February 2025 Development update: Forging ahead - version 1.21 and beyond

[Vanny21]

11 hours ago, Tyron said:

We are focusing on Vintage Story. This new hire works solo on his own game project within the company, and will remain solo for the foreseeable future. There is little in common between both projects - with different skillset requirments. The VS Team is about 20 people by now with more to come.
 

We are not those companies.

Thx for message  

[BearWrestler]

Thanks for the rideable animal and sailboat. Travel being very hard with most of your tech progress being rooted in place was a downer on the game experience. Exploration will be more fun, although better solutions to carry containers around are still needed, and we don't have the equivalent of a cart for overland travel.

Caves

Any chance of having an update focused on spelunking and caves soon? It is on your roadmap after all. Caves you can actually explore for a long time and that are sometimes beautiful is something I'm direly missing from Minecraft. I mostly played pre-Caves&Cliffs, and you could find some amazing caverns where water and lava falls mix creating beautiful scenery in that game. One of the main reasons I find it hard to come back to VS is that the caves are boring, hard to traverse and lead nowhere (not to mention the annoying amount of vertical shafts that want to kill you when you explore the surface), and when there's the occasional nice cavern, you can't enjoy the sights because of monster spam and that infamous gear turning left on your UI stressing you out.

The discrepancy between the lackluster caves and the gorgeous and very explorable overworld is quite striking at the moment. Hope something can be done to allow for nice, contemplative spelunking while still keeping the depths or some challenge areas scary for players who are looking for a fight. I think a nice reference is Terraria with its corrupted areas.

Regrowth

I was disappointed to find out that even plants you'd assume would grow back over time are a finite resource placed during worldgen. Given how much the game encourages investing resources into costly building materials for settling in one place, I think the player needs to be able to rely on nature a bit more. It's a bit sad to walk around areas nearby to your base to find them stripped of berry bushes, reeds (because you had to eat), crops, beehives, trees, etc. Chunks could at least keep track of how many plants of each type they had initially, and very slowly regenerate them until they're back to the amount they had at worldgen... same with trees, although those are more complex due to being spread on multiple blocks. (I also wonder if you could make animals [and eventually birds] vectors of plant propagation like they are IRL. The wind and just roots extending underground are obviously more important to some plants, but animals have the advantage of already costing CPU to simulate... so attaching extra effects shouldn't be that bad.)

[Khondza]

On 2/21/2025 at 10:10 AM, Tyron said:

• Elk taming system: The elk should not be locked behind the lore content

 

Will purchasing the elk from the TH Trader be removed or will it just be an alternate way to get the elk?

[DUCATISLO]

14 hours ago, Khondza said:

Will purchasing the elk from the TH Trader be removed or will it just be an alternate way to get the elk?

pretty sure it's an alt thing we can do soo...both ways ig...

[Thorfinn]

On 2/24/2025 at 4:28 AM, DrEngine said:

3. We get a lot of new players. We want to assign player some group (Novice, Player, Skilled player, Expert, Veteran). We want every group has its own spawn point, salary, etc.... We want for example the novice is kept in closed area with some test of his knowledge/server rules. And as soon as he proves rules knowledge he's automatically moved to category Player and spawn point, salary etc change. We haven't found any way how to do it now.

What in your novice would not be met by the existing group? Other than spawn point, obviously. At present, I believe there is only the worldspawn. 

    {
      "Code": "limitedsuplayer",
      "PrivilegeLevel": -1,
      "Name": "Limited Survival Player",
      "Description": "Can use/place/break blocks only in permitted areas (priv level -1), create/manage player groups and chat",
      "DefaultSpawn": null,
      "ForcedSpawn": null,
      "Privileges": [
        "controlplayergroups",
        "manageplayergroups",
        "chat",
        "build",
        "useblock",
        "attackcreatures",
        "attackplayers",
        "selfkill"
      ],
      "RuntimePrivileges": [],
      "DefaultGameMode": 1,
      "Color": "White",
      "LandClaimAllowance": 0,
      "LandClaimMinSize": {
        "X": 5,
        "Y": 5,
        "Z": 5
      },
      "LandClaimMaxAreas": 3,
      "AutoGrant": false
    },
 

 

[Stroomschok]

That croc is much too grey to properly camouflage among thick reed patches.

[TFT]

1 hour ago, Stroomschok said:

That croc is much too grey to properly camouflage among thick reed patches.

I don't think it'll have much trouble gibbing you anyway since it'll be silent like other animals.

[DrEngine]

On 2/24/2025 at 5:28 PM, Thorfinn said:

1. Claim in claim.

Likely should be a mod at this point in development. Completely useless in SP, and nearly so for the distributed settlement style most servers IME adopt. And trivial to exploit, requiring an admin to come in and fix.

How do you see this working? Details, please.

 

1. What MOD please ?

2. Claiming details:
- I set CITY land claim - big area. Permissions for bulding/using only for owner (me) or assigned co-owner.
- I set smaller claim inside of this big claim (not possible now in VS). And I set permission build/use for this new smaller claim to somebody else.

RESULT - permissions:
1. In big "CITY" claim (outside of small claim !): only me and other co-owner can build/use. No other player.
2. In small claim: 
- small claim assigned player can build/use; he can give/take build/use perms to another player; he can transfer ownership to another player; he can't delete claim, he can't change its size;
- CITY (big claim) owner/co-owner can build/use in small claim; it's his responsibility to play fair and don't grief in small claim;

Is it understandable ??? So I dont want to have claiming like in Minecraft "settlements" mods with a lot of functionality of cities like taxes, special permissions for city members, special machines for bigger cities (calculated from nr of city members), etc.....

 

[DrEngine]

On 2/24/2025 at 5:28 PM, Thorfinn said:

Can use/place/break blocks only in permitted areas (priv level -1)

How can I set permitted areas ? Does it mean this player can build/use only in land claims he's member of ? But not on unclaimed areas ?

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, DrEngine said:

1. What MOD please ?

I don't know of an existing mod. I'm just saying that your request is so unusual that at least for the moment, it should only be a mod, not base game. There's no point in adding to the compile/load time and adding to the memory requirements in all installs for something that, so far, is only for one server.

 

1 hour ago, DrEngine said:

2. Claiming details:
- I set CITY land claim - big area. Permissions for bulding/using only for owner (me) or assigned co-owner.
- I set smaller claim inside of this big claim (not possible now in VS). And I set permission build/use for this new smaller claim to somebody else.

Isn't that what I said, but with fewer details?

 

1 hour ago, DrEngine said:

So I dont want to have claiming like in Minecraft "settlements" mods

I don't have any idea about MC. Never played it, doubt I ever will. But the fact that your idea was not even popular enough in the huge MC community to have such a mod...

 

1 hour ago, DrEngine said:

with a lot of functionality of cities like taxes, special permissions for city members, special machines for bigger cities (calculated from nr of city members), etc.....

If there were such a mod, couldn't you as admin simply not give those special permissions?

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, DrEngine said:

How can I set permitted areas ? Does it mean this player can build/use only in land claims he's member of ? But not on unclaimed areas ?

I never bother with claims. Even in multi, I just don't care. It's just a game. If some losers want to loot or destroy, I'll just find a server with more... selective criteria of what kinds of people are allowed in the neighborhood.

When I'm admin, I rule with a steel banhammer. If there's a field of mushrooms growing in a fenced off area, it's obviously claimed. Unless there's a sign on the gate, "Take only what you need" if you loot someone else's stuff, you are gone. Forever. From any server I run. No appeal.

Edited February 27, 2025 by Thorfinn

[DrEngine]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

So I dont want to have claiming like in Minecraft "settlements" mods

I don't have any idea about MC. Never played it, doubt I ever will. But the fact that your idea was not even popular enough in the huge MC community to have such a mod...

There were several mods like this in Minecraft and they were widely used by community !!!

[Thorfinn]

57 minutes ago, DrEngine said:

There were several mods like this in Minecraft and they were widely used by community !!!

I thought you said they were full of extraneous crap like extra privileges for this and that role in the community. BTW, one exclamation point is usually sufficient, and bold isn't really necessary to make a point either. You will rarely find any such in a well-written book.

In my last reply I forgot to answer the question about claims. https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Land_claiming/en.

[DrEngine]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I thought you said they were full of extraneous crap like extra privileges for this and that role in the community. BTW, one exclamation point is usually sufficient, and bold isn't really necessary to make a point either. You will rarely find any such in a well-written book.

In my last reply I forgot to answer the question about claims. https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Land_claiming/en.

Ok, we'd like the ability to make claim in claim. It'd help us to run our server and manage places like city etc. However I understand it isn't the priority. Thank you for your time...

Edited February 27, 2025 by DrEngine

[Rhyagelle]

I've seen so many people talking about Vintage Story lately. I think it's gaining ground. Maybe one day a huge streamer will play it, get the game some huge exposure. So far though, the future of the game, always seems bright!

[Ongandu]

Congratulations to the team for the work you put into the game, the new update is great and all the bug fixes are welcome!

Edited March 1, 2025 by Ongandu

[cosmobeau]

On 2/21/2025 at 11:10 AM, Tyron said:

We also got something smol in the works

 

It's little quirky stuff like this that gets me so excited for the future of this game. Devs seem to be listening to roleplayers! And yes, we want taming developed more, perhaps before more mobs? That way new mobs that make sense for domestication will be ready for taming once they're added.

[DUCATISLO]

19 hours ago, cosmobeau said:

It's little quirky stuff like this that gets me so excited for the future of this game. Devs seem to be listening to roleplayers! And yes, we want taming developed more, perhaps before more mobs?

Community: we want better combat!

tyrone: here have a doll!!!

 

roleplay is cool and all but most people don't really rp in this game. if we're on the rp side I want to be a village elder for once with settlement management since that be cool.

 

also be funny if in the end it just becomes an animation for npcs 

[cosmobeau]

15 minutes ago, DUCATISLO said:

Community: we want better combat!

tyrone: here have a doll!!!

roleplay is cool and all but most people don't really rp in this game. if we're on the rp side I want to be a village elder for once with settlement management since that be cool.

also be funny if in the end it just becomes an animation for npcs 

Yes, on top of actually taming animals, I'd like to see a Vanilla combat system like the mod Combat Overhaul. 
My thing is I'm also happy to see some small stuff in the works between. We have a lot of items and blocks in the game that could be interactable but aren't.
People do roleplay in this game! Lots of discussions going on in the Story Forums and I'm sure my server isn't the only RP one out there.

Edited March 2, 2025 by cosmobeau

[Guimoute]

I'm not sure why "1.20 post mortem", 1.20 isn't dead. Perhaps post-release fallout (in terms of new sales and extra work)?

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, DUCATISLO said:

roleplay is cool and all but most people don't really rp in this game

59 minutes ago, cosmobeau said:

People do roleplay in this game! Lots of discussions going on in the Story Forums and I'm sure my server isn't the only RP one out there.

You don't have to play multiplayer in order to roleplay in the game. I wouldn't quite call Vintage Story an RPG, but it does have many elements of such with its world-building and how the characters within react to you. Quite easy to immerse yourself within the world and make up a story for your character as you go along--I do this all the time both in singleplayer and multiplayer alike. I've also seen more than a few roleplaying servers advertising themselves over in the Multiplayer section of the forums, so I would assume there's a good chunk of the playerbase that also enjoys roleplaying.

1 hour ago, DUCATISLO said:

also be funny if in the end it just becomes an animation for npcs 

I mean, I doubt you're wrong in that regard...an animation for child NPCs. Though you could probably also recycle it for adult NPCs too, depending on the context.

[cosmobeau]

2 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

You don't have to play multiplayer in order to roleplay in the game. I wouldn't quite call Vintage Story an RPG, but it does have many elements of such with its world-building and how the characters within react to you. Quite easy to immerse yourself within the world and make up a story for your character as you go along--I do this all the time both in singleplayer and multiplayer alike. I've also seen more than a few roleplaying servers advertising themselves over in the Multiplayer section of the forums, so I would assume there's a good chunk of the playerbase that also enjoys roleplaying.

I mean, I doubt you're wrong in that regard...an animation for child NPCs. Though you could probably also recycle it for adult NPCs too, depending on the context.

Completely this! I spent hours and hours coming up with a story for just a single player world. Buildings, books, hell even little wells or tents all had lore behind it in my eyes. Just that first click when you realize the player isn't human is very inspiring your first go-around, so yeah... Little interactable, immersive touches like being able to actually use the toys and other relics you find in the game would be really pleasant.

And... Human children??? I didn't even think of that! Would be lovely to see humans repopulate a bit in the game... Maybe villages or small camps of people in the future instead of of a bunch of lone, geriatric traders.

[LadyWYT]

28 minutes ago, cosmobeau said:

And... Human children??? I didn't even think of that! Would be lovely to see humans repopulate a bit in the game... Maybe villages or small camps of people in the future instead of of a bunch of lone, geriatric traders.

I mean, I expect the number of NPCs to remain static; I don't actually expect to see them produce new NPCs over time...although I suppose I could be mistaken. But it does make sense to add some kids around the human settlements. I'm also guessing that you might even be able to regale them with tales of your adventures, or perhaps gift them toys or other trinkets found on your travels. But at the very least, it'll add extra life to the settlements, and players won't be left scratching their heads wondering why there's only adults(as is the case with some other adventure games).

[DUCATISLO]

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I mean, I expect the number of NPCs to remain static; I don't actually expect to see them produce new NPCs over time...

unless we get the sex update!

[Cetasaya]

3 minutes ago, DUCATISLO said:

unless we get the sex update!

Oh god, the player's hurt and the trader noises were annoying enough.  I dont want to be serenaded by slapping and serpahs wailing like elk all night long...