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No Man's Sky


Osrik
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So, who else here is excited for the upcoming game No Man's Sky? It is a galactic exploration game that will be released next month, with a universe consisting of billions of planets that can be traveled to and explored, factions that can be joined or raided, and some kind of secret to be found at the center of the galaxy.

This video provides a decent summary of its features:

 

For me, if this game delivers on what it promises (and my computer can handle it), I will be very happy, as I have been hoping for a open world space exploration game for some time. Though I would like if it had more of a story, the shear scale of the game is impressive, and the variety of planets will likely prove interesting to explore for some time, while the faction interaction/warfare should also be interesting.

My main concerns are that the gameplay will focus too heavily on resource gathering/survival, as the hints at rare necessary resources concern me, but i hope you can simply purchase what you need from outposts/space-stations rather than scour the galaxy for one resource. Additionally, I hope that the  the faction interactions are relatively extensive, as that would certainly increase the longevity of my interest in the game.

So, who else is excited for this game, and what are your concerns about/the things you most look forwards to about it?

 

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38 minutes ago, XoPachi said:

I'm told it has that Journey style multiplayer...if you manage to find someone that is.

Yeah, this isn't a game that you are going to buy for the multiplayer...

I think what they said is that there will be ways to interact with other players if you encounter them, but there will not be social features or the likes you would expect in an MMO.

They have described it as being more of a shared universe than a multiplayer game, where players will mostly influence each other by the effects of their actions on the universe.

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I'm a little skeptical. Sure it sounds very nice but it also sounds similar to another space sim I played: Elite Dangerous. NMS seems to be taking a more arcadey and colorful path as opposed to the heavy realism of the counterpart I mentioned which arguably sounds a hell of a lot more fun. They're two different games that however belong to the same category, and this is what worries me. I played ED for 20 hours or so before getting sick of it, because it's ''mile wide inch deep'' as many people have come to describe it. Sure it's huge, but just flying around, docking stations and grinding for credits before being able to even think of accessing good items and explore the deep space (which was what I was looking forward to the most, and even then exploring isn't that enjoyable) got old pretty fast. Really, that's all there is to it. Oh, and dogfighting but they're either too easy or too hard to the point that some foes will just blast you away in two shots. I just really really hope the more arcadey nature of NMS will make it volumes more fun than ED

In any case, they better have gas giants or other hostile not-life-suitable planets. There are so many possibilities in the universe, ranging from worlds that have rivers of literal fuel on their surface to planets entirely composed of diamond. I'd absolutely adore seeing strange worlds that are not limited to the usual piece of rock with some weird aliens and some bushes here and there

 

40 minutes ago, XoPachi said:

I'm told it has that Journey style multiplayer...if you manage to find someone that is.

Seeing the scale of the game, it'll be pretty hard to find anyone at all :(. However, I do hope there's going to be proper support for that

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The trailer got me interested since it showed that there's actual stuff you can do in the game, but I'm still unsure of it.

It looks pretty and huge as a game but procedural generation/mathematically created worlds likely means that things will eventually get really same-y even if they are technically different (maybe really minor differences between planets). Plus the lack of a story bothers me a bit. Does the game have an actual goal? It sounds more like a themepark of things to discover, including that "going to the center of the galaxy" thing. I might try it, but only if its on sale really cheap one day.

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16 minutes ago, Amiir said:

I'm a little skeptical. Sure it sounds very nice but it also sounds similar to another space sim I played: Elite Dangerous. NMS seems to be taking a more arcadey and colorful path as opposed to the heavy realism of the counterpart I mentioned which arguably sounds a hell of a lot more fun. They're two different games that however belong to the same category, and this is what worries me. I played ED for 20 hours or so before getting sick of it, because it's ''mile wide inch deep'' as many people have come to describe it. Sure it's huge, but just flying around, docking stations and grinding for credits before being able to even think of accessing good items and explore the deep space (which was what I was looking forward to the most, and even then exploring isn't that enjoyable) got old pretty fast. Really, that's all there is to it. Oh, and dogfighting but they're either too easy or too hard to the point that some foes will just blast you away in two shots. I just really really hope the more arcadey nature of NMS will make it volumes more fun than ED

In any case, they better have gas giants or other hostile not-life-suitable planets. There are so many possibilities in the universe, ranging from worlds that have rivers of literal fuel on their surface to planets entirely composed of diamond. I'd absolutely adore seeing strange worlds that are not limited to the usual piece of rock with some weird aliens and some bushes here and there

Yeah, I certainly hope they don't make it grindy, as that would quickly kill it for me. I am concerned because they mentioned that you have to gather resources to build a hyper-drive to get beyond the first system, but I hope that the resource gathering is relatively simple and quick, as it would really kill the game if you have to grind just to get to the biggest selling point, the exploration...

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The concept sounds really awesome, but I'm not quite convinced that it will be fun to play for a long period of time. I watch a trailer for it where a dev or someone was explaining some things about how it was going to work, but they didn't really answer why you would want to bother with anything. I'm confused on what the goal of the game is, I guess. Just explore? That's it? If that's the case, I'll probably pass. I need a reason to explore.

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On 5/25/2016 at 8:17 PM, Kinare said:

I watch a trailer for it where a dev or someone was explaining some things about how it was going to work, but they didn't really answer why you would want to bother with anything.

I hear that's a PR trick for interviews. The one asking the question tries to pry for very in depth specifics and usually the one answering isn't trying to give anything too deep too soon.

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This is the first game I've ever pre-ordered, and it looks absolutely amazing. I've been following updates on it for the last year or so and am super hyped for it, the stuff mentioned in the video that the OP posted is just the tip of the iceberg.

I highly doubt I'll be disappointed.

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Yeah, gamers are a pretty cancerous group as a whole, it is depressing that the average gamer's response to anything they don't like is a stream of death threats...

I think the whole Gamersgate fiasco last year really showed off how toxic the gaming community as a whole can be.

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11 minutes ago, Osrik said:

Yeah, gamers are a pretty cancerous group as a whole, it is depressing that the average gamer's response to anything they don't like is a stream of death threats...

I think the whole Gamersgate fiasco last year really showed off how toxic the gaming community as a whole can be.

GamerGate's a joke. I withheld my opinions on it, but I'm seeing them do nothing productive. Both sides of the situation are fucking terrible. 

So what happened specifically this time with them?

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26 minutes ago, Osrik said:

Yeah, gamers are a pretty cancerous group as a whole, it is depressing that the average gamer's response to anything they don't like is a stream of death threats...

I think the whole Gamersgate fiasco last year really showed off how toxic the gaming community as a whole can be.

I don't think y'all understand that humanity as a whole is like, 99% dicks. The percentage of dicks in a given group only increases the higher or lower the average age. Setting the bar any higher just leaves you open to disappointing yourself every two hours :V

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16 minutes ago, XoPachi said:

GamerGate's a joke. I withheld my opinions on it, but I'm seeing them do nothing productive. Both sides of the situation are fucking terrible. 

So what happened specifically this time with them?

I was referring to the whole controversy with Zoe Quin and the others, I guess I was a year off (just saw it was actually 2014).

I also stayed out of it entirely, but the whole thing was just blown out of proportions by both sides, with it reaching a lot of mainstream media even.

2 minutes ago, LadyRadarEars said:

I don't think y'all understand that humanity as a whole is like, 99% dicks. The percentage of dicks in a given group only increases the higher or lower the average age. Setting the bar any higher just leaves you open to disappointing yourself every two hours :V

Oh, I don't have especially high expectations for humanity, but things like Gamersgate and the like just serve as reminders of how low people will sink over the most ridiculous topics.

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  • 2 months later...

Spent a good 4 hours on it already and I have to say it feels like space-minecraft. They don't hold your hand when learning things, but it isn't hard to pick up and luck determines where you start. I started on some horrible Hoth-like place and had to manage my suit temp. While my bf started on a planet near a red sun and tons of flora.

It's a good game and you can easily get lost in how vast it is.

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Just played my first few hours today (had to wait the 3 extra days for PC), and have a pretty positive opinion of it myself.

I find that my experience with it tends to go back and forth between great enjoyment of the better aspects (exploring, upgrading/buying new ships and equipment, and the visuals) and significant annoyance at the game's flaws (overly time consuming survival, black bars and text whenever you get an achievement), but overall it feels like a game that i will be playing for a long time, especially if future updates fix some of these problems and add new features (they already said they are adding base building and the ability to own large ships in the future).

Oh, and I started on a very hot planet with pulsing, vaguely phallic fungus instead of trees:

 

20160812204946_1.jpg

Also had some cool dinosaurs:

 

20160812222415_1.jpg

 

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I played it for a bit now, and I must say... it's not that good.

The combat is awful due to the bad controls of your character, ship combat is even worse, because the ship doesn't really care about what direction you want to point it at, it drifts all around, and on the planet, it's impossible to fly or look downwards while your enemies are well capable of flying low.

While there is a lot to explore, it is impaired by the slow movement of the character, the almost constant maintenance need of the ships various drives and even with a newer ship, very limited cargo space.
Planets with oceans take tons of times to explore because of the slow movement and the seemingly one cup of air you can bring down with you.

I really like how you need to learn language, although it could be a little faster. I know around 30 words now, and the usual conversations are just gibberish.

The way-point mechanics are horrible, although at least they show how long it takes to get there. But they often show up on the upper HUD, but not on screen, leaving you to guess the direction. Also, with the way you can't look down, and the seemingly useless ship radar, it's extremely hard to judge just how much off you are from a site. This is even worse at places where there is a landing pad and a galactic trading spot, as you need to land on the pad for the trader to recognise your ships inventory.

All in all, the idea, graphics and sounds of the game are decent, but it is packed with a bad movement system both on ground and in space/air that can make parts of it a real hassle. I'll play it regardless. It's nice. I'd just wish you wouldn't take so long to get around smaller distances, and that the ship would actually do what I tell it to.

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2 minutes ago, Falaffel said:

The age of the company means absolutely nothing. I have no clue what you're getting at.

They've only made 4 games before this one, and none of them were anything like No Man's Sky, so the hype behind this particular game confused me. What I'm trying to say is that people shouldn't really be surprised that the game has issues because the company is trying something they really have never tried before.

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26 minutes ago, Sidewalk Surfboard said:

They've only made 4 games before this one, and none of them were anything like No Man's Sky, so the hype behind this particular game confused me. What I'm trying to say is that people shouldn't really be surprised that the game has issues because the company is trying something they really have never tried before.

I mean, it's not really about expectations entirely. If a game is weak, it's just weak. Some people don't need to be as scathing as they are, but criticism where it counts is necessary. The game is not fun for a lot of people. Now, I can't sling mud at them for a shoddy PC port because they're a small team and PC development is exponentially more difficult than console. But the design choices? A lot of people can agree, the game's bland and fairly skimpy on what you can do. It's monotonous.

And not having done this before is only more reason for them to get the response they are getting. They can learn from it and make a huge patch, No Man's Sky 2, or just a new game that everyone will love. It sucks it's not what we hoped it would have been. I'm not surprised and half expected it, but can't win them all.

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I like the concept and the overall aesthetic of the game but to me it's one of those games you play in little bursts because all you do is explore and fly around. Kinda like Minecraft in some regard but with more space squirrels

 

honestly, I wouldn't say it's a bad game. I actually think it's pretty well done considering how massive and intricate it is, but it does have a lot more potential to it

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The PC port of NMS is incredibly broken.
There's been a lot of in-depth discussion about its programming in a discord server I'm in, where a game-developer friend of mine hangs out. 
It's pretty hard to explain all the details, but this will probably go down in history as one of the worst game launches of all time; at least on the PC end.

The PC port is actually so broken that it's apparently going to be included this year as course material at the Rochester Institute of Technology for "how not to develop a game engine"

From all observations they designed it to run on their own modern hardware and failed to actually test it out on other machines, and forgot(?) that not everybody has the specific kind of state-of-the-art CPU that can handle the "instruction sets" they used or whatever.

Also, you know how the port was released on the 12th?

Guess when they hired the quality assurance team for the port.

The 11th. 

Yeeeep. 

 

Also, there's no game. The framework is there, but the game is missing. It's pretty much just open-ended exploring like some sort of proof-of-concept. Certainly some will enjoy that anyway, but it could have been so much more if it had actually landed in capable hands. 

 

Me? I think it looks ugly. 

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In my humble opinion, they should make a space game that is smaller but much more dense and polished. Take it from a guy who played Elite Dangerous, another space sim: you have the entire Milky Way at your disposal but all you can really do is flying from system to system, maybe delivering goods, maybe bounty hunting, maybe scanning. Unlike NMS you don't even have planetary landings, except for if you buy one of the most ridiculously expensive pieces of DLC I've ever seen

My dream space game is something more ''compact''. I don't care about having 20385740857084520852048520856 explorable planets if they're all gonna be the same anyway, so just give me a few but well made. Unique and memorable. I'd have the game be story driven, with a plot similar to Interstellar maybe: a search for habitable planets crucial for the survival of the race of the protagonist(s?). Simple yet relatable. I would advise against overly futuristic tech, instead I'd very much prefer something more realistic or at the very least believable like the kind of technology seen in the Alien movies, 2001 A Space Odissey or Interstellar: there the technologic limitations force the characters to make do with what they have and this, at least in my opinion, greatly increases tension. There's no FTL travel in these movies for starters, the characters rely on hyper sleep to travel through such distances. I would make AI be non existant too so that every system of the ship must be manned, including probes.

Have some crazy shit happen during the ship's journey to this potentially habitable system, like a meteor storm through which our guys must fly through, a black hole that was not detected. Surely there are other cosmic dangers that can be thrown in the mix. Maybe the characters attempt to land a probe on a planet that was thought to be habitable but as they get in its atmosphere our guys discover the performed scans were totally wrong as they get themselves into an extremely violent storm or something. Let's say that this ship has an on board refinery: maybe the journey is sooo long that the crew has to rely on periodically gathering resources from other planets to keep the ship's systems in check, meaning that they have to land on extremely hazardous worlds to retrieve said resources. Another danger. Maybe the aforementioned meteor storm may have compromised the ship's integrity, perhaps causing a failure of the life support at some point to which our guys obviously have to promptly remedy. Maybe staying in a can of metal floating in space starts to take a toll on the astronauts' minds after a while as their mental sanity gradually deteriorates. Maybe one guy can go batshit crazy and try to kill all the others (if you remember Dr Mann from Interstellar, you know what I'm talking about).

See? The possibilities are endless to make a memorable or at the very least interesting space game. Other than the mandatory space sim stuff, in it I would also implement the kind of decision making present in the Mass Effect or Tell Tale's The Walking Dead series whenever possible, if possible

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8 hours ago, Endless/Nameless said:

The PC port of NMS is incredibly broken.
There's been a lot of in-depth discussion about its programming in a discord server I'm in, where a game-developer friend of mine hangs out. 
It's pretty hard to explain all the details, but this will probably go down in history as one of the worst game launches of all time; at least on the PC end.

The PC port is actually so broken that it's apparently going to be included this year as course material at the Rochester Institute of Technology for "how not to develop a game engine"

From all observations they designed it to run on their own modern hardware and failed to actually test it out on other machines, and forgot(?) that not everybody has the specific kind of state-of-the-art CPU that can handle the "instruction sets" they used or whatever.

Also, you know how the port was released on the 12th?

Guess when they hired the quality assurance team for the port.

The 11th. 

Yeeeep. 

 

Also, there's no game. The framework is there, but the game is missing. It's pretty much just open-ended exploring like some sort of proof-of-concept. Certainly some will enjoy that anyway, but it could have been so much more if it had actually landed in capable hands. 

 

Me? I think it looks ugly. 

Whaaaaat the fuck. 

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Pretty good game. I was never interested in it until like a few days ago, but I bought it anyways and have been enjoying myself. Planets can be samey and barren, but sometimes you come across a super cool and pretty planet with lots of life on it. Also, to be fair - space in reality consists of mostly boring and barren planets too.

I play it on PC and it's worked perfectly fine. I play on max settings, and I think the only issue I've had was some frame drops on ocean planets.
TBH any issues currently on PC are stuff that will be fixed with time, so I don't really see it as a means to be whinging too badly.
Also, it probably won't be long before people start modding this game. I look forward to what people could make.

I'd say just stay away from console 'cause it has less options (like no FoV slider), and it will never have mods :v

On a side note - I was always kind of boggled with what people were expecting from this game. Talk about overly high expectations.... I guess too many let their imaginations get the better of them with what little info there was on the game before it released. I mean, it was meant to just be a space exploration game from the beginning, and this is exactly what it is now. It does what it intended to do quite well, and there's certainly nothing else quite like it at the moment. I think people forgot it was being made by an indie development team only consisting of like, 10 people.
Pretty impressive to pull off such a large game with such a small team, really.

All in all; for me this is a cool game that's enjoyable enough (and also relaxing) to play for a bit when I feel like it. 7/10
As for the price, $60 isn't a big deal to me, but if it is for others then it's totally worth getting once this game goes on sale.

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16 hours ago, Endless/Nameless said:

Guess when they hired the quality assurance team for the port.

The 11th. 

Yeeeep. 

Oh wow... If I were a part of that team I'd just be like "this is a joke you play on all the new hires.... right?".

I have no words.

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25 minutes ago, Imperial Impact said:

What people expect: Xenoblade X plus Aesthetic.

What people got: Fallout 4, Minecraft

What people expect: A game that in no way resembles what was promised.

What people got: A somewhat flawed game that is pretty close to what was promised (the multiplayer scandal is the only notable case of something promised not being in the game), with some more serious flaws for some users.

 

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1 minute ago, Osrik said:

What people expect: A game that in no way resembles what was promised.

What people got: A somewhat flawed game that is pretty close to what was promised (the multiplayer scandal is the only notable case of something promised not being in the game), with some more serious flaws for some users.

 

So FO4 + Minecraft.

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Don't read the comments when you need to brain. That is counter productive.

I'm moderately enjoying the game, some of the planets are hateraide right now, but I can see why some would be mad with the comparison video, and maybe there will be changes to allow those nifty bits later on?

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8 hours ago, Nova said:

I watched some lets plays and the planets look borings as fuck.

Most of them have the colour between brown and red.

I never saw a planet that was colourfull.

A lot of planets can have some rather boring pallets, but there certainly are some more colorful earth-like planets out there, they are just rarer than most others:

20160818170738_1.jpg

20160818172831_1.jpg

20160818171834_1.jpg20160819005321_1.jpg20160819012648_1.jpg

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