Just that really. For some reason I just have hardly run the game at all since these Arx things appeared. I don't really know why but I suspect it might be a reaction to the game sort of putting a value on what you have been doing. I am not interested in earning Arx (I can buy some if I want anything) so am not looking at maximising the awarding of them. However in over four-and-a-half years I have never gone more than a few days without playing and yet in the last two weeks I have hardly run the game at all.
Anyway, this isn't a complaint or a rant or a whine - just interested to know if anyone else has experienced this.
ARX in my case is the reason I play, and I do only exploration now. I am sitting at New Growth and branch out from there. At this time I try to accumulate enough ARX to buy the 'right' to write the ships name on a ship. The price in real money just to write the fricking ships name on the ship is ludicrous. Never would have payed this, but with ARX it is possible now. Strange objectives for a strange game...
Without ARX I probably would not play anymore, and after buying the name plate I probably won't play much, maybe even leave the game. Everything I planned I gave up. I have around 1.5 billions in cash, planned to buy two ships (Python and Imp. Courier), and then wanted to go for more Engineers (have only 3 at this time). Planned to try trading (no missions, just trading). But looking at the things I need (materials mainly) and the annoyance of it all, I never brought myself to start doing it. At the moment the only thing I can abide in this game is exploration. Nothing much annoys me out in the black...
This game is strange in a way: FD decided to build a house. First they built a foundation and a basement. The foundation is very sound, the basement is luxurious and complete. One feels really well in the basement. But when the basement was ready, they just stopped. Either they run out of money or motivation, or both. So they decided to build a wooden shack on top, with cardboard walls and a straw roof. Many things in this shack just don't work or work not really well. And every time they try to add or change something the shack partially collapses and has to be fixed, which never is done fully. The shack becomes shabbier with every change. With Horizons they decided to make a new basement part, with is okay, but still they built only a measly shack on top of it. But nearby the shack they have a shop where they sell overpriced colors to paint the shack...
So I prefer to remain in the basement (flying, exploring, landing on moons), the rest of the game is rather annoying and makes me a bit angry when I think what they could do with the foundation and basement and have to see the measly shack...
A pity, really, I had high hopes for this game when I purchased it in February this year. But I fear even the planned (and highly secret) expansion DLC will just be a growing basement (hopefully in the same quality) but a shabby shack on top. As long as FD remains undecided how the house should look and which rooms it should have, we will have only a cardboard shack: No NPCs, no real game play, no real missions, only ghosts who appear for seconds to annoy you, flee if successfully attacked, come back fully repaired in seconds to annoy you further and force you to engineer your ship, which cost weeks of senseless play. No real background but a plethora of uninteresting and lifeless 'factions' and 'powers', about whose fate I could not care less.
Also - not meant as a rant, just a rather sad conclusion. The year comes to its end and I think my interest for this game comes to an end too. I have enough space on my SSD, so I will not delete it, and I will keep it up to date, but playing - I just don't know.
i'm envisaging the turbo button on my first PC!!
