HugoCortell Posted May 7, 2025 Report Posted May 7, 2025 (edited) Hello, I bought the game today (a family pack no less, hoping this might be a great game to play with my siblings) and I wanted to share my first impressions of the game (playing alone). I know first impressions are usually considered valuable since developers can derive things to improve from them, so I'll be sharing mine. Throughout my 1-2 hour play session, I wrote down my thoughts as I went. I only had the better ruins mod installed, since I wanted to settle a ruin for a base. I'll be structuring this post from most to least valuable. Starting with outright suggestions which I consider sensible, though in general I prefer to share the problem or experience itself and let the reader decide for themselves what the solution to my problem may be or what I am trying to suggest. If a comment is in quotations, then that is [mostly] a straight copy and paste from my notes, which may be less professionally written but might better convey the immediate thoughts a player may have. In addition, here is a follow-up set of impressions/suggestions/etc from my subsequent play session. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suggestions (& Bugs) It would be nice to be able to save world generation presets for future use. The UI button prompts are not entirely dynamic (assuming they are supposed to be). Both the tutorial and the world UI show control + right click for knapping, but I had re-binded the keys to swap the functions of control and shift, which did to reflect in the UI. There should be holstering functionality by selecting the currently selected item to de-select it. Which would be useful to avoid wasting tools on early resource collection. That is to say, if I have a spear in slot 3 and I am currently on slot 3, then pressing 3 on my keyboard should bring me back to my firsts. This one isn't a big deal, since I can just select a random junk item in my inventory, but I think it would make for a nice QoL addition. Support for windowed full-screen would be very welcome. Being able to click on my other monitor without the game minimizing would be nice, as would be being able to use an external recording or screenshot tool without the window freaking out. For what it's worth, the full-screen feels good. I've seen games that had full-screen implementations that put the fear of god into you whenever you alt-tabbed, this one isn't one of them. I think certain animals (wolves come to mind) should have a "cautious" state where they keep their distance and attack only if they see an opportunity. Smart animals like wolves would generally think twice about attacking an armed human or one holding a touch, unless they were either really desperate or had the numbers for it. I make this suggestion because in the early game it would be nice to keep wolves at bay with a touch, not necessarily being able to defeat them or trespass in their territory, but just be able to get started without constant harassment and the possibility of losing all progress. Positive Thoughts "I used the experimental immersive first person. It is AWESOME!" The weather effects are very impressive, I was surprised by how powerful distant thunder seemed. "The variety of instrument voices is a wonderful touch. Does it do like animal crossing and make noises when I type in chat? If not, it should!" Using screenshake for feedback in certain actions (like starting a fire) is very welcome, as it let me know that something was happening when I tried to start a fire in a pitch dark cave. Without it, I might have thought nothing was happening and given up. I'm unsure if this would be a problem for balance, but being able to sleep on the ground (or on a stack of dry grass) would be nice. I didn't have much to do during the first night except keeping the fire lit and getting killed by wolf packs. In the early game, when one is under equipped, I doubt inexperienced players will want to brave out the night. Knapping feels surprisingly good. I can hold down my mouse to avoid carpal tunnel, and I can cut away at the edges to avoid having to do every voxel. It feels like it respects my time, which I didn't expect from when I was first faced with the process. There is a button to select the last customization selection for a character, it would be nice to build on that by being able to save and load characters. Negative Thoughts "I closed the trader's first dialogue to open the tutorial. This caused two issues: 1. It flung my camera back, this is repeatable 2. It made me lose out on the initial dialogue now I won't know what he meant by 'you just woke up' " Point number one may be due to the immersive camera. Either way, it was weird for my character to physically do a 180 every time I closed the dialogue menu. "Waypoints do not work. I tried creating two, they show up as 0 and 1 on the text chat, but I don't see them on the map..." This seems to be a bug: "I was only able to see the waypoints after I respawned, probably a bug?" The game asked me to look for cat tails, but I spawned in a biome without them. While I knew where to search, it would be nice if the tutorial outright stated to seek out lakes with soil around them. I was killed by wolves, and then they guarded my corpse, which ended my play session. My starting location was awful (granite and gravel), so it made more sense to outright make a new world than to struggle on and re-make all my tools. I'm unsure if there is a solution here other than cheating, but being faced with either re-starting with a fresh world, or doing it all over again in the same world except the countdown to the next temporal storm is now closer (and it's nighttime) made the potentially un-fun choice of starting a new world the natural one, when it could have perhaps been more fun to live with my mistakes. To quote: "GOT KILLED BY THE SAME WOLVES! I guess my loot is lost, and with that, any attachment to that world. I don't want to start all over again from zero in a [bad] spawn like that AT NIGHT, [away with] that." Misc Thoughts "Are drifters supposed to be animals? They seem to be according to the hostility stuff." Perhaps they should be separated? "I think this game has mechanical power, I found a waterfall. Can I make a water wheel?" No. Which makes sense since it would be easy to cheat, but damn. "As a cave man, I went to put my fire in a cave to protect it from the rain. BAD IDEA!" This one is pointless, but I thought it would be funny to share. "I RESPAWNED AT NIGHT. AHH, HOW DO I SEE NOW? Wait, I have a... holy light? To protect me? Thanks jesus!?" Being bioluminescent is an admittedly crude but welcome solution to spawning in the pitch dark of night. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I lied when I said they were sorted in order of usefulness. I placed positive feedback (which offers a direction to develop in, but is otherwise much less valuable than negative feedback) above negative feedback to avoid this post feeling like I'm punching down on a game that I actually like. Right now, I'm about to start my second play session, I'll update this post with thoughts from it too (while denominating them as second play session comments). I hope this is of some marginal use to the developers. Wolves aside, I'm really enjoying myself so far. Kind regards, Hugo Cortell Edited May 9, 2025 by HugoCortell Sequel
LadyWYT Posted May 7, 2025 Report Posted May 7, 2025 Welcome to the forums and Vintage Story! 44 minutes ago, HugoCortell said: Support for windowed full-screen would be very welcome. Being able to click on my other monitor without the game minimizing would be nice, as would be being able to use an external recording or screenshot tool without the window freaking out. There's already an option for this, I believe. Both a windowed mode, and borderless(always on top). I usually use the latter, as it keeps the game fullscreen but allows me to click over to my second monitor without it minimizing. 45 minutes ago, HugoCortell said: I think certain animals (wolves come to mind) should have a "cautious" state where they keep their distance and attack only if they see an opportunity. Smart animals like wolves would generally think twice about attacking an armed human or one holding a touch, unless they were either really desperate or had the numbers for it. I make this suggestion because in the early game it would be nice to keep wolves at bay with a touch, not necessarily being able to defeat them or trespass in their territory, but just be able to get started without constant harassment and the possibility of losing all progress. I think creature behavior is being worked on to be a little more complex than it currently is; however, there may also be lore reasons for why certain wildlife(such as wolves) are so hostile to the player. 47 minutes ago, HugoCortell said: "Waypoints do not work. I tried creating two, they show up as 0 and 1 on the text chat, but I don't see them on the map..." This seems to be a bug: "I was only able to see the waypoints after I respawned, probably a bug?" If you got the message that the waypoint was created, but do not see the waypoint on the map, it sounds like a bug. You might also double-check your map settings though to make sure you didn't hide your waypoints by accident. 48 minutes ago, HugoCortell said: I was killed by wolves, and then they guarded my corpse, which ended my play session. My starting location was awful (granite and gravel), so it made more sense to outright make a new world than to struggle on and re-make all my tools. I'm unsure if there is a solution here other than cheating, but being faced with either re-starting with a fresh world, or doing it all over again in the same world except the countdown to the next temporal storm is now closer (and it's nighttime) made the potentially un-fun choice of starting a new world the natural one, when it could have perhaps been more fun to live with my mistakes. To quote: "GOT KILLED BY THE SAME WOLVES! I guess my loot is lost, and with that, any attachment to that world. I don't want to start all over again from zero in a [bad] spawn like that AT NIGHT, [away with] that." This is one of those things that's rather rough on new players, but once you have some experience under your belt it's not so bad. I think once creature behaviors are a bit more refined it'll probably be a little less rough for new players to deal with, but otherwise I think that initial challenge is fine. 50 minutes ago, HugoCortell said: "Are drifters supposed to be animals? They seem to be according to the hostility stuff." Perhaps they should be separated? Drifters and similar monsters haven't been fully explained, but it's implied that they may have been humans at one time. 51 minutes ago, HugoCortell said: "I think this game has mechanical power, I found a waterfall. Can I make a water wheel?" No. Which makes sense since it would be easy to cheat, but damn. I believe water power is on the roadmap, but I don't know when it will be implemented, if at all. 52 minutes ago, HugoCortell said: "I RESPAWNED AT NIGHT. AHH, HOW DO I SEE NOW? Wait, I have a... holy light? To protect me? Thanks jesus!?" Being bioluminescent is an admittedly crude but welcome solution to spawning in the pitch dark of night. There's a lore reason for it, as well as why you're able to respawn after death. But it's a nice quality-of-life feature as well.
HugoCortell Posted May 8, 2025 Author Report Posted May 8, 2025 (edited) 19 hours ago, LadyWYT said: Welcome to the forums and Vintage Story! Thank you, @LadyWYT! 19 hours ago, LadyWYT said: There's already an option for this, I believe. Both a windowed mode, and borderless(always on top). I usually use the latter, as it keeps the game fullscreen but allows me to click over to my second monitor without it minimizing. You're right, I somehow missed the option. I'll certainly be playing in "Maximized Borderless" mode from now on. Updating this comment: It seems this does not remove the taskbar even after restarting the game. 19 hours ago, LadyWYT said: If you got the message that the waypoint was created, but do not see the waypoint on the map, it sounds like a bug. You might also double-check your map settings though to make sure you didn't hide your waypoints by accident. On my third play session, markers started working again for reasons unbeknownst to me. Though some bugs like the map sometimes turning black persist. I might make a bug report if I can reliably reproduce them. 19 hours ago, LadyWYT said: This is one of those things that's rather rough on new players, but once you have some experience under your belt it's not so bad. I think once creature behaviors are a bit more refined it'll probably be a little less rough for new players to deal with, but otherwise I think that initial challenge is fine. I agree, though I hope the aforementioned creature behaviour improvements will make their attacks and behaviours more for inexperienced players. Now, with a bit more experience, I am mostly doing fine through avoiding forests and figuring out how to outrun animals. Well, except for that one time that a bear and a bowtorn decided to gang up on me. I had hoped that wild animals would maul enemies, but instead they have decided that the enemy of the enemy is their friend. 19 hours ago, LadyWYT said: I believe water power is on the roadmap, but I don't know when it will be implemented, if at all. Oh, I look forward to that, and hopefully steam power too! As for the other replies I haven't quoted, thank you for them all! I didn't have anything in particular to say, except thank you for the information. I look forward to seeing the game's lore in detail for myself. Later tonight, I'll be making another post with "second impressions" (I guess?), mostly just feedback from my current play session. After that, this post will have served its purpose, as any further feedback wouldn't be from the perspective of fresh eyes. Edited May 8, 2025 by HugoCortell Small update 1
LoveWyrm Posted May 8, 2025 Report Posted May 8, 2025 You can save world settings...but it's a bit contrived. You first gotta copy them...and then save them to a text file, and then when you start a new world, open that text file (it's a json formatted config) select all of it, copy it, and then paste it into the game with control V while you are in the 'customization' for the world menu, you know where you set all those options. here is my (updated) setting file... I used to play on one life only, but that was before shivers and bowtorn, now I am having MUCH more fun embracing death and being more bold and briging it to the enemy too. Adjust as needed... { "gameMode": "survival", "startingClimate": "temperate", "spawnRadius": "10000", "graceTimer": "0", "deathPunishment": "drop", "droppedItemsTimer": "600", "seasons": "enabled", "playerlives": "-1", "lungCapacity": "30000", "daysPerMonth": "9", "harshWinters": "true", "blockGravity": "sandgravelsoil", "caveIns": "on", "allowUndergroundFarming": false, "bodyTemperatureResistance": "5", "creatureHostility": "aggressive", "creatureStrength": "1.5", "playerHealthPoints": "15", "playerHungerSpeed": "1", "playerHealthRegenSpeed": "1", "playerMoveSpeed": "1.5", "foodSpoilSpeed": "1.25", "saplingGrowthRate": "2", "toolDurability": "1", "toolMiningSpeed": "1", "propickNodeSearchRadius": "0", "globalDepositSpawnRate": "1", "microblockChiseling": "all", "allowCoordinateHud": true, "allowMap": true, "colorAccurateWorldmap": false, "loreContent": true, "clutterObtainable": "ifrepaired", "temporalStorms": "sometimes", "tempstormDurationMul": "1", "temporalStability": true, "temporalRifts": "visible", "temporalGearRespawnUses": "20", "temporalStormSleeping": "0", "worldClimate": "realistic", "landcover": "0.8", "oceanscale": "1", "upheavelCommonness": "0.3", "geologicActivity": "0.05", "landformScale": "1.0", "worldWidth": "1024000", "worldLength": "1024000", "worldEdge": "traversable", "polarEquatorDistance": "200000", "globalTemperature": "1", "globalPrecipitation": "1", "globalForestation": "0", "surfaceCopperDeposits": "0.05", "surfaceTinDeposits": "0", "snowAccum": "true", "allowLandClaiming": false, "classExclusiveRecipes": true, "auctionHouse": true, "playstyle": "surviveandbuild" } Now you have something to test my claims. Make your own files for great success and justice. 1
LadyWYT Posted May 8, 2025 Report Posted May 8, 2025 1 hour ago, HugoCortell said: You're right, I somehow missed the option. I'll certainly be playing in "Maximized Borderless" mode from now on. Updating this comment: It seems this does not remove the taskbar even after restarting the game. Odd, the taskbar should be hidden on your primary screen. Maybe it's the operating system being a butt somehow, instead of the game?
HugoCortell Posted May 8, 2025 Author Report Posted May 8, 2025 10 minutes ago, LadyWYT said: Odd, the taskbar should be hidden on your primary screen. Maybe it's the operating system being a butt somehow, instead of the game? Could be, I use Windows, which is a pretty bad operating system.
HugoCortell Posted May 9, 2025 Author Report Posted May 9, 2025 (edited) "Second Impressions" based on my subsequent play sessions today. This time without classifications or any order. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The tutorial seems to persist across worlds. I had planned to do it all over again in a new world to make sure I really got the basics down. I suggest that there should be the ability to re-take the tutorial, particularly since the UI prompts you to press a key to start the tutorial (but if you do, it just takes you to the "you're done, put down a torch to make this message go away" part of the tutorial. It might be nice to be able to set the starting weather. I like to explore right away instead of settling the spawn area, and starting in the rain kind of dampens that. This is a very minor thing, but a little bit of extra customization to let players tailor their own experience is always welcome. There were several instances where UI prompts of "press X + RMB to do thing" had blank spaces instead of a key. There was a bug where my map became empty if I pressed the buttons on the left side of the map, it was fixed by reloading the save. It would be nice to be able to tame foxes/wolves and send them out to hunt on my behalf. Go catch a rabbit for me! Rifts appear everywhere all the time. Every morning I wake up to a small army outside my door. Had I not randomly found a sword in a ruin, I am sure I would have died many times and gotten really frustrated. I think perhaps the surface drifter types should be limited by the passage of time or something to ease players in. I haven't even made my first pickaxe and I already need to somehow match up to the doomguy just to stay alive. Here is a picture of a rift literally on my front door, there were 3 or 4 more nearby. It's true that I'm not the most capable gamer, but it was a little offputting just how much I had to struggle constantly just to keep the monsters at bay. I'm talking 2-3 bowtorn, 2-3 shivers, and about a platoon of drifters. This has already been mentioned in many posts, but the world generation is really rugged and it makes exploration and finding a place to settle and develop quite hard (particularly since I think that making a mountain home is not possible since it counts as being underground). I installed the plains and valleys mod. I'd like to suggest that using the mouse to highlight the cog in the HUD should not just show your sanity percentage, but also the temporal stability. It's already represented visually by movement, so it feels like an oversight that it does not show as text when highlighted. It would be a nice accessibility addition. I noticed that the game would frequently put harvested items in my hotbar in spite of the fact that I already had a stack of that item in my inventory. Happened a lot with berries and mushrooms, wasting precious cargo space. I'm unsure if this is a bug. Animals should probably have telegraphing animations and sounds to inform the player that they are being targeted. Bears in particular. I was already told in a reply earlier that this will be improved in the future. None the less, I wanted to mention this. The game is lacking rivers, which is odd because there are boats. I guess they could be for ocean voyages? But that feels like a waste considering how valuable navigable rivers have historically been. I vaguely recall Adam Smith dedicating an entire chapter of The Wealth of Nations to talk about how disposable rafts carrying bulk cargo through navigable rivers are what makes civilizations possible. The waypoint icons not showing on the map was fixed after I installed some mods. I am unsure if it was just luck or if somehow a mod I installed fixed things. Writing in text chat should must make the player speak like it is animal crossing. This is of upmost importance. The game clearly needs this. It was meant to have this. While this is for a different engine, here is a video that can help inspire the game's implementation or whatever. It's imperative that the player's instrument pitch/tone noise roughly matches to the phonemes of the text so it creates an uncanny speaking effect. Update: The linked video isn't what I originally had in mind, but it seems to have gone missing from the internet. Regardless, the idea is the same. It would be a great UI/UX addition to make a small popup with an image of the stack and its size whenever you pick something up into your inventory. At the moment, the only way to check if I have collected enough of something during harvesting is to go into my inventory. It's not a big deal, but it could also be improved to give the player information as they need it. Below is a rendition of what that might look like. Like a little card that slides up from the basket icon, then slides back down, flashing only for a minute to let you know the current size of the stack of the item you just picked up. I really like the detail that beds are bouncy Historically, fishing has sustained entire civilizations, which is why I am shocked to find out that the game is lacking fish traps and that fish do not respawn. Considering how difficult winter is supposed to be in this game, it would be a really great addition to have fish as a small source of food during such a harsh season. Finally, I'd like to suggest a bit of a weird idea: A game demo which is fully featured (allowing prospecting players to fully experience the game and learn it to their heart's content) but with the world map being locked to a small (hand-crafted) island. Considering how pivotal world generation is to a survival game (and how this demo would lack story locations), I doubt it would harm sales, and it would probably make for a better "demo" (the classic edition) than the current one which is a really old build which does not represent the game and might give a bad impression to prospecting players. Playing this game reminded me of when I was a kid, endlessly re-playing game demos on an old macintosh, I think it would be nice to have a demo that acts as an alternative to piracy for customers that for one reason or another can't attain or afford the game. Of course, game demos are known to be bad for sales, so this suggestion is weak at most. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PS. I assume insulation matters for winter, I found a command to tell if the game recognizes my house as being an enclosed space or not, but I don't know what the colours mean. Is my house safe? Valheim was very permissive with what is considered "indoors" but I'm not sure if this game is too or not. Any way, that's all! From now on, I'll probably make separate suggestions for any future stuff (and potentially for some of the suggestions here so I can dedicate them a better explanation and argument). I hope that my suggestions, negative and positive experiences, and misc thoughts are of some use in understanding how a new player experiences the game. Edited May 9, 2025 by HugoCortell Better video
V1ncent Posted May 9, 2025 Report Posted May 9, 2025 As for the map "bug", the left buttons are like toggles for layers and if you toggle terrain layer the map would become blank. After all, it is mostly a terrain map. Similarly, you can toggle the waypoint, which may be the culprit of your other issue. The game treats items with different lifetime differently and will not stack those. You will need to manually stack those and mix the life-time. The red color means your home is not a valid "room", and I think the crude door is the reason as it is not "air-tight". You will need to advance to copper and get your hands on a saw to make "real" non-slack door. There is the River mod, but be warned, the default river flow speed can negate your raft/boat speed going upstream and even push unattended vessels away. Sadly, the anchor is not yet implemented and you will need to use terrain to hold your boat(or take your raft with you). 2
Maelstrom Posted May 9, 2025 Report Posted May 9, 2025 Crude doors do not "seal" a room. The wattle fences for windows is also a room "breaking" aesthetic. Either of those would cause an invalid room. Rivers are on the road map, as are waterwheels and steam power. Game is about 25% complete at this time. Every update adds new game functions, although the de-janking/optimizing updates may be quite light on new functionality. Fish do exist in the game. More robust sea life is currently in the works. That was intended to be in the 1.20 update, but other challenges with the new mobs pushed that to a later update, iirc it will be part of 1.21. Flint spears are the stone age weapon of choice, but clubs and axes are also options. Throwing flint spears provide the highest damage per hit, except for bears three thrown spears will kill all surface critters (including surface drifters). They're easy to make and powerful. Until the addition of the new mobs I would hunt double headed drifters during temporal storms without any armor using a full inventory of flint spears. I love the little details in the game. Throw a stone at a pond. Play a resonantor near a rift or during a temporal storm. Fun little easter eggs to be found in the game. 4
HugoCortell Posted May 13, 2025 Author Report Posted May 13, 2025 On 5/9/2025 at 3:59 PM, Maelstrom said: Flint spears are the stone age weapon of choice, but clubs and axes are also options. Throwing flint spears provide the highest damage per hit, except for bears three thrown spears will kill all surface critters (including surface drifters). They're easy to make and powerful. Until the addition of the new mobs I would hunt double headed drifters during temporal storms without any armor using a full inventory of flint spears. I forgot to make a reply when I first saw your comment, but I just wanted to say that thanks for the advice on throwing spears. It makes a big difference. PS. My comment on fish wasn't that there aren't any, I actually have a pond full of them, it was that they supposedly don't respawn (according to another forum post) and there are no fish traps either.
Maelstrom Posted May 13, 2025 Report Posted May 13, 2025 Yeah. Sea life is better in 1.20 than before but it isn't what Tyron was shooting for in 1.20. Coral reefs had be shelved, probably because the new drifters were such a headache to balance. I expect we'll see coral reefs and a richer sea life in 1.21. 2
LadyWYT Posted May 13, 2025 Report Posted May 13, 2025 On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: The tutorial seems to persist across worlds. I had planned to do it all over again in a new world to make sure I really got the basics down. I suggest that there should be the ability to re-take the tutorial, particularly since the UI prompts you to press a key to start the tutorial (but if you do, it just takes you to the "you're done, put down a torch to make this message go away" part of the tutorial. Sounds like a bug, really, or possibly an oversight. You might consider reporting this over on the bug tracker. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: It might be nice to be able to set the starting weather. I like to explore right away instead of settling the spawn area, and starting in the rain kind of dampens that. This is a very minor thing, but a little bit of extra customization to let players tailor their own experience is always welcome. I think it's fine as-is. Assuming default settings, getting rained on won't hurt the player. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: There were several instances where UI prompts of "press X + RMB to do thing" had blank spaces instead of a key. Sounds like another bug. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: It would be nice to be able to tame foxes/wolves and send them out to hunt on my behalf. Go catch a rabbit for me! I don't know about foxes, but wolf taming is on the roadmap. My guess is that it might be added as a minor update sometime later. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: Rifts appear everywhere all the time. Every morning I wake up to a small army outside my door. Had I not randomly found a sword in a ruin, I am sure I would have died many times and gotten really frustrated. I think perhaps the surface drifter types should be limited by the passage of time or something to ease players in. I haven't even made my first pickaxe and I already need to somehow match up to the doomguy just to stay alive. Here is a picture of a rift literally on my front door, there were 3 or 4 more nearby. It's true that I'm not the most capable gamer, but it was a little offputting just how much I had to struggle constantly just to keep the monsters at bay. I'm talking 2-3 bowtorn, 2-3 shivers, and about a platoon of drifters. Depending on the game version, this could be a bug. There were issues recently with monsters spawning on the surface in broad daylight. Otherwise, rift activity feels fine, for the most part. The only thing I might change is always having calm activity(for an unspecified amount of time) when the world is first created. That way new players are more easily lulled into a false sense of security since there's nothing immediately amiss. As fun as spawning in to apocalyptic activity can be, seeing rifts right after spawning in immediately alerts the player to the fact that all's not well with the world. I also would not limit monster spawns to the passage of time. Sometimes you can go for days without seeing a rift, and sometimes the horde will be at your door the first night. The unpredictability adds more suspense and strikes more fear into the heart of the player, as they can never quite be certain of safety save for the daylight hours. Of course, if someone does want to set a grace period for the spawns, they can already do so at world creation. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: I noticed that the game would frequently put harvested items in my hotbar in spite of the fact that I already had a stack of that item in my inventory. Happened a lot with berries and mushrooms, wasting precious cargo space. I'm unsure if this is a bug. As others have said, this is due to the items having expiration times that are too different. You can, however, manually combine them into one stack. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: The game is lacking rivers, which is odd because there are boats. I guess they could be for ocean voyages? But that feels like a waste considering how valuable navigable rivers have historically been. I vaguely recall Adam Smith dedicating an entire chapter of The Wealth of Nations to talk about how disposable rafts carrying bulk cargo through navigable rivers are what makes civilizations possible. Aquatic content is still in the works. I daresay we'll see rivers about the same time that water power is introduced. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: Writing in text chat should must make the player speak like it is animal crossing. This is of upmost importance. The game clearly needs this. It was meant to have this. While this is for a different engine, here is a video that can help inspire the game's implementation or whatever. It's imperative that the player's instrument pitch/tone noise roughly matches to the phonemes of the text so it creates an uncanny speaking effect. Update: The linked video isn't what I originally had in mind, but it seems to have gone missing from the internet. Regardless, the idea is the same. No. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but I see this getting old rather quickly. If it is added, it should probably have a toggle in the settings, so that players can choose to disable the chat sounds if it gets too grating. Aside from players who already don't like the vocals, I see it being an issue mainly for busy multiplayer servers. Alternatively, make a new Local Chat tab that has a limited radius, and only apply the vocals for text in that tab. That leaves General free for global chat(without characters sounding like they're talking to themselves), while adding a tab that roleplayers would love. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: It would be a great UI/UX addition to make a small popup with an image of the stack and its size whenever you pick something up into your inventory. At the moment, the only way to check if I have collected enough of something during harvesting is to go into my inventory. It's not a big deal, but it could also be improved to give the player information as they need it. Below is a rendition of what that might look like. Like a little card that slides up from the basket icon, then slides back down, flashing only for a minute to let you know the current size of the stack of the item you just picked up. Currently, if the item goes into a bag rather than your hotbar, the bag it was stuffed into will shake briefly. However, it is easy to miss that shake, so having a small popup might be an improvement. If nothing else, make it an accessibility option in the settings. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: Historically, fishing has sustained entire civilizations, which is why I am shocked to find out that the game is lacking fish traps and that fish do not respawn. Considering how difficult winter is supposed to be in this game, it would be a really great addition to have fish as a small source of food during such a harsh season. Much like wolf taming, this is probably one of those things that will likely be its own minor update, or part of a collection of such updates. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: Finally, I'd like to suggest a bit of a weird idea: A game demo which is fully featured (allowing prospecting players to fully experience the game and learn it to their heart's content) but with the world map being locked to a small (hand-crafted) island. Considering how pivotal world generation is to a survival game (and how this demo would lack story locations), I doubt it would harm sales, and it would probably make for a better "demo" (the classic edition) than the current one which is a really old build which does not represent the game and might give a bad impression to prospecting players. Playing this game reminded me of when I was a kid, endlessly re-playing game demos on an old macintosh, I think it would be nice to have a demo that acts as an alternative to piracy for customers that for one reason or another can't attain or afford the game. Of course, game demos are known to be bad for sales, so this suggestion is weak at most. Perhaps in the future. Currently, I think there's an old version of Vintage Story available for free as a demo, though I could be wrong. Otherwise, the devs have rather generous policy when it comes to refunds and the game itself is priced reasonably, so it's not a big risk to buy it and try it. On 5/8/2025 at 7:40 PM, HugoCortell said: Valheim was very permissive with what is considered "indoors" but I'm not sure if this game is too or not. Vintage Story is somewhat particular when it comes to space parameters. Certain conditions must be met to make a space an insulated room, a cellar, or a greenhouse. It's also why I'm not a fan of making too many condition checks when it comes to building, as the more there are the less creative freedom one has.
HugoCortell Posted May 14, 2025 Author Report Posted May 14, 2025 On 5/13/2025 at 6:27 PM, LadyWYT said: Sounds like a bug, really, or possibly an oversight. You might consider reporting this over on the bug tracker. Alright, when I have some spare time I'll make a new world to verify that I can 100% repo it and report it if so. On 5/13/2025 at 6:27 PM, LadyWYT said: There were issues recently with monsters spawning on the surface in broad daylight. They're not supposed to do that? I thought it was normal for them to do so when the activity was "high" or above. I find small numbers of them every now and then when activity is high. With that said, between the advice about spears and that I've been constructing a lot (and I found a single torch holder in a ruin), I have been finding things more manageable. On 5/13/2025 at 6:27 PM, LadyWYT said: As others have said, this is due to the items having expiration times that are too different. You can, however, manually combine them into one stack. Ah, this makes sense. Any way, most of the stuff I wrote here were first impressions, in the future I'll instead make suggestions after a bit more thought has been put into them.
LoveWyrm Posted May 14, 2025 Report Posted May 14, 2025 Just gonna touch on the 'old version of the game can be seen as a demo" part. I personally got into some grief with that, because my natural instinct was, when a game was 'superficially good' as a demo, but outdated... that the newer versions must be better. ...let's just say that one instance proved that wrong and I was dumb enough to exceed the steam refund time by thinking the better parts would come later. They never came. So, to me, I'd love to have a demo that is current, but somewhat wingclipped. ... Sure, that leaves the scare of "what if a cracker circumvents the demo restrictions and I'm losing a sale" ...welllllllllllll....this is a topic that's forbidden to talk about but, I often ended up buying several copies later, exceeding the initial purchasing price of things I ....had adjusted ...regarding demoing... But even outside of that, if a demo is good, I tend to , well to a foolish point sometimes, go for a purchase. 1
LadyWYT Posted May 15, 2025 Report Posted May 15, 2025 2 hours ago, HugoCortell said: They're not supposed to do that? I thought it was normal for them to do so when the activity was "high" or above. I find small numbers of them every now and then when activity is high. Oh yeah, no, they aren't supposed to do that. The only times you should be seeing monsters on the surface in daylight is if the sun just came up(leftovers from nighttime), if a cave is nearby(monsters will sometimes wander out), or during a temporal storm(normal spawn rules don't apply). When rift activity is "high" or greater, all that means is rifts are more likely to appear, and will spawn greater numbers of monsters if spawn conditions are met. Underground monster spawns are also somewhat tied to rift activity, so higher levels of activity mean more monsters underground, while a calm day means fewer monsters(though usually never zero when it comes to the underground). 1 hour ago, LoveWyrm said: Just gonna touch on the 'old version of the game can be seen as a demo" part. I personally got into some grief with that, because my natural instinct was, when a game was 'superficially good' as a demo, but outdated... that the newer versions must be better. ...let's just say that one instance proved that wrong and I was dumb enough to exceed the steam refund time by thinking the better parts would come later. They never came. So, to me, I'd love to have a demo that is current, but somewhat wingclipped. ... Sure, that leaves the scare of "what if a cracker circumvents the demo restrictions and I'm losing a sale" ...welllllllllllll....this is a topic that's forbidden to talk about but, I often ended up buying several copies later, exceeding the initial purchasing price of things I ....had adjusted ...regarding demoing... But even outside of that, if a demo is good, I tend to , well to a foolish point sometimes, go for a purchase. Hmmm, a fair point. I forgot that back in the day you'd get a demo disc with consoles like the PS1. I wanna say that Minecraft had a demo world available at one time as well, though I could just be thinking of a dedicated tutorial world that shipped with certain game versions. I think piracy is an issue for videogames regardless of whether or not they have a demo, and I'm not sure there's anything one can do to stop piracy 100%. The best counter to piracy is just make a good product at a reasonable price, without being a butt on social media. If it's a good product, people will want it, and if it's priced reasonably they'll be more inclined to buy it instead of pirating. As for the social media bit...it's fairly easy to incur the wrath of the general public and earn yourself a boycott, so best not to upset the people you want to do business with. 1
Facethief Posted May 15, 2025 Report Posted May 15, 2025 On 5/13/2025 at 7:16 AM, HugoCortell said: PS. My comment on fish wasn't that there aren't any, I actually have a pond full of them, it was that they supposedly don't respawn (according to another forum post) and there are no fish traps either. What? I had a world where I thrived on honey & fish stew (don’t ask). IIRC, if you run far enough away from the pond, the fish should respawn. 1
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