AfterWorld Survival Forum

First of all, fantastic work! The level of detail and the overall quality of design is simply awesome. The following is just a few thoughts about possible improvements. There's probably much more important things to do, so... it's just that, a few thoughts.

Today while looking at the

Saransk video

i had the feeling, something's wrong.
Then i realized what seems wrong - there's brand new street lamps everywhere and they are all lit, although the street lamps at the bridges are bent, corroded and not lit.
It's not in contradiction with the background story or anything - there's also several well maintained service stations in the city.
Still, for the sake of the style i would prefer if most of those street lamps were broken and some would only flash erratically.
And the ravens are missing. All abandoned cities at this latitude have raven colonies. Wildlife in the dead city makes the houses seem even more lifeless - the law of contrast.
If i already started dreaming, wouldn't mind an odd wandering warthog or a lonely bear, busy inspecting the waste containers in the southern part of the Saransk. The unwary colonist eaten by a bear on a remote city street... cool stuff!
No but seriously, these small and insignificant details would add a lot to the overall (post-apocalyptic) atmosphere.

Actually, the same goes for the power lines in villages - the electric posts at streets full of abandoned houses are asking for at least some missing and overhanging power cables.

Last but not least: the railways. All the railway tracks are looking so straight, fresh and well maintained. Does the back-story really say that the railway's still in use? 


Again, no pressure, just some thoughts. I know, in the virtual world it's much harder to make things look old and decayed than whipping up straight and clean stuff. That's why it's also much more valuable...

The decay is beautiful! 

I for one like your thoughts! I might add snakes the city too slithering around that could bite which would require an injection maybe.

I am still hoping maybe trains will be in game, doubt it really but who knows.

Yor suggestions make sense, i would take into account though that where there are Warrant Officers in a Town or Outpost it would also be realistic that they may have carried out some degree of maintenance, such as the light globes etc.Some level of maintenance increases security for the staff that are manning the area.
Based on the back story  i am not sure if trains and train tracks would be damaged, probably the only reason they wouldnt be functional would be that in outlying areas there may be little power generation to run them.
I would imagine around the major city, such as Saransk they may have been able to power them, depends on whether they have got stable power generation.But if you can run a forcefield you probably have stable power generation, at least in some regions.

Yes, absolutely. It's not hard to put a government truck on the streets of Saransk, making it's rounds between service stations. You can even put some NPC's to the railway station who are busy unloading stuff from the railway wagon and loading it onto the truck. Or maybe just a NPC soldier with a trolley transporting some stuff... this would provide sufficient in-game explanation to the question how come the street lamps are in a good order and railway well maintained.
Mind you - to make it realistic there has to be some in-game explanation that supports the storyline, just a text on a website is not enough.

It all boils down to the basic question about the presence of AW government in the game. Obviously it has to be present at the service stations, but outside? Where's the right balance?

From the player's perspective the government that keeps order and provides minimum security in this post apocalyptic world is inevitable and understandable.
However, as soon as it goes outside and starts (re)building the brave new world it becomes a competitor. Players want to explore it themselves, clean it up from all kinds of vicious creatures on their own and finally maybe even rebuild it themselves (factories!). But the guys in the blue uniform are already busy with that task and have already achieved quite a lot. What's left for the players? All the places where government is NOT present.
Can you see where it leads us? The more presence of AW government in-world (outside service stations and special secure areas like quarantine) the less room will be left over for the players. Additionally, to avoid confusion you have to make efforts to make it obvious why the government is there, what exactly are they doing out there. Lot of work for nothing, it seems.

And then there's the raiders. If i understood it right it's the soldiers who's brains got fried, left wandering around since the catastrophe. Sounds credible, but... how come their uniforms are still clean and not dirty and tattered? A hidden military service station or warehouse in the wilderness, stocked with spare uniforms? Yet another confusing detail.

Why not just give it up and make the whole world (outside those aforementioned special areas) unambiguously decayed/deserted? In this case all will be self explanatory and easy to understand even without any backstory.

You want a girl that can lift a t least 500kg load of lead while sprinting 400m to do the washing?
Handy hints:
1. Do not turn you back on her
2. Decline a request for a 'friendly' arm wrestle.

this is part of what the books were suppose to work on.  there are reasons for the tracks, as for town that is kept up because of the government and we all live there.

It's very cool that opened the channel