Benjamin Kratsch wrote an article for Redbull sometime around March 2016 after his experience of playing the game. It was certainly not the game we got in August that year.
In the AMA he talks about owning a freighter, something that wasn’t possible at release (wasn’t possible until the Pathfinder update released). I got the impression freighters moved in this build too.
Throughout his work he talks about the fauna AI being very different from what we have now, it sounds like there is much more interaction between other fauna and the environment. This could possibly be the AI improvement we get in NEXT:
“I was on a dessert planet and followed a two meter sized guy, that looked like an Ewok from Star Wars. He was walking around and looked unhappy. When he found a river though, he made a little dance and took a bath. It’s these little things, that make the game unique.”
Survival sounds much more difficult, he described it as “fairly brutal”. There was some mechanic where you had to calculate fuel costs to jump between systems to profit from trading. Portals worked and the method to operate them was different. Learning languages gets you “better prices for modules and upgrades and you can even forge a trading alliance with races like the Kovax”. The walker type sentinels gathered resources on planets. You could also see your PSN friends on the galactic map, although it is quite clear the game was not intended to have a typical multiplayer.
It’s an interesting account of playing an old build. It would seem like many mechanics were created during development then stripped from the game before release. But to see an outsiders account of playing that old build, i think, shows Sean didn’t lie about the game. Just the reason for stripping the game before release is unknown.
There has been much discussion on this on CobraTV. It is very exciting. Apparently there is a ton of stuff in the code which has never been utilized. The general consensus is that we are not playing the build that we were meant to play. The real thing has been under construction all this time and that is what we will get in the NEXT update. This is all theory at this point but, there is solid evidence to base it on. Checkout Cobra’s ‘could we see these things in the next update’ podcast from 2 days ago. I would post a link here but, the haters dog-piled him for that show…there is also some really awesome speculation about a possible E3 bombshell…but it is ALL speculation at this point.
Yeah i have been hearing a few things coming from Cobra’s show recently but haven’t checked it out yet.
I have a suspicion the original game was too much work for the PS4 or lower end gaming PC’s to handle. My Pro already feels like it’s about to burst into flames when i play. I guess that could explain why freighters are currently static.
I have spent a lot of time going over old pre/post-release footage and articles, i think there is a lot there that will make it back into the game eventually. But like you say, It’s all speculation. I don’t expect the updates to only contain missing features. Exocraft and the storyline are a good example of that.
I still believe space whales will make it in though.
You prolly know this already but if not check it out.
Another piece to the NMS puzzle is that Sony was responsible for rushing the project. It was pushed out ahead of schedule. Then, remember there was a flood which inundated HG HQ. Then factor in the whole Sam Swain working with HG and things start to get very, very interesting.
In the meantime, the ARG has at least given a fairly solid hint towards planetary rings and denser asteroid fields, with the possibility that they will yield more minerals, etc…
I haven’t rebuilt my Pro’s database before but i used it a few times on the regular PS4 to fix problems. I’ll give it a go.
The flood is talked about in the Redbull article (although they dated the event wrong), Grant Duncan loosing a lot of concept art seemed to be the biggest loss, although having to set up an entire new studio is a huge setback too of course.
Sam Swain working at HG is very interesting and exciting. I wonder if he will be making changes to base building, adding proc gen settlements/cities or both.
What was the hint towards rings and asteroids? I have been missing some of the ARG due to working away from home.
The Request Supplies section on the extranet was now accessible, revealing a “Specific Item Order Form”. In addition to Arnaud Lacours’ name, his employee ID 43617373696e69 was already filled in. Converted from HEX to ASCII this code translates to Cassini. Entering the ID into the console yields the following output:
LOG RECOVERED :: ITERATION #4924A ::
The asteroid field was thick,
denser than any I’d seen before.
The ice, the dirt, the metal fragments…
my ship never stood a chance
Cassini is a NASA mission to study the rings of Saturn and HG tweeted a pic of the Rosetta/Osiris comet landing mission.