So Sony put up a video which tells the story of how No Man's Sky came to be. While the story is interesting itself, I think some of the No Man's Sky gameplay stuff Sean Murray talks about may help clarify a little what you actually do in the game (well, at least what your ultimate goal is anyway) so it may be worth a watch if you want to find out more about the game.

Not much is revealed but I found the idea of there being something to discover at the center of the universe to be kind of cool. Perhaps the center of the universe will have a much larger concentration of players and more scripted content, maybe something like the homeworlds of the player.

So I also kind of agree that it is a kind of interesting story idea in its simplicity - isn't that essentially what the story of Journey was as well? - but I think it would still help if there was some clarification on how players will interact with each other, if they do at all! I say that because I'm kind of getting a 22Cans' Curiosity vibe from the whole thing?

That would be kind of crazy, right?

They've already said that there won't be a conventional interaction between real players because it would take you (literally) years to travel to the next player. They have also said they have been inspired by the kind of multiplayer that Journey brought to games. They also said there would be a "meaningful" interaction though. Whatever that means. Trading?

I'm keeping a sceptical viewpoint on this game until we see some more. It all sounds too good to be true so far. I'm missing the catch.

I hate to be skeptical but yeah, I agree with you.

I really hope this doesn't turn out to be like Spore or Fable, which were promised to be so much more than what we eventually got.

Sean Murray might be the most likable human being in games. I hope they can deliver on their vision for this, but I'll probably buy it even if they come up a little short :)

Yeah, I have to be sceptical based on that - it seems kind of contradictory to me?

Any chance you could link to wherever they said that?

There are questions that I still have about this game but I'm more than content exploring for myself when the game comes out. There's still potentially over a year until release as well. I'm sure we'll see more between now and then. Honestly, this looks like one of the best things I've ever seen. They'd have to be pulling some elaborate smoke and mirror scamming in order for it not to be something I buy as soon as it's available.

I'm in no matter what for the mere ability to take off from a planet surface and fly to the next one. If they can do that than I don't see any way in which this game would be a disappointment to me. It could change how RPGs are laid out forever.

My skepticism lies in how well it will perform. It seems so massive and gorgeous. That's what isn't computing for me. I don't understand how they're doing it.

It's really exciting.

You get to the center and there's just a giant floating Peter Molyneux head that tries to steal your ship.

you get to the centre and Sean Murray removes his face mask - he is Peter Molyneux and he tells you that this is the game he was actually promoting when he said that Fable would have real-time tree growth.

I have no idea what this game is about. This video is one of the only ones I've seen with ships shooting at each other. I have never seen a clip of someone interacting with something in person. He talks about upgrading ship, but how? just finding a bigger one? gathering resources? He mentions here that there is a goal of reaching the center of the universe and that's great, I'm sure there some simple story to drive you there. However, what do you do on the way? just look around? This game looks interesting and I want to know more, but everyone keeps gushing over same clips of same planets, for something with endless planets, I keep seeing same one.

I'm really starting to think Sony is way over hyping this game.

Kind of off topic, but man the band doing the music for this is great.

Fuckin whatever, I just need to play this game. No more pretty trailers, no more bringing out Sean Murray to woo me with his humble charm, nothin. Just me flying around in space and finding shit to do.

Gamespot actually made some videos a while ago that are pretty much this, but better... http://www.gamespot.com/the-next-big-game-noans-sky/

Yes, 65daysofstatic are awesome.

I wonder if the space flight/regular flight is going to be on rails or not. It looked like it was on rails (autopilot) in the trailers, but that's probably because it was a trailer. If you can't just fly around but instead need to pick a destination/planet and then let the autopilot take you there that would kill a lot of this game for me.

This. I want to love this game, but that fact that they still didn't show us any other characters, trading, upgrading and only minimal amounts of combat makes me suspicious.

GOD DAMN YOU ALL!...For pointing out all these logical reasons to be skeptical of what they are presenting this game to be, but also thank you for allowing me to step back and readjust my expectations for this game.

There are a lot of things that I have heard about this project that seem to contradict each other. For example I heard this weekend that you won't come across any intelligent life on your journey through the universe, however I also remember during/around e3(I believe it was even Sean Murray talking to the GB guys) a developer talking about what he likes to do in the game for fun, and he said he liked to go to a space station and get "wanted" and see how long he could hold it off for.*

Now I don't know if I imagined that or what, but I haven't heard a single other person bring it up when people ask what you'll be able to do and the lack of intelligent life kind of stops that from being a possibility. The only thing I have heard speculated that could solve that would be if there is no intelligent life on planets you discover but still life on planets. Even in this thread I'm reading that you won't really interact with other players because they are so far away, yet every video has multiple ships flying together, so is that just like your computer teammates or what?

In the end I'll be happy if I can just explore say 50 relatively different planets(which given the numbers they are claiming should be easy) and have a few things I can do, so I'm not just aimlessly walking/flying throughout the universe. I don't expect a story or much but peoples comments to have me wondering how the game will be structured in a way that most players would be compelled to make there way to the center of the universe, which I want to say I've heard could take from 40-100 hours(which makes me question how it could possibly take literally years to reach other players?)

I'm guessing that the reason all we know about so far is the universe, is because that is all that they can guarantee at launch, they know what they want to put in the game but rather than making the mistake of promising a bunch of stuff that they can't get in the game by launch, they are holding off until it's in and confirmed...well that's my wishful thinking anyway

*Does anyone remember a developer saying that about a different game

@goonage: My guess is; it is not ready to show yet. They have the basic system ready for generating a whole universe, with flora and fauna and robots and spaceships etc. But the core gameplay (gathering resources, shooting, inventory, upgrading, etc.) is still being worked on. Many people still have questions about the gameplay and how it will play, they've explained it, but never showed it.
I'm not sure, but I even think the idea of this randomly generated universe came first and the gameplay ideas came later. Watching the GameInformer video where he (still vaguely) explains a lot of No Man's Sky and shows the systems is pretty much mind blowing, though.

I'm very excited about it, but the release date can be either 2015, 2016 or even later I think. They are a small team and the whole pitch of this game is incredibly vast and ambitious. Even if they've created all the gameplay stuff it still needs alot of tweaking and testing and balancing before it feels right. And they are no Ubisoft that just throws a lot of resources at it to make a release date.

Comparing the two videos does not bode well. If what he shows in the second video is where they're at now, the first video must be full of mock-ups because it doesn't look to me like they've implemented any of those space stations or buildings or any of the combat. The planets he shows in the second video are pretty bloody boring as well. Yeah, sure, they might take real weeks to traverse entirely, but will there be anything worth looking at? Is each planet only one ecology, or are there potentially deserts/oceans/mountain ranges with varying weather? Are there solar systems? What about stars and suns? What about other kinds of celestial bodies? I'm not convinced procedural generation is at the point where it's possible to make an interesting, actually galaxy-sized galaxy to explore. Especially if exploration is all or most of what there is to it.

I'm also really, really hoping they prove me wrong because this stuff looks like it's got the potential to be amazing and the industry is practically begging for a severe kick in the ass with some new ideas.

@sinusoidal: I think most planets will be 'boring', planets with complete eco systems as shown in some video's will be pretty rare. But I'm having the same questions that you have; will there be 'snow planets' and 'desert planets' or will there be planets with deserts and snow as well (like ours).
I think they already said the planets will have their own sun and each sun it's own solar system (every star you see when in space or on a planet is an actual sun with planets orbiting them).

Also keep in mind that this game is in no way a space sim. It's an 'arcadey' game that takes place in a fictional universe, things like landing on a planet and entering space takes up no time at all. Exploration is a key part, but it's not the only thing you do; there's trading, combat, upgrading and gathering resources. The only thing that's absolutely unclear to me is the multiplayer aspect. Everyone is in the same universe, but sometimes they say you won't see the other players and in some video's they say you do.

@dussck: In this video he says, this is the same planet from E3. why? if you have infinite planets why do you keep showing me the same planet over and over again? "it's just a place that looks nice, we don't have a big team." Than he goes to the planet right next store and says places usually aren't this close but we needed to do it like this to show people we can go to different planets.

What do I do on a planet? If this whole game is just fly around a looking at random shit, fine tell me, I'm in. In a 33 minute video he never interacts with anything. Game would imply that there is something to do, maybe this is just world's greatest screen saver.

In the last 2 minutes of video he says " people may think its boring to walk around alien planet" Is that all there is?

I wish these guys luck, but Star Citizen seems way more interesting, since it has the gameplay to back it up. The ship fights, guns shooting, etc that I've seen from this game don't look all that fun. Star Citizen looks like an actual game, while this seems abstract and esoteric.

I don't think you can compare this game with a Star Citizen at all. It's almost like comparing Mario Kart with Project CARS. No Man's Sky being the Mario Kart here.

I guess it's true that what they've been showing so far was all very 'controlled'. They picked a good looking planet and never went into their random universe. The random generator probably still is not working like they intended, they seem to be afraid to show some anomaly or boring world.

I'm at a point that I really like to see some boring worlds, though. Show me 20 or so minutes of gameplay where they visit 5 random planets.

The behind the scenes tour of the tech was pretty awesome imo, I still want to see the "game" more but I am holding out that this will be the new Minecraft, but it is telling that the worst part of Minecraft is the gameplay beyond exploring and mining. If they can get the On foot and ship combat right plus create interesting interactions with alien creatures they might have something spectacular.

Hey on this planet the dinosaurs are pink, they where teal on the last planet. Awesome...

@rethla: When you watch the gameinformer video you can see their creature generator. With a button press they show like 50 creatures that are pretty different from eachother, different skin textures, features, color, even legs and heads are different models. And that was only 1 of the 100 creature types he said. Take into account that the whole creature itself can differ in size as well and you got a pretty good idea of how many different creatures you can create.

Ofcourse there will always be the 'oh this creature looks a bit like that other one, just bigger and blue'. But that's the same as creatures on this planet; tigers, lions, panthers, puma's; they're all just variations on the same cat model. :)