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

No Man's Sky Cosmos

nomanssky.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 277 posts

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#31

Post by john_strinlai »

at the time of posting, i think every top-level comment except one is negative. so, i'd like to balance it by saying that i have never seen a better executed turnaround than what the no man's sky team did. they cratered their reputation on launch, worked hard and long to restore it, and then continued to offer free updates long after they needed to. lots of respect there. (i will reward the effort by purchasing their next game on day 1, sight unseen.)

i also happen to enjoy the game itself.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#32

Post by jklinger410 »

helle253 wrote: post #5

It's amazing how, every time i come back to NMS, the whole thing feels like... nothing. It's a very cool and ambitious project, but there's fundamentally nothing substantial to it in terms of gameplay. It still feels to me, a decade later, more like a very very impressive tech demo than a video game

I feel the same way about Starfield. Just soulless projects instead of engaging video games.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#33

Post by bluejay2387 »

I really like this game and have played it for years but I think it's popularity outgrew it's niche. It's a very niche game, the devs have made the ultimate space Lego kit, but I see lots of people complain about it being boring because there are no stakes, no challenge. I think they are trying to play the game they want it to be not the game it is. The overwhelming scale of the meme this game has become I think is the cause of that.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#34

Post by JohnMakin »

big-chungus4 wrote: post #29

What are people on about, there is tons to do in NMS, tons of missions, expeditions, build bases, build a corvet, hunt rate parts, ships, rifles, creatures, manage a settlement, automate crafting chains, find a lucrative trading route, and this new update apps even more things. I'd never consider NMS anything close to empty, there is so much variety in the content

I think people are regurgitating takes from early in the game's development - the game of the last few years is absolutely nothing like the early one and I agree, there is a surprising amount of stuff to do.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#35

Post by meowface »

jasonjmcghee wrote: post #11
helle253 wrote: post #5

It's amazing how, every time i come back to NMS, the whole thing feels like... nothing. It's a very cool and ambitious project, but there's fundamentally nothing substantial to it in terms of gameplay. It still feels to me, a decade later, more like a very very impressive tech demo than a video game

A big name in proc gen is Kate Compton who coined the term "10,000 bowls of oatmeal" to describe this phenomenon of technically unique but not different enough to matter - I googled "10000 bowls of oatmeal" to see if there was a good article and the second link was about it and nms https://www.challies.com/articles/no-mans-sky-and-10000-bowl...

One thing this article lacks is any tips on how to still do procedural generation while partly mitigating the oatmeal issue. In other words, define a more sophisticated generation procedure that can add character and identity.

It probably won't be as good as an artful human designer hand-crafting a world, but it can be better than something overly random and blandly uniform in distribution.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#36

Post by swiftcoder »

Avicebron wrote: post #17
helle253 wrote: post #5

It's amazing how, every time i come back to NMS, the whole thing feels like... nothing. It's a very cool and ambitious project, but there's fundamentally nothing substantial to it in terms of gameplay. It still feels to me, a decade later, more like a very very impressive tech demo than a video game

I feel exactly the same. There has to be a way to do procedural generation in a way that doesn't feel "sparse". A thought that comes to me as I type this is what if you try to co-evolve the ecosystems so it doesn't feel like it's just a mix of the same base components in different quantities.

> I feel exactly the same. There has to be a way to do procedural generation in a way that doesn't feel "sparse"

A good start is not to try and build an entire galaxy. Procgen that focuses on the fine detail of a relatively small world have a big leg up over these "everything generators" (i.e. think of something more on the scale of Tiny Glade or Bad North)

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#37

Post by viktorcode »

LelouBil wrote: post #2

I am just wondering where do they get the money to keep pushing out big content updates like this

Small studio, don't have to generate a lot of sales to keep them afloat. Updates push visibility and generate new sales. Obviously, they need new projects to keep them afloat in the future.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#38

Post by KronisLV »

helle253 wrote: post #5

It's amazing how, every time i come back to NMS, the whole thing feels like... nothing. It's a very cool and ambitious project, but there's fundamentally nothing substantial to it in terms of gameplay. It still feels to me, a decade later, more like a very very impressive tech demo than a video game

You do occasionally find some pretty cool stuff.

I found a barren planet in a black hole system where the vibe was all dark and shadowy with the light being tinted purple, and just some crystals or something on the surface, alongside a damaged robot that you could interact with.

There was also a world that had high Sentinel activity where I founded a settlement (well, more like took over managing it), however as it turns out it’d have those gravity storms often during which you could soar through the air.

There was also a world where the surface was toxic and you couldn’t stay on it for long, so I excavated a base underground, like something out of Red Faction.

For what it’s worth, a lot of it can feel samey (most of the scanning) and kinda boring, but while there aren’t that many insanely huge and cinematic moments, sometimes RNG hits just right and you get something nice.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#39

Post by raincole »

helle253 wrote: post #5

It's amazing how, every time i come back to NMS, the whole thing feels like... nothing. It's a very cool and ambitious project, but there's fundamentally nothing substantial to it in terms of gameplay. It still feels to me, a decade later, more like a very very impressive tech demo than a video game

It more or less reminds me of that Rick and Morty episode. They were playing an asteroid shooting.

> Morty: it's boring. crank up the realism slider to max

> Rick: why does it get even more empty? Wait, I got it... because the universe is empty.

At the end, I think there is little point in simulating the vastness of the universe in a video game (even just a fraction of it).

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#40

Post by swiftcoder »

john_strinlai wrote: post #31

at the time of posting, i think every top-level comment except one is negative. so, i'd like to balance it by saying that i have never seen a better executed turnaround than what the no man's sky team did. they cratered their reputation on launch, worked hard and long to restore it, and then continued to offer free updates long after they needed to. lots of respect there. (i will reward the effort by purchasing their…

For sure. Even as someone who bounced off the game several times, the scope of their post-launch additions are truly impressive, even matching up against a lot of the subscription games (whose whole deal is regular content drops)
Post reply on HN