No Man's Sky was released 7 years ago yesterday (August 9th) on PS4 in North America, today (August 10th) on PS4 in Europe, and August 12th on Steam.
How long have you been playing and how many hours have you played?
I started around Beyond (2.0) and have almost 3800 hours played.
Easiest way to make money, is to hang out at the hub, and someone will likely gift you products worth several million each to sell.
I also preordered, but I played long enough to amass some credits, and then learned how to dupe items, so money hasn't been an issue for a long time. It definitely makes it easier to come back to when you have a few billion credits.
Still, I think I've only got a couple hundred hours played. I want something to fight with my ship I spent hours upgrading (actually fight, not pathetic 1 shot sentinels). I don't get why they allow you to build such powerful ships, with literally nothing to use them against.
Who is the someone NPC?
Nope, random rich players like myself, with more goods and money than brains lol. Although some of the updates added some very high price items, so last time I played, I made a pretty good dent in my riches.
So players can see one another now?
Oh ya, the hub is where all players can get together and group up.
Cool may start playing again.
You're talking about the Nexus aka Space Anomaly - "the Hub" usually refers to the Galactic Hub, which is a player-made, developer-canonized community.