They've added mouflons!

[MKMoose]

The mouflon is a variant of sheep which can spawn:

• at lower elevations,
• in temperate to warm (not hot) climates,
• in areas with at least some rain and not too much shrubs or trees.

The real mouflon "is thought to be the ancestor of all modern domestic sheep breeds" (as per Wikipedia), which alone makes it pretty cool that it has been added.

Other than their appearance and spawn conditions, they are practically identical to bighorn sheep, which makes them similar to goats except that they don't flee on sight (but will attack you if you get too close). No more having to search across mountaintops for your animal husbandry needs! The mouflons aren't especially common, but they can appear in a lot of areas typically desirable for settling and hunting, unlike bighorn sheep and most goat species which tend to spawn in dry areas and otherwise have more restrictive spawn conditions. At the very least, there is now an accessible alternative to valais goats in temperate climates for areas with limited mountains.

But that said, bighorn sheep have also had their spawn conditions adjusted (which was actually mentioned in the patch notes, unlike the mouflons) - they will now spawn in drier areas with not too much shrubs or forestation at slightly higher elevations.

Note: this image might be a bit misleading since it's 100% forest, but that's where I happened to find them (I'm thinking whether it might be a bug, unless the maxForestOrShrubs property only cares that both aren't too high at the same time; I might have to double-check it).

For those interested, these are the exact spawn conditions for mouflons:

minTemp: 3,
maxTemp: 20,
minRain: 0.3,
maxForestOrShrubs: 0.5,
minY: 1.1,
maxY: 1.4

and these are the updated conditions for bighorn sheep:

minTemp: -10,
maxTemp: 17,
minRain: 0.05,
maxRain: 0.5,
maxForestOrShrubs: 0.4,
minY: 1.4

Edited February 7 by MKMoose

[Vratislav]

We have mouflons in the area of our summer cottage (Jizera mountains, Czechia). I can add to the story, that they have been bred in a large deer-parks (fenced areas of the forest) that were broken during end-of war events of 1945, so they live in whole forested area of mountains now.

Note to add: they were bred as mouflons in these deer-parks, as they "undomestication" happened much earlier.

Edited February 7 by Vratislav

[Broccoli Clock]

I'm absolutely here for all the extra flora and fauna. The fish, the new boars, the new flowers and now some sheep, superb!

It would be lovely if the sheep introduced wool, requiring a whole set of cottage core loveliness, such as a spinning wheel and loom. OMG, a loom with the same level of detail you can get from the chisel. Damn.. it won't happen but custom made clothes would be amazing.

[MKMoose]

46 minutes ago, Broccoli Clock said:

It would be lovely if the sheep introduced wool, requiring a whole set of cottage core loveliness, such as a spinning wheel and loom.

I would imagine that this is the goal, though I can only guess whether it will come in 1.22 or at some point in the future. Making sheep more accessible to the average player is basically a requirement for the addition of wool processing to be actually worthwhile.

 

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

Note: this image might be a bit misleading since it's 100% forest, but that's where I happened to find them (I'm thinking whether it might be a bug, unless the maxForestOrShrubs property only cares that both aren't too high at the same time; I might have to double-check it).

Small update on this: I've found a related bug. Dunno how they may choose to resolve it.

Edited February 7 by MKMoose

[Broccoli Clock]

2 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

I would imagine that this is the goal, though I can only guess whether it will come in 1.22 or at some point in the future. Making sheep more accessible to the average player is basically a requirement for the addition of wool to be actually worthwhile.

This is just a guess, but I don't see the devs going down the weaving route. While it fits with the cottage core vibes, you feel it would involve an entire revamp of all the clothing in the game. We have tons of variants out there, admittedly most of them gatekept behind ruins/Resonance, and have a way of repairing them. It's a head/heart thing, my heart wishes for it to be included, by head looks at the amount of work involved and accepts that a full weaving mechanic would be akin to asking for the Moon on a stick.

Now, just as fauna alone, I still welcome them. I've followed games that have developed over decades, like this one, and you can look back in their develop to times when the norm was not questioned because it was the norm, whereas the modern implementation makes those versions look positively lacking in content. The lack of birds, for example, is a glaring omission imo. No shade being thrown, and we obviously have chickens, but anyone who spent even a short time "out in the wild" will know that birds are not only a constant but add so much to the visual and aural impact. In that sense, I'm all for as many new animals as possible being added. I get that there are mods that do that already, but other than QoL mods I'm less keen to add extra content because it is rarely balanced in the way the vanilla game is.

[Brady_The]

Regarding weaving. There's this mod that could potentially fill the cloth-shaped hole in your heart: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/34327

[Broccoli Clock]

6 minutes ago, Brady_The said:

Regarding weaving. There's this mod that could potentially fill the cloth-shaped hole in your heart: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/34327

Thanks, I have actually seen that before. If it was just for the weaving action itself, yeah that would probably scratch that itch. It's quite surface level though, and that isn't a single drop of shade being thrown, well done to the mod maker, but I'd really love the ability to make, for example, tapestries or apparel with a fully implemented weaving mechanic.

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

This is just a guess, but I don't see the devs going down the weaving route. While it fits with the cottage core vibes, you feel it would involve an entire revamp of all the clothing in the game.

The main hurdle to weaving that I see is, how do you make such a tedious task something fun to do in a videogame? The clothing part I'm not really worried about, as I don't really see spinning and weaving affecting clothing very much. It would mainly affect the production of cloth, which is used for a lot more than just clothes.

A few clothing tweaks would, however, be in order for adding cooling factors to clothes, in addition to the warmth factors we already have. If such a system were added, it'd be a prime time to add things like wool, so then you have warmer wool clothes for cold weather and linen clothes for hot weather.

[Broccoli Clock]

26 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The main hurdle to weaving that I see is, how do you make such a tedious task something fun to do in a videogame? 

Just bear in mind this is a game that has panning.

Purely anecdotally, I'd find it fun, but then I'm one of those that enjoy similar things in real life!

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Just bear in mind this is a game that has panning.

Purely anecdotally, I'd find it fun, but then I'm one of those that enjoy similar things in real life!

Fair enough.  I would say that a large chunk of the game is tedious tasks, but I mean...the devs have managed to make the gameplay fun. So if/when they add weaving I'd expect them to concoct something appropriately entertaining there as well.

[williams_482]

5 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

It would be lovely if the sheep introduced wool, requiring a whole set of cottage core loveliness, such as a spinning wheel and loom. OMG, a loom with the same level of detail you can get from the chisel. Damn.. it won't happen but custom made clothes would be amazing.

Given the game's development timeline (Tyron expects it to be in progress for many more years) I don't see any reason to rule out a sophisticated weaving system being included. Especially since eventually removing grid crafting is one of their long term goals; some alternative to make clothes would have to be found. 

Creating pixel art patterns on a loom and then displaying them 1-to-1 on the clothing model wouldn't be a trivial change, but ought to be technically feasible. 

58 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The main hurdle to weaving that I see is, how do you make such a tedious task something fun to do in a videogame? The clothing part I'm not really worried about, as I don't really see spinning and weaving affecting clothing very much. It would mainly affect the production of cloth, which is used for a lot more than just clothes.

I think you could get away with greatly compressing the weaving process to make the boring parts tolerable. Clayforming currently has some helper tools along these lines. 

I'm imagining a loom block you interact with using twine, yarn, or equivalent threads. By default it will place a row of the color you applied to it, allow you to add and place additional colors a la new materials in the chiseling interface, then you could lock in that row and start the next one. It should give you the option to repeat the previous row (or a block of previous rows, to allow more complex patterns) provided the correct materials are available, and should add a new row every 1/2 second or so as you hold down the button. It might even have a "weave one cloth" button that takes a little longer than weaving one row to animate, but outputs a whole piece of linen. This process should also be contiguous: you give it yarn in increments of four, up to a stack, and then hold down the button to continuously add rows until materials are exhausted, outputting a piece of finished cloth each time the requisite number of rows has been completed. Think like grinding stuff in a quern. Simple patterns could even be automated with mechanical power, assuming the devs were interested in pushing the invention of mechanized weaving up a few centuries. 

This would be more tedious than the current grid recipe for crafting cloth, but with the right time saving options it wouldn't be dramatically worse and it would open up more options for patterns, etc. 

They could also have a knapping-style interface where you shape linen into shirts, pants, etc, and an "embroidery" interface where you can freehand pixel art onto an already existent cloth item at the cost of colored thread. All things that could feel and function like other mechanics already in the game. 

Edited February 7 by williams_482

[Broccoli Clock]

11 minutes ago, williams_482 said:

Creating pixel art patterns on a loom and then displaying them 1-to-1 on the clothing model wouldn't be a trivial change, but ought to be technically feasible. 

From what I've learnt of how the game is actually built (and I'm no expert btw although I am a dev and have built large code bases in C#), it seems lots is technically feasible. They don't look like they've painted themselves into a corner. I've seen it with many games over the years where they develop for the intended release rather than develop for intended possibilities.

Time, resources and money are always the most malignant of influences though..

Fingers crossed though, it is heartening to hear the intent is to remove the crafting square. It's a meta that is useful, but not very haptic considering the game leans into that with certain elements (smelting, chiselling, clay forming, etc).

[LadyWYT]

12 minutes ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Fingers crossed though, it is heartening to hear the intent is to remove the crafting square. It's a meta that is useful, but not very haptic considering the game leans into that with certain elements (smelting, chiselling, clay forming, etc).

Given the recent patch notes, it looks like a lot of grid processes are getting ground options, so perhaps in the future those processes will remove the grid and rely on the ground process/whatever immersive process was added instead. The ore smashing, for example. Typically you do that in the crafting grid, because force of habit and it's quite easy and fast. But if you wanted to do that immersively, then you'd put the ore on the ground first and then actually swing the hammer to smash it.

[Broccoli Clock]

7 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Given the recent patch notes, it looks like a lot of grid processes are getting ground options, so perhaps in the future those processes will remove the grid and rely on the ground process/whatever immersive process was added instead. The ore smashing, for example. Typically you do that in the crafting grid, because force of habit and it's quite easy and fast. But if you wanted to do that immersively, then you'd put the ore on the ground first and then actually swing the hammer to smash it.

You've probably watched as many, or perhaps more, blind playthroughs, and "thanks" to Minecraft the crafting square is immediately accessible to the user such is the influence of its meta. Now on one hand, I do think it's good to move away from what it represents and replace it with a far more interactive experience, and I also have this feeling that if someone gets so annoyed by no crafting square they quit then hell mend them, but onboarding is a tough gig and I do worry if that will be another pressure point, considering interaction like that will happen very early on in the game.

There is a famous tweet regarding bear proof garbage bins in US national parks, where the average bear intelligence is higher than the lowest intelligent visitor. Whether that's an urban myth or not, not sure, but it's a great analogy for approaching the likely intelligence of your user base and how likely they'll work shit out before crashing out.

Edited February 7 by Broccoli Clock

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, Broccoli Clock said:

You've probably watched as many, or perhaps more, blind playthroughs, and "thanks" to Minecraft the crafting square is immediately accessible to the user such is the influence of its meta. Now on one hand, I do think it's good to move away from what it and replace it with a far more interactive experience, and I also have this feeling that if someone gets so annoyed by no crafting square they quit then hell mend them, but onboarding is a tough gig and I do worry if that will be another pressure point, considering interaction like that will happen very early on in the game.

I think I've watched exactly one blind playthrough, but otherwise I agree for the most part about the crafting grid system. Having immersive options is nice, but isn't going to be what most players try to do first, and it's not ideal to frustrate new players so much to the point they quit the game. That's not just the loss of one player, but potentially more since they will certainly tell their friends about their experience. Of course, that's not to say that everything in the game needs to be easy for new players to accomplish either.

 

5 minutes ago, Broccoli Clock said:

There is a famous tweet regarding bear proof garbage bins in US national parks, where the average bear intelligence is higher than the lowest intelligent visitor. Whether that's an urban myth or not, not sure, but it's a great analogy for approaching the likely intelligence of your user base and how likely they'll work shit out before crashing out.

Oh to be sure, but even the smartest person in the world can look dumb if you catch them at the right time.

[Bruno Willis]

9 hours ago, williams_482 said:

I think you could get away with greatly compressing the weaving process to make the boring parts tolerable. Clayforming currently has some helper tools along these lines. 

I'm imagining a loom block you interact with using twine, yarn, or equivalent threads. By default it will place a row of the color you applied to it, allow you to add and place additional colors a la new materials in the chiseling interface, then you could lock in that row and start the next one. It should give you the option to repeat the previous row (or a block of previous rows, to allow more complex patterns) provided the correct materials are available, and should add a new row every 1/2 second or so as you hold down the button. It might even have a "weave one cloth" button that takes a little longer than weaving one row to animate, but outputs a whole piece of linen. This process should also be contiguous: you give it yarn in increments of four, up to a stack, and then hold down the button to continuously add rows until materials are exhausted, outputting a piece of finished cloth each time the requisite number of rows has been completed. Think like grinding stuff in a quern. Simple patterns could even be automated with mechanical power, assuming the devs were interested in pushing the invention of mechanized weaving up a few centuries. 

This would be more tedious than the current grid recipe for crafting cloth, but with the right time saving options it wouldn't be dramatically worse and it would open up more options for patterns, etc. 

They could also have a knapping-style interface where you shape linen into shirts, pants, etc, and an "embroidery" interface where you can freehand pixel art onto an already existent cloth item at the cost of colored thread. All things that could feel and function like other mechanics already in the game. 

This is an excellent run-down on the ideal, and I agree wholeheartedly.

I would love to see automated pattern making done through Jonas tech. If I were a clockmaker with rare, eldritch mechanical knowledge, in a world reset by calamity, I would 100% prioritize automated weaving over night-vision goggles. I want that to see a Jonas tech spider-limbed loom working away under my windmill like a helpful cotage-core demon.