Still, I do feel ED might be in "nap time" mode, not only due to a lull in new content, but for the simple fact that summer is upon us. I haven't played for more than an a few hours since late March. I even moved ED to my external drive. I yawn at most of the threads being posted lately (you know things are slow when "Let's have sex with the Thargoids" is the most popular topic). I know ED is far from dead, but it does feel sleepy.
Interesting point. Since the last patch ive diversified as well and liking it too. Just finished jurassic world evolution (only get the base game on sale as its just like elite, expensive well done skeleton) and playing through witcher 2 again. Yet without forcing it i still find myself back in elite. When you're sick of it, the trick is to only play when you have a sandbox goal you're excited about, don't just log in and grind. Yes a week can go by without playing and its good.
Throughout my entire time playing ive never seen elite average more than 4-6k. White knights keep quoting some mythical figure that doesn't play via the steam launcher, and there's consoles i guess. Its a possible assumption that just like steam those numbers havent changed a bit either, or have died off.
The "focus on elite making money" is a strange one. Personally, frontier actually pssed me off. Took an account out of the bubble and.. the best i can do is certain rng system content scenarios are better, but theres a dismaying gut sink that new exploration caused.. the system was actually the games expression of the stellar forge. Its like that familar core concept is no longer in the game in many scenarios when out of the bubble, and its worse, face stabbingly worse. The fss is a brilliant tool, but plain as day frontier didn't care about / design for the player experience and it shows. Anyway, the point is i completely shut down cosmetics because of this and frontier will need to improve the game significantly before it gets turned on again.
It also blows my mind how one player can come with amazing cosmetics and all that's coming out of the store is such rubbish. During the early days, those were the only ones available so worked, but when you have a fleet full of cosmetics and rares, duplicated over a number of accounts, and frontiers form with the game itself its just not going to happen.