No Man's Sky

[toroid]

Eh, I liked how they had faith in their game and continued to try to improve upon it with free big updates. And no disgusting cash grabbing microtransactiions. Quite frankly, never saw a high-profile game with that level of post-release support. NMS may not ever be what it could have been but they -- the developers -- have touched me with their ambition and sincerity to do their best and make a good game.... or die trying.

There is no way in hell that all of the post-release support was of their own accord. You can bet that Hello was under intense pressure from Sony to get their shit together and stop making Sony look bad. Sony handled all of their marketing, used its connections to provide interviews and air time. Sony's name is intimately intertwined with this dumpster fire.

 

[Rahdulan]

It seems they're shifting from HUGE updates to smaller ones as features get completed during development. Faster release schedule. New update - living ship.

https://www.nomanssky.com/living-ship-update/?cli_action=1582184075.433

Living Ship

• Introduced a new style of starship, the Living Ship.
• These ships have their own exclusive range of organic technologies and cannot be upgraded by conventional means.
• Adjust your playstyle to the restrictions and benefits of these organic techs, or hatch and evolve new procedural upgrades to grow your own custom ship.

Missions

• Incubate your Void Egg and learn about the origin of the Living Ships with a new mission chain, Starbirth.
• Completing these missions will hatch the Void Egg into your own procedurally generated Living Ship.
• Additional ships may be hatched from subsequently incubated eggs.

Space Encounters

• While using the Pulse Engine to fly between planets, there is a chance of encountering strange objects in local space.
• Drop out of pulse-flight to begin the encounter.
• A large range of strange objects and exotic rewards await…
• Different encounters have different chances of occurring based on the characteristics of the solar system.

Trader Hails

• As well as strange objects, players may also encounter passing trader ships.
• These will hail the player while using the Pulse Engine and may need assistance, offer to trade, and more…

Quality of Life

• If players are in a group but do not have a Nexus mission active, then when taking off from the Space Anomaly they can now choose to exit directly to the system of any other player in their group.
• Fixed a number of issues that caused planetary charts and others scans to pick from too narrow a range of buildings. Players should no longer be sent repeatedly to the same building when using multiple charts.
• Fixed an issue that caused distress signals to occasionally lead to a crashed ship site with no crashed ship.
• Added an instant split button to allow players to quickly divide stacks of items in half.
• Players can now hold down buttons to increase or decrease stack sizes, rather than having to press repeatedly.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Exocraft Summoning Station from working if placed within a base.
• Improved the range of the Exocraft Summoning Station, so that it allows Exocraft to be summoned from anywhere in the system.
• Planets that you have discovered no longer need to be repeatedly rescanned to see their resources from space.
• Fixed an issue that caused the planetary resources popup to flicker while pulsing towards a planet.
• Fixed an issue that made it difficult to enter Space Stations from tight angles.
• Allowed starships to reverse during atmospheric flight if stuck in other geometry.
• The automatic Launch System Recharger now functions while the player is sitting in the cockpit, if the ship is landed.
• Improved VR swimming controls for VR devices that use thumbsticks.
• Significantly increased the distance players are able to move the camera in Photo Mode.

Optimisations

• Introduced a number of significant GPU optimisations to terrain rendering.
• Introduced a number of significant optimisations to terrain generation.
• Introduced a number of significant memory optimisations.
• Introduced some minor load time optimisations.
• Introduced some smaller optimisations and visual fixes to cloud rendering.
• Introduced a number of water rendering optimisations for PSVR.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue that caused Proximity Switches to be activated by empty Exocraft.
• Fixed an issue that prevented decals from working when customising Exocraft appearances.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Analysis Visor UI to judder in VR.
• Fixed a number of issues that made it difficult to warp to the centre of the galaxy.
• Fixed an issue that caused the kill count to reset in the final mission for the Armourer if players entered a building during combat.
• Fixed an issue that caused Carbon Planters to be unavailable for purchase.
• Construction-style missions from the Nexus will properly mark the desired construction site if players leave the planet mid-mission.
• Fixed a number of issues that prevented items from being taken out of or put into Storage Containers.
• Fixed an issue where pirates would occasionally ask for wildly incorrect amounts when bargaining for peace.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent special mission Portals on the Artemis path from functioning correctly if they were left while in an active state.
• Fixed an issue that could cause a ship docked at a Trade Outpost to be placed underneath the landing pad when loading into the game.
• Fixed an issue that caused the filter icons to be incorrectly aligned in the Galaxy Map.
• Fixed a rare crash that could occur when warping to a base after having used a Portal.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Nexus missions to be restarted from the mission log.
• Fixed a number of issues that could cause Nexus missions to select inappropriate star systems.
• Fixed an issue that could cause Nexus missions to send players to the wrong building.
• Fixed an issue that could occasionally cause visual elements of the Personal Refiner to render in first person.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Personal Refiner not to stop animating when refining was complete.
• Fixed an issue that caused the names of unknown planets to be revealed by their moons.
• Improved the position of HUD markers in the Analysis Visor UI.
• Improved the positioning of the ship repair UI in VR.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the ship crosshair to judder.
• Fixed some minor text issues in missions objectives and the Guide.
• Fixed an issue that could cause filters to apply incorrectly on the Space Station, Space Anomaly, frigates and freighters.
• Fixed an issue that made the Space Anomaly too green when using HDR.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the VR eject handles in ship cockpits from lighting up when the player first enters the ship.
• Fixed a rare issue that allowed players to equip weapons in the Space Anomaly.
• Fixed an issue that prevented Solar Panels from playing their audio.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the torchlight to flicker while moving.
• Fixed an issue that could cause recently used interactions to be reset shortly after loading.
• Fixed an issue that caused an empty black dialogue box to appear when leaving a planetary Technology Merchant.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Nutrient Processor’s inventory to be incorrectly labelled.
• Updated the visuals of the Bytebeat Cable so it is distinct from the Teleport Cable.
• Fixed an issue with the Bytebeat Switch that caused the On Arpeggio Note output to fire when not playing an arpeggio.
• Fixed an issue with the Bytebeat Switch that caused note colours to be reversed.
• Fixed an issue with the Bytebeat Switch that caused triggers to be sent for parts that are not active in the Synchroniser.
• Fixed an issue in the Bytebeat that caused visuals to go out of sync when editing tempo.
• Fixed a number of minor glitches when scrubbing in the Bytebeat UI.
• Fixed an issue that caused pirate probes to always fail when the Pulse Engine was active.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Pulse Engine tutorial to incorrectly appear in the middle of combat.
• Fixed a text mismatch in the standing rewards, where Mercenary and Explorers Guild standing rewards were mislabeled.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Surveying Tutorial to move on before the player had actually learned the Survey Device.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the Show HUD binding from working on PC keyboard controls when piloting a ship.
• Fixed an issue that caused a number of building parts to be unknown when starting a Creative Mode game, including industrial Silos.
• Fixed an issue that caused Black Holes not to warp players if they were somehow approached on foot.

 

[Makabb]

and still no gameplay

 

[Curratum]

Who the fuck even cares anymore? The game is still the festering heap of shit it was on release, and even performs terribly to boot.

 

[Wyatt_Derp]

The other day I tried to make nacho cheese sauce from scratch. I added too much flour, so I poured some out and added in more butter and milk. Still too much flour. More butter and milk, still no help. By the time I gave up I had wasted half a bag of cheddar and damn near a whole stick of butter, and still ended up with cheese flavored pancakes. As the cheese sauce disaster was unfolding, it made me think of No Man's Sky... or from what I shall now dub 'No Man's Nachos.'

You can child-bake shit forever. But if your recipe is bad (or if you don't know what you're doing) the end result will almost always be an abortion.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

putting countless ribbons on a gigantic pile of shit won't change its smell. nor its substance.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Who the fuck even cares anymore?

A lot of people, I'd imagine. It was still a top seller on Steam in 2019.

 

[Fedora Master]

Just let it die already for the love of God.

 

[flushfire]

Eh, I liked how they had faith in their game and continued to try to improve upon it with free big updates. And no disgusting cash grabbing microtransactiions. Quite frankly, never saw a high-profile game with that level of post-release support. NMS may not ever be what it could have been but they -- the developers -- have touched me with their ambition and sincerity to do their best and make a good game.... or die trying.

No idea how big the actual contents of NMS' updates are, but PoE2 received a TB update almost a year later, along with stuff like new audio afaik.

 

[Perkel]

Eh, I liked how they had faith in their game and continued to try to improve upon it with free big updates. And no disgusting cash grabbing microtransactiions. Quite frankly, never saw a high-profile game with that level of post-release support. NMS may not ever be what it could have been but they -- the developers -- have touched me with their ambition and sincerity to do their best and make a good game.... or die trying.

No idea how big the actual contents of NMS' updates are, but PoE2 received a TB update almost a year later, along with stuff like new audio afaik.

Just from top of my head:

- they completely redesigned gameplay. Added more items, more ingredients, changed recipes etc.
- completely redesigned weapon/ship equipment
- introduced 2 new campaigns (paths)
- completely redesigned hub
- added base building
- added multiplayer
- added underwater biomes
- added planet rovers
- added freighters
- added many new planet types

 

[rusty_shackleford]

- they completely redesigned gameplay.

how do you redesign something that doesn't exist

 

[Perkel]

how do you redesign something that doesn't exist

In 1.0 you couldn't change size of your laser, only way to get some resource was to look for those resource obelisks and you couldn't extract them from other things as secondary resource, every suit ship upgrade was locked behind story progression and only thing to do was to follow buggy story to center of galaxy, on planets there were no crashed freighters, there were no planets without atmosphere and so on and so forth.

Currently NMS plays like mash between exploration and farming game, previously it was very poor exploration game with clear goal.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

how do you redesign something that doesn't exist

In 1.0 you couldn't change size of your laser, only way to get some resource was to look for those resource obelisks and you couldn't extract them from other things as secondary resource, every suit ship upgrade was locked behind story progression and only thing to do was to follow buggy story to center of galaxy, on planets there were no crashed freighters, there were no planets without atmosphere and so on and so forth.

Currently NMS plays like mash between exploration and farming game, previously it was very poor exploration game with clear goal.

yea but there's nothing to do
maybe it's because I just don't enjoy "make your own fun!" games, but I've tried to play the game a few times and got bored really fast
at release I got to the "end of the game" where the universe just resets, btw

 

[Perkel]

Ah you mean like that. There are now new "paths" which are effectively new goals.

In one of those you accumulate knowledge of planets etc. which is more base building oriented. In other one you follow someone through galaxy doing missions. I think they removed original campaign.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

do I miss out on anything by playing offline?

Spoiler

because I'm not shelling out $30 for this game

 

[Van-d-all]

how do you redesign something that doesn't exist

In 1.0 you couldn't change size of your laser, only way to get some resource was to look for those resource obelisks and you couldn't extract them from other things as secondary resource, every suit ship upgrade was locked behind story progression and only thing to do was to follow buggy story to center of galaxy, on planets there were no crashed freighters, there were no planets without atmosphere and so on and so forth.

Currently NMS plays like mash between exploration and farming game, previously it was very poor exploration game with clear goal.

yea but there's nothing to do
maybe it's because I just don't enjoy "make your own fun!" games, but I've tried to play the game a few times and got bored really fast
at release I got to the "end of the game" where the universe just resets, btw

No, the game just sucks. I love make your own fun games (Kenshi, Rimworld) and I still find NMS a boring snorefest. I got it discounted around patch 1.5 and still consider it a money wasted. Can't even imagine how bad it was in 1.0 but essentially the entire game seems like a great long con.

They released a broken piece of trash targeted at people that think random generation equals magic. When the stink caught on, and it became apparent that it takes around 3 boring hours to see 90% the assets in the game, and just have them reshuffled over and over they wen silent, shitload of bad PR (but still PR) ensued. After some time they fixed some of the most jarring issues and got a second wave of players to "Now fixed, 1.5". The game was still lackluster so the went silent again. Ultimately they resurfaced, slapped some "fun with friends" features (shamelessly in vein of Astroneer) and boom, it's like the second coming of Jesus again.

They keep going at re-releasing the base content with some frills around it, and I'm not sure weather they are really trying to make the game into something good, or are just mastering a new sales scheme of swinging this shit back and forth at an ever growing audience, but the core premise of the game - exploration, remains simplistic and uninteresting.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

They did something in their PR art that I'll always remember and thought was brilliant when they designed the "box cover" in the style of classic dogeared science fiction paperbacks. Haven't really touched the game since that buggy initial release on PC where there was a major graphics caching issue that caused unacceptable stuttering but it looks like with so much more new content/features I should at least take another look at it. I don't really pay much attention to all the codex haters about NMS because half the time they seem on another wacky rant and haven't even checked out what the game is like now after it's troublesome original release.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Just let it die already for the love of God.

why would they do that when they are consistentely on steam's top sellers and with Internet Historian's video they've been completely redeemed in the eyes of the public.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

They did something in their PR art that I'll always remember and thought was brilliant when they designed the "box cover" in the style of classic dogeared science fiction paperbacks. Haven't really touched the game since that buggy initial release on PC where there was a major graphics caching issue that caused unacceptable stuttering but it looks like with so much more new content/features I should at least take another look at it. I don't really pay much attention to all the codex haters about NMS because half the time they seem on another wacky rant and haven't even checked out what the game is like now after it's troublesome original release.

i did check what this thing grew into, and it's boring grind. everything they added requires you to go on foot around and do your 1.0 boring grind. actually i had the feeling the sentinels became quite more aggressive and fast to react, turning the boring grind into annoying boring grind. then, after hours, you unlock something, only to find out it's underwhelming, unfun and/or still giving inferior output to the 1.0 boring grind.
you can larp "i'mma space explorerrrrr" all you want, but all the planets are the same, so much that after a short while you'll try to look for the least annoying to 1.0 boring grind on, because the toxic weather is just an annoyance, limited oxygen is just an annoyance, limited fuel is just an annoyance, limited inventory space is just an annoyance, manually recharging shields is just an annoyance... all the ride to the endgame is just trying to lessen an annoyance after another, and once you unlock enough slots and fuel spaces and tanks and stuff, you come to the realization that there's actually nothing else to do.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Space exploration is fun when it's interspersed between actually going to futuristic city hubs and interacting with other advanced races.
And I mean beyond them teaching you a word or selling you a ship part at the identical ship yard in every sector.

When the only thing to do is explore different colored planets with nothing interesting on them then it's boring.

 

[Metro]

Game is worth $15 tops.

 

[Comte]

Game is worth $15 tops.

$4.99 tops

 

[Latelistener]

I'd buy that for a dollar.gif

 

[Ranselknulf]

I played this for a few hours the other day.

The best way I can describe the solo "feel" of the game is an old-school adventure game with some modern mmo grinding elements and minimal danger, at least so far.

Although, I'd be interested to try out the combat once I can upgrade my ships and see how the PvP works.


One thing I would like is a larger base construction menu and easier tools for modifying and shaping the terrain.

As for price, I definitely think $60 is a bit steep for the game, but its nice not having to pay a subscription or pay for future expansions.

 

[Comte]

Problem with this game is once you have seen all the planet types you have seen them all. An enitre galaxy full of boring samey planets with legit nothing on them. Theres no alien cities or anything interesting on any planets. Just resources to grind so you can build a lame ass base.