensive technologies that you had to put yourself at a disadvantage against other human factions to research, etc, et al). Hence the notion of aliens having to be equal to the existing factions in order to be mechanically-valid as a faction of sorts.

Perhaps as a game event? Sure. But we don't really have much of that at all yet built into the game. Perhaps that could be a focus of the next expansion, be it involving aliens or not. Game events that occur spontaneously and / or in response to player actions (AI or otherwise). Volcanic eruptions, etc. If the engine doesn't nicely-support player-actioned terraforming, programmed game events may still be a possibility.

 

[Westwall]

Perhaps as a game event? Sure.

Yes, that's more what I had in mind and what I'd like them to aim towards.

As I've said time and again.

Good talk.

 

[Lord Shadow]

I suppose this entire last argument branched out from my tertiary reason to reject active sapient aliens in CivBE. Despite the unlikelihood that we'll ever find extraterrestrial intelligence of a remotely similar level of development as ours, as far as they're concerned I'd prefer a non-traditional implementation of them, for a change. Neither science nor I find the possibility of sapient aliens unbelievable, but we keep getting the same classical representations of them and I'd like something different.

That said, my primary objection is for thematic reasons, and I think the game is better for focusing on humanity's future challenges, future ideologies and intraspecies relations. All too often sci-fi depicts future humanity as a perfectly unified species, most of its modern complexities lost, possibly in order not to contrast too much with the largely shallow alien species our descendants encounter.

And that's the kind of aliens we'd most likely get in BE, as they can't hope to be as complex as the combined human factions and mechanics without requiring an entirely new game. So I'd rather the devs invested their energy in something more interesting and in line with Beyond Earth's uncommon approach to our future.

At any rate, that's just my perspective. Alpha Centauri was also a game about humanity, shared a lot of themes with CivBE, and they still threw aliens into it for the hell of it (albeit in a rather lackluster expansion). So you never know.

 

[Westwall]

I have a different view. Too often aliens are depicted as flawed/extreme versions of humanity, because apparently we're just that exceptional and awesome.

Quote from Mass Effect:

Look, little girl. When you want a problem shot, ask a turian. When you want a problem talked to death, ask an asari. When you want a new problem, ask a salarian. When you want a problem fixed... ask a human.

Badass right? We tend to think so because we have trouble comprehending something that might in any way be more intelligent, more critical-minded, more creative, more compassionate, more cruel, more innovative, more cunning and more determined than ourselves.

The BE team had a chance to show us something truly alien, both in design and motivations, and make it unlike anything we've ever seen before while also helping us realize just how cosmically insignificant we currently are and how much further we have to go.

I think we're all in for a rude awakening if and when humanity discovers that not only is the greater galactic community not filled with the sort of naive exotic blue/green-skinned humanoids we'd want to have sex with, or variations of ourselves that just happen to be generally more intelligent but humorless, or stronger but also dumber, etc.

I think it will be interesting when we discover it was never that simple, or that most advances species may regard humanity in about the same way you would regard a gibbon, and everything that humans think would make them special, such as their ingenuity, their leadership skills, their courage, their stubborn nobility, their diplomatic prowess, their lolrandum humor, their genetic diversity, their adaptability, etc., actually pale in comparison to how well other species excel at all of the above and more.

I think if we ever survive long enough as a species, we're going to find out that the universe isn't a carefully balanced RPG, and that certain advanced species just have higher stats all across the board and one of the first lessons we'll have to learn is that we're no more entitled to be the natural born saviors of the galaxy than any other beings. That we'll have to play catch up most of the time and take our chances like everyone else.

 

[Ryika]

I think if we ever survive long enough as a species, we're going to find out that the universe isn't a carefully balanced RPG, and that certain advanced species just have higher stats all across the board and one of the first lessons we'll have to learn is that we're no more entitled to be the natural born saviors of the galaxy than any other beings. That we'll have to play catch up most of the time and take our chances like everyone else.

I'd say that's still quite an optimistic approach. The zones assumed to be habitable are so far apart from each other that we may not ever make contact with actual Aliens. It is still unsure if technology that would allow us to circumvent the fact that we can't go faster than light is even possible on a theoretical level, and if it is, then we may not be able to produce materials that could withstand such forms of traveling. Then there is still the theory that a Civilization that reaches a certain point of technological advancement may be bound to self-destruct because of the power that comes with it.

 

[hevans900]

DISCLAIMER: Everything in this post is pure theory - both of the equations I've listed are complete estimates - don't rip my head off please.

When we quibble about the limits of what we find scientifically-possible I mostly just roll my eyes, because not many of us will have the requisite professional knowledge to handle an in-depth argument about the subject (and I feel confident on that here because we're discussing the reality of aliens which no scientific field has been able to study with real-life samples outside of the microbial scale).

There are examples of real-life microbial aliens?! Assuming you meant there have been analogies made to microbes as potential aliens.

Honestly though - I have a degree in Astrophysics involving minor studies in the (speculative) field of astrobiology - and you are justified in your eye-rolling. It does tickle me when I hear people complaining about something that they see as 'realistic' when it comes to a sci-fi universe.

In reality, when you look at it statistically, there is an astronomically small chance of us ever encountering other intelligent life.

A remarkable effort by astro-biologist Sara Seager, has widened the equation to factor in any detectable alien life - not just radio-emitting (intelligent) ones. The sad fact is that we don't even know what values to give half the factors in these equations!

Lower bound best-guess estimates of the initial Drake equation still place us as the only sentient life in the Milky Way, perhaps the universe.

The Seager equation has actually resulted in a statistical likelihood of the identification of at least a couple of 'inhabited' exo-planets in the next decade - just through our current methods of searching for extra-terrestrial life/exo-planets (if anyone is truly interested in this feel free to send me a private message - I have some colleagues who are doing post-doctoral studies in extra-solar planets).

Apologies for veering even further off-topic but couldn't resist after Gorb's post

 

[Westwall]

I'd say that's still quite an optimistic approach. The zones assumed to be habitable are so far apart from each other that we may not ever make contact with actual Aliens. It is still unsure if technology that would allow us to circumvent the fact that we can't go faster than light is even possible on a theoretical level, and if it is, then we may not be able to produce materials that could withstand such forms of traveling. Then there is still the theory that a Civilization that reaches a certain point of technological advancement may be bound to self-destruct because of the power that comes with it.

Hence why I said "if" we ever survive long enough as a species.

I never said it wasn't a big if.

But then it's also a big if that we'll ever even leave our solar system, let alone colonize another.

 

[Lord Shadow]

@Westwall

I never proposed human exceptionalism, nor that alien species can't be as complex as ours in reality (or more so).

I'm not sure whether you misunderstood what I was saying, or just went down a tangent, one I largely agree with.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I have a different view. Too often aliens are depicted as flawed/extreme versions of humanity, because apparently we're just that exceptional and awesome.
.....
I think if we ever survive long enough as a species, we're going to find out that the universe isn't a carefully balanced RPG, and that certain advanced species just have higher stats all across the board and one of the first lessons we'll have to learn is that we're no more entitled to be the natural born saviors of the galaxy than any other beings. That we'll have to play catch up most of the time and take our chances like everyone else.

Which is why intelligent aliens should only be in the game as a victory condition (or mod). Interaction with them is so drastically changing that there is no point in having it as part of the game (same as trying to model both your Earth Empire and your AC Empire in the same game... you broke the boundaries of the game in doing so)

ie rules like
If you are at war with the aliens, 1 of your cities, 4 of your orbitals, and 16 of your units nearest alien cities/units vanish each turn (not razed/killed, vanish)
If you are sanctioned by the aliens +100 unhealthy.
If you are cooperating with the aliens gain +300% science, culture, food, production, energy output
If you are allied with the aliens gain 2 free techs and 1 free virtue each turn.

Which makes it game breaking

 

[Westwall]

@Westwall

I never proposed human exceptionalism, nor that alien species can't be as complex as ours in reality (or more so).

I'm not sure whether you misunderstood what I was saying, or just went down a tangent, one I largely agree with.

I was just explaining the opportunity I felt was missed by not trying to take a crack at an alien civilization.

Given that small window they gave us into a possible alien city in the form of the Metropolis, I would've liked to have seen how much further they could've gone with it.

 

[Gorbles]

There are examples of real-life microbial aliens?! Assuming you meant there have been analogies made to microbes as potential aliens.

Honestly though - I have a degree in Astrophysics involving minor studies in the (speculative) field of astrobiology - and you are justified in your eye-rolling. It does tickle me when I hear people complaining about something that they see as 'realistic' when it comes to a sci-fi universe.

In reality, when you look at it statistically, there is an astronomically small chance of us ever encountering other intelligent life.

A remarkable effort by astro-biologist Sara Seager, has widened the equation to factor in any detectable alien life - not just radio-emitting (intelligent) ones. The sad fact is that we don't even know what values to give half the factors in these equations!

Lower bound best-guess estimates of the initial Drake equation still place us as the only sentient life in the Milky Way, perhaps the universe.

The Seager equation has actually resulted in a statistical likelihood of the identification of at least a couple of 'inhabited' exo-planets in the next decade - just through our current methods of searching for extra-terrestrial life/exo-planets (if anyone is truly interested in this feel free to send me a private message - I have some colleagues who are doing post-doctoral studies in extra-solar planets).

Apologies for veering even further off-topic but couldn't resist after Gorb's post

Haha, sorry, I was referring more to any potential contaminants found on meteorites. Outside of the overused science-fiction disaster plot, I was under the impression we had found actual foreign spores on said objects.

Could be wrong! Most of my science reading has been nuclear power of late (trending into economics and politics, that one), I haven't been up on the space game in a few years.

 

[Acken]

Afaik what we have found on these objects are only organic compounds (carbon based) which we believe are necessary for life.

 

[Galgus]

Which is why intelligent aliens should only be in the game as a victory condition (or mod). Interaction with them is so drastically changing that there is no point in having it as part of the game (same as trying to model both your Earth Empire and your AC Empire in the same game... you broke the boundaries of the game in doing so)

ie rules like
If you are at war with the aliens, 1 of your cities, 4 of your orbitals, and 16 of your units nearest alien cities/units vanish each turn (not razed/killed, vanish)
If you are sanctioned by the aliens +100 unhealthy.
If you are cooperating with the aliens gain +300% science, culture, food, production, energy output
If you are allied with the aliens gain 2 free techs and 1 free virtue each turn.

Which makes it game breaking

In other words, it destroys the setting.

Which is most of why I don't like how the Progenitors are presented.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

In other words, it destroys the setting.

Which is most of why I don't like how the Progenitors are presented.

Well fortunately the actual game mechanics for Progenitors in the game (artifacts) isn't game breaking (even if the descriptions mess with the theme), while still being sensible for super advanced aliens (you are only getting a fraction of the benefit of the advanced technology, because it is only what you can reverse engineer).

(same as I'd be OK with time travel in the game as a victory condition, build a time travel 'landing pad' and you in the future send back super tech+supplies to completely dominate the others.)