I have to say I really don't agree with this idea; for the reasons Toll mentioned, but also for the simple fact that this game IS about exploration and making choices. We're not out to stop people from exploring if that's what they want to do. If they want to just wander around for 4 hours, they can -- the writer from Kotaku had a lot of fun doing just that. The thing is, they're seeing all sorts of things as they explore and they can go back and do more of those sort of things when one kind of exploration becomes too dull.
Or they can read the popup messages that advise them to explore efficiently, and then do so from the start. Some people do read, though a lot of people don't bother.
Bluddy, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it really seems like a lot of your big sweeping suggestions lately are being driven out of a sense of fear for us. That the game won't take off as well as it should, and so forth. So far, in 1 week, AVWW has grossed 1/9th as much as AI War plus Tidalis plus all of AI War's expansions did in three years. There's nothing to say that won't drop off, but there's not a reason for panic and flailing, which is what a lot of this feels like.
I have no intentions of massively reinventing the game in general anytime soon, and by that I mean in the next 1-2 years. It's all about smaller incremental changes, and of course in a few months that probably means that the game will be unrecognizable compared to now anyhow. In a good way. But putting in region tiers, or adding or removing massive subsystems, or majorly changing the scale of things up or down... a lot of those suggestions seem borne out of fear of the complaints of a vocal minority who don't like the game.
Changing those few things is highly unlikely to make them like the game. Meanwhile we have a legion of people who DO like the game, and what we need to be focusing on is how to make the entire experience better for them. The windstorm missions being problematic, or the supply depot missions being un-fun, or the reflection of damage not being a great mechanic for anachronism missions are all things I'm interested in revamping for sure. Even players who like the game don't like how those are working out, and I'm inclined to agree with them.
Beyond that, let's focus on new stuff rather than just reiterating what is already here. I very much appreciate what you're doing, and I understand that the rash of these suggestions is borne out of legitimate concern for us and the game, Bluddy. But it also really seems like some of the suggestions of late -- and not just from you, but from others as well -- have been coming from a place of fear. I've been guilty of that from time to time as well, goodness knows. It's never a good place to be designing from, though, because it tends to wind up making almost no players happy and ultimately trends toward the lowest common denominator.
Again, no offense intended with any of that, and I don't mean to single you out. I would have sent it in a PM, but I feel like there are a number of other people who are also making suggestions from the same place. I'm all for suggestions, and for looking at anything and everything with a critical eye. However, most of the things I'm not thrilled about revisiting at the moment are things that we've all collectively looked at with an enormously critical eye from November through March, and those issues are in my mind pretty settled. The game needs to exist in something of a stable state, it's a good game, and the biggest need is for more stuff not a constant rolling reinvention of what we already have.
