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[Rumor] No Man's Sky Development / Technical Issues (Podquisition)

tuxfool

Banned
Another silly comparison to Spore, because of "Procedural Generation". -_-

There is a lot of concern posting in this thread, over nothing but an unsubstantiated rumour by one person who provided no clear evidence other than ramblings they've heard :/

Yeah. However, given their delays it is reasonable to expect them to be having some of those issues.

It doesn't really justify some of the statements people are making of "it was too good to be true" and other such nonsense.
 
Games developed by a small team ends up being delayed is like the most common thing ever. I swear, it's like most indie games that are ambitious gets delayed in some shape or form.

And while I'm not discounting this rumour, the Game City story honestly feels kinda bollocks.

NMS is already in a state where they have comfortably showed off hands-off demos to various press during E3, to IGN in their IGN first, and various press members like Danny O'Dwyer and Greg Miller has actually played the damn game.

Even if their latest build is buggy, they could easily have their E3 build for Game City if all they wanted to do is show a demo off.
 

jschreier

Member
Oh come on, you just wrote that excellent article on Destiny's troubled development and how much content got cut from it only to be sold to us later in DLC.

You know when such an article would have been more useful? Before launch, so more people knew that their $60 wasn't getting them all that much in addition to a nonexistent story. I'm not blaming you, obviously you can't control when your sources tell you stuff, and I did love your article.

But in this case, at least we are aware that something is indeed likely troubled with this game, hence why it isn't out years after we first saw it. I hope they get the problems fixed and the game launches and is amazing. At least now though we are on notice, controlling our expectations, and making more educated decisions about preordering.
I strongly disagree. The takeaway I got from reporting that story wasn't "wow Bungie ripped us off we should've had so much more" -- it was "wow making video games is hard as hell even when you're a huge team with plenty of experience and resources."

In my years reporting in this field, I've learned a couple of things. One of those things is that you should never pre-order video games, which is a stance Kotaku has taken several times. Another is that every game goes through near-insurmountable technical struggles and periods where nobody knows whether the final product will actually turn out to be fun. For some games, everything coalesces nicely at some point. For others, it... doesn't. Oftentimes even the developers of a game have no idea which result they'll get.

Of course, there could be weird shit going here that we don't know about! And I think more transparency about game development in general is a very good thing. But from what I read in the OP, this just sounds par for the course. You could be more cautious with your pre-orders if you really want, but my advice would be to not pre-order in the first place!
 

Tovarisc

Member
Considering that all gameplay we have seen is same small gameplay loop I'm not that surprised about contents of OP.

From space to planet to walk around little bit to show off scenery and plant some sort beacon, that has been basically shown gameplay loop ever since announcement.
 
Honestly doesn't sound that bad. Of course a game of that size is going to run into some trouble, especially with such a small team.

If this is true though, I doubt we'll see No Man's Sky VR before considerable after the release, if at all.
 

Fractal

Banned
A shame if true... though I wouldn't be jumping onto any conclusions just yet. While the game doesn't exactly seem like my cup of tea, it's an interesting and ambitious concept so I hope things work out in the end.
 

kadotsu

Banned
Having listened to that podcast the rumor is firmly in the Fox News "Some people say" territory of category of reporting.
 

Ferr986

Member
Can't they scale back the infinite # of planets to just 1.5 million planets?

There's not an infinite number of planets. There are exactly 184467440737095516 planets.
I don't think how it matters if they reduce the number though. It's not like all the planets are loaded at the same time.
 

AegisScott

Neo Member
I wish you guys could see the development of any game- There are performance and op. issues right up until the final weeks in most cases. This sounds totally in line with standard development issues
 

Yudoken

Member
None of those sound far-fetched to me. Also, isn't it basically common knowledge now that E3 demos are almost always running on a PC behind the scenes?

Sadly no, people still believe the weirdest shit.
Even here on gaf where you could expect some common knowledge stuff about gaming.
Some people here are as clueless as your average grandma about gaming.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Interesting how people think that the infinite universe is the cause of the issue, and not the immediate generation of terrain, wildlife etc. on the PS4.

I suspect that this game is very CPU heavy and not something the PS4 has in abundance. It looks comparatively lightweight on the GPU.

I would imagine the most challenging thing (from the videos we've seen) is just figuring out the LOD/draw distance.
 
And I think more transparency about game development in general is a very good thing.

You don't want to know how the sausage is made.

This thread, and by extension all of Neogaf, is a clear example of why not. Every single game has these issues. Every single one. Every game has cancelled or postponed press junkets due to technical issues. Every game demos primarily on development PCs in dev environments (especially +6 months from release) rather than consumer builds on intended hardware. Every single PC or multi-platform game has optimization problems on PC. It's always a struggle eking out every last ounce of performance on hardware-locked platforms (like consoles).

But one podcast brings up these things that every single product faces as a rumor and the internet loses their god damn minds. The hardcore enthusiasts, who should understand this shit, don't understand this shit. Mass market even less so. In a world were even perceived negativity is blown out of proportion across social media, there's absolutely no reason to ever have transparency in something as unpredictable and volatile as game development.
 

STEaMkb

Member
Hopefully that new, faster PS4 is released before No Man's Sky.

Sony aren't developing a faster PS4.

"It’s worth stressing on the fact that Ito-san was talking hypothetically, prompted by a specific question. So don’t go taking this as a confirmation a PS4.1 is actually in the works." (Source)

And

"However, Ito stressed that Sony has no immediate plans to introduce a technically superior PS4 model; he also explained that the bigger question is if Sony would actually want to do this at all." (Source)
 

DeviantBoi

Member
That's why it's coming mid-2016 and not this holiday season.

What's the big deal?

They're not gonna release it on PS4 and require a PC to play, obviously.
 
You could be more cautious with your pre-orders if you really want, but my advice would be to not pre-order in the first place!

My advice is to preorder from a place where you can receive your funds back, and remember that you don't have to pick it up Day 1, or the second the store opens.

But the rest, I agree with. This topic, and anything else with development, just seems to piss people off on how much shit goes down, despite the fact that it's par for the course in development. Unless there's something more indicative of an issue, this story is all fluff to me.
 

Exile20

Member
2600426-7212286479-25059.jpg

I nearly spit my coffee out on my laptop.
 
You don't want to know how the sausage is made.

This thread, and by extension all of Neogaf, is a clear example of why not. Every single game has these issues. Every single one. Every game has cancelled or postponed press junkets due to technical issues. Every game demos primarily on development PCs in dev environments (especially +6 months from release) rather than consumer builds on intended hardware. Every single PC or multi-platform game has optimization problems on PC. It's always a struggle eking out every last ounce of performance on hardware-locked platforms (like consoles).

But one podcast brings up these things that every single product faces as a rumor and the internet loses their god damn minds. The hardcore enthusiasts, who should understand this shit, don't understand this shit. Mass market even less so. In a world were even perceived negativity is blown out of proportion across social media, there's absolutely no reason to ever have transparency in something as unpredictable and volatile as game development.

Agreed.

"We need more transparency in video game development" is hilarious statement, particularly from a guy like schreier who should know better. The same people who say they need/want to see how the sausage is made are always the first to say stuff like "this looks like shit lol the graphics!" whenever an outlet like Kotaku or something leaks pre-alpha footage of a game.
 

jschreier

Member
You don't want to know how the sausage is made.

This thread, and by extension all of Neogaf, is a clear example of why not. Every single game has these issues. Every single one. Every game has cancelled or postponed press junkets due to technical issues. Every game demos primarily on development PCs in dev environments (especially +6 months from release) rather than consumer builds on intended hardware. Every single PC or multi-platform game has optimization problems on PC. It's always a struggle eking out every last ounce of performance on hardware-locked platforms (like consoles).

But one podcast brings up these things that every single product faces as a rumor and the internet loses their god damn minds. The hardcore enthusiasts, who should understand this shit, don't understand this shit. Mass market even less so. In a world were even perceived negativity is blown out of proportion across social media, there's absolutely no reason to ever have transparency in something as unpredictable and volatile as game development.
I believe that if game publishers weren't so obsessed with secrecy, enthusiasts would be more informed and therefore less inclined to freak out over things like this.
 

Grief.exe

Member
I believe that if game publishers weren't so obsessed with secrecy, enthusiasts would be more informed and therefore less inclined to freak out over things like this.

My experience with observing this demographic handling development information is generally poor. The demographic at large is just far too ignorant to handle that kind of access.

I think publishers and developers are correct in assuming more information and access would result in lower revenues.
Guard and carefully release information at premeditated times and development milestones.
 

Guymelef

Member
With all this problems why announce some months ago PS4-PC simultaneous release when they initial idea was first on PS4?
 

RulkezX

Member
I believe that if game publishers weren't so obsessed with secrecy, enthusiasts would be more informed and therefore less inclined to freak out over things like this.

People have the collective sum of human knowlege accessible on their phones and are still dumb as rocks about everything.

People don't *really* want to be more informed, because most are only in it for whatever the latest outrage.

A fair % of those reacting to this will know deep down that the game is 6 months out and is probably normal that it runs poorly, they just don't care because talking about how omgthegameisintrouble is more fun.


Plus if gamers were more informed and less reactionary you'd be looking for new work.
 

QaaQer

Member
Edit: Just to be clear, im not talking about No Man's Sky doing that(I have not followed the games development updates and statements to make an "educated" guess) but there's no way for consumers to know about these things outside of rumours.

you could wait a couple of days after release before buying and check the OT.
 

Danlord

Member
This is huge. I have a feeling it will never run great on the PS4.

Given that the game is looking ever so likely that it will launch with PlayStation VR I wouldn't read too much into it. The requirements for PlayStation VR have to set a minimum target frame-rate of 60FPS.
 
I believe that if game publishers weren't so obsessed with secrecy, enthusiasts would be more informed and therefore less inclined to freak out over things like this.

I believe that if game journalists weren't so obsessed with generating site traffic over controversy, enthusiasts would be more informed and therefore less inclined to freak out over things like this.
 

AegisScott

Neo Member
Sadly no, people still believe the weirdest shit.
Even here on gaf where you could expect some common knowledge stuff about gaming.
Some people here are as clueless as your average grandma about gaming.

FWIW- At least for indies they ask that its running on a devKit. They'll wave that req. in some cases, but this year they were pretty serious about "No PCs"
 

Nabbis

Member
Agreed.

"We need more transparency in video game development" is hilarious statement, particularly from a guy like schreier who should know better. The same people who say they need/want to see how the sausage is made are always the first to say stuff like "this looks like shit lol the graphics!" whenever an outlet like Kotaku or something leaks pre-alpha footage of a game.

Whose fault is this... It couldn't have anything to do with years of released vertical slice videos that effect public perception, now could it? Do you see people looking at a house and going "this looks like shit" before it's finished? Hell, what about movies and music?
 

Diffense

Member
I've been intrigued by this game and will be interested in it whenever it comes out. IMO, it's not a big deal that they delayed it because there were technical issues. There are always various issues while software is being developed. They're not releasing it in a broken state so I'm OK.
 
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