Hi all,
i will update during the test my impressions, hope to help staff.
Pathfinding
Cluncky, woody, if u catch a tree under mouse point the risk of life increase greatly. this part need a great re-work, even the fact we cannot use WASD that a lot of player wish to use could be part of problem, maybe you should consider to move the skill on numbers (1,2,3,4,5,6 and go on) and leave lecters free (most shortcut aready use them like craft menu, map and so on).
Archery
Arrow crafting is nice and work fine (using bones instead stones help a lot while hunting)
But even if i appreciate the realism about the arrow blocked by items on fire line, most of the time arrows disappears for strange bushes, small plants, and more if i am just a little bit higher in position of target (im on a really little hill, while target under). It could be a nice idea to give more damage instead from higher position and lower from under, even pvp should improve.
Mining
Since different nodes are fine, during mining the bos with mineral pop up always on the mineral rocks, and often are hard to localize because of the same colour, maybe popping out under player or directly in hands allow a smoother performance.
Carts
Beautiful idea, works fine but noticed a problem about overpopulation of carts, people are licterally flooding towns with carts not stealable nor breakable. Even the fact no owner nae appear bring to an owning problem, which is mine? When a village is erected, the lack of immediate "bank" brought players to use carts as portable bank, this must be avoided.
Enlightment
Since the map is really huge and well defined (not the best but there is no lack of vegetation or animals, the lights are eyes burning, shadows are really small while seems all world is buning under a sahara sun. this part should be refined for sure.
Knowledge
Since discover new items in fauna and flora is nice and allow to explore and move around the world, the skill and spell learning will be surely coded on sites, so in future we will have tutorials to catch all spell u want in the exact way, breaking the casual approach to the game maybe, dunno i have some doubt about this part
Crafting-Farming
What can i say, PERFECT, you just got all your best experience from your previous game, improving menu and texture. Thank You!
Claiming town
This part seems an improvement of your "linked realms system" (ndr Jacopo), but maybe a grid on map (or minimap) should help understand better the exact extension of domains
Minimap
This need a great refinement, its really chaotic, hard to realize what is a river, a stone path, a road. It work but its not really easy to understand what are u looking on
World spawns
Since there are different biomes, i notice some monster spawn in place really strange, for example i found spiders in deserts with spidernet everywhere...in desert. Since exists a lot of spiders in deserts, they are not net producers, they use fast attacks in direct way. Even the zombies in deserts are quite strange, ok scheletons but zombie...
Loading time
I got some issue with SpatialIOS even in previos alpha, now seems to work better, maybe just a lack of optimization, nothing scary actually
Conclusions
Good job, game is coming out really fine, it's already enjoyable, i would suggest a permanent alpha, with server opened timeless, this should attract more backers, giving you more funds and more feedback, think about this, game deserve attention its actually too ambitious
---UPDATE---
Animations
There is an issue about the preloading action on mouse pointer (if i order to chop a tree or dig a stone, during animation mouse clicked is absolutely unresponsive about the context; if i pass over another stone or tree, the mouse pointer icon does not change into the proper image, invalidating any pre-ordered action). To be more clear, if im doing any kind of action i cannot "pre-order" anithing until animation end, that is frustrating because really often we click on wagon or another stone during gathering, but have to wait the animation end, hope they fix it asap, it's frustrating
Another TERRIBLE thing is that if i'm carrying a wagon with horse, my mouse pointer is totally unresponsive about mineral deposit, i have to release wagon (i can remain on horse) and check if there is something gathereable, the retake wagon.
Private houses
I really appreciated the progressive and immersive building system, i loved raising my house step by step, but actually i see no great reason to do it, seems just aesthetic, no personal vendors, no personal smithy or forge or foundry (it could help to not overload cities of building), the only thing i can do is charcoal, a personal hearth and some storage, which is good but if im citizen i already have all of this in town, why i should go private? i'm missing the sense.
Citizen rights
Here is the most hilarious part: as citizen i have access to all about my city, even steal resources from storages, weapon, armours, anything i want. For the most guilds take possession of the cities and the spare citizen not joined their guild are substantially parasite of their work or, on the other side, victims of their bully approach sometime. (for example, if a player not guilded raise a private home, the city owner can turn his life in a doom...)
City appeal
As we all can see, players spreaded aroung the world, focusing on the most attractive location, evaluating position, resources, neightbours, pve spots etc
Some city is totally in ruin, even docks cities because they have nothing attractive and no reason to apply there, because they have low resources or totally away from trade routes, this need surely a tweak in future
Trade routes
It's the first time roads have such a fundamental role on commerce, because playing out of roads is really painful, hard and mostly so dangerous that people avoid. This is incredible nice but could be really nice as future implementation to LEVEL UP the roads, improving them so wagons and horses go still faster, improving commerce and movement, like real world, or even allow cities to build new roads to connect them.
Wagons
I know i already wrote about this, but i wish to add something could help its role. First of all, too many carts, it could be an idea to have a wagon as personal summoneable item like the horse (why horse yes and wagon/cart no?), of course a wagon/cart with at least 1 item inside will not be dismissable, avoiding abusing. Another option is to change the wagon speed if full or empty, in the first case it is slow, in the second it should slow less about 0 impact, to avoid each trade will remain a "no-return voyage", because travelling back to home with an empty wagon really not worth, better abandon or destroy and go back alone, then rebuild it
Trees
While the dismantling animation of the chopped tree is amazing, often some chunk of wood fall into an ungathearable position, frustrating...
Rest system
The idea is good but i think badly implemented, not only as concept but even graphically.
The rest into a tavern is fine, but that corpse laying on floor is terrible. Let some table and chairs on tavern, each chair is a slot to rest, so we could have a tavern full of people chatting on tables even with beer and playing cards lol. The rest should not go instantly, just really faster. Outside taverns we should have the option to rest sitting on floor even without camps, but it raise really slowly, meantime hungry should increase (so a good malus to rest outside taverns and camps). Camps will work as hearth but slower. I think it should be better that the actual way because often finding stones is a real quest and the risk to die for excessive stress is real...