I remember when NMS was announced. I was pretty excited about it. But of course when it was released it had huge problems. But, hey, at least it came out (cough Star Citizen cough). So I skipped it.
Fast forward 2 years to the Next update, which by all accounts was a huge improvement in many areas. So I picked it up earlier this year and played putting a fair number of hours into it. It wasn't problem-free but honestly I enjoyed it.
Fast forward again to later this year and the Beyond update comes out. This has been another massive improvement. There are a couple of minor things I don't like but honestly, it's a decent way to aimlessly wander the galaxy. It still has RNG in getting the best ships, which I find annoying and tedious, but it's enjoyable.
One of big problems in Next was that base building had SO many problems. Beyond fixed a bunch but it's still a problem. If Minecraft has taught us anything, it's that people will invest a huge amount of time in building a base. It's an expression of identity. It's a hobby that's an easy time sink. It's something the devs really need to double down on.
But I really respect the fact that the devs have kept updating this game. It's easy to get 100+ hours out of this game now (and I have quite a few more than that).
Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities:
- Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems?
- No tidally locked worlds
- Gravity is the same
- No running water
- No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc)
I've built a giant glass cube on some random world. I don't know how long the servers for this game will be around but it amuses me that years from now someone may randomly come across what I built.
>Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities:
- Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems?
- No tidally locked worlds
- Gravity is the same
- No running water
- No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc)
What would be awesome, though likely totally infeasible would be the universe of no man's sky coupled with the individual world building of dwarf fortress, maybe not the civilizations, but the geological stuff. The way the world gen simulates erosion, and change over time to landforms. With different variations to the types of worlds generated, you could get some pretty cool geologically unique worlds. Have worlds with different primary mineral types and atmospheres form differently than earthlike ones and stuff.
I'm sure something like that is years and years away. Even if it was on a smaller scale, so you could have people actually end up meeting eachother and because different planets would be different geologically there would be different resources and opportunities for trading and stuff....
OK...I'm sorry, i've kind rambled on in a tangent and gotten away from the original premise now...I'll stop here.
In general, all such mechanics are a dramatic simplification of reality, and when doing such a procgen, you don't do such a from-scratch approach, because it's unfeasible. What you do instead is realize that you want a tidallocked world, then figure out the most important outcomes of it, then fiddle with your generation rules till you get something that looks mostly correct.
More likely than not, it's perfectly feasible in the nms engine, but the devs themselves haven't put much thought towards it.
Also see heredragonsabound; you can get really far with parameter fiddling.
The lack of geological features turns me down as well. There are no huge canyons and no huge mountains. Everything kinda looks the same.
Also, I think some worlds could be uninhabitable, just for show. For example: gas giants.
On the bright side, the underground biomes are amazing! I’ve seen very complex sets of caves and tunnels with different fauna and flora. It’s a great game overall!
I played it when it first came out, then after the Atlas Rises update, and now the most recent one. I much, much prefer the original version. While it wasn't what most people expected or wanted out of the game, the environments were much more beautiful and less regular, and there was this overwhelming sense of loneliness about it that was enrapturing. It gave me the same vibes that MirrorMoon EP and Proteus gave me. Peaceful solitude.
Unfortunately that's all lost now, since you can't select specific updates on the PS4 system.
"As part of my University of York Archaeology PhD thesis, I conducted a case study into what is now called the “Legacy Hub ”. The goals of the project were not only to determine if (and how) archaeology could be conducted on human settlements within a digital environment, but also delved into 3D-printing human-made architecture, creating a new kind of map, undertaking photogrammetry of sites past and present, recording epigraphic evidence, and working hand-in-glove with the Hub’s leadership, which included an ambassador for the community’s heritage. "
Wait, what?
I don't know if it's insane or groundbreaking to do a PhD Thesis on archaeology in a video game.
> Entombed: An archaeological examination of an Atari 2600 game
One type of archaeogaming research is digital excavation, a technical examination of the code and techniques used in old games' implementation. We apply that in a case study of Entombed, an Atari 2600 game released in 1982 by US Games. The player in this game is, appropriately, an archaeologist who must make their way through a zombie-infested maze. Maze generation is a fruitful area for comparative retrogame archaeology, because a number of early games on different platforms featured mazes, and their variety of approaches can be compared. The maze in Entombed is particularly interesting: it is shaped in part by the extensive real-time constraints of the Atari 2600 platform, and also had to be generated efficiently and use next to no memory. We reverse engineered key areas of the game's code to uncover its unusual maze-generation algorithm, which we have also built a reconstruction of, and analyzed the mysterious table that drives it. In addition, we discovered what appears to be a 35-year-old bug in the code, as well as direct evidence of code-reuse practices amongst game developers.
Anything where people operate for a decent duration of time, and able to modify their environment, seems a viable choice of study. But some options are more reasonable than others -- eg Minecraft has heavy modifications, but lacks the relationship with the environment that makes it closer to studying artwork than a "culture". No Man's Sky seems acceptable, but imo there are better/more interesting game options out there, like Eve or Ultima Online, which both offer a much more advanced simulation than No Man's Sky, and a much more storied set of human interactions and societies.
> sadly, much of the most innovative and interesting parts of the game are done outside the client
This is also true for the other examples (Minecraft and No Man's Sky) where the games basically become what the player base uses it for. I think this happens to most freeform games where without the multiplayer aspect, the game basically is nowhere near the same experience as with.
Single player games can be greatly satisfying as well, but they need a story that keeps the player interested. If we could have a game the size of No Man's Sky with a compelling story plus subplots and complex non player characters, such as the first 3 Mass Effect games (best games ever played in my entire life, ME3 lame ending aside), that would make a masterpiece even in single player mode. ME Andromeda apparently tried and mostly failed (I still didn't play it but watched hours of gameplay to get an idea), let's hope the next one will learn from past mistakes. NMS, which I still have to play, looks like to me a great online experience that could become also a killer single player game once enhanced for that purpose. One thing however I don't like much about NMS is the graphics which although truly beautiful artistically speaking, seems to me a bit too cartoonish.
I partially agree. The reason I disagree is that single player games with compelling story, although my favourite, eventually run out of content, even if it's compelling and if the world is open and freeform. But multiplayer games evolve as the player base is what provides the story and dynamics. In many online games there is potentially limitless gameplay and content, the game engine and environment serve only as the playground for players to build from.
An example is GTAV. Where there are lots of structured things to do yet the players constantly make their own meetups, car shows and other shenanigans.
A notable exception could be Minecraft, where you could have your own single player world and so long as you are interested it can keep evolving.
"The reason I disagree is that single player games with compelling story, although my favourite, eventually run out of content, even if it's compelling and if the world is open and freeform"
That is true, and that alone would make the necessary development not economically viable for any game whose life is measured in few years, but what if, along content provided by players, the game creators could insert new environments with NPCs and new stories without ditching the game? In a few years/decades probably AI could also generate characters that develop themselves according to the environment they "grew" into or events happened during their "life". Dreaming too much maybe:)
I am wholeheartedly hoping for that to happen with Fallout76. Permanence gives a lot of the stuff you do in Fallout a bit more purpose. Like crafting good weapons and building a settlement you like. In non permanent versions the story was the main point so you could skip the looting and crafting if you wanted as you didn't really need it. But in a perfect world F76 you have a reason to build worthwhile settlements and gear and collect resources and so on. I have been playing it as if it were a singleplayer game, so although it is multiplayer that doesn't affect my play through that much.
In actual archeology, most of the innovative and interesting parts were probably also done outside of the client (the physical earth). Piecing together what wasn't recorded based on the few things that was recorded is the whole game :-)
As an ex Eve Online player, who's also spent hundreds/thousands of hours in NMS, WoW, and now SWTOR, I absolutely love these "IRL" projects that archive/study virtual worlds, like the financial studies of the Eve economy, the huge write-ups of major WoW events, stuff like that.
To those that were involved in the games/events, they're a major part of their life (in a hobby/entertainment aspect), so having this sort of in-depth study is seriously cool to have as a record of it all.
> I was so entranced by it that it took me a few minutes to notice that the spindly structure was not all that there was to see. Both directly above and below the structure (relative to the system’s ecliptic, of course) were two large, swirling maelstroms of energy.
> As if a giant hand had hand-picked pins out of a pin cushion, the debris field stretched almost as far as the eye could see. The various sticks, originally arranged in circular fashion, now are laid out in a serpentine pattern, as if it were a winding path. Lightning crackles between the various posts: the flashes of light that originally caught my eye.
As persistent user-created online worlds become more relevant, they become a study in themselves. We already study Internet trends and pop culture, so why not study this?
Really cool example was the Aladdin ROM that had unreleased sprites that shipped till on the ROM image. All of the development tools are intact so one can explore the source code for some of the unreleased material. https://gamehistory.org/aladdin-source-code/
Also, NMS's subreddit is one of the most cohesive and unite community for a videogame, as far as I know.
They are extremely supportive with Hello Games and continuously give them feedback for the enhancements, which made the game much more enjoyable than when it was launched.
The Elite Dangerous sub is pretty nice too.
I guess it's a simulation gaming thing. It draws a different audience than shooters or other competitive games.
Similar studies could be done on long running Minecraft servers. Back when I was playing a lot of MC one of the things I enjoyed was exploring abandoned bases. It's really interesting to see what happens to abandoned bases / settlements in open world games.
I once had a large base on a modded Minecraft server, with multiple buildings, lots of machinery, nuclear reactors, power lines running everywhere, etc. Eventually I stopped playing and announced to everyone else my stuff was free for the taking.
A few months later I decided to hop on and see what was left. It was almost like you'd expect to happen in real life.
The buildings were mostly intact but had missing doors and broken windows. All of the most valuable stuff was stripped out. There was some worthless stuff left, like food in vanilla chests. My nuclear reactors had been partially disassembled, the most valuable parts scavenged.
It felt like visiting an abandoned factory in Detroit. It was once glorious and now stood in ruin.
Huh. Was listening to an archived Skyrim Addict podcast episode last night, and two of the hosts agreed that this update that destroyed all their hundreds or thousands of hours of work so that they could never play it again, but they recommended it to players who had never played it before.
Anyone interested in the topic should also check out 2b2t, which is one of the oldest Minecraft anarchy multiplayer servers. It's filled with history and ruins.
I wonder if my base still stands. But the 2b2t server has gone pay 2 play so haven't played for some years. Have the coordinates written down somewhere. Btw it would be really fun with a Minecraft like game focusing on PvP, since Minecraft is focused on co-op it does not have any cheat preventions, which ruins the experience on servers like 2b2t.
This game is such a train wreck. It’s got everything I should want and nothing that compels me to play it. Every update is a false promise. I wish it were good.
No Man's Sky is a typical sales driven product, first you lie to users about what capabilities it has and sell it to them, and then you use the money you got from those sales to build some of the features you said you already had until the customers stop complaining.
What makes you so angry about this? To me it's one of those peculiar, flawed creative works that I'm glad exists. The world would be poorer without it.
Have you played it recently? The Beyond update added VR support which made it worth buying for me by itself.
Before release, Hello Games said that the game was multiplayer, but the universe was so incredibly large that no two players could ever find each other. They did, within a couple days of release. The players couldn't see each other.
Hello Games encountered a lot of hardship during development. Their studio actually flooded towards the end of development so they lost a lot of data. But that doesn't excuse lying.
I feel like that was similar to when Elon musk announced that Tesla had a buyer. Turned out to not be the case, and he got in trouble for it. But I don’t think that either he or Sean Murray intended to Deceive. They just got too far ahead of themselves on what they expected to happen. but you are right, that still does not make it right.
I would love to play this game so much but the colours are just too much. I can't really explain why but I tried just watching a friend playing it and it was too much.
I wish they would have a toned down version or Mod or something.
Was the data collected manually? As far as I can tell the author went to 30 sites and created hundreds of data files per site. The effort is impressive
Is this related to that disaster game that people complained about it at launch so much that Valve changed their return policy for this game alone to allow people get their refunds back after a longer than usual period? Why would anyone play this game anyway? Also I think Nixon was the best US president in modern history, his "A sucker is born every minute" was way ahead of its time.
The developers made claims about the game that turned out to be false. Eventually those features made it to the game. The current version is pretty good.
But are players happy with updates that destroy everything they built? Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this game, I'm only surprised by what I read on this article.
People were in general willing to accept it if it meant for a better game (which I would say they've definitely delivered on). In more recent updates Hello Games has committed to not doing this again in future. Given the game has lived up to what was initially promised I'm willing to trust them.
Ya, I know that. It what Nixon quoted in his China'a visit and that actually made the phrase famous, until that was just another obscure saying. Like I said, best president US had in modern history.
Fast forward 2 years to the Next update, which by all accounts was a huge improvement in many areas. So I picked it up earlier this year and played putting a fair number of hours into it. It wasn't problem-free but honestly I enjoyed it.
Fast forward again to later this year and the Beyond update comes out. This has been another massive improvement. There are a couple of minor things I don't like but honestly, it's a decent way to aimlessly wander the galaxy. It still has RNG in getting the best ships, which I find annoying and tedious, but it's enjoyable.
One of big problems in Next was that base building had SO many problems. Beyond fixed a bunch but it's still a problem. If Minecraft has taught us anything, it's that people will invest a huge amount of time in building a base. It's an expression of identity. It's a hobby that's an easy time sink. It's something the devs really need to double down on.
But I really respect the fact that the devs have kept updating this game. It's easy to get 100+ hours out of this game now (and I have quite a few more than that).
Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities:
- Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems?
- No tidally locked worlds
- Gravity is the same
- No running water
- No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc)
I've built a giant glass cube on some random world. I don't know how long the servers for this game will be around but it amuses me that years from now someone may randomly come across what I built.
So archaeology in games like this fascinates me.