No Man's Sky is Elite for the 21st century. Pointless? Maybe – but also sublime
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I hope Sony learns from this, and that building what was essentially an indie game up into a triple-A game without all the support and trappings of a triple-A studio was always going to be tricky.
Isn't this what people said about Sims, Sims 2, Sims 2 Expansion packs, and Sims 3.
That you can make boatloads of money by hyping up a cool looking tech demo? Yeah, I think they've learned that.
I don't think any sales figures have been released, but just going by Steam stats, the game did extremely well. Consider that it was developed by a team of just 15 people (at release I think?), you're looking at ludicrous profitability.
You could even have the player interact with the "bacteria" and alter the curves forever.Remember the savages you helped out at the great hunt with your blaster- well they conquered the planet and went to the stars "conquering" to honor you. Disclaimer: As with all generated content, the main problem is to have the players attention "the hot potato" wander on as fast as possible.
Dwarf Fortress does it, and it's awesome. I'm not sure how you would adapt it to a setting like No Man's Sky, though.
I think the problem is graphics. It's both easier and more time-consuming to fill a game with pretty graphics than to come up with procedurally generated history, economics, etc. That's why there are so many simple-graphics roguelikes and so many simple-graphics RPG's that provide incredible procedurally-generated content and incredible stories, respectively.
Another example where I think lack of graphics actually contributes to making a great game: Avernum (RPG). Way back when I spent hours of my life playing Exile 1-3, of which the Avernum series is part remake (1-3) and part completely new (4-6). I recently bought the last three installments and I've been having a lot of fun playing it.
The thing is, even until this day few games I've played came even close to the experience Exile/Avernum provides, both in the tactical RPG sense and world-building and storytelling, even though the graphics are quite atrocious. Most Triple-A RPG's I've played were nice in many other ways, but fell short in the crucial elements that I care most about.
Scroll down to the Donate section.
Off course, it takes time and patience. Many worlds are barren, many creatures as very bizarre. But if you explore enough, you finds gems. And that feeling of discovery is something no other game I can remember gave me.
This game in fact is a different experience. I get it if it's not everyone's cup of tea (in fact, apparently the game was built to be 'divisive' [1]).
What I recommend for people beginning is to take their time. Leave their ships behind somewhere and walk around the planet. After you distance yourself from your ship (enough that the return trip on foot is not an option, the only option is finding a beacon to call it), you'll start seeing changes on the terrain. An unexpected lake, sand dunes, cave networks, forests where there were none, etc. The variety on the game is quite impressive, actually... of course, some patterns do repeat. But isn't that true for the universe as well?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tcqzg976hQ&feature=youtu.be...
The big shame is that this, Star Citizen and Elite:Dangerous all had such potential and DO have gorgeous graphics and cool gameplay mechanics. The unfortunate part is that most people like the idea of a gigantic space simulator, but the reality ends up being incredibly boring for gamers that have come to expect lots of social interaction in any game billed as multiplayer.
Having said that, failing the expectations can be blamed to the marketing of No Man's Sky.