Finally playing Realms Rebuilt and I am disheartened.

Finally playing Realms Rebuilt and I am disheartened. When I first played this game I was hooked. I loved the sense of adventure it gave me. How the procedurally generated realms felt like I was having a unique personal experience from other players. Now everything just feels too rigid and linear.

Puck also feels like less of a presence in the beginning. He is easily on of my favorite things about this game. Before Rebuilt, he aids you but also teaches you to be self reliant. He actually lead you through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier and brought you to a cozy little thicket in a unique realm full of beautiful explorable sites. It felt special. Now he just drops you off at a hub in a static realm that feels very empty. I know the original tutorial was rather long but from a story perspective it really felt like a relationship was built between him and player. A skip tutorial option would of helped avoid annoyance.

I miss the wildness of the realms. I miss not knowing what I was going to see if I started a new game. Combining cards to create different biomes and instances was such a fun feature of the game and now it just feels like it was pushed aside for something safe and predictable. The story realms are very beautiful and I enjoy exploring them as well, but it does feel like some of the original spark was lost.

I tried finally going to a wild procedural realm and there is just nothing remarkable about them. Also it kinda bothers me that we don't travel out of the Fae Portals and just warp onto a lodestar. Even the massive Fae Portals that originally felt like a big deal seemed to have lost their purpose.

Making games as a indie studio is difficult and I understand you can't make everyone happy. I want this game to succeed because I do believe it is something really special but much of what I originally loved doesn't seem to be much of a feature anymore.