Mekt-Hakkikt
Mpanty's bane
I'm afraid not.
Kilrathi game?
- Thread starter Farbourne
- Start date
I'm afraid not.
ELTEE
Vice Admiral
I'm sure there's a reference here that I'm missing; nonetheless, I'm going to answer the question anyway.
There's alot going on this week. I have decided to move to NY in the fall and will be informing my employer, friends, and assorted family of this fact as the week progresses. It's an exciting time - to add to the mix, I'll be buying for the first time. No more renting!
MA has been great, but I'd like to be a bit closer to family as well as to friends. There's an added bonus for local wingnuts as well - once I'm up and running, we'll get back to that Intrepid trip!
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
I don't know how far they got or if they're still around but there we're a few fan run RPGs that were from the Kilrathi perspective, so there's definitely interest in the idea. But the closest we have to an official game is Armada's kilrathi campaign.
I think in general though it's a concept that's a lot harder to execute in anything beyond an RPG or RTS game. The whole idea of making a player connect with the idea of being evil space cats and doing dastardly deeds is a lot harder sell when you try and aproach the idea seriously and not humorously as with the aformentioned Overlord games. How do I get into a game where I have to kill Humans with wanton abandon and feel good about it (bioweapons?) without cheating, and having the main character turn out to be good at the end?
The most interesting concept involving playing as Kilrathi though I think comes from a discussion I had on IRC with LOAF where we talked about a post prophecy scenario that essentially pitted a Human contingent with the Kilrathi, supporting a particular faction as a Civil war breaks out. It was essentially a version of Vietnam in space. So it's good Cats against evil Cats...
I think in general though it's a concept that's a lot harder to execute in anything beyond an RPG or RTS game. The whole idea of making a player connect with the idea of being evil space cats and doing dastardly deeds is a lot harder sell when you try and aproach the idea seriously and not humorously as with the aformentioned Overlord games. How do I get into a game where I have to kill Humans with wanton abandon and feel good about it (bioweapons?) without cheating, and having the main character turn out to be good at the end?
The most interesting concept involving playing as Kilrathi though I think comes from a discussion I had on IRC with LOAF where we talked about a post prophecy scenario that essentially pitted a Human contingent with the Kilrathi, supporting a particular faction as a Civil war breaks out. It was essentially a version of Vietnam in space. So it's good Cats against evil Cats...
RogueBanshee
Rear Admiral
I think a Kilrathi based game set in the early parts of the war would be fun.
Lt.Overload
Rear Admiral
Screw early parts, LET'S SEE THAT FIRST DRALTHI!
There are at least two sides to every war. No one in their right mind would lay down their life for what they felt to be an evil cause.
I can't remember if it's ok or not to bring up TIE Fighter around here, but they got it right. In TIE Fighter's case, you played with the mindset of an Imperial, seeing the Rebel Alliance as a group of terrorist insurgents whose objective is to shatter the peace established by the rightful successor state to the Galactic Republic, return to the days of petty wars and squabbles and sow chaos throughout the galaxy. That's a reasonable cause to fight against.
As long as Kilrathi culture and war aims are depicted in a favorable light, I imagine it would work. All it would take would be the right spin.
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
I agree about tie fighter to a degree... to the degree that you actually feel a connection to the actual story. While tie fighter was a good game it hardly touched Wing Commander's level of immersion in the universe itself.
That said, I also think that it would be a lot harder to sympathize with the Kilrathi than the imperials. It's not that it's not doable, but the imperials and their goals on most levels are a lot more relatable (especially with current politics) than the Kilrathi.
The Kilrathi were a militaristic and aggressive species that utilized brutal tactics to acheive dominance. They attack premptively pretty much all the time. Without resorting to something like being among the Ghora Khar rebels or something then it would be extremely difficult to make something compelling for a broader audience. How do you as you put it "put the right spin" on the Kilrathi side of the war?
The thing is, is that it can't just be a carbon copy of the Terran campaigns in the existing games. It just doesn't work. What's the point? It would be interesting to explore the heirarchy and life on a Kilrathi warship, but how do you feel involved in the actual campaign, since you know that most people today can't relate to a blind adherence to Sivar and the prophecies of Knathrak.
Mace
Vice Admiral
Ever played Klingon Acadamy? or the dark path of Jedi Knight? The cats are warriors, and while they do commit genocide, they are honorable, as seen in the FMV games, the cartoon, and the books.
And sure playing on the dark side can be fun(dune 2, command & conquer, etc), I would not mind playing call of duty from the other side and seeing an alternate ending.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
The Handbook says that Dralthi predate first contact with the Confederation by a century... so you wouldn't be fighting humans in that game.
The problem was that part of TIE Fighter was over in a few missions -- the lion's share of the game (and both addons) were about hunting down Imperial forces that had gone rogue as part of their evil plan to balance gameplay and keep you from hurting too many Luke Skywalkers. Klingon Academy, mentioned below, has exactly the same problem. You only fight the Federation in the simulator... the actual story is about a Klingon civil war. There is, or at least was, a definite fear of forcing players to unequivocally be the "bad guys".
Similarly, although we've seen quite a few World War II FPS games in the last decade (if they were placed end-to-end they would span the distance from the Earth to the Moon over nine million million times), few-if-any-at-all put you in the shoes of a German or a Japanese solider as anything but an option in multiplayer (if you finish all the secret objectives, Hitler gives you a tattoo!).
Well, that's actually one of the first questions we'd need to ask -- how are the Kilrathi *different* from fuzzy Klingons? (I think there *is* an answer, but I'm not sure it builds a better game; Kilrathi honor isn't a subset of our concept... it allows for all sorts of intrigue *and* it completely disregards other species'.)
Aginor
Vice Admiral
I could imagine being a Kilrathi and fighting the Kilrathi in the game.
I'm quite sure there was a lot of fighting between Kilrathi at all times, maybe even during the war.
The most interesting timeframe in my opinion is shortly before or after Prophecy. Doesn't someone in the Prophecy intro say that the Kilrathi "have their own problems" or something like that? It could be a clan war, using a lot of technology from the WC1 era to Prophecy.
The player could be from a clan who filled a power vacuum after the emperor died and the terrans destroyed Kilrah.
Enemies could include pirates, other Kilrathi (enemy clan), and the Terran confederation who wants to demilitarize the system(s) you're clan is living in, and dismantle all your military ships, which would leave you open to attacks by other Kilrathi and/or pirates, etc.
So you wouldn't be the complete bad-cat-guy, but not a "human with fur" either.
If the terrans aren't evil enough for you, you could also let the terran commander be a crazy person who lost someone of his family and wants to take the "law" into his own hands. His pilots are also full of hatred against your race, and follow him (somebody like Hawk ho has fought the Kilrathi for his whole life and just wants to go on).
Or maybe everything is just a farce (of some Admiral) to make the confederation spend more money for the military.
During the campaign there could be missions to sneak through a jump point to contact the confederation (they don't know about their little fleet of bastards), or even fighting with the confederation against their crazy commander.
If it took place after Prophecy, you could fight bugs as a Kilrathi, but I think it wouldn't be that satisfactory...
I'm quite sure there was a lot of fighting between Kilrathi at all times, maybe even during the war.
The most interesting timeframe in my opinion is shortly before or after Prophecy. Doesn't someone in the Prophecy intro say that the Kilrathi "have their own problems" or something like that? It could be a clan war, using a lot of technology from the WC1 era to Prophecy.
The player could be from a clan who filled a power vacuum after the emperor died and the terrans destroyed Kilrah.
Enemies could include pirates, other Kilrathi (enemy clan), and the Terran confederation who wants to demilitarize the system(s) you're clan is living in, and dismantle all your military ships, which would leave you open to attacks by other Kilrathi and/or pirates, etc.
So you wouldn't be the complete bad-cat-guy, but not a "human with fur" either.
If the terrans aren't evil enough for you, you could also let the terran commander be a crazy person who lost someone of his family and wants to take the "law" into his own hands. His pilots are also full of hatred against your race, and follow him (somebody like Hawk ho has fought the Kilrathi for his whole life and just wants to go on).
Or maybe everything is just a farce (of some Admiral) to make the confederation spend more money for the military.
During the campaign there could be missions to sneak through a jump point to contact the confederation (they don't know about their little fleet of bastards), or even fighting with the confederation against their crazy commander.
If it took place after Prophecy, you could fight bugs as a Kilrathi, but I think it wouldn't be that satisfactory...
Farbourne
Rear Admiral
There are a number of games that put the player in the role of the "bad guy" and give the player the opportunity to relish it. Folks have already mentioned TIE fighter. The KotOR games are another good example from the Star Wars universe. Both games give the player the option of playing as a "dark side" jedi, and to do to so you have to do some pretty evil things to other people--torturing folks for the fun of it, brutally killing innocents for amusement, etc. (actually, one of the big problems I had with the game is that the "dark side" model was too non-subtle...there was no subtle Darth Sidious-the-secret-manipulator potential, just evil mayhem). But judging from an awful lot of message boards and online content, a great many people relish playing the dark side. I'm sure there are other examples in the Star Wars universe (Force Unleased, maybe?)
Then you have Blizzard's RTS's. In Warcraft I and II, you have entire campaigns built around playing the orcs, where you do have a total disregard for human life (the briefings mention butchering or burning alive human captives and innocents), and you're encouraged to destroy all that is good an wholesome in the human world. In Starcraft and Brood War, you play entire campaigns as the Zerg, and Kerrigan (utterly ruthless and with a complete disregard for human or protoss life) is essentially a hero. Haven't played Warcraft III (my computer doesn't have the horsepower) or WoW, but my impression is that some of the "total immersion" campaigns are the same there. Now you can argue that a RTS isn't as immersive as Wing Commander, except that news recently posted here on CIC implies that Blizzard is going for exactly that, and modeling itself after Wing Commander.
These are examples of playing the bad guys, and all these bad guys lack even the Kilrathi sense of "honor" (as they define it). I think a Kilrathi game would be more compelling because there's so much intrigue to Kilrathi politics and class structure (I always pictured them as a cross between the Klingons and the Centauri).
Some folks have commented that they wouldn't want to fly Kilrathi craft against Confed. Well, yeah. It's hard. So is Standoff. And Standoff is fun because it's so hard. I think having to learn to press every edge you could to make the Dralthi match up would be fun... Like the BW Banshee, it's a craft with a lot of quirks, which would make it a great fighter, gameplay wise.
Then you have Blizzard's RTS's. In Warcraft I and II, you have entire campaigns built around playing the orcs, where you do have a total disregard for human life (the briefings mention butchering or burning alive human captives and innocents), and you're encouraged to destroy all that is good an wholesome in the human world. In Starcraft and Brood War, you play entire campaigns as the Zerg, and Kerrigan (utterly ruthless and with a complete disregard for human or protoss life) is essentially a hero. Haven't played Warcraft III (my computer doesn't have the horsepower) or WoW, but my impression is that some of the "total immersion" campaigns are the same there. Now you can argue that a RTS isn't as immersive as Wing Commander, except that news recently posted here on CIC implies that Blizzard is going for exactly that, and modeling itself after Wing Commander.
These are examples of playing the bad guys, and all these bad guys lack even the Kilrathi sense of "honor" (as they define it). I think a Kilrathi game would be more compelling because there's so much intrigue to Kilrathi politics and class structure (I always pictured them as a cross between the Klingons and the Centauri).
Some folks have commented that they wouldn't want to fly Kilrathi craft against Confed. Well, yeah. It's hard. So is Standoff. And Standoff is fun because it's so hard. I think having to learn to press every edge you could to make the Dralthi match up would be fun... Like the BW Banshee, it's a craft with a lot of quirks, which would make it a great fighter, gameplay wise.
Lt.Overload
Rear Admiral
My point exactly. If there IS a Kilrathi game, it should be told from before they met us humans. Like a prequel...showing how Kilrathi culture has evolved over time
ELTEE
Vice Admiral
I agree with this idea. The game could start with typical infighting between groups - maybe the empire is in chaos with no clear external enemy to 'unite' the clans.
It would be really interesting to see how the thoughts of the warriors serving on your ship would slowly change as first contact, then war with the Confederation is initiated. Might be an interesting perspective.
Lt.Overload
Rear Admiral
It'll also give us wingnuts more insight into our Kilrathi friends.
And if it IS in the WC era, it should be about Hobbes. Don't know why, I feel like he'd be Blair if Blair was a cat...maybe cuz he's the only kat that's lived so long
Mace
Vice Admiral
The original Jedi Knight game(aka DF 2) build up exactly in a way you wanted this, you would shift to the light or the dark side, depending on your behaviour(killing innocents to achieve your objectives, choosing your powers to fit your character, influencing your good/evil level bar in the options menu)
Somewhere they appearantly made a decision that you could choose(no matgter what you did before), in a single cutscene, as your companion was held near-death by the sith lord, you could choose to join him or continue on the right path, nomatter the action you took before that step, or your use of powers... Choose light, you save the force of the dead Jedi, Choose dark, you kill the guy anyway and take his place. The rest of the game does not matter.
And, well, just about anybody I know that played the game ended up using shield(light), healing(light), force grip(dark), and lightning(dark), that and standard powers. I guess somewhere in the game they chose to abandon the concept of total freedom in order to make the game more playable, it really sucked in the reply value though....
Hobbes would actually make the best character to play, and his decisions or character from the book does not need to matter, you influence so you alter timelines, like the vega sector could have been won, the sivar was in a slugging match with the behemoth, the defection never happened, earth was taken and blair killed, humans and cats are fighting off the nephilim together, etc, etc... Like Red alert, a game could exist in an alternate timeline, it's just a matter of putting it in the right package.
The light side gets defense powers and the dark side gets damage powers, it's the way things have been as long as there have been force powers in games.
Yes, but why? I can see, say, Force Choke being a dark side power, and healing being a light side power- but why should throwing up a force shield or using force lightning be light or dark side?
Aginor
Vice Admiral
Because creating, healing, defending or conserving something is always considered as good, while destroying something is evil.
Of course a jedi of the light side can use dark force powers. But to overuse it means that the dark side gains power over that jedi.
Remember Luke using the Force Choke (in Jabba's palace)? Good jedi can use dark force powers. They just don't like to, because they are the good guys. They try not to harm anyone if possible.
Ahemm... But this topic is not about SW, so probably we should switch back to topic.
Of course a jedi of the light side can use dark force powers. But to overuse it means that the dark side gains power over that jedi.
Remember Luke using the Force Choke (in Jabba's palace)? Good jedi can use dark force powers. They just don't like to, because they are the good guys. They try not to harm anyone if possible.
Ahemm... But this topic is not about SW, so probably we should switch back to topic.
Dyret
Super Carrot!
Does the casual gamer, you know, the people you're trying to sell games to, actually give a shit who or what they're supposed to be as long as it has stunning graphics, great action, and awesome gameplay? I'm sure all the kids would love to bio-bomb earth into oblivion and shoot down orphan-ships for the right x-box achievements.
Besides, being baaad in games is fun. Like those moments in the GTA's when you got a 4-5 star wanted level and find yourself in the middle of the road desperately unloading clip after clip into police and bystanders indiscriminately trying earn a few extra seconds to escape to safety. You're definitely not a hero, but it's amazingly intense and fun.
In Starsiege's Cybrid campaign you kill all the good guys and bring humanity to extinction... and suck people's brains out. It's still totally awesome.
Also, force choke shouldn't be evil. It totally brings joy into people's lives. Seriously though, lightninging at people isn't nice. Get over it.
Besides, being baaad in games is fun. Like those moments in the GTA's when you got a 4-5 star wanted level and find yourself in the middle of the road desperately unloading clip after clip into police and bystanders indiscriminately trying earn a few extra seconds to escape to safety. You're definitely not a hero, but it's amazingly intense and fun.
In Starsiege's Cybrid campaign you kill all the good guys and bring humanity to extinction... and suck people's brains out. It's still totally awesome.
Also, force choke shouldn't be evil. It totally brings joy into people's lives. Seriously though, lightninging at people isn't nice. Get over it.