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[Nevets]

I was looking through Steam Greenlight today and discovered a promising looking project. It's set in the forest and you can play as a load of different humanised animals. Seems Ark/Rust-esque in it's design, but it mentions it has elements of magic, skill progression etc. and has RP servers that cater to roleplayers like me. It uses wind in the willows as an influence which is pretty neat too.

From the description...

Wilderwind is a multiplayer, persistent world survival RPG set in a fantasy world where woodland creatures walk and act as humans would. Surviving in the wilderness, Crafting, building, trading, writing, etc. A unique multiplayer experience with a fully player-created economy, where the player influences everything from creating towns and villages, to manufacturing equipment and clothing, down to even minting the very coins used for currency (stamped with your family seal, of course.) Even the very rulers of the lands will be decided by the players, along with how those lands are governed. Official and player run servers will available, so people may decide how to run their own server as well.

Player Driven
Rather than having soulless NPCs litter the streets, a mere automaton manning the general store, Wilderwind is based on a completely player-run experience. That bandit chasing you in the dead of night, the innkeeper from whom you purchased a room for the night or even the guard patrolling the streets as you arrived in a local village - they're all real players. Every single interaction can be as positive as you choose and the absence of NPCs means there is always flexibility and room to negotiate in every situation, allowing for a truly dynamic experience and a world that feels alive.

Races
Wilderwind is home to an assortment of different species of animal. The final version will have such species as Mole, Rat, Badger, Frog, Hedgehog, Fox, Mouse, Rabbit, Ferret and Weasel.
Each animal will offer a unique experience and different ways to tackle various problems, naturally excelling in various fields but all free to try whatever they wish. When a ledge blocks your path the Rabbit may leap over it, the Weasel may climb some nearby roots to scale it, whereas the large Badger may simply push up a rock on which to step.

Skills
Each animal has a natural set of talents which lends itself to different skills, the strong Badger may make an excellent blacksmith or mercenary, whereas a keen-eyed and agile rat may be great at foraging food and materials. Each animal could invest in skills such as mining, blacksmithing, swordfighting, medicine, sneaking, cooking, writing, brewing and even magic to name just a very small amount of the countless pursuits available.
With such a large number of skills planned, interaction with your fellow forestfolk will be crucial to your survival and progress, while one animal will never be a master in every field, together a village full of animals may well be. The intelligent but frail magic-user may not be strong enough to effectively mine out the crystals that fuel his arts, but his strong but dimwitted friend, may well be so cooperation or exploitation is key.
This of course is not to say that an animal must stick to what his natural attributes favour, as Wilderwind does not use a class system, instead allowing animals to individually choose whatever skills they fancy, regardless of their natural suitability for them. If the tiny little mouse wishes to specialize in a career as a warrior, he is free to do so, albeit at the need for a greater investment.

Crystal Magic
Magic is able to play a role in just about everything you do in Wilderwind, if you choose to use it. Magic is performed using crystals buried within the ground and there exists a number of different fields, each represented by a colour. For those that want combat-based magic, orange magic specializes in the fairly traditional offensive spells such as the use of fireballs. It's not all combat though, magic can be used to track others, to communicate over long distances, to hex others and make them less effective at various tasks, to heal the wounded and for much, much more. Skilled critters can even take their mastery of magic beyond the use of crystals, over time developing select abilities which can be used naturally by the caster, a fusion of magic and skills.

Community
A choice every critter will have to make sooner or later is whether to go it alone or become part of a community. For those that choose to live together, villages are far more than just a group of buildings or burrows, they are true communities with an active political scene. Residents may take on the roles of elected representatives to deal with things such as managing the settlement itself and for relations and trade with other communities. Representatives may set up tasks in the form of quests, able to be made available to just residents, or to anyone. These quests will essentially fill the role of employment, with the worker through this system having a guarantee that if they do the job, they will receive pay at the end. Many more opportunities become available as a settlement grows, whether it be setting up a bank in order to provide a little security to the residents, deciding on a currency to make "Official" in that area, or even just mustering defences to keep those pesky outsiders out.

Or Go Solo
For those that prefer the freedom and independence that only comes with the life of a lone wolf, forest folk can choose to live outside villages altogether whether as a traveler, with no true home, or in an isolated dwelling away from society. Critters choosing this path may either want to head into villages to accept freelance work to earn what they need to survive. Alternatively they may try to set up an independent business, perhaps extracting money from travellers by selling wares, performing a service, or through more forceful means. This path allows a critter to pick and choose what parts of community life they may prefer, heading into town to use a bank though avoiding contributing to community projects and such. Keep in mind though, a town may choose to deny some of it's services to you.

Defend what you have created
Not everyone will choose honest work to make a living. For every miner toiling away to get enough coal to keep the village warm, or every forager searching every nook and cranny for winter stocks of food, there is also a bandit or thief ready to snatch away that for which you have worked so hard. Critters will need to think about protection, whether it be simply carrying a weapon of their own for those confident in their abilities, hiring mercenaries for protection, or maybe even striking a deal with the bandits for passage. Settlements may invest in defences to keep the less desirables out, whether it be a military or perhaps even a wall.

Roleplaying
For those that enjoy a roleplaying experience, there will be servers made available for that. The game is being made to cater to both roleplayers and regular players, to allow both to have rich and engaging experiences. The player-run world and having such a variety of roles to fill allows players to create a truly living, breathing world together which blends well with a roleplaying environment.



It's got a kickstarter running which explains a load more than I can, and I'd really like to see this game made. It's by the guy who made Tea Party Simulator which was all over youtube a couple years back. I'll drop the link for it down below along with the greenlight page, hopefully enough people wanna see it come to life

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/liens/wilderwind-online-multiplayer-survival-rpg

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=915989631

[Hanzoku]

This... won't end well. NPCs exist for a reason - to provide basic services at all hours of the day or night, as opposed to 2 hours after work. And honestly, who wants to work a full job, then go spend another four hours playing barkeep on a mostly deserted server?

At best, you'll see someone using a bot to run the innkeeper/whatever.

[DeKaFu]

Hm. Well.
I clicked on this because I really enjoy games where you can play as animals (a la Tokyo Jungle). Was hoping for something where you're taking part in an ecosystem of animals with predators/prey.

Read the description, bit disappointed it's just anthropomorphic animals instead... Generally that means you're actually just playing as humans with different skins, but it sounds like they're at least making some effort to have the different species be genuinely distinct in terms of feel and gameplay. So I guess that could still be cool?

Looking at the actual footage, though... Eeesh. I don't know why exactly they chose the art direction they did, but those are some of the most uncanny looking critter-people I have ever seen. The hyper-realistic fur and textures combined with cartoony proportions and flat dead eyes just somehow combine into something... bizarre and creepy-looking. Especially the moles.

The actual features sound interesting and it's otherwise a very nice-looking game, but... yeah.

[Asgarus]

I'll gladly leave that one to the furries.

The magic looks nice though.

[Yoink]

This... won't end well. NPCs exist for a reason - to provide basic services at all hours of the day or night, as opposed to 2 hours after work. And honestly, who wants to work a full job, then go spend another four hours playing barkeep on a mostly deserted server?   

Nah, NPCs aren't really necessary in RP-heavy games.
Although of course it's better to have one (even just a basic vendor that does nothing but sell stuff) than rely entirely on your game having players... that one detail isn't enough to dampen my interest in this, although if they have multiple servers they'll probably just wind up with a super-fractured playerbase and nothing going on.

Not that it's likely to survive Kickstarter anyway.  


In theory it sounds freakin' awesome, like my dream game from a few years ago, basically.   

Edit: Good grief, the graphics are rather horrifying, haha. I would have expected something more akin to Earth Eternal (man I dug that game while it lasted) or something. Looks like beaming down into the Redwall setting after a huge dose of acid. Also the furry angle is concerning... looks like at least one of their stretch goals is explicitly aimed towards the yiff contingent.   

[Folly]

Well I like the art, and the general concept of the game.

However, it feels too much like an all-or-nothing type of game. Either a lot of people become heavily invested in the game and make an interactive and unique experience, or there won't be enough people to sustain the community and the whole thing falls apart. And with the niche art style and limited development resources, I feel the latter is much more likely.