The thing that makes you want to play this game?

Simple.
Everything.

 

Why I want to play this game?
For Science!!

 

Everything. But mostly I can hang around space stations roleplaying a hobo, and the shooting things because I tawt I taw a poptop pussycat!!

 

Procedural generation.

I think that evolution of videogames went wrong way since The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall. Daggerfall had immense amounts of procedurally generated content. True, most of it was repetitive and all of it was buggy, but it was a flaw of implementation (and publisher's urge to sell the game asap, no matter what state it is in), and not the flaw of the concept. TES3:Morrowind, while a truly great game in itself, had no procedural generation of content at all, beyond standard random loot and random mobs from leveling tables.

And this is where it went wrong. Instead of creating gaming worlds of realistic scale via procedural generation, developers are using manual approach, crafting the worlds by hands. This brings several flaws which are so widespread that people forgot to count them as flaws:

1. Small scale of the world. Compare TES3-4-5 and TES2. You can travel on a straight line through Vvardenfell, Cyrodiil or Skyrim in what, an hour real time? Two hours? Less? Somewhat more? It is small. Cities are small, villages are small, distances between landmarks are small. While in Daggerfall it could take months real time to travel from east to west of the game world. Months. True, no one actually does that, and again, landscape was boring and mostly empty and the game was buggy, but still this immense scale provided with a feel of a real world, not a Disneyland.

2. Exploration. Small handicrafted worlds can be easily explored completely, with no noticeable stone unturned. And nowadays, pretty much every game world is small. Well, Minecraft worlds aren't, but there is not much of a point to explore them — they are basically empty of features, except "oh look another cool mountain with a waterfall". I like that game, but explore there? For what exactly? If I need a beautiful vista, I can bloody make one. Of course, it takes some bravery and vision from developers to create really interesting algorithms for procedural generations which can create awesome and interesting content, and I am not saying that it is easy to do. I am also not saying that it is easy to handicraft a gaming world such as Skyrim, of course.

3. Predictability. I always felt for developers of great games, because they basically can't play one. Sure they can if it is, for example, a fighting game, but an RPG with lots of content which you handicrafted by yourself? It's the same as reading the book you wrote: more awkward than pleasant. But in case of procedural generated game world, a developer is basically in the same shoes as everyone else. Sure, he may know all the story and lots of undercover mechanics, but still "oh my god what is that thing on that thing" goes as well for him as for anyone else. And it is awesome that people who created something great can enjoy it by themselves. Money is always good, but to make a game of your dreams and not being able to enjoy playing it must be rough.

 

I can totally agree with this. At this point, it just seems like developers are trying to make games fancy, rather than concentrate on the gameplay. Here's a related video:



I watched all this last night. He makes very good points.. They're somewhat similar to yours.

 

Infinite spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace

 

Because there will be so many things to do. I'm going to inhabit a small/medium planet and turn it into one big space center with creatures, ore and other loot I bring back from my adventures. I hope, besides of mechs, there wil be some other transportation methods like a little train so I can use that to travel through my 'home'.

Since all changes are saved I do hope the engine can handle that since I want to change every inch of that planet thus making a lot of changes.

 

Manslaughter.

 

Just so many awesome game play elements all integrated in a fun way.
1. Procedurally generated universe, planets, moons, asteroids
2. Procedurally generated weapons, various armour types with unique benefits and many tech (mods) for extra abilities
3. Procedurally generated creatures with varying looks, abilities and attack styles
4. Mining/farming/harvesting, construction/demolition, crafting/tinkering/wiring.
5. Exploration of: Under water, under ground, outer space
6. Dynamic combat that requires real time decisions
7. RPG style progression with earn-able tiers to work towards
8. Strategic style game-play possibilities like tower defence etc. (We can build turrets I think)
9. Pets - taming and training
10. Transportation/combat on spaceships, also while piloting various types of constructed mechs
11. Possibly optional survival properties such as hunger and body temperature.
12. Dynamic and always challenging end-game.

 

Totally agree with this. It is my main reasoning too. Basically I want to explore massive worlds. Not only that I want to be able to share what I find with others. The great thing about Starbound is the idea that we will all be exploring the same universe. If I find a great planet, i can tell my friends and they can go explore it on their own too.

To expand on my point. The world as we know it has pretty much been discovered, conquered and sold off for scrap. There is very little left to find, see or do that hasn’t already been found, seen or done. Hand designed games have the same problem. For a starter the person who designed them, saw it first.. Therefore IMHO the only way to get even close to that sort of thrill is by exploring procedural worlds.

We all know that Starbound isn’t the first to do this, heck even Minecraft wasn’t the first, but it is one of the first to do this in a way that will be immersive and realistic. The only other game I am aware of at the moment trying this is http://www.malevolencegame.com/ which is a turn based RPG set in an infinite world, similar to Daggerfall.

Both Starbound and Malevolence have me chomping at the bit to get out and explore. I want to be the first person ever to find a forest, a cave or even an entire continent (in Malevolence you can even 'claim' places to show you were the first person to ever find it). I want to be able to share this with people and then they can go find somewhere that I discovered. Even the developers will never have seen this place before me. And maybe sometimes I won’t tell anybody about something I have found, and I will have the knowledge that there is a good chance that I am the only person in the world that has seen it.

In Starbound and Malevolence everyone is on the same map so we can just share co-ordinates. Therefore the monsters etc. are an added bonus, a danger that must be survived when exploring, in the same way that explorers of old had exotic animals and diseases to survive.

Yes I understand that it is like comparing conquering Everest with going upstairs with the lights off, but it is all I have and the only way I will ever fulfill my childhood dreams.

 

The open world feel, the exploration of new worlds, the building. Heck just about everything. I loved Terraria and Starbound is filling the void it left in my heart when it stopped being maintained.

 

dual wielding.

 

Be fair to Morrowind, while you could traverse the island in a short amount of time going in a straight line north to south or west to east and vice versa the amount of time it would take you to explore the whole of the island properly is considerably more than that. Add to that the story and the dialogue, and the background lore(I could, and have just spent hours reading the in game books). I still play Morrowind quite a bit.

Bethesda sacrificed procedural generation (which as you already pointed out led to much repetition anyway) to give us this unique, and amazing playground.

Could Morrowind have been better with a procedural generated world like Arena and Dagerfall? I don't think so.

Would Starbound be better if Tiy and the gang instead made each world/monster/item unique by designing them themselves? I don't think so. Sure they could still have designed and implemented enough content for there to be a hundred hours or more of exploration, but as there's very little in the way of storyline to keep you hooked it would be a lot more predictable and less fun, imo.

Basically it's not fair to compare one to the other, not even fair to compare Daggerfall and Morrowind. The two were designed with different gameplay in mind.

Daggerfall was mainly about the dungeon crawling, Morrowind, more about the story. And then Oblivion came round and it was back to hack n' slash again. I never got much enjoyment from the plot in Oblivion

 

At the same time, many modern games are awesome in their own right. Granted, Terraria is my all-time favorite game. But that doesn't mean I don't like more structures games. I personally enjoy Far Cry 3, Assassins Creed 3, Halo 4, Red Dead, Starcraft, etc. I feel that many modern games have lost the charm of older ones, but that doesn't mean they aren't any fun.

 

Because my (little) common sense says "HOLY F-CKING SH-T ON A D-CK WHAT THE DEUCE IS THIS WONDERFULNESS I MUST HAVE IT" and I like listening to my common sense. He has some pretty damn good points.
Also swimming without accessories.

 

Put very basically, I like the idea of "random on random on random on random" that Chucklefish seem to be talking about. Randomly generated worlds with random monsters that you can kill with random guns and obtain random loot. Yes, please. This was the sort of thing that I wanted from A Valley Without Wind, and didn't really get. The environment in that game felt lifeless and forgettable, which is exactly the opposite of how I want this game to be. I want every expedition to be memorable, to contain something new, to not be another slow crawl through a goddamn forest level. Went a little bit ranty, sorry about that.