A big name in proc gen is Kate Compton who coined the term "10,000 bowls of oatmeal" to describe this phenomenon of technically unique but not different enough to matter - I googled "10000 bowls of oatmeal" to see if there was a good article and the second link was about it and nms

https://www.challies.com/articles/no-mans-sky-and-10000-bowl...

The best things about the game (and it is a good game at this point, they continued to add to it at a steady pace since launch) are the human written stories.

But, once you've exhausted those human stories, it's like wandering around a few billion abandoned malls. Interesting the first few times, but grows boring pretty fast. But also, the worst thing about the human-written stories is that they're often transparently designed around getting you to visit more abandoned malls. The procgen infinity of space is almost a negative, even though it's the game's whole schtick.

I guess now that I think of it like that, it's really impressive they made a fun game despite having to make it fit a boring repetitive universe.

It more or less reminds me of that Rick and Morty episode. They were playing an asteroid shooting.

> Morty: it's boring. crank up the realism slider to max

> Rick: why does it get even more empty? Wait, I got it... because the universe is empty.

At the end, I think there is little point in simulating the vastness of the universe in a video game (even just a fraction of it).

You do occasionally find some pretty cool stuff.

I found a barren planet in a black hole system where the vibe was all dark and shadowy with the light being tinted purple, and just some crystals or something on the surface, alongside a damaged robot that you could interact with.

There was also a world that had high Sentinel activity where I founded a settlement (well, more like took over managing it), however as it turns out it’d have those gravity storms often during which you could soar through the air.

There was also a world where the surface was toxic and you couldn’t stay on it for long, so I excavated a base underground, like something out of Red Faction.

For what it’s worth, a lot of it can feel samey (most of the scanning) and kinda boring, but while there aren’t that many insanely huge and cinematic moments, sometimes RNG hits just right and you get something nice.

Are you sure that you've played it recently? They added an actual story, a huge quest hub, unique items, tons of stuff to do really. I'm quite overwhelmed with the amount of things to do and I don't typically enjoy sandboxes.

The first 50 hours of NMS are really great but then you start to learn the patterns, even though it is a randomized/procedural, at some point it becomes predictable and boring. The other problem is that the battles are boring, they lack something and building big ships and bases feels pointless.

I feel exactly the same. There has to be a way to do procedural generation in a way that doesn't feel "sparse". A thought that comes to me as I type this is what if you try to co-evolve the ecosystems so it doesn't feel like it's just a mix of the same base components in different quantities.

I like to tinker with making games now and then, and I have learned that there are lots of game ideas I have that are more fun to make than play. A lot of those look like No Mans Sky. I feel like the devs fell in love with procedural generation and never thought about what kind of experience they want to have.

I say this because I feel the same thing as you when I go back, and I really want to like it.

Because most of the new feature are not connected to each other. Take a gravition coil. It's like in Half Life - but You can only use with very limited set of objects, that were added in same update as gravition coil. Make it useless and not fun...

Same. Every time i re-download it and start a new game I never get past the tutorial because i was so incredibly bored so soon, i always wanted to like this game and i love how much effort they keep making but... sandboxes games are just so boring.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. I have tried coming back to the game multiple times and every time I just feel bored and underwhelmed by the whole experience.

If you are interested in the sandbox element, and space, and building - but want character - Satisfactory pulled me in for roughly 1200 hours over three years. I"ve got the scenery, and new discovery's burned in to my brain - elements of the landscape are more vivid in my memory than a lot of real places I've visited.

What's interesting is that there is zero procedural generation - single world with about 20 Biome, each one with all sorts of character. Monsters are incredibly well balanced, and the sheer terror I got from the spiders (which I think are a tad OP - especially the ones that launch)_ triggered my fight-flight reflex (mostly flight) more than any other game I can recall.

The game can be played in so many different ways too - you can take the factorio/big factory build out approach and speed run that, or just spend your time exploring, or, perhaps best of all - watch hundreds of hours of Youtube Videos to get a sense of the architect aesthetic that some of the top players bring to it. Epic Tech Tree. Cute back story.

I consider it the greatest Sandbox/space game ever - I don't know if we'll ever see anything like it again.

Agreed. I want to like this game _so bad_ but I think the problem is that I'm looking for a feeling of fulfilling progression when in reality this game is just a bunch of disjointed sandboxes which is certainly not my type of game.

NMS's art-style is low-detail, but highly aesthetic. It can look amazing at times, but only when you're looking at grand cinematic vistas. It rarely looks good in closeups. This parallels the game's systems in many ways.

NMS is a technically impressive game. You can build a custom-spaceship, either with the in-game editor or by importing one from outside the game, dogfight in it, land on alien worlds, etc. and that's just one of the loops. However, the spaceships you build aren't simulated physical objects. They don't even feel as substantial as styrofoam fins tacked onto a model train. There's no real challenge to flying them. They all just float through space like nothing.

The game has dozens of ways to progress, finding resources and earning cash. They're all so easy to break that you have to consciously resist doing so. Craft a few donuts and you're rich. You don't have to worry about finding buyers for your obscenely high-end pastries. The market board will buy anything at the listed price. Game breaking bugs that trivialize finding resources have been left in the game forever because the developers were afraid that some people might be upset if they actually had to grind for resources. Why what is, ostensibly, a single player game with multiplayer support tacked on even has grind mechanics is another valid question.

I log into NMS occasionally, but my big problem with it is that it's gameplay devolves into a sequence of grinds that are all optional. The things that should offer a challenge (e.g. ship combat) don't. Every play session becomes a case of, "Where do I find this stupid mineral I need to build an upgrade that will make what's already too easy even easier?".

The technology on display in NMS is absolutely impressive, but the gameplay isn't. I'd love to see a fork of this game where they focus on more challenging gameplay with less focus on grinding and sandbox elements. I see the expeditions as an attempt at this, but they don't go far enough.

I was just about to say this. I have a lot of respect for the dev team but man is it so not my type of game.

I wish somehow the complexity of eve could meet a game like this. I would sell a kidney for that

considering the company still exist and servers are still up I assume not everyone shares your opinion. its a pretty good milestone for an online game.

not everyone enjoys the same kind of gameplay.

When it first released I correctly predicted that the game was overhyped and destined to flop, making fun of friends who bought the game and ending up being disappointed.

The internet historian video made me buy it, thinking it was maybe worth it now.

I think I got like 5 hours in before feeling like I was just doing an endless grind. I felt like I had fallen for the hype, which I think was deserved ;)

Maybe the game doesn't get good until you grind past the first N hours, but I just don't have the time any more.

I remember first hearing about NMS' concept and wishing that they would take the general idea but downsize it by at least 10 orders of magnitude. A universe with 1-100 millions of planets would still feel absolutely massive and way more than individual players would be able to exhaust, yet it would allow the creators to do a bit better curation, allow players to actually meet, maybe add more hand-crafted experiences. Basically, give up on technical purity in favor of fun.

I had a different experience.

I bought it on day one in 2016, and like everyone else, I was wowed by the planet hopping experience for about an hour or so. Then I put it down and didn't think about it again.

Then I picked it up a few years later, and discovered base building. Had more fun than the first playthrough, but it didn't click. Eventually I hear about something called the Galactic Hub, which is a star system marked by players as a central spot to build their bases. Kind of like a human home in the vast empty universe of NMS.

I get curious about it, and look up instructions on how to get there. I did some quick napkin math and realized it would take literally dozens of hours of grinding - nonstop travel - to get there. However, as it turns out, there's a loophole with black holes. When you enter a black hole, it spits you out into a totally different place in the galaxy. From the players perspective its random, but players got together and figured out that each unique black hole always sends you to the same spot in the galaxy. So they constructed a black hole "highway", along with an app that let you input your desired coordinates, and it would give you the list of black holes that would most optimally get you near your destination.

So I spend an evening playing the game, switching back and forth from the game to my laptop, inputting coordinates and slowly making my way closer and closer to the hub. Eventually I find it, and what was amazing was that it was the first time I'd seen any evidence of another player in the game.

That moment felt utterly magical, because while I was playing a game, I had an actual, real objective that I formed entirely on my own.

So yes, the game is an odd duck, but it can really open up with the right mindset.

Exactly sums up my experience. Bought it day one. Still bores the hell out of me.

Exactly how I feel about this game. While its redemption arc is one for the history books, every time I come back to it, I feel nothing.

A mile wide, and an inch deep

Every time these epic announcements go out, I try co-op multiplayer again, realize it's still miserable, then close it and wait for the next release. I'd love to play it with my wife but completing our own objectives, building our own bases, not being able to directly interact like in other games this decade, progressing forward separately, fixing our own ships, etc. etc. etc. is just a non-starter. Good luck to them though!

I tried it a few years ago, following all the "It's actually good now!" stories.

But a few hours into the tutorial, at a point of yet another "go gather 20 wolf Pel^H^H Ores from that other planet and bring it back", and I lost interest.

The inner gameplay loop didn't work for me, and I need that hook.

Have there since been improvements to that inner loop?

In contrast, Destiny 2 keeps hooking me back in because its inner loop, the gunplay and abilities, and variety of builds, really works for me.

Disney found this out the hard way with Infinity. On v3.0 a large chunk of their IP was staged into a fully customizable and open universe.. and it was so unremarkable that they shutdown the servers and killed all development a few years later.

I feel the same way about Starfield. Just soulless projects instead of engaging video games.

Weird take cause the game is definetely there and it has tons of content. Admitedly it is not for me because I just do not like the way resource gathering works. Does not tickle my fancy. But saying there is nothing substantial is an odd take, there is base building, space battles (fighter and corvette), expeditions. You can even do a little automatisation if you are into it.

A played it, got stuck in a giant crater with seemingly no way to get out of it. That was basically the extent of my experience.

I kinda feel the same way. I loved slowly going through the main story and probably put 50hr into the game, but the sandbox alone (amazing as it is) just doesn't do it for me.

i played it day 1 back then and even bought a PS4 only to play it and played it over the years repeatedly after every larger update for about 1000 hours in total. The fundamental promise they made was never shipped, which was originally a large variety of procedural flora, fauna, and planet. It is still the same uninspired boring stale core that it was day 1 with minimal extensions which produce absolutely boring world that immediately repeat. The game was always Waiting for Godot, waiting for a game that was originally announced with an interesting procedural feature but never shipped. Meanwhile I discovered the history of procedural games, which is a story of fails.

I still sometimes hope that the actually rewrote the entire procedural variety system but it cant happen because people built persistent shit on those planets. They probably have to launch a new game.

Video games have always been part tech demo

And the story aspects are played out no different than Hollywood

NMS has more in common with Minecraft. It's a virtual chat room that looks Star Wars-y

Also don't discount simply not being a kid anymore. Biology isn't static. Memory does not allow for that same initial burst of excitement.

By 'coming back', do you mean actually firing it up and playing it?

This is why a cool tech solution (procedural generation of "levels") by itself isn't good enough. The core gameplay loop is fundamentally the same on every planet. The graphics and descriptions may change but once you've played it for a bit, it gets boring.

I think video games are art, so take my opinion in context of if this is right up your alley and you really love it, then keep on keepin on!

Every year social media hits me hard with "No Man's Sky is good now!" — and I bit and dove in with a few buddies.

To say everything in this game is half baked is giving it too much credit. It's 10% baked at best. This isn't a game; it's an underwhelming tech demo. The only cool feature of the game is the planet to space flight transition. It's seamless, and looks great.

Everything else is baaaad: the quests have less logic than entry MMO quests, and are mainly fetch missions. The planets are randomly generated slop. The economy of building up your ship/fleet isn't fun (you just sell your ships over and over again). Understanding alien languages isn't fun (and weirdly, has no UX thought put into it?)

It's been a decade and I'm tired of seeing ads like this that are clearly just trying to trick folks into buying an elaborate space game tech demo. Can we move on from this "game"?

I've heard it described as "wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle"

To me it feels like what i actually want is Eve's economy, PVP/PVE strapped onto the noman gameplay, at least personaly

Agreed. And this tech demo was a day 1 purchase for me back in the day. While it has gotten better since then it just doesn't hold my interest. I do like using it whenever every few months I feel inclined to get my PC VR headset out (I'm using an old HO Reverb G2 with the Oasis driver) I think it's a great VR title.

I remember when it first came out, there was so much hype but I immediately wondered, “where exactly is the game loop?” I also remember how aggressively defensive fans were about it.

This is why you really need a good geologic, climate etc models. Like a full blown simulation.

I feel the same. I want Rust in space, where there are constant stakes. NMS either takes too long to get to a part of the game where stakes become relevant, or doesn't have any.

If anyone has any recs on PvE/looting/base building games in space with the polish of NMS, please share.

Agreed. It's incredibly boring. It lacks an interesting and interactive story with good pacing. What they have done is cool, don't get me wrong, but I think they got carried away by the tech coolness without enough attention to what makes a game fun or interesting.

Do you think the same of Minecraft?

I think this kind of game needs another innovation to make it interesting. I don't think adding more generative or LLM generated content is the solution.

I had some great moments in NMS. But, you're right, it needs a plot or storyline to follow.

This perfectly describes how this game makes me feel.

I felt this way for a while until I decided to sit down, start a new game, and engage with it.

It's a completely different game, it just doesn't look like it if you picked back up where you left off. Without the right context, you have a tendency to just repeat what you were doing before, and it feels like nothing changed.

But believe me, everything changed. You should revisit it, because I don't think you've seen the actual changes to the game.

they add feature after feature. but never a good drive for the player. 'why should i go to this planet?'

i have an idea for it,

Let users populate the universe with custom quests. Scriptable quests with dialog and multipart structure. You need a custom script language and some limitations on it. Example quests:

- "Bandits have occupied our town", but actually bandits are tax collectors. You instead may help them document the goods.

- "Our star is dying", instead a huge starhip is recharging and refusing to move without some condition.

also add a rumor system to lead players to quests.

you can use my idea Hello Games, you have my permission.

Yepp. Biggest buy misstake ever.

Right on the nail.

How people interact with LEGO varies. Some people like to buy specific sets and make them. That's fine. Some people see a random pile of bricks and build a massive city [1]. There are also competition events for what people can build from a random pile of bricks. There was a TV show about this too (ie Lego Masters).

Some games are problem solving, others are competitive, yet others are elimination but an awful lot of games have a component that requires you to inject imagination. The Sims and even Minecraft (despite it having a survival mode too) spring to mind.

That's what NMS is. Some people like to find the perfect looking ship. Others build bases to look a certain way. Others just explore. Yet others make money.

If that's not for you, that's OK. But NMS can't be dismissed as being repetitive or boring.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfVCmkexl2E