No Man's Sky

[Corwin]

I wonder how much Sony played a part in that crap, as in forbidding them from telling that the game wouldn't reach the initial pitched vision before the release to not affect sales etc. If that's the case, it sucks that Hello Games would take the fall for that. I guess it's always scary but often necessary to go with black and white answers: he did actually say in an interview that you could meet other players if you happened to be in the same place, it's not just his comment on 'don't look at it as a MP game' that built that particular hype, but carefulness and experience should have pushed him to say 'our plan is to...' so it at least doesn't seem like a flat out lie when the game comes out. That said, I just think people are being stupid just once more, and it's all about the hype they project onto the game that was never viable. 

Like the director of Deus Ex Mankind Divided was quoted a few years back saying that bad PC ports were a disgrace and an insult to PC gamers and then they ship a broken ass PC port, but I don't see the internet up in arms because I don't think too many people were fantasizing about having a good PC port for the last couple of years.

[2d-chris]

I'm waiting for a few big patches, like pretty much every game I buy now 

[spa]

8 minutes ago, Corwin said:

I wonder how much Sony played a part in that crap

As much as i dislike how Hello Games has handled this launch I also feel that they were maybe caught between Sony and the fans. The 60$ pricetag may have come from Sony because they noticed all the hype that was being generated, but now Hello Games carry the burden of making the game seem like a big enough of a deal to justify that. How many games at 60$ are being made today by 15 people? Its actually insane. Yes it took them 3 years but thats par for the course these days for tripple A.

[Sprony]

55 minutes ago, Minos said:

What's your point?

I'm pretty sure you are trolling, but if not, let's summarize:

If you enjoy it, that's fine, good for you man, seriously. I also understand @(HP) his point and @Corwin his comment probably has some truth in it as well, especially the hype part, gamers really brought that on themselves. But that still doesn't excuse nor justify the fact the we were mislead. What was advertised is not what we got, plain and simple.

[Jetsetlemming]

21 minutes ago, Corwin said:

I wonder how much Sony played a part in that crap, as in forbidding them from telling that the game wouldn't reach the initial pitched vision before the release to not affect sales etc. If that's the case, it sucks that Hello Games would take the fall for that. I guess it's always scary but often necessary to go with black and white answers: he did actually say in an interview that you could meet other players if you happened to be in the same place, it's not just his comment on 'don't look at it as a MP game' that built that particular hype, but carefulness and experience should have pushed him to say 'our plan is to...' so it at least doesn't seem like a flat out lie when the game comes out. That said, I just think people are being stupid just once more, and it's all about the hype they project onto the game that was never viable. 

Like the director of Deus Ex Mankind Divided was quoted a few years back saying that bad PC ports were a disgrace and an insult to PC gamers and then they ship a broken ass PC port, but I don't see the internet up in arms because I don't think too many people were fantasizing about having a good PC port for the last couple of years.

I think definitely the game would've had a beta or early access if it was an independent PC launch instead of a console game, and that would've really helped with some of these things, like realizing that you need to include the VC++ and DirectX installers for edge cases  

Weird that the Deus Ex guy would say that because they outsourced their PC port to Nixxes, lol

[Minos]

Well, here it comes, another video describing why you shouldn't like the game

I've been having a really good time with the game personally and I'll write more about it when I'm done, but since we are in the subject of the backlash let's stay on that topic. I really don't get the hate this game is getting as I said. I've watched several of the old trailers and while some of the features didn't make it in the final game, the game I'm playing is very close to what I imagined the game would be like. I remember before the game came out the question on everyone's minds was what the hell do you do in the game? Well, you explore and survive, they always made this pretty clear. This is a game about exploration and discovery first, the other systems are there just to support that.

NMS is a very niche game and unlike any other game I've played before. I think a lot of the rage comes from expectations that never made sense in the first place. Did people expect this to be a second life mmo in space? Star citizen lite? Or are people just plain delusional about current hardware capabilities and what games can do? I blame more Sony than the developers for releasing this as a AAA mainstream game, when it's clearly a niche game and should have stayed that way. I didn't even know the game would cost 59 until a few days before release, I always assumed it was a 29 game.

The best way to describe NMS is the Mako missions from ME1 on steroids on procedurally generated planets with procedurally generated animals. You fly your ship looking for interesting stuff to discover. Does this sound appealing to you? Then give it a try. Otherwise move on and play other games, but please let's stop treating these guys as the anti-christ or something.

Anyways, here are some interesting discoveries I made

This planet was full of giant blob heads:

I want to upload all the screenshots I took so far (probably about more than 200 or something), there are some real gems in there

[2d-chris]

The mako missions had interesting story arcs though, I can remember a lot of them because they are quite unique, even if they where copy/paste environments most of the time ^^ I would say the lack of art resources forced them to have the storytelling aspects in focus, the very alive citadel hub made the barrenness feel cool and acceptable ^^ For some reason I really felt like the planets in mass effect where really being lived in (most of the time) it could be because the majority of planets you scanned had nothing interesting, so the ones you did go too felt special even if it was a small area with only a few buildings and points of interest.  I was a big fan of the mako missions in ME1 and it was a shame when they basically removed them in ME2, they had huge potential, so much that they tried to fix it with s DLC for ME2, but it's not the same  

[Taylor]

I could see how multiplayer would get the chop in development given it was always qualified with "the chances are tiny." If you've a huge feature nobody is going to use and you're pushed for time it's going to be first in line. And again, they also did stress it was not multiplayer before it actually came out, for all the jump cuts of on-the-spot interview questions we get to see on youtube.

However, generally speaking there is a mismatch between the promise and what was delivered in a lot of aspects of the game. I think that's fair to say. Will it all be patched in? Maybe.

Personally, I didn't really enjoy the game but I think I'm not the target audience. I don't want to revert to the Taylor of ten years ago that argues peoples fun isn't valid! But my biggest disappointment is that, as someone who is not there to just "explore," I found the content doesn't interlace in an interesting enough way for the PGC to generate interesting gameplay scenarios compared to games such as Spelunky, Dwarf Fortress, Angband, Starbound, Minecraft, etc. despite being much more technically impressive.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Taylor

[dux]

I don't really get how anybody could think this is close to what was advertised. I mean, it's the same colour and has space still. That's something I guess.  

[Minos]

If you compare trailers and game footage frame by frame, you can find notable differences and believe that the developer is a dishonest crook. But common, the essence of what was advertised was maintained in the game. The only major difference is that they added crafting/survival mechanics on top (it's questionable if they detract or add to the overall experience ).  Personally I'd love to try a sandbox mode with no artificial limits. Considering the amount of planets that they have, even if every one of us stays less than than 30 seconds in a given planet, it will still take eons to "discover" all the possible permutations.

What I wonder is, how much of those decisions weren't influenced by Sony to make the game appeal to a broader audience? 

[blackdog]

What @dux said; I feel good with myself to have seen through the noise from the start and understand this was going to be a dull game that wouldn't interest me.

In terms of hype it must be said that gamers don't build it for nothing and it's too easy to aim to blame Hello Games.

Sorry Sprony, but truth is video game journalists pumped this; they were either blind fanboys themselves or have been paid to do so. I'm thinking of the IGN idiots, which is the outlet that covered the game most prominently, priding themselves of having all the exclusive interviews, behind the scenes… and then when this came out it blew in their faces and even had the courage of posting a video "did no man's sky lied to us?" In which they just compare the "lie" theory to the reality of game dev, with the two journalists playing good cop bad cop.

And the other big responsibility must be Sony's, it must have been them deciding the price tag, and we all know that the casual console player buys because of one trailer and the box art, so people see a full priced game and build expectations off of that.

[FrieChamp]

Once the dust settles, I would love to hear Sean Murray's perspective including all the behind-the-scenes information (especially on their relationship with SONY) that explain the 60$ price tag, why features were cut, why he responded to certain questions the way he did in interviews. There are some good guesses in this thead, but I'm afraid we're never going to hear all the answers. 

Yeah, that trailer vs reality video is funny. I had a couple of laughs at the games\devs expense, I'll admit it. But like HP, right now, I find all the rage and hate against the developers (Sean Murray in particular) over-the-top and frankly scary.  Imagine what this can do to one guy. And why? Because a video game didn't quite turn out the way you expected it to. Like we had never seen that before. Do not pre-order. Read and watch reviews. If you still decide to purchase the game on Steam but you are not happy with it - request a refund. And if you still want to scream at the developers as if they had just killed your puppy: put yourself in their shoes for one second and imagine what it's like to build the tech and game with such a small team, manage SONY's expectations, manage the journalists' and gamers' expectations, basically put your whole life on hold for several years only to find half the planet spouting hate in your direction at the end of it. Good job, way to go.

[Vaya]

I'd doubt HelloGames would say anything against the game vs expectations for the foreseeable future. There will be DLC etc for sure.

[blackdog]

Surely they can't never tell about what happened, even how they ended with the full price tag(?)

It would be interesting to see what would happen if there was a refund option for console games…

[Minos]

Finally a grassy planet! So pretty