The thing of it is though, how much variation was actually promised? I mean yeah, they said they had billions of different planets, but as far as I know never said that planets would be significantly and quantifiably different. The expected variation between worlds was largely just imagined and hoped for, despite the fact that most procedural games don't produce an appreciable amount of variation.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
If the Hello Games kept all their promises, would No Man's Sky have been any good?
- Thread starter border
- Start date
TwiztidElf
Member
I like the game and I've poured a lot of time into it. I'm yet to even see a system or planet named by another player.
Nicely written OP and I agree with it.
The missing features thing was a nice media/YouTube narrative that fans ran away with, because it was an easy objective thing for fans to understand. It's much harder to critique the gameplay because it's subjective and people were bought into the hype. People only sit up and notice if it's something factually right or wrong. The 35 minute Angry Joe video had 30 minutes of him getting crashes, which is frustrating to be sure but he spent 1 minute trying to explain why the game was boring and couldn't really. Either way he concentrated on things that he could sway his fans/viewers on. I don't want to only single him out but most writing and media these days is full of this type of objective analysis.
The missing features thing was a nice media/YouTube narrative that fans ran away with, because it was an easy objective thing for fans to understand. It's much harder to critique the gameplay because it's subjective and people were bought into the hype. People only sit up and notice if it's something factually right or wrong. The 35 minute Angry Joe video had 30 minutes of him getting crashes, which is frustrating to be sure but he spent 1 minute trying to explain why the game was boring and couldn't really. Either way he concentrated on things that he could sway his fans/viewers on. I don't want to only single him out but most writing and media these days is full of this type of objective analysis.
"Would No Man's Sky have been any good?" is just an all-inclusive phrasing that I used for brevity since I was already pushing the character-limit for thread titles. If it seems needlessly negative, I apologize. I don't mean to suggest that NMS is irredeemable garbage, but just that people's opinion of it would not be significantly changed even if it had a more robust featureset.
If you prefer, you can substitute and answer any of the following similar questions I considered:
"If the Hello Games kept all their promises, would No Man's Sky have been significantly improved?"
"If the Hello Games kept all their promises, would No Man's Sky have satisfied your expectations?"
"If the Hello Games kept all their promises, would No Man's Sky have been better reviewed?"
"If the Hello Games kept all their promises, would you have had more fun with No Man's Sky?"
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
I don't think people argued that the missing features are the magical missing key to making the game good. People argued the missing features are a big part of what drew them into the game in the first place.
So what if the game being mediocre/bad is unchanged? A bad product isn't special, it's not even noteworthy in gaming. It's the deception that's the focus. All this argument that it would still be a bad game is meaningless because it doesn't excuse or change anything regarding how the game was advertised and represented pre-launch. And I won't even accept that they aren't the missing key due to how extensive the list is and how embellished the promises were.
So what if the game being mediocre/bad is unchanged? A bad product isn't special, it's not even noteworthy in gaming. It's the deception that's the focus. All this argument that it would still be a bad game is meaningless because it doesn't excuse or change anything regarding how the game was advertised and represented pre-launch. And I won't even accept that they aren't the missing key due to how extensive the list is and how embellished the promises were.
Cave Johnson
Member
You're projecting your own "what if" conclusions without ample data to support it. Since the beginning NM S'S appeal is the it has a very diverse array of interests that serves as their own primary motivator for playing the game. Dismissing it outright using your own standards does not negate the concerns that the "missing" content would've dramatically change the opinion of the game.
the only people to blame here are the press ... just look at the very first stories written about the game on sites like polygon etc ...i 'think' that was around the time of some other big game debut .. and the press immediately extrapolated and assumed and held the game up as something way beyond it was ever going to be. not to say it wasn't good. but i mean come on .... games don't code themselves. if you have some maths creating world after worl then obviouslly you are giving up the finer points that game devs usually spend years and years getting right.
did they expect us to fly down to the surface of a planent and find ourselves in horizon zero dawn? (i'm not even talking graphics here)
i mean really ..duh.
game press has only themselves to blame for 'disappointment'
did they expect us to fly down to the surface of a planent and find ourselves in horizon zero dawn? (i'm not even talking graphics here)
i mean really ..duh.
game press has only themselves to blame for 'disappointment'
I don't know about the promises, I'll be honest, I can't be bothered to think each one through, however if the game had not been such a chore in terms of what you were doing minute to minute and let me explore as I saw fit then I would have actually enjoyed the game and not sold it off in disgust after 2 days.
There was definitely something there but it was so obscured by tedium and repetitiveness that it was impossible for me to enjoy.
There was definitely something there but it was so obscured by tedium and repetitiveness that it was impossible for me to enjoy.
At the same time, I don't think it's unfair to ask, "Was your enjoyment of the game really contingent on these supplemental and tertiary features that would never have manifested themselves in the moment-to-moment gameplay?" People have the benefit of perspective now, so I'd hope that they can evaluate whether those missing features were really what disappointed them.
It's a hypothetical "What If" scenario in the first place. Of course I can't supply data to support my conclusion, since the purpose of the thread is coming to a consensus conclusion. I posit that No Man's Sky would not have been any more engaging if they had delivered on their promised featureset, but I want to know how and why other people might have enjoyed it more had they fulfilled their promises.
bitbydeath
Member
It has all those features you mentioned except Multiplayer, which even when thought to be included was said to likely not be something anyone will ever see due to the vastness of the game.
What else you got?
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
The active factions, not having to grind if you didn't want to etc would've made it more sandboxy with a sense that you didn't just go from planet to planet grinding.
The planets spinning or ramming the sun stuff... Not so much.
SolidChamp
Banned
I should know better than to step into one of these threads, but I agree with this post.
Haunted
Member
I think Hello Games generally have had problems with the core gameplay loop in their games so far, and NMS - while by far their most ambitious so far - did not really break that trend.
That said, I think it's quite worthwhile to experience as is. The procedural generation algorithm is terrific, where the game falls apart is in the repetition that is so starkly contrasted to all that uniqueness.
That said, I think it's quite worthwhile to experience as is. The procedural generation algorithm is terrific, where the game falls apart is in the repetition that is so starkly contrasted to all that uniqueness.
Breakfast at Noon
Member
I wonder if Sean Murray is a compulsive liar and he can not help it?
I would understand that and find it questionable why you'd have him as your front man.
But WHY was none of the members on twitter going "look I don't know what Sean is smoking but half this shit has not been talked about let alone worked on"
You all keep blaming Murray and quite rightfully so, but Hello Games as a whole should be equally blamed.
Edit: also remember that guy wanting too see their code as he believed they was using his "super code" or some shit and Sean saying "we are not using anyone's code it is ours" after everything else I would not take Hello Games word on it..
I really should not post when I just get out of bed.
I would understand that and find it questionable why you'd have him as your front man.
But WHY was none of the members on twitter going "look I don't know what Sean is smoking but half this shit has not been talked about let alone worked on"
You all keep blaming Murray and quite rightfully so, but Hello Games as a whole should be equally blamed.
Edit: also remember that guy wanting too see their code as he believed they was using his "super code" or some shit and Sean saying "we are not using anyone's code it is ours" after everything else I would not take Hello Games word on it..
I really should not post when I just get out of bed.
Visiting my 400th planet now. I'm enjoying the game (though obviously dissapointed as what could have been!)
However, I do understand that many people don't like it (at all) which is fine. And I do think if they delivered on all or most of their promises a lot more people would have enjoyed it.
The interface/Inventory management still wouldn't been great, but the prospect of finding more unique things throughout the universe and interacting with factions, factions at war with each other would have kept players going longer most likely. They would put up with the inventory management more because other elements of the game would have been interesting enough for them to keep going.
Furthermore, if those huge creatures were in the game and could be found on super rare planets people would keep playing even if the hundreds of other planets aren't so interesting because the prospect of actually finding such a huge creature is super appealing. It's like hoping on winning the lottery.
The same thing goes for finding really really ultra rare structures, monoliths, ruins in the game that they can share online in a "look what I've found".
People already shared a lot of the monilith variation they hadn't seen in 100 of hours of playing. Imagine a lot, lot more of that stuff (and more intriguing stuff).
Come to think of it, the biggest flaw of this game is that besides the creatures, the planets don't have unique things to discover on them. No structures, items you only can maybe find once in 50 hours. It might be super hard to find on the planet itself, but that's fine. Since once you stumble upon it you'll feel great when you discover something most players might never encounter. That's a great feeling which is absent in the current game. (something which they can add to)
However, I do understand that many people don't like it (at all) which is fine. And I do think if they delivered on all or most of their promises a lot more people would have enjoyed it.
The interface/Inventory management still wouldn't been great, but the prospect of finding more unique things throughout the universe and interacting with factions, factions at war with each other would have kept players going longer most likely. They would put up with the inventory management more because other elements of the game would have been interesting enough for them to keep going.
Furthermore, if those huge creatures were in the game and could be found on super rare planets people would keep playing even if the hundreds of other planets aren't so interesting because the prospect of actually finding such a huge creature is super appealing. It's like hoping on winning the lottery.
The same thing goes for finding really really ultra rare structures, monoliths, ruins in the game that they can share online in a "look what I've found".
People already shared a lot of the monilith variation they hadn't seen in 100 of hours of playing. Imagine a lot, lot more of that stuff (and more intriguing stuff).
Come to think of it, the biggest flaw of this game is that besides the creatures, the planets don't have unique things to discover on them. No structures, items you only can maybe find once in 50 hours. It might be super hard to find on the planet itself, but that's fine. Since once you stumble upon it you'll feel great when you discover something most players might never encounter. That's a great feeling which is absent in the current game. (something which they can add to)
This.
The moment I read about it I knew it would be disappointing. This kind of game needs to be scripted and it needs a lot of manpower to work on it. You need to have the budget of someone like Ubisoft or EA to be able to deliver on such a premise.
People declaring they were huge fans of the game before even getting close to playing it were certainly going to be disappointed. There is no such thing as a magic algorithm that can randomly produce a worthwhile experience as the one that was promised.
toddhunter
Member
Skyrim was game of the year. So was dragon age inquisition. By what measure is no mans sky a tedious game that people can't enjoy?
Yautja_Warrior
Member
While its not the best game ever made, I personally don't think its a bad game and think future updates will add some of the missing features and make the game better but it will always be a niche game.
If no single opinion is correct, then the consensus must be.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
All those featured would have made the gameplay loop more interesting, specially for people that got tired after a few hours.
Is a disengenous tactic from people that already enjoyed the game to say otherwise.
Every game can be reduced to a gameplay loop, the thing is how intereting you make that gameplay loop. NMS did it poorly, most of the things that could have added depth to systems in place weren't there.
Is a disengenous tactic from people that already enjoyed the game to say otherwise.
Every game can be reduced to a gameplay loop, the thing is how intereting you make that gameplay loop. NMS did it poorly, most of the things that could have added depth to systems in place weren't there.
KratosEnergyDrink
Member
NMS is a game about exploring. But exploring in NMS is only fun for about five planets, until you realize there is not much diversity and the planets all feel sterile with animal puppets on it.
I don't think so. The MP in this game always sounded extremely limited. It didn't even sound like there was meaningful interaction possible between players, just that very occasionally you might be able to see them. Anything beyond that was fanboy talk.
Sidewinder
Member
Yeah, I feel the same, I normally avoid games that boast their awesome procedurally generated unlimited everything like the plague, but I just wanted to finally play a decent space game on PS4!
I'm glad I did, because I quite enjoy that game for what it is, playing 1 or 2 hours every now and then is quite chill, getting ever closer to the center of the universe...although I'm not sure I'll ever reach it
It definitely isn't a masterpiece of a game and I would rather not have spent that much money on it, as I think it's not really worth full price, but it isn't this turd of a game that so many seem to believe.
No... NO! Not even close
Have you watched all the shit he talked? For years he went on every interview and said yes to basically everything. You could be forgiven for thinking it's a genre bending MMO where you can choose to live as a space pirate and never land on a planet. I mean, he said shit like this.
So.. NO!
travisbickle
Member
I just think the game is what it is. The issues are to do with how the parts in it are designed, not the parts that are missing.
I like the game for the sense of discovery, but only because so many games are "tunneled spectacles", but the game is poorly designed.
I like the game for the sense of discovery, but only because so many games are "tunneled spectacles", but the game is poorly designed.
kinoki
Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
No Man's Sky tapped into our love for the classic sci-fi dream of being able to go anywhere and do anything. To live adventures. To live Dune, Star Wars, Barbarella, Forbidden Planet, etc. However what was given was a not-noteworthy exploration-crafting game with outstanding art direction. This game should have been a sleeper hit but instead it got stuck in the internet echo chamber for everything it didn't live up to. It's a bad joke at this point and I doubt anything can redeem it.
The promise was nice but the execution was too much for 15 people.
Game would´ve been a dream if a 300+ team had the time to create a believable universe. Especially with more variation and some freaking economy/lore for the alien races that is beyond the usual fortune cookie quotes.
Game would´ve been a dream if a 300+ team had the time to create a believable universe. Especially with more variation and some freaking economy/lore for the alien races that is beyond the usual fortune cookie quotes.
If it was $15 and in early access I think it would have a lot of good will but it would still be dead. There's nothing to do at this point. It's a game with nothing to do. People would cheer them on as they hopefully added more features until it was a game.
Thank you.
theindieboy
Member
Personally I got what i expected certainly after patch 1.09 where the game is considerably more stable, the crashes were the only disappointment i had with the game but I followed it closely and through Kinda Funny comentory reduced my expectation before release. Personally i think it is a "good" game certainly on the ign scale, personally if they do deliver on the "minecraft" content updates would be intrested in a years time what people think of it. I have platted the game and intentionally not got to the center so that i can keep doing part of that journey after each big patch (if they come) so as not to burn myself out, as was playing 12 hour days at the weekend of it and really enjoying myself with a podcast on in the background. Anyway thats my thoughts on the game i am not commenting on the messaging etc.
AusRoachman
Member
I came into it pretty hyped and initially I thought it was amazing . About 25 hrs in I began to see the repetition and pretty much just burned through the atlas path and dropped it.
None of the promised features would have changed my enjoyment except for probably the faction system (I was expecting more random fleet battles with allied factions etc).
I think my biggest problem with the game was everyplanet having outposts etc everywhere , I can live with the sentinel stuff (even though I never found a planet without sentinels), and I have no idea how you would balance things but I was expecting a lot of planets with a lot more variety instead of just the same outposts / temples every 50 metres .
It really killed my enjoyment alongside no real story pushing me forward .
It got to the point where I would just land , see what weather environment it was and leave .
I've yet to find a e3 environment (animals everywhere , animals in formation , any kind of ecosystem.
I can live with the fake skyboxes , non spinning planets , overall I think the procedural gfx are amazing and it's probably my most screenshotted ps4 game , but I just needed a little more variety and a competent story pushing me forward .
None of the promised features would have changed my enjoyment except for probably the faction system (I was expecting more random fleet battles with allied factions etc).
I think my biggest problem with the game was everyplanet having outposts etc everywhere , I can live with the sentinel stuff (even though I never found a planet without sentinels), and I have no idea how you would balance things but I was expecting a lot of planets with a lot more variety instead of just the same outposts / temples every 50 metres .
It really killed my enjoyment alongside no real story pushing me forward .
It got to the point where I would just land , see what weather environment it was and leave .
I've yet to find a e3 environment (animals everywhere , animals in formation , any kind of ecosystem.
I can live with the fake skyboxes , non spinning planets , overall I think the procedural gfx are amazing and it's probably my most screenshotted ps4 game , but I just needed a little more variety and a competent story pushing me forward .
Wait, it was supposed to have terrible combat?
The game mechanics feel like a facsimile of a good game, like someone looked at other games and put their features on a feature list without understanding anything about them, delivering half-assed or plain misaimed takes on those features.
Combat: Point at something and hold the trigger. Maybe sidestep the half-hearted attacks but never feel any danger (unless large enemy numbers in space combat, then you're either geared enough and frequently throw new fuel into the shield generator or you die). And did you notice that it has a CoD-style hit indicator but shows it no matter whether you hit an enemy or a wall?
Mining: All those rare resources just thrown at the surface. No real need to explore, if it's present on the planet it's right in front of you. The only reason you aren't always loaded with everything you need is the limited inventory space. But unlike Factorio you can't simply set up a mining system to gather all those exposed materials.
Survival: Just top up the bar regularly with resources that are literally everywhere. No need to ration your food or take special precautions for specific situations, just universal standard fuel that's so abundant the biggest challenge is operating the menu.
Upgrades: Just linear buffs to your existing abilities. Never changes the gameplay except bars go down slower or faster. No different challenges to attain them either, it's just a matter of grinding samey interactions to get the blueprints and then shooting enough rocks to get the materials. Compare e.g. Terraria where some materials are mined and some are only gained from combat with the latter differing a lot depending on what you are looking for.
Exploration: While technically every place is different because it's random they all feel the same, follow the same structure and are composed of the same familiar elements. And there's no real need to look deeply into a planet because everything is visible up front minus maybe the vortex cubes. Also the need to return to your ship discourages just randomly exploring things anyway (and I never find a ship calling interface when I need one...). You should always fly your ship to where you're going to look at things and it costs so much plutonium to launch that you don't want to do random exploration.
Trade: Sure, prices go up and down a little but 1. you can't find planetary trade spots again (except those multi-platform ones) so you cannot make trade routes (also you cannot find old systems again easily so inter-stellar trade is even worse) and 2. the amounts you can buy are so small that you won't make any significant profits compared to the cash you need for the only major money sink, buying bigger ships.
Ship types: Different races' ships come with different standard gear but reconfiguring that is so simple and bog standard (and often necessary because of adjacency bonuses) that any flavor goes out the window within seconds... if you can even tell what kind of theme the ship had going on in the first place.
Fredrik
Member
Same here, 100% snow surface, crazy storms, the water planet was like 70-80% water though. But the sentinels and alien outposts are always there and I think that's a bummer, I want to be the FIRST person ever on some planets.
17 Seconds
Banned
if someone didn't lie, would they have been telling the truth?
This is fact?, ill-advised by whom?
I had a few suspicions, and you can see the evolution of my doubt over time as to whether there's enough game there:
One other thing I should highlight was something in a discussion comparing XCX's mostly-handbuilt huge world with NMS's potentially infinite universe:
That last bit, I think, is key: in XCX, I thought there was enough design and structure to contextualise the world and drive exploration with well-defined goals and challenges. Some people did not, and that's fair enough - but I think that that layer of contextualisation and drive is ultimately missing from No Man's Sky. The question, though, is whether one could be added in - because I think adding that layer successfully would make the game an awful lot more appealing.
I don't think that the problem is exactly that there's a laundry list of things that aren't included, it's more that there was a PR campaign built up around mystery - in which people latched onto these laundry list elements as teaser nuggets of information to try to piece together an idea of what the core game actually is, and in doing so had pictured a game more substantial than what was offered. It was construed by many as "There's a drive and impetus to the game there that we're not telling you about to preserve the surprise", when in fact... there wasn't, really. The laundry list isn't the problem itself... but it's symbolic of the PR issues that led us to today.
One other thing I should highlight was something in a discussion comparing XCX's mostly-handbuilt huge world with NMS's potentially infinite universe:
That last bit, I think, is key: in XCX, I thought there was enough design and structure to contextualise the world and drive exploration with well-defined goals and challenges. Some people did not, and that's fair enough - but I think that that layer of contextualisation and drive is ultimately missing from No Man's Sky. The question, though, is whether one could be added in - because I think adding that layer successfully would make the game an awful lot more appealing.
I don't think that the problem is exactly that there's a laundry list of things that aren't included, it's more that there was a PR campaign built up around mystery - in which people latched onto these laundry list elements as teaser nuggets of information to try to piece together an idea of what the core game actually is, and in doing so had pictured a game more substantial than what was offered. It was construed by many as "There's a drive and impetus to the game there that we're not telling you about to preserve the surprise", when in fact... there wasn't, really. The laundry list isn't the problem itself... but it's symbolic of the PR issues that led us to today.
Neff
Member
I dunno, I get the impression that Murray pitched the idea to himself as a mix of Elite and Minecraft, both fine procedurally-generated games, but at the end of the day, NMS doesn't have the accessibility, depth or addictiveness of those games.
The intention was noble and sincere I think, but they simply failed at identifying what made those games good in the first place, and their failure was compounded by a refusal to see the reality of their project not coming together in a way which matched their ambition, ultimately resulting in outright lies.
I think it would have been very different and the reception would have been very different. I think it would have been a better game, yes.
Even stuff like the procedural algorithms getting more weird/extreme as you approach the galactic/universe center. That sounded amazing, even if game breaking, and would have added a much-needed sense of progression. 'Wow, these planets are getting weirder as I progress'.
As the game is currently, despite the occasional cool planet/creature you can find, there's a high chance that the 300th planet you'll see, several galaxies in, will be very similar to what you've seen before. I'm still OK with this but it is such a missed opportunity and it could have swayed people like Angry Joe who found the constant similarities inexcusable.
And that's just one thing. Just one thing out of the many they didn't manage to get in the game.
I.e. what they never promised?
Even stuff like the procedural algorithms getting more weird/extreme as you approach the galactic/universe center. That sounded amazing, even if game breaking, and would have added a much-needed sense of progression. 'Wow, these planets are getting weirder as I progress'.
As the game is currently, despite the occasional cool planet/creature you can find, there's a high chance that the 300th planet you'll see, several galaxies in, will be very similar to what you've seen before. I'm still OK with this but it is such a missed opportunity and it could have swayed people like Angry Joe who found the constant similarities inexcusable.
And that's just one thing. Just one thing out of the many they didn't manage to get in the game.
I.e. what they never promised?
Cave Johnson
Member
That depends entirely on the individual. I can give one example: Journey. By all accounts the one defining moment in that game would be the first player I have engaged with. It is, until today is what makes the experience worth playing. Now let us imagine the scenario where the online feature did not exist, I would not be so positive throughout the experience despite the fact the 99.9% of the core content would be available to the player.
People tend to be quite reductive when it comes to consuming game media as a means to justify the lack of promised context. Changes happen, yes but there is a reasonable expectation behind it.