No Man's Sky

[RyanGSams]

This looks like one of the best games. It comes out Tuesday. It's a space exploration sandbox type game.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Sky

No Man's Sky's gameplay is built on four pillars—exploration, survival, combat and trading—in which players are free to perform within the entirety of a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion (1.8×1019) planets,[a] many with their own set of flora and fauna.[2] By exploring, players gain information about the planets that they can submit to the Atlas, a universal database that can be shared with other players of the game.

[video]https://youtu.be/D-uMFHoF8VA[/video]

I purchased a PS4 basically just to play this game.

 

[Speedybruin4]

It sounds like Destiny on steroids. It definitely looks like an interesting game. Let us know what you think of it.

 

[raptrbreth]

Holy crap, I don't game much but that looks epic.

 

[RyanGSams]

I guess the game has been in the works for over 3 years. And I just found out about it last week. But the procedural generation seems pretty awesome and having no load times is sweet. With me always loving looking up and amazed by the stars and planets. This game has me very excited to explore planets and solar systems.

 

[IndianaSoloMcfly]

Its supposed to be releasing for virtual reality occulus if it hasnt already. Game looks awesome but im concerned that the infinite content will eventually all look the same. Sometimes with sandbox games less is more. I imagine 1000's of planets with nothing on them and nothing interesting to do like in Mass Effect. Time will tell

 

[RyanGSams]

Its supposed to be releasing for virtual reality occulus if it hasnt already. Game looks awesome but im concerned that the infinite content will eventually all look the same. Sometimes with sandbox games less is more. I imagine 1000's of planets with nothing on them and nothing interesting to do like in Mass Effect. Time will tell

Yea that could be bad. I know it's supposed to support VR but the game isn't out until Tuesday. And the developers have been pretty quiet about alot of details.

 

[RyanGSams]

These are all on the Day One Update that will be released the same day the game releases. Plus they have plans to add base building and the ability to build a cargo ship in a later update.

The Three Paths – there are now new, unique “paths” you can follow throughout the game. You must start the game on a fresh save, with the patch, as early choices have significant impact on what you see later in the game, and the overall experience.
The Universe – we changed the rules of the universe generation algorithm. Planets have moved. Environments have changed biomes. Galaxies have altered shape. All to create greater variety earlier. Galaxies are now up to 10x larger.
Diversity – Creatures are now more diverse in terms of ecology and densities on planets.
Planets – we’ve added dead moons, low atmosphere and extreme hazardous planets. Extreme hazards include blizzards and dust storms.
Atmosphere – space, night time and day skies are now 4x more varied due to new atmospheric system, which refracts light more accurately to allow for more intense sunsets.
Planet rotation – play testing has made it obvious people are struggling to adjust to this during play so it’s effects have been reduced further…
Terrain generation – caves up to 128m tall are now possible. Geometric anomalies have been added. Underwater erosion now leads to more interesting sea beds.
Ship diversity – a wider variety of ships appear per star system, and are available to purchase. Cargo and installed technology now vary more, and ships have more unique attributes.
Inventory – ship inventories now store 5 times more resources per slot. Suit inventories now store 2.5 times more per slot. This encourages exploration and gives freedom from the beginning. We’re probably going to increase this even further in the next update, for people in the latter game phases, and will allow greater trading potential.
Trading – trading is deeper. Star systems and planets each have their own wants and needs, based off a galactic economy. Observing these is the key to successful trading. We still working on adjusting this based on how everyone plays, but all trading values have been rebalanced across the galaxy, giving a greater depth. A bunch of trade exploits were uncovered and have been removed
Feeding – creatures now have their own diet, based on planet and climate. Feeding them correctly will yield different results per species, such as mining for you, protecting the player, becoming pets, alerting you to rare loot or pooping valuable resources.
Survival – recharging hazard protection requires rare resources, making shielding shards useful again. Storms can be deadly. Hazard protection and suit upgrades have been added. Liquids are often more dangerous
Graphical effects – Lighting and texture resolution have been improved. Shadow quality has doubled. Temporal AA didn’t make it in time, but it’s so close
Balancing – several hundred upgrades have had stat changes (mainly exo-suit and ship, but also weapon), new upgrades have been added.
Combat – Auto Aim and weapon aim has been completely rewritten to feel more gentle in general, but stickier when you need it. Sentinels now alert each other, if they haven’t been dealt with quickly. Quad and Walker AI is now much more challenging, even I struggle with them without a powered up weapon.
Space Combat – advanced techniques have been introduced, like brake drifting and critical hits. Bounty missions and larger battles now occur. Pirate frequency has been increased, as well as difficulty depending on your cargo.
Exploits – infinite warp cell exploit and rare goods trading exploit among other removed. People using these cheats were ruining the game for themselves, but people are weird and can’t stop themselves ¯_(シ)_/¯
Stability – foundations for buildings on super large planets. Resolved several low repro crashes, in particular when player warped further than 256 light years in one session (was only possible due to warp cell exploit above).
Space Stations – interiors are now more varied, bars, trade rooms and hydroponic labs have been added
Networking – Ability to scan star systems other players have discovered on the Galactic Map, increasing the chance of collision. Star systems discovered by other players appear during Galactic Map flight
Ship scanning – scanning for points of interest from your ship is now possible. Buildings generate earlier and show up in ship scans
Flying over terrain – pop-in and shadow artefacts have been reduced. Generation speed has been increased two fold (planets with large bodies of water will be targeted in next update)
Writing – The Atlas path has been rewritten by James Swallow (writer on Deus Ex) and me. I think it speaks to the over-arching theme of player freedom more clearly now. Early mission text has been rewritten to allow for multiple endings.

 

[The Bubba Effect]

Looks cool. Let us know what you think if you play it.

 

[jasonh31]

I would like to get this game. But I only game 1 day a week if even that when I need to get back on 3rd shift schedule. I don't know if its a worthwhile investment but this game looks to be everything I ever wanted in one with its open world.

 

[RyanGSams]

So i have been playing the last few days, and have around 3 hours into the game. I am still really fascinated and excited to see what else is to come. I have visited the 3 planets in my star system. Only my starter planet has any fauna. One of the other planets is barren and hot. The other one has lots of water and islands but no animals. I did warp to another star system to be able to build a warp cell in order to warp to more star systems and that planet had an abundance of life, but they all seemed to want to eat me. And I ended up coming back to my starting star system to look at the other planets and see what they had hiding.

This is my Starting Planet. I has 7 species of fauna which I have found 6 of them. No water at all. All species here are non predatory and just stay away from me.

Another picture of my starter planet, this is a alien statue that helps to unlock some knowledge of the aliens language. The small planet on the horizon which is somewhat hiding behind the bigger one on the left side, is a water planet with no life. The larger planet is rocky, and barren as well and no life. It is also very cold.

This is the water planet, It has toxic dust as you can see which looks like a fog.

 

[hoosierdoc]

is that something younger kids can play or is it pretty involved?

 

[RyanGSams]

is that something younger kids can play or is it pretty involved?

I would say they could, but the beginning is pretty involved in order to get your ship functional to go to other star systems. I'd say its similar to MineCraft in the fact you need to collect items for everything you need to do. But it is in a much, much larger scale. The game is rated Teen, but i think a kid over 8 or 9 would be able to play it.

 

[The Bubba Effect]

Is it fun?

 

[raptrbreth]

My ten year old made the same comparison to Minecraft. She is 10 and loves the exploration part. Few little ugly bug looking things on the first planet made her say eww but she loves it. Haven't done any space combat yet and need more antimatter but the game will suck you in.

 

[RyanGSams]

My ten year old made the same comparison to Minecraft. She is 10 and loves the exploration part. Few little ugly bug looking things on the first planet made her say eww but she loves it. Haven't done any space combat yet and need more antimatter but the game will suck you in.

I got into my first space fight with pirates last night. For me it was pretty easy. They shot at me and went far away and was able to shoot them before they came back.

 

[Nojoy621]

So can you run into other players, or is everyone you come across part of the game?

 

[raptrbreth]

So can you run into other players, or is everyone you come across part of the game?

There is an argument about this very thing on a few sites. The makers have never explicitly said you could but they have never said you wouldn't either. Reddit has a whole bunch of chatter about this.

 

[RyanGSams]

They said it was near impossible to meet someone else but if you did you'd be able to meet them. Within a day after the game released two players we on the same planet in the same spot and couldn't see each other. They had different night and day cycles on the planet as well. Could mean the servers were being overwhelmed since it was the release day, they could have been on different lobby's. The makers still haven't said if it's possible to meet people now. He had many interviews saying you could but that was months before the game released. So they probably changed it.

 

[Nojoy621]

Sounds interesting, I remember hearing about it a few years ago but lost track of it. I will have to try it out.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Anyone still playing?

I'd love to give it a try, but it's just not a $60 game.

Reading that most people get tired of it after a few hours due to everything being so much the same... but there are also the types that play for hundreds of hours.