Tend to agree with Panczasu on the trait v faction competition points.



The competition is not about bringing an all singing, all dancing, out the box, ready to plug and play, entry. The winning entry on any competition will not go in to the game as is. The Devs invite you to the table and the re-design of your winning entry will be modified to fit the game play and other mechanics of the game. It has to.



So what is the competition for? Obviously it's for us to feel we have had some input; it's to get some ideas from outside the existing team (who may be feeling a little dried out right now); It's to keep the game grounded in its fan base; it's to allow people to share ideas, and let's not forget it's for fun.



Think of it as a giant fun brainstorming session and stop worrying on fairness and process. You'll feel much better

PANCZASU wrote:


I wouldn't expect people to write extensive lore about traits or provide in-depth explanation on the trait's psychological, biological and technological impact on aliens

And yet those are thoughts people idealy should have had while designing their factions. If a faction is only a reptile because it looks cool, then there is no point in it being a reptile. But if a community was to decide that "We really need a reptilian faction", then it would be interesting to see what the community can come up with to fill that hole.

In the end what it really comes down to is ego: do you want to work as a community and create something as a whole or do you want to work as individuals and then hope for recognition from the community.

PANCZASU wrote:


Well, there WERE certain guidelines established by the devs. And we still have this issue. I don't see how community guidelines would fix that. Who would be in charge of these guidelines, who would design them? Who would moderate entries that are not following said guidelines? Sorry, but I would only trust the devs with such task.

What guidelines were those? The theme is Minor Factions and you are allowed only one entry? Great guidelines Next time they may be expanded to "you must be eating chocolate while posting your submission"

And the devs did a great job moderating this time around

But I am sure you'd be able to keep the peace using subliminal messages. You have experience with those

PANCZASU wrote:
we would still end up with an absolute mess

You see a mess, I see a challenge

indigav wrote:




Think of it as a giant fun brainstorming session and stop worrying on fairness and process. You'll feel much better

I don't care about fairness. There can never be true fairness

I do care about process, as process affects the quality of the final product.



But just for the sake of friendly arguing: why should I consider this as a giant fun brainstorming session, while you can discard the other way around, which would require more actual interaction and thus be a truer brainstorming session as unrealistic and bad?



(also no need to worry about my well-being. I feel great )

How do I know I have gotten past my angst? Because now I almost(I'm still gonna promote Squamata) feel like I should promote Neireids to ensure they get to g2g Unless Squamata magically get 15 more votes in which case I will go "Holy shit, what the hell" and die from happiness xP Yeah, I know, that isn't enough to get even close to winning, but I'd be surprised.



So anyway, seems that some choices are also climbing up to 40... But if in the end, the winners are still Cult of the End, Mesaima and Neireids, I figured out that I'd vote for Neireids. Sorry guys your ideas are cool and I do like doomsday cults and parasitic beings that take over enemy's bodies, but I think that Nereids fit the game thematically best. Cult of the End uses robots. Not in same way as Vaulters aka discovered ancient technology they believe to be magic that works like golems in fantasy games, but actual Endless weapons that the faction's leader activated again. Thats like using nukes agaisnt bows and arrows. The Mesaima on other hand are microorganism, people in medieval-ish times wouldn't even know what microbe is or that they exist.. They are more of scifi than fantasy ideas ^_^; I guess you could argue that necrophages are more scifi than fantasy, but I think they are more "realistic"(like how haunts aren't actually ghost and seem to be actually virtual endless. Setting wants to have fantasy beings but they are done in the way where dust lampshades all "magic" away) take on the undead... I mean they are basically bugs that eat corpses and become like corpses. Nereids on other hand are pretty much amazons combined with mermaids. Minus implications of rape(since they nowadays practice diplomacy instead of "hunting for mates") while still having slavery. That is pretty fantasy-ish race so while your ideas are cool, I think thematically nereids fit better.



My only problem with Neireids is that 1) I can see people designing them as sexy mermaids which would be lame. Why would aquatic alien race look like humans? Besides, to swim in water you need incredible muscles to do it fast. Not to mention the other amphinian/fish traits like webbed fingers, sharp teeth, etc... Making them just mermaids would be waste. 2) Their reproduction doesn't really make sense. How does female only species only breed with males of other race? Unless they actually practice parthenogenesis(some lizard species have females that can breed without males by stimulating sexwith other females. Forgot exact mechanics behind why that work) and they just think they need males from other species..



Fourth one so far is star dreamers... They again have problem of not really being fantasy race. I mean, they have guns and canons while others have swords and bows... Plus while floating city is cool, I'm not sure if that can be implemented without major changes. And I don't really see how they are designed around minor factions. It is cool idea, but again I don't think it fits thematically.

melkathi wrote:
And yet those are thoughts people idealy should have had while designing their factions. If a faction is only a reptile because it looks cool, then there is no point in it being a reptile. But if a community was to decide that "We really need a reptilian faction", then it would be interesting to see what the community can come up with to fill that hole.

In the end what it really comes down to is ego: do you want to work as a community and create something as a whole or do you want to work as individuals and then hope for recognition from the community.

Hey, I technically made my factions reptiles because reptiles are cool Since I designed them around my gameplay idea, I could have technically made them any other species imaginable!

melkathi wrote:
I don't care about fairness. There can never be true fairness

I do care about process, as process affects the quality of the final product.



But just for the sake of friendly arguing: why should I consider this as a giant fun brainstorming session, while you can discard the other way around, which would require more actual interaction and thus be a truer brainstorming session as unrealistic and bad?



(also no need to worry about my well-being. I feel great )

Well, because you have very different base ideologies. To get out of that conundrum, we'd need a large-scale test of both versions in several randomized iterations and see what performs better in a double-blind critique of the outcomes by an also large number of different people.

Since we don't have the people or the time/money to conduct this research, can't you all just agree to disagree?

ResonanceMask wrote:
Sorry guys your ideas are cool and I do like doomsday cults and parasitic beings that take over enemy's bodies, but I think that Nereids fit the game thematically best. Cult of the End uses robots. Not in same way as Vaulters aka discovered ancient technology they believe to be magic that works like golems in fantasy games, but actual Endless weapons that the faction's leader activated again. Thats like using nukes agaisnt bows and arrows.

Well, I don't understand your "they use robots, they must have nukes!"-argument, really. Having a run-down Endless factory for servants does not mean those servants are armed or that you can easily reequip that facility to produce tanks of doom with lasers, rockets and machine-guns. They have to make do with what they've got on site and what they can actually repair. If they were omnipotent, they wouldn't recruit minor factions in the first place. Why would some being that thinks of herself being the epitome of all beings use native primitive people, if she had a choice?

Maybe that analogy will get the point across: If you know the plans for constructing the death star by heart, that has no impact whatsoever on your survival chances in a jungle with a flint and wet wood.



The idea around the cultists is that they may have leaders on par with the Endless, stuck in a very primitive world with only primitive tools. They have all that knowledge and cannot apply most of it. What would happen?

Nosferatiel wrote:
Well, because you have very different base ideologies. To get out of that conundrum, we'd need a large-scale test of both versions in several randomized iterations and see what performs better in a double-blind critique of the outcomes by an also large number of different people.

Since we don't have the people or the time/money to conduct this research, can't you all just agree to disagree?

*sniff*

I'll agree to pretending to agreeing to disagreeing - does that work for you?



Could you also work on a project to get the funding to make the experimen a reality? Thanks, in advance

Nosferatiel wrote:
Well, I don't understand your "they use robots, they must have nukes!"-argument, really. Having a run-down Endless factory for servants does not mean those servants are armed or that you can easily reequip that facility to produce tanks of doom with lasers, rockets and machine-guns. They have to make do with what they've got on site and what they can actually repair. If they were omnipotent, they wouldn't recruit minor factions in the first place. Why would some being that thinks of herself being the epitome of all beings use native primitive people, if she had a choice?

Maybe that analogy will get the point across: If you know the plans for constructing the death star by heart, that has no impact whatsoever on your survival chances in a jungle with a flint and wet wood.



The idea around the cultists is that they may have leaders on par with the Endless, stuck in a very primitive world with only primitive tools. They have all that knowledge and cannot apply most of it. What would happen?

I mean, they are Endless weapons. Even if they don't have best weaponry equiped, if machines produced by Endless' technology can be defeated by living trees, bows, swords, trampling, etc, then it feels like Endless aren't as advanced species as they have built up to have been. Heck, if Vaulter Titan can defeat Endless robots, then apparently Vaulters build as good robots as what Endless factories produce. It just makes Endless feel less impressive.



Then again, maybe my idea of robot soldiers is too much "Giant robot mechs with big laser guns", but you did say that The Cult impressed locals advanced tech which was my point <_< They fit better in scifi story than fantasy story in my opinion ^_^; Sorry. If they do win however,I wouldn't mind that either since I'd have to admit that it would be first time I have every played with scifi units in fantasy game which would also be pretty cool.



But yeah, I admit that my perspective might be scewed because when I hear advanced tech and robots, I assume they will have something really awesome instead of rundown rusty mechs that arefalling apart ^^; Sorry if I have misunderstood whole thing

@ melkathi



Personally I'd have gone for two voting rounds in the forum. Keeping the process simple. Only for the reason that it gives people that didn't vote for top selections the first time to re-look and vote. Nos already pointed out that the voting average is approx 4.6 per voter. And when you had been given 10 votes that tells me that your entries being voted for are not just down to what looks cool. I think you'll find there is a lot of self policing going on and some of the concerns you have are being dealt with by the community as it is.



Guess the collective mind works...





...that's why you should vote for #90



EDIT: Not 3.5 now 4.6

indigav wrote:






...that's why you should vote for #90

Damn that stupid list is too long



I had voted for 9 and was searching for that 10 faction I had decided to vote on. Now that you said the number I found it again Seriously went through the list three times. It is so easy to overlook something.

Also, I apologize if I have misunderstood Endless' tech level. I mean, they are the "precursors" of the setting, the advanced alien species that got wiped out but left advanced technology in their wake. Usuallythose type of aliens have incredible techology and Endless seem to have more advanced tech than whole tech tree in Endles Space since Endless Space's tech tree ends with technology allowing mind being uploaded into computers, like what Virtual Endless did. Unless I again misunderstood something. Anyway, tech tree in ES contains a lot of insane stuff like weapons that can shoot through planets, so I kinda have assumed that Endless robots would be on same tech level ^^;

ResonanceMask wrote:
I mean, they are Endless weapons. Even if they don't have best weaponry equiped, if machines produced by Endless' technology can be defeated by living trees, bows, swords, trampling, etc, then it feels like Endless aren't as advanced species as they have built up to have been. Heck, if Vaulter Titan can defeat Endless robots, then apparently Vaulters build as good robots as what Endless factories produce. It just makes Endless feel less impressive.



Then again, maybe my idea of robot soldiers is too much "Giant robot mechs with big laser guns", but you did say that The Cult impressed locals advanced tech which was my point <_< They fit better in scifi story than fantasy story in my opinion ^_^; Sorry. If they do win however,I wouldn't mind that either since I'd have to admit that it would be first time I have every played with scifi units in fantasy game which would also be pretty cool.



But yeah, I admit that my perspective might be scewed because when I hear advanced tech and robots, I assume they will have something really awesome instead of rundown rusty mechs that arefalling apart ^^; Sorry if I have misunderstood whole thing

The weapons available to the cult are "reinterpreted" servant-machinery of the Endless. Auriga was mainly a research-facility. So my prerogative there was: Unlikely they had major weapon-factories, but they needed servants for construction, maintenance, daily life.

And you have one of these little factories in a very very bad shape, barely running at all. For the locals, having inanimate matter becoming animate and walking around certainly IS magic. That it's actually a batch of dinner-serving robots that were handed a sword and a shield, for example, doesn't make them all-powerful. Maybe pitiful, but that's for the unit design contest to decide. I left that very much to anyones' imagination, so I wouldn't bias the city or unit creation, taking care to only set the basis for what the faction got as base-material and not telling what they actually made out of them.

I do see that this might be confusing, but I'm no good at arts, so I won't participate in either the unit creation or the city creation contest with pictures or at all. Therefore I found it to be sensible to allow people a lot of leeway of interpreting my faction's cities/units, should it be chosen.

melkathi wrote:
What guidelines were those? The theme is Minor Factions and you are allowed only one entry? Great guidelines

Not too much overlapping with roving clans, drakken stuff or raging wizards casting spells. Or any of the already playable ones for that matter.



More than enough to allow people to be creative while limiting some of the options. They could have told us "The faction must be humanoid" or "No more than 6 legs". Yet they didn't.



Then we got a few slapping the minors into their proposals while others are totally focused in the minors. The rest go somewhere in between. Some are drakken-related stuff. Others have magic. Some have no cities. And some people are too invested in their faction to accept anything else but victory.



In any case, people should be happy that they get to vote for more than one. The first impression by the rules and before people started "complaining" about it in the forum, was to vote only for one. Now you can vote up to 10. Even if you will just check the current results and try to vote somewhere that is not wasted (snowball!!!).



Still haven't voted.

Nosferatiel wrote:
The weapons available to the cult are "reinterpreted" servant-machinery of the Endless. Auriga was mainly a research-facility. So my prerogative there was: Unlikely they had major weapon-factories, but they needed servants for construction, maintenance, daily life.

And you have one of these little factories in a very very bad shape, barely running at all. For the locals, having inanimate matter becoming animate and walking around certainly IS magic. That it's actually a batch of dinner-serving robots that were handed a sword and a shield, for example, doesn't make them all-powerful. Maybe pitiful, but that's for the unit design contest to decide. I left that very much to anyones' imagination, so I wouldn't bias the city or unit creation, taking care to only set the basis for what the faction got as base-material and not telling what they actually made out of them.

I do see that this might be confusing, but I'm no good at arts, so I won't participate in either the unit creation or the city creation contest with pictures or at all. Therefore I found it to be sensible to allow people a lot of leeway of interpreting my faction's cities/units, should it be chosen.

Ah, I guess I hyped the Endless' tech level too much in my mind then ^^; Sorry for misinformed statements...

ResonanceMask wrote:
Ah, I guess I hyped the Endless' tech level too much in my mind then ^^; Sorry for misinformed statements...

Don't worry, it's an easy mistake to make based on me being rather obscure about the actual unit design. That's why I explained my reasoning, at length. Welcome to another Nos-lecture. There's countless of these around in the forums, I believe. XD

melkathi wrote:
And yet those are thoughts people idealy should have had while designing their factions.

And plenty of entries covered that area, in their own ways

In the end what it really comes down to is ego: do you want to work as a community and create something as a whole or do you want to work as individuals and then hope for recognition from the community.

Again, I just don't see how your idea would make us suddenly work as a community any more then the current one ^_^

You see a mess, I see a challenge

Aye, it would be a challenge. For the devs. Don't torture them Especially since the end result would most likely not be as cool as many of those current entries.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Since we don't have the people or the time/money to conduct this research, can't you all just agree to disagree?

+1

ResonanceMask wrote:
The Mesaima on other hand are microorganism, people in medieval-ish times wouldn't even know what microbe is or that they exist..

People in medieval times had no idea what yersinia pestis were but they still knew that bubonic plague was a thing. And bacteria responsible for said plague were MUCH smaller. Besides, Mesaima is intelligent and after taking someone's body, Mesaima would start introducing themselves as Mesaima. Infected people would look and behave differently so I'm pretty sure everyone would quickly realise that Mesaima are a thing

PANCZASU wrote:
People in medieval times had no idea what yersinia pestis were but they still knew that bubonic plague was a thing. And bacteria responsible for said plague were MUCH smaller. Besides, Mesaima is intelligent and after taking someone's body, Mesaima would start introducing themselves as Mesaima. Infected people would look and behave differently so I'm pretty sure everyone would quickly realise that Mesaima are a thing

Err, true. I just meant that even with learning aspect I think they work better as scifi race. But yeah, I do have to admit I have always wanted to play as parasites.. But that also applies to giant robots and cults worshipping lovecraftian horrors. I know I didn't make it clear in previous post, but I'm not getting excited about Nereids just because they are most fantasy-ish, its that among current winners(Maskari seem to be lagging behind now I'm sad about that, I like masks and stealthy stuff. Its in my name after all.) they really are my favourites <_< Though I think that might be because I see them in my head more eel like and less amazonian mermaid like which is probably something author didn't intend.... Plus that one concept artist did post concept of slavers done by him, so I think devs might have few ideas about how to have a race that practices slavery... Again, I blame my mind filling the gaps in the authors' post -_-; Author did say that they are more diplomatic nowadays though they can build slaveden, but for some reason my mind is focusing more on idea of aquatic female only fish alien slavers... Huh, now that I think about it, the breeding with other races is actually rather similar to what deep ones from Cthulhu mythos do... Agh, you see what I mean? I'm seeing things that author didn't actually write, but I like those ideas so I'm liking the idea more and more since it means I can attempt(assuming I suddenly learn how to draw I suck at drawing) to put my inspiration from the biography on part 2...



But yeah, I'm surprised by it as well <_< I figured out that I'd probably vote Mesaima since I like parasites and have always wanted to play as faction that infests other factions' units, but the Nereid idea has really grown on me.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Don't worry, it's an easy mistake to make based on me being rather obscure about the actual unit design. That's why I explained my reasoning, at length. Welcome to another Nos-lecture. There's countless of these around in the forums, I believe. XD

I guess its true that if author says what their ideas for units are and if voters like those ideas, then part 2 contestants would almost certainly design their units similar to author's ideas instead of using their own imagination... Thats actually pretty good idea. Means that second part would have a lot more variable entries.

PANCZASU wrote:
People in medieval times had no idea what yersinia pestis were but they still knew that bubonic plague was a thing. And bacteria responsible for said plague were MUCH smaller. Besides, Mesaima is intelligent and after taking someone's body, Mesaima would start introducing themselves as Mesaima. Infected people would look and behave differently so I'm pretty sure everyone would quickly realise that Mesaima are a thing

When bubonic plaque was a thing in mid 14th-century Europe, people understood that filth and unsanitary conditions were related to bubonic plaque, London for example. They however thought that evil spirits lived in that filth, making people sick. Bubonic plaque was seen as Devil's doings. They had no idea that it was caused by fleas who lived in rats, which were both living beings. People would realize the same way that Mesaima is evil and can kill you, but I doubt they would realize what causes it

Ottopoika wrote:
When bubonic plaque was a thing in mid 14th-century Europe, people understood that filth and unsanitary conditions were related to bubonic plaque, London for example. They however thought that evil spirits lived in that filth, making people sick. Bubonic plaque was seen as Devil's doings. They had no idea that it was caused by fleas who lived in rats, which were both living beings. People would realize the same way that Mesaima is evil and can kill you, but I doubt they would realize what causes it

Huh. Cool point. I think Mesaima could work in fantasy if they are build up as "spirits" that possess people while their true nature are parasites...



Kinda like how haunts are build up as ghosts while they are tooootally just crazy virtual endless Yeah, I'm not ever going to let go of that theory.

I'm still calling shenanigans on this whole thing, but I am sorry for being so upset earlier. I do think that this was done very poorly, however.