Vintage Story Fantasy (Adventure Mode)

[Enjen]

37 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

What makes you think Tyron Intelligence (as you say) in being able to understand what an MMO is and how it works (as you say) sways him away from ever making a block game in such a traditional MMO way BECAUSE its a block game?

I am not sure who made the core assertion I am addressing but here is the core assertion I am addressing

'traditional quest based MMO would not make sense in a block game'

 

I do not understand that assertion and I do not think its even true.

Dude tour swinging blindly at anyone who is replying to you. Frankly im not sure anyone made such a broad assertion lol

I welcome the idea! Explain to me your idea. How do you think they could implement Adventure Mode as an MMO?

[Echo Weaver]

47 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

'traditional quest based MMO would not make sense in a block game'

Please stop refuting a position that everyone on the thread has already said they don't support. Whatever you read, it was not how you interpreted it.

[Zane Mordien]

@CastIronFabric He can develop the game however he wants. I never suggested otherwise.  I think he is intelligent enough to know the difference between the two. MMOs survive on micro transactions nowadays which is way way outside of what I would expect them to do.

Old school MMOs were massive quest driven monsters that you had to dedicate hours a day to keep up, which got you to pay that monthly subscription. IMO, I just don't see that happening, because thats a ton of develop effort for a one time purchase. 

 

I think I'm probably splitting hairs though.  Going back, I think you were talking about a quest driven game and you used EQ2 as an example. I expect the new game will be quest driven as well. Something more traditional compared to VS. Especially since in the new interview posted above, he talks about it. Im pretty excited to get a fantasy RPG version of VS.

Edited July 15, 2025 by Zane Mordien
Stupid autocorrect

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 7/11/2025 at 5:46 PM, Enjen said:

OOOOOWhat about summons?! Anyone like summons or even automatons like the Golems from Thaumcraft 4(?) Little minions that do your bidding. Or maybe one's that fight on your behalf.

late to the party, but that would be an amazing update for Clockmakers since we currently don't have much outside of the tuning spear and tamed locusts.

[Echo Weaver]

5 minutes ago, traugdor said:

late to the party, but that would be an amazing update for Clockmakers since we currently don't have much outside of the tuning spear and tamed locusts.

I just made myself a Clockmaker in my current game, and when I read about the class in-depth, I realized that a lot of the code we'd need for either summoning or other minion spells is already in the game. That has so much possibility.

[CastIronFabric]

15 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

@CastIronFabric He can develop the game however he wants. I never suggested otherwise.  I think he is intelligent enough to know the difference between the two. MMOs survive on micro transactions nowadays which is way way outside of what I would expect them to do.

Old school MMOs were massive quest driven monsters that you had to dedicate hours a day to keep up, which got you to pay that monthly subscription. IMO, I just don't see that happening, because thats a ton of develop effort for a one time purchase. 

 

I think I'm probably splitting hairs though.  Going back, I think you were talking about a quest driven game and you used EQ2 as an example. I expect the new game will be quest driven as well. Something more traditional compared to VS. Especially since in the new interview posted above, he talks about it. Im pretty excited to get a fantasy RPG version of VS.

the assertion I am trying to address (and forgive me if who said what is being confused by me) is the following:

 

I am unclear as to why traditional old school MMO quest system is universally understood to not be a good match in a...block game...BECAUSE..its a block game.

 

[Echo Weaver]

4 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am unclear as to why traditional old school MMO quest system is universally understood to not be a good match in a...block game...BECAUSE..its a block game.

Can we just say you're right and get over this point?

Everyone agrees with you.

[Echo Weaver]

On 7/11/2025 at 9:59 AM, Echo Weaver said:

Sure EQ2 is a foundational RPG game. It doesn't seem like a great match for a procedurally-generated voxel world. Honestly, if I were going to point to an influential RPG with a rigid mandatory quest progression for comparison, it would be Diablo 2. The environments there are generated, but the quests are fixed. That adds a lot of replay value, but it's all with the same goals and the same feel. I played the heck out of Diablo back in the day, but I think Vintage Story could do better.

@CastIronFabric I'm almost certain this is the quote you think you read, and you got almost every detail of what I was saying wrong.

1. I was talking about procedurally-generated landscapes, not specifically block games. As in the map is generated new, based on an algorithm, every time you start a game.

2. I offered Diablo 2, a different traditional quest RPG, as a couterexample to EQ2.

3. Though Diablo 2's structure is closer to what I personally think we'd need, I think Adventure Mode would need a quest system that is still more flexible.

4. I never said anything about "universally understood." I just offered my opinion.

Does that help?

 

ETA: Diablo 3 has the same system, and I think there's a Diablo 4, so I guess I just mean the Diablo series. 2 is the one I played the heck out of, and I appreciated how much replay value you got from doing the same quests on a totally different map.

Edited July 15, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[LadyWYT]

53 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

3. Though Diablo 2's structure is closer to what I personally think we'd need, I think Adventure Mode would need a quest system that is still more flexible.

I have a mod for Skyrim that adds notice boards. Same principle as the radiant quests you can get from guilds/innkeepers/stewards, but with more variety and not tied to any specific faction. Quests could be anything from dealing with local bandits, hunting vampires, or retrieving stolen items, to hunting specific game animals, foraging alchemy reagents, filling soul gems, or even delivering letters/items to other NPCs. The rewards you get for completing the quests depends on who issued the quest in the first place--delivering goods yields a lump of coin, as does killing bandits, but delivering supplies to an innkeeper will yield food and and drink in addition to a bit of coin.

A system like that would probably work wonderfully for an Adventure Mode, as it's a nice way to flesh out the world without relying too heavily on NPC questgivers. Perhaps some settlements might even require the player to do some basic jobs for the town to establish their reputation, before the NPCs will trust them with more serious work.

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

A system like that would probably work wonderfully for an Adventure Mode, as it's a nice way to flesh out the world without relying too heavily on NPC questgivers. Perhaps some settlements might even require the player to do some basic jobs for the town to establish their reputation, before the NPCs will trust them with more serious work.

Oooooh, that seems like a great idea.

Come to think of it, I play a totally different game that uses notice boards for quests. This is a fixed landscape game that has randomly generated NPCs. The notice board could be used to find quests that were then assigned to NPCs. When the quest was generated, it would find an NPC that fit certain criteria who then became the NPC who "posted" the message to the board.

This allowed you to have some multi-stage quests with at least a little bit of story and an NPC to interact with.

The game didn't fully handle the situation where an NPC died while a quest chain was active, so that would be a warning to devs if they explore this route.

[Scriber36]

I quite liked the initial ideas of Hytale as depicted in the trailer and concept arts: band together, explore dungeons, face enemies there finding treasures, all set in a cozy high-fantasy setting.

 

Our Own Worlds / Dungeons

The "owned worlds" concept of Hytale: that everyone can create worlds and invite people over to it. VS has an "Open to LAN" option, this would be the same, but more robust with no network tweaking. Just say "Hey bro, I've made an epic dungeon last night, wanna try together?" or "Bro, I'e found an epic dungeon made by this guy online, let's join and beat that dungeon." For inspiration I mention 'Spore: Galactic Adventures' - it was an extension to a game named 'Spore' essentially adding story-driven quests to planets, which can be replayed multiple times. Think of World of Warcraft dungeons/raids, but user-made content. I'd love to build something epic, add a story to it, and open it for players to explore. Not as mods, or downloadable map, but as a core game feaure, like how in Portal 2 players can make maps, search and try them ingame without ever needing a web-browser or manual file download. These maps would spin up and live as long as players play it, then get destroyed when they exit. Maybe players could host it themselves, like how modern multiplayer games often select a host player and others join him automatically; and said world could be saved locally to continue later, even. Think of... a dungeon with skyblock, which you start with a friend and can come back to it again and again. Could be a VS server in the background, with mods, optionally limited map size, even. Emphasis on click-and-go setup vs. manual installed and configured VS servers, expressing and sharing creativity, and super easy coop experience. Like firing up the game with bro and saying "Would you like to replay that epic lava dragon dungeon today together? I wanna give it a go with daggers and a bow."

 

Fun Progression

As an adventure mode, I'd try to mix RPG elements with creativity, to make use of the potential VS provides. Completing certain objectives of dungeons could reward the player with some adventurer currency to use, maybe XP. That could be spent on fancy stuff, like making a sword glow, be in fire, or freeze enemies, or have a cool shape. Or have cool runes on the blade. I always like games where you are rewarded well and can decide which direction you progress, what you unlock next. I also loved how the game Magicka used progression items: they were not higher tiers or had more damage, but had unique and interesting effects, like giving +30% fire damage, but also giving +40% vulnureability to water at the same time. You could build your adventurer mage to reflect your playstyle by unlocking these, while interestingly not creating a power gap between players who played 1000 hours or just joined 5 minutes ago; yet it felt rewarding and fun to play.

 

Conquering a Fantasy World

I'd expect multiple races, like elves, dwarves, undead, golems, trolls/ogres, maybe some underwater races? The intelligent insect race of Hytale looked also fun to fight against if implemented well. I'd expect one or more infinite procedural world with random settlements, ruins, dungeons, maybe dungeon portals to procedurally generated replayable dungeons or user-made ones. It could be immerive to use portals like in the Stargate universe: not game UI to join instantly, but maybe play your own singleplayer map, build/find a portal, and use that to invite/visit the world of your friend, or a dungeon together. Would be cool to befriend NPC's which could live with you and accompany you on your adventures if no friend is available. Could even convert enemy units with magic or what not to follow you loyally. Wouldn't it be cool to attack enemies with a small army of undead following you until death? (Pun was accidental.) Not as efficient fighters as players, but still, a fun help. Or even, add parts to dungeons needing such companions, like doors only they can open, etc... It sounds fairly simple to implement and quite fun to play. You could name these NPC's or they could get a random nickname upon becoming your minions!

 

Immersive World Generation

I'd expect fantasy biomes like Hytale concept art realms. If I want to live in a vulcano, let me. If I want to role-play a vampire in a world of eternal night, give me such a place. Or better yet, allow me to build something that shrouds the surrounding area in night / darkness. If I want to live underwater, make me able to move in with the underwater race. Generate ordinary landscapes, but also fields of crystals, floating islands, huge desolate craters, mountains with abandoned dwarven mines, dragon caverns with the dragon(s) and treasure, outposts, mushroom forests, or places with giant trees! Make the terrain moody and versatile, so players can live their fantasy world. I could imagine players conquering and repurposing dungeons too; like if a dungeon is a floating island and nothing more, let me build my castle on it. Then the dungeon would no longer be replayable, but would become my awesome hidden-away base, accessible by a portal. Or maybe many portals? Why not?

 

Summary

All these would make a colorful, vivid world to play dynamically alone and/or together with others, build our own stuff, but also face procedurally generated challenges. We could get familiar with the same world(s) we play, but also make use of the progress we made along the way. It'd aim to allow high player agency, and everyone would find their play-style playing the same game, with multiple ways and options to play together; to conquer our own survival world, build a home or a replayable dungeon, or just go and play a 15 minutes dungeon when we have time for that, all this either alone or tohether.

These are just my personal ideas, inspiration based on Hytale and what I personally would absolutely love to see in the voxel-game genre. Feel free to criticize, lift, reuse, or improve on my ideas.

This is my first forum post, hehe. Cheers!

Edited July 15, 2025 by Scriber36
fix typos

[Echo Weaver]

17 minutes ago, Scriber36 said:

I quite liked the initial ideas of Hytale as depicted in the trailer and concept arts: band together, explore dungeons, face enemies there finding treasures, all set in a cozy high-fantasy setting.

Thanks a lot for all this inspiration building out of the Hytale vision!

I've seen the trailer, but I don't really know what Hytale was promising people or what direction the development was going. All I can talk about is generic high fantasy.

We're talking about the possibility of an adventure mode inspired by Hytale, but what was Hytale intended to be? I'd love more information!

[LadyWYT]

Chiming back in here, but I'd really like to see a speech skill actually mean something, in addition to having just more diplomatic options in general. It doesn't have to be anything as in-depth as having specific languages like elvish or dwarvish(although this would be a really cool feature!); just if the enemies are going to be begging for mercy after a good thrashing, I want to be able to actually choose whether or not to grant their request. It's one major criticism I have about Skyrim--some of the enemies will "yield" or otherwise beg for mercy, but you don't actually have the option to oblige since they'll just turn around and kill you. Yes, bandits and the like aren't exactly trustworthy, and it's reasonable that some could lie as a dirty trick, but it's also reasonable to assume that if it's clear they're in over their heads that they might be willing to run away instead.

As for a speech skill, it's nice to have the option to talk your way through some challenges, instead of resorting to killing. That's not to say that the orc chieftain that's been raiding the local villages is going to be easy to reason with, but a character that's a very good talker might be able to work out some sort of treaty beneficial for both parties. Or perhaps they can convince the other orcs to revolt, or even just smoothtalk the chieftain in order to gain his trust and then poison his drink. Having such options also increases the replay value of the game, since there are more ways to accomplish the same end goals without playing just another combat build.

[Scriber36]

5 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Thanks a lot for all this inspiration building out of the Hytale vision!

I've seen the trailer, but I don't really know what Hytale was promising people or what direction the development was going. All I can talk about is generic high fantasy.

We're talking about the possibility of an adventure mode inspired by Hytale, but what was Hytale intended to be? I'd love more information!

The Hytale vision evolved over time, but what I saw is to be a more dynamic, high-fantasy, story-based spin on Minecraft. The central concept was to have worlds, each having its owner, its creator, akin to an all-powerful god to that world. This basically meant you have creative mode in the game; but they also said your friends can join your world. Which to me sounds like I click an invite button while playing, you click accept, and we play together in my world.

Another specific concept they presented was dungeons. Dungeon portal was also in videos/arts. You enter the portal and visit a separate world, a dungeon, that is at least partially hand-crafted to tell the story of the game. This central goddess figure Gaia being missing, some other evil entity spreads corruption, etc... Portals on multiplayer servers could also lead to minigame worlds. If you are interested in details, you can read the Hytale Blogposts.

They wanted to add both ordinary animal species and intelligent races, like goblins, each intelligent race with a society, behavior, architecture, background story, being involved in the Hytale lore.

Modding and ingame editors were also central to Hytale, the same way Vintage Story implemented it; except Hytale was going to add more actual ingame modding and runtime modification of the game, reload on the fly. That's relevant to the adventure mode discussion in the sense, that if players were to craft their own dungeon worlds, they could customize it ingame to a great detail. VintageStory creative mode partially added its basics, but Hytale was to be even more free and embedded, setting skybox color for the hours of the day, having a schematics catalog for world editing, and even scripting mobs ingame.

For me Hytale was a creative dream, a set of great ideas with some presented concepts, e.g. the trailer. But since Hytale never released, we don't know what exactly they made.

[Kiko]

It would be nice to play in a world that isn't so depressing. It's exciting initially and the first few times you encounter the enemies is creepy, but after a couple hundred hours it's just sad and desolate. Especially so since there isn't a real enemy spawning mechanic besides depth and lighting. It would be cool to go into a new area and find a new type of enemy that isn't just some sad abomination from the past. Vintage story is fun but it's really gritty, and after a hundred hours that grit gets stuck in my teeth. It would be nice to find a forest full of goblins or a cave of troglodytes, maybe some kind of insect monsters in the jungle. Just something a little less grey and brown than the usual suspects. As it stand I generally just ignore combat entirely because it's boring and doesn't benefit me.

[Echo Weaver]

38 minutes ago, Kiko said:

It would be nice to play in a world that isn't so depressing. It's exciting initially and the first few times you encounter the enemies is creepy, but after a couple hundred hours it's just sad and desolate. Especially so since there isn't a real enemy spawning mechanic besides depth and lighting. It would be cool to go into a new area and find a new type of enemy that isn't just some sad abomination from the past. Vintage story is fun but it's really gritty, and after a hundred hours that grit gets stuck in my teeth. It would be nice to find a forest full of goblins or a cave of troglodytes, maybe some kind of insect monsters in the jungle. Just something a little less grey and brown than the usual suspects. As it stand I generally just ignore combat entirely because it's boring and doesn't benefit me.

Yeah, I think VS survival is exactly what it wants to be -- a world that has been through an eldritch apocalypse. I'm far from burned out on this style, but I ended up taking the VS Villages mod out of my game because a default world just feels like it OUGHT to be desolate.

But when asked what I wanted to see in an adventure mode, my first thought was VIBRANT COLOR PALETTE. Fantasy, not horror. I want a populated world, preferably with different races that are friendly as well as hostile. Meet folks while you're wandering around and fight, interact, trade, help out.

And then I went off to see if it was possible to build a modpack with that kind of style, and the answer is... sort of? A lot of the fantasy elements in mods are still horror-style for understandable reasons. I might try it out when I've done more vanilla-style.

[FolKz]

I'd like to see classes with skills, like a rogue with a stealth mode, a healer to heal and buff, a warrior with a berserk mode, a hunter to tame pets and use them to their advantage. An alchemy system to create potions. A world boss that would appear only once a week and would have a very rare drop, like a flying mount. A gem system to create status-enhancing necklaces and rings. Dungeon boss drops to create sets, weapon enchantments. I hope to see something like that. (Sorry for my English, I don't speak very well.)

[Kiko]

4 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

Yeah, I think VS survival is exactly what it wants to be -- a world that has been through an eldritch apocalypse. I'm far from burned out on this style, but I ended up taking the VS Villages mod out of my game because a default world just feels like it OUGHT to be desolate.

But when asked what I wanted to see in an adventure mode, my first thought was VIBRANT COLOR PALETTE. Fantasy, not horror. I want a populated world, preferably with different races that are friendly as well as hostile. Meet folks while you're wandering around and fight, interact, trade, help out.

And then I went off to see if it was possible to build a modpack with that kind of style, and the answer is... sort of? A lot of the fantasy elements in mods are still horror-style for understandable reasons. I might try it out when I've done more vanilla-style.

If you really wanted to change the overall feel of the game I think that you could do a lot by changing the palette used on the enemies to include more color, especially between enemy versions. I did a lazy recolor of some black and white versions of the drifters but I feel like even that adds a lot of variety. Palette swaps are really good bang for your buck in that regard.

I also feel like you could really go crazy with the shiver given that it has elements that open up for attacks. A surface variant could be shades of green and then open up to a bright red mouth when chasing, maybe subsurface variants include shades of purple. Unfortunately I couldn't find an image of a shiver with it's mouth open online.

 

 

Spoiler

 

Edited July 16, 2025 by Kiko

[CastIronFabric]

21 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

Can we just say you're right and get over this point?

Everyone agrees with you.

I am asking a question, not making a point.

 

Please type out what you think my 'point' is because again I am asking a question here, not making a point

[CastIronFabric]

18 hours ago, Scriber36 said:

I quite liked the initial ideas of Hytale as depicted in the trailer and concept arts: band together, explore dungeons, face enemies there finding treasures, all set in a cozy high-fantasy setting.

 

This was hard to follow in the context of the list being similar to Hytale feature list (which I admit I have not seen).

Example: Section called 'Fun Progression': 1. You seem to be listing things you would find interesting in VS and how VS would do things you are interested in but not really mentioning which one of those things is a HyTale suggested feature. 2. I have no idea what 'RPG' 'elements' means. That could mean a natural skill progression like Wurm Online or it could mean a Perk System like 7 days to die or it could be something not related to skill system it all, it could mean Lore, it might mean story focused, it could mean quest based. Its all far too abstract for my old brain to process.

 

oh and as side note: What has always grinded my gears even I was a very young man is applying the word 'race' to what is actually a 'species'. Example: The 'Human Race', humans are a species of mammals not a race. Anyway, I know everyone does it and always complain about it because that is what I do.

Edited July 16, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Scriber36]

@CastIronFabric My ideas could have been too vague at places, too abstract for you and not a refined specification, but so be it. I don't see the problem. I've explicitly outlined what high-level concepts I like of Hytale.

If you don't know Hytale features, why complain you don't see similarities with it? Actually I had a second comment addressing exactly what I derived from Hytale vision, e.g. its worlds and dungeon system. It's not supposed to be a 1-to-1 list with Hytale, I just borrow lots of ideas from the Hytale vision, so I've mentioned it as my core inspiration and that I'd like to see Adventure Mode going in that direction.

About the "Fun Progression" section: I've merely mentioned VS because Adventure Mode will use the same engine, so obviously the potential of the VS engine is highly relevant. By RPG I've meant all what you've mentioned. Generally RPG today orients about leveling, quests, skills, lots of consumable items and gear, player choices, avatar customization, allowing both PvE and PvP: so players can progress and find various play-styles expressing their fantasy about their character (fulfilling the role-play label). The easiest to think about is MMORPG but without the MMO part. Games having Lore and being Story Focused does not make them RPG; it's like half of all existing games having story or lore.

I find it pointless to discuss English grammar here, but undead is like a race, or seraphs, or bandits of Hytale, likely not their own species. I've heard "human race" many times, and I assume even if it's not biologically correct term, it's a widespread English term. I'm a software dev, I understand your urge to be correct and specific, but be at ease, haha.

My goal was not being biologically correct about a fantasy world, nor to provide a refined specification, and not even to exactly specify which inspiration would look how exactly and like which existing game. My comment was long enough as-is. If someone is interested in how I imagine it in details, like the RPG part, then simply ask and don't complain I have not yet provided said details. Please try to be constructive and add value, ideas, inspiration.

So about RPG...

Hytale indeed had some questing aspect, but we never quite get much info on it. It was likely similar to what VS has now, going in the world, finding clues, then NPCs with dialogues giving us quests, e.g. to go find the portal to a Gaia temple, beat a corrupted golem there, examine the wall arts presenting the lore. Something along these lines. I've played MMORPG's a lot, yet I'm not quite interested in such high-level lore questing about cosmic baddies. I's find it more fun to have local areas of interest, have lore of a given town ruin by examining it, maybe helping an NPC settled there to figure it out, a bit Lovecraftian way. Visit a settlement of other races/species and help them collect resources, protect them, participate in their culture through quests. I've mentioned unlockable items giving the player pros and cons without tiering, as in Magicka. That's the progression I can imagine. Or that, but tiered a bit, like having Common, Rare, Epic items from dungeons; each having better advantages vs. disadvantages ratio. In VS armor makes you slower and hunger more, but for Adventure Mode I'm more thinking in term of magic aspects, power and weaknesses, not realistic disadvantages, e.g. wearing a fire mage robe makes your fire magic more powerful, but makes you take more damage from water magic, and less capable with water magic. For RPG aspect, I'd love to track the reputation of the player with factions/settlements, like if I'm kind with underwater dudes, they will like me, if I kill them, they will be hostile towards me. Maybe even allow the undead and other intelligent evil forces to like me at the cost of good forces excommunicating me for it. Gaining trust is a good immersive RPG progression. Skills for using certain weapons, fishing, etc? Yeah, I'd like it. Or talent points to spend. Everyone chooses what to excel at as a player and could focus on that. Having classes/professions as in MMORPG's is also an RPG thing, like whether you are a wizard or a warrior. In that regard I like how ArcheAge and Albion Online approaches it: just obtain the gear and weapons of the desired class you want to play and play it; it's not a choice when you start the game, but a dynamic ingame mechanic. Being a mage with a wand and a shield might not make much sense. But maybe it does for you. RPG's are such, allowing for great and also weird choices to try. I'd love this: going into a dungeon, finding a staff or magic tome and switching my sword for it to try playing a sorcerer for a while. That'd be quite Hytale-ish for me and I'd love to see this in Adventure Mode.

I hope I've detailed enough in which directions my ideas go If not, feel free to ask more, and where you see holes or find it too abstract, try fill the holes for yourself, share it with us if you will. As I've said, these are ideas, brainstorming, not a specification, please don't handle it as such. Have a nice day!

[CastIronFabric]

11 minutes ago, Scriber36 said:

@CastIronFabric My ideas could have been too vague at places, too abstract for you and not a refined specification, but so be it. I don't see the problem. I've explicitly outlined what high-level concepts I like of Hytale.

If you don't know Hytale features, why complain you don't see similarities with it?

I am not complaining other than to say I have zero idea from your post which ideas you have are from Hytail and which ones are not.

That is all, nothing more.

anyway, its too abstract for my small brain to follow and I think everyone has a slightly different definition of 'RPG elements' let alone knowing WHICH elements they would be referring to specifically so I am tapping out on this one.

Edited July 16, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Scriber36]

17 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am not complaining other than to say I have zero idea from your post which ideas you have are from Hytail and which ones are not.

That is all, nothing more.

anyway, its too abstract for my small brain to follow and I think everyone has a slightly different definition of 'RPG elements' so I am tapping out on this one.

Please read through my comment, I've went into explaining my take on RPG for your sake, because you've asked. I've literally wrote paragraphs on it, unless I write a complete specification of a game, I cannot make it much less abstract. If everyone has a slightly different concrete image about the game after reading my ideas, that's completely okay. This is the conceptualization phase, not specification making.

Of course, you do you. If you get familiar with Hytale, you will know which ideas are from it. I've just followed YT videos and Blog posts and have my idea of Hytale from there. But as I've mentioned, being high-fantasy, the owned worlds with easy player invite, procedurally generated content, dungeons with reward treasure, dungeon portals, species colonies/interactions and player-made adventure editing with much modding capabilities are the core concepts borrowed from Hytale. Progression system and NPC companions are not.

I hope I've provided all answers/info you missed. Have a nice day!

[Echo Weaver]

Just to be clear -- this thread was about what would be cool in a proposed VS Adventure Mode. Hytale was the inspiration, connecting back to Hytale is not required.

[Echo Weaver]

One thing @Scriber36 brought up from the Hytale vision was user-created worlds and content that could be opened up to other networked users.

Dang, that sounds like heck to try to implement. Maybe that's why they never released.

I've been thinking about procedurally-generated content. I hadn't really thought about user-generated content. I find that when a game leans heavily into user-generated content, then Sturgeon's Law immediately applies (90% of everything is crap). I'm left to try to sift through all the repetitive, mediocre, and fundamentally flawed content to find the fun stuff, and I usually don't find the search to be fun.

Then again, if we're not talking about sharing content with the entire user base of the game, I could totally imagine designing a dungeon for my friends, maybe to augment a TTRPG we're playing.

The game I can think of that allows you to build your own space and then invite in friends to see it is Animal Crossing. (If I remember that right; I didn't play it.)

The other thing that makes me twitchy about user-generated content is the network connection. I certainly don't want a game that requires an internet connection. I go back to Diablo again -- Diablo put up servers that allowed players to connect to each other, either just with friends or with anyone. There are so many ways to share content or participate together.