First Impressions

[GameDrifter]

I discovered your game via steam. I've got a real good feel about the game so far. It feels ALOT like old school Starwars Galaxies to me spending hours running around in the desert I was just waiting to see a Wookie or something.. I love the rugged feel and how your toon has to really struggle to just become a basic fighter. Like your working your way out of a dirt farmers life and into a sell sword adventures life. Also like how the game doesn't seem to scale with your toon. Gives that true felling of your just a part of the environment not the center of it.

Of course I understand its defiantly a WIP game and I was glad to help out via my early access fee. I'd like to throw my two cents worth in on what was missed on my play through and a wish list of sort.. Just a list nothing more then that.

Things I found myself needing.
1) Map Navigation Aids. Map markers, Maybe change my "X" icon on world map to an arrow pointer so I know which direction I'm facing and where I'll be heading, Waypoints, Patrol routes, Smarter AI pathing (My guys loved running up the side of mountains to get stuck and wait for bandits to come give them a dirt nap While I focused my attentions on toons elsewhere.)
2) Better Camera angle controls. Over the shoulder camera view. Stronger view controls.. Hard to put into words really just seems to need more polishing.
3) Sound.. But hey I know its Alpha foot steps and wind would have been nice..
4) Ability to reassign your select group of followers to other jobs like Town Guards outside your direct control but still a sort of player faction automated support role..
5) Colored Status outline boxes around each followers portrait box. Yellow for if they have been noticed by enemies who are now chasing them, Red for followers about to be engaged in combat or general troubles etc...

Things that for me would defiantly increase the fun factor of this game.. (Mainly Opinion list)
1) Mount & Blade combat system. Probly one of the best keyboard & Mouse UI combat systems I've ever seen used in a computer game. Since its Sandbox as well you could even use the Slow-time built in cheat along with the pause game feature. Nothing funnier then watching an arrow land in someone's head in slow moo Unless of course its your toons head that is..
2) This one goes back to how this game reminds me of Starwars Galaxies and the whole desert wandering theme.. But ability to track and tame player controlled pets ether for combat or as beasts of burdens/mounts.
3) If map big nuff to justify it.. airships.. Maybe Hot-air balloons for spotting above ones bases and small gliders.. Work your toons way to hill top and glide there way across to next valley would seem neat way to travel and avoid most troubles.
4) Option for total map conquest. I know its open ended but maybe a simple victory condition like map control etc....
5) Not asking for MMO but maybe a simple Co-OP feature allowing upto like 5 friends to make own in-house server to play on etc...
6) Quest and storyline being totally optional.. Maybe option for players to become famous/infamous via a quest line. (Again I do love your take on how the players toon is meant to be just another person in-game but options to stroke player ego's via game quests to push them above the heard would be a nice side option.)
7) Hunting/Foraging/Scavenging/Camping... Give you real reason to go into the wild not just a means of travel from city to city or to hound a few bandits for loot and minor xp, but a real sense of living off the land and not setting foot into town for days if you like and the skills you'd need to make that happen..
8) NPC that make sense.. Spawns always seemed to bother my sense of logic in most games.. Why doesn't that roving band of Desert scum have a starting camp or village or cave they come from each day and return to each night etc... Oh and why are they track stars who always seem to run me down and never ever tire or get bored of chasing me across the map? For that matter why Not make all NPC's from bandits to town people have a home location and areas they travel.
9) Detailed weather and effects.. (Yep no clue how detailed you plan to get but still going to mention it.) Nothing like a good Dirt storm to slow your travels down for the next several game hours.. Or the mesmerizing effect of watching lose wind swept sand gently race across the grounds surface as you run by.
10) This more a suggestion and just putting it out there incase your didn't know of it.. but http://www.makehuman.org/ is a rather nice human generating program project maybe you could use it in your character generation section of the game somehow. Again not sure what your plans are for that aspect of the game just mentioning it is all..

Ok I babbled on long nuff.. Great game so far... I look forward to what you do with it in the future..

[Tolwrath]

I'm glad you're having fun so far, and welcome to the forums. Several forumers garner themselves a themed reputation like Blxz the Black Hole of Morality. You will find I am the Cat girl fanatic. You should also know -bees- wordfilters to -*CENSORED*- and -*CENSORED*- wordfilters to CENSORED. But enough about that.

As my second order of business, I'd like to invite you to check out the Feature Request forum. But make sure to search for any similar topics before posting new threads. Now to address your specific items.

1. Yeah we all want this. A tip for orienting yourself is to note that the X is the camera position, not the squad position. If you use WASD controls to move the camera with the map open, you should be able to figure out what direction you're facing.
2. Better camera controls and alternate views are a distinct possibility. However keep in mind it's hard to create a better camera when the most common critique is "bad camera". If we're more specific I. What's bad or good about a camera, we'll be more likely to get an improvement. Personally, I don't have any problems with controlling the current camera, but some alternate/cinematic views would be nice.
3. Chris has stated that sound will be one of the last things he implements. Simply put, it would be a waste to record sounds before you have all the things you want to make sounds for in the game.
4. This has a couple feature requests for it. The ability to add NPCs to your faction with specialized jobs would greatly aid in the defence and manageability of our towns.
5. Yeah there's a couple feature requests for this already.

1. The Mount&Blade combat system is cool, but I highly doubt we'll see it occur. It would take a complete combat system overhaul to allow you to take direct control of a character like that. It's a cool idea, I just don't think it's feasible.
2. I know animals are planned, and there's been talks about taming them. I think we'll need to wait and see just what sort of animals inhabit the game.
3. It has been stated that we will not be getting vehicles. At most we'll get something that helps us haul goods, but nothing that increases movement speed. I like the concept of having a greater view distance from an elevated position though.
4. Interesting. The Civilization games are known for letting you set what the conditions for ending the game are, and that was kinda cool. However, Kenshi doesn't really have an ending, so I'm not too sure about this one. I mean it'd be cool to see your characters pop up in a few scripted cut scenes, but in the end, the journey will still be able to go on.
5. It has also been stated that multiplayer will not be in the game. Fingers crossed that someone mods it in or that the sequel has it.
6. Endure. In enduring, grow stronger. To my knowledge, there is no main story planned. There will be quests though. Just make your own story through your imagination.
7. This is just a temporary problem. With all the improvements that went into base building recently, we've lost some of our reasons for ever leaving our bases. I'm sure as the game development continues we'll see more changes to the world to make us venture back out into it.
8. Bandit towns/encampments are planned. It's also planned for bandits to be more aggressive in ways like holding people/towns ransom, trying to kill off an entire town, or robbing instead of just killing. A better AI system is planned for all NPCs.
9. Could definitely be cool. I know the final map will have more biomes than just desert, so there'll probably be varying weather effects too, if we get weather.
10. Chris and his artist are already working on better character models with more customization options. Not sure if he'll use this, but he definitely has a character overhaul in the works.

[Tolwrath]

Well correction to that, check out today's front page update.