Hi, my name is Jeff and I'm the writer for RoTP

I should probably handle the "rights issues" question. When I started this project, the MOO IP seemed abandoned. Then about 5 months later, Wargaming announced their reboot. So I contacted them about what I needed to do to avoid legal issues and they came back and they said it would be fine as long as I renamed the game. So I did.

The name comes from the idea that there were two precursor races in the galaxy that waged war and disappeared, and the players explore the galaxy they left behind. The artifact planets are basically Antaran ruins, and Orion is the homeworld of the Orions. Those are the remnants of the precursors.

With regards to MOO1 there wasn't really much backstory provided for races in that game... most of that came with MOO3.

Big ups to Ray for answering some of those, I wasn't sure on the answer myself!

As far as writing hurdles, I'd say the biggest one for me was trying to pay certain respect to the amount of... campyness(?) that was in the original game. I wanted to try to write each race to be unique and meaningful, but at the end of the day that sense of fun that was in the original game felt like a big part of the appeal, and I wanted to be able to write in some stuff that paid respect to that instead of going full-on serious or grim/dark that alot of modern sci-fi games (and maybe gaming in general) have now.

It's hard to pick a favorite race, but I would have to give a very slight edge to the Silicoids if I had to pick one. I like the art, I like their mechanics, and I like what we were able to do with them from a lore perspective. So yeah, a slight edge to them.

For differences between MoO and RotP from a writing or lore perspective, there didn't seem to be much backstory or lore (if any at all), in the original game, so it gave me a wide breadth in terms of creating personalities and lore for each of the races. I was very fortunate that Ray gave me so much creative control over the writing, and hopefully you guys are as happy with the overall final results as we are!

I hope that answers your questions, but if it doesn't let me know and I'll be happy to give any other information you're curious about!

Unfortunately for me I have not had the honor or the pleasure to work with Mr. Chick directly. I believe that will come sometime during the beta when I compile all the backstory (and there is PLENTY of backstory not yet put into the game, believe me) and get everything ready for him. I'm very much looking forward to working with someone like him and I'm very excited for the opportunity to learn from him. But since I haven't gotten to that point yet, is it alright if I take a rain check on this one and swing back around in a couple of months with a more complete answer? Haha.

Thanks very much! I know writing isn't at the forefront of most people's priorities when it comes to 4x games, but for people who like writing I hope I can make something that is enjoyable to read.

There's plenty more coming as well: I'm currently working on the game overs for each race and I hope that you'll enjoy them as much as we do!

So one of the things I tried to use as a foundation for the lore for each race was come up with reasons why their game mechanics are they way they are. Each of the races plays differently (and is different enough as an enemy!) that I wanted to have justification for why the game was set up mechanically the way it was.
For the Silicoids, one of their big personality traits is being inherently xenophobic, but I wasn't satisfied with the standard "we hate everyone because they're different" or "we are so biologically superior we hate you" reasons that a lot of xenophobic races generally exhibit. It felt a little too standard, and so through a lot of trial and error I eventually came up with the concept that the Silicoids were on a holy war against an ancient enemy, but they had no idea who the ancient enemy was or how they looked or anything like that. This meant that everyone they met would be a potential enemy, and thus would act as a primary motivation for their trademark xenophobic nature. I also thought this would open up more fun interactions for the player depending on their relationship with the Silicoids. And overall the Silicoids are very fun to write for, definitely one of the races I enjoy the most.

Additionally, since the original game had so many homages to what was then very mainstream science fiction tropes, I thought it might be fun for me to also add in homages to the science fiction that I have read or otherwise consumed over the years. For the Silicoids, I thought that having some subtle homages to Frank Herbert's Dune series (which I am currently re-reading for the sixth or so time coincidentally) would be appropriate. I won't reveal the homages in every race though, see if you can find them if you're so inclined!

As I said in a previous reply it's difficult to pick and choose a favorite (or least favorite!) race, but if I had to choose I would say that overall the Silicoids are my very slight favorite overall. The Sakkra are probably the most fun to write for, and the Bulrathi are probably the most difficult to write for.

Sometimes the space allotted for writing dialogue can be a bit frustrating for sure! But I find it a good exercise as a writer to force myself to be brief. I kind of have a tendency to be long-winded and thorough in my answers (see this reply for an example!) and it helps me grow to make cuts like that for space.

I hope that answered your questions and if you'd like any more information or have any more questions just feel free to ask!

All three are definitely important. Different music can help set the tone for each race, and art is obviously the first thing people see. Even though most people don't list writing at the forefront of things that matter, I like to think writing is the thing that sets up personalities and differentiates one race from each other.

If you look at the Silicoids and the Bulrathi, they are RotP's physically large races, but their personalities are extremely different from each other, one being a race of warrior philosophers who uses their size to intimidate their rivals and the other being a zealous race of fanatics obsessively bent on finding an enemy they don't even know exists. The things they talk about, they way they talk to the player, and even the diction they use are all things that differentiate them from each other (and from everyone else).

So yeah, my advice would be that if people are feeling each race is mostly interchangeable in the way they're personalities feel, I would re-examine the writing and see if you can use that to help make each one feel unique.

There are two writers on the project. Jeff is responsible for creating the in-game lore and text for each of the races. Tom Chick will be creating the user manual.

Although there are no other writing positions available on this project, there is little stopping other writers and artists from creating more races once the source code is opened up.

As Ray said, that's basically the way we have everything set up from a writing perspective. But I'm very much looking forward to seeing other writers put their own spin on things once the game is open-sourced!

Lorewise, I wanted to set the Klackon up to meet the expectation of them being something of a hive-mind race (as I think many people expect space-faring insectoids to be), but make it different enough that it felt a little less stale of a concept. I drew from a lot of the more popular hive-mind races, but I wanted to extend the hive-mind trope from being a bunch of individuals who refer to themselves as a "we", such as the Borg, to more of a single consciousness that is shared across multiple bodies, more akin to the original Overmind and the Zerg.

Where the Klackon is different is that it sees itself as a literal single-conciousness, not as a "we" or as an overarching controller over its "children". The closest example I can think of would be like looking at yourself in a mirror: you realize that the reflection is not yourself, but it is yourself at the same time, as you control the actions the reflection takes. Multiply that by about 100 billion and you get what the Klackon sees.

The fun thing about the Klackon is all the unique interaction that an existence like this provides. It's never really known conflict (though it knows the use of weapons as it needs to keep itself safe on the homeworld), it has never known a need for subterfuge or political machinations, and it can't even fathom interacting with an "other" intelligent lifeform.

Originally I had it written that the Klackon wasn't even familiar with verbal communication, and the way that it spoke to the player would have evolved over the course of the game, from something like "No...fight...now...peace" to something like "I no longer wish to make war with you, Human. Now is the time for peace between your people and I." Unfortunately this had to be cut for time constraints, but something like that may also help to cement what the Klackon actually is: an ancient consciousness that views the bodies it inhabits the way you might view a hangnail or hair that gets cut, going out into space to try and find another form of life like its own that it understands its unique challenges, but happy to find any form of intelligence to converse with no matter how strange and alien it seems.

I hope that answers your question! Kind of long winded there, but if you need me to expand on it anymore just let me know. Thanks very much.