Pexva

misery loves company Reddit is quite something. Not sure if it's a culture or algorithm problem, but you are right. It was not like that before. A few days ago, there was a thread on the Hytale reddit saying, "I heard Simon doesn't listen to his team and does what he wants and ignores their input!" Hundreds of upvotes, people loving the drama, etc. Making things up. Meanwhile, reality was based on me making memes about how the team wants me to nerf the boss but I'm cranking up the difficulty. Clearly a marketing meme. The team was having fun with it on social media and hyping it up. The team tells me what they think all the time and we have great discussions. There is no yes-man; I actually love negative feedback because I learn from it. I'm a very positive, optimistic person, and easy to have hard discussions with. I'm always excited to talk about the game, ask the team for ideas daily, and ask what they think is best, etc. Just don't ask @ReaToJa because I keep telling her no 😂 (except for mushees, maybe). TLDR: Having positive people around you is the key to success.

My goal with Chapter I was to make it clear that we're fully embracing RPG elements, not shying away from them. Now, as I said before, it's also important to work on the basics: better crafting, progression, and everything around them that makes a good game. A lot is going to change; I don't say this lightly. I'm not afraid of it all. The game loop we have today serves early access quite well, but it won't be the one we have in the future. The world will be the main character, thanks to world gen v2. That being said, I had a great time working on and playing Chapter I myself, but I'm not blind to the fact that the old world gen, progression, and crafting feel very dated. Our vision for Hytale is much grander than what it is today, and given how well Chapter I went, I truly believe we have the team, community, and support to get there. Another goal was to see how our production would hold up. This is a brand new team, rebuilt from the ground up just a few months ago, so we needed to learn where to hire and how to adjust our planning. Chapter I was a great first chapter to learn from, and the results were incredible. More than 80% of our hires in the past few months were from the modding community! While the team is busy with the cozy stuff, I'm personally working on revamping weapon and armor itemization by adding affixes and ways for players to improve their crafted and looted items. As simple as it sounds, it's another transformative change, because it lets us add reward vectors across the entire game. The first version will look basic at first glance, but it will grow over time, with affixes like "minion damage" that work with future minion runes, and much more, to create a wide variety of builds. I've been a big ARPG player since the late 90s, so you can expect to see a lot of inspiration. Cheers all, see you soon. Simon