Star Citizen: Making Lore - A Loremaker's Guide Special Edition

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   [Music] w hello everybody and welcome to a special edition of the lore makers Guide to the Galaxy making lore uh I'm your host Community manager Jared Huckaby and with me today are the members of the cig Lord team out of our Los Angeles office immediately to my right is lead writer Mr Dave hadock hello say say hello Dave

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   hello uh to my left is senior right Mr will Weiss bomb hey good to be here to his left associate writer Mr Adam Weiser hello and to my right last but certainly not least archist Miss sherberg hi hello and these are your normal hosts for the L makers guide of the Galaxy now in our we' passed 20 episodes recently I think we we passed 20 episodes feels like it John Shimmel couldn't be here because he's our designated survivors so if you've never seen the L makers Guide to the Galaxy before for or it doesn't mean it's Survivor that's where one of these One of These Fine people take you on a tour of some of the systems that are designed and will soon be available in the Star Citizen Universe uh soon being a relative term uh relatively overused one so we wanted

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   to take some time today and talk a little bit about the process uh how lore is actually made for a video game since uh that's not a that's not a a part of the video game story that often gets told not not my experience I don't see a lot about the origins of story and the folks that create it and how that comes about yeah I mean we've touched a little bit on in the Asad Dev section on the forums and in previous 10 for the writers but it's always great to flesh out kind of what goes into that and how we fit in with the team here so let's go right back to the beginning uh what is it no uh November 2012 October 2012 when did we start creating lore for Star CI uh we actually started creating it um that July of 2012 July or August um it was probably a month before the uh teaser site went up

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   so basically Chris's announcement was on uh October 12th at GDC and in the buildup to it basically he wanted to start kind of teasing that something was coming and so the idea was that we did this sort of time Caple thing where it was every day of September basically we did a different post written in fiction uh kind of moving the timeline from present day to the day of the announcement that the game was going to take place then now was this the this is the first lore that we released but was this the first lore that was created for Star Citizen uh no actually the uh the early conversations were basically just sort of very broad stuff of like you know and Chris is talking in live stream actually we were talking about at the Taran thing about you know uh looking at the uh fall of the Roman Empire as sort

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   of an inspiration for you know this this type of stuff but a lot of it was very large scale but um sort of high level discussions about who are the good guys who are the bad guys that was what led to the sort of let's make it more about Shades of Gray rather than black and white you know that type of stuff uh and we actually ended up doing the the time capsules were something that uh we did in our discussions uh for ourselves to figure out what was happening and then we sort of modified them to turn them into the Time Capsule so that was sort of how because you hit all the major points of what the major discoveries were uh in that those 30 days okay so you get jump points you get Bandu you get Banu Shion tavar and War Messer uh synth world all that stuff gets kind of

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   parsed out and it's fun how those foundational elements are still something that I go back to in my writing like really frequently like a lot of our stuff stem from those original ripples that came out of that original timeline Series yeah and not just for you guys for our fanfiction writers I'll often get requests from our fans they go hey is there has there been a story about this or whatnot I okay I'll take a couple minutes ah of my time and I'll find some old post on the old website from 2012 like yeah this is kind of what you were talking about we yeah we do get a lot of questions about like oh I'm thinking about doing a story about this is this okay does this fit in the lore and what's kind of nice about Star Citizen usually answer is as long as it's a small contained Story the answer is yes you can probably write

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   that story in Star Citizen it's a huge Universe it's multiple Space Systems everything can happen there as long as you're not saying like a whole planet is made out of cheese like it's okay but if it's a small group of people they can have a weird strange awesome adventure and and it's like if the the the ramifications of it you know if you're writing a character who's like the going to be the guy who shot Ivar Messer that would obviously conflict with sort of our stylish lore but you could write someone who was struggling against iarms or who you know died or went over to the dark side you know whatever as long as it's sort of within the framework and yeah it doesn't really mess with kind of the established stuff there's a lot of potential to do while we're talking about the the fan picture stuff there were there are writer guides that we've released several posts uh yeah I think it was ultimately was 13 a 13

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   installment thing we actually need to probably update it soon probably but it was yeah it was basically it was cuz at the time yeah we were getting a lot of there was a a very I mean from the day we launched we had a huge fanfiction section so this was sort of an attempt to kind of put together a cohesive guide that was written outside of lore so we could say like hey if you're writing for the government this is the type of character that they are and you should write them like this you know this is how the military kind of Acts you know type type stuff rather than having to frame it within some kind of fictional context but that way people could kind of go like oh okay the you know the Banu are like this the Shion are like this the or like this you know so uh but yeah we do need to update that but I think a lot of that heavy lifting will hopefully be taken on by the galactic pedia when that right goes live yeah because a lot of

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   that kind of bite-sized information chunks we're putting effort into developing that more yeah yeah I've been spending I've been spending a lot of time referring to some of the older material like the Time Capsule series and the writer guides trying to do the first pass on all the gocopia Articles it's been really helpful and I got to say I really like the Time Capsule series that's one my favorites so the time they okay so the Time Capsule series was one of the first thing first things that we published along with the was was the kid crimson and the Cassandra's tears yeah that was after the announcement so basically um Chris ended up really liking the the Time Capsule thing as a as a way to dispense kind of little bite-sized bits of knowledge and so that after we we we did the announcement uh there was sort of a okay

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    so how are we going to keep we've started to get this massive interest how do we kind of keep it going and uh and so yeah he wanted to kind of keep that threat alive so that turned it into our sort of Weekly News dispatch that we still do today like we do a week of this now is Tuesdays every Tuesday it's a single news article that kind of gives you a sense of what's happening in the universe and stuff like that but uh but yeah then we I was doing the cassander tear which is Cal Mason story and kid Crimson uh it was like I think it was like Monday was Cal Mason Wednesday was news dispatch Friday was kid Crimson for uh till December so like and those stories are still available on the website yeah yeah you can go if you go into the Spectrum dispatch section you can find all of the okay so uh before we get to the process once we've started

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    making the game this is all before we've started building the game when when Chris comes to you and says we're going to make this game it's going to be this massive sprawling Universe where do you start like what what do you remember the very first thing the the very first piece if it's not too spoiler related like where do you start when you have to create a massive Universe for for for for video for two video games yeah I mean the thing the the this fall the Roman Empire thing was a helpful thing because that sort of thematically binds you in sort of a okay so you have a an empire under strain Financial military strain and it's reaching a Breaking Point as a as a kickoff point that you have a lot to go with in that uh I mean I always to me it always seems like you know it's like sketching if you start

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    part of the approach for for drawing is you start with the broad shapes ovals and then yeah ovals and and kind of flow and you know and pose and then you refine the shape and you fill in the details it's kind of the same thing I mean it's very easy it's or I would say it's probably very very hard to start really really micro and be like I'm going to write out religion from now until the 30th century and completely develop that on its in a vacuum and then go all right I've done that now I'm going to do food you know so like it's every food yeah like it gets very you know you're just going to you're going to snow yourself under you're never actually going to build the big picture so it's easier to start kind of big yeah we we have there's so many needs for us coming from a lot of the different areas departments like guns and engines and main story lines and

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    planetary writeups that we operate very much on a a need basis like we don't have time unfortunately sit there and flesh out a full like every Murray Cup racer since the history of it we only know the years that we had a write about for particular stories and they'll keep growing in and filling in as we needed if we need to like if there art requests at the Murray Cup headquarters for a plaque that lists every winner then we'll have to sit down and do it which that's a pretty good idea but uh but still so so it's kind of fun like sometimes we get questions about like when did this happen or what is this until we kind of focus in on that it doesn't exist how how cool would it be to have a Murray cup plaque in the lobby at the office with all the winners be pretty cool all right you could put in a a jur task for that all right so uh so that's that's

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    before the the the campaign the campaign is is up and running we funded Star Citizen now we have to start making the game so uh you you've got your you've got requests that come from Story the things that you want to see in the game but but now you're getting requests from designers requests from game designers like we need something for this we want to build this how does that process work I mean it yes as will said I mean it kind of comes from all over I mean we get we'll get requests from um you know item designers who are like hey I need a you know who manufactures light light bulbs you know and then in the same day get another request that's like Hey we're building this space station what is it you know Ty we need to and here's some concept art or rough things or here's what or if it's from a game design standpoint like here's what gameplay mechanic we're trying to

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    satisfy you know or or need or moment or something like that so yeah it can kind of come from from anywhere is is the thing and we and you know we just sort of have to roll with punches and kind of change scope it's been kind of interesting seeing the change as the game comes farther along or interaction with the designers cuz and I mean might speak to this with on the dispatches like the dispatches a year ago we would be pulling a lot more from The Ether like this is what interests us now and now the gameplay that's going on the actual design is feeding in a lot more into what we're writing as these releases and the content builds up yeah it makes it um it makes it sometimes easier to actually tell a story because we know how that experience is going to be in game so I have a question uh for writing something about a data Runner I

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    can go and I can sit I can talk to Matt Sherman how's the heral work like how fast like what is it good at what is it bad at what how do you how do you foresee this happening so it makes it um makes it a lot of fun to be able to provide those specifics or kind of even layer some of those in so as people read the dispatches they're getting this broader story but there's one or two hints as to the gameplay that we're foreseeing and that we're actually actually implementing and building into the game one of you mentioned corporations one of the things that is unique to Star Citizen uh among either projects I've seen is the sheer number of corporations that we have uh before we move on talk to me real quick about why there are so many corporations and and what that brings to Star Citizen uh I mean it's it's basically it's kind of a testament to the sort of level of Fidelity in the thinking because it's

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    not you know hey this is a ship it's a shape that has these attachments on it and just kind of go like I mean these things are really meticulously designed and they have a lot of I mean all the components that you can you know you can look at and stuff like that and they're built as actual like kind of engineering Things So based Bas on sort of the internal coding system as far as the assets go you know the the different cooler everything has this sort of like a tag a code tag so it's become sort of Corporation to and and that will help dictate I mean art style all kinds of stuff so basically like yeah everything gets assigned to a company so somebody if it if it exists and you can sort of manipulate it someone's we have to decide who makes that uh and and like in a lot of ways it helps the artists in

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    that once we come up with one item of that company they have that style guide and they can go to it but all that history and lore does make it difficult sometimes because if there's like a space station that was supposed to be abandoned 150 years ago and they're using this prop to populate it and we have to be like well actually that company didn't exist till 50 years ago according to lore so those items wouldn't be there and they're like well we don't have another version of this item and and yeah that's happening whose job whose job is it to track all these corporations oh I think it's kind of a team effort yeah I mean we do we do have a corporation Matrix in Confluence that just lists all of the corporations along with various aspects of them like when they were founded what they make what their visual feel is a little bit of their history and for those who who may not know what Confluence is Confluence

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    is our uh Confluence is our internal Wiki that we keep to keep track of game development it's our game design document more or less and that's sort of your realm I know it's when everybody's got anybody's got a problem or a question about uence it's go ask Sherry go ask Sherry that's me so in addition to Confluence let's move into the star map so the starm map is is one of the one of the craziest things that we've put out it's one of the most if I can say so myself I had nothing to do with it but it's one of the most impressive things that that that's part of the star Sy experience in my in my perspective uh where did the idea for the star map come from I think it was an early so it was an early stretch goal I don't know I actually don't know where there was a there was a an early stretch goal that was like a was the printed one

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    that we ended up releasing uh but there was the Cartographer room right yeah there was there iname Stiller cartography room yeah yeah yeah yeah um but it was just it was also the thing too is there's this sort of inherent thing like we have you know the the star map is the known universe and if a part of the aspect of the game is going to be you know discovering jump points like you you have to make it scal the map scalable cuz if you discover if someone discovers a new Jump point to a new system then the star map is going to change like it's not a fixed thing so having an interactive version of it uh you know had a sort of a practical need but I think it was also just like you know Ben wad like just totally sold the concept of it it was incredible I mean it's it's a fun thing to look at but it's also especially considering the

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    history and the number of systems we have it's so vitally important that we understand the connections between all these different worlds because it does inform the history of of oh so if uh you know this this system was discovered at this time because this event big happened here we need to make sure that this was the path that people got to go there so that was a nightmare yeah yeah we came all the specific uh the map changed too like we' had the map has changed about eight eight times like as far I mean even just from the very first few days where it's like you know 20 systems and then the stretch goal the $4 million stretch goal was 50 systems and then I can't remember was like 7 million was hundreds something something like that and and so that's where it sort of stayed but like even the placement of these things like as Tech was coming online they were like oh actually we could do this system first and you know

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    that so they they started rearranging it to mimic that sort of thing so was and the starm map is just the known system the the the known UI known systems to humans yes so it's not all the systems that'll be in the star ciem yeah the Shion keep play their cards close to their chest so they don't okay so T so you have the the idea to start to do the star map there's obviously a lot of use for it how do you go about creating it it's it's a it seems like it's a massive data entry thing not not just the design and our friends are turbulent you know handled the the heavy lifting of the graphic design and stuff but you guys had to do the data entry right we did we also worked with someone at turbulent uh Scott who helped us out with data entry uh he was a big help um but yeah right up to the last day before we launched the starm map we were still inputting

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    data and making sure everything was double checked everything looked good there were Vis it was visually consistent with what our descriptions of the system actually was yeah I mean that was another thing that really helped because the need was there it helped us focus in on fleshing out a lot like some of the systems we would have like we would know like the feature planet and that there was three other worlds there but maybe those worlds were just like one's kind of a gas giant so like we had to go in and really think all right what is this and answering that question because we're not just a procedurally generated Universe we want there to be reasons to go travel realm so really trying to give distinct flavor to all the worlds and all X number of systems right mysterious number um and and the start in the stars in Galaxy it's not

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    just uh science fiction there's science to it you uh who did you guys you guys work with anybody astronomers or anything like that to to make sure things are as scientifically possible or scientifically accurate is yes we worked with uh two Master students of uh astrophysics Stephen and Michael great people hi Stephen hi Michael hi guys Hi and hi Scott Scott thanks Scott um so we actually have very very fleshed out data of all the star systems that we have released to the public so far with things like um the positions of the planets in AU uh orbital speed the length of the day the type of Planet it is and so on and so forth so that we can put the data into the game if possible

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    with the goal with the goal of realistic feeling with the goal of realistic feeling so we have this realistic physics but we want to make sure that the the system feels as real as possible and so that's why we have these these numbers with with sometimes responses from the physicist being well that would you could kind of yeah there were a couple of times where really want to do something cool and they had to say that's not really a thing shoved them that was the death of Will's cheese planet and that's why we don't have a cheese Planet you seemed very uh uh Sullen when we said no cheese Planet well he said it was that close to the Sun it would melt I didn't understand so then he thought it was a nacho Planet Nach yeah but on the other hand they also helped us come up with really cool ideas like if we had kind of a a general

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    idea of a cool thing we wanted in a system say um if we wanted to have a really dense asteroid cluster they helped us figure out ways we can make those scientifically possible it's it's been the since I started this project the one truism that I've learned is if someone says that can't happen in space wait a week and someone will Discover it because every time like the the discoveries that have happened since I started this job really focusing on learning about space science has been insane like all the weird planets that have people have found with their telescopes and picking up radio waves and stuff like the planet made entirely of diamond yeah that's real all right so before we run out of time I want to get some quick lightning around here uh how does uh coming up uh we we've got stars in Alpha 2.6 but then

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    we've got stars as an alpha 3.0 on the horizon which seems like it's going to be a much broader expansion of story possibilities what's it like working on that right now what what's that process like uh it's I mean it's actually it's a it's a nice interesting change of pace because um Squadron 42 while being a lot of fun was uh because it's very narrative military drama or action Space Opera this was nice to be able to have more different weirder characters so you could because we're we're doing all of these so will is in [Laughter] it uh but yeah no there's like the just all the different the the the planets that we're going to and stuff like that it's definitely much Wilder characters cuz in v0 you know we're starting off smaller and we're going to keep adding

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    and adding to it and v0 but in 3.0 is our vzer of kind of fleshing out of a world so we tried for like diversity and to really hit some interesting people just to start getting like a smattering of the kind of characters that we want to have there and slowly building out and trying to figure out it's it's really complicated and exciting there is and after and then there's Squad 42 Squad 42 the single player component to Star Citizen uh how long is that script now how many pages we we've mentioned the page count a couple times and every time we've mentioned it it seems like the number has gotten larger uh yeah I mean it was 1255 I think it's gone up a little bit because we added some uh generic engineer stuff well that's a good release for folks we've added some general generic

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    engineer stuff as as the game gets built out more as you know as Chris mentioned you know we have that full kind of stuff flushed in it's kind of going back in now and taking a look at at the in between spaces is kind of where we're filling in like we have the two big moments we have a couple smaller moments but then there's like a dead hole right there in the middle so we're filling that stuff in now which is Gooding it all in all right so guys I think that wraps up our special edition lore makers guide for the G Guide to the Galaxy I'm making lore um anything you want to say to the Star Citizen Community before we let you go no thank you everybody yeah thank you thank you so much thank you thank you for all your support we really appreciate it for all the suggestions and comments and fanfiction and everything thank you so you can watch L

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    maker Guide to the Galaxy every other Wednesday here on our YouTube channel and on robertsspaceindustries.com and uh for some people who may not know every Tuesday there's a lur post that goes out on our website as well uh following a variety of story lines and jumo oh and jump Point magazine the the monthly subscriber Edition that also has original original fix a lot of it that's nowhere else to be found all the the short stories and there are currently only in Jump point so all right that's Sherry that's Adam that's Dave that's will I'm Jared see you in the verse guys thank you for watching so if you want to keep it with the latest and greatest and Star Citizen of Squadron 42's development please follow us on our social media channels see you soon