Soon a new V.U will be launched with some nice new features and improvements.
Group/Team hunt is one of them as well friendlist.
Another good one is much more different kind of loots and almost non no looters anymore.
Also a new name for the project along with a new logo will make the game ready for a new fresh year of development in 2013. (Project Ion)
In 2013 John wants to pick up crafting as first as for this much is in place already on design and coding.
Building in a system to gain and have advantage from skills will be one of the spear points in 2013 along with a huge list of other neat dynamics.
There is also worked on some ear-candy aka ingame radio broadcasts and with this we hope to see also the implementation of creatures and avatars sounds to give the project even more realism.
As seen in other games you have different ways to find and harvest ore. The implementation of mining will be also a part of the development in the first months from 2013.
Along with more recources come more items and of course it would be nice to find recources over a greater area than the present day 1000 by 1000 feet. So expect to discover much more area soon.
Vehicles will be nice in case of bigger area's and I have seen Eddie already drive a hummer around in one of his testbuilts so who knows what to expect on that later in 2013.
Agriculture will be a unique feature worked on along with other creative idea's yet to be announced.
The developers will keep a playable demo up and will just as last year offer a update regular.
Hope this anwsers your question.