No Man's Sky

So it's out..on PS4.

I heard things about cross-platform. I heard things about co-op. I don't want to spoil too much, so I've been keeping a lid on the videos and interviews. I find the game intriguing, but I'm not sure if the idea of a giant random-number universe is such a great idea, there's something to be said for having a direct hand in the creation of what you want players to experience. Is it Minecraft in space? Is it Day-Z without the Z? Come to think of it, I know nothing about the combat...

Who else is interested in this ambitious game?

Ehhh everything I've seen makes it look incredibly shallow. Jim Sterling is solidifying my fears:

I’ve seen so many planets, met so many aliens, and mined so much goddamn carbon and not once have I been surprised. Not once has the game thrown me a curveball. Every new location is just a different colored home for the same old routine, and the procedural generation means that things feel far less diverse than they could be – when randomized pools replace handcrafted designs, the lego bricks piecing everything together are far too obvious

Might grab it when it's ten bucks or so.

Ambitious? Game?

All of the trailers so nothing but walking around with some shit resource gathering mechanics. Thats like meme levels of bad. Procedurally generated world also means any sort of meaningful level design is non-existent.

The hdd space requirements are not too high so maybe it's worth to pirate, derp around for few hours and then uninstall.

Oh, I figured it was just another craftgame.

The danger is that we aim too low and succeed, rather than we aim too high and fail.

- some wise fucker.

Thankfully I still have rental stores in my area so I get to try it for $8 instead of $60+tax.

And...I am and am not impressed. I haven't left the starting galaxy yet, and only been to three systems so far and most planets are dead save a couple. The space battles aren't that engaging. The flora is pretty much the same on each planet, but the fauna does have some variance when you find it. It's mostly slowly walking around mining resources and never having enough space in your inventory, and trading with aliens whose language you learn one damn word at a time. Doesn't seem to be much more depth than that, although I think they tried. The mind boggling perspective is great, especially knowing I'll probably never run into another single player the whole time, but...eh. Unless I can get some LSD to experience this on I think my five day rental will be all it gets. Shame really, the concept did fascinate me.

Oh, and apparently you can't fly near or into suns. Glad I checked before I got too far out, granted the game kept pulling me out of pulse drive to refuel or engage in one of the shallow and unrewarding battles.

It's a triple A game with the ambition of a indie developer. Imagine a cool steam greenlight idea that gets an adrenaline buff (corporate money) resulting in the bypass of all Alpha and Beta stages that usually last for a couple years.

I'm interested in the game, I want to give it a go. But I had heavy skepticism long before its release and like many others are beginning to feel right. A game that pulls the strings of our hopes and imagination (hence hype) by offering a large array of features and mechanics, but all would be spread too thin.

I see this game as First Person Spore: Space Stage

But I do want the game...

It does look somewhat interesting, but to me, it's less because of the gameplay and more because of the aesthetics. I've never been keen on games that emphasize exploration more than anything else, so I don't know if I want to risk spending $60 on it and being grossly underwhelmed.

Preordered it, but may request refund due to early reviews stating it's a infinite universe filled with "same-old, same-old".

Will try about an hour and make determination from there.

I think the concept is cool. But it looks like it can get boring pretty fast.

Spore had a cool idea with creating a species that was able to develop into a space-faring race of beings. At that point it became a strategy game. Cool concept, despite the fact that they dropped the ball on that game. If this game had something similar, but executed the right way, I would like that.

Kontra Kommando said:

I think the concept is cool. But it looks like it can get boring pretty fast.

Spore had a cool idea with creating a species that was able to develop into a space-faring race of beings. At that point it became a strategy game. Cool concept, despite the fact that they dropped the ball on that game. If this game had something similar, but executed the right way, I would like that.

Like No Man's Sky, Spore was also regarded as an overhyped disappointment created by a scam artist. Coincidence?!?!?

I've watched a couple first impressions, read some afterthoughts now that the game has been out for a day and it (along with this thread) confirms a lot of my issues as well. It really is a science experiment with graphics. The winter Steam sale is right around the corner so by then this will probably be dirt cheap. I can't see ever paying more than 20 bucks for such a miniscule amount of content stretched over a galaxy of stupid AI and 3 GB of textures.

I've only seen a few scenes from the game but the way you can just freely fly down into another planet, bypassing the atmosphere on the way seems like a first in gaming. And there's also an unlimited amount of exploring supposedly, it does look pretty unique.

Mr. Freeze said:

Like No Man's Sky, Spore was also regarded as an overhyped disappointment created by a scam artist. Coincidence?!?!?

I was actually pretty disappointed about spore. I wish they could do that concept again, but with cooler graphics, and better game mechanics. It would be a great RPG.

ArchangelOfHell said:

I've only seen a few scenes from the game but the way you can just freely fly down into another planet, bypassing the atmosphere on the way seems like a first in gaming.

Elite Dangerous would like a word with you. Hell, it even (somewhat unintentionally) did it better.

It has facets and mechanics from about a dozen other popular games and genres at the moment. It's much more a product of its time than something that breaks through and sets a new mark. Perhaps where NMS succeeds is in popularizing planet exploration, which has up to know been the providence of more hardcore space games like Elite. A lot of PC gamers knew this was going to be a resource-gathering and crafting fest, and it was often non-gaming media that fueled the hype.

So far it plays like an FPS version of Out There. I don't mind it, but it runs ridiculously slowly for the sort of graphics it has.

All I know is, SOME game had to beat Daggerfall's record after 20 years. :P

Well, it's bigger than Daggerfall, but lots of games full of procedural content are bigger than Daggerfall.

Speaking of Daggerfall, anyone else hoping the No Man's Sky series ends up following a similar trajectory to the Elder Scrolls games? The odd spinoff with a few dozen hand crafted systems would be pretty rad.

That would be sweet. I was also hoping for areas that are designed to be scary like some kind of spooky eldritch space.

My biggest complaint so far is while I'm wandering it's too hard to keep track of the map markers. I don't mind all the walking so much when I can keep track of where I'm walking.

Just get the console ports, the PC Version sucks balls right now.
If you're triggered, here's a review on Steam.

10 FPS on a GTX 980?
No Man's Lag
DO NOT BUY... Yet. (They'll fix it eventually.)

Yeah, they need to do something about its performance on PCs. My GPU isn't new, but it runs FO4 on Ultra at 1920x1200 with little issue. No Man's Sky is eating it alive. It got hot and started artifacting, and I'm nowhere close to max settings. I see AMD has shiny new drivers for me. If my GPU hasn't just bit the dust maybe they'll help.

For what i heard they rushed it. If that's the case, no wonder that so many people is complaing about bugs, etc.

Anyway for what i saw that game is just not my cup of tea.

It's not going to run on my 8 year olde potato, that's for sure. Until I throw some money around to get a new spud, I'll just wait to see what happens and maybe a Fall Steam sale will appear. I've had the bug to get a new machine for almost a year now, so one of these days It'll happen.

Just another survivocraft game with a spacetravel gimmick. Pass.

It looks really pretty, though.

I'll wait a while before considering this, not just because of the mess it is now but because the lack of a proper system to play it as well.

you know, i thought the trailers looked really cool, i've always wanted a space game where the universe was HUGE and stuff, and all the planets were unique, like Spore's space stage but better. but...i guess not :/

roadworx said:

you know, i thought the trailers looked really cool, i've always wanted a space game where the universe was HUGE and stuff, and all the planets were unique, like Spore's space stage but better. but...i guess not :/

I'm going to pimp Elite Dangerous again. The planets aren't exactly unique in the strictest sense, but it has the entire Milky Way to explore with 150,000 hand crafted (real) locations (with the rest being generated from scientific data), and is actually a 1:1 scale, and a ton more seamless than NMS. The game is more "grognard" than Spore no doubt, but then that's always been Elite since 1984, and the multiplayer interactions can make for some fairly dynamic and tense combat if you can keep up.

Edward850 said:

I'm going to pimp Elite Dangerous again. The planets aren't exactly unique in the strictest sense, but it has the entire Milky Way to explore with 150,000 hand crafted (real) locations (with the rest being generated from scientific data), and is actually a 1:1 scale, and a ton more seamless than NMS. The game is more "grognard" than Spore no doubt, but then that's always been Elite since 1984, and the multiplayer interactions can make for some fairly dynamic and tense combat if you can keep up.

Do you know of any other you tube channels that chronicle the adventures of Elite: Dangerous players like this? It's surprisingly compelling viewing!