Official Answers by week

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week of 1/7 through 1/14 2011


Caduryn asks:

Are Tools lootable in PVP?

Yes

Will Tribe Alliances work inside the Game-code?

Yes, eventually we will add coded alliances which will allow tribes to share housing and permissions with allies.

A single player could destroy a single tribe by removing any near by trees, what preventions will be put in place to avoid this? (this question was summarized)

You can no longer cut trees in other tribe zones.

mrcalhou asks:

What will happen if there are more tribes than there is space to allow them to
have land access?

We will continue to expand the world. This hasn't become an issue yet.

trenixdecease asks:

Will you be able to teach pets how to do tricks?

We don't have plans for this. It's been added to our suggestions list.

Will there be a process that you have to undergo in order to teach a pet his or her name?

No. You will simply be able to name tamed pets.

Would you have to command the pet to attack by text, would it be an action, or would it be automatic?

There will be a pet command bar with icons to select attack, follow and other pet actions.

Are insects ever going to make their way into the game? Whether for bait, food, or even possibly honey?

There are no immediate plans for this, but anything is possible for the future.

Will animals die from overage?

Yes.

Are we ever going to have the ability to customize our own structures? For example, choosing the size of the house, choosing type of house (wooden, stone), making two story houses, and even making rooms inside of a house?

Yes. As the architecture system expands, it will be more based on components such as walls, floors and stairs. Multiple story buildlings will be possible to build.

chaotix999 asks:

Will there be a menu to at least allow you to see which tribe members are online or at least within the zone? I know its not exactly a realistic menu but ideally if this were real you would know who is around the tribelands at least at any given moment without having to wander around the camp to see if they are still there

This has been added to our suggestions list and will be done eventually.

Demiwar asks:

From my understanding of previous answers, tribes will be able to adapt certain
items as currency, such as bottle caps or pennies. While I love the idea, my
concern is inflation. Will there be any way to authenticate common items such
as bottlecaps by stamping them to show that they are authentic currency of a
certain tribe allowing the tribal leaders to control the flow of money into
their economy? If yes, would we be able to customize the name of our newly
stamped currency?

Tribes will be able to select a specific currency, but there are no plans for customizing or marking currency.

naneweer asks:

Will there be improvements made to the GUI, such as slider bars, customization
(as far as size, i.e drag your pack window to a certain shape)?

Over time yes, starting with sliders for scrolling through text lists.

Tool tips / Item information? Will there be item information, be it in pop up
tool tip form, so that you can see the weight, condition, crafting and combat
stat related?

Yes, this is functioning now.

As far as content currently in the game, available for construction/crafting,
are there plans to put in alot more? So far the game comes off as Native Indian
Survivor Man.. ish. Different type/sizes of housing, stuff that doesnt seem to
be only native american themed.(Nothing against it, just curious)

Yes, there are 8 sets of architectural components almost ready to be added to the game.

I know that it is planned to have variations in item quality and effectiveness,
but, will the type of material used affect the color as well? Most notable is
cloth gathering, seems to be a large array of cloth types and colors.. would
the color of the cloth chosen for each component affect the color of the
finished item? (I.E if an item needs fabric sheets and cloth straps, the color
of the fabric would decide the color of the main body of the item, and the
color of the straps would dictate the "secondary" color of the item?

Yes, this works now, but only the primary color of the crafted object is affected.

Will other forms of food be available? Hunting all those animals for crafting
parts and no meat seems rather odd. Fishing seems to take care of all food
needs starting out..mmm raw fish.

You will be able to gather meat from creatures and with agriculture players will be able to plant and harvest various crops.

More craftable props/items decorations, now or in the future?

Yes, starting with furniture such as tables and benches.

syriocop asks:

What UDP and TCP port xsyon uses, because some of us (me) would like to play
through a proxy

Port 2013 for the game. Port 10111 for the downloader.

Proxy support will be included?

Yes, should not be a problem.

Jikiki asks:

Will there be the possibility to salvage materials from crafted items or skill reverse-engineer crafted items to set the recipie.

Yes, crafted items will soon be able to be broken apart into components. Reverse engineering to obtain recipes has been added to our suggestions list.

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week of 1/14 through 1/21 2011

trenixdecease asks:

Will rain water crops?

Yes.

Is magic going to make its way in or out of battles? Or both.

Magic will not be implemented for a long while, but eventually, yes. It is planned as nature / shaman type of magic system.

I wonder about the siege system or similar as you plan the end game pvp?

We will review other games siege system when we implement this. We will start with allowing siege of expansion totems.

banyo84 asks:

Will resource requirements for crafting be optimized and be more logical? Like
the "Metal Needle" from Toolcrafting uses "small metal plates"?!

Some recipes have been revised and others will continue to be revised over time.

Will the crafting UI get a revamp? So there's Filters for Sets or Arhcetypes?
And enabled mouse-scrolling and such?

Eventually yes. Mouse scrolling and a slider bar will be added first. Filters for sorting will be added later.


Ryskim asks:

Will we be seeing Energy regeneration bonuses and penalties from actions and
environments any time soon? EG: Resting, shelter, and
comfort/hunger/thirst/encumbrance modifiers.

Yes. Shelter will increase regeneration rates and provide additional experience gain for being in a well rested state. Hunger and thirst already affects regeneration and health points as well as the success or failure of actions. We will continue to balance this.

xmechna asks:

can we get a list of the current Dev team. id love to know who my devs are
(forum names of course)

The current developer page is up to date and I've listed forum names for the active team. Most of the developers read the forums to stay up to date with the community, but don't post.

since this is a progressing game will we see new player character types
cyborgs or quadrupeds (iconic animals not half animal half human) quadrupeds
being rarely seen in games ( just no elves or orcs please i beg of you).

We don't have any plans for player cyborgs, elves or orcs, but we may allow for players to control or play animals or other creatures in the future. Player mutants are a possibility. Other character types are planned but will not be announced until we are ready to introduce them.

in pvp will we be able to do full body loot ( i hate the idea it makes pvp less
appealing to normal people and a hayday for hardcore players)

We have full loot on a timer. We will balance the loot timer after our revised combat system is working. We are considering a few slots for protected bound objects (it's on our suggestions list).

will tamers be able to have more than 1 pet out at a time?

Initially, no. In time it's likely, but we will need to test this first.

is tinkering going to be ingame for release if so what types of things will you be able to make?

We have no immediate plans for tinkering, but of course as our team expands and time goes on we'd love to add more and more! Tinkering is something for the future.

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week of 1/21 through 1/28 2011

xmechna asks:

will there be more than 1 unarmed combat style be it kickboxing karate or something that could represent a monk style

We currently have no plans for this.

yoori asks:

What about water storage? Will we have water pouches to carry with us?

Yes. This is partially implemented and should be in game soon.

What about public water storage or personal water storage in village like barrels, to use while working in village?

We have no plans for barrels or public water storage, but it would not be difficult to add. This has been added to our suggestions list.

Our livestock will need a water source too are there any plans for that?

We will lay out the details for tending livestock in the future. This is not on our current list of tasks. Combat revisions, architecture changes and agriculture will come before this.

Will we get shields? It's reasonable and easy to make with wood sheets or metal sheets and leather straps for example, shouldn't be hard to code in combat system either.

Yes, shields will be added in the near future as part of our combat revisions.

Will we be or are we able to divide stacks of objects for example take 50 nails from 200 nails stack?

Yes, this is implemented now.

Will we be able to hide/sneak while in combat mode?

Currently, no.

Fiku asks:

Will we get a borderless fullscreen window mode?

Yes, we have a borderless fullscreen mode now.

Stundorn asks:

is it possible to make the storage dragable, maybe like the movement for architecture projects.

It's cumbersome to empty a 50 slot basket just to replace him instead of dragging him some meters away.

This would be possible and has been added to our suggestions list. I will consider adding this with the coming architecture revisions.

lp0okmnji9 asks:

Will we ever be able to move the ui? Will we ever be able to have custom made ui's like in most mmo's. Will you'll make the system so we can custom make ui's to tailor our own well being?

We will improve the UI over time, but this is not a high priority item right now.

Will we be able to make farm land sections? If so will we be able to plant different seeds in the future of xyson?

Yes, we are currently working on this.

Will there be a way to craft nail and bolt molds to allow the crafting of nails and bolts by smelting down metal parts into hot metal then using the mold and hot metal to make nails and bolt? Could also lead to other progression along the way in the crafting system as the future unfolds in xyson.

Yes, metal crafting will during the Prelude phase.

chaotix999 asks:

Will grass or other plants ever grow back over terraformed land?

Yes, grass will spread during the Spring and trees will sprout near other trees.

Also what is with much of the flowers we find from foraging? Can we know what future use they will have.

Future uses will include dyes, medications and poison.

Sakho asks:

How is the situation of cooking? Will be at launch? What kind of food can we expect

The cooking system was put on hold a while ago. The initial basic system was scrapped in favor of a system that allows for combining items to create custom recipes. This was almost completed but put on the back burner as other tasks became priorities and the programmer assigned to complete cooking didn't work out. Cooking will be implemented along with agriculture.

aliksteel asks:

I have never seen the combat logs for Xsyon. Will you allow a parser (reads combat logs) like Advanced Combat Tracker to work with the game?

I'll look into that, but probably not. Combat calculations are processed on the server and much of the statistical information is not currently sent to clients.

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week of 1/28 through 2/4 2011

Deacon Asks:

In relation to aliksteel's question. There are "auto targeting" softwares out there. Is there a plan to prevent this type of thing being used? I'm not familiar with the difficulty of using them or stopping them, so just asking.

With our coming revised combat system, auto targetting systems will not work. Targetting will be based on directional swings and checked for validity on the server.

In the tribal rank privleges section under resource...there is gather. Does that mean that outsiders wont be able to gather resources on junk piles without permission? I ask because it seems odd if a tribe member cannot physically gather because of not having this checked, but any outsider can come by and do it, with only a message saying he is transgressing on a tribe's land.

Yes, outsiders should be blocked from gathering junk on tribal lands now.


Shaggy Asks:

When will we be able to design our own buildings?

More basic parts will be introduced in June with additions throughout the summer.

Can we ever expect any sort of tooltips? I like the idea of having to figure things out for yourself but its the kind of thing where idealism is trumped by practicality. You can't really expect the game to take off keeping everyone in the dark for too long.

Tooltips are on for items and will display additional information as needed. Additional tooltips will be added as we progress with adding new features.

Will we ever get a "who's online" feature?

At least for your tribe mates, yes. This is in our task list.


Aliksteel Asks:

Will tribes still get to pick there own Tribal Colors and Emblem? I know you have some pre-set colors and emblems in game now, But I want to know if the larger tribes will still get to submit our own emblems? If so, Well it be in game before the end of Prelude?

This is actually set up, but we haven't dealt with it because of the chaotic launch. I've taken a note to get this finalized in June.

The plan that would let us have our tribal colors on our armor and it giving us a boost in stat's, Is it still on the table? If so when can we look for this in-game?

Wearing tribal colors already gives a minor boost to crafting and will give boosts in combat as well.

Will meat ever be loot off of animal's? If so will this be in before the end of prelude?

Yes, meat will looted. It's a simple switch to turn it on. It hasn't been turned on yet as there is no need for meat until we have cooking properly implemented.

Can you loot skin already? I don't remember looting leather/skin.Will skin ever be loot off of animal's? If so will this be in before the end of prelude?

You can gather leather from animals already.

What will be the max number of expansion totems for a tribe be?

This will be decided after testing expansion totems.

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week of 7/25 through 7/31 2011

soulless Asks:

In a previous Q/A, you stated that you wanted to add permissions to tents/buildings and remove permissions from bags, as this is a big change that will effect lots of camps, when do plan on implementing this?

Permissions for tents / buildings is being worked on now and should be in by the end of next week. We haven't decided when we'll remove permissions from containers and we will solicit feedback before we take this step.

also, carts were mentioned, how soon can we expect carts (your best guess)?
thanks for your time...

Best guess is 2 to 3 weeks. The artwork has been made and the basics for attaching cart objects to players has been set up but we are working on many other small tasks before finishing the code for carts.

fatboy21007 Asks:

Latley, in irc and the fourms ive noticed alot of new folks asking for a trial, Where are you with a trial server?, or are you still waiting to make the game better before doing one?

See answer below.

the new system you all are trying to do, i was told rare items would be dependant on area instead of zone...this true? (if it is how do plan on use being able to search all areas as their isnt a pop to help search them and personally i dont wanna feel like its a job to go find something) Also how are we to search areas when their full of totems.... i think the leader of the totem if hes inactive beyond 60 days totem should be removed and basic tools placed in his inventory.

Yes rare items and materials are based on territories (Round Hill, Zehpyr etc.) not zones.

Regarding totems, we will implement decay (as mentioned in the updates) see answer below.

Mactavendish Asks:

Are there any plans for adding something in very soon that will help retain the few players that join? Things that any new player would find immediately entertaining?

The main things we are going to work on over the next few weeks are improvements to give meaning and balance to the current systems. In addition, I think combat is much improved and mutants will be arriving soon. I hope players will find these things entertaining!

Question 2: Are you wanting new players to join the game or do you feel the game is not ready yet?

I like new players to join, but we're not ready for a big influx right now. Our plan is to wrap up what is listed as In Development first. Then we'll be ready for: totem decay, a trial server and an influx of new and returning players.

On totem decay...

I like your simple plan, but can you not add to that plan, that when a player cancels their sub that it removes the totem completely IF they are a single man tribe?

No, we would still have homesteads decay. Many players have left for a month or two and then returned. Removing their totems immediately would drive away a lot of players.

Also, whatever timer limit you put on totems, Please factor in that some people made a character, dropped a totem to hold a spot, then dropped the character and made another character joined or made another tribe and may even be playing the game as another character.

So would it not seem reasonable to you to remove ANY totem made by a character that is not in your database as an in use character?

I would think that having all these totems scattered about, does not make any new player feel welcome, especially after they realize that most are just abandoned ones with no active player there.

When a player drops a character it removes them from their tribe and if they have a homestead it should remove it also. If this is not happening, please report this directly to Dezgard and we will look into this immediately. If there are any totems without an owner, we will remove them.

VeryWiiTee Asks:

1. Can we expect a patch this coming wednesday :P?

Answer irrelevant at this point. There was a patch last week and will be one this week.

2. I second Mactavendishes question about totem decay too!!

Answer above. I realize that totem decay is a big issue, but we won't start decay until we're ready to first give all players a week of free time to check out the current state of the game.

3. The new housing models are 4m x 4m. Take any given Long Log. The Long Log will juust, with a little bit in each end or a larger bit in one end, stick out side the building.
- The question is this. Will the upcoming weather decay affect the entire long log because of the little bits/larger bit sticking out side of the building.

No, any object with it's center inside the volume of a 'roof' or 'room' area will be protected from the weather.

3a. If the weather decay won't affect the log, can we presume that any given material that has more than half of its volume inside of a building not be subjected to weather decay?

Yes!

4. Seeing it's spring again can you confirm new tree spawns on the live server?

Yes, there have definitely been new tree spawns. You should be able to see small trees that have sprouted up.

5. Will the weather decay also include a slow general decay over time for items?

The plan is, yes.

6. How is the animal population doing with the recent changes?

The bears killed everything and there were thousands of them. This is why we reset the population and are adjusting the aggression code.

MrDDT Asks:

Disconnects patch ETA? Its been on the test server for over a week now and still not on live. Right now this is the biggest problem for most people.
Whats the reasoning in allowing guides to spawn animals? With breeding in game, and animals spawning on their own, shouldnt this option be removed? Its been an issue for a long time now.

Disconnect patch is live now. Guides should be allowed to spawn creatures for events and to help balance things out while we balance the creature system.

aliksteel Asks:

I see you have three items set as a #1 Highest priority from the player suggestions

1) label contianer

2) Add clan/tribe names

3)hiding broke

I know that the labeling contianers are done, And that the disconnects is at the top of every list right now with the the combat a close 2nd.

Assuming(yea I know assuming is bad) that you are done with the disconnects this week. How soon will you start on fixing hiding, and adding tribe names and faction color to the game?

I also see there is only one suggestion "Sand in the rivers" that you have set as #2 on the Priority list. Can you tell me how far down the "to do list" this fit's into?

Honestly, I am waiting for all of our collected Suggestions to be moved into our new tracking system before I take a solid look at what's on the full list. The Suggestion tracker will include suggestions from emails as well.

Once it's finalized I will take a good look. The current priorities were set by our Bug Trackers so they don't currently reflect the order we'll work on things, but rather what they think I should take a look at first.

Regarding the specifics:

The effect of faction colors is in, but needs to be adjusted to have more effect and that will happen this week.

Tribe names listed with the player's name will be in next week.

I'll need to look into the 'sand in rivers' suggestion.

Hiding will be worked on later, after what's In Development.

Osirrus Asks:

which is 1st, totem decay or new lands beyond the mist opening up? how long til the 1st is implemented? then how long til 2nd?

Should happen at the same time. The plan is to do these both after the current In Development list is done, shooting for early September.

if disconnects and combat revisons are done what is the next major project you hope to see on the live server? and what timeframe til it goes live?

Right now the major project is a lot of small tasks to improve the current systems. Then: carts and mutants.

how are carts coming along? had chance to look at them yet? or you been stuck working on the disconnects all week?

The artwork is done. The basics attachment system is set up, but it will take another 2-3 weeks as we want to get many other tasks done first.

and just a random one.. what is the current DX rating of the game? DX9? / DX9 enhanced? DX10? DX11?
is it a DX11 tessalation effect you use on the brown/gold roads? anyway to make them look better from a distance, because currently a heavily roaded area looks horribly from far away, as the cracked effect is way to big and out of proportion when viewed from a distance.

DX9

after the zone sizes were changed, the high quality view distance was severely shortend. is this the way it will be staying or will you be looking at increasing the view distance again or is this more to do with entites not loading correctly?

The high quality view distance will stay the same, but this did not affect the distance of loaded entities. We will improve the quality of the distant terrain to compensate for the shortened 'high quality' view distance, when we can.

most systems that are in game are working ok-ish and just require tweaking now imo. but what i believe the game is really lacking now is some fun things to do as a group/tribe. do you have any short term goals to inject some more fun into the game?

The improved combat system and giving meaning to what's in the game should make it more fun as will the advent of mutants and revenants.

dying and respawning back at my totem is not fun. healing my way through a tough spot and surviving is. when will healing be in game?
going toe to toe with a bear and button mashing the mouse til i have 30% health and the bear is dead is not fun. using archery and real world physics to take down the bear from a far without getting a scratch on me is fun. when will archery be in game?
working together as a team to accomplish tasks i couldnt do on my own is fun. any plans for group activies other than arch/terra soon?

Both archery and healing will be in our next round of development after what's currently listed. If you have any good suggestions for group activities (I get the feeling you do) please suggest them!

stonedogg1 Asks:

I have a question regarding material bonuses (damage, quality, etc...):

When using materials that offer a bonus, does the bonus have to apply to the item or the user of the item?

i.e.: I use iron screws (damage bonus) to craft bone armor. Does my character deal more damage, or should I have used the screws to craft a weapon (damage bonus applied to the weapon, not the person)? Same thing for materials that offer a quality bonus - if I apply the BRASS fasteners to my closths, will I craft better quality items or should i use the brass to craft tools in order to pass on the quality bonus?

Stat bonuses apply to the wearer of the item. Quality bonuses apply to the item itself (So crafting quality tools makes sense to pass along the quality to crafted items. Wearing quality clothes will not pass along that bonus to crafting or other skills).

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week 8/01 through 8/07

MrDDT Asks:

I keep hearing about things people talk about you say in emails to them or talk to them in game about. Is there a list to some of these questions so others can read these answers to questions we all have? It seems almost like some people are getting early information just by emailing you. Should we all be emailing Xsyon all the time to get faster answers to questions?

Email questions and suggestions get passed along unless they are very specific things I need to deal with. They are not the best way to get answers. Questions that haven't been answered are collected for the FAQ list or I answer them as part of updates. Suggestions get passed along the Bug Trackers to enter into our Suggestion tracker.

Questions asked in game when I am there are not really tracked unless someone asks something I feel is important. In those cases I take a note and include it as part of my updates.

Permission
Isildor1990 Asks:

Hey Guys,

i have a regrown tree near my camp...

But somehow i can destroy its (old) stump.

Its kinda like a Tree in a stump, or vice versa...

Is that a bug, or "normal"?

Greetings,
Isildor

This is a left over stump from when we reset the trees (when we introduced the current tree spawning system).

VeryWiiTee Asks:

1. When are we going to see carts?

It's in progress, so I hope in 2-3 weeks.

2. How many will we be able to choose from?

Four (Forager, Trapper, Pioneer, Scrapper).

3. If we can choose from multiple carts, do they then differ in their speed, maximum cargo load etc?

Yes, but the specifics have not yet been decided.

4. Will it be Woodcrafters that can create them?

Yes.

5. The new combat is awesome.. When will we see an awesome ranged system ?

Thanks. We are going to collect more feedback on the current system and make a few more improvements. If players are satisfied I'll have our combat programmer start on ranged (we'll start with thrown knives for easy testing) in 1-2 weeks.

Aliksteel Asks:

1. Can you, or have someone update the "Xsyon In Development" page please, to show what has been done in-game and what is now in progress. Thanks

Yes, I will do that today.

2. With all this cart talk, Are you really going to add wheels into the game already? Or will it be more like a sled?

The carts have wheels.

3. With as much work that is still ahead of you and the team, Whats the chances of you adding a little *fluff to the game any time soon?

*Fluff: Means something that is not game changing but is light hearted, soft and easy to do, or a pretty pretty(Think shiny). E.g. Furniture, Statues, Wells, New road looks

A good chance. Furniture is some 'fluff' that should be in the next round of development.

4. Any idea how soon or far off lighting will be added into the game? E.g. New looking camp fires, Torches that can be place in the ground / on the wall / or carried by hand, Personal and hanging lanterns

This could be in the next round as well. The disconnect issues and revising the combat functions on the server (these were completely redone from scratch) were huge time sinks over the past month. With these out of the way we can get a lot of smaller tasks done quickly. I expect a lot to get done by the end of this month.

fatboy21007 Asks:

in your development updates you said *revised thirst a hunger* Does this mean we will have the ability to starve or is that planned for the future? Also if doesnt mean that, can you elaborate on it some more? Also, blades and old saw blades are still not droping, How soon can we expect to see a high increase in drops for scav? Also will you guys be able to tell us where things will be and what they do? (we also need this info if you really want us to test things, as it stands atm we dont have a clue what drops where and atm nothing is droping but same as we keep saying, So we cant test things to make sure their actually working.)

Revised thirst and hunger means that all actions will be affected by players that are not properly fed. You'll have to keep your player at normal thirst and hunger levels or your actions (crafting, combat, scavenging, etc.) will suffer.

We patched out a table with revised saw blades last Friday. The main distribution of scavenged objects is with materials and patterns, not so much with components which should be found in most territories. It really doesn't make sense for us to post full tables of what can be found where as players should be figuring that out by exploring!

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week 8/08 through 8/14

MrDDT Asks:

When do you think we will start to see events happen in game?

If you mean player run events, I'm not sure. Guide run events will continue as they are run now.

Whats your plans for what types of NPCs that will be coming into the game?

No new NPC types are planned. NPCs will continue to be creatures, though some creatures (such as undead) will be able to loot players and eventually attack towns. The plan is to continue improving AI and NPC abilities but not to add any new types (vendors, quest givers).

Whats your vision for PVP in this game?

PVP should be balanced between character and player skill and based on decisions, favoring slower, strategic combat and not quick 'gankfest' type of battles. It's getting there, but we have a bit more balancing to do.

mrwooj asks:

I chose basketry and can make one "range" of baskets after raising the skill extensively. Why did you decide not to have the whole range of basket recipes open up for those who choose the skill at character creation?

New players who do not choose basketry at character creation will never be able to make any type of basket unless they find a recipe. Nobody has ever found one yet. Why have you chosen this path when new players are finding it very hard and many leave the game very quickly?

This was not intentional and is being worked on this week. Basket recipes are available but will be made easier to find and the scheme gain system is being revised.

The scavenge table is STILL broken, even after you have "fixed" things in the new patch. Nobody has found an old saw blade for example. What are you going to do about this? Most people i have talked to prefered how it was before you tried to fix it the first time.

Since our last public update (8/12) we've had reports that players are now finding these objects, so this should be correct now.

Animals are extremely scarse even though this was apparently fixed in the last patch. When can we expect a decent amount of creatures to hunt?

The problem is still creatures getting stuck in places where players don't find them. There are thousands of creatures around the lake. We have been revising creature pathfinding code and testing this extensively over the past few days.

Do you employ a developer to play the game and relay the problems they encounter directly to the dev team, so you can have a totally unbiased account of the things that are very frustrating, the things that make the game unplayable in some ways and to report the things that are working well? Players are often too biased, with their own agendas, and this i believe is why the loot table for example was changed to a worse state in the first instance. It really feels like none of the dev team play the game and so are very distant from the real issues and which ones to prioritise ingame.

Yes, our in house test team plays the game. We've expanded the test team to include volunteer player testers to get better feedback and we read all feedback requested in the Developer Zone. If you feel something is not being addressed, please post it in the Developer Zone threads.

Why did we see some things fixed in the resourse table, such as shells, chalk, obsidian and flint showing up at a much more reasonable rate for about 2 weeks, but now they never show up again (with the exception of flint)?

This is strange. We tested this specifically for a few hours after I read this comment, as the code hasn't been adjusted since this was updated. I personally found obsidian, quartz and shells. The testers also found this to be working properly. Resources reset only while you are moving. Maybe you are not moving around enough to find these resources?

One time all the tree stumps grew back trees. Many people thought that was awesome. Why did you decide not to make this happen every spring as was mentioned?

Tree stumps never regrew trees. This only appeared this way before launch at times when the terrain data was wiped (resetting trees to their original positions, where stumps were left behind).

Trees are spawned near existing trees every spring (not from stumps).

Can you give us an update on the status of carts etc? For example, what are you making first - carts, sleds, mounts? When can we expect to see some way to move large numbers of items?

Wheeled hand pulled carts are coming soon. These are in the works and hopefully we'll get them in by the end of the month.

soulless Asks:

Forum posters have been asking for more content that sandbox players can use to create purpose, What new content, in your opinion, can you create soon, for them to do just that? Thanks for your time.

Our main 'content' goals right now are to add more 'meaning' and use to current content. Once this is done we will be adding more physical content: carts, creatures, armor and architecture parts and more systems: cooking, healing, farming. The immediate goals are listed in our In Development section.

thurgond Asks:

Will a standalone roof with no walls or floor protect against item/container decay?

Yes. Walls and floors will eventually increase the protection offered by a roof part but we are still working out the details on how to calculate this.

Is there a mechanism to prevent "unlearning" basic starter patterns like thread and straps? If not, is there a mechanism for regaining these.

Yes, basic recipes should not be able to be unlearned. Likewise you can't unlearn a recipe if you have a master recipe that depends on it. Master recipes will be in soon.

You mentioned that:

You will have to explore and get away from your safe zone for a good chance at new materials and architecture recipes.

Virtually all the junk piles in Round Hill are either within my safe zone or paved over. Does this mean I won't be able to find the rare items in Round Hill but others might if they scavenge on my piles; anyone can find these items, but they will have to get extra lucky on the non-junk table away from any camp; or these items unattainable?

Yes, others will have a better chance in your area than you. We are making adjustments to the rare items (recipes) as they are still too hard to find right now. Nothing will be unattainable. If something can't be found in your area, the best thing is to trade or quest for it. Promoting trade and questing is one of our main goals right now.

Young Asks:

When will Farming and Cooking be implemented along with Animal Meat?

These will be worked on after our current round of features listed as In Development. We have a few more weeks to wrap up the current round of changes.

inhabit Asks:

Looking for confirmation of the following for future planning:

Jimmy...has been abandoned buy his tribe and now sits lonely on his own in a tribe area meant for 50.
Does Jimmy have to worry about the future developers plans to deal with him, will his area shrink/will items decay quicker outwith a certain area etc or will he be fine

If Jimmy's tribe abandons him, the tribe should already shrink as the members leave. If the members are still there even if they don't play, Jimmy has nothing to worry about. If the members log in and actually abandon the tribe, the tribe will shrink. I hope that answers your concern!

Thanks for all the questions!

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week 8/15 through 8/21

MrDDT Asks:

Any plans to add special moves to combat?

Yes, planned moves include knockdown kicks, stunning and disarming. Once our lead combat / AI programmer is done with AI improvements in progress he's going to focus on combat moves.

Derek Asks:

Has there been any thought, and is there a strategy in place to keep the GUI and key binds simplified and compact? For example, have action bar slots that swap when in combat mode so that one whole set of key binds can be used for two purposes. (i.e. "1" key = scavenging while out of combat, "1" key = special melee attack while in combat) I've elaborated on this in the combat feedback.

We will improve the AI over time. We do plan to add scrollable rows to the action bar so you will be able to do what you mentioned. I'm not sure about the automatic swap in combat mode, but I'll think about it. It wouldn't be difficult to do.

Aramanu Asks:

When will we get bushes? (I want to pick my berries fresh off the branch, not the floor. :P )

Probably in October we are going to revise the grass system to include more bushes and better grass.

meissner61 Asks:

What are your thoughts on the way distant locations look right now? Personally i think the game is pretty and everything but in the distance the environment has some big issues. I Think a way to keep things pretty from a distance is to have a sort of "Fog" instead of trying to render everything. Also Water is beautiful but has some glitches that are .

I want to improve it. We recently reduced the amount of loaded terrain to 1/4 of what we used to load. This had freed up a lot of memory, so we plan to increase the detail of the distant terrain backdrop and I want to look into better methods to texture this.

Would it be a complicated issue to make a tired character walk instead of fully stop? Its such a sore to have to completely stop and sit. Runescape does this.

We could allow the character to continue to walk slowly. I'll think about this. If I set this up, the character will regain less energy while walking slowly than while resting, of course.

Just gonna go ahead and voice my concerns for jumps. They are really glitchy (Water, jumping over a hole) And even just the animation has a very lengthy ending where you cant do anything for a few seconds (I can start walking/running right after i hit the floor typically in real life)

Yes, this needs to be further revised. It's on our list, potentially for late September.

Oooh ooh! And also can we please get functions to click on the screen to rotate camera (With left mouse button) and also when zooming in all the way have it go into first person mode automatically instead of having to press home

Please submit the first as a suggestion if you haven't already. The second is already on our list.

dali2gala Asks:

will there be circular arch recipes?

One of our artists is working on a few curved walls right now. We'll need to make curved roof and floor parts to match and we need to test how these will fit with the current parts. These are trickier to work with than the current parts. We'll see at the end of the week if these will be easy to add or if there are complications with placement and combining them with current parts.

also will we be able to place items in more than 2 fixed positions? currently we can only place walls facing east(3) to west(9) and north(12) to south(6). it would be nice if we could place them in more than those positions (1 oclock, 7 oclock etc)

No, but we will have specific corner parts aligned to ordinal directions. The parts need to snap to the grid, so simply rotating them 45 degrees (for example) will create gaps. I was thinking about automatically swapping in different meshes as needed, but this can be complicated.

Thanks for the questions!

[Xsyon]

Questions from 2/4 to 5/23 2011

Gandhi Asks:

I know there will be a soft skill cap in game. But does that mean, that you can be for example both: a really good crafter and a really good fighter? Ordo you have to choose, if you want either be a good crafter or a good fighter? I hope, that you have to chosses, because if everyone is able to do everything, there would probably be no need for specialized crafters.

There currently is a soft skill cap but it needs balancing. The goal is slow gain both within and across skill groups so that players will tend to focus on either combat, actions or crafting and specialize in particular weapons or crafts. This will be balanced after our combat revisions are done.


mrwooj Asks:

As a solo player will i be able to claim some land and build on it, knowing that it cannot be taken away in a heartbeat. If i cannot, then what is the point of me playing. i would forever be building and losing, or i would give up on owning land and building, at which point i would surely leave the game.

Yes, you can currently claim a homestead which is safe.


STAR_GOD Asks:

What happens if I take holiday and dont wanna pay but like to deactivate account is there such option to deactivate account for some time without loosing toon?

What happens if I stop miss date of monthly subscription? Do I get automaticly deleated, deactivated and what implications are there to totems?

Characters are not deleted if your account subscription is deactivated either intentionally or because of a skipped payment.

What happens if I deactivate account and I am tribe leader does that mean I lose totem?

Currently, nothing.

How are you dealing with people that have totems placed but have left the game? Does it get deleted and tribe automatically disbands or leadership gets passed on? what about homesteads do they disapear?

We will implement totem decay for abandoned homesteads and tribes in the future, but this will take into effect only for players that have been completely inactive for a long period of time (6 to 9 months for example). All players will be informed of this before it is implemented.


Volcom Asks:

Anymore info on safe zones and territory control? A lot of people looking at this waiting to see how he handles it. To me this could make or break the game. You need something to fight over.

Our first step will be to add expansion totems and resources that can be fought over.


Tredo Asks:

So if I set up a tribe and its neutral or good aligned, and I know gates are coming, can the gate be set so that "evil" characters can't use that gate???

Gates will be set so that only your tribe can use them. Tribes will also be able to allow allies to use the gates if they desire.

Can I section off a part of the tribal area where only certain people have access? Set like a pass phrase you have to enter for the gate to open? or have to be set a certain rank in the tribe to able to go past that gate?

This is a good idea and has been added to our suggestions list.


vagabond80 Asks:

Do architecture buildings that require multiple components allow for differences in colour/fabric?

For example a lumberjack tent, can I use 1 red wool 1 green linen and 2 blue denim tarps? Or do they all have to be exactly the same as in 4 green linen, 4 blue denim etc.

Considering the vast area (I quite like this) of cloth and colours this might make architecture a bit more difficult than it needs to be.

Right now this requires the same type of cloth, but we plan to add patchwork cloth tarps in the near future.


De7ilx Asks:

What will be after prelude? Is the game going to be in different ERA-s starting with the prelude?
If so will the game go into modern civilization like it is today and beyond into future ?
If it will be in ERA-s and we reach into modern civilication then the features that are in Prelude will be still in?
Like New players starting in Prelude age and evolve into future? For example older players have modern guns and you only have knife and axe? Like future vs stoneage ?

After the Prelude the game will be released in expansions that will add new lands. The plan is to introduce new parts of the world and cultures with each expansion.

Will there ever be customizable houses and buildings? Like castles and keeps where we have many floors and you actually can walk inside and build additional parts of the castle, expand it and build new floors on it? Something like in Sims franchise has - custom build houses not pre made models.

Yes. The basics for this are already in place. Soon we will add more walls and component parts such as floors, roofs and stairs. Eventually we would like to create smaller tileable component parts similar to the Sims.

Will the game graphics will stay same or replaced with more better one in future?

As our team grows and time goes on we will of course improve and update graphics.

Will there ever be terraforrming like making holes into mountain? With some kind of drilling machine? Tunnels mines etc ?

We would like to add this, but it will require major changes to how we store terrain data. It won't happen any time soon.

Will there ever be boats/ships? That can be built and used to move on water?

We plan to have boats, but they won't be in game for a while (after summer for certain).

Will there ever be structures like bridges that could be placed over the rivers?

Yes. The models for a few bridges are already created. We will add these to the game soon.

Will there ever be possibility to expand the Tribe territories (after the maximum user limit is hit) with some kind of land control towers? (Just like in Settlers 4)
And the claim towers would be vunerable to attacks and when destroyed the land would be lost? (The structures inside that land would became vunerable to attacks)

Yes. This is basically what our expansion totems will be.

Will the game world be expanded further into different landscapes than the current one is ? Like sea and other continents where u possibly can get only with boats/ships?
If so will there be weather conditins like storm on sea that could sink the boats/ships?

Yes. The first expansions will cover other areas of California and Nevada, but we plan to expand to other parts of the world as time goes on.

Will there ever be introduced Mining where you could get materials like Gold, Silver, Bronse, Iron and many other materials ?

Yes. Should be during the Prelude.

On the loading screen of the game there is 2 man sitting on a camp fire and background there is huge modern skyscrapers. Are this is the part of where the game will go or just random picture not related to future game content?

There will be modern ruins in the future and we've built models for these. We will implement them once we design a mechanism for how these can be destroyed and manipulated.

Will we ever be able to build skyscrapers just like on the loading screen of the game?

Possibly. We will have limits on building construction initially and need to test to see what effects on loading and rendering huge structures will have.

If the game goes into the future will be able to eventually build skyscrapers etc? What would happen with the current game landscape?

The current landscape will stay the same with terraformed changes.

If the game would go in to the far future will there be features like space, other planets, spaceships, space warfare, crew inside spaceships etc?

No plans for this. One day at a time.


Joph Asks:

When new skills are added to the game that use Charm will our stat points be refunded so we can realocate them?

Yes, we will allow for shifting of stats when Charm and Spirit become more useful.


Hellaciouss Asks:

Question 1. The "Dirt" System. Currently you are required to have dirt in your pack to raise land and when you lower land dirt goes in your pack. This system is very inconvenient to the player when a player just needs to lower a small hill, or raise one. I don't quite see a reason for the "dirt" other then a slight "realism" factor that adds a lot of inconvenience. What is the worry about not having the dirt? Couldn't some system be implemented that when a totem is destroyed/removed all land is put back to its original levels? If the Dirt System is kept in what keeps someone from just filling a bin, walking down the river and dropping the bin off? Do bins vanish after a certain time on non-tribal land if they aren't interacted with? If not would you rather have tons and tons of bin filled with dirt all over the game world?

This is something to think about and has been noted in our balancing notes for the future.

Question 2. When are "Gates" going to be put in that we can open and close on our walls to keep people out?

Yes.

Question 3. When are more items going to be added to Masonry and Bonecraft? Cooking?

We don't have any immediate plans for this. We may shift some wall recipes over to Masonry.


mrtastycakes Asks:

when are you adding gates to are bases so people cant just log in and the pking system for evil vs evil tribes...

Should be working by the end of June. We will be testing these this week.


coca Asks:

Have you considered limiting the total number of recipe types per character?

Yes, but as we plan to add many more recipes in the future, we haven't set any limits yet.

[Xsyon]

Questions for the week of 5/23 through 5/30 2011

Jemmus Asks:

How do the animals interact with each other? If we have bears in an area, do they drive away/consume the deer? If dogs, do they drive away/consume chickens? Do dogs and coyotes get along? Basically what I'm wondering is if there's a check and balance among the animals. If we, say, conserve bears, are we losing deer population?

P.S. Where are the pumas? : )

Aggressive creatures (bears) do attack and kill non aggressive creatures (deer). Some creatures tend to run and hide from others so they will move from one area to another. We will implement some creature tracking tools soon so that we can observe the results of our current system and balance things as we go. The pumas are hiding.

Aiden Asks:

What kind of options are being looked at for transport/travel (pack animals, carts, etc) and is there any kind of timeline on implementation of those systems?

Carts (pushed by humans and creatures) are on our task list, but we don't have a timeline for this. It all depends on how things go with the new programmers and how well our plans to continue to expand this summer go.

Are there any plans to do away with the "same-type, same-color" requirements for crafting/architecture? For example, will I eventually be able to make a spiked log wall out of several different types of logs (as long as I have 10 logs available)?

No current plans for this.

Are there any plans for totem decay in the future? I know it will need to be awhile (many people may come flooding back in after combat, etc). Just curious.

Yes, but totems will take a while to decay. I think a minimum of 6 months, but this will be discussed with players before it's implemented.


MrDDT Asks:

Are there any plans to help exporting of items other than killing yourself and respawning at your totem? Carts, mules, take a rope and tying stuff up and dragging it, sleds etc?

Yes, pack animals and carts. We'll look into the possibilities after the combat revisions and agriculture system are done.

Skill decay? Soft cap? Hard cap?

We have a soft cap on skills that needs to be balanced. When we balance this skills will decay. This will be looked at in June.

Stats WTF? They almost never change. Planned? Going to be changed? (IMO I think they should change much much faster based on skill usage)

Balancing this is part of the plans for June.

How are the pools going to be split up? Are there going to be pools like talked about before with Combat being one pool, crafting another, misc another etc.

Skills are grouped as follows:
Combat
Crafting
Construction
Resource gathering
Physical actions
Trade skills

Trade skills is the group that will grow the most in the future and will include skills such as healing and cooking.

HP system seems a bit off. Right now combat skills do not give exp (Pretty sure) also there are only a few combat skills. So to be good in combat you must trade every skill in the game just to get HP. Is this going to be reworked?

Combat will give experience and increase skill much more with the combat revisions being worked on right now.


NorCalGooey Asks:

How are you going to prevent warring tribes from abusing ALT ACCOUNT safe zone tribes???


Meaning that even if there is a REQUIREMENT for warring tribes to have their home totem area completely unsafe because they are attackers themselves, that doesn't make their items unprotected. People think outside the box.

We'll have to think about this when the time comes. We don't have everything perfectly worked out and of course issues like this will arise.


Krimara Asks:

Are we going to able to terraform rocks, such as granite and the like in the future?

Sorry if this one has already been answered. I haven't been able to find anything relating to it so far.

Yes, though we will first see if we can implement tunneling.


ColonelTEE3 Asks:

Currently you need to open a bag and drag and drop your weapons to change them out.

Are there plans to make switching weapons easier, or add weapon hotkeys, to allow for people to change easily and swiftly from archery to melee back to archery during combat?

We have this on our suggestions list and will consider it when we have time.


Gandhi Asks:

Good evening,

Is there a skill decay for the crafting and gathering skills? I leveled up several of these skills, but i dont see any decay. I think that is a big problem of this game, because it enforces the problem of almost every tribe being self-sufficent, when everybody is able to produce everything.

Currently no, but skill decay will be worked on in June.


KeithStone Asks:

Are safe zones going to be removed at some point where we need to use walls/gates to keep people out of tribe zones?

Starting with expansion totems, yes. After we see the dynamics that happen when tribes war over expansion we plan to allow tribes to turn off their safe zones permanently to allow them become warring tribes. The option to remain a safe tribe will be in place during the Prelude. The future will depend on how the game evolves and this will be requesting feedback from all players regarding this (through emails and surveys, not just on the forums).


Thraz Asks:

When will cooking and farming be implemented?

We don't have a set date, but we've started working on farming, which will be accompanied by cooking. It will be the focus after combat revisions are in place.


Subspace Asks:

First off, wanted to say I think you guys are doing great.

Here are my questions:

1. Do you see value in allowing us to have global chat for the purposes of buying and selling. We could only access it by building a HAM radio, and only use the radio in our settlement. It would give us a reason to use the carts and transports mentioned by others above.

Yes, we are considering linking chat between allied tribes for the purposes of trade. We don't know when this will be looked at though.

2. 6 months from now, how many additional skills will have been added to the game?

I'm unsure, but cooking, healing, farming and metalworking are in the works.

3. Will PvE elements such as ruined cities be added to the game? Underground cave systems? Will we ever run into modern technology?

Unklikely during the Prelude. When we expand Xsyon after this year, yes.

4. I notice that some of the tents do not have the ability to enter. Are these symbolic structures that you will eventually be able to get inside of and have more space, or is the intention to be what-you-see-is-what-you-get in terms of usable space?

These will be fixed so that all tents can be entered.

5. Having played many client/server based games, I am unaccustomed to such long loading times. Can you please explain what is going on behind the scenes in making loading so slow. Are there plans to speed it up, and what is your best guess on what the eventual load times will be.

Loading times are erratic as not all players experience slow loading times (for example, the game always loads within around 2 minutes for me). A few things seem to be happening, and one is a conflict when many players are entering the world at the same time. Because of the changeable terrain and construction projects, a lot of information does load when you enter the game. We plan to reduce the loaded area to about 1/4 of what is loaded now and then continue to see what can be improved to reduce loading times. This is slated for soon after combat revisions are done.


fatboy21007 Asks:

i have 1 question. What is your version of content and when do we expect to get that version of a content update?

The question isn't clear to me, but we have a lot of physical content that we plan to add in June and July including architecture components, furniture, female armor sets, two handed weapons and terrain beyond the mist. Most of the actual content has already been patched out but we need to catch up with recipes and some necessary code adjustments.


Perefim Asks:

how long does it take to find chalk? I stood, ran, hopped, skipped, ate and crafted on above water lvl limestone today for 2+ hours and received 8 flint but no chalk...

if my demands are not met within 48 hours, I shall build campfires across the entire server.. and we shall enter a second age of apocalypse!!!!

Chalk has the same discovery rate as flint, but you must be in a limestone area. Have you started your wall of campfires?

I have a serious weekly question. zombies, they going to spawn at night, kinda like minecraft, regular animals during day... then muties, freaks and hell things at night.. would really make night time shelter needed and a blast to defend city during night.

When we introduce undead (technically called revenants, not zombies) they will arise from the ground at night and usually hide during the day.


Drevar Asks:

Will woodworking and masonry remain relegated to "secondary" skill status or will they receive content that makes them desireable as primary skills?

It is more work to get woodworking to 100 than toolcrafting, yet the "rewards" are very far from equal.

Woodworking and masonry will be expanded when we add furniture. You can expect some furniture in game this summer. One step at a time.