Sandbox nature: the ability to choose your own playstyle and succeed at it. Whether a player wants to mine/farm/kill/explore, it's possible to succeed. Empyrion has nearly Minecraft levels of freedom for playstyles with optional quests and playstyles. It's great that I can keep mixing things up to keep myself entertained. The building and Blueprint system: oh my god this is one of the most amazing things EVER! Not only can I make the most beautiful/aesthetic/pragmatic builds but we can download, modify, customise other player's creations to suit our personal needs too! Due to the nearly limitless potential, this has created hours upon hours of fun for me! Multiplayer - specifically PVP. Dare it be said, the problem with Empyrion is gathering resources and building nice ships, is it doesn't have too much point once a design can defeat the PVE problem it was created for. PVP creates a beautiful re-occurring loop of collection/design/destruction, building the best ships we can, destroying others with them or being destroyed, then going back to the drawing board and fields to collect resources to do better. It's one of the ways players keep creating their own content, once they have become proficient at PVE.
1. Planets. While there could (and hopefully will) be alot more variety in topology, shape, flora, fauna and coloring I find them miles better and more convincing than their NMS counterparts. I really enjoy travelling on them, even by foot. 2. Building. I'm impressed by a) what you can build - from small vessels to huge bases on planets and in space b) how you can build - don't know if it can get much easier, Eleon even implemented an editing history with undo, what would you want more c) what poeple have already build and made freely availabe on the workshop 3. Configuration The extensive configuration posibilities I've yet to get more familiar with, ranging from global game mechanics to implementing your own scenarios and stories. Wow!
1) Free roaming exploration within a large persistent universe 2) Building ships and configuring them 3) Adventures and in PvP and PvE (which I hope more content will be released for, I feel everything is still rudimentary atm)
My 2 cents worth: Developer Involvement - the feeling that they create of us all being in this together to create a great game. Single Player Survival Mode - evolving storyline with cohesive progression Creative Mode - we can build the vehicles we need when we need them, outcome is in players' hands Visuals - very immersive and cool Game Options - players can decide how much of a cake walk or hot coal walk Scenario Mods - extended universe just adds more of a great thing and last but certainly not least, the very cool player base, always willing to stay involved and help out others.
Base building - my absolutely favorite aspect of this game, the main reason I come back to it again and again The ability to disassemble enemy PoIs and use the mats to enhance your own base
1: The Arcade style of the gameplay 2: Sandbox 3: Survival (well it was nerfed really much in the past years but someday maybe it will be back in it's former glory)
1) The raiding in Empyrion is what keeps me coming back. This is by far my favorite feature in Empyrion, and without it I would never return to the game. 2) The simplicity of ship building. This is less true these days, but putting things wherever on your vessel and having them just work makes the game extremely approachable, even after a long break. 3) Total Horrors, please never remove them from the game. One of the creepiest NPCs I've ever encountered in Video Games, and it makes raiding Alien POIs that much better.
Totally agree with that. I'm afraid of spiders and there were some nights facing them in the game I couldn't even sleep as my heart was pounding so fast. Those pregnant wicked aliens that contaminate by touch also gives me the creeps. All in all, this game is a cult classic for me. I grew up loving sci-fi mixed with horror movies even if they have not so great actors and special effects. And maybe they're so fun even today because of those flaws. People are not used to space survival games. I see a lot of "this game gets boring and empty and devoid of variety" here or in NMS. But they don't get it that space should make you feel lonely, cold, facing emptiness.
It's interesting, because I was just thinking about this. I skipped out on Empyrion a few days ago because of a bug, and went over to Space Engineers... and started getting bored with it somewhat quickly. I actually think Empyrion is the better game anyway. Why? Lots of options for block shapes and texturing. oh god so many options. Pages upon pages of different block shapes that give you so much more freedom in how you build your ship compared to SE (which has block, slope, cut corner, inverse cut corner, and that's pretty much IT.) Similarly, I have color, textures, and symbols I can apply to whatever I want to apply them to. Ships in SE are very spartan by comparison. Decorations too. Lots of neat decorations. And they're not DLC. Simplicity in ship/base design. I don't need to spend an hour jacking around with conveyors or making sure I have my parts rotated just right to make sure they can connect up. I can worry about how my ship looks rather than how it'll function. Connecting to a base is a really great feature that I didn't even realize I needed until I found it. The personal drone is great too, and is a MASSIVE boon to building on a planet. The factory is amazing. Blueprinting in SE is a Charlie Foxtrot by comparison. Logical progression* and/or story. You're stranded on a planet, and want to get back to space. You wander around, mining or gathering resources to build your HV so you can get around faster, then your SV so you can head into space, then a CV so you can travel further. This just feels right, and it's pretty decently balanced to nudge you towards that progression. Bonus points: POIs on planets actually give you a reason to BE on planets. The quests are a good guide to push you towards the natural progression as well. Interface issues aside (I'd much prefer to read all the text at once,) the story is interesting enough to get me to play through (at least) the main quest once every other playthrough or so. The mere existence of a story keeps me engaged for as long as I'm following the story. Contrast SE, where you're just kind of thrown into space and you get to figure things out on your own. * I'm not talking about levels and the tech tree. I'm pretty well convinced that THOSE are BS, and my first console command on starting a game is level = 25 - even before the escape pod hits the ground. Compare and contrast my dislikes.
1. The combination of base-building, a reason to build up a base (raids!), and the ability to put thrusters on your base and move it, so you're not staring at the same hill and lake forever. It's exactly the mixture of features I personally want, giving me all the best parts of my favorite survival games (Minecraft, 7 Days to Die, Space Engineers, etc...) while addressing all of their worst drawbacks (nothing to fight, the same horde base forever, nothing to fight). 2. The blueprint system. Wow, so good! Sometimes I need a ship, and I don't have the creative energy to spend three hours building one from scratch. Sometimes I see someone else's ship and I want to steal it and pretend I was good enough to make that myself. The blueprint system delivers. 3. But also the building system, and specifically the variety of shapes. I love the tradeoff here (in contrast to, for ex: Space Engineers), of having less-detailed textures but more-detailed shapes and silhouettes. I spend a minute total looking at the textures, but I spend hours with my ship's silhouette perpetually at the edges of my vision. This is a great tradeoff to make, for me. Honorable mention: the (effectively) infinite galaxy. I learned from my hundred hours in No Man's Sky that no planet will ever be good enough to permanently settle on, but nonetheless every time I think: this is the one. This time, this planet. And that part is always fun.
1) this game is a "jack of all trades", the only game I know that lets you build, dig, explore,fight AND go to space. 2)it's still a true sandbox 3) Eleon don't really listen to the community (trying to please everyone ends up making a mess), but especially they have no ties to "investors". The last one is not really game-related but its effects can be seen allover the game, keep up being independent guys!
1) The ease of building, it is less complex as Space Engineers and has more block types for high degree of creativity. 2) Would not play this game without this community and blueprints
1: The initial survival portion of the game (level 1-10) 2: ... 3: ... That's it, just the Initial survival portion of the game. Its the only part that really appeals to me as far as gameplay goes.
I like the building..in creative as well as in survival Freedom to go almost anywhere...non linear game play The option to make custom scenarios, POIs, Planets... to keep the game fresh and challenging Dedication from the Devs to keep updating/fixing
1. The galaxy map is totally cool now 2. The ability to modify the ECF files and tweak most parameters 3. The ability to build freely. Freedom to either switch between Survival and God+Creative, or to run a separate Creative-mode game and only import blueprints into the separate survival game.
I really do like Empyrion. 1) Creative, allows me to be creative in base building or ship building 2) You can do whatever you want to do, there is no set "go here and do this" all the time. A free world. 3) I like the feel of the weather, the plants and animals, the landscapes, I feel a tiny bit like I'm in another world. The more plants and animals the better, I know memory isn't infinite but a new plant or animal once in a while added to the game would be very nice.
Just about everything in this game is awesome, there are so many subtle refinements make it work so seamlessly, the devs have done an incredible job. * Adventure and exploration, especially the first time. It's a sign of how good the game is that searching asteroids, planets and systems for gold doesn't get frustrating or tedious, because there's always something new to discover. * Different planets and environments making us work out solutions. For example my first landing on a high gravity planet in my heavy armoured SV - I couldn't take off again. So after a bit of whirring and clanking in my cranium I offloaded all my gear into the SV container, went for a walk without my helmet and respawned in the CV. Built another small, light SV with bigger engines, tested it, then recovered all the gear and disassembled the original SV. The fact that we can even DO that is awesome. I know what a HG planet is now too * The way everything just *works*. Build a ship, point a thruster down and it will give vertical lift. Point it up and it will give vertical descent. Add auto turrets and turn them on or off at will. No tedious and time consuming connections needed. * Constantly upgrading and improving and painting and refining is so enjoyable.
