Yes. I’d like to avoid that manual labour. Call me lazy.
There’s also the thing that it’s just a really stark difference in terms of immersion if you can put your notes down in-game, and associated with your savegame.
Maybe not for general notes on mechanics, exploits, and stuff. But that’s not what I’m after. The thing is, games like NMS require a lot of interpretation by the player to make sense of the results of the procgen and flesh out the world with details from their own imagination where the game isn’t deep enough. It’s always been like this for certain types of games. Privateer, Elite, Daggerfall, even Morrowind to an extent (mostly for keeping track of character development), old-school crpgs like Megatraveller, realms of arcania, exploration games like starflight, the list goes on into infinity. All htese games have vastly profitted from diagetic journaling, turning what is, on the face of it, a generic world without much dynamics into a personalised world fuelled by the players imagination.
Old-school games (though not like what they call “old-school” nowadays, really. I mean, old school) often did that neat trick where they had diagetic manuals, i.e. manuals written in a way as though they were existing in the games world. And RPGs frequently had a section of empty pages in that manual for journaling.
It’s become a bit of a lost art nowadays, at least where computer games are concerned. And a lot of that has to do with there just being no journaling function in-game. I’ve played daggerfall and morrowind with simple journaling mods that let you write journal entries yourself (in the case of morrowind, it just let you write stuff into books in the actual game world, completely bypassing the journal UI - good enough), and it just hits so much differently than tabbing out of the game every couple minutes…
One of the Myst games had an in game journal. URU, I think. Mine was filled with my first person narrative which I wrote as I played. Complete immersion was the result and I had a step by step guide to solving various puzzles for future refrence. It was made even more fun because after typing in my notes, they turned into a really nice hand written style font, making it feel even more like I was writing in a journal.
Well, steam now has a “notes” section. Which I’ve used once when it came out and keep forgetting to use. It’s below the achievements section on the right.
Much prefer it to be in game of course, but better than nothing, and at least it won’t disappear on a format or new pc.
Ahh… Myst. Loved the graphics, mystery, and puzzles, though some were hard.
As for game notes…
I started an Excel workbook a while back and tracked a ton of region, system, planet, and portal data. Then came updates that made the data obsolete. I gave that up. But I do a photo as I arrive at each star system, then on planet landing, to include glyphs. I snap a shot of key POC in visor view to show the Lat/Long.
Why? Because their restless, that’s why. Why are they restless? Because players consume too quickly and bore too easily. Solution: IMHO, “Every Galaxy Procedural” “Everything Procedural” “Spread it ALL out!”
Forecast:
NMS offers greater freedom, survival, exploration and discovery. SF focuses on delivering a story, that story is based in our real-life future. The setting happens to be our universe, somewhat fleshed out, in order to deliver that story. SF offers a few things that NMS doesn’t, like starship customization and human face customization, but these are 2 very different games. Don’t go into SF looking for NMS, it’s not there. Enjoy SF or skip it entirely, once the SF story has passed, exploration and discovery seem short-lived…
1000 planets
100 with a fauna or 2
planetary loading screens
predetermined planetary landing areas
medium quality resolutions, no VR, no multiplayer
Starfield: New space game arrives!
No Man’s Sky: Update “Echoes” and Expedition “Voyagers” awaits!
Update: The leaked footage of a 10 min. walk from ship until, “boundary reached,” may be from an intro tutorial. Here’s hoping! My forecast is based on marketing, news and leaks, so far. Actual results may vary.
There could be many of these eyes, growing in size from small fauna, to being so massive they rival whole galaxies, consuming and creating everything to expand the void using a massive black hole as its pupil.
Ah yes. The struggle so poetically and depressingly expressed in Hemingways classic novel “The old man and the video game”. Might very well be what’s in store for me
Their next big game will be announced at ‘The Game Awards on Thursday, December 7, 2023,’ possibly set to release sometime in 2024. What are the chances this might occur, and with a teaser trailer, and a name announcement to follow? Quite possibly followed by an emoji drop, and an update or expedition repeat?
I still cannot run NMS or The Long Dark on my Linux pc right now. The desktop environment xfce needs a patch or something.
I expect Expedition reruns thru the holidays.
New info on what is next would be awesome but maybe way too soon to expect right now. I bet they keep it dark til they have something to show. Not wanting to feed the overhype train. They know where that track runs.
We have consistently started each year’s 2nd expedition replay on Wednesday, December 8, 2021 and Thursday, December 8, 2022. Since we have only 3 expeditions to replay, not 4 this year…
Expeditions Revisited on Friday, December 8, 2023 would be fitting.
However, all major updates (or at least for the past couple years, which is as far back as I checked) have consistently released on a Wednesday, and all Expeditions Revisited have released on a Thursday.
Today is Thursday, December 7, 2023 and tomorrow is Friday, December 8, 2023.
So maybe no major update today or tomorrow (since it’s not a Wednesday), but maybe an expedition replay today (since it’s a Thursday), or more likely tomorrow (since it’s December 8, and there’s only 3).
Expeditions Revisited
Expedition Schedule
2021
Expedition 1 (Pioneers): 24th November – 7th December
Expedition 2 (Beachhead/Normandy): 8th December – 21st December
Expedition 3 (Cartographers): 22nd December – 4th January
Expedition 4 (Emergence): 5th January – 19th January
2022
Expedition 5 (Exobiology): 24th Nov – 8th Dec
Expedition 6 (Blighted): 8th Dec – 22nd Dec
Expedition 7 (Leviathan): 22nd Dec – 5th Jan
Expedition 8 (Polestar) : 5th Jan – 18th Jan
What time is the 2023 Game Awards?
The huge upcoming event is scheduled for December 7, 2023, at 19:30 ET / 16:30 PT, which is 01:30 CET in Europe. No Man’s Sky is up for an award, we’ll see what becomes of it, Best Community Support.
The Game Awards are starting in roughly 30 minutes. I’m going to watch to see if No Man’s Sky wins its award or if there is any announcement of a new Hello Games game like @Crimsontine speculated.
This won’t be the first gaming event I’ve watched solely for news about NMS, and it won’t be the last.
