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[Rumor] No Man's Sky Development / Technical Issues (Podquisition)

J

jschreier

Member
ScatheZombie said:
I believe that if game journalists weren't so obsessed with generating site traffic over controversy, enthusiasts would be more informed and therefore less inclined to freak out over things like this.
Click to expand...
Do you see any stories on my website about No Man's Sky being in trouble? Or do you see me trying to pour cold water on the rage and explain that this is game development?
 
O

orava

Member
Looking at the recent gameplay videos, they have probably scaled down considerably. The actual draw distances look small and lod is aggressive. There's a lot of popping and animals and other actors spawn only at closer distances. Game like this can be very resource heavy even if it looks simple. Minecraft is a good example of this and it's much simpler technically.
 
meanspartan

meanspartan

Member
jschreier said:
I strongly disagree. The takeaway I got from reporting that story wasn't "wow Bungie ripped us off we should've had so much more" -- it was "wow making video games is hard as hell even when you're a huge team with plenty of experience and resources."

In my years reporting in this field, I've learned a couple of things. One of those things is that you should never pre-order video games, which is a stance Kotaku has taken several times. Another is that every game goes through near-insurmountable technical struggles and periods where nobody knows whether the final product will actually turn out to be fun. For some games, everything coalesces nicely at some point. For others, it... doesn't. Oftentimes even the developers of a game have no idea which result they'll get.

Of course, there could be weird shit going here that we don't know about! And I think more transparency about game development in general is a very good thing. But from what I read in the OP, this just sounds par for the course. You could be more cautious with your pre-orders if you really want, but my advice would be to not pre-order in the first place!
Click to expand...

Thank you for the response :)

Ya, I never pre-order, but unfortunately its a fact of life that many do, so they should at least have warning whenever possible.

I guess its their own fault, but still.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
orava said:
Looking at the recent gameplay videos, they have probably scaled down considerably. The actual draw distances look small and lod is aggressive. There's a lot of popping and animals and other actors spawn only at closer distances. Game like this can be very resource heavy even if it looks simple. Minecraft is a good example of this and it's much simpler technically.
Click to expand...

I wonder how much of that problem is due to the initial Java codebase.

I'd imagine No Mans Sky will be inherently CPU constrained, which the PS4 will naturally struggle with.
 
A

amnesiac

Member
Nzyme32 said:
  • No Man's Sky was meant to be at a UK event called Game City as a "hands off demo", but they cancelled their appearance, apparently due to technical issues.
Click to expand...

What does "hands-off demo" mean?

They let the press demo it at E3 (like Kinda Funny), so it's odd that it wouldn't be demo-able now.
 
A

AzaK

Member
A game this ambitious is bound to disappoint. I mean look at Destiny. The massive resources of Bungie with vast design goals and then we got what we got.
 
Danlord

Danlord

Member
Bump for the No Man's Sky/GameCity Official Post;
http://gamecity.org/statement-from-hello-games-and-gamecity/

STATEMENT FROM HELLO GAMES AND GAMECITY

GameCity and Hello Games are very sorry to announce that due to unavoidable circumstances the ‘No Man’s Saturday’ programme of events scheduled for the GameCity festival on October 24th has had to be postponed.


We realise how disappointing this news is for fans of both the game and the festival, but we hope they can take some comfort in the fact that No Man’s Saturday WILL be being rescheduled for a later date.

We’re really sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and we know you’ll understand that we wouldn’t be postponing this unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

We look forward to announcing an alternative programme for the opening weekend very soon, as well as new dates for the ‘No Man’s Sky’ event.
Click to expand...

They have shown the game off to many people, behind closed doors, as well as IGN First even briefly playing it, Game Informer and with Colbert Show with a live demo.
 
S

ScatheZombie

Member
jschreier said:
Do you see any stories on my website about No Man's Sky being in trouble? Or do you see me trying to pour cold water on the rage and explain that this is game development?
Click to expand...

You've continually been shown to be an outlier within your industry though. Multiple outlets have picked up this 'story' already. I expect more and more to follow suit in time.

The exception I took with your previous post is that, while you agree that the average consumer and even the hardcore enthusiast are so uninformed they are unable to handle the realities of game development, you appeared to be putting the onus for education on the publishers and developers.

That onus is squarely on games media. It is, quite literally, their (your) job to inform the consumer. Which makes your post seem like you are acknowledging that your industry has failed to inform the consumer while blaming publishers for that failure.
 
M

Maddanth

Member
It is quite possible they are trying to have this game as a Playstation VR title as well? I mean isn't Playstathon VR set for a summer 2016 release?
 
Danlord

Danlord

Member
Maddanth said:
Thanks.
That would definitely be cause for a delay.
Click to expand...

Reading the PS Blog entry, they also mention this;

Every hour of every day between now and then allows us to add more features, polish and diversity to our universe. Some of those features are things we haven’t shown anyone yet, but are our most requested.
Click to expand...

I know that a dedicated multiplayer component is one of the most requested features, rather than finding a friend in the universe. So it would be a dedicated mode for people to be with their friends and explore together.The inclusion of VR is also a likely feature that hasn't been shown yet.
 
T

TrojanBlade

Member
Wasn't the game shown running on a PS4 multiple times?

I think Sony needs to send some Sony Ninjas to help the team out to overcome whatever tech issues they are having.

Hope all goes well as its one of the games I've been looking forward to.
 
M

Maintenance

Member
Looks like I'll lose a bet with my friend, we talked about this game and he said he wouldn't be able to run this game with his current PC, I said "nah, I don't think the game will be that power hungry".

Welp.
 
T

Tatsumi Oga

Banned
phanphare said:
this rumor explains why the release date is as far off as it is
Click to expand...

Ah yes true. But i think it will be fine. I don't think anyone has anything to worry about. But....of course i know nothing about this though. If it was indeed on PC during E3....how about the video during PGW?
 
D

Deckard Chapel

Banned
Um, according to Sean Murray, the delay is simply to add-in more features and polish the game:

"Every hour of every day between now and then allows us to add more features, polish and diversity to our universe. Some of those features are things we haven’t shown anyone yet, but are our most requested." LINK

This needs to be addressed as soon as possible. If the reason for the delay is in fact the rumor - then Hello Games needs to communicate this to it's many patiently waiting fans.

If it's all bollocks, then they should let us know that too.
 
H

Head.spawn

Junior Member
It has looked jiterry as hell during the past few showing of the game.. I'm assuming it's the PS4 version a opposed to the initial showing which was on PC. They have added a ton to the game from the looks of it and the game is 8 months from launch, that's a lot of time to optimise.

I don't think a game this far out in development is a particularly concerning issue.
 
Danlord

Danlord

Member
Maintenance said:
Looks like I'll lose a bet with my friend, we talked about this game and he said he wouldn't be able to run this game with his current PC, I said "nah, I don't think the game will be that power hungry".

Welp.
Click to expand...

If the PS4 is going to be optimised enough to run this at 60FPS, chances are if you have a reasonable PC, you will be able to run this.
 
S

show me your skeleton

Member
ScatheZombie said:
You don't want to know how the sausage is made.

This thread, and by extension all of Neogaf, is a clear example of why not. Every single game has these issues. Every single one. Every game has cancelled or postponed press junkets due to technical issues. Every game demos primarily on development PCs in dev environments (especially +6 months from release) rather than consumer builds on intended hardware. Every single PC or multi-platform game has optimization problems on PC. It's always a struggle eking out every last ounce of performance on hardware-locked platforms (like consoles).

But one podcast brings up these things that every single product faces as a rumor and the internet loses their god damn minds. The hardcore enthusiasts, who should understand this shit, don't understand this shit. Mass market even less so. In a world were even perceived negativity is blown out of proportion across social media, there's absolutely no reason to ever have transparency in something as unpredictable and volatile as game development.
Click to expand...

it's why early release stuff, greenlight, kickstarter etc. can be a complete killer for so many games. people don't actually want to play real, genuine, alpha or beta software. especially when it's created by smaller, less experienced teams.
 
K

kyser73

Member
jschreier said:
I believe that if game publishers weren't so obsessed with secrecy, enthusiasts would be more informed and therefore less inclined to freak out over things like this.
Click to expand...

Maybe you should write some articles on how the differing methods of project management work? I'm sure articles on Agile would be devoured by enthisiasts keen to know more about their hobby.
 
J

jschreier

Member
kyser73 said:
Maybe you should write some articles on how the differing methods of project management work? I'm sure articles on Agile would be devoured by enthisiasts keen to know more about their hobby.
Click to expand...
Ha ha ha I actually bet I could make something interesting out of that.
 
Danlord

Danlord

Member
Pestilence11 said:
On PC and everything shown of it on IGN First was PC, according to Dan Stapleton at IGN.
Click to expand...

The game is looking ever so increasingly likely it will be on PlayStation VR, which by design requires a 60FPS target. So regardless of whether or not it's currently being shown off no a PC is irrelevant.

Here's what I've collated so far about No Man's Sky and VR. Not complete but enough.
  • No Man's Sky runs at 60fps, target frame-rate for any VR application and for PS4 is the minimum requirement to then get reprojected to 120hz.(Trailers are done in 60FPS and there has been confirmation of 60FPS somewhere but I can't find it yet, a lot of videos to comb through, but having a PSVR devkit surely confirms that 60 is being targeted to even attempt PSVR support)
  • Hello Games experimenting with PC VR, unrelated to No Man's Sky directly but they have Development Kits to demo VR - VRFocus
  • No Man's Sky has a VR mode - Sean Murray's Twitter
  • Hello Games has a PSVR devkit via Verge
Very recently, when questioned about No Man's Sky supporting VR especially as launch title, this was said;
VRFocus:
SCE Europe President and CEO suggested as much in a recent Paris Games Week interview with Eurogamer. Talking about No Man’s Sky‘s newly-announced June 2016 launch window, the site noted that it could sit alongside the launch of the device itself. To this, Ryan simply replied: “Well, your assumption is an interesting one.” When pushed for further comment, Ryan remained tight-lipped, stating: “You’re not going to get anywhere with that one I’m afraid.
Click to expand...
 
K

kyser73

Member
jschreier said:
Ha ha ha I actually bet I could make something interesting out of that.
Click to expand...

'Predictive Methods part 3: the shit that goes down in change control meetings'

(I'm a PRINCE2 PM in medical software development and would love it if someone could write a funny & informative article on IT project management :))
 
Shpeshal Nick

Shpeshal Nick

aka Collingwood
Put me in the "Could not have less interest in NMS" camp but in all fairness to Hello Games:

- they're a very small team
- this game, despite my thoughts on it, is clearly very ambitious
- they're developing for 2 platforms simultaneously

So it's understandable there'd be issues and delays.
 
thelastword

thelastword

Banned
I always felt this game looked rough, some of the worse aliasing problems I have seen in such a simplistic looking game, also framerate isues were apparent in every demo.

I like their ambition, but this game looks like a CPU and memory hog to me, hopefully they sort it out, but they really should concentrate on gameplay, because I don't see people spending all that time exploring an endless sea of planets without much excitement and engagement.
 
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