8 ms·

The “No Man's Sky” Archaeology Project

196 points by limbicsystem 7y ago

Illniyar 7y ago
"As part of my University of York Archaeology PhD thesis, I conducted a case study into what is now called the “Legacy Hub ”. The goals of the project were not only to determine if (and how) archaeology could be conducted on human settlements within a digital environment, but also delved into 3D-printing human-made architecture, creating a new kind of map, undertaking photogrammetry of sites past and present, recording epigraphic evidence, and working hand-in-glove with the Hub’s leadership, which included an ambassador for the community’s heritage. " Wait, what? I don't know if it's insane or groundbreaking to do a PhD Thesis on archaeology in a video game.
- applecrazy 7y ago
  As persistent user-created online worlds become more relevant, they become a study in themselves. We already study Internet trends and pop culture, so why not study this?
- neighbour 7y ago
  Thought the same thing while reading that line.
- setr 7y ago
  Anything where people operate for a decent duration of time, and able to modify their environment, seems a viable choice of study. But some options are more reasonable than others -- eg Minecraft has heavy modifications, but lacks the relationship with the environment that makes it closer to studying artwork than a "culture". No Man's Sky seems acceptable, but imo there are better/more interesting game options out there, like Eve or Ultima Online, which both offer a much more advanced simulation than No Man's Sky, and a much more storied set of human interactions and societies.
  - nordsieck 7y ago
    > imo there are better/more interesting game options out there, like Eve or Ultima Online I'm unfamiliar with UO, but with Eve, sadly, much of the most innovative and interesting parts of the game are done outside the client.
    - capableweb 7y ago
      > sadly, much of the most innovative and interesting parts of the game are done outside the client This is also true for the other examples (Minecraft and No Man's Sky) where the games basically become what the player base uses it for. I think this happens to most freeform games where without the multiplayer aspect, the game basically is nowhere near the same experience as with.
      - squarefoot 7y ago
        Single player games can be greatly satisfying as well, but they need a story that keeps the player interested. If we could have a game the size of No Man's Sky with a compelling story plus subplots and complex non player characters, such as the first 3 Mass Effect games (best games ever played in my entire life, ME3 lame ending aside), that would make a masterpiece even in single player mode. ME Andromeda apparently tried and mostly failed (I still didn't play it but watched hours of gameplay to get an idea), let's hope the next one will learn from past mistakes. NMS, which I still have to play, looks like to me a great online experience that could become also a killer single player game once enhanced for that purpose. One thing however I don't like much about NMS is the graphics which although truly beautiful artistically speaking, seems to me a bit too cartoonish.
        ehnto 7y ago
        I partially agree. The reason I disagree is that single player games with compelling story, although my favourite, eventually run out of content, even if it's compelling and if the world is open and freeform. But multiplayer games evolve as the player base is what provides the story and dynamics. In many online games there is potentially limitless gameplay and content, the game engine and environment serve only as the playground for players to build from. An example is GTAV. Where there are lots of structured things to do yet the players constantly make their own meetups, car shows and other shenanigans. A notable exception could be Minecraft, where you could have your own single player world and so long as you are interested it can keep evolving.
- Sendotsh 7y ago
  As an ex Eve Online player, who's also spent hundreds/thousands of hours in NMS, WoW, and now SWTOR, I absolutely love these "IRL" projects that archive/study virtual worlds, like the financial studies of the Eve economy, the huge write-ups of major WoW events, stuff like that. To those that were involved in the games/events, they're a major part of their life (in a hobby/entertainment aspect), so having this sort of in-depth study is seriously cool to have as a record of it all.
  - floatingatoll 7y ago
    https://evetravel.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/unidentified-sleeper-device/ https://evetravel.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/unidentified-slee... > I was so entranced by it that it took me a few minutes to notice that the spindly structure was not all that there was to see. Both directly above and below the structure (relative to the system’s ecliptic, of course) were two large, swirling maelstroms of energy. https://evetravel.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/massive-debris-field-2/ https://evetravel.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/massive-debris-fi... > As if a giant hand had hand-picked pins out of a pin cushion, the debris field stretched almost as far as the eye could see. The various sticks, originally arranged in circular fashion, now are laid out in a serpentine pattern, as if it were a winding path. Lightning crackles between the various posts: the flashes of light that originally caught my eye.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  Related on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18412547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18412547 > Entombed: An archaeological examination of an Atari 2600 game One type of archaeogaming research is digital excavation, a technical examination of the code and techniques used in old games' implementation. We apply that in a case study of Entombed, an Atari 2600 game released in 1982 by US Games. The player in this game is, appropriately, an archaeologist who must make their way through a zombie-infested maze. Maze generation is a fruitful area for comparative retrogame archaeology, because a number of early games on different platforms featured mazes, and their variety of approaches can be compared. The maze in Entombed is particularly interesting: it is shaped in part by the extensive real-time constraints of the Atari 2600 platform, and also had to be generated efficiently and use next to no memory. We reverse engineered key areas of the game's code to uncover its unusual maze-generation algorithm, which we have also built a reconstruction of, and analyzed the mysterious table that drives it. In addition, we discovered what appears to be a 35-year-old bug in the code, as well as direct evidence of code-reuse practices amongst game developers. https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.02035 https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.02035
- 46Bit 7y ago
  > Wait, what? I don't know if it's insane or groundbreaking to do a PhD Thesis on archaeology in a video game. I used to work at Archaeology Data Service and it is a pretty groundbreaking place :)
  - OscarCunningham 7y ago
    I suppose traditional archaeology also involves groundbreaking. :)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- brennankreiman 7y ago
  Really cool example was the Aladdin ROM that had unreleased sprites that shipped till on the ROM image. All of the development tools are intact so one can explore the source code for some of the unreleased material. https://gamehistory.org/aladdin-source-code/ https://gamehistory.org/aladdin-source-code/
unnouinceput 7y ago
Is this related to that disaster game that people complained about it at launch so much that Valve changed their return policy for this game alone to allow people get their refunds back after a longer than usual period? Why would anyone play this game anyway? Also I think Nixon was the best US president in modern history, his "A sucker is born every minute" was way ahead of its time.
- fareesh 7y ago
  The developers made claims about the game that turned out to be false. Eventually those features made it to the game. The current version is pretty good.
  - pmontra 7y ago
    But are players happy with updates that destroy everything they built? Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this game, I'm only surprised by what I read on this article.
    - tjpnz 7y ago
      People were in general willing to accept it if it meant for a better game (which I would say they've definitely delivered on). In more recent updates Hello Games has committed to not doing this again in future. Given the game has lived up to what was initially promised I'm willing to trust them.
- daodedickinson 7y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_...
  - unnouinceput 7y ago
    Ya, I know that. It what Nixon quoted in his China'a visit and that actually made the phrase famous, until that was just another obscure saying. Like I said, best president US had in modern history.
slowhadoken 7y ago
This game is such a train wreck. It’s got everything I should want and nothing that compels me to play it. Every update is a false promise. I wish it were good.
- andybak 7y ago
  I've got a 100 or so hours in it and some aspects are wonderful. Some are "meh". But it's far, far from a track wreck.
  - username90 7y ago
    No Man's Sky is a typical sales driven product, first you lie to users about what capabilities it has and sell it to them, and then you use the money you got from those sales to build some of the features you said you already had until the customers stop complaining.
    - andybak 7y ago
      I don't think it was premeditated. What makes you so angry about this? To me it's one of those peculiar, flawed creative works that I'm glad exists. The world would be poorer without it. Have you played it recently? The Beyond update added VR support which made it worth buying for me by itself.
      - rozab 7y ago
        Before release, Hello Games said that the game was multiplayer, but the universe was so incredibly large that no two players could ever find each other. They did, within a couple days of release. The players couldn't see each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8P2CZg3sJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8P2CZg3sJQ Hello Games encountered a lot of hardship during development. Their studio actually flooded towards the end of development so they lost a lot of data. But that doesn't excuse lying.
        celeritascelery 7y ago
daodedickinson 7y ago
Huh. Was listening to an archived Skyrim Addict podcast episode last night, and two of the hosts agreed that this update that destroyed all their hundreds or thousands of hours of work so that they could never play it again, but they recommended it to players who had never played it before.
- ChikkaChiChi 7y ago
  How so? I didn't think the recent update was destructive?
  - daodedickinson 7y ago
    This episode was from 1 or 2 years ago
scaglio 7y ago
Also, NMS's subreddit is one of the most cohesive and unite community for a videogame, as far as I know. They are extremely supportive with Hello Games and continuously give them feedback for the enhancements, which made the game much more enjoyable than when it was launched.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  The Elite Dangerous sub is pretty nice too. I guess it's a simulation gaming thing. It draws a different audience than shooters or other competitive games.
farrelmahaztra 7y ago
Was the data collected manually? As far as I can tell the author went to 30 sites and created hundreds of data files per site. The effort is impressive
Pmop 7y ago
Anyone interested in the topic should also check out 2b2t, which is one of the oldest Minecraft anarchy multiplayer servers. It's filled with history and ruins.
- z3t4 7y ago
  I wonder if my base still stands. But the 2b2t server has gone pay 2 play so haven't played for some years. Have the coordinates written down somewhere. Btw it would be really fun with a Minecraft like game focusing on PvP, since Minecraft is focused on co-op it does not have any cheat preventions, which ruins the experience on servers like 2b2t.
cletus 7y ago
I remember when NMS was announced. I was pretty excited about it. But of course when it was released it had huge problems. But, hey, at least it came out (cough Star Citizen cough). So I skipped it. Fast forward 2 years to the Next update, which by all accounts was a huge improvement in many areas. So I picked it up earlier this year and played putting a fair number of hours into it. It wasn't problem-free but honestly I enjoyed it. Fast forward again to later this year and the Beyond update comes out. This has been another massive improvement. There are a couple of minor things I don't like but honestly, it's a decent way to aimlessly wander the galaxy. It still has RNG in getting the best ships, which I find annoying and tedious, but it's enjoyable. One of big problems in Next was that base building had SO many problems. Beyond fixed a bunch but it's still a problem. If Minecraft has taught us anything, it's that people will invest a huge amount of time in building a base. It's an expression of identity. It's a hobby that's an easy time sink. It's something the devs really need to double down on. But I really respect the fact that the devs have kept updating this game. It's easy to get 100+ hours out of this game now (and I have quite a few more than that). Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities: - Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems? - No tidally locked worlds - Gravity is the same - No running water - No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc) I've built a giant glass cube on some random world. I don't know how long the servers for this game will be around but it amuses me that years from now someone may randomly come across what I built. So archaeology in games like this fascinates me.
- haolez 7y ago
  The lack of geological features turns me down as well. There are no huge canyons and no huge mountains. Everything kinda looks the same. Also, I think some worlds could be uninhabitable, just for show. For example: gas giants. On the bright side, the underground biomes are amazing! I’ve seen very complex sets of caves and tunnels with different fauna and flora. It’s a great game overall!
- grawprog 7y ago
  >Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities: - Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems? - No tidally locked worlds - Gravity is the same - No running water - No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc) What would be awesome, though likely totally infeasible would be the universe of no man's sky coupled with the individual world building of dwarf fortress, maybe not the civilizations, but the geological stuff. The way the world gen simulates erosion, and change over time to landforms. With different variations to the types of worlds generated, you could get some pretty cool geologically unique worlds. Have worlds with different primary mineral types and atmospheres form differently than earthlike ones and stuff. I'm sure something like that is years and years away. Even if it was on a smaller scale, so you could have people actually end up meeting eachother and because different planets would be different geologically there would be different resources and opportunities for trading and stuff.... OK...I'm sorry, i've kind rambled on in a tangent and gotten away from the original premise now...I'll stop here.
Krasnol 7y ago
I would love to play this game so much but the colours are just too much. I can't really explain why but I tried just watching a friend playing it and it was too much. I wish they would have a toned down version or Mod or something.
driverdan 7y ago
Similar studies could be done on long running Minecraft servers. Back when I was playing a lot of MC one of the things I enjoyed was exploring abandoned bases. It's really interesting to see what happens to abandoned bases / settlements in open world games. I once had a large base on a modded Minecraft server, with multiple buildings, lots of machinery, nuclear reactors, power lines running everywhere, etc. Eventually I stopped playing and announced to everyone else my stuff was free for the taking. A few months later I decided to hop on and see what was left. It was almost like you'd expect to happen in real life. The buildings were mostly intact but had missing doors and broken windows. All of the most valuable stuff was stripped out. There was some worthless stuff left, like food in vanilla chests. My nuclear reactors had been partially disassembled, the most valuable parts scavenged. It felt like visiting an abandoned factory in Detroit. It was once glorious and now stood in ruin.

196 points by limbicsystem 7y ago

"As part of my University of York Archaeology PhD thesis, I conducted a case study into what is now called the “Legacy Hub ”. The goals of the project were not only to determine if (and how) archaeology could be conducted on human settlements within a digital environment, but also delved into 3D-printing human-made architecture, creating a new kind of map, undertaking photogrammetry of sites past and present, recording epigraphic evidence, and working hand-in-glove with the Hub’s leadership, which included an ambassador for the community’s heritage. " Wait, what? I don't know if it's insane or groundbreaking to do a PhD Thesis on archaeology in a video game.

applecrazy 7y ago
As persistent user-created online worlds become more relevant, they become a study in themselves. We already study Internet trends and pop culture, so why not study this?
neighbour 7y ago
Thought the same thing while reading that line.
setr 7y ago
Anything where people operate for a decent duration of time, and able to modify their environment, seems a viable choice of study. But some options are more reasonable than others -- eg Minecraft has heavy modifications, but lacks the relationship with the environment that makes it closer to studying artwork than a "culture". No Man's Sky seems acceptable, but imo there are better/more interesting game options out there, like Eve or Ultima Online, which both offer a much more advanced simulation than No Man's Sky, and a much more storied set of human interactions and societies.
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > imo there are better/more interesting game options out there, like Eve or Ultima Online I'm unfamiliar with UO, but with Eve, sadly, much of the most innovative and interesting parts of the game are done outside the client.
  - capableweb 7y ago
    > sadly, much of the most innovative and interesting parts of the game are done outside the client This is also true for the other examples (Minecraft and No Man's Sky) where the games basically become what the player base uses it for. I think this happens to most freeform games where without the multiplayer aspect, the game basically is nowhere near the same experience as with.
    - squarefoot 7y ago
      Single player games can be greatly satisfying as well, but they need a story that keeps the player interested. If we could have a game the size of No Man's Sky with a compelling story plus subplots and complex non player characters, such as the first 3 Mass Effect games (best games ever played in my entire life, ME3 lame ending aside), that would make a masterpiece even in single player mode. ME Andromeda apparently tried and mostly failed (I still didn't play it but watched hours of gameplay to get an idea), let's hope the next one will learn from past mistakes. NMS, which I still have to play, looks like to me a great online experience that could become also a killer single player game once enhanced for that purpose. One thing however I don't like much about NMS is the graphics which although truly beautiful artistically speaking, seems to me a bit too cartoonish.
      - ehnto 7y ago
        I partially agree. The reason I disagree is that single player games with compelling story, although my favourite, eventually run out of content, even if it's compelling and if the world is open and freeform. But multiplayer games evolve as the player base is what provides the story and dynamics. In many online games there is potentially limitless gameplay and content, the game engine and environment serve only as the playground for players to build from. An example is GTAV. Where there are lots of structured things to do yet the players constantly make their own meetups, car shows and other shenanigans. A notable exception could be Minecraft, where you could have your own single player world and so long as you are interested it can keep evolving.
Sendotsh 7y ago
As an ex Eve Online player, who's also spent hundreds/thousands of hours in NMS, WoW, and now SWTOR, I absolutely love these "IRL" projects that archive/study virtual worlds, like the financial studies of the Eve economy, the huge write-ups of major WoW events, stuff like that. To those that were involved in the games/events, they're a major part of their life (in a hobby/entertainment aspect), so having this sort of in-depth study is seriously cool to have as a record of it all.
- floatingatoll 7y ago
  https://evetravel.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/unidentified-sleeper-device/ https://evetravel.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/unidentified-slee... > I was so entranced by it that it took me a few minutes to notice that the spindly structure was not all that there was to see. Both directly above and below the structure (relative to the system’s ecliptic, of course) were two large, swirling maelstroms of energy. https://evetravel.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/massive-debris-field-2/ https://evetravel.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/massive-debris-fi... > As if a giant hand had hand-picked pins out of a pin cushion, the debris field stretched almost as far as the eye could see. The various sticks, originally arranged in circular fashion, now are laid out in a serpentine pattern, as if it were a winding path. Lightning crackles between the various posts: the flashes of light that originally caught my eye.
floatingatoll 7y ago
Related on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18412547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18412547 > Entombed: An archaeological examination of an Atari 2600 game One type of archaeogaming research is digital excavation, a technical examination of the code and techniques used in old games' implementation. We apply that in a case study of Entombed, an Atari 2600 game released in 1982 by US Games. The player in this game is, appropriately, an archaeologist who must make their way through a zombie-infested maze. Maze generation is a fruitful area for comparative retrogame archaeology, because a number of early games on different platforms featured mazes, and their variety of approaches can be compared. The maze in Entombed is particularly interesting: it is shaped in part by the extensive real-time constraints of the Atari 2600 platform, and also had to be generated efficiently and use next to no memory. We reverse engineered key areas of the game's code to uncover its unusual maze-generation algorithm, which we have also built a reconstruction of, and analyzed the mysterious table that drives it. In addition, we discovered what appears to be a 35-year-old bug in the code, as well as direct evidence of code-reuse practices amongst game developers. https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.02035 https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.02035
46Bit 7y ago
> Wait, what? I don't know if it's insane or groundbreaking to do a PhD Thesis on archaeology in a video game. I used to work at Archaeology Data Service and it is a pretty groundbreaking place :)
- OscarCunningham 7y ago
  I suppose traditional archaeology also involves groundbreaking. :)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
brennankreiman 7y ago
Really cool example was the Aladdin ROM that had unreleased sprites that shipped till on the ROM image. All of the development tools are intact so one can explore the source code for some of the unreleased material. https://gamehistory.org/aladdin-source-code/ https://gamehistory.org/aladdin-source-code/

unnouinceput 7y ago

Is this related to that disaster game that people complained about it at launch so much that Valve changed their return policy for this game alone to allow people get their refunds back after a longer than usual period? Why would anyone play this game anyway? Also I think Nixon was the best US president in modern history, his "A sucker is born every minute" was way ahead of its time.

fareesh 7y ago
The developers made claims about the game that turned out to be false. Eventually those features made it to the game. The current version is pretty good.
- pmontra 7y ago
  But are players happy with updates that destroy everything they built? Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this game, I'm only surprised by what I read on this article.
  - tjpnz 7y ago
    People were in general willing to accept it if it meant for a better game (which I would say they've definitely delivered on). In more recent updates Hello Games has committed to not doing this again in future. Given the game has lived up to what was initially promised I'm willing to trust them.
daodedickinson 7y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_...
- unnouinceput 7y ago
  Ya, I know that. It what Nixon quoted in his China'a visit and that actually made the phrase famous, until that was just another obscure saying. Like I said, best president US had in modern history.

slowhadoken 7y ago

This game is such a train wreck. It’s got everything I should want and nothing that compels me to play it. Every update is a false promise. I wish it were good.

andybak 7y ago
I've got a 100 or so hours in it and some aspects are wonderful. Some are "meh". But it's far, far from a track wreck.
- username90 7y ago
  No Man's Sky is a typical sales driven product, first you lie to users about what capabilities it has and sell it to them, and then you use the money you got from those sales to build some of the features you said you already had until the customers stop complaining.
  - andybak 7y ago
    I don't think it was premeditated. What makes you so angry about this? To me it's one of those peculiar, flawed creative works that I'm glad exists. The world would be poorer without it. Have you played it recently? The Beyond update added VR support which made it worth buying for me by itself.
    - rozab 7y ago
      Before release, Hello Games said that the game was multiplayer, but the universe was so incredibly large that no two players could ever find each other. They did, within a couple days of release. The players couldn't see each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8P2CZg3sJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8P2CZg3sJQ Hello Games encountered a lot of hardship during development. Their studio actually flooded towards the end of development so they lost a lot of data. But that doesn't excuse lying.
      - celeritascelery 7y ago

daodedickinson 7y ago

Huh. Was listening to an archived Skyrim Addict podcast episode last night, and two of the hosts agreed that this update that destroyed all their hundreds or thousands of hours of work so that they could never play it again, but they recommended it to players who had never played it before.

ChikkaChiChi 7y ago
How so? I didn't think the recent update was destructive?
- daodedickinson 7y ago
  This episode was from 1 or 2 years ago

scaglio 7y ago

Also, NMS's subreddit is one of the most cohesive and unite community for a videogame, as far as I know. They are extremely supportive with Hello Games and continuously give them feedback for the enhancements, which made the game much more enjoyable than when it was launched.

Krasnol 7y ago
The Elite Dangerous sub is pretty nice too. I guess it's a simulation gaming thing. It draws a different audience than shooters or other competitive games.

farrelmahaztra 7y ago

Was the data collected manually? As far as I can tell the author went to 30 sites and created hundreds of data files per site. The effort is impressive

Pmop 7y ago

Anyone interested in the topic should also check out 2b2t, which is one of the oldest Minecraft anarchy multiplayer servers. It's filled with history and ruins.

z3t4 7y ago
I wonder if my base still stands. But the 2b2t server has gone pay 2 play so haven't played for some years. Have the coordinates written down somewhere. Btw it would be really fun with a Minecraft like game focusing on PvP, since Minecraft is focused on co-op it does not have any cheat preventions, which ruins the experience on servers like 2b2t.

cletus 7y ago

I remember when NMS was announced. I was pretty excited about it. But of course when it was released it had huge problems. But, hey, at least it came out (cough Star Citizen cough). So I skipped it. Fast forward 2 years to the Next update, which by all accounts was a huge improvement in many areas. So I picked it up earlier this year and played putting a fair number of hours into it. It wasn't problem-free but honestly I enjoyed it. Fast forward again to later this year and the Beyond update comes out. This has been another massive improvement. There are a couple of minor things I don't like but honestly, it's a decent way to aimlessly wander the galaxy. It still has RNG in getting the best ships, which I find annoying and tedious, but it's enjoyable. One of big problems in Next was that base building had SO many problems. Beyond fixed a bunch but it's still a problem. If Minecraft has taught us anything, it's that people will invest a huge amount of time in building a base. It's an expression of identity. It's a hobby that's an easy time sink. It's something the devs really need to double down on. But I really respect the fact that the devs have kept updating this game. It's easy to get 100+ hours out of this game now (and I have quite a few more than that). Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities: - Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems? - No tidally locked worlds - Gravity is the same - No running water - No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc) I've built a giant glass cube on some random world. I don't know how long the servers for this game will be around but it amuses me that years from now someone may randomly come across what I built. So archaeology in games like this fascinates me.

haolez 7y ago
The lack of geological features turns me down as well. There are no huge canyons and no huge mountains. Everything kinda looks the same. Also, I think some worlds could be uninhabitable, just for show. For example: gas giants. On the bright side, the underground biomes are amazing! I’ve seen very complex sets of caves and tunnels with different fauna and flora. It’s a great game overall!
grawprog 7y ago
>Still, I feel like there are a bunch of lost opportunities: - Climate is global on a planet or moon. Why no ecosystems? - No tidally locked worlds - Gravity is the same - No running water - No geological features (geysers, volcanoes, etc) What would be awesome, though likely totally infeasible would be the universe of no man's sky coupled with the individual world building of dwarf fortress, maybe not the civilizations, but the geological stuff. The way the world gen simulates erosion, and change over time to landforms. With different variations to the types of worlds generated, you could get some pretty cool geologically unique worlds. Have worlds with different primary mineral types and atmospheres form differently than earthlike ones and stuff. I'm sure something like that is years and years away. Even if it was on a smaller scale, so you could have people actually end up meeting eachother and because different planets would be different geologically there would be different resources and opportunities for trading and stuff.... OK...I'm sorry, i've kind rambled on in a tangent and gotten away from the original premise now...I'll stop here.

Krasnol 7y ago

I would love to play this game so much but the colours are just too much. I can't really explain why but I tried just watching a friend playing it and it was too much. I wish they would have a toned down version or Mod or something.

driverdan 7y ago

Similar studies could be done on long running Minecraft servers. Back when I was playing a lot of MC one of the things I enjoyed was exploring abandoned bases. It's really interesting to see what happens to abandoned bases / settlements in open world games. I once had a large base on a modded Minecraft server, with multiple buildings, lots of machinery, nuclear reactors, power lines running everywhere, etc. Eventually I stopped playing and announced to everyone else my stuff was free for the taking. A few months later I decided to hop on and see what was left. It was almost like you'd expect to happen in real life. The buildings were mostly intact but had missing doors and broken windows. All of the most valuable stuff was stripped out. There was some worthless stuff left, like food in vanilla chests. My nuclear reactors had been partially disassembled, the most valuable parts scavenged. It felt like visiting an abandoned factory in Detroit. It was once glorious and now stood in ruin.