Official Answers by week

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 05/01/2014 Through 06/24/2014

MrDDT asks:

When cooking/farming is put on the live servers, do you plan on making changes to the survival/needs of people in game for food?

Yes, the energy and life gain rates will be adjusted as food will affect both.

jwjohnson1978 asks:

Are there any plans to add different types of bone armor. ie.. starter/mid grade that uses round, flat, ribs from other animal types (dogs, coyote, etc)? It would be easier for new players that want to start hunting animals/revs to get into a set of heavier armor.

Yes, I'm considering adding bone armor sets that use non specific bones or smalls from the mid size creatures. They won't be new armor looks though as we don't have the artists required to add completely new armor sets though. They would the same as some current sets but with different properties and material requirements.

Also, are there plans to make human bones available? Gutting Revs maybe? There's a lot of bone armor I'd like to make, but no resources.

Yes, it's on my long to do list to add human bones from revenants when they are dealt a final blow (killed where they won't re-spawn.

Glorp asks:

Will Human Bones be harvest-able from revs in the future and will there be stats added to them?

Yes, both have been on my list for a long time. There are just other priorities right now.

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 06/25/2014 Through 08/21/2014

MrDDT asks:

I was asking mostly of death from not eating or drinking. Is this still planned and will it come soon after the cooking/farming update?

Yes it's part of the update (as you know, but just answering the question for those not following the feedback thread.

Whorlok asks:

after the coming patch what you want doing?

Right after this patch, my focus will be on revising the 'free to play' system to be more effective.

Are you working on Master weapons and Two handed swort and bows with ranged combat?

Master and two handed weapons may come soon after the 'free to play' revisions, but we'll see.

Ranged combat is still a problem to implement because of desynch issues. One of the main problems causing desynch between players is the speed of player movement in combat. Originally (years ago) combat was meant to limit your speed which makes synchronizing actions and positions a lot easier.

Another issue is the real life distances between players when having players from around the world on one server.

In brief, let's say it takes 250 ms for a command to travel from one player to the server to another player. If you are travelling at 0.5 m/s the difference can be easily compensated for. If you're travelling 10 m/s (for example) your player can already be 2.5 meters away from your last position by the time the movement command arrives at the viewing player.

Now, there are definitely ways to improve on the current system to adjust for this problem, but it's not so easy!

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 08/21/2014 Through 10/26/2014

matilda asks:

I'm wondering what the plan is to counter new players overpulling grass, branches and twigs?

Grass and tree resources are restored over time now since the recent updates.

Tree resources also no longer require forest surface and forest surfaces do not change now as well.

On a different subject: I'm wondering what the plans are for "block", shields & polearms?

Combat is being revisited now. Plans are to be determined, so I can't say anything for sure right now.

On a different note: I was wondering what other things you are hope'n or plan'n to add in the future for hardcore survivor game players who are here for the pvp & survival aspect more then the pve & building community?

I don't have any specific PvP features planned for the near future, though the combat revisions will certainly affect PvP. Upcoming features will benefit both the War and Peace servers.

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 10/26/2014 Through 11/17/2014

Player asks:

A player asked if there was any intentions to add grass seed at some point for those wanting to plant grass in specified areas?

At some point, yes. Currently doing this is more trouble than it's worth and so I implemented grass regrowth instead.

[Xsyon]

Questions For The Developers 11/17/2014 Through 12/19/2014

Greenspade asks:

Whats the plan for getting people to join this game without being able to try it in a market that supports free games and most players won't pay without first trying? I mean aside of steam, do you have any other plans aside of the steam release in case this doesn't work?

Yes. We will try a different type of free trial or trial server. All I can say for sure is that what we had in place previously was not working for the benefit of the game or players.

What solution are you giving to players who have put work into their free to play players as an alternative to their main subscription accounts, who are no longer able to log into their players?

They can add a Citizen account. The free to play aspect was intended as a free trial and not as a free to play model where the few pay high fees to support those who play entirely for free.

What was the main reason for removing free to play? (Yes I've seen your post, could you elaborate?) What did you think this would legitimately help?

This has been explained, but the situation is quite simple. Free to Play was added as a free introduction to Xsyon with the hopes that it would benefit the game and community by increasing our player base and revenue. Neither happened. Development then focused on many aspects for the new player (tutorial system, revised character creation) which didn't help. Direct feedback and surveys showed that a lot of players enjoyed their limited introduction to Xsyon but did not stay around long enough to experience systems such as tribe creation, terraforming and construction. The main reasons were outlined in the Developer Updates: Players expecting a more typical Free to Play with cash shop model, players being discouraged by paid citizens and new players not feeling vested enough to 'learn the ropes' without an even more extensive tutorial system.

What is the plan for breathing live back into the 100% dead pvp server?

The population should increase considerably with the launch on Steam.

Is there plans to eventually support the pvp server with events as often as the pve server?

Only one time did we run an event on the Peace server only. In general, events will run on both servers if there are active players able to attend the event.

dprail asks:

What happened to the post here about the details of your steam early release campaign and the competition?

A post from a banned player using an alt account was removed. I didn't read the contents.

Have you been playing any games lately? Any of the steam early release games?

I've checked some out, yes. The 'sandbox' genre is becoming more defined. From what I've seen out there and from what's being worked on in Xsyon, I'm comfortable that in time Xsyon will stand out from the small crowd.

thurgond asks:

Are we going to get other forms of beads (wood, metal, plastic, shell) to go with the stone beads?

I haven't thought about it, but please post this in the Suggestions if you'd like this to get more attention.

We are now closing up the Questions for the Developers. With a pending release on Steam an open ended session such as this would be counter productive. We can endlessly talk about possibilities but it will be far more beneficial to focus on what's actually in the works.

To that purpose, the In Development section will be updated and feedback sessions will be posted for what's in progress and what's under consideration for the near future.

I thank you all for your questions and look forward to the feedback sessions!