Last week, Nightingale developer Inflexion Games invited players to participate in a Discord AMA to talk about what’s next for the gaslamp survivalbox. That Q&A session did indeed happen, and while it doesn’t look like there are any videos from the affair, there is a Discord transcript. If you’re not keen on joining a Discord for one hyperlink (and we don’t blame you), read on for a little synopsis.

First off, the devs did mostly address the elephant in the room regarding Nightingale’s odd update focus. Here CEO Aaryn Flynn admits that the team has been pulled in two different directions between making more quest content and making more sandbox content, and further says that the team has been trying to do it all to the detriment of both. “There’s been a lot of internal conversation about this after the update about where we can take this and what we can do. And honestly, no denying the game is at a crossroads,” he remarked.

However, it would appear that sandbox features will be the next bigger focus going forward, starting with the dedicated server feature and later plans down the road to include more procedural realm content, new biomes, and the potential for a boss rush mode or a large invincible threat that players have to try to avoid, a la Shai Hulud.

On the subject of dedicated servers and what they mean for multiplayer, the devs effectively have shut down any aspirations of having public servers or anything beyond encouraging players to play solo or in small groups, though the possibility of opening a public server to encourage players to come together and complete goals was floated. The suggestion of having shared world saves was also brought up by players and was promised to be brought back to the team.

Other answers discussed things like improving follower functionality and AI, the promise of more endgame-focused feature updates, confirmation that at least one more wipe would happen when the game hits 1.0, and the promise to introduce more magical powers, which the devs admit were a bit too stringent in the initial going. Many of the plans forward don’t have any kind of arrival date of any sort, but it does appear that at least many discussions are happening.