Posted February 28, 2023
Endless updates, mostly.
I know some people love it. They say it shows support for the game and all that. Some of them have been pretty amazing. But I've shelved NMS for years now and don't know when I'll get back to it. I always look at it and say, "Yeah, it's pretty fun and awesome, I should play it again" and then I think, "Ugh, I'll dump how many hours into this game only for it to be updated into something different again so I dump how many more hours into it? I have other games to play. I'll get to it when it's done." Yet it's never done.
NMS was released in 2016. We're over v4.0. Some updates were critically needed (inventory rework, menu rework, freaking finally adding refiner recipes in-game -- why this wasn't there day 1, I don't know -- etc.). Some are still missing (preventing terrain regrowing into bases is a fine example). But it came out in 2016. It's 2023. That's 7 years (6.5, but still). We're approaching Crusader Kings 2 level of "just won't die" (2012-2020). At least there's not hundreds of dollars of DLC, but I still hold that at some point, you need to give it a rest. Cut it. Make a sequel. Maybe some things can't be fixed because the engine is taxed. Maybe you don't want to screw over everyone's bases again. Sequels fix this.
I have the same thoughts with Minecraft, too. It's not exclusive to NMS. It's just that NMS is the only one like it that I actually kind of care about right now.
And so I'm stuck here looking at it, and then will probably go off to another game that is actually finished. That decided it was done and a sequel or different project will take dev effort. It's effectively turned me away from the game. Because time is precious, and NMS doesn't respect that (in my opinion).
It also bugs me a good bit that there's still so much newer content locked behind playing online. I purposefully block NMS with my firewall because I don't even want the discoveries to be shared. But this means: no quicksilver missions, no quicksilver shop (or very limited), no expeditions (which I dislike the idea of real-time-limited story events, period), etc. Looking at the release logs, the multiplayer component seems to have become the main (or at least one of the main) focuses of the game from the devs, which essentially leaves me out in the cold. I know there are mods to workaround some of this, but those shouldn't be needed. Offline should never be an "afterthought" that modders have to fix.
I realize this may be an unpopular opinion (well, probably not the offline stuff here on GOG), but I kind of want to vent about it. Either that or somehow find some way to convince me otherwise (I'm gonna tell you that that's going to be hard when my game backlog is as large as it is).
I know some people love it. They say it shows support for the game and all that. Some of them have been pretty amazing. But I've shelved NMS for years now and don't know when I'll get back to it. I always look at it and say, "Yeah, it's pretty fun and awesome, I should play it again" and then I think, "Ugh, I'll dump how many hours into this game only for it to be updated into something different again so I dump how many more hours into it? I have other games to play. I'll get to it when it's done." Yet it's never done.
NMS was released in 2016. We're over v4.0. Some updates were critically needed (inventory rework, menu rework, freaking finally adding refiner recipes in-game -- why this wasn't there day 1, I don't know -- etc.). Some are still missing (preventing terrain regrowing into bases is a fine example). But it came out in 2016. It's 2023. That's 7 years (6.5, but still). We're approaching Crusader Kings 2 level of "just won't die" (2012-2020). At least there's not hundreds of dollars of DLC, but I still hold that at some point, you need to give it a rest. Cut it. Make a sequel. Maybe some things can't be fixed because the engine is taxed. Maybe you don't want to screw over everyone's bases again. Sequels fix this.
I have the same thoughts with Minecraft, too. It's not exclusive to NMS. It's just that NMS is the only one like it that I actually kind of care about right now.
And so I'm stuck here looking at it, and then will probably go off to another game that is actually finished. That decided it was done and a sequel or different project will take dev effort. It's effectively turned me away from the game. Because time is precious, and NMS doesn't respect that (in my opinion).
It also bugs me a good bit that there's still so much newer content locked behind playing online. I purposefully block NMS with my firewall because I don't even want the discoveries to be shared. But this means: no quicksilver missions, no quicksilver shop (or very limited), no expeditions (which I dislike the idea of real-time-limited story events, period), etc. Looking at the release logs, the multiplayer component seems to have become the main (or at least one of the main) focuses of the game from the devs, which essentially leaves me out in the cold. I know there are mods to workaround some of this, but those shouldn't be needed. Offline should never be an "afterthought" that modders have to fix.
I realize this may be an unpopular opinion (well, probably not the offline stuff here on GOG), but I kind of want to vent about it. Either that or somehow find some way to convince me otherwise (I'm gonna tell you that that's going to be hard when my game backlog is as large as it is).
