And thank YOU for the response. It's not often that developers are willing to be on the ground level with the players to make the experience work. I'll check out the upcoming releases page to make sure I'm not asking questions you've answered.
I can see what you mean about NPCs in a roguelike. I don't think it really needs to be non repetative, though, especially if you're just dealing with say, a worshipper of the old gods that may give you some random quests to go kill something for extra souls and maybe a merchant with a few random weapons. I don't really expect huge webs of dialogue when the game is at such an early stage, and I don't think anyone else would. I think the main reason behind that kind of addition would be the indication that you plan to implement it, if you do. And if you don't, that's fine too.
I find your explanation a lot more digestible than my own, but if you're making things breed, they have to be given souls. And since you're no longer responsible for that sort of thing, by making mortals breed, specifically your own worshippers, you're weakening your enemies and creating a way in which you can siphon and steal their power. They instead would have to shear away pieces of their power and their souls. It seems like the sort of machinations that a dark lord that has inhabited a Vampire would put into motion, or something like that. After all, what's the span of a few human lifetimes when you've been slumbering for hundreds of years, waiting and plotting? I'm sure we could whataboutism each other until the cows come home about the intricacies of Godhood. For now, I'm happy with your explanation and with seeding the idea of approaching the same situation in drastically different ways, which can be some of the fun of Roguelikes. It would also invariably add replayability, a staple of the genre. Replayability between successes as well as between failures.
Since we've got some dialogue happening, I would like to be a bit less... friendly I guess, and describe some of the issues I have. I didn't want to just come into the chat shitting on your game that I'm sure you've worked very hard on and which I enjoyed, but I feel I'm also not being enormously helpful unless I act, at least in some capacity, as a critic. The roguelike I've probably played the most is Catacylsm: Dark Days Ahead, which has open source code and a sizable community constantly working toward improving the experience, so it's probably a kind of harsh basis for comparison, but it's an experience I relate to this game a lot.
I spawned in an empty field next to a log I could interact with, with rocks all around me and the ability to make a stone axe and a stone knife. My first instinct was to craft exactly that. So with my character that wasn't minmaxed, I started chopping a tree and was immediately accosted by a fishman who killed me. Now, I've played a LOT of Cataclysm, so I'm not adverse to the difficult start, it's just that it's usually optional. I can't really say much except that I feel like there should be a lower tier of enemy that even beginner wizards can fight hand-to-hand without any real issue. A wild dog. Some goblins. Something that's just meat and bones to allow total beginners to wet and whet their blades a little, because even as someone who has experience, the start is brutal. Even if you spawned in a big cemetary or something with a wall to buffer the 80 health humans that you can literally never outrun.
My first and second character was a Lich Necromancer, so I instinctively gave him a lot of intelligence, at which point I could only raise the pile of bones in my inventory that spawns a 45 health presumably fishman corpse than can only barely fight 1 fishman on it's own, and my own character is useless to try to help. So I realized I made a mistake and died a second time. After playing some of the game, I realize that a summoner kind of needs to begin with all their points in Strength to pick up those early corpses. If this isn't your intention, you might want to add a wand or a staff with a basic magic attack that scales off intelligence. From my own powergaming perspective, Troll and Orc are the only viable summoners at the moment. I don't know how much programming it would be, but a tooltip on the races and the classes to advise how they should be built early probably couldn't hurt. Some of them are obvious. Build a Troll Warrior. Some are not. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES make a Lich Necromancer.
Life three. Let's try some crafting again. This time, I'll play as an archer and craft my own arro - Nope. I need a workbench that I can't craft to make bows, and I can't make arrows at all. So I've got 20 shots and if I can't kill amazons by then, I'm boned. Oh well. We making a wizard. Unless I missed something obvious? Maybe you can craft arrows if you deconstruct the ones you spawn with, but your bow is going to explode into a thousand splinters after you fire it ten times for some reason and you can't make a carpentry bench early to replace it, so I've always got the issue where I have to be able to fight other things with bows to progress.
Life four. Time to powergame. I (feel like I) have no choice to play what I want. Rasimi Warlock. Minmax intelligence. S, 1, left click. S, 1, left click. Repeat. I clear the entire beginning area and fight an owl king at level 1 with no issues at all. Level up. More intelligence. I guess I randomly got an ability that puts fear on the enemy. 2, left click, 1, left click, 1, left click. Is this the whole game from now on? I'm looking for a long term objective, a reason to even want to craft or something to other than press 1 on more symbols to make my number bigger. It needs SOMETHING as a goal. Even a throwaway line of dialogue from my character (which could change based off your race for flavor) that says something like; "I can smell the putrid soul of the Human King far to the north, bloated and swelling from the suffering of it's pathetic underlings. Perhaps such a soul would grant enough power to tear the rift back into dreamworld... There is an obvious disparity between this creature's abilities and the abilities of it's guards, but perhaps if I harvest some souls...". Instant motivation with a few lines of dialogue. I have something to cling on to as a player and a long-term goal. It's still a video game at the end of the day.
Sorry for the huge essay, but I would really love to see this project be the best that it can be. I read your plans for future released and I'm salivating already. I'm also glad to feel your pride pouring out of your words about the visuals. It's absolutely some fine work, very unique, and perfectly functional. I won't take up any more precious development time with my mouthwords.
Adieu.
Viewing post in Thoughts/Feedback
A lot is going on in the post, so I'll try my best to answer everything, but if I miss something, please feel free to point it out. :)
I've heard about the difficult start. Some people seem to like it, and some want to start with crafting and prepare before getting into action. I think I can understand that and develop optional starting locations with different scenarios. I'll add that to the list of things to do.
Necromancer has a harder start because it lacks damaging abilities, and he has a unique ability of zombie summoning, which gives you potentially unlimited bodies to cover you. He can steamroll very well with a proper starting strategy. When I played the necro, I usually start by killing some animals and turning them into zombies, which are the only things in the first map where you are (but other creatures can enter the region as you probably experienced), they are not aggressive and easy to take down. The quicker animals can be taken down with stone-throwing instead of chasing to reduce the risk of stumbling on a harder enemy unprepared.
I can see how the traveler being able to enter the starting region might be too hard on inexperienced players. I could move merchants and travelers a bit further.
The arrow and bow situation, you don't need a workbench, but a woodcutter. You can get a stone axe with a couple of stones gathered nearby and be able to create arrows and primitive bows. The 20 arrows you have, if you use a basic attack that allows you to recover most of your arrows should suffice to take down enemies that would threaten you in the beginning. The poacher profession has access to arrow crafting from the start, and any other can salvage arrows to learn the recipe. I can understand this can be confusing to a new player, so if you have suggestions on how to make it more apparent, I would be happy to make some tweaks.
I agree the game could use more lore. I have a task on my long list to add something like that, mostly coming from people in the world. As I mentioned before, one of my goals is to have the world feel more alive, so this would be a step in the right direction. The improvements list is long, so I can't say when it will come, but I'm sure it will come at some point.
I welcome constructive criticism, so no need to worry about hurting my feelings. The game is not me, and I have the power to improve it so you can talk about your experiences in it freely. :)