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Polygon: No Man's Sky- the developers built space probes to explore it for them

T

todahawk

Member
New thread for new procedural art info:
Full title of article from Polygon: 'No Man's Sky is so big, the developers built space probes to explore it for them'


polygon said:
There's a robot that lives inside No Man's Sky that nobody outside of the development team may ever see, because its entire purpose is to fly to each of the game's 18 quintillion worlds, take short videos and document its interstellar travels as a series of animated GIFs.
Click to expand...

Thought this snippet answered some questions i've seen posted on gaf before regarding NMS and the procedural aspect.
polygon said:
Finally, after the artists created the blueprints and planted the seeds, and after the coders constructed a box full of math, the universe exists. Someone has to look after it.

That's where the robot probe comes in, flying from planet to planet, making the animated GIFs, so that the folks at Hello Games can make sure everything looks acceptable. That there aren't too many red planets; if so, they can fly in and tweak things to ensure consistency and coherency.
Click to expand...
 
S

Scrawnton

Member
When will we get gameplay impressions instead of stories talking about how big or immersive it's supposed to be?
 
jediyoshi

jediyoshi

Member
That's weird, they went over this at least last E3 ago.

I'm guessing it's coming up again because of their GDC talk.
 
Z

Z3M0G

Member
The probe client pumping out gifs of the planets it visits is pretty amazing... I never knew about this probe. I hope it is still possible for other players to see it if they are lucky to be in the same location.
 
T

todahawk

Member
jediyoshi said:
That's weird, they went over this at least last E3 ago.

I'm guessing it's coming up again because of their GDC talk.
Click to expand...

yup.

polygon said:
But now, deep into the development of No Man's Sky, and despite his initial reservations, he learned to stop worrying and love procedural art, a process he documented in a GDC 2015 session this week.
Click to expand...
 
S

Scrawnton

Member
akidnamededdy said:
This plz. Talk like this does nothing for me in an industry full of people and companies that overpromise and underdeliver.
Click to expand...
Seriously. Sony is running the risk of me not caring for this game because they tease the game for nearly two years before finally showing how it plays. If this game ends up not living up to expectations it's because they baited and teased us for way too long.
 
G

Give War A Chance

Member
Yeah, at this point, every article that isn't about someone's impressions just serves to make me a little more skeptical of this game. I think it's very well documented how big and whatnot this game is. What isn't well documented is how the game plays.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Scrawnton said:
Seriously. Sony is running the risk of me not caring for this game because they tease the game for nearly two years before finally showing how it plays. If this game ends up not living up to expectations it's because they baited and teased us for way too long.
Click to expand...



...It's the developers talking excitedly about their own code in a game developer's conference.
 
V

Veritigo_X

Member
Yeah this is really old news. I remember them talking about this after it was initially announced. It sounds cool, but every game have automatic testing features like this so it isn't special. The fact that it needs human feedback to determine whether worlds are diverse enough if kinda cool. Most testing like this is designed to reduce the amount of human feedback needed.

todahawk said:
goddammit I knew I shouldn't have made this thread.
Click to expand...

Not your fault. Polygon was making it out to be new news.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
That's one great way to help manage such a massive game world. I'd love to hear some gameplay impressions about NMS soonish, but it seems Sean and team are being real tight-lipped about the game now and we might not get any actual news or info until way close to launch.

todahawk said:
goddammit I knew I shouldn't have made this thread.
Click to expand...

At least it's news to me. I missed the bot news from earlier.
 
C

Coffee Dog

Banned
Have they talked about the procedural generation at all? Is there any reason to expect the diversity from the planets that they have claimed?
 
A

Anton Sugar

Member
PdotMichael said:
Well, the idea of a fixed universe kind of kill the entire idea of a completely unknown universe.
Click to expand...

Uuugh, just because it's "fixed" doesn't mean it's known.

Elite: Dangerous takes place inside of an accurate simulation of the Milky Way galaxy, with over 400 billion systems. Elite has been out for a few months now, and players have been exploring the galaxy. The result?

It’s a big galaxy out there. Players have been out exploring Elite: Dangerous’ full-scale recreation of the Milky Way since launch, and together you’ve discovered 615,475 previously uncharted systems of the 400 billion in our galaxy.

On a simple average, that’s 17,585 systems per day, 732 per hour or 12 per minute. Good going, everyone.

But let’s put that in context, because with 400 billion star systems to explore the community have charted just 0.00015 percent of our galaxy. Let’s put it another way: if everyone keeps going at the current rate, it will take 150,895 years to map the entire Milky Way.

But with new players joining every day, we might just get the galaxy mapped before the turn of the hundred and seventieth century.
Click to expand...

This guy traveled 144,000 light years over the course of ten weeks to reach the edge of the Milky Way.

Point is: a "fixed" galaxy does not mean it is known.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
Echoenigma said:
Have they talked about the procedural generation at all? Is there any reason to expect the diversity from the planets that they have claimed?
Click to expand...

They had a huge blowout on this a few months ago with Game Informer. I know there's a 30+ minute video where Sean talks about the procedural generation, how it works, and a look at the actual world building bit by bit.
 
D

Darklord

Banned
I feel like its not the number of planets but the content on them that will matter. If we've seen every environment, every plant, every creature after 10 or 20 planets then it won't matter how many more there are.
 
Mengy

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
For some reason this immediately comes to mind:


tmphd2551.jpg
Click to expand...
 
B

Big Brett

Member
I can't help but feel this game is going to be too large for its own good. The idea of an endless universe is cool, but what is there to do in it? Cautiously optimistic. This is a huge project for them to take on.
 
M

Mogwai

Member
My procedure is to take a procedural approach to this procedurally generated game. That must be best option, procedurally speaking.
 
C

Coffee Dog

Banned
daveo42 said:
They had a huge blowout on this a few months ago with Game Informer. I know there's a 30+ minute video where Sean talks about the procedural generation, how it works, and a look at the actual world building bit by bit.
Click to expand...

I would really like to see this. Because this game will live and die by whether or not you're constantly running into variants of "ice planet, swamp planet, volcano planet", etc

It'll get boring if the generation isn't interesting enough.
 
T

todahawk

Member
Anton Sugar said:
Uuugh, just because it's "fixed" doesn't mean it's unknown.

Elite: Dangerous takes place inside of an accurate simulation of the Milky Way galaxy, with over 400 billion systems. Elite has been out for a few months now, and players have been exploring the galaxy. The result?



This guy traveled 144,000 light years over the course of ten weeks to reach the edge of the Milky Way.

Point is: a "fixed" galaxy does not mean it is known.
Click to expand...

Yes, thank you. The point that they have to use bot probes to check them says a lot.

Darklord said:
I feel like its not the number of planets but the content on them that will matter. If we've seen every environment, every plant, every creature after 10 or 20 planets then it won't matter how many more there are.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this article at least answered that question for me. That they use these bot probes to check content to some degree. "are there too many red planets" etc. Some will have flora and fauna and some will be more barren but ripe for mining and resources. I recall Hello Games saying finding life will be special.
 
X

Xater

Member
I am trying to figure out where there is any new information in this article. I feel like this is all the stuff we have known for at least a year.
 
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