No Man's Sky

[Reemul]

ASA says Hello Games did not mislead buyers.

It seemed odd to me that the ASA were apparently so heavily influenced by video footage provided by Hello Games. Not that they've got time to actually play a procedurally generated game for endless hours. Anyway, it's an interesting read.

They did actually play it for 4 hours as well as using footage available freely on youtube. unsure what the issue with that is tbh.

You make it sound like it was all from HG which it clearly wasn't. damned if they do and damned if they don't I suppose.

[GreenGoo]

Given that I'm capable of forming my own opinion, and only relying on an official body to determine the legalities of the situation, it's very clear to me that they mislead repeatedly. Perhaps they are not liable legally, but ethically they overstepped what I find acceptable as far as truth in advertising goes.

I'm sure HG feels vindicated, or at least relieved that this won't lead to additional legal problems.

It doesn't change my opinion even slightly, however. I find my own judgement is best when determining if I've been mislead or not. You (the global you) might feel better having someone else make that determination for you.

[Reemul]

Given that I'm capable of forming my own opinion, and only relying on an official body to determine the legalities of the situation, it's very clear to me that they mislead repeatedly. Perhaps they are not liable legally, but ethically they overstepped what I find acceptable as far as truth in advertising goes.

I'm sure HG feels vindicated, or at least relieved that this won't lead to additional legal problems.

It doesn't change my opinion even slightly, however. I find my own judgement is best when determining if I've been mislead or not. You (the global you) might feel better having someone else make that determination for you.

You are of course correct, you can and should have your own opinion, it's always important to remember an opinion is just that rather than a fact.

My dad always said opinion's are like assholes, everyone has one, never really sure what his context or meaning was though....

[Paingod]

My dad always said opinion's are like assholes, everyone has one, never really sure what his context or meaning was though....

Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and they all stink and/or no one wants to hear it.

[GreenGoo]

Does it really matter to HG if it's opinion or fact or my asshole if I ask for my money back and get it? I mean, losing a sale is losing a sale. Given the sheer number of complaints, I'm guessing my asshole is not the outlier you're implying.

[Giles Habibula]

You make it sound like it was all from HG which it clearly wasn't.

You are correct. I worded that very badly.
I was basing my comment on my reaction to seeing frequent references in the ruling to video footage supplied by Hello Games, but seeing very little mention of actual gameplay.

But yeah, in a game like this, I don't know how else they could have done it.

[Scoop20906]

OMG! Survival mode is the worst. At the start of the game I just an hour just trying to get my ship only 15 minutes away. Not so simple since I had to constantly scrounge for minerals to charge my life support and find caves where my environmental shield to recharge. It was a battle and I enjoyed myself until I finally reached my ship. SUCCESS!

But now I need to scrounge for minerals to repair the ship and guess what? The minerals I need are no where to be found and to just venture out of my crater I need to constantly look for minerals to recharge my life support.

I can't even imagine trying to finish the game this way. Still it was interesting for a while and I'm glad to created this mode.

So, I went back to normal mode and I like the improvements but still almost instantly got bored. Maybe next update ...

[rshetts2]

So, I went back to normal mode and I like the improvements but still almost instantly got bored. Maybe next update ...

Yeah, thats kind of how I felt. They have placed the foundation for a more robust experience but it needs to be fleshed out substantially before it will really change the feel of how the game plays.

[Blackhawk]

Here's a question, then: I haven't picked up No Man's Sky yet. It has been on my short list for a while, though. I'm someone who loves exploration games (from Skyrim to Subnautica to Minecraft) just for the exploration and development experience. Should I get it now (during the Christmas sale), or should I wait until, say, the Summer sale?

I have saved up a little money, probably enough to get myself one on-sale game (and this was ~$35 during the Thanksgiving sale.)

[Grifman]

Here's a question, then: I haven't picked up No Man's Sky yet. It has been on my short list for a while, though. I'm someone who loves exploration games (from Skyrim to Subnautica to Minecraft) just for the exploration and development experience. Should I get it now (during the Christmas sale), or should I wait until, say, the Summer sale?

I have saved up a little money, probably enough to get myself one on-sale game (and this was ~$35 during the Thanksgiving sale.)

Just my opinion from someone who has watched a fair amount of game play and has followed the game but doesn't own it. Unless you have nothing else to play, I'd just wait. The last patch/enhancement, adding bases and freighters was pretty good but it sounds like HG plans on adding a significant amount of other stuff. So why rush? Just wait and see what else they do with the game.

[Moliere]

Here's a question, then: I haven't picked up No Man's Sky yet. It has been on my short list for a while, though. I'm someone who loves exploration games (from Skyrim to Subnautica to Minecraft) just for the exploration and development experience. Should I get it now (during the Christmas sale), or should I wait until, say, the Summer sale?

I have saved up a little money, probably enough to get myself one on-sale game (and this was ~$35 during the Thanksgiving sale.)

Just my opinion from someone who has watched a fair amount of game play and has followed the game but doesn't own it. Unless you have nothing else to play, I'd just wait. The last patch/enhancement, adding bases and freighters was pretty good but it sounds like HG plans on adding a significant amount of other stuff. So why rush? Just wait and see what else they do with the game.

My hope is that by next year's Steam winter sale it will be selling for less than $20 and all the bugs will be worked out with lots of new content. Meanwhile, thank you to all the Beta testers that paid $59.99 for the game. That's beyond my budget.

[rshetts2]

Here's a question, then: I haven't picked up No Man's Sky yet. It has been on my short list for a while, though. I'm someone who loves exploration games (from Skyrim to Subnautica to Minecraft) just for the exploration and development experience. Should I get it now (during the Christmas sale), or should I wait until, say, the Summer sale?

I have saved up a little money, probably enough to get myself one on-sale game (and this was ~$35 during the Thanksgiving sale.)

Based on your personal criteria, I think you would get plenty of gaming as it is. That being said, Grifman is right HG plans on several more updates to flesh out game play, so my advice is if you have some other game you really want grab it otherwise, go ahead and get NMS. I think its in your wheel house as is.

[D.A.Lewis]

Here's a question, then: I haven't picked up No Man's Sky yet. It has been on my short list for a while, though. I'm someone who loves exploration games (from Skyrim to Subnautica to Minecraft) just for the exploration and development experience. Should I get it now (during the Christmas sale), or should I wait until, say, the Summer sale?

I have saved up a little money, probably enough to get myself one on-sale game (and this was ~$35 during the Thanksgiving sale.)

If you like exploration and you like sandbox games then I think you can get your money's worth. Yes, there is a ton of grinding and the game needs to be fleshed out a bunch, but for me what is there is still playable. I went in with no expectations other than a planetary/solar system/galactic exploration game. I easily got in over 200 hours and I'm now in the second galaxy. I just started it and felt it would be a good time to take a break and wait for the developers to add more game stuff.

I never paid any attention to the hype so for me, there was no disappointment other than sensing the potential of the game that was not explored. Curiously, it's not the base building or combat that I found lacking but the lack of a true astronomical exploration of the galaxy. I wanted gas giants, real barren worlds, lava worlds, pulsars, dwarf stars, nebulas, dead worlds and yes,even a couple of populated worlds. Sadly they had maybe three or four templates for planets and that was it. And what was frustrating for me was the game engine could have easily accommodated a better more diverse exploration.

However, I'm hopeful someone will continue where HG as left off.
(NOTE: I am a huge fan of the science channel show How the Universe Works. That might be coloring my judgement)

[Scoop20906]

I agree. While the planets have some variety they all start to look the same after your 10th planet. It's the same story every time you land. Find minerals, look at the stunning view, putz around.

For planets you have ground, sometimes water, animals that either attack or run, odd plants, caves that look the same across the Galaxy, some floating mesas sometimes, and the same aliens structures every where.


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[Blackhawk]

I keep going back and forth, but i'm leaning toward getting it if it goes on a decent enough sale. I put in more than 50 hours in Subnautica, and it is still pre-release with tons of missing content. After I finished what there was, I put it aside and have every intention of coming back to it once it is complete. This sounds like the same sort of thing - something I could get my money's worth with, then come back to a year from now and get even more.

[GreenGoo]

As a counter opinion, I'll just say that it's not good. I mean, it's technically well written and interesting to look at for short periods of time. But it's not fun. If it were ARK or Don't Starve and you knew that your early actions unlocked cool new stuff later, that would be one thing, but you know going in that there is nothing else to do.

Imagine the early stages of Don't Starve where you run around gathering twigs, rocks and grass (plus 20 other similarly located resources). When you have enough of these, you build another backpack, enter the portal and then start gathering twigs, rocks and grass on a new world so you can get an extra slot on your backpack.

That's the entire game.

Now some people will mention the missions, and it's true, there is some small variety at least early on that give you more purpose than what I've written above. But not much, and it gets just as repetitive.

It's a pretty tech demo in search of a game. I haven't tried the base building, but as mentioned earlier in the thread, the entire gameplay is predicated around moving from planet to planet and there is no motivation to travel backwards along your path, so eventually you're just going to abandon anything you make.

If you need goals and purpose in your games, there isn't anything meaningful in this one. If you can wander around picking up stuff and enjoying the scenery, then it's not bad. I guess.

[Sepiche]

I haven't tried the base building, but as mentioned earlier in the thread, the entire gameplay is predicated around moving from planet to planet and there is no motivation to travel backwards along your path, so eventually you're just going to abandon anything you make.

Once you establish a base there's a portal to return to it in all system stations.

[GreenGoo]

Ok, cool.

[Blackhawk]

The crafting system for this thing is obtuse. The game tells you nothing.

I explored the three planets in my system, and am sitting on the nearby space station. I just installed the hyperdrive, and now need to power it. That requires warp cells (have the recipe), which requires antimatter (don't have the recipe), which requires electron vapor (have the recipe) which requires suspension fluid (don't have the recipe.)

Now, suspension fluid is available for sale on the market. I could get that and make electron vapor, but I don't have the recipe to make antimatter with it, so that's irrelevant. I do some reading online, and the recipe for antimatter is supposedly found in the second system you visit, which requires antimatter to get to. That means (if I'm following it) that I have to buy the antimatter.

There is no antimatter for sale.

I haven't got the faintest clue what to do.

[Max Peck]

No Man's Sky Antimatter - how to get Antimatter, find Antimatter recipe

No Man's Sky - where to find Antimatter
Whilst you'll receive a Hyperdrive blueprint and Warp Cell recipe from an alien at the distress signal in your first system, Antimatter is a little more awkward to get a hold of. As things stand, there are two known ways to get it:

• A kind alien - on your first planet, there is an alien - located inside an Alien Outpost somewhere on the surface - who will give you a single piece of Antimatter for free. To find the alien, head to a Signal Scanner - the structures shooting an orange beam of light vertically into the sky - and search for either 'Shelter' or a 'Transmission'. Shelter has a chance of bringing up an Outpost (different to Colonial Outposts), whilst Transmissions have a chance of leading you to a Beacon, which then leads you to an Outpost. You can also just roam the surface if you fancy doing it the old-fashioned way.
• Splash the cash - the other option is to simply buy some Antimatter from a Galactic Trade terminal. The terminals can be found either at an Outpost (which you can find using the steps in the bullet point above) or in any Space Station. Antimatter isn't cheap, but it's also not prohibitively expensive - a little mining and selling should give you enough to buy some early on.

[Blackhawk]

#1 didn't happen, #2 is a bust. As for: "head to a Signal Scanner - the structures shooting an orange beam of light vertically into the sky - and search for either 'Shelter' or a 'Transmission'." - I haven't the faintest idea what that refers to. Signal scanner? Search? I've never even seen an orange beam, and I've been all over the place.

[Max Peck]

Signal scanners are used to generate waypoints to different types of points of interest.

If you check enough different trade terminals you will eventually see some antimatter for sale, but it's a crapshoot. I think I've also seen it offered, rarely, by traders on the space stations.

[Blackhawk]

I guess I'll just have to fly around planets and look for orange beams of light. I never saw a one.

[Giles Habibula]

I haven't got the faintest clue what to do.....I guess I'll just have to fly around planets and look for orange beams of light. I never saw a one.

Oof. Maybe I'm reading too much into what you've posted today, but it doesn't sound as if you're having much fun.

Which is a shame, because I was kinda hoping you'd post that you liked it, because I've been hesitating to buy it, and my criteria for having fun seems very similar to yours, based on what you posted before.

[Max Peck]

One of the inventory items that you'll be crafting is your scanner. On the ground, you can pulse it to identify resources in the local area, but in flight you use it to locate nearby points of interest. When exploring, I pop the scanner, pick a POI, fly to it to check it out and either land to investigate it further or scan for a new one if it isn't what I'm looking for or doesn't look interesting.

[Blackhawk]

Yeah, the scanner I figured out after dying four times trying to recharge my suit. There simply wasn't any indication I saw that it was there. It isn't that the game isn't fun (that's to be determined), but that it does a terrible job of communicating the non-obvious but vital elements of the game to you.

[Max Peck]

D'oh! In addition to not playing recently, I haven't been keeping up with the patch notes...

Instead of hunting for the (now extinct?) Signal Scanners, you craft a Signal Booster that seems to perform the same function. Just hit "z" to bring up the tech crafting interface, select the Signal Booster (using q/e), then "f" to place it. After building it, you can interact with it to bring up a menu with 4 search options. Since they don't quite match the old Signal Scanner options, I'd guess that either "Habitable Base" or "Colonial Base" might be the ones that could lead to your friendly neighborhood Generous Alien. Depending on how much has changed since last I looked, maybe neither matches that old walk-through for finding the antimatter.



Another tip I just saw suggested flying up into space and scanning the planet. That might generate a waypoint for the outpost (because it is actually an active quest or something?).

And another other tip says to scan for Colonial Outposts, and you should (eventually?) get a waypoint for a manufacturing facility with an alien that will give you the recipe to craft it.

[Grifman]

I haven't got the faintest clue what to do.....I guess I'll just have to fly around planets and look for orange beams of light. I never saw a one.

Oof. Maybe I'm reading too much into what you've posted today, but it doesn't sound as if you're having much fun.

Which is a shame, because I was kinda hoping you'd post that you liked it, because I've been hesitating to buy it, and my criteria for having fun seems very similar to yours, based on what you posted before.

There are tons of NMS videos out there which would give you a very good idea of what playing the game is like. There's no need to rely upon some one else's written impressions if you have doubts either way.

[Giles Habibula]

There are tons of NMS videos out there which would give you a very good idea of what playing the game is like. There's no need to rely upon some one else's written impressions if you have doubts either way.

The written word is generally more concise. And Blackhawk is very good at it.
Some of those gameplay videos are very long; not sure I have the patience.
But you have a point.

[Paingod]

To be fair, too, the thoughts of someone you know far outweighs what you find in reviews and videos. If we just watched a "Let's Play" video and called it enough, no one would ever write another review or make their own videos.

I prefer to hear from the folks here, and their distilled views, over spending a couple hours watching the game being played so I can then play it and go "Huh, this is mighty familiar stuff"

[Grifman]

Another data point can't be but helpful is all I am saying.

[Blackhawk]

My thoughts at this point, with ~6 hours in: I like it. I'm still not sure if I enjoy it. I know that's a tough way of putting it. I like the individual elements, but they aren't put together well. There are great ideas in here, but they're communicated to players poorly so you end up playing without them. You end up having to stop to externally research each and everything you do, and the in-game flow doesn't naturally lead you to the next step. The visual style doesn't have enough variety - every world is an oversaturated world. There are lots of creatures, but many of them look like Spore rejects.

I'm going to keep playing it because 'explore space' is exactly the itch that I need to scratch right now, but unless you're absolutely sure that it is the game you want to play right now, I'd wait. See if they keep making progress with good patches.

Some visual variety, some tweaks to creature generation, and some good documentation would make a world ( ) of difference.

[Smoove_B]

My thoughts at this point, with ~6 hours in: I like it. I'm still not sure if I enjoy it. I know that's a tough way of putting it.

Don't feel bad. It took me 26 hours before I finally stopped playing. I liked it, but stopped enjoying it - I totally get it.

[Lorini]

I'm always interested in friends opinions but a picture is worth a thousand words so to speak so to find out if I would be interested in a game I always watch a video first, or at least enough of one to see if I would like the game.

[Max Peck]

I just stumbled onto another way of getting some free antimatter. Come to the aid of a freighter that is under attack from raiders, shoot down the raiders, then land on the freighter and be rewarded by her captain.

[Scoop20906]

I just stumbled onto another way of getting some free antimatter. Come to the aid of a freighter that is under attack from raiders, shoot down the raiders, then land on the freighter and be rewarded by her captain.

Does this happen often?

[Max Peck]

I just stumbled onto another way of getting some free antimatter. Come to the aid of a freighter that is under attack from raiders, shoot down the raiders, then land on the freighter and be rewarded by her captain.

Does this happen often?

Distress calls aren't all that uncommon, but this was the first time I a) responded and b) won the battle.

[Holman]

I'm always interested in friends opinions but a picture is worth a thousand words so to speak so to find out if I would be interested in a game I always watch a video first, or at least enough of one to see if I would like the game.

Sometimes I watch videos in order to spoil a game and wipe it off my want list without spending a cent.

[Moat_Man]

There are tons of NMS videos out there which would give you a very good idea of what playing the game is like. There's no need to rely upon some one else's written impressions if you have doubts either way.

The written word is generally more concise. And Blackhawk is very good at it.
Some of those gameplay videos are very long; not sure I have the patience.
But you have a point.

I'm with you. I can consume information way faster reading. The first 20 minutes of some of those videos are the setup screens. Argh!

[Grifman]

There are tons of NMS videos out there which would give you a very good idea of what playing the game is like. There's no need to rely upon some one else's written impressions if you have doubts either way.

The written word is generally more concise. And Blackhawk is very good at it.
Some of those gameplay videos are very long; not sure I have the patience.
But you have a point.

I'm with you. I can consume information way faster reading. The first 20 minutes of some of those videos are the setup screens. Argh!

The written word is more consist, but never as accurate as actually seeing a game played. My whole point was not to disregard what someone said/wrote, but if you still have doubts, then watch some videos. There's no need to agonize over the decision if there is more info out there to help you make your choice.