No Man's Sky Orbital Update Adds Ship Customization, Overhauled Space Stations, and More | MMORPG.co

System · March 27

No Man's Sky Orbital Update Adds Ship Customization, Overhauled Space Stations, and More | MMORPG.com

No Man's Sky's latest update 'Orbital' is available today and adds ship customization, a new guild system, an overhaul to space stations, and more.

Read the full story here

olepi · March 27

They seem to be following what I call "snowball development". Start with a little snowball and start rolling it. It gets larger and larger and eventually it starts rolling downhill. By the time it hits the bottom, it can roll over and crush a house. Much better than trying to do the whole thing at once and getting bogged down.

And they've done it all for free. No cash shop, no paid DLC's. Buy the game once and get everything now, and all future stuff for free. And all done with a very small staff, just several dozen developers.

Wargfoot · March 27

These guys are monsters.
Unique in their ability to exceed expectations.

Warzod · March 27

Can you rename a planet with a bad name yet? Too many planets with names like ip00pinmpantz.

DigDuggy · March 27

I want to play, but I like interacting with other players. When I looked many many many days ago, it was technically multiplayer, but realistically not. Has this changed? Is player interaction 'more'?

Angrakhan · March 28

olepi said:

They seem to be following what I call "snowball development". Start with a little snowball and start rolling it. It gets larger and larger and eventually it starts rolling downhill. By the time it hits the bottom, it can roll over and crush a house. Much better than trying to do the whole thing at once and getting bogged down.

And they've done it all for free. No cash shop, no paid DLC's. Buy the game once and get everything now, and all future stuff for free. And all done with a very small staff, just several dozen developers.

Just to be clear, several dozen developers is not a small staff. I work on a multimillion dollar SaaS business app that's been in development for 5 years that recently went to general release. We have 15 developers on the project. 5 dedicated on shore QA with a handful offshore.

36 developers is a reasonably huge team for a single project, frankly.

olepi · March 28

Angrakhan said:

olepi said:

They seem to be following what I call "snowball development". Start with a little snowball and start rolling it. It gets larger and larger and eventually it starts rolling downhill. By the time it hits the bottom, it can roll over and crush a house. Much better than trying to do the whole thing at once and getting bogged down.

And they've done it all for free. No cash shop, no paid DLC's. Buy the game once and get everything now, and all future stuff for free. And all done with a very small staff, just several dozen developers.

Just to be clear, several dozen developers is not a small staff. I work on a multimillion dollar SaaS business app that's been in development for 5 years that recently went to general release. We have 15 developers on the project. 5 dedicated on shore QA with a handful offshore.

36 developers is a reasonably huge team for a single project, frankly.

As a comparison, the number of staff developing Star Citizen is reported to be 475.

olepi · March 28

DigDuggy said:

I want to play, but I like interacting with other players. When I looked many many many days ago, it was technically multiplayer, but realistically not. Has this changed? Is player interaction 'more'?

On the PC up to 32 players can play in the same instance. You can team up with 3 other players, share materials, build bases together, and run missions. The main hub is usually populated and it is common for players to gift other players with money and items.

There are also some planets where people have banded together and build bases next to each other. I haven't really visited those.

There are complaints that in multi-player mode PvP is enabled and people PvP each other. It is on by default.

I mostly played single-player though.

Angrakhan · March 28

olepi said:

Angrakhan said:

olepi said:

They seem to be following what I call "snowball development". Start with a little snowball and start rolling it. It gets larger and larger and eventually it starts rolling downhill. By the time it hits the bottom, it can roll over and crush a house. Much better than trying to do the whole thing at once and getting bogged down.

And they've done it all for free. No cash shop, no paid DLC's. Buy the game once and get everything now, and all future stuff for free. And all done with a very small staff, just several dozen developers.

Just to be clear, several dozen developers is not a small staff. I work on a multimillion dollar SaaS business app that's been in development for 5 years that recently went to general release. We have 15 developers on the project. 5 dedicated on shore QA with a handful offshore.

36 developers is a reasonably huge team for a single project, frankly.

As a comparison, the number of staff developing Star Citizen is reported to be 475.

Haha ok. Like are you being serious or cynical because I honestly can't tell? Star Citizen is not the team I'd use in any sort of serious comparison except maybe as an example of the world record for things like scope creep, overspend, incompetence, oversell, and completely out of control management. They are the best example of exactly why publishers should be involved in the game development process. If Star Citizen was supposed to show us what can be accomplished with an Indy dev team and unlimited budget, they have failed to impress. Star Citizen has become analogous to absurd.

To be clear I love NMS and it is truly noteworthy what they have accomplished. They are everything Star Citizen isn't including released.

olepi · March 28

Angrakhan said:

olepi said:

Angrakhan said:

olepi said:

They seem to be following what I call "snowball development". Start with a little snowball and start rolling it. It gets larger and larger and eventually it starts rolling downhill. By the time it hits the bottom, it can roll over and crush a house. Much better than trying to do the whole thing at once and getting bogged down.

And they've done it all for free. No cash shop, no paid DLC's. Buy the game once and get everything now, and all future stuff for free. And all done with a very small staff, just several dozen developers.

Just to be clear, several dozen developers is not a small staff. I work on a multimillion dollar SaaS business app that's been in development for 5 years that recently went to general release. We have 15 developers on the project. 5 dedicated on shore QA with a handful offshore.

36 developers is a reasonably huge team for a single project, frankly.

As a comparison, the number of staff developing Star Citizen is reported to be 475.

Haha ok. Like are you being serious or cynical because I honestly can't tell? Star Citizen is not the team I'd use in any sort of serious comparison except maybe as an example of the world record for things like scope creep, overspend, incompetence, oversell, and completely out of control management. They are the best example of exactly why publishers should be involved in the game development process. If Star Citizen was supposed to show us what can be accomplished with an Indy dev team and unlimited budget, they have failed to impress. Star Citizen has become analogous to absurd.

To be clear I love NMS and it is truly noteworthy what they have accomplished. They are everything Star Citizen isn't including released.

It would be interesting to compare the size of various game development staff. Skyrim's staff was estimated at 100.

Wargfoot · March 28

olepi said:

Angrakhan said:

olepi said:

They seem to be following what I call "snowball development". Start with a little snowball and start rolling it. It gets larger and larger and eventually it starts rolling downhill. By the time it hits the bottom, it can roll over and crush a house. Much better than trying to do the whole thing at once and getting bogged down.

And they've done it all for free. No cash shop, no paid DLC's. Buy the game once and get everything now, and all future stuff for free. And all done with a very small staff, just several dozen developers.

Just to be clear, several dozen developers is not a small staff. I work on a multimillion dollar SaaS business app that's been in development for 5 years that recently went to general release. We have 15 developers on the project. 5 dedicated on shore QA with a handful offshore.

36 developers is a reasonably huge team for a single project, frankly.

As a comparison, the number of staff developing Star Citizen is reported to be 475.

Chris Roberts has a large extended family.

Babuinix · March 28

lol comparing space toys to a universe sim's

To puy in simpletons perpective A single Star Citizen ship is more complex to develop than the entirity of NMS development.

Can hold 3x more players too

Scot · March 28

Babuinix said:

lol comparing space toys to a universe sim's

To puy in simpletons perpective A single Star Citizen ship is more complex to develop than the entirity of NMS development.

Can hold 3x more players too

Are we there yet?

olepi · March 29

Scot said:

Babuinix said:

lol comparing space toys to a universe sim's

To puy in simpletons perpective A single Star Citizen ship is more complex to develop than the entirity of NMS development.

Can hold 3x more players too

Are we there yet?

If that is true it would explain a lot. Hello Games has about 30 developers and they have been working for 7 years on NMS, so about 210 man years of effort. If a single SC ship takes more effort than that, more than 200 man years, to develop, that would explain why CIG can't finish the game.

Hello Games is working on a new game too, so maybe the whole 200 man years didn't go into NMS. I'm excited to see what the new game will be like. If it has even half of what NMS has it will be great.

Right now NMS has mining, farming, cooking, pet taming and breeding, base building, space exploration and combat, underwater exploration, ship building, multi-player, seasons (expeditions), complex crafting, settlement management and building, multiple NPC races with their own guilds, languages, and missions, vehicles, a working economy, and thousands of planets of all types spread across numerous star systems. It has no cash shop, and tons of cosmetics for the player to wear and for ship and base customization, all available through playing the game.

Not bad for 30 developers. If they do anything close to all that in the new game, it will be amazing.

Slapshot1188 · March 29

I really liked NMS. Problem is that I have already "gone back" to it twice. To be that is the downside of this kind of extended development. I mean, it's awesome value for the player who gets more and more content. But I'm not sure I can get myself to go back again.

Really looking forward to their next game though. Light No Fire looks like it could be a refreshing take on an old genre.

MaxBacon · March 29

I really try to like NMS, but no matter how many features they add to the game, the game ends up feeling like it just has the one game loop it released with. Every time I try to play with friends people just gave up after a two or three and F, was fun while it lasted.

DigDuggy said:
I want to play, but I like interacting with other players. When I looked many many many days ago, it was technically multiplayer, but realistically not. Has this changed? Is player interaction 'more'?

It's the same old multiplayer pretty much. It has the same issues, from syncing (of missions and such) to the fact if you can't build a base together as when the owner goes offline you loose access, etc...

NMS has enough multiplayer to get away with calling it multiplayer, if like me that's the experience you look for then yeah it's not good.

olepi · March 29

Slapshot1188 said:

I really liked NMS. Problem is that I have already "gone back" to it twice. To be that is the downside of this kind of extended development. I mean, it's awesome value for the player who gets more and more content. But I'm not sure I can get myself to go back again.

Really looking forward to their next game though. Light No Fire looks like it could be a refreshing take on an old genre.

Yeah, I have that problem too. It might be a side effect of a sandbox game. Sure, you can do everything, but once you have, what replay value is there?

In an RPG you can try out different builds, so there is some replay value. In a story driven game, you can try different branches of the story. What about in a sandbox? Did they add enough new content to provide enough replay value?

olepi · March 29

MaxBacon said:

I really try to like NMS, but no matter how many features they add to the game, the game ends up feeling like it just has the one game loop it released with. Every time I try to play with friends people just gave up after a two or three and F, was fun while it lasted.

DigDuggy said:
I want to play, but I like interacting with other players. When I looked many many many days ago, it was technically multiplayer, but realistically not. Has this changed? Is player interaction 'more'?

It's the same old multiplayer pretty much. It has the same issues, from syncing (of missions and such) to the fact if you can't build a base together as when the owner goes offline you loose access, etc...

NMS has enough multiplayer to get away with calling it multiplayer, if like me that's the experience you look for then yeah it's not good.

About the only multi-player I did were the Quickslver missions. These are acquired in the Nexus hub; there are usually a few players advertising for people to join them on these missions. I did a few of those but that is about it.

Here's a link to a recent article that outlines what multi-player is available in NMS.

How To Play Multiplayer In No Man's Sky (thegamer.com)

Mazeneal · April 4

O M G.....y'all start up this whole SC beef anywhere you can! Some of y'all need to smoke a joint, somthin.....

Wargfoot · April 4

It felt too lonely for me.
I like to have an active chat full of smack talk.

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No Man's Sky Orbital Update Adds Ship Customization, Overhauled Space Stations, and More | MMORPG.co

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