PlayStation Plus Not Required for No Man's Sky

[wulfy42]

I didn't know about everyone starting on the edge for sure, but I had figured it was something along those lines (just how much of the edge is still in question), that is why I cut out so much of the center.

That being said, it pretty much HAS to be random where you start, and unless it checks by IP address or something, they can't have you start every new game in the same place.

A few things make me curious about how hard it will actually be to meet up with others.

First...the over all goal to get to the center of the universe. Obviously if EVERY player has to get to the center or near it, then with such a huge universe, and people starting on the edge of it, travel over EXTREMELY long distances must be possible and fairly fast.

Even if the Center is HUGE....if you have to travel a distance equal to traveling from one side of the center to the other, just to get to the center, then you could travel to any point in the center that was determined in advance by many players.

The game COULD play in little bubbles, that are made up of the possible distance a player can travel in a set time, but then it would be open world and have no over all point. If players all have a set point they need to reach (Even if it's a HUGE point), then the bubble idea kinda goes out the window.

We will just have to wait and see I guess. The shear number of planets even with only 1 in 10 sustaining life, means even if you can end up in the same area as other players, you are only likely to run into them, or changes they have made to planets, if you actively try for it.


One thing I find a bit interesting though. The planets themselves (And creatures on them) are randomly generated. There is supposed to be 18 quintilion planets (possible), so if 1/10 of those have life, you could have just a bit under 2 quintillion planets with life eventually (if they where all actually created). Without specific information on the random generation we can't know for sure, but it's likely that there might be a few very similar planets out there...or even a ton of them, depending on how many option there are during the creation process. This is actually the biggest worry considering the fact that the primary options (what the atmosphere is made up, terrain type, main types of life etc) may be fairly limited (say 100 possible main variables)....with a bunch of small changes (appearance of animals etc) added in for flavor. If there is only 100 main variables though, even if that gives you 100*100 total options for how a planet comes out....that is only 10k different types of planets (where the only difference at that point is minorly cosmetic...like the size of the duck creatures bills for instance (or color of the skin).

Even in such a case though, you really would never probably see every "main" type of planet, since you would hit many copies of planets you have already seen before you saw the last few possible worlds.

 

[Hyena200]

I didn't know about everyone starting on the edge for sure, but I had figured it was something along those lines (just how much of the edge is still in question), that is why I cut out so much of the center.

That being said, it pretty much HAS to be random where you start, and unless it checks by IP address or something, they can't have you start every new game in the same place.

Ahh, but you're confusing 'random' with 'procedural'. Again we don't know for sure how it will work, but a lot of games have you set up an autosave before you start. Procedural generation assigns mathematical seeds to everything, which stay the same every time you visit the point where that seed is. If NMS has you set up an autosave it could be tied to the same mathematical seed which procedurally generates when you start the game, hence re-starting may see you on exactly the same planet in exactly the same place every time.

A few things make me curious about how hard it will actually be to meet up with others.

First...the over all goal to get to the center of the universe. Obviously if EVERY player has to get to the center or near it, then with such a huge universe, and people starting on the edge of it, travel over EXTREMELY long distances must be possible and fairly fast.

It actually seems that there is. NMS has portals in it. The dev's have said that these portals can get you much closer to the centre much quicker if you can find/activate them. Also you'll be able to buy ships with varying strength of hyperdrive so you could jump further, similar to how Elite Dangerous does it.

Even if the Center is HUGE....if you have to travel a distance equal to traveling from one side of the center to the other, just to get to the center, then you could travel to any point in the center that was determined in advance by many players.

That's if the centre is a playable area like conventional space. For all we know it may involve you entering a 'Mother portal' in which a cut scene plays out and then you re-appear in a new galaxy (they've said there are multiple galaxies). You could argue that just before you enter that portal could be the place for players to meet, and yeah, maybe, but the devs have also said NMS will work with a lobby system whereby only about 4 players at once could be visible to each other in any given point in space. That number could be different, I'm not entirely sure but its not much more than that if so, it can only accommodate a very small number of people in a lobby at any given time. They want the player interaction (if it ever happens) to be more like Journey than World of Warcraft.

We will just have to wait and see I guess. The shear number of planets even with only 1 in 10 sustaining life, means even if you can end up in the same area as other players, you are only likely to run into them, or changes they have made to planets, if you actively try for it.

Just to clarify on this. The devs want finding life on planets to be a special occurrence rather than something that happens regularly and this is what they have confirmed about the possibility of finding it: 90% of all planets will be barren rocks. Of the 10% remaining (which will have life on them) 90% of those will only have basic life so... four legged creatures, animals basically and the 10% of them remaining will have interesting lifeforms on them (bipedal aliens, other things we can't imagine). So its really going to be VERY special finding interesting alien life and some people may never discover any in their play through.

One thing I find a bit interesting though. The planets themselves (And creatures on them) are randomly generated. There is supposed to be 18 quintilion planets (possible), so if 1/10 of those have life, you could have just a bit under 2 quintillion planets with life eventually (if they where all actually created). Without specific information on the random generation we can't know for sure, but it's likely that there might be a few very similar planets out there...or even a ton of them, depending on how many option there are during the creation process. This is actually the biggest worry considering the fact that the primary options (what the atmosphere is made up, terrain type, main types of life etc) may be fairly limited (say 100 possible main variables)....with a bunch of small changes (appearance of animals etc) added in for flavor. If there is only 100 main variables though, even if that gives you 100*100 total options for how a planet comes out....that is only 10k different types of planets (where the only difference at that point is minorly cosmetic...like the size of the duck creatures bills for instance (or color of the skin).


Even in such a case though, you really would never probably see every "main" type of planet, since you would hit many copies of planets you have already seen before you saw the last few possible worlds.

Everything in NMS is 'procedurally' generated, not 'randomly generated'. There is a huge difference. Random generation doesn't follow rules so can repeat itself by accident purely because it is random and anything can happen. Procedural generation does follow rules and the devs have programmed hundreds upon hundreds of rules for everything from how animals should walk given what their legs look like, to how hot planets should be based on how far from their parent star they appear. They also will have likely programmed the game to never repeat a mathematical seed formula. So theoretically at least, procedural shouldn't be repeating itself. See above for the bit about mathematical seeds being assigned to everything.