New Mines - Why?

Before this gets out of hand this is focused on the Why was time spent creating whole new mines for low level players?

I just went out to try and hunt some Desert Wolves, I ran to Southern Grundvald Barrens. It is desert sandy, only tier 3 so I figured they should be around. I walked (and am still) walking all over hoping to scare up a few Desert Wolves and even more hoping to get a few clean heart shots to not damage their heads.

Anyhow in all my walks there are stone cliffs all around which could have easily had Ore nodes placed and critters bumped up or taken away to make them fair enough for lower tiered player.

All this would have taken was on guy to wander around and stick nodes here and there.

So Two new mones created - how much time / effort was spent doing this?

"We are soooooo busy working to get game ready for "release"" but time and time again all I see is time being spent on things NOT focused on fixing / completing the game for "Release"

Items to be sold?
Items made because of a bug, mailed out - bug fixed?
two new mines made ?
Add on store has 10 - 20 new items again?

Please can someone explain with some sanity why?

 

It says here - SOTAcon roundtable and community requests -

 

I understand your concerns, @Weins201. If it was necessary to build up the new mines?
If I have the sanity to tell, why? Don't know, give me a try

The mines were directly connected into the story and placed near the main paths.

I think it was a possible intention to have starting players closer to the beginning area for the first time.
For a newbie I think it is great not to run great distances from beginning, as it was for us until the outskirts (and now the new mines) were included.
They also connect existing places in a good way, what makes it easier for new players, too to feel more familiar with the new world and give more reason to explore near places.

To have the locations around the main paths better connected, seems to be a very good idea.
And for next episodes, I guess, other places will be done the same way and the continent will grow further with population and good story elements and more alive ...

For me it was a good step in the right direction for a more fluently story telling. The quests give meaningful decisions to the player, what a lot of players also wanted to have.
Well. For me it was great fun to explore them, the design is really good.
And it was the first time to have a reason to explore the places, connected through (For example: Solania and Lost Whiteguard Silver Mine (Love)).

If the next 4 months will provide more polish like this, Episode 1 is in a really good state.
And yes, I prefer to play the storyline, which is improved alot since the last few months.
[--> Also the first created Solace Bridge outskirts received new -good- story content and improvement!]

Making decisions of players more meaningful - what happened with this release in a further good way - gives a good feeling to take part of the story.
And if a few places get polished like this, helping the whole story to be a better one, I would say, this is okay.
Other locations -not involved in the main story line- can be polished later, while the game is official released.
Just my -storydriven- opinion