Blackleg-sanji1
Banned
I will probably spend way too much time on my starting planet thats for sure.
-
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
Icyflamez96
Member
Well he's hyped it for what it is. He's always said you come across other people, it's just extremely unlikely because of how big the universe is. That kinda funny video doesn't confirm that there's no multiplayer (in the sense how Sean has always explained it). In this preview cycle, he has been prioritizing stressing to people the fact that the game isn't about meeting up with your friends to try to kill the hype for that aspect a little. Not because he ever overhyped it, because people hear "oh it's possible to me up with my bud!" and don't heed Sean's words about just how hard it is to do that and you shouldn't really go into this game expecting to just run along with them.
Schrade
Member
Gonna have to prolly pick this up on PC rather than PS4. If the game tears as bad as that in the PS4 version...no thank you
DiabloTheGrey
Member
This is probably a silly question, but...
Considering the game starts you in the outer reaches of the Galaxy and the ultimate goal is to reach the center of the Galaxy; what would you find if you went in the opposite direction at the start of the game instead?
Considering the game starts you in the outer reaches of the Galaxy and the ultimate goal is to reach the center of the Galaxy; what would you find if you went in the opposite direction at the start of the game instead?
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
i think there's just a whole lot of nothing
if you went forever, it would take too long to theoretically wrap around to the other side of the universe (since there is no "end"), like how it would probably be in real life, as well.
ichtyander
Member
This turned out to be a hulking wall of text for whatever reason, sorry about that.
So I've been reading through some of the old and new info, specifically about the NMS universe, the "goal" and so on. We've pretty much known all of this for a while now, and I'm sure other people must've mentioned these things before, but certain details never really clicked in my head up until now, so I'm wondering what others think about it.
There's been a sort of confusion, or let's just say an inconsistent way of how Hello Games worded the "goal" of No Man's Sky. Sometimes they've said it's "the center of the universe", other times it's "the center of the galaxy". Now I'm just gonna take one line of thought and roll with it, for the sake of this argument. Let's say Sean Murray just uses certain words casually without really thinking about it all of the time, maybe because the whole team's used to calling the goal "the center of the universe", as in the center of the "world map" so to speak, it's just the "game universe", there might be a deeper gameplay mechanic tied to all of that or whatever. It might also just be that Sean doesn't want to complicate matters by accurately describing certain things and spoiling some of the important aspects for everyone, just avoiding wasting time on explaining how he can't reveal certain things etc.
I'm also gonna take certain journalist and Hello Games info as fact this one time, it might just be interpretations or the team might've changed certain things since then, but let's also roll with it.
From the Gameinformer podcast:
So there are multiple galaxies, ok, we've known that for a while.
The NMS Information Repository also sums this up, under "Quests and Missions":
Looking at the E3 2015 stage demo, Sean zooms out of the galactic map:
In the most recent video interviews however, I distinctly heard him say "the center of the universe". That's why I'm chalking that up to mispronunciation, although it might actually mean something a bit different, but more on that later.
And lastly, some info from the Gameinformer January 2015 issue. This is just a nice tidbit about the intro I'd forgotten:
About the galactic map itself:
And regarding the center:
_________________________________________________
Now, I'm really not presuming I'm right about any of this, but if by some wild chance any of it turns out to be true, it would be extremely spoilery, so I'm just gonna put spoiler tags on certain things. So a presumptuous spoiler warning is in order.
My line of thinking is this:
All the talk about 18 quintillion planets, how long it takes to get to the center, the distances, numbers, amount of stuff you'll see, visit etc. is a bit misinterpreted. You start inside a single galaxy, and the goal is to reach it's center. Of one galaxy. (kind of)
We can't really know what's the range of stars a No Man's Sky type of galaxy will have, if I'd have to guess I'd throw in numbers like hundreds of billions, a trillion etc. which still leaves us with at least millions of galaxies in the game. In other words it's a bit irrelevant, for all intents and purposes we can just say there's a "technically infinite number of planets, in a technically infinite number of stars, in a technically infinite number of galaxies, inside one universe". Or just say there's plenty enough of everything. So all I'm saying is that it'll still be really hard to bump into people, explore a large percentage of the galaxy and so on, it's just not a factor of 18 quintillion planets.
BUT
What about all of those other galaxies? There actually is a whole universe of 18 quintillion planets out there, in separate galaxies. Yet the goal is to get to the center of the first one (making an assumption based in various info here).
So what if whatever is at the center of the first galaxy is
You might then even interpret galaxies as
_________________________________________________
But what's the point of all of this really, since technically the number of planets, stars and galaxies is "technically infinite" or "significantly a lot" anyway? Why not just do all these things within the one galaxy and call it a day? The question is - what exactly is a galaxy in No Man's Sky, at least in terms of gameplay mechanics? And this just might be tied to the "goal in the center".
What if galaxies are actually
So essentially, a galaxy in No Man's Sky is
It's the next stage of the daring, far-seeking and danger-laden path of exploration. This might not even be explained to the player in any way. If you happen to run into a
Of course, this might imply that you'll start getting
_________________________________________________
I'm sure there are loads of problems with this theory, it could complicate lots of gameplay balances, the very reason for doing it seems a bit counterintiutive, creating complications where there needn't be any because frankly, you could do most of these things within a single hundreds-of-billions-starred galaxy. This also makes meeting people even less probable, because
But still, it sounds like at least some of these ideas might actually be in the game anyway, in some shape or form. It also gives a bit of context about the whole thing with Alex changing the wording on the website, from universe to galaxy. You'd technically be playing within "a galaxy" at all times, inside a universe filled with at least millions of galaxies.
Mind you, my far-fetched theory about what galaxies represent and how you get to them doesn't have to be true. It could all be simpler, you just get a galactic hyperdrive like in the original Elite and jump to the next one if you want to, and it's just a different galaxy with the same modifiers really. But the more I thought about it, the more it felt kinda redundant, while the idea of
as the next step, or the endgame, actually sounds to me as something that's interesting enough to keep you going for a while.
Another explanation might be that the glowing center on the galactic map is an actual, incredibly fantastical center of the universe, and that the are galaxies scattered all around it. Or maybe the universe is in a very different state from ours, and everything is just a jumbled mess, a collective cloud of 18 quintillion planets mushed around a weird universal center. I mean it's a game with a very romantic, fantasy sci-fi approach to the universe, so I wouldn't be surprised with such shenanigans. However, the info we've gathered so far and the way various sources have phrased things leads me to believe the base idea is there - you start in one galaxy, there's a galactic center you can reach as a "goal" and there actually are multiple galaxies for whatever reason.
tl;dr: Everyone starts at the same galaxy, and the goal is to reach its center. So it's NOT about the collective space and size of 18 quintillion planets you plow through, just a fraction of it (related to how big a single galaxy actually is in NMS). Also some stuff about what the other galaxies might be about.
So I've been reading through some of the old and new info, specifically about the NMS universe, the "goal" and so on. We've pretty much known all of this for a while now, and I'm sure other people must've mentioned these things before, but certain details never really clicked in my head up until now, so I'm wondering what others think about it.
There's been a sort of confusion, or let's just say an inconsistent way of how Hello Games worded the "goal" of No Man's Sky. Sometimes they've said it's "the center of the universe", other times it's "the center of the galaxy". Now I'm just gonna take one line of thought and roll with it, for the sake of this argument. Let's say Sean Murray just uses certain words casually without really thinking about it all of the time, maybe because the whole team's used to calling the goal "the center of the universe", as in the center of the "world map" so to speak, it's just the "game universe", there might be a deeper gameplay mechanic tied to all of that or whatever. It might also just be that Sean doesn't want to complicate matters by accurately describing certain things and spoiling some of the important aspects for everyone, just avoiding wasting time on explaining how he can't reveal certain things etc.
I'm also gonna take certain journalist and Hello Games info as fact this one time, it might just be interpretations or the team might've changed certain things since then, but let's also roll with it.
From the Gameinformer podcast:
So there are multiple galaxies, ok, we've known that for a while.
The NMS Information Repository also sums this up, under "Quests and Missions":
Looking at the E3 2015 stage demo, Sean zooms out of the galactic map:
In the most recent video interviews however, I distinctly heard him say "the center of the universe". That's why I'm chalking that up to mispronunciation, although it might actually mean something a bit different, but more on that later.
And lastly, some info from the Gameinformer January 2015 issue. This is just a nice tidbit about the intro I'd forgotten:
About the galactic map itself:
And regarding the center:
_________________________________________________
Now, I'm really not presuming I'm right about any of this, but if by some wild chance any of it turns out to be true, it would be extremely spoilery, so I'm just gonna put spoiler tags on certain things. So a presumptuous spoiler warning is in order.
My line of thinking is this:
All the talk about 18 quintillion planets, how long it takes to get to the center, the distances, numbers, amount of stuff you'll see, visit etc. is a bit misinterpreted. You start inside a single galaxy, and the goal is to reach it's center. Of one galaxy. (kind of)
We can't really know what's the range of stars a No Man's Sky type of galaxy will have, if I'd have to guess I'd throw in numbers like hundreds of billions, a trillion etc. which still leaves us with at least millions of galaxies in the game. In other words it's a bit irrelevant, for all intents and purposes we can just say there's a "technically infinite number of planets, in a technically infinite number of stars, in a technically infinite number of galaxies, inside one universe". Or just say there's plenty enough of everything. So all I'm saying is that it'll still be really hard to bump into people, explore a large percentage of the galaxy and so on, it's just not a factor of 18 quintillion planets.
BUT
What about all of those other galaxies? There actually is a whole universe of 18 quintillion planets out there, in separate galaxies. Yet the goal is to get to the center of the first one (making an assumption based in various info here).
So what if whatever is at the center of the first galaxy is
actually at the center of all of the galaxies, which might technically be interpreted as the center of the universe? A place beyond space and time, and black holes at galactic centers are all doors to one same place.
other dimensions, realities where very similar rules and things exist (procedural flora, fauna, alien factions and technology, governed by the algorithms), yet none of them are really the same, just like the planets themselves.
The black holes scattered around the galaxies would then be portals to random points in other galaxies within the same universe, just like the portals we've seen on the planets' surfaces warp you to random points on other planets within the same galaxy.
The black holes scattered around the galaxies would then be portals to random points in other galaxies within the same universe, just like the portals we've seen on the planets' surfaces warp you to random points on other planets within the same galaxy.
_________________________________________________
But what's the point of all of this really, since technically the number of planets, stars and galaxies is "technically infinite" or "significantly a lot" anyway? Why not just do all these things within the one galaxy and call it a day? The question is - what exactly is a galaxy in No Man's Sky, at least in terms of gameplay mechanics? And this just might be tied to the "goal in the center".
What if galaxies are actually
a "modifier", a "mutator", a set of parameters that make each galaxy distinct from one another. One galaxy might have an extremely low amount of resources in general, just a galaxy with almost no Silicon, so it hampers certain upgrade paths, which also influences the dominant colors of the galaxy, which types of planets, flora, fauna and alien species you can encounter etc.
a randomized/procedural ruleset, a re-roll or a set of modifiers for the "overworld" (galaxy) and "dungeons" (planets). A galaxy is just a jumbled set of parameters, and jumping through black holes is sort of kind of like the TV show Sliders.
It's the next stage of the daring, far-seeking and danger-laden path of exploration. This might not even be explained to the player in any way. If you happen to run into a
random black hole before getting to the galactic center, your first encounter with it might warp you to a new galaxy without you even knowing, since the galactic map is basically designed as a somewhat disorienting cloud of stars, so you might just make the assumption you've jumped to the opposite side of the same galaxy, because I'd be damned if it doesn't all look the same. Once you realize you are actually jumping and plowing through millions of galaxies, you get a different perspective on the whole thing and the universe itself becomes your playground. And this might be the revelation at the center of each galaxy, because, as I've made another assumption before, every galactic center leads to the same one place, so it's not really important which galaxy you've entered from.
Once you realize you are actually jumping and plowing through millions of galaxies, you get a different perspective on the whole thing and the universe itself becomes your playground. And this might be the revelation at the center of each galaxy, because, as I've made another assumption before, every galactic center leads to the same one place, so it's not really important which galaxy you've entered from.Of course, this might imply that you'll start getting
godlike uber-technology designed to make a lot of things much much faster, like instantly making impossibly huge hyperjumps, scanning entire solar systems for resources and gathering them in one go, deciding the fate of stars by destroying or preserving them, cleaning the universe of the malevolent force, the Sentinel army (whether they're the same or separate thing) and really loads of other possibilities, which could even be expanded upon with updates in the future, something Sean's mentioned he'd like to do. The malevolent force and the Atlas tech could then play a very big role in all of this, the player essentially choosing sides, whether to destroy, enslave, catalog or rescue entire galaxies by shifting the balance of power with your godlike proto-technology.
_________________________________________________
I'm sure there are loads of problems with this theory, it could complicate lots of gameplay balances, the very reason for doing it seems a bit counterintiutive, creating complications where there needn't be any because frankly, you could do most of these things within a single hundreds-of-billions-starred galaxy. This also makes meeting people even less probable, because
once a player jumps into a different galaxy, you're effectively lost in space, at least until you get better tech, start traveling really far, maybe even have a list of visited galaxies so you can go back to the starter galaxy where most of the players still are (assuming you'd have these tools at all).
Mind you, my far-fetched theory about what galaxies represent and how you get to them doesn't have to be true. It could all be simpler, you just get a galactic hyperdrive like in the original Elite and jump to the next one if you want to, and it's just a different galaxy with the same modifiers really. But the more I thought about it, the more it felt kinda redundant, while the idea of
going through different "realities" of sorts
Another explanation might be that the glowing center on the galactic map is an actual, incredibly fantastical center of the universe, and that the are galaxies scattered all around it. Or maybe the universe is in a very different state from ours, and everything is just a jumbled mess, a collective cloud of 18 quintillion planets mushed around a weird universal center. I mean it's a game with a very romantic, fantasy sci-fi approach to the universe, so I wouldn't be surprised with such shenanigans. However, the info we've gathered so far and the way various sources have phrased things leads me to believe the base idea is there - you start in one galaxy, there's a galactic center you can reach as a "goal" and there actually are multiple galaxies for whatever reason.
tl;dr: Everyone starts at the same galaxy, and the goal is to reach its center. So it's NOT about the collective space and size of 18 quintillion planets you plow through, just a fraction of it (related to how big a single galaxy actually is in NMS). Also some stuff about what the other galaxies might be about.
TheKingOfPain
Member
Sean zoomed out on the map view during the E3 presentation, and we could totally see thousands and thousands of agglomerates (galaxies) forming a universe, the center of which we are pushed to reach.
Gotcha so the online verse is shared which is kinda cool. Makes me wonder what is going to happen with rare materials.
This truly might be the last game I buy this gen.... I'm impressed.
ichtyander
Member
But nobody's really said that. Sean himself explicitly states in that very stage demo that I've already quoted:
I've always interpreted that galactic map as exactly that, a galactic map. It all looks like star clusters, nebulae etc. to me, not separate galaxies at all. Also, most galaxies do have brighter centers because of how stars cluster due to the gravitational pull of the supermassive black hole. That, along with how Sean himself has talked about the galactic map most of the time leads me to believe that it's exactly one galaxy we're seeing on that map screen.
Rare materials will be rare in the sense that they are harder to find in relation to other materials. But with thousands of quadrillions of planets to explore, those materials won't be rare within the overall universe on the whole. Even if you find a planet that is covered in nothing but the rarest of a specific material and mine every single inch of it off the planet, you still won't make even a fraction of a percentage of a dent in the overall amount of that resource in the universe.
I think that the way things are procedurally generated in the game, and that almost every ship is going to be subtly different - the particular stuff in the LE DLC is unlikely to be generated for everyone. So, kinda no?
I think to me, the appeal is that the stuff in the LE is the stuff they've been using in a lot of the marketing materials. It's not that it's inherently "cooler" than stuff that people are going to find. It's just the ship and gun from the trailers.
More_Badass
Member
I always find the "don't have the depth of a $60 game" comments kind of weird. Compare to the single player campaigns of other full-priced games like, say, AC or CoD, verus what NMS is promising. Not merely scale, but player choice and open-ended gamplay. Just the fact that it's in the mold of Elite and other space sims should give an edge in that department
Outside of FTL it seems you are traveling at relavistic speeds. FTL probably needs a point source to activate, so to travel beyond the stars of the galaxy you'd probably just have to point your ship traveling at a fraction of C.
Basically a whole lot of Nothing for a very, very long time.
More_Badass
Member
Imagine if NMS has its own version of Minecraft's Farlands
Kssio_Aug
Member
All this stuff of reaching the center of the galaxy, and find out something really cool which may mark the beginning for some players sounds really really cool, if they're really telling us the truth.
I have to say that, today, after reading a bit more about the game my expectations increased a lot. I still fear about the variety of the world, but if they manage to deliver a really great variety to make it feel fresh for quite a long time, that may be a very special game! And I'm looking forward to this!
And... I know I criticized the price as well before, but, if they manage to make something truly special, even I may pay full price after all.
Hype is growing up fast now!
I have to say that, today, after reading a bit more about the game my expectations increased a lot. I still fear about the variety of the world, but if they manage to deliver a really great variety to make it feel fresh for quite a long time, that may be a very special game! And I'm looking forward to this!
And... I know I criticized the price as well before, but, if they manage to make something truly special, even I may pay full price after all.
Hype is growing up fast now!
Icyflamez96
Member
^
I suggest that everytime I respond to that question.
fudge u for ninjaing me now I have to quote :<
I suggest that everytime I respond to that question.
Gotta agree. I find myself disliking open world games more and more as publishers push out more carbon copy radiant quests to fill up otherwise lifeless, but larger worlds. The maps get bigger and more complex, but the simulation AI and nonscripted events rarely do. I can't do any more chase car to x, clear building y of dumb AI, find package at Z missions. It's boring.
NMS seems to have created a world that runs via some basic input and rules, but can generate anything possible within that confine. Add in some lore and game systems, and its exactly what I'm looking for in open worlds; a living, breathing simulation that you are part of.
I think that's one of my draws to the Fallout games, and how they actually handle persistence across the world and even some simulation. NPCs using trade routes, getting into battles, being a part of the world. It's good stuff where in most open world games they're just window dressing cannon fodder.
The fact that i can fly to other planets and space stations in real time with no destiny loading screen, makes this game more than 60 bucks for me.
Sony and Hello Games should consider talking to Disney and putting an x-wing, Milano (from guardians of the galaxy) or millennium falcon ships in the game.
More_Badass
Member
In the 30 minute tech interview, Sean mentions how companies working on Star Wars and Star Trek games showed interest in the engine, and how they were kind of dumbstruck to see entire alien worlds generated in seconds (while they were making worlds by hand with hundreds of people)
The star wars license and the no man's sky engine would be awesome together as long as EA isnt anywhere near it.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/03...ands-on-the-real-game-begins-to-reveal-itself
Stuff like this is why i love this game. I love the fact you can not only explore planets but space stations as well.
Fushichou187
Member
While I don't want to see-- and believe we won't ever see-- any kind of cross-promotion (i.e. Star Wars ships) in NMS, I do think that Hello Games pulling this feat off will give great impetus to larger studios to develop similar solutions for their IPs. Also, I don't think the NMS engine can be ported and licensed as we commonly see with things like Unreal, Frostbite, Unity, etc.. which is understandable but a bummer since I would love to see HG be able to rake in royalties from all their hard work long after NMS sunsets, and allow them the financial freedom to do whatever they want as a studio.
eyeball_kid
Member
Browsing the reddit thread, I saw someone made scans of the PlayStation Official Magazine UK issue of NMS, and read a few things I hadn't heard before:
* Animals on planets nearer to their star are more likely to have scaly skin or spindly limbs (I assume for heat reasons)
* A ship's paint job will indicate its age and the battles it's been in. Scientific ships have two cockpits (hmm??) and look more asymmetrical.
* Not all sounds are procedural. Sounds associated with the player seem to be made through traditional sound design. Also (to my disappointment), NPCs do not use the virtual vocal cord synthesis system for their languages, but instead are people speaking the words. This make me suspect that there's a limited number of NPC races.
* NPC races will change their outlook on you via more factors than just learning their language. "[If one race likes you], maybe you'll have less options for other races, because you'll sort of antagonize them by being boring, not aggressive, or not trading enough. And that will develop that's another procedural thing."
* Regarding post-launch plans, Murray elaborates, "If people are playing then we would want to hear what they want and be community driven. If people want animal husbandry, land vehicles, to share YouTube videos or link to planets so other people can visit that planet... stuff like that would be cool."
* Animals on planets nearer to their star are more likely to have scaly skin or spindly limbs (I assume for heat reasons)
* A ship's paint job will indicate its age and the battles it's been in. Scientific ships have two cockpits (hmm??) and look more asymmetrical.
* Not all sounds are procedural. Sounds associated with the player seem to be made through traditional sound design. Also (to my disappointment), NPCs do not use the virtual vocal cord synthesis system for their languages, but instead are people speaking the words. This make me suspect that there's a limited number of NPC races.
* NPC races will change their outlook on you via more factors than just learning their language. "[If one race likes you], maybe you'll have less options for other races, because you'll sort of antagonize them by being boring, not aggressive, or not trading enough. And that will develop that's another procedural thing."
* Regarding post-launch plans, Murray elaborates, "If people are playing then we would want to hear what they want and be community driven. If people want animal husbandry, land vehicles, to share YouTube videos or link to planets so other people can visit that planet... stuff like that would be cool."
Icyflamez96
Member
There are.
More_Badass
Member
Love details like this
travisbickle
Member
There is a single image from the preview event. (It was found on a photographers website.)
It appears to be the dialog tree when talking with other alien lifeforms.
People are guessing the orange coloured word is the one you've learned with all others in the alien language, and you have to choose how to respond.
It appears to be the dialog tree when talking with other alien lifeforms.
People are guessing the orange coloured word is the one you've learned with all others in the alien language, and you have to choose how to respond.
ichtyander
Member
There is a single image from the preview event. (It was found on a photographers website.)
It appears to be the dialog tree when talking with other alien lifeforms.
People are guessing the orange coloured word is the one you've learned with all others in the alien language, and you have to choose how to respond.
Awesome stuff, thanks! Our first view at the alien NPCs.
I fiddled around with the link and found a higher resolution version where you can easily see the options and text.
xamidoxhua
Member
I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but how varied are the planets? Will there be some planets like Earth with different climate zones? Deserts/swamps/rainforests/alps/polar ice/etc?
DHC-Shannow
Member
No, each planet has a single biome to encourage you to move on rather than exploring all the different areas of a single planet. The biomes for each planet however should be very varied, from lush and hospitable to extremely harsh and dangerous.
Fushichou187
Member
Awesome stuff, thanks! Our first view at the alien NPCs.
I fiddled around with the link and found a higher resolution version where you can easily see the options and text.
That shot of the Korvax is really interesting, in particular because it looks very different that what I had pictured based on some of the descriptions from the preview write-ups I've read. I dig it though. Can't wait to see the other NPC races!
I also really like seeing more of the NMS font in that layout. Very clean looking. Also, even without the larger version I could spot Shoemaker dead center lol
I wonder when this was during the preview event. Perhaps before each of them got their own hands-on time with the game, briefly explaining some of the new things they'd likely encounter?
Yeah that seems to be how they're handling things, though I wouldn't be surprised if much closer to the center of the galaxy there'll be multi-biome planets.
More_Badass
Member
I wonder if the NPCs' appearances are procedural? Also I was kind of hoping the alien language was actually like weird symbols and not just jumbled lettersThere is a single image from the preview event. (It was found on a photographers website.)
It appears to be the dialog tree when talking with other alien lifeforms.
People are guessing the orange coloured word is the one you've learned with all others in the alien language, and you have to choose how to respond.
Fushichou187
Member
I mean, it's still indecipherable even if the letters they are using are romanized
But I agree it would been nice to have some consistency between the symbols you encounter on the monolith that teaches you a word of the language, and the way the language is actually presented itself in those dialogue scenes.KCroxtonJr
Member
I would be surprised if the NPC's aren't procedural in some way, probably won't be as much as creatures though. Also, still a chance that some of the languages are made up of symbols alongside the ones made up of standard letters, just like here on Earth.
It's really cool to finally see a NPC, this one looks much more "normal", or human-like, than I was imagining. I wonder if they have procedural voices, I can't remember if I read about anyone mentioning that.
Thor Molecules
Member
They could've used procedurally created characters for alien languages.
OmegaDL50
Member
The Korvax space helmet looks like one of those old 1960's Small TV monitors.
Another interesting observation is the apparent name of the entity / alien.
Shell Govets.
I wonder how they come up with names. I can imagine some of the results would funny if it was just two randomly selected English words next to each other.
Another interesting observation is the apparent name of the entity / alien.
Shell Govets.
I wonder how they come up with names. I can imagine some of the results would funny if it was just two randomly selected English words next to each other.
KCroxtonJr
Member
I would imagine it's more complex than just two full English words, even Starbound's name generator is able to be more complex than that. I had a fun time creating the pool of combinations for a mod I made, what I did was think of some full names that fit the race I created, then broke them down into pieces that would mesh well with other pieces of names. Some pieces had spaces after so it would mark the end of say the first name, then the generator just did it's thing. It worked out surprisingly well considering how little effort I put into it.
MADGAME
Member
To me it appears Govets may be the name, as there is a colon after shell. Am I reading it wrong? I am seeing
Entity Shell: Govets
Also, I wonder if the monitor type apparatus is a helmet or the actual head.
eyeball_kid
Member
Would've been nice if you had spoilered the leaked image. Some people didn't want to see that. :/ Guess it's time to go dark on this game.
ichtyander
Member
Hope we'll see some one-eyed tentacle monsters and such weird beings. I think I also read recently that one of the journalists encountered a frog-like alien and traded with it. Seeing how the team is inspired by old sci-fi art, I'm sure they'll at least draw some inspiration from stuff like Wayne Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials:
I think some of the journalists mentioned that Sean first gave a gameplay presentation, explaining some stuff. I think actually Brad Shoemaker mentioned in the bombcast that Sean used grenades to reveal a cave while he was doing the presentation, so it must've been at that time, before everyone sat down and played.
Also crap, didn't notice Brad at all, nice one!
They've mentioned way before that factions will be procedurally generated, but that was back when they also said there won't be any NPCs, so who knows. Factions could still just be groups consisting of the same species, or even of mixed species (a trading guild of such and such star cluster). I mean, they could relatively easily have procedural sentient alien species, but they'd at least have to double down on the art assets, creating all sorts of combinations of body types, appendages and so on, and I'd doubt they'd have the time and manpower to pull that off right now.
Fushichou187
Member
I definitely remember one of the recent previews mentioning a bird-like race which made me think of the Pkunk from Star Control 2
Pestilence11
Member
That's what I was expecting and hoping for as well.
David Ricardo
Member
Saun Murray said "Were not trying to make an MMO where you can play with literally 60,000 people on screen. We handle the case like where other people can fly past in your game or that you can bump into other players in the game.
That induces me to believe that some kind of interaction with other players is possible. But then, he also is constantly saying that other people is too far away, it would be hard to meet up even if you were in the same planet, this is not Destiny, etc...
He also said that when you do meaningful things, like destroying a space station, that is uploaded and everyone that goes to that same space station is going to see it is not there anymore. But, if you kill an animal in a planet, that action is considered irrelevant, so that is not shared with other players.
So, putting the dots together, I guess you can see other players flying by with their ship, that is coded into the game. But if you are on foot, you won't see the other player besides you. Things like killing animals or making holes on the ground are not shared, so if you were to be near another player, it wouldn't work. You could be attacked by an animal that would pass through the other player, you could kill the animal while the other player would be seeing that same animal alive in a totally different place, etc...
So that seems to me to be the reason why you can see other players in the game, but they don't want you to try to do it, because it won't work as you would expect. And it makes sense that the game works like this because, if you think about it, it isn't worth their time coding that kind of interaction when they have such a small team making a gigantic universe, and the chances of two people being at the same time in the same place are so tiny.
So the interaction with other players would be seeing their ship flying around, seeing the 'meaningful' things they have changed in the universe, and maybe read some messages they have left, or talk to some alien that has talked with them and being told about it.
But traveling for 50 hours to the planet your friend is at isn't worth the time.
The press doesn't understand that you can see other players but you can't (or you shouldn't try to) interact with them in real time, so they keep asking about it all the time.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, since I haven't been following the game too closely, but wasn't there something said recently about how seeing another player is how you find out what you look like? So there'd have to be a way to see other players on foot.
David Ricardo
Member
Maybe you can see them inside space stations or trading posts. But I don't think you can see them walking around on the surface of a planet, because if you make a hole in the ground, that would not reflect in their game, so you would see the other player walking in the air.
This is a guess I'm making, I don't know if this is how it works. But it doesn't make sense that they had written server code to synchronise that kind of data between players for some interaction that will most probably never happen.
Part of me actually hopes procedurally-generated exploration games become the new "thing" AAA developers try to do. Maybe that'll happen if this game, Elite Dangerous, and Star Citizen become really successful. If a team of 12 people can accomplish what's in NMS, imagine what an EA or Ubisoft could accomplish with tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of people. It would probably be with their own engines though.
I've always wondered why no one tried to make an "explore, fight, trade" game with the Star Wars license where you could basically do Han Solo's job or Boba Fett's job. The aforementioned three games coming out I think could also change the conversation surrounding Mass Effect. Andromeda would have actually been a perfect opportunity to do a procedurally generated game since it's a whole new galaxy and we don't really know anything about the stars and systems in the real Andromeda galaxy, only that there are about a trillion of them. Andromeda probably isn't gonna be that though. It's probably gonna be more of what we got in Mass Effect 3 with some elements of Dragon Age Inquisition and some attempts to revive Mass Effect 1's surface traversal. My idea space game though would probably be a better-executed version of ME1's gameplay with ME1's universe and main quest combined with Elite: Dangerous-style procedural generation. Imagine if a fantasy RPG used this trend as an excuse to try something more like the first two Elder Scrolls games where the country/continent/world you explore is 1:1 scale with literally thousands of towns and villages. It would be interesting to see how far that kind of procedural generation has come in the last 20 years.
And the thing is, it wouldn't be impossible to put conventionally designed locations and quests into these types of games. How do you think Elite Dangerous has the Solar System and all other known stars in it? The first two Elder Scrolls games, although procedurally generated, still have main quests and deliberately-designed dungeons.
Icyflamez96
Member
This is the thing I'm not so sure about. If another player is in your lobby bubble, maybe then changes they make to the environment will show up for you? When he talks about not being able to see small changes made by others, it's in the context of you arriving to a planet that someone else landed on prior to you.
Kadayi
Banned
I actually think the enormous scale is a negative. The games so astronomically large (no pun intended) that it's pretty unlikely that unless you seriously invest hundreds of hours diligently planet hopping that you're ever likely to encounter another player and even then you can't really interact with them. And albeit graphically it looks amazing. I'm not sold on that aesthetic hook coupled with an upgrade system being enough to keep me playing that long versus other games luring me away. In a world of infinite distractions, the hook has to be powerful.