Hello, I've always loved and supported Valheim and I am so excited for the new upcoming content and the resolution the developers showed into finishing their game properly out of Early Access.

Especially after playing V Rising, a new survival game sensation by Stunlock Studios, I couldn't help but think about some features that might be added on Valheim.

Server List

First of all, I am not sure if there's a reason behind this, but why not adding a server list hub in the main menu featuring both Official and Dedicated servers?

I am aware people can still look on third party sites or discord channel and see other players advertising their own servers, but having a centralized list of servers from which to choose from would be way better for user experience.

I understand that at the beginning, Iron Gate being a very small indie company with little to no funds, it might not have been possible to host a spectrum of base official servers with vanilla settings where players could reliably play on to meet other players and interact with them.

Dedicated servers are sometimes very good too and with very well taken care of communities, but sometimes they have their cons too:

• unlegit use of dev commands by server admins to spawn objects and materials to bring advantage only to an elite group of players on the server
• progress bound on a dedicated server will always depend on the owner's whim and could be easily lost even after dozens of hours poured into it
• unstable maintenance and quality

Which is why, in my opinion, dedicated servers are fine but official servers are also needed as an option.

Game Modes

Another thing I truly appreciated in V Rising is the choice between PvE and PvP mode, where you can adapt the game to your needs and likings.

Servers, both official and unofficial, could either present a wipe and a non-wipe variant for people who like their game differently.

But first, I want to introduce a possible new feature: Valhearts.

• VALHEART: this object can be placed within a players structure and will define, within a radius, a player's property. Only a maximum of X Valhearts can be granted per player within the servers. Player's property within Valheart is memorized and can be recovered upon distruction.
• Valhearts are core structures that require specific materials (can be magic or else) to be kept up and running, otherwise the building memorization within the radius is lost and the land can ultimately be taken down and claimed by other players.

PvP (Standard)

• PvP is enabled, and players can take hostile actions towards eachothers;
• Clans can be created with a maximum capacity of X players.
• Upon killing another player, you can loot their materials but not their gear;
• Other people's buildings can be raided and destroyed only from hour X to hour Y of the day;
• Players can destroy other players' Valhearts only when they're empty.
• Destroyed buildings are not permanently destroyed; instead a memory silhouette of them is created so players can re-build them the same way they were before being destroyed only at the cost of the material needed.
• Bosses drop trophies, but there is no need to bring those to the altar to unlock the power. Instead each power is unlocked and can be selected from players' Valhearts.
• Altars will display boss trophies only as a token of progress of the server.

PvP (Full-Loot)

• PvP is enabled, and players can take hostile actions towards eachothers;
• Clans can be created with an unlimited capacity of players;
• Upon killing another player, everything can be looted from their corpses;
• Other people's building can be raided and destroyed anytime.
• Players can destroy other players' Valhearts anytime, given they have a specific object design for Valhearts' killing.
• Destroyed buildings are permanently destroyed and need to be completely re-built.
• Bosses' trophies are limited to one and can be bound to the claimers' Valheart to select their power from it; if players who came later want them, they will have to hunt down the first claimers through a position marker on the map.
• Altars will dsiplay boss trophies only as a token of progress of the server.

PvE

• PvP is disabled, and players can take hostile actions towards eachothers only with the duel command.
• Clans can be created with a maximum capacity of X players.
• Players can't kill eachothers.
• Players can't raid nor destroy other people's buildings as long as their Valheart is active.
• Valhearts might be needed to keep important houses or villages or structures up without having the first player passing by griefing or destroying those structures; of course this can't be granted to every structure in the overworld or else it would overload with invulnerable structures scattered by players all around.
• Bosses drop trophies, but there is no need to bring those to the altar to unlock the power. Instead each power is unlocked and can be selected from players' Valhearts.
• Altars will dsiplay boss trophies only as a token of progress of the server.

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Of course, this is roughly a draft or an idea the developers could further polish and work on, I am not a game designer nor a game developer so there might be limitations and things I am not aware of.

Overally I am sure this is not as easily done as said, but it could be a great addition to the game. I just feel like Valheim feels so lonely to play, and it has EVERYTHING to potentially be like any other Survival Games such as ARK, Rust, V Rising etc., but it still lacks this core community server feature in my humble opinion.

Of course players will be able to create their own world/server and play as they've always been able to up until now.

What do you guys think?