First off, I want to state categorically that this is a game with great potential both in gameplay and story telling, it is interesting enough that I want to play it, and I heartily encourage continued development. The following comments are meant to point out things in the game that are problems that I hope will be fixed.
This game is a UI nightmare. Very little a player needs to and should know is explained. The control help text that is displayed when you hit escape is cut off on the left side so you can not read what the controls are for each function. The list is also incomplete.
For reasons completely unknown, the developer has decided to abandon decades of UI fine-tuning that has created a common and comfortable interface to use in first person 3D games for this odd and clumsy interface that players constantly mis-key because of their reflex from other like games.
Worst of all, almost none of these changes are explained to the player. This is not story discovery, which is a good concept. You spend most of your time fighting the damn interface instead of playing the game. A challenging game is good, but this is not challenging, it is unfairly frustrating because the player is not told how to use the UI to do the things the MC would know how to do. Finding that you can craft a fishing pole and the materials to do so is discovery. However, the player should know how to use the UI to actually use the fishing pole once you've created it. If there is a piece missing, like bait, then the player should be told that because the MC would already know that.
I can see the reasoning behind the older fight UI. Some combat opponents have things that make a left or right strike more or less effective, like a shield. The left-then-right click for a left side cut, and the right-then-left click for a right side cut would've been an interesting and popular UI: IF IT HAD EVER BEEN EXPLAINED TO THE PLAYER. Since no one knew what to do or why, there were a flood of complaints and that UI has now disappeared in favor of the simple left-click alternating strike directions. This is really too bad as the new UI never got a fair chance to be tested since no one knew how to use it or why. It might've been better to simply use left click for left strike and right click for right strike as that would've been much more intuitive, but it should still be explained to the player as part of a UI orientation.
The controls I've been able to figure out so far in v0.6b are:
Code:
W, A, S, D Move forward, left, backward, right
Left Shift While pressed, run – Burns stamina
Space Jump
Q, E Lean left, right
C Toggles crouch
Left-click Strike (with object if held) or throw held object
Left Control Drag the targeted object by moving the mouse
V Throw held object (doesn’t work, use left-click)
F Collect items and interact
Tab Toggles inventory
Caps Lock While pressed, list of items to hold
<unknown> Reload held object (what does that mean?)
T Put held object away
G Use the glider to glide down safely when in the air
Z Whistle for your horse if nearby
F1 Cheat XP +20
F2 Cheat sneak skill increment
F9 Toggles cheat item menu
F10 Toggles cheat teleport menu
F11 Toggles wait dialog (advances time)
F12 Toggles cheat skip quest menu
I saw a message saying something about using only right-ctrl for something and ctrl-C with a number but I have no clue what that's about.
IMHO: The lack of a UI orientation in this game is the MAJOR reason why people will drop it. If they can't figure out how to do what would be obvious to the MC, they will give up in frustration. This is not what is meant by a game challenge. Fixing the UI issues and giving the player a clear and complete orientation on the UI should be the #1 priority to fix in this game right now because it will keep people from being able to test play the game as it develops.
And, I hope it does continue to develop because it is worth the time and effort.