No, the problem is the density of animals is such that is impossible to go anywhere without 2 or 3 things trying to eat you. We have 4 lions, 2 elephants, and a few rhinos right outside our front door. It reminds me of wow, and not in a good way. Oh, look i wonder how tough that is? “(spawn back at bed roll)” too tough.
I don’t know what the gameplay is other than this huge colossal map and the constant journal reminders nagging me to complete. And said journal reminders always have me building something to craft something.
I’m probably not the person to ask about how good this game is.
You can just run from them. You can outrun everything in the game. When you don’t want to kill stuff, just ignore it.
On bark, I find using a pick on the dead trees (white ones) is very good for bark and dried wood. There is a fairly large dead tree area north of the black galleon.
Your clan put your settlement down in a moderately advanced area. We are quite safe in our settlement. A few crocs, a few rockmen, that’s it. Yours may pay off with better access to resources.
I think that’s the issue. You could build near the river that you come to from the desert and really not have much to contend with. Some crocs and other NPC exiles that you can easily handle after you level a bit. You push into different areas and there’s harder stuff, but greater rewards.
I played a little of this yesterday (thanks again to @tomchick).
I like it! The guidance I was given on the QT3 server was to level up a little bit in the desert until I could survive a trip to the base, which seems reasonable. I started to build a little shack near the river out of habit, but then it occurred to me that as long as I can make food and weapons, there’s not really a reason to plant myself in any particular place. So I think today I’ll be exploring.
I built a stone hut and workstations by the big bridge by the river. Then, grabbed a waterskin and some food and went out to explore to find a new base further to the East where there was more vegetation. Never found much that I liked after about an hour and had already put a bed roll down so I would not respawn back in my old place but after dying a few times and not finding any place I thought would be good for a grand abode, ran back to the bridge and snuggled inside my original stone house. Played about 3 hours and enjoyed it.
A bit scary venturing out with only minimal weapons and skills when you lose everything after you die. I could turn that off in the console but what kind of challenge would that be.
The hut is your panic room. If something is chasing you and your hut is near, get inside it and you are safe. While it is true that you can outrun things, sometimes you run into something else and if you are out of stamina, it can get ugly.
Anyway, it’s also one of those achievements to do so I believe you get XP the first time you build a shelter. It’s easy to do. Just mine rock with a pick for 5-10 minutes and you will have enough to build a small hut.
The corpse runs are fun because they are dangerous. I found myself exploring far from my hut and bedroll and got killed, so I went on my corpse run but took a slightly different route that ended up being a disaster. It took me into the desert and I was walled off by the mountains that were too high to climb. I was out of water and dizzy with thirst, so very near death, when I finally made it to water. Along the way I had to dodge giant insects and strange demonic dog things. It was cool.
Things did not end well. The game must have had a glitch so it mismarked my corpse location and I never found it. Lots of good stuff gone. Oh well.
Died to those darn demonic dog things once already.
I got a bit frustrated with losing things after a few runs but just calmed down and collected myself and decided to get a bit more leveled up with a bit better gear next time. Will not let the game win!
My wife got a little irritated seeing my female Conan…so I try and keep the camera high and behind whenever she is around!
There is a journal that you can play to completion. If you manage to finish it you can escape the exile lands and win the game actually. The story is light however, and told like a souls-borne tale. Its told with item descriptions, short voice tracks in areas, and notes and items found throughout the game.
Server’s been really good so far, thanks for hosting it Milspec! Only problem i’ve heard about from someone in my group was an issue where they were killed (twice) by a(same) sandstorm that wasn’t visible. That only happened the one time though, and I wasn’t on so i can’t comment on it.
@tomchick - i don’t think this will be your thing, but you should try it. The resource accumulation is…a big sink and not terribly well balanced, if you can say that about a sink. Certain things are easy, but others are very costly in terms of time or conversion. For instance bricks take 30 rocks each to make (which is easy, because you can harvest 30 rocks from one or two swings of your pick), but you can only carry about 400 rocks with a reasonable armor load. Each brick takes about 15 seconds to make in the furnace, but each piece of raw wood only lasts 10seconds. So a full load allows you to make 13 bricks, and for the next level of my temple i need 350…that’s like 30 full loads of stone, and then several more of timber, plus time in the furnace to produce one of the four ingredients to level my temple…Still though, i like building stuff, so i enjoy it…I also have like 1000 hours in 7 days to die, ymmv
On the game in whole, i think it’s pretty well put together and it functions well, but it’s got some astounding (baffling) misses like (and in particular) the social mechanic. I can’t believe they don’t have a grouping scheme, or group communication channel, or an ability to make boxes available only to yourself. I trust my clanmates and all, but there’s still stuff i’m working on or accumulating that I want to hold onto…
The biggest miss IMO, is that you can’t even tell where your friends are at. Some sort of compass, so you can see which direction they are from you, or a marker on the mini-map, would be so helpful. Instead, we get into these long drawn out explanations while both are looking at the map, to explain where we are at.
My group will not play this… yet. I am sure there are few crappy games in my near future that I will be able to use to get them to at least let us try this and when we do i intend to use helpful directions for coop like, you remember where you got squished by a mammoth, I’m right there.
Coal is much more efficient than wood to power a furnace and other stations. Also resource farming gets easier with upgraded tools like iron and steel as they increase the amounts of materials you receive each time you harvest or mine. A steel sickle is a must have when you need lots of fiber or aloe.
It’s 10 stone per brick, and you can drastically improve production time by building multiple furnaces and equipping them with smelter thralls. I would think that you’re better off improving your industry than trying to upgrade a temple that early. Use coal to power the furnaces, then move on to oil when you have access to a fluid press.
You will also be able to carry way more than 400 stone later. With 20 encumbrance I can carry 800 even with a full set of heavy armor modified with weight reduction kits, plus weapons and tools.
The lack of a mini map has not hampered our group at all. The world building is excellent, so when we say north of the shattered bridge or near the Yog Shaman or across from the Croc King everyone understands what that means. Regardless, we tend to organize outings that leave from our main settlement, and even if you forget where that is then your bed is marked on the map.
We run around as a group of 6 to 8 people. Have not lost anyone yet. The draw distance is quite far. I guess you need to be slightly organized and not rush off before people are ready. It seems pretty naturual to us.
I journeyed for 20 minutes into new terrain with a friend last night, we stayed together the whole time.
I am not saying other opinions are wrong. Just giving an example of where the lack of a mini-map or friend dots have not been a hindrance even for a larger team.
But I am the kind of person who turns the mini map off on most games. I prefer to navigate by terrain and remember locations. Modern games (ESO and FO4 for example) have lovely worlds.
You’re right, i was certain it was 30 stone to a brick, but i must have confused it with something else.
And i don’t disagree with the rest of your post except that i felt my base was all pretty good - i got basically one of everything and am pretty maxed out for my level. For me, the next point seems to be making the things i got better rather than getting several of everything going for max efficiency. I guess i didn’t expect this to be Conan Exiles from the Age of Industrialization…
@milspec I’m somewhat in agreement with you on the minimap, but i do think there should be ways to see groupings. If group pvp ever becomes a thing (not on your server but elsewhere), i don’t know how anyone is supposed to keep track of who is who…
