Originally posted by Sgt. Thundercok:

I tried it, and I very quickly found it to be so much more tedious than I can tolerate at my age. But I did realize this would have massively clicked with me when younger.

Seeing all the things people have created, it looks to me like you have to invest a TON of time gathering etc. to make anything of substance.

I mean, you have to work for all materials to build, right? Based on my limited time spent in game gathering and building I quickly decided life is too short.

TANGENT: What other games are there where you can host/rent a persistent server?

You should have played Life is Feudal.

You would have understood the word tedious much more.

Originally posted by Sgt. Thundercok:

I tried it, and I very quickly found it to be so much more tedious than I can tolerate at my age. But I did realize this would have massively clicked with me when younger.

Seeing all the things people have created, it looks to me like you have to invest a TON of time gathering etc. to make anything of substance.

I mean, you have to work for all materials to build, right? Based on my limited time spent in game gathering and building I quickly decided life is too short.

TANGENT: What other games are there where you can host/rent a persistent server?

Yeah no easy mode for gamers like you. But why do you want a persistent server if you dont want to spend any time in it?

You should maybe avoid any survival type games if you don't like to gather resources.

Well if you are worried about wasting time then you should not probably be playing games to begin with...

But if you are looking for more simple minded games that are easy to walk away from might I suggest Blood and Bacon or Race the Sun

I mean you can also easily mod the game to drop 10x normal resources or disable building costs entirely.

Originally posted by Sgt. Thundercok:

I tried it, and I very quickly found it to be so much more tedious than I can tolerate at my age. But I did realize this would have massively clicked with me when younger.

Wait, you somehow figured out the game is tedious after just 2 hours play time? that's not nearly long enough to build your first base out of resources on the map yet, let alone get far enough to know if it really is tedious.

Then you mention your age. if i didn't know any better in translation: "My precious time is being wasted, my time, i'm not getting any younger and i don't want to waste it". Yet you only had 2 hours with the game. I can't help but suspect you looked through reviews and used hindsight rather than by experience to come to your decision, meaning you don't actually know it was tedious or a waste of your time, you only think that it's the case.

Originally posted by Sgt. Thundercok:

Seeing all the things people have created, it looks to me like you have to invest a TON of time gathering etc. to make anything of substance.

I mean, you have to work for all materials to build, right? Based on my limited time spent in game gathering and building I quickly decided life is too short.

How would you know? you only spent two hours at it. How can you make the claim that you "invest a TON of time" into it. If you had given the game a chance you could of answered that instead you use the time wasted excuse.

When and if you decide to come out of the clouds and play the game one day, nothing stopping you from actually giving a go.

Caveat: You have no idea how long your life is going to be, you could be killed in a traffic accident 10 minutes from now, dead from Covid-19 in 5 years or as an old person of 122 years of age. the point is that you enjoy the time you have rather than stressing about something you have no control over.

Theres easy to install mods that let u define how many materials/recources u gather per action. And u can use cheats.
Theres also mods thats make the process of building itself more convinient, with adjusted snappoints, more object rotation options, a free camera and more.

Time enjoyed is never wasted.
That said, it could simply be this game isn't for you and it isn't time you are enjoying. If you want a more casual game that is easy to dabble in, perhaps something like The Forest? I mean, you don't really need a dedicated server there and since there is no anticheat you'd probably want a private server anyway. But that's a game where you can easily finish the story in about 2 hours if you know what to do, or you can simply hang out with friends building random crap and fighting cannibals as you please. Downside, host has to be on for the server to be up if it's not dedicated.
There's also potentially Games like Terraria. It takes a bit longer, more grind and a bit more rng at times but it's still a pretty reasonably casual game that can still have intense moments. Another you will probably play actively with friends rather than needing a dedicated server though. Depending on what games you do enjoy, I might have other suggestions, but atm all I know is you didn't like Valheim much.

At the beginning I put in hundreds of hours playing pure vanilla.

Then harvesting wood and rocks became old and grindy. I don't do grindy - it doesn't give me a sense of accomplishment, except maybe to the devs who've accomplished wasting our time (applies to all grindy games, not just Valheim).

After 10,000 trees and rocks I simply don't harvest them anymore, they get magically created. I still end up having to chop down trees & stumps, and break up rocks to clear out areas to build, and that's plenty of that excitement for me.

Regardless, this is not a game you dabble in, whether you're an explorer, builder, harvester, or combat seeker they all take an investment in time.

Also. just go to the web site of any game server host (found via the magic of Google) and they'll show you a list of games they want to rent you servers for. Pick one of those.

Some of us have no problem with needing to spend time gathering. Perhaps the game just isn't for you.

The most obvious are Minecraft, Terraria and Starbound. Some older MMOs have reverse engineered server emulators available.

Actually if you go to the Steam library, limit it to Tools only and put in a search filter for 'server' that's probably a pretty big list. Many servers are freely available and don't need you to own the corresponding game.

Avorion, StarMade and Empyrion come to mind

You could enable the console and spawn resources or alter the game to creative mode and disable resource requirements. I suspect that would massively change how the game feels, though if you just want to be creative, then that might be what you want.

Well to me, the game isn't about building. Yeah if you want to build giant sized things you need giant sized amounts of materials. If you don't want to build giant sized things and take all that time, then don't. You aren't forced to. To me, it's an exploration/survival game. You build whatever you need to survive, and it doesn't have to be that much. I have a main base built in rather disorganized bits and bobs over time, which is larger but not fancy, and everywhere else I just drop simple cabins or take advantage of old stone ruins. In ruins which are intact enough, you just need to put up some roofs to keep the rain off and provide minimal cover for bed/workbench, make a fire, and that's it. Nice thing about ruins: the walls and floor are built so you can make it quick and dirty.

Some people like making showcase palaces, but don't think you're obligated to do that. In fact, those who make showcase palaces are more apt to take pictures and post them places where people see them because that's what they like to do, which may lead people to think that's the game. It may lead to slanted perceptions. You probably never see all the "normal" games people play and the way people play them. I've definitely had some expeditions to harvest materials, but I've never had the feeling that's all I'm doing. I've spent way more time exploring than harvesting. You can keep it simple.

At your age? That profile and pfp scream for a human below 30yo. Yet another one of those troll threads.

maybe OP just doesn't like non-clicker games

Well as a gamer in his 40's I'd have to say that I definitely find this to be plenty fun and right up my alley, tedium and all (and yes, I do think some things get tedious but that's the nature of a grind). Then again, I used to enjoy the grind back in Ye Olde Ancient Times of Vanilla WoW.

The easier the grind, the more shallow the victories. The easier the mats scavenge, the more shallow the success. The harder the game and the more time one must invest into its mastery, the more satisfying the experience is. Any MMORPG that has deviated from the above has fallen flat on its face.

I think it's less about your age and more about your play style OP. And that's fine. You play what you like. We'll play what we like.