Condolences about your buddy, friend.

I'm interested. Please keep me in the loop if this gets any traction soon, but I can also look into getting a VPS going for a persistent server once I have some IRL things taken care of.

Would love to join

I'd gladly join! Hell, I'll feed the whole server even!

They have consistently added new content to all of the biomes over the years and worth giving it another go if you had even somewhat fond memories.

Combat is till janky though.

game as a whole is definitely designed around playing with a group

I haven't played at all since they added magic, so I don't know what to expect. I'm sure there will be some rough spots that need to be sanded down, but I hope it doesn't break the flow of gameplay.

Magic is great and it's totally optional. You don't get into magic until after the plains. The melee and non-magical ranged options at Mistlands tier and beyond are super fun, and they've added a lot more content to the early/mid game.

Magic is just a different type of weapon, it's not particularly crazy. Honestly, I played mage while my friend played a traditional fighter, and she was way stronger than I was, and way easier to upgrade.

It's a sturdy frame with a diagonal brace. After so much building in Valheim, totally agree that's an H.

Is that not it?

Since you haven't gotten a proper response I'll bite: Yes, it is a crafting survival game. Your progress is marked through the entire game by a helpful raven that will provide tips on how to proceed, but for the most part the game is extremely easy to follow. You start with basic crafting recipes, and move from wood to flint to bronze and so on. The progression is unique in the fact that it requires travel. You'll move from the starter area, to the dark forest, and so on. The worlds are randomly generated so you get a pretty unique experience every time. I've done 4 playthroughs and have never struggled or become frustrated due to being unable to travel to get to the next area. If you were to have issue there's a bounty of info in the wiki, just be careful of spoilers.

Honestly this is one of those games I will def rebuy for friends because the game was worth $30 when it came out, and now I feel is worth 60. There is a ton of content to enjoy, and they've legitimately kept a pretty good pace at development until the last 2 biomes, but obviously that's of no consequence to you as you'll get everything all at once.

My one and only gripe is that the further bosses cannot be soloed easily at all. They're meant for 2+ people. Now, this isn't necessarily a game over as there are hardcore ways of doing it, but it will be slow, require cheesing, and in my opinion is an absolute slog. To remediate THAT though you could also opt for a console command if things get too overwhelming.

I hope you give it a chance. It's a great experience, and of course who doesn't want to run around as a badass Viking?

I had a lot of fun with it at first, but later on the game has serious balance issues for singleplayer. The bosses have way too much health and you just run around in a circle and shoot them for an hour. If you're playing with friends the bosses are much easier and quicker to defeat. Since I usually play singleplayer, I just use cheats to kill the boss after I get bored of fighting them for so long.

It is really good until you get to the ashlands, then it suddenly sucks.

Haven’t played since release, but it is indeed a crafting / survival game.

There is/was a Raven who provides tutorial to get your bearings.

There are quests, but not in the same manner as a big open world RPG / there is no formal quest log.

There are 7 bosses that you’re working your way through each material age to be anle to fight. Advancement largely involves finding and talking to the right NPCs in order to learn how to proceed.

It’s really quite fun, game became a problem for my partner and I as we kept leaving work early to go play and then staying up far too late playing every night. We ate a lot of freezer dinners those first few weeks.

It really did play like a finished game and I would have been happy even if it never evolved past what it was.

Pretty excited to go back and see what 5 years worth of updates did, I stopped playing that first year and told myself I wouldn’t touch it until 1.0

Yeah I wish I waited. I loved it in early access and spent hundreds of hours on it. But I'm one the those people who have a hard time replaying things. I quit before a lot of the later releases and now it would feel like a chore to start over and play through long enough to see the final additions and end game content.