Subnautica - the next level
Racer1
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9615Members
Up until now, Subnautica has been moving along very well as a survival/exploration combo game. There is still much work to do, but the end is in sight. Many games stop here, effectively plateauing the player at full tech. Its time to decide what is next.
Options:
- Builder game (ala Minecraft) - With the terraformer and base building, this is effectively the current direction of the Subnautica "end-game" - but could be expanded with more tools.
- Expanded lifeforms and terrain to explore - This is most rewarding, but also very expensive for UWE (unless a modding tool is provided to gamers, which itself is daunting)
- Provide top-tier optional quests (ala WoW) - This would perhaps go against the UWE "make your own story" mantra, but could give fully teched-up players the direction they desire, while letting other players to happily build their base/lairs. A quest modding tool (with limited ability to add new content) could facilitate this in the future.
- Multiplayer (coop) - UWE has already mentioned this could be added after "1.0". It does provide additional fun for some, but at a huge cost of complexity and logistics. It could provide incentive to many gamers that simply refuse to play single player games. However, it still doesn't say what the players will do - so is only a partial answer.
- Expanded science/ecosystem - Provide the player to research and develop ways to make the plants and animals grow better. The ability to transplant, grow, and cross-breed species was once on the radar - perhaps it should come back. To make this competitive, pit players against each other (single-player leaderboards) to see who can build the most efficient, largest, or longest lasting ecosystem.
- Unique game modes/scenarios - While hardcore mode provides a certain type of replayability, it isn't for everyone. Many games provide 5x the replayability by modifying game rules slightly, or putting the player in specific scenarios that they must survive.
- End game goals - Such as escape via ship, rescue, building a certain object, discovering the cause of the crash, etc. This has been debated vigorously and I don't think it is necessary to debate it anymore here. Each player has their own preferences. As long as players have the option to continue playing their game after the event occurs, it can still be satisfying.
- Other high-level ideas?
Options:
- Builder game (ala Minecraft) - With the terraformer and base building, this is effectively the current direction of the Subnautica "end-game" - but could be expanded with more tools.
- Expanded lifeforms and terrain to explore - This is most rewarding, but also very expensive for UWE (unless a modding tool is provided to gamers, which itself is daunting)
- Provide top-tier optional quests (ala WoW) - This would perhaps go against the UWE "make your own story" mantra, but could give fully teched-up players the direction they desire, while letting other players to happily build their base/lairs. A quest modding tool (with limited ability to add new content) could facilitate this in the future.
- Multiplayer (coop) - UWE has already mentioned this could be added after "1.0". It does provide additional fun for some, but at a huge cost of complexity and logistics. It could provide incentive to many gamers that simply refuse to play single player games. However, it still doesn't say what the players will do - so is only a partial answer.
- Expanded science/ecosystem - Provide the player to research and develop ways to make the plants and animals grow better. The ability to transplant, grow, and cross-breed species was once on the radar - perhaps it should come back. To make this competitive, pit players against each other (single-player leaderboards) to see who can build the most efficient, largest, or longest lasting ecosystem.
- Unique game modes/scenarios - While hardcore mode provides a certain type of replayability, it isn't for everyone. Many games provide 5x the replayability by modifying game rules slightly, or putting the player in specific scenarios that they must survive.
- End game goals - Such as escape via ship, rescue, building a certain object, discovering the cause of the crash, etc. This has been debated vigorously and I don't think it is necessary to debate it anymore here. Each player has their own preferences. As long as players have the option to continue playing their game after the event occurs, it can still be satisfying.
- Other high-level ideas?
Comments
My idea:
-What if instead of making the planet habitable for humans, you could 'go rogue' and use the terraforming technology on the Aurora to "upgrade" the planet's ecosystem? You could take species from Earth-maybe even its prehistory-and reshape them to better suit this new environment, releasing them into the wild to enhance the planet's ecosystem.
The original mission was to terraform the planet, so I'm assuming the devs are going to make that the end-game goal. As with play-ability afterwards, there is nothing stopping the player from continuing to explore after the primary objective is completed.
Also, there should NOT be any missions, or quests besides the primary terraforming mission. Such a poor game design would detract from the player's own ingenuity. The game is meant to spark natural curiosity, not fork over a road map - it is about exploration after all. Discovering how and why the Aurora went down is the only other conceivable mission. Too many games spoon feed players answers and create a sh*tty gaming experience (which is one thing that Minecraft avoided altogether).
An intelligent alien race has been proposed, but I'm dubious. It feels out of place. The current theme is that the player is an ancient alien, not the other way around... but who knows. The more plausible scenario is the existence of a developing intelligent race. I've got my money on the Warper playing a major role.
Human tampering has not yet been ruled out as the cause of the crash. Perhaps the Aurora was meant to destroy existing planetary life to make the world ripe for taking... again who knows.
With the eventual implementation of Transfuser we will begin to see a clearer picture of what the game is going to be about. The Transfuser is poised to make up large part of how players experience the game and interact with the environment. As with the analysis of species, it seems that scientific understanding of the planet's biosphere will comprise the majority, or much of the games duration - combined with an emphasis on exploration of new environments, collection of resources, and the development of outposts in said new frontiers.
That's may take on it anyway.