No Man's Sky

[Deleted]

The problem with a true open sandbox is that they are really hard to make good, it is hard to make a place interesting for a prolonged period of time with no real goal, path or story leading you.
There is a lot lot lot more to it then writing a script that will spew out a bazillion same-y planets, throw them into the sky and say "here is your sandbox".

Well put. And it's exactly what I'm afraid of with this game. They are putting too much emphasis on 'but..but...GAZILLION PLANETS OMG' for me to really take the game seriously. That said...I really hope they prove me wrong, because if they DO manage to make it interesting it would probably be a game I'd love to play.

[rhorle]

Can I commit genocide on species I come across for various space minerals or spices?

Yes. But there is a universal police force so to speak. The Sentinels or whatever will come if you do to many "illegal" things. They haven't really explained it but I do specifically remember a play/interview session where they stated if you kill to many animals they sentinels might show up to stop you..

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But to me it's boring procedural generation, eventually you'll get to a point where you have seen most variations of planets and creatures due to the limited assets(6 GB game and small dev team is telling that there is not enough assets in the game to make 5000 planets even close to being unique let alone 5 quadrillion.

But is it boring while you are getting to that point? Or only boring after you get to that point? Because you likely won't get to that point unless you put a lot of time into the game. You also don't need a lot of art assets if you can combine, recolor, and other stuff with procedural generation. Minecraft disk size is pretty small, about 200mb if I recall. The size will increase based on how much you do in a world and how much it needs to save for that world.

6gb is pretty large when things use procedural generation. Because you don't store the completed things it creates it on demand. Its like the replicator in Star trek. They don't need an entire grocery store worth of storage for all of the food the replicator can create.

[Deleted]

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But is it boring while you are getting to that point? Or only boring after you get to that point? Because you likely won't get to that point unless you put a lot of time into the game. You also don't need a lot of art assets if you can combine, recolor, and other stuff with procedural generation. Minecraft disk size is pretty small, about 200mb if I recall. The size will increase based on how much you do in a world and how much it needs to save for that world.

For me it would be boring I think. I don't need to see the yellow, blue and orange version of a head if I've seen the purple one. I don't know, maybe I'm vastly underestimating the awesomeness of what the game is about. I'm a biologist, I love going out and looking at all the different species around me, but somehow this just sounds boring to me. But as I said before, I really really hope they prove me wrong!

[rhorle]

For me it would be boring I think. I don't need to see the yellow, blue and orange version of a head if I've seen the purple one. I don't know, maybe I'm vastly underestimating the awesomeness of what the game is about. I'm a biologist, I love going out and looking at all the different species around me, but somehow this just sounds boring to me. But as I said before, I really really hope they prove me wrong!

But isn't that "realistic"? A yellow, blue, and orange version could be a different species or at least a sub-species. Of course you are going to see things that are similar to other things but wouldn't that how evolution plays out? It just boils down to it being a video game I guess. But why is it that an animal with three legs instead of six is boring because I've seen it before but a sword in another game that has a different hilt and glow effects is exciting and new.

Everything in every game is similar to something done before. Because games reuse styles and art but in a procedural generated game it is some how a detractor. Procedural generation isn't a magic wand for 100% new every time. It is just a way to create the assets on demand rather then having them pre-created.

[grandpab]

Nice logic there :P

I really just meant new games. There's nothing coming out this month.

[Slaughty8]

Well, the new trailer repeats what I said about the content of this game:
1. Explore...explore...explore
2. Hypeword "1.8 quintillion planets" used again as on of the main reasons to play it...like anyone cares about that number, to be honest - nobody should.

The trailer:


For hyped players:
- new planets are visible
- new monsters are visible (for example - we can see Deers with double tails....such a varienty...wooow... and Onion trees and Cactus, woah)

[Tech614]

But is it boring while you are getting to that point? Or only boring after you get to that point? Because you likely won't get to that point unless you put a lot of time into the game. You also don't need a lot of art assets if you can combine, recolor, and other stuff with procedural generation.

It's actually not going to take that long to reach that point. In fact even in the previews we have already seen planets and animals that look way too much like each other.

Minecraft disk size is pretty small, about 200mb if I recall. The size will increase based on how much you do in a world and how much it needs to save for that world.

6gb is pretty large when things use procedural generation. Because you don't store the completed things it creates it on demand. Its like the replicator in Star trek. They don't need an entire grocery store worth of storage for all of the food the replicator can create.

The 6GB has literally all the assets the game has in it. The game can't make assets out of thin air. The procedural generation is just taking a set of assets and putting them together. I'm not even sure you understand the point of why the 6GB is telling. It's not "you can't have a big world in 6GB!"

[Poppincaps]

How much you wanna bet this game is going to get shit on when it comes out, because people have ridiculously high expectations? I've always felt like this game was gonna be a solid 7/10 but I constantly see people throw out these crazy features that would be really cool, but weren't even remotely hinted at by the team.

Sean Murray and his team have sure done a horrible job at managing expectations. Although I suppose it's hard. You don't want to come out and tell people that your game isn't going to be as good as they want it to be.

[Tech614]

How much you wanna bet this game is going to get shit on when it comes out, because people have ridiculously high expectations? I've always felt like this game was gonna be a solid 7/10 but I constantly see people throw out these crazy features that would be really cool, but weren't even remotely hinted at by the team.

Sean Murray and his team have sure done a horrible job at managing expectations. Although I suppose it's hard. You don't want to come out and tell people that your game isn't going to be as good as they want it to be.

Game is a product of the Sony marketing muscle.

Probably would have ended up a decent indy survival game without Sony ever getting involved as deep as they have, but people are expecting some AAA game "that will never get old" I smell 5/10 reviews coming, when like you said it's probably a solid 7/10 with proper expectations.

[Duronos]

Game is a product of the Sony marketing muscle.

Probably would have ended up a decent indy survival game without Sony ever getting involved as deep as they have, but people are expecting some AAA game "that will never get old" I smell 5/10 reviews coming, when like you said it's probably a solid 7/10 with proper expectations.

My bet is regardless of the marketing, the game is going to be better than it orginally could have because they were given more money. I trust them to make a good game, yes it took awhile but it was also made by a small team therefore they all know each other and we're probably able to work a lot of kinks out. Sony coming in only gave them even more money to make their vision achievable, the game is going to be good. If I'm wrong go ahead and quote this post down the line but I have a feeling this might actually live up to the hype.

[Tech614]

the game is going to be better than it orginally could have because they were given more money.

Yea too bad said money you're saying they gave was not used in any way shape or form to develop said game. It's not like the company grew to 100 people to develop it.

For all you know, Sony's monetary support extends to marketing and helping port/publish the PS4 version. No where has there ever been any evidence of Sony literally giving Hello Games cash, and if they did they certainly didn't use it to hire staff.

[Duronos]

Yea too bad said money you're saying they gave was not used in any way shape or form to develop said game. It's not like the company grew to 100 people to develop it.

For all you know, Sony's monetary support extends to marketing and helping port/publish the PS4 version. No where has there ever been any evidence of Sony literally giving Hello Games cash, and if they did they certainly didn't use it to hire staff.

Well it definitely gave them more time.

[MonsieuRoberts]

Without some interesting goals beyond looking at a new pastel-colored planet inhabited by quadrupeds of even more pastel colors, there's not a lot to this game.

I got a LOT of flame on Youtube for pointing out that the meat & potatoes of this game won't appeal to people who want something to "do" and "earn" that excludes holding forward on a thumbstick. Seems like I was right to begin with.

A purely explorative game with no interesting story, no dense crafting, no complex and demanding survival systems and no endgame is not what a lot of people are going to be interested in. I'm not saying the game will be bad, but it will 5000% not reach the hype levels that people have placed upon its shoulders. And Sony's to blame for some of that because of E3 and the marketing, and Hello Games for the rest, for simply letting people's expectations run wildly unchecked without actually letting them know that it's just a spacey walking simulator, which don't get me wrong, is fine and dandy!

It's just not the AAA experience that's going to sell.

[Immitis]

as long as i get 6 or so enjoyable hours out of the game ill be good. anything more than that is great, if i start seeing a bunch of repeats and get bored before that point ill be mad

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Without some interesting goals beyond looking at a new pastel-colored planet inhabited by quadrupeds of even more pastel colors, there's not a lot to this game.

I got a LOT of flame on Youtube for pointing out that the meat & potatoes of this game won't appeal to people who want something to "do" and "earn" that excludes holding forward on a thumbstick. Seems like I was right to begin with.

A purely explorative game with no interesting story, no dense crafting, no complex and demanding survival systems and no endgame is not what a lot of people are going to be interested in. I'm not saying the game will be bad, but it will 5000% not reach the hype levels that people have placed upon its shoulders. And Sony's to blame for some of that because of E3 and the marketing, and Hello Games for the rest, for simply letting people's expectations run wildly unchecked without actually letting them know that it's just a spacey walking simulator, which don't get me wrong, is fine and dandy!

It's just not the AAA experience that's going to sell.

there is something to do though, reach the center and uncover lore and fight dudes along the way. whether that ends up being worthwhile or incredibly time consuming to the point of redundancy i dont know, but there is a goal

[MonsieuRoberts]

there is something to do though, reach the center and uncover lore and fight dudes along the way. whether that ends up being worthwhile or incredibly time consuming to the point of redundancy i dont know, but there is a goal

To me it's not interesting enough to just keep going forward with what I view as eventually mundane gameplay, especially if I'm only upgrading to go to a planet to upgrade to go to a planet to upgrade...you get the idea.

I like grinds in WoW, Warframe and Fallout amongst other RPGs and MMOs because you upgrade to have more fun in your gameplay and rotations, but there's also a (hopefully) interesting reason why you're "actually" upgrading and leveling up; The story. You know what the endgame goal is, and by god, you're gonna achieve it, because holy shit it's something that you HAVE to do. You HAVE to stop the Legion. There's no two ways around it, the Reapers MUST be stopped. Roland, that guy's GOTTA catch up with the man in black, he just has to.

Here, there's no guidance with an intriguing story or conflict, and the limited gameplay I've seen looks like it will be fun for an evening. Such loose goals are very boring to me.

For some it will be a fine goal though, just to relax and play a game where you can look at nice things, fly to nice places, etc. Certainly not the AAA experience peeps have been expecting tho.

[Deleted]

Certainly not the AAA experience peeps have been expecting tho.

This is complete nonsense. How can anyone have been expecting something out of No Man's Sky, what it clearly isn't going to be? If "peeps" have been expecting such things, then "peeps" haven't been paying attention.

[Tech614]

This is complete nonsense. How can anyone have been expecting something out of No Man's Sky, what it clearly isn't going to be? If "peeps" have been expecting such things, then "peeps" haven't been paying attention.

This might be shocking to you but not everyone go's into deep research on a game before it comes out. In fact the vast majority don't.

Sony's marketing muscle along with $60 price tag certainly is enough to confuse people into thinking it's a AAA experience when it's not.

[MonsieuRoberts]

This is complete nonsense. How can anyone have been expecting something out of No Man's Sky, what it clearly isn't going to be? If "peeps" have been expecting such things, then "peeps" haven't been paying attention.

The game was shown off at E3.

That display pretty much set the benchmark for what "people" are expecting from it, and Sony & Hello Games have let those ideas and expectations raise WAY too high imo for what the game actually is.

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This might be shocking to you but not everyone go's into deep research on a game before it comes out. In fact the vast majority don't.

Sony's marketing muscle along with $60 price tag certainly is enough to confuse people into thinking it's a AAA experience when it's not.

Exactamundo. The "It's $60, it must be like, a full-on game" mentality is alive and well in the console world.

[Deleted]

The game was shown off at E3.

Right. And how exactly will it be any different from what was shown at E3?

[Tryuk]

A purely explorative game with no interesting story, no dense crafting, no complex and demanding survival systems and no endgame is not what a lot of people are going to be interested in. I'm not saying the game will be bad, but it will 5000% not reach the hype levels that people have placed upon its shoulders. And Sony's to blame for some of that because of E3 and the marketing, and Hello Games for the rest, for simply letting people's expectations run wildly unchecked without actually letting them know that it's just a spacey walking simulator, which don't get me wrong, is fine and dandy!

It's just not the AAA experience that's going to sell.

Curious as to what counts as complex and demanding survival, everything Hello Game's has shown (dealing with weather, scavenging/crafting/trading for early resources and tools, creatures and sentinels to avoid/survive) seems interesting. Need food/water on top of that?

The crafting and trading they've shown off actually is interesting to me though, hopefully it's varied enough. Find elements to combine into expensive compounds, then to make tools/modules or sell them. The concept sorta reminds me of EVE -- without CODE to gank you while mining (I guess there are the sentinels though).

Have to remember that the walking simulator description of the game mostly comes from the community -- back when we knew fuck all about the game. Sony and Hello Games have been billing it as a exploration/survival game for the past year or two though. Hype is way too over the roof though, while I'm expecting to like the game (I came in expecting a walking sim anyway), I doubt it will get that amazing critical acclaim due to not reaching expectations.

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Exactamundo. The "It's $60, it must be like, a full-on game" mentality is alive and well in the console world.

What is a AAA game though, what is "a full-on game"? What does it need, micro-transactions? :P

Another question along the same line, does Overwatch not count as a AAA experience because of no story mode -- even though it's $60 bucks on console? For me, Overwatch was worth every penny I spent on it, I love the game. The newer Wolfenstein games though, meh. Not every AAA game is a Fallout/Witcher/TES/DA/DS game, some of them are Assassins Creed/CoD/BF. And heck, NMS strikes me as leaning more on the Fallout side than the other.