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Offline Fortuna

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No Man's Sky
« on: August 03, 2016, 07:56:21 AM »
I just pre-purchased this on Steam after watching every single Sean Murray demonstration. I'm either going to play it for 10 minutes and realize I wasted $60, or I'm going to be playing it for 12 hours a day for the first few days. Right now, I feel like it's likely to be the latter.

For those of you who haven't heard of it it is a sci-fi exploration game in which all players exist in the same universe and explore planets and star systems. Players can name planets, creatures and plants that they are the first to discover. The game's lead designer, Sean Murray, has said that the universe is so huge that coming across a planet that another player has discovered will be very unlikely. Supposedly, there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 discoverable planets.

« Last Edit: August 03, 2016, 08:00:37 AM by Hollocron »

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Offline Lord Dave

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2016, 08:14:01 AM »
So it's EVE Online but with a little more stuff?
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Offline Fortuna

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2016, 12:01:41 PM »
So it's EVE Online but with a little more stuff?

The only similarity between this game and Eve online is that you can go into space in both of them.

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Offline Rushy

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2016, 04:30:48 PM »
It's more like Elite: Dangerous. As wide as an ocean, as deep as a kiddie pool.

You can never have more than one ship. You can't build a base or manage a fleet. You just explore an endless amount of procedurally generated content that will start to become predictably bland after your first ten or so planets. Trick me once, shame on you, trick me twice, shame on me. David Braben tricked me with Elite. I'll be damned if I'll let whoever designed this game trick my ass again.

Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2016, 05:02:11 PM »
yeah this sounds like spore all over again.
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Offline Fortuna

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #5 on: August 07, 2016, 08:11:53 PM »
It's more like Elite: Dangerous. As wide as an ocean, as deep as a kiddie pool.

You can never have more than one ship. You can't build a base or manage a fleet. You just explore an endless amount of procedurally generated content that will start to become predictably bland after your first ten or so planets. Trick me once, shame on you, trick me twice, shame on me. David Braben tricked me with Elite. I'll be damned if I'll let whoever designed this game trick my ass again.

Well, having played Star Citizen already, I'm going to ease my disappointment with some No Man's Sky. Also, a day one patch was just announced this morning.

http://www.no-mans-sky.com/2016/08/update-1-03/

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Offline Lord Dave

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #6 on: August 07, 2016, 08:50:32 PM »
Star citizen sucked?
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Offline Fortuna

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #7 on: August 07, 2016, 09:08:25 PM »
Star citizen sucked?

It does right now at least. Piloting a ship feels like stirring a stick around in thick mud, laser shots have no impact feeling, super glitchy, nowhere to go really. I know it isn't finished, but there are some core mechanics they'll have to improve on for it to be good.

Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #8 on: August 09, 2016, 02:05:46 PM »
played for about an hour last night before i went to bed.  wandered around starting planet, collected some shit and fixed my ship, then spent about 15 minutes in my ship.  it's ok so far.  my biggest complaint is that it so far feels like the game is...i dunno, crafting just for the sake of crafting, if that makes any sense?  i mean i guess that's technically true of any video game with crafting in it, but this kinda feels like crafting is the game, and everything else is just facilitating that.  like minecraft has lots of crafting, but the crafting facilitates construction and creativity and the rest of the stuff that the game is about.  this feels kinda like crafting is only going to facilitate CRAFTING LVL 2 ITEMS so that i can then build the shit i need to CRAFT LVL 3 ITEMS OMG and so on and so on.

but i'm only an hour in, so that obviously could all change very rapidly.  just my initial impression.  i think in general i may just be getting crabby toward "create your own lore!" games.  i don't wanna create my own lore in a video game.  i want to explore your world, not write it.  i suck at writing.
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Offline Blanko

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #9 on: August 09, 2016, 02:22:35 PM »
played for about an hour last night before i went to bed.  wandered around starting planet, collected some shit and fixed my ship, then spent about 15 minutes in my ship.  it's ok so far.  my biggest complaint is that it so far feels like the game is...i dunno, crafting just for the sake of crafting, if that makes any sense?  i mean i guess that's technically true of any video game with crafting in it, but this kinda feels like crafting is the game, and everything else is just facilitating that.  like minecraft has lots of crafting, but the crafting facilitates construction and creativity and the rest of the stuff that the game is about.  this feels kinda like crafting is only going to facilitate CRAFTING LVL 2 ITEMS so that i can then build the shit i need to CRAFT LVL 3 ITEMS OMG and so on and so on.

but i'm only an hour in, so that obviously could all change very rapidly.  just my initial impression.  i think in general i may just be getting crabby toward "create your own lore!" games.  i don't wanna create my own lore in a video game.  i want to explore your world, not write it.  i suck at writing.

That seems to be my general impression from the gameplay footage I saw as well, but it's also worth noting just how long gathering takes in this game. I watched a streamer mine the same node for ten straight minutes and then move on to the next node to do the same thing. And that's essentially what your entire objective boils down to, you mine minerals so you can go mine better minerals.

I dunno, it looks like it gets dull really, really fast. Even the actual space travel parts seem to be there just to fast travel between planets. Sure, it's cool that you can do that seamlessly, but it's nothing you couldn't do from a menu, and that's pretty depressing.

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Offline Lord Dave

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #10 on: August 09, 2016, 03:09:40 PM »
played for about an hour last night before i went to bed.  wandered around starting planet, collected some shit and fixed my ship, then spent about 15 minutes in my ship.  it's ok so far.  my biggest complaint is that it so far feels like the game is...i dunno, crafting just for the sake of crafting, if that makes any sense?  i mean i guess that's technically true of any video game with crafting in it, but this kinda feels like crafting is the game, and everything else is just facilitating that.  like minecraft has lots of crafting, but the crafting facilitates construction and creativity and the rest of the stuff that the game is about.  this feels kinda like crafting is only going to facilitate CRAFTING LVL 2 ITEMS so that i can then build the shit i need to CRAFT LVL 3 ITEMS OMG and so on and so on.

but i'm only an hour in, so that obviously could all change very rapidly.  just my initial impression.  i think in general i may just be getting crabby toward "create your own lore!" games.  i don't wanna create my own lore in a video game.  i want to explore your world, not write it.  i suck at writing.

That seems to be my general impression from the gameplay footage I saw as well, but it's also worth noting just how long gathering takes in this game. I watched a streamer mine the same node for ten straight minutes and then move on to the next node to do the same thing. And that's essentially what your entire objective boils down to, you mine minerals so you can go mine better minerals.

I dunno, it looks like it gets dull really, really fast. Even the actual space travel parts seem to be there just to fast travel between planets. Sure, it's cool that you can do that seamlessly, but it's nothing you couldn't do from a menu, and that's pretty depressing.

"Space... is full of thousands of hours... of boredom.  Offset by a few moments of terror." -Admiral Kirk: Starfleet Academy game.
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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #11 on: August 09, 2016, 06:19:05 PM »
I dunno, it looks like it gets dull really, really fast. Even the actual space travel parts seem to be there just to fast travel between planets. Sure, it's cool that you can do that seamlessly, but it's nothing you couldn't do from a menu, and that's pretty depressing.

yeah this part was actually making me lol a bit while playing.  there are a couple of things, like the warp animation, where it seems obvious that i'm definitely waiting for the game to load something, it's just that there's no loading bar.  but the animation itself feels like it takes way too long for it to be a generic animation.  it absolutely feels like "hey watch these colors while we load the next system."  i could be 100% wrong about that, though.

also i don't mean to start shitting on this game too much after only 90 minutes of play time.  it's definitely fun, and so far i would recommend it to space/scifi game fans.  but i think you're right that it will dull out relatively quickly.
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Offline beardo

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #12 on: August 09, 2016, 07:52:33 PM »
"You can play with your firends, but you won't be!"
The Mastery.

Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #13 on: August 11, 2016, 03:05:28 PM »
lol got spored.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/11/12429140/no-mans-sky-travel-journal-day-three-ps4-pc

this very accurately describes my experience with the game so far.

Quote
The ocean, though, isn’t that exciting once you become accustomed to its picturesque nature. Aside from a few small creatures — my first glimpse at aquatic alien life is a school of mini-squid with only three tentacles — the ocean is mostly empty. I’m able to scan it to identify a few new plants, but not much more.

The surface, meanwhile, is surprisingly quiet. It’s lush with bioluminescent plant life, but there are few animals. I do meet a new sentient alien species — this time they’re robotic humanoids with digital screens for faces. Unfortunately, none of the new language skills that I learned in the previous star system apply here, so I fumble through a conversation understanding literally nothing that is being said to me. I give the alien a rare isotope and cross my fingers, and it seems to be happy. But it’s hard to read the facial expressions of a being without a face.

This new planet is beautiful and varied, but I can’t help but notice a sense of sameness creeping in. The architecture has changed, but I still know roughly what to expect when I walk into a building. There will probably be a computer with a new technology I can learn, some abandoned crates with useful minerals stuffed inside, maybe a terminal that refreshes my health or teaches me a new word. If I’m lucky, there will be an alien to talk to or an intergalactic trading computer where I can buy and sell goods. This feeling extends to my time exploring the surface: no matter if it’s an icy planet, a toxic one, or anything in between, my time is still primarily spent scanning for new lifeforms, searching out ruins and buildings, and collecting whatever I need to keep my suit and ship running. Do as much as possible then move to the next planet to repeat the cycle.

you basically exhaust everything this game has to offer gameplay-wise in the first hour.  everything after that is just repeating the same tasks on planets with differently colored skies.
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Offline Lord Dave

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #14 on: August 11, 2016, 03:15:42 PM »
lol got spored.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/11/12429140/no-mans-sky-travel-journal-day-three-ps4-pc

this very accurately describes my experience with the game so far.

Quote
The ocean, though, isn’t that exciting once you become accustomed to its picturesque nature. Aside from a few small creatures — my first glimpse at aquatic alien life is a school of mini-squid with only three tentacles — the ocean is mostly empty. I’m able to scan it to identify a few new plants, but not much more.

The surface, meanwhile, is surprisingly quiet. It’s lush with bioluminescent plant life, but there are few animals. I do meet a new sentient alien species — this time they’re robotic humanoids with digital screens for faces. Unfortunately, none of the new language skills that I learned in the previous star system apply here, so I fumble through a conversation understanding literally nothing that is being said to me. I give the alien a rare isotope and cross my fingers, and it seems to be happy. But it’s hard to read the facial expressions of a being without a face.

This new planet is beautiful and varied, but I can’t help but notice a sense of sameness creeping in. The architecture has changed, but I still know roughly what to expect when I walk into a building. There will probably be a computer with a new technology I can learn, some abandoned crates with useful minerals stuffed inside, maybe a terminal that refreshes my health or teaches me a new word. If I’m lucky, there will be an alien to talk to or an intergalactic trading computer where I can buy and sell goods. This feeling extends to my time exploring the surface: no matter if it’s an icy planet, a toxic one, or anything in between, my time is still primarily spent scanning for new lifeforms, searching out ruins and buildings, and collecting whatever I need to keep my suit and ship running. Do as much as possible then move to the next planet to repeat the cycle.

you basically exhaust everything this game has to offer gameplay-wise in the first hour.  everything after that is just repeating the same tasks on planets with differently colored skies.
If fairness, not much else you can do.  Randomly generated stuff has to come from a shared pool of "parts" and the parts need to fit together so....

Plus, what else would you do if you found a new planet?  Scan it for stuff, get stuff, move on.
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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #15 on: August 11, 2016, 04:37:36 PM »
If fairness, not much else you can do.  Randomly generated stuff has to come from a shared pool of "parts" and the parts need to fit together so....

Plus, what else would you do if you found a new planet?  Scan it for stuff, get stuff, move on.

the concept is pretty cool i think, and it's not so much that i don't want to explore stuff, it's just that it becomes obvious very quickly that there isn't a great deal worth exploring.  or maybe there's not much to explore that feels truly novel.  at least for me, anyway.  not giving up on it yet, though.
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Offline Rushy

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #16 on: August 11, 2016, 08:05:03 PM »
Look at the bright side, No Man's Sky cost you $60 but Elite cost me $75. You learned the same lesson i did for $15 less. That's a good deal.

Also, this! http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/no-mans-sky

70/100 critic score, 5/10 user score. Ayy lmao.

Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #17 on: August 11, 2016, 08:57:23 PM »
Look at the bright side, No Man's Sky cost you $60 but Elite cost me $75. You learned the same lesson i did for $15 less. That's a good deal.

Also, this! http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/no-mans-sky

70/100 critic score, 5/10 user score. Ayy lmao.

yeah, it's looking more and more like i'll be chalking this one up to a loss.  bummer.

oh, well.  back to kerbal space program!
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Offline rooster

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #18 on: August 12, 2016, 01:07:15 PM »
Wow, who knew that a massive exploration game would get boring with no story?

I'm tired of games focusing on size and looks. I just want a good story and fun gameplay. :'(
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Offline Fortuna

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Re: No Man's Sky
« Reply #19 on: August 12, 2016, 06:14:50 PM »
Well, the PC release is a complete trainwreck. I haven't had a chance to play myself, but people with 1080s are getting stuttering and FPS drops. Luckily I'm still within the refund window, so I'll just play Subnautica until they get their shit together.