Given how many systems NMS has and how disconnected they often feel from one another, taking a more focused approach might work out better for the game.
“Infinite” universes, like NMS or Starfield sound good in marketing, but if you’re really moving around them, at scale speeds, they can’t help but feel isolated and instanced. Even LNF, if it’s a whole ‘earth like’ planet, is huge. Earth has about 50M square miles of habitable surface - if you drop 10,000,000 people in there randomly, you’re going to have to walk half an hour to have a chance to find another player, if they happen to be on at the same time. It shouldn’t have the sharp breaks between biomes that fast-travel to a different planet gives, and I expect that will make it feel a lot more coherent.
Not only do they feel isolated, they also feel the same. NMS technically has billions of unique planets. In practice it has about 10 or so because they all feel the same. And even those look alike because they’re all sparsely populated worlds. Big stretches of emptiness filled with the occasional POI. Where are the mega city planets? The forge worlds with heavy industry? Any city with more than 100 inhabitants?
Sentinals have wiped them out and destroyed every trace of old civilisation.
Then again, it’s just an excuse; having them does not solve the issue. Most devs these days will prefer procedural generation with handcrafted POI on top, but having the player spend time on them is the issue, because HG are terrible at creating POIs with lore.
Given how many systems NMS has and how disconnected they often feel from one another, taking a more focused approach might work out better for the game.
“Infinite” universes, like NMS or Starfield sound good in marketing, but if you’re really moving around them, at scale speeds, they can’t help but feel isolated and instanced. Even LNF, if it’s a whole ‘earth like’ planet, is huge. Earth has about 50M square miles of habitable surface - if you drop 10,000,000 people in there randomly, you’re going to have to walk half an hour to have a chance to find another player, if they happen to be on at the same time. It shouldn’t have the sharp breaks between biomes that fast-travel to a different planet gives, and I expect that will make it feel a lot more coherent.
Not only do they feel isolated, they also feel the same. NMS technically has billions of unique planets. In practice it has about 10 or so because they all feel the same. And even those look alike because they’re all sparsely populated worlds. Big stretches of emptiness filled with the occasional POI. Where are the mega city planets? The forge worlds with heavy industry? Any city with more than 100 inhabitants?
Sentinals have wiped them out and destroyed every trace of old civilisation.
Then again, it’s just an excuse; having them does not solve the issue. Most devs these days will prefer procedural generation with handcrafted POI on top, but having the player spend time on them is the issue, because HG are terrible at creating POIs with lore.