To those who say the thousand empty planets is because Bethesda was aiming for realism, I'd say two things.
First, it's important not to get caught in binary thinking. People in the thread talk as if the choice is between 1) a thousand procedurally generated planets, devoid of anything interesting; and 2) six hand-crafted planets, all teeming with life. But it's not an either/or thing. You can have a middle ground with some procedurally generated planets (the "realism" of dull planets with nothing much to do), mixed with hand-crafted worlds that have rewarding exploration -- and by "rewarding exploration," no, I don't mean that the map is stuffed with goodies. That is another piece of binary thinking. Exploration is rewarding when it stokes curiosity, leads to discovery, when the environment is visually interesting, and when you are occasionally rewarded either with loot, side stories, or just something cool. That is not (outside the main quest and faction quests) what we have here. Bethesda chose option 1, and I wish they would have chosen a more middle-ground approach, rather than pure "realism" that reduces open-world exploration to tedium.
Second, I don't know about you, but I don't play games for realism. If I wanted reality, why would I play games? I play games for entertainment. And Bethesda games in particular have never been realistic. In fact, their best games have been their least realistic ones (e.g., Morrowind). Seems to me that they have chosen to sacrifice entertainment on the altar of "realism." Wandering a thousand planets with nothing to find except some copy/paste structures is not my idea of rewarding exploration.
. Whoever think of it as a mere physics simulator just hasn't played it properly
