Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: thiosk

Xeno culture is best studied through a rifle scope.

awesome quote, where is it from? sounds familiar?

Why stop there?

Imagine the political ramifications of a 6 billion + inhabited mammal world captured by a meat eating race.

Imagine now a Totalitarian world captured by lotus eaters.

The political reality of such events would boggle the mind.

Frankly our species is not ready for what might be out there. We at the moment are one of those super xenphobic races that we like to potray in movies coming to eat us. We just recently figured out the sun does not revolve around Earth...the next step of seeing eye to eye with a 6' tall praying mantis is gonna be a real stretch for world religions. [8|]

It would be a refreshing change to play a human species in a game like this in where we are considered the xenophobic race determined and feeling righteous in our galaxy wide version of manifest destiny. Sounds just like us. But for some reason we are always made to be the peaceful, negotiating, best engine having, merchant like, diplomats of space. Makes me laugh every time when I think of our history on this planet. [8|]

ORIGINAL: Dadekster

Frankly our species is not ready for what might be out there. We at the moment are one of those super xenphobic races that we like to potray in movies coming to eat us. We just recently figured out the sun does not revolve around Earth...the next step of seeing eye to eye with a 6' tall praying mantis is gonna be a real stretch for world religions. [8|]

It would be a refreshing change to play a human species in a game like this in where we are considered the xenophobic race determined and feeling righteous in our galaxy wide version of manifest destiny. Sounds just like us. But for some reason we are always made to be the peaceful, negotiating, best engine having, merchant like, diplomats of space. Makes me laugh every time when I think of our history on this planet. [8|]

please, so many humans grew up on comic books and TV featuring fantasy, sci fi, etc that this is hardly the case anymore. Very recently in my college I overheard 2 construction workers and one of my college's administrators discussing their DPS strategy in WOW...
So, if we can handle night elves and orcs and what have you, we can probably handle a 6 foot praying mantis.

the next step of seeing eye to eye with a 6' tall praying mantis is gonna be a real stretch for world religions. [8|]

It would be a refreshing change to play a human species in a game like this in where we are considered the xenophobic race determined and feeling righteous in our galaxy wide version of manifest destiny. Sounds just like us. But for some reason we are always made to be the peaceful, negotiating, best engine having, merchant like, diplomats of space. Makes me laugh every time when I think of our history on this planet. [8|]

Point number 1: No problem looking for eyes through a tempura batter.

Point number 2: Presented for your approval, the Imperium of Man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_( ... er_40,000)

the Imperium is depicted as a loose confederation, nominally consisting of all human-inhabited worlds in explored space and united through a common imposed religious conviction, extreme xenophobia and militarism, brutal despotic rule and threat of massive disciplinary force.

Awesome.

Very recently in my college I overheard 2 construction workers and one of my college's administrators discussing their DPS strategy in WOW...

That's such a funny story. I am amazed how online games can easily bridge old-world stereotypes about classes not mixing together. I tend to play games with people from all walks of life, I find these games really bring society together.

Actually, Xenophobia doesn't necessarily have to mean that I plan to wipe every other species of aliens from the galactic map. Perhaps I want to enslave them as forced labour? How about farming them for food (then you really could have your green eggs and ham...or soylent green).

The possibilities are endless, and being xenophobic doesn't always have to mean I plan to wipe you out. Being xenophobic and pragmatic means you send them all to some production planet and take advantage of cheap labour, while still keeping them very separate from your own population.

Just some things to think about.

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: Dadekster

Frankly our species is not ready for what might be out there. We at the moment are one of those super xenphobic races that we like to potray in movies coming to eat us. We just recently figured out the sun does not revolve around Earth...the next step of seeing eye to eye with a 6' tall praying mantis is gonna be a real stretch for world religions. [8|]

It would be a refreshing change to play a human species in a game like this in where we are considered the xenophobic race determined and feeling righteous in our galaxy wide version of manifest destiny. Sounds just like us. But for some reason we are always made to be the peaceful, negotiating, best engine having, merchant like, diplomats of space. Makes me laugh every time when I think of our history on this planet. [8|]

please, so many humans grew up on comic books and TV featuring fantasy, sci fi, etc that this is hardly the case anymore. Very recently in my college I overheard 2 construction workers and one of my college's administrators discussing their DPS strategy in WOW...
So, if we can handle night elves and orcs and what have you, we can probably handle a 6 foot praying mantis.

LOL - I hear ya on that one. Being a geek has never been easier in this time and age [8D]

On the flip side though other than the Japanese (who will eat just about anything[:'(]) I still see many many grown adults who can't even hold up an earthworm without wanting to either vomit or run screaming in the other direction. Talking about how great Alien was as a movie is, a completely different thing I would imagine, then seeing one face to face...which would last about 3 seconds, badly.

ORIGINAL: thiosk

the next step of seeing eye to eye with a 6' tall praying mantis is gonna be a real stretch for world religions. [8|]

It would be a refreshing change to play a human species in a game like this in where we are considered the xenophobic race determined and feeling righteous in our galaxy wide version of manifest destiny. Sounds just like us. But for some reason we are always made to be the peaceful, negotiating, best engine having, merchant like, diplomats of space. Makes me laugh every time when I think of our history on this planet. [8|]

Point number 1: No problem looking for eyes through a tempura batter.

Point number 2: Presented for your approval, the Imperium of Man. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_( ... er_40,000)

the Imperium is depicted as a loose confederation, nominally consisting of all human-inhabited worlds in explored space and united through a common imposed religious conviction, extreme xenophobia and militarism, brutal despotic rule and threat of massive disciplinary force.

Awesome.

They got it pretty much nailed on the head with that one. Course I am a huge pessimist and don't hold much faith in mankind seeing what we are doing to each other and the planet in general. If anyone plays Eve I see as as being closest to the Caldari, run by megacorps.

I did play Eve, couple years ago. You can't play that game without a healthy respect for general asshattedness and treachery.  It was awesome.

Interesting topics. I read it with pleasuere. Keep this up.
Also some good idea. System from MoO2 - I mean - assimilitaing or anhilating captured poulation was simple and efficient.
BTW You know what was standard reaction from average USA citizen when USA nuke Japan?
-Only two cities? Nuke them more!
And they fight humans. If humans will fighting aliens you can expect worse.

Ave,

anyone seen Starship Troopers?
Remember the scene when the families, especially kids, trample the small bugs on the street, with the comment like "Everyone does their part".

The greatest motive for ordinary humans/human societies to even basically acknowledge/respect other intelligent life (including human) is, when they get their asses handed to them
otherwise they are just bugs/barbarians/japs/blacks/whatever

Genocide is nothing inhuman as many wish it to be. In fact it is deeply human. Not wanting facts to be true does not make them not true, it only prevents you from changing them.

Back to topic
This is a game. I can not think of a reasonable argument to not implenent forms of genocide/forced labor etc. A simple switch to include/exclude this feature when starting a game should suffice not to arouse anyone (havent heard of fanatics against genocide, only against some painting [8|]).
When such options are implemented it would be nice if some consequences can be simulated in basic form.
The proposed dislike of such actions from diplomatic friends of the victim, similar subspecies, maybe some gov forms for the politically uber correct.
Therefore different forms of treatment would be very nice.
EXterminate (funny that it is commonly used in the 4X term for the convenience of its spelling, but there is discussion when it is actually implemented), Resettle, Forced Labor, Reservation (no right of abode, restricted to Planet or System), Citizenship.
Each with according diplomatic/domestic consequences (positive and negative ones).
[/align]

edit: thiosks "eating" sounds nice [:D], maybe a more cruel/pragmatic form of extermination

When I play any sci-fi game, political correctness goes out the window for me. I mean wth do you expect? Even Hollywood recoqnizes this. Do you remember the scene in Independence Day, where once we figured out that the aliens planned to just kill us all (us being humans) and then basically consume Earth for its resources before moving on, where we send a representative to their mother ship to protest this as it wasn't political correct? You don't?! Well duh, cuz we didn't. I mean technically what the aliens did in that movie was to probably first scout us out, our solar system and find our planet (that's profiling as far as I am concerned), then send the invasion fleet (that smacks of prejudice), and then they use huge lasers to smoke all of our major cities (if that's not a hate crime I don't know what is, not to mention attempted genocide). All of that stuff is political uncorrect amongst us as a race, and in most modern society causes someone somewhere to get fired. But that didn't happen in the movie did it? Any movie where we face aliens trying to eat us or take us over and whatnot no one brings up the fact that what the aliens are trying to do us is political uncorrect. In that regard trying to be political correct in a 4X game makes absolutely no sense since no one says crap about any of that stuff in a Hollywood movie as it is just assumed that's known as a 'bad thing'. However as a counterpoint, if anyone has ever played Empire Total War you may have noticed that in that game the resources around Africa are spice and ivory iirc. Anyone that knows anything about history around that time period knows about about triangular trade and what one of the major trade items was. But for PC reasons it is replaced with Ivory. Is it right or wrong to fudge history in the interests of PC? I'm not a major game company so I thankfully don't have to make that kind of decision, but I do know one thing. To ignore history invites the chance to repeat it for good or worse.

Basically what I am saying is there should be no option to select whether things like slavery, genocide and other crimes against humanity should be allowed or not. You can't be ethnocentric in this game and assume all aliens have the same moral codes or not as we humans are supposed to have. To me that would translate into one lame ass 4X game. Give me a game where other aliens may just want to kill us all or harvest us as a food source. That's not PC to us, but in a 4X game that's life so adapt or die to the new political reality. If you don't like thinking about things like that I suggest a PC game involving Care Bears. To be honest I have never heard of a problem involving a game that has slave pens and so forth and someone complaining about it. But then I haven't played a game that allowed humans to do this to other humans. Amazing how quickly PC spins out of control when its humans doing things against humans. As long as it is 'evil' aliens doing it to us everything is kosher though.

Was nice of the movie to show the naive idiots with thier banners welcoming ET though, that was pretty funny till the huge mega death ray laser vap'ed em. Guess they never played any 4X games. [:'(]

ORIGINAL: Dadekster

Basically what I am saying is there should be no option to select whether things like slavery, genocide and other crimes against humanity should be allowed or not.

Im not proposing this option to please those politically over correct ones.
I propose it to please them to decrease their resistance (if there are any around here) to the implementation of the features without a need for real concessions affecting me [;)] .

Well you might not have heard of it because in some forums even mentioning it may get u banned...

Perhaps its just the fact I don't find any of the shipped races particularly compelling that I now have an unbridled desire to exterminate them en masse.

ORIGINAL: Locarnus

ORIGINAL: Dadekster

Basically what I am saying is there should be no option to select whether things like slavery, genocide and other crimes against humanity should be allowed or not.

Im not proposing this option to please those politically over correct ones.
I propose it to please them to decrease their resistance (if there are any around here) to the implementation of the features without a need for real concessions affecting me [;)] .

Well you might not have heard of it because in some forums even mentioning it may get u banned...

Honestly, some places are overly sensitive. It's not like any of this stuff couldn't be found in any history book...if you are human, your ancestors did horrible things. That doesn't make you horrible.

I'd like the option to be horrible in game though...no one gets hurt unless they choose to (choose to be offended that is). I guess if wanting to play the game as some evil despot makes me a horrible person...then so be it. [;)]

Indeed. You are horrible but so I am too.
Let us be horrible in game otherwise we can become horrible in real life.

ORIGINAL: Shark7I'd like the option to be horrible in game though...no one gets hurt unless they choose to (choose to be offended that is). I guess if wanting to play the game as some evil despot makes me a horrible person...then so be it. [;)]

That is the point of playing a game. You can be something you can't, IRL.

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: Locarnus

ORIGINAL: Dadekster

Basically what I am saying is there should be no option to select whether things like slavery, genocide and other crimes against humanity should be allowed or not.

Im not proposing this option to please those politically over correct ones.
I propose it to please them to decrease their resistance (if there are any around here) to the implementation of the features without a need for real concessions affecting me [;)] .

Well you might not have heard of it because in some forums even mentioning it may get u banned...

Honestly, some places are overly sensitive. It's not like any of this stuff couldn't be found in any history book...if you are human, your ancestors did horrible things. That doesn't make you horrible.

I'd like the option to be horrible in game though...no one gets hurt unless they choose to (choose to be offended that is). I guess if wanting to play the game as some evil despot makes me a horrible person...then so be it. [;)]

Well, the main point is, that those options we ask for are just mostly history. So we can say:
Oh, glassing the planet, thats a horrible option, it reminds of what really happend 70years ago. Well, long time ago...
And slavery, oh well, humans did this to other humans. (Mostly) some time ago...

A really horrible option would be the one to militarily occupy a planet and get a report every month.
Left side eg soldiers death toll (with cost of death tag per soldier), civilian death toll (no price tag, for those are not our citizens, just funny statistics) and military maintanence costs.
And on the right side the private resource extraction, with financial benefit calculated.
And thats only a basic model.
That would be horrible, because its nothing our ancestors did.
Its what we do. And we dont care much about it, because its just the way it is. I wonder if they felt a similar indifference 70 years ago...

ORIGINAL: Falokis

ORIGINAL: Shark7I'd like the option to be horrible in game though...no one gets hurt unless they choose to (choose to be offended that is). I guess if wanting to play the game as some evil despot makes me a horrible person...then so be it. [;)]

That is the point of playing a game. You can be something you can't, IRL.

well, as described above, being horrible is not very complicated today.
all you need to do, is sit back, pay taxes, watch what is done with them, and dont care.
simple

edit: hm, i m not keen on deleting what was said. but maybe we should go back to game mechanics

Then you'll hate this link, although I find it highly funny due to so much truth laced throughout.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15660_th ... -game.html

But back to the topic at hand. I agree with thiosk who stated he did not feel any of the races compelling. I find myself a bit apathetic towards the races supplied in the game. Don't get me wrong, I find the artwork and what information we have about them interesting, but it's the same level of interest as seeing something good on TV and then as soon as a commerical comes on, flipping to another channel completely forgetting about them five seconds later. I'd like to see the races fleshed out some more. How'd they get to where they are, what racial fears and taboo's do they have? What do they eat, how many sexes do they have, what kind of family unit do they have and etc and etc. That is what makes a race interesting imo and provides for a great gaming atmosphere. Otherwise when you bomb a planet or smoke one of their fleets out known space, who cares?