OK, explanation to my 3: Empyrion: Overall game mechanics. Also devs and community interactions, the improvement of the game. Galactic: Large sandbox space travel exploration with several modes of how to start and continue playing, SP/Coop & PvPvE. Survival: Try to stay alive fighting the elements and whatever attacks, preferable not die even if no real death penalty yet (but can make your own "rules"). While collecting resources to craft needed stuff. Along building your own vessels and bases, or use others from the Workshop system.
1. Highly rewarding. So I started out in SP. No cheats in mind. Found a damaged HV. Totally abandoned. Yay! Did my best to gather resources to build a simple base. Managed to repair the vessel piece by piece. It improved my life greatly. After some time improving BA, found a damaged SV. Whoa! Same process in fixing the new vessel. Now I can go to the stars. And I just scratched the surface of possibilities. 2. Gorgeous. I could actually make a Windows theme based on screenshots. And I don't even have a warp drive yet. 3. Immersion. I watch a lot of scifi and sometimes I feel stuck in a Battlestar Galactica episode.
The game is re-playable !! It doesn't matter that the missions are the same over and over again. The environment, even if it is the same initial planet, changes everything, the game is always different. What today can be seen as a stroke of luck, perhaps tomorrow in another start will be your worst nightmare. A mistake in planning a foray into a POI, overconfidence and bang !!! You are dead!!! Come home empty-handed or risk looking for your things armed only with a survival tool ... That is the definition of adventure at all risks. And the most important. A development group that is with your community. It is the perfect team. El juego es rejugable!! No importa que las misiones sean iguales una y otra vez. El entorno, aunque sea el mismo planeta inicial., cambia todo, el juego siempre es diferente. Lo que hoy puede verse como un golpe de suerte, quizas mañana en otro inicio sea tu peor pesadilla. Un error en planear una incursión en un POI, un exceso de confianza y zas!!! Estás muerto!!! Vuelve a casa con las manos vacias o arriesgate a buscar tus cosas armado solo con una herramienta de supervivencia... Eso es la definición de aventura a todo riesgo. Y lo mas importante. Un grupo de desarrollo que está junto a su comunidad. Es el equipo perfecto.
Adding to my #3 (immersion): Not to mention that I just recently found a deserted alien ship and it's been a long time since I felt so scared while exploring it while hearing screams and noises and reading warning signs to stay away. Kepts reminding me of those horror scifi movies from the 80s.
The building is the thing I like the best, so much creativity possible. Including making your own poi's. I love the galaxy map now that it's released, being restricted to one system previously always irked me. And svs, I love to build them and fly them, hvs have their use and cvs are cool but svs are much more fun to fly and fight with.
1. How I can get so completely immersed in creative or survival Empyrion like its another world to live in. At least until I hit something overly frustrating then my brain simply curses the game and the devs. 2. All the different aspects, things to do with more to come and customizability of Empyrion. 3. Developer interactivity and the devs ability to stay calm with players sometimes repeated questions, requests, rants and never thought I would enjoy the development ride of a game during ea as much as I have playing Empyrion.
1. A combination of genres. Variety of gameplay. Diversity. Dig, fight, trade, explore. And it's all in the first person. 2. Feeling of fear. You're still young. Cold. Few resources, few tools, and a hostile environment. 3. And of course, the ability to capture, build, and finally fly away.
Another round: 1. Some planets are gorgeous and equally dangerous at night or from a distance. 2. In such a huge galaxy, how the game remembers where you left everything, ships, cargos, bases, etc. It's mind-blowing to return to one of your homes and finding it exactly like you left. I've never seen such complexity in a game world before. 3. The trading system. You can become rich selling 02 and small generators in gas refineries when they belong to Polaris or promethium and fuel packs when they belong to Traders Guild. Some things is worth more to one race than to others. Also some rare items like optronics to make your money's worth. It's far from perfect but it all makes sense in the big picture.
1. Never ending list of stuff to do...can be tedious at times, but there seems to always be a fuel tank to fill, a constructor to be put to work, a building to be tweaked, a POI to investigate, more materials to be gathered. I find myself up in the wee hours of the morning telling myself "Ok, Ill log off when I finish doing X..." and then 5 minutes later I remember I still have Y and Z to do... 2. The game doesnt seem to force a playstyle. Other than having to set up a base/defense on the first planet just to get off, you are pretty much open to do whatever you want. Invade a Zirax planet? Cool. Settle down on a peaceful planet with no baddies? Cool. Become a pirate and kill everything that moves? Yup. Build a large intricate base? If you want. Never settle down? That works too. 3. Its just 'real' enough. Bases and vessels have components that are required...but the intricate connections between them dont need to be micromanaged. I can add thrusters, but no need to worry with fuel lines, wiring, or any of that. If my base runs low on power, I can add a generator anywhere it can fit, or just build a new building. No need to connect every little thing.
1. Game exemplifies the classic strategy game loop: Assess, analyze, decide, act, exploit, gain, advance, always with a risk of game over man. A. Game enhances these abstract mental activities with deliciousness: visuals, rapid environmental pattern-recognition (repeats the cycle of 1 on a micro-scale), hand-eye coordination FPS activities, sufficiently compelling flora and fauna, lovely representations of landscapes, geology and even physiography in some sense. B. The terror of risk and the prospect of snatching lopsided victory from high risk undertakings. 2. The thrill of creativity, which is effectively a positive exponential modifier of (1) and (1B). At least in theory, more creativity = more glory and victory. 3. A strong sense of perpetuity, vision and promise has always pervaded the project from the first time I encountered it and it does seem to get stronger and stronger (despite some peccadilloes). Bonus. Lovely community.
The best things about this game are intangibles. But let's see what I can say about it... 1. The feel of traveling out into the space and exploring. Nothing has been better in the game than that first time I left the starting planet's atmosphere. The transition of light, sound, control. Seeing the glow of atmosphere below you. Warping to a neighboring planet for the first time is a close second. 2. The creative building. Being able to come up with all sorts of vessels and bases. Blueprints and the workshop are a great aspect as well. I really enjoy checking out other players' creations, and I spend entirely too much time in creative mode building and tweaking my own. 3. The survival aspects: food, health, oxygen, temp, radiation. In terms of details here, I think some work on balance/scale is needed, but the concepts are great. (Note: hostile NPCs could be part of this, but right now, this aspect of it still feels a little contrived) o/ Jay
I am compelled to follow-up to point out that I would not have even considered buying the game if it wasn't for the co-op capabilities. I very much enjoy the multiplayer (although the issues relating to it may show up on my dislike list). It is so integral to my enjoyment of the game that I didn't even think about it as a independent feature to put on my top 3 list. The multiplayer experience could use more work generally, so I can't get more specific than that. (I have a long wish list for it.)
1: being able to fly about in something I have created, block by block, then realised and moving in a beautiful world 2: the variety of explore, gather, fight, manage. 3: the excitement of not knowing what any new world and planet has to offer. Procedural generation ftw!
1) Freedom (under constraints) 2) Creative mode... that can be upgraded with cool stuff to help build better things easier. 3) Just the planets, systems, game design as a whole. Really really congrats to Eleon on this. Your procedural galaxy generation is a real success ! For what I know (beginner), systems are quite smartly balanced, variety of planets and biomes is quite alright. Of course some bugs do still show up but in general, it is just fantastic. AND IT RENDERS GREAT : YOU GUYS HAVE DONE CREATING AWESOME LANDSCAPES BY AUTOMATION. 4) (hey 4 ?) I would like a less agressive game mode. Many people I can see posting here claim for more difficulty. Not me. Just think of it for beginners, if you read me. And it could also be a long-run playstyle. 5) I never tried the various mutiplayer games. So I cannot say anything about them, apart it will be a major part of the game's success, if it's been identified as a major feature by the community. For all this kind of matter : always ask the community. Do listen and understand, synthesiez before deciding. 6) Look at Elite : Dangerous. You already changed the warp loading screen to an animation, so, be it because of what I suggested or not, keep looking at the good things and please please avoid the stupid things. I'm positive about whether you'd be you hiring Braben as a consultant, he's both too expensive and lacking of vision for EGS. 7) Listen to the community, listen to the community, allow mods, allow mods, ban biatches from forums, fill my CV with pentaxid but only once... As for another game reference, Egosoft, the creators of X1, X2, X3 ans lately X4, they made quite fantastic games. Well the path to an acceptable playability was quite longer than for EGS, but they always followed community's advice #7. 8) Lady Ganjanoof asks her husband leave the keyboard. Ouch. Over and out. Awesome game, Cheers !
My three: 1) the fact that I can build a custom HV/SV/BA/CV, make a blueprint, and then be able to bring that into another game without the painful trial and error of trying to recreate it from scratch. 2) being able to start a world in SP, then have my son join for a couple hours of clear POIs, and go back to playing it in SP. 3) being able to customize the difficulty more than just easy/medium/hard.....and then change it later.
Note that I only play SP, so these do not include or apply to MP. Below the list, I will expound on each point slightly. Please remember that these are the things I PERSONALLY like. Others might disagree with them. Developers you can talk to Creative Mode Potential of the game Developers you can talk to. I wouldn't consider myself a big gamer, but from what I've seen/heard, there seems to be a consistent theme with game developers where they don't talk to their players. The most they do is release a survey, which I can't help but feel will be ignored in the thousands of replies. At the end of the day, the game belongs to the developers, and they are well within their rights to design it how they please. But it is VERY nice to be able to actually talk with the developers of a game you love, and really feel like you have a say in how it is designed. Others might not feel this way, but I do. Creative Mode. I absolutely love designing things, and any game where I can build something I will always keep coming back to. That's why, even after I've played it several times, I still come back to Portal 2's community test chambers every few months. Empyrion lets me build spaceships, hover tanks, fighters, and bases. It does not allow the full freedom I would like (see my dislikes post in the other thread), but it is certainly a start, and something I enjoy playing with. Potential of the game. I feel like Empyrion SP survival is something which can be great. I feel like it's a far ways from that status, but the open-ended design allows for features to be added in which could truly make it a test of your galactic survival skills. Once your survival is challenged at every stage of the game (currently just the beginning), then I'll know that potential is beginning to be realized. Again, see my dislikes post in the other thread for details on the direction I'd like to see.
1. The exploration - zip around on a planet, find some spooky old ruins, maybe an abandoned facility or even take out a zirax POI. Then load up your Starship with your ill gotten gains and go up to orbit, find more cool stuff.. maybe go trade some of those unused weapons. Then set off into the unknown, finding photo opportunities along the way, clues to an ancient civilisation and other strange and interesting things. (more explorer content would be awesome - maybe tech you can only find out in the black or more large scale derelict/empty ships?) 2. The plethora of custom made ships and equipment. so much choice! Love turning that loot and salvage into new equipment, ammo and even ships. 3. The freedom - I can tend to a farm or hunt to make food for the crew, I can gather resources to top up our supplies, or I can damn near soil myself in an abandoned structure because of those damn freaky screeching long boys! ~ sneaky number 4 - the fact the Devs work with their community to find improvements, prioritise features and fix bugs and the speed of updates. We know you can't add every feature, but the fact you do these surveys is just awesome.
1. Ah yeah... Can't be any other than BUILDING. Unleashing your creativity, embracing your frustration... What a marvelous experience. I must express my concerns in this regard cause there are some other games which pretend to do somewhat better in the near future, although this ties up with the next thing I really love which is: 2. Putting those builds in use. EGS has always been a fun game compared to some other similar games, which may be better from an engineering point of view (those rotors, pistons, etc..) but... Egs has this more arcadey feel when you're hunting stuff with your sv, when exploring, encountering bugs and other races, when fighting in first person, base attacks, having a more vivid world... It's just fun. 3. The COMMUNITY and DEV TEAM, you are ALL great guys
1. The new galaxy with infinite number of stars to visit and explore. 2. The creepy and hard alien POI's. 3. The many shapes that can be combined to create so many unique and great looking ships, and the blueprints that makes it easy to share and import them.
