6 ms·
World without end
- Mithaldu 11y agoGames like these come from amazingly humble beginnings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDNMTnXoG9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDNMTnXoG9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTJFChB5wyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTJFChB5wyY
- zxyzzxxx 11y agoThanks for that. There should be more games like this. The technology obviously isn't the limitation here.
- protonpopsicle 11y agoyes thank you. don't want this history to disappear.
- testguy34 11y agoThe hype around this game reminds me of the hype around Spore a decade ago (it didn't live up to it).
- nyolfen 11y agotake a look at starbound if you want to see how boring infinite procedural space sims can be, and that game has multiplayer
- zxyzzxxx 11y agoSurprisingly it is very similar to Minecraft, even more advanced in some areas, for example more diverse lifeforms and gear. I think Minecraft is more interesting simply because it is in 3D and you can actually build real things in it, in contrast to 2D where you only get to do cross-sections. I wonder if you could make a 2D procedurally-generated exploration game interesting.
- vinceguidry 11y agoTerraria is a much better game than Starbound, the platforming is better done, the design is tighter, the bosses way more interesting. But it's still a pale imitation of Minecraft. Ultimately Minecraft does more by doing less. The art and design are more interesting because they're cute and different. The roughness becomes part of the charm. Notch understood keenly that mechanics are way more important than polish. Minecraft has a tighter focus, it doesn't waste developer time doing stupid shit for stupid reasons. So much crap that went into Starbound I could really just do without. The procedurally generated worlds, who really cares about the zillions of worlds you can explore, after you've visited five or so, you've seen them all. A lot of design effort went into making a stupid thing look and feel good. It's like they went and built an MVP by throwing shit against the wall. You're just wasting your potential audience's time by not doing basic research. I see a ton of games like this, crap that might be good in the future, but I don't want to tough it out because the game isn't fun to play now. Now, Starbound in all likelihood still made a shitload of money, goes to show you how much opportunity is still there in video games, but the free lunch is going to end at some point.
- Animats 11y agoNo Man's Sky doesn't let you build much, if anything. This isn't Minecraft. Or Civilization. The worlds are not just procedurally generated on first visit, they're procedurally regenerated on every visit, says "How does No Man's Sky Actually Work"[1] You apparently can't affect the worlds much, if at all. The interactive elements are mostly in space, from the trailers. Planets are basically backgrounds. [1] http://www.gamespot.com/videos/reality-check-how-does-no-mans-sky-actually-work/2300-6420148/ http://www.gamespot.com/videos/reality-check-how-does-no-man...
- jessaustin 11y agoSeems like this one is multiplayer as well? They said we'll all start on a different planet and then meet in the center of the universe.
- pachydermic 11y agoEveryone's world is generated from the same random seed (so everyone's galaxy is identical) and you'll be able to see who discovered certain places first. However, there is no simultaneous multiplayer. You won't see other players running around your world.
- ionwake 11y agoExactly. How would interactions between animals occur across multiple players instances if they are relying on seed based synchronicity?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- crimsonalucard 11y agoThe trailer implies that these games offer worlds of boundless possibility, what it really is, is worlds with a bunch of generated primitives and sliders to change some numerical parameter. It's not that the trailers for these games lie, it's just we subconsciously expected more. To achieve what we expect, the programmer needs to implement features that allow emergent gameplay and unpredictable situations to arise alongside procedurally generated settings. There are few single player games that actually pull this off. Dwarf Fortress, ARMA, and GTA V to name a few.
- Roritharr 11y agoThat makes me curious, what part of GTA V would you consider emergent gameplay?
- crimsonalucard 11y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krvSnHfOOVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krvSnHfOOVM
- undertow 11y agoYeah, sort of like those "32 in 1" and "112 tele-games" Atari cartridges, where each "game" was a permutation on the number of players, how the players were organized into "teams" combined with difficulty levels, or some such modifier. In reality, it was just the same game, and maybe you passed the controller around differently.
- pluma 11y agoOr the cheap "pop station" handhelds that blatantly give you multiple copies of the same game, just with different "sprites": snowboarding, skiing, motorcycle racing, car racing, bike racing, etc all effectively identical.
- socceroos 11y agoAh, Dwarf Fortress - the very definition of over-delivering on emergent gameplay.
- Red_Tarsius 11y ago> it didn't live up to it Why? It was a very fun game and the narrative arch was a work of beauty. The creature editor and Sporepedia granted unlimited possibilities. My real guess is that entitled players were simply out of touch with the industry capabilities.
- Cthulhu_ 11y agoThe tl;dr summary in some reviews was that it's five games in one, but each one lacks depth and possibilities and the endgame / last stage is kinda repetitive.
- Vaskivo 11y agoI'm gonna answer with a comment I made here some time ago: "Spore was a disappointment by design. Will Wright prefered "The Sim's sales than Half Life's scores"[1]. They catered to the Sim's public. That's why you have a "design everything" feature. And mechanics so simple. I remember sprinting through the game, realizing the phases had really simple and boring mechanics, and designing all stuff in less than a minute. When I finally reached the space phase it got a little meatier, but no enough to cater my interest for long. And It had severe interaction problems (I have an interstellar empire, but I have to navigate to each planet to collect its manufactured resources? Come on!) It was a game with a premise for the hardcore strategy/sim fans that was made to be like the Sims. Biggest disapointment in gaming ever!" [1] http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/09/08/wil-wright-pr.. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2008/09/08/wil-wright-pr....
- starshadowx2 11y agoI still haven't seen any comparisons of this game with Mirrormoon EP, which seems a lot alike to me. You could fly through space to any of the stars you see, it was procedurally generated planets, bright artistic colour design choices, etc. The only thing that seems different is the much more content and actual realism in No Man's Sky.
- jpatokal 11y agoThe trailer, which the New Yorker is too old school to link to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gQi2bv1DHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gQi2bv1DHg
- figure8 11y agoThey do have video commentaries which are generally great: http://video.newyorker.com/watch/commentary-the-universe-of-no-man-s-sky http://video.newyorker.com/watch/commentary-the-universe-of-...
- smegel 11y ago> using money he raised by selling his home Holy cow, that's a brave move!
- putlake 11y agoThere are theories that our own universe is more likely to be a simulation than "real". e.g. http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html
- lovemenot 11y ago>> Murray’s primary coding contribution is to planetary terrain, and he had developed a special appreciation for such formations. So Slartibartfast then: "[Norway] was one of mine. Won an award, you know. Lovely crinkly edges."
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bane 11y agoI always feel like games like this die in the late-game. Once you've had fun with the exploring and are collecting resource units for the nth millionth time, the game kind of runs its course. It would be far more interesting if, as you play, you can participate in a large economy, slowly growing your gameplay experience out from say, a single guy mining and selling minerals on a planet, to an galactic empire. Even better if you could participate at just about any part of the virtual economy, buying, selling, crafting, shipping, policing, fighting, robbing, pirating. You could own a store on a space station or a repair shop, make enough and buy a ship, or buy a station. Now you're managing station ops. Exploration is just one of the X's in 4x, and I feel like there's so much untapped potential in the genre.
- Untit1ed 11y agoSounds a lot like the X series, you should look into it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_%28game_series%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_%28game_series%29
- kbutler 11y agoSounds like Eve Online meets your wishlist...
- Cthulhu_ 11y agoExactly like Eve, yeah - the sheer scale and possibilities of that game are unprecedented.
- socceroos 11y agoThe most hotly-anticipated PC release early next year - coined as a First Person Universe: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/ Edit: the other suggestions below offer about a 10th of the admittedly promised gameplay and breadth of Star Citizen.
- wodzu 11y agoThe most anticipated PC release is already here: Elite Dangerous: https://www.elitedangerous.com/ https://www.elitedangerous.com/ Edit: Disclosure - I am not playing it anymore, although I did disappear to reality for few months.
- aluhut 11y agoI wish he could join this up with Elite Dangerous. Elites space environment is pretty impressive and if it needs something, then a proper surface-dimension.
- GaiusCoffee 11y ago“So, annoyingly, by doing it wrong you get a nicer effect,” Realism vs Cinematics :/
- spectrum1234 11y agoAmazing. This will be the first video game that I've played in a long time.
- spectrum1234 11y agoTHIS GAME IS GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD
- hyperpallium 11y agoThe strength of this is its weakness: because the worlds are generated procedurally, they cannot contain dependencies between the elements of the world, unless they have been specified in the formula. The article gives a good example, of how a river can't emerge from the slopes of the terrain - instead, you have to encode the river as part of the terrain. It's not emergent. It's analytical, not numerical. They can still have a sophisticated generation method, which does encode several different features, that can co-occur in unexpected ways, but it can't be a deep interaction. In effect, the designers are exploring the space of equations for world generation. The advantage is they can have billions of planets without storing them or expensively generating them. Analytical solutions are extraordinarily efficient - it's just a formula, you punch in the seed and you're done. No iteration or search. In the videos I've seen, the planets all look alike, just different shapes and colours for trees, grass, terrain. Still, I admire their dream and fervor and hope it's more interesting than I expect.