Thanks for playing. I wanted to make the game easier to learn without forcing people to do so. It filters those who don't really pay attention to things and wouldn't enjoy the game anyway and makes learning for those who want to learn much easier. Didn't want to add mandatory tutorial or put tips everywhere by default, so I think this is a good solution.
Master volume slider is something I have been thinking about. It should be possible to add. I will look into it.
The "sorry" dialogue is an oversight. The game tracks when you kill something for the first time and the npcs will comment on that. The tutorial dummy counts as killing, that's why Billy says that.
The harvest part of the potato quest can be skipped simply by playing the tutorial (you get 10 potatoes from that) and harvesting the rest from around the map. I will adress that.
Cooking points are equal to your cooking skill, so learning cooking recipes doesn't increase them, working for Billy or training with Suong will. This should even be visualised in the status window. The number in the brackets are your crafting points, the number before them is your skill. However you can't really soft lock your self. You can buy some cooked food from the Riverstone Inn and it refreshes every week. And even if you run out completely, you can still rest in your tent and skip time forward that way.
Questlog should update every time you talk to John. The "tips" he gives you are pretty much what's writen in there, but I might add a simplified versions of those to the diary, which is pretty much useless right now. This might make it little more useful.
Achievements are something I'm not really sure about. Some people like them but I just don't think they really fit the game. I will probably remove them and replace them with some rival NPC giving you challenges.
Addiction works like this. You drink something and you get 1-5 addiction points, depending on the drink. Every week, you loose some mood and one addiction point so if you stop right away, you will stop being addicted in a week or two. If you continue, then stoping will become much harder. The drunk state is (I think) dependant on your strength an health. Once you get older, it will be much harder to get drunk.
Arf is pretty much the weakest follower in the game and he doesn't get any stronger. He can protect you from weaker overworld enemies, but becomes useless in dungeons or caves. He is there to make the early game easier for new players by protecting them from the weakest enemies and giving them a little bit of food. He has little to no use once you establish your self a bit.
It looks like I accidentaly removed the dialogue Helena has if you ask about the quest. I fixed it in a matter of seconds, but before I upload new version, you can go to the table in the library and put in number "355". If you decide to play some more that is.
As for forgeting certain locations, It can happen. I will be adding propper map you can pull out at any time that will show you locations you visited (No quest markers or your current position will be shown there. Only names of locations and positions of NPCs you are friends with). This should make traveling and questing much easier for new players.
The wording in most windows will have to be improved in some way. Some show little information and some show needlesly too much. I should get to it as soon as possible. "You have" is what you currently have. "Will make" is how much will be added, so if you have 5 and make 6, you will have 11.
Again, thank you for playing. Long posts touching on multiple things are very useful and help me greatly.