Vintage Story: Adventure Mode

[Mathathian]

The last update calmed most of my worries, especially the info on team size. (I thought you guys were about half of that).
Knowing that money isn't an issue is reassuring.

Tyron acknowledging vision creep does explain why the new team was necessary, and I completely agree.
On the same note, knowing that all work on VS will go through the original devs (Tyron/Saraty) is great.

Also, working together on the same engine is a great call in my opinion.
So I stand corrected.

@Tyron Great job on the update/Q&A.

[Doctorgeo7]

On 7/5/2025 at 4:12 AM, Tyron said:

> "Finish Vintage Story First"

We have now 24 in our team, of which 15 are contributing to the game itself (I should update the about us page ). If there's one thing I have learned from hiring this many people is that it made us more ambitious, but not necessarily quicker. I still carefully review almost every game mechanic and code change that gets added to the game and Saraty still looks over nearly every piece of art and modelling change, to ensure that Vintage Story remains true to its original vision. We can only do so much. I can assure you, adding more team members will dilute this vision - Saraty and me would no longer be able to review all the changes the team makes. (For context, it was Saraty that defined the art style of Vintage Story)

It is already a significant struggle for me to put together the devlog posts, because there is so many changes being made to the main game on each update. More people means more opinions, means more possible development directions. We had to split our weekly meetings into 2 subgroups where each group can talk only every 2nd week because there were simply too many voices going on at the same time. I don't like it because I want everyone in the team to have a voice, but due to the team size this is no longer possible.  We in the VS team are not fond of a strongly hiearchical management structures where only the leadership gets to decide what to add. If we want Vintage Story in its full glory AND with its original vision, then we need to stop diluting the vision.

Lastly, finishing Vintage Story to its full glory would take 10 to 20 years more, if ever. There's just so much interesting mechanics that could be added still. This not something that can be done quickly.

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You're right that just hiring more people would not help. And that's because the problem you are facing is a management and leadership issue. To be any faster and quicker, you would need to accept the fact you need a manager or project lead. Also, I'm surprised you don't see the contradiction between "Only the leadership gets to decide what to add" and "I still carefully review almost every game mechanic and code change that gets added to the game..." You already are doing what your team seem to be against. At this point, the only difference between having a manager do it instead of you is that you have someone else around.

[Thorfinn]

7 hours ago, kcroxtonjr said:

it won't be like they can just instantly port things back over to VS main with no issue.

Probably it does. The way Tyron has things coded, it could be coded at "mod" level, but it would be more clunky than fleshing out the engine and dealing with the instance-specific stuff at the "mod" level. If Team Adventure has a decent code jockey, they might well decide he is best used to update the combat engine, which will also be used for VS 1.22.

That's what Tyron has taken on -- managing the development of the engine that will be used on at least two different games. So he's got to think more generally about what functions should be engine level and which at game level.

And even if Adventure is spun off, we get to be beta testers! Schwing!

[falco_lombardi]

1 hour ago, Tyron said:

I did a lot of live streaming where I fixed many bugs, about 2 weeks ago, I can try to do that again soon but they happen rather spontaneously when I have no other tasks at hand. Please keep an eye out for them in the #events channel on discord.

This is what some of us are talking about. Tyron, you wear too many hats. Bugfixes do not need your oversight. Code review is standard practice but this also does not have to be your job. Telling us you have resources at the wazoo and a team over a dozen strong but where are you demonstrating your trust in your team? CEO\Lead Programmer\Writer\Community Manager. You've given yourself a tough job and I think it's making the job of your team harder.

[MattyK]

2 hours ago, Tyron said:

Sigh. It is unfortunate that you think that way.

The 1.21 update is small for a reason, so that we can finish it quicker. The purpose of 1.21 was to finish some of the planned stuff for 1.20. The previous poll showed that a large amount of players want that we don't leave stuff in an unfinished state - well then we have to do updates like 1.21. 

I definitely feel that 1.21 meets the goals you've set for it so far, and feels like a substantial bump in the quality of life of the game in general. The default world generation changes alone are a game-changer, encouraging more sailboat and raft usage.

I look forward to seeing future updates, Tyron. 

[Tyron]

3 hours ago, Doctorgeo7 said:

 Also, I'm surprised you don't see the contradiction between "Only the leadership gets to decide what to add" and "I still carefully review almost every game mechanic and code change that gets added to the game..." You already are doing what your team seem to be against. At this point, the only difference between having a manager do it instead of you is that you have someone else around.

I am not sure what you mean by that. I said I don't want only leadership to decide, as in, some additions are made by individual team members from their own initiative - which I still carefully review and request changes if necessary.

That being said, help in that particular area would be useful yea, but I am very concerned putting this into the wrong hands. So far I have not found someone where I feel confident of handing over this task.

2 hours ago, Gabe Heasley said:

This is what some of us are talking about. Tyron, you wear too many hats. Bugfixes do not need your oversight. Code review is standard practice but this also does not have to be your job.

Ok looks like I did not word this carefully enough. I do not review bugfixes, I review code changes that alter game mechanics or the behavior of the game engine itself. Stuff that would affect players or modders. I do hand over trust/responsibility where I feel its adequate. But even without reviewing - sometimes we need to readjust this stuff later once we realize its not in the right state. This whole process of ensuring Vintage Story follows one vision is difficult to scale for me. 

In my view, in relative terms, the risk of Vintage Story itself failing is higher with a bigger team compared to a smaller team plus side projects with a mostly independent team.

[Calo-Mari]

I greatly trust the whole vintage story team to do a good job handling this whole hytale-adventure-mode thing. I find it silly to think that just because vintage story is allowing a separate team to work on a separate mode that it will cause vintage story to crash and burn. I think it’s more than clear that the vintage story devs care deeply about their game and it would be out of character for that to stop anytime soon. 

[TabebuiaChrysotricha]

While I get the general distrust gamers have for game developers these days due to the sheer lack of communication and consumer wellbeing many have, it is truly depressing to me that some of the nicest, most hardworking devs out there like ConcernedApe (Stardew Valley) and Tyron here seem to be the ones who get the most vitriol from their communities.

[321BoltsOfLightning]

I was never really excited for Hytale (since I only really looked into it after it'd been in development for a long time without much to show for it). But an experienced studio with a versatile engine and experienced leadership makes me very excited for the idea!!

I greatly appreciate the level-headed and humble responses to people's concerns as well. If it's managed well I can only see benefits to Vintage Story itself; improved combat, physics, and enemy systems would obviously benefit both projects greatly, even if one side will be more RPGish and the other more survivalish. I hope this experimental project works out, I personally would probably enjoy both games greatly. 

[Carber]

I honestly never would have imagined so many negative views among Vintage Story players. Personally, I have probably invested over 1,000 hours into this game, which is one of my favorites and most highly valued, and I have not even reached the current endgame content yet, since VS has so much going on that I am in no rush to get there. For my part, I feel that even though the game is not completely finished, I have more than recovered the money I invested in it, and that every new update is simply a gift from Tyron to us. Therefore when I hear people talking about feeling scammed and contemplating a refund, I think, "Really???"
It seems to me that Tyron has invested enough time and enthusiasm into this game for a proposal like this to deviate him from his original vision, and that the fact that a new game mode will be developped by a SEPARATE team will likely not be a problem, but rather, a very good opportunity to further improve this universe. For my part, they have my support and trust. Sorry for any mistakes in my English.

 

[Mothware]

I've had my eye on VS story for a couple years and only recently caved at the start of the year to finally dive in, so I know I don't understand the full scope of changes/progress over the years. That said, I'm not really a fan of the idea of immediately branching into a side project this way, though I'm not against the idea of additional projects being worked on. From my limited perspective, this feels like a rush decision to seize on the vacuum create by Hytale's shutdown, unless the concept for this game/mode had already been tossed around behind the scenes prior to recent events. No idea what goes on behind the scenes, but maybe put any new team members to the test working on VS first, see how they fair with the engine and working with the rest of the team, then formulate a plan on branching into separate projects? You're the boss though and you have a better pulse on how everything works, so I'll simply trust whatever you decide will hopefully work out long-term.

Something else to note in your updated response to community feedback, it's reasonable for us to be concerned that a secondary project, built in tandem with VS, could end up with unintended feature creep or shift in mechanics in ways that change the feel of the game. I know you have zero intention of that happening, but I have seen multiple games over the years that drastic changed under similar circumstances, either subtly or suddenly. Again, I will trust your judgement and hopefully that won't happen, especially since that even though big updates are relatively spread out, all of them are focused on further flushing out the core survival experience with sprinkling of story progress; I'll have no issue so long as that doesn't change. I appreciate that you're open and communicative, even taking in criticism and publicly discussing your thought process.

[Maelstrom]

7 hours ago, Adnyeus said:

Yeah, it feels like you want to ride the hype to create something like Hytale
it's clear now, at least to me.

Update 1.21 is so far one of the weakest of the last two updates in terms of new content, etc. Let's see what 1.22 or 1.23 will bring.

Glad you weren't around for the 1.17 "De-Jank" update that was sorely needed and didn't have a lot of content.  Hard to say how long you've been around given your private profile, but your comment indicates you haven't been around more than an update or two. 

1.20 had to pivot to performance (particularly MP performance) because of an absolutely monstrous increase in sales (300% increase) during the 1.20 development cycle and pushing of some features (like coral reefs) to 1.21.  Until about a year ago Tyron would post rolling 24 hour sales figures.  Projecting that number out to a month VS was selling about 1,000 copies a month, iirc.

How about sticking around for a few more updates before sticking your foot in your mouth?

[Maelstrom]

3 hours ago, Tyron said:

I review code changes that alter game mechanics or the behavior of the game engine itself. Stuff that would affect players or modders. 

In my view, in relative terms, the risk of Vintage Story itself failing is higher with a bigger team compared to a smaller team plus side projects with a mostly independent team.

Thank you @Tyron, for taking such a high degree of care with insuring Vintage Story is the quality game that it has been for the 4 years I've played.  I trust and look forward to the continued development of what is by far my most favoritest game since I started playing games in 1978 on my dad's Apple ][+!!!!

[spaghettipasta]

Fantasy VS sounds great! I think the game is a bit stale in it's current state and frankly all the realism is a bit boring. And I think we could have both realistic survival mechanics and some magic and stuff. Loosening the game a bit creativity wise could do it a lot of good. Also more content = good, obviously.

[Thorfinn]

5 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Projecting that number out to a month VS was selling about 1,000 copies a month, iirc.

Huh. I figured it was doing much better than that. I'm not basing that on anything in particular, other than some major content providers giving it love and standard industry figures on the effects of that. And, really, $20? Less than a couple "Value" meals?

[Foe Hammer]

20 minutes ago, Oto Nokyo said:

Ah nice, so it's mismanagement of the team and their time spent on their own miscellaneous side quests instead of given tasks or milestones to accomplish that work towards the now pipe dream that is content listed on the roadmap. Glad he, in pic related, got ingot molds to be put onto shelves though because that was so important over a handful of other items the community wants. Going through the suggestion thread I can only find a few relating to pie and cheese wheels being allowed on shelves but that's really a no brainer. The ingot molds on the otherhand...

Allowing devs the space and freedom to work on various tasks and ideas, as well as working towards milestones is not mismanagement. And it is clear they do work towards milestones, seeing as we have major updates like 1.20 and 1.21 as well as a functional game. Allowing them freedom to "go off script" allows new ideas to be made, and like the screenshot you showed, small QoL updates to happen. It also just feel like a healthy way to do things in my opinion.

[Foe Hammer]

On 7/5/2025 at 7:12 AM, Tyron said:

Once this new project is fully set up, it should be able to run mostly independent from me. The exception being when there are engine changes that would benefit both projects.

I do have a question regarding this @Tyron. What are you anticipating the start up for this group to look like? Think it will be a few weeks for them to get used to the engine and environment getting their legs under them? Or are you anticipating them to almost hit the ground running?

[Rhyagelle]

It really does seem like some people just want something to be angry about, to grab a pitchfork for. It's become extremely clear that a few people in this thread think they have a better understanding of not only game development than the team that is actually invovled, but that they think they know better about the situation--whether financial or progress wise--than the game's creator and dev team. It's quite something...

[DudeBroManGuy]

10 hours ago, Tyron said:

I've updated the blogpost/forum post to respond to many of your concerns, thank you for your feedback!

Okay, let's see what we got.

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It is already a significant struggle for me to put together the devlog posts, because there is so many changes being made to the main game on each update. More people means more opinions, means more possible development directions. We had to split our weekly meetings into 2 subgroups where each group can talk only every 2nd week because there were simply too many voices going on at the same time. I don't like it because I want everyone in the team to have a voice, but due to the team size this is no longer possible.  We in the VS team are not fond of a strongly hiearchical management structures where only the leadership gets to decide what to add. If we want Vintage Story in its full glory AND with its original vision, then we need to stop diluting the vision.

Oh, so too many cooks in the kitchen pulling the project in too many different directions. Sounds like you need to suck it up, put on your big boy pants, and make a hierarchical management structure so that your vision for the game remains within scope and so that features get implemented within a reasonable timeframe. There's a damn good reason that large projects are undertaken with a strict hierarchy of management and responsibility. It's taken too long already. How many people who purchased the game at the beginning of its development have died already without having gotten to play the full version that was promised by you and funded by their payment?
 

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Lastly, finishing Vintage Story to its full glory would take 10 to 20 years more, if ever. There's just so much interesting mechanics that could be added still. This not something that can be done quickly.

Oh, please. VS has already been in development for a decade. AAA games are released in roughly half that time. And if your excuse is "well, those studios have 100 people or more," well then HIRE MORE PEOPLE. That's a major part of why people are angry at your decision. You chose to hire people for a side project instead of hire people to work on the game people already paid you to make. And even after all this time vanilla VS is so devoid of features that without the modding community filling in the gaps by making more content than exists within the vanilla game itself then I wouldn't even play the game. This is just like how Project Zomboid has been "in development" and "early access" for 15 years but is still missing basic features like the ability to climb a ladder. At this point in the gaming industry landscape early access is just a grift where devs can continue kicking the can down the road because there's always new players who haven't discovered the game yet who will buy it in nearly the exact same state it's currently in the following year.
 

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> "Spend that Money on Vintage Story instead"

See above, adding more team members to original VS is very difficult. So if not more team members why not make us of these additional funds for a small side project?
    
Individual contributions to the original Vintage Story experience in terms of common systems as mentioned is a lot easier to manage than 3-4 people doing the same thing but full time.

This answer makes absolutely no sense, and not just grammatically. How is it easier to hire people to work on a completely different project that wasn't a part of your vision for the original project than it is to hire people to help work on the original project that you have 10 years of experience and familiarity with? You want to know why you shouldn't spend those additional funds on a small side project? BECAUSE PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT VS DIDN'T PAY FOR A SIDE PROJECT. We want VS, not VS plus something completely unrelated.

 

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And you got Vintage Story in the very exact form as advertised with many more updates to come. I am not sure how this is not a fair exchange.

This statement alone is grounds for me to request a refund. You are so out of touch and are so disingenuous with this statement. You know DAMN WELL that VS was advertised as an unfinished game with additional features to come, without additional payment. You know it was advertised with a specific gameplay style and with specific features to be implemented later. There's a damn road map for Christ's sake. It is not a fair exchange for people to give money to fund a project that promises A, B, C but then the beneficiary instead delivers X, Y, Z; especially when the reason that A, B, and C have not yet been delivered is precisely because funds that could have gone towards fulfilling those promises are instead diverted to work on X, Y, Z. This is an egregious breach of trust.

 

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> "This is feature creep"

It should be the exact opposite, since its 80-90% a separate project. If anything it would be more feature creep if we were to hire more devs on the main team

I suppose it would be more accurate to say that it is a detriment caused by an opportunity cost. You could have spent that money on hiring people to help with the project that people paid you to produce; instead, you have chosen to spend that money to fund a separate project that few of your benefactors want and will only marginally benefit the original project their money paid you to produce. And the reason you gave for not spending the money on more people for the original project is vague and doesn't hold water when you consider that other game studios do exactly what you claim is too difficult. And those other studios produce their games in shorter spans of time than you have already spent on this game.

 

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When I worked for Hytale in 2015 I really felt their passion for what they are working on. 

I had never heard of Hytale before this whole debacle, but holy shit. You mean to tell me that Hytale is another game where developers were not capable of producing the game they promised after a whole-ass decade? So then you hired these people who have a decade of experience with failing to fulfill the obligations they have to the players who funded them because they seemed like a perfect fit for what you have in mind? Which definitely does seem to be exactly what they did because it's exactly what you're doing. Damn. Now I'm even more insulted by your lack of progress on VS because you claim it's not due to money and you claim that it's not due to staffing levels, so then what is it? Are you just not focusing on the things you should be doing to get this game made because you're too busy doing the things that don't contribute to getting this game made?

Edited July 6, 2025 by DudeBroManGuy
font color issue

[Foe Hammer]

1 hour ago, Rhyagelle said:

It really does seem like some people just want something to be angry about, to grab a pitchfork for. It's become extremely clear that a few people in this thread think they have a better understanding of not only game development than the team that is actually invovled, but that they think they know better about the situation--whether financial or progress wise--than the game's creator and dev team. It's quite something...

"We all make mistakes in the heat of passion Jimbo."
I choose to believe it is misplaced/incorrectly channeled zeal. But I also like to look on the good side of things. Maybe they are just trying to find something to be mad about, anger from something else channeled at that which can be seen and targeted. Or maybe they they took the news bad and their love for the game manifested that way. Emotions, especially despair, feelings of betrayal, or hope lost tend to override rationality to a degree.

I am also very new to forums as a whole and can just be dissecting this far more than I should be lol.

[Khornet]

On 7/5/2025 at 1:12 PM, Tyron said:

Going from past experiences, I doubt it. Let me tell you about two previous side projects:

Vintagehosting: This had a very large initial time investment because I wrote a lot of code for it

Isn't this already a contradiction though? How can you be sure that the new side project isn't going to take a "very large initial time investment" that could be, well, entire years...? Especially since you've mentioned that you meticulously have to quality check everything personally?

On 7/5/2025 at 1:12 PM, Tyron said:

Money is not the bottleneck. 

So if money is not the bottleneck, and human resources (developer studio size) are not the bottleneck... what is? Why is Vintage Story churning out updates at such a slow pace? 
I'll admit that seeing the "confirmation" of Vintage Story reaching formal completion in "10 to 20 years" simply does not sit well with me.

I'm not one to tell anyone how to develop their game of course, but... next year VS is going to be 10 years old already from the first release. Does it really need 30 total years of development time...? That's going to be some kind of global record or something if it truly comes to that.

[Maelstrom]

11 minutes ago, Khornet said:

I'm not one to tell anyone how to develop their game of course, but... next year VS is going to be 10 years old already from the first release. Does it really need 30 total years of development time...? That's going to be some kind of global record or something if it truly comes to that.

Consider Hytale...   Started even LONGER in the past than VS, had a much bigger development team, much larger budget aaaaaaannnnnd... kersplash!

You say you're not one to tell someone how to develop their game, and then proceed to do so.  VS is being developed the way the original devs (Tyron and Saraty) envision it, at the pace they feel allows them to produce the game they envision.  What they have done FAR outpaces what Hytale managed and I'd argue has outproduced even TOBG itself not talking about you @Thorfinn.

[Foe Hammer]

27 minutes ago, Khornet said:

Isn't this already a contradiction though? How can you be sure that the new side project isn't going to take a "very large initial time investment" that could be, well, entire years...? Especially since you've mentioned that you meticulously have to quality check everything personally?

I think the big difference is that those two things required a lot of up front work. Like coding, engine tweaking, networking, etc. (I am not certain, just guessing what was entailed.)
But setting up a small 3-4 man dev team on an already built engine and getting them used to the coding environment is not likely to take too long. I would like to know out of curiosity what that timeline is, but if I was forced to guess, I am thinking a few weeks, maybe a month or two of extra attention as they get used it it, and that is likely an overestimation.

31 minutes ago, Khornet said:

So if money is not the bottleneck, and human resources (developer studio size) are not the bottleneck... what is? Why is Vintage Story churning out updates at such a slow pace? 
I'll admit that seeing the "confirmation" of Vintage Story reaching formal completion in "10 to 20 years" simply does not sit well with me.

I actually sympathize with this to a minor degree. I am not worried about it taking a long time, though I admit I would love to have more content sooner. That all said, I imagine it will be done sooner than that timeline. Maybe he is giving that estimate as the one that CAN be guaranteed, rather than a sooner promise that might get pushed off over and over.

[qbit]

On 7/5/2025 at 6:12 AM, Tyron said:

I cannot emphasize this enough - there is absolutely no intention to ever mix these two game genres. Vintage Story will remain the gritty uncompromising wilderness survival you know today - with more survival mechanics to be added in the future. Saraty would kill me if that were to ever change

I'm happy to hear this.  Tyron's follow up and additional comments in the thread have eased my original concerns.  It sounds like Tyron's wife Saraty will be holding him to this commitment, and that's probably the best oversight we can ask for.

I've updated my original comment to reflect this sentiment.

[dakko]

13 minutes ago, Foe Hammer said:

Maybe he is giving that estimate as the one that CAN be guaranteed, rather than a sooner promise that might get pushed off over and over.

Or perhaps it is in the same context as ConcernedApe continuing to make additions to Stardew Valley, at least that is how I took his comment.