The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

[Silrana]

All opinions are based on vanilla single-player.

The Ugly - I am an old time techie. I have been gaming since my brother's friend up the street got Pong for Christmas.  I have known the mysteries of Telnetting, the Mother Gopher and DOS shells.  I remember when we were all excited about this new World Wide Web thing that was coming.  I have not bought a PC in over 30 years because I build my own.   But... I have never played Minecraft.  So when I check the wiki and boards and then are told to hit keys that are not on my keyboard and do actions with no explanation of how, it is very frustrating.  I almost didn't give the game a try because even though it said it wasn't a Minecraft mod, everything expected me to know all about Minecraft.The tool tips help, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that a lot of those Clicks were actually Holds.  

I am not just pointing this out for myself.  I found Vintage Story by searching "best survuval game" and about 3/4 of the responses named this game.  With hits like that, I am sure I am far from the only non-MC person to come looking.

The Bad - The wiki.  Okay, I can already hear, "Well then you fix it."  I can't, because I simply don't know enough about the game.  But this game very much needs a solid wiki.  I can  deduce things from the game, like 'I bet I can use those cattails for something', but the wiki tells me how many and where to put them on the grid.  Some of the pages basically say to look it up in the in-game handbook.  That doesn't do me much good when I'm, say, sitting in a doctor office.  I like to cruise game wikis to make plans for when I'm playing.  Things are missing from where you would expect to find them.  Let me give you an example - The juice press is not mentioned under cooking or food preservation.  I found out it existed by looking to find out where the fruit mash I could feed my pigs came from.

Please note, I know keeping a wiki up to date is a huge job.  I am only suggesting that it would be a good idea for the people who know far more than I do  to give it a good once-over.  I will say that the more recent pages are really excellent and deliver exactly what I need to know.

The Good - There is no Good.  There is only Magnificent.  I have finally found a game where I feel like I'm living it.  No levels.  No nonsensical unlocks.  No making fake friends with fake people.  No making fake friends with real people.  No nudges to play the game the 'right'  way.  If I want to spend all my time chasing wild chickens with stone spears, nothing penalizes me.  Being able to chase wild chickens with stone spears.  Climbing a massive mountain and sharing the view with a bighorn ram who gives me a 'sup nod.  Snow that reminds me of my childhood so much I feel cold.  And it may seem strange to say in a game with temporal storms and malevolent ragdolls, but what I love the most is the realism.  Big things like the rock and ore structures, but the little tiny things like throwing a maple seed and watching it spin.

It all boils down to this - I love this game.  It is truly unique.

[Never Jhonsen]

4 hours ago, Silrana said:

I can't, because I simply don't know enough about the game.

I would LOVE to work on the Wiki, I have the motivation in my free time for all that data entry, but even with my 4 1/2 years experience in the game I do NOT have the confidence to blindly go on there and add on what I think is true just because "that's how I remember it from playing".

4 hours ago, Silrana said:

That doesn't do me much good when I'm, say, sitting in a doctor office. I like to cruise game wikis to make plans for when I'm playing.  Things are missing from where you would expect to find them.

You and me both I would love for an offline handbook. Hell I'd want a PAPER copy of it, make it into a .PDF and I'll print it off once every major update. I do that with my off-game hobby of digital electronics all the time, printing off datasheets makes it easier to read.

4 hours ago, Silrana said:

I have finally found a game where I feel like I'm living it.

I love the late-game "thriving" aspects, where it's more of a homesteading game than a simple survival game. You have everything you need to survive, now it's time to actually live and enjoy the years. My main save I started with update 1.18, and the only reason I even made a new save back then is because I was told that the Chapter 1 story elements wouldn't spawn on older 1.17.X worlds.

4 hours ago, Silrana said:

I have never played Minecraft.  So when I check the wiki and boards and then are told to hit keys that are not on my keyboard and do actions with no explanation of how, it is very frustrating.

That's a good point to make. I think the average Vintage Story player also played some bit of Minecraft (And some people on here call it that "other blocky game"), and with how popular of a game that is, it's been very common to simply compare this to that game when explaining things.

4 hours ago, Silrana said:

[I]t took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that a lot of those Clicks were actually Holds.

You are not the first vintage story beginner to have this issue, I've noticed that in other threads as well. There is no difference between the icon for clicking the mouse button, and holding the mouse button.

[LoveWyrm]

The game is basically over once you have a cooking pot and a rudimentary shelter.

(And I think the developers know this, since they made crude doors randomly fall apart to drag things out a little with total safety)

These topics, in my opinion, are explained sufficiently well by the wiki and the handbook. Documentation is always a weak spot but again, once you have a cooking pot, it's hard to starve anymore and that's the biggest drain the game puts on the player.

 

Which means that all other activities can be approached in a more laid back manner...and of course, you better be into the grind (and tedium) of many of the systems.

As soulful and cozy as they are, eventually the process loses its luster (time spent vs 'new stimulations' drops off. Chisel one satisfying detail on a big room..fun. Now chisel it as many times as the room is wide or tall, etc...less fun, and you're not getting paid for being a virtual mason lol unless you become some sort of 'content creator' with ad/donation moneys)

[LadyWYT]

20 hours ago, Silrana said:

But... I have never played Minecraft.  So when I check the wiki and boards and then are told to hit keys that are not on my keyboard and do actions with no explanation of how, it is very frustrating.  I almost didn't give the game a try because even though it said it wasn't a Minecraft mod, everything expected me to know all about Minecraft.The tool tips help, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that a lot of those Clicks were actually Holds.  

I think this is likely something that isn't limited to Vintage Story, but that is also an issue for first-time Minecrafters or games with similar controls. There's not the clearest indication of what to do or how to go about things, you kind of have to figure it out as you go. Which generally doesn't take too long, but I can see where it might be frustrating.

20 hours ago, Silrana said:

The Bad - The wiki.  Okay, I can already hear, "Well then you fix it."  I can't, because I simply don't know enough about the game.  But this game very much needs a solid wiki.  I can  deduce things from the game, like 'I bet I can use those cattails for something', but the wiki tells me how many and where to put them on the grid.  Some of the pages basically say to look it up in the in-game handbook.  That doesn't do me much good when I'm, say, sitting in a doctor office.  I like to cruise game wikis to make plans for when I'm playing.  Things are missing from where you would expect to find them.  Let me give you an example - The juice press is not mentioned under cooking or food preservation.  I found out it existed by looking to find out where the fruit mash I could feed my pigs came from.

Please note, I know keeping a wiki up to date is a huge job.  I am only suggesting that it would be a good idea for the people who know far more than I do  to give it a good once-over.  I will say that the more recent pages are really excellent and deliver exactly what I need to know.

The wiki is something that I think will improve with time. Keeping a wiki up to date is tough, yes, but the main factor there(in my opinion) is that Vintage Story is still very early in its development. Certain gameplay concepts are still being worked on, and there's still quite a lot more to be added. That doesn't mean that the changes can't be documented in the wiki, but it does make keeping things up to date a lot harder. Likewise, I'd wager it also makes it a bit harder to learn the ropes of the game as well, since things can change between play sessions if you play rather infrequently and third-party content(YouTube, social media, etc) may not be up to date.

16 hours ago, Never Jhonsen said:

You and me both I would love for an offline handbook. Hell I'd want a PAPER copy of it, make it into a .PDF and I'll print it off once every major update. I do that with my off-game hobby of digital electronics all the time, printing off datasheets makes it easier to read.

I like this idea. It used to be that videogames came with a physical manual that detailed the overall plot, the game's controls, and other useful tidbits of information. Including a .PDF handbook, or something similar(you could probably cut it down to a more simplified handbook for a .PDF), would be a nice throwback to those times, as well as let players read it outside the game, without the need for an internet connection.

20 hours ago, Silrana said:

The Good - There is no Good.  There is only Magnificent.  I have finally found a game where I feel like I'm living it.  No levels.  No nonsensical unlocks.  No making fake friends with fake people.  No making fake friends with real people.  No nudges to play the game the 'right'  way.  If I want to spend all my time chasing wild chickens with stone spears, nothing penalizes me.  Being able to chase wild chickens with stone spears.  Climbing a massive mountain and sharing the view with a bighorn ram who gives me a 'sup nod.  Snow that reminds me of my childhood so much I feel cold.  And it may seem strange to say in a game with temporal storms and malevolent ragdolls, but what I love the most is the realism.  Big things like the rock and ore structures, but the little tiny things like throwing a maple seed and watching it spin.

I like this aspect too, and it's one reason I can be quite critical of things presented in the Suggestions part of the forum. Vintage Story strikes a very good balance with its gameplay, giving the player lots of viable options to pick from regarding how they progress. How one progresses isn't the same for each world either, as there may be class choices or environmental conditions that alter which strategy is "best". Some strategies are better than others, of course, but I wouldn't say there's any that are so good as to make the others a waste of time.

Also if you've not tried it yet, try throwing a rock at a large lake or pond.

[Maelstrom]

On 5/18/2025 at 11:06 AM, Silrana said:

Snow that reminds me of my childhood so much I feel cold. 

For over 2 years the smell of dust was very strong from the visual of the dust clouds from landslides and sandstorms.  I don't know how Tyron so successfully implmented Smell-O-Vision!

[AppleJam]

On 5/19/2025 at 3:06 AM, Silrana said:

And it may seem strange to say in a game with temporal storms and malevolent ragdolls, but what I love the most is the realism.

The historical realism was the biggest pull for me, and honestly realism and fantasy aren't mutually exclusive, if anything I'd say the former very handily makes the latter far more immersive and grounded

[Moltrey]

I thought about putting a mini-review up the other week, but with 76 hours so far I still want to do a few things. First off, great post Silrana, I feel much the same as I turn 61 on June 3rd this year.

I have two games that I have around five hours each in so far, but I find that I enjoy generating worlds and then seeing what appears, puttering about for a while and either deleting it if I wasn't particularly inspired or saving it for later.

Part of the beauty of Vintage Story is with a handful of mods it has nearly endless possibilities for me and that really calls back to my childhood, reading books and broadening my imagination. I used to catch hell as a grade schooler for "daydreaming" too much. I distinctly remember in 5th grade getting the quarterly Scholastic Book pamphlet and seeing The Hobbit, getting excited and going home and asking my mother for the change needed to buy it. Sadly I don't have that copy anymore, but it launched my lifelong entry into who I am and why I am that way.

Vintage Story is pretty special for me, and what is even better is that Tyron & Co. are barely getting rolling. Think about that, knowing what we already have in 1.20. Exciting times! 

Edited May 22, 2025 by Moltrey

[Kosti]

On 5/19/2025 at 4:56 PM, LoveWyrm said:

The game is basically over once you have a cooking pot and a rudimentary shelter.

(And I think the developers know this, since they made crude doors randomly fall apart to drag things out a little with total safety)

These topics, in my opinion, are explained sufficiently well by the wiki and the handbook. Documentation is always a weak spot but again, once you have a cooking pot, it's hard to starve anymore and that's the biggest drain the game puts on the player.

 

Which means that all other activities can be approached in a more laid back manner...and of course, you better be into the grind (and tedium) of many of the systems.

As soulful and cozy as they are, eventually the process loses its luster (time spent vs 'new stimulations' drops off. Chisel one satisfying detail on a big room..fun. Now chisel it as many times as the room is wide or tall, etc...less fun, and you're not getting paid for being a virtual mason lol unless you become some sort of 'content creator' with ad/donation moneys)

While you have some points, I just can't agree with "The game is basically over once you have a cooking pot and a rudimentary shelter". I think the issue you are having is from the way you approach the game. If you are aiming to create a home and secure some food, then the game might as well be nothing more, the thing is that it's not just about survival. It's also a sandbox in which you can build your own house, village, city, even terraform your own world, not to mention the ever expanding storyline. Sure it might not be as easy as that other block game, but then why play Vintage Story? The game realistically is only survival until you've got a house, farm, berries and a fence, but afterwards it's the world to conquer, and if you aren't doing that then that's on you, not on the game being "over".

But you do have some points, chiseling is fun until you have to chisel every single block in a 300 block castle wall because there's no copy-paste craftable tool. You technically don't need to enter the bronze age to survive and the crude door braking is probably because they needed to incentivize the new player to advance, I personally will add a point that automation is lacking as well. But to enjoy every feature of the game? To build your own world and mansion without at least iron tools is impossible, want to light it up? Bees. Want to secure food for long periods of time? Farm. And don't get me started on the story, which while still a bit shallow, with the 1.20 update requires quite a bit with the travel and prep for the bosses.

While I agree with you on the chiseling part, you can't complain about the grind in a game like Vintage Story, it's not made to be as easy as MC, and if it's that much of an issue, just spawn some items and play from there, no one's forcing you if you don't enjoy the early-mid mid-end game grind, or just play in creative, but the game has much to offer and it's far from over with a cooking pot. 

[Kosti]

On 5/18/2025 at 8:06 PM, Silrana said:

The Bad - The wiki.  Okay, I can already hear, "Well then you fix it."  I can't, because I simply don't know enough about the game.  But this game very much needs a solid wiki.  I can  deduce things from the game, like 'I bet I can use those cattails for something', but the wiki tells me how many and where to put them on the grid.  Some of the pages basically say to look it up in the in-game handbook.  That doesn't do me much good when I'm, say, sitting in a doctor office.  I like to cruise game wikis to make plans for when I'm playing.  Things are missing from where you would expect to find them.  Let me give you an example - The juice press is not mentioned under cooking or food preservation.  I found out it existed by looking to find out where the fruit mash I could feed my pigs came from.

Please note, I know keeping a wiki up to date is a huge job.  I am only suggesting that it would be a good idea for the people who know far more than I do  to give it a good once-over.  I will say that the more recent pages are really excellent and deliver exactly what I need to know.

Tbh, the wiki is also very badly structured/coded, I feel like I am entering every generic game once I click on it, not to mention how things like the search tool and translation are very much braking a few actions like the aforementioned search bar. But besides that, the wiki is indeed in a very raw stage.

For one, there are many fairly important missing things from it, not to mention there isn't exactly a format people are thought to become wiki nerds, I myself added "late iron age" in the progress guide because otherwise you couldn't find a thing without a youtube tutorial about meteoric iron. And so the juice press as you have mentioned and many other things alike are missing.
But an argument is to be made the application for the wiki itself is quite whacky and the community isn't that big, so keeping it up to date is quite hard, then again, that's different from it missing major featuress...

Overall the wiki has a lot of work on it to be done and I personally argue it's holding the game back quite a lot, don't get me wrong, updates are cool and all, but a major playerbase is drawn from that other block game, and without a proper wiki for something much more complex such as Vintage Story, it's just pushing out a lot of players who'd otherwise love the game.

[Thorfinn]

Wiki is just a lousy format for a game this interconnected. It's just that everyone thinks in terms of a Wiki, so the answer has to be a wiki. A better answer is just a way to generate an off-line version of the handbook. That would make it possible to include the extra flobbits of whatever mods you use.

The Wiki is only an appropriate vehicle for communicating weird details about the vanilla game that are intended to be discovered. I understand that some are not interested in finding out how many blocks away a wild beehive can see flowers, despite the fact you can find out by simply planting a row of flowers and see how many it counts. There are many hives you can figure out without even that. "OK, this one is seeing 5 flowers. How close is the 5th closest flower? How far is the 6th?" So, yeah, those who don't enjoy the process of learning how the world works probably prefer what I consider

Spoiler

spoilers

. And maybe a Wiki serves that end. If you want to know the nitty-gritty details about ore generation, and don't want to look at the code, or don't know how, sure, I suppose.

[Pus]

At the computer school, 2 students per computer, 30 students, 1 teacher, with the operating system MS-DOS. I was sitting with someone who kept saying you can't do that, we have to wait for the teacher. The teacher is busy with the other 28. We learn nothing by sitting with our arms in the air all day. But what if you do something wrong? What do we have a teacher for? So I went ahead anyway. I made mistakes and fixed the errors myself. It was fun. But the fun disappeared with Windows 98 Pro. I recently had to buy myself a modern laptop. Windows 11 with AI and Copilot. I was about to go crazy, but I've finally figured out how to turn it off. So I can enjoy Vintage Story with some mods, in survival and creative modes. Because I have gotten too old to be scared out of my wits by a couple of wolves, just to respawn and get killed by a couple of wolves. Now I just play never hostile and enjoy the game. Every morning with coffee and enjoying my Vintage Story. When the pot is empty and I have to clean up, I listen to the sounds from my villagers mod. I have been playing for almost a year. When my fortress is renovated and the food is harvested and sealed, I will find out more about metals, beehive kilns, windmills, hoppers, prepare skins, and make clothes, while the snow is coming down.

[Silrana]

First, I'd like to apologize for taking so long to reply.  Real life has a way of eating into my scant gaming time.  Thanks for all the kind words.

I'll leave out the debate about the wiki being a good form for game information.  But since we have a wiki, my attitude is that there is no such thing as too much data.  For example, for things like the beehive kiln, I would really like exact size information.  I'm an incorrigible planner (graph paper is my spirit animal) so anything that lets me know in advance how much space to leave in my hot room is wonderful.

I did enjoy the remark about the game ending when you make a cooking pot, because I had just been thinking that the game *begins* when you make an anvil.  I have to be honest, though I searched for a survival game, what I was really looking for was a homesteading game.  But when you search for homesteading or farming games, you get, well, cartoony substitutes for farming and games that have that 'making fake friends with fake people' I mentioned before.  I wanted a game that was just me against a challenging environment, without cutesiness like putting pigs in a sauna to get bacon.

About the Minecraft thing - I have no problem with learning new controls.  I've been doing it since DOS, so no biggie.  The problem for me was the assumption that I already knew the new controls, and didn't need to have them explained.  I reallly think that is something to remember, because this game is attracting attention outside the block game genre, and things should be as easy as possible for newcomers.

Hmm, what else.  Block measurements in the wiki, bog body blocks in peat...  I looked at the future plans, and am looking forward to them, especially herbalism and mushroom farming.  I'd like to throw in suggestions for food smoking and drying, and looms for more decorative cloth items.  I'd really like to see a setting between Aggressive and Passive.  A wolf strolling past me feels deeply unnatural, but having one chase me for miles because it spotted me across a valley doesn't feel right either. But I am eager to see what the devs have in store for us.  I've had so much fun with the homesteading I haven't tried any of the story stuff yet, but I will soon.

Edited June 3, 2025 by Silrana

[Maelstrom]

2 hours ago, Silrana said:

I've had so much fun with the homesteading I haven't tried any of the story stuff yet, but I will soon.

That's the wondeful thing about VS.  If all you want to do is homestead?  Have at it to your hearts content, even if you never touch the story stuff!  

My main world is a lightly modified vanilla experience with soil instability and cave-ins activated intended to maintain the core experience with most mods being QoL but a small few content mods to preserve what little gaming time I have (i.e. quarry mod).  I recently started a second world with more dramatic mods; mainly rustbound magic with whatever flavor mods to suit my taste, like better ruins.  This world departs from the core content more and I may not ever get to story chapter two in this second world as the world is intended to mainly explore the magic in the aforementioned mod.

[Never Jhonsen]

20 hours ago, Silrana said:

[B]ecause I had just been thinking that the game *begins* when you make an anvil.

I have to agree big time, getting that anvil changes the game from "Surviving" to "Thriving", and Thriving in Vintage Story is what I love the most about this game  

[Koobze]

I do agree with all of the above - and the game does expand significantly once you have an anvil. 

I also agree that better documentation for "block game newbies" would be nice, I actually never played any other block games except I guess infinifactory - I have watched streamers play MC but somehow it always felt "for kids" and never appealed to me. 

That said, I tend to stop somewhere between getting an anvil and "having enough food to survive winter" - rarely going into iron or even building a windmill, both of which are fun and interesting but after a few times it feels more like busy-work. I don't think I've ever made steel because it just seems pointless. So, for me, it's a good "first year of survival" game but then I run out of steam - if there was more in terms of a living world with entities that I can interact with, villages to visit (or villagers who visit me!) I could see myself persisting much longer. 

[ifoz]

54 minutes ago, Koobze said:

if there was more in terms of a living world with entities that I can interact with, villages to visit (or villagers who visit me!) I could see myself persisting much longer. 

Spoilers, but

Spoiler

If you play through the storyline (we currently have 2/8 planned story chapters) there is a village you can visit! 

 

[Broccoli Clock]

On 6/4/2025 at 1:55 PM, Koobze said:

infinifactory

* shakes fist *

Zach Barth is an evil person!

[Guimoute]

On 5/18/2025 at 7:06 PM, Silrana said:

The Bad - [...] But this game very much needs a solid wiki.  I can  deduce things from the game, like 'I bet I can use those cattails for something', but the wiki tells me how many and where to put them on the grid.  Some of the pages basically say to look it up in the in-game handbook.  That doesn't do me much good when I'm, say, sitting in a doctor office.

No. The game has a fully fledged handbook which continuously receives care and updates and, unlike the wiki, does not get outdated because it's built from game resources automatically. It's not the role of the devs to provide you an out-of-the-game wiki for browsing in the waiting room when they already have an in-game wiki.

[Broccoli Clock]

16 hours ago, Guimoute said:

It's not the role of the devs to provide you an out-of-the-game wiki for browsing in the waiting room when they already have an in-game wiki.

I agree that it shouldn't necessarily be a dev, in general the wiki for most games is maintained by fans rather than devs. The devs should focus on development.

The wiki is locked for fan edit, though, which goes against the whole point of having a wiki. It's literally in the name. Don't get me wrong, I understand why that might be the case, the game is still developing and you don't want to have to go and sanity check every entry added.

However, the wiki contains more detail than the handbook, and (imo) it's easier to access that information due to it being in a web browser. You could argue that the obfuscation is intentional, that you shouldn't have the granular level of detail available in the wiki shown in the handbook, and it's a point I could agree with if it wasn't for the fact the wiki is hosted on the official site, so there is clear intent for the player to use it.

Frustratingly I asked for editing permission (I'm certainly not knew to wiki's in general) because there was no entry for Rammed Earth and I wanted to add it. I was told no. Which I respect, I'm not complaining, and I am just some random who could spam all sort of nonsense if given the opportunity (I'm not, but I could understand why they'd think that).

[Silrana]

On 6/11/2025 at 10:50 AM, Guimoute said:

 It's not the role of the devs to provide you an out-of-the-game wiki for browsing in the waiting room when they already have an in-game wiki.

In general principle I agree with you.  My post was about my overall experience as a newbie to the game, and I consider a wiki a creation of the community.

However, if the wiki is locked, then it does become the dev's responsibility.  The handbook is nice but only presents data in small bites, at least for everything I've looked up.  The wiki has room for more indepth information and explanations.  And part of it, I admit, is personal preference.  I have a two monitor set up, so I don't have to interrupt my game to check a crafting recipe or consult my spreadsheets.