Game Development: Surveyor's Delight

[animary]

"...they seem happy with the state of their game."

Exactly. Since the operative word is "their". This is their baby, they have worked on it for years, no big development team, just them; thus it is what they want it to be. They listen to players and if something is proposed that fits their view of the game it will be incorporated; but no matter what it is, if it is not congruent with their concept of their game it won't happen.



"Honestly steam release if biggest missed opportunity of their life."

Many predicted that. Steam players came here with none of the things they are accustomed to - walkthroughs, tutorials, threads in Steam forums, and no idea of the rampant violence and aggression in this game. I've never seen so many abandoned HFs so early in the world. Two major demoralizing factors - dropped into a deadly world with no idea what to do or how to do it, and spending days building your first camp only to have it trashed by some griefer.

With more knowledge of the game and a little experience it isn't as deadly as we make out at times (in the past five worlds I've only been attacked by players three times, KO'd once; by comparison I've been killed by animals four times, a cave-in once, and drowning once). There should be a good starter tutorial delineating the basic "do and don't" of the game and briefly describing what you should concentrate on accomplishing your first days; at least newcomers (who read this) wouldn't just appear in the world and think "what now?" (exactly how most of us started here, but that was years ago, it's a different gaming world now).