Bay 12 Games Forum

The first impressions (after two days) from RPS is the best review-thing I've read yet I think. It displays the love-hate relationship I'm sure most if not all players will have with the game, without going into some sort of "This isn't Minecraft GTA" downward spiral.
It points out all the silly stuff and shortcomings in a way that the developers could read and think "I wonder if more people think like this. Can we fix or change it?".

It also makes the issues of mixing PC and Console game ideas/paradigms/design choices more obvious. "A PC game made for console that doesn't fit in properly in any of them" is a thing I kept thinking as development progressed.
Don't get me wrong, I'll still enjoy the game a lot. I just hope everyone learns from this project, from publishers, to devs, players and journalists.

Hmm I don't know, the way he puts it in the video is not just a comparison. He speaks as if the devs aimed for Minecraft in space, even giving all the examples of people doing crappy clones and all that.

I don't remember how long ago it was, but I was very, very hyped for like a year once I saw the first NMS videos. Then they started giving interviews and more info, and I remember I was really hyped for base building or things like that. Or at least being able to plop down automatic drills or stuff you see in modded Minecraft. But Sean stated clearly it was not that type of game.
I felt disappointed because I really wanted a game like Prospector (that ASCII game) but in 3D. Or..Spore Space Stage In First Person and Actually Deep. But after that I realized even without such features, the game was still right up my alley.

I may have been unnecessary long here, I just don't get it that reviewers don't keep their own hype and expectations in check. It's what they do for a living.
Other than that, I do agree with Dunkey on the game being boring after 2h, I noticed that in a good amount of streamers.
Then again, that's what I expect to happen to people that don't really like Survival/Sandbox/Exploration games in the first place. I'm hoping the game picks up the pace after a few jumps - that's what I noticed from streams - it avoids throwing too much stuff at you for a rather long while.

Minecraft: explore, survive and gather resources in one of 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 procedurally generated worlds.

Good point, but I think that's way too simplistic. I also don't think this warrants the argument that Hello Games was aiming for "The Minecraft Formula".
I get completely different intents from both games, even though the description of features sound similar.

Hey, I didn't expect much of a story..but what I've seen from streams (very small lore bits), it's already 10000 times better than Spore.
I'm not sure if it's all connected, integrated, consistent and if it makes sense...but there's a lore and probably story arcs there.
Few pages ago I tried to make people imagine with me what could it mean to refuse and ignore the Atlas and it's guidance, but no one cared. 

And maybe I just got used to keep my expectations at minimum after Spore, anyway. 


EDIT: I just realized something. This is what Spore was for me for all the people that weren't there. Basically, the Spore Story for console people..except this time around there was actual information out so you could stop your hype if you wanted.

I was meaning to ask about the Atlas, but I think that could be spoilery for those who want to go blind. I'll put it into spoiler tags but I really have no information on it.

Damn..the Spore..the forbidden word!

I followed Spore development for what, 5 years? A lot was promised that felt the game was complex and had a lot of depth, that the ending was going to be amazing, and that Space Stage was going to be much more interesting. I remember they really hyping it up and never really describing and demo'ing the game as it was.
With NMS, I saw an attempt to de-hype a lot of stuff, to describe what you could do, and even show it. The only thing that was really left in mystery was the extent of things you could do with/to another player, and how exactly the game gets harder/crazier/weirder as you get to the center.

Not saying you're comparing it to Spore, just saying that this time the developers actually tried to defuse the hype-bomb, whereas in Spore they hyped you with the strength of a thousand suns and (IIRC) EA wanted to release it much earlier so they had to make do with what they had, which was - albeit fun if you like sandbox games - shallow and felt more like a..weird toy.

To me, this time, it falls down on the publisher, journalists and the people who make insane assumptions. Back in Spore, in my opinion, it was EA and Will Wright.

I do agree with you, though. The people will hold Hello Games responsible for their own mistakes.

First day of release: videos of "The Developer Lied!" with no evidence and no statement from the company.

When I was a kid, somehow I thought the gaming industry wouldn't become this.

I still find it hilarious that in the launch day we already have people bumping into each other and doing experiments like that. As soon as I saw (not sure if spoiler) wormholes, I figured it probably wouldn't take that long to just warp around and scan for player activity. But I thought it would take a week, I'm happy and impressed at these two guys.
Still, I wonder if that was just an extremely rare, extremely happy coincidence (because galaxies are even larger now post-patch), or if we'll have people bumping into each other and complaining about it every day.

I also wonder what kind of interaction you can have with another player. Trading, attacking, chatting, any sort of cooperation? They made it so 'mysterious' that at least I don't know anything about it.
Still don't think that's a sign of malice, just a funny and succesful attempt of keeping something secret until someone actually goes out of their way to do it.

@Glloyd I -think- sleep-drunk Sean on that last stream mentioned that the same way they use to store certain changes to multiple players is what willl be used for 'building'. He almost whispered it so don't quote me on that - but my guess is that buildings use a separate system than ground gen that could probably be synced between multiple clients.
I also would prefer all players could see changes from anyone else, and that they add some sort of resource regen mechanics (like meteors falling down and becoming new resource spots or recovering existing ones) and stuff like that.

And to be clear, I'm pretty happy with how things are (from what I read/watched), I just wished everything was a little bit more integrated - especially between clients.

E: Ninja'd hard, forgot to click post.

I believe the base building and fleet management additions Sean mentioned is because it's simply what a LOT of people have been asking or expecting to be in the game from day one.
A lot of streamers spend a lot of time on a single planet, and I saw many mentions of "I wish I could store this here" and stuff like that.
Sean pays very close attention to such input, especially from testers. He said on the stream that they changed the planet rotation thing because testers where getting very confused.... that's what you get when you sell your space game to console people.

I would love to own some freighters and a base, really. As long as the base building is not half-assed like in Evochron series of games, for instance, where it seems the feature was thrown in there just so it could be on the game's description...and, at least the last time I played, when building a base you don't even own it. The faction you build in owns it, and all you get is the same discount you can get anywhere by having a license on a station.
So I'm excited for base building and fleet management, but I really hope that their implementation of it gives the player a feeling of ownership and control, other than "I'm just spawning this space-tent prop here and it will function exactly like any other npc space-tents".
I also expect that this takes at least 3-4 months, because I think if Hello Games keep up the sort of crunching-pace they have at the moment, employees will start dying.

-snip-

About building and exploration and what could be at the center of the galaxy: I agree completely. I don't completely know how it fits on the game's lore, but I'm 98% sure of what's there and why.
I also don't think it's the perfect game or anything, just a perfectly fun game. If I can enjoy Starbound (and I hate many things about it, along with Chucklefish), I definitely can enjoy this. I also remember enjoying Rodina (which is basically the same gameflow).
I just wish the price tag was like, half of what it is - because I may be really happy with the launch and everything, but it still feels like a VERY, VERY overpriced indie game. It makes it impossible for me to make my friends to buy it, and I also think this could hurt the game on reviews since people will treat it like the AAA game it's priced and marketed as.

In other words, if this wasn't spot-on a kind of game I always wanted to play (especially after I played the lackluster Spore Space Stage), I'd probably be among those who don't get the excitement and all the 'vibes'.

About going fast while flying low, I've seen some people do that and it seemed okay, especially post-patch. And I did see some people bumping into terrain. I think it works a bit like X Rebirth in which the ship will avoid collisions for you by sticking/hovering over the surface (and walls, IIRC), but if you keep pushing towards the obstacle, this protection is overriden. Mind that I haven't played the game, but that's the impression I got from all the streams.

Oh..and post-patch the planets and stuff looks SO much better. I've seen places that reminds me of Venus, some that reminds me of Mercury, scary places, dead places.. I also felt really satisfied with the difficulty on certain types of planets where Sentinel activity and behavior is..different. I still wish they were smarter somehow, but I think the smart AI is present on actual military drones after you cut through the scouts.