No Man's Sky

[smilodon]

Personally I prefer open worlds with a story i.e. Witcher, GTA, Mafia, LA Noire, Fallout, Skyrim. Free to roam, craft, level and explore but with a central story that always gives you something new to do. The downside is that when the story is done then the game is done. So I understand why lots of other players love open ended and never ending games with no fixed story or set of missions etc. Star Citizen could go down the Elite road or it could go down the Eve Online road. If it manages to duplicate the living breathing player run environment of Eve then I'll probably be playing it for years.

However it's probably not fair to compare Star Citizen to to No Man's Sky as the formers worlds are all designed as individual planets rather than being randomly created on the fly. No Man's Land will have billions of worlds though. Although that sounds good on paper and is great copy for the publicists in reality I don't care if a game has a thousand worlds, a million or a billion. It's just numbers and I'll never get to see them all. For me I'd be more impressed with a hundred worlds designed by real designers rather than a gazillion done by an algorithm.

[Tutonic]

I want to love this game, but can't help but feel it will be less than it promises to be. Can't they just keep it permanently in development?

Think I'm on the same page as the good Dr Smilo. Without a narrative to dip in and out of, pure sandbox doesn't do it for me.

[albert]

https://m.imgur.com/a/ZjzHV this sort of attention to detail warms me cockles. This guy has gone underwater and drilled tunnels. He came back later and algae had grown on the walls.

If this ends up being like Ark in space then I'll have had my game world made for 2016.

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[RogueTaylor]

only a few more hours,  can't wait

[albert]

Same here. And no crazy download time. 2.8GB apparently!

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[Tutonic]

Comments I've read from PS4 players are not exactly glowing. So far it sounds like an extremely pretty, yet ultimately hollow game - as I feared

[Chaosphere]

The reviews are not making me desperate for this one im afraid.

[RogueTaylor]

I guess i will find out for myself now, been waiting all day to play this and they decide to release it at 6 in the afternoon .... god damn you developers

[albert]

So far, from the start, you spawn on a planet with an objective of repairing your ship. You have no idea what to do to get the materials so just have to take your time and look around. If you start harvesting resources too fast there are drones come along and start attacking so you have to do a bit at a time and avoid the drones. After having a good look around and getting the hang of the controls and menus, you fly off planet, and go through the upper atmosphere into space then cruis to the next nearest system. Do a scan of the system and find a beacon on a nearby planet, land and start to piece together some info on a bit of a plot.

At the same time you can enter buildings, talk to the locals and learn their language, craft ship parts, collect scans of weird animals, lots of things to do.

The computer that gives you tasks to fulfill is called Atlas, not sure if there is a background story but there is certainly a plot.

It looks psychedelic. Ran fine with no crashes for me. I have to admit, give players the ability to team up, which I believe can be done by joining the same faction, however that is achieved, then you have Ark in Space.

But everything you guys have said about wanting more depth may be true. There are a lot of areas to explore though, it doesn't fell like I'm not progressing. Also ships to be acquired. Will have to see how it progresses.

[smilodon]

Just checked Steam. Mixed reviews only 45% positive. Hopefully that is more about the buggy launch than anything negative about the underlying game. I'm waiting for the bugs and crashes to get sorted and then will see what the general feeling is.

My main concern has always been  that it might just be another "Start with a little ship, grind resources, get a bigger ship, grind more resources, get a bigger ship, grind even more resources .............................."

 I'm hoping the Developers have created something a bit more than that with a universe that does things and changes and stays interesting and varied.

Added: This is a very good read about what NMS is trying to be and what it's not, well worth a look if your contemplating buying it, which I am.

http://www.no-mans-sky.com/2016/08/what-do-you-do-in-no-mans-sky

[albert]

So far, I personally feel they've not create a story of any sort, or at least I haven't found it.

It pretty much comprises of doing a lot of walking around on planets to get resources and explore buildings and caves. It all relies on gathering then moving and rinse and repeat.

A definite nono for you Smilo. I don't mind it but it has only weeks of life I would say even for me.

It's also very dated in terms of the graphics, cartoon like and Mass Effect meets Borderlands. Flying is War Thunder like. You go into bases and meet alien races who tell you a bit of their language in return for resources, and also give you upgrades.

Whilst all this is going on you have to keep fueling your survival suit, ship thruster fuel, cruise fuel and hyperspace fuel.

It may surprise me but I am not expecting it.

[albert]

Bit of a stream from O_Dingo77 playing NMS. from 2h 41m it's quite nice viewing, going onto a planet with water and animals.

https://www.twitch.tv/o_dingo77/v/83819284

[smilodon]

I've read a lot of reviews and watched some Youtube playthrough reviews. While some absolutely trash NMS and even call out the Developers for blatantly lying about what the game will offer (Worth A Buy) I do think I now have a good handle on what this game is and isn't about. I was hoping for a sort of low stress gentle wander through space, finding new interesting planets, collecting unique items/specimens, learning the languages, casual trading and occasionally fighting off pirates or aggressive monsters. Collecting items in a big enough hold and selling them to generate money for fuel, upkeep, repairs etc would be fine as well, as long ass it didn't dominate the game. A bit of tactical planning with weapon loadouts, shield balancing etc would have also been nice. Multiplayer would be nice but Hello Games always said this wasn't a traditional multiplayer type game, although I think it would benefit greatly from being so.

Sadly this game currently seems to be utterly dependent on grinding endless resources. Even the resource gathering tool needs resources to enable it to gather resources! I want to go look at stuff, identify it, catalogue it and maybe sell it. I don't want to be forced to endlessly point a laser gizmo at it.

Maybe a complete rework of the game's objectives, huge increase in inventory spots, better combat choices and a BIG reduction in the amount of grinding required plus a 50% price cut would make it more appealing. I'm not sure the Developers actually were knowingly deceitful about what the game would be like, but I'm not sure they really did enough to tone down the massive Hype Machine that grew up around this game.

As a tech demo for 'procedural world generation' it's fine. As a £40 fully developed game... not so much IMHO

[Tutonic]

A commenter on RPS pointed out that, had Sony not got involved, this game could easily have gone down the Steam 'Early Access' route. If they had, perhaps people would have been a bit more forgiving, and the game could naturally evolve to include all of things it seems to lack right now.

[smilodon]

That's a very good point. Though the danger then would be that the game would live in perpetual buggy pre-release, while the Developer took the money as they increasingly lost interest in the game..... I'm such a cynic :norty: