The problem is that NMS is very repetitive and bland. Learning alien words takes for-fucking-ever, finding freighter upgrades is one of the worst time sinks in the game, combat feels more tedious and padded out than that of Everquest, looking for "that one cool ship" or "cool looking weapon" is pure RNG and lucking out on it not coming as a C class, upgrading inventory space is either a system jumping time sink or "planetary exploration" time sink.

Nearly nothing you do in the game gives you a sense of accomplishment and, after 4-8 hours or so after first starting playing, you're unlikely to look forward to any specific activity because "it's fun". There's a lot "to do" but very little motivation to, like why even bother being the mayor of a settlement?

Even on permadeath the game offers no real challenge once you're off the starting planet.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Isn't there a "journey to the centre" and interaction with other players?

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 6 points 8 months ago

Isn’t there a “journey to the centre”

Yes, though it's a cheap "new game plus", without even feeling like a "new game". Once you manage to get to the center, you're thrown in a new galaxy in a random planet and have to get back to your ship, only some upgrades you've installed on yourself and your ship might break. Yet you can immediately call your freighter and any exocraft.

There's also Artemis' questline, with an interesting concept but overall underwhelming delivery.

Story spoilers

Artemis is stuck in a simulation, just like you, player, are stuck in one. The whole universe is a failing simulation created by Atlas.

interaction with other players?

From my experience, which pretty much ended around 1 year ago with the game, player interaction could be summed up to:

finding someone else's buildings during a community expedition
finding someone else's buildings in a quicksilver quest
someone giving you free stuff while you're idling in the anomaly

Apparently there are guilds now? In any case, I never saw anyone looking for group, because the game has nothing that only a pair or trio can do, or do faster/better than a solo player, other than base building

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

From what I've found online, the "center" of your galaxy is just a portal that sends you to the edge of a different galaxy where it's different but more of the same.

Kinda like Starfield actually.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 4 points 8 months ago

The irony is how much Starfield copies from NMS, often the bad things and as a worse copy, like scanning stuff on the planet surface, jump range limitation, space "exploration", shitty performance