Too bad the basic gameplay loop of the game has never been fun. I’ve installed the game multiple times over the years, after seeing it showered with praise, and it’s always the same; some minor corner of the game is improved, but the basic actions of exploring, resource gathering, combat, and most importantly flying your spaceship all feel like ass. I’ve legitimately played multiple Roblox games that have a better grasp on how to design ship controls, and Minecraft was making significantly more interesting procedural environments before it even fully released.
I agree, it’s still not fun
Yeah it still not what I want. I wish there was more danger, civilizations, hostile creatures. But nah. Still fun if you just sit back with a beer and explore tho.
“Game released as trash finally has most of the features promised” is hard for me to applaud.
It’s long but if you ever have the time to I’d really watch this video. It’s funny and informative. Definitely made me realize hello games were the good guys. Plus their talks at GDC. The just an indie studio making games, unlock the release of cyberpunk, Star Field, and that one game I don’t even remember the name from ea cause it was so bad at launch
Thanks, I’ll give it a watch.
The best time to fix your game is before you fucking release it
The second best time is right now.
They may have ignored the first half, but when they screwed up they tucked tail and got to work.
Nobody in their right mind would say they’ve been given a pass for NMS because they have been improving it, especially when you consider the straight up LIES Sean told during interviews. Whether it’s because his expectations were too high for the engine and dev team, incompetence and inflated self-image, or he was trying to build hype for the game knowing they could never fulfill all their promises, it doesn’t matter.
They improved what they made, but they still haven’t delivered what they promised for months leading up to release.
It’s a mixed bag. You take the bag with the good.
NMS is worth playing for the 0 dollars I spent on it, and I could see myself tossing upto $20 for it, but at no point was it worth a full price game IMO.
The Internet Historian has a more nuanced take, which I thought was interesting and believable.
https://youtu.be/O5BJVO3PDeQ?si=64I-h5HQPvUZscvt
Spoiler:
spoiler
This is a simplification that doesn’t do the video justice. It was basically massive pressure from Sony as a publisher and Sean being inexperienced.
Being a first time, or even just smaller developer is a nightmare when you compare it against large companies.
You basically don’t have a chance if you try to carry your dream yourself, because you lack funding. But getting in bed with larger companies for funding and marketing puts an insane amount of pressure to perform well or go under.
I can totally understand why so many things were over-promised. I can’t excuse what we got on release, but I do understand why he lied, even in the weeks leading up to release where everyone who plays immediately knows what’s bullshit.
And to be honest, I would likely do the same in some situations.
Like the multi-player aspect where supposedly you would be able to see each other in-game. They really thought with the size of the procedural generation it would take a lot longer for people to meet, even if they were trying to meet up. Unfortunately they forgot to take statistics and probability into account. With the large amounts of people playing, two were bound to end up close enough to meet in the finest few days.
I think they really thought they’d have time to fix it before anyone met.
You’ll say anything when it’s your future, and the futures of all the people you work with, on the line.
bag
Turns you PC into spacewarmer for just 70 bucks!
This needs to be a statement that fixing up your mistakes rather than abandoning is what earns respect. Well done Hello Games. A great game, getting better by the day.
Maybe 50% of the respect that they lost from the botched release & pre-release lies. This should not be an example of how to do things, because that’d lead to it becoming an actual business model.
It already is. Unfortunately. The fixing after isn’t though.
I’m not saying we forgot what they said they would do. At least they made the intention to deliver eventually. This isn’t a AAA company with bottomless pockets. They overcommitted and at least tried to fix it. They didn’t take folks money and run though, they delivered.
“Fixing your mistakes” aka making your lies about what’s in the game actually come true
It isn’t a lie then. A mere delay.
Remember, this isn’t a AAA with bottomless pockets and a track record of delivery.
🪵
Still the most respectful way to release a game is when it’s baked. Not some abomination that takes 5 years after release to hit it’s target.
I admire the perseverance but still they knew their game was lightyears away from being finished and they released it anyway.
If we accept studios releasing unfinished games as long as they fix it later on… That’s all we are gonna get in the future.
That is what we already get. They just abandon it after. Delivering it eventually is a novel response. They ain’t a AAA company. The resources and delivery track record isn’t there.
Sean Murray’s curse is finally broken.
They released a game that still needed 8 years of development…
Is that worse than being in early access for the same amount of time?
Yes. An early access is meant not to be a release version so everyone can wait for a 1.0 release if they want. NMS released as a 1.0 release, except that it was more of an overpromised 0.1 release. Sean Murray straight up lied to people about the game.
Games like Project Zomboid, which I play & follow for almost 14 years now, have never claimed to be finished during all their time, or promised features that weren’t there.
Guess which title I still regret buying? I hope they really learned their lesson with this one and don’t make the same mistake with their other title. Otherwise Murray will become the next Molyneux. Or worse, I hope they don’t learned that they can release a purposefully incomplete game by withholding features and content, adding simple easy to fix bugs, just to add & fix all that over the following months & years to be seen as game dev heroes. That’d be a terrifying new business model.
And Hello Games deserves it.
ITT:
People throwing shade at the devs who could easily be maxing&relaxing in IT but chose to make art instead, rather than the perverse financial incentives baked into the industry which encourage them to overpromise to secure funding and then underdeliver to abide by publisher demands.
But maybe I’m in the unreasonable one.
NMS was not art when they initially made it, and they were not “encouraged” to lie to their customers like some victims. They spun bullshit, delivered a bad product, and are trying to reclaim their reputation.
They wouldn’t need to rebuild this trust if they sold what they advertised.
Sean is like a perfected Molydeux 😍
