Okay...I 'finished' my first full game. Though I have started another I still interact with the first...just to keep it going out of curiousity. The suggestions I have already posted still apply but for this 'after' time what would be nice, and seemingly easy to do, is :

Let those selected for parenting spontaneously teach the children also. They spontaneously embrace but must be manually selected to teach or tell stories or otherwise interact with the kids. (For one this would help with the problem of parentings slow build of points and also I think it is more realistic that parenting skill is aquired by other means after the little ones are mobile.)

Also, same idea with healers/doctors, they should spontaneously study plants when not actively healing someone. The idea of a research table near the hospital for doctors was a good one. (Again this helps with the slow build of skill points and, I hope, is more realistic that doctors seek to improve skills by other means than actual treatment.)

Another suggestion is to actually have a use for the hospital. I have never had even one villager lay in the cot.

And this would help for those like me who are done solving the game but not done playing the game, please, please let us change the kids clothes. I have over 7 million tech points and nothing to spend it on. Boo-hoo.

Finally, my villagers found a sack of cogs and springs but never built anything. Why not? I lost one villager to strange voices. Where'd he go? And after all my playing I never found out who the parents were, where'd they go, where Biggles came from or who Tofu is. Did I miss something or will we find out in VV3? When will VV3 come out by the way? I'm anxiously awaiting.

I know it's prolly just a glitch, but in VV3 could the name changing problem be fixed? I'll have someone's name change to the person next to them in the list and then can't remember what it was to change it back. Luckily in VV2 it shows the parents of the children(which is really cool, by the way) and the name doesn't change there. I've been using that to change them back...but for the older ones that don't show their parents anymore, it gets a little frustrating having to rename them.

Hello,
This morning (11h AM in Paris, ;)) I went back to see my villagers of VV1 (the last time it was 2 weeks ago, and every thing goes very well without me! :/) And I thought that there is some little things that I like very well in VV1 there are not in VV2 as: the school with a drum (I have said before), the well where I like to bring some one to drink when he is a little bit tired, and a sculpture but something else than an idol. When we have "the Child Prodigy", he is supposed to build many strange and uncommon things but we can't see anything! It would be funny that, at 14 years old or later, he builds (with other villagers, maybe) or sculpts surprising constructions!
I often read that many peoples would like to see children collecting mushrooms and items by their own, I think it would be too easy but I can understand that it take too much time! I suggest a compromise: children could collect items and mushrooms that they have collected once before (when they know it) and when they are near of them. So we have to teach them to do it.
(Sorry, I'm not sure to be very clear)

I love the addition of the hospital and sewing hut in vv2.

How about a workshop so builders can gain skill other than by fixing huts after all the buildings are erected?

More clothes, too I like to give my villagers 'uniforms' so that I can more easily put them where they're supposed to be while they train for elder status. Here is a picture of a few builders wearing brown, fixing a hut.


It would be nice to have some kind of headdress, accessory, or more special type clothing for elders to wear.

I like the idea of the headdresses or special clothing for the elders...that would be neat.

I also like the idea of a workshop for builders to gain more exp points. Once all the "building projects/puzzles" are done...the fixing of huts is not enough to gain many exp. points.

What if the healers after getting to adept status, instead of wandering around like they're lost...pick one of the special flowers/herbs that are on the island and bring it to the hospital to research with or to use as medicine for the hurt/sick. Maybe adding different kinds of ailments instead of sitting down and coughing...building accidents, kids scrape a knee, someone eats something bad from the jungle, researching accidents/burns...
That would be fun and help the doctors gain exp. points a little easier.

The same could be said for the researchers...they could find different items, other than what the kids gather, around the island and do research on them.

Just a few more things that popped into my head after reading Tanya's post.

ideas (and % likelihood, in my opinion)
1. have things only pregnant women can do (35%)
maybe, while they're taking care of babies, they can network with other pregnant mothers, and this would increase their parenting. would also make it possible for women to be elder a lot sooner than otherwise is feasible.

2. upgradable buildings (75%)
maybe the huts get stronger
maybe they become two stories
maybe a man who is an elder, and father of at least ten kids, can build their kids a tree-swing

3. activities that will allow the adults to build in more than one field at once (50%)
the tree-swing (#2 above) could be an increase in parenting AND builder

4. upgradable accounts (70%)
make the game completely awesome in and of itself, but allow importing from a completed VV1 or VV2 game (defining completed as having finished all puzzles, reached a certain population, or whatever) and allow those to have access to "five hidden levels" or faster tech point gains or maybe one free tech level at any point of your choosing)

5. freewill gauge (20%)
i'd like a visual way to determine the likelihood a villager will actually act out the profession i've chosen. if I've assigned the villager to be a farmer, i'd like to know how enthusiastically they'll engage, or whether I'll have to babysit until they become adept/master

6. flow toggle switch (72%)
i'd like if there were a way to see how close to improving/leveling up a villager is. As it stands, the only tech we can track with any reliability is researching
say a certain combination of flowers in a mortar and pestle by a master scientist would reveal how many "this villager is improving at XXXX"s are needed before the villager in question improves
or maybe a toggle on the options screen to show white numbers in the middle of the sliding bars to see numerically their advancement

7. a seventh tech level (15%)
i'd like, as a complete surprise, that once you finish all 3 levels of each tech, that you have one more 3-level tech to finish, that has game-enhancing qualities that are separate from the other six, but complement them somehow

8. elder necklaces / mentors (80%)
instead of elder totems, how about elder necklaces? It makes sense that an elder would want to pass on their knowledge to someone else, and it seems shame to lose all that built of knowledge - what if that knowledge could be "stored" in a necklace, and they could give it to 1 child. that child couldn't use the knowledge until they were an adult, but would gain some benefit from the necklace, like..
A - automatic mastery once the adult makes adept
B - learn that skill twice or three times as fast
C - doesn't gain faster themselves, but anyone learning the skill with them gains faster because he/she's a natural leader

9. plot resolution (90%)
i don't know if its possible, but I'd like a resolution to the plot. VV1 and VV2 have a kind of single story of which they're a part, and I'd like if the resolution to the story were contained in this final installment to the franchise.

10. food for tech (10%)
i'd like, once you reach third level food or science, if you could exchange food for tech points or vice versa

11. how about recipes that (50%)
improve speed (not much, maybe non-cumulative 10% increase) in a given tech
increase the likelihood of having a boy or girl in childbirth
tweak (randomly) the preferences (likes/dislikes) of the person who eats it
makes them villagers immortal as long as a certain puzzle isn't solved
makes a man pregnant
causes a random event to occur on the island
makes all the elders 30 years older and no longer elders
randomly switch skills (once a master scientist, now they're a master parent!)
makes an adult a child (temporarily or permanently)

12. Gilligan's Island references (2%)
personally I'd be entertained if some sort of reference were made to GI during this last installment - maybe a random event that looks suspiciously like a coconut radio or maybe a set of outfits that look like what the GI residents wore

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"The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision." - Helen Keller

I agree with adding more plants, but could we find more whenever we purchase more exploring, for instance? I also like the idea of children learning to collect on their own. Anything that is new to the child, he/she would have to be picked up and taken to it, but once it is repeated, the child would learn what it is and get it automatically.
We have fish, which have a certain point, and crabs that are more points. Mushrooms and red mushrooms. How about cocounts, berries, or whatever and maybe golden cocounts and white berries for higher points? Only the master can harvest them...
Yes, yes! More tasks for the children, more interaction of adults and children. Maybe have the pre-teens babysit and gain parenting skills?
Definitely more puzzles. Not necessarily harder, but more! I love these games!!!
Can we have a "penalty box" for those villagers who won't learn anything despite all the prodding you do? Instead of killing them off with stew, we can put them in detention, prison, or whatever for not contributing to the welfare of the tribe? They could be tasked with cooking for the tribe (like KP in the military?)or maybe they could do the laundry!

I love the idea of a workshop for the builders. In vv2 I have been having a hard time keeping builders.

Personally, the things I'd like to see changed the most are more gravestones and totems, and all villagers able to become Elders when they earn the right, even if they can't get a totem.

I was so disappointed when I had one special villager become an Elder at 31... (with no special tricks or cheats, he was just naturally awesome). But he made Elder after the cemetery was full, so it was too late to have a special notation on a gravestone when it was time for him to be buried.

A larger cemetery area would allow for us to become more attached to our little villagers and their accomplishments, as we read the stones and recall what we helped them achieve. This pleasure could be increased by our having the choice to change certain headstones to "special" stones that marked the resting place of remarkable villagers, even if only by using a different stone color (like sparkling white).

Additionally, I'd very much like to see much smaller totems that would be easier to place. Perhaps designed as sections of real totems, where they are stackable... maybe 5 to 7 high. If the totems were stackable, you could assemble "Legendary Totems" built up of the totems of your greatest villagers.

And, on the subject of totems, there might be a special Totem Area, where all the totems could be stacked as they are earned... perhaps a "sacred" area dedicated to ancestors. Each villager's totem could be inscribable, noting his/her special accomplishiment(s), which you could read when you moused-over them.

On another subject, it would be great to be able to increase the effects of the different stews, so that each stew truly did something unique. It's silly (and a frustrating disappointment) that so many of the stews in VV2 do exactly the same thing. A "speedy" stew would be a nice addition, a "faster learning" stew would be another, and a "work, work, work" stew could really come in handy too. The effects would be temporary, so as not to unbalance the game, but very much appreciated in the case of dealing with some villagers.

Clothing. MORE CHOICES! Perhaps something unique designed especially for Elders... (I dress all my Elders in white right now).

Buildings. Communal hoguns would be much more realistic than the tiny huts we have now, and they should take much longer to construct.

Perhaps the builders could construct the totems as they are earned. That way all the totems would show up in a certain "totem construction area", and you could watch as each totem slowly formed while the builders worked.

Maybe they could build little boats that only lasted a short time, so they constantly needed to be replaced with new boats. They could also construct farming tools that wore out and constantly needed replacing.

What I mean is that if three skills are to be required to make Elder, then all the skills should be viable and truly useful all the way through the game.

I would like more areas to open up as you gain exploration points. Also why not make fishing a seperate skill from farming. Let them use nets or a boat. Doctors should have something to do in the hospital maybe medical research using some of the plants. Or for the goulish maybe operate on sick villagers? Possibly villagers could meet up with explorers from another tribe (leading into VV4) It would be good if as children near working age they could learn to pick up items they have collected befor.