"Little things" that we expect

The developers have actually talked about this already; they stated their intentions to carry forward the motif of different typefaces for all the races. Brad also mentioned that they already have about twelve hours (!) of spoken dialog planned for voice actors.

So many games taking place in space completely lack a sense of adventure and immersion. Space combat sims may be an exception in that you always have direct control over your ship, but they don't have a sense of adventure either.

Travel between the stars is generally a point-and-click affair where ships just warp from one point to another and completely overlook how cool it would be to actually travel between worlds and see amazing things in space as you cover incredible distances at a remarkable speed.

It has probably been overstated but I think one of the little things not to be overlooked is that feeling of immersion. I guess it ultimately isn't a "little thing" but it's one that is often overlooked in so many other space games. There's a lot of potential for injecting some emotional drama into just the idea of the journey itself, and being the one to pilot a fantastic ship into the great unknown and I think Stardock could really stand out from other games by emphasizing this.

One of the big things that I miss most from this game is AMBIGUITY. 

I like that they left big, important questions unanswered.  Things like:

1. Who were the Precursors and why did they disappear?
2. What was the purpose of the Rainbow Worlds?
3. What the hell are the Mycon babbling on about?

Modern games have a nasty tendency to give the player an indisputable and correct answer for every mystery, even when leaving the question open would have been the more interesting narrative choice.  One of the big weaknesses among the many that were in SC3 is that they appeared to feel a compulsive need to answer all of these questions definitively (the Mycon thing, the Precursor question).  On top of that their answers were not particularly satisfying but that's a whole other can of worms! 

Edit: Whoops, double post.  No option to delete your own posts here? 

Great point about ambiguity. I'm confident that's one of the reasons SC2 has stood the test of time too. Even if Legend Entertainment had done a better job of addressing unanswered questions (which weren't even theirs to resolve) in SC3, it would have stripped away the sense of wonder.

To this day, there is still no canonical answer as to why the Klingons developed different facial features between 1970 and 1985! Worf once said it "wasn't something Klingons discussed with outsiders". Such a Star Control answer!

To this day, there is still no canonical answer as to why the Klingons developed different facial features between 1970 and 1985! Worf once said it "wasn't something Klingons discussed with outsiders". Such a Star Control answer!

I totally agree with the power of unanswered questions (even if they derive from deus ex machina), but I'm going to be that guy:

Klingon's different facial features was canonically explained in an Enterprise episode where it was shown to be the cause of an Augment Virus stolen by the Klingons after Earth's Eugenics Wars http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Klingon_augment_virus

This might not be the little thing and not exactly from SC2 but i want developers to think already now how they intend to finish the game. I personally do not want ME3 type of ending, don`t get me wrong - devs might have an idea that all die, or live happily ever-after but I want a sense of accomplishment - like in fallout 1 or fallout 2 - you get a picture (it better be a good piece of art) of good-bad-who knows what outcome, some text and music. That is it. But this thing should address all major points and plot developments. What do you all think about it? I think you can still continue playing the game even after such "official" ending. 

I Have to agree, if anything the "ending" should be just an open ending, a ending where the gamer can fill in the blanks with there imagination. The ending obviously got to be satisfying to the users, but leaving some blank areas for us to fill.

this will then leave open DLC, Expansions and future games in the series if the user base and popularity satisfies the demand and cost for future games.

Mass effect is a prime example as stated above, excellent story, pretty rock solid all the way through and the one stupid ending (with different filters used.) ruined in the entire experience for me and many others. (I still haven't gone back to replay any ME games because of this...)

Exactly, you know there is a rude joke - one can build 100 bridges and f*&% a sheep once and you will be remembered not as a brilliant engineer but rather as a sheep-f*$%#r . i guess that happened with ME3. I cannot make myself replay the game too.

Anyways, back to topic - what else, it might be good to encounter some alien outposts (like on the Moon in original SC2), btw. has anyone tried Space Rangers? They have a thing called text quests in game (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=395450382), might be a good option for the New SC. Do you guys like this idea?

+1 with prior comment: finishing should feel like an achievement but also leave you hungry for more

+2 on that.   There should be unanswered questions, odd behaviors never explained, and other parts of the new universe that make you WANT more story.  Star Control II left me wanting more when I finished the game.  It was an epic WIN, but I fell in love with the universe and wanted to get lost again and again in it.

The moment I loved was the voice of the Earth Starbase commander when I came back from a long expedition telling me about the diplomatic and scientific progress we've made according to my actions during the expedition. It gave me enough sense of accomplishment that I wanted to go back out there to continue my work on building the Alliance of Free Stars.

I will confirm that we aren't doing a kill everyone in the universe ending. 

Good. Even if all die. But what i wanted to stress something different here, e.g. ME3 was all in all a great game but the ending messed up things so much ... I simply do not want SCR to repeat the fate of ME .

This is a little bit like the 'ambiguity' suggestion but different... 

Some universes (games and movies; less so with books) introduce some ideas but don't explore them thoroughly: they are part of the universe and you should just accept them. And I think this is great! Sometimes explaining the back story take away some of the mystery (think about Star Wars - we were really happier knowing about Midi-chlorians?.. now think about Fifth Element.. how many features were just thrown at us and assumed, not explained). In the same way I would like the SCR (Star Control Reboot) to have some things where we arrive 'in the middle' and don't get the full back story (there is a war going on between X and Y.. we don't ask why or need to ask the roving Melnorme trader to give us a history lecture. 

Seriously.   ME3's ending was epically anticlimactic.  I stayed away from spoiler reviews and threads that talked about it, deciding for myself how badly the ending was done. I can appreciate the creativity of ME3's ending, and how they wanted to spin it differently, however...it was so tragically unfulfilling that I wanted to stop caring about the whole ME universe.

I always thought that's how the original Star Trek should have ended, they should have been destroyed with all hands lost while doing some great thing to save the galaxy.  Oh well.

Story telling that begins in the middle of things is called "In medias res" and is a good way to write a story or novel. The backstory and background are usually explained as flashbacks or by some other sort of mechanism and are integrated into the story.

A story that begins with "Once upon a time" can be quite boring and then you have all the back story explained and by the time you get to the action well, chances are you won't because you would have stopped reading.

An example of "in medias res" would be the first starwars movie. It started with in the heat of a chase while the immediate backstory and prologue was zooming out into space. Examples of traditional movies that do not employ "in medias res" are many horror movies where the protagonists meet each other in the their dorm rooms just before summer break and then head out to some obscure dangerous place only to find out it is haunted/dammed/'filled with psychos' and die.

"The walking dead" uses "In medias res" and employs a lot of flashbacks. The first episode of the first series finds Rick waking up from his coma (hmmm nevermind how unrealistic that is...) way into the zombie apocalypse with no backstory or background regarding the zombie apocalypse. The viewers are thrust into this world immediately. And then we get explained how things happened. (They actually employ that a lot although if you examine other episodes).

In gaming it is quite hard to implement "In medias res" in games because you usually have to start from scratch.

But at least story-wise StarControl II started "In medias res" and we had the background story explained to us as we explored the galaxy and fought the Ur-Quans. It was a great experience learning about the background story in such a way, rather than having to read hundreds of tomes scattered all over the world as in "The Elder Scrolls Style". I love Skyrim but it was a shitty experience collecting the books to learn more about the history of the world when you had to collect 4 volumes, with each volume only containing a paragraph worth of lore. I tried hard but I didn't want to waste away my real life and my skyrim life hunting for books.

Anyway, I hope that they can get a great story teller to contribute to the storyline and direction of the game!

So true. ME3 left me emotionaly drained for 2 months. I have never been so let down by anything in my life. Way to not deliver on what was promised. Even after the redemption of Dragon Age: Inqusition I can't trust Bioware again.

It would be better if the galaxy is already established like in the older games, you are a new captain in a new spaceship, it's a simple good beginning.

Oh and what i expect? i think the communication screen should be very lively, if you take too long to answer something happens, if you say something "offensive" or nice, something else happens, little touches that makes the scene, and of course... a awesome OST for each race screen! i can mentally sing every theme for my favorite SC2 races!

- Shade A.I

A new 'little thing' I'd like to see in SCR:

During communications with aliens, different members of the alien race should look/sound slightly different, with slightly different backgrounds as well.  It shouldn't feel like you're talking to a single alien that represents the entire race.  Example, talking to Fwiffo compared to the talking to the Spathi High Counsel.

I concur. I also liked the fonts being used to differentiate.

I want to meet an alien race that speaks Wingding.

Prepare to taste my righteous fire, underling fur race!

^ Agreed with the last 3 posts. Shouldn't be much trouble to program as everything is 3D. Blow a head up here, lengthen the legs there, move computers around - should feel like talking to a different person. I wanna say that fonts per alien will be unique since subtitled speech is already confirmed.