Weekly Update #9

 The results of the survey are in! Thank you to everyone that participated in the survey. Please understand that the survey was not intended to make me drop everything and do what it says, but for me to get a better understanding of what players feel is most lacking in the current version. All of the systems are interconnected and there are certain things that definitely need to be improved and/or incorporated before we dive head first into some of the topics.

I think it's quite clear that everyone, myself included, is most interested in more things to do. In light of that I spent the last week improving the building system in a number of ways and adding in a variety of new buildings. The main purpose for this being that I want to make everything in-game manipulatable by players, rather than off-limits areas and/or no-build zones all over the place. For example a large castle full of monsters and loot should be able to be conquered and secured, though perhaps not easily, and then handed over to players to control, deconstruct, or build upon. Part of the way that NPC towns are planned to work has always involved this, asking players to repair things, build things, defend things, and ultimately rewarding them in a variety of ways.

One of the biggest shortcomings of the building system as I saw it, was it's inability to handle larger pieces. Just now published in Beta v 0.1.07d we now have that capability, albeit only with one recipe for today, letting me start to put in bigger and more unique pieces so that I can start building points of interest throughout the world. Now that the structure saving system is in and working it's also possible for players to construct buildings, post them on the forums, and get them included in-game! Ultimately I hope to make this possible with just about everything in-game through Steam Workshop.

Alongside points of interest I'm also working on the first few town buildings for player towns. The new larger building pieces use a system of blocking off areas that they are "taking up," as in the picture above, which will also work well for placing special items unique to town buildings like a sawmill for example. The first wave of town buildings are intended to make creating towns a very beneficial process, though still quite simple, if you're only looking to place down pre-made structures and unlock the benefits.

Thank you to everyone participating in early access! I know it's been a lot of mostly bug fixes and usability improvements since we started, which aren't really very "fun." I'm looking forward to getting more and more content in from here on as we improve upon our now much more solid foundation!

I also have to be honest and point out that there was no weekly update #8! The weekly updates were slowly pushed back a day at a time as I waited each week for things just around the corner. Eventually I was a whole week behind, and I apologize. I hope to just post a status update somewhere mid-week each week regardless of whenever the next best thing may be.

Best wishes!