Ugh, the Florans reek of "ooh, look how unique and different our plant people are".
And which space-faring plant peoples are these plant people trying to be different from exactly?
I mean, look at the first line of their introduction: "One would expect a race of sentient humanoid plants to be peaceful, nature-loving environmentalists." They start out the description of them by selling them on what they're not.
Plant people are typically pseudo-elves. It doesn't really matter that they're space plants because at their heart they're still plant people, just put in space. And you can be a cool enough race by just being put into a sci-fi space environment, like Vulcans and the Eldar which are both basically just elves in space. You don't need to have elves in space that are also tribal and also cannibalistic and also scavengers. Plant people have a little more room for variance but the Florans just seem.
They just remind me of a fledgling author that tries so hard to avoid cliches that his work ends up hollow because it's more focused on being unique than on embracing common plot elements to be the best it can be as a whole.
What you meant to say was "None of the races are good player races for me".
I apologize, I used that as a general thing. And I know some of you probably like the races, but they could just be better and more appealing. Races typically should be advertising something beyond aesthetics or gameplay.
What is the roleplaying-esque theme that a player wants to embrace when they choose your race? What are the parts of your race that will make players have arguments with each other over which race is best? Will your race have fans that will hope to play it in future games, or will it be a throwaway that people just remember as Humanoid Plant Variant 84?
Guild Wars 2 is a recent example of a game that does this really well. Their races all have a theme behind their culture that's something players would want to be. You don't play a Norn because you want to be eight feet tall, you play a norn because the race is manly as fuck. They're loud, mean, they drink, and they settle everything by brawling. In a way they fit the common dwarf tropes, but that's a good thing. Those tropes are around because they're good enough to stick around.
"I want to be a really mean plant" just doesn't have the same appeal. I guess they sort of fill the feral, predatory mindset but they're too diluted with other things to really have that as their core.
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Topic: Starbound - We have lift off. (Read 995586 times)