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General Discussion / Re: Official Off-Topic Thread
« on: October 01, 2008, 02:09:46 am »He was very against the idea though, as he has the idea that people don't wont relate if it isn't like Earth. It's something I tend to hate in video games. No matter how far away the planet is from Earth, whether it's lightyears or dimensions, it still looks like Earth. The plants may be fictitious, but they tend to still be green, or as though you could pluck them out of the game and put them on Earth and they'd fit in fine. It's also a mindset I see in scientists a lot, where they think whatever life that may be out there in the universe follows the same rules as life on Earth. I dunno, I tend to really disagree that people won't see beauty in a setting if it doesn't have the same colors people associate with Earth. Am I wrong in this?
Also, I agree on the point about scientists usually sticking too closely to life in familiar forms, although if you get too unfamiliar, everything just becomes too abstract to hold any meaning. Don't forget that by talking about "plants", you are sticking pretty close to Earth life yourself.
Science does have a few points though. As far as the plant colours go, different chemicals are tinted different colours to better accept the more plentiful wavelengths of light. I don't remember all of the rules too well, but if the sun is yellow and like ours, then the plants will mostly be green to accept the most energy from it. Also, water is more abundant then most chemicals because it is formed from almost any reaction between an acid and a base.
That said, I'm all for changing the colours. It makes things new and exciting and you should be allowed to take some creative liberties to achieve a desired effect. Personally, I'd probably go with Blackish-blue plants with bio-luminescent stripes and rivers of a honey-like fluid. That would be awesome.