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[Mr. Giggles]

NMS will become a hit among stoners.

Came here to post this. This has oculus support yes? Because if so! Duuuuuude

 

[BigDug13]

No man's Sky is more like Minecraft without the creation aspect. Just the exploration aspect. But adding space.

I don't understand why this game is continually being compared to a Sims style game? It's a completely different genre. Is it just because it also had funny looking procedurally generated creatures across multiple planets?

The space ship battles, first person shooter battles, upgrade economy. These things are nothing like Spore.

 

[mjc]

The core idea is cool but nothing that they've shown has been interesting to me. Until they actually show the gameplay (outside of flying) I'm going to consider it to be a pretty piece of art.

 

[BokehKing]

I predict NMS to replace Destiny as the most hated 'the dev's lied/games shit/how could you find enjoyment from that' on this particular part of the forum. I'm sure there will be an OT for the game that will be filled with people who love the game.

 

[mclem]

I think No Man's Sky has a chance of suffering the same fate. The premise of it does sound cool, specially in this post Interstellar age. But when we really think about it, the mechanics behind it seem to be paper thin.

I think the mechanics behind it are more obfuscated - intentionally - than thin, as such. Now, admittedly, that obfuscation might by hiding lack of depth, but there's increasing talk about what the core gameplay is that has some promising sound to it.

Mind you, I'd quite like to see a let's play to really get a feel for it!

As I've said before, my fear is that it'll work out like an old Spectrum game called Explorer - technically huge, pretty (Well, by Spectrum standards, looks a bit messy now!), but with really dull gameplay. But that's only a fear, and I'm happy to give them ample benefit of the doubt for now.

 

[DrROBschiz]

This is a little pessimistic dont you think

At least let people PLAY the game first

 

[Skyzard]

That's my worry about it too tbh. Spore.

At least it should be prettier.

Show us some more gameplay.

 

[Nyoro SF]

This is a little pessimistic dont you think

At least let people PLAY the game first

Have we seen any substantial gameplay yet?

 

[ItsTheNew]

It's going to be a let down. Even if you are allowed to shoot guns and shoot your ships guns...why?

 

[CGwizz]

WTF i loved SPORE , dont know why people dont liked it :S

I didnt watch the reveal i just picked it up and played it cause it looked fun.

I enjoyed it.

 

[Canis lupus]

I want to be excited for NMS, it looks great, but I'm afraid it's gonna be a very boring game very fast.

 

[semiconscious]

Yeah no lie I'm not gonna be convinced that the devs can do what they say they're gonna do until the game is out in people's hands. Sounds way too ambitious.

agreed. would love this game to be everything it's supposed to be, but can't get overly hyped at this point. unlike most games, like the order:1886, or bloodborne, this game just has that 'too good to be true' thing going...

but i definitely wanna believe ...

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I think the difference is we now actually know what No Man's Sky has to offer as a game, whereas Spore was the physical embodiment of a hype train. Middle of last year I could see the comparison, but since the GI piece they've been very up front about what the game is (and isn't).

 

[WaffleTaco]

Let's not make statements that have no merit just because of the hype around it. I may not be intrested in No Man's Sky, but I am not going to make hyperbolic claims just because of people being extremely excited about it. If you don't understand the game, I believe there was a good thread about this a while ago explaining it. Let's take a wait and see approach before utterly dismissing it.

 

[rakhir]

You should watch this GI video with Sean where they even talk about Spore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvXJK0gjlB8

He doesn't really tackle the main problem with Spore - the lackluster, boring gameplay. The procedurally generated stuff was well-regarded, people praised the creature generator and all that, but everything else was not. That aspects, actually the thing you do, is the main reason everyone's so afraid No Mans Sky is overhyped.

 

[bomblord1]

I liked spore all the modes except the last were underdeveloped though.

 

[GillianSeed79]

I think this should be stickied in every NMS thread. Off the top of my head you've got exploration, resource management, a little space combat thrown in, etc. Granted the game sounds ambitious and all these elements could fall flat or turn out to be boring, but I haven't seen anything so far to suggest that it might turn out to be like Spore.

Originally Posted by ichtyander

Here's a bit of info I sorted up in hopes of making some things a bit clearer. It's all gathered from actual info from interviews, trailers etc.

What is No Man's Sky?
- In a nutshell, the goal is to earn money, get the best gear and survive the trip to the center of the galaxy. Yes, you can explore planets or stay in one forever, but if you're asking for a goal, a purpose, that's it.

Why would I want to get to the center of the galaxy?
- It's the main goal of the game, the only objective. Apparently, there will be "a compelling reason to head towards the center of the galaxy, as well as an ending that will provide you with a sense of closure. But there will be a reason to continue playing after that ending". Remember that Minecraft, Don't Starve, DayZ or even Dark Souls don't have a clear goal, they throw you into the world without telling you what to do next. 90% of Dark Souls is melee combat and walking, sounds pretty boring if you think about it that way, doesn't it.

What are the main incentives? Why would I want to play this game?
- As was mentioned, leveling yourself by ways of earning money and gear while trying to survive in a harsh environment is the main incentive, like in a vast number of games, or at least it's the main gameplay mechanic pushing you forward. The other incentive is of course pure exploration, which is enough for a lot of people but technically it might not be. You engage in a number of activities, both on the surface and in space, earn money, improve and buy gear and reach the center of the galaxy. Of course, getting money will be challenging, it will often put you in dangerous situations and you will probably die a lot.

So what do I do, what activities are there?
All of these activities earn you money, some more than others:

Non-violent:
- Exploration (discovering and naming of creatures, plants, locations, crashed ships, structures, artifacts, portals to dangerous planets)
- Resource Gathering (gather and sell minerals from a fictitious periodic table of elements using a multi-tool for scanning, a mining laser for gathering)
- Trading (buy resources cheap from one space station, sell them to another for profit)

Violent:
- Destroy Guardian Robots (gathering and killing too much alerts robots that hunt you down, you have weapons and grenades at your disposal)
- Escort and Defend (escort ships on their journey, defend them from enemy attacks)
- Destroy Ships (destroy trader ships, lone or groups of traveler NPCs, choose sides in huge fleet battles or evade them altogether, kill the local police)

There is also one "core thing" you can do for every solar system, and this "thing" is of great significance, fundamentally changes that solar system and players can choose whether or not they want to do that.

*Note: They've mentioned that killing creatures doesn't actually earn you money (discovering and scanning them does), but you can do it nevertheless.

How does exploration actually work?
- You have a galactic map with all of the stars revealed. Clicking on a star shows its basic solar system data, with more info if someone's already been there and shared it. You hyperjump to the selected solar system and then target one of the planets. As you enter the orbit, your ship's computer scans the surface and shows you essentially question marks, points of interest detected on the surface. These points of interest can be any of the aforementioned activities that earn you money while on the surface as well as trading posts, portals etc. Basically, you get rewarded for revealing what the question marks are and then do the stuff related to said activity, whether it is scanning of new species, mining resources, a dangerous trap, jump to new worlds, kill some robots etc. You can freely explore the entire planet if you want, and you'll probably find some nice things out there as well, but a few of the key locations will be marked with these "question marks".

Just imagine Far Cry 4, but instead of the towers revealing icons and those icons depicting exactly what the missions are, you reveal icons just by arriving at the planet and discover what the icons are by actually going there.

What do I do with all this cash I earned?
- Well, the main goal is to survive the trip to the center of the galaxy, so you want to make sure you can actually pull this off. There are three main things you can upgrade:
- Suit - (shields, carrying capacity, jetpack, degree of survival in toxic, corrosive, radioactive, acid and other environments)
- Weapons - (improve scanning range and type, resource gathering, laser beam, plasma grenade, energy shot, for space there are different weapons with different specialties like lasers for shields, plasma for hull damage, torpedoes for heavy damage but with slow projectiles)
- Ship - (buy new ones actually, but they can have different stats defined into three classes: Fighter, Trader and Explorer, different engines, stealth tech, different types of weapons for different occasions)

Doesn't sound all that difficult. What are the obstacles, where's the difficulty?
- If your ship is destroyed, you respawn after death without your ship and cargo but you still have your hard earned money and suit upgrades. If you get killed while on foot, naturally you loose what resources you had on you and respawn near your ship, still having your money and suit upgrades.
- Planets have different atmospheres, radiation, toxic and corrosive environments, liquid hazards like acids and alcohols so you need to upgrade both your suit and ship to survive in these harsh environments.
- Some planets have robot guardians that attack you if you exploit (as you should) the planet's natural resources, kill off wildlife etc. In other words, the robots punish you for doing everything you can to survive and improve your gear.
- Participating in conflict between factions will win favors with one over the other, meaning one faction will give you wingmen for support or trader discounts while the other will actively attack you if you're in bad relations with them.
- Attacking outposts and space stations enrages the local police. You don't get rewarded for attacking space stations but you do for killing cops (or any ships for that matter).
- Fuel is used for interstellar (hyperspace) travel and is very expensive. An easier way of getting fuel is by mining for resources, or you could do any of the other activities to earn cash and spend it on fuel. Fuel also takes up cargo space so you need to balance that if you want to do trade runs.
- Hazardous planets (or maybe all of them?) deplete your suit's oxygen levels so you need to be mindful of this when embarking on longer journeys through the inhospitable terrain.
- Portals to other planets can be extremely dangerous (you can only use them on foot) but can also give larger rewards, since you're basically warping to a high level area while you're still at a very lower level. Also, each portal requires a different weapon or combination of weapons to activate.

So will all of this actually be fun or worth it?
- Well that depends, it might get boring quickly or the variety of combinations might keep things fresh at least for a few dozen hours. People play Destiny, Far Cry 4, Dark Souls or Don't Starve, games which have extremely repetitive and annoying elements for a lot of people but are still loved by a great many people. My point is, No Man's Sky clearly has gameplay, and while exploration is directly encouraged and essential, it's not the only thing you can do in the game. It's not a walking simulator by any stretch. You earn money, have a goal you can pursue, upgrade your gear, engage in combat, have a lot of dangerous situations etc. That being said, it might turn out to be a boring game, it depends on balance, how interesting the activities are and a number of factors, one of which is the player himself. It's not a game for everyone, but those are rare anyway.

I hope this clears some things to some people, especially with posts saying there is no gameplay and such. Also, I recommend reading the NMS wiki archive on reddit that has all of this info and more.

 

[twobear]

I know that people are getting fed up of this comparison, but I still think it's valid. The point is that Spore was a really huge universe with a very high level of explorability and general sandboxyness, but all of the gameplay systems were all very shallow. It was fine to dick around in for a while, but because all it really ended up being was a very large, shallow sandpit it quickly become quite boring.

There's a significant risk, I think, that without compelling gameplay mechanics the same thing can happen with NMS.

 

[Drencrom]

so its going to end like the game from EA?
sad but yeah reasonable. sony is behind this scheme.

The fuck?

 

[TheVoidDragon]

While i think NMS looks great and i will likely get it, based on what i've seen and read so far it does seem there's a chance it could just be a collection of loosely connected mechanics with little depth, like Spore was.

I'm still not entirely sure what exactly there is to do in the game, i know it has things like exploration, trading and ship combat, but they haven't really said how in-depth those things will be, and the trailers don't do much to help as what is in the trailers seems a bit shallow.

 

[Red]

I remember when Spore was announced, I expected it to run a course like Fable, with the insane hype of its announcement and breadth of its promises undermined by practical, technological constraints. It did. Sometimes developers need to know when to withhold their ambition, no matter how exciting a project is, because any unrealized effort will make the enthusiast public feel cheated on release ("we're trying to such and such," or "the hope is this" become pacts when given a large enough forum).

NMS doesn't feel the same to me. It is relatively conservative. Its big draw is the size of the randomly generated universe, but that's just it; it's random, the developers only need to create the seed and allow the rest to take care of itself. It looks like a basic adventure game with an unique flair and a central conceit appealing to those who like exploring virtual worlds. I think it will hold up just fine. I don't think, however, that it's going to be a big commercial success, and though it might be respected in niche communities I don't believe it will have legs in the community at large. If young kids catch onto it (the bulk of the Minecraft crowd), it may have longer staying power. It's a big virtual playground, looks like a good time, not going to sustain interest in the competitive or seasonal-release crowd for very long.

fwiw, I think it looks great and is the type of game I wish we'd see more of.

 

[Freeman]

A likely outcome. It looks great but so far I'm not interested, specially since for me procedural generated usually translate to unbelievably boring. To me it all hinges on how deep the systems are going to be, how dynamic the world is and how everyone's action will affect each other.

 

[Aeqvitas]

It wouldn't surprise me at all. NMS looked interesting when it was first revealed, but the more it is show, it seems like a boring, wanna be minecraft in space, but instead of building you fly around empty planets (the devs said like the universe, most planets will be lifeless) looking for resources to go to the next boring planet.

Procedural generated content has been shown to be boring when used to fill large worlds. Look at Elder Scrolls 2 (daggerfall? the big open world one that was the largest video game world for the longest time, was procedurally generated, everything feels same-ish).

I think people will be upset that it doesn't live up to the impossible hype engine that the devs and Sony have been cultivating. Objectively it might end up being a passable game, but you have to honestly accept it is just a procedurally generated space flight simulator made by like 8 people. The assets will quickly feel reused, there hasn't been any interesting gameplay loop shown so far, and the hype is just buoyed up by impossible dreams.

Just because a game is colorful doesn't mean it is fun.

Barring some major reveal of an unmentioned primary gameplay mechanic, I think this title will disappoint a lot of people. I don't think it will be an objectively bad game, some will surely enjoy it, but it will be more like destiny because the difference from hype to reality will be jarring.

 

[Skyzard]

There's a camera to take pics of the wildlife and planets right?

A massive pokemon snap would be cool. Maybe some nice filters and lenses like in Tearaway.


Hopefully you can sell photos, and the better the photo the more cash. I mean you are discovering planets and life etc, makes sense to have that.
Life as a dangerous discovery photographer would be decent! Laying "traps" for animals etc.

Might be a bit tough with it all being procedurally generated.

 

[Danlord]

I think this should be stickied in every NMS thread. Off the top of my head you've got exploration, resource management, a little space combat thrown in, etc. Granted the game sounds ambitious and all these elements could fall flat or turn out to be boring, but I haven't seen anything so far to suggest that it might turn out to be like Spore.

I think a "No Mans Sky Bingo" should be done, similar to how in every thread about VR there's always "But no-one cared for 3D this is no different" or "Not powerful enough", "No-one cares, it's a niche product it'll die out", "you have to render at 120fps so it'll never work" blah.

I'm hyped for the game, I've set my standards in check I know what I'm expecting. Being able to just walk and fly around planets and gather resources is all I want. Especially if/when it comes to VR.

 

[Veritigo_X]

I still don't get what they've promised that seems completely unbelievable to some people.

The "lofty goals" are what they've already shown us (generated planets/creatures, seamless space to planet landing).

 

[imBask]

Spore was a full price game by a major company and was advertised as the biggest thing ever

NMS will most likely be a 20-30$ made by a small team, advertised as it is but overhyped by the community


if NMS ends up being bad, people will move on a week later

 

[thewhitehawk]

I'm fairly sure that regardless of how good No Man's Sky ends up being it will disappoint a lot of people.

 

[TM94]

Sorry but no.

This is the game I've dreamt about since I was a kid.

Being able to explore a vast galaxy of alien planets all in real-time.

Even if the mechanics are paper-thin, I'll just make do with my wanderlust.

 

[twobear]

Sorry but no.

This is the game I've dreamt about since I was a kid.

Being able to explore a vast galaxy of alien planets all in real-time.

Even if the mechanics are paper-thin, I'll just make do with my wanderlust.

The game you just described is Spore too. That's the whole point.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

Can we at least have the "popular and acclaimed therefore it sucks and is overrated" backlash until AFTER the game has been released.

Plus unless your working title was "Sim Everything" and was stuck in development hell for years being published by one of the worst companies in the industry then I'm sorry, it's not going to be like Spore. Also what exactly have they been promising that they haven't shown off yet in some compacity?

 

[Neuromancer]

There are going to be people who won't find the game fun even if it delivers on everything its promised so far. I still think it looks amazing and I don't anticipate it letting me down.

 

[Marty Chinn]

I think the biggest problem/concern about NMS is how small the dev team is combined with the scope that they're promising. The odds don't stack up to meeting the hype.

 

[Smash88]

I enjoyed Spore for what it was. :|

Guess I'm the 1%.

 

[Deadstar]

The one thing that scares me about NMS is that they haven't shown what you actually do at all. What they've showed is all universe generation. It's super impressive but I want to see what you do in the world.

 

[sueil]

No game will ever disappoint like Spore.

 

[Neuromancer]

The one thing that scares me about NMS is that they haven't shown what you actually do at all. What they've showed is all universe generation. It's super impressive but I want to see what you do in the world.

See post #67. Or do you mean you want to be shown all these things explicitly?

 

[Leafhopper]

Sorry but no.

This is the game I've dreamt about since I was a kid.

Being able to explore a vast galaxy of alien planets all in real-time.

Even if the mechanics are paper-thin, I'll just make do with my wanderlust.

Good going you described Spore.

The one thing that scares me about NMS is that they haven't shown what you actually do at all. What they've showed is all universe generation. It's super impressive but I want to see what you do in the world.

According to various posts on here they shown a lot of the mechanics, you have to be knowing what you are looking at though.

 

[Jimmyfenix]

I think the biggest problem/concern about NMS is how small the dev team is combined with the scope that they're promising. The odds don't stack up to meeting the hype.

Going from Joe Danger to NMS is crazy considering the small team. It will be interesting to see the final product

 

[ChosenPredator]

I think this should be stickied in every NMS thread. Off the top of my head you've got exploration, resource management, a little space combat thrown in, etc. Granted the game sounds ambitious and all these elements could fall flat or turn out to be boring, but I haven't seen anything so far to suggest that it might turn out to be like Spore.

that sounds great I just hope they inject some story into choosing sides and I hope it ends up good with all the assortment of things that are being promised the people who love this game the most might be the ones that end up hating it based on all those expectations

I just don't want the game to get boring - with no direction in such a vast universe things can get boring real quick.

 

[Portugeezer]

Does anybody remember Spore? The Will Wright / Maxis game that won every award known to man before it was released, but as soon as it came out, nobody gave a f and was quickly forgotten?

I think No Man's Sky has a chance of suffering the same fate. The premise of it does sound cool, specially in this post Interstellar age. But when we really think about it, the mechanics behind it seem to be paper thin.

Do we like the concept of No Man's Sky more than what the game could actually be?

I probably do, but I am fine with that.

 

[RedSwirl]

People continue to act like NMS is this overly ambitious thing that's never been done before and will fail because of that, which just isn't true. We haven't actually seen much gameplay outside flying, but it's been heavily described, and most importantly, NMS isn't a new type of game at all. A lot of the territory it's traversing has been charted before over the last 30 years. We just got Elite Dangerous which let's you fly, fight, and trade through 400 billion 1:1 scale solar systems. Making procedural generated galaxies isn't as much of a massive risk as people think it is. And the gameplay that NMS does describe in its previews sounds extremely similar to the Elite games and other space trading sims. Try to imagine it as somewhere between Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto V, except you have a space ship and there isn't a main quest. This is just the first time a game like this has gotten a lot of attention from console gamers.

The main differences with NMS are that it's putting a lot of focus on planetary exploration from the get-go, and it's extrapolating the idea of Elite to an unprecedented number of planets and galaxies. I think there are really only two major risks to NMS right now:

1) The variety in its procedural generation doesn't hold up across the game's 18 quintillion planets, and they end up becoming repetitive at some point in the game.

2) The PS4 audience is put off by the game's sense of total freedom and people can't figure out how to create their own goals within its universe.

 

[nemisis0]

I still don't understand what no mans sky is or why I should be excited.

I am on the same boat as you, looks great but what is it exactly.


Edit: I guess now I know more about the game from the top post, does sound more interesting now.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

I liked Spore.

 

[CecilRousso]

The premise of it does sound cool, specially in this post Interstellar age. But when we really think about it, the mechanics behind it seem to be paper thin.

Because we haven't seen enough shooting or what? Or enough cutscenes?

What is people want from this game?

 

[dalin80]

Oh gee, if only this point was raised in every No Man's Sky thread!.

No wait it has and been answered.

If only there were videos showing gameplay!

No wait just about every video does.

If only the devs told us what the game was about!

Oh hang on, there are literally hours of Sean Murray doing that.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

I still don't understand what no mans sky is or why I should be excited.

I too don't see anything swell about it. You can't even do much in the planets. Its mostly visual goo.

 

[ironcreed]

I just want to land on exotic and truly alien feeling planets, while trying to explore, gather, upgrade and survive to the amazing music. Then take off through the atmosphere and do it all over again like you would as a journeyman that is braving the final frontier.

That is all I want and expect from this game. The only story is what you choose to do with your time there, as we all try and make our way to discover what is at the center of the galaxy. That is, if you choose to even do that.

 

[Nyoro SF]

Because we haven't seen enough shooting or what? Or enough cutscenes?

What is people want from this game?

Yes, because gameplay = shooting and cutscenes.

Cut the word stuffing and false outrage if you don't have anything worthwhile to post.

 

[imBask]

Do we like the concept of No Man's Sky more than what the game could actually be?

I probably do, but I am fine with that.

DayZ made like a bazillion on a poorly executed concept/idea! There's hope for succes