Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No Man’s Sky One Year Later

shamusyoung.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 144 posts

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#51

Post by crispyambulance »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #39
wutwutwutwut wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wut. The company lied about the product. Isn't that fraud? And you say people were too harsh?

Damn millennials are too harsh, expecting developers to be honest! It’s just a game after all! /s It’s because of such ridiculous attitude and low expectation that the gaming industry is at the state that it is—terrible.

Well, it is "just a game"... an innovative, highly creative game with some really interesting features.

I suspect the real creative talent behind the game got used and pressured by product-manager types to ship far before it was ready because of all the money and promises involved.

Throwing a fit because of "honesty" in game pre-marketing is sort of like asking for your money back because a movie didn't fulfill the expectations set by the trailer. Yeah, good luck with that at the multiplex, but also keep in mind that many people got their money back for the game.

And anyways, cautious folks who expect absolute honesty from their game vendors, would do better to wait for the 3rd party reviews before jumping in headfirst with their 50 bucks.

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#52

Post by Karunamon »

Bartweiss wrote: post #42

> No Man’s Sky inhabits this frustrating space alongside games like the nu Deus Ex games, the original X-Com, or the Mass Effect series. It offers something you just can’t get anywhere else, but it does so in a deeply flawed and annoying way. This really resonated with me. I have a whole pile of Steam games which have fascinating, unique traits, but are 'objectively' bad in that they failed to deliver a solid story,…

It offers something you just can’t get anywhere else, but it does so in a deeply flawed and annoying way.

This just described Elite Dangerous for me. Multiplayer MMO Descent:Freespace scratches a deeply satisfying itch that I've had since I was a kid, but that game's flaws are absolutely maddening.

Is there a word to describe the maddening annoyance at something being so close, yet so far away, for objectively silly reasons?

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#53

Post by zerohm »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #39
wutwutwutwut wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wut. The company lied about the product. Isn't that fraud? And you say people were too harsh?

Damn millennials are too harsh, expecting developers to be honest! It’s just a game after all! /s It’s because of such ridiculous attitude and low expectation that the gaming industry is at the state that it is—terrible.

I don't envy software developers under immense pressure to deliver a AAA title on time. Having to predict whether or not you can get that feature working flawlessly in 30 days isn't easy in a vacuum. Much less with your Marketing dept being overly optimistic with your prediction.

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#54

Post by LeoNatan25 »

slg wrote: post #50
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, let’s not conflate the cases you describe, where the trolling may have been and probably was malicious, with the case of No Man’s Land, where lead director flat out lied about the content of the game, and people who couldn’t control their hype fell for it and late raged. In the latter case, any professional shaming—which is the only shaming of Murray I’ve seen—is justified.

>In the latter case, any professional shaming—which is the only shaming of Murray I’ve seen—is justified. Why? The guy obviously wasn't trying to make a bad game. He was just inexperienced, got in over his head, and failed to deliver the product he wanted to build on the timeline he promised. I would have assumed if any community understands that failure isn't an unusual result in the face of ambitious goals it would…

Please. He was lying up until the last weeks to release, where no practical development on the game was taking place. I’d see your point if promises were made years before release and the company was unable to deliver. But there was clear malice here.

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#55

Post by hawkice »

slg wrote: post #50
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, let’s not conflate the cases you describe, where the trolling may have been and probably was malicious, with the case of No Man’s Land, where lead director flat out lied about the content of the game, and people who couldn’t control their hype fell for it and late raged. In the latter case, any professional shaming—which is the only shaming of Murray I’ve seen—is justified.

>In the latter case, any professional shaming—which is the only shaming of Murray I’ve seen—is justified. Why? The guy obviously wasn't trying to make a bad game. He was just inexperienced, got in over his head, and failed to deliver the product he wanted to build on the timeline he promised. I would have assumed if any community understands that failure isn't an unusual result in the face of ambitious goals it would…

Professionalism entails keeping promises. If he didn't do that, people saying he isn't good at his job isn't totally absurd.

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#56

Post by LeoNatan25 »

zerohm wrote: post #53
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn millennials are too harsh, expecting developers to be honest! It’s just a game after all! /s It’s because of such ridiculous attitude and low expectation that the gaming industry is at the state that it is—terrible.

I don't envy software developers under immense pressure to deliver a AAA title on time. Having to predict whether or not you can get that feature working flawlessly in 30 days isn't easy in a vacuum. Much less with your Marketing dept being overly optimistic with your prediction.

In this case of a small company, most of the marketing was done by lead director who was very close to the development team and obviously knew what the team was able and unable to deliver.

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#57

Post by zerohm »

hacker_9 wrote: post #21

This product was really always about trying to push the limits of procedural generation technology. It failed as a game if you ask the gamers, but exceeded expectations if you ask the developers (lucky devils are now millionaires). This 30 second clip pretty much sums up how great their marketing was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KxRp8jeliQ

In the lead up, when they were touting 6.84 * 10^23 planets or whatever, my thought was, how is that fun? If it will take all of humanity 10,000 years to see your entire game, what good does that do players now?

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#58

Post by LeoNatan25 »

crispyambulance wrote: post #51
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn millennials are too harsh, expecting developers to be honest! It’s just a game after all! /s It’s because of such ridiculous attitude and low expectation that the gaming industry is at the state that it is—terrible.

Well, it is "just a game"... an innovative, highly creative game with some really interesting features. I suspect the real creative talent behind the game got used and pressured by product-manager types to ship far before it was ready because of all the money and promises involved. Throwing a fit because of "honesty" in game pre-marketing is sort of like asking for your money back because a movie didn't fulfill the e…

This is not really a game—more like a tech demo. This was the problem outlined in the article and many, many gamers.

> And anyways, cautious folks who expect absolute honesty from their game vendors, would do better to wait for the 3rd party reviews before jumping in headfirst with their 50 bucks.

100% agree, but the two are not really related. People should be cautious, but developers and publishers should not lie.

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#59

Post by rxhernandez »

Nursie wrote: post #34

I found with NMS that I couldn't really see a game in it. The planets were lovely, the creatures fascinating, but other than grind fuel and occasionally get eaten by something, there wasn't much gameplay. With the later addition of base-building I was able to ... build a base. W00t. Lovely tech, pretty planets and stuff... not much compelling to actually do.

> Lovely x, y and z... not much compelling to actually do.

This is pokemon go in a nutshell yet it seemed to work for niantic.

Re: No Man’s Sky One Year Later

#60

Post by zerohm »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #56
zerohm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't envy software developers under immense pressure to deliver a AAA title on time. Having to predict whether or not you can get that feature working flawlessly in 30 days isn't easy in a vacuum. Much less with your Marketing dept being overly optimistic with your prediction.

In this case of a small company, most of the marketing was done by lead director who was very close to the development team and obviously knew what the team was able and unable to deliver.

Yeah, but like in the case of online multiplayer, I believe they had every intention of making that a release day feature, but it just wasn't ready. I just think calling the guy a liar is a bit harsh. All marketing is lying in some form or fashion. :P
Post reply on HN