What Went Wrong With No Man’s Sky? Sean Murray Could be About to Explain

No Man’s Sky is probably one of the biggest talking points of gaming’s 2016 and unfortunately, not for all the right reasons. Being developed by a tiny development team over a three-yea…

[ApocalypseShadow]

How much time you got?

[maybelovehate]

Procedurally Generated content is hard to make appealing to users. For developers it is awesome, because it is like having a living thing come to life and you are proud of your creation. But for users they want actual quality content which requires a lot of love that cannot be given to an unkown entity.

[uth11]

Its guaranteed to feel repetative after awhile, even if it's technically unique

[Concertoine]

Procedural generation can be a games best feature or its worst. The issue with NMS is that it relied solely on that random mechanic as a game. You can't dictate any of its content like in Minecraft where you build a house. Theres nothing fundamentally unique in the universe there. Its just flip a coin, hope you get a cool planet.

[UltraNova]

At least this guy^ gets it...

[mkis007]

While I still like the game for what I got I think they needed procedural questing and maybe diffeent tiers of it to lead you to bigger and better things. Also possibly actually battles on the ground with aliens you were not freindly with.

[_-EDMIX-_]

Let's start with lying.

They would never be in this situation if they were just truthful to Consumers and transparent about those missing features.

[Gaming4Life1981]

agreed edmix

[Intentions]

Like most people have already said lying.

Also it was marketed like a AAA game - the price of the game, IMO if they had the standard price of a indie game they wouldn't of gotten so much shit.

[UltraNova]

Its hard to disagree with this. Its almost certain people would not react they way they have of the price was 30-40 dollars. Its sad really because current outrage would never reach to this ridiculus level if the price was right. Peoples opinions seem to be literarly dollar depended.

[Servbot41]

Nothing went wrong, the man is just a liar who happened to make a bad game.

[Bolts]

What went wrong is everything. It's a game built on hype and lies.

[gangsta_red]

The problem once again is when these developers start showing off gameplay or speaking on design features that don't make it to the final version.

But even then a game like No Man's Sky still suffers from other problems that have nothing to do with the "lies" Sean told us. The horrible and baffling UI, monotonous gamepla, the terrible inventory management system, just everything about this game was done wrong.

[immabadguy]

I'm not sure why you put "lies" in quotation marks. He lied to everyone, plain and simple.

[vega275]

I highly doubt he will come out and say anything. He was quite active on twitter before release now he hasn't post since the game came out and got backlash from it.

If anything they will quietly put out some of the missing content and hope if they wait it out long enough people will move on so they could in making their next lie........ I mean game

[GearSkiN]

game was so boring glad i didn't buy it.

[Servbot41]

Correction: The game is jaw dropping for the first planet, assuming you get a decent looking one, and potentially your first system as well. It's after that first big warp that you realize you've done everything the game has to offer and the rest is a repetitive chore simulator with the worst UI of the past 10 years.

[GearSkiN]

game was not jaw dropping, i'm sorry.

[Skankinruby]

People let their minds and imaginations run wild into a fictitious world. Expecting a game that isn't even possible. Murray goofed on a couple questions he was asked and that's on him but he's not to blame for people's inability to use common sense. This is exactly the game I was expecting, quit blaming Murray for your own ignorance.

[gangsta_red]

And exactly what were these people imagining the game would be instead of what was actually sold to them?

"This is exactly the game I was expecting, quit blaming Murray for your own ignorance."

So you were expecting a game with missing features, pop up textures, horrible UI, terrible design, constant crashing and other issues?

[uth11]

Exactly this. Fact is, if most of the "missing features" listed were in the game, the major focus of the game would be the same, and the people who find it boring now wouldn't like it much better.

It was never going to be an AAA game with a 15 man team.

But nobody wants to blame themselves for letting their hype get in the way of their common sense. Must blame someone else...

[Servbot41]

"Goofed on a couple of questions?" He was mentioning there was multiplayer up to and AFTER release! Going so far as to say they implemented systems in the game to facilitate it.

[rainslacker]

Not after release. In fact, right before release, he stated explicitely that the game didn't have a meaningful MP experience, and even told people to not buy it if that's what they were looking for.

The game indeed does have MP elements however, but that's not what people were looking for.

After release, he did one interview, and he talked about what they had planned for it in the future. Nothing more nothing less.

And they did implement systems in the game to facilitate some of those earlier promises of MP. It's apparent in the menu design, with things that don't seem to have a place...but would make sense if it had some sort of implementation towards those "lies" which people keep claiming Murray made with such malicious intent to deceive.

But like most, you will ignore anything that actually shows he did "come clean" on some things before release, and you will not look at anythnig beyond what you are told to hate on, while others who use some common sense can actually see the more likely scenario of they just ran out of time to implement features.

Not to say Murray shouldn't have been better in his PR, and he should have been more transparent about a lot of things, but you, along with many others, are going the route of also making up outright lies about how things went down, from what I assume is lack of knowledge about what actually went down, and when.

[vega275]

@ rainslacker

Normally i wouldnt respond to any of your post. But I'll make this exception.

Sean murray posted in a tweet the day before the release saying there's no MP. But then said two player meeting up on the same planet was rare. ........ now which is it? Is there no MP and if so why would people meeting up would be extremely rare??????? THERE IS NO MP AT ALL. You wouldnt be able to see anyone even in extremely rare occasion...period. or am i missing something.

Here another one. Why would he be surprised about two players who was on the same planet but couldnt see each other? Why would he have to use the excuse that these two players wasnt on the same server? There no Mp so it wouldnt matter.

[gangsta_red]

Wow Rainslacker, you posted a lot but said nothing.

"The game indeed does have MP elements however, but that's not what people were looking for."

I think you know good and well what people were looking for and what Sean Murray said there was. He said multiple times on different occasions that meeting other players might be rare but IS possible. First day and two players were not able to see each other and yet he chalks it up to "server issues", it is then revealed only later that no MP of that kind is present in the game.

It's so funny to see you do your best to defend this game and Hello Games. They were not transparent, the demos they showed of the game were not indicative of the actual release, there are many videos online of him specifically telling people what will be in the game not to mention the many other flaws with the game that I and others have talked about.

What's funny is you defend this while accusing others of going overboard and yet it's the same type of distrust, complaints and other issues that you have repeatedly left comments about MS and their past actions. Why is it now different when talking about NMS, why the many excuses for this game and the blatant lies that were told?

[rainslacker]

@gangsta

Yes, I know, but that doesn't mean that servbot wasn't making crap up. that's all I'm responding to.

the MP is just a MP element. it's not MP in the traditional sense, however, seeing other people's named planets is indeed an element of MP.

I've said before, I'll say again, I'm not defending the game, I'm exercising my right to call out the BS of others where I see it, and express how I disapprove of the way that the criticisms are being delivered. I'll happily discuss what was delivered vs. what was promised with those who don't act like complete reactionary fools who seem to only have a cursory knowledge of the facts, and are not so questionable on if they are pissed because the internet told them to be or if it's because they are truly disappointed. In fact, I think I've had decent convo's with you about it at one point, so I'm sure you're aware that I'm aware of what the issues are.

@vega

"Sean murray posted in a tweet the day before the release saying there's no MP"

Yep, as I said, he said so before release.

"But then said two player meeting up on the same planet was rare."

Well, I'd consider never to be pretty rare. So the people hoping for that to be a common thing in the game are still misguided.

Dunno if you're missing something or not. I don't know how the game is set up with it's netcode to facilitate such things, but some people say that there is no netcode to facilitate such things. So, not sure what you should see or miss.

"Why would he have to use the excuse that these two players wasnt on the same server? "

Maybe because that was the reason they couldn't see each other? Maybe because there is no MP and he was hiding it.

I don't know.

But that doesn't mean that servbot didn't say things that weren't true to try and fan the flames.

[Adrian_v01]

I swear 'I got what I expected' is the worst argument ever. If you got what you expected you obviously didn't follow the game's development.

I'm a huge sci-fi fan so in any sci-fi game the physics are what attract me the most. I'm not mad that most planets are bare and empty, that's how space is. But one of the things he promoted the shit out was the game's accuracy in physics, like that the distance to the sun affects the planets' environment and flora and fauna, that day and night cycles are caused by the planet actually rotating around it's axis and stuff like that. All that was thrown away and in the end you just have a prozedural generated world with no logic behind it whatsoever.

[Artemidorus]

If anyone needs to ask that question then you really need a reality check.

It's clear the game we saw the game we had is different.

Sean Murray is damaged goods to the gaming community.

[Gamist2dot0]

After watching the compilation of his interviews, you can totally see his body language that's telling the truth about his lies.

[Mithan]

An explanation is pointless. He should be putting his time into fixing the game and expanding the content.

[KilKarazy]

I said this before the game came out and was told I was wrong. This is what happens when you have a vague marketing campaign and say things like "you can do anything " and the game is "limitless." People begin to invent ideas in their head about the game and what you can do. If it does not follow those expectations it is immediately a let down. Well people came up with completely wrong expectations and the game flopped because it wasn't what anyone thought it would be. Be open and honest about the game. If you're intentionally trying to hide something in development (not saying they did) then the game might need work.

[thejigisup]

I don't want an explanation, I want a game mashed good on all of its promises.

[playtimewilltell]

His explanation is irrelevant at this point. His overt dishonesty is the legacy of this game and likely both him and his studio as well.

[XanderZane]

Everything went wrong.

[neutralgamer1992]

NMS is a average game. there was content which was talked about which isn't in the game. it's a boring/grind filled game at the moment. there are talks of adding more content in the game via updates but that's not what gamers who paid $60 want to hear. the best thing for this game would have been to be released for $30 early access and with feedback over the next 12 months the developers should have added and made major changed

there is a vocal minority who haven't bought the game yet are giving their so called honest opinions after spedning $60 on the game and the irony is most of them don't even have ps4/pc

[hahaha]

It would not have been this bad if he didn't lie about some missing features at the first place.

[SynestheticRoar]

It needed another 6 months in the oven.

[QUIMICOMORTAL]

Then wait for him to explain it and the you do a propper report!