@jesus_phish: I thought of that too. But I have no idea what happens when you reach the center of the Euclid galaxy (I'm assuming everyone else is in the same galaxy, right?), and I'm trying to avoid spoilers. Maybe that's the reason they are being coy about the center.

I got the idea from the first mention of multiplayer, that it would be something between Dark Souls ghosts and Journey multiplayer, except instead of inevitable, it would be extremely rare. Also, that the primary 'multiplayer' component would be occasionally running into a planet already named by another human, (much like in Noctis, except automatic instead of a manual process.) All this is dependent upon it working of course

**In fact, they would have to contrive things to make it merely "extremely rare" for it to happen at all. You'd need over 5 billion simultaneous players for there to be a 50% chance of any two players being on any one of the 2^64 planets at the same time.

I didn't pay close attention, but I thought they were relatively honest about this being intent. Although my first thought upon seeing the game announced was "Awesome, a new Noctis finally!" and just assumed No Man's Sky would match Noctis' gameplay/features closely.

I think what has changed leading up to release is that "This is very definitely a single player game!" messaging has had to be toned down so customers don't hear "I can play this straight out of the box without needing the internet" and skip the day one patch.

I always assumed that because it was such an infinitesimally small chance to actually meet someone that it would make no sense for Hello Games to craft a player avatar to be seen by someone else. Why go to the effort of that? It is a shame you can't hang out together in a crew while you explore the galaxy - maybe this could be a future consideration for the devs, but it would make it much more of an shared experience.

I hope Sean is currently sleeping for a week. What's been achieved technically is pretty incredible. I think back to playing Elite on the ol' BBC B when I was still at school - a game where there were procedural shennanigans but on a smaller level - No Man's Sky is what progress achieves.

The same applies to the whole "You can name the things you discover" mechanic. What use is such a mechanic when the universe is supposedly so vast that nobody is ever gonna meet anybody? And why even assume that in the first place? What if some people just stick around? Developers have underestimated players abilities, to mess with their games, many times before, this feels like one of those times.

Didn't help that keeping specifics about the gameplay and mechanics kinda "vague" seemed to have played a big part of the games marketing strategy and hype.

@nietzschecookie: I think the Idea is to get to the centre of the universe, not galaxy...

from the back of the box (UK release).. "centre of a boundless UNIVERSE, where galaxies wait to be discovered"....

@nethlem: I think it's more likely you would run into some already discovered things. But the chances of you already being friends with that person are low. And I also don't know if it would be easy to follow their breadcrumb trail even if you found one of their systems. Easier with the starter hyperdrive that only goes to the absolute nearest systems per jump. But if they made one jump with an upgraded drive you could have a very hard time finding that second system even if they gave you the name. Unless the game happened to point both of you towards it as an objective marker. Where I am in Euclid I already have no hope of ever moving back along my own trail as well.

And not knowing whats at the center I can't say, but the in-game map does say your objective is to get to the galactic core. Which is the center, but doesn't necessarily mean a very specific location. For instance in the milky way, star density goes up by at least a couple orders of magnitude at the core, and is still tens of thousands of light years across. So relative converging might not increase the chance of meeting up if your final destination is one of any systems inside the core.

I do think the messaging on their end should have been clearer though since so many people have wildly different ideas of what this game is.

@kilroyandy: Yeah the messaging on this is confusing. I see some press things saying Universe (which makes no sense in a boundless universe...) and others saying galaxy. Everything I've seen in game says galaxy so far.

@nietzschecookie: It's bizarre. I was getting on my high horse that people aren't checking these things correctly, but the game does state "Galactic Core" so who knows.

It's Space Jim!

@pickassoreborn: if it's so incredibly unlikely that two people can meet then it doesn't make any sense for them to dedicate time to developing working multiplayer. Which is why this multiplayer stuff sounded like bullshit from the start.

I'm beginning to wonder if he made those statements about encountering other players because he truly believed that it would never happen.

Its only unlikely if we are denied the opportunity to track people down. They include the names of who discovered what. As soon as you find someones planet, all you have to do is message their username and ask if they want to retrace.

The first system I jumped to had planets that had been discovered by one person, with one undiscovered. By the time I left the space station, the undiscovered planet had been discovered by another person.

@kilroyandy: @nietzschecookie: Sean Murray did an interview with GI in which he stated clearly that there is a difference between universe and galaxy, and that the game takes place in a universe full of galaxies. Here's the pull-quote at the :51 mark on this video that references the interview:

While the initial goal is to get to the center of the galaxy, it seems like the true end-goal is to get to the center of the universe. However, I'm not sure how many people will actually play long enough to make it that far, which is probably why the messaging around the 'goal' is largely about making it to the center of the galaxy - an, at least, 30-hour endeavor in its own right.

ghost

At least you weren't that guy who started on a planet that had already been discovered by someone else.

All this controversy is exhausting. I can barely find discussion of the game. Definitely none going on at the steam forums or reddit. All people are doing is calling Sean Murray a liar with a tone that suggests government war crime levels of deception. Of course, there are also plenty of the same people there claiming Sony paid them to delay the PC version (I'm sure Sony regularly walks around with big bags of money with dollar signs on them for a 2 day delay) as well as a number of other 'theories' about how Hello Games are lazy, or Sony is trying to steal money by lying.

Multiplayer hasn't crossed my mind since I started playing today, but some people followed the game preview coverage more than others. I wish the studio would come out with some sort of definitive statement on all of this, but maybe it will just make things worse.

My understanding is that it would be like Journey. That you'd be able to see people if you happen to be in the same place, but have no interaction. I don't know where people got in their heads that there was real multiplayer. They built it up in their heads that they'd be able to find friends and work together. That would be neat, but there has been nothing even hinting that would be the case. The way I see it is that the ability to see people was dropped or not yet implemented. So sure, be upset about that. But being upset that a co-op mode that was never promised isn't there? That's silly.

To throw more fuel to the fire...

That's kind of like jumping into the fire and complaining that it's too hot.

@mike: I'm coming off of Facebook, and instead of compulsively clicking on that I replace it by clicking reddit. Like a smoker on patches. I'd rather a fire than the event horizon of a black hole where all hope dies. Actually, Reddit is way worse but at least I'm not related to anyone there.

@kcin: So it does sound like there will be multiple galaxies you can travel to. That clears that up. I'm not sure there will be a center of the universe goal after the many hour galaxy goal though. That idea seems to be a product of the mixed messaging. In the case of the actual universe, it makes no sense to say there's a center. Every point in the universe is the center of the universe. This is what confuses me about that statement.

Maybe their video game universe is of a different kind of infinite though?

@nietzschecookie: Since Sean has said in multiple interviews you wanna get to the center of the universe, I'm guessing they have a fake lil video game universe, with an actual 'center'. In the quote above, he also says he doesn't want to spoil it, so this seems like a pretty safe assumption to me.

@nietzschecookie: After some time, players gonna run into stuff other players named especially as they get closer to the center of the universe, so it is kinda inevitable. But imho it's still kind of an odd contrast vs the whole "everything is so vast, nobody can explore it!" angle.

It also shouldn't be that hard to coordinate for a meet-up, after all two twitch streamers managed to do it on the first day. Over time this will probably become even easier, as players figure out ways to lay breadcrumbs, like naming systems/planets in a sign-post way. Gonna be real interesting to see what other odd stories this game will spawn.