Releasing your merch at this time isn't a good idea, considering how divided your game community has become. Just a thought.

Love A17 by the way.

Too bad I can't play it with my friends, since we can't connect to each others games anymore. And no, removing the steamnetworking from server files doesn't do ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

I would like to see more items available... Something for us that have been here since nearer the beginning, like the old crafting grid and a 'remember' message? Perhaps something like "OFFICIAL SHAMWAY EMPLOYEE" shirts too? Heck, go all out and make some hawian shirts, nurse outfits and... err... ok, maybe not the stripper outfits, but some official zombie gear too!
(I'm just sad I can't make a real stone axe with grass, a stick and some pebbles!)

And I would like to see this game in BETA or FULL RELASE! Better optimizations and more items to craft!

hahahah this is hilarious

It's really sad to see TFP as a company putting resources toward merchandise when they really should be focusing on the game. I get it, you'd like to have revenue stream outside of your early access purchases to help fund continued development (or line your pockets, whatever the case may be), but over the last year TFP just doesn't look like they have any sort of set in stone roadmap for development, and the "vision" for the game has changed drastically between versions, and the last iteration released (A17) so far has been a mess. That being said i'm not saying it can't be tweaked to be an enjoyable experience, but this has been a theme in development that i've gotten to watch from the sidelines.

the game gets tweaked into a playable state that doesn't feel totally broken or totally boring, performance issues are ignored in favor of more changes to gameplay, then another version of the game is released that drastically changes the overall progression of the game that typically needs to be retooled and patched before it's even worth investing time into as a player friendly experience. I like the core concept of the game, but the mechanics and overall progression of the game has been mangled and reformed so many times that I feel like there's no longer any end goal for development.

From what I see on the Official forums, TFP has no roadmap on how they are going to handle development. If there is a private internal roadmap that TFP has, I feel like it should be shared with the community so we know what direction you plan to take.

TL;DR: TFP doesn't even have a plan for the game, or at least they aren't disclosing it publicly to it's Early Access backers on their own website. I'm a bit upset to see they'd rather try to sell us a bunch of merchandise rather than let us know more about game development, when the game is in a state that a lot of the players (from what i perceive) are unhappy with.

you want the development to have an end? you just want the game to be called done and then you happy?

@Apterous, sadly some people do, then they will complain about whatever "maybe" item that didn't get delivered and say it was a failure to meet a promise.

as an addendum to my original tirade, There IS a list of features for planned implementation for a single version, however this list is heavily in flux at all given points of development, and is only for a single version of the game, not the overall vision of the fully released title. I don't see any "long term goals", only overhauls and additions planned for this particular version, along with bug fixes and feature tweaks. I don't feel that this list really encompasses any actual "end goals" for the game, and is only an arbitrary list of features the development team wants to add or change in the game before going onto the next version.

@Salad: Public list of Goals and Stretch goals. Some of the animals changed, but the basics are still there. NPCs, story, game modes, etc:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/4/2534848731738743984/

@Red Eagle LXIX this REALLY should be on the offical website.

@Salad, I think it's been posted there before, but not pinned like and not in full text like the edits I put in that post (hated the image and having to go get the other info hence the nice copy/paste-able text edits I did back when moderation could still edit posts).

@Red Eagle LXIX Regardless, it's nice to see some sort of list that exists. Thanks for drawing that to my attention, I don't know if it could be done at some point but really that list should be at the forefront of the announcements on the main website, and should probably be tracked and watched closely by the community. I see a lot of these goals are being worked on and may even be "done", but things like "looting, mining and crafting" and "item quality and food and water purity", "XP and skil trees" and even now "stealth and distraction system" has been in changing a ton and has never really seen a set in stone state. I don't see a lot of completion in features, I see a lot of revamping and changing to whole systems. Sure, things like the PoIs are going well, and world generation has been doing better (at least in my experience playing in generated worlds), but the game still feels like devs keep going back to square one.