A Discussion about the decision to pickup Hytale and include it into Vintage Story as a Mode instead of making a separate game, & on if picking up Hytale is a good idea. RESPECTFUL RESPONSES ONLY.

[Murklak]

If the studio failed today, I would have already gotten my money's worth from their labor. Everything else is extra, including both further development on Vintage Story and any side project they invest in. Complaining that they aren't spending your money the way you want is entitled and ignores that they earned that money through their labor and can do whatever they want with it.

[Krougal]

14 minutes ago, Murklak said:

If the studio failed today, I would have already gotten my money's worth from their labor. Everything else is extra, including both further development on Vintage Story and any side project they invest in. Complaining that they aren't spending your money the way you want is entitled and ignores that they earned that money through their labor and can do whatever they want with it.

You are mostly right, the premise of EA is a promise for a good faith best effort to provide a finished product at some point in the future.

While it's all very vague, there are certain expectations after you hand someone money. Granted the 20 bucks we all forked over doesn't go very far these days at all, so yeah, individually we are all entitled to very little, collectively it is reasonable to expect the funding to be advancing the project.

I still don't really want to, nor I do I think we are entitled to see the company's financials. Maybe they have other revenue streams. Maybe they are just laundering money for the mob. Don't know, don't care. As long as we didn't buy into abandonware, whatever they want to do is fine really.

It is also unreasonable to assume a company will only produce 1 game, or can only produce 1 game at a time.

Granted I think op is over-reacting a little (ok, a lot even) but they are entitled to their opinion.

To add to what @Katherine K said about how providing strong direction and letting everyone have a say are not necessarily at odds with each other.

Just because they let you talk, does not mean what you say doesn't go in 1 ear and out the other. Especially in big organizations, who love to say things like "Our human capital are our most important resource."

I've sat in a lot of meetings throughout my career. Everyone is equal and all that, blah, blah, blah. That is as a person. Everyone's value to an organization is not equal. Sure if there is no one there to take out the trash, you'd be amazed how fast it is going to turn into a shithole, but just about anyone can do that job.

Some PMs want everyone involved in everything. I care about the tech writers opinion only slightly more than I care about the janitors. I've also been dragged in to give my opinion on matters where I have no expertise and frankly don't care one way or another. When I run meetings, I have on more than one occasion said "Everyone not an engineer keep your mouth shut or get the fuck out. This includes non-functional managers!" There is such a thing as too much transparency. We all like to overshare in this day and age. I am probably oversharing right now...

This is not to disparage anyone or encourage treating any co-worker shitty by the way, no matter what their job or experience level, it's just I see so many entry level and recent college grads come in with this huge chip on their shoulders from an over-inflated sense of self-worth. It took me many years to develop my own over-inflated sense of self-worth and it takes a lot of ego-stroking effort to maintain it.

 

[hstone32]

2 hours ago, Krougal said:

it's just I see so many entry level and recent college grads come in with this huge chip on their shoulders from an over-inflated sense of self-worth.

The commanding heights of western economies all say that the one and only purpose of college is to provide students with the skills demanded by our economies. Thus students go into college believing in some unspoken agreement that the college will provide them with a lucrative career in return for their tuition. If they finish their degree but do not recieve the promised career, they become resentful, thinking they've been cheated. That is why they get that chip on their shoulder.

As for me, I'm in a clear minority when it comes to my view of college. I take after Plato's view: that it is to be a repository of all of society's wisdom, institutionally organized to prepare members of society to advance humanity's eternal search for truth. That's more important to me than a career, but I'll take it as a bonus if offered.

[Krougal]

3 minutes ago, hstone32 said:

The commanding heights of western economies all say that the one and only purpose of college is to provide students with the skills demanded by our economies. Thus students go into college believing in some unspoken agreement that the college will provide them with a lucrative career in return for their tuition. If they finish their degree but do not recieve the promised career, they become resentful, thinking they've been cheated. That is why they get that chip on their shoulder.

As for me, I'm in a clear minority when it comes to my view of college. I take after Plato's view: that it is to be a repository of all of society's wisdom, institutionally organized to prepare members of society to advance humanity's eternal search for truth. That's more important to me than a career, but I'll take it as a bonus if offered.

Wow! I haven't heard that one since...probably Plato himself LOL.

Yeah, I remember now that that was the original purpose of college.

Although, I gotta admit these days between going into debt up to your eyeballs and all the leftist nonsense they indoctrinate in these days, anything other than a STEM degree, and of course things like doctors (or does that count under Science?) and lawyers which require the education (I'm sure I'm leaving out some things), seems like a waste of time and money.

I agree with Mike Rowe, a lot of people would be better served by going into a trade.

I mean if you are independently wealthy and don't need to make a living, then you can study whatever you enjoy.

 

Granted, this is all going to go full circle I think when the AI takes over, if it doesn't decide to just kill us all outright, I guess we could turn into a society of philosophers and artists.

Don't get your hopes up though, if I were a betting man, I'd bet on extermination.

 

[hstone32]

7 minutes ago, Krougal said:

Granted, this is all going to go full circle I think when the AI takes over, if it doesn't decide to just kill us all outright, I guess we could turn into a society of philosophers and artists.

Don't get your hopes up though, if I were a betting man, I'd bet on extermination.

As a computer engineering student, I think you are giving AI way too much credit.

[Krougal]

1 minute ago, hstone32 said:

As a computer engineering student, I think you are giving AI way too much credit.

Oh, I dunno, sure, not on the short timetable that the doomsday youtube video predicts. Probably not even in our life times. Eventually though.

I gotta admit between my own work and that video I was starting to get a little paranoid, but then having sat down and messed around with the current AI, they are all pretty stupid.

ChatGPT is a complete pathological liar and sociopath. Copilot is completely useless. Gemini and Grok may be a little better, but being as you get cutoff pretty fast by the pay wall, I have less experience messing with them.

I produced pretty good results modernizing my resume with Gemini, but I already had a pretty good one to begin with and I really guided the AI by the nose through it, so it was really just doing my grunt work.

The federal instance of ChatGPT I haven't really used, but considering how frequently my co-workers come to me with code that doesn't work that was produced by it, it isn't any smarter.

 

[Katherine K]

5 hours ago, cosmobeau said:

Do we sincerely live in an era where when people are upset over a decision a company makes, in a industry that has failed products all the time, is called "outrage culture"? Lmao 

I barely think Vintage Story is a topic that garners a lot of drama and outrage. I think things are going to be okay I don't think I'm feeding anything especially considering that overwhelmingly people disagree or only softly agree with some of my points.

I have seen a lot more over-reaction to your posts than from you. So this is totally fair. I don't think your concerns are going to materialize, but I don't understand why some replies are acting like you're a villain for having them. It's truly bizarre.

  

4 hours ago, Krougal said:

Just because they let you talk, does not mean what you say doesn't go in 1 ear and out the other. Especially in big organizations, who love to say things like "Our human capital are our most important resource."

I've sat in a lot of meetings throughout my career. Everyone is equal and all that, blah, blah, blah. That is as a person. Everyone's value to an organization is not equal. Sure if there is no one there to take out the trash, you'd be amazed how fast it is going to turn into a shithole, but just about anyone can do that job.

Some PMs want everyone involved in everything. I care about the tech writers opinion only slightly more than I care about the janitors. I've also been dragged in to give my opinion on matters where I have no expertise and frankly don't care one way or another. When I run meetings, I have on more than one occasion said "Everyone not an engineer keep your mouth shut or get the fuck out. This includes non-functional managers!" There is such a thing as too much transparency. We all like to overshare in this day and age. I am probably oversharing right now...

Game dev is, thankfully, nowhere near that toxic in most places. And if anyone would tell others to, "keep their mouth shut," in a meeting, they'd be talked to to make sure that doesn't happen again.

I don't know what it is about tech industry in general that makes people act in such insensitive way towards others' inexperience. Is it because salary is the only motivation, and so your career climb is the most important thing about the job? In game dev, we're there to make games, because we like making games. If somebody's having opinions about something they don't understand, it's not because they're trying to show off, but because they care about the game, want to contribute, and don't know how. A far responsible thing is to show them how, rather than just shut them up. I want someone to keep making good games once I retire, so I have to help junior devs learn.

We still have a bunch of culture problems, and even just general tech culture toxicity seeps in, but just recognizing that people around you aren't a competition really makes a difference more often than not.

57 minutes ago, hstone32 said:

As for me, I'm in a clear minority when it comes to my view of college. I take after Plato's view: that it is to be a repository of all of society's wisdom, institutionally organized to prepare members of society to advance humanity's eternal search for truth. That's more important to me than a career, but I'll take it as a bonus if offered.

I'd take the middle ground. College gives you the tools for preparing for a career and being part of society, because it teaches you how to navigate that repository of wisdom and how to learn from it. It's why the stupidest complaint ever is, "Why am I learning this, I won't need it." To know how to learn something you haven't learned before. You're going to have to learn many things not taught at your institution, and if you haven't learned how to learn, you're going to have a hard time.

Kind of to that point, there are a lot of programs popping up that promise to teach you a specific trade and make you fully industry-ready. My experience with game engineers who've gone through this has been mostly negative. They are barely more experienced than someone we'd hire out of a high school. A bit more mature, so that's still a win, but in terms of the career skills, it's a start from scratch.

I'd much rather have someone who had a humanities degree, then went to a boot camp to learn to program. That's somebody who knows how to learn. I know they can adapt.

[Krougal]

1 hour ago, Katherine K said:

I have seen a lot more over-reaction to your posts than from you. So this is totally fair. I don't think your concerns are going to materialize, but I don't understand why some replies are acting like you're a villain for having them. It's truly bizarre.

Yeah, while I did say I think OP was over-reacting a bit, I agree some people are really over-reacting to OPs over-reacting.

  

1 hour ago, Katherine K said:

Game dev is, thankfully, nowhere near that toxic in most places. And if anyone would tell others to, "keep their mouth shut," in a meeting, they'd be talked to to make sure that doesn't happen again.

I don't know what it is about tech industry in general that makes people act in such insensitive way towards others' inexperience. Is it because salary is the only motivation, and so your career climb is the most important thing about the job? In game dev, we're there to make games, because we like making games. If somebody's having opinions about something they don't understand, it's not because they're trying to show off, but because they care about the game, want to contribute, and don't know how. A far responsible thing is to show them how, rather than just shut them up. I want someone to keep making good games once I retire, so I have to help junior devs learn.

We still have a bunch of culture problems, and even just general tech culture toxicity seeps in, but just recognizing that people around you aren't a competition really makes a difference more often than not.

It's a little different when you've got a captain or even better, an admiral breathing down your neck for something and every meeting goes off the rails because too many people who have no business in a meeting are invited and they all want to inject their own agenda into it, which drags what should take an hour into an all day affair.

I didn't say anything about experience, it was discipline (job specialty), and I guess I should have specified these are engineering meetings I am talking about. I am also a big one to set up groups for junior technicians and engineers only, so that the techs and engineers can share information freely, without management interfering or making the techs afraid to ask questions. Somehow managers always creep into them, and I throw them out.

I'm also just a relic of an age that is at an end. Toxic wasn't even used to describe people when I started working. Granted old network and system engineers generally are toxic. I think you are right in that it was generally because in the early days we were all told to pretend like you knew it all, even if you had no clue and were just figuring it out, which you probably were. There was no Google, there probably wasn't even connectivity if you were going out to a site. So you really did have to know everything you needed to know or spend hours on the phone with tech support.

Everyone was very cut throat, and a lot of it was because of insecurity. I didn't participate in it. I've mentored a lot of people over the years who have gone on to be better than me.

Disclaimer for the young and impressionable: Don't act like this if you aren't both very sure of yourself and don't have anything to lose. In fact, better to not act like this at all.

Edited August 12, 2025 by Krougal

[LadyWYT]

32 minutes ago, Katherine K said:

I have seen a lot more over-reaction to your posts than from you. So this is totally fair. I don't think your concerns are going to materialize, but I don't understand why some replies are acting like you're a villain for having them. It's truly bizarre.

It's probably due to what happened in the thread where plans for Adventure Mode were announced. There were mixed reactions, and some of the dissenting opinions weren't exactly phrased in the most polite of ways. The thread ended up locked as a result.

[radfast]

This post is my personal view, not an official view.

• Vintage Story in 2025 is progressing very nicely: we have a perfectly sized dev team now, full of amazingly skilled and creative people, and everyone is busy working on Vintage Story updates according to their specialty
• If you've looked at the -rc versions of 1.21.0, you'll see that the 2nd story chapter is now considered finished. We are a few days away from 1.21.0-stable, and it's looking lovely.  We managed to make this update in less than 6 months.  Could even say it's been less than 3 months if you time it from the last stable release of 1.20.12, which was June 2025.
• Work has now started on 1.22.  As announced:

> Forging ahead
We'll now slowly shift to working on version 1.22, which we in the Team are all extremely excited about. We plan to focus primarily on game mechanics this time, especially mechanical power

• The group who will be working on the new game will be a separate group of devs, not the current Vintage Story devs. They will likely work completely independently. My expectation is they will make an adventure style voxel game, using the Vintage Story game engine but somehow more colorful and adventurous. But that's up to them, note the word "independently" here.
• Because Vintage Story itself right now is a mod on its own game engine - I mean, the current 'Survival' gameplay with all the thousands of blocks, items, worldgen, creatures, mechanics, story is all one giant mod - it's possible for a separate adventure style game, using the same game engine, also to be one giant mod.  That separate game can be totally different in look and content.  Not the same game.  Not what people normally mean by a mod, not even a 'total conversion mod'.  The analogy with Portal and Half-Life is a good one.
• Best to read the official announcements for any plans about how the adventure style game will be released (which is probably many months / years away), but my understanding is that to start with - so think of it as a playable alpha - the first releases of the adventure style game will be through the Vintage Story ModDB.  So like third-party mods it will be free to download, but will require Vintage Story to be installed because they will require its game engine.  The adventure style game will not be "part of" Vintage Story, instead I think of it as something extra, available to the Vintage Story community as an option.  Just like mods made by the community.  At that stage, each individual player can choose whether to try it or not, the same way that they choose whether to try a mod or not.  If they choose not to try it, they are not in any way missing out on the intended (vanilla) Vintage Story experience.
• I also expect that eventually, in the longer term, the adventure style game will stop being freely available and (at least when it's in a more finished state) will require a separate purchase - but this is just my own guess.  Just don't expect it to be "free forever".  That new separate group of devs are talented human beings who will need incomes to live on just like anybody does, and those incomes will have to come from somewhere.  If it is eventually a separate game, that will not be breaking Vintage Story's ethos of "no marketplace, no paid DLC, no hidden fees".  It's not breaking the ethos because the adventure style game will not be Vintage Story, it will be a separate game which just happens to use the same game engine.  (Footnote: that worked OK when Unreal did it: the Unreal game engine grew out of the actual game, Unreal.)

I just don't understand what's not to like here.  Vintage Story will continue to be updated, like it always has been, until it reaches the team's final vision.  Nobody in the Vintage Story community is going to lose out on the Vintage Story experience.  In addition, in due course the community will also be able to be the first to try the new game.

I agree that language like "adventure mode" is a bit confusing, but my understanding / expectation is that will not be a different mode of experiencing the Vintage Story gameplay or lore: it will have its own lore.  It's intended to be a different game.  Which uses the same game engine.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

This whole thread reads like OP is silently accusing Tyron of being a liar, cheat, and manipulator.

Bruh, the guy submits bug reports on his own issues repo instead of relaying them via internal channels. Idk how much more open and honest a game dev can get.

Take a break, smoke a bowl, and then come back and re-read what you wrote, OP. It sounds overly combative, authoritative, and accusatory. Not a good look....

[Teh Pizza Lady]

@radfast I just saw in your signature that you worked on Galacticraft! I loved that mod. Small world.

[Katherine K]

1 hour ago, traugdor said:

This whole thread reads like OP is silently accusing Tyron of being a liar, cheat, and manipulator.

That seems like a rather extreme reading. People are allowed to have motivations beyond what they publicly disclose without being liars and cheats. OP is concerned that some of these might run contrary to interests of some portion of the community. That is a valid concern. It doesn't make anyone a bad person.

To dial it all the way back, the kind of game I want VS to be and the kind of game Tyron wants to make are very clearly not perfectly aligned. I'm happy with the direction VS team is taking, because the roadmap is clearly communicated and I feel like I can get a fun experience out of the game by changing a few settings from default. If for some reason I had suspected that roadmap is not accurate, and some of the settings I rely on might go away, forcing me to play Tyron's vision for the "correct" way to play the game, I'd be pretty unhappy. And that can happen even if everyone has best intentions and there's just a failure in communication.

I haven't seen anything in OP's text that suggests that malice was involved. Only that there are what appear to be contradictions in public messaging. I've given a rundown of why I don't think there actually are contradictions, but I can understand why the statements can seem contradictory if you picture the process of making games a certain way. And that's something that's entirely fair to ask.

 

I agree that some of the OP's posts can come off as combative, but look at all the other posts. The atmosphere in this thread is pretty hostile. I don't think it's fair to put that all on the OP. I don't think the pile-on was intentional, but it did still become one, effectively. And I'm including myself in the culpable group here. With retrospect of how this thread has gone, I'd probably word some of my posts different or avoided them all together.

1 hour ago, traugdor said:

Take a break, smoke a bowl

I think this goes for basically everyone involved here, at this point.

[cosmobeau]

3 hours ago, Katherine K said:

That seems like a rather extreme reading. People are allowed to have motivations beyond what they publicly disclose without being liars and cheats. OP is concerned that some of these might run contrary to interests of some portion of the community. That is a valid concern. It doesn't make anyone a bad person.

To dial it all the way back, the kind of game I want VS to be and the kind of game Tyron wants to make are very clearly not perfectly aligned. I'm happy with the direction VS team is taking, because the roadmap is clearly communicated and I feel like I can get a fun experience out of the game by changing a few settings from default. If for some reason I had suspected that roadmap is not accurate, and some of the settings I rely on might go away, forcing me to play Tyron's vision for the "correct" way to play the game, I'd be pretty unhappy. And that can happen even if everyone has best intentions and there's just a failure in communication.

I haven't seen anything in OP's text that suggests that malice was involved. Only that there are what appear to be contradictions in public messaging. I've given a rundown of why I don't think there actually are contradictions, but I can understand why the statements can seem contradictory if you picture the process of making games a certain way. And that's something that's entirely fair to ask.

 

I agree that some of the OP's posts can come off as combative, but look at all the other posts. The atmosphere in this thread is pretty hostile. I don't think it's fair to put that all on the OP. I don't think the pile-on was intentional, but it did still become one, effectively. And I'm including myself in the culpable group here. With retrospect of how this thread has gone, I'd probably word some of my posts different or avoided them all together.

I think this goes for basically everyone involved here, at this point.

Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. And I did go smoke a bowl. Lmao

My post history is mostly just in depth lore dives, detailing my server's lore, and answering gameplay and troubleshooting questions. I think it will be some time if ever I make a post like this, it's not really my thing. Just wanted to get some concerns off my chest, tbh I didn't think it would blow up bc I felt like I had a pretty luke warm, semi unpopular opinion.

[cosmobeau]

7 hours ago, radfast said:

This post is my personal view, not an official view.

• Vintage Story in 2025 is progressing very nicely: we have a perfectly sized dev team now, full of amazingly skilled and creative people, and everyone is busy working on Vintage Story updates according to their specialty
• If you've looked at the -rc versions of 1.21.0, you'll see that the 2nd story chapter is now considered finished. We are a few days away from 1.21.0-stable, and it's looking lovely.  We managed to make this update in less than 6 months.  Could even say it's been less than 3 months if you time it from the last stable release of 1.20.12, which was June 2025.
• Work has now started on 1.22.  As announced:

> Forging ahead
We'll now slowly shift to working on version 1.22, which we in the Team are all extremely excited about. We plan to focus primarily on game mechanics this time, especially mechanical power

• The group who will be working on the new game will be a separate group of devs, not the current Vintage Story devs. They will likely work completely independently. My expectation is they will make an adventure style voxel game, using the Vintage Story game engine but somehow more colorful and adventurous. But that's up to them, note the word "independently" here.
• Because Vintage Story itself right now is a mod on its own game engine - I mean, the current 'Survival' gameplay with all the thousands of blocks, items, worldgen, creatures, mechanics, story is all one giant mod - it's possible for a separate adventure style game, using the same game engine, also to be one giant mod.  That separate game can be totally different in look and content.  Not the same game.  Not what people normally mean by a mod, not even a 'total conversion mod'.  The analogy with Portal and Half-Life is a good one.
• Best to read the official announcements for any plans about how the adventure style game will be released (which is probably many months / years away), but my understanding is that to start with - so think of it as a playable alpha - the first releases of the adventure style game will be through the Vintage Story ModDB.  So like third-party mods it will be free to download, but will require Vintage Story to be installed because they will require its game engine.  The adventure style game will not be "part of" Vintage Story, instead I think of it as something extra, available to the Vintage Story community as an option.  Just like mods made by the community.  At that stage, each individual player can choose whether to try it or not, the same way that they choose whether to try a mod or not.  If they choose not to try it, they are not in any way missing out on the intended (vanilla) Vintage Story experience.
• I also expect that eventually, in the longer term, the adventure style game will stop being freely available and (at least when it's in a more finished state) will require a separate purchase - but this is just my own guess.  Just don't expect it to be "free forever".  That new separate group of devs are talented human beings who will need incomes to live on just like anybody does, and those incomes will have to come from somewhere.  If it is eventually a separate game, that will not be breaking Vintage Story's ethos of "no marketplace, no paid DLC, no hidden fees".  It's not breaking the ethos because the adventure style game will not be Vintage Story, it will be a separate game which just happens to use the same game engine.  (Footnote: that worked OK when Unreal did it: the Unreal game engine grew out of the actual game, Unreal.)

I just don't understand what's not to like here.  Vintage Story will continue to be updated, like it always has been, until it reaches the team's final vision.  Nobody in the Vintage Story community is going to lose out on the Vintage Story experience.  In addition, in due course the community will also be able to be the first to try the new game.

I agree that language like "adventure mode" is a bit confusing, but my understanding / expectation is that will not be a different mode of experiencing the Vintage Story gameplay or lore: it will have its own lore.  It's intended to be a different game.  Which uses the same game engine.

See if this was the update post... This sounds way more technical, no bias (mentioning friends, etc and such) it would sound a lot more clean. Thanks for a detailed, well organized post.

Putting into perspective the progression of the game's development like that sounds incredibly good to hear, and it's got me excited for another server update/reboot to get people playing more again.

Setting aside the game engine thing, which  makes sense for including in VS as a mod the way their engine works, it also seems off because the intention is to make it it's own separate game for purchase. (With perhaps a discount for people who own VS.) Not sure If I'm personally sold on that idea, but I get why they're doing it. I think my brain is stuck in a mode like, "well a lot of people use unreal engine/(whatever engine here) and have seperate game clients" which could definitely be flawed logic.

The other things mentioned in that announcement is that handling another team and making another game will come at "no extra cost" and won't stall VS at all, I can't claim if they can do that or not but if seemed pretty iffy. At least the "no extra cost" part was, I think that's fair to feel initially reading it lol. I mean I'm sure they will develop it now at no extra cost *to us* but it's like... If that game failed, was if because it didn't have enough funding... Time, organization? That's where the concern started coming into play for me. Because even if they are two separate projects, they are still taking on at least they pay(?) for the new team and overseeing it.

Overall though I am way more convinced that this decision won't overly impact game development of that is the current trend if things.

Edited August 13, 2025 by cosmobeau

[cosmobeau]

On 8/9/2025 at 10:03 AM, Echo Weaver said:

I'm pretty sure you're 100% wrong there. Demos for new games have been included in existing games before. It's considered a benefit.

If you don't like Homo Sapiens mode, you could say the same thing. Or Exploration.

This game is built around being insanely configurable to dozens of playstyles. Some features that are added to a game just aren't going to be ones you like. Full stop. 

I'm not 100% wrong- I'm just old enough to realize that demos for other games inside of games died a long time ago. You don't see them anymore, at least not in the way you're describing. This is more a generational thing. 

Yes, there was an era of games where you could play demos for other games inside them, as a popular form of advertising. What I'm about to say has nothing to do with my take on Vintage Story, but I will talk about why game demos died.

In the rise of digital distribution, streaming, and steam's "demos" & refund policies (which is basically, download and play the game, instead of playing a programmed demo, which back then were separately programmed from the game, which costed more money to make a demo on top of a game) companies moved away from demos. Some reasons,

- instead of having to make demos, companies saw that streaming and YouTubers provided enough information about the game.

- some people who played demos were actually less likely to buy the full game

- refund policies made it so they didn't have to allocate resources making a game demo

- early access business models worked better than demos

- free to play games also shifted companies away from demos

- the rise of Internet usage, and more people online reporting content made demos obsolete for advertising.

There are a lot of great articles and video essays that go into why game demos died in a more detailed and informed way if anyone is interested.

 

Edited August 13, 2025 by cosmobeau

[cosmobeau]

7 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

It's probably due to what happened in the thread where plans for Adventure Mode were announced. There were mixed reactions, and some of the dissenting opinions weren't exactly phrased in the most polite of ways. The thread ended up locked as a result.

I missed the drama... And wasn't going to read pages of people's comments lol. I just go read the updates like a good little server admin. I just thought some official posts get locked because of too much traffic or something  

I do love Vintage Story. I don't want anything to happen to the game or the studio... That's why my post was, uh, "passionate" lol

Edit: oh damn I'm reading that thread and it is messy AF 

Edited August 13, 2025 by cosmobeau

[Teh Pizza Lady]

44 minutes ago, cosmobeau said:

Edit: oh damn I'm reading that thread and it is messy AF 

hence the pleas for self-reflection and warnings from others.

[cosmobeau]

22 minutes ago, traugdor said:

hence the pleas for self-reflection and warnings from others.

... Bro, what? Lmao 

What are you warning me from? Am I going to accidentally cause a natural disaster? You are literally just coming back here to comment in bad faith  I criticized a game development choice, I need to self reflect now?

No one puts baby in a corner! lol

Edited August 13, 2025 by cosmobeau

[radfast]

3 hours ago, cosmobeau said:

See if this was the update post... This sounds way more technical, no bias (mentioning friends, etc and such) it would sound a lot more clean. Thanks for a detailed, well organized post.

Putting into perspective the progression of the game's development like that sounds incredibly good to hear, and it's got me excited for another server update/reboot to get people playing more again.

Setting aside the game engine thing, which  makes sense for including in VS as a mod the way their engine works, it also seems off because the intention is to make it it's own separate game for purchase. (With perhaps a discount for people who own VS.) Not sure If I'm personally sold on that idea, but I get why they're doing it. I think my brain is stuck in a mode like, "well a lot of people use unreal engine/(whatever engine here) and have seperate game clients" which could definitely be flawed logic.

The other things mentioned in that announcement is that handling another team and making another game will come at "no extra cost" and won't stall VS at all, I can't claim if they can do that or not but if seemed pretty iffy. At least the "no extra cost" part was, I think that's fair to feel initially reading it lol. I mean I'm sure they will develop it now at no extra cost *to us* but it's like... If that game failed, was if because it didn't have enough funding... Time, organization? That's where the concern started coming into play for me. Because even if they are two separate projects, they are still taking on at least they pay(?) for the new team and overseeing it.

Overall though I am way more convinced that this decision won't overly impact game development of that is the current trend if things.

Thank you for a considered and measured response, which made me smile.

I think the "no extra cost" phrase was meant to be conceptual/abstract, not financial - I think it was supposed to mean, at no cost or harm to Vintage Story game development, including in terms of his own personal development time. If you knew him IRL, you'd know that Tyron is an incredibly, unusually, decent guy - motivated by his own love of certain legacy games and his own vision to make Vintage Story the best game we can, and at the same time wanting to see the vision of Saraty - his wife - completely fulfilled. Tyron mostly likes nature, world systems, the feeling of immersively exploring an interesting world. Saraty's vision is darker: think obscure things crawling underground, abandoned places, challenge, trepidation; she also has an amazing eye and is all about VS keeping a consistent look. There is basically no way that those core parts of the vision will ever be compromised. At the same time, Tyron has for years had a thought to make a separate adventure / RPG type of game using the VS engine, the engine is designed from the beginning to be capable of running other voxel-type games not only VS, only nobody has done that so far.  "Adventure mode" is how he would have described it long before 2025. Because of this year's developments, Tyron is now in a position actually to do it, and to do so by setting up a small separate team, instead of doing it himself. I'm sure he recognizes that if he were ever to work on a different game himself then that would have a "cost" to VS by taking some of his time away from VS, but the significant thing which has occurred is now he doesn't have to do it himself. That, in a rather long nutshell, is what "no extra cost" is supposed to mean. I think.

I would add that from my point of view the community often doesn't fully realize that VS is made by a medium-sized team now. There are more than 20 people involved. I often see people on Discord writing "Tyron should do X" or "we like how Tyron made X" etc. It's not always Tyron! One of the incredible things Tyron has done is hand-pick over the years a group of misfits devs who, in their own specializations, have skills to match his and Saraty's, and at the same time the humility to work in accordance with his original vision instead of trying to change anything (that's possibly the more difficult thing to find, if you've ever tried hiring anyone!) In 2024 and 2025, a large part of the contributions added to the game have been made by other team members, not by Tyron and Saraty personally. The fact that the community is not able to notice that multiple other people are involved, means we are doing it right! In terms of game development, this has meant that as a team we are much better able to develop Vintage Story at a good steady place now, and to implement the things we have planned, for example the things seen on the roadmap.  

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, radfast said:

If you knew him IRL, you'd know that Tyron is an incredibly, unusually, decent guy

I don't know him IRL, but from what I've seen of the Cookie Man here on the forums and elsewhere, this is the general impression I've gotten of him.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

7 hours ago, cosmobeau said:

... Bro, what? Lmao 

What are you warning me from? Am I going to accidentally cause a natural disaster? You are literally just coming back here to comment in bad faith  I criticized a game development choice, I need to self reflect now?

No one puts baby in a corner! lol

Sorry I thought it was an easy connection to make given that you read the antagonistic train wreck that was the other thread and then came back here to expound on what you learned. I'll just step out because I don't think you're in the mental state required to give my words the thought and consideration they need to fully understand what I mean.

[cosmobeau]

40 minutes ago, traugdor said:

Sorry I thought it was an easy connection to make given that you read the antagonistic train wreck that was the other thread and then came back here to expound on what you learned. I'll just step out because I don't think you're in the mental state required to give my words the thought and consideration they need to fully understand what I mean.

Low quality rage bait, come back when you're actually on topic. Or are reading other people's posts, because this conversation is about concluded and you're coming back with ad-hominem to stur the pot when everyone's full already.

Also, you don't want drama round this but you keep coming here bumping the thread with dramatic messages that have nothing to do with the actual topic.

Edited August 13, 2025 by cosmobeau

[Teh Pizza Lady]

That's not really what I was trying to do, but I can see where I'm not wanted.

Have a nice day. o/

[Teo9631]

On 8/12/2025 at 12:38 PM, Dark Thoughts said:

You're getting upset over semantics? Is that it? What the hell difference does it make if they call it a "separate game" vs. "a separate VS module" when they use the same engine?!

This is literally a good opportunity for VS & Anego Studios so I really don't understand the outrage at all.

It sounds like someone's ignorant & uninformed and rather spends their time feeding outrage culture instead of reading up on the matter. You also seem to like to do mental gymnastics to further feed that outrage through your bias.

Good grief.

Consumers these days. You don't have a shred of critical thinking. I really hate to be offensive, but reading this thread is giving me a headache.

The OP has basically spelled it out for you.

We are upset because we bought an early access product and we expect it to reach a full release one day.

There are some clear indicators that this decision was made more on sentimentality than rationality, which brings us a risk of jeopardizing the product we invested in. Another thing is that anything even remotely connected to Hytale smells like trouble. Just look up the game's development history—there was clearly an extremely high level of incompetence involved.

What is there to not understand? There are literally no simpler terms to explain this to you

Edited August 13, 2025 by Teo9631