@Zeppion
The game also put a road map on their store page, how did that work out for them? If I call myself the king of Spain does that make me the king of Spain?

I think what the other guy was talking about was that the game lacks pretty much all the common survival game features (like hunger, cold, sleep, thirst meters) though technically that's not what defines a survival game.

An actual survival game has you survive against a constant(!) internal or external threat(!) that will lead to death(!) otherwise.
Now you could stretch this to maybe say that Valheim has some light survival elements but that's about it. You can literally dig a hole in the ground, board it up and there is no risk of death.

Yes you can stay up and fight with debuffs like an idiot but that's not what a survival game is. If it was that would mean every action combat game in existence ever is a survival game. Skyrim? Dark Souls? Bayonetta? World of Warcraft? According to your example all survival games because you can die if you don't use your brains.

Originally posted by Lorska:

@Zeppion
The game also put a road map on their store page, how did that work out for them? If I call myself the king of Spain does that make me the king of Spain?

I think what the other guy was talking about was that the game lacks pretty much all the common survival game features (like hunger, cold, sleep, thirst meters) though technically that's not what defines a survival game.

An actual survival game has you survive against a constant(!) internal or external threat(!) that will lead to death(!) otherwise.
Now you could stretch this to maybe say that Valheim has some light survival elements but that's about it. You can literally dig a hole in the ground, board it up and there is no risk of death.

Yes you can stay up and fight with debuffs like an idiot but that's not what a survival game is. If it was that would mean every action combat game in existence ever is a survival game. Skyrim? Dark Souls? Bayonetta? World of Warcraft? According to your example all survival games because you can die if you don't use your brains.

I'm surprised you guys didn't know this is actually a survival game. Let me educate you. The waves of monsters that attack your base is what defines a survival game. Also, you can't bury yourself in a hole, because you would never advance, lol.

Yes but you can't dig a hole until you beat the first boss or somehow gathering surtlings cores and ore without the risk of dieing from attackers.

Tis a fine line I agree. but I would also agree that survival is a tag worthy as you can't just load the game and sit down free from attackers. Even trying to run to an instance and sit in the entry way would still use some form of "survival" skill.

Originally posted by Fzanco:

Yes but you can't dig a hole until you beat the first boss or somehow gathering surtlings cores and ore without dieing from attackers.

Tis a fine line I agree. but I would also agree that survival is a tag worthy as you can't just load the game and sit down free from attackers. Even trying to run to an instance and sit in the entry way would still use some form of "survival" skill.

Dang, good point, sir.

Originally posted by Zeppion:

People are saying it's taking a long time for Valheim to finish, and then it dawned on me. Why did it take so long to make a game this awesome in the first place? The survival genre is very addictive and satisfying, and I understand why it has become so popular. The thing I don't understand is why did it take so long to make it? In the year 2022 and we're just now seeing survival games that are good? We've been thinking about survival games for a while now, but Valheim was the first to actually nail it.

Actually Dark and Light had (yes had) more potential than this game. A lot more fleshed out systems, taming and played better than Ark. But poor management, lack of funding / effort by management to support their team absolutely destroyed the game.

They had bugs that never once were addressed. Then patches came out and would add some new stuff and all the bugs from previous patches came with it. Then they might fix some of those bugs and break the content they just released. It was an endless circle and Snail gave them no backing.

Valheim is a complete breath of fresh air compared to that game. Problem is the lacking of content but give it time.

Actually futher to answer the op. I say this a lot but I think it's because this game is being made like an actual game rather than a dopamine sound and pretty colour micro transactions (should just be called regular transaction now) built to addict and extract from players rather than give enjoyment to players.

Originally posted by Lorska:

@Zeppion
The game also put a road map on their store page, how did that work out for them? If I call myself the king of Spain does that make me the king of Spain?

I think what the other guy was talking about was that the game lacks pretty much all the common survival game features (like hunger, cold, sleep, thirst meters) though technically that's not what defines a survival game.

An actual survival game has you survive against a constant(!) internal or external threat(!) that will lead to death(!) otherwise.
Now you could stretch this to maybe say that Valheim has some light survival elements but that's about it. You can literally dig a hole in the ground, board it up and there is no risk of death.

Yes you can stay up and fight with debuffs like an idiot but that's not what a survival game is. If it was that would mean every action combat game in existence ever is a survival game. Skyrim? Dark Souls? Bayonetta? World of Warcraft? According to your example all survival games because you can die if you don't use your brains.

It's a full sandbox, open world building survival game. They just toned down the punishment more than other games do. Which btw is why its so popular compared to the other similar games.

Oh you want a way to become invincible without having to beat a boss? Build some wooden platforms up a tree then destroy the bottom part. Done. Invincible in a few minutes.

Also occasional waves of monsters is not an equivalent to a constant threat. Even if you ignore that you can just not trigger them if you don't fulfill the wave conditions or that you can just make it so you are immune to these attacks. The fact that people build impassable moats around their bases that make the only thing you could possibly construe as a survival mechanic a non-issue should tell you that it isn't a survival game and that people actively avoid that part of the game.

Sayin: you have to do something to progress so it's a survival game is utter nonsense. That's like every game in existence. There needs to be a constant threat of some kind. If you can eliminate all threats within 5 min that doesn't really change anything.

Advancement does not matter at all.

Originally posted by Lorska:

Oh you want a way to become invincible without having to beat a boss? Build some wooden platforms up a tree then destroy the bottom part. Done. Invincible in a few minutes.

Lol I spose that's true, still, to collect the amount of wood and such to do the building is still skating that fine line I reckon

Originally posted by Lorska:

Oh you want a way to become invincible without having to beat a boss? Build some wooden platforms up a tree then destroy the bottom part. Done. Invincible in a few minutes.

Also occasional waves of monsters is not an equivalent to a constant threat. Even if you ignore that you can just not trigger them if you don't fulfill the wave conditions or that you can just make it so you are immune to these attacks. The fact that people build impassable moats around their bases that make the only thing you could possibly construe as a survival mechanic a non-issue should tell you that it isn't a survival game and that people actively avoid that part of the game.

Sayin: you have to do something to progress so it's a survival game is utter nonsense. That's like every game in existence. There needs to be a constant threat of some kind. If you can eliminate all threats within 5 min that doesn't really change anything.

Advancement does not matter at all.

You're desperately trying to come up with something to say this isn't a survival game, and making a tree house in order to make yourself invincible just isn't cutting it. A troll would knock your tree house down in one hit.
Also, what about PVP? You're just going to sit up in a tree while your friends are advancing and getting stronger? You would live about a week in your tree until a sniper comes along and shoots you with his new bow he just invented. You can try to block it with your club since that's all you're going to have for sitting up in a tree for the whole game.
The facts are pretty plain and straight forward. The description of the game itself has the word survival in it, and I agree with them after playing it myself.

Originally posted by Lorska:

Oh you want a way to become invincible without having to beat a boss? Build some wooden platforms up a tree then destroy the bottom part. Done. Invincible in a few minutes.

Also occasional waves of monsters is not an equivalent to a constant threat. Even if you ignore that you can just not trigger them if you don't fulfill the wave conditions or that you can just make it so you are immune to these attacks. The fact that people build impassable moats around their bases that make the only thing you could possibly construe as a survival mechanic a non-issue should tell you that it isn't a survival game and that people actively avoid that part of the game.

Sayin: you have to do something to progress so it's a survival game is utter nonsense. That's like every game in existence. There needs to be a constant threat of some kind. If you can eliminate all threats within 5 min that doesn't really change anything.

Advancement does not matter at all.

actually, if you did nothing but sit in spawn, you would die when eikthyr riles up the forest and boars come hunt you down. So this is a constant threat.

This is a survival game that sits in the outter rings of the genre. While you dont need to eat or sleep as a requirement to avoid death, you do have to do these if you want to survive any combat or perform basic tasks without needing to sit every 5 seconds lol.

They took the survival tree and pruned it, to make it more appealing. which obviously worked. The mod support is also a big help for the game, any game that accepts mods has a solid footing for thriving. Just look at fallout 4, that game is pretty lame without atleast a couple mods.

Originally posted by Zeppion:

People are saying it's taking a long time for Valheim to finish, and then it dawned on me. Why did it take so long to make a game this awesome in the first place? The survival genre is very addictive and satisfying, and I understand why it has become so popular. The thing I don't understand is why did it take so long to make it? In the year 2022 and we're just now seeing survival games that are good? We've been thinking about survival games for a while now, but Valheim was the first to actually nail it.

Valheim is not a survival game. It's a building/crafting/exploration game. You don't need to sleep, you don't need to eat, the only hostile climate is in the mountains. People are too quick to label anything a "survival" game. That being said, it is still a really great game. If you want survival, play The Long Dark.

Originally posted by vinyblaster:

Originally posted by Zeppion:

People are saying it's taking a long time for Valheim to finish, and then it dawned on me. Why did it take so long to make a game this awesome in the first place? The survival genre is very addictive and satisfying, and I understand why it has become so popular. The thing I don't understand is why did it take so long to make it? In the year 2022 and we're just now seeing survival games that are good? We've been thinking about survival games for a while now, but Valheim was the first to actually nail it.

Valheim is not a survival game. It's a building/crafting/exploration game. You don't need to sleep, you don't need to eat, the only hostile climate is in the mountains. People are too quick to label anything a "survival" game. That being said, it is still a really great game. If you want survival, play The Long Dark.

VALHEIM:
A brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players, set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage!
$19.99

Originally posted by Zeppion:

Originally posted by vinyblaster:

Valheim is not a survival game. It's a building/crafting/exploration game. You don't need to sleep, you don't need to eat, the only hostile climate is in the mountains. People are too quick to label anything a "survival" game. That being said, it is still a really great game. If you want survival, play The Long Dark.

A brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players, set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage!

Nice parroting. How does it change anything I said? I don't know of any survival game where you can just sit your character down at the spawn point and live indefinitely. But hey, you do you.

Originally posted by vinyblaster:

Originally posted by Zeppion:

A brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players, set in a procedurally-generated purgatory inspired by viking culture. Battle, build, and conquer your way to a saga worthy of Odin’s patronage!

Nice parroting. How does it change anything I said? I don't know of any survival game where you can just sit your character down at the spawn point and live indefinitely. But hey, you do you.

Because you said Valheim wasn't a survival game but the description of the game itself changes what you said. :D
You're right. You don't have to go to sleep. You can stay up all night and fight in the cold and dark world of Valheim. You can take that negative buff from the cold night like a noob if you really want. That's also a great way to die!
You're one of those guys who dies a lot, hmm?