nms-spoilers

[trail drum]

Ah yeah, takes a while to unlock everything; I still haven't done all the structures

[dusky gale]

yeah and also all the freighter things i need too unlock those things are even harder too get XD

[trail drum]

Yeah, you need organic frigates to farm upgrades for the living ships. The alternative is shooting asteroids endlessly for an item which allows you to scan for upgrades. You'll need to do this anyway to get more organic frigates but that experience alone will put you off doing it more than you have to 😂

[dusky gale]

XD

yeah i will see i mean it cant be that bad XD

[trail drum]

If want to do that look up https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Anomaly_Detector then https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Space_Encounter. Basically you'll need to ignore encounters until you get the one you want which will either be an organic ship, or living ship upgrade. While pulsing the icons will show what you'll encounter

With 5 organic frigates on average I'm getting 1-4 upgrades a day for my living ship, including storage enhancement. Obviously the more you have the higher the change of getting the items for upgrades

[runic mesa]

Wait, what happened

Oh, nevermind. Just saw it on the social feed

[dusky gale]

i am probably gonna go all out and get all living friggats i can get

[runic mesa]

Ya'll are sleeping on collecting titles, lore and medal achievements. You don't want to know how much time I sunk into that...

[analog breach]

Specialy when some are unobtainable in vanilla

[glass flare]

forget plushies, I want 3D printed models of my ships...

[native carbon]

Forget 3D printed models pf your ships, i want 2D emoji from Sean Murray...

/jk

[analog breach]

[ebon spoke]

imagine a line of plastic model kits that together would give you all the ship parts so you could kitbash any ship from the game...

[still sierra]

If you pulse around in red systems inside a living ship you will find upgrades every few minutes.

I think it's 2 upgrades per system

The system has to have no space station so red is the best

[late edge]

@grizzled apex I was wondering, do you have any idea why HG has never really updated planet POI? They add new ones sure, Sentinel pillers, harmonic camps, dig sites. But its mostly still the same buildings from launch.

[ebon spoke]

Why would they remove the old pois?

Besides, they have been updated them a bit. They got a new detail layer, they added the component vendor to the shop building and I think they added some new rooms behind the locked doors.

They also changed the way they spawn, you used to be able to sometimes find 2 or 3 buildings at one POI, like an observatory and a transmission tower for example.

[humble kayak]

Question to the more experienced NMS players/dataminers here: When do you think we'll see Corvettes? I've heard arguments both for a same-year update (possibly for the anniversary?) but also against it, citing that bigger projects have laid in game files for longer times in the past

[late edge]

Well, the summer update is usually the final one for the year. They take a break in the autumn aside from expedition redux and come back the next February. So it might be this year, might not

[glass flare]

I don't think there's any rhyme or reason for when they decide to do major features. I mean who really saw Worlds coming before it dropped? I had given up completely on the water ever being overhauled and then out of the blue, boom

so Corvettes could be coming this year, or it could be a feature they were experimenting with and decided to shelve

[late edge]

True, I thought origins would be it for variety updates. And before that I thought NEXT and visions was it for variety updates. 😂

[humble kayak]

I've seen this argument but I'm pretty sure they would've scrapped it before they started getting textures out

since IIRC the textures in the files aren't repeated assets, they're unique

don't quote me on that though

[grizzled apex]

Like AyyMang said, there's not a lot to lose by keeping old buildings in. They've recieved minor updates over the years, especially visually. HG seem adamant on building on top of what they've got instead of retroactively replacing fairly often.

They also seem to have a rotating team of artists over the years afaik, who might be more inclined to come up with new designs to fulfil the goal of a new feature rather than going back and repurposing something pre-existing

[late edge]

Im just a bit surprised they never brought the derelict freighter tech for planet dungeons yet

[ebon spoke]

Most are unique, some are repeats of the textures used for frigate exteriors.

Of the unique ones, there are some that look like multiple different iterations of the same thing, which would imply they did more than just a quick art test

[safe quarry]

Interesting that it uses some frigate exterior textures? Which ones exactly?

Tbh if corvettes turned out to be an internal name given for a revisit of frigates, I would not be against that. Once you're done with sending off missions they really don't serve much purpose other than eye candy, and since i never sent out a mission with suboptimal ranking, i never had a reason to land on frigates either. Their landable content always felt so underbaked.

But I suppose if the corvettes have a hangar, then they're not reusing the frigate models.

My absolute main want for corvettes is actually as a mobile base. This is going to sound suuuper weird, but i have always loved games that have some kind of mobile ship you can walk on board and travel with. Like airships in rpgs, or even the boat in Sea of Thieves. It's like a home you take with you. I have seen videos of Starfield, and of that Star Wars game, where you can just walk from the planet surface into your ship, and that's what I want most realised for corvettes. Being able to see an alien planet out of the window when snuggled in the comfort of your mobile home.

That's why I kind of hope they can land. Because being able to just get out of your pilot seat and walk out onto an alien planet would be an experience.

A close second would be some kind of short range teleporter if they're too big to land, but being able to build gangways so you can step out and see the landscape below.

(a small thought, if they are flyable, they will most likely have some articulating parts, like the VTOL of the iron vulture. Something that big will look like a giant brick flying through the air without it. Our ships get away with no articulating parts because they're small enough that the intertia of the sharp turns makes sense, but from a design perspective that won't translate as well to a larger ship I don't think.)

[slim mica]

One day the world's will explode

[gloomy isle]

My dream would be a boarding elevator ngl, it would be so cool to have

[ebon spoke]

I was slightly wrong on this, actually. One is this: WARRIORTILED, originally made for the common ground buildings and reused for the exterior panelling on frigates.

for reference, that texture makes up about this much of the combat frigate (and is used similarly across the other basic types):

The other reused texture is this one, which I was wrong about. It has nothing to do with frigates and is actually the texture used for the newer freighter base interior parts.

Both are extremely low resolution compared to their original versions

[safe quarry]

Ah so it could just be a common texture they use across a lot of assets as a kind of foundation?

[ebon spoke]

Yeah its just a texture with a few types of fairly generic paneling.

The frigates have extra detailing parts added on top that use a texture specifically for them, the corvette doesn't have that in any of it's folders

[safe quarry]

I see. On this note too, i know the reason why a lot of games avoid large moving objects is the way hitboxes are calculated? The larger the hitbox the more space it has to calculate a collision, and that gets exponentially harder on the computing power to keep reclaculating if the object is moving. Would that be a deal breaker for the corvettes? The skyscraper engine i thought was good at handling scale.

[ebon spoke]

It is worth noting though, freighters have their own bespoke panel textures that are different. So for what it's worth, the corvette exterior is still more similar to a frigate than a freighter from what little we know

[safe quarry]

That's interesting.

I suppose thats a scale thing, the freighter's textures are made with a much larger object in mind

that probably goes to show how the corvettes definitely will be closer to the frigates and buildings in scale.

[ebon spoke]

Frigates fly around fine with pretty detailed hitboxes. They don't have their interiors loaded when they spawn as flybys but I think it's not a huge deal.

[safe quarry]

Though they're on a straight trajectory? Would that make them easier to calculate?

[ebon spoke]

I've made full sized freighters do the flyby before and didn't notice any performance issues

I don't think the trajectory is something that makes a big enough difference

[safe quarry]

that and i think if i remember flying near one, they have a relatively simple rectangle hitbox. I wonder if the corvette would need something more complex?

[ebon spoke]

detail of the collision meshes is a big factor

and how many of those meshes there are. If the corvettes are procedural or customisable, the modular parts will each need their own collision

[safe quarry]

Hmm but if they make them with this in mind, the design can lean into that. A boxy shape that sits snugly in a simpler hitbox, not too many extrusions.

[ebon spoke]

Ship exteriors don't need super detailed colliders especially if you aren't going to be walking around on the hull

[safe quarry]

I'm kind of okay with there being just one corvette with no procedural if thats the only way they could pull it off. Like i suggested, they could have the corvette be something Ariadni has used to escape the realm of glass and then gifts to us in helping their escape!

that way it pulls double duty for the narrative as well, and would explain the old, analogue design.

[safe quarry]

Thats true, tho i was thinking more as players come in to try and land in the hangar, or fly alongside it.

I almost think, to explain away the corvettes sudden arrival, they might be from some earlier iteration of the simulation, and therefore from the realm of glass.

I assume the autophage are the same way because they've had to piece themselves together from old saved scrap in the storage of the realm of glass.

Captain Steve always seems hopeful we'll visit the realm of glass, but I think its more a parallel for the simulations afterlife, so isn't necessarily a place we're ever meant to visit in the game.

Or at leas the closest approximation, since its the sentinels trying to backup everything.

[grizzled apex]

Or yknow, never explain it; like they never addressed why suddenly most of the universe's space stations got an overhaul overnight together 😛

[safe quarry]

hehe its like that simpsons clip!

"any time there's something about the show you can't explain: a wizard did it."

The Atlas wanted to do a glowup on the space stations because they got bored with the old ones.

Oh! So someone was asking about it earlier and it got me thinking: How have the new POIs been added? Did they replace existing ones? Like the palaeontology dig sites, did they just replace X number of another POI?

[grizzled apex]

Nope, just added on top of the current list

[safe quarry]

So are there empty flat spots waiting to be filled on planets?

[ebon spoke]

They just flatten the area around where they spawn

not sure if new pois shuffle around the ones that are already there though

[safe quarry]

That's good to know! So there's nothing stopping them just adding more, and even I guess adding ones that require a larger plateau?

[ebon spoke]

Yeah, the size of the plateau is actually just based on the size of the structure

it takes the maximum radius of it and increases a bit, from what I understand

[safe quarry]

I didn't know that. I guess i never thought to actually measure them, so I just assumed they were all the same. But thinking on it now the POIs with the two habitats have a tiny plateau compared to say the ruins.

Id love for them to add random things like the reConstructs mod adds too, just set dressing skyscraping things that could just be wind farms, or satelittles.

So long as they don't go overboard with the visual clutter. or have different planets have a different spawn rate of them.

I think they'd be a nice addition.

For anyone coming in on these, these are a MOD, not spoilers for the next update. Please don't get your hopes up!

[ebon spoke]

The colossal archives were maybe going to be something like that originally

its hard to tell but the model folder for them has a bunch of unused parts, including a few that appear to be for very different shaped buildings

this red walking building creature is reusing some of those parts, though as they are in the files they wouldn't fit onto the base like that

also theres a part that is clearly meant to block the normal interior part, like they wanted some to not have it

[safe quarry]

So it does, thats interesting. I wonder why they didn't implement them all? Could it be to do with the scene budget? I noticed the LOD on grass change for WP2, and a lot of people are just picking up on it as a bug, but with how many visual updates we got with that update, i wonder if it was to free up some budget to invest in the new details and future things?

Even on ultra now, that grass has almost gone back to how it was before for me.

[ebon spoke]

I think they probably just decided on a different direction for them. The unused parts are super rough and much less detailed than the final ones.

[safe quarry]

Thats true, i can see that even on that one. I am guessing too because they are so enlarged they have to survive much closer scrutiny.

[ebon spoke]

There's stuff there to imply that they were planning race specific designs at one point, the giant ball one would be Korvax specific but in the final version all races have the same pool of parts

[safe quarry]

So it was probably only viable to do a handful of designs in proper detail.

That's a shame! Tho its funny how they managed to find a way to reuse those assets in a different way.

I always thought the idea of the walking towers was an odd one, now it makes much more sense if they were sat in the files gathering dust and not being used.

[ebon spoke]

on the topic of unused structures, I noticed something really interesting while modding settlement generation yesterday

There's like, a whole system in there to generate procedural 'player bases' owned by NPCs.

[safe quarry]

😮

[ebon spoke]

Added back in Frontiers so I don't think they're ever coming but really neat

[safe quarry]

as in like generate random ones, or take uploaded bases and seed them like POIs?

[ebon spoke]

As in, generate a unique base from a random seed

Settlement buildings already work like that, each one is a little different

It's probably just an early test for the Settlement tech

[safe quarry]

Oh I see. It would've been nice to see that used to dot random little builds we could come across on our travels if they had some sort've function attached.

[lime birch]

Is there anything interesting data mined that might come in the summer update? I saw something about corvette. Not sure what is that

[analog breach]

We dont know much except some textures. We dont know if this corvette will be just a frigate or some multicrew ship. We just need to wait till the update and see

[ebon spoke]

There's also a system to attach base building parts to ships, could be for the corvettes or could be something else

[safe quarry]

I thought there was a file for 'corvetter base' and 'friend's corvette base' or something like that in the files? Which would imply its tied to corvettes?

[grizzled apex]

Not really

[safe quarry]

oh is there not?

[grizzled apex]

There's a parameter which specifies what kind of buildable base you're on for a lot of the game's functions. This includes freighterbases, planetbases, friendPlanetBases etc

The entry that correlates to turning your starship into a portable base is just called ShipBase and FriendShipBase, not directly tied to corvettes.

[safe quarry]

Ah my mistake. Interesting though.

[grizzled apex]

But being added alongside the corvette textures does hint that they might me tied...

[safe quarry]

It certainly implies more than just pasting decals on your ship at least? Although that's all semantics and it could well still be just that.

'shipbase' doesn't necessarily have to mean its a whole base, just like nostromo hinted in the files doesn't mean its actually going to be the nostromo.

But I hope so.

[grizzled apex]

I don't really think they'd retool the base building system just to put decals on your ship, but unless they remake existing ship building to be similar to starfield, I don't see placing parts on your ship being retroactively applied to older ships.

But the component which enables this property is only found on existing pilotable ships and not freighters / frigates iirc (I'll have to check in a bit), so it also seems like it's tied to a pilotable ship?

[icy citrus]

Maybe it's flyable bases and they are just using a ship right now

Zooming around in my little cottage

[safe quarry]

This is all the things I was hoping to hear. Captain Steve had mentioned adding decals and decorations to your ship when he saw your vid, but that felt like a stretch to me (not to mention I feel if they were going to do that then they would use a system similar to putting decals on your exocraft, not the base building UI.)

I noticed how in your test the components vanished as you flew off? I wonder if thats just because its an unfinished mechanic, or because they would despawn them as you are flying to save on rendering?

I imagine since they will be inside the corvette anyway, you wouldn't notice them despawning.

and if the 'bridge' is a fixed asset, that gives the game a few seconds to load them back in once you stop.

I definitely don't think they would add them to the existing ships! If nothing else, there's simply not enough internal space for anything in them currently, and this is after they were already enlarged for the beyond update!

The biggest unknown is whether they will be multi-crew then. It might be pointless to even test this, but did you try with someone stood on one of those base building parts you set down in your experiment just to see what would happen? :p

I guess because you kind of bashed it together, it probably wouldn't even work as intended.

And the gravity is more likely tied to the corvette rather than every single building part.

[grizzled apex]

I think that might just be the system being a lil wonky, since parts would disappear or reapper in different situations. Reloading anywhere the parts seemingly despawned would always bring them back for example. The coolest thing was that base part collisions were valid whenever you got out of your ship, so it isn't just dragging the models around collisionless afaik

[runic mesa]

I just want shuttle fabrication...

[grizzled apex]

I tried to go into the anomaly to see if people could even perceive the base parts, but it's hard to guage a response in a Crossplay lobby 😅

I didn't actually test it with friends, but I did put it out as a mod for people to test themselves too.

[safe quarry]

the sad thing is i can 100% see them saving this for the 10th anniversary... please don't HG!

[runic mesa]

Which was already implied in a trailer

[grizzled apex]

How long's it been since we got ship building? A year and a half?

I'm surprised we got solar ship building before shuttles, when the feature is fully implemented and sitting in the files

Hell, solars took a bit more adjustment to do even when I added them in myself. And I know HG had to make overrides for the model just to fit them into the customizor.

[safe quarry]

Do shuttles have more complexity to the way the parts generate in relation to one another mebbe?

[safe quarry]

Well that answers my question

[grizzled apex]

if we get sentinel ship building before shuttles, there's a reason to riot lol. Those ones are immensely detailed and nested. Making a customizor for those is a pain in the ass (insane work by FF on that mod), so if we ever get those before shuttles, I'll just assume HG forgot shuttles exist.

[grizzled apex]

The 4 base ship types from launch are laid out pretty simply. Most of the newer types post release have more detailed generation rules.

[safe quarry]

I am surprised we didn't get more component parts for ships in general. I get that maybe they don't want to add them to the seeds, but at least a ship manufacturer on the stations with some unique ship parts then? and the fact the iron vulture is the only bespoke ship to give us parts is a crime!

[grizzled apex]

I think that might be good set of QS items to work towards once HG exhaust the new foliage they've added, which may take a while.

[safe quarry]

mhm, and some new textures for them too.

since i imagine they're lower effort.

[grizzled apex]

Titan had a new starship material right?

There's been an unused texture for a rusted starship material since Orbital iirc. Wonder if that'll ever get used.

[safe quarry]

it did, we have had some

i thought we got the rusted? or am i thinking of metal?

I know we've had two

there was a stripy one from titan

and i think a rusted one or metal or something with the iron vulture?

'iron panels'

[sour fossil]

Titan had titan stripes, correct

[safe quarry]

so not rusted.

[sour fossil]

Rusted set was supposed to be expedition reward according to language files

But I think HG used it only for the rare abandoned wreckage spawns on planets

[safe quarry]

I have still only ever seen one of those in the wild.

[sour fossil]

I got it somehow working for my mod and the result was nice IMO

[safe quarry]

Maybe they are saving rusted for when we get a whole load of bespoke autophage ship parts for every class, and they introduce autophage ships as a kitbashed version of regular ships!

[grizzled apex]

I had to make a custom scan event to find my first giant statue structure from relics. Kinda nice to have rare structures instead of beacon spams

[safe quarry]

I want them to do more of this for every biome type. unique natural landmarks for each.

[ebon spoke]

There's the rusted texture set and also the weathered one

weathered one predates ship customization though. It's either entirely unused or is on that opened hauler in the pirate station

[runic mesa]

I still haven't found one of those. Are they purple systems only? Do they show up as POI?

[grizzled apex]

I believe so, and yes they're a full building POI, like factories monoliths etc

[runic mesa]

That's awesome.

[lime birch]

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/1midwgj/is_something_coming/ I think it's fake 😄

[slender raft]

i see but how do i find portals aside from pure luck?

i found one before but not sure where it was now

[snow jungle]

I set up a permanent teleporter next to the second portal I ever found, now I have a euclid portal on demand

[ebon spoke]

You can interact with a monolith a second time after you solve it's puzzle, it will ask you for a culturally significant item and then point you to the planet's portal

You can find the monoliths easily with the alien maps sold by the space station's cartographer

[slender raft]

Are monoliths the huge ruins with fog around them?

[ebon spoke]

yes, the ones that are metal like the portals and knowledge stones

[slender raft]

I kept finding the double small buildings and now found the long slim one that both locate ruins or teach me a word

[ebon spoke]

those are just ruins, different from monoliths

[lime birch]

Can anyone on GOG Galaxy confirm this?

[lunar tinsel]

To upload or allow to die...?

What a choice.

[slender raft]

I interacted with one but it didnt ask me for anything

I cant interact with it a second time

Nvm i located it

[bold dune]

Abandoned wreckage?

Wreckage of what? A crashed ship that's too far gone?

[analog breach]

Ship wreck on planet surface

[celest egret]

for for audience with the autophage does it end when you earn the head of the voltaic staff?

[astral surge]

Yes

You can eventually buy parts to basically create your own staff

[humble kayak]

yk with all this talk of corvettes i dont think i've even thought about how sick they might actually be

i almost prefer HG keeps quiet about it, it makes the surprise (because we could be wrong about all this) all the more potent

[grizzled apex]

Oh hey neat, HG finally updated their press package

https://www.nomanssky.com/press/

Nice to see the current team members laid out there, a lil easier to parse than in-game

sitemap shows a change to the page ~ 5 days ago, seems recent

[bold dune]

Are forerunners...Former staff?

If so, I'm a bit disappointed to learn McKendrick isn't there any more. Dude was one of the big implementers of the procedural generation systems, and also I suspect/hope part of the reason NMS de-emphasizes gender so much.

[grizzled apex]

Innes hasn't been a part of the team for several years now I believe. One of the earliest update announcements mentioned this iirc.

[bold dune]

Yeah I'm just out of the loop. was nice knowing another trans person was on the team so I guess I'm a bit sad he left.

He's a smart dude though so I'm sure he had his reasons

[grizzled apex]

Its kinda crazy that they've listed WP2 as a contemporary update rather than a major release, but that may just be since its not an X.0 update

[bold dune]

Yeah it's a bit insane

It was a half version number at least, wasn't it? 5.50?

[grizzled apex]

yep, jumped from 5.29 to 5.50

[bold dune]

Yeah that sounds about right. Honestly I suspect they have something absolutely nutty for 6.0

[ebon spoke]

They've never been too consistent about which updates get a full .0 number

[bold dune]

True

I think worlds pt.2 being 5.5 makes sense when you consider that worlds pt.1 was 5.0

[ebon spoke]

or even which ones get a .x number as opposed to being a .05 or .01 bump

[bold dune]

Yeah that's fair

Honestly a worlds pt.2 for a bunch of the "left behind" game systems would be nice. Exocraft come to mind.

[humble kayak]

would that potentially be our "summer update"?

[bold dune]

That's my hunch-!

[humble kayak]

It seems fitting

[bold dune]

Honestly if they miss an update cycle but what we get is really good I'm fine with that

[humble kayak]

i'd assume if they thought an update's content was too big for one cycle they'd pre-emptively break it into parts

like Worlds 1 and 2

[glass flare]

I saw they added a role for a Machine Learning (AI) Engineer

Driving new and existing cutting edge features that utilise Machine Learning to generate worlds.
https://hellogames.org/jobs/machine-learning-engineer/

not sure how I feel about that

[grizzled apex]

Huh, strange

They could've left it at the utilize machine learning bit...

Now I'm very interested in LNF's GDC talk, if that ever happens

[glass flare]

considering they list Pytorch and "modern generative diffusion models" this seems geared towards modern AI models. which again, kind of yuck, but I guess it could be interesting to see what they come up with? generating flora and fauna models whole cloth?

[ebon spoke]

Its a strange role to be looking for

running AI models on the end user's machine isn't that feasible for a game like NMS

[glass flare]

I suspect it would likely be asset generation that is then baked into the game

[grizzled apex]

Unless they wanna inflate the user min reqs massively, I don't think they'd be looking to run the actual models in game, but then using it to generate static assets would just be an insult to their art dept

[glass flare]

yeah. I mean maybe using it to generate terrain? at that point it would just be insulting Sean personally lol

[ebon spoke]

You could build biome files (not the art assets) with machine learning, I think some modders have experimented with that approach

[ebon spoke]

They'd have to do that at runtime though

[glass flare]

not if they pre-generate and then bake the terrain into a static model or some kind of mesh system. something I've wondered if they would do with LNF, since it will probably be an unchanging planet

[ebon spoke]

maybe, that would hugely inflate the file size compared to just using algorithms

Although LNF could be always online with that stuff happening server side maybe

[glass flare]

they may just want to experiment and see what they can accomplish with machine learning, if they're just now hiring for the role then whatever they want to do is way off down the road

[grizzled apex]

How old is this listing? the sitemap for HG's site is kinda useless

[grizzled apex]

Im surprised a lot of the roles listed rn are permanent. There was a good chunk of listings on the roles page for a while which were contract based / temporary

[ebon spoke]

Just since February

[grizzled apex]

Ah pretty recent. So they're still just dipping their toes into whatever this is meant to be for it seems.

[ebon spoke]

It may not even be NMS or LNF related

[safe quarry]

I have found a relic planet once in a yellow system, but I didn't go looking to see if there was a golem spawn on it. I imagine its tied to the relic biome rather than purple systems, so its possible they are in yellow systems. HOWEVER, relic planets outside of purple systems are very very very rare.

[safe quarry]

I think as an indie development company who is feeling the bite of Ai and in a place to reject it being used inhumanely, I think they would probably only use Ai in ways that are beneficial to the game without undermining anyone's role in it. I don't think it will be used to generate art assets therefore, probably more to aid in other elements of the game. Or as you said it could be to purely explore what the technology could offer. It even could be something as mundane as bug testing builds. I imagine they would use it where they can to make up for the lack of scale. They're not a big team as it is, so there's no cost cutting to be done there, and I don't think HG is that kind of company anyway.

I saw an interesting article on the way ai is being used to churn content and who it's even for? The conclusion is it was purely for the content creators who are about engagement and making people consume. There's no qualitative value to the viewer (I hate to keep using him as an example, but take Captain Steve's Ai intermissions. What do they add? They're not relevant to NMS, they are nonsensical, and are the ai equivalent of jangling shiny keys in front of someone. They pad out the runtime with noise that wastes everyone's time but the content creator padding out his video runtime.) ai being used to write lore, or create visual content would just be nonsensical noise. There would be no point dissecting lore created by an ai because there's no genuine intent, just pattern learning regurgitated with the illusion of newness. There would be no point taking visual storytelling from art assets created by ai because its interpreting a prompt its own way without the designer's vision.

Now generating terrain, or taking buildings and POIs and placing them with intent on a scale that the artist couldn't do by hand, but can guide the ai on how to place with intent, that has value. That would be taking something the artist has done, and using it at a scale the artist alone couldn't accomplish.

[gloomy isle]

Yeah it's kinda nuts, I'm pretty sure it's up there in terms of the biggest updates we've ever had for the game right?

[grizzled apex]

I would say so. Its also interesting that the contemporary section is just full of 5.X updates, none of the other expansions are anywhere to be seen on the page. And for how big of an impact Sean seems to consider expeditions, they're not even listed as a feature.

Its also kinda funny that the release trailer on the new press kit is a prerelease trailer

[grizzled apex]

Oh I'm certain HG have no plans for the more unsavoury uses of ML. Being an engine programmer himself I know Sean would vehemently oppose incorporating AI tools. Martin's gone on record to talk about the overhype surrounding AI and human role in engineering challenges too

I could see them working with the grassroots algorithms for what they're hiring for to see if it can be incorporated into their main terrain gen tech, and not the actual product of the models

[icy citrus]

By todays standards of "AI", their proc gen algorithms probably count as such to the layperson

[safe quarry]

This is why i found it funny when he made that tweet about wonder if ai was being added to the clock app and certain youtubers took it seriously! I think they missed the joke that it's being added everywhere as the new buzzword, even places that its completely unnecessary (like a clock app.)

[grizzled apex]

Call it a hunch, but I feel like some of them went ahead with rampant speculation despite getting the joke 😅

[safe quarry]

I wonder if they will make the leap from 5.7 to 6.0. I feel this update will be part of the worlds model of updates, so maybe not?

[safe quarry]

Hmm probably! Playing ignorant lets you milk more content.

[molten karma]

If they don't consider World's Part 2 a big update then what are they cooking over there? Maybe a even bigger procgen update? Factions and onground combat with new FPS animations and weapons? Huge ship overhaul adding multicrew ships and interiors? All of the above? Or something else entirely? Im still holding out hope they keep doing variety despite it being really good now. I kind of wonder how the game would look if they just kept focusing on generation instead of fluff.

[safe quarry]

This is my thinking with us getting spoiled with WP2 at the start of the year. Same as we felt spoiled with Orbital at the start of last year only to be surprised with WP1 in the summer.
My hope is they are hard at work on the datamined corvettes, but I would be as happy with a refresh of planetary content for the POIs.

I'd make the argument that Relics and Beacons were both planetary POI focused, soooo.

[grizzled apex]

Sean seems to be emphasizing that they're doing things "the community have given up on". I wonder if that includes a roadmap, or something like the explorer's survey again haha

[safe quarry]

They've got a lot of empty vendor stalls behind those panels in the stations, so they've future proofed adding a lot of them over the years!

[safe quarry]

I gave up on being able to grab the wheel of the freighter on the bridge 8 years ago Sean... just saying! Flyable corvettes would be a great consolation prize, sean! :p

I had certainly given up on them revisiting the water shader a long time ago and resorted to the argh water mod. A beautiful mod that I thought wouldn't be outdone, but what we have today with the waves I could never have imagined.

[icy citrus]

I'd like to see a fauna touch up - I love how weird they can be but I would like to see less clearly where the parts join on many of them - and have some nicer fur

[safe quarry]

I agree, i think they should do a glow-up of some of the older models for faces and parts too. Nothing too drastic to their design, just like they did for all the ship models, a revisit to bring them up to speed!

[icy citrus]

Yep, I don't want an overhaul - just a beautification

[safe quarry]

Oh and the audio. They are all whinny, I would love some haunting gruffer sounds

[slender raft]

I'd also love a behavioral update to Fauna. Making them interact with each other and live in varying places with varying behavior

[safe quarry]

Maybe modulate the sound based on how large they are?

[icy citrus]

Agree to all that

[slender raft]

Maybe interacting would be too much processing though

[safe quarry]

I swear we used to have an ambient creature track that would play sometimes at night and be really eerie.

[icy citrus]

They interact to a degree now - at least marginally with predator/prey

Maybe they will be practicing their herd techniques with LNF and we will get another side benny

[safe quarry]

This actually makes a lot of sense, since they like to pull double duty these days if they can. And since hunting animals will probably be more important in LNF.

[grizzled apex]

1.00 had some really nice audio design imo. Fauna and NPCs sounded a lot more grounded to my ears.

[safe quarry]

I wasn't going crazy then. I thought so. I miss those haunting night cries.

[icy citrus]

The only issue I had with those was that you heard them regardless of fauna being present or not

[slender raft]

Treetop fauna, Interactable flying fauna, swarming fauna, fauna dens, Webs and colonies of varying sizes. Different behavior like they could be wary, curious, playful, stern, short tempered and so on

[safe quarry]

I also don't think they'd give this away in NMS because it would be a USP for LNF, but updated riding mechanic would be nice, rather than it being just a gimmick. Problem with NMS is the variety of mounts makes that challenging.

I wouldn't be surprised if in LNF we have more limited mount options but they are better fleshed out.

[icy citrus]

I rather enjoy the ridiculous riding postures for some of the NMS creatures

[safe quarry]

Oh I don't mind the postures! Just the controls and how they work. encouraging their direction etc.

[slender raft]

Flying cactus octopus moment

[safe quarry]

The only actually useful mounts are the flying ones and especially the sandworm reward from the expedition, he is fast.

[slender raft]

Companion combat could be cool too

Imagine riding a giant bulldozing animal to wreak havoc on the pesky sentinels

[safe quarry]

Would be a good excuse for them to introduce the rhino from the very first ever NMS trailer.

[grizzled apex]

Companions being more Integrated with gameplay overall would be nice

[safe quarry]

And some ambient animations to add to the immersion. The only reason the diplos from the first trailer look so majestic vs what we got is because the current ones are busy waddling everywhere! If they had some grazing animations, sleeping animations, all that sort, it would increase their believability without adding too much computation to them.

[slender raft]

Considering all do have a specific body type/rig. Maybe their parts could shape their capabilities

Making each of them more unique

Sorta like spore

[safe quarry]

I don't know the first thing about programming, so bear with me. But if they could herd the creatures, so they acted under one ai (until the player interfered with them and caused them to scatter) could that let them do more interesting things with them? Have a herd grazing, or migrating. which would be nothing more than them all travelling in a random direction in unison, or all collectively doing an eating animation. Would add to their credibility?

I know crowds are one of the more cpu intensive things you can do, so i don't know if there's ways you can kind of clump a group to behave under one collective ai, so it feels like there's some agency there, and only have them disperse into their own individual ai if the player gets within a certain range of them?

[slender raft]

Inb4 they do that on NMS for LNF testing

[safe quarry]

That's probably why for NMS its more to do with the creature spawning. Not spawning a herd near a cliff only for them to all lemming off of it!

I don't know how feasible it is to spawn fauna based on the terrain. Like having creatures by the coasts bathing and drinking, or grazing on flatter terrain.

[bold dune]

That depends on the scale of the model.

Also, I mean, this could be an ethical use of generative models.

The problem with models is the market effects

Labor market, mostly

It could also be a research thing for them

[slender raft]

I have entered the hilbert dimension

[astral surge]

Congrats on completing the main story

[grizzled apex]

All the news listings on the NMS site are back

[runic mesa]

I actually have a yellow system ruins planet. Really pretty one too. By insane luck, one of the planets in my stater system turned into one. I'll check it for a golem spawn this weekend.

I was mainly wondering if the golem spawn generation is puple only. Since this planet existed pre-WP1/2.

[slender raft]

I hope i can get worlds now

[sour fossil]

I don't think it is exclusive to purple systems

There is / was one person over in creative hub server that found like 50 of these statues

They prolly have the proper info

[ebon spoke]

I don't think the game has the tech to make a given structure exclusive to a star type.

It does have systems to make certain subbiomes exclusive to purple stars specifically but since relic planets can generate anywhere that should also mean that the structures associated with them will be present

[safe quarry]

The fact they're actively amending things means activity that i hope is in prep for the anniversary. But that could be hopium.

[grizzled apex]

I wonder what HG's Chinese partners are doing for the anniversary. They have giveaways and showcases going on quite often, so an anniversary event wouldn't be outta the question.

[safe quarry]

😮 how come we don't get that!

I really hope the community research isn't pointing to a 27th August update.

[grizzled apex]

Sean clearly hates us all and doesn't want us to have fun!!1!

jokes aside though, HG's chinese partners follow fairly standard marketing strategies common in China afaik, and keep directing chinese bug reports to HG

[safe quarry]

the snow spe... utopia speeder is pretty neat!

Is the WP2 trailer being the video on the NMS landing page new?

[grizzled apex]

Nope, been that way since the update dropped

[mint lynx]

China is like a rich uncle who you gotta keep happy to stay in his will lol
Lots of devs do extra stuff for China

[safe quarry]

ignore me then! I was hoping it was a sign that they are definitely fiddling in the back end of the website, which means they are prepping for things to come.

[grizzled apex]

Oop, Sean's back to screenshot posting

[molten karma]

We'll definitely be getting an emoji this week.

[grizzled apex]

In hindsight, a Saturday AND anniversary day really should've been a better emoji day candidate than last week 😅

[safe quarry]

Well it would be the first time for an anniversary tbf! But as soon as i realised the anniversary was a saturday and not a friday, i remember thinking 'oooh no...'

[molten karma]

Wouldn't it be nice to get a early trailer drop for once.

[safe quarry]

That was last thursday, but i held out hope.

[grizzled apex]

I wish they'd do what they did for the Emergence and Desolation releases, but actually drop distorted clips of the trailer instead of just the stock glitch effects from the end

[safe quarry]

picture this... they do one of there anniversary videos going through all the updates, and at the end it does a slow fade to the next update, a starship bridge with you at the helm and other players at the different consoles!

(I shouldn't do this to myself :p)

[grizzled apex]

It's very likely we get another recap reel + teaser, but it'll probably just be a title like echoes

[safe quarry]

But but if they do that then it probably won't be out until the end of the month

27th of August is a wednesday...

[grizzled apex]

Iirc echoes had a 6 day gap b/w teaser vid and release

So it's not totally out of question

[safe quarry]

I am hoping for next wednesday then still.

[grizzled apex]

the only times we've had feature teases pre release were Beyond's new space anomaly and the TGA 10 year trailer showing off new stations I believe

[safe quarry]

and next ofc but that was a full trailer, and the WT2 teases

has been a busy week so far, could do with a weekend pickmeup!

[grizzled apex]

I still wonder what would've happened if the community chose brainwaves instead of video for the final teaser haha

[safe quarry]

hehe i think they just hedged their bets that we'd all be too greedy for the trailer to choose the silly option

[ebon spoke]

I wish they'd released some of the WT2 assets. There was a cool piece of concept art for the combat frigate that had two alternate designs on it, we only ever got a super corrupted version where the clearest of the three was the final version

[grizzled apex]

More concept art overall would be amazing, if not wishing for too much. I jumped when I saw the concepts in the WP1 deep dive

[molten karma]

I'm kind of curious though if they'll update nms past its 10th anniversary though.

[cerulean pelican]

i did not like null screaming at me pleading me to stop. didnt feel great

[glass flare]

we also had the image of the exotic ship that was revealed during the Waking Titan ARG, prior to NEXT's release

[cosmic anvil]

If they don't, that'll be a huge disservice to this universe that they've painstakingly created. Remember after so long only recently was NMS was able to shed it's negative review tag and there are like a decade's worth of ideas that we can see in #nms-the-future so yeahh they should and they will as Hello Games have hinted that Light No Fire and NMS will parallelly grow.

[glass flare]

I think it's like a band... as long as they're having fun and full of creative ideas, they'll keep doing it. when it starts feeling like a chore or when it's only about fulfilling community wishes instead of their own, I imagine they'll move on. who knows when that will be, they probably don't know either

[humble kayak]

well done

[slow osprey]

It won't work if I type something before it. Damn

[humble kayak]

lol i saw both attempts

tragic

[grizzled apex]

I believe Sean's explained before that they don't come into the office and have meetings about shipping XYZ features by the end of the month, and that it's more seeing what the team are enjoying working on, and what's finished enough to release with an update when the time rolls around.

[glass flare]

yeah I wish I had that luxury at my job lol

[cosmic anvil]

Don't we all XD

Then again the NMS team deserves it after the botched launch, the hate, the dissing, the humiliation... They grinded hard to get to where they are right now

[glass flare]

yeah I'm happy for them, they deserve it

[void wigeon]

Hi folks! 👋 I have a question about the quest Path of the Atlas:

I've heard that upon completing the quest, you're given the opportunity to "create" a new galaxy, and upon making this decision, you leave your current galaxy Euclid.

Is it possible to complete this quest so that you simply remain in Euclid afterward? I don't want to leave Euclid, and I want to complete the quest primarily so that I can finally explore the purple solar systems with gas giants soon.

Okay, I just did a little more research myself. I can simply "create a new galaxy" in the end of the quest and then return to Euclid via a portal, right? Is there anything I need to keep in mind? Like, is my freighter stuck in the new galaxy or something and unable to return to Euclid after that?

🙏 Thanks in advance for any helpful input! 🙏

[ebon spoke]

You have the option to just stay in Euclid as well. Going to another galaxy won't get you or any of your stuff stuck so long as you have a base to go back to, but it will damage all the installed technology on your suit, active ship and equipped multitool so be aware of that.

[void wigeon]

Alright, thanks! Then I'll just take the plunge and return to Euclid. With enough repair kits or other appropriate resources in my inventory, the damage shouldn't be a problem, hopefully.

[safe quarry]

I hope if we do get a teaser then it lands on the anniversary. Because the Echoes 7th anniversary didn't drop until the 18th from what I can see, and that was likely so the wait for Echoes wasn't too long from its tease.

[grizzled apex]

If it is another echoes style tease, I wonder if anyone's gonna leak an article about it early again haha

[safe quarry]

Did that happen? I mean I wouldn't complain about that!

Gamescom 2025 ends on 24th August... 27th would be the wednesday after 😒

27th being apt as thats when the community research ends.

[grizzled apex]

Yep, a news journal site accidentally released their launch day article for Echoes early

I jumped to Archive the page before it got taken down 😅

A lot of anniversary updates have had leaks, origins w/ the MS store, Echoes with the leaked article, WPI with a Chinese article

[safe quarry]

Isn't it usually xbox's job to leak the updates prematurely these days :p i remember aquarius being leaked by xbox and i actually didn't believe it.

[grizzled apex]

I don't think they'd time an update around Gamescom. An LNF trailer might make sense though, with a showcase of this year's NMS updates

[safe quarry]

I don't know much about this gamescom, do they even do live announcements?

[grizzled apex]

I'm still a lil baffled that the notification called it "fishing update out now", when they had the name.

But again, I dunno how Xbox advertises updates

Living Ship had a similar unceremonious reveal by steam I believe, right before the release

[safe quarry]

That was fun tho because the living ships started deliberately turning up in the anomaly before anything else

which was such a great sneaky way to tease them ahead of time. I would love them to do a bit more of that.

I don't see HG listed for Gamescom, but I don't know if they are still receiving exhibitors

The one time i hope they are not exhibiting at something because that would almost guarantee they'd delay the update. They delayed Beacon to coincide with Switch 2 afterall.

I feel they'd stay 'loyal' to the games awards as their platform tho.

Looks like Sean did go to gamescom once before launch but it was to do a closed door preview. Gamescom, from the impression i'm getting, is more B2B

I'd say fingers crossed for the anniversary, but if not then Gamescom is the next likely candidate for the emoji ;-;

I feel considering the game still has some outlying (and significant) bugs, we'd still be seeing experimental patches if the update was a ways out?

[grizzled apex]

The whole hidden questline with the whispering eggs was super fun, loved the little tease it gave and the goose chase we got sent across haha

[grizzled apex]

There's usually 20 ish days or so b/w the last patch of an update and the next update recently, going by the wiki's patch notes page. That'd line up well with a next week release likely

[safe quarry]

🤞

I had a little scare thinking about Gamescom lining up with the community research ending, but I think there's far more factors pointing to next week.

• Your point about the last patch.
• The server side expedition.
• The anniversary.
• Updates to the website (expecting traffic are we? :p)
• The fact we're now out of the 6-8 average week goal of HG between updates during their live period of the year.
• Sean Murray active(ish) on twitter.

I still don't know if community research is even a good measure of when a new update might drop anymore tbh.

[safe quarry]

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/comments/1mjtrsr/i_found_the_atlas_crashed_on_a_planet/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Someone found an Atlas station embedded in a planet, and now I kind of want temples to be that big!

[sour fossil]

I don't think that's legit

Atlas stations spawn at specific places at systems with specific solar system indexes

[analog breach]

Check coords and find out

[sour fossil]

So can't explain it using purple systems and giant planets

I'm at work right now. I might check it later

But the gut feeling says something is no yes as we say around here

[safe quarry]

Maybe the bi-product of a mod they have installed messing with that then?

[sour fossil]

In theory it's possible to spawn atlas station as a structure on the planet

[safe quarry]

Had a nosey through the comments and people who visited say they see it in the coords its supposed to be in, so maybe a glitch their side? No mods involved.

[ebon spoke]

see it in a pretty normal place on my end

In their post they claim that exact Atlas station placement can vary by player. In my experience of visiting the same stations on different platforms that doesn't seem to be true and even if it is, the stations are always around the same distance from the space station. The planet that the coords lead to isn't close enough for it to seem like a feasible explanation

also I see a different space station

[slender raft]

I completed the first purge is it normal for the mission to remain?

[grizzled apex]

merch page's back

https://www.nomanssky.com/merch/

looks like they might be planning more after all

[ebon spoke]

nice

wasn't the merch page part of the HG website before?

[grizzled apex]

yep, they never had it on the NMS site before

[humble kayak]

Something tells me there's much more to this than meets the eye

I'm just a layman, I don't have the context or know-how that you guys have but the merch page is peculiar

It could just be another location for the youtooz since those drop on the ninth, but it'd be odd to only have one merchandise item on an entire dedicated page

But I wonder if there's more to be revealed w/ the anniversary

[grizzled apex]

Did their last supplier shut down? If so, they might be spreading their merch drops across different suppliers, with drops slated for different dates?

[runic mesa]

@grizzled apex just curious. There's no information on the expedition loaded up server side, right? Just the activity acknowledging that it happened?

[grizzled apex]

Nope, closest thing we can find out is the start date, and thats only when HG pushes it

[runic mesa]

And often that date is a placeholder, right?

[grizzled apex]

If its a major update + expedition, the start date might not be set until after the update drops too

[grizzled apex]

the start date rn is a placeholder (<t:7258118400>), but the one HG sets is generally the final decided start time

They've done a few last minute adjustments at times, but usually only by a few hours

[runic mesa]

And when is the anniversary proper?

[grizzled apex]

9th August, which works great w/ a potential emoji drop day imo

[runic mesa]

Saturday, yeah that's frequently an emoji drop day.

[grizzled apex]

Their main acknowledgement of the anniversary is usually vague on the exact date (most of the look back videos have dropped after any anniversary date has passed), but I believe most people celebrate that one since its the first nms release day

[ebon spoke]

Yeah, from what I can gather Freshmerch rebranded to Freshstore then shut down. Now there are two unrelated companies using both names

[grizzled apex]

ah thats pretty unfortunate. hopefully the plushes stay up for longer with a more reliable suppliers like youtooz, and whoever else they may be partnering with if we get more merch.

[mint lynx]

I'm surprised no emoji yet I've been more active here waiting to see it
It feels late lol

[grizzled apex]

Some people (myself included) thought we'd get it last week, but the anniversary this weekend is probably a better date to drop it on 😅

i was planning on getting both, but if we do get more stuff announced on the anniversary (or just dropping throughout the year) i'll probaby hold off on that plan for now

[mint lynx]

Imo would be better to drop the update on anniversary but what do I know nothing lol

[molten karma]

Probably far fetched but since Sean used to work at EA and with the massive hype around Battlefield 6 I wonder if they're gonna delay releasing the update until the two beta weekends are over because I feel a lot of news sites and eyes are on Battlefield right now so it'd make sense for the update to come out more around the end of August instead.

Last beta day is the 17th

It still affects news circulation though. News sites will most likely prioritize Battlefield over NMS.

It just depends if they want to try to push more copies to people who haven't bought the game yet because even though the love for the community is the main driving factor they need to think whats financially better to.

[grizzled apex]

given how many times update release articles have leaked, i fel likeHG just hand the major outlets an article and ask them to schedule a release if they're willing (in a sense).

[molten karma]

That makes sense however I kind of notice as NMS gets older we don't get much updates between October to December which is usually the time big triple A games release so its like they set their holiday and expedition reruns to take a break but also avoid being overshined by COD releases and whatever else usually comes out in those months. I know there's a lot but just don't care about general gaming as much as I used to.

I don't know what I'm trying to get at with this I'm just spewing nonsense like a idiot but I do think if they're cooking a bigger update they don't want to overlap with big franchies to much that eat away at the press.

I definitely think we'll be getting something this weekend but not sure if the update will release next week though.

[nimble elk]

So in the lore the atlas' physical form is on earth right?

[late edge]

Ye

[nimble elk]

How do we know that hg doesn't actually have the atlas

[astral surge]

ummmmm....we don't

[sharp hare]

I just finished meeting atlas for the first time and being super confused and disoriented until a checklist came up of dialogue options for why did the player go to the portal: to save Artemis, to kill sentinels or just because I can

The third option somehow brought a lot of reassurance because I really don’t care to find someone nor the sentinels

I just want to learn of the world

It’s moments like this that the game really didn’t tell us about at all as the goal of the quest line but instead it’s the whole core of gameplay cycle being there is somehow great writing

[glass flare]

on Earth? it was never stated what world it was on. Atlas is on a world with a black hole nearby, so either it would have to be millions of years in the future or (more likely) it's on a world in a different star system far in the future after other worlds were colonized by people from Earth

[little scroll]

It's also entirely possible that the Atlas just... doesn't exist, right? It could just be a computer program.

[glass flare]

well sure, but if you start to go down that road then the whole story of an AI abandoned by its creator and having to deal with that loss and grief and its own mortality starts to become meaningless

[astral surge]

ok you're now making my head spin with this

[little scroll]

Welll.... isn't that kind of one of the main points of the game? Finding meaning where there is none and having a good time?

[safe quarry]

Do we have a precedence for emojis on a friday? I am just thinking, the emoji tomorrow would be a bit anticlamactic for the larger community. We think most of the community knows about the emoji, but its really us fans, most of the casual NMS audience I doubt keeps on top of discord, sean murray's twitter, etc, and only notice a trailer and tease drop? So it would make most sense to do emoji today if there's going to be an anniversary or update name drop tomorrow?

[sour fossil]

Emoji is anticlimactic

What world you live in

Hype hell breaks loose when emoji drops

[grizzled apex]

If they go down the Frontiers and Echoes route, the emoji would probably just be part of the big list Sean drops alongside the trailer looking back

[sour fossil]

it really is us fans that pay mind

Well it's a bit hard to get traction for a 9yo game at this point

[safe quarry]

I was thinking back and tried to remember if that was the case.

[sour fossil]

So I don't see anything strange about people who've sticked with the game reacting first

[grizzled apex]

Hell echoes didn't exactly have an emoji except for a generic ❔, until it was retroactively assigned 🔊 in one of the later emoji lists

[sour fossil]

Then news outlets covering the new update and bringing the info to the masses

[safe quarry]

Yes exactly.

The emoji is more for people waiting with baited breath. The trailers and anniversary videos are for a wider audience.

[sour fossil]

No they aint

Game isn't popular enough to have random folks to get on the hype train based on a video

[safe quarry]

Most news outlets like IGN post the anniversary vids too

[sour fossil]

Sure they know NMS being one of the biggest redemption arcs in gaming

[safe quarry]

by 'casual audience' i mean the wider majority of NMS players

[sour fossil]

But that isn't enough to draw masses, NMS as it is doesn't have the numbers

Hence premade articles that drop really quick after update goes live

Or in case of Echoes even before lol

[safe quarry]

even among the community we think the emojis are synonymous with NMS fans, but they're not. They synonymous with fans who are active on discord and reddit

which does not actually make up the majority of NMS' players.

[sour fossil]

Emojis aren't synonymous with anything or anyone

The only reason is to get the specific part of community excited

[safe quarry]

that's what i'm saying 😅

[sour fossil]

Yeah I don't get what you're trying to say

[safe quarry]

as in the majority of NMS casual players probably don't even know about the emoji back and forth with sean

[sour fossil]

Your taking the emoji and turning it into some big point for the big community

Which it ain't and never will be

Because the game ain't and never will be

[safe quarry]

so to drop it among the anniversary would go over most peeps heads

[safe quarry]

quite the contrary

I am saying for most of the NMS community it wouldn't mean anything

only us who are active in the community even know about the emoji drop.

which is why i was asking why he might separate it from the broader communication meant for most people.

like the anniversary and trailer videos which go out to media

but as @grizzled apex pointed out, he just sneaks it in there among the rest of the tweets for those in the know

[grizzled apex]

I think HG recognizes the niche that they're targeting with the emojis and address that subsection of fans specifically; when the WP2 emoji dropped, they posted to linkedin about "sending the community in a frenzy" with a few Reddit posts mentioned. Could be that they see that overly active part of the community as their main marketing focus for these emojis though.

[safe quarry]

yes that's what i am saying ^.^ I was just asking if they might post the emoji today just to prepare us fans for the wider announcement tomorrow.

[grizzled apex]

They've got a pretty robust gameanalytics setup to track player activity, so they definitely know about the percentage of players who only drop in when there's update announcements

[safe quarry]

😅 I think my 'do you think they might consider dropping the emoji today ahead of the anniversary for us fans' question got blown out of proportion!

I wasn't discussing if there was a difference, I was acknowledging that the emoji is just for hardcore fans, ans asking if because of that, maybe they would consider doing it earlier as a subtle wink to us 😅

like a 'keep your eyes open, its coming'

In short it was a bit of a hopium post for something today mebbe.

[grizzled apex]

They kinda did something similar with origins with the early emoji drop and then a post w/ the key art / release announcement, but that was a while back

[safe quarry]

🤞

[sour fossil]

Yeah no I still don't get it and I don't have any clue or anything nice to say

HG does what HG does, we either roll with it or we can yell at the clouds

[safe quarry]

Hardcore fans > Emoji, Rest of the casual audience > Trailer and Anniversary video.

So an emoji on its own for the anniversary would just go right over the casual audience's heads.

and be a bit of an anticlimactic 9th year celebration

[grizzled apex]

A lot of casual fans probably won't realize it's the anniversary either unless it's announced as such though imo, so it probably won't come off as disappointing or underwhelming to them

[safe quarry]

That's true! Without the trailer they wouldn't be any the wiser.

and even then, only when its pushed to other media outlets. Most casual fans probably aren't on Sean watch.

[spiral basin]

Don’t worry I follow what you’re saying xD But yes I think he’d just sneak it in among most of his other tweets as he usually does. His Twitter in general is for us fans who are anticipating news. Casual fans probably won’t even be watching Sean’s Twitter and will only notice when the anniversary video goes wide.

[humble kayak]

Based on previous anniversary events/updates, what exactly can we expect in the next coming days?

Emoji(s) are a given, sure, and I'm sure Sean will put a tweet or two out, but in times like these have there been other things put out, like a video or announcement for instance?

I've only been half-involved with no mans sky up until worlds part 1, and I only found that out on sheer chance so I wasn't following HG during the anniversary

[analog breach]

We have no idea what future update content can have.

[grizzled apex]

Anniversaries don't really have much of a pattern. We can't even be completely sure there's something coming till the emoji drops

[safe quarry]

I am hoping for an ice-cream emoji but i think the reasoning would go over the head of anyone not in the UK!

But it would be in keeping with some of Sean's sillier puns like the Orange for Origins.

[runic mesa]

manifests Saturday emoji drop

[glass flare]

yeah tomorrow is the anniversary, I hope we get something

[uncut harness]

wrong channel see #nms-lore

🔥

also i guess u should delete your messages bc these are spoilers

[sharp hare]

Oh I thought it’s sensitive story moments oop

[humble kayak]

i thought story spoilers were still allowed here

since the channel description still allows them

[uncut harness]

okk sorry

didnt read all too well

[sharp hare]

It’s ok I was yapping anyways lol

[humble kayak]

to play it smart solomon it probably is best to use nms-lore but I see people use these channels interchangably anyways

[cosmic anvil]

as a member of a Commonwealth country, I must ask that you please share with us ... what does an ice-cream mean in the UK??😭 😭

[molten karma]

No emoji yet. 😦 I wonder if we'll have to wait another week.

[gloomy isle]

He posts emojis at night quite a lot iirc, plus he'll at least mention the anniversary today

But it's before 2pm still so there's plenty of time

[zenith perch]

If anything were to happen today it'd probably be an anniversary trailer.

I'd not get your hopes up thinking something is guaranteed to happen.

I'm not expecting anything today personally minus that merch store launch.

[river surge]

Rip

[cosmic anvil]

I assume only live service or gacha games tend to do that

A lot of other games simply put up a JPG or an X post

[muted ermine]

Is it possible to miss the quest where you earn the cape and hood?

I’m over 100 hours in and haven’t seen any quests?

I did google it and watching a you tube video.

After watching it it looks like I did it, with a forged passport and took it to a space station and disrupted the records but the hood is still missing?

[native carbon]

im back 😈

also where in the world is the emoji mr. Sean like todays the perfect day for one

[white edge]

you said that like, last week

[native carbon]

yeah

but

todays the perfect day for one

[white edge]

this guy

[native carbon]

even more perfect then last week

i just want ma NMS to be fixed ok 🙏

plsssssssss 🙏

@grizzled apex any news while i was gone?

[grizzled apex]

Not sure when you went, so I can't say

[native carbon]

i went like 5 days ago

was not active here at all

[analog breach]

No news about new update or expedition

[native carbon]

Im still shocked that theres no emoji yet like

[analog breach]

Not big of a deal for me. I have games to play in the meantime

[native carbon]

Same, just sayin

I dont really care about the update i just want em to fix some of the bugs that makes the game not fun anymore

For me

[ebon spoke]

It could still be like two weeks before the emoji, summer updates have come towards the end of August before

[native carbon]

Nah closer, its cuz they already stopped releasing patch notes

The game is in the buggiest state ive ever seen, i doubt they would just stop making new patch notes

[analog breach]

Yes. Its very out of patern behavior from HG. Lets just hope it means something special and awesome is coming 🤞

[native carbon]

Yup, i just want em to fix the visual bug of underwater props and fauna

Like this is bad

[analog breach]

Report every bug. Maybe u will end up in HG VIP mail spambox

[ebon spoke]

I just want them to fix the distance fog on VR. It's been missing on PC since Worlds Part II, lol.

[native carbon]

Im already here cuz of the skibedi meme i send em by accident

[native carbon]

Okay that hurts

[analog breach]

Maybe they liked it so much that whole HG studio is now a brainrot hell . Thats why we have no emoji yet

🚽

[native carbon]

They are all reading newspapers on the toilets

[grizzled apex]

An HG "pattern" is very unreliable. They like mixing up their delivery methods a lil every once in a while without much warning

[native carbon]

Since like omega update they always like stop with patch notes 2-3 weeks before an update

Like, i bet theres an update sometime soon, cuz the game is stull buggy at the moment and they just stopped doing patch notes rn, that only means there has to be an update soon

I dont see any other reason on why

But again, long time passed since the last patch, i thougbt we would for sure get an update in the previous week

If we aint getting an emoji till like idk, 1pm sunday ima be very shocked

It can drop any minute now but.. i doubt it ngl

[mint lynx]

The emoji is gunna be a 🍆

[runic mesa]

It's 6:36pm in the UK right now. Still time.

Though there's really no precedent anymore. (Except for the holiday expedition rerun, which has always happened. So far)

And I believe one of the recent emoji drops was a Sunday...

[mint lynx]

I've been more active here waiting for the update but it's about to be mid August and nothing lol

[faint remnant]

They may be waiting for the plushies to drop 😄

[runic mesa]

The plushie line is due launch in little over an hour.

[runic mesa]

Great minds. 🙂

[native carbon]

Sean posted a screenshot of some random reddit post celebrating nms 9th anniversary

[ebon spoke]

we'll just get another one of these in the next couple hours

There's not precedent to expect anything else, really

[runic mesa]

Same, there's nothing on his Bluesky

[native carbon]

I guess we aint getting anything today

The lamest saturday ever

[runic mesa]

We likely at least get a post of the plushie launch in an hour

[native carbon]

cool

[runic mesa]

I have a printed NMS book designed to log favorite planets, etc that my sister found online and gave me for Christmas last year. But I don't think that was authorized by HG

[native carbon]

Aaany minute now

[runic mesa]

She is. 🙂 She's 9 years younger than me, but we're both huge gamers.

[glass flare]

it's always been wild to me how little HG has produced official merch for NMS when we have such a hardcore community who would eat that stuff up

But yeah I don't expect anything today except a general "yay 9th anniversary". it would be nice if they could time updates with it but it's probably not easy

[grizzled apex]

I don't think that's been out of choice, moreso with trying to find a reliable production partner.

I suspect they've split up the next few drops across different providers to prevent what happened with fresh merch, but that's just my two cents

From what @ebon spoke said, it seems they rebranded to fresh store, and eventually shut down, with both prior names being in use by other, unrelated companies now

Probably why they'd scrutinize their next merch line up better before a new launch

[native carbon]

Any minute

Aany

[native carbon]

my copium machine is malfunctioning

HOLLUP

!!!!1211!1

emoji now sean pls 👉 👈

[runic mesa]

Called it

[native carbon]

where emoji

we need the :insert emoji here:

[white edge]

but there is an emoji

[frigid valley]

We have a few surprises planned, including collaborating with youtooz to bring you something a bit special.

What is he up to?

[native carbon]

EMOJI PLSSS

[dense quartz]

My guess is always more NMS content. We don't really have any reason to believe it's LNF related, but we can only hope.

[white edge]

they wouldn't hype it up on the NMS page like that if it were LNF related, I'm pretty sure

[frigid valley]

One day Sean will post 🔥 and everyone will lose their minds

In the meantime we can wait and see what those other surprises are

[grizzled apex]

I wonder if it's surprises planned for the year in general like they mention at the end of each post, or anniversary specific

[white edge]

lol

[nimble elk]

sean plush ofc

[frigid valley]

Wording kinda implies related to the anniversary

Youtooz are for the anniversary so them being included in planned surprises, at least to me, sounds like suprises for the anniversary

I always read too much into everything

Sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm not

[grizzled apex]

Ah good point, one can definitely hope haha.

Whatever the surprises are, I feel like we're gonna have to wait longer than we thought to find out though

[ebon spoke]

'a few surprises' could just be two things, the plushies are included so the other could just be that an update is coming soon

[runic mesa]

I wonder if late August is more likely after all... hmm. Literally no way to predict anything with HG these days now.

(And we still haven't gotten an explanation for the racing flags in the Orbital trailer a while ago)

I'm personally hoping for more Void Mother storyline. In Stellar Multitudes felt like a prolonged to me IMO

[grizzled apex]

I'm pretty sure that was just an earlier design for the guild envoy?

Oh my bad, I think I'm confusing the trailer with the TGA teaser

That one had a number of marked differences with the final stations

[ebon spoke]

Yeah it was a very different version of the layout

[runic mesa]

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Ah, that does explain it, being a prototype.

[native carbon]

While we are waiting for something my monitor got cancer

[glass flare]

isn't he just talking about the plushie collab he's announcing there in the post?

[runic mesa]

I'm just lowkey disappointed because racing NPCs sounds fun lol

[native carbon]

Multiple surprises INCLUDING youtooz

So nope not only em

[glass flare]

quad-cannon surprise

[mint lynx]

Put the emoji in the bag

I'm going to go camp outside their office

[glass flare]

maybe emoji tomorrow and then a few days of teasing

[mint lynx]

Its already Sunday

[glass flare]

Apple will probably release their Mac and iOS updates next month, so I guess the worst case is we don't see a big update until then

[mint lynx]

[glass flare]

that will feature DLSS and frame interpolation support with Metal 4, which should be a good performance boost for Macs

[mint lynx]

This is worse than the time Minecraft delayed releasing copper tools

[native carbon]

that will be too late + trust me its not gonna be that late like trust me they already stopped making patch notes which usually means an update is coming, the game is in the buggiest state ive ever seen rn and i doubt they would just leave it as it is for weeks

[gloomy isle]

Yeah probably

[glass flare]

as a NMS veteran since 1.0, trust me when I say it's not in the buggiest state the game has ever been lol

[native carbon]

"ive ever seen"

if no emoji tomorrow im muting myself for 5 years

[mint lynx]

The bones update was as buggier
Just exposed the autophage and stopped ships from landing

[runic mesa]

...it's 3pm Saturday were I am.

[gloomy isle]

The way they worded the post kinda indicates that the surprises they have planned are in relation to the anniversary, so it's pretty probable we're gonna get an update soonish

[gloomy isle]

Not for HG

[native carbon]

yeah but they fixed em

[native carbon]

look at this

my oceans 😭

[glass flare]

reminds me of the asteroid fields which just disappear and reappear randomly (on PS5)

[native carbon]

we need update asap man, i really hope for the emoji tomorrow

[runic mesa]

Fishing helms unlocks are still broken tho. And the 5 still missing bones from Relics

[mint lynx]

🏃‍➡️

[native carbon]

please, Sean

let one of the surprises be an update

[glass flare]

would that really be a surprise tho, it's kind of expected

[native carbon]

please.

kindly please

[runic mesa]

Is it just me or does the water get broken on at least one platform per update..?

[native carbon]

please

[glass flare]

surprise would be like announcing support for iPads

[native carbon]

how is a update not a surprise lmao, like we dont know at all what they will add

[mint lynx]

They should release a switch port of nms

[white edge]

but nms is already on switch...

[runic mesa]

Speculation: maybe the upcoming expedition is a surprise collab with someone too?

[glass flare]

i'm just saying everyone expects August updates at this point, it's tradition. i hope you get your water fix soon

[native carbon]

s u b n a u t i c a c o l l a b

[gloomy isle]

An update will probably come soonish, looking for hints in the anniversary message won't bring it out faster

[runic mesa]

Have I got great news for you. 😉

[white edge]

no, but it'll give the community something to do

[native carbon]

no

[mint lynx]

Holy shit

[glass flare]

if they didn't want us to look for hints they wouldn't have made us play Waking Titan

[native carbon]

sean please

[gloomy isle]

Meh, that was years ago now and they didn't make it. It's just a nice message

[native carbon]

also sean posting screenshots like out of nowhere usually means an update is coming, source: i made that up

[white edge]

GASP IT'S A HEART CAPE

@earnest nebula

WHUH

😭

[glass flare]

..it was a joke... do I need to put /s on this server

[earnest nebula]

HUH

WHATS GOING ON HERE

WHY'VE I BEEN SUMMONED

😨

[white edge]

heart cape

[native carbon]

is that new or smth?

[white edge]

i haven't seen one in-game already

[native carbon]

WAIT

[white edge]

if there is

[gloomy isle]

Probably, I can't figure out tone in person let alone in text 😂😂

[native carbon]

TEASERRRRRRR :EYES :EYES 👀

[earnest nebula]

will you be the heart to my cape

[white edge]

no

[earnest nebula]

why

[grizzled apex]

I think it's a lil late for an emoji now. The anniversary message reads a bit like "hey, it's coming and we'll let y'all know when it's here", so probably setting the emoji back another week or so (imo)

[mint lynx]

Damn

[glass flare]

"the planets are aligned..... for a new update!!"

[native carbon]

please no

[earnest nebula]

technically

he dropped 😍

[analog breach]

Who summons me

[native carbon]

like the only reason why i even expect an update this week is cuz of they stopping making patch notes

[grizzled apex]

I feel like dropping that and an anniversary post wouldn't make much sense. Why not just talk about it in the anniversary post, or have a Frontiers style tease?

[analog breach]

Emoji as commnet for plush post . Hold your horses

[earnest nebula]

NO STOP 😭

[earnest nebula]

ik, im joking

[native carbon]

please 😭

[mint lynx]

🥀

[native carbon]

@grizzled apex nah but jokes aside u saying next week? thats sooo long.....

[runic mesa]

...where's the barf emoji

[glass flare]

that's a nice sunset. would be nicer if they lasted more than 10 seconds. (please give me longer day/night cycles Sean)

[native carbon]

👉 👈

[grizzled apex]

Hell, if you take the community mission end date as any indication (which there's no full evidence towards either / or), we'd be waiting till the 27th

[native carbon]

guys in the background we can spot this thing, is this a teaser for upcoming update?

[native carbon]

i veeeery doubt that, like they already stopped making patch notes

[grizzled apex]

We've gone months without an update too. Not recently sure, but that logic could apply retroactively to HG's patterns too, which were all broken at some time

[native carbon]

sigh i just want to enjoy nms again maaan

[runic mesa]

I think the only pattern that hasn't been broken is the expedition rerun happening

[native carbon]

the bugs make the game not enjoyable for me

[mint lynx]

What bugs you be having

[grizzled apex]

It's probably the easiest one for HG to maintain, unless they decided to go ham on the expeditions past 4 someday haha

[runic mesa]

I think we might be getting another 3 expedition year tho. Just a hunch

[native carbon]

fauna is fucked up, and water rendering is also fucked up

[humble kayak]

"a few surprises planned" sean explain wtf this means

possible ARG?

[native carbon]

yup

[grizzled apex]

Whatever this next one is might not leave much time for a 4th before the reduxes. I wonder if they'd rerun an older exped to make it up though

[native carbon]

emoji 🙏

pls

[runic mesa]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. If the expedition doesn't start for another week or two, that's a very tight window to squeeze in another before November/December.

Maybe Pioneers or Emergence remix? I wouldn't say no...

[glass flare]

I don't see them doing another ARG. I don't think Alice & Smith is even doing much with ARGs now

[grizzled apex]

I wouldn't mind a singularity 2.0 which goes deeper into the arg aspect honestly

[native carbon]

its over for today, sunday is our last hope

[grizzled apex]

Something small and home run, but still an "alternate" reality game instead of translating hex codes from text boxes would be neat

[mint lynx]

Guys i have a emoji for you : 🍳

[grizzled apex]

(and hopefully they don't leave the most interesting clues in an early patch again 😛)

[humble kayak]

i know damn well my dumbass wouldnt be able to even start to figure out an ARG (or an activity with ARG elements)

But

[humble kayak]

It would be nice to see the community go on a scavenger hunt for lore

I wasn't here to see the last two

or however many there's been

[native carbon]

😢

[runic mesa]

Another set of special Nexus missions would be cool. I wasn't playing when they did the Ariadne stuff.

[grizzled apex]

they did leave that storyline on a cliffhanger. wonder if they'll ever revisit it

[glass flare]

Waking Titan ARG was honestly some of my best NMS memories. It was really frustrating at times too and didn't make the wait for an update any easier, but damn... even if they just brought back the actress who played Emily to reprise her role for an anniversary message or something, that would be fantastic

[runic mesa]

Maybe for next year's 10 year? That would be neat

[glass flare]

they gotta go to 16

[mint lynx]

Update 17 is a marketable plushie

[runic mesa]

Revisting it + tying to VM stuff would be cooool, imo

Forever asking "where's part 4, HG? Where??"

Echoes was quality tho. And I had to wait over two weeks for it because of a Nintendo delay. Worth it.

[grizzled apex]

S2 was inherently tied to the VM, hell our actions during it probably allowed for all of her shenanigans that we see today, so I do hope they'll close that chapter off when the VM arc ends too

[glass flare]

I don't do the weekend missions so I missed all the hijinks going on at the Anomaly. But yeah I'd love to have physical changes with smaller story beats on a more ongoing basis. The expeditions are all generally bottle episodes which have no impact on the main storyline

[grizzled apex]

I'm still waiting to take up Apollo's offer of a drink before the end times 😛

[molten karma]

I kind of wonder if we'll see the emoji tomorrow if not its probably delayed another week or two. Seeing Sean be active is a good sign but he can easily disappear for another week. I kind of hope we see a Worlds Part 3 at some point that improves fauna, pois, and just adds more color variety to everything, planets, flora, space, stations, etc... Kind of like what Visions did to NEXT.

[runic mesa]

I'm still waiting on a way to restore Artemis

[mint lynx]

I kill Artemis everytime

[runic mesa]

Also, remember when HG teased that the choice you made at the end of the Singularity expedition would have lasting effects? And then nothing happened except helm unlocks? Lol

[grizzled apex]

with how much HG seems to be averse to your decisions having meaningful consequences, I 100% expect them to revive artemis no matter what choice you made

or just kill em for everyone

[runic mesa]

I was kinda hoping we eventually get the choice to have Artemis revived in an Autophage body. But, hopeium.

[glass flare]

yeah choosing to take the side of VM or Atlas, I thought would be a big turning point but no...

imagine if they had respected our choice back then, and then fast-forward to Worlds. we could have chosen to tell the Atlas about VM's plans, and our mission would be to thwart them. and then as a reward Atlas gives us a different set of new planets

[late tusk]

im still waiting for a way to get artemis's outfit....

[runic mesa]

And you could get around it by save scummimg for both helms anyway...

[molten karma]

I kind of wonder if that had an effect on Worlds. Can you imagine if we chose the opposite it would've been a total universe reset instead of just adding new systems?

[grizzled apex]

Still wonder if Sean misspoke here, or if feature creep set in for the ending

Maybe they're more interested in releasing part 3.500x for some more buildup than part 4 haha

To be fair, this is also the article which made this claim, which still hasnt come true either

[runic mesa]

ISTR they never officially said Echoes was part 3 either. Though it very likely was

After Singularity, all references to part 2, etc stopped entirely

[ebon spoke]

I feel like they might have just forgotten to mention that the fourth part was part of the arc when it released

There are a number of things that could have been it, right?

[runic mesa]

Ehhh. Omega and Orbital were after Echoes. Omega being part 4 is... a stretch

[grizzled apex]

Singularity was definitely intended to be a precursor to Echoes, so I don't see it not being part 3. WPII could be a strong part 4 contender since it seems to be the end of the Void Mother's own prediction of the coming eras.

[runic mesa]

Yeah. If we did get part 4, the only logical candidate is WP2 because of In Stellar Multitudes

[native carbon]

Sunday man, pleaseee

[grizzled apex]

this line from They who returned seemingly foreshadowing WPII makes me think this might be the end , since the VM has been restored. Logically this should lead to some sort of confrontation or resolution b/w VM and the Atlas, but like the rogue data predictors for the Atlas' future, we might be at the end of the VM's predicted future.

[runic mesa]

I think the issue is that few want to consider WP2 being part 4 as In Stellar Multitudes is a rather quick and anticlimactic ending to the whole thing.

[grizzled apex]

there's 0 evidence for this except for a scrapped atlas warp gate encounter w/ a similar naming scheme to In Stellar Multitude's reward IDs, but I feel like In Stellar Multitudes might've been cut back to ship with WPII to explain the new systems, with the aftermath being delivered in a later update as the "true" end to the storyline

[analog breach]

Imo its not sean. Its someone who just works on writing stuff on site and does not have deep knowledge about the game

[runic mesa]

I really hope this is true. It felt like such a hallow closure.

Ideally, I hope expedition 19 is another Singularity. A prelude to a big lore focused update

[grizzled apex]

Given that we're yet to see The Atlas' true appearance at the center of the galaxy, I feel like we won't see a full Atlantid manifestation. Maybe a few "glitches in reality" where she can slip through and talk to us directly though

[runic mesa]

(I was hoping The Cursed would be Singularity 2.0 and then it turned out not to be...)

[grizzled apex]

With it being numbered 19, I feel like it'd be a big miss for it to not be tied to VM

[analog breach]

I wonder if sean will post emoji on 23 uk time . Within hour

He did few late posts in past

[native carbon]

Is this the secret atlas bossfight that one article was talking about

[grizzled apex]

Damn how could I forget the secret atlas boss fight.

it was so tragic watching laylaps sacrifice itself to save the last traveller!

[tough sigil]

No you

[runic mesa]

Lmao

[native carbon]

Maaaybe tomorrow

Who knows

[analog breach]

Maybe in 5min maybe next month.

[glass flare]

hm one of those "surprises" could be a LNF trailer

[humble kayak]

dont tell r/LightNoFire that

they'll riot if we're wrong lmao

[glass flare]

heh it's probably not, probably all NMS-focused stuff, but one can hope

[astral surge]

Who has better morals The Atlas or the Void Mother?

[glass flare]

I'm not sure the Atlas has ever had morals or the concept of morality. Developmentally it seems more like a small child but with the power of a god. It's a control freak and wants to keep everything in a perfect balance, which isn't reality. I don't think it really has a sense of empathy, and can you have morals without empathy?

Void Mother feels a kinship with the Autophage, and that kinship, and a sense of community perhaps, represents a basis for morality to play out. OTOH the VM seems to see no issue with corrupting millions of worlds and rewriting code with nanites in order to pursue her goals. So it's not like either of them are in the running for AI of the Year.

[astral surge]

Hmmm interesting

[humble kayak]

dont think we're getting an emoji today

possibly tomorrow still but i don't have much hope :/

HOWEVER, if we don't get an update this week and it comes later, I'd say thats a pretty good indication that we're getting something big

[native carbon]

Ah yes a lnf trailer for 9th NMS anniversary

[native carbon]

Yeaaah guys see ya all next week, maybe we will get an emoji or something

[safe quarry]

I think to save yourself the heartache, I wouldn't expect an update now until the 27th, so no news next weekend, but maybe the weekend after.

[native carbon]

Why 27th?

[analog breach]

Community reaserch bar

[safe quarry]

That's when the community research is set to end, and they will run out of items in the back end to push to the quicksilver store. So at the very least they'd update it then if only to refresh the store.

[native carbon]

I doubt that tbh

[safe quarry]

I would have too, but we are more than two weeks past the las experimental update. They've already shown they don't have an issue with leaving the game in the state it currently is, what's another two weeks?

[native carbon]

Wanna know why?
When the cursed expedition launched they added the WP1 plant baseparts, but they made em available like months later

[safe quarry]

Yes but they have nothing in the back end come the 27th.

They've had a few things that they've run through, the jungle plants are the last things that are currently baked into the back end of the game.

[native carbon]

Yeah i gdt it but why does it stop an update? Like... they can just add new stuff early?

[safe quarry]

They could, but in the past the community research was a good(ish) measure for when an update will land

it got a bit muddled more recently, but it used to be you could pretty much guarantee an update would not drop while community research was ongoing.

That's why youtubers like Captain Steve check in on the research and when it will end to make their predictions

and why they go back into hybernation when it rolls over.

[native carbon]

Meh we will see, im still veeery confused by their 9th anniversary post, "multiple surprises" like what do they mean

[safe quarry]

I think that's just like how they end most of their posts

"more will follow."

[native carbon]

Nah, the last time they said multiple surprises, they added cross progression, ps5 and the beachhead redux

[safe quarry]

I don't think they necessarily meant more would happen on the day (i mean we're past the anniversary now and nothing to show for it!)

[native carbon]

My brain keeps telling me that the surprise they are planning is a emoji-less update but thats just copium on highest

[safe quarry]

I think multiple surprises is probably a LNF update and a NMS content update.

But I don't think they meant it was coming imminently is what i mean.

[safe quarry]

I think so. I am on a bit of a cynical downspiral not going to lie!

[native carbon]

I highly doubt they will just add a trailer for a different game as a 9th anniversary surprise

Like that sounds dumb

[safe quarry]

I have been optimistic for the past two weekends, and starting to feel that period where HG's lack of communication goes from them cooking and putting their heads down, to them disrespecting their audience's time.

[safe quarry]

No i don't mean for the anniversary

I mean their 'multiple surprises' is a: there are things coming soon(ish)

and i think the multiple means NMS content and LNF update.

I think if they had put a more transparent article together, or if Sean had been so, it would have been more respectful. 'We have some surprises in the weeks to come.'

[analog breach]

Gamescom 20-24.08

[safe quarry]

Yes this is something i thought about last week

[native carbon]

The reason why im even expecting an update is cuz when They like stop making patch notes out of nowhere it usually means theres an update coming.

I just want em to fix the game, its in the buggiest state ive experienced and it makes the game just not enjoyable for me. If it will actually release after 27 of august i think whatever they are doing is dumb

[safe quarry]

And how it coincided with the weekend before the 27th

I don't think its a coincidence that their community research ends on a wednesday

their update day.

[safe quarry]

What's worse, is that 27th august flag has been in for about a week? two weeks? Which means if they don't update before then, they were very much aware they'd be keeping the game in this state for a long period of time.

[native carbon]

Some of the issues i find veery annoying are like nitpicks but this one? Come on

This literally makes the game look like vomit

[safe quarry]

From a business perspective, it does make sense to leave it in the air, I mean take yesterday for example. Free engagement and excitement for the game without so much as having to lift a finger.

[native carbon]

But yeah now i dont expect anything till 27th

yaaaay

[safe quarry]

But in respecting your community? There is a reason even companies that historically have avoided committing to a roadmap have started to include them. I saw even WoW has done something recently for their players.

[native carbon]

Like i dont want a big fancy update adding game changing stuff i just want em to fix the game

[safe quarry]

Its less about when an update will drop (most games delay updates.) its more about knowing when an update won't drop, and not wasting an evening hoping on something happening.

[icy citrus]

We are at 9 years of this.

I have no reason to think it's going to change, ever

[cosmic anvil]

HG has always struggled with communication imo I think in my opinion is the reason for the backlash at launch, they let the hype set the narrative and the hype started adding whatever stuff they feel like and HG's silence was like oh okay that means they're gonna be doing it... Understandably people hyping something ≠ that thing will be there at launch but HG's communication problems certainly added to it..

I was just a dumb teen at the time so maybe people can correct / add to the points

[icy citrus]

Generally speaking, gamers overreact

A friend saw one trailer and told me it was GTA plus Minecraft in space

Despite Sean saying many times, we would like to do, or wouldn't it be cool if - fans took those statements as promises

[grizzled apex]

That's generally when most of the CM missions rollover, even if the research reaches 100 before the date

[cosmic anvil]

Maybe instead of the studio head directly putting out statements, a PR team could have helped? Idk I feel like people who do this as a profession are equipped to handle community relations

[grizzled apex]

To be completely fair, we're the ones drawing conclusions based on precedence, something HG isn't known to follow for a long period of time

[icy citrus]

I like being surprised tbh, I hope they don't change

Early days it would have been smart to have a non awkward person doing interviews though, for sure

[cosmic anvil]

Fair enough 😅 I suppose that adds to the charm as well, I feel half of the goodwill towards NMS comes from the fact that HG didn't bolt with the money, ie they surprised everyone by actually grinding to make the game better....

[icy citrus]

Yep, and then keep tossing out content for free

Many devs would have shifted to a battle pass or something along those lines to keep the cash flow steady

[native carbon]

I just want eeeem to fiiiix their gaaame 🎶 🎵

[grizzled apex]

As they've said before, updating NMS comes out of a passion the team had for the game, and the specific features they're working towards. A PR team can't replicate that passion forward as well as their actions do imo

[cosmic anvil]

I see, it makes sense but then how will they control hype... I think that is probably the reason we don't get a road map like if they promise something and then be unable to finish it in time for the update then the backlash starts all over again... I feel it's hard for dev teams to explain nuance to fans who are drunk over hype.. Nuance being just because we've planned something, doesn't mean we are absolutely 100% going to be seeing it in the final product... Now of course this cannot apply for core features or bugs but you get the point right?

[sour fossil]

Finally someone who understands

People have and will bitch about anything, giving a roadmap will only add fuel to the fire

Forums will be full of "why aren't they focusing on X? Why do Y when Z hasn't got an update in ages?"

[runic mesa]

Haven't they done really minor stuff for the anniversary before? A lot of players were hyping these two weekends up mainly due to timing.

Sometimes I think this fandom shoots itself in the foot, honestly. I would have loved an emoji drop, sure. But I don't feel entitled to one just because of precieved precedent.

[grizzled apex]

Tbf, people start complaining about that immediately after an update releases anyway. A roadmap would bring that kinda thinking back way before an update launch too

[runic mesa]

There's someone complaining at every update if it isn't something they specifically wanted. Remember the whining about fishing?

[icy citrus]

I don't think they have ever done anything special for the anniversary

[sour fossil]

Of course, people are getting too caught up in the hype and building unrealistic expectations and end up frustrated when HG doesn't deliver

[icy citrus]

Besides, 9 isnt a normally celebrated milestone - that would be 10

[cosmic anvil]

In an alternate universe, we have iPhone 9 and Windows 9

[grizzled apex]

yea I think the sooner people realize we're all at the whim of HG for any sort of news or drop instead of trying to make predictions off other events or past drops the more content they get when something does release

[sour fossil]

Accept free shit for Nth consecutive year in the row, bully them to fix shit when it's broken, enjoy and repeat

[analog breach]

Technicaly nms already had 10th anniversary no?

[cosmic anvil]

That would be in 2026?

2016-2026

[grizzled apex]

It's been 10+ years since it's reveal, not release though

[safe quarry]

I missed all this, but the summary seems to be: They're damned if they do, they're damned if they don't! I think then a roadmap might be asking a bit much, but perhaps a 'stand down, nothing today' nod would have been nicer. Looking to the conversation last night, it was a lot of people interpreting 'surprises soon' in so many different ways. 'coming weeks' or 'coming months' would have given a bit more clarity and dissuaded the wilder speculation.

[analog breach]

https://youtu.be/HPgdHZn3hs0?feature=shared

[cosmic anvil]

This is why I feel a PR team would help

[safe quarry]

10th anniversary of it being announced, yus

not the release date, which the 9th anniversary was yesterday.

[cosmic anvil]

Sean alone can't control the mob

Especially you need training when facing the press or media

[analog breach]

Thats why i said technicaly

[safe quarry]

PR teams.. hmmm having worked with them directly, it can be a hit or a miss.

Generally speaking, I've found having someone dedicated on the team handling PR is much better.

[runic mesa]

Sean has never been able to control the mob, let's be real

[safe quarry]

They tend to have their pulse on the community, the team, and the development. An external PR team tends to follow some trite formula they apply to all their clients

[analog breach]

I wonder if HG will show more of stage fright on gamescom

[safe quarry]

not to mention you have to remember you are only one of their clients, and they'll feign smiles to placate you while getting to you when they get to you.

Having said that, it sounds like they have an external person who puts together the trailers and pages, but he has been involved with the team directly for years. so is as good as an honorary member.

[cosmic anvil]

I see, but HG does need a bit of community engagement like I've been encouraging my non NMS friends to follow and support the game and they're like dude did you see the NMS Instagram page? 🥲

[icy citrus]

Need to be using Chinese socials, they apparently are very active

[runic mesa]

And honestly, some of the YouTubers don't help...

[sour fossil]

Whaaaaa, there something wrong with lying for internet points?

[safe quarry]

This is true! But they're about engagement first. And when the well of NMS runs dry, feeding our wild speculation is an easy engagement tactic!

[grizzled apex]

They've got another company handling trailers and patch notes, and I believe Tim Woodley reaches out to media outlets to help them with their write ups

[sour fossil]

Next thing you tell me is that sky is blue

[icy citrus]

The only YouTubers that help are the base builders and tutorial makers, the rest spout theories they made up and cite "sources"

[sour fossil]

I have a very big and beautiful source

I sit on it most of the day

And quality of the produce is roughly the same as from YT

[safe quarry]

How dare you! Don't forget professor cynical is bestest friends with Sean Murray's brother!

[icy citrus]

I really don't like that one

Almost as much as I don't like Craig

[cosmic anvil]

CCs are always a hit or miss, I used to play Genshin Impact earlier it was 100x worse there... Even in wholesome games like Euro Truck Simulator 2, people fight over which country DLC gets worked on next

[safe quarry]

He is my least favourite. Did you see his backlash over the void glitch?

Finally his controversial content bit him in the booty.

[icy citrus]

Yes ofc

[safe quarry]

Which one is Craig?

[icy citrus]

NMS resources

The Facebook

[safe quarry]

and his feigned apology as if he didn't expect the backlash. What he really didn't expect is the degree of backlash.

[runic mesa]

I know of Captain Steve. Watched a few of his, but eh.

[safe quarry]

I didn't mind Captain Steve, but more recently his ego has got to his head a bit

[runic mesa]

I prefer here

[safe quarry]

calling himself a voice for the community.

and saying he'll be available for signatures at the meetup

[grizzled apex]

There almost seems to be a correlation with loud pretentiousness and availability of "sources" 🙂

[safe quarry]

does not sit well with me.

[cosmic anvil]

This... HG needs to set the narrative, not CCs

This has been a day 1 problem I feel

[safe quarry]

If i was genuinely working with HG, professor cynical and that kind of personality is the last person I would confide in.

[sour fossil]

Not true, I can be loud and still correct

Like when I'm posting about Waypoint UI

[grizzled apex]

Haha, who said outliers are always bad 😛

[runic mesa]

I love how you refuse to let HG off the hook for Waypoint, respect

[sour fossil]

Or how HG is unable to implement some fixes modders have done and kept alive for 6 fucken years

[icy citrus]

Well, I highly doubt it's unable

[grizzled apex]

I know of one leak via a source that happened on the ETARC Hub, but that source was a game journalist, not someone from HG themselves

And with how small that team is, any leak would be easy to pinpoint out. I don't think anyone would wanna risk that

[runic mesa]

Wait, spill

[icy citrus]

And that shit is on lockdown now

[grizzled apex]

oh yikes, my bad. I knew they had to go into damage control to protect their contact, but it makes sense as a result of breaking confidentiality

[icy citrus]

Also, much love for calling it ETARC still

[sour fossil]

Well someone has to

[safe quarry]

How do we all feel about Cobra TV coming back (or wanting to) to the NMS community? I remember his involvement in WT, and i felt his content was more 'look how great the game is' and less 'lets speculate and farm content.' but i could be remembering things with rose tinted glasses!

I also remember feeling betrayed when he chased the new shiny that was Star Citizen and left us NMS'ies behind.

[runic mesa]

That's before my time, who were they?

[grizzled apex]

Youtuber who covered a lot of NMS both pre release and post, and was heavily involved in WT

One of the recipients of the cassettes iirc

[safe quarry]

Yush, and this was back in the time when NMS releases were 6 months/year between! But he managed to keep things interesting. But around that time i feel we had more positive coverage in general.

Kanaju and ones like that keep that early years feel alive for me.

[grizzled apex]

Much like HG, the creators who work with passion and love for the community end up having the most positive impact

[gloomy isle]

The only NMS content creator who's ever had actual inside knowledge is Kanaju, and that's because he actually worked on an update. But he's honest so he never so much as hinted at that until the release

Iirc he did the posters for the gek stations

[safe quarry]

That's true! He did some (all?) of the ads in the orbital stations. And he kept tight lip about that until release.

and his look of genuine glee at seeing his work represented in a game he loves was genuinely heartwarming.

[grizzled apex]

Reputation is likely a key factor in HG choosing someone to collaborate with. I wonder if they don't reach out to more of us bcz we can't keep our mouths shut haha

[icy citrus]

Yes

[safe quarry]

oh for sure why they went with someone like Kanaju. He seems like he would respect an NDA

[gloomy isle]

The work he did was genuinely awesome as well

I hope he gets more work from them

[grizzled apex]

I kinda hope he gets to work with them to make a V2 of the card set, I missed both drops bcz of some import shipping bs locally...

Hell, give us DuuGek Sean!

[native carbon]

you guys may call me crazy/high on copium but what if we gonna get a emojiless update soon

cuz you know, "surprise" thing

idk im going crazy aint i?

[mint lynx]

I swear the emoji normally comes by now

Every August for years
So honestly, it's probally not coming

[grizzled apex]

We don't generally get an update in August to start off with, the two most recent exceptions being Frontiers and Echoes, both of which lacked an emoji and were teased via a recap video.