No Man's Sky - Interceptor

[Vulgar Monkey]

Thing is, there's doing stuff and doing stuff.

Games being games, all the stuff you do is abstracted to some extent or another. Minecraft has insta-digging and tree-punching, elite (and others) has a trade system that is represented entirely via menus. GTA populates the world with simplified activities, but they serve as much to add atmosphere to the world than actually being much long-term fun in their own right.

The former do at least differ in that their mechanics generate freeform objectives of sorts, they give you an excuse to go off and do stuff (find food, etc), but aside from the exploring those objectives are still so abstract that you arent really 'doing' stuff.....you arent experiencing anything other than clicking on a couple of things. The main worth is that it naturalistically sheperds you around certain parts of the world in an unintrusive way.

We just dont know enough about this game to comment. The vague overall goal is to reach the core, if you want. But how? Do you need to upgrade your ship, or stockpile fuel, or what? If so, how? Do you need to visit planets to mine those resources? If so that's a pretty simple mechanic, but it gives you reason enough to go places. You could complicate things and add more mechanics, but they'd still exist mainly just to send you places.

If you admit that's all you're really doing, maybe you can just drop all that stuff entirely and just say 'I'm here to explore, nothing more'.

[Talk Show Host]

In my mind every game needs structure. Even a complete sandbox has an element of structure on how its... everything combines with everything in the game world. I don't see a problem with a game offering proper gameplay mechanics (yes, Minecraft does that too) in a vast, procedural world where the possibilities seem endless. Seem. The possibilities will always be governed on what the actual gameplay mechanics are. If there's no mechanic for digging stuff up then you won't be able to do it, no matter how sandbox a game is.

I would actually argue that, behind the curtain, a complete sandbox game may impose stricter rules on what is possible in its gameworld, for fear the players would break the game constantly.

No Man's Sky looks amazing but until we know what is possible and what is fun in its gameworld, I don't really care how "open" it is. In fact, I have more confident at the moment in Elite Dangerous, since they are going after the same thing.

[Bacon Horsemeat]

lol

Chris Charla heads up Microsoft's ID@Xbox programme.

IDs - standing for independent developers - are a major fixture on the Xbox stand, with just under 40 titles available to play.

But No Man's Sky is an obvious sore point for Mr Charla.

"I think No Man's Sky is a really really cool looking game," he says, through gritted teeth.

"I'm excited to play it."

He refuses to be drawn on whether his team was frustrated that it would appear on PS4 first.

"I think they're a fantastic developer."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27807167

[spaceyjase]

Really like the look of this. Sometimes it's just nice to play with no purpose, and that's fine by me.

The colour and artwork reminds me of Spacecraft a bit, the 2000 to 2100 A.D. books.

[Pob]

The website says this:

And one mistake could see you lose everything. In No Man’s Sky, every victory and every defeat is permanent

Have the devs said any more about how this will work? Imagine if after every death you respawned as some new randomly generated dude back at the edge of the galaxy.

[p1nseeker]

Oh wow, ultimate pressure!

[Benny]

Dark Souls has a lot to answer for

[RubberJohnny]

Dark Souls doesn't have permadeath, and roguelikes pre-date it by a few decades mate.

[Pob]

Actually an earlier interview says that you will lose your ship for forever if it gets destroyed, but your lifepod will always survive. So you'll be stuck in the same part of the universe that you died and have to build yourself up again. Dunno how you get a new ship.

[Benny]

Dark Souls doesn't have permadeath, and roguelikes pre-date it by a few decades mate.

It's made that sort of thing more in vogue at the moment though, especially with indies. Mate.

[RubberJohnny]

Indie roguelikes with permadeath predate Demon Souls too!

[dr_manhattan^]

Real life permadeath predates rouge likes too

[Danster]

Rogue knife permadeath while on dates too!

[carleton]

The first C64 game I ever wrote (Wanderer*) was a space game. The game play in that was visiting planets, shooting some stuff and then trading what were effectively poker cards to make both your hands better until you had a good enough hand to play the final boss. I think poker is still in with the cool kids so they should steal that idea.

*16% review score from Zzap - "A vector graphics turkey"

[Masu]

The first C64 game I ever wrote (Wanderer*) was a space game. The game play in that was visiting planets, shooting some stuff and then trading what were effectively poker cards to make both your hands better until you had a good enough hand to play the final boss. I think poker is still in with the cool kids so they should steal that idea.

*16% review score from Zzap - "A vector graphics turkey"

16% is about a solid 6 in Edge

[Ste Pickford]

That sounds ace. Sword & Poker on iOS was ace, so adding poker hands to other game genres works for me.

[Pob]

The first C64 game I ever wrote (Wanderer*) was a space game. The game play in that was visiting planets, shooting some stuff and then trading what were effectively poker cards to make both your hands better until you had a good enough hand to play the final boss. I think poker is still in with the cool kids so they should steal that idea.

*16% review score from Zzap - "A vector graphics turkey"

Please tell me you have a scan of this.

[carleton]

Please tell me you have a scan of this.

[lankysanchez]

i liked the bit about the cat being stolen by the burger

[Mr Cochese]

People used to be called stuff like Maff in the 80s.

[Graham S]

I'm glad that whenever I got a less than glowing appraisal at work, it didn't have a pen portrait of my boss pretending to vomit, or folding his arms tutting at me. Also glad I've never been judged on my Hookability.

[carleton]

I'm glad that whenever I got a less than glowing appraisal at work, it didn't have a pen portrait of my boss pretending to vomit, or folding his arms tutting at me. Also glad I've never been judged on my Hookability.

It's still better than 90% of App Store reviews.

[Mr Cochese]

Maff and Cordo are probably scriptwriters on the WoW film by now.

Or dead.

[Space Renegade Ulala]

I like to think they're all in some kind of 80s game mag Vallhalla. Robin Candy, Lloyd Mangram and Hunter S Minson all getting shitfaced on grape soda, Hannah Smith and Saffron Trevaskis taking the piss out of Tony Takoushi, with Jaz, Maff and Cordo trying to see who can slag off Artic Software the most in under 100 words.

[Wiper]

Dark Souls has a lot to answer for

Dark Souls doesn't have permadeath, and roguelikes pre-date it by a few decades mate.

It's made that sort of thing more in vogue at the moment though, especially with indies. Mate.

Indie roguelikes with permadeath predate Demon Souls too!

Let's see...

No Man's Sky: a space-based explorey-shoot-em up set in a procedurally-generated universe with permadeath

Elite: a space-based explorey-trade-em up set in a procedurally-generated universe with permadeath

Dark Souls: a land-based action-RPG set in a carefully-constructed fantasy environment with infinite lives

Yep, It think it's quite clear that Dark Souls is the prime inspiration here

[Mr Cochese]

I'm not getting that much of an Elite vibe from it, to be honest. Elite is all about trading and fighting and stuff, whereas this seems to be more about exploring planets and collecting resources.

[Pob]

It does sound as though the traditional gamey elements of NMS will be trading and fighting, though.

[Benny]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-12-09-a-future-that-has-a-history-introducing-no-mans-sky

Games that I think we will get compared to, rather than that I would compare us to?" asks Murray. "Those games would be Minecraft, DayZ, but also in terms of gameplay, I think Dark Souls to an extent, and probably Journey to an extent. There's obviously touches of things like Eve and all the space games in there, but we want to have a very different take on that.

[Mr Cochese]

Where are the space stations then? I'm not trading goods without at least a protracted docking sequence.

[carleton]

I like to think they're all in some kind of 80s game mag Vallhalla. Robin Candy, Lloyd Mangram and Hunter S Minson all getting shitfaced on grape soda

Lloyd Mangram was fictitious but I reckon you knew that.

Back on topic I'd be happy if you just explored but somehow got money or something as you did, more for trickier places etc. then you can upgrade your ship and stuff. Pretty much like Elite without the (only slightly) duller trading aspect.