I have always liked Star Trek universe myself but I have always wanted the themes to get a little darker and the aliens and the planets to be a little bit more harsh/extreme. I have always like adventure type games and a REAL space adventure would be great. But any game would have to have Parkan II or Precursors type game play where you can space travel and do fps combat or interact with the environment. I think it is really hard to create the adventure game we are looking for Auryx because it requires a lot of time creating many, maybe even hundreds of unique and realistic planets and alien species to really give it the awe factor. I would be happy with a few races spread across many planets but have them be faction based so they are not all one race.

Another paper and pen RPG, Traveller or MegaTraveller as it was known for awhile now back to being called Traveller. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_%28role-playing_game%29 it would be set in the old Traveller universe of the Third Imperium with the Human-centric universe and only a few alien races.

Theirs has been a couple of computer rpg games from the early nineties set in the Universe but so much more could be done now.

It's also worth noting that the Elite series borrows heavy from Traveller.

<nods>

Babylon 5 would make another excellent space trading game.

Some good ideas here, yeah Babylon 5 would make for an awesome space trading game.

I tend to think of sci-fi settings in terms of the memes (or "tropes") present in them, and actually, I find myself liking the alien-less ones more. While aliens can provide for a good sci-fi setting, they're also in danger of turning it into fantasy, i.e. elves and dwarves by any other name. I much prefer the "lonely starfarer" style of play which focuses on mankind's exploration of the universe, competing nations with different ideologies, noble Houses which dominate certain areas, and clever merchant princes who can always escape the bad guys and turn a profit at the end of it. There's elements of this in Elite, Traveller, Privateer, and classic sci-fi like the Foundation series. Of course, the aforementioned Warhammer 40K setting is an exception to this preference, but it's just too awesome to dislike <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-)' />

That makes me think of Dune, with it's noble houses.

I don't know much about 40k but IIRC is not one of the central themes a new dark age where technology is only in the hands of a few.

I have always like the idea of having a galactic empire which has collapsed although a few worlds have managed to retain their technology as in the foundation books, it would make for an interesting game background.

Yeah - in 40K civilisation collapsed millenia ago as a result of the "Dark Age of Technology". It's still around, but the twist is that it's not technology that's bad, it's innovation. Existing tech in 40K therefore gets older and older and more arcane, and must be placated with prayers to the Machine God....but actually trying to create new tech is heresy! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':-)' />

And yes Foundation would be a great background too.

Firefly. The only problem is in fleshing out the universe as the TV series was a little truncated. I heard rumor of a firefly MMO many moons ago but dunno if it ever materialised

I played Star Trek Online, about ~100 hours. Didn't like it so much. My main problem with Star Trek is, that everyone is humanoid. Of course this may be owed to the time it was created... but still.

Star Trek is way to good guys - bad guys for me. I play SW:TOR at the moment and it is OK but nothing ground breaking. I loved Babylon 5 back in the days, I still have all episodes somewhere on my HDD. But watching it lately... aren't there all xenos humanoid too?

I really wanted 'The Dark Millenium Online' to be released, as the universe (W40k) offers not just good and bad guys but many options for something in between. And at least with the Chaos faction it starts to become less humanoid in appearance.

Firefly would have been a nice MMO setting, cowboys and aliens, future tech combined with an spirit of discovery.

If I have to decide: Warhammer 40k MMO, because it could offer a wide variety of classes, races and stories.

My 2c on this:

As referred, Dune would be an interesting setting, although the guild monopoly *might* complicate things - or make it more interesting.

Peter F. Hamilton's Night Dawn trilogy universe is another one: different non monolithical factions, opposed but not quite. Alastair Reynolds non FTL universe would be quite challenging - too much

Another option would be David Weber Honor Harrington universe. 3 great factions, with many smaller ones possible.

But my favourite, the one I'd love to see would be David Brin's Uplift Universe (startide rising, ...). The richness and possibilities are just way too interesting - how about being a spaceship captain dolphin? Multiple level hyperspaces, exotic civilization, psionic energy, race politics,...

(those that do not know this series and are interested in SF, it is mandatory reading - Hugo, Locus and Nebula winner).

Hi all,

I have only one word : Chanur ! 1st of all from all the universes I would want to roam in a videogame...

Oh, and let's add the Humanx Commonwealth and TOG/Renegade Legion. And Pyros's proposal of Night Dawn is very good, though I'm not so fan of the horror side (except in Death Valley, but that's entirely another thing).

As for Firefly, there is actually a tabletop RPG, but I've never heard of a videogame.

I think you'll see, despite considerable differences, a few analogies... Yes, I'm biaised towards universes featuring a few species and states and a minimum of depth in the geopolitical setting...

I confess I'd never heard of Chanur, or the Humanx Commonwealth - I need to read some of those books 🙂

I don't tend to like settings with lots of alien races much, because to me, it then just becomes like fantasy or like Star Trek. In general, I prefer settings where humans are alone in the universe, still exploring, maybe finding occasional mysterious ruins suggesting past alien races...but where space is vast and lonely and full of strangeness 🙂

EDIT: in fact, I already said that in my post above. But it was nearly 2 years ago so I will forgive my forgetfulness!

auryx

Hi auryx,

Yes, I'm a post necromancer ^-^ but this one seemed quite interesting.

In fact, I also tend to frown upon settings with too many alien species. But any setting with just a few species, intra-species factions opposition and not too strong manicheism is likely to appeal to me. And that's precisely what the Chanur setting is ! Pyanfar Chanur is just a merchant trying to survive through the mayhem of politics sparkled by her "finding" something - or rather someone - everybody is searching for. She also has an idea of the poilitical implications of her decisions and tries to navigate amidsts all that without too much collateral damage...

Another setting I've always liked is that of Transhuman Space, an old pen-and-paper RPG supplement for the GURPS system - I'm a big fan of it and have collected most of the sourcebooks over the years. Some blurb text from the website:

It's the year 2100. Humans have colonized the solar system. China and America struggle for control of Mars. The Royal Navy patrols the asteroid belt. Nanotech has transformed life on Earth forever, and gene-enhanced humans share the world with artificial intelligences and robotic cybershells. Our solar system has become a setting as exciting and alien as any interstellar empire. Pirate spaceships hijacking black holes...sentient computers and artificial "bioroids" demanding human rights...nanotechnology and mind control...Transhuman Space is cutting-edge science fiction adventure that begins where cyberpunk ends.

Though the setting was produced a number of years ago and is slightly dated, it's full of intriguing and very well thought-out concepts that somehow feel very possible for the near future, based on the way technological research and politics are moving today. Memetics (the science of studying how ideas propagate) is big business; humans can be modified at the genetic level to allow adaption to nearly any hostile environment; pressure groups and terrorists fight governments; and space is mostly owned and explored by corporations and the nations of Earth who co-exist uneasily with each other. There's no faster-than-light travel (as yet) and it's limited to the solar system, but it somehow manages to be more "rich" and real than many other settings I've seen.

If you get the chance to check any of the sourcebooks, I'd highly recommend them.

auryx

Hi auryx,

Got it, indeed it's a marvelous near-future setting, a deep RPG using many cyberpunk elements seen for instance in Voice of the Whirlwind, Nights Dawn and the Ophiuchi Hotline. Generally, solar-system-scale settings are just downsized space-operas, but this one is really different. It's a kind of cyberpunk in space, a showreel of what could do transhuman ideas if we had the techs and will to apply them full-scale.