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[Speely]

Damn, I wish I was a computer scientist. I would have been smart enough to know how to properly play the game.

I dunno. It's basically a fantasy game, so I am not sure how much that knowledge would help... you know, outside of being able to predict what upcoming games will exactly contain.

 

[freenudemacusers]

speaking of bullying games, this thread could use a bump http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1137638 🤔

 

[amdb00mer]

It was talked about earlier how the dev team had to know Sean was touting features not in the game. How about IGN? They did that IGN First in which Ryan talks over the videos. So what happened to the game in those videos?

 

[freenudemacusers]

It was talked about earlier how the dev team had to know Sean was touting features not in the game. How about IGN? They did that IGN First in which Ryan talks over the videos. So what happened to the game in those videos?

does IGN employ any computer scientists? there's your answer. If you don't think this reply makes any sense, you're not a computer scientist and don't understand it. simple enough?

 

[Xaero Gravity]

speaking of bullying games, this thread could use a bump http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1137638 🤔

Yes please!

 

[OuterLimits]

I feel bad for those who work at Hello Games right now(those not named Sean). They were put in a no win situation by Sean it seems. To be fair, they seem to be working hard on patches for the game, despite the complete radio silence from Sean. However, I imagine morale is pretty damn bad right now. They had to watch his Colbert interview and be thinking "Shit, what is he doing"

Will be curious to see if the company tries to redeem themselves with significant updates in the next year, or if they finish the bug fixes and not much else. I'm hopeful that in a year the game is much better. It certainly has a decent foundation to build on in my opinion.

 

[Nags]

speaking of bullying games, this thread could use a bump http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1137638 🤔

Go for it.

 

[freenudemacusers]

i'm no bully

 

[Quote]

I feel bad for those who work at Hello Games right now(those not named Sean). They were put in a no win situation by Sean it seems. To be fair, they seem to be working hard on patches for the game, despite the complete radio silence from Sean. However, I imagine morale is pretty damn bad right now. They had to watch his Colbert interview and be thinking "Shit, what is he doing"

Will be curious to see if the company tries to redeem themselves with significant updates in the next year, or if they finish the bug fixes and not much else. I'm hopeful that in a year the game is much better. It certainly has a decent foundation to build on in my opinion.

I would bet they're proud of their work and the company they work for. Sean and all.

 

[Sesuadra]

Somehow I feel vindicated that I was right, but that now locked thread of Sean Murray's message to fans made me truly sad that people didn't see the signs.

Hype culture truly is a wild thing.

Yeah, too bad the mods were salty and locked it. Was quite hilarious.

Would you mind providing a link?

 

[Hubb]

Would you mind providing a link?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1260210

 

[Sesuadra]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1260210

Ahhh that one! I thought he finally said something..

 

[Speely]

Ahhh that one! I thought he finally said something..

It's gonna be a minute until he responds directly to this controversy, if ever. No reason for him to at this point, because there is no legal reason he has to.

 

[IvorB]

Yeah, I had experience with Spore. I am a computer scientist and was training to be a game designer. I know what procedural generation is. I know the limitations of it, the crazy weird broken shit that it can generate.

After being there for the launch of Spore, I am actually pretty impressed with what Hello Games was able to accomplish. I think if anything, the gaming public just doesn't understand procedural generation and how it works and the limitations of content generation using it when compared to more scripted content.

If you have a team of what 10-14 guys and you say you are using procedural generation to make as many planets as they did. There would be very little scripted elements. Did people actually believe there would be a bunch of scripted elements throughout this game?

The mental gymnastics you are performing in your posts is most impressive.

 

[FloatingDivider]

It's gonna be a minute until he responds directly to this controversy, if ever. No reason for him to at this point, because there is no legal reason he has to.

What could he say to fix this? If I didn't want some sort of honest post mortem (which could happen soon because this game is deader than doornails) I'd just want him to vanish leaving the internet behind to go lay next to a pool with his ill gotten gains like any other white collar criminal. Maybe buy a yacht or some shit. I dno what the fuck you do after scamming hundreds of thousands of people because I've never scammed anyone.

 

[IvorB]

So those of us who aren't computer scientists just get screwed. Sounds like a good business model.

No, you need to be a computer scientist training in game development with a understanding of procedural generation and a prior experience of Spore.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

What could he say to fix this? If I didn't want some sort of honest post mortem (which could happen soon because this game is deader than doornails) I'd just want him to vanish leaving the internet behind to go lay next to a pool with his ill gotten gains like any other white collar criminal. Maybe buy a yacht or some shit. I dno what the fuck you do after scamming hundreds of thousands of people because I've never scammed anyone.

All he could say at this point is that he fucked up with the marketing but that they are working to include as much of what they promised as they can in a group of 10 people.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

does IGN employ any computer scientists? there's your answer. If you don't think this reply makes any sense, you're not a computer scientist and don't understand it. simple enough?

I don't understand it, does that mean that the University scammed me and my degree is worthless?

 

[OverdriveOtaku]

Wonder how many times this has been refunded for Steam to add this on the NMS Store page

I wonder the exact thing, must've been so many refund requests to prompt a message like this. This speaks volumes to the issues the game has.

Still, Steam isn't really being proactive since it appears the false advertising vids are still up on the game's store page. Also odd seeing No Man's Sky seemingly delisted on the top 10 sellers page, last I remember it fell down one or two spots.

 

[Speely]

What could he say to fix this? If I didn't want some sort of honest post mortem (which could happen soon because this game is deader than doornails) I'd just want him to vanish leaving the internet behind to go lay next to a pool with his ill gotten gains like any other white collar criminal. Maybe buy a yacht or some shit. I dno what the fuck you do after scamming hundreds of thousands of people because I've never scammed anyone.

If I were taking the piss, I would just post a gif of my spinning ass and say "here's your rotating moon."

No, you need to be a computer scientist training in game development with a understanding of procedural generation and a prior experience of Spore.

Clearly we have not lived up to our responsibilities as people who pay money to developers based on what they say. Note to self: never buy anything from anyone that I am not smarter than.

 

[joey_bone_bomb]

Good to see consumers are not letting this one slide.
Now the next logical step would be to learn from this experience, and stop preordering games altogether, but all it takes is another Sean Murray type promising the next big thing, and all will be forgotten.

 

[Xaero Gravity]

I don't understand it, does that mean that the University scammed me and my degree is worthless?

Unfortunately yes, but if you get a refund, you're a thief.

 

[SilentRacoon]

Good to see consumers are not letting this one slide.
Now the next logical step would be to learn from this experience, and stop preordering games altogether, but all it takes is another Sean Murray type promising the next big thing, and all will be forgotten.

#BringBackMolyneux

 

[Pepboy]

Yeah, I had experience with Spore. I am a computer scientist and was training to be a game designer. I know what procedural generation is. I know the limitations of it, the crazy weird broken shit that it can generate.

After being there for the launch of Spore, I am actually pretty impressed with what Hello Games was able to accomplish. I think if anything, the gaming public just doesn't understand procedural generation and how it works and the limitations of content generation using it when compared to more scripted content.

If you have a team of what 10-14 guys and you say you are using procedural generation to make as many planets as they did. There would be very little scripted elements. Did people actually believe there would be a bunch of scripted elements throughout this game?

Actually is there anything you can do in No Mans Sky that Spore (space stage) will not let you do? Seems like Spore actually has the bigger feature set. More terraforming, better ship upgrades, still has the singleplayer-based sharing of creations... I guess you can't get out of your ship in space stage? But I thought you could alter some species and start over...

 

[sazzy]

steamspy is starting show a decrease in total number of users

 

[AugustBlade]

It doesn't hurt to try. I know many who got refunds on Amazon.

If I got it on Amazon, I'd definitely give it a try. Unfortunately, I got it at Best Buy.

 

[Froli]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1260210

I wonder if any of those posters has changed their views by now.

Originally Posted by **********
Added to the OT List. What a fantastic team. They did everything they said. They literally came through on most if not all.

oh wow lol

 

[Speely]

I wonder if any of those posters has changed their views by now.

I did. I was part of that love brigade. Now I want to make sure the world knows how much of a con man Sean Murray is. I was an idiot, perhaps, but I was at least an honest idiot.

 

[@MUWANdo]

Okay, so, this is a personal and somewhat complex web of nonsense involving a highly unstable individual I was friends and briefly FWBs with, but I can only assume there will be a never-ending clusterfuck on gaf now until the end of time, which inevitably involves you guys and gals on the mod team in some way, so I'm an open book here. The woman in question ended up being completely psychotic and held a grudge against me after a bizarre love triangle situation developed a few years ago between me, her, and another girl (the other girl I ended up in a long-term relationship with shortly thereafter). This NOLA story she apparently just put up on social media is a delusion of a deeply disturbed person who had a total psychological breakdown as a result of me and the other girl getting together, because she (phew, yeah...) became obsessively infatuated with the other girl (she's bi) on sight when the three of us met up. I wanted to just stay friends with the girl making the accusation and made it super super clear ahead of time that me and the other girl were interested in each other romantically and that could play out as such when we met up. Supposedly this was not a problem for her from accusation, but in reality she uhhh wanted me to die painfully after seeing me and the other girl interact. Plus she became infatuated with the other girl simultaneously to this (she's bi), which created the aforementioned bizarre love triangle that ended up causing her to implode and have an apparently very intense and long-lasting grudge. The whole story about how that love triangle thing played out is, frankly, nuts and scary, and involves this girl bringing us to a compound of dangerous scientology spinoff cultists on that same trip, who roofied us, attempted to recruit/scam me and attempted to abduct/rape the girl I ended up dating, in what was a fucking scary situation that resulted in me and the other girl and the rest of my friend circle never speaking to this girl from the accusation again.

 

[Acorn]

That brings up another point: why the hell did his team let him continue to go out there and spout misleading bullshit about the game for years on end? Surely someone must have pulled him aside and told him to shut up at some point.

He's one of the founders. Infact I think he's the only founder left(?).

 

[Speely]

That brings up another point: why the hell did his team let him continue to go out there and spout misleading bullshit about the game for years on end? Surely someone must have pulled him aside and told him to shut up at some point.

From what I have gathered, it's not at all uncommon for a lead who has little to do with the actual creation of the game to say some outlandish shit. This is why most projects this big have PR folks. It's very likely that the HG team was just hammering away at the game while Sean just said what people wanted to hear.

 

[Corpekata]

steamspy is starting show a decrease in total number of users

While some of these are undoubtedly refunds, it's also just normal behavior in general for games that have leveled off in sales due to the nature of the the way the site collects data.

 

[Seiniyta]

Actually is there anything you can do in No Mans Sky that Spore (space stage) will not let you do? Seems like Spore actually has the bigger feature set. More terraforming, better ship upgrades, still has the singleplayer-based sharing of creations... I guess you can't get out of your ship in space stage? But I thought you could alter some species and start over...

Come on, I loved Spore space stage, but a lot of the things you listed were super lame in Spore. The ship upgrades consisted of warping further, new weapons which all weren't that fun to use unfortunately. NMS space combat isn't great, but Spore was way worse.
Exploring a planet on the ground is a big thing you couldn't really do in Spore. The hologram you could send down moved at an absurdly low speed and the expansion (although kinda neat!) doesn't even compare to the sense of being on a planet like you do in NMS.

The trading consisted of finding spice on a particular planet, then sell them at another place for a high amount.

The space stage in Spore had a bit of the opposite problem NMS has in that early on it was fun, but the further you got, the further you expanded your empire it just became tedious, bombarded with messages about pirates attacking your planets all over the place without the ability to make your planets deal with it themselves.

Just reminding me all of that just makes me want to have a Spore 2 with more depth in everything. (and upgraded visuals)

Although NMS has many many issues, and I totally can get people refunding the game en masse. I at least have more faith in that they'll support the game with new features and updates more then EA and Maxis ever did for Spore.

Thankfully, at the very worst. The modding scene seems to be already being capable more then Spore's back in the day.

That brings up another point: why the hell did his team let him continue to go out there and spout misleading bullshit about the game for years on end? Surely someone must have pulled him aside and told him to shut up at some point.

Most of the features they talked about are actually in the game code in one way or another, remnants or almost fully functional. Planet rotation, various objects used in footage in the past sitting unused. They just comunicated things so terribly.
I mean, regardless of the videos still being on steam, it took them how long to actually announce the PC version was delayed a few days more? They are reaaaally bad at managing their online stuff. The video still being there to me just seems like ineptitude over malice (still misleading though!)

 

[FloatingDivider]

That brings up another point: why the hell did his team let him continue to go out there and spout misleading bullshit about the game for years on end? Surely someone must have pulled him aside and told him to shut up at some point.

He's one of the founders. Infact I think he's the only founder left(?).

I imagine he just has the power to essentially be an idea guy at this point. And those are his ideas. Granted they're completely and utterly divorced from the reality of what they actually accomplished but delusions of grandeur are fairly common in idea guys. Or maybe it was just a straight up a get rich quick scheme. Hell it might be considering the store page still has footage that doesn't resemble the game we got at all more than 2 weeks post release. I don't honestly know how you can be that confused in reporting what your game actually is and which features are real.

 

[Burai]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1260210

The Emperor's New Clothes: The Thread

That brings up another point: why the hell did his team let him continue to go out there and spout misleading bullshit about the game for years on end? Surely someone must have pulled him aside and told him to shut up at some point.

It makes more financial sense to take the money and run though. Sean gets all the flak either way so you might as well get whatever royalty bonus they had in place and keep your mouth shut.

 

[redcrayon]

Refund to me seems like the ultimate solution, one that involves money exchanging hands, and that is just messy from a business standpoint. I'd argue that a "good faith" measure to work towards a fix or patch first before a refund for broken items would be a better choice.

Of course if the company is full of jerks who can't/won't fix the game in any reasonable amount of time, then cool. Refund it is!

What's 'messy' about the whole thing from a business standpoint is the somewhat arbitrary refund policies in place in the stores, where it seems dependent on which support person you speak to.

A refund shouldn't be seen as a seriously drastic, last resort option, and it shouldn't be seen as theft either. If a product doesn't work or stops working it is not fit for purpose, offering an immediate refund as an alternative to 'you could also wait for a patch' is fair, not just a vague promise to fix it. I would consider a 'reasonable' amount of time for an issue to be fixed (if a refund is to be not an option) to be the amount of time it takes a phone call, or a few days at best, which is completely unrealistic if what has stopped me playing is an problem that needs investigation and a patch issued to thousands of players. How is 'money changing hands' so complicated from a business standpoint that they are quick enough to take your money months in advance, but giving it back is such an ultimate, complex solution?

The creation of patches and fixes for major issues (like consistent crashes after a certain point) should be something done as a matter of course when selling software, not used to sit on money from requested refunds for games that have stopped working.

 

[Gamezone]

Says.... You?

You can't trust Sean Murray or Hello Games. I wouldn't be surprised if they wrap everything up.

 

[liquidtmd]

Huh? NMS isn't a "chill exploration game" at all, IMO. What's chill about "Life Support falling" ... "Radiation Protection low"... "No free slots in inventory"... every minute?

[/URL]

This truly was my biggest bug bear with the game actually before I traded it in for Doom and Ratchet and Clank.

If the first few hours had been some very chill exploration, with more of a tutorial and introduction / setup then for the survival elements to kick in once you hit the third or fourth planet, then I'd have been fine.

There was a specific video of Sean that I can't be bothered to get the link to where e said you didn't have to go mining - resource hunting and heck could just live in space if you wanted shooting down ships. I didn't want CONSTANT 'You are dying, you ship is broke - empty, you have no laser change' warnings every few minutes.

I played about six hours in total before that shit got tired real quick and equally I have no issue with games with grind usually.

 

[Jimrpg]

Wonder how many times this has been refunded for Steam to add this on the NMS Store page

So this is what radio silence buys.

Seriously though this is really good for the industry. Looks like Steam isn't going to put up with this bullshit from devs with half finished games and broken promises and standing up for consumers. That's great.

It's a shame it had to be NMS that was made an example of, because I think even many of the cynics wanted it to be good.

 

[LewieP]

So this is what radio silence buys.

Seriously though this is really good for the industry. Looks like Steam isn't going to put up with this bullshit from devs with half finished games and broken promises and standing up for consumers. That's great.

It's a shame it had to be NMS that was made an example of, because I think even many of the cynics wanted it to be good.

Not sure that's why the disclaimer is there.

Valve are saying that they haven't removed the 2 hour limit on this game, and that refunds after that window will be addressed on a case by case basis.

Seems like the intention is to counter reports suggesting that Valve have entirely lifted the limit on refunds.

 

[FloatingDivider]

Not sure that's why the disclaimer is there.

Valve are saying that they haven't removed the 2 hour limit on this game, and that refunds after that window will be addressed on a case by case basis.

Seems like the intention is to counter reports suggesting that Valve have entirely lifted the limit on refunds.

I hope it doesn't work. Hello games needs to be taken to task over this. This type of nonsense should be unacceptable in 2016. I've personally been maintaining a steady stream of refund requests while I wait for Valve's incredibly slow customer support ticketing system to work.

I hope the people in line ahead of me are arguing the case expertly so at some point this refund will just go through because it's ludicrous having to justify wanting a refund when the game has clearly been fundamentally misrepresented.

 

[exmachina64]

I imagine he just has the power to essentially be an idea guy at this point. And those are his ideas. Granted they're completely and utterly divorced from the reality of what they actually accomplished but delusions of grandeur are fairly common in idea guys. Or maybe it was just a straight up a get rich quick scheme. Hell it might be considering the store page still has footage that doesn't resemble the game we got at all more than 2 weeks post release. I don't honestly know how you can be that confused in reporting what your game actually is and which features are real.

.

So this is what radio silence buys.

Seriously though this is really good for the industry. Looks like Steam isn't going to put up with this bullshit from devs with half finished games and broken promises and standing up for consumers. That's great.

It's a shame it had to be NMS that was made an example of, because I think even many of the cynics wanted it to be good.

What are you celebrating? Nothing has happened.

 

[Shaneus]

What happened here is a lot of gamers who aren't interested in chill exploration games were convinced to buy-in. They have no one to blame but themselves. People who "thank god" or are "vindicated" that they didn't buy into a game that normally wouldn't like anyway is just meaningless tribalistic commentary.

The "dumb" gamers are the ones who saw a chill exploration game and thought OMG it's Destiny! (regardless of what the devs said - looks at the game with your goddamn eyeballs)
The smart gamers are the ones who saw a chill exploration game and thought - cool a chill exploration game. (That's me).
The gamers who saw a chill exploration game and thought - I don't like chill exploration games - those gamers are simply following their normal gaming consuming habits.

Yeah, I think it's a bit of people not getting what they were promised, but also not getting what they had built in their mind as what to expect *beyond* what was promised as if they would make them like the game (which they probably wouldn't). This obviously all hypothetical, but I think that even if the majority of things planned made it in the game, there'd still be people who fail to like the game for what it was. Except they'd just have nothing to blame it on except for their own misdirected enthusiasm.

I was under no illusions about the base game I was buying into. I was basically hoping for something like Proteus but with space exploration and resource gathering, and I'm happy with that. Everything else about how certain things aren't being generated as described etc. honestly don't bother me.

Edit: Like people have replied in this thread, I don't necessarily think "chill" is the right word, and maybe it was the framing in *my* mind that helped me think it wasn't going to be such an intense experience like others were looking for. But I think it's also worth keeping in mind that GAF and the internet in general is far from being an accurate cross-section of people buying this game. Pretty sure that for every person here who hates that the dev deliberately lied (or whatever) to "us" in pre-release interviews, there are hundreds of people that didn't even know developers even get interviewed before a game is released.

Still doesn't explain why the Steam page for NMS still has the old E3 trailer on it, that's just severely poor form.

 

[Movalpolos]

Can we just rename this thread to "Sean Murray Lied OT"?

 

[Deadbeat]

does IGN employ any computer scientists? there's your answer. If you don't think this reply makes any sense, you're not a computer scientist and don't understand it. simple enough?

Damn. I can't keep up with this thread anymore. The technical Mumbo jumbo is too much.

 

[Speely]

Can we just rename this thread to "Sean Murray Lied OT"?

Too many other NMS threads it would get confused with.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

Man Steam refunds in general just seem so wrongheaded to me. Games aren't a fucking blender that works or doesn't work. I wouldn't allow any refunds for any reason other than the equivalent of a defective disk, where the executable just refuses to even execute. You shouldn't be able to get your money back just because you didn't like a creative work. I'm sure it's horrible that this guy thought he was making a good game and you don't agree, or that those Mass Effect endings weren't as emotionally fulfilling as you wanted them to be, but if you can't see why refunds based on subjective feelings are a bad thing then you're being willfully shortsighted. And yes but he liiiiiied, and he totally didn't go back and review every single statement he made about his game for however many years it took to make it, and analyze each one for its accurateness prior to release, and issue a formal statement correcting any statements which were intended to be true at the time but no longer were as of the time of release, including whatever implications fans took and ran with on their messageboards and subreddits, but, well, tough.

You spend at least a portion of your free time talking about video games, including upcoming video games, because you like doing that.

If you want to have things to talk about, you need information from developers directly, rather than sanitized PR speak.

If you want developers to talk to you directly about the things they are doing, you need to keep in mind that everything they are saying is about a work in progress that may or may not be true as of the final release.

 

[gunslikewhoa]

If you want developers to talk to you directly about the things they are doing, you need to keep in mind that everything they are saying is about a work in progress that may or may not be true as of the final release.

If you're going to take the time to write all of that, at least take a few minutes to bring yourself up to speed on the topic at hand first.

You clearly didn't follow NMS very closely prior to launch. There's really no question as to whether or not they simply lied about their game. And this sarcastic "And yes but he liiiiiied" nonsense couple with a bunch of sarcasm about not reviewing statements from years ago? He lied this month.

 

[Speely]

Man Steam refunds in general just seem so wrongheaded to me. Games aren't a fucking blender that works or doesn't work. I wouldn't allow any refunds for any reason other than the equivalent of a defective disk, where the executable just refuses to even execute. You shouldn't be able to get your money back just because you didn't like a creative work. I'm sure it's horrible that this guy thought he was making a good game and you don't agree, or that those Mass Effect endings weren't as emotionally fulfilling as you wanted them to be, but if you can't see why refunds based on subjective feelings are a bad thing then you're being willfully shortsighted. And yes but he liiiiiied, and he totally didn't go back and review every single statement he made about his game for however many years it took to make it, and analyze each one for its accurateness prior to release, and issue a formal statement correcting any statements which were intended to be true at the time but no longer were as of the time of release, including whatever implications fans took and ran with on their messageboards and subreddits, but, well, tough.

You spend at least a portion of your free time talking about video games, including upcoming video games, because you like doing that.

If you want to have things to talk about, you need information from developers directly, rather than sanitized PR speak.

If you want developers to talk to you directly about the things they are doing, you need to keep in mind that everything they are saying is about a work in progress that may or may not be true as of the final release.

You tell em!!! Meanwhile they will be dealing with a game that was sold to them on deliberate lies.

 

[TheBryanJZX90]

You tell em!!! Meanwhile they will be dealing with a game that was sold to them on deliberate lies.

Yes, and EA was without a doubt the worst company on earth in 2012 because they released a game where the fans didn't like the endings much. This hysteria over No Man's Sky is the exact same kind of bullshit to me.