No Man's Sky - Procedural space game
- Thread starter NeilF
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Nope, no landscape changes, think they were quite clear about that in once of the videos. I would be absolutely amazed if they could even make that happen, it potentially increases the scale of data required to persist by factors of thousands.
The only thing confirmed to persist and be shared with other players, is who discovered planets, and names of creatures.
Soldato
Ok, am I the only one seeing this? No Mans Sky is NOT a game... Sure, it's 3D and you can fly around in space. But this is not a game... It's a fun sandbox toy like any other physics sandbox engine...
I truly fail to see the appeal here and how it's being sold as a AAA game is beyond me.
No actual missions, no actual drive to find other planets, no personal touch on ANYTHING since it all regenerates anyway...
"Oh, oh but Billy Bo, you can name plants and animals!!?"... Well done, you can name a plant that means jack. Why can't I create a base on a planet, my base of operations, fly out to my neighbouring planets and come back to my 'home'....?
You can't, all you'll be doing is flying to a new planet, toying around, taking a photo, 'neat'... Next planet. This will be VERY boring very fast.
I know it may seem like I'm trolling I just think people are a little lost in the dev's 'dreams' on this one and I'm just trying to make it obvious that this is nothing more than a tool. Not a game.
Man of Honour
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Because it is filling a gap in the market and is something that many of us want but have never been given...
Soldato
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You don't know what the game actually is, nor anybody else, yet, or how it plays, and how much is scripted.
I'm fascinated by the tech though. And btw, there are already procedural universe sandboxes around. These are nothing more than curiosities. I wonder if NMS actually made a game out of it, which would be interesting.
Same thing can be said of Minecraft btw. And yes, it can seem boring to some, with no clear objective or goal. But that's missing the point.
You like heavily scripted and directed games? Well good for you. I don't mind mindless exploration a-la Minecraft, see what's beyond the horizon, and I'm curious to see how they'll do that.
I'm fascinated by the tech though. And btw, there are already procedural universe sandboxes around. These are nothing more than curiosities. I wonder if NMS actually made a game out of it, which would be interesting.
Same thing can be said of Minecraft btw. And yes, it can seem boring to some, with no clear objective or goal. But that's missing the point.
You like heavily scripted and directed games? Well good for you. I don't mind mindless exploration a-la Minecraft, see what's beyond the horizon, and I'm curious to see how they'll do that.
Minecraft's success is mainly caused by the world building potential not the exploration of procedural content. Minecraft is the Lego of gaming.
Soldato
garys mod is not a game either but its quite popular
sometimes people with imagination just like to muck around a bit..they dont need direction to enjoy themselves
sometimes people with imagination just like to muck around a bit..they dont need direction to enjoy themselves
What I expect NMS to be :
A nice chilled single-player game with an infinite world to explore, survival gameplay elements, freedom to just explore peacefully or go on a spree leaving devastation in my wake. A beautiful visual aesthetic and huge variety of environments to explore.
If it delivers on that, which I expect it will, I'll be happy. I don't want or expect it to be anything else.
I've got my SC Constellation package sat waiting for me when I want a bustling multiplayer space game and it eventually appears.
A nice chilled single-player game with an infinite world to explore, survival gameplay elements, freedom to just explore peacefully or go on a spree leaving devastation in my wake. A beautiful visual aesthetic and huge variety of environments to explore.
If it delivers on that, which I expect it will, I'll be happy. I don't want or expect it to be anything else.
I've got my SC Constellation package sat waiting for me when I want a bustling multiplayer space game and it eventually appears.
It's ridiculous that people can patent mathematics. There's a similar issue with simplex noise which is also used in procedural generation, although people have engineered a similar but not identical method called OpenSimplex which is patent free.
Nope. Physical changes to planets are not stored for other users to see. The storage and compute capacity required to do that centrally for 18 quintillion planets is impossible.
The entire blueprint of a planet is stored as a single 64 bit binary string which is fed through an algorithm when you generate it locally in your game. Any changes you make that are stored in your local save game may then be overlayed onto this blueprint. But anyone else will just see the base blueprint of the planet (plus any of their own changes), they won't see yours.
To do so would require merging every users save games into one single save game file stored locally that is both written too and access symaltaniously by every single player at the same time.
You sure are putting a lot of effort into complaining about a game you say you have no interest in...
One thing I find really impressive about this game is that it contains genuine exploration of a vitual world.
When the devlopers say you arrive at a planet and your the first person to discover it, you really the absolute first person, ever.
The planets and their characteristics are defined by the methematical algorithms, but Hello Games will not have rendered every single one of the 18 quintillion planets during development. Most of the planets in the game will exist purely as their mathematic blueprint, they will never have been 3D rendered.
So when you first arrive at a planet and your PC renders the mathematics into a world and displays that to you as a user, storing the 3D render of it as bits and bytes in your PCs memory and on disk, that is quite litterally the first time that will have happend, ever.
Hello Games haven't built a universe which we will then go and fly around. They have built the instructions for a universe, and us as players will then set about building it.
The technology behind this game impresses me regardless of whether the game is any good. They have built a universe that would take a single person billions of years to fully explore and render, and it all exists in 6GBs of code! I can drive from one side of the GTA5 map to the other in a few minutes, and that games 50GB+!
When the devlopers say you arrive at a planet and your the first person to discover it, you really the absolute first person, ever.
The planets and their characteristics are defined by the methematical algorithms, but Hello Games will not have rendered every single one of the 18 quintillion planets during development. Most of the planets in the game will exist purely as their mathematic blueprint, they will never have been 3D rendered.
So when you first arrive at a planet and your PC renders the mathematics into a world and displays that to you as a user, storing the 3D render of it as bits and bytes in your PCs memory and on disk, that is quite litterally the first time that will have happend, ever.
Hello Games haven't built a universe which we will then go and fly around. They have built the instructions for a universe, and us as players will then set about building it.
The technology behind this game impresses me regardless of whether the game is any good. They have built a universe that would take a single person billions of years to fully explore and render, and it all exists in 6GBs of code! I can drive from one side of the GTA5 map to the other in a few minutes, and that games 50GB+!
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Soldato
Fair enough, I don't think there is a game out there that appeals to absolutely everyone.
Soldato
I was watching the following video and am a bit intrigued about how the economy in the game will work.
Im assuming it means collecting resources on the planets to allow you to upgrade your ship so you can in turn explore deeper into the universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sraIIDUzjTs
Regardless of how the game pans out im looking forward to it and will try it regardless. I get the impression its also one of those games where the user reviews will be all over the place in terms of peoples expectations being delivered. TRhis game will be marmite im sure.
Im assuming it means collecting resources on the planets to allow you to upgrade your ship so you can in turn explore deeper into the universe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sraIIDUzjTs
Regardless of how the game pans out im looking forward to it and will try it regardless. I get the impression its also one of those games where the user reviews will be all over the place in terms of peoples expectations being delivered. TRhis game will be marmite im sure.
Man of Honour
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Yup, that is guaranteed. Expect lower review scores for that exact reason.
A lot of people seem to forget about the 'lore' aspect of the game which Murray has alluded to. That really is intriguing to me and could be a fantastic hook that keeps you coming back to play, especially if it adds a strong air of mystery. It's certainly something that the likes of Elite Dangerous didn't capitalise on, which is basically a game of grinding. NMS offers so much more, and with a significantly varied palette also. There will be limitless things discover and the whole language aspect and having to 'learn' this certainly adds another element to it. There is great potential here, but we basically know so little as to how it's all going to come together. It could all fall flat on its face of course, but I am hoping not.
Associate
I would say based on what we know ( i stand corrected) NMS doesn't offer any more than what ED does. But the main focus that NMS went for (exploration) completely ***** all over ED's pathetic attempt at exploration (oh look a snooker ball, scan, next stop, oh look another colour snooker ball)
It will be interesting to see what NMS is really about (they've always given very small amounts of info) yes it has combat and trading (both don't look as good/polished as ED imo)
What irks me, and will stop me buying for now, is the stupid price £40, no thanks, im not on console now, knock it down to £30 then im in.
Associate
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- 6 Apr 2011
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- 459
Don't buy it or comment on it then. You won't get so worked up. It's not sold as an AAA game, it's a studio of 40 people ffs. The only reason people say that is the price. But Firewatch was 30 quid, so was Everyones gone to the rapture. Both had < 10 hours gameplay.
Games like this need a smidgeon of imagination. Set your own goals.
One thing I find really impressive about this game is that it contains genuine exploration of a vitual world.
When the devlopers say you arrive at a planet and your the first person to discover it, you really the absolute first person, ever.
The planets and their characteristics are defined by the methematical algorithms, but Hello Games will not have rendered every single one of the 18 quintillion planets during development. Most of the planets in the game will exist purely as their mathematic blueprint, they will never have been 3D rendered.
So when you first arrive at a planet and your PC renders the mathematics into a world and displays that to you as a user, storing the 3D render of it as bits and bytes in your PCs memory and on disk, that is quite litterally the first time that will have happend, ever.
Hello Games haven't built a universe which we will then go and fly around. They have built the instructions for a universe, and us as players will then set about building it.
The technology behind this game impresses me regardless of whether the game is any good. They have built a universe that would take a single person billions of years to fully explore and render, and it all exists in 6GBs of code! I can drive from one side of the GTA5 map to the other in a few minutes, and that games 50GB+!
This, just this.
It's like Don't Starve, set in a massive explorable galaxy, with lore, stuff to upgrade, stuff to pew pew or explore or trade your way to that ship/drive that gets you to the next system.
What's not to like?
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Only thing missing in my opinion (though its a massive thing for me) , is the ability to do all that was written above but in the company of my friends.