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estiroseI'm putting this here for future interested parties (which is likely to be just me). At this point it is clear that since this is an open beta test I can talk about what I've seen. That being said, I've spent so much time jumping between towns and servers that I haven't gotten far with this version of the game.
Character Creation: Seems to be the same as the main game.
Choosing a town: You can choose to join a public town or create your own town. You can choose your town to be public or private. If it's public, anybody can join. If it's private, you have to invite people (you can do so by searching username at this point).
Leaving a town: This is apparently new in the current beta. You can choose to find a new town. The head of the town will get a note from "you" thanking them for your time in their town. If you don't like the town you've selected, there is a 10-minute wait to find a new town. (This may not apply if you never load into the new town.)
Characters: Some old, some new. My impression is that all of them were in previous tests, with one exception. This is from a very early multiplayer game standpoint, so any characters that arrive mid-game are out of the scope of this note.
Old characters who seem unchanged: Vivi, Hugo, Heidi, Owen, Burgess, Rian, Dan-bi, Cooper, Mabel, and Elsie, Rocky (other than the fact he's single here), Rocky's crew.
Old characters who look the same but their roles are a little bit different: Justice (he's not the head of the Civil Corps here), Crystal (not married to Rocky; works for Cooper and Mabel), Zeke (currently the head of the Church of the Light here), Trudy (teacher, married to the Mayor's assistant).
Characters who are younger here than their single player versions: Mort, Yan, Mason.
Old characters who seem to be missing at the start: Jensen, Matilda, Miguel, Pen, Catori, Arvio, Amirah, Mi-an, Qi (apart from the framing device), Fang and X, Unsuur, as well as all kids.
New characters: Email (the then-supervisor of the Commerce Guild), Martle (town founder), Lou (mayor), Howlett (monster hunter), Theodore (Trudy's husband).
Unsure:Unsuur (his house is labeled as his house and Justice mentions him in dialogue, but I have not seen him and Justice's dialogue doesn't seem to have been tweaked from his single-player version). The devs have stated that Unsuur is not in multiplayer (yet). Justice's mention of Unsuur in dialogue and the fact that his house is still labeled as his house are just bugs that Pathea has to fix.
Animals: I've seen Banjo, Captain for sure, and I think I've seen Nemo.
Differences in locations: Mason's workshop is Mason's workshop! You can't use it. The team gets a combined (outdoor at start) workshop with 4 beds under the sky in a location away from the main part of town - one must travel by Yakmel Cart to get to actual Sandrock. The Commerce Guild building exists like its single-player version but it's pretty empty. Your Commerce Guild is near the shared workshop.
The railway station does not exist, and neither does the path between the railway and the back of the main street. Neither does the bridge. Or the stage outside the Blue Moon (its iconic sign is also missing.)
Some shops do not exist in this version at the beginning. Under the Stairs and Amirah's shop are both closed as the siblings are not in the (early) game. So is Fang's clinic. The Wandering Y store is available after a relatively easy quest, but the stables have yet to be built. Most of them stock their early-game single player items (so players can get bars from Hugo's shop or ore from Eufala Salvage's shop if they haven't dug out the Breach). Vivi's shop exists but you can't buy leather from it. Water World has its entire stock from the start, even if you can't plant yet. You can buy the bronze pickaxe and axe from Hugo's. The Mysterious Man's shop from single player kind of exists (you can sell him certain things in return for Commerce Guild currency, but that's it). There are shops at your Commerce Guild as well.
The Eufala Salvage yard is not open at the start of the game. There is some copper scrap in the area of Eufala Salvage, but the salvage yard is in the multiplayer base area, in the really tall cliffs to the north. It's not open at the start but this is probably the first mission your guild will do. Likewise, the mining area is now at the Breach. (There is a new Hazardous Ruins on the other end of the Eufala Salvage area instead.)
There's some damage to the town; the area between Amirah's house and the Research Center/Museum/Mi'an's place is blocked and must be cleared with a bronze or above pickaxe. Ditto for the tunnel between Hugo's and the ranch. You must also dig out the Breach (the local Abandoned Ruins), though that only takes a regular pickaxe.
There are some minor changes to where characters live. Lou lives in what is Rocky's house in canon. Rocky sleeps in the Eufala Salvage office. I'm not sure where Crystal lives, presumably the apartments. Logan's house (not accessible in single-player except for one mission) is Howlett's in this version and you can visit it freely. Zeke lives where Matilda lives in single player, and it may be that Burgess lives down at the water office.
Shops are open 24/7 - no more waiting for it to be 8 to get bars from Hugo's.
Resources: The resources such as gravel (for stone), yakweed (for plant fiber), etc regenerate faster. Stone piles are now called "junk piles". Copper and tin can be mined (once the mine is dug out) as individuals or as a team (or bought from Eufala Salvage/Hugo's shop).
Storage: One chest is provided (current feedback is that this is too skimpy at any level; should be unlockable before CG (Commerce Guild) level 6 and should not cost what it does to upgrade). You can expand the yard and build housing by the normal means.
Story events: Not many so far in the early game. Some of them are likely to depend on other stuff that's not easy to do. (I'm looking at you, first Hazardous Ruin.) You do get Owen's little infodump event about the town, and the intro quests are similar to canon (including the one for data discs - since Qi is absent, that goes to Email to handle.)
Combat: Currently broken, and not in a good way. Characters automatically stop and resheathe their weapons after they've done their combos. This is not a huge deal if you're quickly trying to take care of very low-level aggressive animals or a wild yakmel, but is crucial when you are dealing with a monster mob (even with someone else with you) as they hit fast and they hit hard. Even people who don't solo events with mobs and bosses are having issues. (It looks like two combat-heavy missions with mobs are required to progress multiplayer storylines currently, which sucks.)
Combat ETA: there was a patch done late in the beta which fixed some of the issues. The builders are still sheathing their weapons when they shouldn't, but adjustments in the code made it so that monsters didn't hit so hard and fast, and aren't so resistant to damage.
Sleeping: Yes, you can be out 24/7 if you want. Sleeping seems to be optional, but it's good to do even if it's a nap. You can sleep until 7am if everybody present agrees to do so. You can generally wake people up to give them their commissions if you have to in a pinch. (Unlike single player, you do not have to be buddy level with somebody to enter their room.)
Commissions and such: There are five types of building that you can do, and two of them are unique to multiplayer. You can build machines (and furniture) for yourself, take individual commissions, build items as part of story quests, do co-op commissions (which are timed), and do co-op large builds (such as the sandfishing spot that you fish at in early single player and generally aren't). If a quest is purple, it's multiplayer/co-op and anybody can contribute.
Turning in stuff for co-op: This can be done by any player and doesn't have to be every item that's asked for. For example, you may need 30 brick for one co-op commission, but you can turn it in as you go. When you're looking at purple quests, only the bits that you've turned in count; so if you've turned in 10 brick, it will say 10 brick out of 30 even if you have the other 20 in your bag.
Not mechanic-wise: I've encountered a lot of players, and I want to make sure I find friendly ones when this comes out of test. I've gotten overactive (dude, do you ever want to tell the rest of us what you're doing/planning/leave us something to do) and others who are apathetic (please, please do something, please!). From watching Stardew multiplayer and some MTaS multiplayer, things seem to work best if you actually talk to one another and maybe split up what needs to be done.
Character Creation: Seems to be the same as the main game.
Choosing a town: You can choose to join a public town or create your own town. You can choose your town to be public or private. If it's public, anybody can join. If it's private, you have to invite people (you can do so by searching username at this point).
Leaving a town: This is apparently new in the current beta. You can choose to find a new town. The head of the town will get a note from "you" thanking them for your time in their town. If you don't like the town you've selected, there is a 10-minute wait to find a new town. (This may not apply if you never load into the new town.)
Characters: Some old, some new. My impression is that all of them were in previous tests, with one exception. This is from a very early multiplayer game standpoint, so any characters that arrive mid-game are out of the scope of this note.
Old characters who seem unchanged: Vivi, Hugo, Heidi, Owen, Burgess, Rian, Dan-bi, Cooper, Mabel, and Elsie, Rocky (other than the fact he's single here), Rocky's crew.
Old characters who look the same but their roles are a little bit different: Justice (he's not the head of the Civil Corps here), Crystal (not married to Rocky; works for Cooper and Mabel), Zeke (currently the head of the Church of the Light here), Trudy (teacher, married to the Mayor's assistant).
Characters who are younger here than their single player versions: Mort, Yan, Mason.
Old characters who seem to be missing at the start: Jensen, Matilda, Miguel, Pen, Catori, Arvio, Amirah, Mi-an, Qi (apart from the framing device), Fang and X, Unsuur, as well as all kids.
New characters: Email (the then-supervisor of the Commerce Guild), Martle (town founder), Lou (mayor), Howlett (monster hunter), Theodore (Trudy's husband).
Unsure:
Animals: I've seen Banjo, Captain for sure, and I think I've seen Nemo.
Differences in locations: Mason's workshop is Mason's workshop! You can't use it. The team gets a combined (outdoor at start) workshop with 4 beds under the sky in a location away from the main part of town - one must travel by Yakmel Cart to get to actual Sandrock. The Commerce Guild building exists like its single-player version but it's pretty empty. Your Commerce Guild is near the shared workshop.
The railway station does not exist, and neither does the path between the railway and the back of the main street. Neither does the bridge. Or the stage outside the Blue Moon (its iconic sign is also missing.)
Some shops do not exist in this version at the beginning. Under the Stairs and Amirah's shop are both closed as the siblings are not in the (early) game. So is Fang's clinic. The Wandering Y store is available after a relatively easy quest, but the stables have yet to be built. Most of them stock their early-game single player items (so players can get bars from Hugo's shop or ore from Eufala Salvage's shop if they haven't dug out the Breach). Vivi's shop exists but you can't buy leather from it. Water World has its entire stock from the start, even if you can't plant yet. You can buy the bronze pickaxe and axe from Hugo's. The Mysterious Man's shop from single player kind of exists (you can sell him certain things in return for Commerce Guild currency, but that's it). There are shops at your Commerce Guild as well.
The Eufala Salvage yard is not open at the start of the game. There is some copper scrap in the area of Eufala Salvage, but the salvage yard is in the multiplayer base area, in the really tall cliffs to the north. It's not open at the start but this is probably the first mission your guild will do. Likewise, the mining area is now at the Breach. (There is a new Hazardous Ruins on the other end of the Eufala Salvage area instead.)
There's some damage to the town; the area between Amirah's house and the Research Center/Museum/Mi'an's place is blocked and must be cleared with a bronze or above pickaxe. Ditto for the tunnel between Hugo's and the ranch. You must also dig out the Breach (the local Abandoned Ruins), though that only takes a regular pickaxe.
There are some minor changes to where characters live. Lou lives in what is Rocky's house in canon. Rocky sleeps in the Eufala Salvage office. I'm not sure where Crystal lives, presumably the apartments. Logan's house (not accessible in single-player except for one mission) is Howlett's in this version and you can visit it freely. Zeke lives where Matilda lives in single player, and it may be that Burgess lives down at the water office.
Shops are open 24/7 - no more waiting for it to be 8 to get bars from Hugo's.
Resources: The resources such as gravel (for stone), yakweed (for plant fiber), etc regenerate faster. Stone piles are now called "junk piles". Copper and tin can be mined (once the mine is dug out) as individuals or as a team (or bought from Eufala Salvage/Hugo's shop).
Storage: One chest is provided (current feedback is that this is too skimpy at any level; should be unlockable before CG (Commerce Guild) level 6 and should not cost what it does to upgrade). You can expand the yard and build housing by the normal means.
Story events: Not many so far in the early game. Some of them are likely to depend on other stuff that's not easy to do. (I'm looking at you, first Hazardous Ruin.) You do get Owen's little infodump event about the town, and the intro quests are similar to canon (including the one for data discs - since Qi is absent, that goes to Email to handle.)
Combat: Currently broken, and not in a good way. Characters automatically stop and resheathe their weapons after they've done their combos. This is not a huge deal if you're quickly trying to take care of very low-level aggressive animals or a wild yakmel, but is crucial when you are dealing with a monster mob (even with someone else with you) as they hit fast and they hit hard. Even people who don't solo events with mobs and bosses are having issues. (It looks like two combat-heavy missions with mobs are required to progress multiplayer storylines currently, which sucks.)
Combat ETA: there was a patch done late in the beta which fixed some of the issues. The builders are still sheathing their weapons when they shouldn't, but adjustments in the code made it so that monsters didn't hit so hard and fast, and aren't so resistant to damage.
Sleeping: Yes, you can be out 24/7 if you want. Sleeping seems to be optional, but it's good to do even if it's a nap. You can sleep until 7am if everybody present agrees to do so. You can generally wake people up to give them their commissions if you have to in a pinch. (Unlike single player, you do not have to be buddy level with somebody to enter their room.)
Commissions and such: There are five types of building that you can do, and two of them are unique to multiplayer. You can build machines (and furniture) for yourself, take individual commissions, build items as part of story quests, do co-op commissions (which are timed), and do co-op large builds (such as the sandfishing spot that you fish at in early single player and generally aren't). If a quest is purple, it's multiplayer/co-op and anybody can contribute.
Turning in stuff for co-op: This can be done by any player and doesn't have to be every item that's asked for. For example, you may need 30 brick for one co-op commission, but you can turn it in as you go. When you're looking at purple quests, only the bits that you've turned in count; so if you've turned in 10 brick, it will say 10 brick out of 30 even if you have the other 20 in your bag.
Not mechanic-wise: I've encountered a lot of players, and I want to make sure I find friendly ones when this comes out of test. I've gotten overactive (dude, do you ever want to tell the rest of us what you're doing/planning/leave us something to do) and others who are apathetic (please, please do something, please!). From watching Stardew multiplayer and some MTaS multiplayer, things seem to work best if you actually talk to one another and maybe split up what needs to be done.
