• BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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    8 months ago

    It’s pretty amusing that this game went from over hyped to an absolute dumpster fire to probably one of the best space games ever made. One hell of a comeback story.

    • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      Honestly to me it’s more promising to see a game studio stick behind their game like this rather than having the initial game be good. A good studio will still have bad games, but knowing that a studio will stand behind their bad game and work on it until it’s good means a lot.

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        we just have to do some work on the overhyping a game and preorder part, but its looking like i might pick up this game

        • harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          I got it off GamePass back in November 2020 for my One S and played it a lot. Work has kept me busy so I’ve had less time but I have bought it twice since then - once for PS5 and then when I bought my Series X.

          It’s been worth it. I don’t play multiplayer much and I’ve missed most of the Expeditions but I enjoy it a lot every time I play.

          You can follow the quests or not. I honestly enjoy exploring the different planets. The graphics are good. On my PS5 save, my home base is on a planet where the grass glows when the wind sweeps across it at night.

          I’ll sit and just watch it throughout the game night.

        • Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          It’s not false, it’s artificial. Some ships are indeed only buyable for a limited time. Or for certain periods.

      • morbidcactus@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        Semi interestingly to me, I literally created my reddit account to sell my ships nearly a decade ago. Do not regret that…

      • SlippyCliff76@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Fwiw, you can get deep discounts CCU chaining ships. Ships can also be unofficially “sold” and “bought” after the fact. It’s done through gifting. For example, you can get the Hammerhead at the impound for less then half the price. The impound is also one of the higher priced sites to. There are also unofficial ships sales on reddit to that have even lower prices.

        Edit-Looks like a time limited sale, nevertheless, SC-trades on reddit has some Hammerheads for around 500.

          • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            For the cost of that Hammerhead it had better also come with an entire computer to play the damn game on.

            At least in Elite: Dangerous the only cost for ships is your time and/or sanity.

            • root_beer@midwest.social
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              8 months ago

              Right? That kind of money goes toward a component of a PC that would have multiple uses—or, hell, for some people, a whole-ass PC, jesus. Not just one part of a game (pronounced like a gun is in Wayne’s World)

            • sheogorath@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Ahh, reminds me of grinding for reputation so I can get the Cutter and Corvette. I still keep Elite installed and still waiting to get the will to start that game. Odyssey really left a bad taste on my mouth.

              • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                Yeah. I liked Odyssey for wandering around my carrier’s interior and really very little else. The combat is absolute dogshit, and that wouldn’t be half as bad if pretty much every on-foot mission type did not inevitably downright require pissing off some faction or another, which then forces you to get involved in combat. The gunplay is pants, and I can’t fathom why there are so few hitscan handheld weapons in a universe that’s all about laser beams and railguns and shit. And then when you’re done with the annoying combat you have a ton of bounties stacked up you have to deal with.

                At least the mercenary missions let you just shoot people for the sake of shooting people. But if I wanted to bounce around in low-grav and shot guys with silly weapons I’d just play Borderlands.

                That reminds me, I probably need to grind some cash to pay the upkeep on my damn carrier.

            • trslim@pawb.social
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              8 months ago

              Man the grind is rough in Elite Dangerous if you want to participate in PvP. Material grinding is so painful, i wish they never added engineering, or only had 2 levels of it instead of 5. Im still waiting for ship interiors too.

            • root_beer@midwest.social
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              8 months ago

              Ha, sure thing, turbo. More like great way to tell everyone I’m better at managing my money than some o’ y’all, doing the bare minimum of not spending hundreds [with an ‘s’!] of dollars on a make-believe spaceship in an unfinished video game.

              I really hope you forgot the /s there because, wa-how.

            • shea
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              8 months ago

              Lol great way to tell everyone you think 400 bucks for a video game cosmetic is a reasonable thing to buy, and that everyone who can’t/won’t do that is broke. Its a bad look, this is cringe stuff that someone who’s never worked for their money would say. Real money, old money, doesn’t participate in this kind of behavior. Wastes of air like you usually live off daddy’s money raging on the internet because you never learned how to develop real social connections.

          • SlippyCliff76@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            It’s dirt cheap compared to something like horseback riding, shooting sports, cars, or scuba diving.It’s just that this is easy to criticize as you can see the price tag easily vs looking at half a dozen receipts for the other hobbies.

        • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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          8 months ago

          I mean sure, but at the end of the day it’s a pretend spaceship, that you don’t own in any meaningful way, in a videogame that could go offline forever at any point that they deem it unprofitable to continue.

          I can’t be alone in finding even the “deeply discounted” prices to be somewhat unreasonable. This is horse armour with ideas above its station.

          • SlippyCliff76@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Fair enough. However, if you consider the entertainment value delivered over time, the costs can be very low. If you count it is as a 20$ a month movie ticket, you could pledge/buy a Hammerhead in around 2 years. The game and its users have been around much longer then that. It’s a game that can deliver hours and hours of entertainment each weekend. The price per hour would be low, and there are other hobbies much more expensive then this.

            Even if the game were to shutter and you were to lose access to your ships, you’d still have that value delivered over time like a bunch of movie tickets. Also, you don’t buy ships. You pledge to support the development of the game. You can also buy a Hammerhead in game quickly if you know what game loops to target.

            • QuaternionsRock@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              If you count it is as a 20$ a month movie ticket, you could pledge/buy a Hammerhead in around 2 years.

              Jesus Christ lmao

              Yeah man, I could enjoy a Blu-ray of my favorite movie for a comparable amount of time but that wouldn’t make me any less of a moron to buy a $400 Blu-ray.

              • SlippyCliff76@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                A few hour Blu-ray won’t give you near the entertainment time that a game or comparable hobby will. You’ll watch it once, then maybe once again if you really liked it, then maybe you might watch it again a few years later.Then it’s mostly just collecting dust. In fact more so given the popularity of streaming.

                • Sidyctism@feddit.de
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                  8 months ago

                  Right. And a single ship in a single game of questionable status isnt gonna give you nearly the entertainment value that the 7-40 games you could buy for the same money are gonna give you.

                  Look, if you are happy with your purchase, thats cool. But to us this looks like a f-ton of wasted money.

            • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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              8 months ago

              Your comparison makes no sense. Watching a movie in a theater is much like watching a an actual play or a live concert, it’s a “group experience” that isn’t quite like watching a playback on your TV.

              If you divide those 870 over 24 months (2 years), that’s 36 dollars a month. If you spent that money every month on games, you could get 1 or more each month and might luck out and get a HUGE “return of investment” if you calculate it entirely as money / time played. Plus, it’d be hours and hours of entertainment any day of the week, not only “each weekend”. Buying on GOG would also mean you get to “own them forever”.

              You pledge to support the development of the game

              Please act and reply like an investor instead of a fanboy, then. Just because you want to see the game come through doesn’t mean you have to defend everything RSI does to raise money.

            • squid_slime@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              beyond the issue of the price, this isnt comparable to a trip to the pictures once a month as movies change… and if someone spent stupid money on a ingame ship you dont think theyll buy another? these companies dont offer consumer friendly deals they instead hunt wales.

    • Deconceptualist@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Among the best space games? What the heck are you comparing it to?

      IMO it’s an okay giant sandbox but terrible as an actual game.

    • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      probably one of the best space games ever made

      Don’t stretch it. Maybe it could be #10 in a top 10, but when you have the likes of Elite Dangerous, Space Engineers, X4, Freelancer, plus little known indies like Empyrion Galactic Survival and Evochron Legends, it’ll hardly be anyone’s top choice.

      • The_Lopen@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        I mean, I generally agree with your assessment, but elite dangerous? I love Elite, but it is not a good game. Best thing to come from Elite Dangerous is the community.

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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            8 months ago

            Judging from a quick Lets Play watch, the game is a top down 2D space combat with 3D graphics. You can go down on planets, but it’s a small map and meant mostly to upgrade your ship and repair it. It’s a space game with big focus on combat, but with nothing remotely comparable to NMS, really. Despite the irritating sound effects, I’m actually curious to trying it out sometime in the future.

          • PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            It had 4 player local co-op, ship to ship combat, and actual meaningful progression and it came out in 1999.

  • robalees@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    One of those games I’m glad I bought at launch, although I’ve fired it up 3-4 times and struggled with the mechanics… it’s nice to know it’s still evolving and I can always start fresh again with the new content. If I wasn’t so deep into Helldivers I’d give it another go right now… but Democracy can’t wait!

    • untilyouarrived@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Same. I keep picking it up every now and again but it really needs me to put a bit of time into it to understand all the new mechanics since launch. I’ll get to it one day!

      • Thrickles@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        I felt this same way until I jumped into the Omega expedition. It was an excellent crash course for all the game offers and I now feel way more comfortable jumping into the base game and doing whatever I feel up to.

          • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            FOMO-leveraging shit needs to stop. All it does is make me not want to touch the thing at all because I know I don’t have the time to do all the things in a season.

            NMS isn’t so bad at it, but seriously FUCK the games that leverage it. Almost as bad as microtransactions.

            • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              FOMO-leveraging shit needs to stop.

              but seriously FUCK the games that leverage it.

              No one likes to be manipulated/tricked for someone else’s profit.

      • Glide@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        I tried the game two or three times sitting down with the “I want to play a space sim” mindset and could never get past the tutorial. Then the next time, it had clicked that it’s a survival crafter that just happens to have a space theme. When I sat down with that mindset and perspective on what I was in for, I suddenly throughly enjoyed the game.

        The game just does a really bad job of showing you what it is trailers and other media. Sure, all the things it shows off are there, but they’re not the core of the game.

    • piskertariot@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I waited to get involved until after the Echoes update last summer, and I truly enjoyed 100+ hours of the game.

      It still does suffer from inevitably feeling really empty, with billions of copies of the same 4 different coloured/temperatured planets and 8 creature types, but it was still a heck of an experience.

      • robalees@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Similar to Glide said above, wanted a space sim and realize it’s more of a survival game. On the opposite end I played a little Elite Dangerous which was WAY TOO INVOLVED space sim!

    • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      The whole situation just made me believe Sean Murray really wanted to make a cool game but he got overwhelmed by the media attention and started running his mouth. Maybe he felt like he had to overpromise and say yes to everything he was asked? Hello Games was still an indie studio before it got all that attention.

      If he had done it in bad faith it would have been much easier to cut his losses and run away with the money. Nearly 10 years of expansions wouldn’t come out of it if not for legitimate passion.

      It also made their next game announcement pretty funny.

      • yiliu@informis.land
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        8 months ago

        I think the fans & press deserve equal blame for the initial hype. At some point I saw a supercut of things Sean Murray said, then the resulting headlines and Reddit posts.

        In an interview, the journalist asks: “Will you be able to play with your friends in a shared universe?” The answer: “Well…we hope that eventually there will be at least some multiplayer functionality, though maybe not on day one…like maybe you could explore one another’s planets or share pictures or something.”

        Headline: “NO MANS SKY WILL LAUNCH WITH MULTIPLAYER!”

        Reddit comments: “I’m already forming a guild, we’re going to play as bounty hunters chasing down other players who are pirates in glorious multiplayer space battles!!”

        There were tons of examples of that. Journalists would poke and prod for a soundbite, take it out of context and exaggerate it, and the community would just go batshit with their expectations.

    • LethargyTheGhost@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      it might just be me but I come back to this game about once a year, play for about 4 hours before feeling like it feels almost exactly the same? I see these huge update drops but they don’t ever feel like anything

  • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    As someone who wanted to love Elite Dangerous but couldn’t get behind the grind and monotony of it, would this game be worth getting now?

    • johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Ehhh, maybe. While the game is so much better than it was at launch, it’s still pretty sandboxy and repetitive. I found myself dropping it after I realized I was trying to build bases to get better at gathering resources to make money to buy bigger ships to make more money to… What exactly?

      • Klanky@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        I came to a realization a few years ago that I am too boring to play sandbox games. I need a tightly crafted narrative, I cannot be left to my own devices. After a long time of trying to get into every sandbox game that looked cool, it was such a relief to finally realize that about myself.

      • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Yea Elite Dangeous is kind of the same, you have to make your own objectives or you’re just running missions to make money to buy ships to be more efficient at those runs and eventually even bigger ships to make more money.

        • ripcord@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          There is at least a couple of core storyline loops that I think are fairly engaging, besides just setting your own goals.

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        8 months ago

        Yeah once I had a fleet and some bases mining resources for a ton of money , and a ship I liked, I kind of lost interest.

        It’s a good game but it doesn’t go on forever.

      • Moneo@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Unrelated but this is why I stopped play BotW after the first boss temple thingy.

      • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I would say I do to an extent, but elite dangerous solo is pretty egregious i just feel really confined even though you can get out of your ship now. If there were a few more things to do it would check all of the boxes such as things you could do in NMS like build bases, etc. And plus the ship customization is strictly internals and you don’t have the ability to change the overall look of your ship besides skins.

        • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I’ve on/off played this game for way too long. If you can get past the initial slow start, and I’m talking at least two hours of gameplay, then you’ll find things begin opening up. This expanding of the gameplay applies to equipment, ships, battles, exploration, and mechanics in general. It’s a game that has become a fantastic experience and yet along the way sort of forgot about that initial experience, which could be expedited significantly without much loss.

          That said, if you struggle to make challenges for yourself and often end up aimlessly wandering til you get bored without some direction, I would hesitate to grab NMS. Go watch a recent Let’s Play may be the best idea to get a handle on whether it fits your preferences.

    • Lesrid@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      One thing I loved about Elite was the collection of mini games. Navigating through the space station to your landing pad, finding a suitable patch of surface to touchdown on a planet, having to fight or yield to a supercruise interdiction, they all came together to make Elite feel like a driving game where your vehicle happens to be a spaceship.

      In No Man’s Sky landing and takeoff are achieved with a singular button press. And the ship combat is there to check a box. The game is mostly about taking pics of flora and fauna and digging trenches in planets for minerals.

      • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Yea, I would have to agree wholeheartedly that the ship flying is awesome in Elite. The ambiance is great, such as the creaking of the ship when in hyper drive. I guess the games are two different kind of space Sims. If what you’re telling me is accurate about NMS then Elite is probably better for me in the long run, I just wish I had a friend who would actually play it with me and make space a little less lonely - I guess I would have the same problem in either title come to think of it.

        • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Each to their own. I’ve played both and I found elite to be very “space truck driver…ey”. Personally, I want to spend my time exploring solar systems and not decelerating to space stations. NMS also has rich and meaningful planetary exploration and not a hollow imitation afterthought.

          Due to the depth of NMS, I wouldn’t even put them as comparable. One is an award winning best seller that’s having yet another huge free update just to make the fans happy, the other is free on playstation plus because no one will buy it.

          • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Yea that’s kinda what I was getting at in my comments on here, maybe not necessarily this comment you replied to, but elite definitely had the ship aspect of the game down, it feels so good to fly around, bur you’re totally right in how you called it a space trucking feel. That’s where I get tired of it even if you can get out of your ship with the expansion now. With all of the comments here I think I’ll wind up buying it here soon and giving it a whirl.

        • ripcord@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Yeah, for the most part ship flying is better in Elite. Especially travelling long distances. But I still enjoy it in NMS for the most part.

    • Deconceptualist@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      No. Every single gameplay mechanic in NMS is shallow and made by someone incompetent on game design.

      The engine runs well and it’s a weird giant sandbox and it gets tons of grindy cosmetic content updates. But the actual game aspects are terrible.

      EDIT: Disagree? Name one game mechanic that’s designed well compared to other games.

    • undergroundoverground@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      For me, yes. Its an award winning best seller. Its also dirt cheap and a labour of love for all the scifi they enjoy. They listened to what their players wanted and just … did it, like a bunch of psychopaths.

      It also has one of the most meta storylines I’ve ever seen in a game. For me, its a very special game and as close as anyones come to the space game I always wanted growing up.

      Its not for everyone of course. But, if its your kind of thing, it’ll really work for you. Honestly, if anyone choses to play it, id recommend getting a buzz going on whatever poison you’re into, don’t Google any of it fot a bit and let it unfold as you play. Part of the game is figuring out the game.

    • redcalcium@lemmy.institute
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      8 months ago

      There are a lot of things to do in nms now after years of updates. Right now it’s 50% off so I say it’s worth it

  • Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    Do you guys do anything other than to pile on to shit on this game? Shit on Star Citizen? Shit on buying anything ever? Shit on Sean Murray and how naive he just was and you would just do such a better job right?

    Thought this would be a cool place to talk about games. How do you not have any awareness that [removed for civility]

    Makes sense though since Linux is [bad word] at running games unless you have a Steam Deck.

    • PotatoKat@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I recently switched my laptop over to pop os and I’ve had no issues running the games I want to play using Lutris. Hell I’d argue Linux runs old games better than windows because of lutris. I have a few games I tried running on windows 10 and no matter what I did the game would insta ctd. But after switching and installing them using a lutris config I’ve actually been able to play those games. I even thought for sure I’d lose some of the functionality of my laptop (key lights, touch screen, something) but nope it all worked straight after install.

      Linux has come a long way since I last tried it ~15 years ago

      • bundes_sheep@lemmy.one
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        8 months ago

        Linux has come a long way since I last tried it ~15 years ago

        100% this. Linux has been my daily driver since ~2005 and it seems like suddenly one day I went from playing tux racer and trying to get Skyrim to work to some degree with wine to buying games on steam with little fear of having to anything more than choose proton experimental and maybe add gamemoderun to the settings. It’s a completely different world now.

    • Dremor@lemmy.worldM
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      8 months ago

      Please stay civil (rule 2).

      If you come across such comment, please reply to them instead of OP, maybe you will start some interesting debate instead of just try to stir conflict in the community.

        • Dremor@lemmy.worldM
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          8 months ago

          Still out of context.

          If this was a reply calling on someone baselessly criticizing the game, I’d allow it, but OP just posted an article that doesn’t even criticize the game.

          Still, thank you for your edit.

          • Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            There was just too many derivative comments to choose from. I didn’t want to make it personal with someone. This was not directed at OP I thought (perhaps incorrectly) that that would be clear.

            • Dremor@lemmy.worldM
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              8 months ago

              If you find one that seen interesting to debate upon, reply to it.
              For the other, don’t waste your time on them and just downvote.

              The vote system was made for this reason.

    • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yes. But last time I played it (which was admittedly, idk, 2 years and something like 10 major updates ago now ? These guys just don’t stop), barring a few exceptions the gameplay was all breadth and no depth. You could do a ton of different things but after you had done a thing once, every other instances of the same activity would feel extremely samey

      Edit: I should point out that I’m very much ok with repetition if the gameplay is deep enough to keep me interested. I have easily played various horde shooter games for a total of ~2500 hours. Not including the ~800 hours in Warframe, where the gameplay isn’t even that deep, but still interesting enough to make the grind for new toys bearable.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        All breadth and no depth, still the same. Some 12 different planet types, a number of neat looking anomaly planets that exist only for sightseeing (one of my favorites was a planet where everything is covered in a metallic hexagonal mesh). As I said in another comment in this thread, the game is very repetitive with some activities being needlessly padded out to make you waste as much time as possible (learning alien words, going into derelict freighters to get upgrades)

        • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          some activities being needlessly padded out to make you waste as much time as possible (learning alien words, going into derelict freighters to get upgrades)

          And now I remember why I stopped playing the last time. All the things I wanted to do (mostly, getting cooler/better ships and capital ships, and getting better weapons) required grinding insane amounts of money. Plus getting the exact ship you wanted was extremely random (and grindy, because good luck finding the ship with the looks you want and a good rating) but it looks like this update addresses this at least…

          • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Getting money is pretty easy if you set up mines of rare resources. Give it some time and you’ll have all the money you need.

            • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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              8 months ago

              If you mean mining Active Indium, they nerfed the price hard some updates ago. Using Oxygen + Chlorine for infinite multiplication still works. Another easy-ish way to get money is with a huge plantation of cactus. There’s a recipe that turns 200 into a gel that sells for 50k each.

              • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                Hah, I think I figured out the cactus thing by myself right before I stopped playing. But I didn’t have the motivation to make a big enough farm to really start racking up the big bucks

            • Sylvartas@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Oh yeah I think I remember reading about that and going “that’s a thing ?” And promptly realizing that none of my bases were on a planet where the profits would be worth the time investment

              • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                The planets with big money kinda suck to make bases. They are usually the most hazardous ones. I basically only leave a landing pad and a portal besides the mining stuff to collect and take it to my main base from time to time.

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You’re not wrong, but also the space that they would need on your hard drive to make the game really non-repetitive visually would be out of this world (pardon the pun). Also not so sure how that would work out on the consoles.

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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            8 months ago

            TLDR > A lot of the repetitiveness isn’t a problem of “Lack of disk space”, it’s just a matter of not making good use of procedural generation. Seeing “the same building blocks in a different configuration” is better than seeing “the same thing”.

            the space that they would need on your hard drive to make the game really non-repetitive visually would be out of this world

            Not necessarily. You can procedurally generate textures, sounds and geometry, but that becomes a huge CPU hog in a game that already blows CPU usage. But most of the repetitiveness can be “fixed” (read: reduced) without adding more than ~20MB of new textures and geometry.

            One of the problems is that there’s no variation within a planet. Every grassy planet is the same mechanically. Sure, one might have bubbles in the air, another might have yellow grass instead of red, but they’re mechanically identical. It’s the only planet type to find starbulbs and minerals with parafinum. No grassy planet has an ice cap, or a desert patch, or a volcano. If you ever need to find cactus and pyrite, you have to go to a desert planet. If you need uranium and gamma weed, radioactive planet. Then you have the caves, which are completely identical in every planet.

            Some planets may have bio luminescent plants, which are gorgeous to look at, but because there’s no variation within a planet, you see them everywhere. There’s never a point where you think “This is the spot on this planet”. Because everywhere is “the spot”, so it’s just “the planet”, which can also be found on the next star system.

            Save for airless planets, if I’m not mistaken, every planet has the same 3 “trap” plants (man eater, whip, spores in a cave). There’s not even a color change depending on the planet. Same damn plant, same damn damage, same oxygen amount on death, whether on ice or on a volcano.

            Another thing that compounds on the lack of planetary variation is the same sin that Starfield did, of every point of interest being the same everywhere. Every market is the same, every small settlement is the same, every infested facility is the same. This one is easy to give more variation, just create some building blocks and chain them together, like how rooms are generated in ARPG games like Diablo or Torchlight. You know how each star system has a different market rating? Use that to calculate the maximum size any one POI can reach, or as a weight to the POI that can appear (small settlements become more common in 1 star system, markets more common in 3 star, etc).

            They do the above in a limited capacity with derelict freighters, so it’s not like there’s “no way” to do it or “they don’t know how”.

            Yet another thing that breaks the immersion and “want” of exploration: the vast majority of the galaxy is “settled”. Star systems without any alien presence are the exception. What the hell are you even exploring if there’s already someone there with a working teleporter in space, plus several POI dotting every planet?

            • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              You can procedurally generate textures, sounds and geometry

              Does any game do that today? I’m not aware of any. ??

              Another thing that compounds on the lack of planetary variation

              That’s the same problem again, you need hard drive space for all that 3D variation.

              As far as I know all the 3D stuff is what takes up the most space on the hard drive, and that stuff is never procedurally created. /shrug Maybe someday with AI??

              • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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                8 months ago

                Today? No, I don’t think any game does it.

                .kkrieger did that. Not a “real game”, it’s a demo (of a demoscene), a “proof of concept” or a “proof of skill”. Nostalgia Nerd has a very interesting video about it on youtube.

                3D models tend to occupy less disk space than textures, as these usually come in at least 2 files: one for the actual colors, one or two more for light mapping (bump map, emission, normals, etc). I don’t know which format NMS uses, but a .obj 3D model with 62k triangles will take around 4.5MB of disk space.

                For comparison, this Damaged Helmet in gltf format (which you can see on your browser here) has 15k triangles, a .bin file (the actual 3D geometry) of 545kb and roughly 3MB of textures - The Default_albedo.jpg is the “actual color” and it alone is larger than the .bin + .gltf, at 914kb.

                That’s the same problem again, you need hard drive space for all that 3D variation.

                Not really. Again, they just need to be smart with what they have. Grassy planet where one third is green grass, another is red grass, another is yellow. No need for any extra stuff to be made, they already have the building blocks. Better yet, mostly grassy planet with patches of radioactive terrain surrounded by desert.

                For buildings, just think about player made bases. You can make effectively “infinite” interiors and exteriors with all the stuff players can use to make a base. Write coordinates of “premade” rooms, write some extra lines of code to join specific rooms together and bam, all you needed was less than 10kb of extra text to increase variety.

                • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  You can procedurally generate textures, sounds and geometry

                  Does any game do that today? I’m not aware of any. ??

                  Today? No, I don’t think any game does it.

                  Well, my comment that you replied to was about a specific game that is already out, today. Hence, my point still stands.

                  Let’s hope that future hardware and games are aligned more with what you described, but today’s games do have limitations, based on the day and age they’re created in.

          • Simon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            8 months ago

            Actually, there’s a couple popular mods with an overhauled algorithm. No space required (That wouldn’t make sense anyway). Back when I played through this I wouldn’t touch it without it.

            • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I’m speaking about the 3D models and meshes, visuals.

              Variety of planets/systems and various areas on planets is very poor just because of the amount of hard drive space needed for all of the models and meshes.

          • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I have yet to find any mods that improve the game in the way I’d like… Or that will even work with the latest version of the game.

    • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Yeah. Kind of.

      Some people have already given their take, so I’ll add to it:

      The game has a couple of hours of actual, fun content. After those couple of hours you’ll start to notice that everything is the same. Oh sure, the creatures and plants are made of different parts, but that’s as far as the differences go. Every planet has the exact same pattern, every system has a space station with the exact same functions, so eventually it really feels like exploration doesn’t matter. Which kinda sucks for a game that’s supposed to be about exploration.

      I’ve always said that exploration would’ve been far more impactful if the universe of No Man’s Sky had just a bit more realism in it. This would mean most planets would be frozen iceballs or low atmosphere dustballs with no life on them. This would make discovering a planet with life on it quite momentous. It would also eliminate the problem of quickly finding out all life on every planet is exactly the same.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    Gave it a whirl. Basically, you can now scrap ships to get their components to create a new ship inside any station. Couldn’t find any merchant within the station selling pieces, so you have to go out and explore, or scrap some of your own ships.

    Stations now look slightly different from one another and no longer have those semi-hidden rooms that nobody cared about. Alien vendors now give a discount if you’re at a good standing with their race. Guild “vendors” offer a list of stuff for free, but I don’t get why the prompt is red instead of white. Performance is still mostly CPU bound.

    Overall decent update, but the new features don’t warrant playing more than 1 hour.

  • AlwaysNowNeverNotMe@kbin.social
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    8 months ago

    My last foray into NMS ended when I found a little town and was promptly attacked by sentinels that could heal each other through walls.

      • Pieresqi@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        It’s not recent update but basically your ships gear slots - weapons, shields, landing gear, etc - and cargo slots were 1.

        This way you could do interesting builds.

        Ship which has all slots filled with ships equipment and your big ship is for cargo, etc.

        Right now you have dedicated cargo slots and dedicated equipment slots. Ofc they are smaller than when they were combined…

        • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          I would have been happy with the change if they dropped the slot system entirely for cargo now that it serves no purpose (equipment gets bonuses based on slot and adjacent gear, cargo does not). For some unfathomable reason they kept the manual slots for cargo and it makes finding anything specific in a large cargo hold a nightmare.

          This is compounded by their terrible crafting system where you have to manually pick every single component of a recipe rather than just clicking on the recipe and having it grab stuff from cargo for you. Cargo should have been turned into a sortable list like in nearly every other RPG.

          The inventory has been one of the primary sources of complaints since day one, but despite several major overhauls they haven’t fixed the core issues, just made it slightly less inconvenient to use each update.

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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            8 months ago

            The inventory has been one of the primary sources of complaints since day one, but despite several major overhauls they haven’t fixed the core issues, just made it slightly less inconvenient to use each update.

            Still waiting on them fixing the fucking interaction. Hold E to interact with the thing 5yd behind you instead of the npc right in front.

            Another old annoyance that will probably remain until the end: stopped firing your weapon for 1 second? Let me holster it down again, sure you won’t mind the extra 400-500ms animation lag until you have to fire that sentinel again!

            PS: Oh, and the teleport list! Another thing that desperately needs more information shown and a way to order/filter it.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          8 months ago

          I think ideally it would work like it does in Endless Space, ships have varying amounts of space for equipment and cargo, and you can install upgrades to convert between them somewhat.

          E.g. with a freighter you could convert enough cargo space to equipment space that you can slap on some extra guns, or you could make a bootleg fighter by taking a standard ship and jamming equipment into most of the cargo space.