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No Man's Sky Confirmed Feature List

Blazini

Neo Member
I dont know how I feel at this point.. lie sot im excited for what the game could be .. but I am also skeptical because the details they are giving make it seem like it going to get boring fast
 
What the hell would "using an alternative periodic table" mean? It is not like games simulate physical and chemical processes on the atomic level. Sounds like a bunch of marketing bs to me.

Because it's crucial to their procedural generation. They said elements and stuff like that affect how things are in the game in a similar way as they do in real life, or something along those lines.
 

dubq

Member
I still can't shake the idea of this being akin to Minecraft without building. Sure, it'll be fun to explore for a while, but it still doesn't sound like there's a whole lot to do.

Well they say it's not a game where you set up shop on a planet and stay there (though you can do that if you want). The thing to do is to upgrade yourself and your ship and go from planet to planet and solar system to solar system in order to get to the centre of the universe.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Yea, or when I get it on the PC and after playing for something like 10 hours without seeing one I'll just stop caring. Yes, there are a lot of planets with boring life, but there are a lot more without any life at all. Either their numbers are bullshit or I'll be losing interest in this.

I really don't think you'll be playing for 10 hours without finding a single "interesting" planet. If you find a boring one, just leave right away and keep looking. In just a single hour you should be able to cover a lot of planets, as the distances between them won't be anything like in real life. I'm not worried about this at all.
 
they're not the planets from destiny

Minor-Burns2.jpg
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I read that list and certain things were off putting or too vague.

The actual turn offs:

[lots of stuff about minimal player interaction]

That's actually a pretty big part of the narrative they've been putting out there since this was revealed last year. The universe is vast. Coming across another human-controlled player is incredibly rare on account of the sheer size of the galaxy and the fact that everybody starts off in a different place. If having more robust interactions with people is important to you in a game like this, then NMS might not be what you're looking for.

Having said that, if a key motivator is to get to the center of the galaxy, then it's possible that real estate will get tighter the more people move inward, increasing the chances to come across other players.


Fuck timed exclusives. I want it on the PC NOW!!!

Scream louder.
 
I like the idea of playing in a planet sized world but in a galaxy filled with such worlds is going to make encounters with other players extremely limited.

Apart from the developers explicitly mentioning that this is in fact their goal, I'm not sure why they keep mentioning pointless claims like putting millions of players on one planet and not being able to find each other quickly. It's as unimportant as the billions of planets thing.

If you have points of interest on one planet, one million of us can just post a screenshot or a message on the Steam forums:"Let's meet at these coordinates." and everyone on that planet will be there within minutes.

Since they intend to make crafting a thing in this game I'm concerned about how much of a pain in the ass it is to get resources when distance issues will be a thing.

They mentioned flying between planets will be quick but I wonder how the rest of the galaxy scales to fit these goals and the goal that you rarely will see other players.

As far as I know, they haven't ever mentioned crafting being in NMS. Maybe I'm wrong? Also, as I understand it, "one major resource per planet" sounds like the planets from Mass Effect or better yet, old classics like the Starflight series, where you explore the universe for resources and usually a lot of planets have at least one major mineral or element.

I do agree that they'll have to balance all of this pretty well, but they have ample examples of space exploration and trading sims from the 90s to learn from.
 

hawk2025

Member
Yea, or when I get it on the PC and after playing for something like 10 hours without seeing one I'll just stop caring. Yes, there are a lot of planets with boring life, but there are a lot more without any life at all. Either their numbers are bullshit or I'll be losing interest in this.



The planets are:

1) Fairly close together
2) Can be flown in and out of seamlessly, and very quickly


You can do a low fly-by, look for interesting things/signs of life, and move on the next one in half a minute, if the gameplay videos we've seen are representative.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
I have no idea how you ever came to that conclusion..... Wow lol

Well, when Destiny was first revealed they were very vague about how it actually worked. They hyped it up as this massive, open, epic thing, so you can't really blame people for thinking it would be a bit closer to NMS (in that you would have proper planets that you could fly a ship between, even if not on the same scale at all). When Destiny turned out to be just a couple of small-ish maps accessed through a level select screen, with no actual space travel at all, many were disappointed. So while I never expected it to be like NMS, I originally hoped for something a bit closer to it.
 

treeroy

Neo Member
Planet sized planets
This is pretty awesome. Proper exploration, and it means we really won't be bumping in to other players.

I read an interview last year with Sean Murray and he claimed that there would be billions of billions of planets. I'm pleased they seem to be actually fulfilling this claim.

That being said, it's a little disconcerting knowing that there will be no missions. If there's little of "game-driven gameplay", so to speak, then I'm worried that a lot of people will get bored of it. Hopefully the mechanics that it does have will be good enough to hold the game together.
 

btags

Member
Because it's crucial to their procedural generation. They said elements and stuff like that affect how things are in the game in a similar way as they do in real life, or something along those lines.

But there is no way they are simulating actual atoms. It sounds like "elements" will just cause environments, objects, or organisms to have defined attributes, which is nothing new in games. To me it seems like they are trying to make the game sound way more advanced than it actually is when all they are doing is procedurally generating worlds.
 
So what kind of planet should the designated GAF planet be?

Lots of possibilities for tech development?

Wild and wonderful diversity of flora and fauna?

Volcanic and gassy?

A planet that nobody actually goes to, but sits in their ships and complains about what it isn't.

It means bullshit most likely. Real planet sized planets would make discovering anything in the game virtually impossible.

Why?

If your ships is capable of jetting along at a fast clip, then I imagine you could cover ground relatively quickly especially since entering/exiting the atmosphere (if there's one) is "sped up"; Doing a full rotation around the Earth only takes about 90m for the international space station in real life, I imagine you'll be going much faster, comparatively.
 
Well, when Destiny was first revealed they were very vague about how it actually worked. They hyped it up as this massive, open, epic thing, so you can't really blame people for thinking it would be a bit closer to NMS (in that you would have proper planets that you could fly a ship between, even if not on the same scale at all). When Destiny turned out to be just a couple of small-ish maps accessed through a level select screen, with no actual space travel at all, many were disappointed. So while I never expected it to be like NMS, I originally hoped for something a bit closer to it.

Yes, I expected it to be bigger too.

But for those who thought it was going to be a universe with 5000000000000000 planets and procedural generation.... I have no idea what Destiny videos you were watching.
 

Leb

Member
Apart from the developers explicitly mentioning that this is in fact their goal, I'm not sure why they keep mentioning pointless claims like putting millions of players on one planet and not being able to find each other quickly. It's as unimportant as the billions of planets thing.

If you have points of interest on one planet, one million of us can just post a screenshot or a message on the Steam forums:"Let's meet at these coordinates." and everyone on that planet will be there within minutes.

It should raise another question in your mind, however, which is, "How will an indie developer with very limited resources be able to provide the (complex and expensive) infrastructure that would make the above scenario possible?"

And as a corollary to that, "If they do, in fact, provide the infrastructure necessary to support such an endeavor, why would they design their game in such a way as to make scenarios which could take advantage of that infrastructure so vanishingly unlikely?"
 
But there is no way they are simulating actual atoms. It sounds like "elements" will just cause environments, objects, or organisms to have defined attributes, which is nothing new in games. To me it seems like they are trying to make the game sound way more advanced than it actually is when all they are doing is procedurally generating worlds.

They've gone more in depth into talking specifically about atoms before, but I couldn't tell you if it was them just BSing or whatever.
 

hawk2025

Member
But there is no way they are simulating actual atoms. It sounds like "elements" will just cause environments, objects, or organisms to have defined attributes, which is nothing new in games. To me it seems like they are trying to make the game sound way more advanced than it actually is when all they are doing is procedurally generating worlds.




You are overthinking it.

Some planets may have, say, "Raritanium". Animals will be randomly generated, but let's say they are all "Carbonium" based. So you might harvest one Carbonium and two Isotoniums from a plant.

That's all. All they mean is that the game has its own elements, and they combine in different ways to form different things. And these elements can be shown in a table... which is exactly a periodic table.



It should raise another question in your mind, however, which is, "How will an indie developer with very limited resources be able to provide the (complex and expensive) infrastructure that would make the above scenario possible?"

And as a corollary to that, "If they do, in fact, provide the infrastructure necessary to support such an endeavor, why would they design their game in such a way as to make scenarios which could take advantage of that infrastructure so vanishingly unlikely?"


Which should make it quite a bit easier to understand why they signed up with Sony.
 
Thanks for the topic, OP. This does sound really amazing, but I'll try to keep my hype in check. If they can deliver on all this potential though... man alive.
 

ironcreed

Banned
Universe:
Same universe for everyone
Everyone starts in their own solar system, so people will be very far away from one another to begin with.
Only significant events are shared between people. So for example, killing a single animal won’t be shared. It’ll always be dead for you though. But if you wipe out an entire species, then that would be shared with everyone else
There is an offline mode, which would mean that you wouldn’t see anyone else’s discoveries
Made up of multiple galaxies
The planets within the universe will have a 10% chance of having life on them, with 90% of them having no life on at all. Of the 10% that does have life, 90% of that will be primitive and boring. So the lush garden worlds with more evolved life forms on will be rare
There will be lots of barren planets, but they can still have valuable resources on
Planets will generally only have one type of resource on them
"In every solar system there is one core thing that you can do which is of great significance to that solar system. And that is shared among everyone, and fundamentally changes that solar system, and people can choose whether or not to do that. And there are a number of mechanisms like that, which create emergent gameplay."

Ships:
You start with a lifepod ship, without a hyperdrive. So you’ll have to get money to buy a better ship before you can really begin exploring the universe
Can enter a ship almost instantly, without any laborious animations. (using Triangle)
You don’t get massive ships - you will stay in quite small ships
You can only buy ships that are docked at space stations
There are three main classes of ships: Fighter, Trader and Explorer
Each class has multiple prototypes
Fighters are light and symmetrical
Trader craft tend to be bulkier and slower, but with heavier weapons
Explorer ships will have much better hyperdrives and stealth capabilities, allowing pacifists to run from every fight
Each ship will have between one and three different armaments attached, and you’ll be able to upgrade them.
Enhancements are hinted to be more interesting than simply more power or a faster rate of fire
They are not defined in the game as a specific class, but it should be obvious by the visible hints what a craft is designed for
A certain type of ship doesn’t restrict you to a certain path, but there are of course some ships more suited to certain tasks than other. But you’ll always be able to change to a different type of ship
The cockpit of the ship will be the lifepod, so if the ship is destroyed then you go back to a lifepod and you’ve lost that ship.
You will have the equivalent of a whistle to call your ship over, so long as it’s close by
After a while, the wear and tear on your craft is clearly visible, helping you to form an emotional attachment to your beaten-up old ships
There’s a generous targeting system that only requires you to point your nose near a bogey to loose off a missile or two - you don’t need to be really accurate
Can “pull low above the surface and climb out in mid-air, before returning to the cockpit and flying around some more”
Landing will be simple and straightforward
Space combat will be arcadey
Better ships will be found further into the galaxy, where combat will also be harder
Fuel will be really expensive, and is used to travel from one solar system to the next, like a hyper jump.
A quick and cheap way to get fuel is to go down to a planet and do some mining, but you can also make money other ways and use that buy fuel.

Planets:
Planet sized planets
On the ground you can have a jetpack, which will need to be earned. (Controlled with the X button)
You’ll have a minimap which will show points of interest, such as resource rich areas and landmarks that you or others have uploaded. Won’t know what it is until you get there though
Other points of interest include crashed ships, beacons, something to discover like mountain ranges, a vast lake, new species of creature.
Can name things that you discover first, such as plants, planets, creatures etc. But they will all have latin names by default, which will appear larger than the player names
Suits and weapons can only be upgraded at trading posts on planets
Upgrades include allowing you to breathe underwater for longer, or survive in toxic environments etc
You will have a multi-tool, which will act as a scanner, weapon and mining tool. (Square to use scanner)
There are grenade like plasma balls
You can blow holes in things
There will be combat situations on planets
You have a compass (the heart in the middle of the screen at the top)
There are procedurally generated rooms
The suit nullifies gravity.

princegif1.gif
 
One thing that made me "ehh" is the fact that you can wipe a whole species and people will never be able to see them again. I understand why they did it, but I wonder how long before assholes start killing everything, pratically a genocide in space.
 
Ain't no way people are going to manage to kill "everything"

Well I don't think you were being that literal but I kind of doubt it would be an easy feat.

Well actually I could see groups of people going on a mission to take out the fan favorite species at the time.

Still, with the scale of the universe, I could only imagine that being REALLY hard.
 

Pop

Member
One thing that made me "ehh" is the fact that you can wipe a whole species and people will never be able to see them again. I understand why they did it, but I wonder how long before assholes start killing everything, pratically a genocide in space.

The beauty of life. We can't control what happens in the universe.
 
Ain't no way people are going to manage to kill "everything"

Well I don't think you were being that literal but I kind of doubt it would be an easy feat.

Well actually I could see groups of people going on a mission to take out the fan favorite species at the time.

Still, with the scale of the universe, I could only imagine that being REALLY hard.

So there can be Space Nazis? I would laugh if that happened.

Sorry, Godwin's Law.

The beauty of life. We can't control what happens in the universe.

Yeah, I understand why they did it. Stil...
 

btags

Member
You are overthinking it.

Some planets may have, say, "Raritanium". Animals will be randomly generated, but let's say they are all "Carbonium" based. So you might harvest one Carbonium and two Isotoniums from a plant.

That's all. All they mean is that the game has its own elements, and they combine in different ways to form different things. And these elements can be shown in a table... which is exactly a periodic table.

So elements are basically crafting materials?
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
There is no way in hell a planet will be at a one to one scale of actual Earth. No way. No way you would be able to land on the ground and then travel in a circle for however many months that would take to do a 360.


Bullshit is called on that. No game has yet achieved that scale. And this is a game where they claim you can jump from planet to planet seamlessly.

I have a feeling they seriously screw with the speed at which you travel in order to make it even remotely feasable to get around. I mean it takes like a minute to jump from one planet to another in the gameplay they have shown. Doesnt make sense.
 

hawk2025

Member
So elements are basically crafting materials?



At a base level, elements in real life are "crafting materials".

It's up to how complex or simple their "periodic table" and the interactions between the elements are.

My point is just that it can be simpler than the dichotomy you were proposing.
 
There is no way in hell a planet will be at a one to one scale of actual Earth. No way. No way you would be able to land on the ground and then travel in a circle for however many months that would take to do a 360.


Bullshit is called on that. No game has yet achieved that scale. And this is a game where they claim you can jump from planet to planet seamlessly.

I have a feeling they seriously screw with the speed at which you travel in order to make it even remotely feasable to get around. I mean it takes like a minute to jump from one planet to another in the gameplay they have shown. Doesnt make sense.

"fun/gameplay > science"
 
There is no way in hell a planet will be at a one to one scale of actual Earth. No way. No way you would be able to land on the ground and then travel in a circle for however many months that would take to do a 360.


Bullshit is called on that. No game has yet achieved that scale. And this is a game where they claim you can jump from planet to planet seamlessly.

I have a feeling they seriously screw with the speed at which you travel in order to make it even remotely feasable to get around. I mean it takes like a minute to jump from one planet to another in the gameplay they have shown. Doesnt make sense.

I think you need to re-read the OP and research procedural generation.
 
I continue to think this game sounds incredibly boring, with not much to actually do. I also predict people will be very disappointed when it comes out. I just feel the hype is based more on what people hope from the game than what is actually being shown. Hope I'm wrong, though.
 

Mr. F

Banned
Everytime that someone mentions Spore I become that emotionally scarred dog gif, can't believe I fell for that, even got the Collector's Edition.

I feel like the world collectively played for a week and then dropped it after getting wise. Such a hollow final product.
 

Karak

Member
If that math is correct and they were telling the truth about how many of everything there is and how big the universe is(their billions comment) many players will never ever meet evolved intelligent life. Which seems like there is a miscommunication somewhere or else they expect a lot of people to not care about ever meeting a single intelligent race or my interpretation of their math is off.
 

Altima

Member
I should be excite about this game but after I realize how boring Starbound is I cannot be excite in this kind of game anymore.
 

legacyzero

Banned
MY VEINS. VEEEEEEEIIIINS!

There is no way in hell a planet will be at a one to one scale of actual Earth. No way. No way you would be able to land on the ground and then travel in a circle for however many months that would take to do a 360.


Bullshit is called on that. No game has yet achieved that scale. And this is a game where they claim you can jump from planet to planet seamlessly.

I have a feeling they seriously screw with the speed at which you travel in order to make it even remotely feasable to get around. I mean it takes like a minute to jump from one planet to another in the gameplay they have shown. Doesnt make sense.
Avatar quote.
I want to believe.
 
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