No Man's Sky

[Tetsuo Ryuu]

I dunno I can't get behind the hype for NMS. For what I've seen so far the worlds look kinda empty and the mechanics sorta dull.
I am way more excited about Horizon Zero Dawn as new IP.

[rob4001]

Anyone played it yet?

[Allen]

Played for a couple of hours last night. Despite all the negativity it's receiving due to the poor release, it's actually really good. I have only just jumped out of the first system, not sure which path I am going to follow yet.

And yes, I do get the odd frame rate drop to 30-40 FPS from the decent 70-80 FPS I normally get, and yes it is annoying. Hope they fix that soon.

[jimbouk]

Had a quick run around, seems like a game you'll either happily plough many hours into or get tired of quickly. I'm a bit concerned that they've gone too minimal on the interfaces, very clean but means you might need a pen and paper to write down the things you are shopping for rather than being able to tag them and then them being highlighted in the trading screens.

Will be interesting to see how it pans out.

[Ttaskmaster]

Friend got this, as he's into Elite, StarCit, and all that...
Within 2 hours of buying it, he was getting a refund. Reviews were showing 3:1 Neghative to Positive.

General consensus is that it's wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle.
That was what people were saying about Elite after maybe a year. They were saying this about NMS after a couple hours...

Will maybe pick up when it's sub-£5 on Steam, but all interest lost at this point.
Looks like it's down to Star Citizen to save us... or just blow yourself out the airlock now and beat the rush later on!!

[Allen]

I don't trust reviews as much as I don't trust developers. I was interested in NMS a while back, but never joined the hype train and didn't pre-order. When it did come out and complaints were being thrown around everywhere I took in to account the amount of negative reviews compared to how many people were playing it (on Steam, they're the only stats I can find). Right now there's 155 negative reviews on Metacritic and 16k negative on Steam, compared to 70 and 22k positive, but there are 43k people playing right now, 85k have played today. About 200k were playing the day of release. Taking into account Steam only, that's 40k reviews from 200k who were playing on the day of release and no idea how many that have played it in total since. And who shouts the loudest? Those who are upset.

Now of course, some of those people playing on release were having issues, and no doubt some have refunded, but how many of those were buyers remorse for buying into a game they didn't investigate fully before hand and got bored? And how many of those were refunded just because out of the box the game was pretty poorly optimised? I don't know, but I do know that once I had sorted out the minor FPS issues, I am really enjoying the game. The FPS drops have almost disappeared, I do get them when moving too fast though, it seems similar to how terrain generation slows down Minecraft. It's annoying, but soon gone.

Having said all of that though, I am in no way condoning Hello Games for releasing a buggy game, but it's nowhere near as bad as others (sadly Total Biscuit jumped on this calling it Arkham Knight levels of poor). And sadly, it will not change if people keep pre-ordering and buying into games before they are released. What incentive do developers have to get a working game out of the door if they have already received millions beforehand? Not a lot...

[Ttaskmaster]

I could cope with buggy, badly optimised and all manner of fixable glitchiness... But it seems it's just the gameplay itself and the plot behind it that's just.... empty....

[Allen]

I guess it doesn't suit everyone... there's no plot to Minecraft, but I reckon if there was a way of seeing how much time I have spent in every single game I have ever played, Minecraft would be in the top 3!

[Pob255]

But minecraft has the saving grace of the building mechanics and of course the modding.

I think that the biggest issue with NMS is that they kept game specifics very quiet, so no one knew what it was exactly, but too many people started coming up with what the game would be in their heads and spreading their version to others.
With Sony getting behind it and pushing made people think it would be more than it is on top.

For the cost I'm not sure it's worth it, £20-25 would be far more tempting for me.
It does seem to have a bit of "Spore" universe stage mixed with a basic 1st person survival game.

It seems like there's a lot of variation in appearance but not in the mechanics, eg in minecraft there are fewer different looking mobs/creatures but they have a larger range of behaviour.

[Bunjiweb]

If you went into No Man's Sky with no preconceptions, you might enjoy it. IF you are basing your expectations on early hopes of a small dev team shooting for the sky and ticking every imaginable box, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Personally, I'm really enjoying it and have put in about 20 hours so far. Yes, in many ways it's a walking / mining simulator, but it's great fun discovering new planets you know have been randomly generated especially for you, and seeing all the unusual life forms that have been created by "the machine".

It could have much more depth, and I have no doubt that over time Hello Games will add in some of the features people seem to be missing, such as more in-depth crafting, base building and better ship control / space fight mechanics.

Of course, the biggest elephant is the lack of multiplayer depth that a lot of people crave. Personally, this doesn't bother me - I'm very happy having a rewarding single player experience within a universe that others are contributing towards.

I've so far come across two other systems that other players have discovered before me, and I've only traversed across a minuscule patch of sky between around 12 systems.

I'm going to stick with it, and I wish so me other people would appreciate it for what it is, and what the tiny developer has created, rather than wasting their time complaining about the things that haven't been included.

If you're not sure, then it's very simple - wait. It'll be on sale on Steam by Christmas, if not before. Personally I'm happy to pay £40 for something I know I'll put at least 40 hours into, making it very cheap entertainment indeed at £1/hr.

[Bagnaj97]

I've put over 45 hours into it so far and I'm still not done. A lot of the planets are very same-y, but every now and then you find one that looks awesome - http://imgur.com/a/rFojP

The game certainly isn't for everyone, it's definitely more exploration than survival/crafting, but I find exploring alien worlds to be strangely relaxing.

[The Hand]

Advertising Standards launches investigation into No Man's Sky

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...to-no-mans-sky

More great PR for NMS!

[Gartokk]

It's a rushed experiment, a screenshot generator. It has its moments of emergent gameplay but it's just so hollow right now and that doesn't look like it's going to change. Which is such a shame.

[jimbouk]

Still enjoying trotting around, exploring, discovering, learning languages and seeing the sights. Very stable now and looks pretty enough on the PS4.

Space combat is a bit naff, but for some relaxed back to basics free exploration gaming it's what I wanted Elite Dangerous to be.

[Zak33]

If you went into No Man's Sky with no preconceptions, you might enjoy it. IF you are basing your expectations on early hopes of a small dev team shooting for the sky and ticking every imaginable box, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Personally, I'm really enjoying it and have put in about 20 hours so far. Yes, in many ways it's a walking / mining simulator, but it's great fun discovering new planets you know have been randomly generated especially for you, and seeing all the unusual life forms that have been created by "the machine".

this...with bells on it

everyone's brains are "tweaked" by different things....

When I've played a turret defense game through, I go back to the beginning and gold medal every single map on every variation.

In No Mans sky, you either WANT to wander about discovering stuff.... and taking from that, just that.....or you don't

[Ttaskmaster]

If you went into No Man's Sky with no preconceptions, you might enjoy it.

Didn't everyone have preconceptions/expectations based on what the Devs were telling us it would be, though?
Kinda the reasons people bought it, surely...?

Personally, I'm really enjoying it and have put in about 20 hours so far.

I'd put over 2,700 hours into Elite before people started saying things about lack of content that I was able to understand and agree with.
It took less than 2 hours before I was agreeing with the vehement rants of the Steam Review Elite children... and I usually disregard anyone who hasn't played a good few hours on a game.

seeing all the unusual life forms that have been created by "the machine".

One of the Devs was quoted as saying something about the ProcGen and how there's only so many combinations possible... in response to complaints of repetition again within hours of release.

It could have much more depth, and I have no doubt that over time Hello Games will add in some of the features people seem to be missing, such as more in-depth crafting, base building and better ship control / space fight mechanics.

So why didn't they put more of that in for release, or delay until they had it?

Space combat is a bit naff, but for some relaxed back to basics free exploration gaming it's what I wanted Elite Dangerous to be.

How is Elite not like that?
I thought it was all open, free, empty, lonely space once you got outside The Bubble and off the beaten path? Even in some inner systems that haven't been colonised, I can count the population on just my index finger...