No Man's Sky is a huge (marketing) success

[Irwin John Finster]

This has happened so many times and yet y'all still keep throwing your money at games you know nothing about except some fancy concept arts and marketing videos.

This game is one of the best-selling games on Steam ever and currently has something like a Metacritic score of 2 and terrible Steam reviews. Even PS4 version has terrible reviews. What did you expect? This game was almost entirely marketing from the start.

This is why we get fanboys calling Fallout 4 the best Fallout game ever made simply because it sold the most copies.

No Man's Sky is a huge success. Why? Everyone gave the devs all of their money before even knowing what the game was simply due to marketing. This is why we can't have nice things.

And while we're on the subject: procedural generation needs to go away. It's cute in Minecraft but now devs are lazily making games that are entirely procedurally generated, with Bethesda going so far as to procedurally generate much of the content of their pseudo-RPG Fallout 4.

 

[NotAcasul]

I doubt anyone that reads your posts actually pre-ordered a copy.

No shit sherlock, who do you think you're talking to??

 

[Vergil]

y'all still keep throwing your money at games you know nothing about except some fancy concept arts and marketing videos.

Does this look like reddit to you? No one here is buying this piece of shit.

 

[Millim]

I got the chance to play it at work and played it a fair bit.
It was a game I had been kind of looking forward to for a while now, and I can honestly say, I like it but agree it's not for everyone.

For the most part, the game is mostly going from point A to point B while it taking about half an hour of nothing really.

The crafting system is "meh" at best but the amount of space you get in your inventory is limited... which I guess is good as you have to be very careful about what you want to take with you.

My biggest issue is that in the few planets I've visited, there doesn't seem to be any hostile aliens about making the whole game a bit bare.

But it's what I expected for the most, and I was looking forward to those expectations anyway.

I do very much think that the price is a bit too much. It's currently the price of a AAA game and what we got to understand is that this is an indie title. At most this should have been half its price (or even the same price as Wasteland 2 on PS4).

As for the score, I really don't know what people where expecting.
As an exploration game it's okay... I guess I enjoy doing all the boring shit that no one else enjoys.

I kinda hope there is a bit more action in it, it would be pretty fun to land on a planet and be in the middle of a war between two rival Factions or so. Even if your actions don't amount to anything at the end of it, it would be pretty fun to just kind of join in on it.

I'll give the game a pass and buy it when it comes down in price. I by no means think it's Game of the Year material but it's still an alright game.

 

[Kohno]

procedural generation needs to go away

It - as far as I can tell - can be used creatively too in places if there's real calling for it and will to go through an extra mile to make it actually work to benefit the experience.

For example, a first person (or not) sandbox Fallout could've well had a procedurally generated vast wasteland (like the originals and Arcanum had) between the hotspot/hub areas with a chance for different kinds of encounters rippled in. Provided, obviously, that some effort was put on the options and means of traveling through it (classic overland, on foot, train, vehicle, caravan, or some such). Or something along those lines.

More on the topic, though. Didn't and won't buy No Man's Sky nor Fallout 4. My game purchases are pretty scarce these days anyway, what with 95+ % of the market being full of shit.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

I do very much think that the price is a bit too much. It's currently the price of a AAA game and what we got to understand is that this is an indie title. .

As far as I have seen, Subnautica blows this game out of the water and is only $20. An indie game at an indie price that performs better in every way.

This game amounted to "you give me $60, I'll give you a bunch of hype and marketing." Nobody even knew what this game involved.

 

[eissa]

its sony fault, unlike EA unravel this is very unrealistic project with the indie budget. But sony were too late to call back the marketing and the hype this game get.

 

[Millim]

its sony fault, unlike EA unravel this is very unrealistic project with the indie budget. But sony were too late to call back the marketing and the hype this game get.

I agree, I felt Sony pushed this game far too much and in the end... we got a game that wasn't for everyone.

I guess this is what I mean by a niche audience, NMS is a game only a handful of people would enjoy for what it is.
As someone who enjoys games where I can waste time flying about a bit, I'm in that handful.

But someone who spends 100+ hours on Fallout 4 where they enjoy the shooting and loot, isn't going to be in that handful.

It is what it is, No Mans Sky didn't try to be what it wasn't.
It's just a shame that it came out wrong for a lot of people.


I do also want to point out that DLC that adds new areas would be the single most pointless thing for this game (unless it's free).

 

[Irwin John Finster]

I do also want to point out that DLC that adds new areas would be the single most pointless thing for this game (unless it's free).

So then $50 "No Man's Sky Workshop" DLC it is!

Apparently even totalbiscuit can't run this game properly right now.

 

[Shardik]

I agree, I felt Sony pushed this game far too much and in the end... we got a game that wasn't for everyone.

But someone who spends 100+ hours on Fallout 4 where they enjoy the shooting and loot, isn't going to be in that handful.

I don't know - seems like if they just added a bunch of procedurally generated loot piñatas to the planets you visit, and maybe some silly animated icons that get triggered every 30 seconds or so, this game would be a Fallout 4 player's dream. Mindless roaming, shooting, looting and scavenging junk, with no pesky dialog or story to get in the way of your "deeply immersive experience", no choices to make and no consequences for anything you do.

 

[Millim]

So then $50 "No Man's Sky Workshop" DLC it is!

Apparently even totalbiscuit can't run this game properly right now.

Well, they were talking about base building stuff... so I dunno...

If they release it in a patch, that would be neat I guess.


And funnily enough, I just watched totalbiscuit's video on it.
It's a shame really as it runs fine of the PS4 (for the most part).

 

[NotAcasul]

Another game down the drain.

I had high hopes for No Man's Sky. I didn't pre-order, but still.

It feels like every game I say "Hey, this might be pretty good!" goes down the shitter. I've got Deus Ex and Dishonored 2 left. I really need a break, please god.

 

[Erich van Loon]

Another game down the drain.

I had high hopes for No Man's Sky. I didn't pre-order, but still.

It feels like every game I say "Hey, this might be pretty good!" goes down the shitter. I've got Deus Ex and Dishonored 2 left. I really need a break, please god.

I too had hopes, hopes for Fallout 4. Like many, I enjoyed the game, even tho I got it late, like let's say March, this year.

Within less than a year, I was disappointed with the game, and ultimately stopped.

 

[Shardik]

Another game down the drain.

I had high hopes for No Man's Sky. I didn't pre-order, but still.

It feels like every game I say "Hey, this might be pretty good!" goes down the shitter. I've got Deus Ex and Dishonored 2 left. I really need a break, please god.

It might possibly have some promise, if they release some updates that give you more to do in the game and fix the crashes and frame rate issues that it seems to have. And they really need to do something about the color palette, textures and art design - it looks cheesy and cartoony, and not in a good way. All in all it just looks like it's unfinished.

It reminds me of Elite: Dangerous, except that E-D was graphically very pretty and the game was very stable and ran well. Other than that, though, it gave you a whole galaxy to explore, but not very much in it. They've since added more content with updates, but I haven't played it in a long time so i don't know how much has been really added.

E-D also has quite a steep learning curve when it comes to flying the ships. I bought it shortly after it released and played it for a bit, to where I was just barely getting a handle on how to fly (for me, the steep learning curve was made even steeper by the fact that I had not really played any space flight games since Wing Commander ages ago). But then I injured my right hand at work, to the point where I needed surgery and couldn't really use the hand at all for over a month, and just never picked it back up.

No Man's Sky might be something to look at in a year or so, if the developer makes an effort to polish it up. But right now it sure as hell isn't worth 60 bucks, IMO.

 

[Irwin John Finster]

No Man's Sky might be something to look at in a year or so, if the developer makes an effort to polish it up. But right now it sure as hell isn't worth 60 bucks, IMO.

It's really sad. Anyone with critical thinking skills could easily see this game for what it was going to be. It is pure marketing hype and nothing else. And it still become one of the best selling games on Steam ever because we've reached a point where developers don't even need to make a game anymore to sell games. They just need overblown marketing hype and the pre-orders come flowing in.

No one even knew what this game involved lol. And yet it advertised all kinds of "Best of [insert gaming conference here] awards" despite not having any actual gameplay.

This game costs $60 LOL!

 

[MercenarySnake]

I had high hopes for No Man's Sky. I didn't pre-order, but still.

How could you have high hopes for it when all that was shown was ugly flamboyant colors, obnoxious filters, spore level creatures, and trailers that barely could pass for gameplay?

Yeah especially if it has procedural generated content in it, like this:

and

This:

Makes for some funny laughs though.

The developer's response:

 

[aenemic]

I'm kinda interested in it simply because it seems relaxing to play and I love the throwback sci-fi graphics. What I see from the finished game is exactly what I gathered it would be from previews. Mind you, I first heard about it very recently and didn't follow it at all until the days before launch. I never understood why people hyped it up so much, and how people could get their expectations so out of bounds. I honestly believe as much fault lies with the "fans" as the developer that it didn't live up to the hype. I mean, what developer doesn't want their game to be hyped? It's not like they're going to make regular PR announcements that people should lower their expectations. And it's not like they've lied about what the game is supposed to be.

Sucks that the pc version ended up being a terrible port. I won't touch it until it's properly patched and on sale. By then I'm thinking it might be a fun little game to waste a few hours on.

 

[Mr Fish]

And while we're on the subject: procedural generation needs to go away.

Depends on the game. Nuclear Throne and Rogue Legacy are games that work better with it than without it. But those are action games focused on fast paced combat that tries to put the player at unease with each level to increase the tension. It serves a purpose. But exploration games? Absolutely. Only game I can think of that I liked with procedurally generated landscapes was Terraria and that game included fixed setpieces and secrets that didn't take for fucking ever to get to. Go to the coast, you'll get to the dungeon. Go up in the sky and you'll get sky islands and space. There'll be a jungle, desert and snow biome. Go downwards and you'll get to hell.

But games that try to be primarily focused on procedural generation are awful. In their attempt to create infinite content we just get a handful of poorly design modules that get repetitive real quick and who's only differentiation is a different paintjob.

No Man's Sky just looked like a flashier Starbound and I found Starbound to be a poor man's Terraria.

 

[NotAcasul]

 

[Vergil]