Game Discussions The No Man's Sky Thread

[xondk]

It probably helps that most of us are 30+. Being an idiot becomes less entertaining the older one gets Speaking of forums, is there an official No Man's Sky forum? I cannot stand Reddit...

Unfortunately, I can tell you from learning about people's ages over the years, that getting older does not automatically mean people do not behave like idiots

 

[devastat]

I think I figured out my biggest problem with the game – other than the fact that the ship handles like it’s a bumper-car in space…. It’s TOO interesting.

The real thrill of exploring is finding something interesting or rare – the T-type star with rings, an earth-like world, a crashed ship, an alien probe. You just don’t get that in NMS – every planet is equally interesting, and thus none of it is interesting. There’s the same range of haphazardly assembled animals, the same elements, the same outpost and the same alien with a blueprint.
If you found all that rarely, if you had to explore a hostile universe and then stumbled on a planet with life like nothing anyone had seen before – that’d be amazing. Instead every planet has life very much like the last one and it always seems some alien trader found it before you did. It just relentless. It’d be no fun finding a nebula if every spaceflight feels like it’s inside a disco-ball.
I’m not sure if I’m articulating that very well, but I know what I mean.

I see where you're coming from, but from my perspective (and from the experience of playing around 15 hours), 90% of the planets might be somewhat similar, but then 10% of the planets are unique and something special.

Also, there is still a lot of variety in those 90% - the whether conditions, even the color scheme of the planets may vary very much depending on the time of the day. Overall the game has this very slick 50's sci-fi look which i think is very cool.

Me personally I'm happy that many of the planets are populated and rich in environment, because a large part of the game is gathering resources, and it would be extremely frustrating to go thru 10 planets, finding only one planet with life in it - so I see this being defined by the game mechanics involved in NMS.

 

[Archon]

NMS looks cool, but exceptionally unrealistic compared to Elite.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

When everything is interesting the sense of wonder starts to vanish, same as exploring, the sense of adventure when exploring is that the chance that you find something never seen before by other peer is enormous! That's what drove a lot of explores to risk their lives since the beginning of times!

To have their names written on the books for everyone to see, now that is pointless in a single-player game, there's no one besides you there, you aren't seeing things never seen before because there's no one with you to share those discovery's. That's they biggest flaw in this game, if it was a multiplayer experience with bits of minecraft where building your base and travelling through space was a group effort, with PVP and factions to battle it out and so on...
For $60 it falls a bit short so I'll just wait until it goes on a Steam Sale.

 

[Faybs]

Yes but which do you think is more realistic, space is a barren place and complex life is scarce. I know,I know, you are going to say its only a game, but this is Elite and you knew what you were getting when you bought into the game and if you didn't well that not FD`s fault. Regardless exploration needs a lot more fleshing out and I`m sure its in the pipeline but when ?. Either way as I posted previously and have seen echoed above, the constant exploration candy on offer with NMS will become meaningless and repetitive. NMS is just a simplified arcade/cartoon style game and if you like that its fine but I wouldnt expect much more, comparisons with Elite are meaningless.

Actually, the problem is that ED is realistic only in some parts and arcadey in others. For example, if I'm exploring I would find it realistic to take a while to get to that ringed gas giant, but when I got there I would expect to fire specialized probes into its atmosphere and get some readings, all to fulfill some contract from the faction that financed my trip. Instead, I suffer the realism of the long boring trip just to point my ship at the planet for 30s and sell the data at the nearest outpost, who pays the exact same as any other outpost.

 

[devastat]

NMS looks cool, but exceptionally unrealistic compared to Elite.

I don't think that the game is aiming at all to realism. It is more comic-book like, and there is certain lightness to the game. It's easy to jump into a spaceship and fly into the station. The landing is not difficult at all. It's quite fast to jump from one planet to another etc..

You might still spend hours in one particular planet digging caves and gathering resources.

Here is a great video describing the visual inspirations behind the game:

[video=youtube;oYmkHTBiXDg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYmkHTBiXDg[/video]

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Yeah, well, it seems NMS is not "cure" against ED "problems" neither http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/no-mans-sky/user-reviews

 

[SirDavros]

Sounds like the cartoon-y, arcade style suits some and not others. Much like gameplay elements are favoured by some and not others. It'd be better to safely file these both as 'space games' but with the caveat that both it and ED are coming from completely different places and headed in totally different directions.

For now, the realism, space sim style of ED suits me a lot more but I'd like to give NMS a good crack.

 

[ZeeWolf]

Yeah, well, it seems NMS is not "cure" against ED "problems" neither http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/no-mans-sky/user-reviews

An open world space game that isn't all things to all men?

Kill it! Kill it with fire!

 

[Faybs]

Yeah, well, it seems NMS is not "cure" against ED "problems" neither http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/no-mans-sky/user-reviews

From reading reddit, I'd expect aggregator scores to swing wildly depending on what the current mood is. I'd much rather rely on people I trust like Obsidian Ant or Scott Manley.

 

[devastat]

I won't spoil it for you guys, but there is also a very cool sci-fi type narrative in the game, that is pushing you towards the center of the universe. It has a sense of mystery, but I will leave it for you to discover.

You might get a sense of it tho in the beginning part of this launch trailer:

[video=youtube;aozqa_7PLhE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aozqa_7PLhE[/video]

 

[mossfoot]

I think I figured out my biggest problem with the game – other than the fact that the ship handles like it’s a bumper-car in space…. It’s TOO interesting.

The real thrill of exploring is finding something interesting or rare – the T-type star with rings, an earth-like world, a crashed ship, an alien probe. You just don’t get that in NMS – every planet is equally interesting, and thus none of it is interesting. There’s the same range of haphazardly assembled animals, the same elements, the same outpost and the same alien with a blueprint.
If you found all that rarely, if you had to explore a hostile universe and then stumbled on a planet with life like nothing anyone had seen before – that’d be amazing. Instead every planet has life very much like the last one and it always seems some alien trader found it before you did. It just relentless. It’d be no fun finding a nebula if every spaceflight feels like it’s inside a disco-ball.
I’m not sure if I’m articulating that very well, but I know what I mean.

Very much agree with this. It'll be fine for me to play with my wife, but I already suspect that this will not be a "forever" game for me.

But don't get me wrong, it's great and it's gong to take a while to burn out on it to say the least. Just that I see this same potential flaw the more I see videos about the game.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Actually, the problem is that ED is realistic only in some parts and arcadey in others. For example, if I'm exploring I would find it realistic to take a while to get to that ringed gas giant, but when I got there I would expect to fire specialized probes into its atmosphere and get some readings, all to fulfill some contract from the faction that financed my trip. Instead, I suffer the realism of the long boring trip just to point my ship at the planet for 30s and sell the data at the nearest outpost, who pays the exact same as any other outpost.

That's not really realism vs. arcade. It is perception and wanting to have more detail. it is entirely possible to get information you get from just scanning it. Probes would be required to detect what kind of atmosphere it has, etc. such information. Expect such things to matter for planets *with* atmospheres. But not sooner.

 

[Faybs]

Very much agree with this. It'll be fine for me to play with my wife, but I already suspect that this will not be a "forever" game for me.

But don't get me wrong, it's great and it's gong to take a while to burn out on it to say the least. Just that I see this same potential flaw the more I see videos about the game.

I think expecting any game to be a "forever" game is unrealistic. If I can get a solid six months out of a sandbox game I consider my money well spent. If NMS were to get Bethesda levels of modding support though, then hoo boy.

 

[Riedquat]

That moment when you leave the planet and then look back at the tiny spot you have just spent the last hour exploring. ..

Awesome.

 

[Finbar]

Reaching the center is one goal, but it isn't the only goal nor does it end the game.

Agreed, From what has emerged so far personally I would be inclined to just settle into the first planet I was on and explore it thoroughly. I wonder, for example, how long it will take to learn the first alien language completely? And is there any planetary map provided of the locations you discover?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

From reading reddit, I'd expect aggregator scores to swing wildly depending on what the current mood is. I'd much rather rely on people I trust like Obsidian Ant or Scott Manley.

Reddit really doesn't swing. People feel disappointed. Lot of them are really angry. Overhyped. I don't think pro critics scores will be any higher too.

 

[devastat]

That moment when you leave the planet and then look back at the tiny spot you have just spent the last hour working in...

Awesome.

The scale of this game is literally mind blowing. Spending an hour inside a cave in a planet, then flying out into the space station and looking from the window at the planet you've just been in - it's just insane.

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Agreed, From what has emerged so far personally I would be inclined to just settle into the first planet I was on and explore it thoroughly. I wonder, for example, how long it will take to learn the first alien language completely? And is there any planetary map provided of the locations you discover?

Every species you name and discover, and every planet you land on will be catalogued into own "logbook" that you can access at any time.

 

[Faybs]

That's not really realism vs. arcade. It is perception and wanting to have more detail. it is entirely possible to get information you get from just scanning it. Probes would be required to detect what kind of atmosphere it has, etc. such information. Expect such things to matter for planets *with* atmospheres. But not sooner.

I was perhaps too brief. What I meant was that ED is realistic in terms of distances and so on, but when it comes to stuff to do it is highly simplistic. Going back to the exploration example, I would expect there to be a few minigames involved, such as maybe taking photos of a planet or collecting dirt samples at different biomes - look at KSP for a good example of a simple yet somewhat realistic and fun way of doing space science. Instead what we have is that you point at a planet while it's still just a few pixels big and wait for the countdown to end.

 

[Soliluna]

So it looks like lots of people got themselves hyped up for NMS and (as is always the case) disappointed.

Looking at this thread though, it seems to have offered some hours of enjoyment, which is, as good as one can expect from a game really isn't it?

I was just wondering if anyone here made it to the centre of its Universe yet? Or anyone at all for that matter?