Is anyone else anticipating next weekend's release of No Man's Sky?  If you've not heard of it, basically it is a single online galaxy of around 2 quintillion star systems each with it's own set of planets to discover.  For PC and PS4, when you pre-order you get a special ship with an enhanced warp drive.  It looks like the PS4 release is Aug 9 and PC (Steam and GOG) is Aug 12.
Exploration, survival, combat and trading

EDIT:  To recap what other posters have pointed out, this is NOT AN MMO as one would normally think of it.  It is very likely that you could spend 100s of hours in game (you can play online or offline) and NEVER encounter another live player.  As you play you make discoveries (planets, moons, plants, animals etc) which are then uploaded to the online server that other people can see.  If you discover planet ARFCOM with it's moon FUAROCK you can do this offline and then connect to the server to upload what you have found.  The universe is so big with so many other star systems that it is extremely unlikely another player would find it before you had a chance to upload the discovery!
EDIT: The original link to gameplay footage was pulled.  Here is another one that shows additional features such as space travel, galactic map etc.
EDIT: The various video sites are pulling the leaked footage shortly after it is posted, so I won't try to keep this OP updated.  Check the latest posts for various clips etc.

  After the game releases I can update this OP with a list of ARFCOM players and their locations in the galaxy.  If it turns out any of us are in a reasonable proximity to each other we can consider trying to meet up in game or sharing info on various star systems.
 

I'm interested, although I'm afraid it will get boring quick. Seems like an MMO with no end-game, just exploring and stuff.

i'm definitely looking forward to it.

I'm in the same boat of hesitating that it'll get old quick, but I really want it to be good.

they say that by the time interest in the game has faded and they shut the servers down, they estimate that less than 1% of the galaxy will have been discovered.

From what I understand, it's just randomly generated planets that are slightly different from each other.  The game looked interesting at first but not so much anymore.

they've claimed they're purposely keeping the gameplay aspect quiet, so as not to ruin the "open the game and experience the world" aspect, but it appears there are 4 factions fighting for control of the galaxy, and your goal is to make it to the center of the universe and learn about the reason for the struggle, and the meaning of the universe or something like that.

along the way, you'll have to upgrade your equipment, explore, interact and learn the language of the 4 different factions, and supposedly your interactions with the NPCs in the universe will carry consequences for you throughout the galaxy - as in some factions may start to hunt after you or come to your aid depending on your interactions with them.

sounds like there's enough there to check out.

The devs have said all along that they've been keeping a lot of stuff secret, which... I assumed was a lot of BS. A fair amount of people have... "obtained" copies on ps4 one or another and some have posted gameplay. It appears as though for once a game dev hasn't lied about keeping stuff secret. Here's some leaked gameplay from the first half hour or so. I haven't had time  yet to sit down and watch the whole thing, but I've seen a lot of new stuff just in that short video. There have been a lot of posts on reddit dissecting it and a lot of the systems and some elements where completely left out of gameplay released by the devs, which gives some credence to them saying they've been saving surprises for the player (and may explain the awful trailers):
google drive link to gameplay vid

Don't want to go all fanboy since I obviously haven't played, but I'll go over some stuff for those that aren't sure if it's their cup of tea or seem to have gotten some bad info. I've been following the game off and on for a couple years but I may be wrong on some stuff.

First off, this IS NOT AN MMO. If you expect this to be EVE or any other mmorpg you will be extremely disappointed. This is not minecraft, there is no base/home building. You have a multitool for crafting, and doubles as a weapon. These are procedural generated as well for the most part so there will be a lot of variations (rifles, pistol, grenade launcher, etc). You will have an exosuit. Some suits are better for different planets (radiation, heat, cold, toxic resistance, armor, etc). You will have a ship obviously. Some ships are better for trading, combat, exploring (faster/better engines/hyperdrive, etc). All three of these can be upgraded with better mods/components to yield better damage, or better mining for the tool, better resistances or survival capability for your suit, better engines and weapons for your ship, etc.

The planets and wildlife are procedural which is the main attraction for the game. It is fairly resource light, only about a 6-8gb download from my understanding, most of which is audio. Now, a major disappointment for some is you have 18 bajillion planets to explore, most are expecting these all to be 100% unique and all be colorful with tons of life, this isn't going to be the case since the distance to stars and what not will affect the probability of life and what not. Like somebody else said there will be other sentient life, some life will be friendly, some hostile, and the wildlife will go either way as well. There is a general presence throughout called the sentinels which try to preserve the planets. So you'll need to mine for resources, tag wildlife, etc... but the sentinels are essentially the park rangers of the universe and will attack if you screw with stuff to much. On that note, terrain can be deformed as well, so if you have an idea that there is a rare mineral somewhere and decide to go down there will be caverns and what not on some planets. Don't feel like mining or buying blueprints? Destroy a freighter and take the resources by force, or break into the alien vault and steal that blueprint you don't want to pay for (and risk getting shot). There will be "save" points on some planets, so if you die you'll return to a base state. There is still speculation on this but it seems like you won't lose your sweet multitool, suit and ship... only the upgrades and all the time/effort you put into it.

The game is multiplayer, but the chances of you ever seeing someone will make it a single player game basically. Unless this changed, if you have someone on your friends list playing you can see where they're at because the star system they're in will be twinkling or something along those lines. Once again, probably won't see them even if you know where they're at as it'd take you forever to get to them. Devs said if you moved at max pace, disregarded everything else, and got extremely lucky you MIGHT be able to make it to the center of the galaxy in 100 hours. So if you straight up try harded the game you'd get a pretty good amount of gameplay out if it. The devs still haven't said what is at the center and it will be a surprise (tootsie pop anyone?).

There does appear to be a mission system in the game which would make it appear as though you can gain/lose rep with the various factions since some missions, especially combat, will have you choosing sides. Once again, not a lot of detail here as the devs have reeeaaallllyyyyy been hush hush on a lot of stuff. Once again, staying hush hush on stuff usually appears to be a bad sign, and I lost a lot of faith in the heavily edited gameplay trailers... but the gameplay leaks thus far are showing that they appear to have left stuff out so they playerbase will have some surprises, and not because they royally screwed up on a scale of EA or Activision. There appears to be a lot of multitools, suits, and ships, and a lot of ways to get them that involve trade, combat, pirating, etc, so you can play how you want. The trade system appears to be middle of the road, not too simple, but not as complex as EVE. Looks like it'll be a basic system of supply/demand based on the region, not clear as to whether the player has direct influence or not by way of destroying freighters, spiking supply, etc.

That's all that I can think of right now. Once again, not trying to sway any minds here, but don't want people reading an article or opinion of wannabe journalist and thinking it's a straight up shooter, space sim, or mmo. It's an exploration game with the chance to see somebody else (but probably not), with some survival, trade, and combat elements. If you've played subnautica, salt, the long dark, etc  and liked those games this will be right up your alley. If you want to chill out with a drink and see some cool stuff with no particular goal other than seeing what's at the center, this will be for you. If you need a player driven economy with heavy social features and bungie level tight gunplay, I'd be prepared to be disappointed.

Excellent summary Pancake!  Thanks for providing that link to the gameplay vid...   I embedded a youtube link in the OP.  I watched it all the way through and it is definitely worth the 26 min...   leaves me wanting more!  He found a reptillian-dog like creature that was afraid of him until he fed it some carbon, then the dog started following him around and it actually dug up a treat/crystal for him that fully restored health...  very cool.  At first it seemed like he was going to be stuck in that cave/pit he blasted open (good resources inside) but it's nice to see you are equipped with a jet pack to get out of tight spots.   His next vid will be after he is done upgrading his ship and makes the jump to space.  If I find it I'll add it to the OP.  



 

Is this game going to be able to use PS4 VR?

The space travel and the exploring aspect of the game seem to be perfectly suited to the VR goggles that should hit in Sept/October.

Got 6 copies in a few days ago.

I think the OP of the reddit thread that the videos were taken from said he's done uploading. There was a pretty negative reaction from the mouth breathing fanboys on the subreddit.

They haven't said no, but haven't said yes. The devs said they would love to do PSVR at some point though so I'd imagine it may get patched in if possible. It was a pretty small team at first at they started development a long time ago so that wasn't even a thought at the time. Hello Games did say all future work on the game is going to be in the way of free patches/DLC so if it does get patched in it'll be free... Unless Sony pulls a fast one as they're in charge of publishing on the ps4 front.

Ive been following this game for a couple months now.  Im definitely going to be playing on launch day.

I'll not be buying this.  Going to have to wait and watch some gameplay on stream or youtube a bit more after release to make up my mind.

Seems interesting but I could also see it getting very boring, very quickly.

edit:  Also I can't decide if I'd get it for PC or PS4.  PC is better in every way except I have a gaming laptop only at the moment with a 17" monitor...

edit2:  I'm also concerned about variety.  Ok so there is eleventy bazillion planets to visit.  So what if after a while you just keep running into the same rehashed stuff over and over again?

Is it all just a bunch of re-skinned versions of the same thing or will we be running into random scientific anomalies, black holes, supernovas...shit like that that really drives you to randomly explore?

I'm not sure if PC will have any advantage over the ps4 (for once). On steam they list only minimum specs and not recommended, so there is a lot of speculation as to whether all the usual pcmasterrace graphical options will be there. Gameplay on Ps4 appears smooth though as it isn't a very demanding game.

Variety wise the guy that leaked the gameplay already made it to the center. He said he kind of blasted through it but most planets have some sort of life and he was saying there was more variety than he was expecting. As it isn't an MMO it's not like you'll be losing on on leveling up with everybody if you wait so there isn't really any harm in it.

That and I highly doubt there will be any ability to mod the game aside from MAYBE something similar to the crosshair mods on WoT.

I think the PS4 will be limited on the quality tbh.  Will look amazing on the PC, will look good on the PS4 but I think there will be a huge difference.  Will find out soon enough!

I believe the devs even said at some point they would like to keep things somewhat locked down. Even if not I don't think it's the sort of game that would be easy to mod.

I was watching another stream on twitch a couple hours ago for the ps4 version. The basic geography and base texture for landmasses and stuff seemed to have an ok draw distance, but while flying over the surface of the planet the pop in for finer geographical details (boulders, rock formations, etc) and foliage was probably some of the worst I've seen. I did preorder it against my better judgment, I've been following the game for a long time so I fell in front of the hype train, but I did at least order the PC version. On some late night show they were demoing the game and it came out that the dev used the PC version since it was a lot more stable at the time. Unless my memory is really fuzzy it had actually started as a PC game in the first place before Sony got involved.........................................

I bought the PC version on steam.

Hope the PS4 version doesn't suck too bad, but I am sure the PC version will be a lot better.

I too bought the PC version on Steam.

Maybe it will break me free from Dragon's Dogma!

I really wanted to get into that game.  Really.  It's just so clunky.

True it just takes getting used to.  I prefer it over other games where you just mash the button over and over or the other end of the spectrum where you have to do finger gymnastics in order kill anything.

Part of me wants to get this game but the jaded adult gamer in me is in full "wait and see" mode.

I'd be interested in getting the game.. or at least checking it out but, since it's not on XboxOne, I'm not doing anything other than waiting to see how it goes. I'm not really wanting to buy a PS4 to play this game but then again... I may if it looks like it's going to be a killer app. I'm going to have to do more research when the game is in a lot more hands than it is right now.

And there's nothing saying it's not being ported to the XboxOne...

Everyone should have their own planet then.

from the looks of it, everyone can have multiple galaxies.

I shall conquer and name a couple galaxies as the 87th Quadrant.  None ARFCOM will be shot on sight!  

This. I think Star Citizen's approach for a grand space game is better, especially where multiplayer is concerned. 100+ systems but it's still a huge world. Non-stop procedural content gets boring. I have been following this game with interest for the past year, but I'm wary of whether it will actually be fun for me.

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

Star citizen also has probably 10x the team and 10x the funding as well. I mean, I've got a couple hundred in it already, they're apples and oranges as far as I'm considered.

If this is basically a more complex Salt or The Long Dark but in space i'd be perfectly happy.

Hmm.



Claim someone spent a lot of money on Ebay to get an early copy.



Posts carefully selected "spoilers".



Dev begs people not to see spoilers.



Person claims to have exploited an item to reach the center of the galaxy.



Outrage commences, along with the attention that brings.



Next: Item is (loudly) "patched". Game is wonderful again. Now more people know about the game. Sales go up.



I think this was rigged... but I dunno.



I thought the game was a great concept at first, but the art style has turned me off and I don't think it will be as good as I had hoped. I think that's why they're trying to drive up sales.

Ya, that was the general conspiracy theory on reddit. On one hand, I could see it legitimately being patched as the leaker wouldn't have had the day one patch in the first place. On the other hand, it would make sense to put it out as damage control after the 4 terrible trailers (I hope they didn't pay someone to make those).

I think the art style is pretty cool though, has more of 60s or 70s sci fi book feel. I've always been a huge fan of space games and a majority are pretty dark/realistic looking so the art seems like a nice change of pace.

But I LIKE dark and realistic



It's why I play Elite: Dangerous and games like Tachyon and KSP.



I really, truly hope that they come up with reasons to play it. There can be googol planets but if there's no reason to explore them, it's pointless.



I like procedurally generated games, but there HAS to be some kind of man-made design and beauty in there or it gets irritating really fast.



The general feeling I get from watching it is that I'd get get bored really fast.



 

Well, not every game is gonna check all the boxes for everyone each time. A little variety isn't bad, especially if somebody picks up the style and adapts it to be more realistic down the line since space games seem to be taking off again.

The people doing leaks (staged or not I guess) seem to agree that in the time they had it the game didn't get as repetitive as one would think... at least no more repetitive than any survival game does. I plan on picking it up and banging in to work on release night so I'll check back in here with impressions of the PC game.

I've been looking forward to this since it was announced.   Been watching the leaked videos (tons of people have the game now) and the outrage and trolling going on in game forums is hilarious.   People are melting down over this game.


there are a few things that I'm disappointed about, but overall the game still looks fun as hell

I think the biggest thing that's keeping me away is that I want a space combat game first, and an exploration game second. This game is an exploration game first, everything else is second. All the combat elements of this game are elementary point and shoot; no tactics or dynamic fights.

I'll try real hard to not fanboy out as I really get the sentiment. It was never at any point advertised as such, and you can't have the best of everything without another element sucking.

If you're on PC then Star Citizen is the obvious choice, Elite, and Everspace are all worth checking out. Everspace is still in beta but it's a really fun freelancer clone with some cool roguelike elements.

edit: Also, if Sony never stepped in this would have been a release on PC only with consoles eventually and probably would have been $40. I think Sony is the worst thing to happen to this game because as soon as all the console guys hopped in they commenced their usual hype train warp drive and then derailed it. This seriously should have been advertised as Salt or The Long Dark but with spaceships and people would have really tempered their expectations. I've been following it a long time and my expectations are to explore some stuff, make some meh upgrade to my equipment, and hopefully get 100 hours out of it. This isn't an established AAA studio and they're doing some stuff small studios generally don't mess with. People are expecting Star Citizen out of a dev team a fraction of the size and with a budget that would fund maybe a month of star citizen development.

30 minute HD Video of gameplay leak.

ETA

This twitch stream is currently live, won't last long.  Link Guy had to goto work.  He has a legit retail copy, from a TJMaxx in Michigan on a military post if interested, that Twitch won't take down and he will be broadcasting again.  Follow him if interested.

I am very much looking forward to this game. The idea of wandering the stars, finding new things that no one has ever seen, appeals to me.

The live stream I linked to is from a guy who apparently bought a retail copy which made Twitch say, "Well fuck it then, not our problem."  It's been up for hours.  Game looks like a ton of fun.

I will be turning the music off...

God that is annoying environmental sound effects.

 looks like there will be a day one update, which is good

New, currently active livestream Link Nuked

ETA

Active live stream from Hitbox that shouldn't be taken down Link

Watching live...   he just arrived at a black hole!
Let's rock!





EDIT:   aaaaaaaaaaaaannnnndddd  IT'S GONE!





They are looking for a new streaming site...    though it is getting to be a moot point as we are only 5 days away from the release date
 

Wish he would have explored that planet next to the black hole more.  It looked really trippy

I wish that guy would hurry up and get back from his food break...   but I guess it's good that he's not trying to eat while broadcasting live.  While playing the ARMA 2 DayZ mod a few years back I was in a TS channel with about a dozen people when I forgot to mute my mic as I took a bite of a nacho chip...  the 'CRUNCH' sounded exactly like your leg bone breaking and there was a lot of sudden cursing in channel before everyone figured out what happened!!



Reading around and checking my Steam pre-order it looks like it will release on Aug 9 in the US for PC, rather than the 12th.    



 

Yep, got my preorder in and can't wait.

Me too. I got my preorder in at the end of April. I'm glad that the Steam date hasn't slipped to the 12th.

Stream is live again!





For the TL;DW crowd...   he found dinosaurs!



EDIT: Streaming link was nuked...  but confirmed he found a dinosaur planet and posted screenshots on twitter for those interested.





 

Cool. Sounds like a modern version of Starflight. I loved Starflight.