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No Man's Sky Hands on impressions (Gamespot)

Danny O'Dwyer talks a lot about what he did while playing No Man's Sky. Very much worth a watch.

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/we-played-no-man-s-sky/2300-6425669/

And even more impressions here from someone who attended an exclusive press demo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9dHHZNkcZk


Edit: And now, Kinda Funny's impressions! start at 7:34

http://www.twitch.tv/kindafunnygames/v/6358306

All of these people seem to love it, so that's a great sign for sure.

General No Man's Sky Info

Everyone starts off on a random planet on the outside of the starting galaxy. (There has been confirmed to be multiple galaxies)

You start off with a life pod ship, without a hyperdrive. Your hyperdrive is key to getting you from star system to star system and will be how you will cover the vast majority of your distance. You can fly from star system to star system manually, but it will take a very long time.

The goal of the game is to get to the center of the universe. The game doesn't force you to go there, but many players may find interest in getting closer to the center since the closer you get, the better ships/equipment/resources you will come across. Also, the game will get harder towards the center as you'll have a higher chance of coming across more hostile/dangerous/alien planets and stronger AI ships/factions.

To make your journey to the center, you will need to continue getting better ships and upgrade your equipment as you go. To do that, you need to have units. Units are the currency in NMS, and you can get units in multiple ways:

-Discovering new species/planets through exploration and uploading them to beacons will grant you units. You have to upload them before the units are granted to you. If you die before you can upload your data, then you have to re discover those things and upload them to get units for them.

-You can get units by selling resources to space stations and trading posts, and you can combine resources to make them more lucrative. You can sell your resources to the stations in the native star system that you find them in, or you can take a risk and warp to another star system to sell your resources there where they might be more valuable and sell for higher. (I'm assuming it's that way because resource price will vary from star system to star system depending on how common the resource is in said star system) It's a risk because you could get attacked by pirates and possibly lose all of the resources are transporting, or you could get attacked by hostile animals on the search for hyperdrive fuel.

-You can also get units and resources purely by space combat and attacking trading routes/factions/freighters. You can progress all the way to the center without ever settling down on a planet that's not your starting planet.

If you die on the surface of a planet, you will respawn at your ship, but you'll lose whatever you had on you at the time. If your ship gets destroyed in space, you will land on the nearest planet with only your life pod ship and lose your cargo, but your bank account (units), multitool upgrades, and suit upgrades will still be in tact. It's always possible to work your way up from your life pod ship to a better ship with a hyperdrive no matter what star system you're in or what planet you crashed on.

You mine with your multitool. The environments are fully destructible. The multitool is used as a scanner, a weapon, and a mining tool. There are many different upgrades for it. The ones we know of so far are "laser beam, plasma grenade, energy shot, scan distance, scan type (certain things can't be scanned until this is upgraded)"

If you mess with the ecology of a planet too much, (mining, killing animals) Sentinel robots will be alerted and may attack you where you'll have to engage in combat. There is a wanted level on the top right hand corner of your screen that can go up to 5 levels. The robots are not on every planet.

There is a galactic police that will attack you and keep track of your doings in any particular sector. If you try to attack freighters or space stations, the galactic police will be alerted and try to attack you. Same thing with different factions. If you help out one faction, you will be on good terms with them and you can become affiliated with them enough to call on them as wingmen. If you oppose a faction, they'll remember that and may be hostile to you if you come across them in the future. If you consistently play as a pirate throughout multiple star systems, you will gain a status that will make you more known in the galaxy in general, so you could go to a completely new place and you might get attacked by space police because they are already aware of your status.

You can also upgrade your suit. The suit upgrades we know of so far are "shields, resource capacity, jetpack (height and hang time), air hazard (separate stats for toxic, corrosive and radioactive environments, liquid hazard (length of time submerged in water, acid, and alcohol)"

You can upgrade ships but it is not completely clear on how it works. The ship attributes we know of so far are "Shields, laser beams, plasma shot, rapid fire shots, energy torpedo, wing (affects maneuverability), hull (separate stats to allow landing in toxic, corrosive, and radioactive environments), engine (general speed), hyperdrive (hyperspace jump distance), cargo space (split between cargo and hyperdrive fuel), cloaking" In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9dHHZNkcZk it mentions ships having inventory slots that you can fill with upgrades to the ship, as well as cargo, and fuel which has some kind of overlap in the space they take up, so it's something that you will be managing.

There are three main classes of ships: Fighter, Trader and Explorer. Each class has multiple prototypes

-Fighters are light and symmetrical

-Trader craft tend to be bulkier and slower, but with heavier weapons

-Explorer ships will have much better hyperdrives and stealth capabilities, allowing pacifists to run from every fight Edge

To upgrade things, you will need units. You upgrade your suit and weapons at posts/shops/stations. Different places will have different things/resources/upgrades available. You can also craft upgrades with resources you find.

A crafting system (aside from just combining resources to make them more valuable) has been mentioned. Talks about crafting things from the "atomic level" Quote below

"The game's crafting system looks set to be intrinsically complicated but rich and intentionally obscure, for instance. After mining resources in pure atomic form you can combine them into more valuable molecules, and gradually build up complex crafted material for selling, or to use to upgrade your ship, exploration suit or weapons. Hello Games will not document how this works before launch, instead -- in the style of Minecraft -- leaving it up to players to discover."

A blueprint system has also been mentioned. You can craft resources in particular ways only if you have attained the blueprint for it. Also, "loot crates" will be spread out through the galaxy that you can find as just another thing to reward you for exploration.

Planets will have a pre-generated name, but if you upload enough discoveries from one planet to a beacon, you can rename it whatever you want. You can also rename creatures you discover.

You CAN come across other players and see them, but it's extremely unlikely because of just how big the game is. There are 18 quintillion planets after all. As you get closer to the center, the chances of running into another player will increase, but it will still be a slim chance. If you do come across another real player, where will be no indication aside from your own observation. If you see a ship that's flying un-AI like, then it could be another player. If you see a person in a suit get out of a ship and walk around, then it's probably another player. Stars on the galactic map will twinkle whenever a discover is made somewhere, so you will occasionally catch that and see where someone might be in relevance to where you're at. You can also play completely offline.

There are a good amount of other details out there that I didn't cover, but if you don't like this, the game is not for you. Here's an information archive if you're interested on reading a bit more. http://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/wiki/archive

I get that many people want to see more extensive footage of these things before getting on board, and that's fine. If you read this though, you shouldn't be asking what you do.
 
The whole "I still don't know what it is" and "what do you do" is really wearing thin. If someone is asking these questions over and over, they don't really get it.
 
Posted this in the other thread, but I'll post it here too.

Danny mentions you can't run into other players even if you're at the same location. Goes against what's been talked about at other interviews this week. They've always mentioned Journey as an inspiration for the multiplayer so I thought that was strange.
 

rrc1594

Member
The whole "I still don't know what it is" and "what do you do" is really wearing thin. If someone is asking these questions over and over, they don't really get it.

Well E3 demo didn't really help at all. If that's doesn't pull you in why would you look up info on the game. If I wasn't a Gaffer I would know what the game was about
 

bounchfx

Member
Posted this in the other thread, but I'll post it here too.

Danny mentions you can't run into other players even if you're at the same location. Goes against what's been talked about at other interviews this week. They've always mentioned Journey as an inspiration for the multiplayer so I thought that was strange.

oh I hope this isn't true.

running into others would be truly special in this game considering how massive the playspace is, I really really hope you can see others.
 

ZeroGravity

Member
Posted this in the other thread, but I'll post it here too.

Danny mentions you can't run into other players even if you're at the same location. Goes against what's been talked about at other interviews this week. They've always mentioned Journey as an inspiration for the multiplayer so I thought that was strange.
Yeah, that kind of confused me. Like, I don't mind it being very difficult to meet other players - it's a huge universe after all - but never being able to would be very disappointing.
 
oh I hope this isn't true.

running into others would be truly special in this game considering how massive the playspace is, I really really hope you can see others.

Wait, there's no online multiplayer? What? It's just you flying around from place to place? That sounds like it'd get boring right quick.
 

Boke1879

Member
Well E3 demo didn't really help at all. If that's doesn't pull you in why would you look up info on the game. If I wasn't a Gaffer I would know what the game was about

But what do you really do in Minecraft? Build and explore right. Isn't NMS about exploration. Why can't that be ok?

You're flying ships, landing on planets. Gathering resources discovering new planets. I thin it's pretty obvious that's what you'll be doing. So I don't get the whole "what do you do in this game?" question that always pops up.
 

legacyzero

Banned
Posted this in the other thread, but I'll post it here too.

Danny mentions you can't run into other players even if you're at the same location. Goes against what's been talked about at other interviews this week. They've always mentioned Journey as an inspiration for the multiplayer so I thought that was strange.

That's not what he said at all.
 

rrc1594

Member
But what do you really do in Minecraft? Build and explore right. Isn't NMS about exploration. Why can't that be ok?

You're flying ships, landing on planets. Gathering resources discovering new planets. I thin it's pretty obvious that's what you'll be doing. So I don't get the whole "what do you do in this game?" question that always pops up.

IMO they haven't done a good job of showing that. I don't think it's that simple because if it was I don't think the game would be so hyped
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
Can't link from the phone but Gametrailers had a discussion about what they saw behind closed doors too, through it was mostly them arguing over them talking about stuff vs. showing it.
 
The whole "I still don't know what it is" and "what do you do" is really wearing thin. If someone is asking these questions over and over, they don't really get it.

Someone on Reddit explained it pretty well:

That's okay, NMS is not that easy to understand, and there are so many shitty explanations out there. Let me walk you through it.

When you first start the game, you will spawn in a lifepod. The lifepod is basically a ship without a hyperdrive. That means that you can travel to other planets, but not other stars. To progress, you need to land on a planet, and search for resources. You will start to mine for resources, and when you have enough resources, you can buy a new ship, one with a hyperdrive. From this point, there are no limits. You are free to do whatever you want. You can roam space, take part in epic space battles or explore planets. Note that you will have to mine for resources in order to buy fuel for your hyperdrive.

But, if freeroaming isn't your thing, and you need a goal in your games, there is one goal, one goal that unites all players: get to the center of the universe. What is in the center? you might ask. Well, nobody knows. Go there and find out. If you choose to travel to the center, note that you can not just rush through. You are "forced" to land on and explore planets, in order to buy fuel and upgrades for your ship and spacesuit. Upgrading is no must, but it is highly recommended, because the closer you get to the center the more dangerous alien life and the environment on planets get. There are also planets that require you to have certain suit/ship upgrades, like toxic or acidic planets.

Mining for resources, buying fuel and upgrades might sound like a grind, but this is where the unique artstyle, vibrant colours and procedural generation come in. These three things are there to ensure you never get bored. Everything is procedurally generated. Every alien lifeform, every tree has a procedurally generated shape, and every leaf is procedural. The colours however, are not. The way colours are generated works as follows. Every time you land on a planet, the elements that exist on the planet are randomized. So for example one planet has an atmosphere consisting of 10% nitrogen, 80% carbon and 10% oxygen. Another planet might have 100% oxygen. The same applies to oceans. Based upon which element is contained in the atmosphere and oceans, the colour of the atmosphere, oceans and most importantly flora is calculated.

That are the basic aspects of No Mans Sky, but there is much more to it.
 
It still blows my mind at how many people, including those from press, still don't get NMS. You fly, you fight, you explore. That's your adventure. Why is it so hard to understand? You make your own story.
 

petghost

Banned
But what do you really do in Minecraft? Build and explore right. Isn't NMS about exploration. Why can't that be ok?

You're flying ships, landing on planets. Gathering resources discovering new planets. I thin it's pretty obvious that's what you'll be doing. So I don't get the whole "what do you do in this game?" question that always pops up.

Minecraft also benefits from the ability to do creative things socially though...Like exploring is a part of mine craft but imo it's maybe the least interesting aspect.
 
But what do you really do in Minecraft? Build and explore right. Isn't NMS about exploration. Why can't that be ok?

You're flying ships, landing on planets. Gathering resources discovering new planets. I thin it's pretty obvious that's what you'll be doing. So I don't get the whole "what do you do in this game?" question that always pops up.

I hope I'm not going to be flamed for this but I really don't know "what you do"!

In the presentation, the guy engaged in non-consequential space battle, flew to a random planet, blew up some rocks, shot up a robot and happened upon a beastie. Now if that's pretty much all there is to it, then that's fine. It sounds relaxing and interesting. But is there some sort of goal, are there objectives or a way to win? It's fine if there is and it's fine if there isn't.
 

JP

Member
Posted this in the other thread, but I'll post it here too.

Danny mentions you can't run into other players even if you're at the same location. Goes against what's been talked about at other interviews this week. They've always mentioned Journey as an inspiration for the multiplayer so I thought that was strange.
I think they've been very clear about this in that everybody starts on the edge of the universe but because of the size of the universe it's quite possible that you won't see other people or if you do you might not even be able to tell they're real unless they put effort into giving it away.

There's apparently 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 planets so even if a ten million people are playing it simultaneously you're unlikely to meet them. If everybody does attempt to reach the centre of the universe then the chances increase as you get closer and if you do reach the centre, sooner or later you are going to meet someone....possibly.
 
I hope I'm not going to be flamed for this but I really don't know "what you do"!

In the presentation, the guy engaged in non-consequential space battle, flew to a random planet, blew up some rocks, shot up a robot and happened upon a beastie. Now if that's pretty much all there is to it, then that's fine. It sounds relaxing and interesting. But is there some sort of goal, are there objectives or a way to win? It's fine if there is and it's fine if there isn't.

The goal, as stated several times for the past few years, is to journey to the center of the universe. They don't want to say what you'll find there.

You need to explore, fight and upgrade yourself in order to get there.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Well E3 demo didn't really help at all. If that's doesn't pull you in why would you look up info on the game. If I wasn't a Gaffer I would know what the game was about

The logic is so bizarre and nonsensical.

Let's say you actually care enough if your life to view No Man's Sky videos, and then come into topics repeatedly and ask the ridiculously ignorant rhetorical question "but when are they going to show what you ACTUALLY do?"

One might assume that instead of wasting everyone's time to demonstrate your profound ignorance, you would take two seconds to google and browse any one of the trillions of articles that describe in excruciating detail exactly what you do and what your goals are and what gameplay elements exist, as well as view the many many trailers we've got shows elements from much of what they've talked about.

If you watch the videos and read a few articles and you're not interested, that's cool. You might share your criticisms and reasons why, and then you walk away and move on. What you don't do is repeatedly ruin every No Man's Sky topic by asking a question that has been answered over and over again ad naseum for the past year. There's no mystery here except in the storyline. We know exactly what you do, what your goals are, what the primary gameplay focus is and how you accomplish your gameplay goals. We know a lot about how various systems work (and have seen them in action) and it controls and what the game flow is like.

At this point the only way they could make it any clearer what the heck you do in the game is if they literally released the game design manual that maps out in flow sheets and programming language how they accomplished everything. Which no one ever does, sooo
 

Handy Fake

Member
What was the whole 'millions of guns because of all the components you can craft' thing he skirted over? Procedural guns..? Ooooo.
 

Dingy

Neo Member
But what do you really do in Minecraft? Build and explore right. Isn't NMS about exploration. Why can't that be ok?

You're flying ships, landing on planets. Gathering resources discovering new planets. I thin it's pretty obvious that's what you'll be doing. So I don't get the whole "what do you do in this game?" question that always pops up.

For me i need a goal in a game. In Minecraft you can set your own goal. For Example Building a big house or village. To reach this goal you search for the ressources. Another goal could be to beat the enderdragon.

If the goal in NMS is to reach the middle of the univers I´m fine with that. If there really is no goal I think it will get boring after you`ve realized which types of planets and animals there are. I know there are endless possabilitys but they are all buit with the same construction set.
 
Well E3 demo didn't really help at all.

He traveled through space, shot some spaceships, gave an overview of where he was in relation to the universe, said the goal is to reach the center of the universe, landed on a random planet, showed off that planets are destructible, scanned some lifeforms, and uploaded his findings.

I don't understand how anyone can be confused about what you can do in this game.
 

Gsnap

Member
The multiplayer part worries me. In every video I've see. They sort of dodge talking about multiplayer in depth. Sometimes they make it sound like if you do happen to run across someone you'll be able to interact with them. Sometimes they make it sound like you can't. Somebody just needs to ask the simple yes or no question. Will we be able to see and interact with other players if we happen to be in the same place at the same time?

Because yes, odds are we won't naturally run into people, but in theory I should just be able to give my friend my coordinates and he should be able to jump to me.
 
The goal, as stated several times for the past few years, is to journey to the center of the universe. They don't want to say what you'll find there.

You need to explore, fight and upgrade yourself in order to get there.


Thanks for the slightly snarky response. I haven't been following this game for "several years", I only just got a PS4. Literally all I know about it is that brief E3 demo.
 
There's multiplayer.

The universe is so big that even if 10 million were playing simultaneously, it's unlikely you'd find anyone.

I think of how hard it could be to find your friend is sorta romantic. Interstellar-style, head out there and find your "Brand."

They're definitely right when they say we need to bring down our expectations.
 

Amir0x

Banned
He traveled through space, shot some spaceships, gave an overview of where he was in relation to the universe, said the goal is to reach the center of the universe, landed on a random planet, showed off that planets are destructible, scanned some lifeforms, and uploaded his findings.

I don't understand how anyone can be confused about what you can do in this game.

At this point they need to just release a 17 hour unfiltered gameplay video with HUGE YELLOW TEXT at every moment detailing exactly what each scene is depicting, along with sending every viewer of this video a complimentary text in the mail describing how they accomplished these gameplay elements.


























And they'd still fucking ask what it is you do.
 

LeonSPBR

Member
He traveled through space, shot some spaceships, gave an overview of where he was in relation to the universe, said the goal is to reach the center of the universe, landed on a random planet, showed off that planets are destructible, scanned some lifeforms, and uploaded his findings.

I don't understand how anyone can be confused about what you can do in this game.

It seems that people need a waypoint in their game so that they know what they should aim for. This crap of "What is the objecive?" or "What do I do?" has become ridiculous right now.
 
I would love to see a sequel to Minecraft take some inspiration from No Mans Sky. Imagine starting a game of Minecraft like how it is today, but then you once you have built certain items like furnaces etc, you can make more complex items and machines like cars, planes, boats etc, then eventually spaceships.

You could eventually build your own spaceship and fly up into the sky and escape the atmosphere and see your own Minecraft world from space, crafted just how you wanted it. You could then fly to the moon and set up some cool moon base or something, pretty much whatever you want. Say you wanna make a deathstar and have it orbit your minecraft world, the game could give you new tools to do that. Once you have established an empire in your own solar system, you could build a portal and invade other people's worlds.
 
I hope I'm not going to be flamed for this but I really don't know "what you do"!

In the presentation, the guy engaged in non-consequential space battle, flew to a random planet, blew up some rocks, shot up a robot and happened upon a beastie. Now if that's pretty much all there is to it, then that's fine. It sounds relaxing and interesting. But is there some sort of goal, are there objectives or a way to win? It's fine if there is and it's fine if there isn't.


Space battles have consequences, as in you will gain a friend/enemy from them and you will also be paid depending on the outcome.
 

KingV

Member
The multiplayer part worries me. In every video I've see. They sort of dodge talking about multiplayer in depth. Sometimes they make it sound like if you do happen to run across someone you'll be able to interact with them. Sometimes they make it sound like you can't. Somebody just needs to ask the simple yes or no question. Will we be able to see and interact with other players if we happen to be in the same place at the same time?

Because yes, odds are we won't naturally run into people, but in theory I should just be able to give my friend my coordinates and he should be able to jump to me.

I honestly think the answer has to be no. How would it work? There is unlikely to be a server that is hosting a persistent world for each planet or player JUST to make the inifitesmal chance that you run into somebody possible. It would be overkill for an event that very few would ever experience.
 

Amentallica

Unconfirmed Member
He traveled through space, shot some spaceships, gave an overview of where he was in relation to the universe, said the goal is to reach the center of the universe, landed on a random planet, showed off that planets are destructible, scanned some lifeforms, and uploaded his findings.

I don't understand how anyone can be confused about what you can do in this game.

I think the problem is that people can't identify how random planet sentinels, space fights and resource mining all coalesce into something that assists you with traveling toward the center of the Galaxy, which, being the ultimate objective, also prompts many to ask, "Why am I traveling there to begin with?"

That might have been explained already but it isnt resonating with people.
 

Data West

coaches in the WNBA
The logic is so bizarre and nonsensical.

Let's say you actually care enough if your life to view No Man's Sky videos, and then come into topics repeatedly and ask the ridiculously ignorant rhetorical question "but when are they going to show what you ACTUALLY do?"

One might assume that instead of wasting everyone's time to demonstrate your profound ignorance, you would take two seconds to google and browse any one of the trillions of articles that describe in excruciating detail exactly what you do and what your goals are and what gameplay elements exist, as well as view the many many trailers we've got shows elements from much of what they've talked about.

If you watch the videos and read a few articles and you're not interested, that's cool. You might share your criticisms and reasons why, and then you walk away and move on. What you don't do is repeatedly ruin every No Man's Sky topic by asking a question that has been answered over and over again ad naseum for the past year. There's no mystery here except in the storyline. We know exactly what you do, what your goals are, what the primary gameplay focus is and how you accomplish your gameplay goals. We know a lot about how various systems work (and have seen them in action) and it controls and what the game flow is like.

At this point the only way they could make it any clearer what the heck you do in the game is if they literally released the game design manual that maps out in flow sheets and programming language how they accomplished everything. Which no one ever does, sooo

Is it really the same person in the same No Man's Sky asking the same question 'ruining the thread' or is it some imaginary person that you've combined every skeptic into?
 

Gsnap

Member
I honestly think the answer has to be no. How would it work? There is unlikely to be a server that is hosting a persistent world for each planet or player JUST to make the inifitesmal chance that you run into somebody possible. It would be overkill for an event that very few would ever experience.

Yeah. They keep not talking about it so much that that must be the case.
 
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