Vintage Story: Adventure Mode

[Tyron]

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

[Voldemort]

2 minutes ago, Tyron said:

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

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.

Edited July 6, 2025 by Adnyeus

[Tyron]

14 minutes 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.

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. 

[Brigadier Elm]

19 minutes ago, Tyron said:

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

Thanks for taking the time out to expand on the original post, it addresses a lot of my concern - I look forward to the next VS updates!

18 minutes 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.

I do think there's appeal to create something like Hytale, after all Tyron was originally working on it. There is an element of "Strike whilst the iron is hot" to also capture some of the audience from a studio standpoint.

The main concern I had was simply with VS updates being affected - they're moving towards streamlined updates to get content out faster so 1.21 is smaller, but I'm glad the content is there.

I suppose there is a potential decision to be made if a "Beta Branch" should exist so server owners can keep a stable platform, whilst others can opt in for a potentially buggier but more content rich experience.

[Voldemort]

15 minutes 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 think it would be really interesting if you made a video showing how the bug-fixing process works and how long it usually takes. It’d give the community a better understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. I’d definitely enjoy watching something like that

[Tyron]

7 minutes ago, Adnyeus said:

I think it would be really interesting if you made a video showing how the bug-fixing process works and how long it usually takes. It’d give the community a better understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. I’d definitely enjoy watching something like that

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.

[ManicKitty64]

When Tyron said "We're all gamers" i felt that 

[The Phoenixian]

I would like to add on a bit more and say that, while I'm a voice with a very brief exposure to the community, over the last decade and change I've been following live development projects, the two most visible (to this user's eyes) and most damaging causes of failure I've seen devs make are lacking a clear sense of direction and unnecessary refactors.

Trying not to get too caught up in just jabbering aimlessly, I do feel like what I've seen of Vintage Story has a very clear sense of exactly what it wants to be and where it wants its development to go compared to many other projects. Especially as some of the reading here reports starting the game over a difference of opinion over exactly what kind of game the founders wanted to make to begin with. There's always risks, but nothing here strikes me as making this studio and project particularly susceptible to them even with the announcement. Certainly it's no post-minecraft block game vehicle shooter, turned world of tanks, turned battle royale, turned... I could go on, but that alone should make the point. It hasn't been chasing new trends every five minutes and the creators' history indicates there's a very particular idea of where they want to go.

Refactors and their ability to cost years a pop are their own issue of course, for many and more technical reasons, but during my brief exposure to it, Vintage Story appears very well set up, and nothing I've seen so far seems particularly likely to run into the kinds of issues I've seen pop up elsewhere. It's very clear that the game has had a lot of thought and care put into what it's trying to be, where it's trying to go, and how it would like to get there.

[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.

View full record

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?

[Oto Nokyo]

3 hours ago, Tyron said:

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.
 

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...

[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.