What happened with No Man's Sky?

HireALLTheThings · 7時間前

I'll try and give a short, concise version.

Leading up to its release, Sean Murray, the lead developer and company face of Hello Games, the developer of NMS, did a lot of press appearances and interviews, and promised a lot from the game. In a lot of ways, the game delivered what he promised, but a long list of features he talked about that never appeared in the game was compiled not long after release. This compounded on this odd sort of furor that arose from an experiment that was done to prove whether or not one of the previously promised features (the slim chance of being able to run into other players) proved that the statement about the feature was false. The reason it's odd is because, while Murray spoke fairly passionately a few times about the desire to have players run into each other for a one-in-a-million encounter, closer to release, the devs were pushing the game hard as a single player experience. It's just an odd point to focus on, I think.

Further to that, the initial PS4 release wasn't bad, but had some issues, and the PC release was a mess. Some people (including myself and a friend of mine who also bought the game) had minimal issues. Others, like famed internet video game enthusiast TotalBiscuit, had very publicly evidenced terrible experiences with the game. TB streamed the game and it was clearly nigh-unplayable. These performance issues, as well as the missing promised features, as you imagine, caused a lot of fury as a result.

Many refunds were issued and, on multiple occasions, big news stories came out of barely-founded sources (rumors that digital distribution outlets like steam were breaking policy to refund at later dates than usual, one guy's experience where his planet/object names weren't saving properly, but they shaped up once he connected to the NMS servers) to rake in clicks on the negative attention the game had attracted.

That said, internet fury only lasts for so long, and now that the release day hype has died down, NMS has largely settled quietly into the background. Updates and bug fixes are still being done, but after the massive backlash the game incurred, the devs have gone radio-silent. Some people will still leap on the opportunity to shit on the game, but nobody really wants to talk about it anymore now that the vitriol has been vented.

TL;DR: I suck at "short-versions."

H1deki · 6時間前

It was supposed to be an endless universe of exploration, a huge game with nearly endless of possibilities and a game that made you want to play, along with a shared universe so large that you would never run into anyone, but if you ever did, you could interact.

But instead, what everyone got was a sandbox in the truest sense of the world, where the only goals in the game are to grind for a bigger shovel and a bigger bucket, and not being able to build a sandcastle. The planets were mostly the same, just recoloured. Oh this one has a red sky? Oh, here is another planet that is the same... but it has a orange-red sky instead!

To top it all off, it was super buggy, the game is obviously incomplete (you can see placeholders everywhere) and the developers of the game haven't said a word (to their credit, they've released patches to make it more stable, but no patch notes...)

VenomB · 5時間前

You've alreay gotten plenty of answers, but I'm personally one of those that are rather upset about the whole thing.

1) Online Play

Sean Murray promised players could see eachother, but it would such a slim chance of it happening, we probably wouldn't have the chance. Day 1, just a few hours in on PS4, two players found each other's discoveries and set up a place and time to meet. They streamed the whole thing and they never found eachother physically (but in the same place at the same time). One person's actions was not reflected on the other's game and they even had extreme time differences in the game.

2) Other missing features

Tons of things were simplified and just simply removed from the game. One example being teleporters. There were huge monoliths that you could enter and be shot into a different planet or system. I, and many others, found one rather quickly and they were disabled. Simply turned off. Another example is how many different animals there would be (many were similar across worlds and systems) as well as their AI. The videos they'd show of the game were all pre-rendered and scripted. There's also any kind of AI other than ships doing their own scripted fly arounds. No wingmen or party AI.

3) The ending

We were promised an ending that would be very surprising, cool, exciting, and absolutely worth the time to get to, which is at the center of the universe.

*SPOILER*

It restarts the game. That's it.

clubby37 · 4時間前

TL;DR: The high-flying Jet of Expectations misjudged the height of Reality Mountain, and upon impact, there were problems.

The game was hyped for years before its release. Everyone was drooling over it, and the developers made a lot of "crazy promises." It was supposed to be a game-changer, one of those once-in-a-decade games that shakes up the paradigm and makes us all rethink what's possible with this medium. People were on the edges of their seats, imaginations running in overdrive, picturing all the awesome things they'd see and do in this brave, visionary experiment. They booked vacation days so they could play non-stop when this masterpiece of gaming magnificence finally launched. This was gonna be like X-Wing times Deus Ex to the power of Skyrim, and nothing was ever going to be the same again!

Then, it turned out to be kind of so-so. Interface was unpolished and frustrating to use, the "ending" just started you over at the beginning again, the planets aren't nearly as different from each other as people had been lead to believe, and worst of all, the marketing has apparently done far more to engage people's imaginations than playing the game does.

People were upset about being so totally let down, and said so. Vehemently. The game is such a great big nothing, though, that no one's really talking about it anymore, because now that the anger's been vented, there's simply nothing left to discuss.

Littledansonman1 · 5時間前

In a nut shell..... it promised to be an amazing game... turned out to be very boring. Unless you like the idea of an infinite nature walk.... eventually if you played for more than 3 hours and went to more than one planet you will have seen all the game has to offer. Infinitely repetitive with nothing interesting to do but walk around. I enjoyed it the first 2 days before I realized I had seen all there is to do.

esmifra · 4時間前

If you watch angry joe review i think it boils down the main problems people have with the game quite nicely. The fact that he starts showing the experience on a positive tone even mirrors better how the release was for so many.

robwhatrocks · 2時間前

Like you I learned of the game a few weeks before the release. I watched all the videos I could find to give me as much info on the game as poss, to tell me whether this would be a game worth getting on release. It looked phenomenal, so based on what I saw I booked some time off work and pre-ordered.

I avoided any gameplay vids and reviews for a good week while I played ALOT. Only when I was really wondering where all the cool stuff I saw on most of the videos was, did I break radio silence. Total disappointment, compared to what we saw in the pre-release videos in terms of content, it was a shell of a game. And what’s worse, no explanation.

I have given up being disappointed as I’m sure most others have by now. I’m past the point where I can rationally try to claim a Steam refund, but I’m still surprised they haven’t issued a blanket refund due to the insane disparity of what was shown vs delivered.

There are clearly people out there playing and enjoying the game, and that’s cool. However, for the most of us (I would say), we have been burned not by our own stupidity and eagerness to jump on the hype train, but by being flat out lied to. To this day the main video on the store page of Steam resembles a game none of us have played; there are few industries where you can get away with such a practice.

cornered_throwaway · 4時間前

What happens to all bad video games -- they fade out into silence and obscurity.

JustCallMeDave · 3時間前

Here is one player's take on the problems with the game. NSFW

shrekinator · 4時間前

Hey OP, some top comments are underplaying what happened. (I've always had a problem with that in this sub, people with a certain opinion can come off as informed and neutral in their explicative comment while they're actually biased) I would say, read the comments from both sides of the spectrum, and make up your own mind.

IMO, Sean Murray lied about a lot of things that were supposed to be in the game. Trailers for the game that are still up today showcase features that simply don't exist. That's the bulk of why people were angry. There's also the performance issues, bland game design, and terrible 'end game', but that's more subjective. Basically, ever since the debacle, Sean Murray and HG have been completely silent, and NMS has lost 90% of their playerbase on Steam. Updates are coming though, supposedly.

Tl;dr: just read it

RandyMachoManSavage · 2時間前

Sean Murray got out of control and became a hype man. No Man's Sky the actual game was nothing like the promises made by notorious liar and fraud Sean Murray. Lots of unhappy customers. Lots of refunds. Sean Murray has gone AWOL with his bags of money.

lonewombat · 3時間前

This game is one of the biggest cons in gaming history. Massive buzz from E3 convention shows and interviews. The game sounded exactly like what a lot of gamers wanted and it was backed by Sony.

It started with a leaked copy being really bad. Then no media copies were given (see: TB's rant about it.) Then the blatant last second changing of the box showing single player only.

Release day comes and goes for ps4, relatively high buzz and praise on the surface, but then things become apparent what was shown at E3 was simply not the same game. A gutted out shell remained with only the most basic of features.

Some people still enjoy the game for what it is, but that vast majority played their 10-20 hours and stopped after they realized there's nothing more to the game.

At this point it's truly worth $15 maybe $20. A wide puddle, vast but shallow.

rutefoot · 4時間前

Here's a different perspective from someone who actually likes the game after playing 60+ hours:.

Like Minecraft, it's a style of game that was never going to appeal to many players: Completely open world with no clear direction or goals. Regardless of features, this alone was going to make it tough for a lot of people to enjoy the game.

Then, somewhere along the way the hype surrounding the game blew up. I was pleasantly surprised as I didn't think so many people would be interested in such a game. It didn't occur to me (and clearly, Hello Games) that this was a problem in the making.

As he showcased the game, Sean Murray, the creator, got a little hyperbolic when he described the various mechanics, but was also simultaneously vague. This gave people a little too much freedom to interpret his words in a way that distorted their expectations for what would be in the future finished game. In those people's defence, Sean and the rest of the team didn't do much to dispel these expectations and there were certainly a few features that never did make it into the final build.

This all created a hype 'bubble'. More and more people got on board the hype train for a game that, historically, wasn't going to appeal to most people.

The game was released, and for those people, the bubble burst.

Yes, there would be a some missing features from launch but the disappointment in those missing features paled in comparison to the disappointment people had when they started up the game and found out the core mechanics just didn't entertain them.

I was initially unaware of the hype surrounding the game. Like Elite: Dangerous, I expected the game to go under the radar a little. It's not everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, because I unintentionally avoided all of the rampant speculation filling social media. In the end, the game I got was 85% of what I was expecting. And most of that 15% was on me. I expected certain features from Elite Dangerous to end up in NMS (but later realised were never promised).

brainsapper · 3時間前

It was a $15 Indie game overhyped to be a $60 AAA title.

Sean Murray (filthy liar) sold the game like it was this when upon release it was more like this.

BenMcLean · 4時間前

It was overhyped and overpriced. People took stuff the developer said about their hopes for the game in 2013 as expectations for what the game would be in 2016. This is why corporations give us PR doubleapeak, because if you don't control your messaging then people take what you say years in advance as gospel.

The bottom line is that it's not worth $60 but it is a basically good game.

ShinyBloke · 4時間前

Game came out and we've heard next to nothing from them since then. It's very disappointing, they say they are working on the game still, but I'm not expecting much.

mutsuto · 2時間前

It did a Spore.

Otadiz · 2時間前

Over hyped game sold on lies and false marketing from a fool who can't see the forest from the trees.

Mile wide and an inch deep.

That's what NMS is.

Anoleis_Would_Throw · 2時間前

Devs lied about everything.

what_a_cat_astrophe · 2時間前

If you ever followed along when Spore was released, No Man's Sky received a very similar reaction. A lot of hype and excitement for what seemed to be a truly innovative game, only to find out it wasn't all that grand in the end and much of the game progression didn't result in anything very gratifying.

Alphad115 · 2時間前

More like what didn't happen with no mans sky... Am I right boiz?

kidbeer · 2時間前

The press for the game was "HUGE UNIVERSE! PROCEDURALLY GENERATED!!".

Yeah, but what kind of game is it? "HUGE UNIVERSE! PROCEDURALLY GENERATED!!".

I understand, but what do I do in the game? "HUGE UNIVERSE! PROCEDURALLY GENERATED!!"

And then people got the game and saw what it was. Huge universe, procedurally generated. Nothing else. Someone didn't get the memo that a feat of engineering isn't a game. The only part I'm uncertain of is why anybody was surprised.

dittofire1 · 2時間前

Devs lied. People got pissed. Now no one really gives a shit. That simple, really.

Gitanes · 1時間前

Over promised and under delivered.

wacct3 · 1時間前

I haven't actually played either this or spore so take this with a grain of salt. But it seems to me that procedural generated content sounds super cool in theory, as you have theoretically a huge/unlimited amount of unique content to explore, but in practice always winds up being less interesting than custom crafted content/experiences. It seems like both spore and this suffered from this. Sounds super cool so got super hyped, but then the actual game winds up getting old pretty quickly as you basically just do the same thing over and over, with stuff that looks slightly different.

ninjacapo · 1時間前

Width of an ocean, depth of a puddle

Greaseball01 · 1時間前

The real short version is that everyone got bored, stopped playing, and moved on with their lives.

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