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A polite discourse amongst friends on the importance of MP-elements in No Man's Sky

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gossi

Member
It's not mixed messages, it's lying. It was wrong when Bethesda did it and it's still wrong now. No excuses.

I'm not convinced he was lying. They were very vague on multiplayer, maybe it's a feature they wanted to try but weren't sure if it would make it in time. Maybe you can 'see each other' - like ghosts of prior players based on planets they visited? Maybe that is the easter egg?

Pitchforks are not pretty. I only posted about the packet capture (and encourage others to look too) and the pause issue to set expectations. It's still a great game, IMHO.
 

GHG

Gold Member
EXACTLY. And it is ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING he's been stringing us along the way he has! That's naughty naughty behaviour, Sean!


NAUGHTY.

Are you guys calling your lawyers?

I'm calling my lawyer.

If anybody needs a good lawyer PM me, I'll hook you up.
 
Da fuck. Is this Star Citizen we're talking about?

This type of overreaction is worrying. I feel sorry for everyone who's ragging about a non-feature right now. Who thought this was going to be a co-op game on launch day, raise your hand? Come on this is GAF, we supposedly know everything there is to know about games before they release.
It seemed pretty clear that if you made an effort you could see other players. Chances were supposed to be low, but it would be possible. I thought it was cool, like if you really wanted, you could take some hours and plan a meet up with a friend in the game.

The problem is not with the feature not being there. It is with the developer being vague about it and just not confirming or denying it.

Stuff changes in development, sometimes even last minute. Maybe they decided it couldn't be done a few months ago. No problem. But the game is out now. Just put out a Twitter message that says if it is possible or not to clear up the confusion.
 
Sean lied
Sony tried
Multiplayer died
Fans cried


E X P O S E D

2oVb9Qi.png


what a day
 

Zomba13

Member
Wait until Sean updates all of this and puts this thread to shame again.

NMS is ambitious. People whining about a murky feature, why aren't you playing the game right now, is it because you can't fireteam with your buddies? When was that marketed, ever? It's going to take a while, and a whole lot of sold copies, for NMS to become a Minecraft-like phenomenon with crazy updates on a monthly basis. For now, it's a four pillar game, that's what they pushed for the public.

Because it's not out on the PC yet...
 

Liamc723

Member
Interviews given over many years when you're a 12 person indie studio still in the early days of building the game - of course things are going to be discussed which don't make it. That's the reality. That isn't anything new or unique - it's been happening since the beginning of the gaming industry. Even big studios do it - Bethesda with Oblivion, look at the marketing for that back in ~2004 - so many major features aren't in the game which they talked about AND SHOWED.

Of course I feel sorry for Sean when people hurl abuse at him. Sean sold his house to hire the initial developers on this game, this is their first game, it's a huge gamble for all of them - and frankly, if the biggest problem is some mixed messages about multiplayer, I think that's a high class problem for 'em.

No, this is not their first game. It's their third.

If you say something will be in the game but then don't communicate that to your audience that it won't be there, that's shitty. They're liars.
 

SomTervo

Member
I packet captured my PS4. When the servers are online, no player movement data is sent to servers, either in space or planet side. It simply doesn't transmit where you are, or any world sharing information.

It does transmit your Discovers, and a diary of planets you have visited. I imagine that is for the Easter eggs.

Also, if you press 'OPTIONS' it pauses the entire game world, including AI (watch creatures and ships stop) and *time*. Planets stop moving and time stops passing when in OPTIONS. This is *not* a multiplayer game.

No, even better, someone actually looked at what is being transmitted to the servers. No player location.

Oh wow, yeah, megaton.

That's really lame of Murray.

The game has delivered in every other way for me and it's the first time in years I've been really addicted to a game, so I'm not holding it to the guy.

But man, why wouldn't you officially say 'Multiplayer is out for now guys' or something.

My old response:

What do you mean? Has someone officially said player location isn't transmitted? Because planets are given a 'Discovered by X' the second you arrive there, and I doubt it would be hard for the server to check what system each player is in and locate any matching strings.

I mean, if there's no multiplayer at all and it was an outright lie - then fuck, yeah, that's bullshit, and very poor practice on Murray's part.

But the game has been out two days and the only example we have is from a very dubious context. Let's wait and see before we get our pitchforks. (Too late for that already I suppose.)
 

Walpurgis

Banned
Yep.

The apologists and excuse-making in here is Iraq Ministry of War-tier bad.

Should have been more up front about it not having any multiplayer features at all. They could have at least gone the P2P instancing route the way Elite Dangerous did. They have a small team so I totally understand why it's not there...but it's unacceptable to not clean up previous commentary that suggested or implied multiplayer in some capacity.

Stop making excuses for it, GAF. People have a right to be disappointed or upset. Especially if they already dropped $60 expecting to be able to travel to planets with friends or at least see others if they happen to be on a world. It's pretty clear based on posted videos that it wasn't an unrealistic expectation. Check your emotions.



Because knights always stan for their leige. You know how it is during the honeymoon period. Anything you say bad will be met with scorn and conspiracy theory.
I'm absolutely astonished at the defense force here. How do they defend the indefensible? Sean Murray promised something. That's not a debate, as it is well documented. Then we learn that No Man's Sky does not have what was promised.

For some reason, we still have people denying the original promise took place and others downplaying the significance of this lie. The reality is, he lied and we're finding out on launch day after everyone has opened their copy.

The only lessons to be learned from all this is to be careful with preorders and not to trust Sean Murray going forward.
 
threads like these is why developers leave the business. he clearly says several times it would be incredibly rare to find another player.. games been out a day and people are bitching

Okay.

I packet captured my PS4. When the servers are online, no player movement data is sent to servers, either in space or planet side. It simply doesn't transmit where you are, or any world sharing information.

It does transmit your Discovers, and a diary of planets you have visited. I imagine that is for the Easter eggs.

Also, if you press 'OPTIONS' it pauses the entire game world, including AI (watch creatures and ships stop) and *time*. Planets stop moving and time stops passing when in OPTIONS. This is *not* a multiplayer game.

I mean, if you leave the business because people got mad that you promised something and and didn't deliver, I wouldn't blame the consumers.

Unless they started doing stupid shit like death threats, of course.
 
So almost a year ago in the Colbert thing. My point is made: it was a pretty long time ago when he last confirmed it (there is a lot that can happen in 10 months).

Should they have been vocal about it when they canned it? Yeah, that could've saved some of the outrage and would be the nice thing to do. So some criticism is definitely waranted. But I still stand by my point people are exagerating about this stuff.
Seems less exaggeration and more exasperation with being dismissed with "we still don't know how it works!" well, no shit, that's why people are miffed about and with the non-answers.
 

Bedlam

Member
Nope, you should've popped in to the NMS subreddit over the last year or two. The way they were talking about the game was like it was literally the day Jesus is coming back to Earth.

They were talking about and getting excited about features that a) Hadn't been announced/confirmed or anything and b) completely unreasonable expectations for a game in 2016.

People should just learn to not get so damn invested in one game and expect so much from it.
Yeah, I stated months ago that people are wish-projecting a lot into the project that it isn't and that they would be disappointed in the end.

However, this particular feature is nothing that came out of fanboy dreams. This feature was talked about in interviews in pretty clear terms.
 
Of course it makes sense. Meeting other players, even the chance of it, would rise this experience to a new level.

I you look objectively on NMS it is only a bunch of "simple" math formulas trying to create a vivid universe. These formulas are very limited, and after a few discoveries most players will recognize the pattern thats creates the creatures and planets. Meeting other players would have made the experience a lot more vivid.

If the NMS developers had hired a bunch of 100 designers they had probably come up with a much more vivid and varied universe. But the developers behind NMS where once a small team with the nice idea to create a "procedural" universe. After Sonys involvement and the "uprising" to a full price game everything changed. The Indie-Bonus is gone and people expect more now. I think most people are interested in this game because of the exploring (they should not be interested in NMS because of Dogfights or trading mechanics anyway because these are only rudimentary), but the game has still the same basics than before, with some added features that mean probably nothing to most players.


Stating that a game has a certain feature is not taking away a sense of wonder. Seriously, it is the same as "you can fly spaceships" and "there are trees in this game". Your whole talk here has nothing to do with why they can't confirm a simple feature.

They can not confirm the feature, because it is simply not there. They are airy about it, because they know this feature means some "sense of wonders" to some player and they would have the launch sales as high as possible. After launch they will be probably more clear about it. It's simple marketing.
 

Kworn

Banned
threads like these is why developers leave the business. he clearly says several times it would be incredibly rare to find another player.. games been out a day and people are bitching

There is incredibly rare and impossible because we did not make this feature activate/at all.
 

Bedlam

Member
I'm not convinced he was lying. They were very vague on multiplayer, maybe it's a feature they wanted to try but weren't sure if it would make it in time. Maybe you can 'see each other' - like ghosts of prior players based on planets they visited? Maybe that is the easter egg?

Pitchforks are not pretty. I only posted about the packet capture (and encourage others to look too) and the pause issue to set expectations. It's still a great game, IMHO.
Not in the interviews. They were clear about it back then. No "maybes".

Shaun comments on two people meeting each other:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyT..._comments_on_two_players_meeting_each/d6bklg6

Posted moments ago
The two players didn't meet though.
A very neat example of him intentionally perpetuating the myth.

threads like these is why developers leave the business. he clearly says several times it would be incredibly rare to find another player.. games been out a day and people are bitching
Because they are getting caught lying? I'd be fine if that's the reason they leave the business.

The functionality is not in the game. He lied with the "incredibly rare" comment.
 

ISee

Member
It's software development. Shit happens (or doesn't in some cases).

You can protect yourself as a consumer by not pre ordering. It's pretty simple really.

Stuff can change, everybody with a brain in his skull knows that. But you need to communicate that change way in advance. Two days before release is laughable.

And to the whole: Just don't preorder stuff. We are past that point in this industry. Just imagine a world with no (zero) preorders for NMS. In such a world development would have stopped a long time ago because preorders allow developers to estimate sales and to test if it is reasonable to release said game if it'S starting to miss milestones (like NMS). No pre orders for 'niche' games would kill those games.
 
They can not confirm the feature, because it is simply not there. They are airy about it, because they know this feature means some "sense of wonders" to some player and they would have the launch sales as high as possible. After launch they will be probably more clear about it. It's simple marketing.
No, that is not marketing. That is called deceit. You can't talk about your product doing X, then launching it, and if people ask if X is there say "well, maybe, find out!" while knowing it isn't there.
 

gossi

Member
For years:

"Can you see other players?" "Yes."

Maybe you can see other players? Like a ghost on a planet they visited? May that's the Easter Egg. Maybe see the avatar at center of galaxy?

He did not say "Yes, you can party up and fly around the galaxy!".
 

Adry9

Member
I'm not convinced he was lying. They were very vague on multiplayer, maybe it's a feature they wanted to try but weren't sure if it would make it in time. Maybe you can 'see each other' - like ghosts of prior players based on planets they visited? Maybe that is the easter egg?

Pitchforks are not pretty. I only posted about the packet capture (and encourage others to look too) and the pause issue to set expectations. It's still a great game, IMHO.

He said you could play with friends.

You can't play with friends.

He never made a statement before release taking it back.

HOW IS THAT NOT LYING?
 

Carn82

Member
The two players didn't meet though.

True, but there seems to be more going on at the moment. (copy/pasting my previous post):

Murray:

"Two players finding each other on a stream in the first day - that has blown my mind. We added a 'scan for other players' in the Galactic Map to try to encourage this happening. We wanted it to happen - but the first day? We want people to be aware they are in a shared universe. We added online features, and some Easter Eggs to create cool moments. We hope to see those happening... but too many of you are playing right now. More than we could have predicted. It is a testament to how amazing our network coders are that Discoveries are still working at all."

But some GAF-research pointed out that at the moment, no multiplayer-related data travels between the PS4 and HG servers. Also, the gameworld pauses when you go in options. For all intends and purposes; the current version of the game does not feature any kind of MP. Some possible outcomes:

- NMS will not / never feature any kind of MP
- NMS features MP but it has been 'disabled' some way. (with the gameworld stopping during pause, pretty unlikely)
- NMS might feature some form of MP but in a way that we havent found it yet
- NMS might feature MP through updates
 

Walpurgis

Banned
They can not confirm the feature, because it is simply not there. They are airy about it, because they know this feature means some "sense of wonders" to some player and they would have the launch sales as high as possible. After launch they will be probably more clear about it. It's simple marketing.
This is why we're mad. No one likes to be swindled out of their money.
 

Vex_

Banned
They can not confirm the feature, because it is simply not there. They are airy about it, because they know this feature means some "sense of wonders" to some player and they would have the launch sales as high as possible. After launch they will be probably more clear about it. It's simple marketing.


Disgusting!
 

Caayn

Member
"To be super clear - No Man's Sky is not a multiplayer game. Please don't go in looking for that experience." - Sean Murray. https://twitter.com/NoMansSky/status/762688708764135425
There's no better time to announce that a feature promised for years isn't in the final product than the day before it launches.

Sean needs to man up and tell what's going on. Either there's multiplayer planned but not in the release version or he's been lying for years and doesn't have the balls to admit it now that the money is in.
 

Zomba13

Member
"To be super clear - No Man's Sky is not a multiplayer game. Please don't go in looking for that experience." - Sean Murray. https://twitter.com/NoMansSky/status/762688708764135425

Which was followed by (or preceded by, I can't Twitter) "The chances of two players ever crossing paths in a universe this large is pretty much zero.". If there was no multiplayer why say "pretty much zero" instead of zero, or impossible, or never going to happen because it's not in the game.

Just weird, confusing messaging up till the end.
 
Considering the servers were constantly going offline even if it was showing green I am not sure I would trust it. This isn't definitive.


However. The fact that two people were able to find each other's exact location this quickly is surprising and quite the big deal.

Edit. Seems Murray said as much.
 
They can not confirm the feature, because it is simply not there. They are airy about it, because they know this feature means some "sense of wonders" to some player and they would have the launch sales as high as possible. After launch they will be probably more clear about it. It's simple marketing.

This explains a lot. Apparently, some people just think that this is completely alright and acceptable thing to do. No wonder, they are surprised this topic is this long o_O
 

hodgy100

Member
The problem is: they are stating these mixed messages intentionally right now and refuse to clear up the confusion with a straight answer.

Moreover, they are clearly selling this game on the promises they made over the course of its development and they never once issued a statement that some feature was cut - especially one of the most prominent feature that Sean boasted about in many interviews.

I have zero sympathy for them now facing a shitstorm. Be upfront about what you're selling.

They never said it was a multiplayer game. THis shitstorm shouldn't exist multiplayer features was an expectation that was never set.

There's no better time to announce that a feature promised for years isn't in the final product than the day before it launches.

Sean needs to man up and tell what's going on. Either there's multiplayer planned but not in the release version or he's been lying for years and doesn't have the balls to admit it now that the money is in.

they never said it was a multiplayer game
 

gossi

Member
Sean is an incredibly talented developer who was given all the marketing duties and coder and studio header. I mean, this is the guy who did an interview for Playboy. Of course some stuff is going to get mixed up in that situation.
 

Walpurgis

Banned
Which was followed by (or preceded by, I can't Twitter) "The chances of two players ever crossing paths in a universe this large is pretty much zero.". If there was no multiplayer why say "pretty much zero" instead of zero, or impossible, or never going to happen because it's not in the game.

Just weird, confusing messaging up till the end.
And why mention the world size? It's obvious that at no point did he mean to say we couldn't see other players.
 
"To be super clear - No Man's Sky is not a multiplayer game. Please don't go in looking for that experience." - Sean Murray. https://twitter.com/NoMansSky/status/762688708764135425

Yes, because the general gaming public reads Sean's twitter feed. C'mon fam. Even that statement is ambiguous. It could be interpreted based on past commentary that it won't be an elaborate experience or easy to do or rewarding.

He could have simply said, "NMS will have no multiplayer features and you will not be able to see other players. But it will have x, y and z for recording your travels, etc."

See how unambiguous that is? And he could and should have said it a month ago when the game went gold and he knew it wouldn't have said features. Why say the shit essentially on the eve of launch, ambiguously, and on Twitter where 95% of gamers aren't going to read info on game software anyway? It stinks, man. He did it this way on purpose, let's not kid ourselves.
 
Okay.



I mean, if you leave the business because people got mad that you promised something and and didn't deliver, I wouldn't blame the consumers.

Unless they started doing stupid shit like death threats, of course.

It's already happened and I'm sure it's happening now as well. Can't think of anything worse than being in the public eye and being on twitter.
 

gossi

Member
Yes, because the general gaming public reads Sean's twitter feed.

The general gaming public might watch a trailer or read the production descriptions or Steam page - none of which mentioned or showed multiplayer. The retail and Steam descriptions specifically say "Single player", as does the box the game comes in.

You can play with other players, by the way - you just can't see them or party up. But can name creatures and solar systems. If your understanding of "Yes" translates to "CO-OP GALAXY ROAD TRIP!", you've added some words to "Yes".
 

Bedlam

Member
They never said it was a multiplayer game. THis shitstorm shouldn't exist multiplayer features was an expectation that was never set.
"Can you play with other players?" - "Yes"

Not least the statement that only other players can see how you look like. Oops, nope. Actually no one sees anyone in this game. Ever.

Sean is an incredibly talented developer who was given all the marketing duties and coder and studio header. I mean, this is the guy who did an interview for Playboy. Of course some stuff is going to get mixed up in that situation.
Wow, you're really going to some lenghts here....
 
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