All these demos only reinforce the impression that I have that it’s all very repetitive.
Across all the demos we’ve seen at least 12 different planets, all of which fit into 3 pretty narrow types - tan/red desert, green/purple grass and tress, or white snow.
That demo is from way back in December last year.
As you saw hinted at in the Colbert video, if it’s being shown on a show like that, it has to be close to release.
I just wish there was more explanation of the conflicts and combat that go on around you. Most of the demos are just “hey check out this sweet procedural universe” instead of showing the core gameplay goals.
If that’s all this game amounts to, then it will get boring very quickly.
I feel kinda sad about it, since Flavien could have been that person. But lets give credit where credit is due. Hello Games promised an endless variety of animals and they have seemingly succeeded, where I thought they would fail. You can see that in the old Devember video at 22:00 timestamp.
If Sony has their way, I’m sure they will make it a holiday season release.
Most definitely. This is the perfect kind of game you can spend hours after a giant holiday meal and drinks just stuffing around in.
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I am also sharing the opinion that the gameplay will get repetetive very quickly. And if the core element of it will be exploring, finding and naming new species just by walking to them and pointing at them… meeh. In the video they mentioned, that you rarely will meet another player online because the universe is so huge, so where is the fun then?
Now I am happy that I:B will “only” consist of a single solar system, it could be the perfect size for good spontaneous space battles ^^ Speaking of space battles - why is it, that EVERY time they fly out in to space in NMS suddenly a random spaceship fleet warps out of nowhere aligned in one direction…
Interestingly enough he now definitely said that you would be able to see other players. Which, iirc wasn’t quite what they had planned in the beginning (I think they were talking about a something mp-esque thing where everyone was for himself, apart from seeing the stuff discovered by other peoples). So if they added ‘true’ multiplayer, that can be nice. Elite gave us enough time to hone our group up skills on a galactic scale, so I think there is some fun to be had when you play together. Like pirate fighting etc…
He’s always said it would be possible to see other players but very very rare and difficult because your chances of starting anywhere near eachother are so slim.
He wouldn’t answer how many people could be in the same interaction context but gave the impression that it’d be more than 3.
Some rumors are surfacing that NMS might release out of the blue next week. It’s mostly based on Amazon changing their pre-order status to shipping on the 28th, but they have said it was a mistake. My suspicion is that they might announce a release date on the 28th during the Sony’s Paris Games Week, not release the game.
A mistake on the date? or mistake revealing the date? There was a rumour somewhere saying they would release it during the event. This sounds plausible to me. When a developer gets invited to present the game for a major TV show like Colbert, it would be logical to follow that up with gold status.
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Amazon has stated that their action of sending out emails and changing the shipping date to the 28th was a mistake.
Yes, the rumor is that the game releases next week.
I have to wonder if the space-to-planet transition is truly “seamless” based on the way it’s portrayed in all the videos. It’s almost like…it’s almost like the “transition” takes the place of a loading screen. From orbit, the surface often times looks different than from the ground. Does anyone have any more info on this?
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Yes, from what I saw so far the planet you see from far away is not the same up close. Thats why you always pass through clouds and stuff like that, to hide the transition. The planet on the surface is actually generated only when you move in the directions, the video I saw the last time showed that pretty well because you couldn’t see past a hundred meters (you can see things appearing).
I think a lot of people will be somewhat dissapointed when they play the game because of this.
I believe you can watch recent gameplay demonstrations on youtube to see that.
Meh, I was afraid of that. It’s kind of cheating the “realism” aspect of it. You’re either in orbit, or you’re close to the surface. There is no in-between upper atmosphere to dogfight around in.
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The more procedural space games pop out the clearer it becomes. They just can’t do it. Infinity has several years head start in the tech of actually making a truly seamless experience.
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It’s difficult to do that large of scale because of the float precision.
It’s probably faking it, using different scales up close compared to far away, and using multiple cameras for different scales, which makes for a weird transition.
Not sure if that’s what’s going on here, or if it’s just really bad LoD transitions. But the scale looks way off, too.
I think I read someone talking about it and mentioning how the procedural engine operates different planet-side than it does space-side. Or rather, maybe, there are two separate engines at work here which visually look identical but mathematically operate differently.
Confirmation 
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cough up that design document 
They changed their mind.