- When will you release the next chapter? 
When it's done!
- How many chapters do you plan?
4 in total, possibly a "Chapter Zero" with some background story tidbits, consisting of separate dream/memory sequences.
- About how many hours will needed to complete all chapters? Ok, I know, hard to answer, but I'm really curious.
I have honestly no idea at this point.
And some suggestion (maybe late, but who knows):
It was a good thing in the main game that it was roughly clear where I needed to go. There was always a missing ability in each locations, so I cuoldn't reach for example the mithalas priests until I earned beast and nature form, and so on. In this mod, the parts we need to collect (I don't want spoil...) are a little bit randomly placed, I think. And in particular, I don't know if a found all of it... Maybe you should create a marker in the character menu, what are the missing parts, that would make the situation clear, in my opinion.
By the way, great work, hats off guys!
I don't quite get what you mean. As soon as you found *anything* of interest, the world map gets a sparkly indicator that tells where to go next. That can be meeting the erulian after finding the
thing in the verse cave, entering the erulian area, or Li realizing he needs a light.
It would imho just feel strange to modify old areas and introduce new (artificial) barriers, and since the first chapters' "search stuff to progress"-part mainly consists of old areas, there's not so much we can do without making it feel unnecessary. So we took what we had, added a bunch of new maps around the edges, and used the old ones to connnect everything (with some modifications and extras, of course).
(And fyi, right now there are 118 map XMLs in the mod, not all of them used or playable, so let's say we have ~100 maps in various stages of completion, and more to come. It felt almost like a waste to have so few new maps in the first chapter...)
But maybe i understand. I have stopped counting how often i've read all over the internet that most people stop playing the game within the first 1-2 hours, i.e. before obtaining energy form. First major obstacle being the song cave (incl. finding the song that opens the swirly door). From there it's just a quick hop to the energy temple and energy form, but getting there seems to be another (less) major obstacle.
It's sad that this short time before the "real" start of action is enough to bore people enough to stop, but I don't think a "James Bond like" start would be appropriate, if you know what i mean. Ok, there is the nightmare sequence that shows off things to come, and as a gameplay bait it's very important. But apparently it's not enough..?
Seems like we ended up doing something similar, intentional or not. The first chapter is intended to be some kind of tutorial to become familiar with some of the new concepts, and the pacing is naturally slow. In the beginning there wasn't even that sparkly world map indicator; that was added because too many testers got lost. Should maybe be mentioned explicitly as an in-game hint.
Tangible suggestions are welcome if you have better ideas.
Regarding the suit parts, those are optional and mostly to make you realize you're still going in the right direction. No need to find all of them (but there might be a
thing in the 2nd or 3rd chapter that changes based on how many you found).
In this version, the cape is essential to progress. In order for the Krotites to be there (subsequently opening the barrier so you can enter the temple and return home) it is required that (a) you have the cape, and (b) the big fish is dead. This was a design choice to have a defined starting point in the 2nd chapter.
We might change this, making the cape optional, but with
things happening in the 2nd and 3rd chapter based on whether you had picked it up and kept it, or not.
Hope this was a detailed enough answer
New year's confession: Been slacking off a bit too much over xmas holidays. Time to lift that fat butt and get back to work
