No Man's Sky - coming to Xbox NEXT [split topic]

[Viero_Berlotti]

Another big update announced for this summer plus xboxone release:

https://www.nomanssky.com/2018/03/no-mans-sky-next/

Whilst my criticism of this game still pretty much stands, I do find myself coming back to it when I'm bored with everything else. It's still a pleasure to pootle about aimlessly for a few hours, and now my planetary base is starting to come together a bit more I'm starting to get a little more joy out of the resource management/crafting side of the game. Then it gets boring again and I don't touch it for 2-3 months.

[surreal]

The first trailer for the NEXT update dropped yesterday - looks like a huge overhaul, but not sure how I feel about it being all multiplayer yet.  hoping for a solo option at least.  Nice to see third-person views on the ships and proper low-flight finally being introduced.

It's free anyway, so can't really complain

https://youtu.be/D9yFgNykeeg

[Barry Admin]

I watched a guy playing a stream of it last week. I dunno, it looked kind of like a dull grind, and I'm wondering exactly what it is that keeps us grinding these days.

He'd not logged out properly, or something, and had been killed, so he had to spend hours going round hoovering up resources to fix stuff.

[Pinckle Wicker]

Coincidentally, I watched Angry Joe's review of NMS last night via his YT channel. I had a few friends buy this,I kinda held off especially when it was discovered to be well short of expectations, but I didn't realise what an actual rip-off that it was until I watched AJ's review. All the things promised from the beginning never made it to the final release version. Eg factions, mp, deep space battles and colony wars, to name but a few. Were they ever actually patched on at all?

Here is the vid. https://youtu.be/uTTPlqK8AnY

[surreal]

Don't recall factions or colony wars ever being mentioned.  It was a badly handled launch and did generate a lot of ire among people who thought it would be the game to end all games, but a lot has been added onto it since.  They have really redeemed themselves IMHO and people still yelling loudly about the launch 2 years later are the kind who would never be happy with whatever had come out, or just like shouting to get hits on YT.  I bought it on day one, thought it was a cute interesting sandbox and played for a few months then dropped it.  Came back to it with each major update and again played for a while, and not really had any regrets - certainly nothing death-threat worthy.

I'll be checking out the update for sure - it's free anyway.  if they had released paid DLC then there would have been cause to complain.

[Pinckle Wicker]

Don't recall factions or colony wars ever being mentioned. 

On the E3 promotional gameplay and detailing of what would happen from Sean Murray showed footage of just that including MP. If you watch the video i linked (if that bothered) then you will see he does state this will happen. Angry Joe details all that was said and quoted from Murray's own footage against what was actually in the game itself. Hence why i posted it.

[asids]

Gamers are so fickle. Two years ago Sean Murray was a liar, snake-oil salesman etc, and now that NMS seems to have got updates and improvements over the last two years suddenly loads of people like him again and all is forgiven.

Not that I have any opinions on him either way, I haven't played NMS, I just find it funny.

[The Boston Crab]

There's a vocal minority on both ends. The reality is that it was a decent game at release, albeit more limited than we expected, and then they've done two years of major free updates when they could have simply walked away as millionaires. That's worth something, not total absolution of any wrongdoing but it's worth something significant, and it's a vast amount of free support relative to what most games receive. Many games are talked up, hyped, and even missold or deceptively marketed, and by massive publishing entities. Ubisoft do it all the time. Even one of my favourite games ever, Dark Souls 2, was massively cut back from the pre-release footage. It's obvious that their ambition didn't fit in the time frame Sony gave them and when the shit hit the fan, Sony dropped them like a cold potato and rolled the potato under the bus. Pretty much everything that was originally speculated about and indeed promised, and more besides, will be in the game this time tomorrow. That's a pretty decent effort, I reckon, when every instinct must have been telling them to cut their sizeable winnings and walk away.

[Zetetic]

I reckon, when every instinct must have been telling them to cut their sizeable winnings and walk away.

I wonder what Sony would've made of that.

It's hard for me to feel like that there was anything that even really counted as 'wrongdoing', although I suppose they could have done something better. It's not like it's hard to wait, perhaps, a full 45 minutes after release before buying a game to have a better idea of what it is you're paying for.

[The Boston Crab]

It's the same game essentially. It's explore, find loot, build, search for the prettiest planets and maddest animals. It's just well better in every way. So many QoL improvements. It looks fantastic, like a generation separate from the game at launch. There's proper terrain diversity and low flying and the third person view is genuinely much better. The plant life, fucking hell. It seems more realistic in some respects, more trees and stuff and I just landed on a dry planet covered in a variety of cacti. The colouring is more subtle and diverse, less cartoonish. This is a phenomenal 'patch'.

[New Jack]

My immediate reaction to NEXT was "wow, they added textures!"

[Fishfinger]

Playing with friends is great fun. I like it a lot, but on PS4 at least it's pretty buggy, especially if you use a prior saved position. All their updates have been problematic on launch though and I imagine it'll be fine in a week or two's time, with hot fixes already out or on the way.

It is worth starting over for a time to get used to how everything works now. Pretty much everything to do with materials, crafting and technology has been renamed and reworked.

[Space ghost]

Gamers are so fickle. Two years ago Sean Murray was a liar, snake-oil salesman etc, and now that NMS seems to have got updates and improvements over the last two years suddenly loads of people like him again and all is forgiven.

Not that I have any opinions on him either way, I haven't played NMS, I just find it funny.

Is that fickle though or more just ...reasonable?

[mobias]

It's the same game essentially. It's explore, find loot, build, search for the prettiest planets and maddest animals. It's just well better in every way. So many QoL improvements. It looks fantastic, like a generation separate from the game at launch. There's proper terrain diversity and low flying and the third person view is genuinely much better. The plant life, fucking hell. It seems more realistic in some respects, more trees and stuff and I just landed on a dry planet covered in a variety of cacti. The colouring is more subtle and diverse, less cartoonish. This is a phenomenal 'patch'.

I'm quite tempted to get his now. I've heard nothing but good things about it and the third person looks way better.

[asids]

Is that fickle though or more just ...reasonable?

Fickle in terms of the same people who were making accusations about him and Hello Games a couple of years ago, not really understanding the nuances of game development and how that impacted the initial release, seem to be suddenly forgetting about all those things they said now that updates have been made to the game.

There's nothing wrong with admitting the game wasn't what was expected by a lot of people when first released and things have now greatly improved from what it seems, but it was the mass overreaction and hysteria surrounding the initial release that got me, like nobody had ever made a game that wasn't exactly all that was promised at release day.

[MojoJojo]

I'm quite tempted to get his now. I've heard nothing but good things about it and the third person looks way better.

Since you throw down the challenge:

https://shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=40413

That said it's from September 2017 - unfortunately I doubt he'll be tempted to go back again. That said I think that's a good warning about all the positive comments coming out now - they're from people who are still playing the same game after 2 years, despite it's problems. They're either blind to those problems or enamoured enough with the core concept to ignore them and go back again. They've probably become a bit numb to the problems too. It's like how the second or third book in a trilogy almost always gets better user reviews than the first - only those who liked the first review the second.

The article also gives a bit of a defence of Sean Murray, I'll quote a bit of it here:

It looks like Sony was all too happy to let this indie developer run around making promises they knew he couldn't keep. I wouldn't blame the distributor for the sins of the developer, except they did step in when it suited them. They shut him up when it served their business interests and let him run his mouth when he was over-promising the game. Sure, the developer was making outrageous promises, but Sony put his ass on prime-time television. They were happy to soak up their cut of the sales and let him take the blame for the hype storm they created. And now that fans are angry, Sony is trying to play it off like they had NO IDEA what the developer had said or what was in the game they were distributing.

I have a bit of a personal investment here, in that David Ream, close friend of Sean Murray and one of the founders of Hello games, was/is a close personal friend of my wife's brother. I guess the main issue I have is that Hello games had made Joe Danger - a 2D cartoon version of Trials HD. Then they have their offices flooded and promise the moon on a stick, and people were surprised when they didn't deliver. There was a journalistic failure involved too (although given how in bed games journalism is with publishers, maybe it's not necessary to make the distinction).

Another game I'd like to have another go at, but probably won't as I don't have the time/patience. Although probably only because of the personal connection mentioned above.

[madhair60]

Can't wait to give it a go. It was great at launch!

[Zetetic]

I'm quite tempted to get his now. I've heard nothing but good things about it

Since you throw down the challenge:

And also https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/07/26/no-mans-sky-next-beginning-is-inaccessible/

Sounds like they've made the opening more and more tedious with each revision and failed to playtest it at the same time.

[Barry Admin]

I read all those Shamus Young articles the other - they were great, thanks - and I think they put me off this for life. Or until I can get it for about a fiver. It just sounds like a giant mess, with some redeeming qualities for sure, but all the fucking about required with the terrible inventory system sounds like absolute AIDS.

[Twed]

Can't believe they're still going with "every atom procedurally-generated".

[The Boston Crab]

It is a gigantic fucking mess, but it also gives rise to moments and feelings that I've never had in any other game. It's a flawed masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned. I was discussing elsewhere and said that Hello Games obviously don't know how to extract the fun from the systems they've built, but it succeeds in spite of that. I would take this kind of garbled genius over a million polished, generic, cookie cutter AAA shitfests like God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn and the like. It requires a certain amount of goodwill and ignoring the usual shit that computer game wankers talk about but the feeling of exploring a new solar system and not knowing exactly what you will find, and feeling utterly alone, that's pretty special. Some chode was going on about Elite Dangerous and I picked it up on the One X. Absolutely crap, boring, the worst, soulless, not good at all.

[Chairman Yang]

The media blitz that surrounds NMS blows my mind. It's really cheap heat for these writers to lay into the game for being a swindle; but then they're still hyping it up.

I wish they'd take most of the game out of the game, because they're really bad at the game bits of the game. I just wanted to fly around space and look at things.

[mobias]

I just got this as its its only £14.99 from the PSN store and you can't go far wrong with that. I can totally see the appeal but I've no idea what the fuck I'm supposed to be doing. Clearly a few youtube tutorials are going to be my friend here.

Some chode was going on about Elite Dangerous and I picked it up on the One X. Absolutely crap, boring, the worst, soulless, not good at all.

I downloaded that from Steam for my PC a few months back and spent a bit of time with it before returning it and getting my money back. I like the idea of these big space exploration games more than I like the reality of them I think. Any game where the learning curve is too much of a chore I just give up on. You get beyond a certain age in life where you just think life is too short. I just want a game I can turn on and enjoy.

[Barry Admin]

It's the steep learning curve I really enjoyed about it. That and the sheer immersive nature of it as a simulation. The grind does get boring eventually though, and it's one of those games where you start playing on autopilot while you concentrate more on YouTube videos.

[New Jack]

I'm having a bit of fun having jumped in again though this update has stranded me as what you need to fly is craft rocket fuel out of new elements entirely (oh good, more crafting) though I'm on a lovely earth-ish planet.

My initial reaction to this update though was "wow they added textures!" Definitely think it looks better than the plastic-everything sheen before.

I got a massive new minitool but all the slots are taken up by damaged wires that need like 10 Microprocessors each and things like that. Sometimes I can practically see the grind.

But I like just roaming planets. This latest update is a lot better.

I've basically muted the game so I can hear podcasts I've got playing in the background though....

[The Boston Crab]

NEXT is a great achievement but too buggy and I quickly lost interest again because I didn't want to risk doing anything for fear of losing it. Creative Mode seems like all I want but without having to 'work' for the mats, there's not much satisfaction in 'achieving' any rewards. It's basically a clicker, I've realised. Wonderfully atmospheric but I burned out too hard on the OG build.

A- / A / B+