Destiny's UI is really good, and games do copy UI elements off of one another. Games did it to Diablo, to Doom, WOW, etc.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
No Man's Sky previews (03-03-2016)
- Thread starter bombshell
- Start date
Destiny's UI is really good, and games do copy UI elements off of one another. Games did it to Diablo, to Doom, WOW, etc.
Copying anything is a "means to an end", that doesn't make it an acceptable one.
What a strange way of defending it.
Games copy ideas from other games all the time. It doesn't normally need defending.
More_Badass
Member
Just like shooters implemented CoD's control scheme when they realized how well it worked, I don't see the issue in NMS using menu UI in the style of another game that proved the UI to be effective.
A lot of games copy the good elements of other games because their audience is familiar with those elements and it...just works well.
- After God of War came out, that control scheme becomes pretty prominent
- The cover-based shooting mechanics popularized by Gears
- The over-the-shoulder perspective popularized by RE 4
And so on
valkillmore
Member
There is also a five star wanted level in NMS. Should Hello Games be sending cheques to Rockstar?
Oh and it's in first person. Better get Id on the tit.
Oh and it's in first person. Better get Id on the tit.
Just to play devil's advocate, I think the difference here would be that those are all mechanics, and a UI is more of an art design. If the numerous lawsuits from Apple against Samsung are any indication, UI design is not something you should just 'copy'.
This feels a lot more like copying an asset than an idea.
And I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but this isn't some Gameloft title.
It's a minor disappointment more than anything. They're developing what could be a seminal video game and they nick the UI of another video game, from a developer that puts a lot of work into their user interfaces. It lowers No Man's Sky in my eyes.
But hey, I'm being told it's nothing so apparently it is. Doesn't feel like it is, though.
Pestilence11
Member
It definitely won't for a lot of people basing their purchase on hype. It'll be cool for a while but then they'll quickly get bored is my guess. It's a hugely hyped niche title.
More_Badass
Member
Besides a similar cursor and a clean minimalist design, it's not really a copy.
Both game's inventory screens
Icyflamez96
Member
Destiny-esque UI only gets me more hyped tbh. It's an amazing interface, and thinking anything along the lines of that should only ever be used in the Destiny series and NEVER AGAIN is weird. UI's copy elements from each other all the time.
If the NMS inventory background was a different colour nobody would be saying a thing.
Or the people who act like the game failed and their opinion represents the majority of people who bought the game ala Destiny
If you Google 'Destiny Ship UI' the first result is the image you posted of No Man's Sky, so its hardly a baseless comparison. I don't think the argument is that the UI is exactly the same, but that individual UI assets are nearing a level of similarity that is borderline plagiarism.
Icyflamez96
Member
And there will be a group of people that no matter what come into all the No Man's Sky threads and shit on the game every chance they get and wonder why people even enjoy playing the game when it's so "boring" (aka just clearly not for them).
The bolded is a very possible scenario. People who have been "concerned" with NMS for so long because the game clearly doesn't appeal to them based off of info will play the game and won't like it (surprise!). And they will wonder why, and people will rightfully tell them that they were told exactly what they were getting into.
I'm not sure that anyone is thinking along those lines. Just that it comes across as lazy, more than anything else.
The Destiny team built this award-winning UI and it kind of seems like it's being filched. Especially considering the size of the studio I wonder if they just decided not to hire a UI designer to design something of their own.
I'm not arguing that it's morally wrong or anything.
Icyflamez96
Member
Well for me, it works and looks good. As soon as I played the Destiny beta, I automatically hoped that future games would pick up on those UI sensibilities. I'm not complaining one bit, i'm rather ecstatic actually.
Maybe they meant on PC. The tearing in the videos is a bit distracting.
More_Badass
Member
I really don't think it comes across as lazy. Lazy would be literally copying the exact same UI and just slapping a different color palette on it IMO. They designed their own UI inspired by Destiny's UI. But nothing about is anything close to digital plagiarism
This is simply devs adopting something that works well from another game. Again, it happens any time a game introduces something that works really well, from mechanics (RE4, Gears) to controls (CoD, GoW) to ideas (Mirror's Edge leading to a wave of first person parkour/platformers)
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
How many people explored all of The Witcher 3s map? Now times that by 100 and you have a fraction of what you'll be able to explore on any given planet. Isn't that enough? During the recent 30 minute playthroughs, Sean Murray said, "see those two pixels down there? That's the area you've just been exploring."
Icyflamez96
Member
It's about sense of scale
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
I've just given a sense of scale so I'm not sure what point you're making here. Each planet will be thousands of times bigger than The Witcher 3.
AncientDiety
Banned
Damn isn't that really too big? Like bog for the sake of being big?
I dont have a problem being 1:1, that amazingly good,
Actually I'm trying to understand the technical aspects of it, in terms of space rendered, the memory space occupied in a hard drive, I have no idea what I'm talking about lol.
So many millon planets and places to go will have some weight in a HD if you visit a lot I suppose.
More_Badass
Member
It's planet sized. You don't need to explore an entire planet
Icyflamez96
Member
Oh wait I misread your comment.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
The very point is that you can't possibly explore a whole planet or the whole universe. Knowing everything is beyond reach gives the player a true sense of isolation and insignificance. To boldly go where no man has gone before only rings true if you know you are going where no man has gone before. It's the pull of the game, the essence of its design and the reason I want it now.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
To jump in and counter this, think about HP and MP bars in multiple games. Which game was the first game to feature Health and Mana bars? Well, a google search turns up nothing. But it's a familiar concept that was no doubt spawned by a game, and that many games use to this day.
That doesn't make it a bad thing that alot of games have HP or MP bars, just like having similar concepts(Whether it's Menu/UI design or gameplay design) doesn't make it a bad thing.
Not only that but to share with other people your story. With the Witcher 3, you reach a point in discussion where you'll inevitably start talking about the same quests and same things. The differences being in how you did it, but there will be someone who probably did it just like you.
With NMS that's impossible. You can both be talking about the same planet, but maybe you landed on completely different parts of it because you went at it while it was orbiting on the opposite side where you friend landed on it. Since the planets are huge, then even if it's the same planet you'll inevitably have done different things on there.
It's quite a wonder what this game will be.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
The memory space for the planets will be tiny. It's just mathematics. Once the servers go live and you boot up the game, ALL the planets and everything in the universe are assigned an algorithm. Once that algorithm is assigned it means that planet can be reproduced exactly as it was the first time you visited it. No planet exists on your HDD, just the maths to create it.
I guess you are right.
AncientDiety
Banned
Ah yeah I can see what they are going for.
Prisoner KSC2-303
Member
It raises an interesting issue though, namely that of balancing exploration / discovery with an ambitious scale. If the worlds are too large, and the points of interest poorly indicated within proximity, then it'll be tough to discover anything, ever. On the other hand, if the points of interest are shown too readily, and too much of a planet's surface is populated with items, then it lessens the sense of accomplishment, and arguably makes the scale of each planet seem fairly pointless.
I'm struggling to think of a game that's had me so simultaneously excited and nervous about its potential pitfalls at the same time. The ambition of this game just seems to grow with each new round of info released.
I'm struggling to think of a game that's had me so simultaneously excited and nervous about its potential pitfalls at the same time. The ambition of this game just seems to grow with each new round of info released.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
I play games to explore and one of the bones of contention between me and my son is the fact he often goes to places I haven't seen before and so ruins my sense of exploration. I want to be the one confronted by something unique when I turn that corner. But with this game it won't be a problem. Hell, we'll be able to watch 10 let's plays a day and still never see the same thing in our own game. Amazing and exciting.
Trogdor1123
Member
Serious? Might not get it then. I know it seems silly probably but to me it was kind of important.
AncientDiety
Banned
I am really fighting the urge to pre-order...I know there is no need to with digital but it's a compulsion. I am really interested in this, I love the concept behind it. Wish games were not 80 bucks in Canada.
All of these recent previews are using the same capture footage, correct? Is it possible that this footage was shot at 30fps when it should have been set to 60fps? All of the gameplay we've seen has been 60fps since the Portal trailer it seems. If the recent footage was captured correctly, then that has to mean this is the first time actual PS4 gameplay has been shown, right?
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
A big part of the game's design is landing on planets and exploring them, gas giants cannot be landed on, I'm guessing the team at Hello Games decided to leave them out.
Gas Giants would most likely have several moons due to their large gravity wells, but from the game's point of view that is an arbitrary distinction. You are either landing on planets orbiting a sun, or planets orbiting a gas giant, the difference is, ultimately, arbitrary from the game's mechanics.
EDIT: It could have been other reasons as well. Potentially couldn't get the algorithm working correctly with gas giants present, or PS4 performance concerns.
Icyflamez96
Member
I mean it's his prerogative.
Fahzgoolin
Banned
Hahaha
Prisoner KSC2-303
Member
I respect that stance. A man has to draw the line somewhere.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
Tomeru
Member
There is no ship UI is Destiny, so...
It's all probability.
Planets with life will be a rarity, planets teeming with life will be even rarer.
With a sample size that spans the entire Galaxy, the permutations where both of these events will be enormous.
More_Badass
Member
I wonder if they're going full-Interstellar with the black holes. Only other game I know of that did is Out There
OmegaDL50
Member
It's all procedurally generated so it's not taking up space on your HDD. The core assets are there for art, user interface and programming stuff for the game to work.
But as far as maps, it's all generated on the fly and calculated mathematically using the systems that NMS uses for terrain, creature, and world generation.
For example Minecraft is a very small game, only a couple hundred megs at best, but it's world sizes are near limitless compared to preset world assets in open world games like Skyrim, The Witcher 3, Fallout 4, and several others.
In fact there was an article that someone walked in a straight line in a Minecraft world for 3 straight years and only traveled apparently 700 or so kilometres. A Minecraft world you spawn at it's center from the center to one end it's roughly 12,000km. (At least in the version of Minecraft he played which is beta 1.7.2 which future versions this Far-End thing was patched out)
http://kotaku.com/a-man-has-spent-three-years-trying-to-walk-to-the-end-o-1509473657
Outside of static assets like music, art, textures, and game code. NMS won't take much space.
In short: World size has no bearing on how much disc space is used, especially in regards to procedural generation.