I've just spent a few hours reading this entire thread. I think the designers have made a good progression from VV1 to VV2 and I'm confident that they will do the same in VV3. I've only been playing both games this year. The one thing that concerns me the most is how much longer it takes to be a master at building than any other skill, even when there are buildings, etc to actually build. I've played about 8 games on VV2 and I can't make all my original villagers esteemed elders because of the builder "syndrome". I have to have at least one woman have 2 or 3 kids to keep collecting mushrooms and collectables, so that shortens her opportunity to be an elder, but even with the men it's difficult. Even following the Village Monk's guide, except I buy medicine before culture, hoping they will all live long enough to be elders. If builders continue to be more difficult to become master, then I want more buildings.

As for the who has sex with whom, I'm not too concerned about that because I've had villages that I only had 2 who could have kids together and it didn't matter if they were related, I needed kids to continue in the game (it is only a game, remember). (When things started with Adam and Eve, if you believe that, they were related to anybody they had kids with.) Altough I would like some record of who is related to who in the game rather than keeping it on my own in Excel, which I did in VV1 but just couldn't in VV2, way too much work.

My wish list for VV3 is to keep the stews so I can restore them and make builders when they haven't inherited the skill (or some other skill developed for VV3). Keep the collectibles although I've never got them all in any game but it still remains a challenge. I want it to remain an island and not a 21st century city look alike (in function or design, so rain, storms, etc is OK. I don't care about the hair designs, I like my kids with purple, lavender and pink hair.

Just as an aside, I went to Jamaica a few years ago and stayed in the country and the people there (including me) went to the stream and washed their clothes, took baths and gathered drinking water. The drinking water was gathered upstream. I say this only because I've seen threads where people have said they didn't like where the villagers went to get a drink in VV2, well, that's the way it is if you don't live in a city. Stop making everything be like where you live. There are millions who don't have the privilege.

At one time I thought that the villagers got too old/slow too soon but then I realized if I were on an island, doing all that hard work, I probably would age sooner than if I lived in the US. I'm 58 and don't move nearly as slow as they do in VV2.

I'm going to put my trust in the designers to develop a great VV3 and any game there after. We don't know what they were planning when they started VV. I'm sure they had a concept where this would all lead. And since I know nothing about designing games, I'm going to leave it up to them. After all we are here because we love the games, right? I'm confident we will love what they give us in VV3. Because we only have to look forward to VV4. Someone mentioned on this thread we have only seen 2 compass points in the 2 games. It doesn't take a genious to realize that at the very least we'll see the other 2 points and maybe one more game to rap it all up. So LDW, good work, can't wait to see what you do next.