Wait, is No Man's Sky going to cost $60?

[Legend]

that isn't really a game.  i watched a "gameplay" video and it's just a planet viewer.  no person, no ship, no getting out of your ship and exploring on foot, no life, no space stations, no economy, no weapons, no item collection, no transforming, no crafting,...   it's not really anything.

alternatively:
http://assets4.ign.com/videos/zencoder/2015/7/8/1920/b1174a53e74c944b00a820df376d7226-5000000-1436365219-w.mp4

I'm only comparing it to No Man's Sky's size.

I think you might be misunderstanding my feelings about NMS as a game. I think it looks fun and I'm excited to play it. I don't disagree with Sean Murray, I disagree with with the people blindly hyping up the game's size. It's the element of the game that should be taking a backseat compared to what makes NMS fun.

[Mmm_fish_tacos]

I want to put together a survival game.  I am seeing more games doing what I want to do, to be honest though.  
My idea is to have seeds find places to grow, and have them grow.  
Not very exciting
I believe Minecraft does similar, but I think that system is bounded by the player.
In theory, you could start with 1 tree, and let the game run long enough and the island would have a large forest.  

I had the idea to have animal spreed seeds in my game. So a deer eats a bush takes a shame then a new bush would grow there. Also the seeds can be carried on their fur and then dropped, but have a lower probability that it would create a bush.

[Legend]

I want to put together a survival game.  I am seeing more games doing what I want to do, to be honest though.  
My idea is to have seeds find places to grow, and have them grow.  
Not very exciting
I believe Minecraft does similar, but I think that system is bounded by the player.
In theory, you could start with 1 tree, and let the game run long enough and the island would have a large forest.

Basically a farming simulator with survival elements? Could be sweet trying to make everything sustainable.

If you went crazy with your concept, you could make a really really cool engine. Like even let abandoned buildings slowly get reclaimed by nature!

[the-pi-guy]

I had the idea to have animal spreed seeds in my game. So a deer eats a bush takes a shame then a new bush would grow there. Also the seeds can be carried on their fur and then dropped, but have a lower probability that it would create a bush.

In my idea I had more of a focus on seeds being spread by wind.  

Basically a farming simulator with survival elements? Could be sweet trying to make everything sustainable.

If you went crazy with your concept, you could make a really really cool engine. Like even let abandoned buildings slowly get reclaimed by nature!

More of a focus on survival but farming elements absolutely.

Fully realized, as a tech demo its be fantastic and really cool.  
As a game I'm a little bit worried as I dont really feel like I have a hook yet.  

[Mmm_fish_tacos]

In my idea I had more of a focus on seeds being spread by wind.  
More of a focus on survival but farming elements absolutely.

Fully realized, as a tech demo its be fantastic and really cool.  
As a game I'm a little bit worried as I dont really feel like I have a hook yet.  

Who needs a hook!

[Legend]

Who needs a hook!

The plant mechanic is a big enough hook itself!

[the-pi-guy]

Who needs a hook!

Well Minecraft doesn't really have a hook.  
So your right!

The plant mechanic is a big enough hook itself!

Definitely!  

[BananaKing]

For example, here's a free space game that's over a TRILLION times larger than No Man's Sky:

It's going for realism(all 10 thousand known galaxies are in the game) so the planets and world aren't as interesting as No Man's Sky, but it's a prime example why most NMS fan talk irks me. The game's size has been hyped up to insane levels and has become the main selling point, yet so many games have done it bigger and better. The true "cool" things NMS has going for it seem to be practically ignored.

i get that whats irking you is people saying "look at the scale!" but what really is being said between the lines is look at the scale of that game, which seems really interesting and exciting. that "game" you linked isnt really a game, its a simulator, something that No Mans Sky simply doesnt want to be. it has aliens, space stations, space police, economy and weird alien planets and life. its a sci-fi game, and an interesting one, and one that you can go literally anywhere. its premise is whats grabbing people. see this galaxy, you can go anywhere, discover all kinds of shame, and explore all kinds of places.

for me, No Mans Sky is going to be a journey, a journey across the Universe trying to get to the center, trying to discover whats there. and once i do, that will be the natural end of the game for me. i know the tech Proceduraly generated, but there is either a good world in front of me, or a bad one. and so far we seen a lot of variety and interesting planets, with a lot more promised. Dont Starve uses Procedural Generation and its one of the best survive games out there, it doesnt really matter to me.

the game seems SO big, so interesting, and so inviting. and thats whats so impressive.

[the-pi-guy]

i get that whats irking you is people saying "look at the scale!" but what really is being said between the lines is look at the scale of that game, which seems really interesting and exciting. that "game" you linked isnt really a game, its a simulator, something that No Mans Sky simply doesnt want to be. it has aliens, space stations, space police, economy and weird alien planets and life. its a sci-fi game, and an interesting one, and one that you can go literally anywhere. its premise is whats grabbing people. see this galaxy, you can go anywhere, discover all kinds of shame, and explore all kinds of places.

for me, No Mans Sky is going to be a journey, a journey across the Universe trying to get to the center, trying to discover whats there. and once i do, that will be the natural end of the game for me. i know the tech Proceduraly generated, but there is either a good world in front of me, or a bad one. and so far we seen a lot of variety and interesting planets, with a lot more promised. Dont Starve uses Procedural Generation and its one of the best survive games out there, it doesnt really matter to me.

the game seems SO big, so interesting, and so inviting. and thats whats so impressive.

I think you misunderstand where he's going with it.  
He's not hating on the game.  He just feels there are more exciting things to talk about than scale.  Lots of games have done great huge scale.  But NMS is doing really cool stuff that's getting ignored.  
He's not saying "this really sucks", he's saying " there's more impressive things about the game!"

[Legend]

i get that whats irking you is people saying "look at the scale!" but what really is being said between the lines is look at the scale of that game, which seems really interesting and exciting. that "game" you linked isnt really a game, its a simulator, something that No Mans Sky simply doesnt want to be. it has aliens, space stations, space police, economy and weird alien planets and life. its a sci-fi game, and an interesting one, and one that you can go literally anywhere. its premise is whats grabbing people. see this galaxy, you can go anywhere, discover all kinds of shame, and explore all kinds of places.

As you said 'i think its actually the "biggest" game ever made. so that alone kinda justifies the price tag.' People have this love of the scale itself, outside of its relationship to game mechanics.

Also the game is infinite. Minecraft is infinite. That space sim above is infinite. Kerbal Space Program is infinite. Etc., etc., etc. Talking about scale, at this scale, is meaningless. In practicality the engines are either artificially limited by the developers, or hard limited by the computer running the game, but the code itself could produce a truly 100% infinite world. Infinity is huge. Like take every single molecule in existence, that's around 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms, and imagine each one contained an entire full sized 20 billion light year wide universe inside it. That hypothetical world is still smaller than No Man's Sky, and Minecraft, and that space sim, and Kerbal Space Program, etc., etc., etc. Infinity is huge! Discussing scale at this scale is meaningless. If Sean came out and said there 10 trillion stars in NMS, or came out and said their are 10 octillion stars in NMS, there is literally no difference. Both are just artificial caps on the game's infinite core, and both are more than the sum of all players could ever possibly reach.

What does matter, is the variety of the game's infinite world. That is what will actually make the scale matter or not. After 10 planets, do things start to feel repetitive? Or does it take 100? Maybe even 1,000. Yet we know practically nothing about this, and it seems practically no one cares about this. The E3 demo showed the map of millions of stars and everyone oogled, yet facetiously all of them could be practically identical. The scale is not impressive and has zero impact on the game. Meanwhile the thing that actually matters and will make the game fun or not, the thing relevant to all your points, has been pushed to the sidelines.

for me, No Mans Sky is going to be a journey, a journey across the Universe trying to get to the center, trying to discover whats there. and once i do, that will be the natural end of the game for me. i know the tech Proceduraly generated, but there is either a good world in front of me, or a bad one. and so far we seen a lot of variety and interesting planets, with a lot more promised. Dont Starve uses Procedural Generation and its one of the best survive games out there, it doesnt really matter to me.

The thing at the center of the galaxy is not the end of the game, but the beginning of something bigger.

Spoiler for legit spoiler, you've been warned:

It's kinda been leaked. At the center is a warp gate, allowing you to go to other galaxies. This might be wrong and Sean has fooled us with sleight of hand, but in an interview he accidentally slipped some info.

We've seen a fair amount of variety, but we're talking just 20 planets maybe. Plus even among those they're starting to blend together a bit. On your journey to the center you'll probably land on hundreds of planets. I really hope each one feels unique and continues to surprise players. This variety is what matters.

There is nothing wrong with procedural generation. It's great and can be used in awesome ways. What's weird is when people are impressed by the size of procedurally generated worlds, not the quality of the generation.

[Legend]

I think you misunderstand where he's going with it.  
He's not hating on the game.  He just feels there are more exciting things to talk about than scale.  Lots of games have done great huge scale.  But NMS is doing really cool stuff that's getting ignored.  
He's not saying "this really sucks", he's saying " there's more impressive things about the game!"

It'd be like if for the new Uncharted game, everyone was just raving about how awesome it is to drive the car and claiming the game should cost $60 simple because of the car.

I'd be over here like "I love Uncharted and the car looks fun, but wut?"

[kitler53]

As you said 'i think its actually the "biggest" game ever made. so that alone kinda justifies the price tag.' People have this love of the scale itself, outside of its relationship to game mechanics.

Also the game is infinite. Minecraft is infinite. That space sim above is infinite. Kerbal Space Program is infinite. Etc., etc., etc. Talking about scale, at this scale, is meaningless. In practicality the engines are either artificially limited by the developers, or hard limited by the computer running the game, but the code itself could produce a truly 100% infinite world. Infinity is huge. Like take every single molecule in existence, that's around 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms, and imagine each one contained an entire full sized 20 billion light year wide universe inside it. That hypothetical world is still smaller than No Man's Sky, and Minecraft, and that space sim, and Kerbal Space Program, etc., etc., etc. Infinity is huge! Discussing scale at this scale is meaningless. If Sean came out and said there 10 trillion stars in NMS, or came out and said their are 10 octillion stars in NMS, there is literally no difference. Both are just artificial caps on the game's infinite core, and both are more than the sum of all players could ever possibly reach.

What does matter, is the variety of the game's infinite world. That is what will actually make the scale matter or not. After 10 planets, do things start to feel repetitive? Or does it take 100? Maybe even 1,000. Yet we know practically nothing about this, and it seems practically no one cares about this. The E3 demo showed the map of millions of stars and everyone oogled, yet facetiously all of them could be practically identical. The scale is not impressive and has zero impact on the game. Meanwhile the thing that actually matters and will make the game fun or not, the thing relevant to all your points, has been pushed to the sidelines.



The thing at the center of the galaxy is not the end of the game, but the beginning of something bigger.

Spoiler for legit spoiler, you've been warned:

It's kinda been leaked. At the center is a warp gate, allowing you to go to other galaxies. This might be wrong and Sean has fooled us with sleight of hand, but in an interview he accidentally slipped some info.

We've seen a fair amount of variety, but we're talking just 20 planets maybe. Plus even among those they're starting to blend together a bit. On your journey to the center you'll probably land on hundreds of planets. I really hope each one feels unique and continues to surprise players. This variety is what matters.

There is nothing wrong with procedural generation. It's great and can be used in awesome ways. What's weird is when people are impressed by the size of procedurally generated worlds, not the quality of the generation.

seriously man, what the hell is your point?!?  i feel like your being a grammer nazi on peoples excitement.    people are impressed by the scale of the game and you're coming along saying fudge the scale in nms,.. infinity is bigger than ridiculously large.

why not compare nms to something real instead of an abstract idea like infinity.  is nms bigger than GTA?  bigger than the witcher?  bigger than infamous?  name one fudgy game where you can walk on the surface of a planet, pull our your gun and dig and explore an underground cave system, then jump into your space ship and circumnavigate the globe, pull up on the throttle to go into space, and then choose from any one of nms's 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets to visit next and every single one of them is unique.    ...and all of it is seemless.  no bounties or load screens or whatever.  the fact that we've seen a ton of variety in the planets shows is part of the scale not in opposition to scale.


if you can't appreciate the impressiveness of that scale unlike anything delivered in a video game before than seriously,.. just shut up. 

[the-pi-guy]

seriously man, what the hell is your point?!?  i feel like your being a grammer nazi on peoples excitement.    people are impressed by the scale of the game and you're coming along saying fudge the scale in nms,.. infinity is bigger than ridiculously large.

why not compare nms to something real instead of an abstract idea like infinity.  is nms bigger than GTA?  bigger than the witcher?  bigger than infamous?  name one fudgy game where you can walk on the surface of a planet, pull our your gun and dig and explore an underground cave system, then jump into your space ship and circumnavigate the globe, pull up on the throttle to go into space, and then choose from any one of nms's 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets to visit next and every single one of them is unique.    ...and all of it is seemless.  no bounties or load screens or whatever.  the fact that we've seen a ton of variety in the planets shows is part of the scale not in opposition to scale.


if you can't appreciate the impressiveness of that scale unlike anything delivered in a video game before than seriously,.. just shut up.  

You're doing the grammar nazi thing more than he is.
You're focusing on 1 aspect of what he's saying and then resaying the other part of it while acting like he's against it.  
This seems to be what you think he is saying "NMS is unimpressive, scale is unimpressive, bad game!"
Really he is saying "why is everyone focusing on the scale?  There are bigger games.  Can't we talk about all the other cool stuff in the game?"

Legend wants to see more, and to some extent he's giving a technical run down of the game.  We don't know how repetitive the game is going to be.  At that scale it absolutely has to be procedurally generated and the question is how well does it do this?  

Are there like 10 general planets?  Where all the others are just combinations/variations of these 10?

Age of Empires 2, there might be like 100,000 maps of each type, but they are still to a type.  You pick gold mine, oasis, islands.  At some point there isn't that much variation.  

How many types of maps are there in NMS?  

Legend wants to get to facts, not just string around the scale like a new buzz word.  

[Legend]

seriously man, what the heck is your point?!?  i feel like your being a grammer nazi on peoples excitement.    people are impressed by the scale of the game and you're coming along saying fudge the scale in nms,.. infinity is bigger than ridiculously large.

My point is that NMS's scale alone is not worthy of a high price tag, since this thread is about the games release price. If you're excited by the scale, cool. I'm not on a mission to make everyone hate it. Also I'm pretty sure you took my comment backwards. NMS is infinite and bigger than ridiculously large.

if you can't appreciate the impressiveness of that scale unlike anything delivered in a video game before than seriously,.. just shut up.

No game before has ever allowed you to "walk on the surface of a planet, pull our your gun and dig and explore an underground cave system, then jump into your space ship and circumnavigate the globe, pull up on the throttle to go into space, and then choose from any one of 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets to visit next and every single one of them is unique" NMS is unique and interesting because of how the devs have brought all these elements together.

The scale element on its own though has been done in hundreds of games before. We have games with 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets and we have games that take up the same size as 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets.


How excited are you for No Man's Sky? I've never seen you like this before, even to ravenous xbox fanboys.

Are there like 10 general planets?  Where all the others are just combinations/variations of these 10?

Age of Empires 2, there might be like 100,000 maps of each type, but they are still to a type.  You pick gold mine, oasis, islands.  At some point there isn't that much variation.  

How many types of maps are there in NMS?  

If they have some cool alien cities, that'd really help make planets have unique feels.

[Mmm_fish_tacos]

I'd also like to point out that the ability to land on planets is coming to elite dangerous.  Who knows what you'll be doing once you land, but it is going to happen. And space on it's own seems much better than space in NMS.