Please don't introduce humans as battle-able enemies

Support! I think @Naike said it best: "I hate the idea of humans as enemies because it breaks my immersion of the world. I love how there’s no humans in this world and I’d prefer it stay that way."

I also agree with @Websteak about the poll potentially being skewed. Personally, I'm pretty much neutral on the other three options - none of them excites or un-excites me - I just know I don't want humans in the game.

Support. 

I greatly enjoy the idea of having wolvden be a game where humans don't really exist- a wild world where wolves are the equivalent of being the 'people' of this place. I have noticed dogs in one of the harder biomes, which is fine with me, but adding humans is just going to be too much- plus if you have to *kill* humans in battle, that might be triggering to some people. 

Support. I know humans kinda have to exist in game due to the existence of the guarding sled dogs encounter (and the lunar husky), but I don't think you should be able to battle or kill them. I'd honestly be fine if they added human encounters in explore, though I like the world without humans too, just no battling. If humans are added as battleable enemies I probably won't fight them anyway.

support!
human enemies do not seem like a good idea, but i'd be okay with encounters that don't involve battle.

Strong support, both for the uneven nature of the poll channeling votes into Human, and because I'd really like to see Wolvden stay a more natural, untouched kind of wilderness compared to Lioden's human-infested gameplay. The lack of humans actually make it so much more immersive to me, and I'd hate to see that go.

I’m okay with humans being alluded to or occasionally mentioned, but I like the status quo where I can play as a wolf pack running around doing their own thing. If humans have to be added, I really don’t want to fight them, it makes me super uncomfortable. And there are so many questions around which humans get added, and what the motivation is for fighting them - are they hunters? Random hikers? What race/ethnicity/nationality/time period? Which humans from when isn’t a neutral matter; if this game is set when I think it is (gold rush) then we’re talking about a time period marked by massive inequality and an ongoing genocide against indigenous people. Is the game going to touch on human historical events or ignore them? Because introducing humans while ignoring human history/culture isn’t a neutral option.

Also yeah, the poll was super biased.

Another thing I forgot to mention:

I mentioned it in the community poll in question, and I still wonder those questions. *Why* would humans be enemy encounters? *Why* do we have to fight/kill them? *Why* do we have to add humans in the game to begin with? Are they event exclusives? I really don't want that to be the case.

After some reflexion, my opinion is pretty close to @Badger, but I am still firmly on the no humans in Wolvden train. I strongly feel like the poll was biased to favor humans-- We already have a crocodile encounter (Morelets crocodile in the RF) and we have an alligator encounter too IIRC, and we have a good handful of birds like eagles and turkey vultures, so even if I am on the Condor train it would just be another bird. Humans would be the only ''new'' concept and the only concept that I am 100% against.

I'm not supporting this one.

Battling any enemy in-game is already a choice, no one is forced to target any specific enemy. If you don't want to battle humans, why should that playstyle be forced on others? I specifically do have humans as a threat to my wolves lore-wise and it would please me if I could fend them off as I fend off cougars prowling too near my pups.

And that's the thing- fend them off! The entire argument here seems to be that portraying wolves as hunting for humans is bad which is easily prevented by not making them prey you can hunt for. But encounters and battles? I absolutely want those! The main post even explains why-  because there are humans who do hunt wolves and go chasing after them, that's a thing that does happen in the world. I want it to happen here and I want to have the option to defend my pack from them.

I have high doubts that anyone playing this game is going to get stigmatised against wolves. If anything, games like these are played by people who romanticise them to the point of hilarity. There's a million art shops for people who love wolves and want art of theirs, there's about as many roleplay threads and links to external forums where people share that hype together. Media may influence how we think but this isn't a sort where wolves are demonised. For any arguments that POC would be targeted, there's a very simple solution: create diversity in encounters. Add some good humans who might be seen treating wounded animals, add some neutral that run away when they see you, and hunters as the bad faction. Distribute the roles evenly across races.

On that note, some users play evil packs. That's the fun thing about games like these, you make your own lore and your playstyle can follow it. So what if someone wants to target humans? Maybe someone decides to target them exclusively, that's their choice! My pack never harms baby animals, I actively avoid encounters where that can happen because it bothers me. You can do that too and avoid encounters where humans can be harmed! Trying to control the playstyle of others is just wrong, not everyone shares your set of morals so why should they be forced upon me? Why should a feature the majority voted on be scrapped because you don't want to play that way?

Absolutely not a shred of support from me.

I am also going with no support, Flower perfectly captured the reasoning why to me.

There seems to be some weird thought process happening that Xylax and the other artists are just going to completely mishandle how humans come across which is absurd. They've done an excellent job on all human encounters on Lioden and I believe they'll do just as excellent here.