Just got linked this
https://twitter.com/britbongreturns/status/765190830894317568
That was pretty flipping spot on.
Ah, that, though, is the player's problem, to be honest (that being said, there are plenty of areas similar to that in the trailer; I think people were expecting CONSTANT "dinosaurs in the grass" though, from a freaking PROCEDURAL game.... good grief).
Seriously, people should know better than to trust E3 videos, or trailers, or anything of that nature. I don't even watch trailers. This is why. And this is something I keep repeating over the last couple days. And every time I say "it's a good idea to IGNORE trailers" people look at me like I'm telling them that it's a good idea not to breathe or have a face. That's how far these companies have managed to bring this sort of thing now. Like people cant even comprehend buying or checking out games without these overblown advertisements that *never* are proper approximations of what it will be. Remember Watch Dogs? Yeah.
I've run into lush planets as I said, and I have run into things that actually look like dinosaurs (as opposed to.... whatever the heck that is). But that trailer? Just like with every other trailer ever, nobody should have believed that the game as a whole was going to be like that. I guarantee you that bit in there was not random, that was set up by the devs. Animals in the game don't typically appear in huge multiple blobs right on top of one another (which is what's happening in that trailer), as it kills the player's need to explore the planet to find those animals. Among other issues I spot in there.
This kind of crap is a huge part of all of this, really. I went into this game having not followed any hype, and I got exactly what I wanted out of it. It's a good game by my standards, same as I've been saying. Lots of OTHERS, though, run around bashing it without even playing it (and sometimes while only having watched confused people playing it for the first time on freaking Twitch, as friends of mine did... sigh), because they watched what the Internet Hype Train did. And then they wonder what went wrong. I'd facepalm here, but if I did it hard enough to do this justice, the shockwave would blow out a wall.
And this series of events will repeat itself, over... and over.... and over.... I can tell ya which game will be next, which is Star Citizen. And that one is going to make THIS debacle look like nothing at all. I'll be totally honest, I'm kinda looking forward to that, because I'm unpleasant that way. I'll be bringing popcorn. Lots of it.
To me, NMS seems like an amalgamation of Elite: Dangerous, Terraria and EVE Online with all the work, grind and annoyances and none of the fun.
That's pretty much how I've always thought of.... Well, EVE Online, to be honest. Not the other two.
Every now and then someone I know will point out that they love that game.
Every single time I ask them to explain why.
Every single time I go away from it understanding less than before about the appeal, and also with an urge to hit them with a chair. That game seems like Disgaea's grinding, except literally made into an entire game. Hell, people pull up videos on other screens to watch while they "play" it, like, during the travel sequences. I just.... it.... ugh. I don't understand that one. Never will. That the game is even still around utterly baffles me. Usually with a lot of games I can say "Yeah, I don't like this one, but I guess I can see why others do". That one's the exception.
EVE is 95% politics and about 5% "make your own empire". That's what's fun about EVE to me. PvP is rather exhilarating too when it's small scale. The huge fleet battles are impressive, but pretty bland to be a part of. It's the politics leading up to the battles that is awesome. Right now though I'm just trading (which is PvP in and of itself) and building ships. Because the crafting system in EVE is actually fun compared to most.
...And that's what I mean with this game, to be honest. All that did was leave me with MORE questions (alot more) about "And this is fun.... how, exactly?". Hell, "Politics" is just something generated by the players. So... the game is fun, 95% because of something the game itself does not even generate? What? I mean, seriously, politics, however you use that word, has nothing to do with actual gameplay. Nothing. It's all communication between players. It could be done in a billion different settings, like on a damn forum. Considering how little fun intra-forum politics is (not fun at all, fortunately we don't have that sort of thing here), that just makes this that much more confusing.
Like I said, I'll never understand that game, any more than I understand actual politics (which is to say, not at all; always looks like a bunch of abnormally boring old guys arguing with each other without actually doing anything). I'm still going with "Disgaea, but they made the grinding into spaceships and it takes much longer".