I have been playing NMS via GOG off and on since release day. I completed the first expedition and then have not played another one until the most recent three, which I did on my PS5, and the most recent one I did also on Mac via Steam. I have been looking forward to playing older expeditions I missed in years prior, plus being able to have them done on both Steam and PS5.

But in looking at the last two years both times the expedition replays started in November. I am slowly losing hope that I will get to play them this year.

  • Jeff Rose@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    If I had to speculate, I think there could be a couple things at play…

    1. They have been focusing on bug fixes and stability lately as seen in the experimental branches on Steam instead of new features. They added support for MacOS and iPadOS earlier this year, which I’m sure complicates ongoing development.
    2. There have been many game releases lately that may have pulled people away from NMS, like Starfield, Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, etc. It may not be worth it for them to invest resources in re-running the expeditions if people are currently focused elsewhere.

    Personally, I am on a NMS hiatus until the next expedition or major update.

      • Jeff Rose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I am still speculating but…

        1. You have to push out an update to re-issue the expedition(s) on a shortened timeframe. While the development cost itself may be minimal, there’s still a cost associated with doing the release on various platforms.
        2. I assume expeditions cause a spike in usage. Since this is a multiplayer game, it has to be hosted somewhere and that isn’t free, especially when traffic increases.

        Both of these may be very low cost but it still may not be worth it for them to do it. They continue to release new content for free, which is great, except it’s also not a sustainable business model. They probably have to keep it as lean as possible.

        • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          1 year ago

          I can’t imagine a company that wants you to buy and play their game/buy micotransactions (quicksilver) would have an issue with more people playing their game. Even if theyre using a highly elastic cloud solution that scales with user base I don’t think the extra playtime and potential for future purchases would make them think twice about the additional server cost.