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[PS Blog EU] Why you’ll want to explore the vast galaxy of No Man’s Sky on PS4

cjp

cjp

Junior Member
Has this gone up yet? I searched but couldn't see it. I don't think the screenshots are new but they're nice to look at anyway.

The promise of No Man’s Sky’s procedurally generated galaxy and its feeling of boldly going where no man has gone before has enchanted gamers. Did they have any idea it would blow up like this? “Not at all!” says Sean. “It’s great that people are so interested, but all I can allow myself to think about at the moment is the game. Right now, all anyone has to go on is potential. We want to realise that potential, but what that comes down to is us tapping away at our keyboards like we always have done.”

Sean recently revealed on PlayStation Blog that to see every planet in No Man’s Sky for just one second would take 585 billion years; but the question that still remains on every would-be explorer’s lips is “why?” – what will make us want to venture into the vastness of space?

15081030176_0ddb4ac4a4_b.jpg
Click to expand...

“There’s really two answers to that,” Sean explains. “The short answer is ‘you make your own story’. I think it’s nice to play something that frees you from missions and quests. “But there’s a longer answer. There are core concepts that will drive the player on: you’ll start on the edge of space, on a totally unique planet and you’ll make your way towards the centre of the galaxy – there’s a reason to do that, but we’re not ready to talk about it yet. As you get further in to the galaxy, things will get more dangerous… but also more interesting and rewarding.”

Even the most intrepid explorers will have humble beginnings: “You’ll have a basic ship that you’ll need to upgrade if you want to get further than the solar system you’re in,” Sean says. “For example, interstellar travel needs a hyperdrive, so you’ll have to earn money to buy one. Or you can upgrade your weapons or your suit so you can explore in different atmospheres or go underwater.”

How you earn money is entirely up to you. As Sean tells me, there’s going to be no hand-holding: “We’re not going to give you missions. No-one is going to come to you and say ‘I’ve lost five chickens, they’re scattered around this planet somewhere’. We want you to get out and learn about the galaxy to work it out for yourself. There are different roles you could play; you could be an explorer, a trader, a pirate looking for trade routes to plunder – or you could protect other ships from pirates.”

14917463857_e6e9dabca3_b.jpg
Click to expand...

As well as earning money from exploration, Sean says another reward will be putting your mark on the galaxy as the first person to discover planets: “If you’re the very first person to play the game, you’ll open up your galactic map and you can zoom in on every planet or solar system – and every single one will say ‘unexplored’. And they’ll say that until someone discovers them and uploads that information for everyone else to see.”

With so much space to discover, Sean explains that while every player will inhabit the same galaxy, crossing paths will be rare. “I don’t want people to think that it’s an MMO. You’ll see traces of other players and what they’ve discovered, so you won’t feel alone, but if you and I were playing and I said ‘come and meet me on my planet’, I might be days or weeks away from you. Even if we were on the same planet and wanted to meet up… it’s like being at random points on Earth and trying to find each other.”
Click to expand...

And more over here.
 
N

nynt9

Member
With all this talk, their procedural generation better be real good to make me want to explore so much.
 
legacyzero

legacyzero

Banned
Gimme this fucking game right now!! The only game I would give up all upcoming games just to have right now. (In a finished state, of course :p)
 
I

ItIsOkBro

Member
"here are core concepts that will drive the player on: you’ll start on the edge of space, on a totally unique planet and you’ll make your way towards the centre of the galaxy – there’s a reason to do that, but we’re not ready to talk about it yet. As you get further in to the galaxy, things will get more dangerous… but also more interesting and rewarding."
Click to expand...

=O I wonder what's in the center
 
legacyzero

legacyzero

Banned
OP, you didn't post the best part!

Despite the incredible amount of planets available to visit, there will be a reason to explore each of them. “Something we haven’t shown yet is a mini-map at the bottom of the screen that will have waypoints marked on it for every planet you visit. They’ll show things of interest, which might be resources, or a ship that’s crashed, or some sort of beacon. It could be something to discover like a new species of creature, a mountain range or a vast lake. But you’ll have to go and find out what they are; we’re not going to tell you what’s out there. And that’s a great way to earn money to buy the upgrades for your ship or suit – and in turn that’ll help you explore even more.”
Click to expand...
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
....if you and I were playing and I said ‘come and meet me on my planet’, I might be days or weeks away from you. Even if we were on the same planet and wanted to meet up… it’s like being at random points on Earth and trying to find each other.”
Click to expand...
I get what he's going for with this, but I do hope there are ways for friends to find one another. Co-op exploration, space combat, etc. would be fun.
 
W

web01

Member
Have they explicitly said that its possible you can meet another player and interact with them in real time if you do some how come across each others path? The ambiguous way they keep wording things makes me feel like its not even programmed into the game to be possible but they don't want to admit it for marketing reasons. They keep hammering the traces of other players aspects.
 
I

Ingueferroque

Banned
I know I don't have to read it, but I think they're really over-exposing this game at this point. Just show it to us when it can be played?
 
S

Shinta

Banned
Why you'll want to explore the vast galaxy of No Man's Sky [PSBlog]

- We want you to find your own reasons to explore.
Click to expand...
I don't understand the title of the blog post if he's still determined to not tell us.
 
legacyzero

legacyzero

Banned
Seriously, I'm gonna get banned for the first time one day because of gushing about this game. I can see the ban message now.

"OMG will you SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT No Mans Sky ALREADY!"

Mikey Jr. said:
Kinda sucks you cant meet up with your friends.
Click to expand...

It sounds like they have a separate way to play the game, multiplayer-wise but "We're not talking about it yet" I believe is what they said.
 
T

Triggerhappytel

Member
GhaleonEB said:
I get what he's going for with this, but I do hope there are ways for friends to find one another. Co-op exploration, space combat, etc. would be fun.
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. It would be nice if there's an option to jump straight in with a friend, or warp to their planet, or something similar. The way they're building this up like the size of a real universe, it will need millions and millions of players to make it feel occupied, even with player lobby-style areas.
 
N

nynt9

Member
Triggerhappytel said:
Yes, I agree. It would be nice if there's an option to jump straight in with a friend, or warp to their planet, or something similar. The way they're building this up like the size of a real universe, it will need millions and millions of players to make it feel occupied, even with player lobby-style areas.
Click to expand...

They don't want it to feel occupied. They want the game to be a primarily solitary experience.
 
cjp

cjp

Junior Member
legacyzero said:
OP, you didn't post the best part!
Click to expand...

Haha, sorry, I couldn't decide which excerpts to include. I guess just blatant copying and pasting of the whole thing is against the rules, right?

GhaleonEB said:
I get what he's going for with this, but I do hope there are ways for friends to find one another. Co-op exploration, space combat, etc. would be fun.
Click to expand...

web01 said:
Have they explicitly said that its possible you can meet another player and interact with them in real time if you do some how come across each others path? The ambiguous way they keep wording things makes me feel like its not even programmed into the game to be possible but they don't want to admit it for marketing reasons. They keep hammering the traces of other players aspects.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm not fully sure either. I understand what they're saying about the traces but everything regarding running into other players is extremely vague.

With so much space to discover, Sean explains that while every player will inhabit the same galaxy, crossing paths will be rare. “I don’t want people to think that it’s an MMO. You’ll see traces of other players and what they’ve discovered, so you won’t feel alone, but if you and I were playing and I said ‘come and meet me on my planet’, I might be days or weeks away from you. Even if we were on the same planet and wanted to meet up… it’s like being at random points on Earth and trying to find each other.”
Click to expand...

Above says its rare. If it's rare then it must be possible. The problem is, that's not actually Sean speaking and his quote that follows doesn't actually confirm that it's possible.

Then there is this:

So as players make their way closer into the centre of the galaxy, will they encounter other players more often – with bigger ships and better guns, all waiting to blast them to space dust? Perhaps, Sean explains: “If other players aren’t doing that, then there are NPCs who will. But even at the centre of the galaxy, everything is still massively spread out. We want to make something that’s vast – we want it to be like the Wild West, where you never know what’s over the horizon.”
Click to expand...

So, is that confirmation that you will actually run into people? "If other players aren't doing that"? So, they might and you can run into them and the NPCs are there for if you don't? It's all very vague.

I'm interested from a technical point too. If it's extremely rare but still possible to run into people then I must be playing online, right? How is all that co-ordinated between players? Is my game keeping track of all the other countless players and what they're doing even though they're an incomprehensible distance away?

Either way, I'm still hyped.
 
molnizzle

molnizzle

Member
GhaleonEB said:
I get what he's going for with this, but I do hope there are ways for friends to find one another. Co-op exploration, space combat, etc. would be fun.
Click to expand...

Would be fun, but would also betray one of the pillars of the game's design. The vast, traversable galaxy is the entire point!
 
V

VanWinkle

Member
Forgive me, because I'm really excited to play this, but I'm so sick of hearing these teases. Show us a big gameplay walkthrough or something.
 
Danlord

Danlord

Member
My thoughts on what's in the centre of the galaxy;

I think there's going to be a blackhole of some kind that will transport you far away and you'll see dozens of galaxies like the Hubble Deep Field images., which allows you to explore more parts of the universe, instead of being 'limited' to a single galaxy.

It's very plausible, just take a look at this Infinity-universe tech demo, where every dot is representative of a star system, the game will be doing something similar as is, so imagine multiple galaxies generated like this and I believe that's what will happen once you reach the centre of the galaxy.
 
S

Shinta

Banned
Danlord said:
My thoughts on what's in the centre of the galaxy;

I think there's going to be a blackhole of some kind that will transport you far away and you'll see dozens of galaxies like the Hubble Deep Field images., which allows you to explore more parts of the universe, instead of being 'limited' to a single galaxy.

It's very plausible, just take a look at this Infinity-universe tech demo, where every dot is representative of a star system, the game will be doing something similar as is, so imagine multiple galaxies generated like this and I believe that's what will happen once you reach the centre of the galaxy.
Click to expand...
I predict that he's hiding Outlaw Star season 2 in there.
 
H

hardcastlemccormick

Banned
I still know absolutely nothing about how it plays.

Everything coming from this game is really ambitious and sounds great, but it could also be a bit of smoke too.
 
P

Pankratous

Member
I think this sounds absolutely amazing. I've anyways wanted a game with incredible scale where you may or not bump into another player that day, but may often find signs of them.
 
T

Triggerhappytel

Member
Phamit said:
I thought the thing in the logo would be in the center of the Galaxy
Click to expand...

Yes; I expect the same. It will be some kind of ancient alien technology which is sending the galaxy into an imbalance or having some kind of wide-ranging negative effect, and it has to be deactivated or destroyed.

nynt9 said:
They don't want it to feel occupied. They want the game to be a primarily solitary experience.
Click to expand...

Ah, fair enough. They should have no problem achieving that if all these claims about the size of the galaxy are true.
 
H

HyperZone<3

Member
how cool would it be if there was just one 'insane' planet hidden away somewhere? Whereby going there you trigger all sorts of Even Horizon/Eternal Darkness-esque insanity effects.

It could even be stuff that's not fantasy, temporal displacement, inexplicable wormholes to hell (planet inner core). I dunno, weird shit in general.

Tell other players and they're skeptical because, "That don't exist. Nothing crazy like that happens here in space."
 
T

Triggerhappytel

Member
HyperZone<3 said:
how cool would it be if there was just one 'insane' planet hidden away somewhere? Whereby going there you trigger all sorts of Even Horizon/Eternal Darkness-esque insanity effects.

It could even be stuff that's not fantasy, temporal displacement, inexplicable wormholes to hell (planet inner core). I dunno, weird shit in general.

Tell other players and they're skeptical because, "That don't exist. Nothing crazy like that happens here in space."
Click to expand...

That sounds awesome; like a planet where reality isn't quite right and your ship's instruments don't function properly. Maybe you could sometimes see echoes of previous visitors, and there could be a massive derelict crashed ship, or maybe make it a ship graveyard. Perhaps have a bit of lore which turns it into the Bermuda Triangle of space, and have lots of unexplained things happen there. And you wouldn't be able to put a waypoint on this planet like the others, due to its effects on the ship's instruments, or sometimes it's not there at all.

I find the idea of deep space pretty unnerving, and I think this could lead to some creepy ideas.
 
A

AyaisMUsikWhore

Member
This sounds like super amazing.

One thing that does bother me....

Why is it in first person games (just going by what we have seen for this one so far) is there costume customization? You can't even see the clothes you put on so why is that even an option? It just seems so weird of you can't bask in the aww of your stylish outfits.

Outside that, everything feels really good. I'm curious to know how this works.
 
I

ichtyander

Member
cjp said:
I'm interested from a technical point too. If it's extremely rare but still possible to run into people then I must be playing online, right? How is all that co-ordinated between players? Is my game keeping track of all the other countless players and what they're doing even though they're an incomprehensible distance away?

Either way, I'm still hyped.
Click to expand...

Depends on how they'll keep the information from every player. I'm guessing every player will have their progress logged and saved locally on their own system while periodically uploading important planetary data like which planet has been openly discovered, if an entire species has been eradicated etc. So your game will just read this server side info about other player's influential actions.

Now, if you'll actually be able to have multiple players on the same planet in real time, then I assume your game will track a bit more information, going as far as exact coordinates or even synchronizing every generated wildlife, assuming you're both in the vicinity of one another. Depending on how much info there needs to be synched, I suspect it might get a bit complicated, but nothing that hasn't been done before.

Although, as people have mentioned before, it's a bit weird to implement a lot of this interactive multiplayer code just for the rare cases where you might meet someone sometimes. They are a bit dodgy about answering this so I'm leaning towards thinking this local interaction will be very limited, but who knows.
 
S

scytheavatar

Member
web01 said:
Have they explicitly said that its possible you can meet another player and interact with them in real time if you do some how come across each others path? The ambiguous way they keep wording things makes me feel like its not even programmed into the game to be possible but they don't want to admit it for marketing reasons. They keep hammering the traces of other players aspects.
Click to expand...

http://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/2ewhfp/all_confirmed_no_mans_sky_features/

They made it clear that you can meet another players but it'll be rare. No Man's Sky will probably be more like Spore, a massively single player online game with large globular clusters and people trying to reach the center of those clusters independently. Whether or not it would grow old fast like Spore did remains to be seen.
 
B

BeatResetsTheWorld

Banned
Every time I read about No Man's Sky, I'm reminded of that scene from Office Space

"What would you say...you do here?"
200_s.gif



I still don't understand what you do in the game. I understand that you make your own adventure but what does that entail? Will these planets have other creatures? Sentient beings? Dangers? When they say you can be a pirate, what do you steal? There are no collectables so how can you pirate when other players only seem to have money?
 
Danlord

Danlord

Member
BeatResetsTheWorld said:
Every time I read about No Man's Sky, I'm reminded of that scene from Office Space

"What would you say...you do here?"
200_s.gif



I still don't understand what you do in the game. I understand that you make your own adventure but what does that entail? Will these planets have other creatures? Sentient beings? Dangers? When they say you can be a pirate, what do you steal? There are no collectables so how can you pirate when other players only seem to have money?
Click to expand...

Just as you posted this, this new thread was posted;

No Man's Sky Confirmed Feature List - NeoGAF

:)

Nice compilation. I just want date so I know when I can throw them my money, else I might get a train down to them and just hand them my debit card and be done with it.
 
I

ichtyander

Member
BeatResetsTheWorld said:
Every time I read about No Man's Sky, I'm reminded of that scene from Office Space

"What would you say...you do here?"
200_s.gif



I still don't understand what you do in the game. I understand that you make your own adventure but what does that entail? Will these planets have other creatures? Sentient beings? Dangers? When they say you can be a pirate, what do you steal? There are no collectables so how can you pirate when other players only seem to have money?
Click to expand...

I'd say it's very close to already existing space trading simulations like Elite, the X series or even Freelancer, with the addition of having a lot of survival and exploration on the planets themselves. To answer some of your specific questions:

Will these planets have other creatures?
- Yes, but I'd wager they won't be sentient.

Sentient beings?
- Read above. Although, they've mentioned a malevolent force in the universe that's the main antagonist several times now, so there might be some "intelligent" interaction with them at least. As for other sentient life, there will be plenty of space stations and space ships (both capitals and small). They've mentioned "races", friendly or hostile alignments with said races etc.

Dangers?
- Plenty. Environmental hazards (I'm guessing something like toxic atmosphere, radiation, scorching temperatures, underwater exploration) requiring you to upgrade your suit. Hostile creatures, perhaps even plant life. Also they've mentioned the malevolent force so I'm expecting some evil robot drones or something of the sort (they briefly show the player using his "omni-tool" to shoot at a hovering robot drone thing in one of the trailers). And there are also conflicts in space, dogfights, large scale battles with fleets. Also, depending on your temporary "career choice", you might want to do some long distance trading which would most certainly entail defending from pirate ships. Also, if you yourself choose to be more of a renegade, you might piss off an alien faction so they become hostile or just provoke the police from the local space station.

When they say you can be a pirate, what do you steal?
- Well, the important detail here is that there's definitely trading in this game. This entails various goods of different value and legality, so you might try to do a trading run of narcotics to a distant solar system governed by a faction that gives good money for them on the black market but it's highly dangerous if the police scans your ship etc. The bottom line, you'll probably steal goods you can pick up as containers in space from a destroyed ship or trading vessel.

Of course, some of this is speculation (based on current available info) or the scope of said gameplay elements might not be as broad or as shallow, but that would be the gist of it.
 
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