I’m looking forward to this game, price tag is a bit hefty though!
I’m looking forward to this game, price tag is a bit hefty though!
So, who ended up buying it? I know the initial reaction wasn’t particularly good, but I slammed down my 40 notes and I’ve been pretty happy so far (but I think my expectations were minimal).
No spoilers!
To tell you the truth, I sort of lost interest after watching some reviews. They sort of confirmed my fears. The generated planets and environments could only go so far before becoming repetitive. And without an engaging narrative, I knew it wasn’t for me…
I’m not sure what people were expecting exactly. No Man’s Sky is an indie game, and comes with all of the limitations of an indie game. That should have come as no surprise. Perhaps the high price tag made people think that there would be more to the game.
The limited time I’ve spent with No Man’s Sky has been enjoyable, but it’s definitely a slower paced game, one that I can see myself playing when I feel like exploring vast worlds without gamey distractions such as combat, quests, and puzzles. Indeed, I think the lack of traditional game elements, and the main focus on collecting, crafting, and exploring adds to the appeal. Having such a large universe to explore without a lot of artificial challenges in it makes that universe feel more real; you’re on a journey of your own making rather than following someone else’s obstacle course. That said, I’m not sure how long No Man’s Sky will hold my attention. At this point I’ve encountered a few different worlds, but they are similar enough that visiting a lot of these worlds may become tiresome. We’ll see.
The overwhelmingly negative response is, I think, hugely overblown, even if the developers did overstate some aspects of the game. There’s nothing quite like No Man’s Sky, so I think that warrants trying it at least. But I also think waiting is advisable. In hindsight, I should probably have waited before purchasing the game. Not because it’s a bad game but because I haven’t had much time to play it and it is somewhat overpriced. Another reason to delay getting No Man’s Sky is that the performance isn’t great on PC, even on high end video cards. It was practically unplayable on my setup until a patch was released, and even then it chugs. All that procedural terrain is quite taxing. I assume you had to upgrade your PC, @UrbanReflex? If you’re just looking for a detailed exploration game with survival mechanics, you can pick up Fallout 4 for a slightly more and it will run significantly better as well. There’s also a plethora of other survival games on Steam available for much cheaper than No Man’s Sky. So for those on the fence about getting the game, I advise waiting.
This is the main reason I decided to opt out of getting the game. I know it might be interesting at first, just for the sheer size and scope, but my instincts told me: after about 10 hours I would start to see the same structures, the same layouts, just rearranged in different patterns. I’d say this may be a good game to rent from Gamefly or Redbox for a weekend.
10 hours is a decent amount of playtime though. IMO it’s the kind of game that you don’t need to finish to enjoy, and playing it in short sessions over time might feel more like an epic journey than a weekend marathon would.
My old motherboard was supposed to support 8GB RAM, but actually would crash with anything over 4GB. So I swapped it out and now I can have 8GB fine. So, kind’ve an upgrade yes. The problem is the game still runs dog slow, averaging 22 fps (but still surprisingly playable) and I don’t know why. Neither the RAM, CPU, or GPU gets maxed out so I can only assume the game is coded like crap.
I don’t think I’d even scratched the surface of the game in 10 hours. I probably haven’t seen anything new since then, but I’ve learned lots about the game mechanics and had a lot of fun exploring in the 35 hours since then.
I’ve given a friends copy a go. Given you have the right mind set going into the game I think it’s pretty fun. I’ve likened it to Minecraft in the sense that setting you might need to set your own goals rather than the game directly saying to go to x or do y. I have a few friends who are loving it so far.
It definitely isn’t worth the price point they have it set at. £20 would’ve been fair, I’d have said. It’s disappointing they didn’t meet the expectations they themselves set, they probably wouldn’t be in half the trouble they are now had they chosen to communicate clearly. Even a month before release they were showing footage that wasn’t representative of the final game.
I know plenty of people who are loving it but they seem to be mainly those that didn’t pick up on the hype prior to the release and are enjoying it for what it is. Personally I wanted to co-op to be in so badly that when they announced there wasn’t going to be any, that immediately killed my interest for getting the game myself.
Well there’s Star Citizen coming I suppose, which is starting to sound like what people wanted from No Man’s Sky.
There’s also Empyrion - Galactic Survival which was recently released as an early access game. No idea if it’s any good, but the reviews so far are positive.
The price tag, coupled with the hype from Sony and promised features from the devs that never made it into the game, is probably the cause for the huge expectations people had for this game. I didn’t buy the game and I don’t think I will at this point, regardless of the price tag. This is basically what should have been an early access game that was instead released at full price (basically what Subnautica did, and it got a lot more positive reviews than No Man’s Sky).
No Man’s Sky wouldn’t work well as an early access game. Whenever the algorithm is changed, all of the planets would reset, resulting in lost saves. No Man’s Sky is the kind of game where you really don’t want to lose your progress.
The hype reminds me of Project Ego back in 2004. I remember reading that you could plant an acorn and it would grow into a tree over time. The final game reached no where near the scale of those promises; nevertheless Fable still turned out to be a good game.
If they can afford it, Hello Games would be wise to release some DLC for No Man’s Sky for free or at least drop the price quickly to make up for some of the negative responses. I certainly agree that the price is steep for what it is, but it’s also a new kind of game and it’s this kind of innovation that I’m happy to support.
I hear they will be releasing new features for free, base builder, also something to do with the freighters I think? I haven’t been paying too much attention because I wanted to play the game as it is first.
I completed the Atlas path over the weekend. Took me 47 hours so far, and I’m not even anywhere near the centre of the universe yet.
Was it worth spending all that time to complete the game or is it much the same experience just messing around and doing your own thing?
I haven’t completed it, I think reaching the centre of the universe would be that, and I’m pretty far away right now!
I’d say it’s been worth it. I’ve enjoyed every moment of playing, never been frustrated or bored. When I got tired of one planet I would just warp to the next.
Once I had enough resources I did just end up warping for place to place to get closer to my goals, without doing any investigating. I don’t see that changing.
So I was really hyped about the game - but the hype for me was that it was played in the same world as others - so you could meet someone, but chances were very low.
Alas, it turned out there was no multiplayer feature at all, and eventually Steam changed the info box from multiplayer to single player. If it was said to be single player from the start… i probably wouldn’t have been hyped at all!
I’d forgotten about this thread! I still play, edging ever closer to the centre. I’m less than 20k light years away now. Hopefully this weekend I will reach the centre and can call it a day.
I too was miffed about the lack of multiplayer. I envisaged that I’d have met up with a friend and we’d travel to the centre together, but it was not to be.
I wouldnt go as far as to say it’s a good game.
When I heard there was no multiplayer I started to question the games direction. I think this game would have worked well as a smaller Journey-type game where you play with friends online; and only explore “one” unknown solar system. I think that would have been perfect.
Generating an infinite number of possibilities within the confines of the game engine, ends up generating infinite repetition. There can only be so many planet types, so many flora and fauna patterns, so many geological or man-made structures, which can only be randomly placed in so many limited ways before the sense of purpose is lost and things become repetitive…
With one, large, solar system, they could have focused more on the diversity, architecture, uniqueness, and mystery of a handful of planets. Maybe you would have found remnants of one major civilization that scattered colonies or cities across said solar system. The mystery would have unfolded as you got closer to the center, finding an artificial planet orbiting the sun. You would have started from the outside, with your main objective being, to get to the center of the solar system (with other online players to uncover the mystery of the ancient civilization.)
Has anyone tried the 1.3 update? Multiplayer, improved story mode, and a bunch of other features. I lost interest in the initial version quickly, but might give it another try.
I’d be interested to hear what others think of the updates too. I played too much vanilla NMS to return to it just yet.
This is interesting (and very generous):
I must admit, I lost interest in No Man’s Sky quite early on (like many others it seems). Now that this multiplayer update is out, it might be a good time to revisit the game. Is anyone else interested (PC version)? I bought the game from Humble (activated on Steam) meaning that I’m not eligible for this refund, so might as well make the most of it.