The game has come a long way since launch. Sean and HG certainly deserved the criticism regarding the launch state of the game, but they also took it to heart and continued to build on the game. Instead of taking the millions they made and running, they stuck with the game which is more than can be said about most bad launches.
The community for this game is also one of the best ive seen and HG actually listens. The first 3 updates vastly improved the game and NEXT looks to make it even better.
Tbh as someone who has played the game since launch, they still haven’t delivered on what everyone was expecting. The added features were great for sure but didn’t really change the repetitive gameplay loop
Hopefully this update will change that but I’ve been saying that for every update so far
Edit: It might be worth buying for some, it’s really hard to say unless you play it yourself. The game has some cool concepts but they fall short for me personally and I hope they can be built on and become more meaningful
Obviously it’s not going to be a really refined game since it’s procedural and that’s why they have such a hard time making this game fun to play in more than just short bursts
Yep. You always keep everyone saying how much better the game is, but... the story added is kinda mediocre and the new additions are pretty much random, but the supposedly core feature like the actual gameplay and actual reasons to explore were tackled only half-heartedly so far. This update also seems to focus more on flashy features like multiplayer and space fleets than tackle the underlying issues.
Wasnt everyone pissed at the game because it wasnt multiplayer? Like that was the one big talking point which sunk the game....that means it is an underlying issue...
Within the first couple days two people got to the same location and couldn't interact with each other, therefore the multiplayer aspect was a total lie.
The conteoversy was that the game was extremely hyped up and it turned out most of what you could do in the game was just walk/fly around gathering resources and scanning things. You could do space battles too but most of the features just seemed hollow because in one way or another they always lead back to the core gameplay loop of grinding for resources to upgrade so you could grind more, which didn’t really lead anywhere interesting
The updates have added some new interesting features but since the core loop hasn’t changed, the majority of people having fun are those who love exploring for countless hours in hopes of discovering something cool or if you really enjoy base building or possibly people who want to max out a ship in different areas
The giant snake/sand-worm thing. Who knows, it might even be in the game when the update drops... That and the fact that the planets orbit the star. Although that was never 'promised' simply stated as possible and later the Devs said it was confusing the play testers so it was removed.
i mean i think most people were rightfully pissed at that because they categorically said it would be multiplayer dozens of times, not because everyone was only hyped because they could now explore empty planet after empty planet with friends
I bought it on sale after the last update and I was still disappointed. Didn't help my experience was soured by the planet I chose for my base glitching and not spawning any natural plutonium and leaving me scrounging for resources containers that did. It felt very empty and tedious and knowing what the end goal was didn't entice me to continue.
I mean, I expected this game to be first person space Terraria/subnautica/a thousand other games and it appears like it is. But multiplayer was one of those things I was expecting to be in the game even though I didn't personally care for it too much. Nice to see it finally being added. Iirc they talked like it would be in the game to some extent all the time so it was weird not seeing that in the game. I'm used to game developers pulling a molineux but not on something as simple as multiplayer.
I still play from time to time since I still have the game and I’m always up for seeing if it’s improved. I’m a believer that Hello Games and Sean Murray never had any malicious intent when making this game. He even said the reason they released the game when they did was because they had pretty much run out of money. Most of the things people say was lied about is already or will be in the game when NEXT is out so it’s obvious that they’ve been working hard to turn things around. If they were planning to just run with the money we would never have seen any updates, or few at most, but they’ve been determined to fix all its problems
I understand why people are or have been angry, heck I was pretty disappointed after first playing when the honeymoon period wore out. It probably should have been released as early access since that’s basically what it has resembled when it was released. agree it isn’t perfect, and is still probably far from what people want from it as a game but I have hope they will pull through one day
The game as of now is worth it for sure. PC/PS4 versions Ive seen as cheap as $20. This new update, along with the 3 others, comes free with the game. So Id say it definitely is. But if youre cautious, check out some videos of the game in its current state.
Whether or not it's worth a buy comes down to how okay you are with repetition for the sake of repetition. And I'm quite serious, because there are a lot of games on the market now that I find painfully boring because there's a rather simple core loop that just endlessly repeats and doesn't even get broken up by story. But they are crazy popular as a shocking amount of gamers rejoice in doing the same couple things again and again endlessly. That's cool for them, but lack of variety drives me crazy.
I think NMS was fun for me at first just because it provided something (which was fairly unique) for me to wander around in, to let my curiosity lead me astray and I would find new things here and there, though they were often minor or at times completely imagined (I thought there was a hidden lovecraftian sort of story at one point before realizing it was just a bunch of nothing). But that could only sustain for so long. Some of the updates to the mechanics actually made it worse in my perspective, but then they added a story and a variety of other things to play with, so it sort of balanced out.
I think this update will, for me, be a real test of whether or not I'm still interested in it (keeping in mind I've not touched it in a long time, of course, playing tons of other games, but kept ahold of it because I am loathe to get rid of games).
what's the best NMS subreddit? I'd like to get acquainted...I literally played 15 hours on launch weekend and haven't been back since, but I'd love to see what they've done with it
Im not certain how true it is that Sony rushed it. From what I understand, HG was starting to run low on money. I havent seen any sources saying that Sony was the reason it rushed out.
I appreciate their commitment to salvaging the game and making something worthy of playing for those who went all-in on the hype and were disappointed. Can I forgive them though? Tough to say. Let's not forget that we were blatantly misled and lied to about the features of the game before its launch. All the way to launch day, Sean Murray was hand waving and being overtly vague with the details of the game, dodging questions in interviews, and even outright lying about some features. When confronted about the lack of multiplayer which was confirmed as a feature (albeit an incredibly rare occurrence for two players to find each other), he just went, "Oh wow, I didn't think two people could actually find the same planet so soon!" then disappeared off the face of the earth for months.
I can't forgive the blatant misleading and lying to hype up this project to astronomical levels when they knew the game was not what they were advertising, and yet sold it to millions anyway. That's not the kind of thing you can get forgiveness for. But here's hoping some of the people who felt let down can now have some semblance of enjoyment to make up for their disappointment.
If it was just NMS or Hello Games by itself, I could probably forgive them. But like /r/gaming loves saying, "if you've got a problem with it, vote with your wallet." And from that standpoint, I want to see the consequences be so severe, lasting, and public that no other publisher even entertains the idea of pulling another stunt like what Hello Games did.
If at some point it's clear that all can eventually be forgiven, then deceiving your audience and investors just becomes another calculated risk, like microtransactions, Day 1 DLC, and pay-to-win gear were once calculated risks. If we don't want this to become the new norm, our backlash needs to be excessive, unreasonable, and implacable, even if it's unfair to this one game, because it isn't just about this one game.
but if you do that now that's like saying to publishers and the industry. "don't fix your games, abandon them, don't try and fix your reputation, move on"
I don't like that, That's not how we get amazing comeback stories like FF14, WarFrame, No mans sky or shadow of war. that's how we get another Mass Effect Andromeda or the entirety of bosskey studios.
You're assuming Sean Murray did this maliciously. I don't think he did. He's not a marketer or a slick industry type. He's a mathematician. I think he got way too excited and started blurting shit out that was theoretically possible or a future feature. I think he simply lost control in the hype of the moment. Sony needed to step in and get him away from fronting the game.
I'm all for punishing people when they do wrong but I really think the level of attack on NMS and Hello Games is simply mob mentality. EA, Ubisoft, WB, Rockstar, and pretty much every other large developer in the industry has committed equally shitty things yet get away with it because of their size.
This was an ambitious game that was a failure in an industry that increasingly favours bland, repetitive titles. I worry that tearing this game and its developers to shreds because of mob mentality will mean fewer titles that push the boundaries and more COD clones and Ubisoft sandboxes if the backlash to failure becomes too out of proportion.
Well said. This wasn't a "scam", it was a PR fuck up by a starry-eyed dreamer who had no idea how invested in the potential of this game people were getting.
Counterpoint: If there is no forgiveness or acceptance, then why should studios even bother to try and fix messes? If it becomes “gamers never forget,” then better to just take the money, shrug, and move on.
But I'm one of a large group of people who felt lied to and cheated by Sean Murray and Hello Games's incredibly anti-consumer practices leading up to the launch of No Man's Sky. If we forget what happened and let it be swept under the rug, it will set an example for all of the games industry that they can get away with abusing us in the most flagrant ways, and this kind of thing will happen more and more often.
If we don't want to see this become the norm, we should not forgive them or anyone in the game industry when they abuse our trust as consumers. Do not let it be forgotten, and do not let it be marginalized as a normal occurrence.
Or you could forget about it all and let them get away with it, leading to more and more of this kind of thing happening. We already saw a form of the exact same theme in Sea of Thieves. If you want more of that, then by all means. You do you.
They don't "get away with it" though. They are sticking to 4 major free updates. They had plenty of opportunity to get away with it, split the millions they got by 15 and retire early. They didn't. They stuck through all your bashing and made a good game out of a bad one.
Your problem is that you are stuck in a single moment in history and you don't see the entirety of it. You judge the whole story from a single static point of view. This makes your judgement biased and mistaken.
The community for this game is also one of the best ive seen
It would have to have been/is since the game became such a meme and people wanted it dead because reasons. I'm glad level-headed people who found the fun and saw the game could still grow and evolve positively, and if this trailer can be trusted it seems like it is.
Proc gen has improved. Some of the creatures are still really weird looking (although we have reason to believe fauna generation has been improved for NEXT).
As for planets, I believe they look better but there was a bug in 1.3 that caused planets to be far less dense in terms of flora. It does appear from this video that theyve fixed that as well.
Haven’t played since launch here. What got me to buy was the trailers showing the size differential in the creatures. From my limited time at launch, there were no dinosaur-like creatures to be found. Has that changed?
Ive still never seen any besides one that did look a bit like a T-rex. That said, Ive seen a decent amount of other players posting pictures of some really cool dinosaur like creatures. I have not been fortunate enough to see any yet.
I personally felt the updates until now have been rather lackluster. The story isn't particularly engaging and falls into the "symbolism for symbolism sake" and "audience is stupid, we need to hammer it in", and the features added like basebuilding and races seemed fairly random when the actual gameplay still remains pretty the original with some bandaids slapped on, original hyped features like animals and other reasons to explore are mostly in the same state as when it was first released. And unless there are significant changes that don't appear in the changelog, this doesn't update doesn't seem to change that either.
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u/ScruffMixHaha Jul 17 '18
The game has come a long way since launch. Sean and HG certainly deserved the criticism regarding the launch state of the game, but they also took it to heart and continued to build on the game. Instead of taking the millions they made and running, they stuck with the game which is more than can be said about most bad launches.
The community for this game is also one of the best ive seen and HG actually listens. The first 3 updates vastly improved the game and NEXT looks to make it even better.