As far as I understood (rightly or wrongly) is that "prelude" is the initial stages to gathering and building therefore eventually using up the resourses in the area after the apocalypse. So thats why there are alot of resourses at the moment.
Disagree that you are forced to put your totem directly on a junk pile, i travel most of my time to junk away from my camp meeting good and not so good folk on the way.
This suits the way im playing the game but wont suit others.
This game can be played anyway you like, so if u find yourself getting bored or run out of things to do is that the fault of the game or is it the way the individual has chosen to play it? (or both hehe?)
LOL Vandal we must hav been typing at same time.
Just had another thought - do u actually have to place a totem at all, you could play as a roaming traveller taking what u need with u moving around all the time placing and removing your totem occasionally if you really wanted?