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IGN First: No Man's Sky 21 Minute Gameplay Demo

No Man's Sky OT: It's Nothing Like Spore. Really.

Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the few people who understood completely what this game was about back when it was first announced. It seemed pretty straight forward, and all of the new interviews and gameplay videos releasing now just confirms that, yes, their stated design aims are working out for them. There was a never a question mark in my mind about "what you do," in this game. Sean always seemed to explain it clearly and bluntly. There wasn't a mystery box to be solved with this game for me, personally.

I knew it wasn't Minecraft. I knew it wasn't Spore. It was a procedurally generated universe, where you explore planets and collect resources so you can get to the center of the universe. Over the past few years, they've just been adding more layers to that basic premise.
 
No Man's Sky |OT| Dream. Explore. Discover.

No Man's Sky |OT| We'll meet in the middle!

No Man's Sky |OT| Planets, planets everywhere!

No Man's Sky |OT| Forever Alone.
 
No Man's Sky |OT| Goodbye World. Hello Game(s).

No Man's Sky |OT| 2016: A Space Odyssey

No Man's Sky |OT| What do you do? The results may surprise you!

No Man's Sky |OT| Procedural Possibilities
 
Recasting my vote for this OT suggestion from a previous thread:

Trouble said:
No Man's Sky |OT| Hello Worlds
Click to expand...

It was a very popular choice. HERE'S WHAT GAF SAID:

> I love this one. Has the cleverness you want and poignant for the game.
> get my votes.
> Another thumbs up for this one. It's multi-layered and captures so much in two words.
> Bam. There it is. Works on so many levels.
> Yep. Hello Games. "Hello, World" (reference to computer programming.) A game with over 18 quintillion worlds.
> I was about to suggest my own title, and then I saw 'Hello Worlds.' Great call.
> Hello Worlds is perfect ...
> This has to be it.
> This is the one. Perfect.
> Beautiful
> SO good
> It's the OT title to rule them all.
 
Looking out of the window of the space station and seeing the planet you were just on...so freaking cool. June can't come soon enough.
 
daveo42 said:
No Man's Sky |OT| Goodbye World. Hello Game(s).

No Man's Sky |OT| 2016: A Space Odyssey

No Man's Sky |OT| What do you do? The results may surprise you!

No Man's Sky |OT| Procedural Possibilities
Click to expand...

All good, but the bolded is the clear winner. Tip top.
 
I've commented on this before and there's no way to say it without sounding like a super nitpicky asshole, but I can't stand Sean Murray's constant love of plaid shirts.
 
Figboy79 said:
No Man's Sky OT: It's Nothing Like Spore. Really.

Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the few people who understood completely what this game was about back when it was first announced. It seemed pretty straight forward, and all of the new interviews and gameplay videos releasing now just confirms that, yes, their stated design aims are working out for them. There was a never a question mark in my mind about "what you do," in this game. Sean always seemed to explain it clearly and bluntly. There wasn't a mystery box to be solved with this game for me, personally.

I knew it wasn't Minecraft. I knew it wasn't Spore. It was a procedurally generated universe, where you explore planets and collect resources so you can get to the center of the universe. Over the past few years, they've just been adding more layers to that basic premise.
Click to expand...

Right, I always thought this was a spaceflight/combat and mining/trading game. I don't think they said anything that woul've made people think differently. The only surprise was NPC's and thats because IIRC earlier they said there wasn't going be any
 
CaptainGyro said:
I've commented on this before and there's no way to say it without sounding like a super nitpicky asshole, but I can't stand Sean Murray's constant love of plaid shirts.
Click to expand...
Going by male gamedev fashion, it's not the worst.

670px-cliffyb.jpg
 
Z3M0G said:
I cant help but wonder how much better the game would be if it wasnt so large... and you actually had a decent chance to see what other players name stuff, actually encounter other players, group up with friends, etc.
Click to expand...
Well that not what the game is about.. And that's great imo.. Sorry to hear it's not for you though :)
 
Figboy79 said:
No Man's Sky OT: It's Nothing Like Spore. Really.

Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the few people who understood completely what this game was about back when it was first announced. It seemed pretty straight forward, and all of the new interviews and gameplay videos releasing now just confirms that, yes, their stated design aims are working out for them. There was a never a question mark in my mind about "what you do," in this game. Sean always seemed to explain it clearly and bluntly. There wasn't a mystery box to be solved with this game for me, personally.

I knew it wasn't Minecraft. I knew it wasn't Spore. It was a procedurally generated universe, where you explore planets and collect resources so you can get to the center of the universe. Over the past few years, they've just been adding more layers to that basic premise.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm very confused why people are so confused about the game. Recently I saw people saying finally they are showing what you do. They've been doing that since 2014 at least! Since 2014 they've said you will explore and find resources to upgrade your ship so that you can go further in. That you upgraded your gun/tool and your ship and that you could trade. And that you'd find plans to craft upgrades for your stuff. The only new thing he's put it was the language system and the talking with aliens. Oh and that stations will have interiors. Other than that nothing new has really been said about the game (some new footage though) and suddenly I see people saying he should have said this all along! He has!!!
 
Looks amazing. So I'm guessing they used some type of programming to randomly generate planet names? There are supposedly an almost "infinite" number of planets, I doubt they sat around and named each individually.

As for the pop in, since these things randomly generate on the fly, I guess it was either that or many more load screens. IMO, the latter would be far more annoying and it isn't even close. I can deal with pop in... load screens I cannot. Especially in a game that big.
 
No Man's Sky |OT| ykS s'naM oN

No Man's Sky |OT| One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind

The first one is No Man's Sky spelt backwards which looks like alien dialog in-game before you can understand it. And the second one should be obvious. Both have probably been mentioned already though.
 
E92 M3 said:
Man, that seems like some grade A trolling. Zero contribution to thread with a nice shitpost. There is a ton of info on the game for people that are interested.
Click to expand...

Deadstar said:
Maybe we watched different footage. This game looks very interesting. I hope the crafting is deep enough to sustain a long playthrough.
Click to expand...

Not trolling. Notice how every time they show the game it's the same shit, sense of scale bla bla bla, all meaningless if there is no engaging content worth exploring. Procedural generation doesn't at all equate to interesting or worth exploring. It's the ubisoft trailer syndrome, looks fun in a 15 minutes demo but think about how repetitive this shit will be when after a while.
 
No Man's Sky | So you wanna see the stars?

I'm still interested in the game. Complaints aside, I might even just bite full price. Still got a couple months to decide though. Haste ain't a thang.
 
DragoonKain said:
Looks amazing. So I'm guessing they used some type of programming to randomly generate planet names? There are supposedly an almost "infinite" number of planets, I doubt they sat around and named each individually.
Click to expand...

Yeah, considering the vast number of stars it must be something more complicated than picking two random words; they must be creating new words from syllables, like Va-shi-ti or something. I think Hello could do a whole day of GDC sessions on the proc-gen techniques they've developed for this game.
 
loganclaws said:
Not trolling. Notice how every time they show the game it's the same shit, sense of scale bla bla bla, all meaningless if there is no engaging content worth exploring. Procedural generation doesn't at all equate to interesting or worth exploring. It's the ubisoft trailer syndrome, looks fun in a 15 minutes demo but think about how repetitive this shit will be when after a while.
Click to expand...

Exploration is something I've always loved. NMS isn't supposed to appeal to everyone. The worlds are beautiful and strange. That's not repetitive to me.

I think sports games are boring AF, but I don't post in new FIFA threads.
 
Figboy79 said:
No Man's Sky OT: It's Nothing Like Spore. Really.

Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the few people who understood completely what this game was about back when it was first announced. It seemed pretty straight forward, and all of the new interviews and gameplay videos releasing now just confirms that, yes, their stated design aims are working out for them. There was a never a question mark in my mind about "what you do," in this game. Sean always seemed to explain it clearly and bluntly. There wasn't a mystery box to be solved with this game for me, personally.

I knew it wasn't Minecraft. I knew it wasn't Spore. It was a procedurally generated universe, where you explore planets and collect resources so you can get to the center of the universe. Over the past few years, they've just been adding more layers to that basic premise.
Click to expand...

Mate, as someone who played the original version of Elite and instantly got what NMS was from the first trailer, I hear you.

NMS threads have been a painful place for many of us.
 
loganclaws said:
Not trolling. Notice how every time they show the game it's the same shit, sense of scale bla bla bla, all meaningless if there is no engaging content worth exploring. Procedural generation doesn't at all equate to interesting or worth exploring. It's the ubisoft trailer syndrome, looks fun in a 15 minutes demo but think about how repetitive this shit will be when after a while.
Click to expand...

Complains about Ubisoft yet uses Ubisoft patented phrase "engaging content". Want to maybe explain what you mean?

And procedural generation is just generation by means a computer can understand i.e: numbers. You might as well say nothing interesting or worth exploring has been made by mathematics. The main point in favor of NMS is Hello Games have invested a lot of time into working on the algorithms, fractals and noise patterns to create a "controlled chaos" for their universe.
 
No Man's Sky |OT| Math Effect


I dont even care if the game ends up good or bad (although i of course would love it to be good), i see it like i see Dwarf Fortress: a game that is pushing the boundaries of what is possible with videogames. Another roguelike, Ultima Ratio Regum, is doing some cool stuff with randomly generated castles and clothing which change depending on the civilization its generated for, going into even more detail than Dwarf Fortress does. I love all these things so much and i cant wait what will be possible in 10 or 20 years.
 
loganclaws said:
Not trolling. Notice how every time they show the game it's the same shit, sense of scale bla bla bla, all meaningless if there is no engaging content worth exploring. Procedural generation doesn't at all equate to interesting or worth exploring. It's the ubisoft trailer syndrome, looks fun in a 15 minutes demo but think about how repetitive this shit will be when after a while.
Click to expand...

No, you are trolling.

You say it's got Ubisoft syndrome but if you watch the video Sean clearly states there won't even be a minimap in the game.

The only defined goal is to get to the centre of the universe and there is a line in the galactic map showing you the most direct route from your current location. How you get there and the story you create along the way is entirely up to you.

It's the complete opposite of any typical Ubisoft game.
 
eyeball_kid said:
Looks like I was remembering wrong on this. In this Verge preview from 2014 the writer says, "The developers have set themselves a 90–10 rule. 90 percent of all the planets will not be habitable and won’t have any life on them. Of the 10 percent that do, 90 percent of that life will be primitive and boring. The tiny fraction of garden worlds with more evolved life forms on them will thus be almost as rare in the game universe as they ought to be in the real one.". Of course that was two years ago, so they might have tweaked the ratios since then.
.
Click to expand...

There's no way they haven't changed that. With that much limitation to exciting life on planets, people can easily explore over a hundred planets without finding anything exciting. I don't think many people are actually going to go for that, they are going to think it's boring after spendifn so much time not finding anything
 
I think I'm in.

I'm sure there is a bit of a showmanship here though as Shawn moves slowly, deliberately, in order to avoid some pop in.

What I'm really curious about is the meta game around this.

If this game can replace Eve in terms of how an online community can interact with itself, then I'll be there day one.
 
eyeball_kid said:
Looks like I was remembering wrong on this. In this Verge preview from 2014 the writer says, "The developers have set themselves a 90–10 rule. 90 percent of all the planets will not be habitable and won’t have any life on them. Of the 10 percent that do, 90 percent of that life will be primitive and boring. The tiny fraction of garden worlds with more evolved life forms on them will thus be almost as rare in the game universe as they ought to be in the real one.". Of course that was two years ago, so they might have tweaked the ratios since then.
Click to expand...

Yessss

Disappointed that 1% of planets will have sentient/evolved life, though. Perhaps there will be a mechanic/system to help direct you to planets which are likely to be life-supporting.

Trouble said:
No Man's Sky |OT| Hello Worlds
Click to expand...

This is really good

HarryHengst said:
No Man's Sky |OT| Math Effect
Click to expand...

Excellent, too

nonnocere said:
No Man's Sky |OT| Do you wanna build a spaceship?
Click to expand...

Also great

dragonfart28 said:
What I'm really curious about is the meta game around this.

If this game can replace Eve in terms of how an online community can interact with itself, then I'll be there day one.
Click to expand...

It's not unlikely that there will be some sort of multiplayer, but the game is not and will never be an MMO, so any comparisons to EVE are moot.

Sean is on record saying that if you had a lot of people on one planet at once, each person would only see a handful of the others. It seems instanced into smaller groups, maybe 4–12 or something, even if there are lots of people (like 100) nearby.
 
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