No Man's Sky for Consoles

[blesscheese]

The video in the link was fairly critical, while he was very positive on a number of things, it was very critical of other parts of the game.

I didn't bother with the video, but I'm sure the overall score at the bottom reflects the overall review. Overall he had 6 positive points, and 3 negatives, anyone of which could sink a game for anybody (I'm liking the story so far...not the greatest, but not the worst by any means. I'm not done with it, so maybe I'll change my mind, who knows).

First was far more linear story driven.

^ This seems to be the largest factor I've seen in reviews...people who really liked the first, with a more "linear" story line seemed to really detest the story (or the way it was presented) in X.

Obviously, not everybody is going to like every game. I'm the kind of person who, for example, loves Deus Ex, but finds the linear-ish, scenario/area (vs. open world) presentation to be a bit stifling/boring. I want to wander around!

 

[blesscheese]

And returning to No Man's Sky news...the anticipation seems to be growing to almost Harry Potter book release levels...Game Informer is going to stream it almost all day on Tuesday:

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...o-man-39-s-sky-almost-all-day-on-tuesday.aspx

 

[2nyRiggz]

I'm trying to block out all of the NMS streams and news, I want to go into it not knowing anything but the temptation is real.


Bless

 

[MRU]

I'm trying to block out all of the NMS streams and news, I want to go into it not knowing anything but the temptation is real.


Bless

Me too

 

[blesscheese]

Now, it's gotten even more idiotic...Kotaku and another review-site got hold of PS4 copies pre-release, and have released first hour gameplay footage on Facebook live.

Sounds like a good excuse to turn off the internet, and play some video games (after I clean my garage).

 

[Suture]

It's like staying offline if you're not caught up on Game of Thrones. I had a spoiler from GoT ruined by freaking NFL.com once.

 

[blesscheese]

It's like staying offline if you're not caught up on Game of Thrones. I had a spoiler from GoT ruined by freaking NFL.com once.

I'd say something supportive, but I'm still cleaning out my garage (on lunch break).

Btw, wtf was NFL.com doing showing GoT stuff? I'm betting were/still are asking the same question...

 

[gkarris]

And returning to No Man's Sky news...the anticipation seems to be growing to almost Harry Potter book release levels...Game Informer is going to stream it almost all day on Tuesday:

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/...o-man-39-s-sky-almost-all-day-on-tuesday.aspx

Watching someone else fly around to different planets with different trees and rocks? A new type of Cactus?

Okay....

You should see the comments - AstroTurf anyone?

I plan on flying in space collecting stuff to upgrade my ships weapons in Everspace (Beta) and blowing up bad guys.

(really, this game seems to meant to play and discover on your own, and with people like this "Streaming" this all day - maybe they're getting a PS4 NEO to test out as well?)

 

[Suture]

I'd say something supportive, but I'm still cleaning out my garage (on lunch break).

Btw, wtf was NFL.com doing showing GoT stuff? I'm betting were/still are asking the same question...

It was after the Red Wedding episode. They had a video segment on teams that should clean house in a similar manner. I knew to stay off any social media and news websites but didn't expect NFL.com to ruin it for me.

 

[blesscheese]

It was after the Red Wedding episode. They had a video segment on teams that should clean house in a similar manner. I knew to stay off any social media and news websites but didn't expect NFL.com to ruin it for me.

So some marketing "genius" thought to capitalize on a social phenomenon by cross-referencing NFL team management with the most popular TV show that month/year. I'm sure that "genius" earned his/her salary...

 

[gkarris]

So some marketing "genius" thought to capitalize on a social phenomenon by cross-referencing NFL team management with the most popular TV show that month/year. I'm sure that "genius" earned his/her salary...

I don't know, when your average person at work is using GoT, Downton Abbey, and NFL in the same sentence...

 

[Taustin Powers]

Reading through these release notes for the Day 1 Patch actually makes me more excited about this game:

• 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
• 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.

http://www.vg247.com/2016/08/08/the-no-mans-sky-day-one-patch-contains-massive-changes/

If they added some Minecraft-like building mechanics, I would be all over it.

 

[0098386]

Reading through these release notes for the Day 1 Patch actually makes me more excited about this game:



http://www.vg247.com/2016/08/08/the-no-mans-sky-day-one-patch-contains-massive-changes/

If they added some Minecraft-like building mechanics, I would be all over it.

I only read a few points in that list and I've gone from not being interested in it to scouring the internet looking for the cheapest price.
I still don't know what to expect from it, but I think that's part of the charm. All the best games I've played this year I've jumped into without reading into (Risk of Rain, Gone Home, Fire Emblem Fates).

 

[Janichsan]

Reading through these release notes for the Day 1 Patch actually makes me more excited about this game:…

Call me jaded, but when a game is changed this fundamentally so late in development that all these changes have to be implemented with a massive Day-1-patch, it's usually a sign that the result is a complete mess.

 

[0098386]

Call me jaded, but when a game is changed this fundamentally so late in development that all these changes have to be implemented with a massive Day-1-patch, it's usually a sign that the result is a complete mess.

It's impossible to know why they were added. Maybe there was a bug that prevented all that from working? That's what I'd bet on. They're independent so there's no publisher pressure, it should (theoretically) launch in a decent state.

 

[Taustin Powers]

I only read a few points in that list and I've gone from not being interested in it to scouring the internet looking for the cheapest price.

Ha! That was me a few hours ago!

€ 59,99 on Amazon.de was the cheapest I found.

Call me jaded, but when a game is changed this fundamentally so late in development that all these changes have to be implemented with a massive Day-1-patch, it's usually a sign that the result is a complete mess.

I don't really perceive this as a "fundamental change" to the game overall. I see a lot of refinement and tweaking and a few new features. Mainly, this list gave me a much better idea of the scope and gameplay than I had before.

 

[Janichsan]

It's impossible to know why they were added. Maybe there was a bug that prevented all that from working? That's what I'd bet on.

What bug would affect pretty much literally everything in the game, from the whole scenery, to the user interface, to central gameplay mechanics? I rather suspect panicked changes due to the horrific impression the leaked retail version left and due to possible licensing problems with the core algorithm they used to generate their universe.

They're independent so there's no publisher pressure, it should (theoretically) launch in a decent state.

Aside from possible influence from Sony who marketed the game as an hugely important PS4 exclusive title, there's probably also a lot of pressure from the public to finally release the title without too many further delays.
[doublepost=1470659293][/doublepost]

I don't really perceive this as a "fundamental change" to the game overall.

Really? They changed the game's essential feature – the procedurally generated universe – completely and overhauled core gameplay mechanics like trading, combat (space and ground) and equipment progression. These are no "fundamental changes"?

 

[0098386]

<snip>

Because the only other possiblity is that all those features were added in over the past week, and that's unrealistic. Whilst on a totally different scale, when I was shipping one of my games around publishers I deliberately closed off huge parts of the game as a memory bug was causing graphical glitches (old 2D assets weren't being flushed, and because there was a dev cheat where you could display the team's faces as ingame characters, it caused random objects to have our faces on them! Years ago a friend who pitched a fighting game to MS had to remove half the game until it was nearly gold because of a problem with the physics SDK he was using). Just saying it happens.
[doublepost=1470679057][/doublepost]

Ha! That was me a few hours ago!

€ 59,99 on Amazon.de was the cheapest I found.

I wanted it on download so I bought a cheap PSN voucher (£50 for £43) and bought it with that. I have a penny left over. Hmmm, what to spend it on.

I can't wait now! My only hope for the game is that they continue to add to it, however big it launches at.

 

[Janichsan]

Because the only other possiblity is that all those features were added in over the past week, and that's unrealistic. Whilst on a totally different scale, when I was shipping one of my games around publishers I deliberately closed off huge parts of the game as a memory bug was causing graphical glitches (old 2D assets weren't being flushed, and because there was a dev cheat where you could display the team's faces as ingame characters, it caused random objects to have our faces on them! Years ago a friend who pitched a fighting game to MS had to remove half the game until it was nearly gold because of a problem with the physics SDK he was using). Just saying it happens.

I'm not saying they started from zero when implementing these feature. I think it would be possible that they were already working on them and planned to add them over the next few weeks or months, but the negative reactions to the leaked copies accelerated their release. However, I'm just speculating. I see your point, though.

 

[2nyRiggz]

I don't see how adding more to the game or tweaking things is a bad thing, I haven't read anything about the gameplay being a buggy mess or anything about the gameplay being broken just people expectations and how the handling of the review copies weren't ready. In the end I think the end product is all that matters and once thats good I'm good.


Bless

 

[blesscheese]

Well, I’m not getting it…but if you all come back and report it is great, I’ll hop on over to GOG and pick it up, so don’t forget to take a break and write something here!
[doublepost=1470692049][/doublepost]

I don't see how adding more to the game or tweaking things is a bad thing

I agree. I have no idea, but if you think that once they are done, they might be saying, “oh, we can make this better,” and “now that we have time I can see that doing this might be better…”

Even if it was, “oh crap, I can’t believe we didn’t catch this earlier,” how is that a bad thing?

 

[MRU]

Desperately trying to avoid reading smirking that will spoil the game as it's not playable here till the 10th.

 

[blesscheese]

Desperately trying to avoid reading smirking that will spoil the game as it's not playable here till the 10th.

Not sure I understand? Are you smirking at us, or should we be smirking at you? Or did you mean “something” and the autocorrect got carried away?

 

[MRU]

Not sure I understand? Are you smirking at us, or should we be smirking at you? Or did you mean “something” and the autocorrect got carried away?

Lol. Smirking. Yes auto correct has just had a spasm. Smirking should have been something .. lol

 

[gkarris]

Anyone got the PS4 version?

I was thinking of grabbing the Collector's copy if they have extras at Gamestop and just play it later (sold my PS4). Yesterday, I used the money instead for a GPU card for my console PC...

IGN is doing a review and it's a "slow start"...

(some spoilers)
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/08/09/no-mans-sky-review



(I guess there's a lot simple things to do and places to explore - if you're into that)

Note: the PS4 version has UI moments that uses a mouse-like cursor that is probably from the PC port.

EDIT:

Metacritic Reviews (no spoilers from the reviewers who are actually playing)

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/no-mans-sky/user-reviews

People that like exploration games say it is the best ever (giving it a 10).

People that want a "faster paced" game aren't liking it a lot...

Based on FIRST impressions, I'll be looking for a $20 Steam copy (especially if parts use a mouse-cursor).