No Man's Sky - a procedurally generated sand box space exploration game

I am the exact opposite on this particular issue I can't believe people support letting people play a game for 40+ hours and still be allowed a refund...

people are abusing it but Hello Games holds some responsibility because they gave these players a way to abuse the system by not being forthright about multiplayer etc...multiplayer is a major feature in games and is something that developers cannot lie about
 
The steam store page says no multiplayer. None of the material on the store page itself says multiplayer. Only those fanboy's who were closely following the game thought there might be multiplayer.

I could maybe see claiming you didn't know that for the PS4 release, as even the retail packaging had a sticker over it correcting the fact that it said multiplayer.

But on the PC release on Steam not a single thing said multiplayer, and even more damning is the fact that if you were a fanboy you were following the fact that the PS4 release made it abundantly clear there was no multiplayer.

To sum it up - If you are using 'There is no multiplayer, I want a refund!' excuse for the PC version i'm going to have to say you're being outright dishonest about why you are really wanting a refund.
 
A quote directly from Steam's stated refund policy: "There are more details below, but even if you fall outside of the refund rules we’ve described, you can ask for a refund anyway and we’ll take a look." I assume you just didn't bother to read it?

I'm sorry, but people are being foolish if they think they're all going to get refunds just because "they asked nicely."
 
I'm sorry, but people are being foolish if they think they're all going to get refunds just because "they asked nicely."
Nobody said everyone was going to get a refund by being nice. The fact is that Sony, Steam, Amazon, etc. are all breaking standard refund policy to offer refunds for this game.
 
The steam store page says no multiplayer. None of the material on the store page itself says multiplayer. Only those fanboy's who were closely following the game thought there might be multiplayer.

I could maybe see claiming you didn't know that for the PS4 release, as even the retail packaging had a sticker over it correcting the fact that it said multiplayer.

But on the PC release on Steam not a single thing said multiplayer, and even more damning is the fact that if you were a fanboy you were following the fact that the PS4 release made it abundantly clear there was no multiplayer.

To sum it up - If you are using 'There is no multiplayer, I want a refund!' excuse for the PC version i'm going to have to say you're being outright dishonest about why you are really wanting a refund.

You fail to mention all the comments by Sean Murray that left the door open that multiplayer existed. While I agree the people who believed that aren't so sharp, when the lead developer and owner of the company making the game makes vague statements like Sean Murray did it leaves the door open for people to get confused and also for some people to take advantage of it. The sheer number of people frantically looking for multiplayer in the game after launch demonstrates how utterly unclear the info around this feature was leading up to launch. While people using multiplayer as the crux of why they want a refund after 80 hours of game time may be a stretch and may be dishonest, I'd rather those people get refunds than the many more people with legitimate gripes about the game not get one. The list of things Sean Murray said would be in the game and are not is staggering, and taken as a whole definitely push this into refund territory.

And yes, I am aware that developer plans change over time and things that people thought might be possible but turn out not to be so due to a variety of things (time, money, you name it). The crux of the issue for No Man's Sky is that Sean Murray lied through his teeth up to and past release of the game about basic functionality - the developer should have released direct information about multiplayer to potential buyers instead of Sean Murray dodging the question every time he was asked. It shouldn't take people packet sniffing or diving into game code to figure this out. As for the Steam store info, yes it did and does say singleplayer, however, given the number of times Sean Murray implied multiplayer existed people could think (or argue they thought) it was a typo. It's insane that Sean Murray didn't just come out and say "No, this game does not support multiplayer. The only multiplayer like features you will see are occassionally coming across named discoveries from other players." If he said that this whole issue evaporates.

Anyway, while some refunds may be specifically for the lack of multiplayer and confusion surrounding that feature, I'd imagine more are based on the massive collection of undelivered features absent from the released game...
 
I am the exact opposite on this particular issue I can't believe people support letting people play a game for 40+ hours and still be allowed a refund. It's not supporting of Sean or Hello Games, their next offering will be extremely scrutinized after this fiasco and Sean going into hiding rather than making a clear statement is a major cluster fuck if I have ever seen one. While I usually side with consumer complaints this one just reeks of abuse. People played it for many hours then got bored, now they are going after what Sean said in his PR statements rather than what was written on the actual steam page as the game being single player only, then complaining the game has no multiplayer so they can get a refund. This is going to just be abused by many for illegitimate reasons. I am sure the majority of the refunders are exactly what polonyc2 said "I keep hearing people say the game is worth $30 etc..." but they can't say that to get a refund so they are all going to say the same thing that maybe a few people who actually legitimately thought the game had multiplayer capabilities.
I am sure it will be abused, there is no doubt about that. I am also sure many people with legitimate complaints will ask for refunds. If Sean Murray and Hello Games had decided to market the game honestly instead of based on lies they wouldn't be in this situation. There are always going to be people disappointed with any particular game, but the shitstorm surrounding No Man's Sky didn't appear out of nowhere - it is a direct result of the dishonest marketing and practices of Sean Murray leading up to the game's release.
 
Where is the actual proof of this?
Just browse through some of the Reddit or other refund threads. Unless of course there are dozens of people just lying about getting refunds in a major conspiracy to take down Sean Murray and Hello Games. I doubt you will be able to find any actual statistics from Steam or other sources, but maybe that exists.

I don't know how accurate this is, but this site shows ownership levels for the game dipping. No way to know how long those returned copies were played for as far as I can tell.
http://steamspy.com/app/275850
 
For the defenders , fanboys , excusers , and those horrified at people getting refunds.

Why can't Sean Murray , at any point in the past , present , or future , simply answer "No there is zero chance of two players seeing each other".

90-99% of the shit would have been avoided , and not still be continuing , if he said that.

Instead he always , ALWAYS , leaves in the chance of it happening.

How's that not a lie and deception by the creator of the game ?
 
I don't think anyone is defending him.

The issue is that people obviously had fun with the game if they've got 20+ hours of play time. Now they suddenly want refunds because they are realizing it isn't a 100+ hour game.

Fallout 4 is a 100+ hour game for some people. I bought it full price and only played it for like 10 hours because I grew tired of it fast. Doesn't mean i'm entitled to a refund.
 
this alone shows that either the game is fundamentally broken in some way or that aspects of the game were misleading so customers could not make an informed purchase...or both...

They're offering refunds to get the screaming monkeys off their backs and not overly piss off consumers.

This is the fault of Sean Murray; It doesn't change the fact that some people are acting overly entitled though.
 
They're offering refunds to get the screaming monkeys off their backs and not overly piss off consumers.

This is the fault of Sean Murray; It doesn't change the fact that some people are acting overly entitled though.

if Panasonic advertises a TV as having 3D capabilities and the finished retail version doesn't come with 3D then consumers are entitled to a refund even though the television still works
 
I don't think anyone is defending him.

The issue is that people obviously had fun with the game if they've got 20+ hours of play time. Now they suddenly want refunds because they are realizing it isn't a 100+ hour game.

Fallout 4 is a 100+ hour game for some people. I bought it full price and only played it for like 10 hours because I grew tired of it fast. Doesn't mean i'm entitled to a refund.

Why do you think you know what people experienced when they played the game? Why can't the 'fun' players had in the first 20+ hours be based on anticipation of encountering the kinds of things that were promised for this game but were never delivered? By all means the exploration of the first planet in this game seems to be a fun experience for many players, and one that puts people solidly past 2 hours played. People keep playing hoping things will change and match what they were sold (things get weirder as you go closer to the center? another lie), but it doesn't get better. And then they find out the things they have been hoping to see or experience literally don't exist because Sean Murray sold them a crock of shit.
 
if Panasonic advertises a TV as having 3D capabilities and the finished retail version doesn't come with 3D then consumers are entitled to a refund even though the television still works

False comparison. No where in the official advertisements for the game did they state the game had multiplayer. In fact this is the very reason why they put stickers over the retail PS4 releases to cover up the multiplayer logo.

And again i'll point out the fact that we are talking about the PC version here. People following the game knew damn well what the game would offer 4-5 working days before the PC release. People not following the game at all never expected multiplayer because the store page never said anything about it.

I'm not defending sean murray here. I can criticize people taking advantage of the situation to get their money back and also think sean murray is a dipshit. The world isn't black and white people.

I think the laughable part about all of this is that it's the big fanboy's for this game that are now the most butt hurt honestly. Before the game released people weren't questioning the game at all, and then after release play it for 40 hours then demand a refund because they slowly began to realize the game wasn't a 100+ hour marvel.
 
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I think people are allowed to act "entitled" when the developer,publisher and PR man for the game is telling constant lies.

Out of the two groups , he deserved to be screwed the most I say.
 
False comparison. No where in the official advertisements for the game did they state the game had multiplayer. In fact this is the very reason why they put stickers over the retail PS4 releases to cover up the multiplayer logo.

And again i'll point out the fact that we are talking about the PC version here. People following the game knew damn well what the game would offer 4-5 working days before the PC release. People not following the game at all never expected multiplayer because the store page never said anything about it.

I'm not defending sean murray here. I can criticize people taking advantage of the situation to get their money back and also think sean murray is a dipshit. The world isn't black and white people.
Oh the irony. You seem to think it is pretty black and white regarding refunds, despite there being plenty of evidence for Sean Murray intentionally misleading potential customers into buying the game.

People were also hoping that the PC release would include multiplayer, based in large part off of vague statements from Sean Murray. There really isn't an excuse as to why he didn't just come out and say multiplayer wasn't included without following it up by conditional phrases that imply it actually could be possible. As for official advertisements, I am not sure what is more official than statements made by the owner of Hello Games and the lead developer of No Man's Sky himself, Sean Murray. Sean Murray is the reason these refunds are happening, and if he wouldn't have promised shit he knew wasn't going to appear in the game this whole situation wouldn't be happening. But he did, and now here we are. If Sean Murray either (a) kept his mouth shut or (b) released definitive statements about what was included and absent from the game, then there would be no recourse for these kinds of refunds.
 
For the defenders , fanboys , excusers , and those horrified at people getting refunds.

Why can't Sean Murray , at any point in the past , present , or future , simply answer "No there is zero chance of two players seeing each other".

90-99% of the shit would have been avoided , and not still be continuing , if he said that.

Instead he always , ALWAYS , leaves in the chance of it happening.

How's that not a lie and deception by the creator of the game ?
Here's why, because I don't give a shit if it did or didn't have MP.


The original promise and the original topic of how and why this game got major hype was that we could explore essentially an endless amount of stars and planets. That promise has been kept.

That's why.


If you need a refresh course, or anybody else who's confused for this matter, please go back to the first few pages of this thread. Zero suggestions, links or anything else at that point had any relations to the actual content of this game. All we gave a shit about was being able to explore 18 quintillion planets.
 
Here's why, because I don't give a shit if it did or didn't have MP.


The original promise and the original topic of how and why this game got major hype was that we could explore essentially an endless amount of stars and planets. That promise has been kept.

That's why.


If you need a refresh course, or anybody else who's confused for this matter, please go back to the first few pages of this thread. Zero suggestions, links or anything else at that point had any relations to the actual content of this game. All we gave a shit about was being able to explore 18 quintillion planets.

I am glad you feel that No Man's Sky lived up to one of the promises the developers made about it. However, just because you don't care that Sean Murray and Hello Games broke countless other promises doesn't mean other people can't care.
 
I am glad you feel that No Man's Sky lived up to one of the promises the developers made about it. However, just because you don't care that Sean Murray and Hello Games broke countless other promises doesn't mean other people can't care.

No and I never said you shouldn't care either. But I'm replying to the question of why I(a defender) don't care.
 
No and I never said you shouldn't care either. But I'm replying to the question of why I(a defender) don't care.
You should probably re-read the question. It was asking how Sean Murray's statements could possibly not be a lie and deception, not whether you cared or not. I completely respect your decision not to care about multiplayer being in the game or not.
 
You should probably re-read the question. It was asking how Sean Murray's statements could possibly not be a lie and deception, not whether you cared or not. I completely respect your decision not to care about multiplayer being in the game or not.
Hey to each their own I guess.
I'm not going to say Sean Murray was right. In fact some of his statements were obviously false. I can agree to that. It's not right to pump up your audience with false hope. Multi-player would make this game that much better. A more interactive environment as some of the trailers showed would make this game that much better. But in the end for me personally, I knew there wouldn't be enough different playable content to really fill the gaps of such a massive sized game like this. I guess I took the last three years with a grain of salt, and for that I'm quite glad I did. I too hate spending $60 on a game and it turns out that I hated it. But for the most part, other than some minor annoyances(like the voice suit) I'm okay with how it is.

I can only imagine how much better this game will be in 5 or 6 months down the road.
 
Hey to each their own I guess.
I'm not going to say Sean Murray was right. In fact some of his statements were obviously false. I can agree to that. It's not right to pump up your audience with false hope. Multi-player would make this game that much better. A more interactive environment as some of the trailers showed would make this game that much better. But in the end for me personally, I knew there wouldn't be enough different playable content to really fill the gaps of such a massive sized game like this. I guess I took the last three years with a grain of salt, and for that I'm quite glad I did. I too hate spending $60 on a game and it turns out that I hated it. But for the most part, other than some minor annoyances(like the voice suit) I'm okay with how it is.

I can only imagine how much better this game will be in 5 or 6 months down the road.

Yeah, that makes sense. If Sean Murray (or ideally a new PR face) start being better about communicating and keep developing the game it has a shot to become something pretty neat. I won't consider purchasing until that happens, but for now I am much more concerned with the kind of precedent this sets for advertising and I hope it sends a message to other developers that they shouldn't do this shit to customers.
 
Hey to each their own I guess.
I'm not going to say Sean Murray was right. In fact some of his statements were obviously false. I can agree to that. It's not right to pump up your audience with false hope. Multi-player would make this game that much better. A more interactive environment as some of the trailers showed would make this game that much better. But in the end for me personally, I knew there wouldn't be enough different playable content to really fill the gaps of such a massive sized game like this. I guess I took the last three years with a grain of salt, and for that I'm quite glad I did. I too hate spending $60 on a game and it turns out that I hated it. But for the most part, other than some minor annoyances(like the voice suit) I'm okay with how it is.

I can only imagine how much better this game will be in 5 or 6 months down the road.

assuming they add anything 5 or 6 months down the road.
 
They're better off cutting-and-running. Even if they patch this game up good by Xmas, nobody will care. Their rep is already fucked.
Kudos to them if they choose to keep working on the game, though.
 
No Man’s Sky Steam page updated with unique refund notice

In response to a flurry of refund activity on No Man’s Sky this weekend, Steam has updated the game’s page with a notice that may put an end to some of the claims.

Above the purchasing option for the game on Steam, there is now a unique notice which reads: “The standard Steam refund policy applies to No Man’s Sky. There are no special exemptions available...this extra note appeared at some point during Sunday...players had previously reported success with requesting refunds via Steam’s support ticket system, even if they had played beyond the usual two hour window...Valve, perhaps in response to a high volume of refund requests, now appear to have reversed that leniency...Technical issues, missing features, and misleading advertising (the Steam page itself still features a trailer containing things not in the game) have all been cited by dissatisfied players as reasons for requesting their money back.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you should give up all hope for a refund on No Man’s Sky, but it does seem as if Steam will be taking a harder line against requests outside of the ‘standard’ two hours played and owned for fewer than 14 days model...
 
People that play a game for 40 hours and can't decide if they like it are either stupid or just want to scam themselves a free experience.
 
I find a lot of refunds are done on the grounds of "because they can", a lot of absurd things happen on that reason more often than not.
 
I would venture to say most Steam returns are those using the game as a free demo versus any performance or other reasons
 
I am not a game developer but can anyone explain how what looks to be quite finished features can be inexplicable removed from a game mere months before release? In the Angry Joe Review he showed off clips where the devs were espousing certain features of the game that it would have just a few months before the game came out and they all looked quite finished. And especially counting in the delay due to trademark issues it just seems weird.

I understand showing off an aspect of a game a year or so before but not being able to get to work but with just a few months shouldn't devs already know what will and will not be in the final release and as such know what, and what not to hype up as a feature in said game?
 
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I am not a game developer but can anyone explain how what looks to be quite finished features can be inexplicable removed from a game mere months before release? In the Angry Joe Review he showed off clips where the devs were espousing certain features of the game that it would have just a few months before the game came out and they all looked quite finished. And especially counting in the delay due to trademark issues it just seems weird.

I understand showing off an aspect of a game a year or so before but not being able to get to work but with just a few months shouldn't devs already know what will and will not be in the final release and as such know what, and what not to hype up as a feature in said game?

You would think, but maybe it was all scripted sequences? Hard to say.
 
Funny you mentioned Elite: Dangerous. I too have had that game for many months and was motivated to play it. Yesterday I fired it up, got about 10 mins into it, and quit. It's an issue with the controls. I just can't get used to them. Maybe an xbox
controller is better for me.
I ended up buying a $400 Warthog Hotas setup, but before it showed up, swapping the 'a' and 'd' yaw for the x-axis mouse rotation made a huge difference in mouse controllability.
 
You fail to mention all the comments by Sean Murray that left the door open that multiplayer existed. While I agree the people who believed that aren't so sharp, when the lead developer and owner of the company making the game makes vague statements like Sean Murray did it leaves the door open for people to get confused and also for some people to take advantage of it. The sheer number of people frantically looking for multiplayer in the game after launch demonstrates how utterly unclear the info around this feature was leading up to launch. While people using multiplayer as the crux of why they want a refund after 80 hours of game time may be a stretch and may be dishonest, I'd rather those people get refunds than the many more people with legitimate gripes about the game not get one. The list of things Sean Murray said would be in the game and are not is staggering, and taken as a whole definitely push this into refund territory.

And yes, I am aware that developer plans change over time and things that people thought might be possible but turn out not to be so due to a variety of things (time, money, you name it). The crux of the issue for No Man's Sky is that Sean Murray lied through his teeth up to and past release of the game about basic functionality - the developer should have released direct information about multiplayer to potential buyers instead of Sean Murray dodging the question every time he was asked. It shouldn't take people packet sniffing or diving into game code to figure this out. As for the Steam store info, yes it did and does say singleplayer, however, given the number of times Sean Murray implied multiplayer existed people could think (or argue they thought) it was a typo. It's insane that Sean Murray didn't just come out and say "No, this game does not support multiplayer. The only multiplayer like features you will see are occassionally coming across named discoveries from other players." If he said that this whole issue evaporates.

Anyway, while some refunds may be specifically for the lack of multiplayer and confusion surrounding that feature, I'd imagine more are based on the massive collection of undelivered features absent from the released game...


He DID say that. How the fuck anyone got that this is going to be a multiplayer game is beyond me. It's not and never was going to be. Here is a direct quote from Sean (which you haven't provided any) that highlights the point:

"It’s not really a multiplayer game, that’s not really the way to think about it. There are infinitesimal chances, very, very small chances of you even coming across a place that another player has been to . . . The most likely thing that is going to happen is you are going to come across a planet and some other players has been there and they’ve named that planet and the creatures, and I’m sure they’ve given it a good name."

Is it somewhat ambiguous and vague? Possibly, but after reading about the game over and over and seeing the game through all the videos and stuff you've seen... how would you come to expect multiplayer? I have to agree with a previous poster that if people are justifying their refunds based solely on the lack of multiplayer then they are not being entirely honest. If you don't like the game then fine, but people need to stop saying "they lief," and they "said this and that would be in the game" without providing proof, actual quotes from people... Is there any doubt that even if Hello Games had put in everything they'd talked about the game would be any more enjoyable? It'd be exactly the same.

I am also adding this in from a developer who created my favorite game of all time (Witcher 3).

In response to the controversy, CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwinski told Eurogamer that the difference between the small snatches of gameplay revealed in the trailer and the images displayed in the final game was a matter of balance.

“We do a certain build for a trade show and you pack it, it works, it looks amazing,” said Iwinski. “And you are extremely far away from completing the game. Then you put it in the open-world, regardless of the platform, and it’s like ‘oh shit, it doesn’t really work’ … Maybe we shouldn’t have shown that [trailer], I don’t know, but we didn’t know that it wasn’t going to work, so it’s not a lie or a bad will.”
 
I am not a game developer but can anyone explain how what looks to be quite finished features can be inexplicable removed from a game mere months before release? In the Angry Joe Review he showed off clips where the devs were espousing certain features of the game that it would have just a few months before the game came out and they all looked quite finished. And especially counting in the delay due to trademark issues it just seems weird.

I understand showing off an aspect of a game a year or so before but not being able to get to work but with just a few months shouldn't devs already know what will and will not be in the final release and as such know what, and what not to hype up as a feature in said game?
The clips were either scripted like Stev3FrencH said, or they were just not working across the board. A lot of times features that you see that were being played live during a demo were in the game, but performance and/or bugs will get them removed. The biggest reason that I'd say would remove features from the game is that it wouldn't run well if it was there on the PS4 version. Just look at Witcher 3, lots of people were pretty upset about the final vs the pre alpha footage they showed. The reason for the changes was just based off of performance or not working right IIRC. They never really specified, but I would be more inclined to believe that by "performance" I'd say console performance would be a more specific term. Also if you play this game on PC you will know that it really pegs both the GPU and CPU pretty hard, it struggles to keep 30fps on a PS4 at 1080, it wouldn't be difficult to imagine that adding more code to handle the rare likely hood of "network" interactions might stress the PS4 version to the point it would be going at 25fps if any other players were around due to the overhead and that might make the game fail the Sony min spec for Games for PS4. If the networking features were actually planned and working on PC at the time of the demos, the minute they got backing from Sony, meant it also had to work on the PS4. If it wouldn't perform to spec for the PS4 with those features enabled, it would have to be pulled because Sony would never approve of the game if the PC version far surpassed the PS4 version.
 
Exactly. I guess it comes down to what people need to use to justify in their minds that they didn't steal the game if they played 40-70 then try to return it. They'll cite all kinds of bullshit, like these "promises" we keep hearing about that were nothing more than projected features for an incomplete game. Never once was it demonstrated that you could see another player in the game if I remember correctly. He did mention that you MIGHT see a ship that was flying differently than others, and that COULD be a human player.

People just built this game up to be something different in their own minds, and when they finally learned that no, they don't have psychic powers, and they had no idea what they were really talking about, and then game came out differently than the one burried in their heads, that it must be a bad game, and they should do everything in their powers to shit on it, get refunds even after extended play, and then bitch up a storm because... ...wah? I wasn't right about something? No that can't be... I'll blame the developer for my misguided attempt to define what the game should have been if I ran the fucking zoo.

I had a few ideas that I was really hoping would somehow make it into the game. Many of those didn't, and while yes, that could be a little disappointing, they were still my guesses and theories. I guess you have to be able to tell the difference between this and a developer promise. Some people don't see to be able to make that distinction.
 
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I put in for a refund on Steam with 60 hours played. I want to see if it is provided. This is my 2nd time refunding NMS (initially cancelled my preorder) so I'm not sure if it will happen. I actually like the game, but do think it is overpriced and poorly supported since the dev team is so small. I suggest you refund as well, maybe it will push HelloGames to add back their deleted features. Could always buy it again in the future.

Maybe you can get a refund on your life while you're at it.
 
The issue is that people obviously had fun with the game if they've got 20+ hours of play time. Now they suddenly want refunds because they are realizing it isn't a 100+ hour game.

Or maybe they were told that it gets better and the seemingly missing features / elements of the game ARE in the game, just that they haven't found them yet. Now its weeks later and no one has found these claimed things, which makes it clear you'll never find them either. I can guarantee you I've put hundreds of hours into games that I wasn't having fun in (WoW anyone?). Many people were under the premise that it gets better, eventually. But it doesn't. It never gets better. The planets are all samey. Incredibly samey.
 
People just built this game up to be something different in their own minds

Some people may have done that, but that has nothing to do with the fact that Sean Murray lied (and continues to be vague and/or silent) about what features were actually in the game.

We are talking about screenshots, videos, interviews...not "made up expectations" in your head.
 
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