Elaborating on the changes to the roadmap

[76561199166915563]

Earlier this week, we posted an updated roadmap to the Steam store page. We anticipated you having questions about it, and for the last couple of days we've listened to what you were asking most frequently. The following is the team's response, worded by our COO Joe:

It is important to understand what we are trying to address. We always said we would not hand hold in this game. The downside of this is that sales suffered because people say there is no content. We have dozens of negative reviews where people played for a few hours, found nothing to do, and then reacted negatively. A lot of these were then upvoted. As it is early access people consider it a “demo” with nothing to do except look at pretty graphics. Conversely we have players who have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours in the world exploring. We need to find a way to address this. Part of it was negativity around “Zero”. There is Zero content - it says as much in the title. The new Roadmap is aimed at solving some of these negative issues whilst unlocking new content for those players we already have as well as showing that there is a story in the content already live. How do we encourage you to find things that we know you have not yet found? There are over 150,000 words of Lore and Story. We have hired additional writers to deliver the content in a more fluent way whilst still trying to avoid hand holding. This requires tweaks around item descriptions, changes to Gossip etc to nudge players along without drawing a big arrow saying “it’s over here”.

What is Prologue?

The Prologue is the path to the great city of Kasa. We are not prioritizing the Prologue over the City, they are part of the same journey - some of which is already in the game as mentioned above. The Prologue is a ground-up polish of Book of Travels as you know it, with new stories and mysteries as well as an expansion of the existing lore. All of this work is made with the intention to pave the way to Kasa. Even now, when you wander the expanse of Braided Shore, remember that all roads lead to Kasa, and that there are rumours of many ways to find passage to the city. Statistically, we look at things like Achievement Unlocks. We can see that most of the people asking about Kasa havent even yet uncovered the first parts of the story we have added to the game and we encourage you to find the hidden achievements. Parts of the Kasa vision was hindered by the overall game performance. Kasa is huge. It has lots of merchants, moving characters, animals etc. With a low frame rate the experience was not what we wanted. We needed to solve tech issues whilst developing Kasa so it met the vision we promised.

Vehicles Update:

Overall we will completely re-write how vehicles work to make them more reliable. We cant keep restarting systems to make trains arrive on time. In its most basic form this is about making a vehicle move from A to B, but for users it will look like a new interaction system around vehicles. No more glowing yellow bar saying how long before it leaves, but a system that makes sense within the game world and helps with the element of roleplaying. Likewise, dock and train workers will start to tell those on their travels how long it will be until the next train or boat arrives and actually ask you for that ticket in your pocket…

Journey Log:

We hear the frustration about not being able to write down things in the game and having no direct quest tracking system. We can add a quest tracking system, but that breaks our goal of not hand holding. We have an idea that fits between these two ends but essentially tracks where you have been and if you have seen or heard anything of use but will not say “There is something behind that tree”.

Character Customization:

The first iteration of this is now Live on the Beta branch. It does not apply to in game characters yet (expect that next week or the week after) but does show you the new UI system that you can experiment with and provide feedback on.

New UX Features:

There will be a new movement system added in game that will be invisible to the user. You will continue to use mouse to set direction, however we are looking at controller support. To do this we need to consider how that works – does it move the character or does it move the mouse pointer? What does this mean for Steam Deck? Does this make it possible for us to add support on other platforms? This is a 6 month development process. We will make some parts live on Beta as we progress, such as being able to tweak graphical settings etc but it wont be completed until we leave Early Access. In addition, as we adjust Combat, Fishing etc we need to change the way the player interacts with UI Buttons so it all makes sense. The User Experience for Combat and Fishing will be completely re-built alongside with adding different control schemes, but its not a combat game so we also need a system for those who don’t wish to fight but also want to sneak into that place over there that has all those Wardens guarding it… But it’s also too safe to go wandering off into the woods… These things need to be worked on as a group and tweaked, iterated shared to Beta, polished and then delivered. There will also be localization included as part of these updates and we hope to soon announce which languages we will support – the issue here is our story is currently the length of a fantasy novel and grows by several thousand words a week. So ideally we need to lock the story before we translate the story.

Time:

There is a new experimental time system live on Beta now. We will monitor it and see what the feedback is. However, we have always said time is very important to us and this ties us in to Death….

Death:

Perma-Death will kind of return. However, it was never really perma-death. It is extremely difficult to explain this without ruining a major part of the gameplay. What we would like to do is inject some speculation and guess work around the fact that we track time, players have an age, the society of Braided Shore believes in Ancestor Worship, Ghosts are real and Heirlooms are a thing and we don’t really offer banks…. So we can’t change Time, as if we do we break Death and Death is a journey all players will travel. However, we need to fix combat first and release all those monsters we have created that people have not yet encountered but our guiding vision is: You will play your character to its conclusion.

Economy:

There will be a major change to the economy system. Most will be simple tweaks such as losing train passes when you ride a train, thus meaning you need to buy a new one and taking money from the economy, to major storyline beats that will affect the in game global economy (but this may be region specific and not server or game wide… and that’s why we have regions). We are playtesting some things that we may put on to Beta to judge reaction such as weapons and fishing rods breaking, different baits providing different types of fish etc. and those rotted fish really might rot. It needs to be balanced and it needs to fit into the overall vision and Lore.

Kickstarter items and other deliverables:

Currently we have not made any changes to the list of items we said we would deliver. We will in the future deliver more detailed roadmap images like those we shared previously as and when we finalize the plans around Downloadable Content and expansions.

_____________________

We remain dedicated to delivering Book of Travels as an expansive and complex game world that provides hundreds of hours of exploration and entertainment, both happy moments and sad, allowing you to play a role and learn a lesson we often showed as part of the Shelter series. Life is a circle of which death is but a part. May your tea never grow cold.

[Suedyin Loreseeker]

Thankyou so much Oliver, Anne-Fleur, and all the Team at Might and Delight!
Although I have been away some time, I often think of you all and send you my good wishes from Australia!
I really appreciate all your hard work as Community liason, Oliver, and am grateful for you taking the time and effort to write this post!
As one of the original higher-tier backers, I love how you have continued to remain faithful to *your* vision for the world of the Braided Shore: It is a vision that I share, and I know a few other faithful folk on Discord do also. I remain as entranced by the beauty of your vision as I did the first day I saw it on Kickstarter.

I am especially excited by the possibility to record ones' journeys in-game, hopefully in a similar manner to the travel diary of the original real-world "Book of Travels". Unlike many, my real world writing is not the beautiful calligraphy that I think your world warrants. So I hesitated to physically document my travels in my ugly scrawl <wry grin>
Hence the prospect of a beautiful (of course it will be beautiful: I know and trust your work!) way to record my journeys in-game is very exciting.

Moreover: As someone who spent well in excess of 1000 hours between last October (I think) and February this year, most of which was collecting lore items and books from the world... I am thrilled at the prospect of more lore.

In all, you offer a highly tempting prospect to make me want to return! <laugh>

In around my studies and work, I am trying to squeeze some time so I can help more systematically with the new beta. I'll also try to resume being more active in the Discord.

Thankyou all once again!
<Melodically chimes a bell for each of the winds>
<3 <3 <3 <3

[Young Clancey]

That was fascinating. I like that it wasn't a bullet point list of buzzwords and 'amazing new features' but a more of transparent explanation. It's such an unusual vision. Revamping trains and boats to have a cost, to actually require passes and tickets, and to operate more according to the world's logic, will have a pretty noticeable effect. Anyway, after reading this I will definitely spend some time in the beta environment, which I have yet to do.

[Genghis Pawn]

Originally posted by Suedyin Loreseeker:

I am especially excited by the possibility to record ones' journeys in-game...

This latest post from M&D has made me think that the plan is perhaps *not* to implement an in-game journal. Maybe we can get some additional clarification?

Originally posted by MaD_Oliver:

Journey Log:

We hear the frustration about not being able to write down things in the game and having no direct quest tracking system. We can add a quest tracking system, but that breaks our goal of not hand holding. We have an idea that fits between these two ends but essentially tracks where you have been and if you have seen or heard anything of use but will not say “There is something behind that tree”.

I've always heard the playerbase's request for an In-game Journal as a way of saying "Look, we're not asking you for an explicit quest-tracking system -- we get it, that's not how you want to do things. But, could we get a basic text editor available, in the game, that *we* can use to make our own notes? Map pins are of limited utility because they don't travel with you; I could do it on pen and paper but would prefer not to."

The comment here from Joe makes it sound like the plan is instead to develop a system that is not a simple text field, nor a quest tracker -- it "fits between these two" but is not quite either one... It's sketched as a system that (like a traditional quest tracker) automatically "tracks where you have been and if you have seen or heard anything..." etc. *without* manual input from the user, but that (unlike a traditional quest tracker) isn't very explicit.

Am I reading that right, Oliver?

[Suedyin Loreseeker]

Originally posted by Genghis Pawn:

This latest post from M&D has made me think that the plan is perhaps *not* to implement an in-game journal. Maybe we can get some additional clarification?

A good point, Genghis Pawn, and thankyou for seeking clarification.
Possibly (with my hopeful thinking) I am reading more into it than was there hehe.
Certainly I quite emphatically would not want a quest tracker!
But one reason that my bags were full of many many hundreds of items when they vanished, was my desire to have a "physical record" of all the written material my character had found.

While I am here: Thankyou, Genghis Pawn, for being such a wonderful community leader so consistently over so many months in the Steam forums for this game!
Your labours are appreciated! <3 :)

[Genghis Pawn]

Originally posted by Suedyin Loreseeker:

^That.

Do what I can, Suedyin -- though I think the bulk of the community has always been on the discord. It's been pretty quiet here lately, and my preference for exploring the game on my own means that I don't often participate in the more content-centered discussions when they do pop up. But troubleshooting to help folks get into the game is fun, as is following the development.

[76561199166915563]

Originally posted by Genghis Pawn:

Am I reading that right, Oliver?

Unfortunately we're not ready to provide more details on this today.

[Genghis Pawn]

Originally posted by MaD_Oliver:

Originally posted by Genghis Pawn:

Am I reading that right, Oliver?

Unfortunately we're not ready to provide more details on this today.

Would it help if I clarify the question?
I'm not asking for further details about any not-a-text-editor and not-a-quest-tracker "Tracker" that you might be developing. I'm asking only: "Is there any plan to deliver an 'in-game notebook' -- a simple text box that players can type their own notes in, inside the game?"

EDIT: the Travel Journal was a Kickstarter Stretch goal that got unlocked, so there must at least be a plan to develop it for backers, right? I don't think any backers would be upset if it were extended to all players: it was always listed as a reward for the "Traveller" tier and up, which was anyone who pledged enough to get a copy of the game. The question is just: that's happening, right? Go ahead and develop a non-traditional quest tracker if you like, too -- not asking for any info on that.

[joe_grant]

The Journey Log and the Travel Journal are not the same system. This is why they use different names.

A book that allows players to write their adventures down in text format that they manage themselves is not the same as a system that tracks what NPCs and places you have visited automatically. The standard request is for a system that says "on day X I met Y NPC who told me to go to place 5 and do these things". This is not the same as an in game "diary" where you write what you want. It is an automated system. The majority of the design we have in mind doesn't even feature text.

No matter how much people ask we will not be showing our full designs until they can be played. Making promises to things and then not delivering to imagined timelines will only back fire on us in the long run. I understand if this frustrates you but as I said in the original post we have not dropped any of the original content and all of this is additional content.

It appears the comment about not dropping any of the kickstarter comment lead you to assume we were dropping an item from kickstarter that has a completely different name and functionality to the object discussed. This is not true.

[Genghis Pawn]

Originally posted by joe_grant:

That

Again, I'm not asking to be shown your full design for any of the new content right now.

I don't think it was the kickstarter comment that threw me off, it was this:

Originally posted by MaD_Oliver:

Journey Log:

We hear the frustration about not being able to write down things in the game and having no direct quest tracking system. We can add a quest tracking system, but that breaks our goal of not hand holding. We have an idea that fits between these two ends but essentially tracks where you have been and if you have seen or heard anything of use but will not say “There is something behind that tree”.

If we are now on the same page, then we agree there are 2 completely different things at play here:

• "We hear the frustration about not being able to write down things in the game...."
  and we're going to solve that by providing you with a Travel Journal! That has (apparently, we are learning clearly for the first time right now) always been the plan since back in the Kickstarter, and nothing has changed!
  
  
• "...and [we also hear the frustration about] having no direct quest tracking system"
  and that's a completely separate issue, which we're going to try to address down the road in a way we cannot tell you about right now, no matter how many times you ask.

Right?

The reason I asked for clarification about the diary <"Journal"> is (1) we have never until this moment actually heard decisively that an in-game diary <"Journal"> is going to be implemented for all players, and (2) in response to your first post in this thread, players aside from myself were quickly not sure what you were talking about with the "Journey Log" and thought you were talking about a diary/journal (see Suedyin's remarks).

Thanks for the clarification.

[joe_grant]

Neither of these systems are a diary.

Having that thought is what is confusing you. A quest tracker is not a diary. A book you write your own comments in is not a diary - it is a blank book. These distinctions are important as for other reasons not yet revealed a distinction on what is a diary will be important, as recording and revisiting journeys is also important.

So don't refer to either of these two systems as a diary.

One is a blank book you can write what you wish in with art background presented by us (and varying per form or similar). The other automatically tracks and lists where you go, but not as a text system you can use in a way to make it feel like diary entries. Think it more of a map system than a diary.

[Genghis Pawn]

Lol, I used "diary" to try to align to your way of thinking, because you said:

Originally posted by joe_grant:

A book that allows players to write their adventures down in text format that they manage themselves is not the same as a system that tracks what NPCs and places you have visited automatically. The standard request is for a system that says "on day X I met Y NPC who told me to go to place 5 and do these things". This is not the same as an in game "diary" where you write what you want. It is an automated system. The majority of the design we have in mind doesn't even feature text.

I think we're agreeing in spirit, but still talking past each other a bit. I got the clarification I was seeking about the "Travel Journal," I'm not trying to press you for additional information about the other automated system that's in development down the road.

[MrSnottyPants]

The no hand holding doesn't work well with rare events. As a player, I don't know if I'm on the wrong path, or just at the wrong time. A big example: the Curse Stone .

Fine if the quest starts with a rare event, or is self-contained by a rare event. But, if it's a later step, there needs to be a hint that you've come to the right place, even if it isn't the right time.

[Suedyin Loreseeker]

The "thing" that I am *hoping* to see, is a way that the game records or "remembers" the text of written documents we find, and the dialogue of NPC's with whom we engage. A way that lets us see this record too.
I have no idea what the technical term for such a thing is.

[Emperor Sev]

I love the responses to the questions, and that you're so committed to the magic of discovery. That's something that I value greatly.

I won't ask too much, since there were some vague hints about death being more than it seems! From my perspective when "permadeath" was removed, it removed a tension. That tension may in fact still be there if theres more than meets the eye I suppose!

I do think I'll wait until the "Sorta return of permadeath" because that sounds like what was lost when there were other issues at the time! Very excited for that! A rough ETA for that feature would be exciting, but I know gamers can be ruthless when timelines aren't met.



For my $0.02 on the journal/diary conversation, I had a piece of paper near my keyboard that I wrote stuff on. I love the lack of hand holding.

Would it be difficult, or against the vision of the game to add something to let us take notes within the game? I'm not sure if I know where my old piece of paper is now that I've been away from the game a while.

One tied to my character that I had to fill myself could be nice!

Thanks for the fantastic response!

[Genghis Pawn]

Originally posted by Emperor Sev:

For my $0.02 on the journal/diary conversation, I had a piece of paper near my keyboard that I wrote stuff on. I love the lack of hand holding.

Would it be difficult, or against the vision of the game to add something to let us take notes within the game?

Your request is an extremely common one. Years before the EA launch, the request was so common during the kickstarter campaign that just such a "Travel Journal" was added and unlocked as a stretch goal. After EA launch, in the "Suggestions and Ideas" thread pinned to the top of this forum, the request for 'some kind of in-game journal I can take notes in?' recurs again and again. It is basically just as common as people asking for character customization/appearance upgrades. (I can locate only 2 comments in that whole thread from somebody requesting a traditional, automated quest log: that's not a common request, so far as I can see from this Steam thread. Perhaps things looks different on Trello.)

Up until now, to my knowledge, there has never been any direct statement from M&D about whether an in-game note-taking journal was going to be implemented for everybody. Back in the KS campaign, it was described, very briefly, as something for backers. Since then, I am not aware of any official communication from M&D that has revisited the topic of a the "Travel Journal" (Steam Announcements, Kickstarter Updates, YouTube videos, etc.). A lot of fans have thought that it was a no-brainer that a journal would be added for everyone, but it's just never been directly confirmed. (That's why, when I suggested that maybe Oliver's OP in this thread was not discussing a Journal, even a player as accomplished as Suedyin was ready to admit that there was still an open question here.)

Joe and I seem to have talked past each other a bit, but from what I understand from his last remarks, what we've heard now is that there is a plan to develop:

Originally posted by joe_grant:

...two systems...

One is a blank book you can write what you wish in with art background presented by us (and varying per form or similar).

The other automatically tracks and lists where you go, but not as a text system you can use in a way to make it feel like diary entries. Think it more of a map system...

The first of these seems to be what you and many others have asked for: a journal you can write in to take notes. Joe can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe we are hearing that this Travel Journal will eventually be available to all players. Not just backers. That's new information.

The second system is one we've just heard a bit about for the first time in this thread. M&D is not prepared to discuss it further at this time.

And M&D would prefer if neither the first "Journal" system nor the second system were referred to as a "Diary."

That's my current understanding, anyway. So, as I understand it: you will eventually get the note-taking system you asked for.