No Man's Sky

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 11:47 am

We didn't have a dedicated thread - it was only mentioned in a few other ones. Considering they just released a trailer for the 2014 Game Awards, I figured it was a good time to get one started.

It *looks* good, but I haven't really seen or read anything about it as a game.

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Sat Dec 06, 2014 12:09 pm

I've been following it pretty closely. It's being done by a very small indie developer. The started developing it for the PC and about a year or so ago their studio got wiped out by a major flood. They foolishly didn't have any code backups so had to pretty much start over. Along the way, Sony saw what they were doing and decided to fund it. Which lead to the game being a PS4 exclusive release. It's still being developed primarily for the PC and a PC version will also be released but no one knows the timing of that related to the PS4 release.

It looks fantastic and like this game could be the holy grail of procedurally generated games. But the proof will be when we start seeing what the actual gameplay is comprised of.

tiny ogre · Post by **tiny ogre** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 2:17 am

ColdSteel wrote:They foolishly didn't have any code backups so had to pretty much start over.

That's not accurate. There's a Polygon article with a detailed account of the flood. "There were backups, and those allowed Hello Games to get back to work on Joe Danger Infiniy and No Man's Sky." They did lose pretty much all their stuff though, which is a huge deal for a tiny developer.

I've been a little obsessed with this game since they announced it (apparently 1 year ago today). Hasn't been a whole lot of info, but man is it gorgeous.

There was a thing at Twitch tonight with 65 Days of Static playing live to some new footage of the game (plus all the old footage) tonight. They've done the songs for the trailers so far and are doing the game's soundtrack too. I don't know any other game that could pull off an event like that. I watched the whole thing

ColdSteel · Post by **ColdSteel** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 4:56 pm

tiny ogre wrote:That's not accurate. There's a Polygon article with a detailed account of the flood. "There were backups, and those allowed Hello Games to get back to work on Joe Danger Infiniy and No Man's Sky." They did lose pretty much all their stuff though, which is a huge deal for a tiny developer.

Okay thanks for pointing that out. I was going off an article I saw immediately after the flood where I saw some quotes from them saying they didn't think they had any backups that weren't affected by the flood. Glad to see that they did.

tiny ogre wrote:I've been a little obsessed with this game since they announced it (apparently 1 year ago today).

Yeah, me too. It looks so good.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:10 pm

Apparently, an IGN exclusive -- an 18 minute video of uninterrupted game play.

EzeKieL · Post by **EzeKieL** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 12:48 am

Smoove_B wrote:Apparently, an IGN exclusive -- an 18 minute video of uninterrupted game play.

which is interrupted quite often

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 1:26 am

don't think it's exclusive...
http://www.pcgamer.com/no-mans-sky-vide ... ploration/

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 7:53 am

naednek wrote:don't think it's exclusive...
http://www.pcgamer.com/no-mans-sky-vide ... ploration/

The interview was an IGN exclusive. Is there really such a thing as an exclusive video on the internet?

Buatha · Post by **Buatha** » Tue Jul 07, 2015 11:16 am

I think the game is going to be good, but I fear the amount of hype and expectation being placed on the game is pushing it to heights it may not be able to achieve.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:14 pm

I guess it's now a PS4 timed exclusive? Here's the latest trailer -- June 2016.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:27 pm

Smoove_B wrote:I guess it's now a PS4 timed exclusive? Here's the latest trailer -- June 2016.

No, it's coming out for PS4 and PC at the same time:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/10/27/ ... -announced

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:30 pm

Ah, ok. Just not the Xbox.

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 5:22 pm

The more I see of this the more boring it looks. I think their scope is too big, and after the initial wow effect, I think it's going to get bland and boring real quick. It's a shame too, because technically, it looks great and could be really fun, but I think they just have too much handle.

tiny ogre · Post by **tiny ogre** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 1:39 am

I would've bought a PS4 to get this game sooner. Glad I don't have to now. There are no games I am looking forward to more than this.

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 3:24 am

naednek wrote:The more I see of this the more boring it looks. I think their scope is too big, and after the initial wow effect, I think it's going to get bland and boring real quick. It's a shame too, because technically, it looks great and could be really fun, but I think they just have too much handle.

I believe they're deliberately trying to show off as few gameplay elements as possible in the videos, so there's a lot we haven't seen yet. The main developer hates talking about his games and would rather have people go in completely blind, so don't expect him to try and wow you more than absolutely necessary yet.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:58 am

Apparently this may cost $60 and the pre-order *could* open tomorrow.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/0 ... -sky-cost/

That price seems a bit high, although most console games are right at $59.99. So if this has the content of a full-on AAA title, that would not be unbelievable. I had not heard if there would be a physical release, however, and Digital Download only games tend to not be full-priced.

That being said, this was a leak for a placeholder that was promptly removed. So, take it all with a grain of salt.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 2:22 pm

Don't know enough about the game to pre-order. It sure looks purdy but beyond that it's a leap into the dark.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:43 pm

Grifman wrote:Don't know enough about the game to pre-order. It sure looks purdy but beyond that it's a leap into the dark.

Above, TiLT, Naednek, and Smoove_B posted videos with more information. There are also quite a few on YouTube. My wife was even a little exited to play after she saw the developer come on to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and play the game for a few minutes. So there are plenty of avenues to learn more, if you are interested.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 7:14 pm

baelthazar wrote:
Grifman wrote:Don't know enough about the game to pre-order. It sure looks purdy but beyond that it's a leap into the dark.
Above, TiLT, Naednek, and Smoove_B posted videos with more information. There are also quite a few on YouTube. My wife was even a little exited to play after she saw the developer come on to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and play the game for a few minutes. So there are plenty of avenues to learn more, if you are interested.

I've watched all of those videos - and a fair number of others - and they still don't tell me much about the game. I see ships landing on planets, exploring them, cataloging stuff, taking off, fleets of NPC ships fighting, etc. But to what end, to what purpose? What's the plot, why am I doing this, why should I care? Who is fighting who and why should I get involved - or not? And who do these fleets belong to? Are these just random or do they belong to empires I can interact with? Can I land on their worlds, trade with them, walk among their cities? Raid their cargo fleets, etc?

Like I said, it all looks purdy but what the heck the game is really about is still rather vague. I'm not looking for them to give away the plot (assuming that there is one - is there - we don't really know) but right now, it's all a bit of a leap into the unknown.

AjD · Post by **AjD** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 10:08 pm

Grifman wrote:I've watched all of those videos - and a fair number of others - and they still don't tell me much about the game. I see ships landing on planets, exploring them, cataloging stuff, taking off, fleets of NPC ships fighting, etc. But to what end, to what purpose? What's the plot, why am I doing this, why should I care? Who is fighting who and why should I get involved - or not? And who do these fleets belong to? Are these just random or do they belong to empires I can interact with? Can I land on their worlds, trade with them, walk among their cities? Raid their cargo fleets, etc?

Like I said, it all looks purdy but what the heck the game is really about is still rather vague. I'm not looking for them to give away the plot (assuming that there is one - is there - we don't really know) but right now, it's all a bit of a leap into the unknown.

Based on these remarks... never play Elite:Dangerous.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:18 pm

I think it being a leap into the unknown is part of the idea. The developer wants players to feel like they are discovering an actual mysterious universe, not fitting into some giant pre-existing galactic narrative like Star Wars. In some of the previews he hinted at the existence of some sort of galactic guardians that oversee and protect planets from being exploited, but he did not want to spoil much on that. I, for one, appreciate the sense of wonder inherent in few details.

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:28 pm

Pretty much, unless something has changed significantly over the course of development.

In No Man's Sky you play as...someone. We don't know who that person is or what their motivations are or what their backstory says. And we won't find out. At least not until we get our hands on the game, and even then it's up to the player to discover what they can. "There is a lore to the universe and we adhere to that but we're not going to tell you," Murray said. "We're not going to describe it to you. You can read into that whatever you want. We're not going to tell you who you are or why you're there. We have our story."

When you start the game off as this...somebody, you start off with a ship. It can go as far as space but not deep into interstellar travel. To do that, you'll have to invest in bigger and better ships.

I asked Murray how you would go about "leveling up" to get better suits and weapons. "I could do it just by exploring," he said. "I could do it by taking guys out like this [Murray lifts his controller a bit to emphasize that he is flying in space and shooting other ships]. So if I go up to that fleet that was being attacked I could've joined in and attacked one of the freighters and get a little reward for that."

But do you have any friends in this world? Anyone who won't attack you and could even help you?

"We're not telling you, 'Oh this race is good, this race is bad,' or anything like that," Murray said. "You will find that, say, little things like the insignias on their ships, things like that, they're actually consistent. And you can read into that what you will and you will see consistencies in who seems to fight."

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 8:48 am

TiLT wrote:
naednek wrote:The more I see of this the more boring it looks. I think their scope is too big, and after the initial wow effect, I think it's going to get bland and boring real quick. It's a shame too, because technically, it looks great and could be really fun, but I think they just have too much handle.
I believe they're deliberately trying to show off as few gameplay elements as possible in the videos, so there's a lot we haven't seen yet. The main developer hates talking about his games and would rather have people go in completely blind, so don't expect him to try and wow you more than absolutely necessary yet.

I can see naednek's point clearly, though. I love open world games, but there's usually a tipping point where the challenge is gone and all that's left is the grind to explore if you so choose. Exploration by itself can be fun, but how long you can do that depends largely on the pallet of the game. It's hard to create a story for yourself when the game responds to you in fairly generic ways consistently (ie: sending in more and more sentinels until you die). Just watching a demo video, a lot of the creatures started to look very same-y despite being different.

Depending on the difficulty of the game, I might get 30-40 hours out of it before I'm tired of it and need to shelve it for a year or two. I'm interested, but maybe "first good sale" interested.

Max Peck · Post by **Max Peck** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 2:44 pm

It looks like the PC price (USD$59.99/CAD$66.49) and current release date (21 June 2016) are confirmed.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 12:40 am

A little more info here:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016- ... s-answered

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:19 am

Lots of articles coming out now:

Nerdist "7 Things You Didn't Know About No Man's Sky

RPS Hands On Preview

Giant Bomb 30 Minutes with No Man's Sky

killbot737 · Post by **killbot737** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 11:14 am

I'm still leery of the "9 out of 10 planets will be barren and boring, and 9 out of 10 of the non-barren planets will just be OK" theme that I keep hearing from the dev. Maybe if they add in a way to scan the whole system quickly and determine if it's entirely bland and move on, that wouldn't be so bad.

The demo planets they show are cool, but those are the cherry picked ones. I'd like to see some examples of the non-cool planets. It probably will look like those planets from Mass Effect when you were cruising around with the Mako. One or two interesting things in the middle of rocky wasteland.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:51 pm

People seem to be bummed about the lack of multiplayer, but how would you ever find your friends in a galaxy that is that huge? I guess if you had some teleportation tech, but wouldn't that basically defeat the purpose of making a journey to the center of the universe if you could just teleport your friends there? I, for one, don't care about it, but it seems like it was never feasible for a game this large.

I'm super stocked still. Amazon.com has the PS4 physical copies up for pre-order and I jumped on the Limited Edition.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:54 pm

Rebel Galaxy managed to keep me entertained long enough to finish the relatively short storyline. While this game doesn't immediately grab me (I'm not much for open world, open exploration, make your own story games) I could be persuaded.

My main concern, based on nothing really, is that a game of this scope cannot be made by a single developer and still be interesting and engaging. As Killbot suggests, the chances that 99% of the galaxy is just generic nothing seems like it would be high.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:55 pm

baelthazar wrote:I'm super stocked still.

I'm more of a top fuelled guy myself

Sorry, couldn't resist

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:00 pm

GreenGoo wrote:My main concern, based on nothing really, is that a game of this scope cannot be made by a single developer and still be interesting and engaging. As Killbot suggests, the chances that 99% of the galaxy is just generic nothing seems like it would be high.

Yup. I mean...I hope that's wrong, but it just seems like there's a real potential to have a lot of fluff And that $60 price point is tough to swallow.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:31 pm

Smoove_B wrote:[Yup. I mean...I hope that's wrong, but it just seems like there's a real potential to have a lot of fluff And that $60 price point is tough to swallow.

1) Isn't the price point for most game $60 these days?
2) No one ever has to pay $60 for a PC game. At a minimum, GMG always has a 20% off coupon, sometimes as high as 27% for newly releasing games.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:44 pm

Grifman wrote:1) Isn't the price point for most game $60 these days?

For most AAA games, yes. And most offer a discount for pre-order. None is being offered for this game (at least through STEAM).

2) No one ever has to pay $60 for a PC game. At a minimum, GMG always has a 20% off coupon, sometimes as high as 27% for newly releasing games.

Also true. But it doesn't appear to be offered by them (or any other online reputable vendor) at this time. Amazon is only selling digital and boxed copies for the PS4. I will pay full price for Fallout. I will likely pay full price for Borderlands. But everything else? Wait and see. I've been burned too many times.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:50 pm

Smoove_B wrote:
Grifman wrote:1) Isn't the price point for most game $60 these days?
For most AAA games, yes. And most offer a discount for pre-order. None is being offered for this game (at least through STEAM).

2) No one ever has to pay $60 for a PC game. At a minimum, GMG always has a 20% off coupon, sometimes as high as 27% for newly releasing games.
Also true. But it doesn't appear to be offered by them (or any other online reputable vendor) at this time. Amazon is only selling digital and boxed copies for the PS4. I will pay full price for Fallout. I will likely pay full price for Borderlands. But everything else? Wait and see. I've been burned too many times.

FYI - If you preorder a physical disc version from Amazon Prime, PC or PS4, you automatically get 20% off.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:57 pm

A fair point, but it's still only available for pre-order on Amazon for the PS4. I think my main issue is that this company has no track record for this level of delivery (the content of the game). They're essentially an unknown developer and most of this project has been held pretty close to the vest. It's a proprietary engine open world(s) RPG crafting bonanza. It might warrant a $60 price tag but my interest in handing over $45+ to an unknown developer making an entirely new type of game has long passed. I'm still very interested and I hope it's as cool as it seems. I'm just not your guy for early adoption.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 3:14 pm

Smoove_B wrote:Also true. But it doesn't appear to be offered by them (or any other online reputable vendor) at this time. Amazon is only selling digital and boxed copies for the PS4. I will pay full price for Fallout. I will likely pay full price for Borderlands. But everything else? Wait and see. I've been burned too many times.

Fair point but, it's still early. I don't know of a PC game that GMG hasn't sold.

And I haven't paid full price for a PC game in years. It's either a must to have new release via GMG or a later point in time from a Steam sales.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 3:17 pm

Smoove_B wrote:A fair point, but it's still only available for pre-order on Amazon for the PS4. I think my main issue is that this company has no track record for this level of delivery (the content of the game). They're essentially an unknown developer and most of this project has been held pretty close to the vest. It's a proprietary engine open world(s) RPG crafting bonanza. It might warrant a $60 price tag but my interest in handing over $45+ to an unknown developer making an entirely new type of game has long passed. I'm still very interested and I hope it's as cool as it seems. I'm just not your guy for early adoption.

Oh, I totally agree with this. I'm not buying this game until I see some reviews because both the developer and game are such huge unknowns. But whether it is pre-ordered or not is sort of a separate issue as to whether they should charge $60 for it.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 5:02 pm

Grifman wrote:
Smoove_B wrote:Also true. But it doesn't appear to be offered by them (or any other online reputable vendor) at this time. Amazon is only selling digital and boxed copies for the PS4. I will pay full price for Fallout. I will likely pay full price for Borderlands. But everything else? Wait and see. I've been burned too many times.
Fair point but, it's still early. I don't know of a PC game that GMG hasn't sold.

And I haven't paid full price for a PC game in years. It's either a must to have new release via GMG or a later point in time from a Steam sales.

GMG sometimes doesn't sell expansions for games and the occasional Electronic Arts game does not get put on there (I think they want to keep their hegemony using Origin). But I am fairly certain it will be on there.

It is, however, already available for preorder at the Humble Store (https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/no ... storefront) and Steam http://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/. So I would expect GMG to show up soon.

There is always a debate about preordering. Just to reiterate what wonderpug said - if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber you get 20% off for preordering AND for 2 weeks after release. So you can feasibly wait for reviews if they come within 2 weeks and still get the 20%. Apparently (according to Humble) it is being sold as a Steam key, so I suspect Amazon will have that up at some point too.

Most PS4 games release with a $60 price tag. I suppose the argument can be made that this is an indie game, but it certainly has been given a much more AAA style of press and development. I am alright with the price, but I see why people would want to wait to take the leap.

killbot737 · Post by **killbot737** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 5:13 pm

I only see it on Prime for PS4, there's no PC version that I can find.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 5:28 pm

baelthazar wrote:Just to reiterate what wonderpug said - if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber you get 20% off for preordering AND for 2 weeks after release. So you can feasibly wait for reviews if they come within 2 weeks and still get the 20%. Apparently (according to Humble) it is being sold as a Steam key, so I suspect Amazon will have that up at some point too.

Isn't that Amazon Prime deal for physical copies only of the game? I thought I read somewhere that it was.