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[Shoat]

Alex, David, a question that came up when I was working on the wiki:

Can we make "the Starfarer" be the official byname of the player character? (like the Warden in Dragon Age: Origins or the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas)
It'd certainly sound nicer/more impressive/less fourth-wall-holey than "the player character".

Meh, never really liked those at all. Those kinds of titles only exist to make voice acting work with customized player characters, and they usually detract from the experience (especially the ones that are all powerfantasy-y). In any game where you do not have to worry about voice acting and where the character is customizable, there is literally no reason to use anything other than exactly what the player chose for their name to address the player during the game.

As for the wiki... "the player character" is the most descriptive term to describe the player character, the wiki has no need for "impressiveness" - it's a wiki. Why would you go out of your way to edit lots of articles and put in some arbitrary title that would then be less-descriptive?

[FooF]

"The Starfarer" does sound really cool, but it lends the player a more mythic-heroic aura than we'd ever intend. Like, you're not the Chosen One in a fantasy game, you're just some person and what happens in the Persean Sector is what you make of it.

So I'd never call the player that, but hey, the wiki can do whatever it wants. We don't make the rules there!

That the player isn't special, or chosen, or anything like that is what gives the game so much of its charm. The fact that the Sector, at large, is apathetic to your early exploits makes it feel more real than if it went the route of the hero's journey. Where my suspension of disbelief gets a little iffy, though, is when you are big enough that the Sector should care but still doesn't. When you're just flying around in a Hound and a Buffalo, sure, no one should care, but if you have a multi-planet empire supplying 40% of all the Sector's commodities and can crush major factions with your fleet, you're no longer a small fish.

I don't think the game would go into 4x territory if there was a notoriety system of some sort. Hey...maybe with the new progress bars

[Brainwright]

"The Starfarer" does sound really cool, but it lends the player a more mythic-heroic aura than we'd ever intend. Like, you're not the Chosen One in a fantasy game, you're just some person and what happens in the Persean Sector is what you make of it.

So I'd never call the player that, but hey, the wiki can do whatever it wants. We don't make the rules there!

I'm not opposed to this notion, but the narrative of the game doesn't support it in any consistent fashion.  The Player is special, is important.   You would need to have examples of characters who could do what the Player does, and they do it, setting the status quo.  Instead of society being a static, unreachable entity, have it embodied in characters.

As it stands, the wiki would be best off referring to the player as Valued Non-specified Customer.

[Fenrir]

I'm not opposed to this notion, but the narrative of the game doesn't support it in any consistent fashion.  The Player is special, is important.   You would need to have examples of characters who could do what the Player does, and they do it, setting the status quo.  Instead of society being a static, unreachable entity, have it embodied in characters.

As it stands, the wiki would be best off referring to the player as Valued Non-specified Customer.

To my own knowledge, the player indeed is special, but the player's character isn't. Although we do know exactly who is the special guy that ended up ruling a gigantic empire and dominated the sector, the people in the game doesn't until it happens. It could be anyone, like how "Ludd" is in the church's book. The player didn't choose who will be the guy, the game world will still have that guy even if we didn't, we "found" that guy.

[RazzorBee]

I'm not opposed to this notion, but the narrative of the game doesn't support it in any consistent fashion.  The Player is special, is important.   You would need to have examples of characters who could do what the Player does, and they do it, setting the status quo.  Instead of society being a static, unreachable entity, have it embodied in characters.

As it stands, the wiki would be best off referring to the player as Valued Non-specified Customer.

To my own knowledge, the player indeed is special, but the player's character isn't. Although we do know exactly who is the special guy that ended up ruling a gigantic empire and dominated the sector, the people in the game doesn't until it happens. It could be anyone, like how "Ludd" is in the church's book. The player didn't choose who will be the guy, the game world will still have that guy even if we didn't, we "found" that guy.

I remember a game called "Space Rangers 2". In this game NPC's can do almost the same actions you do and (on lower difficulties) even finish the game without you. That's really interesting to see how some fameless NPC you met in the early game could survive space robots invasion, gear up and even defeat final bosses.
This is an example of a game in which the player is not special. But at higher difficulty levels you will FEEL special because without your direct action civilization will fall to the enemy and you will lose as well.

[Grievous69]

God damn you gave me a heart attack, thought we got patch notes...

[Gothars]

On that note, I'll close the thread for now.