UPDATED: 18/05/2019

I will preface this by saying YES I UNDERSTAND THIS IS AN EARLY ACCESS GAME... that being said, the amount of money one makes off of a game, in my opinion, also helps determine whether or not a game is truly "Early Access" or if the developers are just trying to use that as an excuse. So... let's get on with this.

In one of the comments on this review, I said that it would be the devs that made me leave this game... it seems they are taking that as a challenge, as things have changed drastically since my initial review.

I am officially changing my review to a downvote. Since my initial review, the devs had made poor decision after poor decision. Initially they went very heavy-handed on the pro-PvP changes, then they back-pedaled and went heavy on the pro-PvE changes. Finally, we thought that they had managed to find that balance between the two when they closed all the servers (but one, the RP server) and opened a new, all inclusive PvP and PvE map. Again, that wasn't the case.

The changes made to PvE were unnecessarily tedious (example: it has been 4-5 months and most people's max flax QL is no more than 50. In the same 4 months, we've just barely managed to start providing warhorses to those lucky enough to have them)

The changes made to PvP were unnecessarily restrictive (example: using ANYTHING but siege ladders to enter a base is a BANNABLE offense. Furthermore, a guild must have a T3 outpost and a T3 monument to seige another guild (note: a T2 monument with a T2 outpost costs 2.5 gold coins per RL day (2.5 million support points). T3 monument and one T3 outpost is 5g per RL day (5 mil support points). That's all well and good except the trade post fails to work more often than not, forcing guilds to pay in god's coins (premium in-game currency purchased with RL money). The God's Coin equivalent would be about 5USD per RL day, or 150USD per month. (1 mil support points = 1000 God's coins = 1USD.

These examples are really the last straw, and I don't think it's worth the time to mention everything else that has gone awry over the past 12 months. Suffice it to say that, as a LIF:MMO player from day 1, and having nearly 5000 hours in playtime, I'm going to go ahead and say that I believe that this game won't make it through another year.

--------------------------------OLD REVIEW STARTS HERE--------------------------

So I was going to hold my review until the game was released, but I feel it has far too many half-educated bad reviews for that. Steam should weight reviews based on playtime.

Firstly, as of writing this, only half of my overall playtime is shown here as I started playing pre-steam. (800+ hours not shown)
Is LIF grindy as all hell? Yes, absolutely.
Is it glitchy, buggy, easily exploitable? Undoubtedly so.
Has it improved vastly in the 5 months since its original beta launch? Yes, and I expect it to continue to do so.

And that's the problem with "early access" games. You are paying, voluntarily, for an unfinished product but far too many expect a finished product for their money. The overall feel of the reviews here reflect that.

Furthermore, a great many of the negative reviews are based on a solo play mindset. The sort of people that want an alt for every skill (a feat which costs 10$ per) when the world is designed for cooperation (to some extend). If you want fast food, you don't (usually) buy land, get permits, build a resturant, order supplies, and then make yourself some fast food. You find a place already equipped to offer fast food and you trade for it lol But time and time again, this is the mindset people have when they approach LIF. Soloing in LIF can be done, but not without A.) Paying for every character you want, and grinding many MANY hours per day or B.) Being willing to trade with other players for things you need.

It's also worth noting that the content shown in some of the game trailers (the first video on this page, I believe)... most of it isn't even possible in game (yet?). The animations, layouts, and models used in this video don't exist in the forms shown. This goes a long way to selling people something that they can't have (right now) and may never have depending on how development goes.

Why do I give LIF a positive review? Because of the overall community. As I said, LIF itself is grindy, buggy, easily exploitable (for now)... but it's one of the few games that has created an environment that allows communities to grow, change, collapse, and regrow as new stronger communities. Most MMOs require little actual personal investment from guildmates into their guilds since they're essentially just a large "party" system, but in LIF you are a cog in the whole system that is the guild. The forester grows trees for the carpenter to make handles for the smith to make tools for the farmer to harvest the wheat that becomes straw for the horses (to later be trained into warhorses by the trainer) and wheat for the cooks to make flour in the windmill that was built by the whole group.

To me, that's beautiful progress.

Of course, it's also prudent to bear in mind that with that beautiful rewarding teamwork comes the risk of being raided, having all those supply chains interrupted, and that idealic windmill destroyed. Too many seem to forget that LIF is also a heavy PVP game, and when everything beautiful gets razed to the ground, they want to quit. It's a natural reaction of course, desperation sets in when faced with what seems to be redoing MONTHS of work... but when you have a community of already skilled workers, pulling resources from already established resource sites, that time is greatly condensed; some times into as little as a few days.

So, the TL:DR of the whole thing goes like this for me:
LIF is a crappy but swiftly improving game about building things with friends and strangers, while attempting to defend against other friends and strangers.
Graphics: 10/10
Audio: 8/10 Needs less dirt dropping sound, and more ambient sounds
Story: 5/10 The lore is nice, and I look forward to seeing where they go with the "Natives" concept but there's no real story so far except the ones we make for ourselves
Community: 11/10 I could be the odd-man-out here, but I even value my in-game enemies as part of my overall community.


Doctorine Kureha, Queen of the Kingdom of Arandar [discord.gg] [/h1]