No Man's Sky Next.

[Mightysword]

Reinstalled it, tried it again. And after a dozen of hours ... I don't think I can like it. For a game that's them about exploration, as soon as I jump into a "new" system, I already want to make the jump to the next system instead of trying to explore the planets first because I'm 99% sure there is nothing difference on them comparing to the previous system, and the one before that, and the one before that ...etc... When I started feeling that way, I decided to uninstall the game, probably for good this time.

It kinda make me think is "procedural generated content" really worth it? I recently discovered Subnautica, and I had heard many people calling it the NMS under the ocean on both forums ... but I don't see how. The game take place in an extremely small area: a 2-by-2-by-2km space on a planet. Yet ... it feels so much bigger, so much more depth, that it really feels like real exploration. Every cubic meter of space a filled with life and character instead of simply big empty space. If it's the first time you play it, the game can keep you up at the edge of your seat too, it carries a feeling that semi-resemblance the anxiety, suspense and fear of the unknow that a true exploration/survival game has. There are section of the game that even though I know I can go there, I still feel like going there until I have a bigger tincan than what I currently have.

And here the thing, earlier in the development (game was an EA) it's meant to have a procedural generated map, but the dev decided to scrap it and went for a handcrafted map, and I'm so happy they did.

[Morkonan]

...And here the thing, earlier in the development (game was an EA) it's meant to have a procedural generated map, but the dev decided to scrap it and went for a handcrafted map, and I'm so happy they did.

Nobody has yet been able to make a good game that relies primarily on procedural content.

Many games rely on procedurally generated content in one way or another, but coupled with that are always deep mechanic elements and a lot of included tools the player can use to craft their play experience.

"Exploring" is all great fun, but there comes a time when yet another tree looks like "another tree." And, if that's all that the procedural content generates, it's going to be pretty boring.

[Observe]

It kinda make me think is "procedural generated content" really worth it?

I suspect there's more to it, than the fact that it's procedural. Some games have 'soul' and others simply don't. I'm not sure exactly why.

Take X3 compared to X-Rebirth. When I start an X3 game, I immediately have a sense of being in outer space. With Rebirth, I have the sense of being in a carnival.

I've tried starting Rebirth on several occasions, but I just never get the sense of immersion that X3 gives me. Part of it is subjective. Clearly there are those who love Rebirth. The reason they do eludes me.

Perhaps it is the same with NMS. Some are enthralled by it, some find it lacking. I've never played it, so I can't speak to personal experience with the game.

[Mightysword]

I suspect there's more to it, than the fact that it's procedural. Some games have 'soul' and others simply don't. I'm not sure exactly why.

I think there is a pretty big correlation between being handcrafted and having a soul. When a human makes a map, consciously or subconsciously there are always gonna be a narrative or story in the maker's mind that got infused into the finishing product. Paying it enough attention and a player can eventually pick up these story and narrative, even if it's not spelled out. Just like how good musician can pick up the "story" from the pieces even if it's not told, and IMO this connection is what you're calling 'soul'. Computer can generates pretty thing, it can't generate soul ... yet. What you felt about X4 to X3 is probably what I felt about X3 to X2. For me X2 looks uglier, but also more distinct and unique. X3 looks prettier, but also a lot more generic, and it felt Rebirth continued that trance.

Many games rely on procedurally generated content in one way or another, but coupled with that are always deep mechanic elements and a lot of included tools the player can use to craft their play experience.

Didn't quite make up for it, or make up in the same area. Another is XCOM and XCOM2. In XCOM like I said, playing a map enough and you start seeing the intention/story behind each map. XCOM2, you can play 100 maps that never look the same, yet all of them feel the same ... because they're all somehow empty. And the game certainly has enough depth in other area.

I don't know how to describe this correctly in words, but put it this way: you can ask 5 different human to create 5 different object with the same theme, and you're more than likely end up with 5 distinctly different objects. You ask an algorithm to do the same thing, you'll end up with 5 different looking objects ... yet it still feels they're just carbon copies of one another. That's the feeling I have with NMS and XCOM2. I know if someone put 2 image side by side for a visual inspection, they can tell me they're not the same and I would have no retort, but to me they look EXACTLY the same. My eyes can see the difference, but my brain does not

[birdtable]

Or maybe we are just getting old ...

[silenced]

Nobody has yet been able to make a good game that relies primarily on procedural content.

There are a few.

On top of the list: Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft.

[Morkonan]

Nobody has yet been able to make a good game that relies primarily on procedural content.

There are a few.

On top of the list: Dwarf Fortress and Minecraft.

They have added mechanics that are not "procedural" that actually constitute "gameplay." How much of the "play" is "game?"

Yes, "exploring" is made interesting with the procedural developed content and Minecraft has certainly maxxed out that particular efficiency in procedural content. But, the majority of gameplay is the interactions of the player with the tools/mechanics coupled with that content. (Making stuffs, moving blocks around, etc.)

I haven't played it since they added the second weapon/shield slot. (Before Microsoft bought it) So, I'm a bit behind the times on Minecraft. But, once you finally accessed all the base mechanics it got to be a bit boring unless you wanted to stack blocks and build stuff. (Self-directed play. The "quests" were more or less tacked-on content additions that didn't really mean much.) At that point, it's not much different from a set of Legos. So, there's a question concerning how much of Minecraft's gameplay is actually a "game." Is playing with Legos a "game?"

Dwarf Fortress, from what I have experienced of it, is much the same in terms of the impact of procedurally generated content. Plus, it requires interpretation, too, by the player. ie: That's not a "sword made out of stone", it's a thing with a description that draws two words from a list. (Or, some other item that seems random/procedural) Simulation and Sandbox "games" are somewhat new things. How much of their "gameplay" is "game?" (Are we redefining that these days and is gaming becoming more about "play" than "gaming?" Not a bad thing, really.)

One thing about NMS's hype was that it was going to generate "procedural creatures" in some way. Another was some sort of mechanic that, IIRC, was going to generate "Factions" somewhat procedurally, too. Neither efforts were very effective.

[pjknibbs]

Yeah, I agree with Morkonan--Minecraft's map may be procedurally generated, but nothing else in the game is; a creeper is still a creeper, an iron sword is always an iron sword, etc, so you can't really claim that it's "primarily" based on procedural generation. Dwarf Fortress you maybe have more of an argument for, but even there, the game has objectives that are nothing to do with the procedural nature of its map or event system. Does NMS have any objective beyond "exploration"? Genuinely curious there, not having played the game.

[birdtable]

@ pjknibbs ... depends how you define exploration .. as in say Stalker, you explored the surroundings finding anomalies, stashes, weapons as the game progressed or if you mean just scanning worlds for flora and fauna and reporting back then NMS Next is not that game...
Having only played around a week I can say there is a lot more than just scanning surface area, following at least four different threads of storyline/development and at any time I can jump off the train and do my own thing.... still only scratching the surface, Fleets of freighters, frigates await me, so do green stars red and blue,, poor, rich and high conflict stellar systems are also hidden away ... just lowly yellow ones with a few pirates and not even mentioned farming yet...

If this was a dream project by Sean Murray then I can now understand his focus and wriggly bits to get the game published..... for such a small team this is pretty special.

[Mightysword]

Does NMS have any objective beyond "exploration"? Genuinely curious there, not having played the game.

It's similar to the X-series in that regard. There is a couple story lines to follow or not to follow, the narrative is pretty cryptic though, as far as I know, the step in the story is also generically generated per the player's location. Beyond that it's a sandbox where you just 4x stuffs.

- Scan planet for resource, either for building stuffs or to sale.
- Scan for a points of interest (like ruin/factory/outpost ...etc...) for blueprints.

You can amash stuff to build a base, you get 3 vehicles you can make, you can buy new ships ...etc... So yeah, just like X ... except it feels a lot more static to me with little dynamic in it. It's not a living world like X. Nothing born, nothing lost, just spawn out of thin air around the player. For example, sometime you can run into a pretty large scale battle when you jump into a system ... but only because the game decide randomly it will spawn the battle at that moment "for you". This is why some people just jump back and forth between system to "trigger" these battles when they hunt for a specific ship.

The problem is the exploration is very mechanical. 99% it involves these 3 steps:

- Use various tool at your disposal to scan the map. The game than ping a location on your map, like a waypoint.
- Fly to that way point, collect whatever it is at that location (resource, tech, tool ...etc...). Sometime fight a small battle with the guard.
- Mark it explored (kinda like put your name on it, so if the off chance another player stumble on the place, they'll see you got here first).

Scan again for another location, go to another planet, jump to the next system, rinse and repeat. I don't know how, but Steam said I have 82h on it .

[GCU Grey Area]

The problem is the exploration is very mechanical. 99% it involves these 3 steps:

- Use various tool at your disposal to scan the map. The game than ping a location on your map, like a waypoint.
- Fly to that way point, collect whatever it is at that location (resource, tech, tool ...etc...). Sometime fight a small battle with the guard.
- Mark it explored (kinda like put your name on it, so if the off chance another player stumble on the place, they'll see you got here first).

Scan again for another location, go to another planet, jump to the next system, rinse and repeat. I don't know how, but Steam said I have 82h on it .

Exploration is as mechanical as you want to make it.

Tend to spend a bit more time than that at each location. Like to wander around, see what's on the other side of nearby hills or in the caves, visit other nearby structures, scan lifeforms (got a pair of S class scanner upgrades - animals are generally worth at least 200k, plants 40k, scanning everything on a planet can be worth a couple of million or more), identify local mineral resources, decide if it's a good location for a permanent mining base, and so on. Not at all unusual for my exploration of a single location to take an hour or more.

If you're only doing smash & grab raids on outposts (as it sounds from your post) think you're missing out on a huge chunk of the game.

[brucewarren]

I tried building an underwater base and noticed a few things

The big heavy rover will drive underwater quite happily
There's a distinct squelching noise as walk around the base
Holodoors are allowed underwater, but the old fashioned sliding sort that physically open are not. I wonder why

[Mightysword]

Tend to spend a bit more time than that at each location. Like to wander around, see what's on the other side of nearby hills or in the caves, visit other nearby structures, scan lifeforms (got a pair of S class scanner upgrades - animals are generally worth at least 200k, plants 40k, scanning everything on a planet can be worth a couple of million or more), identify local mineral resources, decide if it's a good location for a permanent mining base, and so on. Not at all unusual for my exploration of a single location to take an hour or more.

If you're only doing smash & grab raids on outposts (as it sounds from your post) think you're missing out on a huge chunk of the game.

Things is ... that's how I first started playing it. I mentioned 82 hours on the clock, most of it probably spent on the first 20 systems or so. I went after everything, I checked the data log to make sure I have collected most if not all the species on that planet, I flied around to find that last 1 species I'm missing, I went into caves to find that one last missing fauna. I tried to search for as many ruins as I can find. I did all that for the first planet I landed in a system, that I did the same for the next planet, and the next one, before jumping to the next system.The problem is ... there is so much interest I can only hold after scanning the 100th rock and realizing it looks oddly familiar to the 1st rock I scanned 20 systems away. Sure, specie #ABC123456778 have a different name, but I found that as I was scanning, I'm more interested in the progress bar on the scanner than how the specie looks, and the moment I turned away I don't even remember what that creatures looks like. Seeing a cave? Go over that hill? Why? Spending more than 3 minutes checking factory #20 after grabbing the blue-print? Why? There is nothing compel me to do it, because I don't expect to see anything different than what I had seen dozens or hundred times before. That's the problem I have with procedural contents, and the gameplay of NMS doesn't have enough depth for me to get my creative rolling. (And the fact I don't have lot of that doesn't help mind you )


There are two other games that I played:

- Empyrion - Galactic Survival: this game feels almost like a budgeted copy cat of NMS, but despite it looks far worse than NSM, still in Alpha, I already have way more fun with it than NMS. It has an interesting approach of combining procedural and handcrafted contents. The story planets are handcrafted, while the other planets are procedural generated. But even as the planet geographical data is procedural generated, the surface itself is populated with handcrafted content. And the POI (point of interest) is far more interesting than NSM. For example, exploring an Abandon factory in NMS is a quick land and grab, an abandon factory in Empyrion is a dungeon, that can be approached in different way:

+ The normal/rambo style: load up gun, ammo, health pack and crawl through the infested building, clearing one hall way at a time. And prepare to die a lot if you're by yourself.
+ Some players after dying so many times, got pissed enough they leave ... but not without a plan. They go back to the base, grind out resource, then hours or even days later come back in a loaded spaceship and nuke the whole building down. Some decided to come back in a tank loaded with artillery and level the place, one way to vent your anger I guess.
+ My prefer method is to use a mining vessel and dig a tunnel all the way to the foundation of the structure, blow it up and see the place crumbling section by section.
+ Some still prefer to clear it the traditional way, but load themselves with C4. Instead of moving by the established path, they blow up wall and floor to carve out their own shortcut through the building.
+ And none of this has anything to do with the building side of the game, which make the base building in NMS feel severely restrictive. And again, this is a game in Alpha.


- Subnautica: as mentioned people call it the NMS under water ... and I can't see why.

+ When I see a cave, or a open with a strange light coming out, it got me curious. I went into it and was like "wow, didn't think there is a place like this". I tried to go deeper but than my tin-can can't handle the pressure, so I had to go back with plan to come back one day with a better tin can.
+ I was scouring the sea floor for resource, moving in the open as if I owned the place. Than suddenly my camera shake up side down, then I heard a scream. In panic I eject, and crawl under the nearest rock (literally speaking), I saw something massive grab my little tin can and smash it onto the sea floor. As the creature move away, I looked at the piece of my tin can and sigh "welp, there go the last one hour worth of resource", and then swim all the way back to my base. I feel shaken, but at the same time oddly satisfied.
+ I remember another player was talking how he was innocently explore the space, and he saw "something" ... his reaction was "yeah, I gonna log off the game right now".
+ I got a bigger tin can, the kind that make you feel safe to be inside. As I was cruising, looking through the camera to map the seafloor, my radar lit up with 2 red dots. I got back to helm, hit flank speed. The next seconds the AI told me I'm under attack, I was like "crap, emergency float!!". As I tried to run away, the camera shake as the submarine was being ram, water start leaking all over the ship, even right at my face. The damn AI told me my engine is overheating. 6 seconds later it reports the engine room is on fire, and I haven't installed a fire fighting system. The next 20 seconds was a race for surface while my internal monologue was "this is not happening, this is not happening!!". The ship broke surface, I get off helm, grab the fire extinguisher, rush to the engine room to put out the fire. After the fire was put out, as I repair the breaches on the hull, I thought "damn that was close."
+ And different players have different way to address situation like that in the game. Some becomes more sneaky, other bulk up, and some decide to conquer their fear ... in the most literal manner.


See, these are what I'm seeking in an exploration games. The dynamic, the creativeness, the anxiety, and the occasional thrill. Above all, it must compel a sense of curiosity. I explore a cave because I wonder what inside, I step in a building because I'm interested in its content. It doesn't help with motivation when my main feeling was simply "oh look, it's just another cave". It maybe true I play NMS very mechanically, but I think it's because it doesn't offer much beyond that.

[Morkonan]

...See, these are what I'm seeking in an exploration games. The dynamic, the creativeness, the anxiety, and the occasional thrill. Above all, it must compel a sense of curiosity. I explore a cave because I wonder what inside, I step in a building because I'm interested in its content. It doesn't help with motivation when my main feeling was simply "oh look, it's just another cave". It maybe true I play NMS very mechanically, but I think it's because it doesn't offer much beyond that.

^-- This.

"What is around the next corner" is the way I like my "exploration." In Minecraft, for instance, while there could certainly be some nice visuals, once you had reached a certain point in the game, there wasn't anything "new." It's a wonderful game and it's lots of fun to play. But, for me, I quickly exhaust how much of it I can take until I get bored. (Tried some mods, but they would either get boring or too overpowered/deadly.)

X3:TC, besides a few 4x games, was really the first game that gave me the sense of an open galaxy to enjoy with possibilities around ever corner. (At least for a very, very, long while.)

The idea game to me would be too much like "real life." And, perhaps, entirely too unpredictable. I'd want a game like Elite Dangerous or even NMS where the developers plainly state "We don't know what's going to happen."

Babylon 5 - Sigma 957

One day, when AI is designing games for us, then maybe we can have a game that allows for true discovery, truly dynamic situations that can't be predicted by looking up a number on a spreadsheet and truly "procedural" content. It'd be nice.

But, maybe instead of a computer being substituted as a "designer," what we really need are more games that are actually sculpted by the players, themselves, like EVE? But, perhaps in an even deeper way? Then, devs would just be spending their time keeping trolls and haxxors from purposefully ruining everyone's game....

[birdtable]

A bit of advice needed ....
Finally found a planet worth building a proper base on with two landing pads. (the pad blueprint sure took some time to appear)
Is there any way to snap/walkway for a landing pad .... ? or is there always a gap of some sort..?
Any tips on how to line up pad with building .... a bit fussy I know but I hate anything not aligned correctly.

[Terre]

A bit of advice needed ....
Finally found a planet worth building a proper base on with two landing pads. (the pad blueprint sure took some time to appear)
Is there any way to snap/walkway for a landing pad .... ? or is there always a gap of some sort..?
Any tips on how to line up pad with building .... a bit fussy I know but I hate anything not aligned correctly.

As the player always exits their craft on the right hand side, it is very easy to land on the rails of any connecting path. I rotated my landing pad 90° to the base and walked.

The attached image is pre-NEXT, hence the rather bland scenery, but it should give you the idea, as you can see how it attaches it's self.
This base got corrupted when being recalled in to NEXT. The hauler is a Class A (48-8).

My current game is on hold as I have a problem with my discoveries not being recorded, awaiting a fix.

[birdtable]

@Terre .... Why is it when you ask for advice the solution follows after a nights sleep,, can now do perfect placement of connected landing pads...stand on the roof of a glass topped corridor and look down.
Must admit .. no bugs yet ,, well one.. the guy who gives the exocraft blueprints ends with a mission to retrieve data using exocraft but the objective was so far away I failed the timing,, was given another shot at the mission but no marker appeared.
Have done all missions requested .. Polo and Atlas to finish off... just on 100hrs...a bit addictive....thank god I am retired..

Can see no attached image..

[Terre]

Can see no attached image..

Lets try again.

https://forum.egosoft.com/files/275850_ ... _1_139.jpg

[birdtable]

What a difference on landscapes between Original and Next,, finally got an S class 34 slot Freighter.. took 6 hrs of repeated freighter defence and that was after searching for the right class and colour in a star system ..... the amount of free gameplay involved in doing missions, scanning, trading, mining to get the finance, then the hunt for one seems a no brainer for game design... That is RNG producing great adventures...... Now to find the right Exotic, Explorer, Fighter, Shuttle, Hauler or multitool,,, different shapes, colours and cargo slots without the classes A, B, C or S.

@Terre .. Hope you get the bug fix soon..

[Terre]

Patch 1.58 appears to have fixed a lot of things for people with older/larger game saves.

The plants and animals I scanned yesterday all remained on the data base. I flew to a planet which had lost all of it's records and as soon as I touched down they updated, I think I'll pass on working my way back through all 294 systems of my journey.