Sorry for typos, writing from phone.
Agreed with Keith on commenters -- it seems like recreational spite, not stupidity, to me.
Regarding binding functions to mouse clicks, technically that's still supported; I don't see a reason to take that out, as it doesn't affect balance at all. I don't hate the mouse or something, but the precision aiming just isn't a good thing for this kind of game. So clicks themselves are fine.
Regarding the unlockables system from the first one, in a direct sense that has gone away. But in an indirect sense that's partly what the macrogame is all about. You're encountering stuff based around what choices you make on the world map. The overlord also will still be getting randomized elite unlocks at various points in your quest, although probably not very many at first beta.
Regarding the loss of the infinite world, that's one of the things that makes me happiest, personally. It was interesting to experiment with that, but its safe to say I never plan to do another infinite world if I can avoid it. There's just no way to make a proper satisfying game arc. But that's fine for certain games, like minecraft, so maybe if someday we do something less game-like and more freeform. Those can be super fun, too, and honestly that was part of the appeal of the first avww. But that just got in the way of it actually being a proper game with exciting conflict.
It is definitely strange for us to be making a sequel. That's something I said I never wanted to do. I prefer expansions since then you get to keep all your old content. But what do you do when the original game needs to change into basically a whole new game? In our case, the free sequel oddly turned out to be the way to let you keep the old content and get the new. I didn't see that coming.
In terms of groundbreaking vs traditional, sure I would agree the original was more groundbreaking. But I think that he sequel better executes on much of the ground the was broken with the first. Mario 1 was more groundbreaking than Mario 3, but Mario 3 is a much better and more fun game. Not that this makes he first game bad, it's just not remotely as much fun by comparison. And yet still people play both games, so that's great.
I've been going out of my way with the enemy and spell designs to make sure that there is not too much overlap between the two games. That way even if you play a ton of valley2, you can still return to avww1 and have a fresh fun time because its so different.
In terms of being more traditional in the design, I don't think I agree with that though. From a technical sense the procedural generation is less impressive in the sequel (it was insanely complex and quite a technical achievement for he first), but it is more effectively used in the sequel. In a lot of respects, the sequel leans more on design whereas the first leaned more on technology, if that makes sense. In terms of design the only thing remotely close to valley2 is actraiser, but that game really is just a very rough inspiration because it -- while very fun for one playthrough years ago -- was ultimately too simplistic to have staying power. We're trying to hit a better balance on that score, and I think that will put us at a pretty unique juncture. Depends on what you mean by groundbreaking, but I don't think here will be any other games like avww1 or valley2 -- not even each other.
