NEXT Patch notes - Steam Experimental [POTENTIAL SPOILERS!]

I’ll redirect you to this steam post? How to play only with friends - Set Network to "Off". No, really. :: No Man's Sky General Discussion
Don’t want to try coop?

It’s not really a big deal. I have played many, many hours since multiplayer arrived. I have had about 4 random ppl drop by my planet. None were hostile. I have had a few ppl I know join my game.
In settings, you can turn off whether or not someone can add/delete to your base or harm you. You can turn off voice chat, which I always do when visiting a Community Event planet because it gets very noisy.
I don’t think multiplayer is something you really need to worry about. There are these few fail safes in place. I have not personally had any issues with it.


To use text chat, press ENTER then type then ENTER to send.

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well, CARP there will be no cross play

And nobody to play with. So no testing multiplayer for me :frowning:

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everything back to normal on my home planet ( clear blue water) as well as the bright flash when you come out the starship

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New Steam NMS update downloading - no info anywhere…

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Good grief! Jumped into Steam and I see 7 updates! What is this?
On second look, it seems every game in my library is getting an update. Tiny updates like 500bytes

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Also here.

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May not be important - Steam discussion:

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Was away from my PC since this afternoon, left Steam running. Just got back to also see 20 scheduled updates (most listing 0 or just a few bytes) on a pretty random selection of games.

However, Steam apparently already downloaded a 531.3 MB (!) update for No Man’s Sky (non-experimental). Very weird.

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So…2 months now and nothing…has anyone heard anything at all?

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Nope, no news at all - and I’ve been looking hard.

The only thing I know they’re doing is seeking platforms for The Last Campfire to launch on. So far, only Steam is confirmed.

However, if they’d finished with No Man’s Sky, I think they would have told us.

In the past, when HG have gone quiet for a long time, it has been because they were working on something big. And they’ve learned from past experience not to build up peoples’ hopes before they actually have a usable product.

So I think they’re working on something big. And I also think they’re working on No Man’s Sky. Question is, are those two the same thing?

Your guess is as good as mine.

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HG probably took some time off. Considering the frequency of updates from next to visions, they may not have alot in the pipe so to speak. The last “hidden” things the data miners found included a cooking mechanic IIRC. If I were to guess, if we don’t see a pathfinder sized update at the end of April, it maybe a large update mid summer. Ah, one can speculate eh? XD

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Well alright then. Assuming there is a big new update on the way (HG can’t keep this up forever - they’d go bust) - but assuming at least one more, what would it be? As you suggested, let’s speculate a little.

As far as I can see, the only obvious clue is the research projects Polo has been sending us on for the past few months, They have strongly hinted at some new level of knowledge, or some other form of reality. But they could easily be another red herring. The game is full of them.

Apart from that, where could the game realistically go? We’ve had base building, land vehicles, space fleets, multiplayer and underwater. We’ve had enhanced building size and variety, extended planetery types, and new ranges of plants and animals.

Within the confines of the game engine - i.e, you can’t have lots of active mobs running around (resource restrictions), you can’t have classic scripted adventures (the terrain is totally unpredictable) - where else could the game go?

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Not forever, but considering their team size and the estimated sales numbers of NMS accross all platforms, I would estimate that they could keep going for another 2 to 4 years easily if they want to. And that’s excluding the potentially large unknown number of sales on Tencent. I have no idea how successful the game is in china, and it is a mindboggingly large market…

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Agreed. But, against that, I estimate they now have somewhere between 30 and 40 people on payroll. And even an optimistic estimate of development time for a new title (one that will justify that size of team) has got to be around 3 - 4 years.

If they don’t want to find themselves in the same position they did with No Man’s Sky, running out of time and money, they must have already started work on their new big project. And pretty soon, they’re going to have to devote most of their resources to it.

Yes, they could keep pumping resource into NMS, and getting nothing back. They could do that for a couple of years, maybe. And then they’d have nothing. No money, no new game, and no company.

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I did take that into account, and I still think my estimate is kind of pessimistic. The major advantage they do have is that there’s no shareholders to pay off… If they decide they want to make another game on the scale of NMS and put aside some 15 million for that, they should still be able to pump another few years into NMS, especially since NMS has continued to sell with every major update. Though NEXT was somewhat exceptional in that regard because it launched on a new platform, and there aren’t many more of those around… yet. When the actual next generation of consoles hits, reselling NMS on those is not at all an absurd idea.
All I’m saying is, at this point in time the major factor in NMS’ development is how much they want to put into it, not how much they are able to. So at this moment, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.
Though I agree they should have posted a short development update when the last community event ended, even if just to say “we’re really busy with something really cool, but it’s still going to take a few weeks, we’re sure you can keep yourselves entertained until then”. They seem to be falling back into old habits…

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I recall them saying ‘for the foreseeable future’ and it’s only been 7 months since NEXT released.

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If you look at their latest published accounts (a matter of public record), Hello Games’ current liquid assets stand at 29.5 million. And you might think that was a pretty healthy situation to be in.

Except, in the same accounting period, their outgoings were more than 31 million. They spent more last year than they now have in the bank.

Even allowing for the probability that much of the outgoing cash was tax, that’s not a sustainable long-term situation. They have to start making money. And soon.

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Huh, that’s pretty close to what I assumed. Thought it should be somewhere between 30 and 40, though I was estimating in dollars, while those are probably sterling, right?

That however is a darn lot higher than what I anticipated. That can’t possibly all be running costs. Not with a team of 30. Is that QA team of theirs on full-time employment? that might explain some of the discrepancies, but even then there’s got to be a cost sink I’m simply not seeing here… (and yes, I’m aware that an employee costs quite a bit more than just his salary). Have they invested in real estate or something?

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I don’t know. The accounts don’t go into great detail. Possibly some of it is outstanding loans?

Also, bear in mind that the latest published accounts are for the year ending January 2018. As with most published accounts, they’re a year out of date.

You can view the Companies House (official UK companies register) records here:

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