Not only has any of the early access promises been kept as of 2019(4 years after release, 1 additional planet, rehashed biomes, the AI/physics are as laughable as ever, etc), but the game is in an even less playable state than it used to be due to a near-frantic effort in pushing out half-baked and spaghetti-coded content. I had high hopes for you guys, but Empyrion's turned into digital legos, and I can just go out and buy legos in a massive tub equivalent to the price I paid for Empyrion and at least have some complex design that I can at least put up on a shelf, somewhere. The only thing you guys have succeeded in doing is making the game as inconvenient as possible for the players without actually adding any real substance to the game. Even with your community doing 90% of the work for you by providing POI options and blueprints for everything under the sun, you're literally only responsible for content and yet there's next to no end-game, no reason to do anything in the game besides gather resources>build bigger ship>cruise for the 5 minutes that you have fuel. Feels like every time I come back to Empyrion, my enjoyment is drastically less than it was the time before. I should have 700+ hours into the game like I do Ark, but I don't, because there's nothing to do. This time I came back I got bored within several hours and I honestly don't feel like I'll ever pick up the game again. Because when I do, I know there's going to be this whole slew of inane, tedious, bullshit that's queued up for future releases like volume and mass. Just one more series of numbers I need burdened by. So I'll end this on a positive note: Thanks for being what No Man's Sky should've been, even if it didn't last long after my initial purchase. While I bashed the game in this post, it was genuinely enjoyable during my first foray, I just wish it'd kept up its momentum.
I did not read past this part of your post because this statement is 100% false. There have been 10 planets or moons added in the past year. The ocean planet has 23 biomes with unique names, and the other biomes in that planet are probably unique as well. If you are going to provide feedback, please make sure your opening statement is factually correct. Thank you.
Major game systems are still being implemented, hence Empyrion remains in alpha. There is a lot of work left to be done, as can be seen from all of the various placeholders throughout the game. Also, I find it interesting that you describe the physics as laughable, and then bash the addition of cargo mass and volume. It also seems like you missed the fact that NPCs can transition from terrain to structures now, as well as the introduction of the faction system (which is definitely a key prerequisite for end-game content). Also, I'd argue that part of Empyrion's appeal is that it is digital legos, at least as far as building structures is concerned. But then you also get to take your creations into survival mode with you and pit them against the environment and hostile NPC structures. If the gameplay isn't agreeing with you right now, then by all means put Empyrion back on the shelf for a while. Development will continue in any case.
I assume the swamp planet, ocean planet and Barren metal planets they put in the game within the last year is not real? Inconvenient? The wifi and the ability to load things from your SV/CV/HV to your base is inconvenient? End game is never added in the early or mid stage of a alpha game. Lots of finished games don't do much end game until beta if not even after release. There is literally only taming to do in Ark, which can take hours of sitting there and feeding a sleeping dinosaur. What do you do in ark beside taming? Also you are aware you can turn mass and volume off? That is not convenient to have options? Early access require understanding and you should do more research into your investments.
There was 1 ocean planet released a little while ago and Oscutune /might/ have been released after EA. It's been so long ago now, I honestly can't remember if it was part of the starting kit of planets. I'll also do you a favor, since you don't seem to know the meaning of the word "rehash" nor know how to use google: a reuse of old ideas or material without significant change or improvement. I too, can look at my minimap and see the text changing every 3 seconds under it, doesn't mean there's any noticeable change in the geography beyond that. I think Akua has well over 30 biomes and it all looks the damn same besides: Beach, mountain, mushroom forest, forest, plains. Now if you claimed these planets had a heap of sub-biomes, then, sure, I can't really find fault with that statement. However, across a planet the differences between these sub-biomes is so minute that unless one has a more discerning eye than mine, I can only tell I'm in a new biome if the text changes. It does tickle me that someone who doesn't know moons are satellites, not planets, is trying to lecture me on being "factually correct". The point I was getting at is that even after 4 years of development there's nothing new here. At this pace when exactly are we expected to see a complete game? Empyrion will be a game permanently in early access, that I have no doubt.
@Supay @geostar1024 @ravien_ff Did you read his rambling on Steam? If not do it and stop to argue about his "points of view" as it is not worth it. ->https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197976974693/recommended/
I see that the OP has very high standards or expectations, but perhaps does not appreciate the implications of early access status. When a game is still in development, things DO get broken when the next revision is released despite the best efforts of a developer. It is an unfortunate inevitability, and is a frustrating inconvenience to its playerbase. That said, the game having been released to the public in an unfinished state does allow for those problems to be quickly identified, and forms an important symbiosis between developer and player to get these problems resolved. Early access also allows the developers to live and further progress the development through the funds raised - they simply cannot be expected to do it all for free. I would like the thank the OP for their small contribution to the development that allows the rest of us to continue to play and contribute back to the dev team. I also hope that they change their opinion as the project improves.
Maybe the complainant should just buy completed games and stop spitting his dummy out the pram if the game is not going his way. He sounds a lot like the guy who was kicked off the other day for spouting more or less the same garbage. Having over 4500 hours in this game and having had very few problems whilst playing in SP and MP I have to congratulate the whole team who work on this game from the developers, the testers and the player base. Any bugs we have found have been sorted promptly, and going by all updates so far the Devs listen to their players. Only time I get frustrated with this game is waiting for the new updates like the one we are waiting on just now.
EDITED: One slight ignorance on your part: @ravien_ff has created countless Planets for his own scenario and the Devs added two Planets which @Needleship created, Ocean and Metal Barren, so he KNOWS what HE was typing here. His Eden Scenario here-> https://empyriononline.com/threads/project-eden-upcoming-massive-random-scenario.38334/ For your - cut out - sentence above I let a sentence from a famous movie answer for me ->
It was @Needleship who created those two planets, though I've created quite a few of my own for my scenario.
I wonder how many people actually understand what Early Access means. In almost no case has early access ever been a chance to play with a finished product before it goes on general sale. Development is a long, slow process, filled with pleasant surprises and stunning setbacks. That’s just what it is.
From what I've seen when I first played the game many years ago, and what I see now........ what the hell are you on about?! (that was rhetorical and I don't really care what else you have to say)
It sounds like most/all of you have been playing a long time but as a 5 month noob with only a fraction of my Steam reported 1300+ in game hours of my life spent getting Empyrion-induced sciatica I don't understand why you're all being so defensive when Eleon isn't. The physics is laughable .. mass/volume is a function-based carry system created for a paper based RPG vs. a simulation so no real physics. Thrust offset from CG moment arm is physics. Why have a way to show CG when it's only used to see which way the ship tips over when you turn off the power? Does a thrust offset increase fuel consumption? Why don't all these ships spin in circles? Is an RCS a reaction wheel or impulse based? If the former how can you put it anywhere in the ship without concern for CG and if the later how can you bury it in the hull? (I mostly like this sort of laughablilty as it would be a low return pain in the a$$ to try and get the silly Legoesq things I like to build off the ground otherwise; by ArdWolfs comments that makes me a target user.) Feature creep .. to his point why introduce the visual elements before you have the code behind them? That locks you in without providing any user perceptible benefit. Basic agile. Having users review features on paper before you bother adding them and letting them have input into prioritization is basic agile too. Maybe that is happening in some way but it isn't obvious in terms of a positive feedback loop .. engagement seems to be half-duplex and mostly through proxies. Listen to the streamers nudge at them to address issues - my basic assumption from that would be that there is little to no actual handshaking in the user/Eleon protocol (but I'd probably rather they were writing code than essays anyhow.) More brickbats .. the user experience is modal (i.e. logistics/factory/faction/etc induced spider bites) and the map has more "there be dragons here- you can't do that" boundary conditions than you can shake a gold sharpie at. Why do SV engines shut off every 32 seconds? Why does one of the two rocks from a big boulder fall through the surface of the planet? Why is a post-stop spasm field the solution to intersecting objects vs. collision detection? And what's up with that little tree in the frost zone? The Talon should use those things in their ballistas! As someone submitting bug reports I wish there was a searchable bug db and tooling so it was easier to avoid dups but I'd certainly agree that the Eleon gang is putting themselves out there more than most. Does that mean they're at the top of their game as far as user/dev interaction? The purpose of a pre-release is to surface issues and fix them but the team hasn't addressed the ubiquitous every few seconds SV navigation glitching in over two years and that issue was introduced in a specific build; the underlying problem shouldn't be hard to find if not solve. Personally I don't care if they ever leave alpha and if they decide to walk away I hope they do the same thing FreeSpace did but either way I wish "its pre-release" wasn't being used as apologia for two year old bugs. If I had a concern it would be that at the start of the project the team may have selected a Unity asset framework that has some of these problems baked in and that they have invested so much time working with it that making changes is difficult; if so the only way forward may entail a trip backward and that's always a hard sell. Fun? Hell yeah. It's the most fun I've had with a game in over a decade. I gotta get an ice pack for my back. =)
We have a database but its for internal eyes only. As user / dev interaction. @Hummel-o-War , My self try our best to communicate but we cant cover all We moved the discord over to an official one (verified and all) Iam there very active (there are more team members there aswell) Not every bug can be fixed quick. Some bugs will be fixed over time with the code change or propper implention. Some bugs needs such an overhaul that we rather wait with it till we take on that part of code
We know who the helpful folks are around here Taelyn. You’re well in the top five Some folks just like to gripe and complain.
Once more a person gives a halfway reasonable concern and is bombarded until they either shut up and sit down or just leaves. Was it fun for everyone to absolutely drive someone away from playing the game? Is there any wonder that people have complaints about the community? And players are being upvoted by mods for descending on another player and browbeating him for providing feedback on a game whose devs specifically asked for all feedback. So not only are the players in this post wrong the mods are also...but I am sure someone will come along a attack MY opinions also and threaten me with a ban......toxic community one more upvote. Needless grinding and tedium is not gameplay.......there absolutely needs to be something that comes out from the devs that furthers the gameplay instead of overcomplicating finicky rewrites of previous existing systems. Almost every single release lately has just been reworks of previous things to increase grinding and to increase tedium. The whole weight volume whatever rework is based on ADDING items to more complicate a system that could have had the new properties added without the need for new items--------ie, needing 3 items to do the work that one did previous is not an improvement. There is not only NO end game There isn't even a whiff of ever having one.....there is barely a reason at all to keep playing in the middle of this game. But I am sure someone will come along and say that is wrong and flying around on a CV with no purpose is the purpose.
It was not reasonable, and their review has several cuss words and implies harm to the dev team so they lost all claim to being reasonable.
