No Man's Sky - procedurally generated Sci-Fi exploration

[ECA]

really want this game but im put off with so many negative reviews really torn on whether to get it not :/

Why not just wait for it to be on a steamsale at christmas and then you get it cheaper and when it's been patched?

 

[Raven]

Or buy it, play for 2 hours and if you don't like it, refund it.

 

[chipper]

didnt realise you could refund steam games thats pretty cool

 

[Wij]

Got a much bigger multi-tool and a 25 slot ship now. What to do next? Collect words?

 

[Raven]

Get to the centre of the universe!

 

[Wij]

Can a universe have a centre?

 

[Raven]

Yes, in a game. The same way cowalike mobs can flutter about on tiny wings and mushrooms can hop.

 

[Wij]

OK. Anything else I could do?

 

[Raven]

Whatever you find fun. I am upgrading all my weapons and systems to start heading towards the centre. Its not exactly fun but it is fairly relaxing.

 

[Anastasia]

Has quite a high "just one more" factor as well when exploring a planet. There always seems to be another unexplored something or other that is under 2 minutes away. Not saying that's great gameplay, mind, and it probably reveals some compulsive side to my character that I can still be playing an hour after I intended to stop. I'm still on my first planet...

 

[Raven]

I am on a planet with a crazy amount of gold at the moment, up to nearly 10 million now so should be able to get myself a decent size ship...mines a bit piddly at the moment and not having much luck with crashed ships. My suit is fully upgraded for slots though and my multitool is big enough for all the mining modules...there doesn't seem to be much point in upgrading the weapon when a grenade sorts out pretty much everything.

 

[Urgat]

Get to the centre of the GALAXY!

FTFY

 

[TdC]

my multitool is big enough for all the mining modules.

hur hur hur

 

[caLLous]

It seems like a lot of people are bored of it already.

The creators have done awful well out of it with all the pre-release hype, though.

 

[Raven]

So what you are saying is that its slide is lower than Doom and comparable to Fallout 4? I bet they are pleased indeed.

Its nice that you are showing an interest in a game you have no intention of buying though

 

[caLLous]

Not sure where you're getting your data from but Doom's hourly concurrent players look pretty level to me... Anyway, comparing a game with a finite story (like Doom) with one which is supposed to be endless (like No Man's Sky) isn't very fair is it? It makes the latter look even worse tbh. I'm not playing Doom any more because I've finished it in just about every way I can, I still dip in to re-play the occasional mission but I wouldn't show up in the concurrent players chart, despite thinking it's the best single-player FPS in probably the last decade. For a game that's supposedly endless and all about exploration and keeping players engaged, the drop in people playing No Man's Sky is very damning.

I'd love to buy the game, its premise is fantastic. I have "evaluated" it and it's not worth what they're asking for it (especially not the € 60 that they somehow translate £40 to).

 

[Raven]

Something to read from someone who knows what they are talking about (an expert!111£!!. No Man's Sky's player count has dropped 88 percent, but that's not unusual | PC Gamer

Not to mention the fact you are completely missing the point of NMS, I pretty much only dip in and out now, after 40-50 hours. Pootle round a planet, log off.

There is no story as such, just an aim, get to the centre and that is optional...I imagine most people (myself included) will never get there.

 

[caLLous]

Odd that someone who "knows what they are talking about" pretty much echoed what I said...

Arguably it's a larger drop in concurrent players than you'd expect for a game that promised virtually endless hours of open-ended exploration—18 quintillion planets and all that. A single-player shooter with a ten-hour campaign is obviously going to see a more precipitous drop in its peak player count than an open-world RPG with 127 side quests waiting to be cleaned up.

There is no story as such, just an aim

Exactly, that's why comparing it to an FPS with a finite campaign is pointless.

The "point" of any game is surely for the devs to have made it so enthralling and good that you want to play it as much as possible (in the weeks and months after launch anyway). I don't think their mission statement at the outset would have been to have players "pootle around a planet and log off".

If we're going to compare No Man's Sky with Doom let's at least use a meaningful metric, like week 2 sales. No Man's Sky down 81% on week 1, Doom down 35%.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I don't really care either way, but I did read the PC Gamer article and it looked to me like the figures for all the other games said 'after a month' and the one for NMS seems to be after 11 days.

 

[Shagrat]

Yes, pretty stupid comparison when they are looking at one games decline after 2 weeks and a load of other games after a month, that's just massaging the figures to make the decline look normal.

What were all those games figures like after two weeks?

 

[caLLous]

So they're comparing completely different types of games across completely different timescales and No Man's Sky *still* comes out of it performing the worst.

 

[Anastasia]

The gameplay is quite repetitive, although I'm still enjoying it enough to not complete Witcher 3 (mind you I play Candy Crush as well). I can see me still playing it for a long time, but I doubt I'll plough hundreds of hours into it like some games (XCOM Enemy Unknown, I'm looking at you).

I'm not sure if @caLLous has a point to make, but trying to convince others to dislike a game because you want them to is up there with plaiting snot in the fruitless stakes. Negativity for its own sake? Or do you resent the way the game was marketed, or the success it has so far achieved for some reason? It's not like they are selling bomb-detection kits to Iraq.

 

[Raven]

So they're comparing completely different types of games across completely different timescales and No Man's Sky *still* comes out of it performing the worst.

Look, you are obviously extremely pleased with yourself that it is not exactly what you expected. That's fine, bit odd but fine nonetheless. You don't need to go on and on about it, nobody actually cares whether you don't like something you haven't tried yourself and clearly never had any intention of trying in the first place.

2 week stats are not available for those games (if they are, feel free to post them, 1 minute google failed to deliver, you might have far more time on your hands for such tedium though) and NMS has not been out for a month yet. It is hard to compare the two. However, I imagine as with any game there is a natural plateau at some point or another.

Personally, I am still enjoying it but then I don't need instant gratification, nor do I have the time or the inclination to sit in front of a computer 18 hours a day.

If anything, it goes to show why believing everything you are told before checking it out for yourself is flat out retarded, the vast majority of the hype was directly created by journalists and mouth breathers on Redit. People need to stop just blindly taking what they are told as the truth and find out for themselves.

Personally over the last week the majority of my gaming time has been taken up by Football manager, all of a handful of hours. Its summer ffs.

 

[Raven]

I'm not sure if @caLLous has a point to make, but trying to convince others to dislike a game because you want them to is up there with plaiting snot in the fruitless stakes. Negativity for its own sake? Or do you resent the way the game was marketed, or the success it has so far achieved for some reason? It's not like they are selling bomb-detection kits to Iraq.

Its all rather childish isn't it?

 

[caLLous]

I'm not sure if @caLLous has a point to make, but trying to convince others to dislike a game because you want them to is up there with plaiting snot in the fruitless stakes. Negativity for its own sake? Or do you resent the way the game was marketed, or the success it has so far achieved for some reason? It's not like they are selling bomb-detection kits to Iraq.

I'm honestly not trying to convince anyone to do anything, this is a thread about the game and I posted something about the game. I thought it was pertinent that such a high percentage of players have seemingly abandoned this "endless" game after little more than a week.

I will say that I thoroughly dislike the way in which the lead developer presented himself in interviews leading up to its release, not definitely saying whether certain things would or would not be included ("being vague" is a generous description, "flat out lying so as not to lose revenue from pre-orders" is probably more accurate). Maybe the week 2 sales are so poor as a response to the amateur-hour launch or the fact that the game simply doesn't live up to pre-release hype. Hype which, although propagated by the media, was absolutely encouraged and not reined in by the developers.

I have tried it (as mentioned in my earlier post, despite whatever some chose to read) and decided it's not worth what they're asking for it. If you enjoy the game then go nuts.

2 week stats are not available for those games (if they are, feel free to post them, 1 minute google failed to deliver, you might have far more time on your hands for such tedium though) and NMS has not been out for a month yet. It is hard to compare the two. However, I imagine as with any game there is a natural plateau at some point or another.

If it's hard to compare the 2 then... how about not writing an article trying to compare the 2? That would seem like a logical conclusion to come to if you don't have accurate data on which to base your article.

 

[Raven]

The article was in response to people getting carried away over 2 week stats, 2 week stats that are generally very difficult to compare. The sites that do track such things do not seem to hold information correctly, instead using a rolling period, getting rid of older data.

All sales shortly dip after a game is launched (relatively speaking) because most people buy a game when it is launched, especially on PC where we have moved on from digital media. It comes out, we buy it.

Concurrent users also drop. Speaking for myself I will plough tens of hours into a game when its first come out, I may then not pick it up again for days, weeks, months after that. I haven't finished the Witcher 3 yet, done about 80 hours and not picked it up again for a couple of months now, I intend to at some point or another. That doesn't mean I don't like the game, just that I have so many to choose from and new games all the time and I just haven't had the time.

We don't need to fixate on one thing then bash others who don't, we aren't peasants.

 

[Anastasia]

I didn't really pay much attention to the hype, but I was aware of it. The game is pretty close to what I expected, I've never played a game that lived up to its marketing, they all ultimately boil down to something like a rinse / repeat series of actions. As long as you enjoy that cycle, game on.

 

[caLLous]

I agree but every now and then a game like Doom or Cities Skylines comes along to buck the trend. It's just a pity there are far more disappointing releases than surprisingly good ones nowadays.

But, in my mind, what separates this game from others that have failed to live up to pre-release hype is when the lead developer goes on a prime time chat show and says "the only way you can see yourself is if another player is looking at you"... that's not marketing fluff, that's 100% dishonest.

 

[Anastasia]

I'm not even sure I understand that, was it meant as a comment on the vastness of the game universe? Didn't players meet up on day 1? Having looked at some of the other stuff this bloke has posted, he is quite annoying. As M would say "he's a cocky little bastard".

I didn't buy Doom because I knew I would hate it (and be shit at it). I felt justification of that when a colleague showed me videos of players ripping opponents heads apart and other grotesquerie. I'll look at Cities Skylines a bit harder though if you reckon its a trend-bucker.

 

[Raven]

2 Rediters tried to, one of whom didn't have a PS+ sub, so wasn't even online...how they expected for it to work is anyone's guess. If Sony (not the devs) are saying you can play NMS online without a PS+ sub then they would be making an exception for NMS, a massive fuss would be kicked up if they allowed it for NMS and not BF4 for example.

The whole episode is a little fishy anyway, loads of questions about how one identified the other and managed to get in touch (out of game) without seeing them in game first)

I am not saying there is no online, or there is, nor do I especially care...but the test was extremely flawed and left more questions than answers.

I have named a few things and it would be nice to think someone might stumble upon one of them some day.