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Can 'No Man's Sky' Redeem Itself With Its Third Free Update? (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Engadget's new article on No Man's Sky:
Developer Hello Games has gone some way to giving the people what they've wanted Friday with the third major update since the title's launch. "Atlas Rises" (aka update 1.3) adds the beginnings of real-time multiplayer to the space exploration game, though admittedly, "interaction with others is currently very limited." Thanks to the update, up to 16 players can now exist together in the same space. Fellow pilots will appear as floating blue orbs moving about the terrain, and proximity-based voice chat will allow players to plan their next jump together. That's pretty much it, but Hello Games calls it "an important first step into the world of synchronous co-op in No Man's Sky."
Meeting up with other explorers should be a bit easier with the new portal system, which allows players to travel between planets instantly, including to random worlds. Taking a leaf out of Stargate lore, activating a sequence of glyphs on portals can designate specific exit points. Hello Games hopes the community will band together to create something of a database of glyph sequences... There's 30 hours of new storyline gameplay and a new mission system that lets you pick up all kinds of different odd jobs from a forever-updating list. Star systems now are now graded with "wealth, economy and conflict levels," giving you more information on desirable destinations (depending on what you're after). There's a new class of ships, new exotic planet types and a new "interdimensional race" to contend with. Terrain editing is now possible provided you have the appropriate Multi-Tool enhancement, and crashed freighters on the surface of planets serve as new scavenging hotspots... to its credit, Hello Games continues to push massive, free updates for the title, such that the game is now very different to what it was initially.
The game has been heavily discounted to promote the update, and Saturday it became Amazon's #12 best-selling PS4 game -- and one of Steam's top 100 most-played games.
Meeting up with other explorers should be a bit easier with the new portal system, which allows players to travel between planets instantly, including to random worlds. Taking a leaf out of Stargate lore, activating a sequence of glyphs on portals can designate specific exit points. Hello Games hopes the community will band together to create something of a database of glyph sequences... There's 30 hours of new storyline gameplay and a new mission system that lets you pick up all kinds of different odd jobs from a forever-updating list. Star systems now are now graded with "wealth, economy and conflict levels," giving you more information on desirable destinations (depending on what you're after). There's a new class of ships, new exotic planet types and a new "interdimensional race" to contend with. Terrain editing is now possible provided you have the appropriate Multi-Tool enhancement, and crashed freighters on the surface of planets serve as new scavenging hotspots... to its credit, Hello Games continues to push massive, free updates for the title, such that the game is now very different to what it was initially.
The game has been heavily discounted to promote the update, and Saturday it became Amazon's #12 best-selling PS4 game -- and one of Steam's top 100 most-played games.
That's probably about where it belongs. It was never a $60 game. Still, game is basically dead after all the shit that's happened.
The kind of thought that needs to connect the word 'free' to the word 'update' is so damaged by the current gaming environment that any logical output will be at best a matter of chance, akin a monkey randomly typing a copy of Shakespeare.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Why is it that every update No Mans Sky releases listed as a "Free update?" This seems to be insinuating that at some point they will charge for their bug fixes / patches? I'm glad they are adding new features and items to the game to get it closer to what they hyped to be, but they got a lot of gull acting like they could sell these patches.
I'll admit I just bought the game because it finally went on sale on Steam, as I wasn't going to pay $60 for it, but $20 was fine. Its fun, but it has a limited shelf life. I dont see myself playing it for a real long time. I sure wouldn't buy DLC or patches for it, nor would I pay $60 for it.
Did it deserve the negative hype it got, probably not. However I went into it already knowing what it was, and didn't expect anymore than a space exploration game.
The thing of this slashdot topic is, Hello Games, a development house of around 10 persons, is putting a lot of effort in extending the game. I wonder if that is a fool's errand. People that were disappointed with the game will not be launching the game again (some have traded the disc already), so the question is if it is worth anybody's time to ask the few people that enjoyed the game to play it again. In my capitalist point of view, it does not make any sense if you want profit. So, they are trying to rebuild their reputation. Good luck with that.
For new players, sure? It's finally delivering most of what was advertised.
For the fans who bought this early on and were probably the most enthused about the game? I imagine there's pretty much no redemption route for them.
It's less redemption and more disaster mitigation at this point...
For all the, admitted well deserved, hate everyone is laying at the feet of this game at least the developer didn't just abandon it. Many gaming studies gladly cut their losses well beyond this point. But yet the developer keeps doing their best to work on the game. And that's enough to drop the $24 on a copy of it on GOG and try it out.
Direct link
DRM-free as always. Just downloaded from there and looking forward to trying it.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
I know a lot of people have already checked out because they didn't like being sold a bill of goods. I totally understand those people. But for the rest of us who just want good games to play and don't care about the release-time controversy, it's looks like there's a better future coming. Hello Games has now added three major elements that were never announced or even hinted at prior to the original release: Land vehicles, base building, and now terraforming. Were these planned all along? Maybe, maybe not, but it's clear that more content and features will continue to be released.
For all we know, NMS will become a continually-evolving game like Eve Online, Elite: Dangerous, or even Starbound.
Or, you know.... We still play it. It's a great game and it always was.
Now with over 80% of the content we promised at launch...
Fuck PvP, go play Unreal/Quake/etc if you want that kind of shit.
#DeleteFacebook
In fact this latest update has made the game even worse. I was starting to get to get into the exploration with the addition of the foundation and pathfinder updates, but Atlas Rising introduces instability (as in the game crashes a lot more), severely reduced performance (as if it wasn't bad enough already) and they have reset the entire universe _again_ (spend many hours finding that perfect planet, completing the base missions and building a nice base? well too fucking bad because it's all been changed up and wiped out.)
And what did they add? Some more text and redundant missions to over-explain all of the details to the less mentally capable. I thought the story they had for Atlas, Polo and Nada was just fine as it was and it left you with a lot to think about, not only in the game but existentially. Now they feel the need to spell everything out and beat you over the head with it.
They also supposedly improved the graphics, but I haven't seen any sign of that. So far stuff either looks the same, a bit worse or absolutely ridiculous (see neon-glow techno planets). This was something that nobody asked for and did nothing but make the game run like shit...I mean even more than it already did.
They added a clunky portal system (on top of the previous teleportation system) that lets you jump to random points in the galaxy if you know a specific code to enter into alien rotary telephone dials. As far as I know, it only works for destinations within the galaxy you are currently in, so no back-tracking to Euclid for example.
Oh and they added "multi-player". If you happen to run into up to a whopping 16 other players, you will see a floating ball of light which you can't interact with in any way other than talking to them. Terraforming, planetary deformation, building bases, combat, etc. cannot be seen by or joined in on by other players in realtime.
There is still no way to move your base, a ton of materials have been made obsolete, all base personnel must be recruited again, the galaxy is still not seamlessly open and free roam (something Elite and Elite II did decades ago on a single floppy disk), there are still no planets of different sizes or composition (ie. gas giants, ice giants, brown dwarfs), every star system still has a starbase present and every planet still has pre-existing buildings on them.
Some of the diehard shills will tell you to just start the whole game over, but fuck that. I've already put in hundreds of hours getting and building all of my stuff. There is no way I'm going to repeat all of that to end up with gear that isn't as good as what I've already got.
Go and play "The Ur-Quan Masters" (a.k.a Star Control 2). http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ . Go, now!
Or, the high definition remake: https://sourceforge.net/projec... .
Why are you still reading this, and not downloading?!
It certainly lessens the impact of the AC's statement, though. Never mind the hyperbole.
Yep, Hello Games lied about some stuff. At the time, they didn't believe it was a lie. Yet, as development progressed, it became one. This is why one should always wait until a game is released before judging whether to purchase it, and not base their decision on pre-alpha comments. That is why people have to share some blame for their disappointment, instead of painting HG as the bane of humanity. Do I have to mention, again, that I believe HG are also to blame?
And in the end, I still enjoyed the game. ;)