No Man's Sky

Dan_Solo · 25-06-2015 9:22am

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Well Elite was a build your own adventure type of affair, with the goal being your rating, from Harmless to Elite and that was enough.
Obviously 30 years have passed and we do expect some sort of goal, and presumably they have something in place.
But ...
If the game has a decent variety of engagements, space, land and sea, and a direction to it all, it should be awesome.
Just want it now!

The Elite sequels didn't have much focus on your rating IIRC. Pity about the incomprehensible (a.k.a. realistic) physics model!

Shiminay · 25-06-2015 11:36am

It sounds to me like a far more enjoyable and interesting version of Elite Dangerous and I'm all for that. Bitterly disappointed with E:D.

CiDeRmAn · 25-06-2015 2:11pm

I was a big fan of Mercenary back in the day, the original one.
I'd love to see that kind of thing, explorable planets with structures and dungeons available.
Given the random location of the starting point of the player it seems there won't be a strict story line as we might see in Skyrim or Mass Effect, though I do know it's an entirely different game but the need for some sort of direction or objective is needed to avoid boredom setting in.
Without an objective and regardless of the spectacular surroundings, one can get browned off, even wonder can wear off!

Taylor365 · 25-06-2015 5:17pm

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I was a big fan of Mercenary back in the day, the original one.
I'd love to see that kind of thing, explorable planets with structures and dungeons available.
Given the random location of the starting point of the player it seems there won't be a strict story line as we might see in Skyrim or Mass Effect, though I do know it's an entirely different game but the need for some sort of direction or objective is needed to avoid boredom setting in.
Without an objective and regardless of the spectacular surroundings, one can get browned off, even wonder can wear off!

Something like Skyrim would be great:

''You must go to such and such planet and speak with the elders''.

'Ok lets go! This quest should be easy! Oh hey there's something neat..'

*30 hours later*

''Right, where was i going?''

2Mad2BeMad · 25-06-2015 5:32pm

Taylor365 wrote: »

Something like Skyrim would be great:

''You must go to such and such planet and speak with the elders''.

'Ok lets go! This quest should be easy! Oh hey there's something neat..'

*30 hours later*

''Right, where was i going?''

something like skyrim would be awfull
I don't know how people can play that game without mods, its terribly boring and nothing but fetch quests

EoinHef · 25-06-2015 5:52pm

Nothing wrong with liking skyrim IMO,plenty of people enjoy the game with and without mods.

To me it looks like it could be more Minecraft than Skyrim though.

Although everytime i look at the game i just think i hope it invents its own new style of gameplay thats uniquie to No Mans Sky

tok9 · 25-06-2015 6:41pm

I wouldn't be a fan of the Skyrim comparison just because I don't think Skyrim does exploration particularly well.

I just remember a lot of tombs/caves looking extremely similar so I wouldn't be as interested in exploring.

But No Man's Sky looks like a wonderful place to go and explore.

EoinHef · 25-06-2015 7:50pm

Id have to disagree with Skyrim not having a world worth exploring,i thorughly enjoyed just exploring the world. I do agree the game had its faults alright,but they were not enough to stop me relly enjoying the over all experience.

Id agree though that i wouldnt want NMS to just be skyrim in space. Everything about it looks pretty unique so far and id hope the gameplay mechanics are similarly unique and fresh. I can see why people draw comparisons to other games but overall i havent seen anything that looks to combine all the elements NMS does so thats why i think it looks unique.

At this stage i wonder will it be pushed back to 2016. Id love it if they just announced it will be out in a month or something but the further we get towards the end of 2015 i feel thats less likely to happen. Id rather a delay though than get something that is not ready.

CiDeRmAn · 25-06-2015 9:59pm

I didn't play enough of Skyrim really but I played a shed load of Oblivion.
A vast landscape and a simple off path wander can reveal ruins, a stone stairway and 3 hours of your life gone.
Not only this but some of the side quests were even better than the main campaign.
If they could generate, effectively, this kind of storytelling in No Man's Sky then it could be incredible.

EoinHef · 25-06-2015 10:57pm

Thats one of the features i relly liked about Oblivion and Skyrim,stories and quests could be come across organically. Like you said there was nothing forcing you to go off that path,you decide to just take a peek and you find something interesting you decide to investigate and end up in a quest or a dungeon.

Id agree if they can recreate that organic storytelling it would be amazing,procedural generation would make that nearly impossible though i would think?

Robert ninja · 26-06-2015 1:02am

EoinHef wrote: »

Id agree if they can recreate that organic storytelling it would be amazing,procedural generation would make that nearly impossible though i would think?

Definitely not impossible. Just very hard to do... and perhaps we don't have the right technology to do it properly just yet. I mean in terms of software, not hardware.

CiDeRmAn · 26-06-2015 7:11am

Well, the Chalice dungeons in Bloodborne demonstrate that it is possible to put together challenges randomly that are almost as much fun as the main game.

The other thing that interests is becoming embroiled in larger conflicts, choosing perhaps missions from.each side, attack here, defend there, scooting past blockades and smuggling, a proper Captain Mal!

Taylor365 · 26-06-2015 10:24am

At least some people got the analogy.

I'm no fan of the type of quests you get in Skyrim.

I am a fan however of the devilment you can get up to through exploring while on said quests. Something leading you in a general direction always gave you a sense of progression.

tok9 · 03-07-2015 1:42pm

No Man's Sky is on IGN firsts this month.

The main reason I mention that is generally it's a good sign of us getting a release date.

I remember other games that are on this are usually released relatively soon after (2-3 months) as they had Bloodborne and the Witcher roughly a month before they were released.

EoinMcLovin · 06-07-2015 5:55pm

18 minutes of uninterrupted gameplay

tok9 · 06-07-2015 5:57pm

Switch it down to 720p or wait for a youtube link.

EoinMcLovin · 06-07-2015 6:03pm

tok9 wrote: »

Switch it down to 720p or wait for a youtube link.

yeah I will wait for youtube link. Usually is up within an hour or two

tok9 · 06-07-2015 7:28pm

Watching him go into the galaxy and just going around looking at different stars is crazy.

Captain Chaos · 06-07-2015 7:45pm

This must be very close to release with the amount they are now showing off.

EoinMcLovin · 06-07-2015 9:09pm

EoinHef · 07-07-2015 8:07am

Cant wait...looks awesome.

Maximus Alexander · 07-07-2015 9:38am

The more I see of this game the less interested I become.

Redzer7 · 07-07-2015 10:14am

Not liking what I'm seeing at all. Just don't think this will interest me.

mikom · 07-07-2015 10:18am

Where is the fun?
I got enough of stocktaking when I worked in Retail.

Zillah · 07-07-2015 11:01am

My mind is still blown over how big and complex the procedural world is. I'm far more excited about this sort of open world than something like the last few TES games.

My one concern is over what the player will actually spend his time doing. I have zero interest in spending more than a few seconds mining rocks, and I think scanning new life forms will be of extremely limited interest going forward. We've only seen a little of the space combat, but it did look very fluid and flashy, so there's that.

I'm a little worried that in any of the videos we've seen they've referenced "points of interest" but the only one they've ever gone to was an upload station. I've yet to see any real content beyond "ooh, isn't it pretty?" sort of stuff.

If they can make get the gameplay down right so that I am excited to go new places and discover new things, upgrade my ship etc, I am super excited about having such a large and truly undiscovered world to do it in.

Maximus Alexander · 07-07-2015 11:46am

Zillah wrote: »

If they can make get the gameplay down right so that I am excited to go new places and discover new things, upgrade my ship etc, I am super excited about having such a large and truly undiscovered world to do it in.

The problem with procedural generation is that this is extremely difficult to achieve and highly unlikely. Procedural generation may be able to produce huge areas that are near infinitely varied in a literal sense, but to the actual human eye it won't be long before you feel like you've been there an done that and everything's the same.

You need a human hand to populate the universe with interesting things, and when the universe is as large as theirs, that's not possible either. So what you're likely to get is the sprawling galaxy of sameness, with some hard coded places of interest that everyone flocks to, ultimately rendering the giant galaxy sort of pointless.

If the gameplay is solid it could make it worthwhile, but so far it just seems to be walking around scanning stuff, taking off and flying somewhere else, then walking around and scanning more sort of similar stuff. With maybe some shooting thrown in.

I dunno, meh.

CiDeRmAn · 07-07-2015 4:04pm

Perhaps people have been spoiled,
Elite on the BBC, C64 and Spectrum was incredibly compelling and it was a far simpler game than this.
Buying, selling, exploring and fighting, the scope if this gets things right is limitless, and I can't wait to play it

Stone Deaf 4evr · 07-07-2015 4:18pm

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Perhaps people have been spoiled,
Elite on the BBC, C64 and Spectrum was incredibly compelling and it was a far simpler game than this.
Buying, selling, exploring and fighting, the scope if this gets things right is limitless, and I can't wait to play it

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.

Right Turn Clyde · 07-07-2015 5:32pm

This certainly looks interesting and it's an exciting development for gaming in general, but developers can't even fill a virtual city yet without resorting to irritating fetch quests and repetitive spot-challenges. I don't think they're ready to tackle a whole universe. I hope I'm wrong, but this could turn out to be a lot of directionless go-getting.

Edit: I should qualify that by saying that it looks incredible and I'll definitely be spunking €70 on it.

Zillah · 07-07-2015 7:05pm

Right Turn Clyde wrote: »

€70

I'm sorry, what?

Right Turn Clyde · 07-07-2015 7:13pm

Zillah wrote: »

I'm sorry, what?

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

johnny_ultimate · 07-07-2015 7:22pm

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 · 07-07-2015 7:48pm

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 · 07-07-2015 8:16pm

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 · 07-07-2015 8:37pm

....Peter Molyneux

tok9 · 07-07-2015 8:49pm

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

CiDeRmAn · 07-07-2015 9:40pm

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 · 07-07-2015 9:41pm

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_ · 07-07-2015 11:29pm

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 · 08-07-2015 10:56am

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 · 08-07-2015 11:03am

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 · 08-07-2015 11:55am

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 · 08-07-2015 11:59am

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 · 08-07-2015 12:04pm

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 · 08-07-2015 12:10pm

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 · 08-07-2015 12:13pm

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 · 08-07-2015 12:48pm

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 · 08-07-2015 1:13pm

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 · 08-07-2015 7:01pm

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 · 08-07-2015 7:46pm

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

No Man's Sky

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