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He-Man gave me unrealistic body expectations. My head never got that big no matter how much I worked out. The fur chonies, on the other hand, were money well spent

For reasons I googled "warhammer primarch scale"... and found this:

Daaaayum

I started Beyond a Steel Sky, the sequel 26 years in the making. The intro cinematic is done in a comic book panel style, but with limited motion and full voice over. There was a part where the panel, speech bubbles and all was panning across the screen and the text was not moving in-sync with the rest of the panel, making it seem like it was vibrating. Also, the framerates occasionally take a hard dip. Those could be Linux specific issues, I guess. Luckily, those issues haven't marred the experience for me. Once the intro is over, the game switches to a 3rd person view and it looks really good. The character models, backgrounds, and animations are all very well done. The comic book panels look fine, but I wish they had done the intro with the 3D graphics, because they look better than the comics, to be honest. All the voice acting has been high quality so far and I've already grown attached to some characters, and I'm just getting started. I'm having a blast so far and, even as a point n click grognard, I really dig the feel of the game in 3rd person. I hope that if they make another Broken Sword that they adopt the 3rd person perspective for it.

Why was I not surprised to see that it was Florida

preserved puppy's last meal included wooly rhino proving nothing was learned from Jurassic Park, scientists mix genetic manipulation and mosquitoes and plans to release in the wild. Will life find a way?

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

Beyond a Steel Sky This boy's name is Pixel (he has a brother named Voxel), he's pretty great.

Well that is disturbing. Maybe I will just send Mitsoda my $60 instead of buying the game.

The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon is the first narrative expansion to the critically-acclaimed and award-winning sci-fi RPG from Obsidian Entertainment and Private Division. A severed arm and a mysterious message lead the crew of the Unreliable to the Gorgon Asteroid, formerly the site of one of Halcyon’s most ambitious and disastrous scientific undertakings, now a lawless den of monsters and marauders. Wealthy recluse Minnie Ambrose tasks the crew with finding answers about Dr. Olivia Ambrose, her mother and the doomed project’s disgraced director, but they are soon ensnared in an intrigue that will change the colony forever. Key Features: Intrigue and danger: Search an abandoned Spacer’s Choice facility and encounter a cast of new characters as you uncover the mystery behind the sudden cancellation of the Gorgon Project. New locations: Explore the treacherous canyons of the Gorgon Asteroid and encounter enemies that have been warped by science. More science weapons: Discover three outlandish new science weapons, including the P.E.T. (Pest Extermination Tool), an exciting new melee weapon that draws in enemies for close-range attacks. Expanded character customization and lore: An increased level cap, additional perks and flaws, wholly new armor sets, and several variants for existing gear. Plus, dig into the story of the Gorgon Asteroid with new Portable Phonograph audio logs that reveal the salacious secrets of a scientific experiment gone wrong. The Outer Worlds: Peril on Gorgon is the first of two narrative expansions that can be purchased individually or bundled at a discount in The Outer Worlds Expansion Pass. A copy of The Outer Worlds on the same platform is required to play expansion(s).

Hitman 3 spoilers:

Since we are talking about crafting, I would like to offer my two cents. I have some experience to offer, as I have created a few mods and I feel that since I started playing, I have experienced pretty much every crafting system there was in an RPG. I agree with people here: 1. If done poorly, it is just a resource hog and it hurts the game more than it helps. 2. I completely get, that some players love it and would die by it, and others do not care whatsoever, maybe even to a point that the existence of a crafting system insults them. Since I have been an advocate of "try to satisfy as many people as possible", I think that crafting should be part of the game, I personally like good crafting. The question is then, how do you make a good crafting system? There are quite a few things that I believe really help: Crafting needs to optional, the game needs to be perfectly beatable without spending any time on crafting. The moment you force something on someone, it does not end well. Crafting should be that little extra something some people want, to fit the build better or to maybe get a sword with a couple of unique enchantments that fit a more unique playstyle. Crafting needs to be locked behind certain things. Let me explain. In an elder scrolls game, where you kill the dragon, get some bones, spend an hour or two grinding crafting and voila you have the single most powerful armor in the game. This makes exploration very much meaningless because now, you are guaranteed to never find better gear than what you crafted. Instead you lock the strongest crafting recipes behind materials, that are only obtainable through some serious exploration and conquest (you want that sweet demon sword? guess what - go kill a demon, that is probably way too hard for an early level) or get that special schematic that is guarded in a high level dungeon with lots of undead etc. It cannot be a grind. Crafting stuff over and over to get better at might be the real work thing, but in a game, I would rather shoot myself. You want to craft better gear? Lock it behind a skill on a level up, make it so you can only learn it from an NPC that first needs to be found or needs to complete some quest. There are plenty of ways to progress crafting without the tedium of boredom. Under no circumstance, should a player be over-burdened by thousands of ingredients found everywhere. It makes a lot more sense, to have a few key ingredients that are harder to come by and need exploration. Good example is from Gothic 2. You could create powerful alchemical potions, but the main ingredient was a very rare herb "Kings sorrel" I believe it was. You could find at only a few locations, usually either very hard to find or guarded by a tough enemy. This way, player does not have to pick up 500 flowers and other nonsense. Instead there is pure joy in finding something truly unique. This may not be very high for most people, but for me "fashion souls" is extremely important. I always hated the fact that in some games I was forced to wear a ridiculously looking equipment because of this or that stat. I remember that in Dragon Age Origins the best armor for an arcane warrior was golden plate... I am sure it had its fans but GOLDEN PLATE? REALLY? I felt like a medieval pimp showing his swag. Give player options to dye armor, to put unique effects on various items of clothing and armor. Make it really possible so the players are able to express themselves. I fully realize, that this may be hard as there are many models, but at this point it is a AAA game. I saw some amazing armor on artworks already so I am sure it would be doable. Make crafting accessible even to players who do not heavily invest in it. For example, if a player finds unique ore, he may choose to bring it to towns blacksmith and choose things from a crafting menu (the type of weapon, some stats, shape of the blade, pommel etc.). Of course dedicated craftsmen would be able to create a similar sword but say +20% better as a reward from the skills or talents they spend on crafting. This would create so many options for different playstyles. A mage for example would craft his scrolls and enchant items but would happily pay to create some unique armor, as he would not have the appropriate talents, but would still be able to take advantage of the system. There may be characters that would like to craft everything, bus as they would spent all talent points on crafting, they would lack in some different regard. One way to not make this too OP would be to simply increase price for some stronger late game recipes. The player would have to choose carefully how to spend their hard earned money. I am for example not a huge fan of Dragon Age Inquisition, but crafting there was very good. And if a game such as Gothic 2 is able to make a meaningful and fun crafting system, I do not see how a AAA developers 20 years down the line would not be able to do the same. I agree with Boeroer. Video games are different and they cannot easily do that. But even PoE1 had Caed Nua, which was a lovely addition. I am sure that it took quite a bit of time to do, but it was an amazing addition that I liked. Hiring a troll to defend my own castle YES PLEASE. It was one of the many cool moments I had in PoE1. I think it is exactly about how you manage your resources and set priorities. I think that with that specific example it was a good addition. Crafting, creating player homes, riding horse can be amazing and not so resource heavy when done well with experience (which Obsidian has). I agree that there have not been too many games that managed to do relationships well. For me the top was Fire Emblem Awakening and Mass Effect maybe But yeah, I totally get that. This is so much true. I mean working on some crazy crafting system when combat, visuals, magic and other core systems are not done well is utterly pointless. However, if these things are done well and the team has resources. It would be a waste not to do it. Take Outer Worlds. The game had great core elements, so adding simple crafting system was a great addition. I think that choosing to only alter some statics and not make completely new things was a brilliant decision. And honestly if a game like Outer Worlds can have crafting with a FRACTION of budget Avowed has, it fills me with great hope that we will not only see great crafting but other non traditional elements, that we might not even fathom at this point.

Hi, I have been playing Grounded for awhile. I was wondering if its possible for shields to be introduced into the game. we already have a blocking mechanism in fights, but with a shield we can perhaps introduce it as an off-hand item that can be equipped with one handed weapons and assists blocking at the cost of attack speed or damage. A shield-carrier can also have the penalty of having the daze effect of a block removed (this only procs if your block is well timed). which will encourage a more defensive play-style instead of the risk-reward system of the current counter-strike which requires a good sense of timing. The very first type of shield can be perhaps a wickershield made from dry grass, grass chunks and woven fiber. and then we can move on to more advanced shields. like Acorn rounded shields, Lady Bug shields, Weed Stem tower shields, etc etc. Different shields can also offer different effects, for instance there can be a shield that has a chance of shocking upon impact.

It doesn't sound like an excuse and teachers themselves usually do the best they can, but I still think that education in the US is lacking in that regard (as well as many others). There's really no easy way to fix it and I personally have no ideas that don't involve the dissolution of the USA. Anyways it looks we had one of the hottest temperatures recorded and a heat wave but climate change isn't a big deal (and is probably fake news) because it was cold in December.

Oops, your SonicMage is showing.

That worked. Thanks!!

in the interview thread posted here the lead boss guy said they weren't looking at mounts yet, might be a long time (hopefully never) before they're put in game. Yes we need some sort of transportation, not a car or vehicle like someone else posted i have an idea i'll post.

I do! Sometimes...

3 strike rule. 1st time penalty box for a few minutes real time, 2nd time penalty box and 10 minutes they can't build/remove/etc., 3rd time they're booted from the server. If they're messing up a fight, the 2nd penalty should make the bugs target them when in range.

yes please.

2nd this.

+1 for this. really annoys me when i shoot a bug full of arrows and kite it around, the first arrows sometimes lose their shine and can't be recovered by the time i get back to them. happens a lot with items ants steal also. numerous times i've come back to my base and hear my toon kick something that's been plucked from my storage that i didn't see.

You trippin'

Don't stay under it too long or you will die of thirst.

We get a major update on the 27th so a week from now. Hopefully it will include a patch to fix the cloud saves.

Try "WoedicaChallenge"

^Have you watched the first two seasons of Altered Carbon?

So I built a kill box ala fight club outpost inside the tree where the wolf spider, a couple orb weavers sleep and guess what? I check every day and it has not returned.

Who here loves obtuse puzzle games? /raises hand //looks around Just me? Well, I'm going to post this anyway.

Fireballs etc. do work well with Assassinate in RTwP - just not with Shadowing Beyond. From stealth I never had issues with all direct/instant damage AoE spells + Assassinate. Spirit Lance doesn't work though and also the other AoE weapons don't. Their secondary AoE seems to have long of a delay to get the bonus.

I think one group of spells worth checking are the rays. For sure they are much trickier to use in Real Time with Assassination, but their behavior in Turn Based was interesting enough to warrant more testing in real time, I think. Notably the ray hits didn't necessarily break invisibility - as long as one stays outside enemy sight cones. I'm really amazed to read about some risk of breaking stealth with Fireball in real-time. In turn-based it was an Assassination staple (okay, actually Shadowflame was, but they are somewhat similar). I think one group of spells worth checking are the rays. For sure they are much trickier to use in Real Time with Assassination, but their behavior in Turn Based was interesting enough to warrant more testing in real time, I think. Notably the ray hits didn't necessarily break invisibility - as long as one stays outside enemy sight cones. I'm really amazed to read about some risk of breaking stealth with Fireball in real-time. In turn-based it was an Assassination staple (okay, actually Shadowflame was, but they are somewhat similar). Other then that, I can't recommend Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst enough Due to its unusually high Pen, with the Assassinate bonus of +4 Pen, it very often Overpenetrates for additional +30% damage on crit. I've used it like 70% of the time after I got it. Sadly its PL VI, so comes late.

DoTs also break Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure. At least I can't cast Disintegrate or Gouging Strike or use N.'s Cobra Strike and then use ABD -> leads to instant "revisibility". That only leaves Smoke Veil and Assassin's Slippers (and I'm not sure about the last one) which are so short that it doesn't matter much for DoTs damage - since only a few ticks will get covered. But they can be very useful for applying a DoT and then walking away unseen, waiting in the shadows until the target is dead. Assassinate can help with DoTs since it's a lot easier to land them from stealth/invisibility in the first place. When I play an Assassin/Bleak Walker with an Arquebus+modal I usually open from stealth with an Arterial Strike, then immediately (stealth removes 80% recovery/reload) a Gouging Strike and then immediately (reload is cancelable) use Smoke Veil and walk away until the enemy is dead. For example. But if the enemy is very hard to hit I start with the Gouging Strike to get the 25 ACC for that one and the try the Arterial. One can do the same with Brand Enemy instead of Gouging Strike by the way. It will always hit - so you don't even need Assassinate for it. So you could do Gouging+Arterial+Brand+Smoke Veil with nearly 0 recovery. That's not a move for Assassin/Wizard obviously but just an example how DoTs and Assassinate can work together even if the DoTs don't get a huge PEN or dmg bump.

Weevils do it too. I seen one doing something with spoiled meat. I seen spiders fight a bombardier beetle. I also seen the gnats pick up nectar and pollen in their mouths.

I can't wait to start Kingmaker next, you gotta tell me what you think of it once you get your head around it. If you remember It's even worse then that, often by the time you have the knowledge to know to use consumables, that very knowledge allows you to defeat the encounters without them anyway. That's exactly what has mostly happened for me in Deadfire. Looking online to use consumables to trivialise encounters without prior knowledge sucks too and just feels bad. I think the issue is transparency. Deadfire is a moderately good example. One of my pet peeves is that I can't "scout" monsters stats until the fight actually starts, or I've completed the bestiary, and I'm still fairly lazy about using the bestiary. Maybe lazy isn't the right word, but stopping and reading the bestiary before every fight to remind myself about what this creatures stats or abilities are can feel pace breaking. If I could simply stealth up to enemies, pause the game, highlight over them, and have all the relevant information I needed to make educated decisions, along with hotlinks maybe to greater and more detailed information, I'd probably use different consumables way more. What's killing you, or what could kill you just needs to be more obvious! I don't think it takes away from the challenge or the mystery of the game either. I mean I guess sometimes it would, for boss fights etc. or encounters where enemies show up instead of being presented to you before, but I don't have answers on how to fix that... The game is either balanced around using consumables, in which case make the information needed to use them really obvious, or it isn't, and in that case, just remove consumables, because using them often ends up trivializing content once you "discover" it.

Opps sorry, I thought this was a request programme. Didn't realize one has to justify their preferences. I would argue that you can't dumb down a game if you remove dumb things. Not implemeting stuff that I don't like leaves more resources for the stuff that I do like. Especially if it's resource-hungry quicksand like homes/strongholds and the pale imitation of interpersonal romantic and/or sexual relationships which usually need a ton of good writing to be somewhat non-cringeworthy. PoE and Deadfire have an unlimited stash by the way. If an unlimited stash is enough to turn a game into a shallow action shooter then PoE and Deadfire are shallow action shooters.

I'm curious why anyone would want to dumb down a game that at some level is intended for us play a role. Having the option to play a character who crafts his or her own weapons and armor, or wishes to create potions, scrolls, or to enchant those same weapons and armor is, for me and many others, very important in a(n) AAA game. As for the presence of player homes and romances, Why not? I am not inclined to indulge in either, myself, but having the opportunity to do so is probably a good thing. Possessing an endless inventory system means that the game is merely another shallow action shooter or hack em up. There's enough of those being produced these days.

is as if you have never seen gd and vol posts. HA! Good Fun!

Hrmm maybe a dev worked on Battletoads at some point? Most likely tho they are either a fan or its the fact Battletoads has a new game coming out shortly. As for the yoked girth head, It may or may not be a reference to another 90s era toy called stretch armstrong.. Lmao I had 2.. I pulled one apart to see its insides, I promise I'm not a psycho tho lol.

The lesson here, as always, never pre-order.

in the words o' vol, "no." *shrug* went against thomas jefferson, and a few others, but hardly 'gainst founding fathers in general, who numbered more than a few clergymen amongst them. chaplains opened both o' the initial houses o' Congress with prayers... 1789. is more than a few founders who took it as a matter o' faith that of course the US supported christianity, just not any particular denomination. Justice thomas, who has been forced to hide his worship o' original intent following the near universal adoption o' textualism by the less activist elements o' the Court, believes the establishment clause, based on comments by more than a few founders as well as earlier drafts o' the First Amendment means the US cannot establish a state church, and nothing else. the establishment clause is poor understood in part 'cause the founding fathers weren't in agreement as to what it meant. *sigh* gonna use aclu site for sh!tz and giggles HOW DO YOU KNOW THE GOVERNMENT IS "ESTABLISHING RELIGION"? In 1971, the Supreme Court decided Lemon v. Kurtzman which created three tests for determining whether a particular government act or policy unconstitutionally promotes religion. The Lemon test says that in order to be constitutional, a policy must: Have a non-religious purpose; Not end up promoting or favoring any set of religious beliefs; and Not overly involve the government with religion. Justice Scalia, who tended to disagree with the majority on establishment cases, wrote as follows: "Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District. Its most recent burial, only last Term, was, to be sure, not fully six feet under: Our decision in Lee v. Weisman conspicuously avoided using the supposed test but also declined the invitation to repudiate it. Over the years, however, no fewer than five of the currently sitting Justices have, in their own opinions, personally driven pencils through the creature’s heart (the author of today’s opinion repeatedly), and a sixth has joined an opinion doing so. The secret of the Lemon test’s survival, I think, is that it is so easy to kill. It is there to scare us (and our audience) when we wish it to do so, but we can command it to return to the tomb at will. Such a docile and useful monster is worth keeping around, at least in a somnolent state; one never knows when one might need him." confused yet? other than J. Thomas, who sadly has gained a couple o' ambivalent disciples to his curious reading o' the establishment clause, there is two kinda general notions o' church v. state and sorta a spectrum in betwixt and 'tween. absolute wall of separation-----------------------------------------------------non preferential wall of separation weren't actual adopted until 1947 btw. "The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another […] No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion […] In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation between Church and State.”-- J. Black, everson v. board of education the aforementioned lemon test fundamental altered establishment clause jurisprudence, so in spite o' fact every US school child learns "separation of church and state," most school teachers is educating based on a reading o' the Constitution which ain't been law of the land since 1971. non preferential may have a kinda gut-level appeal for many folks given the widespread presence o' Religion and Faith in our federal institutions which would take us a long time to fully enumerate. assume for a moment you is a good god fearing person who thinks the State should be able to support and regulate non religious aspects o' private schools. as long as the State support affects all private schools, regardless o' religious affiliation or denomination, then perhaps is okie dokie with the first amendment? such a perspective has been a popular view o' the establishment clause by the Court... from time to time. check out la county courthouse lawn during holidays. if the government allows a nativity scene on the lawn, then every other religion and faith gets their space too. in la and elsewhere you may see dozens o' different faiths and beliefs with their holiday displays sharing lawn space with baby jeebus. current state o' establishment clause is a bit odd as scalia's ghoul is not lemon, which he proper describes as a pathetic monster incapable o' instilling fear in even the most panic'd libertarian weeping over an imagined parade o' horribles fated to never sees the light o' day. nope, the ghoul is J. Thomas, who perhaps is a bit too remote for even gorsuch and kavanaugh to fully embrace, but he is the guy who posited in more than one dissent over the years that barenaked existence o' a religious symbol or practice which has managed to exist in spite o' the establishment clause, somehow confers legitimacy after some unspecific amount o' time. a religious display erected in 2020 might fail to meet lemon test minimal burdens, but if the display were constructed in the 1950s it might survive a Constitutional challenge. and so on and so forth. regardless, founders, regardless o' what you and others may have been taught in school, were not having a singular notion as to what were separation o' church and state, and that phrase didn't even gain widespread usage until the late 1800s. "in god we trust," or some variation, were okie dokie with the great majority o' founders and am suspecting most took it as no less than a simple reflexive axiom as 'posed to advocacy o' religion. if it makes you feel better/worse, the dalai lama opened senate with a daily prayer in 2014. HA! Good Fun!

On Tuesday nights, I take part in a ridiculous bike ride, where my goal is usually just to hand on as long as possible before getting dropped. It's about 25 miles around a reservoir. My fastest time is 65 minutes, but most of the guys do it in about 55 minutes. Given the temperature and air quality, I wasn't sure if it would happen last night, but sure enough there were plenty of people ready to go in the 100 degree heat. I also thought maybe it will be a bit more mellow, since the air quality is not great right now. I was wrong, and a few guys hammered the first hill off the front. There is only one regroup on this ride, about 10 miles in at the top of the second big climb. After getting dropped on the first climb, I pushed through to the regroup area with a small group of stragglers. My water bottle was already serving hot water, and I was gassed. Thankfully, one of the guys who lead the ride said "I'll buy anyone who wants to turn around with me a beer!" That was all I needed to cut my ride short, so I headed back with a small group. Discretion is the better part of valor.

I'd hate for this to be another Skyrim. Just about every RPG out there nowdays tries to be an open-world sandbox, and most of the time that comes at the cost of story and character development, which has always been Obsidian's strength. I hope they put the story first, and the open world will be just the background, and not the main feature, the way that it is in TES.

(minor spoilers ahead for unlocks and quests ) This is all my personal opinion and feedback - take it with salt and make the game you want to make! my Demographic Bartle Preference: 40% Achiever, 30% Explorer, 25% Social, 5% Killer Survival Comps: 360hrs in ARK, 320hrs in No Mans Sky, 180hrs Rimworld, 300+hrs Minecraft 25+hrs in Grounded (20hrs solo, 5hrs co-op) Player Rention Grounded has great initial retention for someone in my demo, but I'm already struggling to hit the play button after 5 days. Here's some thoughts on why: After 5 days, I have what appears to be all the Tier 1 and 2 Armor and Weapons, including the Tier 3 Mint Mallot and bee armors. The T3 Weapon appears to be towards the top of the scales for damage. Does this mean T3 is the highest gear there will be in the game? I've done numerous Burgl quests to unlock science and crafting structures (even with having all my found science broken). I've upgraded Burgle with 2 chips, but still looking for more. I've found at least 5 Scab visual upgrades and looking for more. I've built 3 main bases around the map of various sizes. I've killed and component scanned every creature I can find, although eggs won't spawn in my saved game. I've explored the boundaries of the map - including the top of the hedge, most of the under construction areas and fallen out of the map several times. I've tried alting as other characters, but can't see an immediate difference between them other than personality and VO. The guided quests appear to be gated or incomplete. I've started We're not Alone but the way to progress is either unclear or unavailable. While I don't consider myself a hardcore player, I have tried to progress as far in the game as possible and enjoy every type of progression possible, but I feel like what was previously an immense backyard has now become a very small playground. What I've loved thus far: Exploring the yard. The scale is so refreshing. Real life objects take on new meaning. the mundane has become the terrifying and alien. I love it because it feels fresh and grounded in realism. Crafting is satisfying. Gathering components to analyze and then find uses for is brilliant fun. Any mundane object has the potential to be converted into some useful asset. This breaks the standard tropes of real-life objects requiring their real-life resources. Can you make a weapon out of Pollen? Oh, I bet you can. POIs - the Hedge, The Pesticide Haze, and Oak tree are all great. They add diversity and interest. I'm looking forward to the Picnic Bench, the Shed, and dare I say, the House? The Story is engaging. You've learned from Ark and No Man's Sky that starting without a story and trying to add it later isn't ideal. This game's USPs imho are the Scale and Story. Over the weekend, I heard the great news that there's been a million downloads and content updates are coming monthly, starting end of Aug. Here's why I'm concerned you're headed towards an insane content treadmill that won't solve the retention issues anytime soon. The Content Treadmill Grounded has built in some nice space to allow for additional POIs and Environments, and the rigs are generic enough to add numerous types of spiders, mites, crawlers, etc., but adding more space and mobs may not pay the best dividends when it comes to player retention unless it is coupled with more meaningful progression, either in story or tech. Progression Burgl: The robot clearly has space in his head rotunda for many more upgrade tapes, so it seems clear that the reward for exploration (physical and story based) will be additional recipe unlocks that require Science. Burgl unlocks range in usefulness, but having things cost 5k has kept me doing dailies for 3 days now, but once I get the last one... what then? Combat Progression: The early access content feels balanced for Tier 2 gear/weapons. As soon as you pick up the T3 mace, it feels OP and as if all the big bugs aren't a bother anymore so long as you can get the jump on them. If the rest of the gear/weapons in T3 are similarly powered, then it feels like the Mobs are going to need to scale in difficulty to the player, but that leads to meaningless number progression where the mobs themselves don't actually change profile, just damage/health. If the intention is to add newer T3 mobs in the under construction areas, then i could see enough room to add T3 and T4 weapons. Yet that progression needs to be a lot harder to come by than 5 days of questing. This will require more complexity in crafting components, or more required use of speciality arrows/aoes/etc. But what happens after T4? This seems like it will require either specific boss fights, or expansion into more territory outside of the yard, which starts to get expensive to build. If you don't add T3 gear/mobs in August, then the 1 million downloads you had the first week will have little to come back for other than story, unless you have some other reward scheme up your sleeve. Story Progression: Adding more story is expensive. Unique POIs, new VO, scripted mobs, rewards. That said, after 1 week it appears there are at least a few lab locations which could introduce more story. However the time it takes to consume that content will get you maybe a week's worth of winback for lapsed players before they've consumed it all and await more. If you were planning to release this 1.0, it seems that you'll need a year or more's worth of Monthly Updates (not all of which would have story) before you could have something that feels like a "complete game". It will feel better than ARK's story by a mile, but not that much better than what No Man's Sky offers in terms of replay value and RNG replay. What makes the Story Work thus far is directing you to a new location that you haven't been yet. New story content will work wonders for new players coming in and looking for clearer directions on where to go next, but existing players will have already been there and in some wall hack cases, done that already. What feels good from a player perspective is to go someplace new, gather or fight something new, then use that info to help you with the next story bit. e.g. - Quest to get A) is guarded by Ladybugs that drop armor needed to complete Quest B). But that sort of linear storytelling is a treadmill that could never satisfy based on how quickly the backyard is consumed. Games like No Man's Sky get away with minimal story by mixing linear story beats with procedural questing. Right now the procedural questing feels light it will eventually run out of places for me to plant markers and digress into kill x of the same thing (again). Monthly Updates So, given all that - what would would the ideal Monthly Update provide to current players like myself as a meaningful step towards a more complete game? More of the existing yard: There's a lot more space behind the "under construction" tape, and fleshing that out with some details and story would certainly add some weeks to the game, but it begins to become a content treadmill if we stick with the same assets/mobs. Start planning for new environments and mobs: Maybe part of the team focusing on fleshing out the current yard space, while a subset begin prototyping the next yard so that at 6 months you have something other than more grass and spiders. Doesn't necessarily need new rigs, but scaling and skinning will only go so far. More variety in mobs is needed. Ark added oodles of dinos in their first few years. This should be the same thinking here. Resource Sinks: While players are having a ton of fun creating lots of interesting bases and towns, for less creative solo players like myself, it would be ideal to have long term projects to donate resources to completing. Whether it is rebuilding the lab, creating the device to scale the tree, building a mechanic toy mech - whatever - just something to do with these 50 Weezil noses other than gas masks and smoothies. If you want to get REALLY creative, you can even tie timed exclusive projects to resource sinks so that during the month of October, I can build the scary thing to turn the tide on those wolf spiders! But please, use seasons as a fun environment - not as a way to put on hats and party favors - stick to your story and keep it focused. Better reasons to Co-Op: This sort of goes hand in hand with monster scaling, but there needs to be a more compelling reason to co-op other than it takes what was a little hard and makes it trivial. There's a definite balance to play here between keeping it hard for Solo and making it hard for Co-Op. As it stands now, I've got friends and family who want to play, but it feels less challenging to the point of not being that much fun to co-op. Yes we can carry more, yes we can finish fights faster, but once we have better gear and weapons, we need more bosses or difficult challenges to face. As of now, it feels like a convenient luxury that actually makes the game too trivial to be a survival game. Remove the Save Button? I know there's too many bugs to do this yet, but please say that you're going to go the route of Ark and No Mans and get rid of that rewind button... it would make the game much more punishing like Ark, but maybe the game needs that? In summary, I think it boils down to this: Explore, Explore, Explore.... I can't say it enough... That to me - is the best USP. From my perspective, the future of this is the potential of opening up the world to mini-me. If the month ahead get me out of the yard and into the house or the parking lot or the park next door... then you've hooked me. I already dream of what it will be like to get out of this yard. That will require specific team resource planning to go heavy with LD and Assets and make more world. I don't care that much if it is the same mobs in different colors if I get to keep exploring the world I thought I knew, but now from a different perspective. Don't box yourselves in with Tiers of gear that don't scale into the rest of the world. If you aren't thinking this grand, and you're just focused on the yard, then I'll be sad and I'll worry about how you're going to keep it fresh next year. If you didn't plan this game as GAAS, then I'm bummed. Hopefully you did and you'll seriously start ramping up to get the content treadmill setup to be efficient and satisfying. The worst thing from my perspective would be to keep the team running but deliver content at such as low pace that the updates don't feel like they're expanding the game fast enough. Having something new to do every 4 weeks already feels like too long. I'm eager to see what you do next.