Does the Arctic really have to be its own Game Mode? (Some spoilers)
Rezca
United States Join Date: 2016-04-28 Member: 216078Members
United States Join Date: 2016-04-28 Member: 216078Members
According to the wiki, the planned Arctic is currently being considered as a separate Game Mode, with its own worldspace and protagonist.
Which is all well and good but I was really hoping we'd use Precursor Warpgates to reach the place, or etc.
Here's what I thought. Let the player visit both maps. Game Mode A you start in the Crater as the Aurora survivor. After reaching the endgame but before making the rocket, you can achieve some way of reaching the Arctic. Whether it's fast travel at the map's edge somehow or using warp gates, you arrive at some point in the Arctic worldspace. Game Mode B you start in the Arctic a period of time after the Aurora plotline's been finished and wrapped up. You may or may not find some bases on the Crater if/when you make your way over there - likely preplaced and specific to this game mode.
There's a snag though. It looks like this will be a whole new story. That means story sensitive scripts and the like. How would that be handled if you started in Game Mode A and went over to the Arctic? My idea, is to simply disable the scripts. If there's a location (Like the Thermal Plant in the Crater) that you have to go inside, have something blocking or sealing it off that's only "enabled" if you started the game in this Game Mode.
In reverse, if you start in Game Mode B and visit the precursor bases in the Crater, they'll be switched to being unlocked and etc since all that happened in the past.
While I highly doubt anything like this will happen, and both worldspaces will be (very sadly) made mutually exclusive, I thought I'd run this by here to see what others thought.
Which is all well and good but I was really hoping we'd use Precursor Warpgates to reach the place, or etc.
Here's what I thought. Let the player visit both maps. Game Mode A you start in the Crater as the Aurora survivor. After reaching the endgame but before making the rocket, you can achieve some way of reaching the Arctic. Whether it's fast travel at the map's edge somehow or using warp gates, you arrive at some point in the Arctic worldspace. Game Mode B you start in the Arctic a period of time after the Aurora plotline's been finished and wrapped up. You may or may not find some bases on the Crater if/when you make your way over there - likely preplaced and specific to this game mode.
There's a snag though. It looks like this will be a whole new story. That means story sensitive scripts and the like. How would that be handled if you started in Game Mode A and went over to the Arctic? My idea, is to simply disable the scripts. If there's a location (Like the Thermal Plant in the Crater) that you have to go inside, have something blocking or sealing it off that's only "enabled" if you started the game in this Game Mode.
In reverse, if you start in Game Mode B and visit the precursor bases in the Crater, they'll be switched to being unlocked and etc since all that happened in the past.
While I highly doubt anything like this will happen, and both worldspaces will be (very sadly) made mutually exclusive, I thought I'd run this by here to see what others thought.
Comments
The solutions for map traversal @Rezca put forward seem both reasonable and relatively easy to implement. And while I'd like to see a way to traverse between the maps...I can't say I'm holding out hope for it.
Several of my friends were pretty bummed about that too
Scuba ****
I'm totally game for Scuba Stephanie !
Scuba Steph or Scuba Sally sounds good to me.
We could just pick which one we want to play as at the game start, but either way the real problem I see is picking one Mode or the other means denying you access to the cool stuff in the other worldspace.
Why can't we just travel between them?
Game Mode A: Can travel to the Arctic, but critical story areas are denied to you (Boulders or sheets of ice sealing them, permanently locked doors, whatever) and any scripted story events are disabled.
Game Mode B: Can travel to the Crater. The story material is flagged to be activated (All precursor bases are unlocked, etc)
Basically, you can pick which worldspace and story you want to start in, without disrupting the flow of the other.
If thats the case, then it would legit only take around a day to make a gender selection screen to change from male to female when making a new world/save. It's so simple, I don't understand why they don't just go with that and connect the Arctic DLC with the main game.
"Because story"
From what I understood, they seem to want to do a new story addition too, so letting the player go between the two would cause issues with that. Which is why I suggested up above, just having some logic in place that would make changes to the world based on which Game Mode you start on, while letting you still visit both worldspaces without disrupting the story of the other.
And I totally agree. Even along with that, they could make a totally new story with this DLC. Even if our player was from the Aurora crash, we could have so much fun.
I know this is going to sound harsh, but "Because story" is a pretty lazy excuse. (Not getting at you, Rezca; merely the stated excuse.) Rezca already outlined two perfectly reasonable ways to mesh the game worlds together, and there are more. A deliberate choice to segregate the worlds is difficult to excuse. Value for dollar, this better either be one of the most incredible or most reasonably-priced DLCs ever produced to justify breaking the world up like that.
Hopefully UWE will change course on this one.
Not harsh at all. It felt like that was one of the reasons the cave biomes in Subnautica were being held back, because too many passages and whatnot would let players skip "critical story locations" or "discover them out of order". So that limited those parts of the game, and it looks like it'll limit the game's expansion as well.
But what's done is done, and short of us getting a Map Editor at some point there's no changing that. With an expansion being built around locking the player into one game mode to 'protect the story' though, there's definitely no changing that at all unless modders find a way to let the player change worldspaces. Which would introduce a slew of problems in itself, which could been avoided if the expansion was made with that in mind... Again, let us start in one Worldspace and then make the other tailored to that (Post-Escape tweaks if Arctic Mode, Disable any "super secret story" locales or Scripts if starting in the Crater)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m kinda disappointed by this as well, but it still sounds like fun even if we can’t go between worlds. As long as the story is good, there’s enough new gameplay mechanics, new creatures, and content in general I’ll shove out as much money as UWE wants.
To be honest, I was expecting "just a biome" for an Arctic, not a new map.
If they're in separate worldspaces, then loading/saving things wouldn't be nearly as taxing as having them both exist in the same map.
We'll have to see I guess, but I'll be getting this either way, but will be disappointed all the same if we're locked out of one when playing the other.
God, imagine if you had to travel to the arctic by boat? Days of ghost attacks, hunger, dehydration, and all of it.
Days? How about weeks xD
Though the Ghosties are just there to keep the player out of regions they shouldn't be in. Once they know you're headed to a legit biome and not just screwing around, they'll back off and let you on your way.
Well, that's just the thing; when you currently travel through a warp gate, the section you were in gets unloaded and the location you're going to gets loaded, while you're in the transporter green screen. This would be no different. Aurora location your in gets unloaded, Arctic gets loaded.
I'm not sure a 'Subnautica 2' would be the best way to describe it but since it seems the current plan is to have it be completely isolated from the main game with no travel between the two worldspaces (even via Warp Gates), be coming with its own storyline and new protagonist... Then I guess it may as well be.
And even if it was a sequence, many game sequences reuse stuff (in one way or another). That doesn't necessarily mean such games are lacking.
Gotta keep in mind though, they do build the world entirely from scratch which is going to take some work.
I do believe it's WoW that came with crappy expansions and the rest followed. I mean every expansion was a mere 10 levels and one small area. Compared to the full game of 60 levels and a full world. DLC has gotten a bad wrap because of these kinds of shenanigans, or paid map/weapons "DLC"
I respectfully disagree. Blizzard games and expansions were top notch up until they mingled with Activision.
It is true that few character levels were added, but to me those are just numbers. The areas added were nowhere small. They weren't as big as the original game, but were big enough to count as a whole game on their own, usually ranging from 1/5 to 1/3 of the original map.
Along with it: game mechanics, UI and even the game engine were updated and improved. There are solid reasons on why WoW became such a powerhouse, and it lasted so way longer than most other games.
My only contempt with WoW and its expansions is on how the lore was treated. It became secondary and they butchered the masterpiece they started on Wcrafts 1/2 and graciously climaxed on the third installment (and its expansion).
In fact, whenever I think of good expansions few games come to mind as much as old Blizzard ones.
And that's my favorite thing about UWE, the devs are clearly gamers that make games they would like to play, instead of following current market practices.
However, this would force the new game to play by all rules of the last game - using same game mechanics and relying on the same game engine etc. Naturally, this would severely limit the opportunities to make the new game a better one than the old game. Maybe they want to address some of the lingering performce issues from the ground up.
Personally, as much as I've enjoyed the base game, I REALLY hope the Arctic game will provide a more complete underwater experience using better, less cartoony, depth mechanics.
I looked around and didn't find anything to suggest they're making a whole new game with a whole new engine for the DLC, but if I'm missing something then anyone can feel free to point me in the right direction. But the last I'm aware, they're not making a new game with the Arctic, they're just making a new map that will be in the current game as a new Game Mode and will still be using the same engine. Basically you're launching Subnautica 1.0 and you'd pick Crater / Arctic then the difficulty (or Creative) and then it'll load up that map.
Yeah, but you're quite right about the engine. Last thing I read from Charlie was they're updating everything to Unity 2018.
(Sorry, I couldn't resist...)
That's pretty much still the same game though. They're not making a Subnautica 2, but an Arctic DLC for the Subnautica we already have. You launch Subnautica, then pick Mode A or Mode B and then start in that given worldspace. Unlike say, Minecraft and the Overworld/Nether/End, you can't travel between these two worldspaces. Which is my current gripe with the plan they have for this expansion. How would you get between the two spaces? Having a warp gate or something. Enter the gate, it unloads the current space and then loads up the one you're traveling to would be one idea.
Being disconnected from the original game means it must have everything on its own, map, biomes, etc...
I'm old school and, in my experience, DLC's that mingle with the main game usually add very few, almost negligible, content.
As for the protagonist sex, why not just imagine it as female? There are barely any reflections in the game, shadows are also not enough to affirm the characters sex.
I can't recall any passage in the game that made me sure of the protagonist sex, so why not just pretend it is whatever you want it to be.