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No Man's Sky Cosmos

nomanssky.com

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Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#211

Post by benterris »

k4j8 wrote: post #108
glenstein wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think it's a remarkable success story and they can and should be incredibly proud of what they've built. But this vision of what is meant by cosmic depth and expansiveness seems to tragically miss the point. Compare it to even our own solar system where even so much as a new high-res photo of the hexagon storm on Saturn comes with stunning new and specific detail, or the "heart" on Pluto, we're practically am…

The best space exploration game I've played is Outer Wilds ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/ ), but instead of the NMS sandbox there are puzzles.

Outer Wilds is really an amazing game. I highly recommend playing it without looking at anything online: when I started I reached for google every time I was stuck, just to realise I could have found answers if I has searched just a little bit more. After a while I stuck to a rule to never look at answers online, and it was such a bliss to finally crack puzzles after trying lots of different things.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#212

Post by arrrg »

zf00002 wrote: post #43
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…

no matter what, that always happens with this game. Any news about it causes the people who played for 10 minutes at launch however long ago come back to tell you how much they didn't like it.

My perspective on this is that it’s fine to not like things and bounce off them. I also bounced off NMS, no big deal. It just isn’t for me and that’s fine.

All I know is that they worked hard on this game and found plenty of people who enjoy playing it a lot and that’s that. Doesn’t mean they are wrong, doesn’t mean I’m wrong in bouncing off. I do think it is interesting to explore why I bounced off and others might not – I can identify with many of the negative comments here, especially the 10,000 bowls of oatmeal one regarding the procedural generation which probably was the one thing I was most fascinated by when I decided to install the game – but there are so many other systems and elements in this game that if you more into those I can easily see why the game works much better for you.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#213

Post by waffletower »

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

NMS seems to epitomize the excesses of the Agile development philosophy with most of their release updates -- small targeted tack-ons to the game engine that provide something tangible yet shallow for users to explore, usually disconnected from narrative. The same cargo drop configurations, how damaged containers always require removing the same rusted metal or goop, and how shelters have the same exact configuration, never ever evolve or change. It has such a strangely repetitive ghost town character. They could easily target their "agile" deliverables around diversifying and breathing more life into the worlds if they could span more "sprints". Unfortuntately, the tack-ons feel hollow, empty, and often ship incredibly buggy. They used procedural modeling to create an impressive array of planets, but never modeled the planet drops with the same care and diversity.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#214

Post by _s_a_m_ »

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 played it day 1 back then and even bought a PS4 only to play it and played it over the years repeatedly after every larger update for about 1000 hours in total. The fundamental promise they made was never shipped, which was originally a large variety of procedural flora, fauna, and planet. It is still the same uninspired boring stale core that it was day 1 with minimal extensions which produce absolutely boring world that immediately repeat. The game was always Waiting for Godot, waiting for a game that was originally announced with an interesting procedural feature but never shipped. Meanwhile I discovered the history of procedural games, which is a story of fails.

I still sometimes hope that the actually rewrote the entire procedural variety system but it cant happen because people built persistent shit on those planets. They probably have to launch a new game.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#215

Post by dom96 »

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 played it, got stuck in a giant crater with seemingly no way to get out of it. That was basically the extent of my experience.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#216

Post by TylerE »

trashb wrote: post #86
raincole wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

"I have never thought to myself that realism is fun" - Gabe Newell

True realism is often interesting though, which provides more long term engagement than fleeting shallow fun. Look at some of the hard core 3rd party addons for flight sims, for instance, which are so realistic they actually ship licensed versions of the real aircraft training manuals and checklists - because every switch and procedure works.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#218

Post by IshKebab »

k4j8 wrote: post #108
glenstein wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think it's a remarkable success story and they can and should be incredibly proud of what they've built. But this vision of what is meant by cosmic depth and expansiveness seems to tragically miss the point. Compare it to even our own solar system where even so much as a new high-res photo of the hexagon storm on Saturn comes with stunning new and specific detail, or the "heart" on Pluto, we're practically am…

The best space exploration game I've played is Outer Wilds ( https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/ ), but instead of the NMS sandbox there are puzzles.

I played it recently. Very good game (although mediocre ending if we're being honest). The thing they did really really well is that it's true exploration in the sense that you could complete the game very quickly if you've already played it, because the only thing you need to complete it is some knowledge that you discover by exploring.

For example there might be a wormhole that takes you to a different destination if you fly through it backwards. You're very unlikely to find that out by chance, but if you explore you'll find a thing that tells you (probably behind some other puzzle).

Great game.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#219

Post by fxwin »

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...

I haven't played it myself, but surely an article written one month after the game's release doesn't do it justice, considering there have been multiple major updates attempting to address the gripes players initially had with the game in the 10 years since then (And review trends on steam indicate that these attempts were successful)

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#220

Post by weard_beard »

embedding-shape wrote: post #115
glenstein wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think it's a remarkable success story and they can and should be incredibly proud of what they've built. But this vision of what is meant by cosmic depth and expansiveness seems to tragically miss the point. Compare it to even our own solar system where even so much as a new high-res photo of the hexagon storm on Saturn comes with stunning new and specific detail, or the "heart" on Pluto, we're practically am…

What do you think people want a true space exploration game to feel like?

Rick and Morty. Procgen surfaces but a human story under every furniture-aliens-sit-on-humans multiverse.

Or alternatively Scavengers Reign

Personally I want spelljammer. Baldurs Gate meets Sea of Thieves in space with 80s killer clowns

There is so much drama that can happen there and the scale is the least of it.

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