I have just over 100 hours in online play time on Elite Now. While that might not be a lot, hell I haven't even really scraped the top of what is on offer in the game, it's enough to put me in a position where I can at least put my honest opinion out there.
Seeing as the game has a 10 year development cycle and they just finished season 1, that leaves us with 9 more seasons. Then there is the PVP section which I am not interested in, so maybe someone else can provide info on that.
I've been focusing a lot on not playing alone and using extra services like teamspeak to keep communication up. And the game has been absolutely epic. Everything and more I wanted in a space game. Ship movements are very precise and fluid. Getting used to flying without flight assist is probably one of the most rewarding things to do in the game. There is a large selection of ships and quite a lot more coming out. I recently took part in a community goal and that was fantastic fun, with many other players flying in specific areas, it becomes quite the spectacle.
I've seen large scale battles, found black holes and I've probably died about 7 times now. Not once did I feel like this was a waste of time.
The game does have a learning curve though. Easy to get behind, tough to master. For now there is a very broad amount of things to do, but none of them other than the powerplay and community goals have a lot of depth to them. But it is only the 1st season in development. And there is a lot currently being worked on.
I have played the closed beta of update 1.4 CQC and if anybody enjoys fast paced PVP battles then this is it. It's well done and seems like it could be fun. BUT I did spend very little time in it. Like I stated above, it's just not for me.
But okay, I get your point. Expansions every year and it gets expensive. It works out to $5 a month though, which isn't that much if you think about it. We spend a lot more than that on games in general.
Have they fixed the quests yet, making questing a viable income source? The last time I played I was lucky if I could complete 1 of the quests in a station and then I'd probably get 10k credits for it (if I don't have to commit a crime). It was far more lucrative just hunting for bounties and the odd debris.
Or the quest would send me 20 jumps away and it takes me about 30 minutes to get there for a measly reward.
A typical quest that I'd actually take, because it's one of the only ones I consider doable goes something like does:
1) Accept quest to collect this floating around, or kill somebody who's bounty is 20-30s. If the bounty is anything decent then he's got an army with him and I don't stand a chance.
2) Jump to the target system, takes about 1-2 minutes per jump, can be quite far away and then you just go through the same motions over and over.
3) Get to the correct system, fly around hoping to find a USS (unidentified signal source).
4) Find a USS, go in, just a bunch of ships with no bounty or a funeral procession.
5) Go supercruise
6) Look for another USS, all the previous USS that had just been right outside have magically vanished.
7) After flying around a few more minutes I get another USS, go in, oh it's somebody offering me an alternative place to drop off the cargo that I haven't found yet.
8) Go supercruise
9) Enter a few more USS, if I'm lucky I might find the right one, or some killable ships with good bounties on them. If I'm unlucky I might run into something so powerful that it just kills me costing me a bunch of money, a bunch of time, all of the bounties that I had collected at that stage but not handed in, all of my cargo, and 10% insurance to buy me ship back and repair it.
I'm also not a fan of this whole 10 year development cycle crap. Call me old school but I want to buy a finished game on day 1 and play finish it and move on. This 10 year development cycle thing just allows them to keep on saying "not yet, but coming soon".
