Island Sanctuary feels intentionally slow and inefficient.

[VelKallor]

It's normal to ask what's in it for me.

Thats up to each of us to decide. Same for you..I cant speak to that. I know that in my case, Ive opened the island and will get started in a day or so, but Ill come back to it off and on for weeks and wont hurry. So crops will take a while, big deal. Ill go off and play or curl up in bed with a good book, come back later when its ready.

Its an ISLAND. Separate from the rest of the world. No Meteion, no Asciians. no Grand Companies with disasters only you can fix, no monsters to fight, for once the Warrior of Light has a place to relax, sleep, wander with no intrusion from the outside world.

Twelve knows we have earned it.

In many ways the island is a lot like the game, as Yoshi himself has said, go off and do other things, play other games, come back when you feel like it and dont get burnt out.

What was the first thing I did? Went for a swim, then sat and listened to the music and the wind blowing through the trees, knowing that the one thing I wont be hearing is some Storm Lieutenant running up to me to tell me that a primal has roared, or the tribes are restless, or that someone is having trouble with a monster hamster they forgot to feed and is now eating peoples cats.

It will be there FOREVER, unlike another MMO whose idiotic FOMO mantra is "do this NOW or its gone and will never be back", the island will be there a week, a month, a year from now, with more added as time goes on.

What is the island for?

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking,

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

[ADarklore]

I don't understand why there are so many people who are okay with being inconvenienced to this extent when trying to enjoy a game. Do you feel like it's a cardinal sin to have criticism about this game or something? I just want it to be better and take into consideration that time-gating content is not enjoyable at all. Is that really so bad? Do you think that's toxic or something?

I didn't expect this to be like Animal Crossing but I expected it to at least respect a player's efforts in trying to enjoy it. I don't think I should be ashamed or excluded because I wanted this to be better than what we got.

Is this your first MMO? MMOs are 'time sinks', they're meant to force you to spend time to accomplish most anything. There is a thing called GRIND in MMOs... sounds like Island Sanctuary is just that, another grind, albeit this one meant to be more of a 'relaxing' grind.

[Kuroka]

It feels too slow... or rather just in the middle between "do hardcore material grind" and "tab in every now and then and have some fun" ...

Its a lot better once you can mount, but the exp is way too little and it takes time till you get things running... at first its a lot of... welll work lol.

[Saimeren]

I mean, everything about mmorpg's is supposed to be slow. That's just the nature of the genre.

[Adeacia]

I only have a couple of hours to play each night due to work. The slow burn of the IS works very well for me.

Though last night I ran out of things to do and had to wait for timers, so I just started the new MSQ instead while I waited. No reason to rush.

[Deveryn]

I only have a couple of hours to play each night due to work. The slow burn of the IS works very well for me.

Though last night I ran out of things to do and had to wait for timers, so I just started the new MSQ instead while I waited. No reason to rush.

And this is why it's as slow as it is, so people can enjoy the rest of the game.

Probably the only bad thing that can happen is you miss too many consecutive days and your animals run off.

[DezereDawn]

Waiting around isn't content, i haven't even really done a whole lot other than gather a few extra things to set myself up for the next week and i'm already at rank 7 due to playing the supply and demand well


As "casual content" it still fails to impress, as once you've spent a handful of hours in it, you're basically better off waiting a week outside of watering/feeding. and as i stated on the outset, waiting is not content, and never will be.

[Raim]

I know they want the place to be semi automated, but they really need to buff the granaries to support this. You pay to send out a team for 24 hours and they come back with 2 of each item that would have taken you 5 seconds to gather manually.

[LianaThorne]

I don't get why you're using casuals as a defense of time gates. If anything, the fact that this game is catered to casuals should mean time gates are more harmful. Wouldn't it be better if it was more flexible and less time gated so that casuals could spend time playing when they wanted? Imagine spending the whole week bogged down by work/school work + the rest of life and you just want to spend the weekend relaxing and building up your IS. Then you hit a couple of time gates and you can't do anything super meaningful with it for most of that free time.

My point was that it's meant to keep an even playing field between groups, not that it's catered to any particular group. And yes, they can do that but what happens when those who can play 24/7 zoom ahead while those who can't are making small bits of progress every couple of days or weekend? Would that not lead to some feeling like they can't keep up and abandon the activity all together when they realize the scope of what they need to do to get to where everyone else is?

I'd rather an online game lock progress for x amount of time to give everyone regardless of playstyle the chance to get to the same point before allowing for more content to be consumed by the whole. That's all I meant. It keeps it even. If you can't get there within the time gate then that sucks but it gives a chance at least.

Also, for the record, I'm thinking of time gating in a similar fashion to what Tower of Fantasy currently has. It gives everyone a chance to catch up to level cap before they unlock more.

[Striker44]

Waiting around isn't content, i haven't even really done a whole lot other than gather a few extra things to set myself up for the next week and i'm already at rank 7 due to playing the supply and demand well


As "casual content" it still fails to impress, as once you've spent a handful of hours in it, you're basically better off waiting a week outside of watering/feeding. and as i stated on the outset, waiting is not content, and never will be.

Perhaps because there's a veritable mountain of other content to do? This is an MMORPG, not a farming simulator. Island Sanctuary isn't even the main content of the game, let alone the only content...