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General Discussion / Some new player's feedback
« on: July 23, 2018, 10:54:17 AM »
Hi guys.
I discovered URW two weeks ago after someone told be about it on Reddit. Never heard of it before despite it being ancient and me loving survival games. I thought a new player's feedback could be valuable so I thought I'd give some. This is gonna be long, just ignore if you don't care
First of all I do love the realism of this game, the full seasonal changes, the realistic time progression, the skills and general mechanics of the game - getting food, injuries, encumbrance etc. I always appreciate realism especially in survival games. I also found the game to be quite addictive and even immersive despite its dated graphics, then again I'm not the kind of games who always needs the hottest high end shit. I really like the setting too, iron age finland creates a naturally fitting theme for a survival game rather than having to invent a more artificial one like the post-apocalyptic setting of The Long Dark for example.
There are also some things I didn't like and some features I miss and would like to see added. I did take a look at what is planned for the future so I'm not going to mention the things already on that list. One of my first deaths was rather infuriating - it was early spring and I was walking across a still frozen river or small lake while zoomed out in the wilderness map. The first couple of tiles I could just walk normally but then once I reached the center I suddenly got the message that "Hey surprise, you can't trust the ice after all! Gotta zoom in!" so I did since I had no choice, being in the middle of a big frozen body of water and sure enough after a couple of steps I broke in. Couldn't pull myself back out and drowned. A death that I think was complete BS, if I can't trust the ice please tell me from the start in the wilderness map, like it usually happens, and not after I'm halfway across just to death-troll me.
Another case of bad communication is when you forget to put your clothes on an then travel in the wilderness map. You know those messages you sometimes get that you have to confirm by hitting space? Why don't they happen when you travel why freezing? Instead you just find yourself suddenly dead if you don't constantly stare at the message window, your cold indicator AND of course on the map to avoid robbers. This makes travelling very tedious.
Then there's clothing - anything ordinary like nettle, linen or wool for which I get the strange message "It's impossible for you to repair this item of clothing" (paraphrased) when I want to repair it, but it's no problem at all to fix up fur or leather items. I suppose that's because the corresponding raw materials in the former case don't exist in the game (yet?). Same thing for the good iron-based armors. What does this mean for the player? Even the tiniest tear or scratch to any of those items is permanent, you can never get it back to the state it was before. Maybe you've searched and traded a long time for a full set of fine clothing - it's all pretty much ruined once you meet a hostile NPC, an angry animal or even just fall a couple of meters when trying to climb. Only way to avoid this would be to stick to fur or leather items only, which completely rules out any of the good armors. Very frustratring.
A few things are also just plain wrong in terms of realism, which this game otherwise does put great importance on. Most obvious to me is the ability to drink seawater. Everyone knows you can't quench your thirst with that, it would only make it worse. Also swampwater and any other water is 100% safe to drink, always. Water in this game is basically as pure as modern day bottled water, no matter where it comes from. In reality you'd have to worry about bacterial infections (especially in swamps) and boil any water before drinking to make sure it's safe, seawater would be out of the question of course. On the other hand, you can't melt snow or ice down for drinking water in the winter.
Then there's rope: can only be made from leather, even though hemp does exist in the game. Hemp ropes would be the first thing that come to mind for me in this case. Other plant fibres should work too, maybe at a lower quality depending on what exactly you use.
Tying equipment used for smoking or drying meat should not be lost when done. It doesn't become part of the food, it's just used for hanging it...
Some fire mechanincs I find a bit odd also: The buildable fireplace generates so much heat, you only need to put 3 branches and maybe some firewood in there every couple of days and your cabin will be a sauna even long after those puny branches are burned out. You don't need to keep a fire going for a cooking job that takes hours, or even a smoking job that takes weeks. The actual burning time for the amount of firewood added is too short. When preparing soil for planting, it takes way too long for the ground to "cool down".
That's it from me for now!
I discovered URW two weeks ago after someone told be about it on Reddit. Never heard of it before despite it being ancient and me loving survival games. I thought a new player's feedback could be valuable so I thought I'd give some. This is gonna be long, just ignore if you don't care
First of all I do love the realism of this game, the full seasonal changes, the realistic time progression, the skills and general mechanics of the game - getting food, injuries, encumbrance etc. I always appreciate realism especially in survival games. I also found the game to be quite addictive and even immersive despite its dated graphics, then again I'm not the kind of games who always needs the hottest high end shit. I really like the setting too, iron age finland creates a naturally fitting theme for a survival game rather than having to invent a more artificial one like the post-apocalyptic setting of The Long Dark for example.
There are also some things I didn't like and some features I miss and would like to see added. I did take a look at what is planned for the future so I'm not going to mention the things already on that list. One of my first deaths was rather infuriating - it was early spring and I was walking across a still frozen river or small lake while zoomed out in the wilderness map. The first couple of tiles I could just walk normally but then once I reached the center I suddenly got the message that "Hey surprise, you can't trust the ice after all! Gotta zoom in!" so I did since I had no choice, being in the middle of a big frozen body of water and sure enough after a couple of steps I broke in. Couldn't pull myself back out and drowned. A death that I think was complete BS, if I can't trust the ice please tell me from the start in the wilderness map, like it usually happens, and not after I'm halfway across just to death-troll me.
Another case of bad communication is when you forget to put your clothes on an then travel in the wilderness map. You know those messages you sometimes get that you have to confirm by hitting space? Why don't they happen when you travel why freezing? Instead you just find yourself suddenly dead if you don't constantly stare at the message window, your cold indicator AND of course on the map to avoid robbers. This makes travelling very tedious.
Then there's clothing - anything ordinary like nettle, linen or wool for which I get the strange message "It's impossible for you to repair this item of clothing" (paraphrased) when I want to repair it, but it's no problem at all to fix up fur or leather items. I suppose that's because the corresponding raw materials in the former case don't exist in the game (yet?). Same thing for the good iron-based armors. What does this mean for the player? Even the tiniest tear or scratch to any of those items is permanent, you can never get it back to the state it was before. Maybe you've searched and traded a long time for a full set of fine clothing - it's all pretty much ruined once you meet a hostile NPC, an angry animal or even just fall a couple of meters when trying to climb. Only way to avoid this would be to stick to fur or leather items only, which completely rules out any of the good armors. Very frustratring.
A few things are also just plain wrong in terms of realism, which this game otherwise does put great importance on. Most obvious to me is the ability to drink seawater. Everyone knows you can't quench your thirst with that, it would only make it worse. Also swampwater and any other water is 100% safe to drink, always. Water in this game is basically as pure as modern day bottled water, no matter where it comes from. In reality you'd have to worry about bacterial infections (especially in swamps) and boil any water before drinking to make sure it's safe, seawater would be out of the question of course. On the other hand, you can't melt snow or ice down for drinking water in the winter.
Then there's rope: can only be made from leather, even though hemp does exist in the game. Hemp ropes would be the first thing that come to mind for me in this case. Other plant fibres should work too, maybe at a lower quality depending on what exactly you use.
Tying equipment used for smoking or drying meat should not be lost when done. It doesn't become part of the food, it's just used for hanging it...
Some fire mechanincs I find a bit odd also: The buildable fireplace generates so much heat, you only need to put 3 branches and maybe some firewood in there every couple of days and your cabin will be a sauna even long after those puny branches are burned out. You don't need to keep a fire going for a cooking job that takes hours, or even a smoking job that takes weeks. The actual burning time for the amount of firewood added is too short. When preparing soil for planting, it takes way too long for the ground to "cool down".
That's it from me for now!