jascas Posted July 17 Report Posted July 17 I'm basically wondering what is the final product the devs are aiming for? Like it's easy to look at the survival stuff and just be like oh keep adding things and make it more realistic and in depth and stuff, but there's also this story thing that I know nothing about - it's not integrated into the game well. So like I'm wondering how they're going about this? What's the game loop they want? What's the story and progression gonna be like? Cuz like based on the progression of the game currently, it's about growing through the ages and rebuilding civilization in a ruined world corrupted by some unknown force. And I really like that premise, but the plot needs to be more intertwined with the story or else its just like here's some cool and interesting fun facts about this world that have nothing to do with what you're doing. In my mind, things like temporal storms could turn into this big events that you prepare for to try and defend your home, rather than just "oop a storm's coming, better dig yourself a hole and hide unless you're late enough to have good gear and can farm for some parts" idk, i'd just like to know where we're headed
LadyWYT Posted July 17 Report Posted July 17 32 minutes ago, jascas said: I'm basically wondering what is the final product the devs are aiming for? Only the devs know all the details, and there are several reasons they're not going to put all the cards on the table at once. Things can easily change before release, spoiling story plots can upset players and quell excitement, etc. However, that doesn't mean there aren't clues to what's coming in the future. Tyron posts updates from time to time, both here on the forums and on the Discord. There's also the roadmap, which lists several features that are planned for the future, but there's also no guarantees those things won't change either. https://www.vintagestory.at/roadmap.html/ 38 minutes ago, jascas said: but there's also this story thing that I know nothing about - it's not integrated into the game well. There is a main story, but it's not shoved into the player's face. Much of the game's lore is left up to the player to discover and piece together for themselves. Some things are also left up to the player's imagination. To start the main story, talk to a treasure hunter trader and complete a small quest--you'll get a map to an interesting location. After you finish exploring that location, talk to the treasure hunter again to begin chapter two. Currently, there are only two chapters of a planned eight implemented for the main story. The third chapter is supposed to be released in 1.24, but plans may or may not change. 41 minutes ago, jascas said: What's the story and progression gonna be like? The two chapters that currently exist can give you a decent idea of what to potentially expect, at least regarding the basic challenges. However, the devs are also rather good at surprises, so there will likely be plot twists and new mechanics and challenges introduced. Overall, the story is quite gritty, with underlying themes of hope and perseverance in the face of adversity, and I would expect those themes to continue. It's difficult to say much more than that. As for the progression, it's basically what you see now. The main focus is on medieval technology, with the highest tech tier being steel and very early steam power/Jonas tech contraptions. To my knowledge, there aren't any plans to add firearms or go beyond steel and early steam power. 48 minutes ago, jascas said: In my mind, things like temporal storms could turn into this big events that you prepare for to try and defend your home, rather than just "oop a storm's coming, better dig yourself a hole and hide unless you're late enough to have good gear and can farm for some parts" Temporal storms are still very much a work in progress. When they'll receive more updates though is unknown.
jascas Posted July 17 Author Report Posted July 17 Thanks for the reply! I do want to clarify things so that my question is more clear, though. 3 hours ago, LadyWYT said: Only the devs know all the details, and there are several reasons they're not going to put all the cards on the table at once. Things can easily change before release, spoiling story plots can upset players and quell excitement, etc. However, that doesn't mean there aren't clues to what's coming in the future. Tyron posts updates from time to time, both here on the forums and on the Discord. There's also the roadmap, which lists several features that are planned for the future, but there's also no guarantees those things won't change either. https://www.vintagestory.at/roadmap.html/ Of course! I'm not looking for every detail, but rather something more substantial than a list of features to implement. They clearly have an idea of what the finished game is, and the assumption is that game will be out once they finish all the chapters. But I'm wondering what that game looks like. How do all the features they plan fit into that vision? Right now it feels like a collection of concepts that we dabble a little bit into and it's hard for me to know what to expect. 3 hours ago, LadyWYT said: There is a main story, but it's not shoved into the player's face. Much of the game's lore is left up to the player to discover and piece together for themselves. Some things are also left up to the player's imagination. Here there's a bit of terminology that'll need to be cleared up so we can be on the same page. Story refers to what is happening, plot is how its structured (and narrative which is how its delivered). In gaming, the game is the story. What you as the player do, is all the story. So whether the player is reading a lore book or being told to follow a map or choosing to just build a farm and raise animals, that is all the story of the game. So in that aspect, how does the plot-the structure of the game-contribute to the overall vision? While I personally don't find lore books compelling (cool I found a book from panning, that affects me how?) and the idea of there being a guided adventure is neat, there is a dissonance between me playing the game and never stumbling upon an event to "start" the story and the progressively worsening rifts and temporal storms that are more directly impacting my experience. I think if these features are going to exist, then they need to direct how the player engages with the mechanics. One of the first things I started doing as I reached the bronze age was to look for ways to minimize the impact of rifts and storms, and I noticed that I could eventually make a rift ward. This is a really cool way of using the world's mechanics to drive the player to progress in a certain way. The issue is that this just repels rifts. I would love something to help further repel storms, but that then begs the question what is the point of the storms? 3 hours ago, LadyWYT said: As for the progression, it's basically what you see now. The main focus is on medieval technology, with the highest tech tier being steel and very early steam power/Jonas tech contraptions. To my knowledge, there aren't any plans to add firearms or go beyond steel and early steam power. Temporal storms are still very much a work in progress. When they'll receive more updates though is unknown. The game frames the progression as ascending through the ages, which is a major appeal of the game (it is, in practice, what the game's story is about). I don't necessarily expect it to go beyond steam power, but the existence of jonas tech makes a really compelling mesh of the worldbuilding and player experience. You're telling me that I can discover technology from hidden ruins that'll allow me to completely master the world? That is a driving motivator. But what if the way you obtain these parts and the worsening rifts and storms were directly tied to how you progress through the game? Now, instead of having to go out of the way to do some quest, you are now driven to learn more about this technology to help prepare and get through the world falling apart. I also don't really buy in to the idea of making the story "optional" (especially since you are always experiencing the story just by playing the game) especially when you have a toggle for "pure survival". 3 hours ago, LadyWYT said: To start the main story, talk to a treasure hunter trader and complete a small quest--you'll get a map to an interesting location. After you finish exploring that location, talk to the treasure hunter again to begin chapter two. Currently, there are only two chapters of a planned eight implemented for the main story. The third chapter is supposed to be released in 1.24, but plans may or may not change. The two chapters that currently exist can give you a decent idea of what to potentially expect, at least regarding the basic challenges. However, the devs are also rather good at surprises, so there will likely be plot twists and new mechanics and challenges introduced. Overall, the story is quite gritty, with underlying themes of hope and perseverance in the face of adversity, and I would expect those themes to continue. It's difficult to say much more than that. I hadn't started this cuz the two hunter traders I came across didn't offer any trades or anything different from other traders (other than the structure being a cool little fort). I'll definitely go back to them and try to see what's up, but that doesn't really change (or answer in that matter) my question (and I guess concerns). I am still quite excited for what the devs add to the game, I just think having a clearer vision will help me and the community as a whole know what to expect (and to make mods to better fit that experience which is really what I'm looking for lmao). Cheers!
Rainbow Fresh Posted July 17 Report Posted July 17 2 hours ago, jascas said: cool I found a book from panning, that affects me how? That is the beauty of games with optional story - the answer lies solely with you. Do you want to learn more about the plot/lore, the world you have inhabited, why things are as they are? Well here you have a tiny piece of the greater picture. Keep looking to find more. You don't care about any of that? Chugg it back into the lake, it just takes inventory space. It's the same with Dark Souls games; you can dive into the deep lore of what happened; if you so choose. Or you just suffer through a world full of deadly bosses that speak in riddle-y nonsense that is none of your business, kill them and move on. That is, from what I can feel about the game as it is right now, the vision for the story. It is there, optionally, if you want to engage with it. Otherwise you can just live a somewhat peaceful life playing hardcore Minecraft. It's why Homo Sapiens mode exists. Speaking of which... 2 hours ago, jascas said: I also don't really buy in to the idea of making the story "optional" (especially since you are always experiencing the story just by playing the game) especially when you have a toggle for "pure survival". It's a good concept used in several other games out there to package multiple possible experiences for multiple possible target audiences into a single game. Both people who like clear goals to follow and want to pursue the main story aswell as those not caring and just wanting a hardcore wilderness survival experience can play this game to their liking. I also, personally, think that optional story that is not force-fed down your throat is a better approach to games that aren't inherently story-focused like open world sandbox survival games are. Gives you more freedom to do what you truly want, when you truly want. You want to use the story locations as loot pools? Go ahead. You want to wait until you are maxed out on steel gear to have a better chance crushing any challenge story locations pose? Go ahead. You don't care at all and just want to build a nice village with reach steel tier before calling the game "done"? Go ahead. Better than "Oh, so you want to finally reach the copper age? Well you need to now take your flimsy stone tools and go to dungeon 1 and beat boss 1 which unlocks the necessary tech. Then you can use copper tools to go to dungeon 2 and beat boss 2 to unlock bronze" and so on. So I don't see a problem with having an optional plot experience on top of a game that you can play at your own pace. 2 hours ago, jascas said: there is a dissonance between me playing the game and never stumbling upon an event to "start" the story As LadyWYT stated, it starts when you find a treasure hunter trader, pick the right dialogue option (a little bit of curiosity required, I guess) and do the little quest given to you. The rest is just following the trails given to you and overcoming the challenges along the way. 2 hours ago, jascas said: I would love something to help further repel storms, but that then begs the question what is the point of the storms? Right now? Being a nuisance to keep you "on your toes". In the future? Hopefully something actually cool that half of the playerbase doesn't want to mod out. That said, with the direction the current plot is going I expect to get information on storms in future chapters. Which finally ties into: 2 hours ago, jascas said: I just think having a clearer vision will help me and the community as a whole know what to expect (and to make mods to better fit that experience which is really what I'm looking for lmao). What to expect from the game going forward, as deduced by a mere player on basis of the current game and the few updates I witnessed myself, assuming the devs stick to the current theming. As LadyWYT already mentioned as well, the progression is pretty much set in stone through what we have, what the roadmap offers and what things the devs have said in various interviews. The ultimate tier progression will go up to early steam power; so no much further than steel. The rest will likely be more in-depth mechanics for existing features to make things more engaging, realistic, maybe challenging. Hopefully revisits to existing mechanics that feel underwhelming. But the general flow is already mapped out. AS for the story, there will be 6 more chapters which, following the current theme, might get individually longer with bigger, more impressive locations to visit, puzzles and bosses to overcome. With the direction the story is going so far, I'd expect to learn all about what happened to the old civilization and where the rust creatures are coming from by the end, with the hopeful potential we might learn to do something against them; finish what our predecessors couldn't. But seeing as the story is and likely always will be opt-out-able I can easily see it just being flashy, cinematic exposition all the way down for those interested enough to care. As for mods; generally the golden rule is to install whatever you want from the game. It's what mods are for, to modify it in a way that is enjoyable to YOU. But if what YOU want is jumping ahead in a vanilla+ way you'd want to look into mods that expand existing mechanics into more in-depth interactions (like Butchering, Hydrate or Diedrate, A Culinary Artillery, Equus, Shipwright), things that add new mechanics that feel missing while still fitting within the scope of "max early, crude steam power" and "basic steampunk fantasy tech" (aka. Jonas tech) as well as mods that expand the lore and add more plot stuff to engage with (of which I only know Better Ruins). 2
ifoz Posted July 17 Report Posted July 17 (edited) 2 hours ago, jascas said: but that then begs the question what is the point of the storms? Honestly, right now I don't think they really have all that much of a point. This is totally subjective, but I assume the reason for them to exist gameplay-wise (they make sense within the lore, but I mean from a purely 'why is this a mechanic' perspective) is probably to nudge the player towards gearing up, especially since they gradually get more severe the longer you play in a world. With their current implementation though, this kind of falls apart. They're easy enough to cheese, and they're so unpredictable that hiding yourself in a dirt box and waiting them out is usually the far safer option. They also don't encourage you to interact with building at all, since monsters spawned by storms will ignore things like valid rooms, lighting and proximity to the player. I think they're also tricky to design though, since you'd want some way to encourage the player to gear up without having to resort to going AFK in a box or having monsters destroy player builds (given how in-depth chiselling is and how intricate builds can be, myself and many other players would probably be quite unhappy if that was a mechanic). The best solution I can think of is having the storms spawn rifts, which monsters will then emerge from (tying the rift mechanics to storms, as currently they are oddly disconnected). The rifts could spawn at a certain radius (eg, 50 blocks) from the player, but spawned enemies would aggro instantly, creating a sort of "horde" event that a good base can still protect from. This kind of implementation would also line up better with what storms are said to be in the game's lore, as their current form doesn't really match with how they are described. In the lore there's importance placed on survivors building fortifications and defending themselves from storms, but currently since enemies can spawn anywhere during a storm, fortifications don't matter as much as they probably should. Luckily, we do know the devs are planning to rework storms at some point in the future! Edited July 17 by ifoz 2
LadyWYT Posted July 17 Report Posted July 17 16 hours ago, jascas said: I'm not looking for every detail, but rather something more substantial than a list of features to implement. They clearly have an idea of what the finished game is, and the assumption is that game will be out once they finish all the chapters. But I'm wondering what that game looks like. How do all the features they plan fit into that vision? It probably looks as described on the home page: Vintage Story is an uncompromising wilderness survival sandbox game inspired by eldritch horror themes. That is, the main focus of the game is a realistic survival sandbox that doesn't necessarily weight challenges in favor of the player, that also has some gritty realistic and horror elements in the lore. The game covers technology appropriate to the general medieval era, since constraining things to earlier time periods limits what the player can do, and going beyond the medieval period easily makes it stop feeling like a survival game and more like a space age/industrial game with extra steps. But as to exactly what features make it into the finished game, or what the lore/setting is like beyond that brief overview is impossible to say for certain. Ideas can get added, cut, or reworked entirely as needed, and parts of the lore may only exist as vague concepts rather than fleshed out ideas. 16 hours ago, jascas said: In gaming, the game is the story. What you as the player do, is all the story. So whether the player is reading a lore book or being told to follow a map or choosing to just build a farm and raise animals, that is all the story of the game. So in that aspect, how does the plot-the structure of the game-contribute to the overall vision? While I personally don't find lore books compelling (cool I found a book from panning, that affects me how?) and the idea of there being a guided adventure is neat, there is a dissonance between me playing the game and never stumbling upon an event to "start" the story and the progressively worsening rifts and temporal storms that are more directly impacting my experience. I think if these features are going to exist, then they need to direct how the player engages with the mechanics. Many games have the player on a distinct set of rails, shuttling them along from point to point at a specific pace, with the player's actions influencing the story very little. While it's not bad storytelling in itself, it does end up teaching players that their actions don't really have any consequences outside of predetermined outcomes, and that the player doesn't really need to pay attention to what's going on in the world itself since the game will make it impossible for the player to miss anything that's actually important. Skyrim is a good example of this kind of design--quest markers are everywhere, rarely any need to ask for directions/more information, most quests are automatically added to the journal and can't be failed, etc. Vintage Story doesn't operate on those principles though. The player will need to pay attention to events and information provided by the world around them if they want to figure out what's going on and know how to deal with various situations, and they ignore things like lore books and NPC dialogue at their own risk. The story itself is mostly linear, however, it's also possible for the player to do things outside of the "correct order" or otherwise skip steps entirely and still have everything make sense. It's not very likely given how the story locations are set up, but it is possible. This kind of game design tends to be more prevalent in older games, Morrowind being a good example(to continue using Bethesda as comparison). Morrowind had a short intro about a cryptic prophecy, but otherwise told the player nothing about the main plot before dropping them off in a small town to create their character and be about their business. What happened from there was entirely up to the player, and most quests in the game required the player to ask a lot of questions and think carefully in order to figure things out. 16 hours ago, jascas said: You're telling me that I can discover technology from hidden ruins that'll allow me to completely master the world? That is a driving motivator. But what if the way you obtain these parts and the worsening rifts and storms were directly tied to how you progress through the game? Now, instead of having to go out of the way to do some quest, you are now driven to learn more about this technology to help prepare and get through the world falling apart. Maybe. Maybe not. Some of it remains to be seen as to what direction the devs decide to take the game, but if you pay attention to the worldbuilding and read through the various lore articles, it's heavily suggested that such tech is not, in fact, understood and may be why the present is such a mess. This is just my opinion, but I would also say that it's not a good idea to make the rifts and storms get worse as the player improves their tech level, at least not beyond how the temporal storms operate already. It makes sense to have the storms start off weaker, since the player is woefully unequipped to handle them at the beginning of the game, and have them slowly get stronger over time. However, just making the world get worse as a result of the player's progress really only punishes the player for trying to improve their standing in the world. I think the only way this idea really works is if the "worsening" is tied directly to completing specific chapters of the story, and has some way for the player to fix the problem in later chapters. Mild spoilers, but it's also worth noting that the temporal storms of the past were much stronger than the ones the player faces in the present. That's not to say that the current storms couldn't suddenly be made worse by some event or certain actions, but so far there's been no evidence to suggest such a thing happening. 16 hours ago, jascas said: I hadn't started this cuz the two hunter traders I came across didn't offer any trades or anything different from other traders (other than the structure being a cool little fort). I'll definitely go back to them and try to see what's up, but that doesn't really change (or answer in that matter) my question (and I guess concerns). If you're having issues finding a treasure hunter, you should be able to ask any other trader type for a map to the nearest treasure hunter. They won't give such information away for free though; you'll need to pay them a couple of rusty gears if you want such a map. The treasure hunter specifically will require different payment in order to give you a map to the first story location--a tin bronze pickaxe. The pickaxe itself isn't particularly important; it's just a check to make sure that the player can meet the minimum equipment requirement(tier 2) for that location. 14 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said: "Oh, so you want to finally reach the copper age? Well you need to now take your flimsy stone tools and go to dungeon 1 and beat boss 1 which unlocks the necessary tech. Then you can use copper tools to go to dungeon 2 and beat boss 2 to unlock bronze" I tend to hate games that use this kind of design. Valheim uses it, and while I do enjoy that game, it's one of the main reasons I only play it once in a great while. The first time I played it I spent hours fumbling around with the bare basic tools and materials because I didn't know you had to actually beat the first boss to unlock other areas and items. 16 hours ago, jascas said: I would love something to help further repel storms, but that then begs the question what is the point of the storms? My general opinion on the storms is that they're there mainly as a supernatural disaster to remind the player that everything is decidedly NOT fine in the world, no matter how much it might seem otherwise, and that there will be a few things outside of the player's direct control that they'll need to plan around. Rifts and temporal stability in general are similar, but the former can actually be controlled via the rift ward and both are otherwise easily mitigated. Temporal storms, on the other hand, will come rolling through whether the player wants them to or not. Not everyone likes that kind of gameplay though, hence the option to disable storms. 1
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