No Man's Sky Cosmos • Hacker News Board

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#391

Post by Pifanjr » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 8:23 AM UTC

geokon wrote: post #292

kjs3 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much the perfect description of NMS. Every planet is 'different', every site on the planets are 'different', but not different in any meaningful way. Oh look...this planet has 4 legged animals that are green and bumpy and the last one they were brown and spiky...but they move the same and act the same. Yawn.

Isn't Mincecraft basically that? I've never played it, so would be curious to hear from someone who's played both. From the outside both look very dull/soulless and yet people spend hours playing Minecraft building things - just engaging with their imaginations

I think one thing that Minecraft does very well is that it does not push the player towards any of its game systems, which allows the player to make up their own fun. No Man's Sky on the other hand throws a lot of different game systems at you. Just having points of interests pushes the player into just going from one to the other instead of them exploring what might make the game fun for them.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#392

Post by Ekaros » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 8:30 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #363

wvenable wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think because the Minecraft world is like a giant tub of Lego. You go out into the procedural world to collect your pieces and then you create from that. It's actually your creations that are interesting and without them Minecraft would equally purposeless and bland.

That's exactly what No Man's Sky is though. There are entire communities centered around colonizing entire regions of the procedurally generated space. People build some seriously intricate bases and it really makes the worlds feel lived in.

I think biggest issue is that you are not constrained to single world. But instead directed to be mostly directionless... Some players just feel no reason to comeback. Where as with Minecraft being in single world you are more forced to comeback to various locations you build things in.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#393

Post by darkwi11ow » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 8:49 AM UTC

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 and feel lost in the endless world, and when I want challenge I play other games. My other favorite game is Dota, it is very hard, challenging and demanding game, but one cant chill in Dota at all like you do in NMS.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#394

Post by meowface » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 8:51 AM UTC

kettlecorn wrote: post #123

meowface wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've thought about it a bunch over the years and my advice is to follow a few principles: procedural elements should almost always impact how the player plays, procedural elements should cross-interact with each other as much as possible, and procedural elements should be understandable to the player. As an example in No Man's Sky the player immediately starts with a jetpack. It makes it so the terrain is approached…

Very good points.

Weird question: do you have any tips on how one might apply these principles to a semi-stochastic synth plugin for musicians?

(I have several ideas, but I'd be curious to hear yours, independently.)

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#395

Post by Pifanjr » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 8:56 AM UTC

fallingbananna wrote: post #381

matheusmoreira wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what No Man's Sky is though. There are entire communities centered around colonizing entire regions of the procedurally generated space. People build some seriously intricate bases and it really makes the worlds feel lived in.

The last time I tried Minecraft, from the point I dropped into the world, I could start punching dirt and trees and placing stuff around and building things. In No Man's Sky I got dropped in some world that felt empty with tutorial on how to collect some stuff and how to get to the ship. The first impressions weren't the same between these 2 games.

I made this point earlier in the comments, but I think the main difference between Minecraft and No Man's Sky is that Minecraft does not push the players towards specific gameplay systems, while No Man's Sky does, making No Man's Sky feel much less like a box of legos and more like a collection of specific tasks/activities.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#396

Post by rbreve » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 8:59 AM UTC

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

The first 50 hours of NMS are really great but then you start to learn the patterns, even though it is a randomized/procedural, at some point it becomes predictable and boring. The other problem is that the battles are boring, they lack something and building big ships and bases feels pointless.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#397

Post by Ekaros » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:03 AM UTC

royal__ wrote: post #181

LelouBil wrote: post #2

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

No Mans Sky has sold over 10 million copies. I'll let you do the math. They are still basically an indie company as well.

Without your typical tech/startup/vc/corporate bloat those sales will carry reasonable sized team very far. And it is really about what is reasonably sized team and what is not.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#398

Post by Leptonmaniac » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:10 AM UTC

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…

As someone who bounced off Morrowind in favor of Gothic (II) because there weren't enough guardrails in place for my old self, how much of the old "here are some breadcrumbs and here's the game's final goal, but the way in between is up to you to find" design intent is in No Mans Sky? I love finding little niche stories, but they have to be crafted with intent, (procedural) environmental storytelling does not scratch that itch. Is NMS worth trying out?

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#399

Post by jan_m_savage » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:18 AM UTC

NMS gameplay is just too lonely and when i used to play it, it would reinforce my sense of extreme loneliness (I was single, and a foreigner in the Far East).

Minecraft is another game that made me feel utterly depressed due to the loneliness factor.

At least in Fallout 4, there are companions, a robot, a dog, etc. and a lot of conversation and decision-making. I can't justify wasting time on NMS ever again.

Re: No Man's Sky Cosmos

#400

Post by AltruisticGapHN » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:28 AM UTC

While I love the game I still think they are overhyping the game in the trailers.

The game always looks far more dramatic in the trailers than it actually is in practice.

One example that struck me is how they show players flying in formation while in practice that's almost impossible to do : your ship always flies faster or slower and it's really hard to follow someone else, even the NPC ships.

They also often show in trailers situations with 3-4 players doing all kind of cool stuff but the game never is that busy and multiplayer is still very janky you often dont see quite the same things as other players.

So I am excited about Light No Fire, but also not expecting something mindblowing. Unless they only port engine improvements, but no gameplay improvements from LNF and one hopes with LNF they really improved the combat mechanics which is the weakest element of NMS.