radfast

Specialization will become more and more meaningful as more content is added. The proposed Homesteading update may add gating in some ways, essentially through different resources and wildlife being found in different climates. So to gather everything players would need to travel very extensively, which will be challenging. Generally in VS there is more than one way to address any problem.

hi @Smoogle s. and welcome. These are my impressions as a player who bought the game 2 weeks ago. There is a Roadmap. The pace of development is quite fast - recently there's been a new version released approximately every 1-2 weeks. I would say there have been 8 significant new features added to the game since January 1 2020. So it's reasonable to expect the developers will deliver most of the elements on the roadmap. To judge from recent forum posts they are currently working on Seasons. If you like Animal Crossing - the aspects of this game you will probably enjoy are the detailed and well-thought out crop farming, bee-keeping and animal raising. One of the special features of Animal Crossing is that it makes achieving some goals a hard enough challenge that you feel rewarded when you get there - it's one of those games that makes you feel "rich" once you get everything working properly. Vintage Story is similar - you go from a struggle to find enough to eat on the first days, to having a field full of crops and a cellar full of good food, properly preserved. But note, there are many ways to die in Vintage Story, in the standard game it's quite challenging to survive. You can choose between game types, if you want more challenge or less challenge. Differences from Animal Crossing - this game is extremely immersive, it's very easy to feel you are living in the game world and doing the things. But that's OK, because it's a beautiful game world to live in. Though on standard settings, it is scary at night, and scary when you go too deep. One of the best features is the weather - it has extremely realistic weather effects. The rain sounds are so realistic that I can almost feel drips of water on my hands, and yesterday I could swear I smelled that rain smell after it rained in the game. There are no bugs to capture, currently. There are butterflies, and sometimes fireflies at night, but you cannot interact with these, only look at them and marvel at how good they look (they move extremely realistically). There are mobs called 'locusts' but these are found very deep and cannot be captured, they are more like cave spiders. Currently you can domesticate (tame): chickens, wild boar, and bighorn sheep - taming any of these takes a lot of in-game time, you have to breed tamer versions, chickens are the easiest. The game also has: hares, foxes, raccoons, and wolves - these can be captured, they can be killed, but they cannot be tamed. Each animal has a baby version and all the baby versions are cute - they look different and move differently. (Actually I didn't see a baby fox yet?) More wildlife is on the roadmap. There are also several mods and more in the pipeline - mostly in keeping with the spirit and style of the vanilla game. You can make a lake but it would be a slow task (1 bucket at a time!) and it's not clear why you would want to make a lake - you are in a vast, and varied, realistic game world so you can just walk to a region which has lakes, if you want a lake. You can swim underwater and there is pondweed/seaweed, it looks good and the swimming motion is super-nice, but there are currently no fish. Fish are certainly planned on the roadmap, and there is already a Bass food item so that's a clue.... I don't know about fish breeding, we'll have to wait and see. You can make an orchard filled with flowers, and plop a beehive in there and have the bees breed. This is delightful, and gives you honey (and beeswax). Vintage Story has immobile "Traders", who live in wooden houses which look like they could be caravans / wagons. They will buy and sell items, some useful, some not so much! They move around only inside their own houses, and hmm and hah a bit, but otherwise they are static (currently). There are no towns and no moving NPCs, currently. "Villages, Trading, trade goods and dynamic market pricing" is on the Roadmap, and if it doesn't come soon then it's the type of thing a modder could make. The main things I would say about this game are: it's delightful, every aspect is beautiful to look at and carefully thought about the game world is spectacular, with realistic geology and micro-climates, and therefore very varied (but you have to travel far - maybe a real-world hour of travelling - if you want to see an example of everything, for example there is a type of tree that can't be found until you walk something like 8000 blocks from where you spawn) it has a superficial similarity to Minecraft, because it's a Voxel game and some of the game systems are even similar (for example, breaking leaves drops saplings) - but it's not Minecraft, it's actually a better game in most ways, much richer visually, and it has much more survival challenge than Minecraft. In VS you actually have to think about what you are doing and figure stuff out. It's interesting to go back to Minecraft after playing this for a week, and compare - it makes Minecraft look like a game for little kids (which I guess it is ...) you can design and build any house and garden you can imagine - there is a huge wealth of building resources the game has a great community, great support for modders and people are starting to come out with some interesting mod content already - it feels like early days Minecraft when there were some talented people modding, and many possibilities some of the in-game systems are a pain - so to make certain mid-game objects you need to do Clay Forming, which requires you (the player) to construct the item out of small blocks of clay, it's OK the first time but annoying when you need to make more of the same item as there is no short-cut - most players do this during the in-game night time, when you can't do too much else if you like a survival type game where farming, foraging and food production are important, then you will probably enjoy this It's certainly an affordable game to buy, and the developers offer a generous refund policy if you don't like it after you bought it.

I've realised the tech tree is not so linear as I thought: there are three different paths to Bronze (finding Cassiterite, finding Bismuth, or a lot of panning!) there are three different paths to Leather (limestone, chalk or borax) and three different sizes of animal obviously it's not necessary to have every crop, the player could for example focus on only one type of vegetable and only one type of grain - either with different NPK requirements or matching whichever source of fertiliser the player has some key missing resources can be purchased from traders, if you are lucky with traders - or if you are very lucky you can find Blasting Powder in a Cracked Vessel - either way could allow for mining of higher tier metals even without casting Bronze, so a player could leap-frog into the Iron Age the full linen armour provides an alternative to leather+metal based armours - but I agree with this post, it would be nice to have additional armour pathways, for example linen + chain so that the player's armour is not gated by leather. It may be that as the game develops into Steel and other post-Iron age technologies, the tech tree will branch some more. I feel it would be good if players were forced (by limited resources and not only player time) to make a choice between advanced mining, advanced farming or advanced fighting.

+1 for this. I wrote about the linear tech tree here. Totally agree it could be excellent if the player is forced (by limited resources) to choose one of several paths and specialise. IRL, in the feudal period chainmail was often worn over a quilted/padded jacket made of linen (sometimes stuffed with hay for padding) -> so I think this should certainly be an option in place of a leather armour base. It could be an easy mod for someone?

In game Borax is found underground but not too deep (around y == 90-100 I think) - in a layer similar to Quartz, but not as common. I haven't had any problems finding limestone or chalk - there are some Limestone + Bauxite hills where it is easily visible, and there are whole regions made of chalk or limestone as the surface rock (with chalk and limestone sands and gravels to match, and all surface stones are chalk or limestone) - very easy to see. You just have to travel, instead of staying within 500 blocks of your base. I had to travel around 3000 blocks to find chalk, but that's easily done in 1 day if you don't do anything else. ----- IRL Borax is not a source of lime - it is used in leather-manufacturing for the initial soak (in effect as a preservative), but liming is still then required - so this seems a strange choice by the devs. Borax does have one very interesting use though - it lowers the melting temperature of other metals so that it can be used in gold mining - it increases efficiency through allowing mining products to be smelted even in low temperature, portable furnaces. Environmental campaigners support this method for gold mining, over the alternative mercury-based methods which result in toxic pollution.

The "Stonks - Cornering the Market" section is genius - I didn't even notice you can make a profit by arbitrage between different traders, I assumed that traders would buy from you below market price. Awesome spot and very nicely analysed. ---- But I still have many disagreements on the subjective low/high valuations of specific buys and sells. Key points: A lot of the valuations depend very much on your stage in the game - if you are starting out, a few of the trades offer some awesome shortcuts, and it might be worth selling anything you have in surplus (+ your own clothing) to obtain resources you can't yet craft or which are in very short supply. In a "Speed Run" type of game, this could be a key speed element. In contrast, once you have built a decent flax farm (and crafted all the linen items you need such as Linen Sacks / Gamboised Armour / Windmill Sails) then you may have a surplus of flax. Likewise for honey, beeswax, candles - in my current game I have 10 hives producing honey, I use the honey for making fruit jams and therefore have a surplus of beeswax. The same applies to sticks and ladders - I'm not sure I agree with Streetwind, in my game I have planted a large grove of pinetrees next to my house, and I use shears on the leaves before felling the trees, this gives me around 1 stack of sticks from just a few trees. Therefore, sticks and ladders are an easily renewable resource - even though like Streetwind I do use up plenty when mining. You keep suggesting that Tin / Bismuth / Black Bronze trades are bad buys, and good sells. In my game I have plenty of copper, but extremely limited amounts of tin / zinc / silver / gold. Even with prospecting, whenever I find tin it is only a small quantity, and a lot of time and resources are used to find and mine it - a lot of diggy diggy hole needed to find the actual tin ore, even if prospecting signals there is some nearby. So until you reach the game stage where you are using iron for all tools and armour, I don't see how you would ever have surplus bronze. And if a trader is selling Black Bronze tools, I often buy them because they are great, and virtually Unobtainium in my current game. Maybe a lot depends on biome or luck? It is always interesting to note the sales which are non-renewable resources such as rock salt, sulphur and saltpeter. Please can I suggest that you edit to highlight: - key early-game purchases - non-renewable resources - easily farmable items which you can use as trade sales once you reach mid game.

I like the differences from Minecraft, happy not to see cows in the game at present. Ewes milk also makes for some great cheese...

Back on topic, I have just exhausted all the mechanisms in the game currently (1.12.14) after several days of single-player gameplay. I mean I have: iron tools leather backpacks chain armour and gamboised leggings (I don't want plate, movement is too slow) a fully secure farm of Terra Preta and ample seeds and fertiliser, with every type of food including Cabbage a house with solid stone and glass walls, and a plumbline for reinforcement (which is not at all necessary except maybe in PvP I guess?) a cellar full of sealed food of every kind lanterns with silver lining 5-sail windmill for a Helvehammer and Quern opened up one Translocator well-stocked apiary and fruit orchard trapped each kind of animal, and have some chickens and sheep on the way to becoming domesticated (that's kind of slow) traded a few goods with four types of trader, and have 50 gears have 1 rough diamond survived two medium temporal storms (beautifully implemented - they are so unpleasant to experience that I now make sure I am near an in-game bed to sleep through them!) installed 3 mods (CarryCapacity, LazyWarlock's Tweaks and Anvil Metal Recovery) It's been an incredible journey, and I am awestruck by the beauty of this game. I also love its integrity, the way each in-game mechanism has been so carefully implemented. I have made a careful personal list of bugs, suggestions, and 10 little touches in the game which made me smile - I'll be communicating these to the developers separately. But now ... I've run out of things to do. Even when I took the translocator, the biomes at the destination were very similar to the continent around my home base. OK I didn't yet find pumpkin or cactus fruit in the wild, I didn't find any gold / gold quartz ore, I didn't find sulphur yet, and I still have not filled even 1 compost barrel - but none of these things prevents progression. Also I didn't find an Echo Chamber(?) yet... The main things I feel are missing from a finished game are: further tech tree progression, eventually to steel and some uses for the currently unused metals - the presence of unused metals and ores certainly makes the game feel "unfinished", especially given the strong emphasis on realistic mining tech and geology (the Display Case ) a drowning mechanism - the game is obviously "unfinished" if I can stand under water indefinitely (and also animals should drown) seasons - with an ample farm, the only reason it makes sense to have a cellar filled with preserves is if winter and thin pickings are on the way more survival challenges in different game regions, for example it should be extremely challenging to traverse (or live in) snowy wilderness, desert, high mountains - this would require a thirst and temperature implementation for the player more scope for building complex machinery out of wooden axles and gears - the current implementation is lovely but their uses are limited to building the Helvehammer and Quern and those have to be built in a very specific way, I'd like to see additional scope for creativity here (something like Lego Technic...) so that players could build crazy large wooden machines and put them on Youtube... more challenging mobs - so far I have simply encountered 5 levels of drifter and they all move in the same way, and are easy to kill if you have enough space to kite them - the game feels unfinished with only one type of hostile mob (OK there are wolves, and rams, and locusts down deep, but there's nothing terrifying) I'm not sure I have received the full Lovecraftian themes promised on the home page - this could be much deeper I am not sure the temporal concept is fully implemented yet, seems like the only purpose of the temporal wheel is to produce periodic temporal storms and the only purposes of the temporal gear are to reset the player spawn location and unlock a teleporter although excellent in concept and beautifully implemented, having now played through it I feel like the tech tree progression is actually quite linear - a lot of elements are gated by single specific items. I'd like to see alternative pathways, some shortcuts for players who are really lucky/smart. A sandbox game should allow players to develop their own ingenious ways of solving problems. (Actually writing this I just realised, Ore Blasting Bomb is a shortcut, and the player could be lucky and find black coal in a Ruin in the early game.) The only "ingenious" solution I've come up in my own play-through is to drive a Fox into my fenced-in farm area, for auto protection.

Vintage Story players likely fall into two groups: experienced Minecraft players (who've maybe played modded Minecraft as well) who come to VS for its beauty and everything it does better experienced gamers who despise Minecraft but are willing to try a more challenging survival game. Most serious gamers see Minecraft as a game for young kids, or maybe the game they themselves played a long time ago but have now moved on from. VS is potentially a Minecraft for serious gamers? Given how ubiquitous Minecraft is, I just don't see it as possible for a player to discover VS without any awareness of Minecraft. I think for new VS players, the one thing which is most off-putting is the knapping mechanic (and the clay forming mechanc). It's a nuisance, and requires patience and some accurate mouse work - and it becomes very repetitive on the first 2 days of the game as you go through knives. I think a player who has no patience will stop playing within the first 2 hours - which is a shame because once a player is able to do copper casting, the game opens up. This also likely means some Game Journalists / Reviewers will hate the game before giving it a real chance - journalists usually only play a game for a few hours max before writing a review. My solution would be to include an auto-knapping and auto-clay forming mechanism as an option and have it "on" by default, but communicate to players that for a more challenging / immersive experience they can switch it off. I don't see the game as "difficult" otherwise. Food is abundant in the form of berries. Drifters move slowly and signal their presence with a sound, so they are easily avoided. I hope my reply isn't too off topic - seems OK if Tyron's real question here is "when will the game be ready to leave early access"?

Nice thread. You have a strange definition of "abundant" These tools have to be smithed, which is player time consuming and costly in resources (cost 2 charcoal to smith 1 item, and uses up a good fraction of a hammer's durability), and unavailable until you have a Smithy. LazyWarlock's tweaks mod, though, allows bronze knives to be cast in which case knives are cheap, with a metal cost of 0.5 ingot per knife. Even so, unless you have a good source of tin or bismuth+zinc, bronze is a precious metal. Value totally depends on whether you found a wild beehive yet. If you have your own bee farm/apiary, honey and wax are cheap renewable resources. I think a beehive is easier to find than tin / zinc ore, because it's on the surface and it makes a buzzing sound - but maybe situational, if there is no forest biome? 8 x Honey + 2 Bowls for a net cost of 1 gear is an awesome deal, though. I have 3 x Leather Backpack and a Mining Bag, so I have 4 Linen Bags which I am no longer using... The Survival Goods trader sells a Wolf Pup, so it is obtainable.

Oh nice! Awesome ideas for straw. I like the grass suppression. There's an interesting early game trade-off here - eat the grains but have nothing to plant, or plant the grains but have nothing to eat.

I'm trying out the mod and enjoying it so far. I appreciate spear and knife casting, as I don't want to be knapping once I've reached a metal age. I noticed that IRL the organic farm near where I live make a pit or rick of all their wheat chaff and slowly burn it (like charcoal burning) to create ash for fertiliser. It takes many weeks to complete the burn. So it's modern technology too, not only the primitives! IRL grain harvesting creates straw, not hay. Not the same thing. Straw is inedible but is used for: animal bedding simple human bedding (the vanilla Hay Mattress should probably be straw) Skeps for catching bee swarms primitive bricks Wattle and daub, a primitive form of plaster - often found in ceilings in pre-20th century buildings Hay is dried sweet grass used as an animal food item, as a winter food supplement for any grass-eater or the staple diet for any herbivore kept in a stable or hutch. I'm not sure if it has any other significant uses IRL. The existing Dried Grass item in VS is hay.

Please may I have edit perms.