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Haha, that Mode 7 article references Aphex Twin's classic obstinate interview style. Good times.

 

I excuse Hello Games almost solely on the premise that I was always a Molyneux fan, I always sort of enjoyed Molyneux for dreaming too big. But I will agree it is not a great business or PR strategy. Like the Mode 7 article says, being specific about the limited scope about your project is crucial.

 

Recent interviews with Team Ico about "The Last Gaurdian" represent the sort of polar opposite of PR communication. They have distinctly stated they are not making an open world game, instead they are making a linear game with specific puzzle solutions. While this has an initial cooling effect, as if they are short-selling their game by not including trendy features; it also steels the focus of the game, they know what they are making and are clear to communicate that. 

 

I have this vague memory, that when Nintendo was working with Sony on what eventually became the Playstation, there was a interview in a gaming magazine, most likely Nintendo Power, where the "fly from the surface of one planet to another planet" exploration game design was described, as an example of something possible with 3D technology. That was what planted the seed of desire for the Norman's Sky-like game in my head. And Norman's Sky delivered on that premise, for me. 

 

I stopped playing Normans Sky though, because it crashes consistently on my PS4. I'll come back in a few patches, especially if there's a content update. I still never got a warp-drive upgrade capable of going to the weirder star systems.

 

I kept expecting The Witness style interaction pads to appear. Or even to just randomly land on an entirely The Witness themed planet.

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I think this thing with Murray highlights why so many game companies are tight lipped about their games, especially during development.  While I do think Murray bears some of the responsibility for the misunderstanding of the multiplayer, I think his big mistake was trying to answer questions like you would in a development meeting as opposed to a press facing thing.  Just like multiplayer games are designed around griefers and implemented around hackers, press releases tend to be geared around raising the ire of that particular subset of video game fandom that is absolutely ravenous.  Murray seems to have been stuck between a rock and a hard place, on one side being a small video game developer it would be almost irresponsible to try to diminish the hype about your game, and on the other side wanting people to see his game as a whole rather than it's component parts.

 

One thing I'd like to note is I have seen a number of people suggest things like the game might get synchronous multiplayer in the future, and... well no this is not going to happen.  I know nothing about Hello games, or their development process, but to implement that kind of multiplayer would essentially require them to make a whole other game.  Not to mention that kind of thing, with the number of players we're talking about, would require hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in server costs and an around the clock network admin team, and those people don't come cheap.

 

On the other hand, if they were even more open about what they were doing, we'd have seen the game in development and some idea about the contents before it went live. It feels like they hit upon the exact wrong amount of information to give, either less or more would have been better.

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Two things I discovered recently that helped me considerably:

 

1) There's a melee attack?! Not useful on its own, but you can use it while sprinting, and then immediately jump, to get a sweet speed boost. Really great once you have all three jetpack upgrades next to each other, you can get real far real fast while on "foot".

2) Creatures, if you like cataloguing them, are actually ordered in a specific way on the planet screen. I've only checked on five or so planets, but it's been consistently true. Order (of the list of checkboxes) is from left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and always goes: walking creatures, flying creatures, swimming creatures. It doesn't give you exact information, but it does give you a hint as to which creatures you're missing. (e.g., say you have a walking creature next to a ground creature in the list, you know everything above that walking creature is another walking creature, and everything below the flying creature is either flying or swimming).

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And then the next planet I catalogue disproves my theory...

 

Although it's MAYBE worth noting that the two walking creatures below the one flying creature, I found them underground in a cave system?

 

So if that's true...

 

on-ground

flying

swimming/underground (order unknown)

 

WHO KNOWS

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the melee attack is situationally useful early on because it can bust through (some of?) the locked outpost doors when all you have is the mining laser (which won't scratch them) and no bolter/grenade launcher thing. It's slow though so you're best off clearing out any sentinels around before you do it.

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Spore is on sale on Steam, so I went to take a look at how its overall review status is. I was surprised to see it was mostly positive, considering it's generally considered a notorious disappointment, one that many likened their experience of NMS to. Turns out loads of NMS haters have gone on and given Spore positive reviews because "it's better than No Man's Sky". Gamer petulance at its finest.

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Spore is on sale on Steam, so I went to take a look at how its overall review status is. I was surprised to see it was mostly positive, considering it's generally considered a notorious disappointment, one that many likened their experience of NMS to. Turns out loads of NMS haters have gone on and given Spore positive reviews because "it's better than No Man's Sky". Gamer petulance at its finest.

 

One of the PS4 PS+ free games for September is "Rebel Galaxy." The conspiracy theorist in me wrote a narrative where this game was chosen as consolatory damage control for NMS fallout. I played a few minutes of Rebel Galaxy, it was sort of cool, but I doubt I'll return to it.

 

I do admit I've been interested in Spore recently, not quite out of NMS spite, but out of enthusiasm for the genre. Also, Stellaris. 

 

Rob Zacny made a great point in the "Sci-Fi's Sky" Idle Weekend podcast, that space as a setting is never really utilized in its expansiveness. Instead, that expansiveness is a thematic background for what is often a smaller and controlled story. The "lore" in NMS even reflects this, the three primary alien races.

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i think it was ben talking about someone streaming subnautica and a buncha tools shouting "THIS IS WHAT NO MAN'S SKY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE" in the twitch chat

 

it's just silly

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"Dual Universe" Kickstarter videos launched today, and comments on related threads are generally portraying skepticism of the space genre. Nothing specific to NMS, just the space sim genre in general.

 

 

The ubiquity of this is skepticism is obnoxious, but acceptable, hopefully it will lead to better managed expectations. My main distaste is the tabloid amounts of shunning and shaming. Which I guess still has the air of consumer justice. It muddies future waters when every game is now compared to "the game NMS should have been."

 

As for Dual Universe itself, it some how looks more appealling than Space Engineers. I'm not sure why, I can't list the main differences in the two. Dual Universe has more in depth planet support, larger ship interiors? I've done no researched. But neither have butt-headed antelope, I'm pretty sure about that.

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Dual Universe has looked neat for a while, the tech seems solid and the ideas are fun enough, but yeah it's very much an open book right now. Could go anywhere.

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The ubiquity of this is skepticism is obnoxious, but acceptable, hopefully it will lead to better managed expectations. My main distaste is the tabloid amounts of shunning and shaming. Which I guess still has the air of consumer justice. It muddies future waters when every game is now compared to "the game NMS should have been."

 

Sadly, I don't think it's actually in response to adjusted expectations. I've seen this on 4chan and Reddit before: after a big scandal, "gamers" make a big show of not trusting anything remotely related to the subject of the scandal, explicitly to make developers feel afraid that they've poisoned the well and made all future games about whatever impossible. It's entirely a shaming/bullying tactic, as if Hello Games is reading the comments of every Greenlight and Kickstarter game on tenterhooks.

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Your assessment does sound more accurate, I was really stretching to give the benefit of the doubt

 

It's the sort of environment that lead to Phil Fish canceling Fez 2. Of course, Fish was fueling much of the controversy. It's just one of the go-to examples I can think of. 

 

 

I guess the other famous flubs of recent are AAA games hitting the water totally broken, like Assassin's Creed 3 and that Batman game.

 

I enjoyed Assassins Creed 3

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AND THAT'S MY CUE!

 

While it's technically inarguable that Phil Fish fueled the "controversy", it's also true that people took advantage of a man who obviously has legitimate anger management issues, and I do not like seeing any implication, accidental or otherwise, that he's at all to blame for being driven off the internet!!!

 

*breathes heavily*

 

With my new 1070, No Man's Sky now runs like a dream, even at 4x SSAA. Man it looks pretty. ("Pop-in" persists, unfortunately, but that's CPU stuff, so it's not surprising.)

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That's fair. I'm disappointed that I've fallen into the trap of blaming Fish. I really enjoyed Fez and was excited for the prospect of a Fez 2.

 

I should have more compassion for Fish's emotional issues, I suffer many myself, perhaps that's what makes me cringe seeing him poke the hornets nest over and over. I have a real mortal fear of "internet bullying" in this brave new world of ours.

 

But when I compare Fish's personality to Gareth Bourn's personality, I realize how irrelevant it actually is. Gareth Bourn is sort of the polar opposite of a Phil Fish, in terms of personality and communication style.

What similarity then was there between their public relations. They were both sort of indie flagship titles for their eras, and they were both had periods of console exclusivity. So they are small indie developers getting AAA attention, but without the AAA PR team.

 

This is probably well tread material

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In the comments for this article about some Obsidian artists making a Mos Eisley environment as a hobby, someone posted (I assume jokingly) in the comments, "Better than No Man's Sky!"

 

It got memeified already!

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Here's a really interesting video with thoughts about NMS, exploration, how it has too much game in it, etc.

 

 

It has spoilers, I'm thinking most of the people discussing it here will find it interesting.

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Ooh I'll definitely want to watch that later. I finally "finished" No Man's Sky (in that I completed the Atlas path, and also made it to the center*). I do for sure intend to go back eventually, but think I'm gonna wait until either the urge strikes or there's some content updates.

 

Honestly I'd keep exploring anyway but I do have other games I want to play. D:

 

*The thing that happens when you reach the center is simultaneously baffling, underwhelming, and super exciting to me, haha. It's definitely appropriate for what the game is, I think, but it's kinda like, "is that it" and also "oh man yes!" and also "what". Yep.

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Nah you just gotta go through a bunch of blackholes. It is rather tedious if your that's your explicit goal, but I just put on a podcast and let my mind wander for a bit. I was already kinda close anyway.

 

I named a system and two of its planets near the center. :D

 

I wanna go back and claim the rest of that system, but... D:

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Hoooly shit! The first update, the Foundations Update, is a doozy! I love everything in this video. Bases, Freighters, Terregen Algorithm Improvements, Graphical Improvements, STACKABLE ITEMS!, Normal/Survival/Creative modes! SO many good things.

 

 

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That update looks huge. Not surprised it took them this long to ship it, and it's certainly enough to push me to give it another try.

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