No Man's Sky [PC]

[Malo]

Value is always subjective. If value is partially based on the amount of hours one puts in a game, you could say this game as very high value for money. I bought it based on the game it was released as, barely knowing any of the hype leading up to its release and I've enjoyed it for 30+ hours already.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So y'all saying this is a good game to get for $8 during the next Steam sale or something?

Well, pretty much every streamer and YouTuber that I watch hates the game at 60 USD, but thinks it would have been a decent game as a 15-20 USD early access game/indie game. Even one guy that I watched who loved it for the first 2 hours, then hated it for the next 18 hours, and now loves it after 20 hours thinks it is hugely overpriced at 60 USD.

Also, UI and UI controls are an abomination on PC. But the game seems decent if you get past all that and are into resource gathering, exploring, resource gathering, fighting the inventory system, resource gathering, etc.

Regards,
SB

 

[Albuquerque]

Also, UI and UI controls are an abomination on PC. But the game seems decent if you get past all that and are into resource gathering, exploring, resource gathering, fighting the inventory system, resource gathering, etc.

I'm not sure if I hate the UX and controls as much as SB, but we certainly agree with the second sentence of gathering, exploring, and inventory management. Even the inventory management doesn't really irritate me as much as it seems to affect others; sure it's a limitation, but that's just one avenue of strategy.

My own personal complaint is the inability to set my own waypoints, especially to things I've already found. My silly story with my miles-long walk to fix my newly found ship was ultlimately a problem with NOT being able to somehow localize / set a way point / mark on my map to get back to the crashed ship. It would have been VERY simple to get back in my prior ship, fly where I needed to be, pick up the Zinc, and then fly back -- if I could ever FIND the damned thing again. Or even better, turning OFF the stupid waypoints which sometimes start to collect in your HUD because it didn't properly detect you had visited the location.

Same thing for solar systems. If I wanted to visit the solar system in which I started the game, I'll have to start randomly picking stars "behind me" in the galactic map and hope I hit it. I haven't found any way to do any waypointing in this game, and THAT is something which needs to be present when your inventory space is constrained.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

My own personal complaint is the inability to set my own waypoints, especially to things I've already found. My silly story with my miles-long walk to fix my newly found ship was ultlimately a problem with NOT being able to somehow localize / set a way point / mark on my map to get back to the crashed ship. It would have been VERY simple to get back in my prior ship, fly where I needed to be, pick up the Zinc, and then fly back -- if I could ever FIND the damned thing again. Or even better, turning OFF the stupid waypoints which sometimes start to collect in your HUD because it didn't properly detect you had visited the location.

Same thing for solar systems. If I wanted to visit the solar system in which I started the game, I'll have to start randomly picking stars "behind me" in the galactic map and hope I hit it. I haven't found any way to do any waypointing in this game, and THAT is something which needs to be present when your inventory space is constrained.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of Streamers and YouTubers that have absolutely lost it on stream or VOD about those things. It's a shame really as there is a fantastic foundation there for what could have been a really exceptional game.

I do also have to say this is the first game I've seen (that I remember) where there is pop-out! Where you see a resource node at a distance, but once you get close, it disappears. Maybe it's been patched, as I've only seem a few streams or VOD that have shown it and commented on it.

Regards,
SB

 

[Bludd]

Yeah, I've seen a lot of Streamers and YouTubers that have absolutely lost it on stream or VOD about those things. It's a shame really as there is a fantastic foundation there for what could have been a really exceptional game.

I do also have to say this is the first game I've seen (that I remember) where there is pop-out! Where you see a resource node at a distance, but once you get close, it disappears. Maybe it's been patched, as I've only seem a few streams or VOD that have shown it and commented on it.

Regards,
SB

I've encountered it in this manner: I find a pillar of gold or something, I mine the crap out of it and then fly around for some more. I lose my bearings, as you do, and happen upon the same node except I don't realise it until I land and walk towards it only for it to disappear and turn into the crater that was the gold node I mined.

 

[Arwin]

which sometimes start to collect in your HUD because it didn't properly detect you had visited the location.

Actually I had that happen once, so I flew back and it turned out to be the place where I had to collect the anti-matter but hadn't. Otherwise, I've had them disappear generally when I did what I needed to do there according to the (basically) tutorial, and/or by 'discovering' that location by activating its waypoint beacon thingy.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Albuquerque]

I've encountered it in this manner: I find a pillar of gold or something, I mine the crap out of it and then fly around for some more. I lose my bearings, as you do, and happen upon the same node except I don't realise it until I land and walk towards it only for it to disappear and turn into the crater that was the gold node I mined.

Yes, I too have encountered this exact situation.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I've encountered it in this manner: I find a pillar of gold or something, I mine the crap out of it and then fly around for some more. I lose my bearings, as you do, and happen upon the same node except I don't realise it until I land and walk towards it only for it to disappear and turn into the crater that was the gold node I mined.

It's also nutty how inconsistent the distance is for the mined node to become visible. If you mine something and walk away it usually retains its mined look for quite a distance but if you enter your ship and launch, or walk a good distance away and come back, it often doesn't pop-in until you're really close.

 

[Jupiter]

I hope this is not truth - Discoveries possibly not being saved in No Man's Sky: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1269918&page=1

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I hope this is not truth - Discoveries possibly not being saved in No Man's Sky:

Oh noes. That would.. uhh.. actually absolutely no difference. Unless you're some kind of manwolf who likes to mark his territory by digitally pissing your SteamID over digital worlds that there is very little chance any person would every see.

That said I've run across a neighbouring system discovered by "Microsoft Infopath". All technology in the system was running Windows Vista and everything was on fire.

 

[Albuquerque]

Oh noes. That would.. uhh.. actually absolutely no difference. Unless you're some kind of manwolf who likes to mark his territory by digitally pissing your SteamID over digital worlds that there is very little chance any person would every see.

That said I've run across a neighbouring system discovered by "Microsoft Infopath". All technology in the system was running Windows Vista and everything was on fire.

This entire post is awesome. FIrst sentence nails it; I really couldn't care less if I EVER discover a system / planet / waypoint which someone found first. I've been naming some of them (Exosuit upgrade! waypoints and Moon Made of Emeril! as examples) and I've been happily accepting the credits I receive for my uploads. If they go absolutely nowhere, perhaps that much the better.

The second sentence is comedy gold. Were the planets orbiting a blue star of death?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Thanks I also named a few things using practical descriptions to make up for the lack of customizable waypoints. I like the game but it's equally flawed as it is addictive. I find I enjoy it in small bursts.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Oh noes. That would.. uhh.. actually absolutely no difference. Unless you're some kind of manwolf who likes to mark his territory by digitally pissing your SteamID over digital worlds that there is very little chance any person would every see.

Firstly, what's the point of providing a naming mechanic and then advertising it, that people can come across other people's discoveries?

Secondly, the maths for the probabilities in this game is bunk, and someone needs to find out what's really going on. Chance of encountering a planet someone else has named and visited should be infinitesimally small, but it's happening. A friend encountered a planet named by someone else, which should be of the order of 1 in 10^13* (10^19 / 10^6 players). ie. shouldn't happen. But it did. So either players are being grouped and not randomly distributed, or there aren't 18 quintillion planets. Given frequency of encounters, I reckon it's more like billions of planets. Maybe a 64 bit seed but a 32 bit planet count regards what's stored on the servers.

* For those who don't follow/visualise probabilities, it'd take one billion people playing the game each visiting 10,000 planets for one to come across a planet someone else had visited first, in a completely random distribution.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Firstly, what's the point of providing a naming mechanic and then advertising it, that people can come across other people's discoveries?

Given the size of the universe, I never understood the importance or appeal of this mechanic on any level.

Secondly, the maths for the probabilities in this game is bunk, and someone needs to find out what's really going on.

This is definitely not what I would expect so early after launch. The most likely reason is that the fundamental seed isn't nearly as randomly varied as people (myself included) were expecting. That doesn't mean there aren't as many planets or varieties of life but it could mean that some things are way more common and other things are way rarer that you would expect. Randomness is hard. At work we actually buy random data, true randomness is very difficult to generate artificially without special hardware.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Definitely. Unity's 'random' can throw up very annoying repeated ranges. Distribution counts for a lot. But I'm definitely starting to think that the number of planets is 32 bit. Pretty sure I mentioned this elsewhere, that recording a name for every planet, compressed to a single byte somehow, would require 18 quintillion bytes. Only storing deltas would offset that massively, of course. But there's really nothing to be gained from providing that many planets. 32 bit, 4 billion planets, would be plenty for a few million players, and would explain how come a few hundred thousand players are managing to come across each other. But yes, non-random random could also be the culprit.

 

[3dilettante]

The value is based on a 64-bit seed value for a procedural generation algorithm. The storage size is effectively 64 bits + the executable for the generator.

Is it 18 quintillion planets per galaxy, or in the game? As confirmed, there are 256 galaxies in the game.
Is it 18 quintillion planets per galaxy, not including moons, etc?
What's the geometry of the galaxy?

Every player, with 100K+ for the PC on the first day, starts somewhere in the outer reaches of the same galaxy.
The probability is like a bigger version of the birthday paradox on band or surface range of stars in the same galaxy's edge.

The "random" seed is the range of 0-(2^64-1), that's how everyone can see the same planet at a given coordinate.
That the algorithm can take 64 bits is not quite the same as stating that the game is obligated to use all of them.

There's also a distinction between something being mathematically "unique" and actually being "different" for such large numbers and a limited algorithm.
The algorithm is constrained from producing gibberish, so any number of sanity checks and value clamps can mean any number of seed values produce the same results as far as human observers go. It wouldn't help that a player's on-foot view will only see a minute fraction of world 2^52-2342342342342 that might have a mildly different island on its equator than planet 2^9+5283272, or if there's a pixel difference when viewing planet 2^21+382782 in galaxy 17 at the apogee of a polar orbit.
A lot of the other non-planetary items are generated from a far more finite set of base units, and various structures are absolutely identical in form and even orientation relative to the map.

 

[Malo]

You know I think Sean Murray has become the new Peter Molyneux in the span of one release and will probably haunt him forever. Can't say he doesn't deserve it though lol.

And that simpsons gif from that gaf thread is just gold.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No-one deserves that really. Molyneux's reputations was earned over title upon title of fallacious claims, which everyone kept forgiving when his new game was announced. NMS is one title and Murray's being burned as if he was guilty of the same crimes as Molyneux.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

People forget Spore, which was sold on an ever greater promise and scope than NMS. Fortunately they concealed the failure with a DRM system so bad few people could play it. Genius!!

 

[3dilettante]

I have seen Spore brought up in some comparisons, such as the hype, procedural generation, space theme, and thinness of gameplay.
I think Spore may have aimed higher and missed, but in many aspects landed higher as well.
Part of that might be a testament to the resources Maxis probably had, but also due to a philosophical difference.

Procedural generation was done for things like planets in a way akin to NMS, although their personalities were not as critical. If there were an editor for things, or human creation that could be shared in NMS, it would populate the world and give it more resonance.
Creatures had procedural generation, but it was used to generate the behavior and physics of human-generated content--as a means of enabling human creativity and sharing. One major advantage of this was that it allowed for creatures to be uploaded and shared with mere kilobytes of data.

That does show one major difference. The movements and personality imbued in even the lowliest user-created floppy dong monster were given room to be represented by thousands to tens of thousands of bytes.
No Man's Sky gives its planets 8.