It's very strange, there seems to be no reference points, it's just a huge mess of stars.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
So, what do you DO in No Man's Sky?
- Thread starter cpp_is_king
- Start date
It's very strange, there seems to be no reference points, it's just a huge mess of stars.
Veritigo_X
Member
I hope they add a grid or something as a reference point. Or at least make it so you can zoom out and see the spiral like with the Elite map. If the goal is to get to the center I need to at least know I'm heading in the right direction.
Icyflamez96
Member
Next update is the 10th.
Hope you're able to muck about properly.
In one of the trailers you shoot through an asteroid. Can you do that on a rock formation on a planet? Sending rocks crashing down into a herd of giant space cows or breaking a natural dam, causing a flood? Can you jump? Can you pick things up and throw them? Make a big pile of wood at the bottom of a hill, and roll a boulder down the hill, crazy alien planet bowling! Can you do that? What happens when you crash your ship into a giant towering creature? Does it fall over? Does it flatten trees nearby? Can you start a big Far Cry-style fire with your ship lasers? Will the creatures stampede and run away from it? Can you jump out of your ship in mid-air like Battlefield? Can you recover and repair your ship if it crashes but isn't destroyed? Etc etc.
Or, do you more commonly walk up to stuff, press interact, and a number goes up in your inventory, and that's it?
Seems like the latter from what they've showed/said so far. So I don't think it's ridiculous that people are asking the "What do you DO?!" question.
In one of the trailers you shoot through an asteroid. Can you do that on a rock formation on a planet? Sending rocks crashing down into a herd of giant space cows or breaking a natural dam, causing a flood? Can you jump? Can you pick things up and throw them? Make a big pile of wood at the bottom of a hill, and roll a boulder down the hill, crazy alien planet bowling! Can you do that? What happens when you crash your ship into a giant towering creature? Does it fall over? Does it flatten trees nearby? Can you start a big Far Cry-style fire with your ship lasers? Will the creatures stampede and run away from it? Can you jump out of your ship in mid-air like Battlefield? Can you recover and repair your ship if it crashes but isn't destroyed? Etc etc.
Or, do you more commonly walk up to stuff, press interact, and a number goes up in your inventory, and that's it?
Seems like the latter from what they've showed/said so far. So I don't think it's ridiculous that people are asking the "What do you DO?!" question.
this is just... holy shit
Exaclty when i watched this on my tv with chromecast using twitch my mind was blown..jut blown away. And to think they haven't zoom totally out to show the galaxy disc.
Hopefully we can go as far as this.
You're asking for stuff that doesn't even happen in AAA games developed by hundreds of people (unless it's a completely scripted set piece).
I don't see how you go from that to "well then it's fair enough that people ask what you do in this game".
legacyzero
Banned
Know what would kick ass? If this galaxy is actually the Milky Way, and our solar system is actually in there somewhere.
SymbiantXenos
Member
Can see 100s of hours of time sunk into this game.
family_guy
Member
This is an example of why we'll never find intelligent life on other planets in our lifetime.
Veritigo_X
Member
Check out Space Engine if you think that gif is cool. It's a free download and you just roam around the universe. Really shows how big it is. Good luck finding Earth (or even our solar system) without searching for it and warping right to it.
Video from the latest update: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rswRCT3097g
Icyflamez96
Member
Milky way will be at the center, with the Earth overrun by fallen and the rest of the planets taken over by their respective Destiny enemy species /destinyalternatereality
LUFTRAUSER
Banned
I hope you can built robots and stuff. I for one would love to create a huge fleet of self-replicating von Neumann probes and have them spread throughout the game's universe so I don't have to waste time trying to find all the interesting planets manually.
KCroxtonJr
Member
Well, they did already create A.I. to do that for them...so who knows lol
So it's a shame games have evolved?
Exaclty when i watched this on my tv with chromecast using twitch my mind was blown..jut blown away. And to think they haven't zoom totally out to show the galaxy disc.
Hopefully we can go as far as this.
What, just one galaxy? Pfff.
for the fans of those zoom-out vids:
The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U
similar but a bit different:
This video illustrates the scaled size of our universe from quarks to the entirety of the observable universe. Each circle used in the video represents a scale factor of 10; meaning each larger circle is zoomed out 10x more than its predecessor. ( i.e. after 1 circle you are now looking at 10x larger horizon, after 2 circles 100x, 3 would be 1000x, and so forth. This also applies to the speed, ignoring relativistic effects, at which the observer (you) would be traveling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiN6Ag5-DrU
The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U
similar but a bit different:
This video illustrates the scaled size of our universe from quarks to the entirety of the observable universe. Each circle used in the video represents a scale factor of 10; meaning each larger circle is zoomed out 10x more than its predecessor. ( i.e. after 1 circle you are now looking at 10x larger horizon, after 2 circles 100x, 3 would be 1000x, and so forth. This also applies to the speed, ignoring relativistic effects, at which the observer (you) would be traveling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiN6Ag5-DrU
ichtyander
Member
It feels like they've deliberately done this, maybe for aesthetic reasons but also to give you the feeling of being lost and alone. Also, that one crucial thing you can do to a solar system, maybe it also affects how the map looks, clears up the nebulae etc. As for the galactic center, there's a large glowing light in those trailers, and since stars are more condensed at the center, that's where you need to go, just follow the light. They mention in the Gameinformer article that they've realized the map is a bit confusing and difficult to orient yourself in, so they're adding a small minimap in the lower left corner. Sounds like it might be important for them to keep this galaxy map view so they're making it easier to orient yourself by adding UI elements rather than changing the look of the map.
Man, Space Engine never ceases to amaze me. Haven't seen this updated video before, those volcanoes are lovely, thanks!
PeakPointMatrix
Member
Have they shown any combat at all? As long as they get that right, this game will never leave my PS4. I almost feel like if this game was combined with Destiny...
Icyflamez96
Member
Have they shown any combat at all? As long as they get that right, this game will never leave my PS4. I almost feel like if this game was combined with Destiny...
They've shown space combat.
I don't really want this at all in the beginning. It makes no sense to me that you would explore the unknown but somehow have some sort of galactic overview and know the structure and directional nature of the universe for some reason.
D
Deleted member 10571
Unconfirmed Member
And this kind of scale is what I'd want in a game. Some day.
Appealing to the lowest common denominator =/= Evolved.
We now have games where you can press a button and it will orientate you to where you need to stand next or draw a line on the floor as a path to follow just in case you are at risk of having to do any of that awful 'thinking for yourself'. Need to make it as easy as possible to get to the next scripted sequence and cutscene!
Actually, yes it does. Especially one of the first items on the list: jumping.
As a matter o' fact try playing Just Cause 2. That game's great for interactive environments. I think it's completely fair to ask what you can do in this game. To what degree can you interact with this huge galaxy you've been dropped in? How can you affect the emviornment?
IAmRandom31
Banned
Anyone else see the future of this game as being near endless?
Say for example, 6 months after release Hello Games says ... hey ... lets create a massive war over here in quadrant X within the realm of these 50 planets. Only 3-4 people have even seen these planets before since launch.
Ok, so they concentrate all their time onto building up these planets with new structures and civilizations and whatnot. Then, as an added bonus, they create these robots or something that land with a message on various planets around the galaxy, beckoning players who find these messages to this specific region in space. Boom, you now have players able to enter and exit a massive galactic war that is massive in scale but still only happening in a VERY small region in space in the game.
I could see that sort of future for the game. Since they basically have this whole universe to play around with, they could really do anything.
Say for example, 6 months after release Hello Games says ... hey ... lets create a massive war over here in quadrant X within the realm of these 50 planets. Only 3-4 people have even seen these planets before since launch.
Ok, so they concentrate all their time onto building up these planets with new structures and civilizations and whatnot. Then, as an added bonus, they create these robots or something that land with a message on various planets around the galaxy, beckoning players who find these messages to this specific region in space. Boom, you now have players able to enter and exit a massive galactic war that is massive in scale but still only happening in a VERY small region in space in the game.
I could see that sort of future for the game. Since they basically have this whole universe to play around with, they could really do anything.
D
Deleted member 10571
Unconfirmed Member
The worlds aren't designed that way, they are the result of a math formula that generates them. I'm pretty sure they can't just 'go to quadrant X' and change things up.
And, like you said, why should they put massive amounts of work into actual hand-designed planets, wars and shit if only 10 people max will ever see them.
I'll stay with what I said, with these expectations, a lot of peeps might be very disappointed eventually.
Even if it's just straight up exploration with the ability to build bases and farm resources that'd be good enough for me. Just to explore more worlds.
But good lord if they go this route that would be almost too much. My heart wouldn't take it!
This sounds awesome and I would totally love it. Now whether it's something they'd actually do? Who knows...
They had to create the assets for those worlds in the first place so I don't think they'd be unable to create new things within an already generated world. I mean look at Minecraft and all the content updates it's had.
As for the only 10 people thing, that's why Random suggested some kind of not that flies out to multiple planets broadcasting a signal or message. People would know about it and could make their way there.
Thanks for the explanation dude.
It sounds really cool how it works. I look forward to seeing what we can do to affect worlds.
So far a jet pack for the player has been mentioned which will probably take the place of jumping, jumping in a space suit would not be particularly useful.
We know you can effect the lifeforms aspect of the environment ie extinction but I doubt you can alter terrain, the game having to save what thousands of players have done individually to thousands of separate planets would probably be too much. Recording crash sites of player ships would be nice.
Again, this is being made by a team of 14 folk and people are asking a hell of a lot from such a tiny group. Most of the generic sequels we see get churned out are by teams consisting of 150-300 people.
A jet pack will be cool. I'd like to see if different planets have higher or lower gravity. That'd be interesting.
As for affecting terrain I gotta wonder how much that'd actually take to do. If the player is constantly uploading their data maybe it wouldn't be all that far fetched? I don't know. I'm no computer programmer. It probably also depends in if this is an online only game.
I don't think Indy developmers are as limited to what they can do as they used to be. I'd say one of the main reasons we don't see more awesome content from AAA games is because it's not "safe". Taking risks hasn't really been a strong suit of AAA. That's not to say there aren't really fun and cool AAA games.
You can alter the terrain of asteroids by shooting at them with the spaceship's lasers and I'm guessing every landscape object is treated the same in the engine, so landscape destruction probably is already in. Problem is there's likely no physics attached to it, so you'd be voxel mining like Minecraft. When the cube chunks are taken out the landscape is probably going to look a bit off. And it's unlikely the game will track many changes locally, and it definitely won't track them online for more than a few players, and then only during a single session.
In other words, there's a decent chance you can dig a hole, but when you leave the planet and come back the hole will be gone. And if you dig too many holes in the same area, the first hole you dug will start to fill in again.
Sean Murray does refer to the terrain being made out of voxels, and you can tell when he wanders around in the tech demo video. There's lots of smoothing and blending to make it look good, but it seems to still need some work. Stuff like trees, grass, and stalactites are probably just objects that attached to the voxels, like a texture, so whatever voxel physics exist probably won't apply to them.
In other words, there's a decent chance you can dig a hole, but when you leave the planet and come back the hole will be gone. And if you dig too many holes in the same area, the first hole you dug will start to fill in again.
Sean Murray does refer to the terrain being made out of voxels, and you can tell when he wanders around in the tech demo video. There's lots of smoothing and blending to make it look good, but it seems to still need some work. Stuff like trees, grass, and stalactites are probably just objects that attached to the voxels, like a texture, so whatever voxel physics exist probably won't apply to them.
What do you expect it to deliver? I've seen an incredible variety of expectations, both positive and negative, many of which are highly unlikely.
JonnyKtyler
Member
So can you actually see other human players in the world, at least in a dark souls sort of way, or maybe public areas like destiny?
I hope you're the one doing the OT. I've enjoyed your posts and the passion you put into them. Your posts are my go-to when friends ask about NMS.
Someone tag him up. "No Man's Skyward Sword"?
Amen. This is a small team. This is likely what it will be. People need to be a little more realistic
IAmRandom31
Banned
yeah
Murray said a special moment may be when you actually see what you look like in the game, because you see another player.
Up until then you will never see yourself, so you don't really know if you are a humanoid, an alien, a robot, or what
Oooo yeah, give players the ability to claim a planet or something and create their own little world using resources mined around the galaxy. That would be HAWT.
My mind just goes nutty over the potential for the future of a game like this.
I would at least like to have some kind of tool you have to use to mine stuff, even if it's just some kind of laser you shoot at the rocks. Maybe you end up having to get more advanced mining tools to get at different resources. What if you have to have some special gear to get at a valuable resource at the bottom of an ocean?
Veritigo_X
Member
I believe Hello Games have said that the laser we've seen in a couple of the trailers is the mining "multi-tool". Since they've said that the game is about upgrading your ship and equipment, I wouldn't be surprised if you have to upgrade the multi-tool to mine certain minerals.
ichtyander
Member
Oh wow, thanks man!
I'm glad if I've been helpful in any way. As for the OT, I haven't even made one topic on GAF yet so the prospect of it makes me a bit nervous, but then again, No Man's Sky is still a ways off so who knows. Thanks for your post, here's a Robot Jox brofist:
I guess this is sort of how it works:
Imagine each planet has a set of parameters, with 3 constants (coordinates) and variables such as atmosphere type, land type, water, flaura, fauna, . These will be attributed values that are "rolled" when a player discovers that planet (some of these categories having more values possible than others) that are subsequently uploaded and stored.
Each discovered planet is just summarized by a few simple values that won't take much space at all, and every time any player goes to said planet, the values are called in the database and the planet "regenerated" from that.
So I'm pretty sure there won't be anything like, I killed 3 dinos and to weeks later someone else comes and sees 3 dinos skeletons where they were killed. Or I made a hole on the side of a hill. Etc. That would be way too much information having to be stored, considering there will be billions of planets.
Imagine each planet has a set of parameters, with 3 constants (coordinates) and variables such as atmosphere type, land type, water, flaura, fauna, . These will be attributed values that are "rolled" when a player discovers that planet (some of these categories having more values possible than others) that are subsequently uploaded and stored.
Each discovered planet is just summarized by a few simple values that won't take much space at all, and every time any player goes to said planet, the values are called in the database and the planet "regenerated" from that.
So I'm pretty sure there won't be anything like, I killed 3 dinos and to weeks later someone else comes and sees 3 dinos skeletons where they were killed. Or I made a hole on the side of a hill. Etc. That would be way too much information having to be stored, considering there will be billions of planets.
D
Deleted member 10571
Unconfirmed Member
Yup. This. People still hope for Space Minecraft somehow, but I'm pretty sure this is exactly how it will be.
Many of the planets factors are built from what type of sun it orbits and at what distance, this effects things like temp, colour and what gasses exist in the atmosphere. A lot of the detail parameters exist as a set of noise that an algorithm uses to build the planet mathematically. All this info exists all the time so that when any player gets close enough an identical planet is built. SM showed us a planet built from just a pure sine wave and the surface matched the waveform with never ending hills that matched the waves form. It seems that only info on big events is kept, the game doesn't care about you killing a few lifeforms but drive a species extinct and it gets remembered. As each planet is big enough 'to take weeks to walk around' scouring the surface for every animal to kill will probably not be an easy task.
Nothing about gas giants or other odd planet types that I have seen yet but in terms of dangerous planets we have seen references to needing to upgrade your ship and suit to withstand toxic, radioactive and other environmental effects.
There definitely won't be anything like that. The devs have said small changes like that won't be tracked.
People should keep in mind this is being sold as an exploration game, not a stay in one place game.
Oh wow, thanks man!
Thanks for your post, here's a Robot Jox brofist:
you score a 1000 point for referencing Robot Jox.