PHJF wrote on Jun 20, 2025, 13:05:
Game is enormously grindy, uninspired and half-baked. I got 16 hours in before I realized it wasn't ever going to be getting better and I noped out.

Best example is the one that put me over the edge. I was given a quest in the Rift zone. The quest was at the opposite side of the zone. So I drive through the zone all the while encountering no enemies or anything of interest. I get to the quest marker. A handful of guys spawn out of thin air (literally), I kill them, and then the quest indicator tells me to go back.

Game is full of time sinks like that.

Thanks for the honest review PHJF i was considering but that sound really ... uninspiring.

I'm at hour 50 and am in the process of moving my base for the 5th time. Couple close calls with the Big Boy. Building on the edge of the map was a stupid idea. On the plus side, buggy makes it pretty easy. Not sure how I feel about losing everything though when I decide to take a break. Hoping I can load up some key parts in storage (in the city). Also sounds like there's no endgame for PVE, so I'll come back in a year or so and see if they've done anything interesting.

The real problem they are going to have is player retention long term. THe pvp only end game is apparently already filled with cheaters. Even if they aren't cheating, you have big guilds going after smaller ones to make it not worth doing the deep desert unless it is a big guild operations. Stream snipers have gone after streamer's and their groups farming spice in the deep desert.

Funcom is going to have to let people run their own private servers and/or clusters of them to avoid the cheater thing at least.

PHJF wrote on Jun 20, 2025, 13:05:
Game is enormously grindy, uninspired and half-baked. I got 16 hours in before I realized it wasn't ever going to be getting better and I noped out.

Best example is the one that put me over the edge. I was given a quest in the Rift zone. The quest was at the opposite side of the zone. So I drive through the zone all the while encountering no enemies or anything of interest. I get to the quest marker. A handful of guys spawn out of thin air (literally), I kill them, and then the quest indicator tells me to go back.

Game is full of time sinks like that.

Dude, those were the Assassins that spawned in to take you out.

I don't see anything wrong with the way it happens. Its an ambush, what were you expecting exactly?

This game is all that I have been playing. I'm at level 170 right now. Loving the game!!

PHJF wrote on Jun 20, 2025, 13:05:
Game is enormously grindy, uninspired and half-baked. I got 16 hours in before I realized it wasn't ever going to be getting better and I noped out.

Best example is the one that put me over the edge. I was given a quest in the Rift zone. The quest was at the opposite side of the zone. So I drive through the zone all the while encountering no enemies or anything of interest. I get to the quest marker. A handful of guys spawn out of thin air (literally), I kill them, and then the quest indicator tells me to go back.

Game is full of time sinks like that.

It's an MMO.. all the MMOs are like that these days.

Game is enormously grindy, uninspired and half-baked. I got 16 hours in before I realized it wasn't ever going to be getting better and I noped out.

Best example is the one that put me over the edge. I was given a quest in the Rift zone. The quest was at the opposite side of the zone. So I drive through the zone all the while encountering no enemies or anything of interest. I get to the quest marker. A handful of guys spawn out of thin air (literally), I kill them, and then the quest indicator tells me to go back.

Game is full of time sinks like that.

West of the Hammer are a ton of flour sand deposits very close too and sometime on worm safe terrain, I just kept my buggy nearby and loaded it up.

MacLeod, I recommend getting some softstep boots, which substantially reduce worm attraction. You can find T3 in Stepstone Cavern in the RIft. Not to far away in another water-sealed cave called The Gap (close to the southern entrance of the rift) has a chance to drop a Compact Static Compactor MK3 which also reduces worm attention, but has the same gather rate as the basic compactor.(aka.. the slowest gather rate of any compactor). Combined you can harvest flour sand or spice much more easily. You'll still anger Shai-Hulud, so have an escape plan either way.

And yea, I am eating, sleeping & breathing this game atm lol.

I've been having fun with it. Last night I had a near death experience with a worm in the eastern vermillious gap... start out on open sand, and within a few steps - wormsign. I'm like "What the hell? why so fast??"... yeah, turns out i had had a combat encounter at a camp, and forgot to turn my Holtzman Shield off. Noob move for a Dune fan.

Water is also becoming easier now that I have a dew reaper.

Still trying to work out getting flour sand before worms come though.