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[Jopax]

Steam page

Kinda surprised this hasn't popped up here yet, considering the amount of noise it's been making around the internet (specifically Steam and Twitch).

What it basically is, is a survival game (like there wasn't an overabundance of those already) set in a procedurally generated world, inspired heavily by the Norse mythos. You're a dead warrior sent by Odin to the exiled world of Valheim to take care of the baddies locked up there before they cause too much trouble. Start out naked, punch trees, get wood, craft tools, hunt animals, build a home, kill bosses, progress, etc etc
It's best described as a 3d Terraria imo, as the progression is heavily tied into exploration and overcoming challenges (for example you only got the basic wood/stone tools and weapons until you kill the first boss, which unlocks proper mining and smelting, which leads to basic metal tools and weapons, etc) while at the same time having a good bit of base building and crafting tied into the whole process. You get massive buffs from resting in a proper place with a roof over your head and a fire burning nearby, as well as buffs from eating food (bigger and longer lasting buffs from better meals). Your gear also needs to be maintained (tho this doesn't require resources, so it only limits how long you can go on without taking a break of sorts) and upgraded from time to time. There's a fairly developed building system that takes into account physics somewhat, so you have to build supports and the like to not have your dwelling collapse on your ass, fairly intuitive in how it communicates this in terms of tinting pieces depending on how sturdy their support is. You can go sailing about since the world is fairly large, dungeon diving as well since there's certain stuff you only get from there.
The combat itself is fairly decent and has some depth, but not without jankiness that most early access/indie games have at release. There's different weapons, blocking/parrying, dodging, all the bells and whistles. Progression in terms of skills is basically do thing to get better at thing, making it more efficient or damaging or what have you. Your hp/stamina is fixed however and the only way to increase it is by eating/resting, basic food gives small buffs, cooked and more complex meals give long lasting and large increases, further encouraging having a proper base of operations so you can get buffed enough to handle some of the nastier enemies.
Death is temporary, you drop all your  shit and lose a certain amount of skill levels (but then get temporary immunity to further loss), plus getting your stuff back gives you a corpse run buff which is nice from getting away from whatever kicked your ass in the first place. Another similarity to Terraria is how characters are handled, you make your guy/gal and then you can generate a seed based world for them. Any gear you have on you you can take to other worlds, and since most shit doesn't respawn, making multiple worlds to farm certain things seems to be a viable tactic.
Also there's coop, makes shit harder, but from the looks of it, having multiple people does help quite a bit.

Anyways, I can't think of anything else off the top of my head to say. Played several hours, it was fairly enjoyable, the graphics are a bit dated but what it lacks in fidelity it more than makes up for in atmosphere (weathering a rainstorm is fucking cool). It's fairly cheap right now too at some 20$ or your equivalent, especially once you realize how much stuff is in there already and that this is just their first EA version, with more shit to come down the road.

So yeah, Valheim, anyone else hooked on it?

[Chiefwaffles]

Been messing with it for a bit, but I wouldn't really describe the graphics as "dated". Lower-resolution textures and lower polygon count, sure, but the game has an aesthetic that it executes pretty well. I'd so much rather have this than Standard Unity Graphics Game #02312.

[Persus13]

I think I've seen pretty much everyone on my friends list on Steam playing Valheim at one point or another in the last week or so. Haven't seen my friends list this unified in gaming.

I've been playing this a fair bit with some friends of mine who have gotten pretty hooked on it. The survival genre isn't quite my thing but being able to learn/play a game with them is enough for me to overcome that.

Agree with waffles on the graphics, the game has a bit of a Runescape style aesthetic and the graphics fit very well.

[Frumple]

I've seen, like... one vid, and the immediate impression was 'norse themed Ark' (which just instantly dropped a caber on any interest I may have had it in; Ark style gameplay really doesn't seem to do it for me). Is that being uncharitable, or...?

[Folly]

Yeah, I'm not super into survival games. And a terraria-clone without digging tunnels seems like it defeats the purpose. I'm trying really hard to skip this one.

But at the same time, it seems to be what literally everyone I know is playing right now.

[Akura]

Been playing for the last two days.

Cutting down trees is handled unexpectedly realistically... in that if you're not careful, it will kill you or destroy your house. I can't help but wonder if it's a valid pvp siege tactic to simply plant a few trees(beeches grow faster than carrots somehow) outside their walls, then cut them down so they fall on them.


Do note that the terrain is freely deformable. As far as I know there's nothing down there, but I have found you can get the sheltered buff from being at least partially underground, so an underground hall might be possible.

[EuchreJack]

Been looking at this.  It peaked my interest when the one game developer on my steam friend list was playing it.

...wish I could say the price would drop, but that isn't how these things work.  First it goes up until "release", then it drops a few years later.  Someone post if you see it on sale, will you?

Two concerns: Combat is real time, not sure exactly how much control of the character.  I almost would prefer the character do the twitchy button mashing instead of having to learn another combat system.
Reading one review, the tech tree is slow and deep.  Deep is nice, but the slow part worries me.  Reading about someone spending a whole afternoon getting a bronze ingot.  Sounds a bit grindy.

[Persus13]

In my experience of the game so far the food system is more carrot than stick, unlike a lot of survival games I know of. You start with a set amount of health and then eating food gives you more health, stamina, and health regen, how much of each being dependent on what kind of food.

Its like ARK in the sense that its a third person survival game with crafting and building, but it feels more focused than that game is.

Combat you have a fair amount of control over as long as you don't run out of stamina (and your stamina bar is increased by eating food). There's a variety of different styles of weapons and blocking and kiting are always options, although blocking also requires stamina.

The main thing that has felt like a grind so far has been hunting deer. My group figured out how to make bronze pretty quickly once we defeated the first boss. The hardest part was finding tin deposits.

Cutting down trees is handled unexpectedly realistically... in that if you're not careful, it will kill you or destroy your house. I can't help but wonder if it's a valid pvp siege tactic to simply plant a few trees(beeches grow faster than carrots somehow) outside their walls, then cut them down so they fall on them.

My first death was when I cut down a tree and it fell on me, yeah. On the more positive side, it means that you can chain falling trees and it makes fighting a troll or other creatures that can destroy the environment gives you a lot of chopped wood.

[nate9090]

The main thing that has felt like a grind so far has been hunting deer. My group figured out how to make bronze pretty quickly once we defeated the first boss. The hardest part was finding tin deposits.

Once you domesticate pigs, especially if you get 2 star ones hunting won't be such a problem. Free meat for carrots!

[Persus13]

The main thing that has felt like a grind so far has been hunting deer. My group figured out how to make bronze pretty quickly once we defeated the first boss. The hardest part was finding tin deposits.

Once you domesticate pigs, especially if you get 2 star ones hunting won't be such a problem. Free meat for carrots!

Its less about meat and more about getting deer hides, but good to know!

[The_Explorer]

considering this is the devs first game (at least the only game they have on steam so I assume its the first without further googling, though the publisher looks like they publish rather good games from looking at their steam page) and its already sold 2+million copies...

This is a very successful first game launch. Its not often a dev releases their first game and top of that its in a hard to get into genre (survival games) and sees not just success, but massively good reviews at that.

[nate9090]

Have been playing with a few friends for a few days now. We've progressed up to the third boss so far. We decided to switch over to a dedicated server and maybe try to get a few more people from Bay12 onto the server with us.

We already have a large farm base walled and ditched and is ready for some people to build a few longhouses in, and a bunch of 'guard dog' wolves roaming around. Most of the first island is wilderness and has plenty of room for people. The tombs and dungeons are quickly getting picked clean though, so exploring out into the world and more islands is going to be required. We setup a public smelter and kiln though so no one gets locked out of progression by lack of surtling cores. (and ability to build a karve to go sailing)

So the server theme will be PvE only pretty much. The main goal being to 'civilize' the wilds and setup bases and outposts on all the islands. We already have a small road network going between a few player bases, and we have some aspirations to setup a massive 'portal hub' for everyone to connect to for easy travel access everywhere.

Rules are rather relaxed and pretty much 'don't be an asshole' although there are a few things: Don't build within view distance of other people's builds unless both parties agree. Don't loot other people's homes or forts. Don't stay logged in and afk for a long time if the server is full (we only have 10 slots to work with.)

Rather than just plop the server IP and password here like the last time I hosted a server, we will have a bit of a whitelist. You'll have to add me to steam or message me on discord and then I'll send you the server info.  There really isn't any way to protect items or bases from abuse yet, so the extra step will hopefully keep out any randoms from joining and wrecking things too much.

You should probably have a base in your singleplayer world to store any items or resources you don't want to risk as no one can ensure their safety as the ward item only protects from doors being opened and the construction hammer, they can still axe or pickaxe their way in.

Anyone interested can DM me on discord Erios#2817
send me a friend request on steam https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198006442887/
or message me here on the forums.

Edit: I forgot to specify, but players of any progression are welcome to join. From brand new to someone who has beat all the bosses. The server focus isn't on progression an more on what we can build together, although I'm sure there will be people going after the bosses on their own and progressing up the tech tree on their own and whatnot.

[Ivefan]

I might be interested. What timezone or region are you guys and the server in? I've just started getting my feet wet in the swamp

[Arbinire]

I love survival games but am giving this one a pass.  I'm just so beyond burnt out on Viking worship.  It's been a non-stop constant since Skyrim within the media.

[Urist McSpike]

I've got 75 hours in the past two weeks.  Been having a lot of fun, although it has issues.  But, it is Early Access.  Most of my time has been spent builing & gathering resources to build.

One of the things I love about it is the physics engine.  While the graphics are deliberately not cutting-edge realism, the physics are fantastic.  Check out this video, about the 3 min mark.  Simply wandering the world is a treat.

It can be pretty brutal.  Did my first run into the swamp last night, and ended up dying a half dozen times.  Poison is bad, and just figuring out a new area is rough.  Survivability is tied to gear - things you can easily face with troll hide armor & bronze weapons kill you fast when you're naked.  Your health is 25, with temp buffs from food - tougher zones give you resources for better food, so it increases as you go.  (Unless you're doing corpse runs...)

Still.. for 20 bucks, my fun value is down to about 30 cents per hour.  So even without any future improvements, I've found it worthwhile.