How do you feel about the backstories in RimWorld?

[REMworlder]

I'm curious about everyone's thoughts!



One reason I've enjoyed past alphas has been because of the strangers that would pop into existence with each new update. For the last two or three alphas, though, the character list has felt stagnant to me.

Deja Vu
Repetition has added a weird sense of familiarity, and it's kind of jarring. Redfields? But you're dead! Burnt to a crisp last week! And trying to get a colonist with a certain skill is also kind of weird since the same handful of specialists seem to be the only ones that come up. I want an artist? Better roll for core world jeweler or pop artist. I need a grower so I'll capture an oaf. Lots of oafs around. Oafs have been around since the first alpha, or even before then, tales say.

Part of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy and I'm simply remembering memories. But I think a good chunk of the reduction in new characters is due to all the kickstarter-submitted backstories finally being finished, with not many future characters coming in due to the raised price.

Say what you will about kickstarter being first-come, first-serve. And maybe the Steam version will have a really popular upgrade available for character creation. And undoubtedly the effort put into drafting and vetting custom background stories is a pain. And maybe modders will sate my hunger for background stories.

But if Tynan happened to come back from vacation with a floppy full of backstories and RimWorld lore that would be cool too.

[Dive]

I agree that RW requires a bigger pool of backstories. After so many colonies and alphas played I can't remember how many times I've recruited that political assasin guy called Squirrel, and there are a few other names that I see quite a lot. It kinda breaks the immersion.

[A Friend]

I remember my colonist Mole, killing pirate Mole... fun times. Oh and I once had 2 Redfields in my graveyard.

[rexx1888]

there seems to always be a guy called jerbear.. sometimes many many many of them.. i like to think that they are all descended from a secret cult where everyone names their children the same thing :\

[RoboticManiac]

I'd like for a small cult of modders to balloon up the available back stories. The current mod that permits it just lacks any large lists; and the one's it does have, not to be insulting, feel rather lacking or simply 'joke' oriented. I'd try my hand at it, but I lack the creativity or time.

[MisterVertigo]

Just a question, but if I see a character named Redfields in one game, will he have the same backgrounds and stats as a Redfields that shows up in a different game? If they are the same, would it be possible to just randomize the name from a list of names for each character? If they are already randomized, then please disregard my comment!

[MarcTheMerc]

Colonist Zeiph valiantly fighting along side his ally zeiph against the raid lead by raider Zeiph... The void gods find much entertaiment!

[Spectre]

I think the problem with backstories at the moment is that you have unique 'characters'. Dark Eye the assassin and Min the pop idol are good examples of this. Having them show up time and time again is a little bit immersion breaking, then again they just might be the most unluckiest guys in the universe and they just keep crash landing every time they are saved. Removing unique characters also opens up those back stories to be used by other pawns, but on the flip side we lose those 'Oh Hi Dark Eye!' moments.

Also another thing that would be good to change is backstories being linked to body type. I understand the idea behind it, solider types are big muscular guys and so on, but having their body types randomised would be nice.

Then of course Tynan could just add more backgrounds to the game, it's a shame that creating a background was a backer incentive because just before 1.0 the forums could have come together and written tones of backgrounds and Tynan could of put the best in the game.

[Loki88]

I've literally had a colony with three toxos' in it that got raided by 50+ tribals with two toxos' in the raiding party.... "were you guys quintuplets or something and now by some sick twist of fate are pitted against each other in a life or death battle?..."

[TLHeart]

Darkeye is a supporter character, he will always be the same. The person built the back story, and the character and paid to have him put in the game.

Then there are the random characters, which I have had two redfields in my colony, from different factions, with different backstories.

Cei, is also a colonist name I see often, with many different back stories...

[rexx1888]

on the note of it being a kickstarter reward, that is kinda sad, but im sure if Tynan desperately wanted to crowdsource more backgrounds he could find something to give the backers. i dont think thatll be a thing though, but it wouldnt be that hard. The backers would still have gotten their thing, theyd just get some random other small thing to make up for it not being special anymore. iunno, theres a heck of a lot of stuff in this game that wont work as well without way more content... thats kind of why the modding crowd is so huge for this game(though the fact that its designed to be super nice to modders is also a major contributor)

[cultist]

Darkeye is a supporter character, he will always be the same. The person built the back story, and the character and paid to have him put in the game.

The skills and age are randomized though, which can create pretty diverse characters. They always have some tag skills, but their starting point, other skills and age are random AFAIK.