2 people found this review helpful
Recommended
6.5 hrs last two weeks / 5,445.4 hrs on record (2,245.2 hrs at review time)
Posted: 12 Feb, 2020 @ 9:38pm
Updated: 15 Feb, 2020 @ 9:26am

Well, I may have reached the end of my interest in this game. This game receives regular updates including incremental changes and additions of the kind that has always existed. I think I have played for approximately half of the games existence. During the earlier parts of my experience, the game was awesome and I loved it. Some things were odd, like the murder mechanics used to be quite touchy where causing a fatal wound was instantaneous and easily performed on accident. Like, woman on horse rides up to you in the wilderness, gets off, pulls knife out of backpack, and stabs you in less time than it takes to read this sentence. If it happens enough, and you're the victim of the horse assassin, you might decide that anytime someone runs up to you on a horse, you'll take out a knife. Then stand there. If they take out a knife, you will stab them. Well, it's happened to me in this game and I've stabbed them. Unfortunately for them, they simply wanted to swap to a pie to munch on, but a knife was cycled through in their backpack. This gameplay element is now gone; the murder mechanics reworked including an audible murder sound, an emote by the target, a six second or so delay before the stab happens, and slower movement speed by the attacker. Either method had its merits, but the instant kill was provocative.

The game has gone through some radical changes to fundamental parts of it's gameplay. The way water is generated for farming, limited resources, specialization of player races and skills able to be performed, and much much more. Each variant of fundamental gameplay could be discussed at length, and each variant had redeeming qualities. The game underwent the changes for testing purposes to achieve some new state of the game.

The current status of the game is feature-rich and fairly balanced. Annoying problems that plagued earlier versions are worked out. But, there are some quirks, that really have no consequence but are fun for the autist, that seem to be frowned upon and 'fixed'. What I have noticed and do not enjoy is much more gameplay is spent in endgame. That is you are born, you receive a full set of clothes, there is food everywhere, roads sometimes stretch almost endlessly. You could spend your whole life talking to someone in another town using the radio. I prefer early game, or at least working on advancing the town's tech tree. End-game is boring because town's generally need oil which is exhausted nearby, which will require an extensive search over a large distance. There are modded clients with the capability to zoom out and do search highlighting. I stopped working on this entirely.

Early game requires you to work for survival usually. Griefers can sometimes make significant impacts on a town's survival because food sources are so scant.

Today, I made two rubber-tire carts with baskets full of cooked mutton, and filled six or seven slot boxes of cooked mutton. I had nineteen yum when I died. I could have just ate mutton my whole life. The only reason I had nineteen yum was because I slayed all the sheep to make the mutton. Unfortunately in end-game yum has little reason to exist. It used to be a high yum chain could let you wander around collecting more resources, because a precious slot in your backpack could be saved. But with rubber tire horse-carts and the like, there is no need to yum because you have the space to carry food.

Another change recently made with significant impact was the tool slot limit. It so severely restricts veteran players that I no longer attempt to work towards what a town needs, but rather whatever I feel like. When in end-game the town doesn't need anything, so your choice rarely matters anyway. And if what end-game towns need is oil requiring a boring search, I'd rather not bother with that.

Oh, and when your contribution does matter in early game, you can contribute until your inputs are exhausted for whatever work you do, then you are likely out of tool slots before death.

Cooperative gameplay is an interesting mechanic in the game. It happens occasionally, it's most fun in tasks where maximizing work per time is desired, like smithing. The tool slot limits does add some complexity to being able to help the smith. The cooperation can be tightly coupled or loosely. You can gather kindling for the smith which is loosely coupled. Or, you can hold the axe while the smith puts branches on the ground and chop for him. You can put together crucibles for making steel while he is firing raw iron. Those are both tightly coupled.

Anyway, definitely recommended. I don't have games to compare it to, but it's a different genre for me and I liked it. It's a hard game content-wise. You have to learn how to do everything, and there is a lot of content. If you don't play much but want to learn a lot of the content, you will spend most of your gaming on onetech.info reading the recipes. The social aspect of the game is limited. Just like in life friends come and go, never to be seen again. The anonymity is nice in some regards but affects friendships. I wish there was a way to mark a player in case you see them again in a new life. Shout out to any smithing mains. It's tough in end-game being a smith. End-endgame is the damn fire is out.
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