No Man's Sky's Day-One Patch Changes The Entire Game

Megalith

Megalith

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In what is being described as a massive overhaul, No Man’s Sky is getting a launch-day patch that includes newly written story paths, altered “rules of the universe,” and changes to aiming mechanics and upgrade stats. I’m really interested in seeing whether this title lives up to the hype.

The entire notes are here but in sum they describe a game that is functionally not at all what some people or press are playing right now. One person paid $1,300 for a copy of the game nearly two weeks before its launch date (which is Aug. 9) and began streaming his playthrough and offering detailed thoughts on how the game plays. Publications such as Polygon and Kotaku also acquired the game early from retailers and also posted streams.
 
Sounds about right. I mean, you explore and get stuff named after you... and then what? It it wasn't for "the massive universe that will never be fully explored", I don't think this would have anywhere near the hype it does now. I give it a month before the fans finally realize that quantity !> quality.
 
Extra-Titanian said:
Sounds about right. I mean, you explore and get stuff named after you... and then what? It it wasn't for "the massive universe that will never be fully explored", I don't think this would have anywhere near the hype it does now. I give it a month before the fans finally realize that quantity !> quality.
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I'm still willing to give it a shot. It sounds interesting enough. I think it would be amusing if the patch just completely wipes out the useful information in any of those videos ;)
 
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Extra-Titanian said:
Sounds about right. I mean, you explore and get stuff named after you... and then what? It it wasn't for "the massive universe that will never be fully explored", I don't think this would have anywhere near the hype it does now. I give it a month before the fans finally realize that quantity !> quality.
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I'd even be fine with quantity over quality, but I fear people are going to notice that there is no "quantity" since one place looks just like the next place.

From some of the videos I watched, they consider a beast with one frill an entirely different species from a beast on another planet ten lightyears away that looks identical except it has two frills.

I hope I'm completely wrong, but if this is one planet, and this is another planet, that feels the same to me.
 
I'm pretty certain this game is going to flop precisely because of the use of a procedural graphics engine. Aside from the random coincidences where two species look roughly the same, people will become aware that they arent exploring actual existing worlds, but rather those worlds were instantly fabricated for them on the fly. Essentially it's an illusion of a large universe, all within the size of a tiny bottle. That's not fun. People want to imagine that these creatures actually existed on another planet lightyears away, and that they are being rewarded for their journey to find them. Instead they will become aware the world was generated at random 5 seconds before they got there, and that none of the creatures evolved from anything and there is no history to imagine.
 
Extra-Titanian said:
Sounds about right. I mean, you explore and get stuff named after you... and then what? It it wasn't for "the massive universe that will never be fully explored", I don't think this would have anywhere near the hype it does now. I give it a month before the fans finally realize that quantity !> quality.
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I'm still reminded of the game Spore, and ignoring how the first phase was super fun, and equally short, the second phase had some fun but wasn't that long lasting, the third one was a straight WTF is this shit phase, and the space phase simply was a "ok so there's millions of stars, and there really is no way to make things a bit more streamlined? I gotta race way the fuck back everytime someone invades something because I'm obviously the only good guy ship in the whole galaxy??"
 
I really doubt it will live up to the hype just because the hype for it is so extreme. A lot of it isn't even from the developers either, just gamers making up what the game will be in their own heads.

It could still be a fun game though, just not the "game to end all games" many people seem to believe it will be.
 
travbrad said:
I really doubt it will live up to the hype just because the hype for it is so extreme. A lot of it isn't even from the developers either, just gamers making up what the game will be in their own heads.

It could still be a fun game though, just not the "game to end all games" many people seem to believe it will be.
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I just hope to get what I would feel like my money's worth out of it. No game lasts forever for me but if I can have fun with it then thats all I ask for.
 
At least they took the criticisms and worked to change the game a bit. I was looking forward to it until they announced the $60 price tag. $25 would have pretty much been an instant buy. Now I'll be waiting a few months to see how it plays out.
 
travbrad said:
It could still be a fun game though, just not the "game to end all games" many people seem to believe it will be.
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Yeah, it is really starting to feel like 2016's "Spore". Someone mentioned that somewhere else so credit goes to them, but it feels like a pretty apt analogy from what we have seen so far.
 
Extra-Titanian said:
Sounds about right. I mean, you explore and get stuff named after you... and then what? It it wasn't for "the massive universe that will never be fully explored", I don't think this would have anywhere near the hype it does now. I give it a month before the fans finally realize that quantity !> quality.
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What kind of game doesn't piss in your cornflakes?
 
Watched a guy streaming it live on youtube yesterday. Looked very repetitious and even if it is good I won't buy it anyway because I just hate the graphics style. Yea, yea, graphics do not make the game but I wouldn't buy pink shoes either.
 
Koolthulu said:
At least they took the criticisms and worked to change the game a bit. I was looking forward to it until they announced the $60 price tag. $25 would have pretty much been an instant buy. Now I'll be waiting a few months to see how it plays out.
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Completely agree. That $60 price tag announcement really bugged me. Seems like all the hype drove the price up, as I don't see any other way somebody could possibly think charging $60 for this is reasonable; I'd be genuinely surprised if $60 was always going to be the price for this game.

I don't understand why people allow their imaginations to go so overboard—it's like these people have never played a video game before. Where's the skepticism anymore? I really cannot put myself in the mindset that drives people to obsess over a game's development or preorder games based off of a CGI trailer.

I was hugely excited when this game was first announced. Since then, I've pretty much ignored all the news. As soon as details started emerging about the tech behind the game, I resolved to limit my expectations severely. I will buy this game on sale, and I will enjoy however much of it I do, but by no means have I ever expected NMS to be a paradigm-shifting product, and I'm pretty bitter about how the press and the public have set this game up for failure. I feel bad for the developers—their algorithm is wicked cool, and the game itself looks beautiful, but goddamn has it been tainted by obsessives.
 
Oh there's a monster probably 10GB (guessing) day 1 patch? What a giant shock.

I almost... ALMOST.... pre-ordered this... Amazon prime 20% off pre-orders was very tempting. But I think this will take time to bake and cool and patch and fix and etc etc and maybe we'll have a good playable game in 6 months.

Who knows maybe this is the one game that will break the pre-order mold that everything is released early and broken.. this will be the exception to the rule that..... oh wow, LOL, I just cracked myself up. ROFLWTFBBQ
 
Burticus said:
Oh there's a monster probably 10GB (guessing) day 1 patch? What a giant shock.

I almost... ALMOST.... pre-ordered this... Amazon prime 20% off pre-orders was very tempting. But I think this will take time to bake and cool and patch and fix and etc etc and maybe we'll have a good playable game in 6 months.

Who knows maybe this is the one game that will break the pre-order mold that everything is released early and broken.. this will be the exception to the rule that..... oh wow, LOL, I just cracked myself up. ROFLWTFBBQ
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Feels like an "oh shit!" patch to me. I followed the guy that got it a week or so early and read everything he said about NMS, and it sure didn't paint a pretty picture. Seems like they're doing damage control at this point, trying to salvage the game. I think they really screwed up royal trying to market this as a AAA title with a AAA price tag, when it's obviously an indie game. Had they kept hush hush on this and released it at $20-30, it probably would have been incredibly well received. Now, it's a victim of its own hype and most likely going to flop.
 
nysmo said:
I'm pretty certain this game is going to flop precisely because of the use of a procedural graphics engine. Aside from the random coincidences where two species look roughly the same, people will become aware that they arent exploring actual existing worlds, but rather those worlds were instantly fabricated for them on the fly. Essentially it's an illusion of a large universe, all within the size of a tiny bottle. That's not fun. People want to imagine that these creatures actually existed on another planet lightyears away, and that they are being rewarded for their journey to find them. Instead they will become aware the world was generated at random 5 seconds before they got there, and that none of the creatures evolved from anything and there is no history to imagine.
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Which games do have creatures which have an evolutionary history? If that's the level of criticism people are beating the game with now then it really doesn't have a chance. And are you sure worlds are generated at random "5 seconds" before you get there? Or is it deterministic (hint: it is), and the same whether you get there now or a week or a year from now, not to mention consistent for different players? Because if it's the latter (it is), what practical difference does it make if it's procedural or defined by a human, other than the fact you can have orders of magnitude more of them?

Some people seem to work really hard to hate on this game, and I don't get why.
 
Litfod said:
Some people seem to work really hard to hate on this game, and I don't get why.
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I don't think you have to work very hard. Information about this game has been so sparse and inconsistent that it's led to excessive hype and speculation about virtually every aspect, and now that we are seeing actual gameplay, coupled with the $60 pricetag, I think people are becoming disillusioned with what is being shown.

Had more information been released and the pricetag was closer to $30, I think this game would be a huge success. As it stands, it may still garner a fair amount of revenue from hype-driven pre-orders, but the overall impression from those that have actually played it is, well, not great.

It's a victim of its own ridiculous hype, perpetuated by the developer.
 
There are but so many types of biospheres available, and they will just be in a randomly generated order. I venture that once you have explored a couple dozen (maybe less) planets you will have more or less "seen it all" -- at that point it will just be the same thing with a slight twist, but nothing to keep you moving on. Of course there will be hardcore players who will probably put 1000 hours into the game some way or another. My hope is that I will get a solid 1 hour for every $1 paid for this game and I will be more than happy with that.
 
Litfod said:
Which games do have creatures which have an evolutionary history? If that's the level of criticism people are beating the game with now then it really doesn't have a chance. And are you sure worlds are generated at random "5 seconds" before you get there? Or is it deterministic (hint: it is), and the same whether you get there now or a week or a year from now, not to mention consistent for different players? Because if it's the latter (it is), what practical difference does it make if it's procedural or defined by a human, other than the fact you can have orders of magnitude more of them?

Some people seem to work really hard to hate on this game, and I don't get why.
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I am an example of someone on the fence: I'm glad they added some 'paths' to the game with a proppely written story, that makes me 10x more likely to try this game out. However, the idea of 'literally infinite' different planets and creatures is not an indicator of 'infinite variety'. There are an 'infinite' amount of different apples on earth, and EACH ONE is unique in some way... but they're still apples. You can then increase the variety by including infinite versions of ALL fruits, but then you only have fruit, no vegetables, and you start to understand how the idea of 'infinate variety' can be quite a hard thing to accomplish. 'Infinite versions' does not mean 'infinite variety'.
 
evilsofa said:
What kind of game doesn't piss in your cornflakes?
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Something a bit more substantial than "zomg quintillion planets!" and isn't basically a glorified tech demo. I mean, does knowing that, by design, you'll never get to see the entire game sound appealing?
 
Extra-Titanian said:
Something a bit more substantial than "zomg quintillion planets!" and isn't basically a glorified tech demo. I mean, does knowing that, by design, you'll never get to see the entire game sound appealing?
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You'll never see the entire game of Minecraft either, but that hasn't stopped it from being the second most popular video game of all time.
 
evilsofa said:
You'll never see the entire game of Minecraft either, but that hasn't stopped it from being the second most popular video game of all time.
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Thats the thing a LOT of people don't understand. While I have my doubts in general, the idea of "never going to see the whole thing" has never bothered me.
 
evilsofa said:
You'll never see the entire game of Minecraft either, but that hasn't stopped it from being the second most popular video game of all time.
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That's a fallacy. Sure, you may not see every single random orientation of blocks that the game has, but you can experience everything Minecraft has to offer in a relatively short number of hours.
 
MavericK said:
That's a fallacy. Sure, you may not see every single random orientation of blocks that the game has, but you can experience everything Minecraft has to offer in a relatively short number of hours.
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That's the same for this game, from what I can see. Minecraft generates worlds via a random seed when you begin a game. This game does the same, except those world seeds are not freely changeable like in minecraft, instead every planet has a random seed. The locations and seed values of the planets are identical across games.
 
KazeoHin said:
That's the same for this game, from what I can see. Minecraft generates worlds via a random seed when you begin a game. This game does the same, except those world seeds are not freely changeable like in minecraft, instead every planet has a random seed. The locations and seed values of the planets are identical across games.
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From what I can tell, this is more like a 3d Starbound. Only without the building.
 
Extra-Titanian said:
From what I can tell, this is more like a 3d Starbound. Only without the building.
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Except Starbound doesn't have space combat. If you read the note that came with update 1.03, there are mentions of future plans for base building and big space freighters. Also noted is that they plan to work on this developing and add more as time goes on. That has me looking forward to seeing what could be offered. After all, EVE online, WOW, and other games didn't start out with everything they have now. People are stupid for hyping up this game and making up what could be in it. The developers tried to keep expectations low. Also, regarding the price tag of $60.... Don't you think Sony forced their hand in assigning that price tag. I wonder, if it was for PC only, would the price tag be the same?
 
Most of the people in here shitting on this game have no concept of emergent gaming, and can't grasp how to actually play a game like No Man's Sky. If you don't like the game that's fine, but saying it will flop just because you don't know how to play videogames is pretty god damn specious.

pre-ordering games is as stupid as pre-judging them.
 
It wasn't the random worlds in Minecraft that made it a monster success. It was all the things you could do in the world and how easily the game can be modded. NMS offers the same sort of exploration as Minecraft, but you won't see anyone building hard drives out of redstone that actually work, and to scale recreations of the Enterprise or King's Landing. In NMS we'll just take some stuff from a planet, give it a quick look around, scan, and move on to the next.
 
I don't understand all the hate this game gets.

The biggest complaint I've seen is "OMG WTFZ0RS DO YOU DO!"

They've shown it. Explore, Collect, Upgrade yourself/ship/weapons, Space Battle, Planetary Landing. All of this looks great. No it's not a narrative story but that's not what they were going for. Second would be price, but honestly I don't have a problem with the pricetag. If it was a 4 hour game then I might, but this seems like the type of game I could spend hundreds of hours in.

I don't think it will be another Spore. That game promised a lot and removed tons of wanted features. This game has kept everything they promised, and now has added more. (Storyline, basebuilding)
 
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NMS seems to be simply that you go out into space and the rest is up to you. It has a very limited method of holding you back. It should be fun for me to go wherever I want and have fun. I doubt I'll see any other player ever once I get out there. It'll be just me and myself and I.
 
Watching markaplier play this game gives me serious pause. I already see some serious issues with this game.
 
Scizyr said:
Most of the people in here shitting on this game have no concept of emergent gaming, and can't grasp how to actually play a game like No Man's Sky. If you don't like the game that's fine, but saying it will flop just because you don't know how to play videogames is pretty god damn specious.

pre-ordering games is as stupid as pre-judging them.
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I hate to be 'that guy' but Emergent Gameplay almost ALWAYS involves a multiplayer community.
 
"but they didn't show you everything you can do"

"but they patched in more fun"

"but they'll add core mechanics later"

"its just like minecraft or any other amazing open world sandbox" (minus the ability to do anything)

Just accept it, the game isn't that great.
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I think they should have first done the procedural thing, then added some more static elements that interact with the then generated worlds. Such as, 20 advanced alien factions that exist on certain planets, who then built up their tech/culture/military based on whats available on the planet they were seeded on. Instead of being completely random, they would have a set of preferences/patterns that would then form semi-dynamic results. Basically what Dwarf Fortress does, generates random world then simulates it for a chosen timeline with set actors who have semi-set patterns.
 
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KazeoHin said:
I hate to be 'that guy' but Emergent Gameplay almost ALWAYS involves a multiplayer community.
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I would change that statement to say the best emergent gameplay involves a multiplayer community. But emergent gameplay is definitely not limited to multiplayer. Look at the speedrunning community, it's an entire social movement based on emergent gameplay in single player games. I would also point to the old Ultima games, I found tons of things to do in specifically Ultima 7 and 8 that Garriott has told me was completely unintended.

Emergence comes from your perspective going into the game. I usually only purchase games where I feel it will give me the opportunity to find my preferred type of gameplay. The last game I paid $60 for was GTA V when it released on PC. Before that it was Skyrim. I've put thousands of hours into both of them.
 
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