100 Unofficial Mods Released for 'No Man's Sky'

Eleven days after its release, No Man's Sky already has over 100 unofficial mods by fans intent on improving the game. "We don't have time to wait for official dev tools to fix what can be fixed by us," one modder told Motherboard. "We definitely want the official tools ASAP but honestly, the players need a game that actually launches and plays at decent FPS first." An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the article: In an email to one customer, Hello Games revealed that it will be releasing patches this week and next which will "help to improve the experience further for players" but it is unlikely that the promised official modding tools will be released in the near future...

Among the [unofficial] mods available for anyone to download are ones to...replace the system font with one from Star Trek, disable annoying audio warnings, and replace a "Units Received" alert with "the Rick 'Wubba Lubba Dub Dub' sound bite from Rick and Morty"... The Instagram Filter Remover mod is among the most popular on the No Man's Sky Mods website promising to remove "the stupid Instagram filter from the game"...making everything sharper and clearer.
That last mod has been downloaded 17,655 times so far, and by Friday the site had almost 800,000 views and 60,000 downloads. There's two other mods that add Dr. Who sound clips into the game, and the article notes fans are clamoring for more, "including one request to replace all the voice lines in the game with William Shatner quotes."

Re:

[InfiniteBlaze]

Nobody is being coerced to play; it's consumerism, not slavery. Just because you don't share the passion for this form of entertainment doesn't mean you have any right to denigrate those who enjoy it. Hop down off that high horse of yours - I think your butt is a little too chapped.

Re:

[King_TJ]

So you have more freedom than us but know exactly what to do with it .... post replies on Slashdot? Noted.

Re:

[Coren22]

Axewolf is not a slave to the game of sexual dominance, he does not subscribe to the need to find attractive women to spend time with.

Re:

[kenai_alpenglow]

I am not being coerced to play. I highly doubt I will every purchase/play this game (no time, interested in other things more; not Better-Than-Thou). There are likely millions (billions even) like me on this. You have every right to play--or not play this game. If you want to play, go right ahead and enjoy guilt free. As of right now the Government is not forcing you to buy it. So why the high-horse? It's Just A Game!

Re:

[Oligonicella]

I am on the high horse because I am better than you.

Bwahahaha! What a fucking pompous attitude. You're the one saying it's a subset. It's incumbent on *you* to explain why and your little redundant screed about behavior and irrationality doesn't cut it because you didn't bother describing the behaviors or why they're irrational. You simply block quoted something vague from PolySci and then dropped into ad hominem with both feet.

Re:

[lucasnate1]

Dude, you need more friends/pussy/family/drugs, cause you're clearly you're suffering from some sadness issues.

Re:

[Pax681]

Hop down off that high horse of yours - I think your butt is a little too chapped.

that chapping wasn't caused by the horse ;)

Re:

[kamapuaa]

Well the mods in question are all things like "replace all the voice lines with William Shatner quotes." You can't blame the game maker for not including that with the game as shipped.

Re:

[meglon]

You... don't.. understand! It's not... his... ship... it's mine!!

Re:

[unrtst]

This.
How does this story/summary go from, "... but honestly, the players need a game that actually launches and plays at decent FPS first", to the top mod being one that apparently applies a simple "sharpen" filter, and it's the fanciest one listed. The rest listed just replace font and sound assets. None of those listed do jack shit for FPS.

Maybe there are some better examples in the article. Can one of the noobs go look and let us know?

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Maybe there are some better examples in the article. Can one of the noobs go look and let us know?

There aren't. There is something interesting in the article, though:

âoeI think if they [modders] get in there and they just start disassembling it, they will end up creating parallel universes; like genuinely thatâ(TM)s what would happen,â Murray said in 2014. âoeThey would change the numbers and then someone else would be playing in a different universe, but still posting to our servers.â

I don't know what this means, but I sure hope he does, because it sounds fascinating. If the m

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what this means

The procedural generation if of the form s=f(x,y,z), i.e. for every coordinate you get a specific output from the procedural function, which is then used to generate specific content (terrain, resources, plants).
Some additional content is added randomly (e.g. the output determines the kind of creatures, but they spawn randomly around that location).

Now what that quote means is that if you succeed in modifying the constants used in f(x,y,z), you change the output, and therefore everything changes.
Location of

Re:

[canajin56]

The game has a filter that dulls the colors so it looks like it's on old film, the so-called "instagram filter". There's also filters that adds CRT scanlines, chromatic aberration, and vignetting to really sell the "you're playing this on a faded CRT" feel. The mod doesn't add a sharpness filter, it removes the dull filter. Combined with the mod that removes the CRT filters you can potentially greatly increase the FPS. Or not change them at all. It really depends on whatever mysterious bullshit causes

Re:

[axewolf]

That explains all you need to know about the state of the gaming industry. Hype over substance.

What you say isn't false, but I don't think you're comprehending the whole truth here.
The entertainment industry sells people "totems" for their ideals. The industry is nothing but hype. It gives people substitute experiences to placate them for their inability to express their desires and instincts. It promises to allow them to fulfill these desires and instincts, and it lies every single time, because of course

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Basically, people are lazy pieces of shit with no self awareness and justify this state with delusional idea that there is an easy alternatives to success that is just as good

How are you measuring "success" and "good[ness]"?

Re:

[UnknownSoldier]

> The industry is nothing but hype.

Bullshit. Not every developer is interested in form over function. While there certainly is drama such as This is Phil Fish [youtube.com], there are enough counter-examples:

* Braid
* Limbo
* Minecraft
* Path of Exile
* Terraria
* Trine

I don't remember seeing marketing for these games and yet they are some of the best around.

Great games focus on great gameplay. Shitty games focus more on marketing then development, which is ~95% of games and the games industry.

Re:

[TechyImmigrant]

> The industry is nothing but hype.

Bullshit. Not every developer is interested in form over function. While there certainly is drama such as This is Phil Fish [youtube.com], there are enough counter-examples:

* Braid
* Limbo
* Minecraft
* Path of Exile
* Terraria
* Trine

I don't remember seeing marketing for these games and yet they are some of the best around.

Great games focus on great gameplay. Shitty games focus more on marketing then development, which is ~95% of games and the games industry.

However Phil Fish's game FEZ sucked big donkey balls because it didn't work. 'Hit A to do X' meant hit the A button on a controller you don't have because your are on a PC. Shockingly bad.

Re:

[TechyImmigrant]

FEZ just (couple days ago) released v1.12, which re-wrote a large part of the code. Lets not forget this is a 4 year old game
http://theinstructionlimit.com... [theinstructionlimit.com]

I got it off Steam a couple of years ago. It felt like the author ported it to a PC with some automatic tool, but didn't bother to test it. I haven't gone back.

Oh please

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

"We don't have time to wait for official dev tools to fix what can be fixed by us," one modder told Motherboard.

Get a grip, buddy. It's a video game, not life-saving emergency surgery.

God forbid you aren't able to change the color of your spaceship or change the alert sound to "the Rick 'Wubba Lubba Dub Dub' sound" until next week- I mean, this shit is of critical importance!!

Re:Oh please

[King_TJ]

Sure, it's just a game... but it's also a $60 expense, which I think it's reasonable to expect plays as advertised.
There's way too much nonsense in the current game industry where you pay retail prices for new game releases that are really still only "beta" quality.

A lot of these mods are just minor changes or edits, sure.... But I saw at least 11 "fixes" posted there too.

Re:

[meglon]

PC patch is already live, got it this morning. Didn't change anything for me, my game was already running perfectly fine.

Re:

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Did it fix alt-tab in and out of fullscreen?

Did it let you build a host of robots to fend off drones? It is clear these drones are a grey goo scenario in progress with dozens covering every square mile of quadrillions of planets.

Fighting that is the real game.

Re:

[meglon]

I actually didn't check the alt-tab.... not something i do with this game, so it escaped me attention. I like the drones though... it's a nice source of titanium early on (the three planets in my starting system didn't have any i could find). It would be nice if there was a better ground mapping system. And a shipboard camera angle that looked down.... i can't seem to find a ship that lets me visually survey what i'm flying over (landing on the tops of trees sucks).

Re:

[Whorhay]

Drones are an excellent source of titanium and schematics! My only real complaint with them is that they took forever to bring in reinforcements when I wanted to farm them. I spent awhile with 3 of the little flyers chasing me around waiting for them to call in bigger sentinels for me to kill as I was looking for a crafting component that they seemed to drop. Of course I eventually got tired of the kiting and not getting the drop and left. Once I got out of the atmosphere I was attacked by a sentinel fighte

Re:

[GNious]

Wait a month? It'll then be less than 60 USD, and have had bugfixes.

Re:

[Some_Llama]

like every game and OS ever. why does anyone buy something the day it comes out (or pre-order) and then complain about the state of the game?

Name one game or OS that was released without major complaint in the last 5-10 years.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

Sure, it's just a game... but it's also a $60 expense, which I think it's reasonable to expect plays as advertised.
There's way too much nonsense in the current game industry where you pay retail prices for new game releases that are really still only "beta" quality.

Well, No Man's Sky has two issues. First, it's the opposite on pricing - you hear of AAA games priced at indie levels, but NMS is an indie game priced at AAA levels. (And it IS an indie game - the developer's other game was a mobile one). But tha

Re:

[Coren22]

Two issues? I would say the second issue is they dropped multiplayer after promising it, and taking people's money.

http://www.ibtimes.com/no-mans... [ibtimes.com]

It looks like there were many promises not met with the game. I can kind of understand, small developer overpromises and can't deliver.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Get a grip, buddy. It's a video game, not life-saving emergency surgery.

If they don't release the tools as promised, it's fraud.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

There is a similar mod for Space Engineers to take away a filter from remote video feeds.

I'd like to see a game drop the frame rate and resolution progressively as something gets farther away, if anything. That seems more realistic in this age of digital video.

Re: Oh please

[Anonymous Coward]

Three nights' playing and it hasn't crashed once on me. Even alt-tabbing out which I hear crashes for many people.

Lots of haters on this game. Sure $60 is an "AAA" price but I have already gotten about as much enjoyment out of it as a few movie theatre visits, so it's not like I feel ripped off.

Re:

[Whorhay]

I hadn't planned to buy it, and then it launched and there was the flood of criticism. Early last week I made the mistake of watching a couple LP videos from a youtuber that I subscribe to. By the end of the 2nd video I was telling myself I should stop watching or I'd end up buying it. Of course the next day I watched a 3rd video when I got home from work. The game was downloaded and installed in time to play after dinner.

There are some annoying issues to deal with, trade and crafting items not stacking alo

Re:

[axewolf]

BINGO the reaction the publisher intended is verbalized by a genius!

What a deep, thoughtful interpretation of the situation.

Way over hyped

[Georules]

Most of these mods are just color changes and effect removals. Modding is awesome, but get off your high horse about 'fixing' the game.

We need Hello Games to add content

[Anonymous Coward]

The procedural generation system in the game is amazing. Everything else is half-assed or worse. What the game needs is more and deeper procedural generation. All the pretty planets in every galaxy found so far have nothing but copies of the same seven stupid structures scattered at the same density. That really undercuts any wonder from all the landscapes and lifeforms. An expansion needs to give us a path to a galaxy where the planets have procedurally generated towns, farms, roads, rivers and NPCs. Hello