LadyWYT

First off, welcome to the forums! As others have already mentioned, if you've not yet done the story, I'd recommend doing so, although you will need to play with lore content enabled in order to do so(lore content is disabled by default in Homo Sapiens, but can be enabled via console command). In addition to the main story, there are other lore snippets to collect in the form of books and tapestries that you can find by panning loot, talking to certain traders, or otherwise delving into ruins. Do keep in mind though that the game is still very much in early development, and of a planned eight story chapters there are only two currently implemented. Likewise, there's quite a lot planned for other areas of the game that just hasn't been implemented yet, because there's only so much that the devs can fit into an update, and sometimes other things have to be added first to lay the foundation for things to come. Regarding crop blights though, I'm pretty sure that the devs have confirmed those won't be added to the game, with the reasoning that it's not fun gameplay for the player to just lose crops to something that's outside of their control. That's not to say that players can't play with those mechanics, just that it's the kind of thing that will need to be handled by mods. This doesn't really fit the overall design direction that the devs seem to want to take VS, and personally I don't find that kind of gameplay very fun. I'd like to see more defense options, yes, however, I didn't pick up VS because I want to play tower defense, and automation goes against the spirit of the game. The player can semi-automate some of the more tedious tasks, as seen by the helve hammer and quern, but they can't really go full "AFK mode" like what the other block game offers. I will also note that games that insist on always scaling enemies to the player's current power level end up having progression that feels mostly pointless, because getting new stuff doesn't have a noticeable impact on the gameplay. It doesn't matter if the player manages to upgrade from stone tools to metal ones if it's still taking the same number of hits to deal with the enemies the game throws at them. Vintage Story's progress feels meaningful in part because getting upgrades means that enemies you had trouble dealing with before become a lot easier to fight. Yeah, no. Part of the reason the "other world" is interesting is that the player can't go there, and not much is known about it otherwise. If it was a place that was fully explained, or that the player could otherwise just visit whenever they liked, then it would quickly lose its luster. That's basically what happened to Minecraft's Nether and Deep Dark--those places are interesting the first few times you explore them, but easily become just a spot you visit occasionally to strip for resources and otherwise ignore because the place is a hassle. Also worth noting that rifts have nothing to do with sanity, but rather temporal stability. Without spoiling too much of the story, what's basically going on is that some really bad stuff happened in the past that shattered time, and the player's foothold in the present day is tenuous at best.

I like the idea of having a specific workbench to craft specific parts or items by simply selecting the desired option from a menu and then supplying the materials, similar to how sailboat/watermill crafting already work. However, I don't particularly like the "Valheim method" of requiring a crafting station and multiple upgrades nearby just to craft things. It works for Valheim, because Valheim was designed around that concept and makes it work, but overall it tends to be a rather clunky, frustrating system to play with. Also worth noting that while the crafting grid might not be the most realistic thing ever, it does get the idea of crafting across fairly well in terms of gameplay, without becoming too tedious. Like firewood, arrows, or stone knives, for example--all of those you need to craft fairly often, in quantity. The player could be required to do those tasks at a specific workstation, however, that means that they're tied to those workstations and can't just do what should be a simple task out in the wilderness without setting up a workstation. Some of it could be handled by a simple animation and keybind to start the process, which is perhaps a more immersive way to handle it. However, those animations are also going to add up rather quickly, and while it might be fun to watch the first few times, the player is probably going to get a little frustrated having to sit through multiple animations and take most of an in-game day or two just to get what should be a relatively simple task done. In fairness, the devs have expressed a desire to get rid of the crafting grid when possible. However, it's not a system I really expect to disappear entirely for the above reasons.

I think the main thing that's tripping me up is the "realistic" bit. Sure, those charts are accurate for earth as we know it, and technically the earth in VS is supposed to be the same planet as ours. However, all the geography got scrambled as a result of "stuff happened"(spoilers), which would logically include the air and ocean currents as well, not just the land. So I don't really see how, aside from general regional temperatures and the associated flora and fauna those temperatures support, everything is supposed to generate exactly how it does like the earth we're familiar with? Then it we get into the aspect of what's actually practical to implement for a game like Vintage Story, and while I could be wrong...I don't really see a way to feasibly simulate air and ocean currents and things on a global scale, at least not to the extent that it's not going to feel like goofy videogame logic. I think the better option, like what this comment seems to suggest at least in part, is figure out how to get proper continents to generate, and then make rules for how portions of the continent's interior and border regions can generate. It's not necessarily going to be globally realistic, as much as it'll feel more realistic for that specific region. Pair it with more flora and fauna to find for the specific climates, and I think that would be enough to keep most players immersed while still being relatively "easy" to account for in the programming.

Welcome to the forums! Yeah, to echo Moose's thoughts, aesthetics are somewhat subjective and whether the textures and colors are pretty or not is going to depend entirely on who you ask. In my case, I think the wood and rock textures are fine, and don't need to be changed. I'm pretty sure that they don't. https://www.vintagestory.at/forums/forum/18-builds/ This is already possible to do by making a texture pack for the game. Doing so allows you to change the textures and colors to whatever your personal preference is, without changing the game for everyone else in the process. I would like to see this though. Plaster and stucco was rather common in the medieval period, and regarding game mechanics specifically, it would be a great way for players to customize interior spaces or otherwise do some basic decorating without necessarily having to chisel everything.

Could also be installs on different drives. I go through this every time there's an rc release, since I keep the rc clients installed on a different drive than my normal game.

There's also the Gobi desert, Patagonian desert, Taklamakan desert, etc. in addition to the arctic and antarctic regions. That's not to say that those areas don't have areas that look like the deserts commonly portrayed in pop culture, but anyway... My general point was that we already have plenty of desert regions in Vintage Story, just that those regions don't always look like the stereotype that some players may be expecting when they think of a desert. A location's latitude doesn't really have any impact on whether it qualifies as a desert(outside of perhaps the arctic regions), as much as the surrounding geography and wind/water currents do. So in the context of Vintage Story, I don't think it makes much sense to slap a "desert band" into the climate bands and call it more realistic than the current system. As for having a world option to make the biomes cover potentially huge areas that take days to cross...I wouldn't mind seeing this option, but I don't think it should be the default given how many various player complaints I've seen about bad spawns or boring world generation. @MKMoose already said as much earlier, but the main hazard of huge biomes is that the terrain can get rather stale rather fast, and that's probably one of the reasons that the devs have focused more on the world generation we have in the game currently. The player can spend a few days running around and see several different types of terrain, thus keeping exploration interesting, while the "latitude" distribution helps ensure that the colder climate flora/fauna stays primarily in the north and south with the tropical fauna staying around the equator regions where one would actually expect to find it. Minecraft tries to handle its generation in a similar manner, in that it tries to keep hot biomes near other warmer biomes and cold biomes near other cool biomes. However, the realism ends there--the player isn't going to be able to just go south and be guaranteed to find tropics, or go north and find arctic regions, as they can with VS world generation.

The difference, as I see it, is that wolves and bears are both dangerous land animals, while sharks are a dangerous aquatic animal but by no means the only thing in the water that's dangerous. The average player is going to spend most of their time on land, so I think it makes sense to have wolves and bears be a commonly encountered threat to help keep the game interesting, especially since those animals are so widespread. Sharks though... they still make sense as an aquatic threat, just I don't think it should be the "JAWS" stereotype that's common in media, especially not when there are other options that are just as dangerous(if not moreso) that are underused in media, and not when the player already has several things to hunt them on land. The water should be a generally more peaceful experience, with different hazards to encounter. Doesn't need to be a huge squid--a gaggle of smaller squids is just as good, if not more threatening. The "huge squid" job is better suited to the colossal squid. Leopard seals are another option for large, dangerous aquatic animals that could potentially be more actively aggressive. Whales are also a good option--not necessarily as active aggressors, but huge creatures that can accidentally hurt the player or perhaps intentionally hurt the player if the player is hunting them. If I'm recalling correctly, triggerfish can get rather large and be quite territorial, and I'm sure there are other large reef fish that could serve as hazards to players. Swordfish and sailfish don't tend to be aggressive, to my knowledge, but they are very fast and can be very dangerous when flopping around in a boat because those noses are sharp. Perhaps deep sea fishing could be added, and the player could have fun trying to catch them for food or trophies, at the risk of getting speared by the fish if they aren't careful. Stingrays could cruise around the seabed in shallower water, being difficult to spot but moving away if the player gets too close. If the player is careless and moving around quickly, however, they might find themselves stabbed with a barb and may need to seek medical attention.

IRL month or in-game month? I'm assuming IRL. And does the glow block persist after October has ended? Didn't know it was even a thing, but if the glow is persistent I can think of several uses for it.

What exactly do you consider a "desert latitude"? Because those large swaths of dry land filled with sand and gravel are deserts, and to my knowledge it's not the latitude that qualifies a region as a desert, but rather the annual rainfall. If you're referring to the stereotypical desert that's presented in pop culture--ie, lots of sand with a few cacti and cow skulls/bones lying around--you'll need to travel much further south to the warmer tropical zones in order to encounter those. You'd need to change world generation entirely for this to happen, since the current settings don't allow any land feature to be so massive that it takes days to cross. At least to my knowledge. Also keep in mind that a land feature/biome that big sounds interesting...until you get spawned in the middle of such a biome, or otherwise have to actually deal with them on the regular. For particular kinds of games, that kind of challenge could be rather fun, but I don't think that kind of game is what the average player prefers to play, and likely why the devs have balanced the current world generation as they have.

Lightning is the only thing that I'm aware of, however, you need to have that setting enabled first in order for lightning to be able to start fires. Even with the lightning fires enabled though, a well-placed lightning rod(s) should prevent that kind of fire from occurring. The only way your house would burn down is if you intentionally burned it down yourself, you accidentally started a fire nearby, or a wildfire was otherwise already burning out of control elsewhere and swept through your area.

Welcome to the forums! Unfortunately this is most likely one of those odd OS-specific bugs. Other Mac users have reported the same issue. https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues/5966 You could try fiddling with your settings as the user "frogboots" did in the report, as it seems he had some success in fixing the issue, and see if that makes the moon show up in your world.

The house icon simply means the space you're currently in counts as an insulated room. That's why it appears when you close off the stairwell but disappears if you leave the stairwell open(ie, no doors/trapdoors at all). The benefit of having an insulated room is that you won't get cold while in that space, and will in fact slowly warm up. The spoilage rates will also be a bit better, though not as good as a cellar. Do keep in mind though that there are certain requirements that must be met for a space to count as a proper room: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Room

I would say that what you have so far fits pretty well. I'd recommend playing through the story to figure out the rest. Without spoiling too much though, there's really not a whole more to really add, since we're only on chapter two of a planned eight chapters. So there's a whole lot that we just don't know yet.

Worth noting that the bush doesn't need to be fully mature in order for clippings to be taken from it. What should it be adjusted to, in your opinion? Limiting clippings to one bush per year isn't particularly realistic(for some species, at least), however, when it comes to game balance it's not ideal to let the player find a single bush/couple of bushes and then propagate several clippings within a year strictly from those bushes. When it comes to current gameplay, it's not particularly tough to run around and get a good bunch of clippings from bushes with decent traits, and then have a whole berry patch ready for next year's harvest season, and that seems like a good balance to me. Especially if the general idea is that the player needs to invest some time and effort into cultivating a high quality berry patch.

In addition to what @MKMoose said, in my experience halite is one of those goofy ores that's a little tough to find in the conventional prospecting method. I'm not sure I've ever actually found it via prospecting--the times I have found it have been by accident. I think the better way is to use prospecting to figure out the area it's likely to have spawned, and then explore the caves in that area to see if there's any exposed domes. The domes are pretty big, so it's not unusual for part of them to be exposed in a cave, and it saves you the trouble of digging holes. Don't forget though that commodities and survival goods traders both regularly have halite for sale, so trading for it is also an option, provided you are playing with lore content enabled.