Hack the galaxy: The nascent No Man’s Sky PC modding scene

Initial mod offerings focus on cosmetic and interface tweaks.

Read the whole story

 

[The Job]

I'm interested to see if 1 year from now the modding community make NMS meet the vision and expectations many people had.

 

[pokrface]

The Job[/url]":1puxmgce]I'm interested to see if 1 year from now the modding community make NMS meet the vision and expectations many people had.

I'd be happy if the modding community can simply fix some of the terrible UX/UI design decisions—and it sounds like they can.

 

[Akemi]

Pokrface[/url]":15704e9p]

The Job[/url]":15704e9p]I'm interested to see if 1 year from now the modding community make NMS meet the vision and expectations many people had.

I'd be happy if the modding community can simply fix some of the terrible UX/UI design decisions—and it sounds like they can.

Hold mouse button to select inventory item because - fuck you keyboard and mouse users!

 

[Drizzt321]

Pokrface[/url]":2je8sil6]

The Job[/url]":2je8sil6]I'm interested to see if 1 year from now the modding community make NMS meet the vision and expectations many people had.

I'd be happy if the modding community can simply fix some of the terrible UX/UI design decisions—and it sounds like they can.

Oh thank you thank you thank you. That is just SO annoying.

 

[Spazzles]

Drizzt321[/url]":2uzf15ge]

Pokrface[/url]":2uzf15ge]

The Job[/url]":2uzf15ge]I'm interested to see if 1 year from now the modding community make NMS meet the vision and expectations many people had.

I'd be happy if the modding community can simply fix some of the terrible UX/UI design decisions—and it sounds like they can.

Oh thank you thank you thank you. That is just SO annoying.

If they can fix awkward controls; maybe they can mod in VR with full motion controller support! I'd play that.

Though the framerate issues described elsewhere would possibly make it difficult/nauseating to play. I'd still give it a whirl though.

 

[Relto]

His attitude is quite interesting.

But officially I think we probably want to give people some modding ability just so they leave our game alone. Just give them enough creative outlet to keep them busy rather than them thinking of all of the destructive things that they could do.

How DARE someone have the audacity to mess with HIS GAME?

 

[Drizzt321]

Spazzles[/url]":1e5o2kl2]

Drizzt321[/url]":1e5o2kl2]

Pokrface[/url]":1e5o2kl2]

The Job[/url]":1e5o2kl2]I'm interested to see if 1 year from now the modding community make NMS meet the vision and expectations many people had.

I'd be happy if the modding community can simply fix some of the terrible UX/UI design decisions—and it sounds like they can.

Oh thank you thank you thank you. That is just SO annoying.

If they can fix awkward controls; maybe they can mod in VR with full motion controller support! I'd play that.

Though the framerate issues described elsewhere would possibly make it difficult/nauseating to play. I'd still give it a whirl though.

That'd be pretty cool, but yea, framerate would need to be fixed better.

Although I turned down some of the details and unchecked the vsync box and it runs (mostly) just fine for me, 1920x1200, GTX 970.

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The devs sound oddly terrified of modders. 'Tearing apart' is...a fairly vivid metaphor. Is this just some weird artistic-purity-of-vision thing; or should we expect to discover that the servers trust the client in all sorts of hilariously ill-advised ways?

I can understand someone who is running a competitive multiplayer game wanting to keep the aimbots and wall hacks to a minimum; but I thought it was mostly accepted at this point that modders are a mostly a bonus for the game developers.

 

[Relto]

Comp Guru[/url]":2hw26qv1]

Relto[/url]":2hw26qv1]His attitude is quite interesting.

But officially I think we probably want to give people some modding ability just so they leave our game alone. Just give them enough creative outlet to keep them busy rather than them thinking of all of the destructive things that they could do.

How DARE someone have the audacity to mess with HIS GAME?

How DARE someone not even bother to experience something for what it is and instantly tear it a new one because THEIR vision is magically better?

I know I'm dragging in the "modding yay or nay" discussion a bit but I wish folks that just immediately start tearing a game apart because it "sucks" and fiddle with it would actually go and attempt to make their own game. I feel like if folks with enough energy to futz around with someone elses work would make their own original titles, we'd have a lot of cool unique games to play.

And in reality, Hello Games made a product and put it on the market; it's still their game. You can't fault an artist for wanting to protect the integrity of his work. This is why Weird Al asks permission before doing parodies; out of respect for people's work.

15 years old the internet who probably pirated NMS in the first place, have no such respect.

- CG

Pretty sure your opinion is automatically worthless when you immediately go for the ad hominem. But for the record I'm quite sure I've paid for quite a few more games in my life then you've ever played.

e: Also modding would be the only thing that keeps this game alive in 6 months when everyone gets bored of it having zero content. If Murray wants to shoot himself in the foot, that's his prerogative.

 

[Xeric]

Talk about modding when the game rarely runs?! And when it does, it runs like crap.

I'm getting pretty sick of all of the wallpapering going on with coverage. Yes, its a great idea and yes, it has its moments, but its priced at AAA prices but runs like a $5 port.

 

[ChickenLegs]

If your first thought when hearing about modding No Man's Sky wasn't, "oooh cool, I could make a porn planet!", then you're a better person than I am.

 

[elh]

I just want to fly to a planet with Teletubbies

 

[Akemi]

vlam[/url]":1jkqi6py]

Relto[/url]":1jkqi6py]

Comp Guru[/url]":1jkqi6py]

Relto[/url]":1jkqi6py]His attitude is quite interesting.

But officially I think we probably want to give people some modding ability just so they leave our game alone. Just give them enough creative outlet to keep them busy rather than them thinking of all of the destructive things that they could do.

How DARE someone have the audacity to mess with HIS GAME?

How DARE someone not even bother to experience something for what it is and instantly tear it a new one because THEIR vision is magically better?

I know I'm dragging in the "modding yay or nay" discussion a bit but I wish folks that just immediately start tearing a game apart because it "sucks" and fiddle with it would actually go and attempt to make their own game. I feel like if folks with enough energy to futz around with someone elses work would make their own original titles, we'd have a lot of cool unique games to play.

And in reality, Hello Games made a product and put it on the market; it's still their game. You can't fault an artist for wanting to protect the integrity of his work. This is why Weird Al asks permission before doing parodies; out of respect for people's work.

15 years old the internet who probably pirated NMS in the first place, have no such respect.

- CG

Pretty sure your opinion is automatically worthless when you immediately go for the ad hominem. But for the record I'm quite sure I've paid for quite a few more games in my life then you've ever played.

Pretty sure your opinion is also automatically worthless when you immediately respond with the ad hominem... I don't think the number of games I've paid for has any effect on this convo!


But in all seriousness, I think you're misinterpreting what Murray was saying. I believe he was saying that if you let modders tinker, there's a higher likelihood that they could put out a mod that completely trashes the game, to the point of ruining an install. And if this happens to many gamers, they might fault Hello Games and put Murray in an awkward position where he's responsible for something he didn't cause. Thus, by providing tools to mod, people are less likely to cause catastrophic damage to the game when things go wrong and less people will be upset if their game fucks up.

That doesn't even make the least bit of sense. Someone would blame the game developer for instability from the use of a 3rd party mod? :/

 

[Mungus the Unhyphenated]

Commence facepalm... Leather Goddesses of Phobos mod in 3... 2... 1...

 

[Falos]

I hope they can kill the lag between inventory tabs. After the thousandth wait, gamers wanna game.

Waypoint save posts also quickly became needlessly cosmetic and drawn out.

 

[vlam]

Akemi[/url]":1vk8xp1k]

vlam[/url]":1vk8xp1k]

Relto[/url]":1vk8xp1k]

Comp Guru[/url]":1vk8xp1k]

Relto[/url]":1vk8xp1k]His attitude is quite interesting.

But officially I think we probably want to give people some modding ability just so they leave our game alone. Just give them enough creative outlet to keep them busy rather than them thinking of all of the destructive things that they could do.

How DARE someone have the audacity to mess with HIS GAME?

How DARE someone not even bother to experience something for what it is and instantly tear it a new one because THEIR vision is magically better?

I know I'm dragging in the "modding yay or nay" discussion a bit but I wish folks that just immediately start tearing a game apart because it "sucks" and fiddle with it would actually go and attempt to make their own game. I feel like if folks with enough energy to futz around with someone elses work would make their own original titles, we'd have a lot of cool unique games to play.

And in reality, Hello Games made a product and put it on the market; it's still their game. You can't fault an artist for wanting to protect the integrity of his work. This is why Weird Al asks permission before doing parodies; out of respect for people's work.

15 years old the internet who probably pirated NMS in the first place, have no such respect.

- CG

Pretty sure your opinion is automatically worthless when you immediately go for the ad hominem. But for the record I'm quite sure I've paid for quite a few more games in my life then you've ever played.

Pretty sure your opinion is also automatically worthless when you immediately respond with the ad hominem... I don't think the number of games I've paid for has any effect on this convo!


But in all seriousness, I think you're misinterpreting what Murray was saying. I believe he was saying that if you let modders tinker, there's a higher likelihood that they could put out a mod that completely trashes the game, to the point of ruining an install. And if this happens to many gamers, they might fault Hello Games and put Murray in an awkward position where he's responsible for something he didn't cause. Thus, by providing tools to mod, people are less likely to cause catastrophic damage to the game when things go wrong and less people will be upset if their game fucks up.

That doesn't even make the least bit of sense. Someone would blame the game developer for instability from the use of a 3rd party mod? :/

People are stupid as shit and generally don't take responsibility. Surely you've seen how often people complain about their saves being wiped, even when it isn't the dev's fault.


edit: It just comes down to this: if he was against modding like the OP insinuated, why would he develop a tool for exactly that? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

 

[xizar]

Relto[/url]":29imxmoc]I'm quite sure I've paid for quite a few more games in my life then you've ever played.

Since the advent of Steam Sales, EVERYONE has paid for quite a few more games than anyone has ever played.

 

[UltimateLemon]

xizar[/url]":1ayw4ohm]

Relto[/url]":1ayw4ohm]I'm quite sure I've paid for quite a few more games in my life then you've ever played.

Since the advent of Steam Sales, EVERYONE has paid for quite a few more games than anyone has ever played.

Since the advent of Steam Sales, I have paid for quite a few more games than I have ever played.

 

[zithran]

Perhaps someone can mod in all the stuff that is in the trailers that isn't in the actual game: herds of animals being chased by a giant Dino-rhino thing that can knock down trees, smooth beautiful high-res graphics instead of the blurry up-scaled mess it has now, giant sand worms (okay, those creeped me out and I wouldn't want to run into those, leaving them out is fine with me), AI spaceships that attack and maneuver in formation, and so forth.

I've watched a host of PS4 players (most PC game play is so full of stutter, lag, and freezes I can't watch it for long) that have put insane amounts of time into the game. They've been to tons of planets, often 10 to 20 per play session or more, so I've now seen hundreds and hundreds of planets. I now skip most of the boring gathering (thank you YouTube skip forward keyboard shortcut) just to see every planet they visit. I've yet to see anything even approaching the stuff shown in the trailers, even on the most lush worlds players have found so far. Brain dead animal AI, yes. Planets with the same few patterns of terrain styles / plants /animals, just different colors or slight body part changes, check. Basic AI spaceships and sentry robots that never get any smarter the closer you get to 'the center', absolutely.

Forgetting the launch bugs for a minute, such as graphics settings that don't even work on the PC, stutter, freezing, crashes at launch, crashes far into the game, crashes while the game is paused (I mean, seriously?!?), what bothers me the most (aside perhaps from Sean Murray's outright lies about other players in the game, emergent AI, etc.) is that the game is really just a shell of an actual game. More a late alpha early access than a full release AAA full price game.

I really hope at some point the game will be like the trailers. That it will be more than a semi-playable tech demo. Perhaps modding will be able to turn this into something worthwhile, I don't know. I hold out little hope that Hello Games will be the ones to do this, now they've done a cash grab based on evasive interviews, contradictory statements, and what appears to be little more than a last minute sloppy port from a buggy console version. I'm just glad those Sean Murray 'evade every direct question' interviews warned me off this game early on. Which is a shame, as I'd love to have been totally wrong about NMS, as I really, really would like to play that game that might have existed had those trailers been real.

 

[Fatesrider]

pbarrette[/url]":2i7468vu]Surely all these "No Man's Sky" articles are subversive ad placements?
It seems like there's been at least 1/week for some time now.

Edit:
8-16 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/h ... ing-scene/
8-15 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... t-know-it/
8-15 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... xys-heart/
8-12 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... of-a-mess/
8-10 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/h ... s-release/
8-09 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/t ... pointment/
8-08 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/m ... ease-date/
8-05 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... ow-online/
7-29 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/07/n ... aked-copy/
7-25 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/07/n ... erformula/

TL;DR Version: Yes, it got a lot of coverage, but probably just as much as any other highly anticipated, new and innovative game.

2LBHTR Version:
I'll leave you to do the actual research, but before you can claim egregious hype, you need to prove no other such game has received the same kind of coverage.

Some of the potential titles to check out would be SimCity (the latest crash and burn), and SPORE - both of which were hyped to death, only to die on arrival.

It seems to me that any widely anticipated game (as opposed to one that's just another timely iteration of an existing franchise ala Call of Duty) that comes out gets far more coverage simply because it ISN'T some run-of-the-mill update to something that's already out there.

That most of these games are hyped beyond any sense of reality often leads to their demise. I do recall the dev for NMS trying to walk back some of the hype several weeks/months before the release, but given the plethora of rehashes that come out, when a game is new, innovative, or a fresh remake on an ancient one, interest is going to be heightened. This alone argues that such games (which seem to be bugged-to-death on arrival) can't live up to the expectations of eager gamers.

 

[AlexisR200X]

Relto[/url]":3kemkp8r]His attitude is quite interesting.

But officially I think we probably want to give people some modding ability just so they leave our game alone. Just give them enough creative outlet to keep them busy rather than them thinking of all of the destructive things that they could do.

How DARE someone have the audacity to mess with HIS GAME?

This would seem apt if Sean was arrogant or condescending towards the players but his attitude is entirely humble with a bit of awkwardness. He does have a point because a modded universe could mess up the servers as it posts about things that doesn't exist/aren't possible in the "standard" version of the universe that the servers have.

 

[pbarrette]

Fatesrider[/url]":3vlyjb4x]

pbarrette[/url]":3vlyjb4x]Surely all these "No Man's Sky" articles are subversive ad placements?
It seems like there's been at least 1/week for some time now.

Edit:
8-16 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/h ... ing-scene/
8-15 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... t-know-it/
8-15 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... xys-heart/
8-12 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... of-a-mess/
8-10 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/h ... s-release/
8-09 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/t ... pointment/
8-08 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/m ... ease-date/
8-05 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... ow-online/
7-29 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/07/n ... aked-copy/
7-25 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/07/n ... erformula/

TL;DR Version: Yes, it got a lot of coverage, but probably just as much as any other highly anticipated, new and innovative game.

2LBHTR Version:
I'll leave you to do the actual research, but before you can claim egregious hype, you need to prove no other such game has received the same kind of coverage.

Some of the potential titles to check out would be SimCity (the latest crash and burn), and SPORE - both of which were hyped to death, only to die on arrival.

It seems to me that any widely anticipated game (as opposed to one that's just another timely iteration of an existing franchise ala Call of Duty) that comes out gets far more coverage simply because it ISN'T some run-of-the-mill update to something that's already out there.

That most of these games are hyped beyond any sense of reality often leads to their demise. I do recall the dev for NMS trying to walk back some of the hype several weeks/months before the release, but given the plethora of rehashes that come out, when a game is new, innovative, or a fresh remake on an ancient one, interest is going to be heightened. This alone argues that such games (which seem to be bugged-to-death on arrival) can't live up to the expectations of eager gamers.

Fair enough. It just seemed like way more on a single topic than I have ever seen on Ars.

As to the hype killing the game? In that long list of links above, there's an article about NMS not living up to the hype. That seemed odd to me at the time as well, considering all the articles that had already been posted.

 

[enilc]

I've put in 20-25hrs on PC. I like it. No problems yet.

 

[Mungus the Unhyphenated]

Fatesrider[/url]":13osxcyj]
TL;DR Version: Yes, it got a lot of coverage, but probably just as much as any other highly anticipated, new and innovative game.

Ironically, I suspect there's more coverage now because the product feels like such a frustrating near-miss. We can't stop talking about how it fails, or how close it comes.

If it were simply a bad game all around, we'd all give it a thumbs-down and move on. But because it looked so good in promos, the hype was starting to look believable and, functionally, it tries to reach for what we hoped for, now it's sort of like a hideous train wreck. We can't look away and we can't stop talking about it.

 

[Mcorther]

Fatesrider[/url]":1debs9ww]

pbarrette[/url]":1debs9ww]...words

TL;DR Version: Yes, it got a lot of coverage, but probably just as much as any other highly anticipated, new and innovative game.

[rant]

Y'know... I don't want to be rude and go wildly off-topic... But, TL;DR goes at the bottom... been like that for almost a decade now.

I've seen people post like that a few times now, and it just doesn't make any sense if you read that first... and then skipped everything else. It's the other way around.

[/rant]

 

[vlam]

Mcorther[/url]":1xal88tg]

Fatesrider[/url]":1xal88tg]

pbarrette[/url]":1xal88tg]...words

TL;DR Version: Yes, it got a lot of coverage, but probably just as much as any other highly anticipated, new and innovative game.

Y'know... I don't want to be rude and go wildly off-topic... But, TL;DR goes at the bottom... been like that for almost a decade now.

I've seen people post like that a few times now, and it just doesn't make any sense if you read that first... and then skipped everything else. It's the other waybaround.

[/rant]

Something something INSANE RAGE ABOUT NEVER OPENING YOUR RANT TAG something something.

 

[Kyle Orland]

pbarrette[/url]":3c4gv3fe]Surely all these "No Man's Sky" articles are subversive ad placements?
It seems like there's been at least 1/week for some time now.

Edit:
8-16 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/h ... ing-scene/
8-15 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... t-know-it/
8-15 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... xys-heart/
8-12 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... of-a-mess/
8-10 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/h ... s-release/
8-09 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/t ... pointment/
8-08 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/m ... ease-date/
8-05 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... ow-online/
7-29 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/07/n ... aked-copy/
7-25 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/07/n ... erformula/

We cover things we find interesting and unique. No Man's Sky definitely qualified, especially before launch and then for largely different reasons after launch.

If you're not interested, that's fine. No need to imply payoffs for no good reason.

 

[AnchorClanker]

Seems to me that it's almost compulsory to mod OW games these days. Despite Murray's condescending attitude, I think that a mod kit should be a priority right after major bug fixes. The modding community can do a lot to flesh out a game.

 

[Kyle Orland]

Mungus the Unhyphenated[/url]":189k1q6u]

Fatesrider[/url]":189k1q6u]
TL;DR Version: Yes, it got a lot of coverage, but probably just as much as any other highly anticipated, new and innovative game.

Ironically, I suspect there's more coverage now because the product feels like such a frustrating near-miss. We can't stop talking about how it fails, or how close it comes.

If it were simply a bad game all around, we'd all give it a thumbs-down and move on. But because it looked so good in promos, the hype was starting to look believable and, functionally, it tries to reach for what we hoped for, now it's sort of like a hideous train wreck. We can't look away and we can't stop talking about it.

Definitely agree with this. I find No Man's Sky fascinating for its promise and its seeming inability to live up to it in equal measure.

 

[AnchorClanker]

Kyle Orland[/url]":1vl8x8u4]

pbarrette[/url]":1vl8x8u4]Surely all these "No Man's Sky" articles are subversive ad placements?
It seems like there's been at least 1/week for some time now.

Edit:
8-16 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/h ... ing-scene/
8-15 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... t-know-it/
8-15 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... xys-heart/
8-12 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... of-a-mess/
8-10 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/h ... s-release/
8-09 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/t ... pointment/
8-08 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/m ... ease-date/
8-05 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/08/n ... ow-online/
7-29 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/07/n ... aked-copy/
7-25 http://meincmagazine.com/gaming/2016/07/n ... erformula/

We cover things we find interesting and unique. No Man's Sky definitely qualified, especially before launch and then for largely different reasons after launch.

If you're not interested, that's fine. No need to imply payoffs for no good reason.

At the rate this game is losing love they'd have to pay you off with copies of the thing.

 

[Stahn Aileron]

ChickenLegs[/url]":2w0q03oj]If your first thought when hearing about modding No Man's Sky wasn't, "oooh cool, I could make a porn planet!", then you're a better person than I am.

Hmm... If you add that to the suggestion that NMS should be a game about photography and you could have an interesting proposition. Though I kinda dread what the procedural engine could spit out for content...

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

AnchorClanker[/url]":5vxaaig0]Seems to me that it's almost compulsory to mod OW games these days. Despite Murray's condescending attitude, I think that a mod kit should be a priority right after major bug fixes. The modding community can do a lot to flesh out a game.

The unfortunate reality is that(for all their virtues, they've become popular for a reason) 'open world' games are always too small. Games that keep you more or less on rails might disappoint by being too short; but since your trajectory is under control it is comparatively easy for all the gameplay, writing, voice acting, etc. that is available to be neatly wrapped around the player and what they are going to do and see.

If the world is open the developer has markedly less control over where you'll go and what you'll do(so their effort has to be spread out to keep parts of the world from being sparse and tedious) and doesn't have some sort of plot arc forcing the world forward(so the failures of different parts of the world to interact with each other are more noticeable). It's also the case that closed-world games are usually given some extra suspension of disbelief in terms of handling logistics: you don't ask "Where do they get their ammo?" when playing an FPS; it's just sort of assumed that logistics is handled off-screen somewhere, outside the gameworld, unless it's important to the plot. If a game is open-world, you can just wander around, so questions like "Where is enough trade to support all these bandits?" can't just be waved offscreen.

Aside from people just liking modding in general, this aspect of open world games makes them particularly amenable: there's always something that didn't get fleshed out enough, always room for putting something else into the world(that, and Bethesda is one of the big players in the space; and they love bugs).

(And, yes, I realize that calling NMS 'too small' isn't strictly true since it's utterly gigantic; but it is very much 'small' in the sense of how little game is available to be spread over a zillion planets and how repetitive manually generated assets like the monoliths are.)

 

[Akemi]

fuzzyfuzzyfungus[/url]":ic62jbn0]

AnchorClanker[/url]":ic62jbn0]Seems to me that it's almost compulsory to mod OW games these days. Despite Murray's condescending attitude, I think that a mod kit should be a priority right after major bug fixes. The modding community can do a lot to flesh out a game.

The unfortunate reality is that(for all their virtues, they've become popular for a reason) 'open world' games are always too small. Games that keep you more or less on rails might disappoint by being too short; but since your trajectory is under control it is comparatively easy for all the gameplay, writing, voice acting, etc. that is available to be neatly wrapped around the player and what they are going to do and see.

If the world is open the developer has markedly less control over where you'll go and what you'll do(so their effort has to be spread out to keep parts of the world from being sparse and tedious) and doesn't have some sort of plot arc forcing the world forward(so the failures of different parts of the world to interact with each other are more noticeable). It's also the case that closed-world games are usually given some extra suspension of disbelief in terms of handling logistics: you don't ask "Where do they get their ammo?" when playing an FPS; it's just sort of assumed that logistics is handled off-screen somewhere, outside the gameworld, unless it's important to the plot. If a game is open-world, you can just wander around, so questions like "Where is enough trade to support all these bandits?" can't just be waved offscreen.

Aside from people just liking modding in general, this aspect of open world games makes them particularly amenable: there's always something that didn't get fleshed out enough, always room for putting something else into the world(that, and Bethesda is one of the big players in the space; and they love bugs).

(And, yes, I realize that calling NMS 'too small' isn't strictly true since it's utterly gigantic; but it is very much 'small' in the sense of how little game is available to be spread over a zillion planets and how repetitive manually generated assets like the monoliths are.)

Just imagine all the penis monsters you'll get that only Spore had!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQHsl_90248

Or this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqFMwHSfYhY

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Akemi[/url]":3vmzddc6]

fuzzyfuzzyfungus[/url]":3vmzddc6]

AnchorClanker[/url]":3vmzddc6]Seems to me that it's almost compulsory to mod OW games these days. Despite Murray's condescending attitude, I think that a mod kit should be a priority right after major bug fixes. The modding community can do a lot to flesh out a game.

The unfortunate reality is that(for all their virtues, they've become popular for a reason) 'open world' games are always too small. Games that keep you more or less on rails might disappoint by being too short; but since your trajectory is under control it is comparatively easy for all the gameplay, writing, voice acting, etc. that is available to be neatly wrapped around the player and what they are going to do and see.

If the world is open the developer has markedly less control over where you'll go and what you'll do(so their effort has to be spread out to keep parts of the world from being sparse and tedious) and doesn't have some sort of plot arc forcing the world forward(so the failures of different parts of the world to interact with each other are more noticeable). It's also the case that closed-world games are usually given some extra suspension of disbelief in terms of handling logistics: you don't ask "Where do they get their ammo?" when playing an FPS; it's just sort of assumed that logistics is handled off-screen somewhere, outside the gameworld, unless it's important to the plot. If a game is open-world, you can just wander around, so questions like "Where is enough trade to support all these bandits?" can't just be waved offscreen.

Aside from people just liking modding in general, this aspect of open world games makes them particularly amenable: there's always something that didn't get fleshed out enough, always room for putting something else into the world(that, and Bethesda is one of the big players in the space; and they love bugs).

(And, yes, I realize that calling NMS 'too small' isn't strictly true since it's utterly gigantic; but it is very much 'small' in the sense of how little game is available to be spread over a zillion planets and how repetitive manually generated assets like the monoliths are.)

Just imagine all the penis monsters you'll get that only Spore had!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQHsl_90248

Or this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqFMwHSfYhY

Nothing from Spore is worth bringing into any other game, or even experiencing in Spore. Full quarantine.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Drizzt321[/url]":1bh1ox4b]

Spazzles[/url]":1bh1ox4b]

Drizzt321[/url]":1bh1ox4b]

Pokrface[/url]":1bh1ox4b]

The Job[/url]":1bh1ox4b]I'm interested to see if 1 year from now the modding community make NMS meet the vision and expectations many people had.

I'd be happy if the modding community can simply fix some of the terrible UX/UI design decisions—and it sounds like they can.

Oh thank you thank you thank you. That is just SO annoying.

If they can fix awkward controls; maybe they can mod in VR with full motion controller support! I'd play that.

Though the framerate issues described elsewhere would possibly make it difficult/nauseating to play. I'd still give it a whirl though.

That'd be pretty cool, but yea, framerate would need to be fixed better.

Although I turned down some of the details and unchecked the vsync box and it runs (mostly) just fine for me, 1920x1200, GTX 970.

I got it running better by, no joke, putting in more RAM. That 8GB minimum is laughable. The game will hapilly use more then 8GB if you let it. The poor performance was due to NMS putting a 3GB page file on my poor SSD, and then choking the I/O every time it loaded something new, hence the hitches.

replaced the 8GB with 32GB of higher speed, lower latency DDR4, and everything is running cool now. Framerate is a bit iffy, but meh,k every open world game seems to do that.

 

[mogbert]

Look, honestly the media now needs to take anything Sean Murray says with a grain of salt. 90% of what he has said about the game to the press is bull. He is what happens is a sideshow barker gets bitten by a radioactive Peter Molyneux.

What we may call a database desynchronization, he calls a parallel universe. What we call changing the color variable, he calls rearranging the periodic chart to invent a new element to refract the light on a specific wavelength.

Seriously, take what he says with a grain of salt, and a fifth of whisky.