No Man's Sky

Ahhh I haven't gotten wound up about a game in ages.

Ahhhh inevitable disappointment. How I've missed you. It's been, what, since Black and White, that I felt this impending sense of jadedness looming behind my squeeing...?

Either way, the fact that the patch notes show the level of expansion and addition they're hoping to make, I'm looking forward to it.

Though I'll probably stop playing after a couple of weeks due to fatigue and a variety of factors. Woop Woop!

Ahhh Spore for me was my first ever massive game disappointment!

Aye, if they keep adding stuff to it, the game's longevity will be extended for some time provided people don't get bored with it. Which for me is my biggest concern for me and what I suffered from when I originally played Borderlands. Too much grinding made the whole experience rather dull for me and I think this game might suffer from it, so I'll have to see what the reviews say first and the overall consensus for it is.

Nevertheless if it is good, I'll be playing this game for a LONG time to come.

Hrrrm, Black and White, Fable, (Damn you Molyneux!), Spore, Watch_Dogs, Aliens Colonial Marine

I do hope No Man's Sky doesn't join that unenviable list.

I think people's hype is literally sky high so even if the game is great it will be on that list.

That's unfair

None of the above games were great

Black and White was good. The rest is meh to awful.

I don't know, this game just doesn't seem to have enough content to justify its price tag even with the patch update which is mostly just fluff. It has a bunch of seasoning and side dishes but there's no real meat.

Fable was possibly bigger in terms of disappointment but I wasn't on its hype train.

My only worry here hit me today - saw a clip of fighters flying across a skyline and I realised... you won't ever be chased down a canyon by your enemies.

There's no antagonist, save the vast expanse of the universe - nor rival, so no emotional direction for your aggression. I mean, I can get bored of "making my own violent fun" in GTA; even piracy in IWAR 2 got a bit dull because there never seemed to be a reputational element to it.

Piracy in Eve or other space sims comes from the antagonism, the infamy. You get it here, but it seems in the form of sliders and rep. So not sure how emotionally engaging some of this will be.

But it will be a wistful exploratory experience.

Man, reading through the patch notes kind of make me think that they had to lie about the "going gold" (which it seems most likely isn't) because while they know they are most likely able to finish the development in time of the release, the final build would be too close to the release date that will not be able to be distributed to retailers in time...so they had to lie about the game going gold and put incomplete game on disc (with the assets ready/mostly ready) and ship them out just so they can make the retail shipping in time for release...which result in people getting the game early getting the incomplete games.

I think I blame the need for physical release for this. If it's digital only this might not be that big of a problem.

Still tho, going to see how it does with the reviewers first...even with said patchnotes it's still unknown how much it'll improve the game compared to the various leaked videos.

edited 8th Aug '16 9:36:35 AM by onyhow

If that's the case, that raises a lot of concerns about bugs and stability of this build. How much QA it saw.

^ Yeah. Day 1 patches are generally bug/stability fixes, not adding in massive contents.

Look, it's a sandbox game of massive scope. Those sorts of products always have zero-day patches and probably quite a few more going forward. I'm less concerned about that than I was about their willingness to support it after gold, which seems likely to be quite good given this precedent.

Meh it's an MMO, the 'gold' disk really only needs a basic stable installer and most of the basic files. The disks were probably printed a year ago while the devs just kept working on the full game.

It's all going to be installed on the HD anyway and the disk is only there as a disk check you still own the game like Destiny or Final Fantasy XIV.

It's actually shocking that it's even playable before launch.

edited 8th Aug '16 10:10:14 AM by Memers

except it's not an MMO.

Yeah, it's got a lot of other players in it, but the place is so large you'll likely very rarely ever come across another person, even with millions of people playing, unless you want to explore with your friends.

Jimpression on No Mans' Sky

TL:DR: He finds it okay. Bog standard survival gameplay with loose objective. Mostly just survival gameplay inventory management. He doesn't love or hate it. The aliens are very lego-y. Mix-and-Match Critter. The sentient race interactions are a bit boring. Game requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. The Choose Your Own Adventure elements help it, but the exploring isn't really interesting when you sort of realize the lego nature of how everything is staged. The FTL is slow and boring, and there's not much to do.

edited 8th Aug '16 10:24:32 PM by Ghilz

Yeah, it's basically Space Minecraft; you make your own fun.

I don't think it's really a proper comparison. Minecraft is way more about the building. This isn't. It's about the exploring (So long as you can ignore the building block nature of everything).

I am sad that Jim finds The game runs out of things to surprise you with really fast. I hope this isn't a common trend.

edited 8th Aug '16 10:37:55 PM by Ghilz

This is what I was really worried about.

There's also a great article about the certification process for games, on PC Gamer and Kotaku, which would explain why the build on the disk was perhaps not brill - if HG were being pushed by Sony for this release date they may have had to use the most stable build and then bust their arses to make sure that features were included.

This is a pretty ambitious game. And to be honest, the surprise factor won't be much for me - this is a huge game where you'll only see a tiny fragment, plus the odds of hitting wondrous stuff every time is probably quite small.

Initial feedback is showing it being a pretty good but not fantastic game. It does very well at the "sci-fi universe" part. The main criticisms I'm seeing are that the resource gathering and inventory management is pretty bad and the game gets repetitive. I'm seeing polarized opinions on the terrain and animal generation. Still, most other games with large amounts of exploration still focus on the plot, the characters, or RPG elements. I just want to lose myself in a world, explore, and come across interesting and unusual things on my travels. The game seems to do that.

edited 9th Aug '16 3:25:57 AM by Nintendork64

I've had some time with it. Some initial thoughts:

• I got lost in a cavern on the starting planet for some time. Probably took over an hour for me to find my way back to the starship.
  • Really, this one needs to be emphasized; that cavern was a freaking labyrinth. That's when it made me realize this game NEEDS a player-set waypoint marker system, similar to how Metal Gear Solid V allows you to mark stuff with the binoculars.
• The on foot controls, especially aiming, is clunky. You'll be thankful the game gives a really effective auto-aim function, or else hitting the small monitor drones manually would be a major pain.
• The transition between the atmosphere and space is glitchy; sometimes you'll suddenly get sucked high up into the sky and have a hard time trying to lower yourself back down, all because you were reversing the starship at a certain altitude. Other times, the planet feels like it's gravity is sucking you inwards (which is somewhat more believable).
• Inventory management gets tedious quick. Neither your beginning backpack or ship have much storage space, meaning you'll have to dump a bunch of items frequently and take trips either to planetary outposts or starbases whenever possible to prevent you from being forced to dump valuable cargo. Oh, and having to constantly refill your life support power, mining tool, and weapon doesn't help either.
• The more I play, the more I'm reminded of the ton of Steam Early Access / Greenlight titles that tried to jump on the open world crafting, survival, and exploration bandwagon. Only, that most of them failed or turned out to be huge letdowns (Star Forge being the biggest offender by far).

In conclusion, this game ain't no 10 out of 10, nor is it even an 8. A 7 maybe, provided it keeps new things coming? And for some baffling reason, I keep flashing back to MGSV and it's waaaay superior controls and navigation. Hoo boy, is this game going to get repetitive quick...

edited 9th Aug '16 5:08:26 AM by SgtRicko

Ars Technica describe a similar thing. Following the game's indicators at the start of the game, falling into a canyon the jetpack wouldn't let them fly out off, taking an hour to get out.

Polygon First Impression: "NO MAN’S SKY ISN’T THE GAME I EXPECTED: THOUGHTS ON THE FIRST 10 HOURS"

In short, he feels the survival aspect of the game sort of get in the way of the exploration, feeling like busywork. Especially the small inventory (At the early game, it gets less bad further in).

edited 9th Aug '16 9:40:32 AM by CobraPrime

The Polygon review is spot-on and matches what I'm thinking so far. I'm not expecting their final verdict to change much.

Bad news... It looks like you actually can't interact with other players, after all.

Two No Man's Sky Players Wound Up On The Same Planet (But Couldn't See Each Other)

Just as the title says, the streamers coordinated with each other in an attempt to meet up in the same solar system, and actually succeeded. However, no matter where they traveled, be it the surface of the planets, in space, or on the space station, they couldn't find each other. Furthermore, it seems like they were within their own instances, as evidenced by the different times of the day and lack of environmental interaction, despite being in the exact same location.

I guess that shoots down the hope that the game would allow for friends to play along with each other, let alone meet anyone else... a pity.