No Man's Sky

mmosu · July 10, 2016, 11:21:24 AM

Hope I don't end up running into either of you!

As far as what happens when you die, I believe you respawn at the place you last communicated with the Atlas. That's the floating diamond shape you see in all of the marketing material - it's somehow central to the plot, although we don't know how just yet. Consequently, any discoveries made between your last upload to the Atlas and your death would be lost. I also believe that if you die in your ship then you lose it and will have to find/purchase a new one. Bad situation yes, but not as bad as starting over.

Art Blade · July 10, 2016, 04:50:27 PM

hehe mmosu, just don't be so ham-fisted as to fly by my ship with your gun ports open by way of greeting

Deaths? In my opinion, having to start over is the worst of all game concepts. Given that weapons are in the game, violent deaths for whatever reason will happen, too. That's why I don't think that death is going to be ruinous. It would also prevent players from risking much and as such it would be against the game's principle of going places where there might be potential killers ("animals") and thus prevent players from exploring happily and freely.

fragger · July 13, 2016, 09:16:23 PM

I didn't really mean "start all over" as in start right from scratch but from where you saved last. I didn't word it very well. I wouldn't think they'd make you start over with nothing. At least, I hope not...

There's quite a few videos of NMS on Youtube now, and much else online, but I've decided I'm not going to look at any more until the game releases. I've looked at about half a dozen clips, but that's it. I want to experience it first hand, for better or for worse, without feeling as though the novelty has already worn off.

I'm so curious to see how this game will go. Will it be the greatest thing that's ever happened to gaming, or will it be a snoozefest that falls flat on its face? It could go either way at this point. What does amaze me is how many commentators on Youtube are already passing judgement on the game before they've even experienced it ::)

Personally I'd always hoped that someone would come up with a game like this. Many years ago I thought about how cool it would be if there was a game where you had your own spaceship, a whole galaxy to explore, and the freedom to do so. The question is though, will it actually be fun? Will it put me to sleep or deprive me of sleep? I can't possibly have any clue about that yet, but I still can't wait to find out which it will be :-()

Art Blade · July 14, 2016, 04:15:06 AM

alright fragger, your "start over" only reminded me of DayZ in which you did have to start all over after your avatar's death. And I hated it. :-D

fragger · July 14, 2016, 07:55:14 AM

I'm sure I would have hated that too ????

mmosu · July 14, 2016, 03:08:20 PM

That's the million dollar question right now - will it be fun?
I think it will though and this is why:
1) Hello Games is a very small, extremely talented and extremely passionate studio
2) they have maintained complete creative control over the project from day one, despite being financially backed by Sony itself (a company that, I feel, is pretty good at recognizing genius when they see it - just look at their multi-decade spanning partnership with Hideo Kojima)
3) they have played their cards SO close to their chests so far, which could be cause for concern, but in my view should be cause for even more confidence given point 1&2. They've got something REALLY good and they know it.
4) this game had been hatching in Sean Murray's head, in one form or another, for most of his adult life. It is truly his magnum opus in every sense of the expression, and he seems to be a hopeless perfectionist. I hear the guy actually sold his house to gain the working capital they needed to jump start the project and get Sony's attention - that's the kind of commitment I can really get behind.

mmosu · July 14, 2016, 05:52:00 PM

Aaaannnnd on that note . . . new trailer!! WooHooooo!!! :-X ;D

https://youtu.be/gnSwxSjy0kY

fragger · July 14, 2016, 06:51:52 PM

(Slaps hands over eyes) I don't want to look... I don't want to look... (opens fingers a crack) Damn, I've got to have a look... Wow!

Good points mmosu. NMS is obviously a labour of love, not just a financial exercise. You get the impression that if money was no object, Murray and co. would still want to go ahead and do it, much like Peter Jackson and his Lord Of The Rings films. When someone is realising a long-held dream and they have the creative control to bring it about the way they've envisaged, and when passion, commitment and TLC are driving forces rather than a lust for the almighty buck, the result is usually something pretty special and not just more rehashed same-ol' same-ol'.

A big reason that Sid Meier's games have always been popular is because he and his friends have always made their games for themselves to play. They realised long ago that if they came up with an idea for a game that they would like to play themselves, then went ahead and made it, lots of other people would like playing it too. That's probably the case with Sean Murray and NMS as well - it's a game he's always wanted to play himself, so it's not so much a commercial product as it is wish-fulfillment.

Art Blade · July 14, 2016, 07:07:13 PM

same goes for all GTA. Their philosophy is, "we create games that we like and if we do, others might as well." Looking at how few advertisements were released for GTAV yet everyone who liked the franchise was already waiting impatiently to get their grubby mitts on a copy.. in only three days after its release, the game sales were over one billion dollars which was a record -- the fastest selling game in history.

However, one can only hope that NMS manages to pull off what Elite:Dangerous didn't: to stay entertaining. Elite sports a whole universe with something like a quintillion stars and planets and such but it got boring due to.. barren worlds and self-repeating mission concepts. Find, buy, fly, sell. And back. Or pirate around other ships within a comparatively small part of the universe. Once you were outside the populated area (aka known inhabited universe) there was nothing but barren worlds. It is possible to travel 800 light years with solar scoops for energy refills for your ship but you were screwed if you cracked your windscreen that far out in space..

Dweller_Benthos · July 15, 2016, 08:18:43 AM

We shall see in a few weeks, I guess. I'm really thinking this is a very high tech version of Minecraft, in space.

mmosu · July 15, 2016, 12:51:04 PM

I think that's probably a pretty good comparison D_B. You know on day one some knucklehead is gonna try to drill all the way through a planet just to see what happens

Oh, and sorry fragger - just as I hit the post button the thought occurred to me "he did just say he didn't want to see any more..."

:-()

mmosu · July 15, 2016, 12:59:28 PM

Here's a frame-by-frame version of the same trailer for anyone who wants a closer look, but Art might have to translate for most of us :-D

https://youtu.be/F-EYzzwiLAQ

Art Blade · July 15, 2016, 01:13:20 PM

OK mmosu.. hehe. I don't want to create a transcript of some 23 minutes of potential bullshit :-() but for you just at least this much: the guy thinks this was the "explore" trailer and that perhaps every week one more trailer will follow, namely "fight," "trade" and "survive."

fragger · July 16, 2016, 06:11:46 AM

Quote from: mmosu on July 15, 2016, 12:51:04 PM
Oh, and sorry fragger - just as I hit the post button the thought occurred to me "he did just say he didn't want to see any more..."

No worries. Don't let me stop you posting links! It's my hang-up, not anyone else's :-()

@D_B If it turns out to be Minecraft in space, it should be right up your alley ;)

Dweller_Benthos · July 18, 2016, 07:50:16 AM

I haven't scrutinized all the videos, heck, I haven't even watched a lot of them, but it appears that a lot of the Minecraft concepts are in this game. Start out with nearly nothing, then gather, build, explore, gather, build, explore. After that it's upgrade everything to explore some more.

Art Blade · July 18, 2016, 09:54:03 AM

they may have "copied" the game principle but at least the graphics seem to be a tad less pixelated.

Dweller_Benthos · July 20, 2016, 08:14:07 AM

There are plenty of games out now with almost exactly the same concept, and it was hardly new when Minecraft did it. Some look exactly like Minecraft, with the blocks, only with higher res textures.

mmosu · July 20, 2016, 05:12:14 PM

"Fight" trailer:

https://youtu.be/FqrOeqGTRJM

mmosu · July 20, 2016, 05:19:03 PM

Also thought this was cool, several vids of the galactic map strung together. What unique adventures wait for us out there in the void? 8)

https://youtu.be/6GdcpZpp7gc

mmosu · July 22, 2016, 12:51:46 PM

"Trade" trailer:

https://youtu.be/eRjDumWb3IA

fragger · July 24, 2016, 04:48:05 AM

That galactic map video made me think of the title of an Issac Asimov book: "The Stars Like Dust".

I know I said I wasn't going to watch any more clips, but that was a short one so to heck with it :-() I'm glad I did, that was pretty cool.

Release date in Oz will be 10th August (I think it's also the 10th for Europe, and the 9th for the U.S.). Two-and-a-half weeks to go! Price here will be $79 AUD, which is actually pretty reasonable by our standards.

I've read where you can play offline if you don't want to run the risk of getting shot in the back by some online jerk, as highly unlikely as that chance may be.

Art Blade · July 24, 2016, 07:11:38 AM

Quote from: fragger on July 24, 2016, 04:48:05 AMI've read where you can play offline

I don't understand.. sounds as if you can't play offline just anywhere?

fragger · July 24, 2016, 08:16:58 AM

Oops - communication breakdown :-()

What I meant was that I read an article somewhere on the net that said you can play offline. I didn't mean there was only a specific area of the game where you could play offline. I should have worded my post differently - I forget sometimes that not everyone here is a native English speaker :-[ Sorry about that mate :)

It's a bit of a quirky expression. If someone says "I read where rental prices are going up" it means they read somewhere that rental prices are going up. Same if they say "I saw where..." or "I heard where..." The "where" just means that they got the information from an unspecified place or person.

It's one of those things that I sometimes say without realising that a non-native English speaker might interpret it differently - or should I say, more sensibly :-()

mmosu · July 24, 2016, 11:05:28 AM

That's a great example actually, as I had to read your post a couple of times to even figure out what an alternative interpretation of the phrase could be. The longer I live the more I realize, English is frickin weird

Art Blade · July 24, 2016, 02:08:24 PM

thanks :) Also interesting how I hadn't come across that expression before in all those years or, more likely, I never identified it as such. The example given above, "I read where rental prices are going up," could be understood as "I read an article that informed about in which part of the town rental prices were going up (while in other parts they remained as they were)"