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by axefrog 1660 days ago
The Veloren developers seem to have forgotten to provide a page of information _anywhere_ giving a non-negligible overview of what the game is about. The main website has little more than a paragraph listing some other games as inspiration, followed by some Minecraft-like screenshots. It also has a manual which is clearly focused on developers and contributors, as it provides next to no information for a new person who just wants to know a bit more about the game without having to actually download it. How is it similar to Dwarf Fortress? How is it similar to Minecraft? How is it different? What do you do in it? Why is it so much work just to find an overview of the game and what it has to offer?
2 comments

Have you checked out the wiki? There is a 'Getting Started' guide: https://wiki.veloren.net/wiki/Getting_Started

The game is extremely open-ended: there is no overarching objective, and you are free to interact with the world as you please. For most players, this means a combination of exploring, crafting, conquering challenges (dungeons, caves, etc.), finding rare items, and socialising with other players.

The game is 100% free so you have no reason not to jump in and give it a go if you're curious!

> How is it similar to Dwarf Fortress?

Veloren has an open procedural world with a history generation system. Although work on the history simulation is still very much ongoing, the world already more cohesive than those of many other voxel games. Our end goal is a world that feels as rich and as complex as that of Dwarf Fortress. Whether we end up succeeding is still to be determined!

> How is it similar to Minecraft?

Veloren is a voxel game, so... cubes and open-world exploration. Not much more to say about this one.

It's still under heavy development, AFAIK there is a long time vision but they are still far from there so it wouldn't make sense to discuss about it in the front page.

And at this point they are clearly looking for contributors much more than for players, that's why all the documentation you'll find is targeting the former.

Documentation and marketing material require a lit of work, and doing so continuously against a fast-moving target is a enormous effort.