Will Weissbaum: We, uh, have memory flashcards that we practice with every morning as we start the day. Just, you know, "Charon" ... "Hades system" ... just drills constantly.Dave Haddock: A trained dog.WW: Uhh, we have an internal wiki page that we use to sort a lot of things. A lot of times we are using the public-facing page, just like you all are. I search the Galactic Guide posts every single day to check information or things that we said. It's really hard to keep track of everything, and I-... my biggest resource and tool is Dave. Dave, you're my biggest tool!DH: Hey, appreciate that!WW: Whenever I have a question I ask Dave and he, most of the time will be able to rattle off an answer off the top of his head. It's pretty impressive.
Will Weissbaum: ... No.Dave Haddock: I seem to recall that there was some discussion about the time...WW: Game time is condensed...DH: I think. I dunno if they've ever really locked down what the number is gonna be... what the actual number is gonna be. But there was talk that it was gonna be condensed a bit, just to facilitate some stuff. It's actually kind of more a design thing.WW: But, I mean... If we want a long expansion of time to happen in game so that players are fighting in a war for 3 months in the real world, then that would probably be a multi-year war. It would feel dragged out. Or a least a year, like, I feel...DH: It'd be a bigger event, yeah. But if we're talking like the civil war of Charon III - something that maybe players take part in, or may not take part in - maybe if its an event that's happening it might be-... that might be a little bit closer. But yeah, particularly if you're generating content for something as big as a war, you want to be able to let people... you know, you don't wanna sell yourself short by having it last a week and then take it up and get rid of it.WW: Yeah. Plus you usually don't go into wars knowing how long they're gonna last. So that's kinda working in our favor.DH: Right.WW: You know, "let's go fight a three-month war!"DH: "You know what? I only got enough budget for a three-month war!"
Will Weissbaum: Oooooooooh.Dave Haddock: Gettin' around Valentines Day.WW: Ummm...DH: Uhh, sure! I mean, you know, it's the-... a lot of the adventure stuff is kind of why pulp is popular. It's very easy and fun, and it gets a lot of people excited. I think we ultimately wanna have all sorts of stories that take place in this universe, and not all of them are gonna be daring-do or heinous acts.WW: But yeah, I think there's definitely room for romantic stories to be told in Star Citizen. Especially now that we have 890 Jumps out there with that hot tub... so...DH: Plus in the Constellation - in the Phoenix!WW: Oh crap, I totally screwed that up! It's not the 890 - the 890 doesn't have a hot tub.DH: It probably does, but yeah, it was the Phoenix.WW: Oh, that's not cool. Let me do that again...DH: Okay. Take two.WW: Uh, yeah. I think there probably is plenty of room for like a romantic story to be told in Star Citizen. Hopefully we'll have something like that coming up, especially now that people can fly around in the Phoenix and have that hot tub - that's just made for romance.DH: True enough...
Dave Haddock: Hmm, I'm not sure... possibly. If I recall correctly, the Pilgrims were able to-... uh, they had sort of powers... if I remember correctly.Will Weissbaum: They were like the first interstellar settlers, and they had like their hopper drives, and whatever.DH: Right, yeah. I don't think it was-... 'cause but they had like a skill - they were really adept at flying in hyper-, in light speed or something. I don't recall.WW: Uh, no. [directed at the questioner]DH: Probably not then!
Dave Haddock: Yes.Will Weissbaum: Yeah, I mean every single piece of lore that we post (like, pretty much, like 95%!) is looked at by the design team in some aspect, to make sure that what we're writing matches what you'll be able to do. We don't want to be spinning tales and writing checks that we can't cash.DH: It's been-... We realized very early on that there was an instant connection between what we released as lore, and what you guys thought would be in the game. So we started to really tailor it to make sure that, at any given time, what we're releasing is at least inline with the spirit and the idea of what it ultimately would like to be in the game. Obviously the mechanics will shift and refine and stuff like that, but yeah, you know... the idea is that we're trying to emulate hopefully what the experience will be like. So some of the places that you see, you read about, will be places that you can visit. The characters that you read about will be characters that you can interact with, and that sort of thing.
Dave Haddock: I actually checked with Ben on this one. I seem to recall it was... I couldn't get an exact date... but I seem to recall it was fairly recent, like within 20-25 years. That's what I remember, but as for an exact date...Will Weissbaum: Uh, the exact date is THIS! [holds his hands out, as if gesturing that an annotation will appear on the video, but it never does]DH: TBD.
Dave Haddock: That already happens, doesn't it?Will Weissbaum: Heheh. I think everything we do gets dissected.DH: Pretty much dissected as is, but, yeah...WW: I mean, there is that kind of hope that everything we've written - and we try really hard - is consistent. Internally it has a logic that flows from piece to piece, and I'm sure once the Galactapedia-... I mean every day we realize that we've written ourselves into a corner, or we have a tight spot to kind of go at, or something that we really wish we could do if this one little piece of information we threw out casually had been different. And then we have to sit and think, "alright, is there a way we can do this without changing that story..?"DH: Yeah. It's that weird fine line that we're sort of running into where it's like, we're embracing the fact that we're in open development so this is the time for things to change, but at the same time we want to avoid retconning stuff because, you know, you guys are getting used to this universe and this world, and stuff like that. And having to kind of go back and go, "oh wait, is that planet still exist, or have they said that it doesn't exist?" or, you know, whatever - we're trying to minimize that to make it as painless as possible.WW: Yeah, there's so much to wrap your head around already, without changing things on you mid-stream, and even though we're in development we're trying to...[camera cut]WW: What's your biggest fear in general? Just in life... like, spiders?DH: Uhh, the ocean.WW: Oh! That's a good one...DH: Yeah... 'cause that's where Cthulu lives.
Dave Haddock: That is a good question.Will Weissbaum: That IS a good question! Uh, give yourself plus one points. Good job.DH: I think at the end of the day, you're still talking about a person. Whether they're Xi'An or human, this is a person who has wants, has needs, has things that they're trying to achieve... things they don't like... stuff like that. I think in any given day, most human beings wouldn't take into account history and culture, but that colors how they interact and how they do stuff, so it's... I don't think it necessarily dictates their behavior, but it just sort of skews how they might react to certain circumstances. But I dunno, I always try to keep the character and what they want as sort of the focus.WW: Who is this specific being? I mean, that can be a thing that you get hung up on, 'cause you think in your head, "oh, Banu act this way," and then you end up writing stereotypes instead of characters.DH: Right!WW: Which, even with our alien races, I think we're trying to avoid that.DH: Yeah, we want them to feel complex, and interesting, and you know, as dynamic, and intelligent, and exciting, and complicated as humanity is - you want to give that sort of aspect to the aliens as well.WW: But trying to reverse the thought, and think about how weird humans might seem, and what are the weird things that humans do, to kind of get that frame of reference. Have you ever been walking along and just look at all the people driving around in cars and wearing clothes, and thinking like if this was animals doing it, it'd be the strangest thing you'd ever seen. So, something like that. Is that weird? I feel like Mark Skelton all of a sudden...WW & DH: [Chuckling ensues]
Will Weissbaum: Well right now it's really just anything. Just anything in the game would be wonderful to see!Dave Haddock: Yeah, that would be cool.WW: So much stuff... like we just showed the Persistent Universe for the first time, and the FPS. And all the modules are coming together right now, so we're on the cusp of all this content just exploding in - so that's pretty exciting.DH: Yeah... I dunno. I'm gonna go with what most of the people in the "Ask a Dev" in the community are looking for - I want to say Tevarin. That's my big thing. I want to see Tevarin.WW: Ooh, the mysterious Tevarin - that's pretty good. Like, exploring the universe, what do I want to see? I think I kinda have a place in my heart that I really wanna go visit Spider. I think that'll be a really cool setting, and if it ends up anywhere near as cool as I have in my head, I think that would be a really awesome location.DH: Yeah. That one's gonna be... that one's gonna be fun.
Dave Haddock: Uh, yes! Player driven events have been sort of a day-1 thing that Chris has always talked about. He wants the-... when the game goes live there are two things that are propelling the history of the UEE forward - and part of it is us, and part of it is the players. So, yes. Whether it's something as... you know, discovering jump points, finding new systems, being the one who takes out "Dread Pirate Roberts", whatever - the players are going to become part of the history, and that's sort of... you know... whoever discovers the Artemis! ... Yada, yada, yada.Will Weissbaum: And hopefully the overall story that's the ongoing story will shift and change based on how players are interacting with the world.DH: Yeah, and be reactive to them - adjusting plans based on what players seem to be gravitating towards, or away from, or stuff like that.WW: It will be exciting to work out just how fast we can iterate on what's going on in the world, and kind of react, and make it a conversation between us; the developers, and you; the player.