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No Man's Sky - What changed over the course of development?

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BigDug13

Member
Feedback. There's a tactile difference between upgrades, between a weaker mining tool and a stronger one

Maybe they could have made the final upgrade behave like the prerelease data where you end up with the ultimate scanner and ultimate mining tool. But that's not the case.
 

qcf x2

Member
Based on articles in The Atlantic and The New Yorker :

The game no longers simulates it's own periodic table in order to determine light diffraction in the atmosphere. For that matter, I don't think light diffracts at all in no man's sky. Maybe simulating procedural interactions at the atomic level was too performance intensive.

The edges of the universe no longer extend into a lifeless abyss on either the galaxy map or within any given solar system

Sea level is no longer affected by the color of creatures (that we know of)

Advanced weather simulation was removed (possibly a side effect of removing the subatomic atmosphere simulation)

Wow, I want all of this in the game. I hope they take their time to optimize these features and add them back, even if only on PC.
 

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
Most of what the game was made it in, sans the multiplayer aspect and a few things like killing birds and having them drop into the water, only to have a predator swim up and eat the carcass.

That's actually in the game, although it wasn't in the water.

I was trying to scan a bird creature, but their movement patterns are infuriating, so I shot it down so I could scan it's corpse. While I was running to the body, a predator came and ate the bird before I could do it. I think I may have caught it on one of my streams, but I'm not sure. They're super long and I'm on the bus right now. I'd have no idea what part it's in.

I just think some of that stuff is very random. The above scenario only happened that one time, but then again, I didn't try to keep repeating it after it happened once.
 

Unicorn

Member
Yeah, Elite:Dangerous casts a large shadow over NMS in many areas. Recreating the galaxy 1:1 with accurate rotations and distances is a big one. Playing with friends and able to do a lot of things together is another. As well as better graphics and sound design. Not to mention player influence of in-game events. If Elite:Dangerous had the procgen tech of NMS in regards to exploring planets with things on them, it'd be a damn near perfect space game for me.

I actually regret not backing the Kickstarter. I have been wanting a new Elite for over a decade and there was just something about the KS that made me feel they weren't going to deliver. They were promising explorable planets like Frontier and the promise of exploring gas giants and flying through their clouds. The KS barely made funding or some shit so I was wary.

Now actual planets (and hopefully explorable gas giants) will be added in a year or more (probably several). But, the experience of flying is there and feels pretty good except for some wonky supercruise stuff.

I just wanted NMS to have good flight and foot controls and dense forested planets and I would have been set. Have the space elements of Elite trading and exploration but add planet flying that just feels good and I could throw music on and just cruise. But, so much appears to be focus-tested to hell with ships not able to crash as they not-so-subtlety move you away from mountains. I haven't heard any confirmation if guns and ships control differently based on what you pilot, but that's one aspect I love about Elite - a trader ship feels like a semi compared to an Asp explorer.

I know I'll probably still dig NMS as I mainly only explore in ED, but so much nitpicks are adding up to something I fear will let me down.

Also grass and leaves still rotate. Around launch it looked like it was fixed, but now I see it's still there. It was there in pre-release footage, so not worthy of noting in this thread, but man...
 

rainz

Member
Has anyone seen if the creatures actually do anything resembling a routine? Like, do they actually sleep, eat, hunt, play etc?
I was under the impression they would behave kind of realistically but so far all I've seen is them jump around and make a noise or two.. Cute but extremely wooden and far from lifelike at all.
 
The OP's mining complaint makes no sense. Sure in the beginning with lower end muli-tool (as in no enhancements) mining takes a few seconds, but I can shoot a beam across multiple plutonium shards and they all just explode almost instantly.

Also, you can absolutely use the scanner at long range. I just got a majority of the fauna on the planet I'm on by standing under some herodium I found and made a hole in (to avoid the radiation). You can zoom in really far and scan things.
 
Yeah, Elite:Dangerous casts a large shadow over NMS in many areas. Recreating the galaxy 1:1 with accurate rotations and distances is a big one. Playing with friends and able to do a lot of things together is another. As well as better graphics and sound design. Not to mention player influence of in-game events. If Elite:Dangerous had the procgen tech of NMS in regards to exploring planets with things on them, it'd be a damn near perfect space game for me.

Elite: Dangerous does some amazing stuff technically but playing it feels like work.
 

Unicorn

Member
Elite: Dangerous does some amazing stuff technically but playing it feels like work.

Community goals have been a boon for that game. Play for a couple days to put in work to at least get into top 50% or 25% and earn millions. One community goal allowed me to outfit a top-tier exploration vessel and I haven't looked back. Next community goal had an exploration one - made another several million and I'm set for life.
 
Community goals have been a boon for that game. Play for a couple days to put in work to at least get into top 50% or 25% and earn millions. One community goal allowed me to outfit a top-tier exploration vessel and I haven't looked back. Next community goal had an exploration one - made another several million and I'm set for life.

I already have too many games to play and now I'm redownloading E:D.
 

Avatar1

Member
this game
5RCSbIu.gif

...if that person was falling into a pool of money. Eat it haters. I like this game and its only going to get better with time.
 
How true is it that there is stronger gear available as you get closer to the center? I heard that when you find a new ship or multi-tool, it's always only incrementally better than the current one you have, or something like that.
 
How true is it that there is stronger gear available as you get closer to the center? I heard that when you find a new ship or multi-tool, it's always only incrementally better than the current one you have, or something like that.

It's very easy to upgrade your Exosuit. You will find people who will gift you new Multi Tools better than what you have.
One I got was this living Alien gun that looked amazing
You can find Abandoned Ships that you have to repair or purchase new ships from Space Ports.
 
More specifically I'm asking if getting stronger is inherently linked with getting closer to the center, or could get progress in stats just as efficiently by exploring systems on the edge?

From what I heard about ships, the amount inventory slots is very dependent on the amount of inventory slots your current ship has. Meaning that it can only have 1 or 2, and in some rare instances, 3 more slots than your current ship has.
 

Zomba13

Member
More specifically I'm asking if getting stronger is inherently linked with getting closer to the center, or could get progress in stats just as efficiently by exploring systems on the edge?

From what I heard about ships, the amount inventory slots is very dependent on the amount of inventory slots your current ship has. Meaning that it can only have 1 or 2, and in some rare instances, 3 more slots than your current ship has.

From what I've experienced you don't really get better/stronger upgrades as you get close, at least not yet. I mean, I've got a bunch of Theta upgrades (they go Sigma -> Tau -> Theta -> Omega) and I'm in my third system where I've explored each planet a bunch and played 13 hours.

The crashed ships definitely seem to have around the same amount of slots as your ship, I've found some with 1 fewer or the same, usually +1 space BUT the ships you buy from other aliens can have varied amounts (they could be fewer, or they could have more than 40 and cost millions) so a decent way to get started on improving your ship is to save for a decent size alien ship (I bought a 21 slot one for around 750,000) and then try looking for downed ships. I probably should have saved a bit more and bought a bigger ship but like, a 28 slot one I saw was around 3 million and I kind of love my little Orange A-Wing (complete with what looks like an astromech droid!) that I bought off a Gek.

My first multi-tool was a good upgrade over the starter (had nice combat mods for the mining beam pre-installed and had more slots in general) but since then the tools I've been finding have been worse, but that could be luck.

So yeah, I think upgrades might just be based off random chance and what you have, though I've been getting a looooooad of dupes. There doesn't seem to be a surefire way to consistently make progress, like you can't save up and buy a blueprint for an upgrade, you can't add slots to your ship or go through an upgrade path there, you can't improve your multi-tool. The only consistent thing is upgrading exosuit slots which can be done at the drop pods with the glowy blue doorway things where each inv slot upgrade costs 10k more than the last one.
 
I'm not a game developer, but I understand the fundamental need to make something require effort in order for any resulting payoffs to feel like progression and genuine success. If everything could be readily mined with ease, then no upgrades would be worthwhile or meaningful. You didn't "work" for anything. This has been a thing in Minecraft for years, but where was your megaphone then? Some materials are harder to gather than others, but can be remedied by assembling the right tools from the easier to gather materials. It's the same thing in NMS. Your dinky little mining tool is sufficient at first in gathering basic resources, which allow upgrades to be implemented, and so on and so forth.

This is mostly beside the point, but it's not like you've never had to hold down a button before in a video game. Why couldn't you just tap R2 and get to your destination in GTA? Why do you have to hold it, and why is it more meaningful? You're still "driving" all the same.

Or play a bit more and get mining grenades that can level anything/everything!!

OP's facts are all over the fuckin place.
 
From what I've experienced you don't really get better/stronger upgrades as you get close, at least not yet. I mean, I've got a bunch of Theta upgrades (they go Sigma -> Tau -> Theta -> Omega) and I'm in my third system where I've explored each planet a bunch and played 13 hours.
You haven't gone very far at all, as they absolutely do change as you get closer to the center. I've been in more than 10 systems and am finding way more high level upgrade, exotic minerals, weirder planets, better crashed ships, etc.

Though I do agree that it probably also scales aspects to what you have, but can't confirm this as I just found a multi tool that was 4 slots more than my tool and had a ton of upgrades I didny have on mine.
 

cametall

Member
Been playing the game for several hours during the weekend, there's a lot of things that annoy me about it and this is definitely one of them.

All the animals are mindless drones who only react when they see the player, and the only reaction is to either run away or attack the player. For example, there was this one creature that was classified as a "predator" and a "meat eater" and there were a bunch of herbivores around it, but it was just chilling with them. The only time it reacted was when I got close and it started chasing me.

I watched a large-ish predator attack smaller animals, even killed an animal closer to player size. Then it charged me. So predators will attack other animals.
 
There's only a few things I've seen from previews that aren't in the game

* Factions. Well, I'm only on my second system so I can't really say for sure, but there were supposed to be procedurally generated "gangs" (different from the hand-crafted alien races) that filled the universe and fought with each other. It's possible that I just haven't hit a border where there's fighting, but I haven't see any kind of narrative bits to suggest what faction area I'm in or how to increase my standing with them.

* Planetary orbit. Planets were supposed to orbit around their star, but this seems to no longer be the case. I haven't seen any planets that are close to their stars. In general, star systems are much less of a realistic simulation than Sean led us to believe.

* Portals. Well, the structures are still there, but no one seems to know how to turn them on. My guess is that Hello just shut them off before shipping. They seemed to be working during the preview where Hello showed them, so I'm not sure what happened there.

* Giant creatures. I haven't seen anyone reporting 100-foot tall dinosaurs.

Everything else is pretty much as described in the previews.
 
That's actually in the game, although it wasn't in the water.

I was trying to scan a bird creature, but their movement patterns are infuriating, so I shot it down so I could scan it's corpse. While I was running to the body, a predator came and ate the bird before I could do it. I think I may have caught it on one of my streams, but I'm not sure. They're super long and I'm on the bus right now. I'd have no idea what part it's in.

I just think some of that stuff is very random. The above scenario only happened that one time, but then again, I didn't try to keep repeating it after it happened once.

Really? I'd have to see some video evidence of that, because I haven't seen or heard one person bring it up.

Not sayin' you are a liar, but I haven't seen one singular gif of that instance, which would be cool enough for someone to record and share.
 
Really? I'd have to see some video evidence of that, because I haven't seen or heard one person bring it up.

Not sayin' you are a liar, but I haven't seen one singular gif of that instance, which would be cool enough for someone to record and share.
I've had animals attack and eat others, gather by water (and lean in to drink it), move in herds, and fed rather large dinosaur like creatures (maybe 30ft tall?) Which made them happy enough to follow me and then kneel in front of me like a dog; presenting a gift of random resources.
 
I've had animals attack and eat others, gather by water (and lean in to drink it), move in herds, and fed rather large dinosaur like creatures (maybe 30ft tall?) Which made them happy enough to follow me and then kneel in front of me like a dog; presenting a gift of random resources.
So basically the people saying there are no ecosystems, and that Sean was lying about behaviors like drinking at water and herds have no idea what they're talking about?
 

Ollie Pooch

In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
You haven't gone very far at all, as they absolutely do change as you get closer to the center. I've been in more than 10 systems and am finding way more high level upgrade, exotic minerals, weirder planets, better crashed ships, etc.

Though I do agree that it probably also scales aspects to what you have, but can't confirm this as I just found a multi tool that was 4 slots more than my tool and had a ton of upgrades I didny have on mine.
Is this actually true? People have mentioned it on reddit, but I haven't seen any confirmation or any screenshots or anything. I updated my hyperdrive just for that reason and visited a red 'K' system - so far all barren planets in every one with barely any resources, and the only difference has been the solar system skybox is aqua blue coloured. I went into 'free roam' mode and visited 3x red systems.

Also, I thought the crashed ships were always only ever +1 slots above your existing one. Like, that never changes.
 

BigTnaples

Todd Howard's Secret GAF Account
So basically the people saying there are no ecosystems, and that Sean was lying about behaviors like drinking at water and herds have no idea what they're talking about?


It's easy to be ignorant in a world as vast as NMS.

Every person that plays his game will see things no one else on Earth will ever see. So a week out from launch its not surprising to see people who haven't seen some of what the game has to display.



They aren't lying, but that doesn't mean they are right.
 

stuminus3

Member
You could demo the game as it is right now and other than some of the more superficial changes that are common throughout the development of a game (like how the scanning works) it would pretty much be like that IGN first look. I'm actually surprised looking at it now how close it is.

The problem with NMS is that the gameplay loops shown in that IGN video, although incredible in theory, are actually quite boring in practice after you repeat them a few times. I mean one of the more commonly touted features - being able to rename everything you discover first and upload it - yeah that sounds cool, but in reality it's quite pointless.
 
I've had animals attack and eat others, gather by water (and lean in to drink it), move in herds, and fed rather large dinosaur like creatures (maybe 30ft tall?) Which made them happy enough to follow me and then kneel in front of me like a dog; presenting a gift of random resources.

So basically the people saying there are no ecosystems, and that Sean was lying about behaviors like drinking at water and herds have no idea what they're talking about?

The game absolutely does not simulate ecosystems anywhere near the level shown in trailers and discussed in interviews. I've encountered many, many planets where the creatures make precious little sense. I've had bone dry planets inhabited by large mammalians, carnivores with no apparent prey, etc etc.

Aside from feeding the animals, I haven't seen any of the AI behaviors you've described here. I've seen very, very basic "attack on sight" and "run away" behaviors, but nothing that comes close to simulating a food chain.

It's easy to be ignorant in a world as vast as NMS.

Every person that plays his game will see things no one else on Earth will ever see. So a week out from launch its not surprising to see people who haven't seen some of what the game has to display.



They aren't lying, but that doesn't mean they are right.

Come on. We're not talking about hidden secrets here, we're talking about fundamental game design.
 

mokeyjoe

Member
Has anyone seen if the creatures actually do anything resembling a routine? Like, do they actually sleep, eat, hunt, play etc?
I was under the impression they would behave kind of realistically but so far all I've seen is them jump around and make a noise or two.. Cute but extremely wooden and far from lifelike at all.

They have a few behaviours. Like they hunt, shoal, defend their young, fall asleep at night, go swimming etc. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's any sort of 'ecosystem', but seeing as you're mostly boosting past them, stopping to scan one now and again, it's enough IMO.

I wasn't aware they discussed 'simulated ecosystems'. Seems a bit overkill IMO, considering the animals are such a minor part of the game.

I have to say I didn't follow the game very closely pre-release, but it definitely looks like the game I saw in trailers.
 

Loudninja

Member
There's only a few things I've seen from previews that aren't in the game

* Factions. Well, I'm only on my second system so I can't really say for sure, but there were supposed to be procedurally generated "gangs" (different from the hand-crafted alien races) that filled the universe and fought with each other. It's possible that I just haven't hit a border where there's fighting, but I haven't see any kind of narrative bits to suggest what faction area I'm in or how to increase my standing with them.

* Planetary orbit. Planets were supposed to orbit around their star, but this seems to no longer be the case. I haven't seen any planets that are close to their stars. In general, star systems are much less of a realistic simulation than Sean led us to believe.

* Portals. Well, the structures are still there, but no one seems to know how to turn them on. My guess is that Hello just shut them off before shipping. They seemed to be working during the preview where Hello showed them, so I'm not sure what happened there.

* Giant creatures. I haven't seen anyone reporting 100-foot tall dinosaurs.

Everything else is pretty much as described in the previews.
Planet rotation – play testing has made it obvious people are struggling to adjust to this during play so it’s effects have been reduced further…
http://www.no-mans-sky.com/2016/08/update-1-03/
 

Chichikov

Member
So basically the people saying there are no ecosystems, and that Sean was lying about behaviors like drinking at water and herds have no idea what they're talking about?
I have no idea what systems are or aren't in the game and what going on underneath the hood, but in my time in it I have not notice any such complex behavior, the most I've seen is animals that were hostile to me and make a beeline straight at me whenever they see me. I've seen a predator attack a smaller animals once, and both predator and prey exhibit a very basic AI - they were goofingly running after each other with the predator doing melee animation every few steps that did not really seem to connect with the smaller animals until the prey ragdolled and die.

Now I have obviously have not seen everything in this game so I can't categorically say that there aren't species with more advanced behaviors, but at the same time, I think videos like 2014 E3 trailer paint a rather inaccurate picture of what type of animal interaction you can expect to see on a typical playthrough.

I also have no idea what I'm talking about, but that's unrelated to this game :).
 

amnesiac

Member
A few things mentioned in interviews that may not be in the game

-It was said planets would get weirder as you made your way to the center. I'm steadily going towards the center and I haven't really noticed the planets or creatures getting crazier.

-Ringed planets were confirmed. Where are they?

-Black space was also confirmed but I don't think anybody's seen a system with it yet.
 

Ollie Pooch

In a perfect world, we'd all be homersexual
It's easy to be ignorant in a world as vast as NMS.

Every person that plays his game will see things no one else on Earth will ever see. So a week out from launch its not surprising to see people who haven't seen some of what the game has to display.



They aren't lying, but that doesn't mean they are right.
Rolling my eyes a bit here.

What crazy stuff or real surprises have people actually seen? Like - 'dog with bird head and wings' aside. I've seen countless 'herds' of animals and none of the individuals really did much except (sometimes) run past me, or run AT me then run in circles if they were an aggressive one. I haven't seen them fall asleep at night or 'protect their young', either, like another poster mentioned.

I keep reading about all this crazy stuff or things appearing and happening as you get closer to the centre but noone has actually provided any screenshots or proof. If it were true I would press on, but seems more stuff just fuelled by vague pre-release interviews, IMO.
 
https://twitter.com/Britbongreturns/status/765190830894317568

I haven't kept up with all the news and I haven't played the game yet but I had the impression that the game would have a strong multiplayer component. Is this still /respectively was this ever the case? 'cause I only see singleplayer exploration videos on my twitter feed etc..

Jesus H Christ, can people get over this already? There was NEVER any promise of MP. Just a slim-to-none chance of meeting someone.
 

Lo_Fi

Member
If we studied what changed between every game's changes between inception and release, GAF would probably fall apart. What is it with people and this game?

This. It's really weird to nitpick every single change. That's just how game development works, things will change. As a dev you have a vision that you should try to stick to, but the specifics are likely going to change throughout development. And the way everything is interconnected in game development, it would be unreasonable to expect a developer to go back and justify to you why each tiny thing was changed. If you're going to dissect every single little change, OP, you should see a change list in a game's repository! Your examples amount to barely anything compared to the amount of changes made throughout development for any game. Game development is not just a series of adding new things. I would recommend watching twitch streams of game developers who you like, doing game development, if you haven't before.

Also, OP, a lot of your points like the faster mining were very likely to be created specifically for the trailer. That just shows better. I think I remember them talking about the first trailer and how they barely had a game and managed to put that trailer together by just hand-crafting a lot of the stuff.

Newsflash: we pretty much do. So many downgrade scandals/threads in the past are a proof for that. This victimization is going over the top.

Yup, I always found the "downgrade" complaints so weird too.
 

BajiBoxer

Banned
So basically the people saying there are no ecosystems, and that Sean was lying about behaviors like drinking at water and herds have no idea what they're talking about?

I experienced the same thing. Huge brontosaurus things wondering around in a group, occasionally drinking water. I fed one and it followed me around. The AI for the critters seems pretty hit and miss, as there were some other small animals wandering around randomly not giving a fuck. They also didn't really match the ecosystem.
 

prudislav

Member
yeah comparing barren starter planet with handmade promo material ... ifnoring all the later game planets

The drama around this game kinda blows my mind ... from what i read and saw the game is pretty much how the devs described it (maybe with the exception of MP nonsense)
... i guess we can thank jurnous and fans for irrational projecting their dream features onto the game
 

Derp

Member
Sean said that if they hadn't announced the game before the flood happened they would've cancelled the whole thing. I think that says a lot about how much they lost and how much it screwed them over. They said they had some backups but still lost a lot, and didn't want to disclose how much because they felt people would get angry. I think it impacted the final product massively. Many things perhaps would have been different.
 

Orca

Member
Jesus H Christ, can people get over this already? There was NEVER any promise of MP. Just a slim-to-none chance of meeting someone.

Being able to meet another player....having multiple players in the game.

Multiple players...

Multi...player....

Hmm I feel like I can find a connection there that might have been the source of the confusion.
 

David___

Banned
A few things mentioned in interviews that may not be in the game

-It was said planets would get weirder as you made your way to the center. I'm steadily going towards the center and I haven't really noticed the planets or creatures getting crazier.

You're going towards the center of your current galaxy. Since getting to the center of the Universe is the perceived goal its not unrealistic he means that.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I experienced the same thing. Huge brontosaurus things wondering around in a group, occasionally drinking water. I fed one and it followed me around. The AI for the critters seems pretty hit and miss, as there were some other small animals wandering around randomly not giving a fuck. They also didn't really match the ecosystem.

How do you feed animals? I don't think I've ever picked up anything resembling food - it's all resources
 
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