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No Man's Sky Cosmos

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Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#451

Post by newsoftheday »

generallee5686 wrote: post #16
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

Agreed. I want to like this game _so bad_ but I think the problem is that I'm looking for a feeling of fulfilling progression when in reality this game is just a bunch of disjointed sandboxes which is certainly not my type of game.

Sandbox games aren't really progression games, that takes a far more refined game focus; else you'd have to have a mainframe to run it.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#452

Post by newsoftheday »

c7b wrote: post #226
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 remember first hearing about NMS' concept and wishing that they would take the general idea but downsize it by at least 10 orders of magnitude. A universe with 1-100 millions of planets would still feel absolutely massive and way more than individual players would be able to exhaust, yet it would allow the creators to do a bit better curation, allow players to actually meet, maybe add more hand-crafted experiences.…

I specifically do not want hand crafted planets, it's one of the first things I look at for a space game, 1. is the planet procgen, 2. does it let me land on planets, 3. can I dig/shape the terrain (voxel). I'm aware of NMS and Empyrion - Galactic Survival.

In some ways, Empyrion has better planets than NMS in my view and far fewer of them, it might be the game you're looking for.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#453

Post by newsoftheday »

saidnooneever wrote: post #376
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

considering the company still exist and servers are still up I assume not everyone shares your opinion. its a pretty good milestone for an online game. not everyone enjoys the same kind of gameplay.

Indeed, https://steamdb.info/app/275850/charts/ shows it ticked up with Cosmos but the typical average of around 10K players isn't bad.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#454

Post by newsoftheday »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #100
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

This is why a cool tech solution (procedural generation of "levels") by itself isn't good enough. The core gameplay loop is fundamentally the same on every planet. The graphics and descriptions may change but once you've played it for a bit, it gets boring. I think video games are art, so take my opinion in context of if this is right up your alley and you really love it, then keep on keepin on!

> This is why a cool tech solution (procedural generation of "levels") by itself isn't good enough.

It's more than good enough for me and the roughly 10K typical players per month, and that's just on Steam.

I prefer procgen, I do not prefer hand crafted planet games, nothing changes in them.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#455

Post by newsoftheday »

shostack wrote: post #433
uzish wrote: post #63

I think facts would be helpful for this discussion: 1. Total Revenue - ~$500m-$700m 2. Copies Sold - ~15-20m 3. Steam Review Score: 84.36% 4. 40 Free Major Updates I don't know where the negative comments are coming from. Maybe players who played early. NMS is a great example of a developer who was devoted to their customer base, kept updating the game for free, and saw great market success in return. This is a story…

The negative comments, including the one I'll make here, are from fans who want the game to be more than it is and see the potential but continually get disappointed with its biggest flaw. That flaw is that for all the features they bolt on for free, the actual depth never feels that much deeper. It feels like the shallow pond got wider. The worlds and universe still feel repetitive and empty. There is very little em…

> Mechanics are not complex compared to simulator sandboxes like E:D or more in depth survival crafter games.

Everything about ED is what I like about NMS and vice versa for that matter.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#456

Post by pkilgore »

ux266478 wrote: post #277
pkilgore wrote: post #246

NMS is an amazing game with no soul. A metaverse. A monument to technology without the depth or people or narrative (prewritten or emergent) that makes it interesting. I'm certain there are some people whose brain is wired exactly right to love it. But I have more fun playing the n100th Call of Duty clone hearing real voices on the headset in a tight, fun game loop. But the company behind it deserves to be applauded.…

I think you have it in reverse, it's pure soul but very little game. It's just like Noctis IV, an interactive piece of art. This one has more pretense to looking like a game with its crafting system and survival mechanics that you can thankfully disable. It also has a narrative, several well-executed threads of them. It's a very introspective game with things to say about itself and the experience of living. You migh…

Ha! Yeah, I probably got the soul/game bit backwards. I'm not a game developer so I don't know the specifics but I've never seen something so damn ambitious pulled off to the extent I've seen in NMS for my brief interactions with it.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#457

Post by pkilgore »

andybak wrote: post #267
pkilgore wrote: post #246

NMS is an amazing game with no soul. A metaverse. A monument to technology without the depth or people or narrative (prewritten or emergent) that makes it interesting. I'm certain there are some people whose brain is wired exactly right to love it. But I have more fun playing the n100th Call of Duty clone hearing real voices on the headset in a tight, fun game loop. But the company behind it deserves to be applauded.…

Ironically less so as they've added more to do but: > NMS is an amazing game with no soul. I found the game in the early days to be incredibly soulful - it was almost an interactive poem. Full of emptiness and loss. I loved it back then.

And that's great! It's what I meant by some brains being wired exactly right for it. I can recognize it as being very right for some people! But something about it was very wrong for me, and clearly many others. I wish I understood it.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#458

Post by newsoftheday »

darkwi11ow wrote: post #393

I discovered NMS only recently (100 hours in, 2nd save now), and it has become one of my favorite games. It reminds me of the old TES (Morrowind, Oblivion), but the world is truly limitless, and possibilities are huge. I enjoy finding rare things, and 100 hours in NMS keeps delivering me those. I get why people complain about challenges being no biggie, but to me it is an advantage: I pick NMS when I want to chill an…

> I pick NMS when I want to chill and feel lost in the endless world, and when I want challenge I play other games.

Wow, I bounce around several space games and play each for different reasons. Your statement explains it perfectly.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#459

Post by andybak »

pkilgore wrote: post #457
andybak wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically less so as they've added more to do but: > NMS is an amazing game with no soul. I found the game in the early days to be incredibly soulful - it was almost an interactive poem. Full of emptiness and loss. I loved it back then.

And that's great! It's what I meant by some brains being wired exactly right for it. I can recognize it as being very right for some people! But something about it was very wrong for me, and clearly many others. I wish I understood it.

Ah, but there was a (maybe unintentional) implication that the people who loved it were oblivious to "soul" or something like.

(The core problem here is that aesthetic disagreements are often expressed in a way that makes them sound like moral failings. I do it myself far too often)

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