No Man's Sky

Right Turn Clyde

Zillah wrote: »

I'm sorry, what?

€70 seems to be the average price for a new game in my local bricks & mortar.

johnny_ultimate

I'd be surprised if this was a full retail release, download surely?

I'd also suggest this is one of those rare 'true sandbox' games like Minecraft as opposed to an open world game like GTAV (albeit one with an actual final destination, it seems). So I'd be shocked if the developers packed it with sub quests and the like instead of letting the player determine their own game. It's an altogether rarer and potentially incredibly rewarding school of design.

Zillah

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

So I'd be shocked if the developers packed it with sub quests and the like instead of letting the player determine their own game. It's an altogether rarer and potentially incredibly rewarding school of design.

I've no doubt they're doing a full commit to the procedural nature of the game. There will be no quests, scripted encounters or events, except, maybe, at the centre of the galaxy.

AbusesToilets

I'm really curious how they implement interactions with other players. Will you be able to deliberately seek out and play with others or will it be chance encounters?

AbusesToilets

....Peter Molyneux

tok9

I can see this being one of those 40 euro price games. It is getting a physical release.

CiDeRmAn

Zillah wrote: »

I've no doubt they're doing a full commit to the procedural nature of the game. There will be no quests, scripted encounters or events, except, maybe, at the centre of the galaxy.

There may be common story threads, albeit depending on factions within the galaxy, perhaps localised missions in you part of the galaxy and all the players within the PC/PS4 network contributing to an overall shift of power, further influencing the chances of meeting opposition and their footing upon the encounter.
I don't know, I can see this having a lot to do, and really up to the players willingness to be immersed in the galaxy around them and affect what they get from the title.

Zillah

AbusesToilets wrote: »

I'm really curious how they implement interactions with other players. Will you be able to deliberately seek out and play with others or will it be chance encounters?

I'm pretty sure the only multiplayer aspect is that everyone shares their uploaded data.

EDIT: Apparently a little more complicated than that.
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/12/10/stop-thinking-of-no-man-s-sky-as-a-multiplayer-game.aspx

_CreeD_

Stone Deaf 4evr wrote: »

Ah, to be fair, it was a far simpler time then as well in terms of peoples expectations. text based adventures were compelling too but we've moved on. even then new Elite game has been criticised for being somewhat shallower than people wanted it to be.

I played the original and now the new Elite and this topic comes up all the time with ED. I think it's not just that we expect more complexity these days but that an awful lot of the gaming public want to be led by the nose through a game. Go here, pick up that, kill these guys and on. ED is a great example of a complete and utter open world (well galaxy) and also the flaws that model can represent. You are limited by how committed you are to what you want to do in game, no missions or major story just a working (mostly ) universe, your ship and your wits. Now I do get bored of it myself periodically and take breaks but I can see myself returning to it fairly constantly until something better along the same lines pops up (hence my interest in No Man's..).
It's an amazing thing to 'just' be limited by your imagination in a game (within it's own natural limits) but that competes with our increasingly small attention spans in a on-demand world.

TL;DR
I can see your point, why it doesn't appeal to everyone but I also see the value in this kind of title if for nothing other than some contrasting game experiences while we play more dramatic titles.

Zillah

My worry about a truly open world with no scripted events is that it tries so hard to simulate you having a career that you, well, have a new career. Including all of the busy work and tedium - all the inbetween stuff that would have been edited out in a movie. That's why they use montages for boring stuff, instead of actually making us watch three hours of the characters studying or building the engine or whatever.

Not only are those "busy work" tasks rally boring, they make me feel like I'm wasting my life. MMOs are by far the worst for it, and it's kind of hard to avoid in a persistent, multiplayer world, but when you take those same horrible features and implement them in a singleplayer game...it's like taking the unfortunate downside for one type of game and implementing it in a game that doesn't require it. Mining in Eve *shudder*

Mickeroo

I had my first game of Elite Dangerous on the XB1 last night and it seems pretty great, it's similar in scale to this without the planetary exploration but with a model of the actual Milky Way instead of a made up Galaxy. Going by the gameplay vids of NMS, Elite is a bit more complicated and more of a sim but it seems in terms of what the player can do that it's pretty similar to this apart from being able to land on planets. There's no real campaign or narrative to push the player in any direction that I can see but even after only a few hours play I can already see how addictive the game could be. I think NMS could be amazing.

Captain Chaos

Mickeroo wrote: »

I had my first game of Elite Dangerous on the XB1 last night and it seems pretty great,.

I'm really interested to see how it works on a console. Elite that is. I dumped hours and hours on X Beyond Frontier and X Tension on the PC way back when and Independence War 2. I'm not expecting like those game from NMS but I still want to get my hands on it. Great having games like this for consoles now.

Mickeroo

Captain Chaos wrote: »

I'm really interested to see how it works on a console. Elite that is. I dumped hours and hours on X Beyond Frontier and X Tension on the PC way back when and Independence War 2. I'm not expecting like those game from NMS but I still want to get my hands on it. Great having games like this for consoles now.

Yeah i'm delighted stuff like this is coming to console now. It's in preview at the moment so essentially early access, had serious frame rate issues at one point but for the most part it runs very well and it's really gorgeous looking. Seems well worth the €31 so far. I hope they make a proper flight sim controller available at some point.

johnny_ultimate

Thing about Elite and EVE are they are far more 'hardcore' experiences, keen to focus on an incredibly detailed interpretations of space travel. They're almost like second jobs (EVE particularly), thorough and deep. No Man's Sky is going for something pulpier, cartoonish and casual from what I can gather - which appeals to me a lot more, anyway. I, frankly, don't have the time or energy to engage with the other games' incredibly complex (and impressive) systems, so NMS looks like it harks back to the simpler pleasures of hopping in a spaceship and going exploring.

The thing about games like Minecraft is that they don't really feature busywork in the traditional sense - they're as accessible or deep as you want them to be. If No Man's Sky can pull that tricky balance off - which I certainly hope it will based on what I've seen - then it should be remarkable. But then I'm not looking for a game that will last me hundreds of hours. I'm simply excited about the prospect of taking off and discovering something memorable. I find simple exploration satisfying in and of itself, and any meat on the bones of that will be an added bonus.

Shiminay

This looks like it's got more stuff to do than Elite Dangerous for sure. I like the exploration element on and off planet. I'm curious about what their "points of interest" will be and I think they're being deliberately careful about showing this stuff off cause they've got the big time Sony marketing people advising them on how to be a tease

Mickeroo

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Thing about Elite and EVE are they are far more 'hardcore' experiences, keen to focus on an incredibly detailed interpretations of space travel. They're almost like second jobs (EVE particularly), thorough and deep. No Man's Sky is going for something pulpier, cartoonish and casual from what I can gather - which appeals to me a lot more, anyway. I, frankly, don't have the time or energy to engage with the other games' incredibly complex (and impressive) systems, so NMS looks like it harks back to the simpler pleasures of hopping in a spaceship and going exploring.

The thing about games like Minecraft is that they don't really feature busywork in the traditional sense - they're as accessible or deep as you want them to be. If No Man's Sky can pull that tricky balance off - which I certainly hope it will based on what I've seen - then it should be remarkable. But then I'm not looking for a game that will last me hundreds of hours. I'm simply excited about the prospect of taking off and discovering something memorable. I find simple exploration satisfying in and of itself, and any meat on the bones of that will be an added bonus.

I agree yeah, Elite is quite daunting and sems like it will require a huge amount of commitment to get anywhere with so the seemingly more causual nature of NMS is very appealing in itself. Since before I even got my XB1,I was thinking NMS and Bloodborne are the two games that will make me take the plunge on the PS4 (onece I have the cash).

Regards exploration, that in and of itself is very appealing in a game, my favourite thing in the elder scrolls games was just wandering the landsacpe discovering things, the games actually suffered for me when I had to start doing the crap side quests and that.

Captain Chaos

Mickeroo wrote: »

. I hope they make a proper flight sim controller available at some point.

That one off controller they had on Xbox for Steel Battalion, they could have done so much with that if it was supported by other games in general.

Perfect for a hardcore mech of space combat game.

CiDeRmAn

I've got one of those, it's quite brilliant tbh.
It is also, basically, a USB controller, as are all Xbox controllers, so a patch cable isn't out of the question, to wire that sucker up to the PC version of No Man's Sky, you just need to have something like Xpadder to run interference for the controls inputs, translating the button presses into ingame action....
All this is assuming that the PC can recognise the controller without a specific custom driver as well.
Keep in mind too that one of the sticks is full motion but the other is a single axis one, going right to left to control the VT's movement.
The glowing eject button is particularly eye catching, just don't raise the cover and press it as you permanently lose the VT you are piloting!

skip ahead to around 2:12 for the good stuff!

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

EoinMcLovin

New details from IGN

Players can acquire resources from the planets they visit, and sell them at planet-based trading posts or space stations in orbit. Elements found on the surface of a planet can be 'crafted' to create more valuable 'products' which can be sold. Another way of making a profit would be to take a particular element to another part of the universe where it is less common and, therefore, more desirable to traders in the region. Players can share information about the planets they've visited, including which elements are particularly abundant.

Or if you don't want to trade at all, you can approach No Man's Sky purely as a space game, journeying between orbiting stations, dealing in resources collected by other players.

http://ie.ign.com/articles/2015/07/08/no-mans-sky-how-the-economy-works-ign-first?watch=true

CiDeRmAn

I may take up piracy, and I don't mean a R4 full of DS games!

EoinMcLovin

Adyx

While I am a bit worried about this turning out to be a glorified tech demo, I still think there could be lots of fun to be had even without strict quests or missions. I've spent hundreds of hours in KSP without once playing the career mode - just messing around designing and flying various outlandish creations and it's fantastic fun. Obviously this isn't the same but I'm not prepared to judge it just yet.

Captain Chaos

Adyx wrote: »

While I am a bit worried about this turning out to be a glorified tech demo, I still think there could be lots of fun to be had even without strict quests or missions. I've spent hundreds of hours in KSP without once playing the career mode - just messing around designing and flying various outlandish creations and it's fantastic fun. Obviously this isn't the same but I'm not prepared to judge it just yet.

Speaking of KSP, that is coming to PS4. Again great to see these games coming to the general masses for some exposure that they wouldn't normally get.

I will be getting NMS at launch in the hope that supporting it will lead to more of it in the future. I like the concept of these types of games. This looks more casual from a pick up and play style than more hardcore games like Elite and Eve that require dedication that I can't really give to games anymore.

Wossack

Is this mostly single player? As in the only multiplayer aspect is the shared discovery system? Sorry if silly question, Ive just not seen him interact with any other 'real' people directly

Captain Chaos

Wossack wrote: »

Is this mostly single player? As in the only multiplayer aspect is the shared discovery system? Sorry if silly question, Ive just not seen him interact with any other 'real' people directly

He said the chances of you meeting someone else in game are very remote to slim. Even when you see someone else they won't be marked as another player, for all you know they could be AI unless you see them do something out of the ordinary.

Mickeroo

As the community develops after release there'll probably end up being systems where people will congregate, so you'll end up having systems known for PvP etc. *speculation*

Zillah

EoinMcLovin wrote: »

The more I see, the more I'm worried about actual gameplay being thin on the ground.

Overheal

Mickeroo wrote: »

As the community develops after release there'll probably end up being systems where people will congregate, so you'll end up having systems known for PvP etc. *speculation*

exactly what I was about to post. while players will be seeded into the game iirc around the galaxy's outter rims, there's no way to stop community communication, and people will eventually identify unique areas/nebulas/star clusters on the galactic map that they will collude to head toward.

Also, as players in general reach the galactic core, they're logically more likely to encounter each other. Hell, that may be what waits at the galactic core - a big PvP/PvE hellapalloozafest.

Maximus Alexander

Overheal wrote: »

Also, as players in general reach the galactic core, they're logically more likely to encounter each other. Hell, that may be what waits at the galactic core - a big PvP/PvE hellapalloozafest.

They could also prevent this somewhat realistically by making the inner bulge impenetrable due to high radiation levels.

Zillah

Overheal wrote: »

exactly what I was about to post. while players will be seeded into the game iirc around the galaxy's outter rims, there's no way to stop community communication, and people will eventually identify unique areas/nebulas/star clusters on the galactic map that they will collude to head toward.

Also, as players in general reach the galactic core, they're logically more likely to encounter each other. Hell, that may be what waits at the galactic core - a big PvP/PvE hellapalloozafest.

A giant space monster that forces the players to battle each other in an arena for its eternal amusement.