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Are there any words on what aspects of the game are going to be addressed for the next release?

I looked over the FAQ and the sticky topics without finding anything.

The last dev blog entry "A million copies sold" is all enthusiasm, so I assume the game is still getting love. Though much can happen on the personell side when you have a dev team of one.

I am by no means an expert in this game, but I think that the game should accommodate not only permanent settlement, but also:

* Hunter-Gatherer.
* Nomadic.

By hunter-gatherer, I mean to basically live like flock animals and use low cost temporary camps. A bit of stone age life style.
This life style should toughen them up physically, but sophisticated intellectual stuff should suffer.

By nomadic, I mean that they can keep larger life stock than a single area could support and that sophisticated tents could be suited for packing/unpacking. Colonists or domesticated animals could pull carts or something. And that there exists portable options so that you can still do research and crafting. A nomadic life style is also typical in that you only carry the essential framework with you, but you still need to use local resources to set up camp.

Arguably, you can force these two life styles through todays engine, but you are clearly working against the game dynamics. If you are on the move as a tribe, its members will evaluate their happiness as if the only true life style is to have permanent residence.

I think that, apart from transportable alternatives to accommodate a nomadic life style, one should also consider what this does to people over the course of a life time. Maybe their exposure can affect their expectations and give them traits as they age that are affected by the life they lead. If you capture a young wildling, the chances are greater that they will accommodate a "normal" life style than if you capture an old person who is more "set" in their ways.

You can't just assign the "perfect" quarters to a wildling and then be done with it.

Likewise, if you are deciding to keep the tribe on the move, an old person coming from a colony is less likely to adjust to a nomadic life style than a young person coming from a colony.

The way a person turns out is a combination of the potential of the person and the history of the person. Some traits stick, some traits are lose and subject to change. The player doesn't know which is which.