Narrative Improvement (Spoilers ahead)

danxd80

Hi everyone,
To start off I'm loving Below Zero so far, it's the start of something amazing.

What I've been seeing a lot of is reviews and comments about narrative and how the protagonist isn't isolated.

But I feel with a slight tweek to the narrative it'll work out better for the game. Spoilers after this point:

The start of the game is good up until you get into the water.
The first idea was when the antenna breaks, you lose contact with the vesper until you build a new radio, which can only be done after meeting Al-an. This would give her greater reason to not want to get a rescue shuttle and would make us feel more isolated.
Also an easier version might be that the storm continues until your PDA alerts you to the sanctuary where Al-an is.

In regards to the rescue pod that's sent down in the beginning from the Vesper, that could be changed to a small habitat that was already present in the area.

To be clear, I still love what you guys have done. I would just ask to consider the idea of slight changes as to improve the feel of the game.

darrin

SPOILER ALERT

I kind of agree with you and already suggested something similar.
But for me, it's mostly a question of how much you expect the devs to change things.

The first idea was when the antenna breaks, you lose contact with the vesper until you build a new radio, which can only be done after meeting Al-an. This would give her greater reason to not want to get a rescue shuttle and would make us feel more isolated.

I actually suggested that there shouldn't be a rocket to repair. It's totally inefficient to launch a rocket just for a small tissue sample.
Instead, the rocket should have been a communication station Robin has to repair in order to establish a two-way communication (and to prevent Alterra from sending someone to look after her).
___________

But if I could, I would change a lot more things:

1. I haven't found a reason why Robin should be on this planet in the first place. She's clearly unqualified for the mission.
2. I find it stupid and unnecessary that Robin enters a Precursor base right away. It's giving away one interesting part of the story too early.
3. I find it absurd that Robin decides to dive into freezingly cold water after the avalanche destroyed everything, rather than returning to the Precursor cave.
4. I find it stupid to see that one part of the cave clearly indicates that Robin will return there later throughout the game. Circular story design is bad as it devaluates what a player achieved! (everything... because she couldn't grab that ladder)
5. I find it hilarious that Robin loses everything necessary to be effective & efficient, but is able to DECIDE not to be rescued and rather CHOOSES to enjoy her own little wild life survival trip.
6. The idea of having snowy mountains on an oceanic planet is IMO a bad design choice. And to see that one of these few mountains causes an avalanche that buries the whole station is almost ridiculous.

___________

But no complains without an alternative suggestion --- So this is how I would have started the game:

I would have designed a huge ice sheet without any noticable mountains. However, in and below the endless sheet of ice, Alterra has found enclosed floating islands (reference to Subnautica 1) and even some possible precursor sites. That's why Alterra has set up a reseach base on top of the ice (similar to the idea of "Alien vs. Predator" (2004) or "Europa Report"(2013))

But due to yet unknown events, the ice shelf suddenly breaks, creating a catastrophic event that causes the whole research site to be shredded to pieces and to sink into the unknown arctic depths.

Thankfully, Robin survives the events in one of the pods or scanner rooms (maybe because the artifact she was studying is either hard enough to not get smashed or suddenly 'awakes' to create a protective effect). But in the end, she's now trapped below the ice. At first, everything is black around her without any hope of survival, but then - to her surprise - she finds that there's a complex ecosystem at the bottom of the ice.

Rotten biological material and deep sea vulcanos must have created bubbles of gas that went up but were trapped below the ice. This cummulated in large zones of gas that over the course of many millenia - and with the help of all kinds of Funghi - then transformed the zones of gas into pools of breathable air and a lush underwater ecosystem.


Thereafter, the game starts similar to Subnautica 1. The most noticable difference however: There's nothing below except endless darkness! The sea floor is out of reach and the only "ground" is the ice above!

Robin could then collect wreckage 'as normal' and would eventually make her way to the floating islands enclosed in the ice, to strange worm-like caves inside the ice or even dive further down.