Just thought I would post my thoughts on this game as I have been playing it for the last few days.
I have really enjoyed my time with this game so far. Probably the highlight when learning the ropes early on was using my one knife to fashion a spear. I threw this spear at an elk, blammo! good hit! unfortunately it didnt kill the elk and it ran off with my only cutting implement. I starved.
My last character was getting on pretty well, had a well stocked cellar and a virtually complete house, with livestock pen and the full gamut of tools for successful survival. Then I stumbled across a Njerpez camp (hmmm ... a camp, whats this?) , and got summarily murdered.
I will certainly continue to have fun with this game for a good few weeks, and have no issue at all with the $3 one-version price tag.
However, I feel like the $55 life-time registration does not sound too hot, because of a couple of things (cue the inevitable DF comparison):
- Potential
- 'Trust'
And both of these are, in a DF sense, pretty closely linked.
I don't see a huge amount of potential in UrW long term (from where it already is). I think Deon touched on this about ten months ago. It will be, as far as I can tell, "a survival simulator based in iron-age Finland" for the entire development cycle of the game.
I think DF goes beyond this. Vanilla DF will always be 'Dwarf Fortress'. The community, in whom Toady one has instilled so much trust by building the parameters of the game in to the RAW files, build on this to create the huge library of content available in the many mods.
Cue figure 1.
On the left, there are a few projections of fun vs. time for DF.
On the right, projections for UrW. UrW may, arguably be more fun currently than DF adventure mode, but not as fun as DF fort mode (in my opinion). In the future I don't see to much progression. Had the game been moddable the community would have no doubt filled the game with the content it lacks.
Clearly to me, the fact that Toady has built his game (Vanilla) from first principles (dwarf is heart + lung + skin etc.) and instilled a huge amount of trust in to the community and the future of the game by making the game 'moddable' means that in the not too distant future DF will be what UrW wants to be, thanks to another survivalist Finn with too much time on his hands.
Also, the Toad has given this to us all. UrW calls for payment. I have no issue in this but personally because of this small thing I will continue to give to Toady as my means allow it, and I will probably keep buying the $3 versions of UrW as and when I feel like upgrading.
In summary, support independent gaming, buy UrW, its really a lot of fun.
But give more to Toady.
(that went on longer than I expected - sod it I'll post anyway)