So, with the almost complete world max and myself not being a RPG buff, but a scientist and simulator fan, I was thinking on moving World Max to the interstellar arena and doing worlds you can explore, vast landscapes, space travel.  But, I am stuck with the looming question, "What makes a sci-fi game great?".  Well, what made Star Wars so popular?  What made Wing Commander?  What made Star Trek?  What is the magical components to the greatest sci-fi game in the world?  I am all ears.  Please post your answers.

A really great mechanism like Transporter Technology in Star trek.  Star wars, well that's The Force.  I'm sure there's a term for what I'm talking about.  Not sure what it is though.   You need a mechanism that can single handedly change the entire outcome of almost any situation, depending on player skill or technical ability/etc/etc...  At least that's what comes to mind first especially with those two examples.  Hope it helps.

I think the better scifi was the earlier stuff, when stories were based around using real science to solve problems. I'd make the distinction that Star Wars can be awful scifi but still be a great movie. 

Star Wars isn't really science fiction - it's a weak sub-genre of it. It's a fantasy space opera -- magical knights engaging in melodramatic adventure, interplanetary battles, chivalric romance, and risk-taking. For that kind of adventure, you want simple plots that allow a hero to impact an epic galactic evil.

Science fiction is speculative, it imagines alternative worlds that are in some way different to our own, and examines the impact of those differences upon society. Sci-fi is not just "stories about technology", it is stories that explore the consequences of technology. For that kind of adventure, you want to reflect on society or politics in a visionary way that resonates with people right now.

Star Trek is "soft" sci-fi in that they don't care about the specific science. In the original scripts, they'd actually write dialog like: "Sir, the [science] isn't strong enough" "Wait, if we reverse the [science] maybe we can [science the science] and break through!", and then hand it over to consultants to fill in the blanks  The setup of Star Trek allows them to constantly visit different societies and peek at how they differ from ours though.

Other sci-fi is "hard" in that it tries to get the science "right" or "plausible". Things like ships taking curved orbits through space, using gravity assists, magnetic boots or centrifuges instead of a magic "gravity on" switch, etc... This lends authenticity to the story, which people appreciate.

I've had some input that travel in space games is a problem.  You spend long amounts of time with nothing to do traveling from one place to another.  My thinking is, provide a in ship 3D view and permit walking around, maybe social interaction, story narratives, ship maintenance, strategy and command training and planning.  Maybe going to various controls and optimizing things.  Just some things I have been jotting down.  I agree in part, it's terrible you get a ship, outside view but you never are inside experience of ship life and activities.  I was thinking utilize TrackIR and Oculus to immerse people.  Perhaps even a command structure from inside that effects ship combat outside, or actions.  Perhaps interacting with ship systems to perform certain actions.  What is peoples thoughts on these ideas?

Does anyone have ideas that would promote this, would this add to your experience?  Do you have other ideas to add to the list?  What would make the difference in a 3D sci-fi for you in detail?

I like these ideas a lot.  I think finding a balance between the inside ship activities and outside ship activities would be the trick.  You probably don't want to saddle your adventure seeking players with too much time punching buttons, and the other way around.  Or you could have outside adventurous activities that players can perform while en-route..  Alien attacks/etc...

19 hours ago, I3DI said:

"What makes a sci-fi game great?".  Well, what made Star Wars so popular?  What made Wing Commander?  What made Star Trek?

It's a broad question. The feedback you've gotten about "what is sci-fi" are appropriate in trying to narrow the question. Star Trek and Star Wars (sci-fi or not) were TV/movie shows - the popularity of the games made from those IPs were primarily popular because they were based on those highly popular IPs.  That suggests that the formula for success begins with an already-popular IP.  Until you get to Wing Commander, which was a 3D space combat sim that became a series because it was well designed and sold well.

In games, "sci-fi" is not a genre. We have simulations, RPGs, RTSes, adventure games, shooters, etc. I3Di, do you consider Borderlands a sci-fi game? Do you consider games with zombies to be sci-fi? I guess what I'm trying to get at is that your question needs focusing. Nobody can give you "the five steps that guarantee you'll have a hit sci-fi game." There's no simple formula. I don't know this game "World Max" that you mentioned. We can give you better answers (better ideas) for your idea if we know more about the genre, the basic play mechanics you're contemplating. 

31 minutes ago, I3DI said:

My thinking is, provide a in ship 3D view and permit walking around, maybe social interaction, story narratives, ship maintenance, strategy and command training and planning.  Maybe going to various controls and optimizing things.  Just some things I have been jotting down.  I agree in part, it's terrible you get a ship, outside view but you never are inside experience of ship life and activities.  I was thinking utilize TrackIR and Oculus to immerse people. 

Okay, spoke before reading this. You want to make a game about space travel? With trade, diplomacy, combat...?  

1 hour ago, I3DI said:

I've had some input that travel in space games is a problem.  You spend long amounts of time with nothing to do traveling from one place to another.

Space is big and empty, and particularly the folks in the "realistic space flight simulator" camp tend to make you spend the majority of time in transit between interesting things to do.

There's nothing particularly necessitating this, though. Look at the recent crop of space-themed roguelikes (FTL, Orion Trail, etc), where travel is existent apart from a screen to choose the next scenario. Mass Effect does fairly well at this too - apart from a few space mining sequences, you basically just jump from planet to planet, and spend downtime between exploring your ship and interacting with shipmates.

I suppose the winning formula can be found in works by Verne and HG Wells.  Those were the stories that presented science fiction to the masses before the miracle of film, and if you read them and then study their authors and how they came to write them, then you can start to grasp how much they have influenced sci-fi and fantasy films over the last century.

If you watch The Empire Strikes Back carefully, you can almost make out War of the Worlds.  The empire are the Martians with their overwhelming technology whereas the force is "our microscopic allies" - the Bacteria.  The Empire takes almost everything from our beloved heros and just when the baddies have them beat, Luke places his faith in the force which allows him to connect with his family and start to resolve the galactic conflict.  Yoda teaches us that it is the smallest things in life that are important, but we are blind to that when faced with great adveristy and fear of loss.

Its so easy to look to Star Wars, Back To The Future and Aliens as if they are the turning point in science fiction, but the attempts to emulate their success usually fail to meet expectations because film makers today lack the wonder of past generations where they had little but the imagination with which to build their worlds.

We know that we currently cannot joyride around the solar system, but stories, films and games allow us to over come that fact by saying "okay, lets pretend we have the technology to do that - how would that affect our life?  Would it destroy or revolutionise it?".  For some there is another question "what is stopping us from doing that?".

A computer allows us to simulate that experience to a certain degree - which is constantly changing as we struggle to find the limits of technology.  Elite Dangerous is a game that can truely make us believe we can become part of the cosmos and actually own a space ship.  Playing ED in the dark, using a flight joystick etc - you might as well be flying around in space...

On a personal note, I'm very fond of the Atredies palace in Cryo's Dune.  Whether its in the David Lynch movie, Si-fy series or even the books - its like an old friend to me and a pretend holiday home once every summer.  A similar feeling we get when seeing Bilbo's house once again in The Hobbit after all those years since the first three movies.

I guess what I am trying to say is look back into the mists of time and discover what made us fall in love with sci-fi in the first place, and then how we can bring those worlds and situations to life.