No Man's Sky recent success is good sign for Elite and future Space games/sims

[Dutchman141]

Some have more cause to be bitter than others while some have no cause at all and just enjoy it.

This and the general gaming thread being the only two threads I so much as look at nowadays...I’m not actually complaining just find the thread interesting cos deep down, I really do wanna see elite on form again...I’m just bored waiting fer it to happen ^

This.

With every update I hoped Fdev would add more stuff to do that matters, give purpose.
When they anounced the Beyond roadmap I was genuinely excited, maybe this year things will turn for the better.
We're now at a point that all hope is set on the magical Q4 update, am I kidding myself, probably because the expactations for the overlord Q4 update are so high that you could almost make a new game out of it.

Exaggeration? Yes, but it does show at which point I have arrived regarding ED's gameplay and fun factor.
Yes, I hope Q4 will change things for the better, I truly do but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
NMS is a completely different game but it answers to a lot of expectations or hopes a lot of us have or had for ED.

 

[MrFailfactory]

This.

With every update I hoped Fdev would add more stuff to do that matters, give purpose.
When they anounced the Beyond roadmap I was genuinely excited, maybe this year things will turn for the better.
We're now at a point that all hope is set on the magical Q4 update, am I kidding myself, probably because the expactations for the overlord Q4 update are so high that you could almost make a new game out of it.

Exaggeration? Yes, but it does show at which point I have arrived regarding ED's gameplay and fun factor.
Yes, I hope Q4 will change things for the better, I truly do but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
NMS is a completely different game but it answers to a lot of expectations or hopes a lot of us have or had for ED.

I would say that this is indeed the position that Frontier finds themselves in with a lot of people, including me. That doesn't mean that Elite would be over for me, or anything dramatic like that, but my excitement for it will be greatly diminished if they don't deliver in Q4. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, that doesn't have anything to do with NMS - it's just a fact on its own. If I can't land on new planet types by the end of this year (anything short of Earth-likes, it can't just be one more type), then that tells me that it's not something terribly high on their priority list. Frontier has supposedly been working on this since Horizons launched, and it's time to either deliver it, or start talking openly about when it's coming.

Its just been too long, at this juncture. As others have said, and I agree, this should have been a high priority from the outset. Would have, should have, isn't productive discussion, though, so I'm not going to beat on them about it. Q4 is the Exploration update, where that part of the game is the focus (along with Mining), and if new planets to land on is not included in that package (free or paid), that's a big problem, from my perspective.

There might be some reading this who might be thinking that I have purchased a can of black spray paint for my armor, but that is not the case. While it is true that I am largely supportive of Frontier, I am not blind to what is missing in the game, and we have reached a point regarding new places to land and Explore where enough is enough. It's time to fish, or cut bait, as they say. At this point in the game's development, I would question any decision or feature that causes expanding the Explorable galaxy to be pushed back, or put on the back burner.

This is really where NMS has Elite beat, hands down. We can talk about the style and presentation, about what there is to do, and whether or not it's fun/grindy, and many other nits to pick, but the bottom line is that we can land on and Explore most (all?) planets in NMS and that they have (reasonably) varied conditions/hazards, and we can't in Elite. Period, end of story, and this needs to change soon. I am actually hoping for a big reveal at Gamescom this month, something that will get the mods busy locking duplicate threads about that lava world with the erupting volcano, or the ship landed on that small island on that water world watching a storm come in.

Time is running out, Frontier - get on it.

Please.

Riôt

 

[Kubicide]

I would say that this is indeed the position that Frontier finds themselves in with a lot of people, including me. That doesn't mean that Elite would be over for me, or anything dramatic like that, but my excitement for it will be greatly diminished if they don't deliver in Q4. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, that doesn't have anything to do with NMS - it's just a fact on its own. If I can't land on new planet types by the end of this year (anything short of Earth-likes, it can't just be one more type), then that tells me that it's not something terribly high on their priority list. Frontier has supposedly been working on this since Horizons launched, and it's time to either deliver it, or start talking openly about when it's coming.

Its just been too long, at this juncture. As others have said, and I agree, this should have been a high priority from the outset. Would have, should have, isn't productive discussion, though, so I'm not going to beat on them about it. Q4 is the Exploration update, where that part of the game is the focus (along with Mining), and if new planets to land on is not included in that package (free or paid), that's a big problem, from my perspective.

There might be some reading this who might be thinking that I have purchased a can of black spray paint for my armor, but that is not the case. While it is true that I am largely supportive of Frontier, I am not blind to what is missing in the game, and we have reached a point regarding new places to land and Explore where enough is enough. It's time to fish, or cut bait, as they say. At this point in the game's development, I would question any decision or feature that causes expanding the Explorable galaxy to be pushed back, or put on the back burner.

This is really where NMS has Elite beat, hands down. We can talk about the style and presentation, about what there is to do, and whether or not it's fun/grindy, and many other nits to pick, but the bottom line is that we can land on and Explore most (all?) planets in NMS and that they have (reasonably) varied conditions/hazards, and we can't in Elite. Period, end of story, and this needs to change soon. I am actually hoping for a big reveal at Gamescom this month, something that will get the mods busy locking duplicate threads about that lava world with the erupting volcano, or the ship landed on that small island on that water world watching a storm come in.

Time is running out, Frontier - get on it.

Please.

Riôt

Well said.

 

[krylite]

I would say that this is indeed the position that Frontier finds themselves in with a lot of people, including me. That doesn't mean that Elite would be over for me, or anything dramatic like that, but my excitement for it will be greatly diminished if they don't deliver in Q4. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, that doesn't have anything to do with NMS - it's just a fact on its own. If I can't land on new planet types by the end of this year (anything short of Earth-likes, it can't just be one more type), then that tells me that it's not something terribly high on their priority list. Frontier has supposedly been working on this since Horizons launched, and it's time to either deliver it, or start talking openly about when it's coming.

Its just been too long, at this juncture. As others have said, and I agree, this should have been a high priority from the outset. Would have, should have, isn't productive discussion, though, so I'm not going to beat on them about it. Q4 is the Exploration update, where that part of the game is the focus (along with Mining), and if new planets to land on is not included in that package (free or paid), that's a big problem, from my perspective.

There might be some reading this who might be thinking that I have purchased a can of black spray paint for my armor, but that is not the case. While it is true that I am largely supportive of Frontier, I am not blind to what is missing in the game, and we have reached a point regarding new places to land and Explore where enough is enough. It's time to fish, or cut bait, as they say. At this point in the game's development, I would question any decision or feature that causes expanding the Explorable galaxy to be pushed back, or put on the back burner.

This is really where NMS has Elite beat, hands down. We can talk about the style and presentation, about what there is to do, and whether or not it's fun/grindy, and many other nits to pick, but the bottom line is that we can land on and Explore most (all?) planets in NMS and that they have (reasonably) varied conditions/hazards, and we can't in Elite. Period, end of story, and this needs to change soon. I am actually hoping for a big reveal at Gamescom this month, something that will get the mods busy locking duplicate threads about that lava world with the erupting volcano, or the ship landed on that small island on that water world watching a storm come in.

Time is running out, Frontier - get on it.

Please.

Riôt

They already stated what was mainly coming with Beyond at the FrontierExpo last year. It's unlikely they'll have earth-like world landings by the end of the year. It's more likely atmos on barren worlds landings and a first simple mode of spacelegs could be coming next year or later. FD have done plenty of work on ED as ED is. A spacesim game. We've got new ships, new modules, effects, megaships & the thargoids.

I wouldn't count FD dead on a deadline or needing to be hurried as they are on their own dev schedule while many still get more hours of entertainment with ED than NMS ever did in total with its own playerbase. FD have said more recently new developments will be announced when it's "good and ready" and seemingly not before. Since collapsing after release, NMS was at the lowest end on the recent space genre games for two years before NMS-next. Now people who wrote it off previously are pretending HG's debacle of lies and badly blundered false expectations selling pre-orders never happened. So while Frontier is far above the infamy of HG's past stink of doing business, current impatience with ED's development effectively won't really matter if a year or even two or more ED gets full atmos landing and npc cities /w spacelegs. . Everyone will just migrate back quietly, and the game will still be said to be "doomed" on the forum by the naysaying game, 2, 5, 10 years and on and on from now, while many still enjoy the game. Case closed.

 

[M00ka]

They already stated what was mainly coming with Beyond at the FrontierExpo last year. It's unlikely they'll have earth-like world landings by the end of the year. It's more likely atmos on barren worlds landings and a first simple mode of spacelegs could be coming next year or later. FD have done plenty of work on ED as ED is. A spacesim game. We've got new ships, new modules, effects, megaships & the thargoids.

I wouldn't count FD dead on a deadline or needing to be hurried as they are on their own dev schedule while many still get more hours of entertainment with ED than NMS ever did in total with it's playerbase. After all NMS was at lowest end on the recent spacesim games for two years before NMS-next. Now people who wrote it off previously are pretending their debacle of lies and badly blundered false expectations selling pre-orders never happened. They've said new developments will be announced when it's "good and ready" and seemingly not before So current impatience with ED's development won't really matter if a year or even two or more ED gets full atmos landing and npc cities /w spacelegs. . Everyone will just migrate back quietly, and the game will still be said to be "doomed" on the forum, 2, 5, 10 years and on and on from now while many still enjoy the game. Case closed.

Repped, well said.

Wasn't one of the primary intents of Beyond to fix the core game? If it was, then a lot of the effort FD have done is probably transparent to the majority of the player base. It is often more time consuming and difficult to fix something inside of a game than to add something new to it.

As for NMS, totally agree with Krylite, in regards to NMS they had no option than to bust their gut on Next, if they hadn't the game was as good as dead. Yes they should be commended but when their company is on the line, miracles do sometimes happen. The test for NMS is whether it still retains it's current player base in 6 or 12 months time!

 

[El_Hefe]

They already stated what was mainly coming with Beyond at the FrontierExpo last year. It's unlikely they'll have earth-like world landings by the end of the year. It's more likely atmos on barren worlds landings and a first simple mode of spacelegs could be coming next year or later. FD have done plenty of work on ED as ED is. A spacesim game. We've got new ships, new modules, effects, megaships & the thargoids.

I wouldn't count FD dead on a deadline or needing to be hurried as they are on their own dev schedule while many still get more hours of entertainment with ED than NMS ever did in total with it's playerbase. FD have said more recently new developments will be announced when it's "good and ready" and seemingly not before. Since collapsing after release, NMS was at lowest end on the recent spacesim games for two years before NMS-next. Now people who wrote it off previously are pretending their debacle of lies and badly blundered false expectations selling pre-orders never happened. So current impatience with ED's development won't really matter if a year or even two or more ED gets full atmos landing and npc cities /w spacelegs. . Everyone will just migrate back quietly, and the game will still be said to be "doomed" on the forum, 2, 5, 10 years and on and on from now while many still enjoy the game. Case closed.

Na,case not closed.

People after 4 years are getting impatient about elite because its glacial pace of development in those 4 years.

I purchased elite the day it came out of early access. It was a shell of a game and thats where the mile wide inch deep comments come from imo.

Its has certainly improved a lot in those 4 years but nowhere near the pace that most games improve.

I mean there going back to improve the core of the game after 4 years,the fact that they havent got the core right after 4 years should tell you something.

 

[Viajero]

I am actually hoping for a big reveal at Gamescom this month, something that will get the mods busy locking duplicate threads about that lava world with the erupting volcano, or the ship landed on that small island on that water world watching a storm come in.

FDEV has just confirmed in Twitch streams and posts in the forum that Gamescom will not have any new reveals and will be focused on Beyond content.

People after 4 years are getting impatient about elite because its glacial pace of development in those 4 years.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=6911403&viewfull=1#post6911403

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Na,case not closed.

People after 4 years are getting impatient about elite because its glacial pace of development in those 4 years.

Some people are getting impatient. Thats human nature, always wanting more.

I really do not think the development has been that glacial. They may have developed the wrong stuff (They did in my view), but glacial, no, I don't see it.

NMS took a year to the Next update, now that sounds glacial to me.

I purchased elite the day it came out of early access. It was a shell of a game and thats where the mile wide inch deep comments come from imo.

Some aspects I agree and some I don't. The mile wide inch deep was from what I can gather that there seemed to be no reasons to do stuff. There are, but you need you decide them yourself instead of the game giving you a path to follow.

Its has certainly improved a lot in those 4 years but nowhere near the pace that most games improve.

I really not too sure about that. Can you give some good examples a&e NMS isn't what I would call one of them.

I mean there going back to improve the core of the game after 4 years,the fact that they havent got the core right after 4 years should tell you something.

Surely that is all down to personal preference. I really like the new trading tools which are a massive improvement.

Engineers which you can call core now is much better in my view.

C&P is better but not what I would have implemented personally.

Is the core better after 3.1, in my view yes. It looks like it will improve a lot after Q4 too with the much better mining and from what we have seen, much better exploration.

They had to wait after horizons to do this as they had backed themselves into a corner with horizons. They had made a promise to add these things when people brought it. But in my view developed the wrong stuff. Mistakes happen and they have admitted it and are now updating the core parts of the game which needed it to make other parts of the game such as multicrew actually worth while.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

FDEV has just confirmed in Twitch streams and posts in the forum that Gamescom will not have any new reveals and will be focused on Beyond content.



https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=6911403&viewfull=1#post6911403

You are not comparing apples with apples in your post...

using the info from your post and adding some dates..

Elite Horizons released on 14 December 2015 (31 Months ago) so that works out to 1 Patch every 6.2 Months

NMS released on 9 August 2016 (23 Months Ago) and had 4 patches in that time, meaning 1 Patch every 5.75 Months.

I do not own NMS, but looking at all my friends and streams of the game, it appears that NMS has added more meaningful and engaging content in those 23 Months than Elite has in the last 31 Months

 

[babelfisch]

Na,case not closed.

People after 4 years are getting impatient about elite because its glacial pace of development in those 4 years.

I purchased elite the day it came out of early access. It was a shell of a game and thats where the mile wide inch deep comments come from imo.

Its has certainly improved a lot in those 4 years but nowhere near the pace that most games improve.

I mean there going back to improve the core of the game after 4 years,the fact that they havent got the core right after 4 years should tell you something.

Actually most games don't get improved at all after release. Not after 6 months and definitely not after 4 years. Elite is a notable exception in this regard and giving players free updates without a subscription model is probably one of the most customer friendly things I've seen in a long time.

You are not comparing apples with apples in your post...

using the info from your post and adding some dates..

Elite Horizons released on 14 December 2015 (31 Months ago) so that works out to 1 Patch every 6.2 Months

NMS released on 9 August 2016 (23 Months Ago) and had 4 patches in that time, meaning 1 Patch every 5.75 Months.

I do not own NMS, but looking at all my friends and streams of the game, it appears that NMS has added more meaningful and engaging content in those 23 Months than Elite has in the last 31 Months

LOL, are we arguing about 15 days now?

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Actually most games don't get improved at all after release. Not after 6 months and definitely not after 4 years. Elite is a notable exception in this regard and giving players free updates without a subscription model is probably one of the most customer friendly things I've seen in a long time.



LOL, are we arguing about 15 days now?

I'm not arguing quantity, rather quality,

but I'm not going to argue, this forum is a pointless echo chamber

Game is great, nothing to see here...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Its has certainly improved a lot in those 4 years but nowhere near the pace that most games improve.

I mean there going back to improve the core of the game after 4 years,the fact that they havent got the core right after 4 years should tell you something.

I have beef with these two sentences. While I have my own concerns about some of pace FD have to deliver fixes and improvements, I recognize difference between other games and ED. More I get to know about ED, more insanely complex it seems. Devs aren't wizards. No dev is. There are games that get regular updates - but that's mostly surface level story or other type of update that doesn't involve changing fundamentals. ED changing fundamentals once a year isn't great for anyone, but just give you hint how complex it is and how hard is actually find some good median that works. Lot of games doesn't get updates for that long. At least not for free. Lot of games get paid for updates, but they don't change fundamentals that much. Also single player vs. mmo angle should be taken into account.

In nutshell...."most games"? No. Most games don't get support beyond first year. No one simply pays for that. Those who do have various different ways and levels of updates to do so. Overall I don't see FD being best or worst in industry, overall I think their support for game has never wavered.

And as for core updates - again, ED is complex, and FD tries to create ultimate game which can be played for years - and is played for years. Core updates, even fundamental changes, are simply part of the deal, which I welcome with open arms.

C&P update? Heck yeah. Exploration and mining updates? Give me more! I will welcome NPC comms, more persistent NPCs, NPC crew, etc. and so on and so forth.

Seriously, please tell me, do you EVER expected such game, such HUGE game to be delivered in one go? Check out how SC is doing...Ohhh right, it is going NOWHERE.

 

[verminstar]

This.

With every update I hoped Fdev would add more stuff to do that matters, give purpose.
When they anounced the Beyond roadmap I was genuinely excited, maybe this year things will turn for the better.
We're now at a point that all hope is set on the magical Q4 update, am I kidding myself, probably because the expactations for the overlord Q4 update are so high that you could almost make a new game out of it.

Exaggeration? Yes, but it does show at which point I have arrived regarding ED's gameplay and fun factor.
Yes, I hope Q4 will change things for the better, I truly do but I'm not gonna hold my breath.
NMS is a completely different game but it answers to a lot of expectations or hopes a lot of us have or had for ED.

I can’t rep anyone cos I’m living outta a carrier bag in hospital this past week, so technically I’m not playing anything since last Thursday...but there’s virtual rep fer lots of comments here that virtually reflect me own feelings.

I’m not expecting any big reveals or plan changing from frontier...I just wanna see them deliver some real substance before the year is out and that’s it. Not making impossible demands, trying hard not to make comparisons...just waiting and hoping that now the dinos are outta the way that they will turn efforts to ed.

I’d like to think that’s not an unrealistic expectation but it is fulfilling what they claimed they would do last October with the core gameplay and the bugs.

I’d love to say I’ll never quit elite entirely, and I’ve had breaks before but this is different...it feels different this time and more words and announcements simply isn’t enough. At this point I’d prefer they did stay silent and focus on that cos I’d also love to say I still trust them...but I’d be flat out lying if I did.

Only thing that can redeem them now are results. Any further delays or more vague excuses would be a death sentence...fer me personally. Which is why I no longer have any interest in listening to them preaching...I believed them last year but that was their last chance. Now they like the little boy who cried wolf just one too many times...now I’ll wait till I see the wolf and ignore the little boy entirely.

Some will argue with what I believe is a perfectly reasonable expectation at this point...some will make excuses to try and protect their precious. Me I’ll just ignore them all and wait fer that wolf to turn up.

Fer me own sanity, I have to put Q4 as the final deadline...as it stands everything, all my hopes rest in that one update...all Q3 does is begin a final countdown at this point.

If they deliver, I’ll be a bigger white knight than eaglekid but if they don’t, then I’ll simply fade away entirely. It’s not a threat...it’s a statement ^

 

[Viajero]

You are not comparing apples with apples in your post...

using the info from your post and adding some dates..

Elite Horizons released on 14 December 2015 (31 Months ago) so that works out to 1 Patch every 6.2 Months

NMS released on 9 August 2016 (23 Months Ago) and had 4 patches in that time, meaning 1 Patch every 5.75 Months.

I do not own NMS, but looking at all my friends and streams of the game, it appears that NMS has added more meaningful and engaging content in those 23 Months than Elite has in the last 31 Months

I haven’t compared anything myself, I just listed the expansions released by each game since NMS launched in 2016, so to add a few facts to the discussion about development pace. Quality or interest is a personal thing and I have not gone into that here.

Edit: Corrected your maths a bit

• Horizons + Beyond, to Aug 2018 released 32 months ago, 6 expansions since then (Engineers, Guardians, Commanders, The Return, 3.0 and 3.1), 32 / 6 = 5.3 months per expansion on average
• Elite overall to Aug 2018, released 44 months ago, 11 expansions since then (CG, Wings, Powerplay, CQC, Horizons/Ships, Engineers, Guardians, Commandes, The Return, 3.0 and 3.1), 44 / 11 = 4 months per expansion on average
• Elite overall if we include the pretty much confirmed 3.2 and 3.3 before end of the year 2018: 48 / 13 = 3.6 months per expansion on average

• NMS, released 23 months ago and had 4 patches, for 5.75 months per expansions on average

These obviously only looks at pace of the respective main expansions but does not look at the content in them. For that I had embedded some links for the most recent ones above.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

I haven’t compared anything myself, I just listed the expansions released by each game since NMS launched in 2016.

I see that now, my mistake,

I'm sure everyone here arguing want the best for the game, but are just going about it from different angles.

If NMS had ED's scientific accuracy, flight model and graphics, I would have left ED behind in a flash,

So I'm sitting here, hoping that ED evolves into what many people are asking for before another game pops up and fills that spot

 

[babelfisch]

I see that now, my mistake,

I'm sure everyone here arguing want the best for the game, but are just going about it from different angles.

If NMS had ED's scientific accuracy, flight model and graphics, I would have left ED behind in a flash,

So I'm sitting here, hoping that ED evolves into what many people are asking for before another game pops up and fills that spot

+rep
Wanted to write some nasty things for your last post but this one sounds most reasonable.

 

[obliterator]

I have beef with these two sentences. While I have my own concerns about some of pace FD have to deliver fixes and improvements, I recognize difference between other games and ED. More I get to know about ED, more insanely complex it seems. Devs aren't wizards. No dev is.

To me the problem isn't that ED doesn't get enough update, it's that they don't tend to put their efforts where it matters. They've wasted a phenomenal amount of time into some updates that feel more like mini-games than actual additions to ED. For example, imagine if all the efforts that went into powerplay, cqc and multicrew went in planetary content instead? Or better mission, or anything gameplay-related.

No man's sky success is due to the fact that every update deeply affected the core gameplay of the game rather than just adding layers to it. If frontier started to follow the same logic with their future updates, Elite would greatly benefit from it.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

To me the problem isn't that ED doesn't get enough update, it's that they don't tend to put their efforts where it matters. They've wasted a phenomenal amount of time into some updates that really don't bring much to the game. For example, imagine if all the efforts that went into powerplay, cqc and multicrew went in planetary content instead? Or better mission, or anything gameplay-related. We would have a completely different game right now.

I think most of us agree that they developed maybe not the wrong stuff, but the right stuff at the wrong time:

• Powerplay could have been great if given longer time to be developed, maybe should have been released at 1.5 giving it more time to develop something meaningful from it.
• Multicrew has the potential but really shouldn't have been introduced until the core gameplay areas are updated and then you could have had multicrew mining and exploration which looks like we are getting. But they had no choice but to add multicrew as they had said it was going to be added when horizons was introduced.
• CQC i have no idea what that was about, the only one I think was a waste of development.

No man's sky success is due to the fact that every update deeply affected the core gameplay of the game rather than just adding layers to it. If frontier started to follow the same logic with their future updates, Elite would greatly benefit from it.

The issue with NMS was that the core was so awful to begin with that they had no choice. With ED the core wasn't great, but it wasn't awful either, hence the reason why people have been able to play for 1000's of hours and the player numbers haven't been that bad. Does the core need to get better to get the game to move on, 100% it does, which it looks like it is doing thankfully.

The exploration and the codex are the two biggest things I am looking forward to at the moment and really hope they push the game forward to better things in the future.

 

[TheSynopticVision]

The issue with NMS was that the core so awful to begin with that they had no choice. With ED the core wasn't great, but it wasn't awful either, hence the reason why people have been able to play for 1000's of hours. Does the core need to get better to get the game to move on, 100% it does, which it looks like it is doing thankfully.

The issue though is: the existence of people playing a game for 1000s of hours does not say much about its quality. The NMS community is huge. Here we like to pat ourselves on the back and think of us as the best gaming community around, but the NMS community is just as active (especially considering that until 2 weeks ago they had no multiplayer to speak of), and in terms of sheer numbers far larger than the Elite one. And yes, there will be hundreds or indeed thousands of players who played NMS since 2016, now clocking 1000s of hours each.

This should be instructive for us too. People who respond to criticisms to the game with "well, I played 27272929 hours so it's pretty good" are really saying nothing at all. The amount of time played maybe says something about you and your gaming habits. But says very little about the game and whether or not it could be improved.

As a rough indication of the quality and health of a game (I say rough because, well, Fortnite) number of total active players trumps number of hours played by single players.

 

[babelfisch]

The issue though is: the existence of people playing a game for 1000s of hours does not say much about its quality. The NMS community is huge. Here we like to pat ourselves on the back and think of us as the best gaming community around, but the NMS community is just as active (especially considering that until 2 weeks ago they had no multiplayer to speak of), and in terms of sheer numbers far larger than the Elite one. And yes, there will be hundreds or indeed thousands of players who played NMS since 2016, now clocking 1000s of hours each.

This should be instructive for us too. People who respond to criticisms to the game with "well, I played 27272929 hours so it's pretty good" are really saying nothing at all. The amount of time played maybe says something about you and your gaming habits. But says very little about the game and whether or not it could be improved.

As a rough indication of the quality and health of a game (I say rough because, well, Fortnite) number of total active players trumps number of hours played by single players.

Minor correction: The NMS community basically didn't exist until 2 weeks ago...

If you find hyperbole you may keep it.