Never go full hype.

Words of wisdom, right there.

give me the game!

@gkhan: Nope! I've loved everything about this game since it was shown at the VGAs years ago, I have been and remain hyped and will love this game. I would have loved it then if it was just fly around and scan stuff. This game will be my Minecraft

@takayamasama: How do you know? Maybe it's terrible! Maybe it controls like garbage! Maybe it has 2 hours of interesting content, and then the rest is a slightly procedurally modified version of the same stuff!

Yah I applaud your enthusiasm but it's always good to wait and see. Cautious optimism is the strongest emotion I allow myself these days.

I'll believe it when I physically see it and/or see it available for purchase.

@gkhan: Maybe! But people have dealt with bad controls in bad games they personally love! Maybe my definition of "interesting content" is different then yours, and I am 100% content just flying around space! Maybe I don't care if some stuff is very similar, since it's a procedural generated game and that's bound to happen!

It's the perfect dad game for me, sitting on a couch flying around space doing whatever when I have a moment cause my kids are sleeping or playing nicely. The look, style, sound, explanation of content and activities all resonate with me 100% and I remain fully excited and hyped.

This game has a funny attraction for people looking down on anyone excited for it, way more compared to anything else. People get hyped about every game, but I rarely see as much "oh no you shouldn't get your hopes up" as I do for this one. I'm excited for a video game more then I have been in a long, long time and it feels great and I can't wait.

Haters gonna hate. Or cautious people gonna cautious. Or...something?

Very excited because:

1) This game might be great

2) If it sucks the Internet fallout will be interesting

@gkhan: well it might go either way, but what i've seen gives me confidence it'll be pretty awesome. i would say the opposite to you: why not give it a chance and an open mind because it might be great?

i guess these days it's a given to have to be cynical about everything (and so far i think this game is getting pretty unfairly dumped on.)

@ripelivejam: I'm not cynical at all, I'm optimistic about it, I think it'll be good. But there's something weird about the hype for this game. People are losing their minds based on trailers and small slices of video, like it's gonna change their lives or something. This is is the kind of hype that makes people send death threats to game developers and kotaku reporters.

Like, be realistic. It's a game. It looks like it's gonna be good, but it's also probably not gonna be the greatest thing since Pong. Keep your expectations in check, don't preorder (because you should never do that), and wait for reviews from people you trust.

Be Ready to do the same thing over and over and over again while listing to the new 65 days album. Doesn't sound to bad.

I bet for the sake of story mode main concept will be streamlined in a sense where the overabundance of planets and size of universe will be trivial. Kind of how they said that borderlands would have a bazilion guns where in actuality it was just a ~dozen with slight modifications.

@sunbrozak: I think this is actually what I want - something to kind of lay back or relax my gaming stance more and really just soak up. That's what sold me on the game, not going from planet to planet shooting everything but a more serene experience that's a bit more slow paced and overall has challenge but not just for the sake of being there. Even if it's not everything our collective minds might've made it, I'm happy for the studio and can't wait to see what they put together.

@gkhan: Yea I don't really understand all the fervor for this thing either. I'm not sure if I'm missing something or this just doesn't fall into the type of games I like. I'm sure it will be good but it will most definitely disappoint people's expectations.

This is the game I'm gonna play and drink beer after work. Just chill and live in a universe more interesting than my own.

Seeing 65DaysofStatic play the soundtrack to this in November.

All I want is a game where I can explore planets nobody else has been to, that's pretty much all I want from this game and everything else is a bonus.

Seems like it'll be a cool game. I wonder how varied and unique the procedurally generated environments will be...I always feel those kinds of games grow stale quickly for me, once I've seen all the unique tricks the generator can come up with.

Only one month left to delay it again.

Pretty sure you want more than that. I could program a game that generates random planets that no one else would see. You probably want planets that are actually interesting to explore. I have my doubts whether No Man's Sky will be able to deliver on that front or not. I imagine the environments are going to get pretty samey pretty quickly. I would like to think otherwise, but I suspect it's going to be like Borderland's guns. There are something like 18 million different possible guns in Borderlands, but really, you've seen almost every possible combination of gun parts after a couple dozen hours and the only thing that adds up to 18 million are tiny variations on those relatively few themes.

I'm just not convinced that hello games has made the mathematical or procedural generation breakthrough that they like to imply they have. I would love to be proven wrong.

I really don't. That is all I want.

This is pretty much my thoughts as well. I have no interest in the game, but I'm really curious to see how it is received.

@supercubedude: you do know what gone gold means, right?

@sinusoidal: I think it's more like what the community has implied as I've very rarely heard them talk in concrete terms about this game. Their really nebulous responses to all questions are partly why I started to get a little cautious about when they were selling. I mean if you have an awesome game you'd want to show it off to the world, yet with NMS it seems like they think answering almost any questions or showing anything beforehand will somehow ruin the experience for you, which is troubling.

When they revealed this game at E3 and they got in that ship and took off that planet I was excited as everyone else. When I saw them get in that ship and take off that planet for the 10th time like two E3's later without showing or saying anything new I was kind of skeptical about the whole thing. Some people will love it no matter what. I log into Steam and see some people on my friends list to this very day still playing Skyrim and I have no idea what they could still be doing in that game - but hey it's their time so whatever. Personally I just don't know if their vast world will measure up against meticulously hand crafted 8 hr campaigns, but we'll see.

@humanity said:

ummm... why put cool stuff to be discovered and then talk all about it beforehand? they showed how combat works, they showed that you'll be talking to aliens, they talked about trading, they talked about crafting, they talked about resource gathering.

I mean really I don't get it, do people want them to spill every little bit of detail about every single thing you can do in the game? I sure as hell don't! I want to find it all out by myself.

@onarum: I feel like they talked about it in the vaguest of terms. It's like if you asked me to tell you about Devil May Cry and I'd say "well you can attack enemies, and there is experience and you will explore areas and there is progression and an end goal" which is fine and good but that doesn't really answer fundamental questions you might have about that type of game. I don't want them to spoil everything, but if talking in depth about the systems you will be using for dozens of hours is somehow "spilling every little detail" about the gameplay loop then we're in trouble. A good game will stand on it's own two legs even if you watch someone play it for half an hour or more - we see this with Quick Looks. Plenty of times I watch the Bomb guys play a game in a video feature and see it in action, all the systems plain as day, completely transparent, and it makes me even more excited to go and play myself.

Ultimately I agree that complaining about this stuff doesn't really matter because when No Mans Sky finally becomes available everyone will go online, watch any of the 100 or so livestreamers on YouTube and decide for themselves if this is for you or it isn't. In this day and age there is no such thing as going into a game blind unless you choose to do so for yourself, and even then it's not that easy if you actually use the internet on a daily basis.

@onarum: While they don't have to come out and explain everything in meticulous detail, I've always asked for a broader presentation of what the overall loop of the game might be. If the point of the game comes down to "make your own fun, here's some tools" that's fine, but let me know. So far I feel like it's a potentially interesting idea with with possibilities, but it might just be one big ball of ideas that don't come together. But much like @humanity, their way of presenting the game has been slowly eroding my expectation (and excitement) for the game.

To put it a different way, you know when someone hands you something and when you try to grab it they pull it away laughing. Sure, they got you the first time and maybe you laugh about it, but after the second or third time you don't really care anymore and you let them keep it until they physically put it in your hand. I feel sort of like that for this game and the information surrounding it.

I feel like they have explained exactly what this game is from the very beginning and I still don't understand why people are confused about it.

@jonny_anonymous: You and me both sir, you and me both.

this. and they aren't making wild claims either. i think people are just inflating their own hopes when they shouldn't.

if procedural space exploration with no specific goal (other than to reach the center of the galaxy (where peter moleyneux resides)) and a bunch of varied things to discover aren't your cup of tea then i think you already know for certain this game isn't for you.

i also sense, at least here, a LOT of bandwagoning with the whole "they aren't showing enough and therefore there must be something wrong with it" mindset. but bandwagoning seems to happen a lot in general here so meh.

They've said it's an open ended exploration game where you explore and want to get to the center of the galaxy. So sure they have in a way given a broad overview of what it is. I think different people are satisfied with different levels of information. So for some this is enough, while for others it isn't. Saying The Witness is a "puzzle game" explains it but doesn't do that game justice and might be misleading for some in the way it approaches puzzle solving.

What we can all agree on is that Hello Games have been guarded in answering questions about No Mans Sky. Whether this is good or bad doesn't really matter because the game is coming out one way or another, but it will impact different people in different ways. Transparency has always been a better marketing approach than coy evasiveness because the less you say the more people build up their own image of what your game is going to be and ultimately end up getting disappointed because it didn't live up to their imaginary version of it, a game that it was never going to be in the first place. This leads to a negative word of mouth and so forth that no one wants.

What parts exactly are they being coy about?

@jonny_anonymous: Coy, evasive, not fully forthcoming. I don't really want to split hairs here with a dictionary. If we can't both agree that their approach to answering questions about their game has been let's say "guarded" then we won't agree on anything and it's pointless to keep a back and forth going.

I'm not trying to put shade on this game or talk it down in any way. It's not even out, that would be crazy. I'm just saying hey, I personally would love to get a bit more info on the inner working of gameplay mechanics so I know what I'm getting into. There are some things I specifically like a whole lot and some that I very specifically do not like. It would be cool to know more, but waiting to find out after it's released in the form of a Quick Look or a livestream won't kill me either.

Minecraft with a shitty laser gun and ship.

I am so hype for the reaction of people when they realize its an open world survival game, where most of it is downtime to then emphasize the actual cool moments. Lots of just running around collecting.

@atwa: And that sounds soooooooooooo good. I need my Zen/Podcast game

Actually, I'm kind of confused by this. Doesn't "gone gold" usually mean something has sold half a million copies? I've never heard it used in a game development context that means a game is finished.

@sinusoidal: It means the game's been sent to get pressed. That's the word for it right? "Pressed"? They're putting it on the discs.

It basically means the game's "done" and now it's all about getting it out there.

@theht: Ahh yeah, I did some Googling and I guess in the past when a game was ready to be pressed, they'd make a gold master copy from which other copies would be made. The term is a holdover from days before digital distribution was the norm. I imagine these days, the files are just uploaded to whoever does the pressing.

@ripelivejam A game having "gone gold" doesn't seem to preclude any possible further delays. "Finished" games have certainly been delayed before.

@sinusoidal: largely in game development though "gone gold" means the game is in whats considered a finished state and ready for production/sale. i would say it's highly unlikely it will be delayed now. the state of the game at release may be a different story bug and stability wise (not talking about what the game offers game play wise per-se).

I'm cautiously optimistic about this game. I don't want to be disappointed in it as I was with Spore and Fable.

@humanity said:

That's a good point.

Still, I feel they have shown a good deal of gameplay, I at least watched a couple of lengthy videos of the game being played, though yeah not a single mechanic was shown in detail I don't think.

But as far as I'm concerned I already know everything I need to know, you'll be flying through space, shooting things, trading, crafting, naming stuff, finding nice shit, that your ultimate goal should be getting to the center of the galaxy, that the closer you are the crazier things get and when you get there something cool might happen, the mystery is a big part of the draw for me to be honest, if it'll be good or not I guess time will tell.

If you reach the center it starts like a New Game + universe? I'm assuming it doesn't just end

I am still very excited for this game. Can't wait to don my Captain Kirk: Space trucker hat, point in a direction and go. It is one of the reasons why I am excited for it. Not knowing what or why is one of the draws. Open worlds are my thing, exploration is my thing. I am not expecting game of the century, but have little doubt from what I have seen I will like it.

It is more interesting to me why there is so much vitriol toward this game. I have some theories on this.

1. The self centered view that all games/media/entertainment must be focused on yourself. If you don't like something, it can not be validated as being good. I find online shooters like COD repetitive and mind numbing. Up until recently I recognized that that particular franchise was stagnant. I am grown enough to realize that view is subjective and not conclusive evidence.

2. Need of grandeur. You need something of utmost importance to be at stake. These people may read something akin to The Mezzanine and the reaction would be "I don't get it." It is a valid if somewhat plain view with a lack of nuance. Some great literature and wonderful shows (like Seinfeld) have no ultimate goal but dazzle you with details.

3. The "I hate procedural generation" people. Yes, you lose a bit of the artist's touch. As games and the worlds of them get larger and more complicated, you see more procedural generation. Speed Tree has been used for a while in large games we know and love. When done right it is harder to notice and stays in the back of your mind at best. This game is all procedural, so there is that. It will be imminently noticeable. Of course it will. Just about has to with that scale and scope. It is all about setting parameters. Spelunky is a procedurally generated game with procedurally generated levels and is great.

4. "It's not a game" people. The same ones who think Journey, Gone Home, Flower, or a slew of other games are not games. It is just an argument of the self centered view group who feel the need to categorize everything into bite size groups that makes sense to them. They seek simplicity in a complex world.

@ninjalegend: I don`t feel any hate toward it so I might not be one of the people you are talking about, but I am one of those people that aren`t excited for this game. My main reasons are:

1. I am not a big space guy. I don`t have anything against the setting, but just space travel in itself doesen`t do anything for me.

2. None of the gameplay they have shown so far has looked especially fun or exciting to me. It didn`t look bad per se, but just pretty mediocre.

As for people hating it can also be people who are annoyed at people who are calling this he best game of all time already. So they take their dislike of the audience out on the game.

It was confirmed 2 years ago that the game wont end when you reach the center. You will find lots of "end game" stuff at the center.

I can't wait for this game. I don't care what the combat is as long as there is tons of interesting stuff to explore. That said, if everything is based on servers there is no God damn way that game will even work the first day or two of launch. They're a tiny studio and Im guessing that game is gonna sell a ton