I've been giving a lot of thought to the game's flow. Like where the player goes at what point of time. As someone who has run Dungeon and Dragon campaigns I already know how players like to do everything, but what you want them to do. While there are multiple options in my game, certain events have to take place before other events do. So in order to facilitate this I'm trying a gentle way to point the player in the right direction.

http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q255/Venks428 /Outside.png

For example the npc in the house just before the next one suggests that you go into the neighboring house. At first there were very few trees south of these houses, but I decided nature should flourish. By having trees blocking the way to the southern house it should hopefully make less players head there first. There is also a dirt path that connects all of the houses in the village together. Though I haven't had my play testers try this out yet. I won't be completely surprised if my testers decide that they should go to every other house, but the very next one. I'll just have to wait and see.

It's not that I have anything against exploration, but I am against player frustration. Players usually get pretty grumpy when they are confused about what they are supposed to be doing. But they also get irked if you have lengthy tutorials or too much hand holding. Hopefully I can find the right balance.