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Traders are inconsistent in terms of the beds - some use the regular bed types (hay and linen) that the player can sleep on, while some use clutter bed types (short aged bed variants) that cannot be interacted with due to not being actual beds. I think Saraty might have once said that traders are planned to get their own bed type at some point in the future, so I wonder if things might change then.

Nothing is done to trigger them, as far as I can tell. Buried treasures spawn all over the place, and in creative mode I have seen some in noclip mode that aren't even in the map radius of a treasure hunter (so would have to be found by random chance). Sadly, nothing (in multiplayer). In singleplayer from my experience the game won't give you a map to a treasure you've already been given a map to, but in multplayer you absolutely can get scammed by being given a map that another player has already dug up.

The maps you buy from the treasure hunter lead to these, yeah. The dialogue with him where you trade the pickaxe for the map leads to the first story location, which is an entire experience as opposed to a little pocket of loot.

I think the tree is meant to represent rebirth and the new world, while the 'clock' in the new logo is supposed to be an important story piece. The machinery could also represent the old world, or the actions of a certain lore-important hermit. It reminds me a bit of the Mother 3 logo, with the duality between nature and technology.

So surely given the look of the tree on the new logo, we are getting trees like the Eco Machina mod?

I like both of them, though I do think the new logo is a bit too saturated given the game's generally more muted colour palette. As @MattyK said, I think bringing the earthier tones of the original logo into the new logo would be a nice choice. I also wonder if the new logo is a little too blocky-looking or cartoonish, but I'd also have to see it ingame to really decide if that was the case. [EDIT]: Now that I've seen people edit it into the game, I do think it looks a little too cartoonish personally. It's a very cool style, but it makes VS look like a fantasy adventure block game, when the gameplay doesn't really reflect that. The leaves are my main problem, I think if the leaves were made less blocky I would like it a lot more overall. I think leaning away from advertising the game as just another voxel sandbox might be a better choice, as VS already stands out on its own in the genre, and voxels aren't particularly novel branding for a game anymore. Something I enjoyed about the original logo was that it really conveyed the more 'natural' side of VS, and painted it as a more down-to-earth experience. I do like how the clock(?) in the tree of the original is now the dials of a certain important story piece in the new logo, that's a really fun detail. I also think having the 'Vintage Story' text underneath the logo instead of to the sides looks a little nicer as well. [EDIT]: I also just had a thought about how the new logo features what looks like the metal box that is connected to translocators - I remember Elvas saying in a stream that the art team wanted to remodel translocators, and so the new logo might become inconsistent with them if they were to be updated. If the updated translocators still incorporate the design of that box though, it'd make sense. In the poll, I voted for the old logo primarily just because I preferred the more muted colour scheme it has that matches the rest of the menu. [EDIT 2]: I just realised the mention that if chosen, the new artstyle would be worked more into the game to match the logo. I don't know if this would be the right decision, as a more cartoony artstyle for things like UI wouldn't fit with the rest of the game in my eyes. VS has always been a more muted, down-to-earth game, and having the UI use bright colours and bold lines wouldn't mesh well with the rest of the game's aesthetic, I think. I'm all for the logo and UI being more consistent with Duar's artstyle, but the new logo looks a bit too saturated for Duar's usual style to me. All that said, I do like the new logo as a standalone piece, but just not as much as the original when put against the backdrop of the rest of the game's artstyle and gameplay. I think the best choice would be a 'best of both worlds' scenario, where the good things about both logos get combined into a new, third one. [EDIT 3]: This post sure has a lot of edits! Thinking more about it, I do think that redesigning the logo is the right idea. Really though, I think if the new logo wins, it will probably look more in place with the game once other UI elements are changed to match it. If there was that level of stylistic consistency, I don't think there would really be a problem. It's just because the old menu doesn't mesh with the new logo very well. [EDIT 4]: I made this quick mock-up that removes a lot of the visual clutter and makes the leaves less blocky, as well as changing the colours of the little dials to the rusty red of the pipes to make them draw the eye less. Feel free to let me know what you think! It's by no means perfect or any better than the original/new logo, but I just wanted to experiment with it a little. I also colour picker-ed the colours from the original into this one. There's a lot of little artefacts, but again this is just me messing around with it.

Honestly, I think a good way to expand early progression would be with scrap tools. We have scrap weapons, but it could be interesting if scrap was its own miniature "age". Not one required for progression, but just something players could do as an alternative to early stone/copper, especially if their local copper spawns weren't kind to them. Scrap doesn't just have to be the specific metal scraps item either - it could be expanded to a few different items in ruins. Potsherds and glass shards for making knives and arrowheads, some form of scrap lamellar armour, and maybe some other things as well. Potentially also tie it into clutter - breaking ceramic clutter without glue would give potsherds, while breaking glass clutter without glue would give glass shards. Ruin hunting is a fun activity, and the player cobbling together crude tools from the remnants of the past is very fitting with VS' themes.

Honestly, a really slow stone-age pickaxe would be nice peace of mind for early caving. I like to rush caves very early on to try my luck, but if you forget to pack enough blocks, you're in a bit of a tricky situation. You can either hope there are enough loose stones and boulders around the cave to make enough drystone fences to pillar out, or starve to death since there is no way to claw your way up onto a 2-tall ledge. It's a fringe use sure, but it'd still be useful in the kinds of situations where a player is semi-softlocked due to being trapped by blocks of rock.

I'm just going to say the VS roofing mod, as well as the mods that make palisades and roof beams craftable in survival mode. The roofing system in survival is so restrictive, and something like the VS roofing mod being integrated into vanilla would really go a long way for letting players do all sorts of things with their roofing. Especially now that the trader outposts all show off special roof techniques made with chiselling and the creative-only roof beams that can't be replicated by survival players.

Survival goods traders can sell the recurve bow, meaning it isn't truly locked behind the Hunter class unless you are playing with traders not enabled. (You can sometimes get it for as cheap as 8 gears, which seems like a bit of a bargain price. Even if you were playing as a Hunter, it might be less time/resource consuming to just buy recurve bows).

As much as I think Tailor should probably get some combat nerf (since currently they are actually one of the better classes for combat, though couple that nerf with some other buff so tailor doesn't get even weaker than they already are) I don't know about giving two other classes mining debuffs in their stead. Malefactor and Clockmaker are already somewhat niche choices, and mining penalty to me at least is one of the most impactful and least interesting debuffs a player can have. It just means you have to spend more time clicking and holding every time you want to break anything, and that small amount of time adds up over the course of a playthrough. It doesn't really affect gameplay by disincentivising much either, just overall time spent. Maybe if quenching was allowed to influence pickaxe speed again (I don't know if the fact it doesn't anymore is a bug or intended) then it'd be a more interesting debuff - players with a mining penalty would be incentivised to quench better tools to catch up to others.

It would be pretty funny if intentionally choosing all the possible negative traits with no positives gave your custom class a special title like "beggar" or "wretch" A bit of a fun surprise for the people who try to play the game as hard as possible!

If it was a recipe that just allowed metal scrap, a soldering iron and solder bars to make an upgraded version of the scrap weapon kit, then it wouldn't be fully tied to the Malefactor and could be enabled for all classes when the setting is changed. I definitely agree with this. I struggle to think of a new class that could really bring much to the table in terms of gameplay, since most aspects are already covered by the base classes. Maybe some kind of healer/doctor class once status effects are added, but other than that given the current systems, everything seems pretty much taken care of by one of the existing classes. There's already a bit of overlap with negative status effects as well, and I don't think it'd be great adding new classes and then just giving them 'frail' and 'nervous' for the tenth time in a row. I also agree with your point about the Malefactor being more designed for stealth than for combat, but I struggle to think of ways this could be properly expanded without a better stealth system being implemented. Cones of vision, noise, camouflage, etc. If these sorts of things were in some way integrated into the game, I'd imagine Malefactor could get a lot more stealth gameplay going for them.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and it got back into my mind again after I read the "sling shouldn't be class-locked" thread. I think the sling is a pretty weird class exclusive item for the Malefactor to have. Malefactor's traits incentivise a playstyle where players hunt for ruins, most often underground due to the loot being much better than the surface. Because of this, Malefactor players usually end up spending quite a bit of time in caves. Ranged weapons are less useful in caves and tight spaces, especially the sling with its lower damage and rocks that can ricochet off the walls at unpredictable angles. Because of this, I think that the sling doesn't really mesh with the playstyle that Malefactor players are encouraged to have, and for that it is a bit of a strange choice to be their exclusive item. The trait that allows them to make the sling is also called "improvisor", but nothing is particularly improvised about the sling. It's a regular sling, made of regular materials that usually do not come from ruins. This ties into an older idea I had - allowing any class to craft the sling, and giving the Malefactor welded/upgraded scrap weapons instead. Melee weapons would be more useful than ranged weapons for caving, and having them be made of scrap would offer a natural incentive to ruin hunt as a Malefactor, as well as fitting with their "improvisor" trait. Requiring them to be welded would also give another use to the soldering iron and solder bars, and gate them behind having a copper anvil. (Soldering iron needs a copper chisel, which needs an anvil). This would hopefully result in the kind of gameplay where a Malefactor player would go out, find some ruins, break their current weapon while fighting, and then go home and weld up a new one from the scraps they found on that expedition. I think this would integrate their exclusive item into their incentivised gameplay pretty nicely. -------- Anyway, this is just a discussion about gameplay balance and incentivised playstyles! All the other classes get exclusives that mesh well for the most part with the playstyles they incentivise, except for Malefactor, and I think that's a little strange. I think it'd be fun to know the design intent behind the sling being their exclusive item - perhaps the player is supposed to craft it from rope found from locust nests and linen from drifter kills?

Honestly, the sling is a bit of a weird item to be the Malefactor's exclusive anyway. They're a class focused around scavenging, stealth, foraging and using what they have, and their exclusive is just a regular sling made from regular materials. In my eyes it really doesn't feel like an item that says "improvised" or "Malefactor" to me. There's so much cool stuff that could be done with the idea of improvised things made by a ruin scavenger. The scrap armour that traders wear in 1.22, some kind of unreliable early-midgame Jonas devices, there's a lot of potential there and instead we just get a normal sling. I had an idea a couple weeks ago that instead, the Malefactor's exclusive item/s could be upgraded versions of the normal scrap weapons. That way, it'd tie in the "improvisor" trait's name, and encourage/reward Malefactor players looting ruins for metal scraps. In the suggestion thread I wrote about it, I proposed that the upgraded scrap weapons could be bronze tier, and require a soldering iron and solder bars to make. This was mainly to gate them behind a copper anvil (soldering iron needs a copper chisel, which needs an anvil), as well as to give more use to the soldering tools, since they are currently only used to make the brewing setup. The sling also isn't a particularly useful weapon through the lens of the playstyle that the Malefactor encourages - raiding ruins. Ranged weapons aren't great in the close quarters of caves, especially the sling whose rocks can bounce off the walls unpredictably. The most useful items I could think of that would play into this ruin-focused gameplay they encourage are melee weapons (like the aforementioned welded scrap) that are made from materials found inside ruins, an early-midgame hands-free light source (maybe a candle helmet that only has a weak light and goes in the head armour slot?) or some kind of armour that aids your stealth, though that last one would probably be too overpowered without a proper stealth system being implemented. I think it would be nice if the sling was something all classes could craft, and the Malefactor either got an upgraded later-game sling or had the sling replaced as their exclusive item by something more fitting.

I was watching a playthrough video a while ago (I forget who by), and I remember them finding the treasure hunter and being excited because they assumed this was what they could have their base look like eventually, unaware that many of the techniques and items used there aren't obtainable in survival. Adding a crafting recipe for roof beams, as well as having palisades made obtainable (even if they just functioned like fences) would really go a long way. I can just envision quite a few survival players who are new to the game post-1.22 being disappointed that the structures that show up everywhere can't actually be replicated legitimately or used as building inspiration in that way. I myself really want them to be as well, but I am not so disappointed as I have been aware since their addition that this was sadly not possible. Traders just seem like such a nice way to introduce players naturally to more complex building techniques and styles, but it just isn't possible at the moment due to the lack of these integral items being obtainable. If this doesn't change by 1.22 stable, I might use mods in a regular playthrough for once just to get craftable palisades and roof beams. I don't think that's a proper long-term solution though, since new players can't really be expected to install specific mods just to be able to build like the traders, and this isn't possible on multiplayer servers as you mentioned. The "Beamium" mod or something similar to it could honestly just be integrated into vanilla for this, their crafting recipes for the roof beams seem decently balanced. They also seem to allow you to craft the other unobtainable beams (rope beams and chain beams) as well, which is a nice feature.

I've been messing around with the new traders lately, and thought I'd put my thoughts out there. First of all, I really love their new designs - the scrappier appearance matches VS' post-post-apocalyptic vibe much more than their old look, where they looked to be doing quite well for themselves. Their old designs also looked like they were all part of one unified culture due to the shared colours and patterns, but they now look a little more like scavengers and survivors taking what they can get, which again I think is a nice change and fitting for their lore. I also really hope that their outfits become obtainable for players by stable release - internally all trader outfits are Seraph-sized but get trimmed down by the game when put onto the traders. I asked Saraty about this a while back, and she said that while she hoped trader clothes could make it into stable, it would be a last-minute addition and so she could not confirm/deny if it was happening. Testing it out myself, most trader clothes seem to fit the Seraph fine with no alterations, so fingers crossed! Fitting with this, the different climate type traders (cold, temperate and desert) have different outfit possibilities, which makes them a little more unique. I do think this idea could be expanded further though, as currently they are mostly the same aside from a couple outfits being added/removed from the pool of things they could possibly wear, and some skin colour variation between climates. Having cold traders always bundled up in furs and warm clothes I think would be a really nice change, as currently cold traders can spawn wearing only simple shirts and hose like their temperate counterparts. Traders also all seem to have their hair styles weighted the same, which tends to result in a lot of baldness. I think perhaps bald hairstyles could be weighted a little lower to balance it out given there are so many types of balding available. Bald, indigenous balding, bald forehead, balding, tonsure, just to name a few. (I did hear someone propose that you could imagine it as being to do with lice, which is a funny way of making the sheer amount of bald traders more fitting! ) I feel like every second trader I see is bald! Luxuries traders also get some special treatment, having most bone-themed items taken out of their wearable pool, and getting things like monocles added instead. It could be really interesting if this idea was applied to other traders as well - treasure hunters would be more likely to wear masks and the scrap metal armour, clothing traders more likely to wear some of the fancier clothes, etc. I am also a big fan of the new trader dwellings and outposts, though I do think it'd be nice if the 'forest' huts could also spawn in plains and fields rather than only in forests (though a bit rarer than the bunkers or wooden shelters), just to add a little more variety. The rare trader types are also a nice addition, and it's always fun to find one living in a treehouse. I do think though that the outposts and huts show that the survival game is lacking in certain building options - mostly the palisades and roof beams accessible in creative. Players cannot actually replicate many of the trader builds due to them using these creative-only items, which I feel is a big missed opportunity, considering how prevalent roof beams are in one of the story locations. Having the player able to use traders as building inspiration, especially when they spawn so frequently as they do would be a nice way to introduce the player to more complex building techniques and ideas by just naturally showing them that these things are possible. Currently the traders show these things are possible in creative, but would disappoint a survival player looking to replicate their style.

I really like the idea of the Hansa banner being the item that calls traders to your base in a theoretical system with wandering traders, it feels very fitting. Elvas has said in his dev streams that they do have ideas about wandering traders one day, but also that it'd be such a large system to implement that it likely isn't coming any time soon. Traders carrying goods between each other, or having a courier who would cart things around between traders and who you could meet on the road. Honestly, I feel like this would be a decent chance to give Tailor a buff. Let them get somewhat better prices, due to being a merchant themselves with experience selling clothing and dealing with customers, as well as their more civilised manners/way of speaking.

Came back here to add in a little bit of additional feedback: Dungeons should probably have some internal limit to the amount of room pieces they can reuse in one room. Maybe two or three times maximum for one room. I just found a room made of the same corner piece for all four corners, resulting in this strange ruined lantern pit.

Actually, thinking about it a bit more, it could be fun if the Malefactor had a class-exclusive lockpicking kit (or class-exclusive but also sold by treasure hunters) to sometimes let them bypass needing to search for keys, or making the theoretical lockpicking system easier in some way.

As much as that could be the case from an in-world perspective, places like in the laundry and on the clutter shelves of bedrooms there is still a lot of (unobtainable) clothing, so it still seems strange to me that there can be so much implied to be around but absolutely none for the player to take. I'm pretty sure they nerfed the rot amount in a recent rc, the latest dungeon I found didn't have nearly as much as they used to. They do actually have two guaranteed terra perta if you dig down inside the waste shaft, but I have never bothered to grab it myself, because from a roleplay perspective I doubt my Seraph would really want to go digging around in ancient sewage to grab some soil. It'd be nice if different future dungeon types had different levels of danger. Some more casual and low-stakes mainly focused on giving the player some decorative clutter and adding to the general atmosphere/environmental storytelling, and some that would be more dangerous with monsters/traps/etc.

As much as I enjoy the dungeons as a proof of concept, I can't help but feel the same. As they currently are, it's just a special somewhat larger ruin that is roughly the same in appearance and loot distribution each time you find one. The central blast furnace room of the dungeons still seems to be a work in progress though, and I would bet that it will make it into the game by stable. I sometimes also feel like they have less loot than regular ruins, depending on your RNG. Given their rarity I'd expect a little more, considering it is completely possible to find nothing of value in a dungeon. (Looting five chests in a large bedroom as an example and having them all be empty feels a little odd, if you were almost guaranteed at least one clothing item and some ruined cloth clutter I think that would make sense. From my experience it feels like a lot of loot randomisers in dungeons are set to only appear around 10-20% of the time). When I find a new dungeon, I don't usually think "oh this is great, I'll explore this and get some loot!" I usually think "I wonder if it'll be empty again this time". The clutter makes the rooms feel very full, but in terms of actual loot there usually isn't much. I think this comes back around to how I think it would be nice if clutter would drop scraps of resources. There's so much cloth hanging from drying racks in those laundry rooms, yet I can't get even a single flax fibre out of it if all the chests are empty. There's ruined shoes on the shelves, but I can't salvage any leather. Having some clutter be able to occasionally drop scraps of basic resources would go a decent way to making dungeons feel more rewarding in my eyes, given the sheer amount of ruined clutter in them that can't be used for anything. It's a strange feeling to step into a structure so cluttered, but then only be able to beeline for the few chests and hope they contain things. If they don't, everything else in those rooms might as well not be there. (Clutter can be nice for decor, but there is a lot of it that is too ruined to really use as decoration in a normal base, and dungeons contain a lot of ruined clutter). I think Elvas did mention that the lock-and-key system might make it into the 1.22._ patches, where the vault's iron door would be locked and you would need to search around for a key. That could add a bit of potential puzzle-solving and open the door for better loot rewards, but without guaranteed enemy spawns it also might just feel like a scavenger hunt for no particular reason. All that aside, they are still really cool. I think the dungeon system is a great proof of concept, and there's an absolute ton of potential for having special ruins that are unique each time you find them.

Shattering does still happen as far as I am aware, but not if the item is placed on the ground and cooled off with a watering can. This allows you to endlessly stack quenching buffs. I've seen a friend of mine get a falx up to 20+ damage with this method, past 200% shatter chance.

I've had a theory for a while now about Jonas being either attached to a machine, or having his consciousness linked to one, sort of like you mentioned. Spoilered for mentions of ch2 content, but this is why I think this could be something that is revealed at a later point in the story:

I haven't messed around with tempering and quenching that much, but does anyone know if pickaxes no longer being able to have mining speed increased is intended or not? In earlier 1.22 pre's you used to be able to quench a pickaxe to boost the mining speed (though this was bugged back then and actually slowed it down). In rc-7 though, quenching a pickaxe only improves the hit damage, making it largely useless. You are therefore funnelled into only going for durability rather than power, as from what I can tell power is mostly inconsequential. It removes that element of player choice that the power/durability balance has on other tools.