Bellwright

THIS GAME IS AMAZING.

I hesitate to start my review with "this game has great potential" as I do not want to scare anyone off. It has taken a lot of great ideas from other games and is working toward becoming a great product. It has a lot of features and not a lot of shortcomings, however, the shortcomings it does have are glaring. I will start with the positive. 1. Large world to explore and lots of missions. 2. Books are easy to come by and help with advancement. 3. A lot of realism Now, the not so positive. 1. Game is too realistic. If I wanted to take a week to build a house I would go live in the bush. 2. Ore gathering in this game is ridiculously tedious . I can mine a stone boulder hit it 10 times and get 1 tin, or copper and 2 stone. I go to the tin ore and strike it 100 times and get 4 ore and 10 rocks. Takes waaaaay too long to mine ores. Meanwhile, other settlements are drawing from same deposits. It take so much tin and copper to advance that by the time you get to tier 3 there is almost no tin or copper left on the map. If there is you have to create 30 travel signs, (which btw use 150 of your renown with is also the currency used to add new villagers. Resource availability and disbursement need a lot of work. 4. as stated above, it take a lot of different resources, many of which have to be processed from scant resources. The game becomes tedious and drawn out. Not to mention you are being attacked on site everywhere you go. 5. Other than unlocking research skill advancement has no effect. I am level 10 harvesting. It still takes just as many swings of the axe as it did the first time I picked up. It does not increase yields either except now you can pick 2 berries instead of one. 6. Related to the above but it's own issue is that the tool advancement does nothing unless you decide that a sword is stupid and you rather use your pick axe. The melee damage increases but does not affect harvest times or yields. i.e. a simple axe, carpenters axe, fine axe, and rugged axe. All take the the same amount of swings and yield the same amount of wood or logs. It takes a hell of a lot of time, effort and resources to create a rugged axe. All you get in return is it unlocks hardwoods. 7. Again skill advancement does little to nothing. I am level 10 craftsman but my level 3 villager will always produce more than I can. 8. Building is a pain in the ass. when your building everyone in your settlement will wont to come get in the way and help. There will be anywhere from 3 to 80 different spots to work on a building but everyone wants to come stand next to you. This causes a lot of you swings to miss. If you are building in a friendly village, which is required to advance, the villagers will do the same thing. Hard to work with 6 people up your ass, not to mention, if you swing and miss there it is not a swing a miss. You will always strike one of the villagers and the whole town will turn on you. The villagers all run away and the militia attacks. They do not calm down, you cannot go back and you lose all the work you have done to earn their trust. Now they hate you and will attack you on site. 8. The only way to enjoy the game at this time is to save often. I mean every time you want go somewhere or try something you better save. They have a quicksave, right? Yes, but you have to exit to the main menu every time and save and go back in. No hotkey for saving or loading. 9. Ok, now for the biggest loser?......You can spend all the time building up your NPCS to get them where you want/need them. I had several high level npcs I trained in combat. This is my main squad. Late in the game 3 of them got stuck on a boulder everyone else went around. The only way to move on is to expel your npcs. You lose them forever! You cannot find them again Loudemir disappears and takes his dragon and flies off to Westeros. or something like that. I don't know where the hell he disappears to as his camp is no longer there. 10. Last but not least. Little to no replay ability. Villagers do not marry. Do not produce offspring. Once you finish the main mission, you have nothing else to work to. Your done. finished . kaput, go away I do not write this to trash the game. it has a lot of good things going for it I do this hoping they will take not and make attempts to tighten this mess up.