What if AoD is successful?

[Bradylama]

How could getting the circumference right tell you there is a continent in between? Maybe he wouldnt have done it if he knew how far it was, but the land trip was dangerous so who knows.

Well, at the time of Columbus' voyage, people re-discovered that the Greeks were hot as shit when it came to thinking smart and knew the circumference of the planet. Columbus, however, after reading Marco Polo's Journals and getting Eratosthenes completely wrong thought that the distance between Europe and Asia was only 3,000 miles.

So to shut him up and maybe earn some scratch, Queen Isabella decided to finance his expedition with the Santa Maria, two glorified rowboats, and a crew of criminals.

Once they got out about 3,000 miles, they struck land, and Columbus thought that proved that he wasn't wrong, even insisting that he reached the East Indies up to his death in Debtor's Prison.

 

[sheek]

I always loved stories about big-ass colony ships flying for hundreds of years toward some very distant star system. There are mutinies or natural disasters, raditions leaks, mutations, different factions, loss of knowledge and purpose, while the ship itself hasn't lost any, etc - the works.

I also have a thing for that sort of subject matter. Especially ones where the protaganists are ignorant of their precarious existence until some wonderful revelatory part later in the book (i.e. woah, we're in frickin space mang!).

Have you read "Non-Stop" by Aldiss?
I recommend it.

A great book. Also one of my favorite kind of scifi scenarios - too bad it's often taken up by idiots (that 'Red Mars' book crap)

Also "Captive Universe" by Harry Harrison, which has a nice "encapsulated Aztec society as an experiment" in it.

I'll look out for that.

But not so keen on the Chinese/Aztecs...

 

[Ladonna]

If AoD is successful, Vince will join the industry and make diablo clones.

He will pop up here to hype his masters latest games, and then vanish when the truth comes out after release and the flames crackle in the codex. His sniggering posts on the ESF regarding the 'codex taliban' will be linked to over here many times. .

Drinks with Todd and pete in a private jet. Corporate junket talks with Bioware execs, where they tell slobbering fanbois all about how 'choice is bad for you'. Yes I can see it now.

He will go 'hollywood'.

 

[Jed]

Sci-fi for the win!

By the way, anyone here have a decent opinion on the best pre-2000's sci-fi cRPGs? Seems there were a bunch in the early-90s, but I never hear anyone talk about them in any serious way. (Excepting Wasteland & Fallout, of course.) Are any worth playing today?

 

[mytgroo]

A thought.

A go into the wastelands to rebuild civilization thing might be cool. You would finish the first one, make a discovery in the temple, then send off a team to find a lost technical city... Cross the wastelands to find the city reborn might be cool. Basically go through hell to find a city that is beginning to rebuild and search under the city and near the city for lost technology. Different factions would rebuild differently. A kind of post apocalypse rebirth story. There are a lot of these, but no one has really effectively done it as a good CRPG. Rediscover batteries, find hidden stuff-- like the holy transistor diagrams. Include stuff from stories like A Canticle For Leibowitz, The Dying Earth, or even Mad Max. It would be different than Fallout because the objective wouldn't be to save your own city, but rediscover the past. Part of the job would be to help rebuild without a second fall. You wouldn't think of it as fallout, but instead base it on different factions like in the original game trying to make a different set of futures.

 

[Mr Happy]

A sci-fi game would be awesome. Would you go the SR2/SC2 route with players being represented by their spaceships, or are you aiming for a different kind of game, like KOTOR-esque except isometric, TB, etc with the focus not being on space but in exploring different worlds closeup on land? A mixture? Something else?

No, not the SR2 stuff. I always loved stories about big-ass colony ships flying for hundreds of years toward some very distant star system. There are mutinies or natural disasters, raditions leaks, mutations, different factions, loss of knowledge and purpose, while the ship itself hasn't lost any, etc - the works.

I have always thought something simlar to that would make a great game. There are certainly not enough sci-fi RPGs out there. Maybe with a bit of Dune influence thrown in. Read some Greg Bear books, he has some very interesting visions of the future.

 

[abstract]

By the way, anyone here have a decent opinion on the best pre-2000's sci-fi cRPGs? Seems there were a bunch in the early-90s, but I never hear anyone talk about them in any serious way. (Excepting Wasteland & Fallout, of course.) Are any worth playing today?

There are two Buck Rogers games, which are basically Gold Box in space. If you can stomach the setting (retro design, clear-cut good vs. evil divisions) and the dated interface then by all means try them.

 

[Jed]

There are two Buck Rogers games, which are basically Gold Box in space. If you can stomach the setting (retro design, clear-cut good vs. evil divisions) and the dated interface then by all means try them.

Thanks for the info. Are the games any good? I was hoping for recommendations a little more "glowing."

 

[Elwro]

Wasn't there a "Traveller" game in the 80s (based on the PnP game)? Also, iirc there was a Gold Box game called "Spelljammer". Was it any good?

 

[Jim Kata]

There are two Buck Rogers games, which are basically Gold Box in space. If you can stomach the setting (retro design, clear-cut good vs. evil divisions) and the dated interface then by all means try them.

Thanks for the info. Are the games any good? I was hoping for recommendations a little more "glowing."

If you liked any gold box games you will like them.

 

[Twinfalls]

By the way, anyone here have a decent opinion on the best pre-2000's sci-fi cRPGs?

Are any worth playing today?

Albion was very good, plus with first-person 3D in towns and dungeons!

I'd love to see more like it - crash-land-on-alien-planet adventurish RPGs.