They're procedurally generated from a random seed. The difference with NMS is that they use every possible seed.
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A polite discourse amongst friends on the importance of MP-elements in No Man's Sky
- Thread starter flkraven
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They're procedurally generated from a random seed. The difference with NMS is that they use every possible seed.
Inviusx
Member
A very emotionless tweet as well compared to the last few months of his feed.
"PC games release at this time, it's this big"
You would think he would be a little bit more stoked about his game just coming out 3 days ago.
Conkerkid11
Member
Pretty sure that's not right or even technically possible.
Pretty sure everybody's just on the same seed.
Sony seized his Twitter account.
Not really, but given everything I'm guessing he's afraid of digging a deeper hole with potential day one PC sales on the line.
A seed for each planet. Nothing else is random. And yes, every person gets the same seed at the same planet. There are 18 quintillion possible seeds.
Deadpool_X
Banned
More like No Man's Lie, amirite?
Sorry if this poor pun has been used previously in this enormous thread. I ha entry read every post.
Crimsonclaw111
Member
No Man's Buy
One Man's Lie
Gormenghast
Member
I think many people here don't really know what a "seed" is.
And people who don't have at least some programming experience should abstain from explaining things and make an even bigger mess...
And people who don't have at least some programming experience should abstain from explaining things and make an even bigger mess...
Graphics Horse
Member
So they say, although supposedly they can arrange it so that things get weirder towards the centre, which means they are using factors other than the 64bit hash of the galactic coordinates or whatever it is they use.
March of the Crabs
Member
I'm actually not sure which parts of those aren't true. All seem feasible and like things I've seen. Maybe I'm going crazy.
depths20XX
Member
The "world" (by this I mean the whole universe in this game) has been randomly generated but is the same for all players since they are on the same seed is what I'm understanding it as.
lastplayed
Member
No Man's Pie in the Sky
thatsgood.gif
Inviusx
Member
Well they obviously wanted stuff like that in the game and if you take what they're saying at face value then all that stuff possibly existed as of February 2016. The snippets that I quoted are things that I have not observed AT ALL since watching countless streams last week and this week.
Its a classic Molyneux situation.
UncleSporky
Member
Imagine you got a six sided die, but it's a trick die with a magnet inside that can make it roll specific numbers if influenced correctly. And you got a magnetic table that goes with it with dial on the underside with a bunch of numbers you can set it to.
If you dial it to 1 then your die will always roll 2, then 5, then 6, then 6, then 1, then 5 etc. infinitely. But always in the same order, whenever the dial is set to 1.
If you dial it to 2 then your die will always roll 1, then 1, then 3, then 4, then 2, then 6 etc. infinitely. But always in the same order, whenever the dial is set to 2.
So in essence, the die rolls still seem pretty random, but they always happen in the same order when you always pick the same seed.
When you load up Minecraft on seed 1, it's always rollin' that 2-5-6-6-1-5 etc., which maybe that results in starting on top of a mountain with a big lake in front of you.
Just starting a new game of Minecraft without picking a specific seed? That means you reached under the table and spun that dial and didn't care which set of rolls you were going for. (In specific computer terms, games like Minecraft look at the milliseconds of your PC clock and grab it at whatever number it's currently at.)
The simplest way to do it would be that seeds are just placed in the galaxy in rough sequential order, and the algorithm would treat higher seeds with a higher chance of generating weirdness. And I'm sure there are more clever ways to do this as well.
anothertech
Member
So Day 3!
Did Sean say something yet?
Did Sean say something yet?
Gormenghast
Member
A "seed" is just some number you input to a random number generator so that the sequence of random numbers it produces is always the same.
That the center of the galaxy has special properties has nothing to do with the seed or the random number generator. It has to do with the RULES. So, if they wanted a particular zone to have more specific properties it simply means they manually gave it tweaked rules.
The rules that make No Man's Sky are handcrafted, always. The variations instead depend on random numbers they take from a random number generator that always outputs the same sequence since it uses the same seed.
Home computers can't actually produce any "randomness", since they are deterministic. They only produce the ILLUSION of it, for example if you use as a "seed" your current time you guarantee that the numbers generated are always different (since date and time are always different).
The sudden cessation of communication that is absolutely unprecendented continues.
Box art controversy is old and unimportant by now. We have progressed to the Skybox controversy in the meantime.
He told us the size of the Steam download and that it releases tomorrow.
He is a very busy man.
Mad Season
Banned
jesus i spit water!
Wowfunhappy
Member
Exactly. My point is that the bolded could apply to essentially EVERY game that uses a random algorithm for world generation. So it's a bit of a distinction without a difference; there's no such thing as a truly "randomly generated" world, because that would be stupid.
That said, from a branding perspective, exploring a "procedurally generated" world sounds a lot more enticing than a "randomly generated" one, so I can understand the push for the former term.
You are killing it
MisterR
Member
So you haven't even played the game, but you're assuming all this isn't in it from watching some streams?
Netherscourge
Banned
UncleSporky
Member
Yeah, random generation is a subset of procedural generation, as deciding to generate things randomly is part of a procedure. By contrast you can also procedurally generate things deterministically. Procedurally generated textures are pretty awesome actually, save a lot of storage space. Look into demoscene, long CG videos with audio and everything in 64 kilobytes!
However I think drawing a distinction between random and procedural can be useful in a gaming sense.
In No Man's Sky, every player experiences the same galaxy. The galaxy is not strictly random, everyone gets the same seed. Procedural is a more accurate representation of what you get.
In games like...I dunno, Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, etc., every time you play the level is different. Sure, they're being generated via procedure, but the seed is different too. Random is a more accurate representation of what you get.
Not a single mention. Pack it up, guys, there is no multiplayer.
Krappadizzle
Member
Who wouldn't want to do this with buddies and be able to explore new procgen'd worlds?
My favorite thought in regards to this game since I first saw it was that it'd be great to meet up with anyone and just go flying/racing/exploring/bounty hunting around space and then a planet. I'd wager most that are disappointed feel the same way. Would have been a non-issue if this was a cleared up from the get go instead of the vague promises made over the years.
My favorite thought in regards to this game since I first saw it was that it'd be great to meet up with anyone and just go flying/racing/exploring/bounty hunting around space and then a planet. I'd wager most that are disappointed feel the same way. Would have been a non-issue if this was a cleared up from the get go instead of the vague promises made over the years.
Inviusx
Member
Yes. In this case you don't need to play the game to see it for yourself.
Still no mention of multiplayer not working being considered an issue.
If it was a thing in the game, they'd mention it here.
MisterR
Member
So did you watch streams for years to see if anyone walked around a planet?
UncleSporky
Member
Uh ok so:
How the hell can people put in tickets to identify issues when they've been so cryptic that we don't even know what features are in the game or not?
Can we put in a ticket that says "Bug: Another player and I went to the same place at the same time but did not see each other?"
Are they gonna close it like "working as intended?"
I mean apply this to all the rest of the lies. "Bug: no animals are ever seen drinking from watering holes."
Well does it matter if it's procedurally generated? That just determines what every planet looks like and drawn on the screen without drawing everything manually. That part I think is the cool tech.
I think what's more important is if they intended so you could see each other in the game how they planned to do that. That's something you would decide at the start and not just tack onto the game at the end. If it's written like a normal multiplayer game where the data is client side, they'd have to firstly sync everybody's games up which would be a nightmare. Or what I think they could have done would be have all the planets and universe data live on a central server or many central servers which players could then access. That would require way more upfront server costs.
The other thing is that there doesn't seem to be any background simulation. Do the planets rotate around the sun and they are at a different location depending on the time? Any confirmation?
What we do know is that the game provides an experience of being easily able to traverse across the universe, exploring various conditions, life forms. But a lot of the things Sean has said like creatures having best friends appears to be hype to sell the game. To the layman that would be completely subjective argument anyway.
I think what's more important is if they intended so you could see each other in the game how they planned to do that. That's something you would decide at the start and not just tack onto the game at the end. If it's written like a normal multiplayer game where the data is client side, they'd have to firstly sync everybody's games up which would be a nightmare. Or what I think they could have done would be have all the planets and universe data live on a central server or many central servers which players could then access. That would require way more upfront server costs.
The other thing is that there doesn't seem to be any background simulation. Do the planets rotate around the sun and they are at a different location depending on the time? Any confirmation?
What we do know is that the game provides an experience of being easily able to traverse across the universe, exploring various conditions, life forms. But a lot of the things Sean has said like creatures having best friends appears to be hype to sell the game. To the layman that would be completely subjective argument anyway.
It's getting to be a bit strange that they aren't even acknowledging this, let alone talking about whether it's a game / server issue as opposed to not even being a feature in the first place. That they're refusing to mention it just makes it even more glaring.
valkillmore
Member
Perhaps they've prioritized fixing the crashes and glitches over being able to fly around w a friend. Just saying. People were complaining about a lack of response regarding the crashes, too. Now we have one.
If the game had released on PC the same day as PS4, I would have been playing these last few days, not reading GAF, and probably enjoying the game a lot. Now I'm sad. And I feel like I've seen/read way too much by following the NMS threads. My fault. There were heavy spoilers in non-spoilers threads. Not really my fault.
Yup, sad, I feel.
Yup, sad, I feel.
I understand priorities, but a simple yes / no answer is really what I think most people are looking for. The vagueness surrounding the whole thing is just a bit weird. Maybe it's just me, but straightforwardness and honesty would alleviate the situation; I'd feel better about the feature not being in the game if they just came out and said something.
Literally all Sean needs to do is tweet out "yes, multiplayer is in the game but we're having issues getting it to work" or "no, multiplayer is not in the game". Why's that so tough? Like, for real. I'm not being facetious.
Inviusx
Member
You kinda don't need to man. Have you seen the game yet?
It's especially weird considering normally Sean tweets so much and he comments on big community news but has been mum about this and hasn't really tweeted since.
Oh man I stopped reading stuff as well, I felt like I'd played the game already and I mean some of my hype has died down because of it and pretty much nothing is a surprise anymore so yeah my fault. I will admit though my hype level was through the roof and from what I've seen I've brought my expectations down a bit. Won't people be able to look in the PC files and find out if there are actually player character anyways?
So I emailed them, and got this automatic answer.
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- any relevant screenshots and links
- PC users - please provide your dxdiag.txt file as an attachment so we can see if your specs are compatible.
We are a small team, so unfortunately we won't be able to reply to general messages here but we'll try and get to all urgent game queries within 48 hours during office hours.
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