Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself - "No Mans Sky"

[Sasqui]

If anything, this is a really cool to read. If it's 1/2 as good as it sounds, it'll be amazing.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/artificial-universe-no-mans-sky/463308/

The ambitious project will be released as a video game this June under the title No Man’s Sky. In the game, randomly-placed astronauts isolated from one another by millions of lightyears must find their own existential purpose as they traverse a galaxy of 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 unique planets.

The physics of every other game—it’s faked,” the chief architect Sean Murray explained. “When you’re on a planet, you’re surrounded by a skybox—a cube that someone has painted stars or clouds onto. If there is a day to night cycle, it happens because they are slowly transitioning between a series of different boxes.” The skybox is also a barrier beyond which the player can never pass. The stars are merely points of light. In No Man’s Sky however, every star is a place that you can go. The universe is infinite. The edges extend out into a lifeless abyss that you can plunge into forever. ..."

 

[RejZoR]

“That emotion of landing on a planet and knowing that no one else has ever been there before."

Yeah, especially when you think you're the first visitor to a planet just to realize someone has already sticked a flag with a dick on the planet surface

I've heard about this game before, certainly sounds interesting. I just wonder if they'll also take into account the golden (green) zone in solar systems, planet mass to account for gravity, the atmosphere and other constant "variables" throughout the space.

And I really wonder how vegetation and wildlife will be generated so it won't end up few models being re-adjusted per planet, but actual insanely generated creatures and plants.

 

[rruff]

Very cool! Thanks for posting. Fits well with how I view reality. I was just talking with my wife about this yesterday:

"In one sense, because of the game’s procedural design, the entire universe exists at the moment of its creation. In another sense, because the game only renders a player’s immediate surroundings, nothing exists unless there is a human there to witness it."

You don't believe all those trillions of stars and planets out there are rendered in detail unless someone looks, do you? That would be a terrible waste of processing power and bandwidth...

 

[Sasqui]

“That emotion of landing on a planet and knowing that no one else has ever been there before."

I watched The Maritan just this weekend. Good stuff.

I'm wondering about a hell of a lot of the same things, like you say, the goldilocks zones, and yea, a shitload of other variables

Remember this?

 

[Frick]

When's release? I hate the hype, I'm not reading another line until I play it.

 

[Loosenut]

When's release? I hate the hype, I'm not reading another line until I play it.

No specific date but June 2016

 

[Frag_Maniac]

For me, the biggest buzz kill of this game is the outdated, simplistic graphics. Just not immersive enough to look at.

 

[rruff]

For me, the biggest buzz kill of this game is the outdated, simplistic graphics. Just not immersive enough to look at.

The graphics do look pretty primitive. Is it because of the way everything is unique and procedural generated?

I can live with the graphics, I think. I'm more concerned about what you will actually be able to do. The hype keeps saying "you can do whatever you want" but that's just silly. We are a few decades (at least) away from creating virtual worlds where that is the case.

From what I've read it sounds like single player. Communication with semi-intelligent entities would be AI driven and scripted. More likely there isn't any at all. It's just you and a vast and lonely universe with an infinite variety of flora and fauna and spaceships flying around. And sentinels that keep you from messing things up too much.

 

[Vayra86]

I hate to say this, but a lot of procedurally generated games have preceded No Man's Sky and they all suffer from the syndrome of repetition and lack of a real goal. Look at Elite Dangerous, it has major issues due to the way the game is built.

That being said, what I have seen from this game so far does look very promising. If the activities are fun and play well, are good to repeat, then this game may do it right.

 

[jgunning]

If anything, this is a really cool to read. If it's 1/2 as good as it sounds, it'll be amazing.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/artificial-universe-no-mans-sky/463308/

Cannot wait for this game. A lot of excitement for the game, but cant wait to see what it will look like, and how they have created it will be awesome!

 

[Frag_Maniac]

The hype keeps saying "you can do whatever you want" but that's just silly.

More like you can construct whatever you want, within a given library of modular pieces. The more primitive the graphics, the larger the library, the more you can do.

 

[Sasqui]

More like you can construct whatever you want, within a given library of modular pieces. The more primitive the graphics, the larger the library, the more you can do.

Sounds a lot like minecraft, eh?

 

[rruff]

More like you can construct whatever you want, within a given library of modular pieces. The more primitive the graphics, the larger the library, the more you can do.

I watched a couple videos, but didn't see mention of building. More exploring, collecting and mining, trading, space battles, etc.

Based on what I've seen so far, I think its scope will be very limited. Its major selling point is the trillions of unique worlds. The things you can *do* will be limited, but the unique places you can do them will be unlimited. I mean, this is being built by a small team. Maybe if it is designed to be modded, it will end up offering a lot more.

 

[rruff]

I hate to say this, but a lot of procedurally generated games have preceded No Man's Sky and they all suffer from the syndrome of repetition and lack of a real goal. Look at Elite Dangerous, it has major issues due to the way the game is built.

Haven't played it. What do you consider its major issues?

 

[Frick]

I hate to say this, but a lot of procedurally generated games have preceded No Man's Sky and they all suffer from the syndrome of repetition and lack of a real goal. Look at Elite Dangerous, it has major issues due to the way the game is built.

That being said, what I have seen from this game so far does look very promising. If the activities are fun and play well, are good to repeat, then this game may do it right.

You have the same problem with all sandbox games really. Some of them manage to make them interesting (Freelancer), others do not (Bethsoft). The true open games (this) at least doesn't pretend to have goals.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Sounds a lot like minecraft, eh?

More like Space Engineers. I'm with @Vayra86. I'm interested but unless they do something to break the feeling of repetition, I'll steer clear.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

So, apparently nobody is really digging into this.

Hello games has been working on No Man's Sky since at least 2013. They officially debuted the game at VGX in December 2013: http://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/hello-games-no-mans-sky-vgx-debut/

The hype was big, but the only other games this studio put out were the two Joe Danger titles.

They next courted Sony for a Playstation exclusive release. The game was officially a PS4 exclusive, then a PS4 first release, and eventually it turned it a PC and PS4 simultaneous release.


This means that Hello Games has been working on exclusively this game for about 4 years, with a staff of at least 10 people (according to wikipedia 10, but their website lists off 15 people). We're looking at what, twice the average development cycle for a game? The team is relatively small, but they're also designing procedural mechanics, rather than scripting events and the like.

Putting this into perspective; Terraria is a proceduraly generated experimental game, and with less than half of the staff of Hello Games has managed to put together a surprisingly deep game. At the same time, Terraria is a 2d game which released too early (due to a leak), and really only was sufficiently deep after one or two major updates (I'm looking at 1.1 as the first release where the game felt whole enough). That, in my world, gives Hello Games a decent chance at delivering something fun.



In short, Hello Games is an indie darling. No matter what they put out, the hype they're amassing will likely make it disappointing. If we judge this fairly, and on the Joe Danger games, I'm just hoping for a 40-50 hour exploration before the procedural generation becomes too similar, and the novelty of exploration dies. If the game can do that, I'll look forward to it. Maybe it won't just be a universe of golden, lava spewing, cocks and dynamite piles. It'd be a nice change of pace, and but I'll wait and see before jumping at the hype. Hello Games has a great concept, let's let them realize it. Let's make this game the one where we don't kill it with hype before it's even released.

 

[Frick]

In short, Hello Games is an indie darling. No matter what they put out, the hype they're amassing will likely make it disappointing. If we judge this fairly, and on the Joe Danger games, I'm just hoping for a 40-50 hour exploration before the procedural generation becomes too similar, and the novelty of exploration dies. If the game can do that, I'll look forward to it. Maybe it won't just be a universe of golden, lava spewing, cocks and dynamite piles. It'd be a nice change of pace, and but I'll wait and see before jumping at the hype. Hello Games has a great concept, let's let them realize it. Let's make this game the one where we don't kill it with hype before it's even released.

That's why it's a good thing to not be interested in games as such. Like when PC Gamer had lika a developer column for Black & White, which obiously was all hype.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

That's why it's a good thing to not be interested in games as such. Like when PC Gamer had lika a developer column for Black & White, which obiously was all hype.

It's worth repeating.

I tried to express the same sentiment with Fallout 4, and was told that I must hate the game. Obviously we're going to do the same stupid thing here, and people will forced to either love or hate this game. Nobody will be able to enjoy the game, but point out flaws.

Sigh. I must be getting old. I can already see the pile of crap that this is going to cause, and nobody will likely heed the warning. At least I'm not worried about those damn kids on my lawn...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

So, apparently nobody is really digging into this.

Hello games has been working on No Man's Sky since at least 2013. They officially debuted the game at VGX in December 2013: http://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/hello-games-no-mans-sky-vgx-debut/

The hype was big, but the only other games this studio put out were the two Joe Danger titles.

They next courted Sony for a Playstation exclusive release. The game was officially a PS4 exclusive, then a PS4 first release, and eventually it turned it a PC and PS4 simultaneous release.


This means that Hello Games has been working on exclusively this game for about 4 years, with a staff of at least 10 people (according to wikipedia 10, but their website lists off 15 people). We're looking at what, twice the average development cycle for a game? The team is relatively small, but they're also designing procedural mechanics, rather than scripting events and the like.

Putting this into perspective; Terraria is a proceduraly generated experimental game, and with less than half of the staff of Hello Games has managed to put together a surprisingly deep game. At the same time, Terraria is a 2d game which released too early (due to a leak), and really only was sufficiently deep after one or two major updates (I'm looking at 1.1 as the first release where the game felt whole enough). That, in my world, gives Hello Games a decent chance at delivering something fun.

These are all reasons I'm a skeptic. Harebrained Schemes has about 80 employees and it takes them about two years to create linear games in isometric space. Deus Ex Human Revolution came out of a similar team size over the period of about 4 years. No Man's Sky just doesn't compute.

 

[rruff]

Obviously we're going to do the same stupid thing here, and people will forced to either love or hate this game. Nobody will be able to enjoy the game, but point out flaws.

I just found out about this game when it was posted here. After doing a little research, my excitement damped considerably. I don't have high expectations. I'm not sure why anyone would. At least in the info they've released there appears to be very little "meat" to it.

IMO if the developers create a good engine and framework that allows modding and the addition of content, it will be a success.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I watched a couple videos, but didn't see mention of building.

I meant in the sense of what the game engine is designed to construct per each planet. Sorry that I didn't clarify. The word "you" refers to the developers.

 

[Vayra86]

Haven't played it. What do you consider its major issues?

I watched a video the other day that really conveyed it better than I ever could, can't seem to find it atm (its late). I've gotten as far as getting an Asp in the game, with about 150 or so hours played. Spent some time exploring, a lot of time hunting bounty (that's how I went out and got my cash) and some time hauling stuff around. The game has great mechanics and all, flying works well and the sense of space is awesome. But once you get past that, you realise the only thing you can really do is just some temporary, artifical instance that has no impact or bearing on anything else besides a sum of cash. You fly around, kill something, get cash, buy something, rinse and repeat. Procedural is exactly that: there is no persistence. Thát is the issue of a game such as this, but it ties a lot into online gameplay and if No Man's Sky finds a way to get persistence in a procedural world, they may sell it to me.

 

[R-T-B]

The physics of every other game—it’s faked,” the chief architect Sean Murray explained. “When you’re on a planet, you’re surrounded by a skybox—a cube that someone has painted stars or clouds onto. If there is a day to night cycle, it happens because they are slowly transitioning between a series of different boxes.” The skybox is also a barrier beyond which the player can never pass. The stars are merely points of light. In No Man’s Sky however, every star is a place that you can go. The universe is infinite. The edges extend out into a lifeless abyss that you can plunge into forever. ..."

Just FYI, the skybox in Elite Dangerous is not faked. It is based on the things actually around you.

 

[jboydgolfer]

i hope the game delivers, it is certainly making some big claims, it would likely be one of the best games of the decade if it holds true on them....I love all the proceduraly generated game space...with the scale of the game the two together would make an unbeatable title..., it should be a beast...fingers crossed....XX"please deliver"XX