No Man's Sky should let you see each other - if the servers aren't overloaded

Hello Games CEO responds to why two players couldn't see each other

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No Man's Sky has had a phenomenal first day. No matter whether you like the game or not, Hello Games' space exploration sandbox sim has captured the attention of millions, leading to a few glitches that the developer may not have forseen. One of the main issues seems to be players on the same planet being able to see each other.

During a livestream yesterday, two players met up on the same planet but were unable to get a visual on each other.  Hello Games has said that the game should allow players to interact in multiplayer, but for some reason, this didn't happen. CEO Sean Murray took to Twitter in an attempt to explain, saying that the servers were hit heard by the huge number of players.

"Two players finding each other on a stream in the first day - that has blown my mind," Murray said in a series of tweets, "We added a 'scan for other players' in the Galactic Map to try to encourage this happening. We wanted it to happen - but the first day? We want people to be aware they are in a shared universe. We added online features, and some Easter Eggs to create cool moments. We hope to see those happening... but too many of you are playing right now. More than we could have predicted. It is a testament to how amazing our network coders are that Discoveries are still working at all. For instance over night we hit 10 million species discovered in NMS... that's more than has been discovered on earth. WHAT IS GOING ON!!!"

It doesn't directly answer the question of why the two players couldn't meet up, however. We'll have to wait and see how much more of this occurs and if Hello Games addresses the issue in a more succinct fashion one the server load begins to level out.

 

Contributing Editor
From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 10, 2016 6:25 AM

    John Keefer posted a new article, No Man's Sky should let you see each other - if the servers aren't overloaded

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      August 10, 2016 6:29 AM

      Hmmmmm, can't really draw that conclusion from what he said. Also there's a duplicate sentence in there.

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        August 10, 2016 6:31 AM

        I think the most important take away is that yes, players are supposed to see each other and interact to some degree.

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          August 10, 2016 7:09 AM

          Is that what he said though?

          We want people to be aware they are in a shared universe. We added online features, and some Easter Eggs to create cool moments. We hope to see those happening... but too many of you are playing right now.

          That could just mean that they want you to see evidence that other players have been where you are. It says nothing about multiplayer interaction.

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            August 10, 2016 7:15 AM

            Lol is Sean Murray capable of saying something direct and unambiguous about No Man's Sky? I doubt he's doing it to be deceitful, but dude it should be incredibly obvious what you need to say to answer this question.

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              August 10, 2016 7:18 AM

              This is definitely true, but why would they make it easier to find other players, and want players to find each other, if nothing of significance happens when they do?

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                August 10, 2016 7:28 AM

                Yeah first I'd heard of that feature. Hope it means exactly what I think it should mean.

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              August 10, 2016 7:22 AM

              [deleted]

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                August 10, 2016 7:26 AM

                I'm pretty sure they stated early-on that yes, you're supposed to be able to meet other players and interact in some way. But that was a year or more ago.

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                August 10, 2016 7:27 AM

                People have been asking about the multiplayer for 3 years now. He's given very specific answers about it in the past, talking about instanced lobbies and player counts, but that was years ago and is probably all different now.

                Were the multiplayer aspects of Souls/Journey not talked about until the release? That can't be the case, right? Like, a publisher wouldn't really be down for you to not advertise game-selling features like multiplayer just because it "preserves the mystery."

                The mystery is inherent to the mechanic, simply describing how the mechanic works shouldn't dispel any of that. It's just so dumb that this is continuing, just spell it the hell out already lol. He's kinda burning up some of the indie good will he's generated in my eyes by dragging this thing out.

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                  August 10, 2016 7:38 AM

                  [deleted]

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                    August 10, 2016 7:45 AM

                    I don't think that's true, as someone who's been following this game pretty closely for 3 years. Multiplayer has basically always been a part of the pitch, and they've been ambiguous about it since the jump. Like I said there is that interview where he explicitly details how it will work in a mechanical way - not in a "pie in a sky" kind of way but in a "this is how it works" kind of way. But that was years ago and it has probably changed - of course without any clear communication one way or the other.

                    The base building/cruisers thing was never talked about until the day one patch notes. That reads to me like "ok the game is done, let's add some cool extra shit now."

                    It all boils down to this dude should be a lot more clear about this stuff because obviously there are tons of people who like the game but are still confused about how core parts of it work.

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              August 10, 2016 9:35 AM

              Sean Murray lied and gamers died.

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                August 10, 2016 10:32 AM

                Last night as I read Sean Murray's tweets my mom came into my room to bring me a plate of chicken tendies and I literally screamed at her and hit the plate of tendies out of her hand. She started yelling and swearing at me and I slammed the door on her. I’m so distressed right now I don’t know what to do. I didn’t mean to do that to my mom but I’m literally in shock from reading Sean's tweets last night.

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              August 10, 2016 12:47 PM

              Yeah he has a weird problem just saying things explicitly. I think in his mind he still wants things to be a surprise and he doesn't care if it pisses people off. It is kind of odd.

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              August 10, 2016 5:52 PM

              [deleted]

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              August 10, 2016 8:55 PM

              When he was first talking about the game publicly and on streams etc. I was really intrigued and thought he was really good at baiting a mystery. I don't want to say he's duplicitous, either, but I must admit that I'm now reading his tone and style completely differently and it's just annoying.

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        August 10, 2016 7:06 AM

        I fixed it before it went live, but it needs to cycle through the server.

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        August 10, 2016 8:02 AM

        I would love to be proven wrong - I thought there was no way you could really see other players - but yeah it's still pretty unclear.

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          August 10, 2016 8:20 AM

          I wish it had something like Dark Souls where you could leave a message behind and maybe other players could reply if they discover it.

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            August 10, 2016 9:27 AM

            That would be pretty cool because right now you have no idea if somebody else came across a planet you discovered right?

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              August 10, 2016 10:23 AM

              If someone else came across, I believe it will say "Discovered by SomeDude on SomeDate" and you won't be the one discovering it. I base this assumption on the way the UI is designed.

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                August 10, 2016 10:27 AM

                I'm just thinking it would be cool if another person comes across the planet you discovered you would get notified. Just a little feedback that a decision you made is effecting another persons game. However small that effect is.

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      August 10, 2016 9:58 AM

      says 1 player on the box. not sure why everyone is getting bent. http://i.imgur.com/nkR1GSL.png

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        August 10, 2016 5:49 PM

        [deleted]

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          August 10, 2016 6:33 PM

          well, the box is super clear.

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            August 10, 2016 7:08 PM

            Good thing everyone buys physical copies of the game from store shelves nowadays.

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              August 10, 2016 7:14 PM

              steam store: 1 player :http://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/
              GOG: single player: https://www.gog.com/game/no_mans_sky

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                August 10, 2016 7:18 PM

                Then their head dude should stop talking about the theoretical multiplayer aspects which don't exist.

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                  August 10, 2016 7:45 PM

                  I think the entire point is that whatever "multiplayer" exists in NMS, it's a novel bit that isn't a core gameplay element, thus it is not marketed as anything but single player.

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                    August 10, 2016 8:06 PM

                    For me, it's just slowly moved over into "Made FOR PC, ON PC (enjoy your console interface)" or "Gotta have DX10 for Alan Wake, gotta have Windows Vista for DX10, GET YOUR WINDOWS VISTA NOW" untruthful marketing trying to convince us (admittedly the Alan Wake thing may have been true at that time, but I don't recall any retractions or refunds based on that false marketing (*MAY HAVE BEEN*.))

                    So if there's no multiplayer in No Man's Sky, Sean should stop fudging the answers with possible but unlikely, don't bet on it, you won't know, etc., being fully aware that people are trying to get those multiplayer aspects working. Just say "No. There's no MP."

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                      August 10, 2016 8:45 PM

                      If there's actually nothing at all, then yeah, he should be totally honest about it.

                      But I've just never gotten the vibe from him that he'd just make shit up. I'm sure there's something to it, and either (god forbid) the internet hasn't managed to crack it on day two, or there's something broken.

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                    August 10, 2016 8:13 PM

                    Yeah it's been pretty clear forever that multiplayer is definitely not the focus, and I'm in love with the lonely, contemplative exploration game that NMS seems to be. It's just a little distasteful that they're being so coy about something that is clearly a bit fishy. If they owned up to it or explained things directly and clearly it'd generate a lot of respect for them from me. Right now I'm hype for their game but I can't help but eyeroll at how the devs are handling this.

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      August 10, 2016 10:31 AM

      10 million species discovered in one night is pretty cool.

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      August 10, 2016 8:54 PM

      [deleted]

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      August 10, 2016 11:25 PM

      [deleted]

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      August 10, 2016 11:57 PM

      I don't know if this is common knowledge but you can trade with other ships in the space station, even buy their ship if you have the cash.

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