No Man's Sky

Zillah

It's all very Langoliers .

FAILSAFE 00

Zillah wrote: »

It's all very Langoliers .

degrassinoel

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112040/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Kiith

Monsters that eat yesterday...Stephen King at his finest :P

It's a shame changes don't stay, but given the procedural nature of the game, not that surprising. I really hope there is some good variation in the planets and discoveries, as it will get old fast if there isn't.

Zillah

Kiith wrote: »

Monsters that eat yesterday...Stephen King at his finest :P

It's a shame changes don't stay, but given the procedural nature of the game, not that surprising.

Yeah, if you think about their whole approach it makes sense. Then again, though, it can't take all that much data to store terrain deformations, can it? A handful of coordinate modifications appended to the planet's procedural seed to be applied at the end?

Maximus Alexander

To store them locally for one player wouldn't be that big a deal (think Minecraft which does exactly the same thing). To store them for everyone on a central server could get pretty ridiculous though.

Given the nature of the style of play they seem to be going for; travelling to many planets across a vast galaxy with the goal of exploration; they probably decided it wasn't worth doing at all since they don't expect you to be backtracking, I guess.

Zillah

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

To store them locally for one player wouldn't be that big a deal (think Minecraft which does exactly the same thing). To store them for everyone on a central server could get pretty ridiculous though.

Given the nature of the style of play they seem to be going for; travelling to many planets across a vast galaxy with the goal of exploration; they probably decided it wasn't worth doing at all since they don't expect you to be backtracking, I guess.

And yet we said the same thing about multiplayer netcode but they apparently instituted a localised player lobby system.

Central server: I honestly don't know how much data it would need. Surely you can represent a terrain effect with a tiny amount of data. Either regenerate it on the fly (apply explosion type X to coordinate Y), or a short number string that represent the geometry of the deformation. How quickly that could snowball into unwieldy levels of data I can only guess.

I think it could be cool to stumble across a tunnel some long-gone traveller dug into the ground. Probably no less likely than physically meeting another player.

Otacon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AVmI73va4g

A new trailer has just dropped. The game still looks incredible.

Soon...

Zillah

Otacon wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AVmI73va4g

Editor: So what do you want?
Manager: I want it to be really choppy and jarring.
Editor: Say no more.

Shiminay

I have become even more put off after seeing that. In fact, the marketing for this game has 100% turned me off buying it or even looking at another 5 minutes of broken up so called game play. All tit and no nipple trying to disguise the fact that this is probably going to be a monumentally boring game after the initial polish wears off. I was already badly burned by Elite Dangerous, fupped if I'm getting burned again.

maximoose

Yeah I think I'm more excited about the soundtrack at this stage.

Barring great reviews/reception think I'll wait for a price drop.

Otacon

Zillah wrote: »

Editor: So what do you want?
Manager: I want it to be really choppy and jarring.
Editor: Say no more.

Shiminay wrote: »

I have become even more put off after seeing that. In fact, the marketing for this game has 100% turned me off buying it or even looking at another 5 minutes of broken up so called game play. All tit and no nipple trying to disguise the fact that this is probably going to be a monumentally boring game after the initial polish wears off. I was already badly burned by Elite Dangerous, fupped if I'm getting burned again.

This is a 90 second trailer designed specifically to show you the variety of environments you could see in the game. Personally, I have no issue with the editing of it.

As for game-play, there were quite a few other videos online showing that off, like the one below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLcjvIQJns0

Zillah

I hate it just as a video. I do some editing professionally and I think it's a horrible, jarring, incoherent cut and it's really unpleasant to watch. The choppiness goes way above and beyond what would be needed to show a broad spectrum of planet types. There are clips that are literally just four or five frames long. It should have a seizure warning on it.

I'm still quite excited about the game, that video doesn't change it either way.

Irish Halo

Zillah wrote: »

Then again, though, it can't take all that much data to store terrain deformations, can it?

If all terrain deformation on a planet only took up 1 bit of information and there is terrain deformed on every planet (18,446,744,073,709,551,616 of them apparently) that's 2305.84 Petabytes of data* to coordinate/synchronise even the LHC produces "only" 30PB of raw data every year.


* will all planets be visited? Maybe not but terrain deformation would be a lot more than 1 bit of data per planet

Maximus Alexander

Irish Halo wrote: »

If all terrain deformation on a planet only took up 1 bit of information and there is terrain deformed on every planet (18,446,744,073,709,551,616 of them apparently) that's 2305.84 Petabytes of data* to coordinate/synchronise even the LHC produces "only" 30PB of raw data every year.


* will all planets be visited? Maybe not but terrain deformation would be a lot more than 1 bit of data per planet

Even if you choose vaguely reasonable figures like, say, a million players visiting an average of 500 planets each with an average of 50kB of deformation data per planet, you'd need around a 25TB database.

As it stands they'll need some pretty tasty servers just to store all of the name data if the game ends up being popular and they are allowing custom names for planets / creatures.

DarC_Kn1ght

Zillah

DarC_Kn1ght wrote: »

Oh good, they did HD this time. They put this up earlier and then took it down again; my guess is because even on 1080 it still looked like complete muck, so someone screwed up somewhere. Nice and sharp now.

As for the content: I like me some good lasers, these look nice and fancy. The auto-targeting beam/burst lasers are cool. I have a horrible suspicion, though, that sentinels are just going to be an annoying roadblock put in place to punish the player for playing wrong. You're not supposed to shoot animals - the devs enforce this with sentinels.

SolvableKnave

Zillah wrote: »

I have a horrible suspicion, though, that sentinels are just going to be an annoying roadblock put in place to punish the player for playing wrong. You're not supposed to shoot animals - the devs enforce this with sentinels.

There is a bit of lore behind the Sentinels, and what they are there for.

The Sentinels in No Man's Sky are a species of self-replicating, non-organic machines. They were created to balance the efforts and actions of the player with the procedurally generated ecosystem. Sentinels act as the workhorse machines of The Atlas, and police the actions of those within the universe.

They are, in essence, the "gardeners" of the No Man's Sky universe. If the player makes an attempt to alter the environment while they are around, they will not hesitate to defend their "garden".

According to a Game Informer article, it is suggested that Sentinels, formerly known as The Malevolent Force, isn't all that malevolent to start off:

"This robotic enemy army isn't all that malevolent as far as motivations go. They are simply trying to maintain the balance of the universe. On some planets they patrol, keeping an eye out for anyone who kills creatures, carves out resources, or generally changes the environment. If you're just strolling around scanning things in, they leave you alone. If you draw their attention, they attack like traditional first-person shooter enemies, shooting lasers, strafing, and taking cover."

In a separate interview, Sean has said:

"It's dangerous on planets. Each one has an ecology, and you're not always at the top of the food chain; we've shown large creatures that attack you. There's also something else we haven't shown. There is a malevolent force in the universe that does provide a lot of combat and more core gameplay at times. We wanted that; we wanted players to wander around exploring planets but never to feel entirely safe."

Zillah

That's all in-game rationale, which is entirely secondary to their game function. If their in-game function is to punish the player for playing the game 'wrong', killing animals and whatnot, then I am dubious about their value or what's to be gained from fighting them.

I imagine ultimately their purpose is to encourage the player to keep moving. You can't settle down on a planet and treat it like minecraft, or you'll get sentinels in the face - I just hope it doesn't just pop up like an annoying speed bump.

d31b0y

There may be trouble ahead...
http://www.pcgamer.com/company-claims-no-mans-sky-uses-its-patented-equation-without-permission/

A report on Telegraaf.nl says a Dutch company named Genicap actually owns the “Superformula” that the game relies on to create its 18 hojillion (or whatever) planets, and that Hello does not have a license to use it.
...
Genicap apparently hasn't seen the No Man's Sky source, which would seem to weaken the validity of its claim; however, creator Sean Murray acknowledged in a 2015 New Yorker interview that he had struggled with elements of procedural planetary generation, until he discovered an equation published in 2003 by Belgian plant geneticist Johan Gielis that he called “Superformula.”
...
What it doesn't mention, perhaps because it didn't seem relevant at the time, is that Gielis is the Chief Research Officer at Genicap (and also a member of the board), and that he's held a patent on the formula for more than a decade. I'm not enough of a patent lawyer to say that constitutes a smoking gun, but it sure does sound like there may be a legitimate complaint here.

dreamers75

Shiminay wrote: »

I have become even more put off after seeing that. In fact, the marketing for this game has 100% turned me off buying it or even looking at another 5 minutes of broken up so called game play. All tit and no nipple trying to disguise the fact that this is probably going to be a monumentally boring game after the initial polish wears off. I was already badly burned by Elite Dangerous, fupped if I'm getting burned again.

Nothing wrong with Elite if you are happy to be an Explorer/Trader/Combat person. The game tells you nothing and it took me a long long time to actually figure out how to play it in an enjoyable way, I am now a Space trader who moonlights as a bounty hunter.

Still on the fence about No Mans sky, will see how it gets reviewed here.

Zillah

d31b0y wrote: »

There may be trouble ahead...
http://www.pcgamer.com/company-claims-no-mans-sky-uses-its-patented-equation-without-permission/

May not be panic stations:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/4twihq/hold_your_horses_genicap_does_not_seem_interested/

"Genicap and Gieles are not looking to stall the release of the game though. Genicap gave TechRaptor a statement on the issue, stating they believe “No Man’s Sky is the beginning of a new generation of games” and that Gieles is proud of what they were able to create with his formula. Genicap says they have an official program still in the conceptual stages based on the algorithm. They would like to have a “normal discussion” with Hello Games and share knowledge and ideas on the world generation tool, but understand that with the pressure of deadlines, they may not have had time to reach out.

It seems as though the article ran by the Dutch publication Telegraaf paints a completely different picture from the statement TechRaptor is currently breaking. I believe a Dutch user here had mentioned Telegraaf is one of those by-the-gutter journalism websites, known for a lot of provocateur shenanigans."

Shiminay

dreamers75 wrote: »

Nothing wrong with Elite if you are happy to be an Explorer/Trader/Combat person. The game tells you nothing...

Which is exactly the reasons I thought it was such a terrible product. If I spend a stack of hours earning money only to buy an upgrade that I cannot use then that is bad game design. I only have so many hours in the day, why on earth would I waste them on a game that's going to punish me for not having any in-game means of determining what the best way to proceed is? My time is worth WAYYYY more than that and I play games to relieve the frustrations of everyday life, not to multiply them by fking up my leisure time too.

I can see the exact same thing happening with this game although given it's being made for consoles, I don't think they'll get away with such negligence.

Robert ninja

Shiminay wrote: »

I can see the exact same thing happening with this game although given it's being made for consoles, I don't think they'll get away with such negligence.

I will agree though, this game looks like a disaster. It's nicknamed No Man's Content with my online gaming buddies.

dreamers75

Elite is on Xbox an coming to PS4, the manual released AFTER the game was out is 100 pages long! Altho I do have nearly a billion credits and an A rated Anaconda

I agree with the sentiments of No Mans Sky being similiar.

johnny_ultimate

Still think the game looks to offer what it was that made it so noteworthy in the first place. To me it looks like the space opera to Elite's serious simulator - a game that distills the experience down to its most enticing elements of exploration, discovery and sheer overwhelming scale. I hope it offers players the opportunity to just hop in and out at their leisure, rather than spending an hour learning to take off. I've said before I don't want a game that lasts me 100 hours - I will be happy if this one manages to communicate what it has to offer clearly and coherently in a dozen. I'm really fascinated at how and if the game can achieve a balance between procedural generation and its more authored elements.

If the game ultimately transpires to be an artistic failure - I'd be very surprised if it was a commercial one at this stage - I still think it'll be an important experiment. Something on this scale by such a small team to me seems like the kind of insane ambition the medium as a whole will be better for, regardless of this one game's eventual success or failure. Still very much looking forward to discovering what Hello Games have managed come August 8th

EoinMcLovin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCIC7HLC-bU

Iluvjazzmasters

Gentlemen,

Game looks very interesting however I have a question on the ship combat. Are you able to have ship v ship aerial combat on a planets surface over the clouds and close to the terrain? From what i have seen in videos it seems once you fly to a planet your ship lands automatically?

Captain Chaos

Iluvjazzmasters wrote: »

Gentlemen,

Game looks very interesting however I have a question on the ship combat. Are you able to have ship v ship aerial combat on a planets surface over the clouds and close to the terrain? From what i have seen in videos it seems once you fly to a planet your ship lands automatically?

You can fly around while on the planets, you can land where you want. Some planets have landing pads with trading stations on them as shown in earlier videos.

DeVore

I'm going all in on this one. I'm going to set up my rig, big screen projector with HOTAS too, jam on some adult diapers and I might even twitch stream it for giggles.

I felt horribly let down by Elite Dangerous. It was ... boring. Yes they had a gazillion planets... all of which varied by a slight colour palate shift. Every freaking star was identical pretty much and even the space stations repeated about 5 different "types". It looked awful too. The only thing they got right was the feeling of the flying and manoeuvring. The thing that enticed me about Elite was exploring but it turned out "exploring" was pointing at a planet and pushing a button for 10 seconds. Then selling that info in Excel-in-space.

NMS actually LOOKS interesting for a start. I mean looks, graphics, exploring the actual planet surface and space too. Is there enough to see? It looks likely... or at least they seem to have a large variety of "stuff" to see and explore.

I don't care if I never see another player, I kinda don't want to. Tell me ONE game where having randos in it makes it better? Would I like to play with my mates, sure... I hope we can but if we cant, then ok. If that's the price of keeping ganking randos out, I'm cool with it.

Ultimately this comes down to trust. Am I willing to trust these guys to have produced something that is engaging enough to be worth exploring and continuing with? I'm an idiot because I've been burned before but I am willing to give them that trust.

They have some sort of "lore" and have hinted that there is an over arching story and a "point" in getting to the centre of the universe.

So, yeah... I'm going full on day-0 on this and hope its as awesome as it COULD be.
Anyone else?