A chat with older players

[TIZIL]

So i have been playing this game for a little more than a year now and i was in love with the game from the moment i saw it, it is my favorite game now, it truly is, however as i started playing in 1.19 wich is way more polished version than the others(if i'm not mistaken tha updtae is caled de-jank redux) but i have been seen some footage from older versions and let me be honest, i think if i had seen the game back then i would'nt give a chance, so what i would like to know from you are a few things:

1. what version did you start playing?
2. how it was the gameplay like? progression wise, mechanics wise and lore wise
3. what make you invested on the game? what did make you want to give it a chance? (for me personaly whas the immersive mechanics like, charcoal pits, pit kilns, pottery, knapping etc.)
4. did u saw it is potential from the start or you just didnt give much atention back then?

I sorry if this has been discussed before but i could'nt find this topic on this forum.

Edited February 27 by TIZIL

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

19 minutes ago, TIZIL said:

what version did you start playing?

1.18, which is right when the first story content dropped.

 

19 minutes ago, TIZIL said:

how it was the gameplay like? progression wise, mechanics wise and lore wise

Aside from everything feeling more overwhelming and scary due to a lack of game knowledge and experience, the game's progression was similar to what it is now. More difficult than Minecraft or other similar titles, to be sure, but very satisfying to play and not actually that hard once one learns the "rules" that Vintage Story plays by. Most of the game is just testing how good the player is at problem-solving, planning for the future, and thinking on their feet or outside the box.

As for the lore, 1.18 laid the foundations for pretty much everything we have now, but the pieces that came with chapter 2 in 1.20 confirmed a few things that had otherwise been theory before, though there were a few things that were definitely not hinted at before(that I am aware of, anyway).

Spoiler

Mainly, that the player was indeed one of Jonas's allies back in the latter days of the Old World. 

The most startling new revelation, I think, is that Jonas's Grand Machine project didn't actually defeat the Rot. Somehow it's returned, or perhaps it was merely thrown forward in time rather than eradicated, and enough time has passed for it to begin re-emerging. It's also revealed that while seraphs are immortal, one doesn't need to be a seraph to possess a sort of immortality, as evidenced by how long Tobias has been around.

 

28 minutes ago, TIZIL said:

what make you invested on the game? what did make you want to give it a chance? (for me personaly whas the immersive mechanics like, charcoal pits, pit kilns, pottery, knapping etc.)

Gut feeling, mostly. The survival mechanics looked interesting and the world in general looked fun to explore. The hard sell for me was the player model and horror aspect. I'm not a horror fan, but the game didn't seem to have blood or gore, and keep the creepy stuff mostly as background dressing to flavor the setting, thus I don't really consider it a horror game. The player model wasn't as polished back then as it is now(though it really hasn't changed too much), and while it looked unsettling at first it's the kind of thing that just...grows on you, as well as makes a lot of sense once you figure out why the player character is colored so oddly. In any case, after watching some basic gameplay footage(Rhadamant mostly, for those wondering), I ended up trying the game for myself and loved it!

As for what keeps me invested, the story and lore plays a big role. There's a lot to uncover and piece together, and it's well-written as well as blended into the world in a way that feels natural. I've had several many hours of entertainment alone just from uncovering scraps of lore or writing up different characters and thinking about how they would fit in to a world like this.

The core gameplay itself is also challenging enough to keep me entertained and acquiring new tools and resources actually feels like an accomplishment rather than something that was just handed to me. Not that I have anything against easy games either, but sometimes I just want to feel like I actually had to work a little bit to beat the game. 

41 minutes ago, TIZIL said:

did u saw it is potential from the start or you just didnt give much atention back then?

Honestly I thought it was a janky Minecraft clone the first time I ever caught wind of it, and thus I promptly ignored it for a year or two before I stumbled across it again. To be fair, when I found it the second time, it still looked like a weird Minecraft clone, but actually researching what it was revealed it was anything but that. I can't say that I really saw its potential when I first bought it either; that more came after I had played it for a little while and realized I was having more fun than I'd had for a long time in a videogame. 

[Shoom]

I started around 1.16. Around the time when fruit trees had just been added, from what I can remember the game wasn't all that different from today, it was a bit slower-paced, there was no elk, no sailboat, no shivers/bowtorns, no story locations, naturally the game felt a bit more mysterious. I think all games feel more mysterious in earlier version, because the vision of the game is more vague and undefined, like a fog.

I remember trying Minecraft in the early days, around 2010 and asking, what's the deal with the zombies? Who are they and where did they come from? Now we take them for granted, like of course there are zombies in Minecraft, it's part of the brand, but back then things weren't as clear. Same thing with the music discs, what was that? I suspect Notch juggled with the idea of having lore but it never quite materialized and as more people joined working on the project the focus shifted towards total player freedom instead, it was the easier path to walk, but by doing that Minecraft lost something.

That's why I think people are drawn to the earlier builds of Minecraft still to this day, they miss the time when the game stood at that foggy crossroad, a time when there was "something more" to the game. Minecraft clearly left a void then and there and I think Vintage Story fills that void neatly.

I definitely felt the potential back then when I first tried Vintage Story, the game just felt and still feels alive in a way that present day Minecraft quite doesn't, I think the direction and development the game has taken since then is brilliant and I love that there are still mysteries in the game without answers.

A game, just like real life, needs unresolved mysteries, because life itself is a unresolved mystery, knowing everything is boring. 

Edited February 28 by Shoom

[dakko]

I started with 1.5, just a couple of days before world maps and weather were introduced.

I really do not recall what the progression, mechanics, or lore were at that point.

I'd never played Minecraft or anything similar. To give you an idea of my ineptitude -- in my first world, I spawned in a narrow valley (heavily wooded) and bordered with steep terrain. I had no idea how to move, jump up, break a block or even exit the game.

I enjoy looking at the scenery, exploring, admiring the flowers/plants and finding loot. Since the Resonance Archives, I've not been interested in later lore (other than curiosity about the sweet sweet loot) because it is just me and I'm not much on fighting.

eta: it was seeing the chickens, and the way the chicks moved around the hen, that sold me on the game (Tyron was being interviewed or something)

Edited February 28 by dakko

[Thorfinn]

1.14 this account. 1.12(?) on my machine that died and I couldn't remember the PW for the gmail account I bought the game with.

I found this while looking for something different than my normal fare of mostly FPS, RTS, city builder and TBS. What sold me on the game was the first day. Had no idea what I was doing, so night came and I still hadn't figured out how to make a torch. Ended up building a telephone booth to spend the night, then terrified because I was absolutely sure the drifters would break through my dirt walls any time now, and finally starving to death before dawn. In short, it kicked my butt, and I couldn't let that stand.

In the first version(s?) I played, there was no pit kiln, you just placed the pottery in the firepit. Huge improvement. Fire damage significantly nerfed -- it used to be you could go spank the rusties in temporal storms with nothing but a torch. 1.15, IIRC. There may have been cooking prior to 1.16, I don't know. I never realized having a cookpot was a good thing until then. The world was a lot less alive. No butterflies, no deer or goats, no bears, no shells, or at least I don't remember shells, Mushrooms grew only on specific blocks, and you had to harvest them with a knife or it destroyed the block.

[ifoz]

I started back in 1.18, and as LadyWYT has said the progression was honestly much the same, just a lot less things to do in the endgame aside from setting your own goals.
The lore was something that didn't hook me from the onset, as I didn't actually know there really was any proper lore until a good while into my first playthrough! It clicked for me when I found my first underground ruin (much more basic back then, but luckily it was one of the larger ones) and read its tapestry as the cave music faded in. I think that might actually have been the defining moment that set most of my playthroughs on the path of much ruin-hunting. 
The lore nowadays is a big reason as to why I love VS, that and the sheer creative freedom the building system allows with chiselling and beams.

What made me try out the game was actually a random Youtube video on the farming mechanics. Not the farming mechanics themselves really, though they were cool, but the mention of cellars (a block game actually using player building as part of progression!) was very interesting to me. At the same time, I was somewhat disenchanted with modern Minecraft, and had always been on the lookout for a similar game, though more indie and less corporate mismanagement. Anyway, VS looked to be just that game, and I got it later that day. I still mess around in Minecraft every now and then, but for me at least VS has taken that primary block game throne.

Edited February 28 by ifoz

[Shoom]

To get even more philosophical, I think Minecraft being the most popular game in the world hints at something: that we as human beings have a inherit desire to create and to leave a mark on our surroundings. Minecraft went the path of total player freedom, turning Steve into a demi-God type figure, but creativity blooms within constraints and limitations, in adversity and scarcity, seldom does creativity bloom in perfect freedom, I think the truth is, we do not actually desire complete control, not in game and not in life in general.

As humans we want to come together and partake in something, contribute to something pre-existing, something we quite don't understand, we do not truly wish to be God ourselves. Being all-knowing and having complete control of everything may sound like heaven at first but on a infinite time-scale even the most perfect of heavens turn into purgatory, eventually your only desire becomes to surrender all control and return to a more primitive, more imperfect state of just being apart of something, ignorance is bliss as they say and I think there's truth to that.

By not being able to fly around freely, to tank any hit with enchanted diamond armor, to farm an infinite amount of every resource using some redstone contraption or mob grinder and instead imposing strict limitations and hardship, our inherit creativity kicks back into gear, suddenly just building a small cottage becomes engaging again and once finished you think to yourself, what if I were to build a castle? In the journey, in the moment, is where we thrive, not at the peak, once we reach the peak all we can think of is how to get back down.

TLDR: If Sisyphus were to one day reach the summit, at some point I'm certain he would push the boulder down just to start over again.  

[TIZIL]

@dakko wow man 1.5 that is very early on, even the wiki groups the versions older than 1.6 in a single category, i dont know if that is because they don't feel the need or just did'nt do yet. And you say that you never played minecraft before  Vintage Story, that must've been quite the experience huh? i was wondering with myself this days how would that be, i've played minecraft back on the early days, i started on 1.1 but went on fully blind and everything was a discovery, i can just imagined how that must be in VIntage Story with so much more to do and uncover, first night must have been a pain the ass though, even i that have played minecraft before have had a tough first night, and the nights in this game are really dark man, must have been really overwhelming.

[TIZIL]

15 hours ago, ifoz said:

cellars (a block game actually using player building as part of progression!)

dude, you are right, i guess i have'nt think of it that way, guess i have one more reason to love this game now

[TIZIL]

@Shoom wow you second answer was very profound, and i agrre with you on that,

13 hours ago, Shoom said:

As humans we want to come together and partake in something, contribute to something pre-existing, something we quite don't understand, we do not truly wish to be God ourselves. Being all-knowing and having complete control of everything may sound like heaven at first but on a infinite time-scale even the most perfect of heavens turn into purgatory, eventually your only desire becomes to surrender all control and return to a more primitive, more imperfect state of just being apart of something

i can really relate to that, society nowdays is very overwhelming aind tiring, we solve a lot of problems but create more complex ones, i live São Paulo, one of the biggest cities in the world but sometimes i like to go camping because life in a big city can be very exhausting sometimes.

[TIZIL]

16 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Welcome to the forums!

Thank you, i usually dont interact much online because people on the internet are a pain in the ass, but from what i have seen this comunity is very supportive.

 

16 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Aside from everything feeling more overwhelming and scary due to a lack of game knowledge and experience

honestly, sometimes i wish i could comeback to those time when i did not have things figured it out, learn something is quite rewarding and this game knows how to give that feeling, i even try to avoid in game guide when i could, things are hard and slow paced but quite intuitive, the developers really know what they are doing with this game.

16 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

world in general looked fun to explore

i also think that, is very frustating when you fall down in a hole with no way to coming back o the surface, but it also makes you more alert and immersed on the game.

16 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

As for what keeps me invested, the story and lore plays a big role. There's a lot to uncover and piece together, and it's well-written as well as blended into the world in a way that feels natural.

I agree with you on this one, i dont want to keeo mention it minecraft a lot on this forum since it feels disrepectfull, but the comparison is unavoidable, the way this game approaches it the lore is what i was expecting from minecraft but never get it.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, TIZIL said:

I agree with you on this one, i dont want to keeo mention it minecraft a lot on this forum since it feels disrepectfull, but the comparison is unavoidable, the way this game approaches it the lore is what i was expecting from minecraft but never get it.

To be fair, Minecraft is still a good game, it just has different priorities than Vintage Story. Interestingly enough, Vintage Story actually began as a mod for Minecraft, before Tyron realized that a simple mod just wasn't going to be able to handle the scope of what he wanted to do.

 

1 hour ago, TIZIL said:

honestly, sometimes i wish i could comeback to those time when i did not have things figured it out, learn something is quite rewarding and this game knows how to give that feeling, i even try to avoid in game guide when i could, things are hard and slow paced but quite intuitive, the developers really know what they are doing with this game.

I think every VS veteran has been there at one time or another. But that's also part of what's fun about interacting with the community. You might not ever be able to truly get that "new player" experience again, but after you've earned your stripes then you have the experience to help out the players who came after you.

[7embre]

21 hours ago, TIZIL said:

what version did you start playing?

My first version was 1.16.x, we ventured into VS with constant party almost blindly. Not sure progression changed much since then vertically speaking, as we haven't gotten far — early bronze in the middle of a winter. Almost got to cheese making tho, surprisingly so.

What hooked me up back then was the feeling of time vintage story provides, with it's days becoming shorter as seasons change, feeling of winter, which btw was pretty cozy as for some reason the chunk we spawned in was in a warmer temperate climate — with wallnuts around, 38°C in summer and a redwoods like 4k blocks away from the spawn. It was pretty swampy and we didn't know that settling in a forest is a bad idea. There was no shortage of wolves tho!

21 hours ago, TIZIL said:

what make you invested on the game? what did make you want to give it a chance?

Back then it was overall game atmosphere, now — mostly creative building — here's my magnum opus, haven't finished it yet, but very close to it — for real this time. Very lazy to update original post, will do so when I'm done with it. I tackle survival from time to time and enjoy it a lot as well.

21 hours ago, TIZIL said:

did u saw it is potential from the start or you just didnt give much atention back then?

Pretty much yes, it hooked me up immediately

For some reason I haven't even thought about vintage story as The Other Block Game knock-off. Maybe because it stated the rules clearly, who knows. But even building — part of the game I'm most experienced in — feels very different, despite same block sizes and all

[TIZIL]

@7embre What an amazing build you did there, good work, i am not much of a builder myself, even when i am at iton or even steel i am still living in my durt hut but now he is big, i usually just start my buildings when i feeling like to go to the resonances archives for rp reasons, i think that my seraph would have thing setled before trying to go to the archives. I am yet to take sometime to try improve on my buildings techniques, the chisel mechanics really allow for some great buildings like the one you did there.

[Zane Mordien]

On 2/27/2026 at 5:57 PM, TIZIL said:

• what version did you start playing?
• how it was the gameplay like? progression wise, mechanics wise and lore wise
• what make you invested on the game? what did make you want to give it a chance? (for me personaly whas the immersive mechanics like, charcoal pits, pit kilns, pottery, knapping etc.)
• did u saw it is potential from the start or you just didnt give much atention back then?

I got in at the very end of 1.18, right before 1.19 and the story missions started. 

Progression was very similiar, but the world generation has changed some since then. The ruins completely changed and now there are larger bodies of water that didn't exist in 1.18 or 1.19.

I liked the mechanics vs Minecraft. My kid always wanted me to play Minecraft with him, but I found it boring so this was a good alternative to play with him.

[dakko]

20 hours ago, TIZIL said:

first night must have been a pain the ass though, even i that have played minecraft before have had a tough first night, and the nights in this game are really dark man, must have been really overwhelming.

We used to start out with a torch and several loaves of bread (and the first few days were drifter-free) so it wasn't too bad. I'm curious now to play that version and refresh my memory, although not sure where I've put those old installation files.

[vinnland]

I am in the same position as you: fav game, cannot get enough of it, started on version 1.19.

I invested in this game because I wanted something "more realistic" and i saw a comment that I could try terafermacraft (or whatever - a minecraft mod) or Vintage Story. When I played VS for the first time, I remember thinking.... "ahhhh minecraft for adults". 

The sense of progression is real. One world on 30 days per month, at 100 hours is no where near completed.

The emotions are real: Finding Tin or Iron is a massive achievement. Bears literally scare the hell out of me. 

As it stands now, VS is my most played offline game of all time.
 

[Maelstrom]

On 2/27/2026 at 3:57 PM, TIZIL said:

1. what version did you start playing?
2. how it was the gameplay like? progression wise, mechanics wise and lore wise
3. what make you invested on the game? what did make you want to give it a chance? (for me personaly whas the immersive mechanics like, charcoal pits, pit kilns, pottery, knapping etc.)
4. did u saw it is potential from the start or you just didnt give much atention back then?

I sorry if this has been discussed before but i could'nt find this topic on this forum.

I have not seen this kind of thread.  Kudos for being creative!

1.14 was my start which was before pit kilns and everything was baked in firepit except charcoal, coke (an unnecessary endeavor at that time) and steel had just been introduced.   Making the cementation furnace was the jankiest thing in VS EVER! and practically required a search of the Utoobs for a tutorial to get it right.   If I recall orienting the door to face north was the most successful way to achieve a working steel furnace.  Rifts didn't exist yet and drifters would appear only in caves and at night, typically in herds of 3.  As for the lore?  only books, scrolls, and various other items found in ruins or traders (whose wagons did not even have wheels).  The learning curve back in those early days was way steeper than it is now.   The tutorials and guides are such a big help for new players. 1.15 introduced rift activity but the actual rifts didn't show up until 1.16 and the totally undisclosed change to drifter spawning was fun to see the community figure out what curveball Tyron had thrown at us.

In the few months before I even knew this game existed I described to my son (who loved TOBG) features for TOBG that almost exactly describe tool progression in VS.  The wonderful Mischief of Mice Utoob channel showcased the game and I fell in love.  Like @Thorfinn the challenges that kicked my arse could not stand.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 2/27/2026 at 4:57 PM, TIZIL said:

So i have been playing this game for a little more than a year now and i was in love with the game from the moment i saw it, it is my favorite game now, it truly is, however as i started playing in 1.19 wich is way more polished version than the others(if i'm not mistaken tha updtae is caled de-jank redux) but i have been seen some footage from older versions and let me be honest, i think if i had seen the game back then i would'nt give a chance, so what i would like to know from you are a few things:

1. what version did you start playing?
2. how it was the gameplay like? progression wise, mechanics wise and lore wise
3. what make you invested on the game? what did make you want to give it a chance? (for me personaly whas the immersive mechanics like, charcoal pits, pit kilns, pottery, knapping etc.)
4. did u saw it is potential from the start or you just didnt give much atention back then?

I sorry if this has been discussed before but i could'nt find this topic on this forum.

1. Version 1.18, I believe after @LadyWYT hounded me for weeks to get the game. Then she got it for me for Christmas. I was at the tail end of a LONG Minecraft burnout, so I wasn't really interested in any other block games at the time, but she was so adamant and excited about it that I figured I might as well at least install it and see what the fuss was all about.

2. My first world I assumed you could just do things like you could in Minecraft. Punching trees did not work. I decided to just play around with the game mechanics and just give myself stuff in creative mode since I couldn't figure out basic things, like how to find flint, or how to really do anything. I spend a LOT of time in the handbook just trying to figure out how the game worked.

3. I think I became invested when my friend asked me if we could play together once I had started to get a grasp on the game's basics. We started a world together which I would open to LAN and let her connect. I think once I actually got into it and saw how all the game's systems interacted, I slowly started to realize that this wasn't just another modded Minecraft clone, but an actual game that was attempting to stand on its own. I couldn't find any faults with it no matter how hard I looked. Then I realized I was looking at it the wrong way. I was expecting to experience the doldrums of Minecraft and so because of that I was spending too much time looking for them. Once my perspective shifted, I actually started to have fun. The first time we actually made it to the end of the available story at the time was on an actual server that we could play on together which I host from my Linux machine under my desk. Now I'm working on a voice chat mod that doesn't completely break the game's sound engine when you boot it up.

4. I didn't know it existed. As I said before I expected to be bored. I ate a mushroom and DIED instantly. I rage quit. Then I realized that Minecraft hadn't ever made me rage quit, so I deleted that world and tried again. Then I realized it was fun.

Edited March 2 by Teh Pizza Lady
wording

[ArgentLuna]

what version did you start playing?

1.15

how it was the gameplay like? progression wise, mechanics wise and lore wise

Great, very much like MC but with better detail in everything, wasnt much lore around then but it honestly didnt need it to be fun, Exploration is big for me and the gosh the world and views you can find are so nice

what make you invested on the game? what did make you want to give it a chance?

It was everything i liked from MC but "MORE, i had long stopped playing vanilla by that point and was only in heavily modded MC on occasion and VS just had that level of detail as its baseline. I havent been back to MC even when friends recently tried to get me to join them but i'm always up for more VS. 

did u see it's potential from the start or you just didnt give much atention back then?

I first came across it somewhere in 2020 but didnt play at the time and ended up forgetting about it but in late 2021 my best friend found it and started playing and soon after i joined the server her partner was running. Once i was playing it i fell in love with it. Introduced other friends to it but they had a rougher start than i did arriving on a somewhat set up world but later i would join them on a server which became the main one i played on

 

Have had some breaks and some save issues overtime, Server owner tried to update from 1.16 and it kept crashing so stopped playing for a time and eventually i made a new solo world in 1.18 (and kept it at that state for the two mods i was using) and then was asked by friends partner if i wanted that turned into the server so i did and kept going mostly solo till i took a break and the server was turned off till i got a new PC and wanted to play again and then we tried the OG save on a whim and it worked so we are back on the world with so much time invested in.

We are planning to copy the Estate into a new world at some point as the 1.16 World has broken in current 1.21 era (and the DB Prune and such has not helped) once 1.22 is stable and we have finished preparing (ie dug up all the local Fire clay and other rare but known resources)

Edited March 3 by ArgentLuna