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[Greenbane]

I'm fairly sure the 60-dollar pricetag makes it the most expensive procedural-focused game to date, and I'm expecting nothing short of the best in that field.

Mainly meaning a very large materials base for the procedural generators to produce stuff with, preventing the experience from growing stale within the first 40 hours. You can have as many quintillion planets/animals/enemies/whatever as you want, but if their variation isn't sufficiently interesting for a long enough period of time, for all intents and purposes the exhorbitantly false figure isn't really far from a few dozen.

I can't help but be skeptical to some extent. On the one hand because they couldn't resist the urge to take the game to consoles as well, therefore hamstringing their procedural generation by putting a hard ceiling on what it can demand from hardware. On the other, the lack of building might hamper NMS' longevity, if all you do is otherwise explore, gather minerals, upgrade, move on to next planet, etc. There's a space side to it, I think, with missions and bounty hunting and maybe piracy. But not much is known about that.

Not much is known about many aspects, which I don't think is helping the game. It allows hype to grow unchecked, to potentially impossible levels as people fill the gaps with imagined perfection. And that can only lead to disappointment.

EDIT: I now realize I've said nothing new.

[Paul]

EDIT: I now realize I've said nothing new.

You didn't have a large enough materials base.

[Retropunch]

I'm fairly sure the 60-dollar pricetag makes it the most expensive procedural-focused game to date, and I'm expecting nothing short of the best in that field.

Mainly meaning a very large materials base for the procedural generators to produce stuff with, preventing the experience from growing stale within the first 40 hours. You can have as many quintillion planets/animals/enemies/whatever as you want, but if their variation isn't sufficiently interesting for a long enough period of time, for all intents and purposes the exhorbitantly false figure isn't really far from a few dozen.

I can't help but be skeptical to some extent. On the one hand because they couldn't resist the urge to take the game to consoles as well, therefore hamstringing their procedural generation by putting a hard ceiling on what it can demand from hardware. On the other, the lack of building might hamper NMS' longevity, if all you do is otherwise explore, gather minerals, upgrade, move on to next planet, etc. There's a space side to it, I think, with missions and bounty hunting and maybe piracy. But not much is known about that.

Not much is known about many aspects, which I don't think is helping the game. It allows hype to grow unchecked, to potentially impossible levels as people fill the gaps with imagined perfection. And that can only lead to disappointment.

EDIT: I now realize I've said nothing new.

Yeah, for that amount it has to be something awesome - although from the videos it looks incredible. It's all about interaction though - it can look as pretty as it wants, but if there's no interaction with the world then it'll grow stale quickly.

I mainly worry about missions/sidequests. They haven't gone into that in detail - and I rather feel that they would have done if they had something exciting or new - instead I imagine it'll be fetch quests and kill x number of y, which will get boring very, very fast. Building isn't a big thing for me, and I imagine there are much better games for that (as this seems to be about hopping from planet to planet) but I think they need something pretty hefty to keep interest

My hope is that they've got a few aces up their sleeves that'll keep us interested. Some riddles or galaxy wide (well, part of a galaxy) quests would help a lot. Hopefully they'll be able to do some big content patches to add to it and keep it fresh as well.

[Shadowlord]

I'm fairly sure the 60-dollar pricetag makes it the most expensive procedural-focused game to date, and I'm expecting nothing short of the best in that field.

Yeah, for that amount it has to be something awesome

Spore was $60 too, iirc... #imjustsaying

[Beggars` Sect]

This is one of these threads that keeps me checking that I`m really on Dwarf Fortress forums :P

I just don`t understand that "need" for standard RPG gameplay staples like quests, bosses or one big overarching endgame target.
What happened to roguelike style, where retrieving the McRodney isn`t really that important since it`s all about the gameplay and enjoying the starting over and over, seeing how far/close you get this time and generally living in that world.

It`s the first time in ages -maybe ever -we have a chance at an AAA game attempting this and yet everybody wants a Mass Effect.

I mean, there`s not anything particularly wrong with aforementioned tropes, but they should be a secondary target. For NMS,  think Prospector, only with high production values.

The way people here are primed, this game will in no way please anybody - it`s just impossible to avoid repetition when you procedurally generate a galaxy. This is why ASCII wins in a situation like this since it lets your imagination fill for the gfx, but maybe we should cut these devs some slack and just take this fact on board. So far it really doesn`t look like a lazy attempt with few models and textures mixed up together.

[Chiefwaffles]

...but people are talking about the gameplay?

And repetition is very possible with procedural generation. Extremely possible. Possibly more so than a handmade map. (which would be practically impossible)

[Beggars` Sect]

And repetition is very possible with procedural generation. Extremely possible. Possibly more so than a handmade map.

it`s just impossible to avoid repetition when you procedurally generate a galaxy.

Chief Obvious? (sorry :) Yes, sir, repetition is an intrinsic quality of procedural generation. Now that we`ve established that, can we move on to the real point of my post, which is that you either learn to live with that fact, or you play non-procedural games.

[GrayFox]

I don't really understand the weird thoughts that there's no gameplay.   

You can discover new species of plants and animals. You can discover alien buildings and ancient monoliths. Resources can be found on planet surfaces. There will be enemies to fight. I think you can raid small enemy outposts for resources and such? There will be oceans and caves to explore. If you want, you can take pretty screenshots of the scenery. So, things to do, right there!  That doesn't even include things we haven't been told yet, plenty of space activities, nor things that may be added in updates!

As for worries about variation, I don't think I've seen this problem in the videos, although there are bound to be some similar things here and there.

[Chiefwaffles]

Oh, sorry. Misread the repetition part as meaning the opposite of what you actually said.

[Retropunch]

I completely agree that there will be stuff to do, it's just that a walking simulator probably wouldn't fulfill people/me for that long.

Take Ultima Ratio Regum (there's a forum page on it if you're not familiar - definitely check it out), it has really, really awesome world generation and so much to see. It's arguably a lot more detailed than NMS as it has religions and histories built in, as well as all the buildings and so on. Yet even at it's best, I don't think I could play it for more than 3-4 hours without getting bored unless there was something structured to do.

It's the 'something structured to do' bit that I'm worried about - I'm really hoping they don't do average RPG tropes, but the whole exploration thing needs to feel fulfilling with some actual goals to it, otherwise it'll only really entertain for as long as the pretty graphics keep me hooked. That's why people are discussing this so much on a DF forum - there is a worry that the pretty graphics are covering for a pretty shallow procgen game.

[GrayFox]

If I were a big gambler, I'd be willing to bet that there are quite a few more things to discover than what they've told us so far. Plus, this game has just about everything I wanted from an exploration game after playing Noctis IV, and then some.  I don't want to let my imagination run too wild, but I think they've been keeping some real gems secret so far.

Yes. They could surprise me and totally mess up this game. Anything is possible, but I highly doubt it. They seem to have too much passion for this project to let that happen.

[Beggars` Sect]

It's the 'something structured to do' bit that I'm worried about - I'm really hoping they don't do average RPG tropes, but the whole exploration thing needs to feel fulfilling with some actual goals to it, otherwise it'll only really entertain for as long as the pretty graphics keep me hooked. That's why people are discussing this so much on a DF forum - there is a worry that the pretty graphics are covering for a pretty shallow procgen game.

That`s a reasonable approach, however it differs from general tone of comments I see here and mostly elsewhere. Bit upstream there`s a poster complaining about procedural stuff in the DF itself. People are just scared of it and while it`s sort of understandable in the overworld, on these pages it`s just bizarre  (though it might betray a situation where some people play DF because it`s a trendy thing to do, but in fact don`t really enjoy it.)

From the recent articles we know there`s a heap of gameplay systems in NMS, not just "exploration". Yeah, you need to explore but it makes sense because you need to find resources to survive and upgrade - in order to explore more. In between you have trade, alien factions/languages, police and am sure plenty of other stuff to do, most likely quests of some sorts - I`m hoping these would be procedural too.

In fact my only worry is that there won`t be enough randomness in the game and it will be some sort of gimped hybrid. For me in order to enjoy it it would have to be more of a freefrom game than your standard AAA fare with just procedural galaxy. It`s not enough, as seen in countless roguelites.

URR could be a similar example, because up to some point there was no word on gameplay, and "worrying" lack of combat. But then we learned it will be actually a giant puzzle/investigative game, where all the details matter. And that`s good enough for me, same with NMS. Of course both games can still be flops because their systems won`t gel, but I sincerely hope it`s not the case.

[LoSboccacc]

though it might betray a situation where some people play DF because it`s a trendy thing to do, but in fact don`t really enjoy it.)

I'd say it's more likely that this forum attracts non df players because the discussions here are largely insightful and trollfree when compared to other gamers communityes

[MaximumZero]

PTW. Super hype for No Man's Sky.

[cango]

you shouldn't pay for a game that you haven't seen or played before