# No Man's Sky - First star to the right, and straight on till morning
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701
**Category:** The Game Room
**Tags:** video-games-e-games
**Created:** [July 12, 2016, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701 "2016-07-12T01:16:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 5
### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/81 "2016-07-31T19:50:30Z")
Personally, I take a lot of the things the guy says with a grain, not because I think he’s being dishonest but because in the 26 minute gameplay video he did post, he kept missing obvious things that were right on the screen, and failing to follow up on things that seemed really clearly interesting and must-follow-up-y. This indicates to me he may not be the most observant player, which means that his observations are probably very incomplete.
Having said that, I also think that people have way overhyped the game in their minds, and created some frankly bizarre and unsupported expectations about it. (Some are just deeply, deeply, angrily disappointed that you can’t get out of your ship while in space, others are saying things like “I really hope this game nails gravity!”)
I pre-ordered it, but am keeping expectations low. What he _has_ confirmed is that the visual and aural scapes continue to impress throughout his experience, and honestly that’s kind of all I think the game is “really about” so that keeps me happy. 😉
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### Author:  [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/82 "2016-07-31T20:17:00Z")
Understood but, for me, once I achieve the stated objective of a game, my interest in it drops to practically zero almost instantaneously, even if there are ostensibly other things to do. If the game is able to be completed in a couple of days, I am not sure it is worth my time or my 60 bucks.
I was going to purchase NMS on the day it became available to the public, now I will probably wait to hear reviews from other purchasers before making a decision.
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### Author:  [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/83 "2016-07-31T21:51:36Z")
I don’t really care about hype. Hype, unless the game is out on early access or some such, is the likely result of marketing. Who gives a shit how much money Sony spent on commercials and “influencers”.
Marketing does not a good game make.
That he reached the center in a few days, does concern me a bit.
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### Author:  [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/84 "2016-07-31T22:39:18Z")
Funny, there were some guys on another forum (Steam I think?) who were just… _outraged!!!_ that the leaked gameplay footage was almost exactly like the game the developers had been showing us for the last year.
Almost like they were so used to being crapped on by devs. and publishers making insane claims about a game and delivering something else that the concept of someone telling them the truth about what they were going to deliver was an anathema.
I don’t get the ‘race to the centre’ thing myself as there appears to be so much more to do in the game. To quote from another forum:
> [@](#):
>
> - There are several NPC races (we don’t know how many). Every one has a different standing with each other. Some will be at full-on war with each other. If you kill loads of a certain race, that race will dislike you and aggro you - while the races they’re at war with will like you and help you out. You can play politics and the ‘war economy’
>
> - You can trade with NPCs on space stations and on planet-side settlements. You can trade for resources, materials, weapons, upgrades and schematics.
>
> - To speak with NPCs successfully, you need to learn their language. This comes from reading ‘Monoliths’ on planets where they live - that is, reading their cultural writings. You might learn a word or two from each one, and these words will crop up in the NPC’s dialogue. You can work out other words from context and keep notice
>
> - If you say the wrong thing or try to speak a language you don’t know, you can damage your standing with that race
>
> - It’s not officially confirmed, but we’re 90% sure that you can ‘hire’ members of friendly NPC races as wing men. We don’t know if there’s an upper limit. You might be able to assemble a fleet of NPCs as wingmen and assault larger space stations.
>
> - You can kill and rob NPCs of money/resources/schematics. You can blow up their ships like a pirate, or assault their on-planet bases. You can also hack into on-planet bases, like using stealth. Obviously these activities will aggro the race and lower your standing with them
>
> - Certain resources/items will be more valuable with particular races. From recent trailers we saw items which are mainly valuable for electronic lifeforms. Could be items like this would be worth a lot more to a sentient robot, for example.
I’ve seen at least one video where you can discover a crashed and derelict ship that you can loot for tech and supplies - something I’ve wanted to do since I got a copy of [Spacewreck](https://www.amazon.com/Spacewreck-Ghostships-Derelicts-Authority-Handbook/dp/0896730220/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470004713&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=spaewreak) when I was a kid.
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### Author:  [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/85 "2016-07-31T22:45:59Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#):
>
> I don’t really care about hype. Hype, unless the game is out on early access or some such, is the likely result of marketing. Who gives a shit how much money Sony spent on commercials and “influencers”.
>
> Marketing does not a good game make.
>
> That he reached the center in a few days, does concern me a bit.
I’m kinda curious why you preorderd it if you think marketing and hype are irrelevant, since those are pretty much the only reasons the preorder the game. Well, a third one is “I really like everything this dev makes” I suppose, but that’s not the case here, since this is essentially their first game.
Of course I don’t understand why anyone preorders anything at full price - there’s no physical scarcity, your copy is there whenever you want it - you might as well wait a few hours while the reviews are posted, twitch streams are started, etc.
(The one exception to this is if you get a discount. I ordered Planet Coaster because I’m 90% sure I’m going to get it, and by ordering now it’s $30 instead of $50-60. If more publishers offered preorder discounts, I’d understand. But as it is, there’s no advantage to preordering, it’s all risk)
This has Spore written all over it to me. Overly ambitious, super hyped, new sorts of gameplay. But Spore even had Will Wright and the Maxis team. This is the first real game of a new indie studio with like 15 guys. They’ve been evasive about answering questions about gameplay and promises made a couple of years ago. This may end up being a decent indie game, but I can’t see it possibly living up to the hype and being worth $60.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/86 "2016-07-31T23:22:57Z")
Interestingly, the mods at No Man’s Sky are saying they think, based on evidence listed in their post, that the leaker is unknowingly using an old demo copy of the game and not the final release: [Reddit - Dive into anything](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/4vjjga/we_have_collected_some_evidence_that_the_leaked/)
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/87 "2016-07-31T23:39:09Z")
A lot of what the mods say in that post is not very strong as evidence for their claim, but a few things I do find significant:
Planets that say “no fauna” when scanned, yet have fauna on them nevertheless. Meanwhile, it was apparently said by Sean at some point (I haven’t seen this for myself though) that for demo copies they made it where all planets had life on them.
An insert was included inside the disc’s packaging giving a release date.
A weird apparent bug wherein upgrading the multitool actually makes it worse along exactly the dimenstion it was supposed to be improved. This sounds like the game might be a special version just meant for seeing the opening stages of gameplay, with a souped up starting multitool, so that “upgrades” turn out to be downgrades.
The bizarre free fuel and free hugely profitable resources at one point sound like a possible tool for speeding things up for demo purposes.
Those four things, at least, make me think it’s might be _possible_ what the redditor saw was not actually representative of the released game.
We’ll know in about a week…
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### Author:  [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/88 "2016-08-01T01:55:23Z")
None of those strike me as particularly egregious launch bugs, especially in this age of 0-day patches.
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2016, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/89 "2016-08-01T02:30:28Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> I’m kinda curious why you preorderd it if you think marketing and hype are irrelevant, since those are pretty much the only reasons the preorder the game.
The concept of the game is interesting enough without the hype.
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### Author:  [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2016, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/90 "2016-08-01T11:20:07Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#):
>
> I’m kinda curious why you preorderd it if you think marketing and hype are irrelevant, since those are pretty much the only reasons the preorder the game. Well, a third one is “I really like everything this dev makes” I suppose, but that’s not the case here, since this is essentially their first game.
>
> Of course I don’t understand why anyone preorders anything at full price - there’s no physical scarcity, your copy is there whenever you want it - you might as well wait a few hours while the reviews are posted, twitch streams are started, etc.
>
> (The one exception to this is if you get a discount. I ordered Planet Coaster because I’m 90% sure I’m going to get it, and by ordering now it’s $30 instead of $50-60. If more publishers offered preorder discounts, I’d understand. But as it is, there’s no advantage to preordering, it’s all risk)
>
> This has Spore written all over it to me. Overly ambitious, super hyped, new sorts of gameplay. But Spore even had Will Wright and the Maxis team. This is the first real game of a new indie studio with like 15 guys. They’ve been evasive about answering questions about gameplay and promises made a couple of years ago. This may end up being a decent indie game, but I can’t see it possibly living up to the hype and being worth $60.
Mostly 'cause of Steam’s refund policy.
I love space games. I love exploration games. so I know this game is probably going to be appealing to me. This is a way to secure those extra pre-order goodies without much risk.
If reviews tank it, and my 2 hours of gameplay don’t change what I hear, I can just refund it.
I wouldn’t have pre-ordered before Steam refunds, unless, as you said, the hype had gotten to me, and it was 20% off on greenman gaming 🙂
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### Author:  [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/91 "2016-08-01T21:45:14Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> Those four things, at least, make me think it’s might be _possible_ what the redditor saw was not actually representative of the released game.
That… certainly sounds plausible. I’d been kind of dismissing the claims of it being a demo release, but those four things _do_ sound exactly like what you’d do for a demo version. They’d also explain how he was supposedly able to finish the game in 30 hours.
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### Author:  [@Battle\_Pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Battle_Pope)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2016, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/92 "2016-08-01T22:00:09Z")
> [@Lightnin](#):
>
> That… certainly sounds plausible. I’d been kind of dismissing the claims of it being a demo release, but those four things _do_ sound exactly like what you’d do for a demo version. They’d also explain how he was supposedly able to finish the game in 30 hours.
There is another stream out there from another player who got the game early which doesn’t have the issues the first guy was getting. Who knows what the truth is?
What I’ve seem still looks exactly like the game I’ve wanted for a long time so I’m happy.
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### Author:  [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/93 "2016-08-02T18:54:09Z")
> [@Lightnin](#):
>
> That… certainly sounds plausible. I’d been kind of dismissing the claims of it being a demo release, but those four things _do_ sound exactly like what you’d do for a demo version. They’d also explain how he was supposedly able to finish the game in 30 hours.
Does getting to the center of the galaxy “finish” the game? I was under the impression that it was a huge sandbox you just dick around in indefinitely. Like you could drive to the center of the USA In a couple days, but it’s not the same thing as exploring it.
Also, FWIW, I don’t like the “floating in colored fog” look of outer space. It’s kind of a pet peeve of mine when I see games or movies that depict outer space as anything but mostly black star field. I think it’s supposed to be gas clouds or nebulae or whatever, but AFAIK, gas clouds in space aren’t like terrestrial rain clouds that obstruct your view. They are typically light years across and are only visible from great distances away. I don’t think you would actually know that you were flying through a cloud of space dust just by looking out the window.
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### Author:  [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/94 "2016-08-02T20:40:41Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> Does getting to the center of the galaxy “finish” the game? I was under the impression that it was a huge sandbox you just dick around in indefinitely. Like you could drive to the center of the USA In a couple days, but it’s not the same thing as exploring it.
You can, but they’ve said for a long time that the “goal” they drive your towards is the center of the universe and something is big there. You can wander around for the rest of your life (literally) discovering new planets and lifeforms, but the game does have some secret waiting there and a GPS on your map constantly telling you which way to go to get there.
> [@](#):
>
> Also, FWIW, I don’t like the “floating in colored fog” look of outer space. It’s kind of a pet peeve of mine when I see games or movies that depict outer space as anything but mostly black star field. I think it’s supposed to be gas clouds or nebulae or whatever, but AFAIK, gas clouds in space aren’t like terrestrial rain clouds that obstruct your view. They are typically light years across and are only visible from great distances away. I don’t think you would actually know that you were flying through a cloud of space dust just by looking out the window.
They’ve said that their art design for the game is the covers of '60s Sci-Fi novels. They’ve said that’s a big part of why the planets, creatures, and even space looks the way it does. They’re explicitly aiming for a lot of pretty, bold colors everywhere, whether it’s in any way realistic or not. In fact, they said they’re not considering realism at all when going for the art design (except really necessary things like how all the creatures look like plausible, if alien, lifeforms with symmetrical shapes and such).
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### Author:  [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/95 "2016-08-02T21:16:49Z")
> [@msmith537](#):
>
> Does getting to the center of the galaxy “finish” the game? I was under the impression that it was a huge sandbox you just dick around in indefinitely. Like you could drive to the center of the USA In a couple days, but it’s not the same thing as exploring it.
>
> Also, FWIW, I don’t like the “floating in colored fog” look of outer space.
I don’t care for that look either, but as **JRagon** said, that’s the look they decided on.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2016, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/96 "2016-08-03T18:23:16Z")
> [@Jragon](#):
>
> They’ve said that their art design for the game is the covers of '60s Sci-Fi novels. They’ve said that’s a big part of why the planets, creatures, and even space looks the way it does. They’re explicitly aiming for a lot of pretty, bold colors everywhere, whether it’s in any way realistic or not. In fact, they said they’re not considering realism at all when going for the art design (except really necessary things like how all the creatures look like plausible, if alien, lifeforms with symmetrical shapes and such).
Yep lemme clear up one of the biggest misconceptions some people have about this game (and I really don’t know where they get this idea–it’s based on nothing that was ever said by the devs or marketers): This game is in no sense whatsoever at all any kind of simulation of the world we live in.
Planets are so close together you can easily see them as giant giant discs in the sky from other planets.
Rocks float. Not because anyone did anything, they just do.
It does not appear planets are even properly “in orbit” – as far as we’ve been able to see, they just kind of hang around in a clump near their sun.
Your ship continues to use fuel even while coasting in space, under regular old newtonian forces.
No planet has anything resembling an ecology.
Every world is a single giant biome.
A bunch of other stuff.
Don’t come to the game expecting any brand of realism whatsoever. That is far from what the game is for or about.
I think it’s best to think of the game as being about exploring a cool procedural space in both visual and aural terms, and as being about loneliness. It’s not about space, it’s not about planets, and it’s not about science.
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### Author:  [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2016, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/97 "2016-08-03T18:29:22Z")
There seems to be some discrepancy on the PC release date. Steam is saying August 9 (US, at least), but apparently the NMS official site is saying PS4 August 9, PC August 12 (I can’t access their site from work to verify).
Just a word of caution in case any PCers are planning their vacation…
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### Author:  [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2016, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/98 "2016-08-05T15:20:45Z")
Lots of streamers right now streaming early copies of the game on twitch… so watch out for spoilers, or enjoy!
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2016, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/99 "2016-08-05T18:30:19Z")
Interesting (and encouraging) thing about those streams: I’ve now seen dozens of planets through them, and not once have I thought “meh, I’ve seen all that before.” There’s something new and cool on _every planet_ so far.
Given we’re seeing effectively a random sampling, this is an encouraging sign. It would be hugely surprising if there was a sudden drop-off of interesting new stuff starting any time soon.
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-mans-sky-first-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning/759701/100 "2016-08-05T19:22:33Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> Interesting (and encouraging) thing about those streams: I’ve now seen dozens of planets through them, and not once have I thought “meh, I’ve seen all that before.” There’s something new and cool on _every planet_ so far.
>
> Given we’re seeing effectively a random sampling, this is an encouraging sign. It would be hugely surprising if there was a sudden drop-off of interesting new stuff starting any time soon.
Yeah, watched an hour of the Kotaku stream and every one of the three planets they hit was different and interesting. Now at some point, the differences may end up being irrelevant when you are focused on grinding minerals, but if you want explore worlds, it seems like you can spend a lot of time doing that.
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