Starpoint Gemini Interview
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RPGWatch: Players can choose from a story-based campaign or free-roaming options. Let's start with the story campaign - how prominent is the story and how do you balance that with player freedom? Does the story include any RPG aspects, such as different choices or branching paths, dialogue with NPCs or even alignment with different factions?
LGM: A great question. It's always hard to balance out complete freedom of a free roam game with the restrictions of a scripted campaign. I won't turn my head and look the other way for this question. The prevalent side in the main campaign is "the good guys" (although the definition of "good guys" can vary) and the campaign is somewhat restrictive in that respect. For example, faction standing that is essential for the campaign to function properly is forced if necessary, but we limited that as much as we could to only the essentials. If it is necessary on a mission to dock on a Nexus controlled station, then you mustn't be hostile with them. Everything else depends on personal choice. On some missions it might be helpful to be on friendly terms with for example MultiOps faction. Their assistance might come in handy during the mission, but if they're hostile towards you, you can also expect them to give you trouble.
Considering branching, I'll have to say no to that. LGM is not a large team and testing multiple large quest paths is out of our scope for the time being. We focused on making this more simple campaign better, instead of stretching thin to cover more ground and potentially have a very bugged game.
Dialogs are a standard asset. It is one of the ways you get your next assignment or receive information. There's a lot of that in Starpoint. The Logs will help players keep track of their current mission, but we also added very short objectives directly on the main HUD so it's clear what you need to do next at any given time.
