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No Man's Sky Update Adds Base-Building, Survival Mode, and More
Lizzy Finnegan
1 POSTED: 27 Nov 2016 13:32
"If you could have lived our lives over the last months, you'd know how meaningful this is."
Hello Games founder Sean Murray took to Twitter today (for real, this time) to share the news of the Foundation Update for No Man's Sky. In a series of tweets, Murray thanked fans for "sticking with us," and attributed the studios' silence to not wanting to discuss the update "until it was 100% certain."
"We're getting better as quickly as we can for the players who invested in us. Thank you for sticking with us," Sean Murray wrote on Twitter, adding "We hope you enjoy this first proper update. We didn't want to talk about anything in it until it was 100% certain."
"If you could have lived our lives over the last months, you'd know how meaningful this is," he added, speaking of the update.
The Foundation Update was announced on Friday, although details on what would be included were sparse. Now that the update, 1.1, is live, we have a better idea of what is included, and how it may impact the state of the game.
The post detailing the update can be viewed, in full, here, and is huge. For starters, there are now three game modes: Normal (the original game, with normal difficulty and resources), Creative (where players can explore the game "without limits," and "build a huge base"), and Survival (planets and enemies are more dangerous, "creating a much more challenging endurance experience").
As for base-building, the announcement promises the ability to create elaborate structures, recruit alien lifeforms to help research new technology and run different sections, including farming, engineering, and weapons, and the ability to fast travel to your base from any space station. If you find a better location, you can dismantle your base, which will refund your spent resources.
Additionally, you can buy huge freighters, customize them, and use them to transfer large quantities of materials, along with much more.
The last patch, 1.09, released in September, and focused on bug fixes, most notably the ability to more easily recover corrupted save files.
According to Hello Games, this is "the first of many free updates that will build on the original No Man's Sky."
The game has been heavily criticized since its release, with critics alleging false advertising and missing features. These complaints have prompted an investigation by the UK's Advertising Standard Authority.
fix-the-spade
So essentially No Man's Sky is now Subnautica in space, except Subnautica and the Unknown Worlds guys have never been anything but honest and straight forward in their promotion of their game.
Well it's an improvement I suppose.
gigastar
Well if nothing else, they couldnt possibly do it worse than alot of other open world multiplayer survival crafting games already on steam.
Blitsie
All the negativity and lies and whatnot aside, it piqued my interest enough to reinstall the game I must admit. At worst it sounds like they got the bones of the stuff they promised in so long (heck, that's why this is called the foundation I guess) and if it feels like there's enough potential here that they're gonna legit build up on (on a rather regular basis preferably) then heck, might fully dive in again.
Saelune
They are already doing better than Destiny by not making people PAY for the content that should have been in the game from the start.
The Enquirer
Well, I really wanted this game to be good. If they continue to add new things into it, and actually do so, not just say features will be added, then I may actually pick this up.
DeliveryGodNoah
So the game has now upgraded from the very essence of lies and crushed hopes in electronic form into a Steam Early Access survival game.
Hm. Maybe if they continue this route and add actual content to the game, they can change the minds of some of those refunds, eh?
ManFromTheInternet
DeliveryGodNoah:
Brilliant, couldn't have said it better
Borty The Bort
Hold on, my sarcasm program is still loading
Sarcasm, loaded
Yaaaaaaaay...
Honestly, I couldn't give a toss whether they fix it by this point,I'm unlikely to ever touch it simply because I am bogged down by the plethora of survival games that exist. Please, for the love of all that is holy, don't make me play another one.
10 POSTED: 27 Nov 2016 17:41
Saelune:
Again though, the planet generation algorithm really needs to be redone.
008Zulu
Heeey, a survival game! Haven't seen one of those in a while!
(so glad I bought the industrial grade sarcasm generator)
Neurotic Void Melody
Arnoxthe1:
If you look in the patch notes, that is actually a thing that they are doing. Seriously, they aren't giving up on this project. I can't help but respect that. They are listening to the feedback and am getting a rather strong indication that publisher contracts were the major contributor to how it released in the state it did. Maybe we will never know till years ahead, but of all the developers for people to direct a stream of boiled piss towards, these are not a useful target. Not like Activision, Squeenix or WB...or that one that may be involved in a particular lawsuit or two.
Dr. Thrax
I'm genuinely curious, what do you mean by this?
I've never played Destiny, so I'm not knowledgeable on pretty much anything surrounding it.
Dr. Thrax:
Destiny was released unfinished, cause they rushed. Basically everything up to the Taken King Expansion is the true finished base game, but they made you buy them as expansions.
Basically they sold an unfinished product and made people pay more to get the full game.
Seth Carter
Based on the various leaks and interviews, the Dreadnaught (Taken King) was supposed to be finale of the original storyline. Though the content of it was different.
Dark Below was obviously stuff that was meant to be in the base game. Taken King's quest system even merges it with the Hive missions from vanilla.
House of Wolves reused some level assets, but seems to have been developed separately. The writing style (NPC's getting more personality and in-mission voice acting instead of just the Ghost briefing) is a dramatic shift from the vanilla missions and more in the style of Taken King-onwards. The basics of Trials of Osiris was found in leaked stuff way back in vanilla, but the PvE stuff was new.
RedDeadFred
I'm sort of torn on this. On the one hand, Destiny's gameplay was at least enjoyable (from what I've heard anyway), but I'd say it's almost a fact at this point that parts of the game were cut out to be sold later.
With NMS, the core gameplay boils down to collecting stuff so that you can be better at collecting stuff. That's fucking terrible and it's something that I don't know if they'll ever really fix regardless of the free updates. It's why I wasn't surprised at the negative response the game had. While there absolutely were plenty of lies about the game, the majority of the hard evidence of gameplay leading up to its release was generic collecting while looking at some pretty scenery. I don't really see them ever adding enough depth to any of the game's other mechanics to make it even remotely enjoyable, but I guess for some, it's enough.
Still, I'd cut NMS more slack than Destiny since people bought into that not only for the lies, but also because of the years of goodwill Bungie had built up. NMS was just an indie dev getting caught up in way more than they had originally anticipated and they handled it VERY badly. Whereas Destiny was more like an actual betrayal.
At least, that's my opinion on the shitty scenarios surrounding both of these games.
Xsjadoblayde:
If you look in the patch notes, that is actually a thing that they are doing.
Well that's good. Can't seem to find any screenshots of it in action though.
sagitel
well they arent going to say they are doing something without doing it. i mean they arent going to lie to people about incorporating something in the game.
oh wait.
OT: sean we had this conversation before. i dont give a toss how hard you worked. i just care about the end product. so far its been bad. building bases and freighters and whatnot are also more of the same. you get resources to get more resources. you need to add actual gameplay in the game. also if anyone have had the update can you confirm that it actually works. so far the planet resets after you leave the atmosphere, and the robot ball thingies attack you on planets so are these going to fixed?
the only thing that could make me play again is adding actual weapons to the game. the ability to kill all the sad excuses of alien animals and wipe them out. destroy half a planet and more.
RedDeadFred:
Mostly just taking a shot at Destiny, cause I hate it way more than NMS, though in all honesty, Day 1 Destiny was probably way better than Day 1 No Man's Sky.
Either way, not forcing people to pay more for your mistakes is morally better than the alternative.
Certainly better then getting nothing for your $60, I fully expected them to quietly make a sequel and just pretend nothing bad happened before, which would more then likely have worked since most consumers can't think past one or two weeks.
But hey they are giving you something for your trouble, doesn't make all their lies ok but at least it's something.
CaitSeith
At least their hardcore fans will be happy...
...they still have fans, don't they?
Popped the disc in and played for a bit. On the Survival difficulty, so some things may be different in the other two modes.
The early part of the story has NPCs who give you the hyperdrive blueprint. Don't know if they overhauled more of it, but those NPCs now have dialogue that can be understood without language stones thats a bit more informative. Where previously they just gave you the blueprint silently, and the objective to find named people popped up out of context.
Some stuff stacks better, and I think they gave the ship teleport exchange infinite or at least increased range, alleviating some of the inventory management. A lot of stuff is overhauled though, and you can't just feed the basic forms of elements into your systems to maintain power now. You either need rarer stuff or have to craft/use actual batteries and so on. There's a quick-menu where you can pop up contextually relevant systems and charge them though, without having to navigate through the inventory.
Planets have multiple biomes now. My starter planet had snowy forested craters amidst a more desert like red rocky terrain. Not sure if they added more potential plants, but they seemed better laid out with some variety through them. Animals looked more or less the same, but maybe a little less awkwardly animated and moving. Some of the atmosphere clouds and space visuals have gotten a makeover.
Space combat seems more fluid. The quicker turning helps alot in keeping track of the enemy ships. Haven't fought any groups bigger then two, so not sure about their formation flying. The nearby freighter wiped out one of those for me even. Freighters don't seem terribly interesting in of themselves. There's docks where ships land, and a bridge with a bunch of non-talking NPCs and the Commander that will reward you for defeating pirates and offer to hire the freighter out to you. Probably they serve more use once you buy it to customize. Space stations have more population now, but they're all just guys you hire for base activities.
As survival goes, its definitely harder. My first run was annoyingly frustrating. After 4 deaths without even reaching my ship, and then found out deaths add a new save spot. So the new system that stores your last 3 saves just had all 3 locked into the death march I ended up on. Second attempt has gone better, though it was still 4 deaths before I managed to escape the first planet. Added on is that the scanner has a cooldown timer on it now, which may be a survival mode only change, or in all modes. You can definitely be very screwed by the random start though, if your ship is too far out and there's no shelter available en-route, the odds of keeping your shield up are pretty much nil. Once you get off-planet, space is a bit more forgiving. You can mine asteroids without worrying about life-support, whether you get the materials themselves or stuff to trade for materials, Hanging out near a fleet or space station gives you a quick escape if pirates pop in on you.
Haven't gotten to base building as of yet.
wulfy42
I just rebought it since it's 20$ now, and I think it was worth $20 back then (if the bugs where fixed), since more has been added, it's certainly worth it at this point.
The game was broken at lauch, but I had fun on the first planet before the crashes, and while I'm not......thrilled....at having to redo all that again, it's been long enough that it won't be as hard (Especially since they changed things).
I'm willing to throw $20 at it at least.
ShakerSilver
Wait, so they're adding base building to a game where the goal is the constantly travel from planet to planet so you can reach the center of the galaxy then get warped into a new galaxy? What's the point of even building a stationary base in a game where you're constantly on the move?
I think I much more worthwhile addition would have been ship building.