I admit I'm a very happy camper right now:
0First with how you are presenting the new game: You have done everything I was hoping for when I wrote
this . You are making a new game, so will get new reviews, and with typical arcen brillance you've done so without the PR fallout that could have happened.
Now for my response just from the first page!
-I'm happy to see combat is becoming a more intimate, intense affair [man that sounds dirty]. With smaller enemies, lack of mouse, and smaller health for all combat goes from shooting things at the edge of your screen while your mana is drained thrice it should become faster, more intense, and much more captivating.
-A somewhat more directed procedure placed enemies make it so that things feel less random, so more unique, thus more interesting over time.
-Having a much shorter loop between adventuring and city building makes endorphin raising happiness of advancement more immediate, direct, and clear.
-Cutting out clutter from NPC's means less time "setting up" NPC's to do what they want, advancing the city itself. (The focus is on the city, not the people inside so much)
-Being able to win and lose. Very, very necessary. Helps with tension very much and provides purpose.
-Making your character "you" instead of a "placeholder" helps provide a player connection, which combined with the backstory of you and the overlord both independently and your histories together helps to establish purpose.
-The overlord's actions on the world map help to establish why you left and why overlord is bad and why you fear him. Having him come himself should help establish his badness and help player advancement. Going from "Oh no run in the opposite direction for your life" to "I'm going to disable you to try to go around you" to "I kill you now." helps feeling of advancement.
-Taking out perma death helps with establishing your character's connection to you, but also allows rivals which allows more personal connection, which helps craft a story. Very good, and establishes why enemies can come back so fast too.
-Cutting out crafting for defined classes helps in several ways:
--Characters are unique. You feel connected to your character more.
--Not having all the options avialable creates different strategies. Makes the game less samey through different games.
--More of a benefit from playing with others. Unique strategies can be developed.
--Easier to balance. You can make several more powerful spells (either based on opinion or game mechanics) but since no one can get them all you don't have to try to balance them all, just balance between classes.
--Less grinding. Power comes through general play, not specific actions, so you worry less about "set up" and more on play.
-Overall streamlining of controls. No longer having to juggle multiple platforms while dodging "god darn bats" means you can focusing more on fighting enemies and less on fighting controls.
-Feats and perks let no one player get it all, but allows further unique characters. More uniqueness, and with unique classes you get exponentially more potential strategies.
Couple of notes on overall thoughts:
--Since the player can't have it all at once, each game is more unique.
--Being able to win, lose, having one defined character and a defined overlord and rivals makes the game much easier to see advancement in.
--A lot of "set-up" grinding is removed which allows more focus on play. No grinding to get X so you can perform an action. Just do the action and X will come naturally. AVWW 1 did this too on paper except...
--Being forced to react on the world map means you have more direction rather then aimless wandering, so its not a feeling of grinding, but a matter of survival which leads to
--More tension in the game everywhere makes it interesting. A dynamic world where you and other forces effects it is much more interesting then a world you affect alone.
...
More to come I'm sure.
