First of all, we want to thank everyone who purchased the game and we are very happy with how well the game was received. Most reviews are incredibly positive!
We're also aware that for some players the initial experience in the game can be a bit frustrating with unrestricted PvP. There are very generous people who share their items and experience with new players, but there are also some bad apples, who want nothing else, but to grief other people. This is certainly something that we want to address as soon as we can. So we're currently working on a patch to provide some protection for the new players who just joined the server. At least to provide enough time for new players to finish the first quests, learn the basics of the game and build a small house. Though this protection will be optional so you will be able to turn it off if you’d rather jump straight into action.
In addition to this simple newbie protection, we are also working on a much bigger update that will introduce completely separate PvE servers. PvE servers will allow peaceful cohabitation on the same server without worrying about being killed or raided. This game mode will be intended for people who just want to enjoy the game, learn technology and explore the world of CryoFall. Naturally, you will still be able to fight hostile creatures, but you won’t have to worry about other players attacking you (without your explicit consent, at least). We are also very excited to see what other types of player interaction it could bring. We are envisioning large cities with trading hubs and many other types of creative interactions! :)
Naturally, we're also working on PvP rebalancing—for release we had to nerf the bombs quite a bit to allow a bit more peaceful gameplay, but when we will have separate PvE server we will be able to revert this change. Though, unrestricted raiding has its own drawbacks, so we are considering many other balancing changes and especially some new ideas to address offline raiding as we are very much unhappy with the idea in its entirety. PvP should be more brutal, but also much more fair—giving an opportunity for you to defend yourself and a fair challenge and great reward for an attacker.
We also need to communicate one important aspect of the Early Access—the concept of server wipes as it was a surprise to a number of people. So, here is the explanation that we owe you.
The practice of regular server wipes is pretty normal for multiplayer survival games in early access and wipes happen regularly in those games to give players a new challenge, level the playing field as well as test new features that are introduced in each update. And we are also following the same practice with our wipes. Naturally, we don’t want to randomly wipe the servers without prior notice and a reason. In fact, we only wipe servers when we release a new major update. This is also required due to compatibility reasons. The game is still in a very active stage of development, so many changes that we introduce break compatibility across version, leaving us no choice but to wipe the servers. But then again, based on our experience during our year of public alpha testing most people actually look forward to those wipes as it gives them an opportunity to start anew, in a fresh economy and with new features after each update! So, we will keep this practice for the time being, at least for the next several months.
Naturally, if you are running a private or community server—it is up to you whether you want to wipe and when. We have no say in this :)
So, if you’d like to play without ever restarting—you can either run your custom server or join one of the available community servers that are dedicated towards long term play.
Also, you will always be able to run older versions of the game and keep playing on any version you’d like.
And that’s it for the time being! As stated above—we are incredibly happy with the response we received from your guys, honestly, we cannot overstate how well the game was received and we can only say that we will do our absolute best to give you the best experience we can! We will keep working hard to make CryoFall even better game! :)