Question: Event Text RP Choice

[Teague]

Hey - wanted to pose a general question here.

Was wondering what people thought of certain events being preceded by text choice scenario.

The obvious and simple example being pirates ask for wealth
"Do you surrender X silver from trade beacons, or feel our wrath" X scaling colony wealth
Id imagine this would be a more dangerous raid, that would trigger on a light danger event.

Now Id like to emphasis: I am asking about the core game mechanic of game events with options to do things before storyteller spawns things on map.

Is it overdone? (red barrels explode). More player choice yay? Maybe gives something allies can do other than wander in your base? (A gift from friends, what would you like x,y,z?)
Pose your idea's / opinions on this.

[skullywag]

Ive personally felt this would be a good addition to the game (its been brought up a few times in the past) I also feel it would add to the "story" and wouldnt take anything away and as long as it does that I feel its a valid potential addition.

[SSS]

I like the omniscient third person perspective in which the game's story is told. Having survivors directly make demands to you breaks that to an extent and brings the game into first person storytelling. I think telling the story in first person should be the player's prerogative rather than the game's.

What this would come down to is something along the lines of having the player check the comm console to see if they can send a bribe to make the pirates leave. A little more first person is okay here since it's a colonist talking direction to a faction leader, but I'd still prefer that form of direct first-person interaction to stay relatively simple, as it currently is.

This is actually my main problem with some event mods. They don't respect the third person narrative, which makes their events stick out like a sore thumb compared to everything else.

Edit: Word mixup.

[skullywag]

Hmm i usually have my own character that is "me" so I can see why my brain thinks the other way. Very good point though, so if we could somehow let the colonists make the decision based on some factors.....yeah this just got difficult....

[SSS]

It's not that I don't want to the player to choose, or that I don't want a potential bribe situation to exist. It's the first person "Do you surrender X silver from trade beacons, or feel our wrath?" sort of question I don't want to see popping up in a red/yellow mail icon, for example. Just have the pirates show up and (through tutorial) let the player know that some raids can be averted via bribe. It achieves a similar effect while maintaining the third person narrative.

Flavor text from the pirates in the actual comms console interface wouldn't be nearly as jarring so long as it's still (relatively) simple. The player can add more onto it if they want to spice up their story, or they can leave it minimized if they so desire.

[skullywag]

hmmm the mote system can do text i think.....could have the pirate literally saying it...but would be easy to miss.

So for example pirate raid arrives, red envelope, jump to location, pirates move to position and drop down a stockpile (of some description), one says (mote) "give us 300 silver or we attack", they are neutral for a period of time before going hostile, in that time you have to get silver to the stockpile.

The problem is the visibleness of whats happening i.e if you miss the talking...but is that an issue...?

[SSS]

It's mainly the placement of first person interactions in systems that are used for third person notifications of events that bothers me. If having a first person demand is absolutely needed without using the comms console, I'd prefer it to appear in an event dialog similar to the ones at the beginning of the game (at the crash landing) and the end of the game (during the ship takeoff).

If bribes are meant to be common, it'd be better off tucked away in the comms console. If it's an unusual occurrence (say, they bring a much larger force than usual), then an event dialog might be justified.

I just question the necessity of it when other "big" events can also be presented in a third person manner. We aren't told what the AI Persona Core specifically speaks to the colonists, for example. We're just told the effect it has on them. This is an example of what I mean by third person vs. first person, and it adds a lot to the "feel" of the world. The game gives you the background and scenario; you make up the specifics.