No Man's Sky OT: My god it's full of stars

[Dr. Pezus]

Well we have to return to reality and land on indie planet

[Xevross]

Seriously what were people expecting in an indie game with a small file size?

[the-pi-guy]

Seriously what were people expecting in an indie game with a small file size?

File size is just a number! 
Doesn't mean we can't be in love!

[Legend]

Seriously what were people expecting in an indie game with a small file size?

Then why charge $60?

[DerNebel]

Then why charge $60?

Because people are willing to pay it?

[Legend]

Because people are willing to pay it?

Sure but then the indie excuse doesn't work.

[DerNebel]

Sure but then the indie excuse doesn't work.

It doesn't? I don't think "indie" is tied to a price point, nor is a $60 price point necessarily tied to a certain level of asset variety.

[Legend]

It doesn't? I don't think "indie" is tied to a price point, nor is a $60 price point necessarily tied to a certain level of asset variety.

You can't brush off asset variety for a game with asset variety as its #1 feature.

[the-pi-guy]

"A GAME SO BIG EVERYTHING HAD TO BE PROCEDURALLY GENERATED  


but certain things will be exactly the same."

[DerNebel]

You can't brush off asset variety for a game with asset variety as its #1 feature.

I sure as hell can, if people are complaining about clouds.

Also procedural generation as well as the team size, should have been obvious indicators that there would be a lot of repeating assets.

[Legend]

I sure as hell can, if people are complaining about clouds.

Also procedural generation as well as the team size, should have been obvious indicators that there would be a lot of repeating assets.

Clouds are a big thing for a space game. If you don't care that planets might look identical from orbit, how the heck do you plan to play NMS? Clouds aren't the biggest deal but they sure are an issue.

With procedural generation they shouldn't have any repeating assets. That's the whole point of procedural generation. A small team doesn't matter.

[DerNebel]

Clouds are a big thing for a space game. If you don't care that planets might look identical from orbit, how the heck do you plan to play NMS? Clouds aren't the biggest deal but they sure are an issue.

With procedural generation they shouldn't have any repeating assets. That's the whole point of procedural generation. A small team doesn't matter.

I know no game with procedural generation that doesn't repeat assets, like constantly. Bloodbornes chalise dungeons are full of repeated assets for instance.

[the-pi-guy]

I know no game with procedural generation that doesn't repeat assets, like constantly. Bloodbornes chalise dungeons are full of repeated assets for instance.

Depends on the procedural generation.  
Dark Cloud utilized procedural generation for creating levels.  You could play a level a dozens times and get completely different routes.  Which was awesome, because you couldn't look up how to get through a level.

Games that pull that model are basically all repeated assets.  You basically make 10 assets, and the game finds a billion ways to vary those.  Which works fine for certain times of games.

The difference though is that No Man's Sky has advertised itself as using procedural generation in a big way, like it'll be able to simulate a whole universe.  You can go here and adventure on this planet, then you can go here and adventure on this planet.  That's supposed to be exciting because it's been set up to allow lots of variety.  Like, you can go to a Mars like planet, and then go to an Earth like planet and then go to a Venus like planet.  Instead it almost seems to be looking like Earth, kind of Earth, Earth with things in different spots, Earth with different things in different spots.  

(Okay, it's not that bad.  But the cloud thing is kinda lame.)

[Legend]

I know no game with procedural generation that doesn't repeat assets, like constantly. Bloodbornes chalise dungeons are full of repeated assets for instance.

"Procedural generation" is a broad term. Lots of games do it with a cookie cutter method which just places assets. Other games generate everything. NMS seems to be a mix of the two.


EDT: I'm off mobile so I can give a more fleshed out response. Take for example Elite Dangerous, the other big procedurally generated space game. This is the extent of repeated assets.

The planet's procedurally generated textures are tiled. That's it, and even this little bit of repetition was enough to spawn a large thread of people wanting it fixed. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/253325-Notice-a-Pattern

No Man's Sky has this problem with ground textures too, but it's such a minor issue in the grand scheme of things. Almost every game has tiled textures and it's something we've learned to ignore (even though I want it fixed in Elite).



This however is a fully fixable problem that sticks out like a sore thumb. Every planet with clouds seems to have the exact same texture making them look like clones. Isn't that really obvious?

Meanwhile in Elite Dangerous since it's a simple example of why this is fixable, every planet is different.



No one with experience in procedural generation would have expected NMS to have a single generic cloud texture.

[Xevross]

Oh man, looking at that picture makes me realise how bad the cloud thing actually is.

Then why charge $60?

I have absolutely no clue.

Its always looked to me like a cheaper game. I certainly would never pay more than about $20 for it. I'm most likely never going to get it anyway.