Lore and its lack in Factorio.

[blazespinnaker]

One of the curious things about Factorio is the general lack of lore. We have a basic subplot (crash land on the planet) but beyond that, Wube made the obviously conscious decision not to spend too much effort on story.

There was a good reason for that, I guess, so as to let the players and mod authors use their imagination. But, imho, the mod authors haven't really stepped up here and have mostly just followed down Wube's path. Some mods have a story, but lack in mechanics, others in which mechanics are the story. One mod, THE mod, paid some attention but even it feels like more could have been done and deservedly so.

I think everyone loves a good story, especially one that can also remain open ended and leave some room for the imagination. It's a careful balance, but personally it feels like folks let mechanics take over and perhaps could have done more.

[FuryoftheStars]

(Disclaimer: personal opinion)

I feel like, because of the type of game this is, story doesn’t matter. It’s the mechanics that have me playing. If it had a story, that would mean campaign and all of that, and frankly, I don’t care about that for this game and probably would still always be doing sandbox.

[Tertius]

From some things in the game, it seems to me some kind of story has been planned in the earliest designs of the game. However, it seems it didn't work out or the devs did never find the time to flesh anything out. And the vast amount of players were just interested in building factories and didn't ask for a story, so this is where the development focus went: building and running factories from zero to big. Playable remains and mechanics of that idea are the scenarios, so players can create their own story if they want. Even the rocket launch for "winning the game" is some artificial goal and not really necessary. It's something for people who need a goal, who cannot even start if they are not given a goal.

If you ask me, I don't miss a story. If there exist one, I feel obliged to follow it, but my interest in the game is in building bigger factory parts from smaller factory parts to get from small to big, and build better (more optimized, more pretty, more organized) factories then the factories before.

[JimBarracus]

I think its good that there is no real mission.

No HQ that gives you the next task to do.
The tech tree is more than enough to guide the player through the game.

The back story does not really matter. You end up on a planet, there is no contact to where ever you came from. Help is not expected.
You need to figure things out by yourself.

[blazespinnaker]

I think its good that there is no real mission.

No HQ that gives you the next task to do.
The tech tree is more than enough to guide the player through the game.

The back story does not really matter. You end up on a planet, there is no contact to where ever you came from. Help is not expected.
You need to figure things out by yourself.

Well, there is a mission - launch a rocket and get back home. There is a difference between force fed tasks and lore and story though, I think.