
No Man’s Sky - ChazDazzle
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/12/no-mans-sky-18-quintillion-planets-hello-games
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vtsrh
Till now, I have seen about 10 different planets, from various trailers and
presentations.

Clearly the game doesn't have 18*10^18 unique planets, since this is
impossible. The problem this game has is, does it have enough variance in its
planet generation, so that the average player will not notice a pattern.

The planets I have seen all looked mostly the same, with slightly different
color schemes and animals made from generic pre-built parts. Unless the devs
are only showing a couple of percent of the game, getting the 10 random
samples from the game, all of which show a very similar planet is almost
impossible.

~~~
joosters
I agree - the 2015 e3 demo video was a disappointment to me. The whole "Let's
pick a random planet to fly to" sounds awesome, but then it's a big letdown
when it looks remarkably similar to the ones in the other videos.

The problem is you can have an unimaginably large number of unique planets but
yet they still all end up looking the same. Sure, the coastlines might vary or
the colouring may be mildly different, but if the gameplay effect is
negligible, then it's not an advantage.

I was (unrealistically) thinking that there would be planets with bustling
cities, unique architecture, races, cultures and technologies.

~~~
hacker_9
Yeah I was thinking it would be something like Mass Effect with cities
generated by overlaying algorithms. Something like: 1\. Generate buildings 2\.
Generate transport links 3\. Generate mission objectives 4\. Refactor city
layout to make objectives harder, and so on until a relatively stable (and fun
to play!) environment is created.

They could even import races from nearby planets that have already been
generated if it made sense that they would have colonised the new planet also.

Obviously those steps are very high-level and the genius would be in making it
all actually work together... but yeh, just seems like the hype machine was in
overdrive and really this is just Spore 1.1

~~~
pavel_lishin
There's no better way to spend a half hour online than to look at people's
projects that generate cities. If they do a decent write-up along with some
videos and demos, it really shows you just how difficult it can be for a
simple fly-through 3D video. I can't imagine generating whole cities and
cultures that you can interact with.

~~~
hacker_9
Yeah it can get complex, I even know someone who got a job because they showed
off a city they created with procedural generation in an interview! But that
was just layout of buildings and roads, the next part of bringing it to life
with people I imagine is even more complicated.

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comrh
This game is getting so much hype I'm already seeing a Will Wright's Spore
repeat.

~~~
Vadoff
Seriously. Spore got boring extremely quickly, and the playerbase died in a
week. I suspect the same will happen to this game.

~~~
striking
People saw promise and potential in Spore, but EA decided it wasn't in their
best interest to make any extensions to core gameplay after the game's
release. There were reportedly plans for true underwater exploration and new
sets of parts, but none of those things ever came to be. Spore's modeling was
fantastic, though, and allowed making unique creatures and vehicles more
easily than any other editing program.

"If only," is all anyone ever says about Spore anymore. So if No Man's sky is
the product, I don't care. If it's the beginning of some greater thing,
however, I'm interested.

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bane
I really hope that the tech in this game becomes merely the framework for more
and more detailed 4x style games.

I personally would love a game where you choose a role, from tradepost manager
to shipping magnate and the universe is large and complete enough to make this
kind of role rewarding and interesting.

~~~
JupiterMoon
You mean like real life?

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merpnderp
Woah, you mean I can sign up to be a shipping magnate moving goods across the
universe in real life :)

~~~
ZenoArrow
In some small way, yes.
[http://www.planetaryresources.com/careers/#workplace](http://www.planetaryresources.com/careers/#workplace)

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lesingerouge
While the technical achievements are impressive, I am not convinced how
"playable" this game will be in the end. Almost all the games in existence
have at least 2 core elements: story and character purpose. I have not seen
evidence of either in this game (no, "space exploration" is not exactly a
purpose). A great addition to this graphical engine would be a scripting
engine that would allow independent writers to create their own quests and
method to submit them to the players.

~~~
hacker_9
The more I think about it the more impossible it seems that there could be ANY
story in this game. Even if they managed to procedurally generate one planet +
missions, the next generated planet would have to 'make sense' and fit into
the story (if it's close by, then has it been taken over by the nearby
planetary race? If they are a warrior race then do they use the planet as an
outpost, with bases strategically placed around the planet? What does the
planet add to the story mission-wise?)

And after all that, the 3rd generated planet would need to take into account
the story of the other other 2 planets and so on and so on.. (even if the
planets don't interact, the missions still need variety)

I agree with your scripting idea, to extend upon it: they release the game
with an editor, then a designer would go in and use the editor to pre-generate
a set of planets to their liking, and then they could layer story, missions,
characters etc on top. Sort of like a build your own Mass Effect.

There could even be wormholes joining all the player created universes
together! Oh the possibilities...

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sudioStudio64
I. Can. Not. Wait.

I hope that at some point they add something like that virtual computer that
Notch had added to 0x10c?

No matter what this is the first game that I've been excited about since I was
a kid.

EDIT: Damn. The negativity in here is weird. What is it with gamer's that they
just want to shit all over things? No gas planets...yeah they are real pricks
for that. ??? What? A procedural universe is kind of a big deal. There's
nothing that says that this thing can't be extended in the future as well.

The planets look the same? If you look at the screens from the PSX demo there
was some really beautiful landscapes there. There is a palette that was chosen
to reflect early sci-fi novel covers. That's actually really cool.

Remember, you can always go play another muddy-poo-brown cover based first
person shooter. There will be 10 published by the time you finish reading this
comment.

~~~
dewey
> Damn. The negativity in here is weird. What is it with gamer's that they
> just want to shit all over things?

> Remember, you can always go play another muddy-poo-brown cover based first
> person shooter. There will be 10 published by the time you finish reading
> this comment.

~~~
sudioStudio64
I see what you did there. Point taken.

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dikaiosune
I'm excited for No Man's Sky, but I'm equally excited for Star Citizen and
Dean Hall's new space sim. I think that exploring/colonizing/living in space
is the perfect setting for new games on massive servers run with massive video
cards. But I am skeptical that procedural generation is (for this genre) any
better than a huge team churning out really expensive environments day after
day.

I always love the technology behind procedural games, but I still ultimately
prefer an environment and story crafted by human beings. Perhaps No Man's Sky
will have sufficiently advanced algorithms as to give me the same variety and
intensity of experience that hand-crafted game environments do, but as I said
I remain skeptical.

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blackle
Y'all can play this game before it even comes out! Just search up "Noctis IV"

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okasaki
In another interview they asked the developer if there would be gas planets in
the game. He said no, every planet will be solid because otherwise players
would be confused as to why they can't land on some planets.

So there you go, the target audience for this revolutionary game is people who
are confused by the existence of gas planets.

~~~
chasing
Come on. It's a game, not a model of reality. The target audience is people
who want to enjoy playing a game.

~~~
misnome
You could argue the same thing about having stars - I mean you can't land, so
meh - why bother emulating reality and not just have something evenly lit?

Or space between planets, that's a bit meh and needed in a model of reality,
how about just a drop-down menu to select where to teleport your ship to next?

I suspect the target audience is people who want to play an infinite universe
space game, to whom little details like "An approximation of real life" tends
to kind of be important. See: People in this thread, interested in the game,
criticising it for the above.

~~~
chasing
I'm sure there'll be a mode that makes it take decades or centuries to get
from one star to another. For those who need a truly authentic experience.

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rasz_pl
better known as 'no gameplay'

~~~
fit2rule
How do you know that - have you played it?

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striking
It may not be "no gameplay," but it adheres to a very loose interpretation of
"gaming." Whatever rules exist in the game basically only serve to aid the
sense of progression as people continue to explore. Losing happens only if you
explore in a manner that isn't careful, and winning happens when you've
explored (carefully) to the center of the universe. [1]

The game isn't supposed to be a game for game's sake, in other words; it's
intended to just be an adventure. "Winning" and "losing" are a means towards
that end.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Sky#Gameplay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Man%27s_Sky#Gameplay)

~~~
fit2rule
Same as it ever was. Anyone who's been paying attention since the beginning of
video games knows that game play is what you make of it .. "It's not a very
good game" has been said of many stellar successes in this realm, where the
position usually changes after people have actually, you know .. played ..
with something.

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7952
I wish this was being developed in a more open manner, with a beta program. I
want a game with a community, and ecosystem rather than one persons singular
vision.

~~~
detritus
Conversely, I feel that some of my most beloved games have come from exactly
the sort of genesis you seem to reject.

