No Man's Sky

[Dramadon]

Technically it's an MMO but since the chances of you actually meeting anyone in game are very small, at least until the end of the game perhaps, I'll put it here.

So far, it's actually a bit like I expected. You are thrown onto a planet somewhere and you have to figure out what to do. I started off on a Toxic planet so not only did I have to figure out how to repair my ship I had to do it while not dieing from being out walking around. It took a bit, but eventually I figured it out. I will say, that was a surprising amount of fun. More than I expected it to be, really. Where I thought running around documenting living things and changing the names of stuff to "penis" something would be the highlight, I'm actually having more fun trying to upgrade my ship and equipment.

Anyway, I just got my ship ready to leave the system so we'll see how it goes from there. For those of you who like sandbox/survival games this one is probably right up your alley.

[Mileron]

Technically it's an MMO but since the chances of you actually meeting anyone in game are very small, at least until the end of the game perhaps, I'll put it here.

It's kind of not an MMO. It's a single player online game.

Sure, all PS4 players share a server, and all PC players share a server.
And a player on PC discovering a planet/naming the planet/its creatures/etc will be shared with everyone else on that server.
But though you may eventually meet someone in-game, there's no interaction whatsoever between you.
Reddit thread about it

Maybe it's a MOSP.
Massive Online Single Player.

Screenshots requested. Please use the PS4 screenshot tool.

[Ackar]

Jim Sterling did a good video on it.

[Ackar]

People are already finishing the game...

[Wool]

Of course they are. The things you have to do to make a game binge proof don't make them particularly fun for people who want to play them normally. Rushing to "the end" of a casual exploration game is missing the point. People should learn to keep their hype under control.

[Dramadon]

Well they said it would only take about 20-40 hours to finish the game if that's what you set out to do. That generally means the game gets finished within the first day.

[Ackar]

I've seen a streamer leave a planet's surface only to be scanned by pirates and killed.

[Mileron]

I don't understand - why are so many streamers making jokes about naming planets Harambe or some variation thereof?

[Wool]

Recent internet meme. There was a story about a gorilla that was killed in a zoo as a precaution when a child fell into their enclosure. It blew up in the news cycle and took over social media for awhile, and now the internet makes jokes about honoring Harambe. As all internet memes tend to be, it is just as overblown as the event they are mocking.

[Dramadon]

I've seen a streamer leave a planet's surface only to be scanned by pirates and killed.

I wasn't streaming but this happened to me. My ship sucks so I had no chance against them.

[Mileron]

Went live this afternoon at 1pm EST.
Download for PC is under 3GB.
My brother says he's getting intermittent crashing and bizarre framerate drops.
This is corroborated by a pretty hefty Reddit thread.
I won't be home for another 3 hours so cannot comment.
Instead, I'm semi-torturing myself watching Lets' Plays and seeing how stupid some of these people are.

[Ackar]

There have been two patches since it went live. So there may be more by the time you get to play it.

[Mileron]

My i7-940 with a GTX750Ti runs it better than a lot of posts led me to believe.

I spent the first three hours that I've played so far on the same planet, just exploring. Ended up getting a ship upgrade for free from a second crashed ship on the planet.
Also jumped from a 5-slot multi-tool to an 8-slot with an alien interaction.

I get very intermittent stuttering (maybe every 15 minutes) but it runs well.

[Mileron]

Here's my new ship:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=743068436

Apparently I'm a dating service now:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=743068422

Fixing FPS problems on PC:

Go to : C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\No Man's Sky\Binaries\SETTINGS
Then find the file "TKGRAPHICSSETTINGS.MXML" and open it in notepad.
You will then find the "GSync" option. It's "true" by default, change it to "false".

Also:

Press Esc key to access the menus
Click on the Graphics tab in the upper right
Go to the Window Mode in the upper left
Click and hold on the arrow on either side to change it
Select "Borderless"
In the lower right, change Max FPS to 90. Several commenters are saying that the 60 FPS setting is not high enough
Click and hold on the Apply button in the bottom right corner
Restart the game for the changes to take affect (To exit the game, click on the Options tab and click and hold on Quit to Desktop in the lower right)

[Nerkahia]

Here's my new ship:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=743068436

Looks a little like Serenity.

[Melcar]

So...


Is it fun?

[Ackar]

It's like vanilla minecraft without the base building feature. But they say they will add some form of base building in the future.

You mainly harvest harvestables to upgrade your gear/ship, and you upgrade your gear/ship to be able to harvest more stuff.

Many streamers have called it more of a tech demo than a finished game. But if they flesh it out more, or let modders flesh it out it would be a lot better.

[Mileron]

That's a good example, Ackar.

Also: Starbound without building or metroidvania action.

Right now, it's just lots and lots of harvesting to upgrade suit/ship/gun.

There are so many features missing that would make it a more enjoyable game, such as it is.
Mapping, for instance.
Setting waypoints.
Being able to easily return to previous systems, using either of the above, or even a bookmarking feature.

My own experiences have been relatively positive in the exploration department - only one crash (FPS dropped from 45 to 2 and I couldn't do anything until I actually pulled the plug from my PC).
I've moved up to around 22 slots on my Exosuit.
I picked up a 14 slot Multi-tool (mining tool/weapon combo unit).
My ship is currently an 18 slot ship, thanks to a couple crashed upgrades giving me +1 slot each.
I've got a bit over a million units (credits/money) banked, hoping to be able to afford a 25-ish slot ship. This was because one of the planets in my first system was loaded with huge emeril deposits (a highly valued resource). I should have spent more time there; in fact I'll probably end up going back.
It's a very pretty game and thus far I'm enjoying the exploration. I even finished cataloguing the fauna on one planet which made for a nice little bankroll boost too.

The bad-ish
I spent over an hour on an ocean planet where every beacon (quest waypoint, basically) would point me into the middle of the ocean and nothing at all would appear. It would count the mission as completed/destination reached, but I didn't actually... get... anything.
I found a crashed ship last night... that was floating 30 seconds away from the crash waypoint, high above a mountain. It was hard to get to - but it was a downgrade from my existing ship, so I didn't swap. (Actually, the last four crashed ships I've found have been that way.)

I wish there were... more. Sure, you can "game" the economy in several ways (there's actually a number of posts on Reddit about it) in order to be able to better carry stuff and upgrade your Multi-tool and ship but the bigger they get, the more resources they need to support, so... yeah, it's an endless grindy cycle.
And if they do in fact implement building bases, there's going to have to be more extensive crafting, which means all of the above things (regarding mapping et al), or a more player-driven economy will be necessary (because right now it's really difficult to backtrack if you've gone more than a few systems away from where you want to go back to.)

[Wool]

So, there's one thing I'm curious about: how many things do you discover and name yourself, versus finding things that other people have discovered and named? Is exploration significant, or are you going through the motions?

I never expected there to be much game here, but the galaxy balance seems like something that would be hard to get right in order to cultivate the right feeling, and dev time spent trying to justify its existence with game-like elements might actually detract from the exploration theme. The fact there is a quest marker system that sends you straight to the "end" really surprises me. It makes me think pressure was put on them to make a game that people who play games would understand, instead of the very casual experience I thought it would be from the beginning.

Heck, they never should have even stated in interviews that getting to the center was a goal at all, just let people dink around and a year later a news story pops up about some amazing player who got to the center, and suddenly a lot more people are playing again.

[Dramadon]

I doubt anyone ever comes to the planets I've visited to see the names I've given them. Honestly, I generally don't name anything because I've run out of ideas.