No Mans Sky - looks interesting

[towser]

Picked this up yesterday and patched last night. Played about an hour and a half.

I assume I was dropped onto some random planet as a starting point. Very basic tutorial like prompts to get started but the mechanics aren't overly complex so no real trouble getting to grips with things. No real context as to why I've landed with a damaged ship on a random planet.

Scouted round planet for resources - environment interesting enough but very samey with rather unexciting "landmarks" dotted around to discover. Flora and fauna fairly uninspiring to be honest. Graphics underwhelming - pretty flat looking.

Briefly did some space flight to a spacestation orbiting a nearby plant - not a lot happening on the station other than the coming and going of other ships. Assume these open up a bit as you progress as there were some inaccessible areas. Spaceflight just seems to consist of fly as fast as you can to your target planet / waypoint / station with not too much happening in between, having said that only one journey into space so far so maybe as game progresses there will be more inter-planetary interest.

Landed on a second more desolate / arid looking plant to go and investigate a signal I'd received - so there is variety between planets at first glance.

Oddly though the game has a slightly hypnotic feel to it and I am keen to explore further - my worry as others have said is that it might get quiet dull and repetitive quite quickly.

Jury still out.

[Art0ir]

Jackfrags has a 30 min playthrough up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmSV1Hc9jvw

Actually looks really good, will probably buy when the price comes down.

[anonymous-user]

Still waiting for a review or anyone really to summarise what the point or goal of the game is. All very cool and interesting, but the article I read earlier today on Polygon sounded like you amble around gathering resources so you can amble about some more.

Performance on PS4 can get very choppy if you boost across a new planet in your ship. One video I saw on youtube recorded a sustained low of 15FPS. So I'll be getting this on PC for a solid 60 frames per second.

[RemaL]

Art0ir said:

Jackfrags has a 30 min playthrough up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmSV1Hc9jvw

Actually looks really good, will probably buy when the price comes down.

that does look good but apart from not having a PS4 or good PC. I have a good mac I may have to wait for a while

[ukaskew]

RenOHH said:

Still waiting for a review or anyone really to summarise what the point or goal of the game is. All very cool and interesting, but the article I read earlier today on Polygon sounded like you amble around gathering resources so you can amble about some more.

Performance on PS4 can get very choppy if you boost across a new planet in your ship. One video I saw on youtube recorded a sustained low of 15FPS. So I'll be getting this on PC for a solid 60 frames per second.

Considering reviewers could only get going on Monday afternoon I'd be surprised if a genuinely thorough review appeared just yet. Most so far are early impressions, and I guess it's always going to be a bit grindy at first until you've established a bigger ship and suit to hold more resources.

The frame rate drops are detailed here: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2..., fairly unusual thankfully.

[Vaud]

RemaL said:

that does look good but apart from not having a PS4 or good PC. I have a good mac I may have to wait for a while

I've preordered and installed bootcamp / windows 10. Will report back on performance.

[Vaud]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It's scraping the bottom of the specs barrel: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 512 MB

[andycambo]

So two players went to the same planet, to the same landmark but couldn't see each other... Looks like even if you do come across another player the likelihood that you're on the same server/lobby is just as unlikely.

Seems a shame to defy the odds of actually finding someone but then not actually finding them.

I watched some footage YouTube and it looks pretty good. Quite a relaxing and smooth game from what I've seen so far.

link to story

[RobDickinson]

I'm still not seeing much evidence of an actual game yet

[Vaud]

RobDickinson said:

I'm still not seeing much evidence of an actual game yet

It depends what you mean by "game".

In this I see Minecraft late beta rather than Eve or Elite, if that makes sense.

[RemaL]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Mine is 2.5GHz Core i7, 16BG 1600MHZ DDR3 ram, 500GB SSD Hard drive and NVIDIA Ge FORCE GT750 2048MB so hoping it would be ok for this game if it comes out on the mac or I install windows onto it if I can

[anonymous-user]

RemaL said:

Mine is 2.5GHz Core i7, 16BG 1600MHZ DDR3 ram, 500GB SSD Hard drive and NVIDIA Ge FORCE GT750 2048MB so hoping it would be ok for this game if it comes out on the mac or I install windows onto it if I can

The CPU will help a lot with this type of game. The GPU isn't too bad so I reckon it will run okay on medium settings.

[ukaskew]

RobDickinson said:

I'm still not seeing much evidence of an actual game yet

I don't see that as a bad thing. 90% of my time in a game like GTA is just messing around in the sandbox, the story doesn't interest me.

I'm only a few hours in but it feels perfect for me (and I can see it will become slightly less grindy once things are upgraded), no idea how long it will last but it sounds like they're planning a fair bit for the future. Even if it only gives me 15 two hour sessions before getting bored it's still money well spent in my opinion.

I can only put aside an hour (two at best) every few evenings, so story driven stuff doesn't generally float my boat. Drifting in and out of this however, even if I don't reach the ultimate aim (the centre of the Universe) is good enough for me. It's unbelievably immersive with headphones on.

The future looks bright anyhow, if a small team can do this on the first attempt I can't wait to see what's possible with the same/similar game developed for VR, or built upon with land vehicles, base building etc.

[LandR]

andycambo said:

So two players went to the same planet, to the same landmark but couldn't see each other... Looks like even if you do come across another player the likelihood that you're on the same server/lobby is just as unlikely.

Seems a shame to defy the odds of actually finding someone but then not actually finding them.

I watched some footage YouTube and it looks pretty good. Quite a relaxing and smooth game from what I've seen so far.

link to story

They did say a while ago that it's not a multiplayer game

https://youtu.be/1ORFgfhj_hM?t=161

If you cant watch YT Vids (basically, not verbatim):

Q: If I travel to a planet on my game and at the same time, my friend goes to the planet on his game, would we be able to play together?

HG: Multiplayer for the game is not really a big focus. If you want an MMO or deathmatch other games cater for that really well. What we want is you playing and a sense of other people being in that universe. So actually what will happen reasonably often is going to a planet and finding someone else has been there before you and you see some traces of them, maybe creatures that they've named. But going to another planet and anohter player being at the same planet at the same time is incredibly rare and depending on how many people play it might never happen.

Q: So you are saying that if my friend travels to the same place I am at, we could play together for a while?

HG: No, that's not really what the game is about. When you talk about multiplayer it gives people the wrong impression. It's not what we're trying to build and it's not what people should be thinking about going into the game really.


I think the key is, when you are on a planet / spacestation etc, you are on your instance of it. Someone else is on their instance of it. So you won't "meet". It's like you are both playing Mario and you are both on stage 1-1 at the same time, but you don't see each other. Although you might see a Roomba that you're mate has named.

Edited by LandR on Wednesday 10th August 11:16

[Ste1987]

This game sounds exactly like the space stage of Spore. Still looks good

[anonymous-user]

Oh my god, Spore was the biggest let down in terms of what was promised to what was delivered. Truly terrible. The weird thing there was gaming publications gave it huge review scores, but users slated it. I do hope this isn't the same.

[LandR]

Someone on NEOGaf

neogaf said:

I packet captured my PS4. When the servers are online, no player movement data is sent to servers, either in space or planet side. It simply doesn't transmit where you are, or any world sharing information.

It does transmit your Discovers, and a diary of planets you have visited. I imagine that is for the Easter eggs.

Also, if you press 'OPTIONS' it pauses the entire game world, including AI (watch creatures and ships stop) and time. Planets stop moving and time stops passing when in OPTIONS. This is not a multiplayer game.

[OwenK]

LandR said:

Someone on NEOGaf

neogaf said:

I packet captured my PS4. When the servers are online, no player movement data is sent to servers, either in space or planet side. It simply doesn't transmit where you are, or any world sharing information.

It does transmit your Discovers, and a diary of planets you have visited. I imagine that is for the Easter eggs.

Also, if you press 'OPTIONS' it pauses the entire game world, including AI (watch creatures and ships stop) and time. Planets stop moving and time stops passing when in OPTIONS. This is not a multiplayer game.

Seems like a bit of a bad call by the developers to not make that clear from day one - there's nothing wrong with this style, but people hoping for an occasional multiplayer experience will now be disappointed/angry. This could have been avoided if they'd made it clear that you will not actually meet other people ever.

I guess by "persistent universe" they meant that even though it's enormous and generated on the fly, and you constantly see things nobody else ever has, everyone IS technically seeing the same universe.

[LandR]

OwenK said:

Seems like a bit of a bad call by the developers to not make that clear from day one - there's nothing wrong with this style, but people hoping for an occasional multiplayer experience will now be disappointed/angry. This could have been avoided if they'd made it clear that you will not actually meet other people ever.

I guess by "persistent universe" they meant that even though it's enormous and generated on the fly, and you constantly see things nobody else ever has, everyone IS technically seeing the same universe.

It doesn't release until Friday for PC, I expect Friday afternoon they will make a proper statement about it. I don't think they will want to risk saying there is no MP while people might still cancel pre-orders (if there is no MP). Got to let that hype train bring in all the £££££££s it can.

[andycambo]

OwenK said:

Seems like a bit of a bad call by the developers to not make that clear from day one - there's nothing wrong with this style.

I agree. I wasn't expecting to come across anyone but if there was the slightest possibility of meeting someone else in the universe then that would keep me playing for longer (I think). The fact there is no possibility is a shame but still won't stop me purchasing the game.