Blogs We should be applauding No Man's Sky for letting us believe

I'm not sure it's been mixed marketing with regards to the multiplayer aspect, Sean Murray stated the only way to know what you look like is for somebody else to see you, the interviewer asked can you run into other players in the game, to which he answered yes.

 

Links to the streams?

 

So basically, this article is: Yay for the hype train!

 

Why would you celebrate a piss poorly communicated 'feature' like that? Unless you are caught up in the marketing hype train.

It does matter, we should not be accepting of non working game mechanics. Your excited by an inability for 2 people to enjoy he game together!?

That's not entirely true, as demonstrated by Jim Sterling's first video (and the many others), the loading appears hidden behind a long 'hyper jump' time, something to shame even elites initial slow ass jumps.

The games procedural generation is very 'kit-bash' esq and as a result very samey looking list of creature and even a fairly limited list of environments. Even looking at just a few video available on you tube, the repetition is already creeping in.
They have created the illusion of freedom and variety, masking repetition that will become obvious in time and gamers are right to be cynical of that.

I think the comparison to Spore that people are now starting to make is hilarious and an almost perfect fit.

 

Ah, Federation of Free Traders. That was an excellent, excellent game.

Not remotely bothered about No Man's Sky, though. Looks like a technical achievement in search of a game if you ask me.

 

Ah, I think full 3D games count in a different way to Elite or Frontier. I love both of them, and have a soft spot for Freelancer too, but this feels like something else.

Also, having played it only for an hour (was about to start No Man's Sky but Deus Ex code came this morning, so playing that) under Sony's watchful eye, I didn't see any loading screens and was promised they weren't in there. I don't think it matters if hyperdrive takes a long time though - space is big, it takes a little while to get places.

The twitch link was: http://multitwitch.tv/psytokat/thesadcactus but they don't see to have archived their streams.

 

I heard of this a while ago but only recently took a deeper look at it. From the videos where they were telling us about it I was amazed, it seemed too good to be true, a universe of this size.

Well turns out it was too good to be true. I was watching a stream the other night and after only a few planets, the similarities showed up and started to stand out more and more.

The multiplayer aspect(however small chance you had of meeting someone) was just a straight up lie. I can see this game getting quite boring extremely quickly.

 

Sorry, I'm distracted. What I mean is we've not had something allowing us to explore to the same degree. Being able to get out of your ship and walk around on every planet in a universe is something I think is a very cool thing.

As a note, I should add I really didn't enjoy No Man's Sky when I played it, so I'm not just blindly buying in to anything, I just think the level of excitement everyone has wagered (enough to ignore Sean Murray when he took to twitter to tell people the game didn't have any conventional multiplayer) is an exciting thing to see.

 

If you want it to feel like one game and not a disjointed mess of random things you have to very severely restrict variation...
It has been half a decade since the gaming industry went into procedurally generated hype overdrive due to the success of Minecraft, but none have solved that problem yet.

 

Yes but if Elite D taught anything, that is BORING after the hundredth time.

But I won't over labour the points on NMS, especially now you mentioned you have a Mankind Divided code, I am way more interested in that

 

Can't talk about it any further until the 19th of August!

 

I bet, looking forward to the write up on or around the 19th.

I have to say as much as I loved Human Revolution and more specifically the directors cut, I watched a few of the live steams from Mankind Divided Devs and some of the textures, animations and lip sync looked quite bad. A full on reduction compared to Human Revolution. Will be interesting to see if it was just a poor quality stream/early code or if it's a turkey of a sequel.

I hope Bit-Tech's review goes more in-depth than gushing over the marketing and hype.

 

Even though the multiplayer aspects could have been better communicated i did like the "No Man's Lie" phraseology that i saw as someones description.

 

I was really excited for this after their first E3 showing, but ever since then ive seen nothing particularly compelling, no purpose or depth. It seems like they've simply connected a RNG to a limited planet generator thats restricted to only influencing terraforming, colour palette changes, and mr potato based alien life.

Its not nothing, but from what they had 3 (?) years back for a stage demo, to release, it seemingly hasnt done more than connect tech in an uninspiring manner, in what should be much more awe inspiring. What that presentation left me wanting to know more about, hasnt been answered, it was exactly what you saw.

Having RNG create something only you may see doesnt immediately give it any value. Its a clever idea, but no small team was going to make anything substantial from it, RNG was their only route, but what odds on the results where no artist has had a direct influence on what you'll see, no thought, no creativity, just a machine following safe & predictable guidelines to make decisions, billions of times, and sticking that on a disc. Then rather than having interaction with others be the basis of unrestricted fun, its just you, alone, with identikit planets.

As for the MP fuss, being able to interact with another players character, to see them and just watch their movement - thats as basic as multiplayer gets. Steam says its single player, no multiplayer component. You can be confident their legal team has a more precise story on NMS's multiplayer than the version the developers have sold to the public, and they've clearly decided it doesnt have anything they term as multiplayer.

The twitch incident is quite remarkable though, given the vast size of the universe, 2 streamers debunk it on day 1. No rumours, no stories that cant be backed up, no plausibly manipulated videos... 2 live broadcasts, day 1. Given the fact that players will always be vastly outnumbered by copies sold, let alone players simultaneously online, theres an incredibly slim chance the one time you're not alone on a planet, you never even know it... but they did, and when those odds are so small, and still prove fruitless, exactly what needs to happen to successfully interact with another player?? I hope theres a good explanation, seems to need one.

 

This. Well said.

 

What Paul said plus the below link perfectly capture my thoughts and is a good read for anyone on the fence:
http://www.pcgamer.com/what-no-mans...s_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0