One of the many, many factors that will set the upcoming Book of Travels apart from your boiler-plate online RPGs is that the game won’t be availing itself of text chat. Rather, as explained in a new dev blog, Might and Delight is taking a cue from its previous Meadow to implement a robust emote system to facilitate basic player interactions and cooperation.
“In Book of Travels you’ll be able to make detailed characters and then set them adrift to be someone new — free of the language and mindset of your everyday self,” Might and Delight said. “Your growing collection of emotes will add another dimension to your expressive capabilities and we’re very excited to see how players use additions to build on ways to express themselves.”
The studio acknowledged that players are going to want text chat and speech options even still, but instead of stepping up to provide those options, Might and Delight is pushing the responsibility on players and third-party apps: “Of course many people will want to  find spaces and places to talk to one another in text and speech, and that’s something we’ve heard a lot of requests for. We are very keen for you to do just that.”
Book of Travels is looking at an August 30th date for early access, but don’t clear your calendar for it just yet — the studio has delayed this launch three times so far.
