Season's Greetings!

Thank you for your great questions :) I will try to nail them down. First of all this planet on wallpaper is not a world map. It's a sketchy picture of the planet only to allow you to select zone of the planet where you want to start. The actual world map is huge. You can take a screenshot of world map in this old news post: http://www.enkord.com/forum/blog.php?b=263 Screenshot there only pictures a tiny fraction of the world map. Actual world map will be thousands times bigger than what fits that screen. You will have to explore world map somewhat in a similar way like you explore levels in original Totem Tribe uncovering new locations with quests and adventures, new spots with strategic resources, new great places to build new villages and also neighbour villages and countries of other players. TT2 is planned as online game so if it will have enough players and will be profitable - it will basically never be done - we will be adding new quests, locations, items on monthly basis. TT2 designed to last forever or at least until you loose your interest :) That's why we plan to release unfinished alpha version and expand and polish the game with updates while you are playing it. In this scenario TT3 is not an option - we can improve and grow TT2 instead. Starting location will have no impact on your character, it won't have impact on your main story line, however it will impact on your starting village and on side quests. I.e. if you start the game in Tundra - your village will be among snowy mountaints and fir trees, different climatic zones will have variations in strategic resources too. Also the starting place will impact on your physical location. For example if you and your firend both start in the same zone - you will have greater chances to be neighbours in the game. As for the resolution - yes, Totem Tribe 2 will support different screen sizes - big, small, wide, narrow, no problem.

There are 9 climatic zones on the planet (from top to bottom): 1. Arctic 2. Northern Tundra 3. Northern Grasslands 4. Northern Tropics 5. Equatorial Desert 6. Southern Tropics 7. Southern Grasslands 8. Southern Tundra 9. Antarctic Arctic and Antarctic are uninhabitable, the other 7 will be presented to you as a list and while you choose it, appropriate part of the planet will be highlighted on planet image. All those landmasses, totems, pyramids or the planet image are pictured just for fun, it doesn't mean that you start near the pyramid (but you might find a pyramid eventually if you start in the desert). Yes, both of you will have to choose Northern Tundra to be closer to each other. Jungle and Grasslands does not look very different like say Grasslands and Tundra because both are green. But if you take a closer look you will see that Jungle is lighter and have palm trees, while Grassland is a bit darker and have different trees and mountains. In the actual game will be easy to distinguish. But when you choose zone, whole zone will be highlighted so it will be easier to see the difference. And since you don't click of the planet the starting place, but rather pick the zone from the list, if will be clear enough of what will happen.

anneer, The game will be running in real-time no matter if you are online of offline (i.e. people will be gathering resources, workers will be constructing ordered building, buildings will be producing ordered units, etc.), therefore battles can happen even if you are offline - if your village have army, they will defend any attacks automatically without your attention. Therefore if your friend wants to help you in battle, he or she can send reinforcements to your village and go offline. Those reinforcement units will help you defending your village. This way no need to be online at the same time. And ofcourse TT2 will be perfactly playable with mouse only. Controls will be pretty much the same as in original game, but there will more new windows and buttons due to increased features. We will try to explain them in detail though. There will be comprehensive tutorial which will help you to learn all the new stuff.

vivia, Yes, main story line quests will be pretty much the same no matter where you start, however there will be some optional stuff that will depend on your starting location. Speaking about multiplayer - the game will be desined to be pretty much open ended - there will be at least 6 different victory conditions to suit different play styles. One of that victories is quest victory - it is achieved when you complete main story line. In other words acheiving quest victory is pretty much the same like beating original Totem Tribe. You can achieve that victory all alone no problem. All your interaction with other players will be limited to arranging proper defense of your village against random attackers - you don't even need to talk to anyone. Other victory types might require interaction with other players. For example to achieve Economics Victory you will have to build a huge and very expensive building called Wonder of the World to show whole world the riches and prosperity of your country. In order to build it - you will need a huge amounts of resources, thus you will have to become a successful merchant. And since market in TT2 allows to trade among real players, that can be called multiplayer interaction. Speaking about "when" I will make a news post later about current state of the game and our release plans.

An81angel, Arctics and Antarctics is basically a fancy names for "walls" in the world map. The world map will be cyclic horizontally, but we wanted to limit it on top and bottom. Noone can access those areas. To increase your chances to be neighbours you will have to start the game in the same zone at the same time. The longer delay between your starts, the further between each other you will be. If you don't like your neighbour you will have all the multiplayer options at your disposal :) If you can tell me why you would not like your neighbour, I will explain the possible options.

An81angel, Example A: 1. The game will place new players evenly, therefore all your neighbours will start the game at roughly the same time and will roughly the same army and resources, thus starting conditions will be fair. 2. There will be 1 week of beginner protection when you start, thus you will have a week to get used with the game and build up your defences. 3. Defending will be much easier than attacking. There will be numerous of cool defensive buildings - towers, wall, stash, not to mention your army. 4. Destroying buildings of other players will be even harder than attacking. You will need siege units which are expensive and available later in the game. 5. Finally there will be items which grant temporary protection from all attacks so you can use it in order to rebuild in worst case scenario Example B: 1. There will be ignore list so you can easily ignore any abusive or insulting person. 2. If someone not just annoying but insults you, there will be a report to moderator button. You just click it and your conversation is sent to moderators automatically. That person will be punished by silencing or even banning his/her account. Example C: 1. Like I said in previous example - ignore list will solve this problem easily. Neighbours is just people closest to you, they are not special in any way, they just people you have to deal with first cause they are closest to reach and can be the most useful to you or the most annoying due to their close proximity. Unfortunately, if you want to change neighbours, you will have to restart the game in a different place. You can't swap people cause the game will be made that way so people in the close area start roughly the same time as you, thus have relatively even conditions. If someone started earlier, he will have way more resources, bigger army, more buildings, and thus can defeat you easier. Such people are placed further to offset their obtained power. jeresandy, We do realize that a lot of TT2 players will be casual players who are not interested in battling with others players and will prefer to play the game like TT1. For such players or those who prefer to play solo we have made one special feature. In the early game you will be able to choose polity for your tribe. Polity is basically a set of bonuses and drawbacks. You can choose between Communality and Leaderism. - Communality is a polity for casual and solo players - it brings you 300% increase in defenses of your village, 50% of your storage cannot be plundered, but you will have only 30% of your potential when you attack other players. Therefore if you play solo, this polity is perfect for you cause it makes you uninteresting target for other players who want to attack you to get some free resources or just for fun - they will waste too much troops on you. - Leaderism is the other side of the medal - it is made for all those people who want to fully engage all multiplayer features. You can switch from Communality to Leaderism later in the game if you feel strong enough. We will make everything possible to make this game enjoyable to all kinds of players.

An81angel, Regarding your player interaction question. The best way to utilize player interaction is to find or create a good alliance. Alliance is a group of people that joined together to reach a common goal. That goal could be arranging common defense against annoying beggars and looters :) But usually alliance is a groop of friendly people. Anyone can make an alliance and invite there those people you want. You as an alliance leader can invite only serious and kind people. There will be some nice tools like shared diplomacy - you can arrange unions or non-attack pacts with other alliances. You can also levy tax from all players in the alliance - this is useful when someone in the alliance was attacked badly and needs resources to rebuild the village - all alliance members can pay taxes and those tax transfered to the member in need. Finally alliance will have a separate chat, so if you take only nice people in it, it will be a nice place to talk :) Oh, and items in the game won't be transferable, so less things to beg for beggars :)