LadyWYT

Welcome to the forums! I agree with @Cattastrafy too, play the vanilla game first and learn the basics, and then decide what mods, if any, you'd like to add. That also gives you time to tune the game settings to your liking first. One thing I will note though when it comes to mods and VS, is that it's better(in my experience) to keep a shorter mod list, instead of trying to run everything and the kitchen sink--especially if you have more moderate hardware. Big mods that add lots of things also tend to be more demanding on hardware than smaller mods.

"The creatures hide metal in their flesh and their blood flows like sludge. A simple sword will not do here." -- flavor text of falx blades. While the color isn't specified, I would agree, it's probably a dark rusty color or black like oil, given the semi-metallic nature of the monsters and their general color scheme. As for the initial suggestion, I like it. Could be a simple effect that applies for a short time after a creature takes enough damage to begin fleeing. Would also give more incentive to keep healing items on you in case of an accident, if falling below a certain health threshold could make you more noticeable to unfriendly things.

For a mod, sure. However I recall one of the devs mentioning in an old thread that there was no plan to add that level of gore to the game due to some being squeamish about creating that kind of content(for context, the discussion was about more realistic butchering for animal carcasses). Aside from that...a lot of players don't enjoy that kind of gore either, myself included. The animations we currently have are fine, and get the point across.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/verticality Friend installed this on his server and it's proven to be rather fun and balanced so far. However, I do expect that kind of vertical movement to completely break the story locations. If this kind of movement functionality were added to the game(outside of the rope ladders we have), the story locations would probably need a major rework in order to avoid resorting to immersion-breaking "invisible walls" that outright stop the player from climbing around.

Tier 3 for sure. You could probably manage it with tier 2 stuff, with enough skill, but it's risky. Though I think the difficulty of the story content really depends on individual preference and skill level, and isn't necessarily hard-locked to a particular tier of equipment. What I would do instead, is try to give the player more things to do per era, rather than just opting to make pre-existing things more of a time sink or gating every tech tier behind dungeons/enemies. The late game stuff, sure, gate that behind an enemy(which we already have this for some tech). Otherwise, I think it's nice to have the option to speed-run the basic tech tiers, if you want to sink in the time and effort and have the knowledge to do so. However, if you give players more choices to make in the earlier tiers, then they'll need to think harder about how they spend their time. And now to actually answer the question posed in the original post...yeah, steel really isn't that hard to acquire. It might seem daunting to a new player, but once you've been through the process you figure out it's not terribly difficult, just time-consuming. My work-around for the refining time is to simply make sure I have a lot of charcoal/coal stocked prior to starting the refining process, and then just running two refractories at once during winter(what else am I gonna do when it's cold and dark). The output is then 32 ingots per firing, rather than 16. If I had to guess, some players consider steel to be "hard", because you need to have found some very specific materials in order to get it. Bauxite and borax are chief of those, and you may need to travel a couple thousand blocks or so sometimes to acquire these materials. You'll also need to acquire a lot of fire clay, which probably means a lot of crafting due to the recent changes to clay and how the types spawn. It generally takes a lot of fuel as well, and while any coal can fuel the refractories only charcoal or coke will work for carbonizing the ingots. On top of that, it takes about a week in-game to refine the iron into steel, and some players probably don't want to babysit industry for that long. Steel tools are a little over twice the durability of iron, and are a tad bit faster. But unless you intend to be doing a lot of building, iron tools and gear will probably suffice for just beating the story, which is probably why non-builders might find it underwhelming compared to the effort it takes to acquire it.

I think a lot of tech mods for the other block game tend to go this route in order to have a more satisfying result than "the exact same thing as a furnace, but faster and more expensive". I do like the idea though, and think it would work. Also potentially make the crushed ore smelt a bit faster? Bigger bits take longer to heat all the way through, so logically they would take longer to smelt than smaller bits. Would give even more incentive to make an early pulverizer for processing your ores.

For a custom scenario, sure, but otherwise it doesn't fit the established themes and lore of Vintage Story.

In my defense, this is not why I've utterly failed at securing a population of bees before winter moved in. There are several other beehives on our world, I just haven't gotten around to placing skeps near any of them(despite them being within walking distance), as I keep getting utterly distracted by various other things. One of those being... The Bear Incident I was walking around minding my own business, just foraging for food and materials in the local forest, when I intruded upon a black bear's nap. Dear reader, despite playing my usual Blackguard, I must note that this was still very earlier in the game, and I have naught but a copper falx and a single tailored gambeson chestpiece to protect myself. The ensuing battle was fierce, the bear was very angry, and as I stumbled backwards into the nearby lake shallows I swear I could hear the world spawn calling. However, death was not my fate that day, as one last desperate swing of the falx dispatched the beast. By some miracle I was still alive, at just under one hitpoint, with high rift activity and darkness approaching. Thankfully, home wasn't too far away, and so was my hunter friend with the first aid kit. Never underestimate the power of a few extra health points and a bit of armor! It could be the difference between life and death! Welcome to the forums! I forgot some of them did that...until I saw one do it in broad daylight during a temporal storm. I thought it was a bear at first...it wasn't...and it despawned once it finished standing up, which made the whole encounter even creepier.

Just to make sure, since you seem to be using mods--if one of the mods adds steel nuggets as a byproduct from your smithing, you're not going to be able to smelt those back into anything useful unless you have another mod that adds a fuel that burns hot enough to smelt them, or otherwise adds a way to process them. Otherwise, as others have noted, the way to get steel is via refractories.

Please do, it was a really funny post!

Welcome to the forums! And yeah, that block isn't supposed to be there, but you bumble across them every once in a while. It's a bug.

Just enough skeps to populate the apiaries that From Golden Combs adds. On vanilla settings? It varies. I usually have about a dozen, which is enough to produce a fair amount of honey, but not so much that I'm going to get annoyed just collecting the clay and reeds for mass skep production.

Well it's a lot of very hot substance paired with wooden tongs, so... I'm guessing it's probably coded that way to keep lava as a hazard, instead of an inconvenience that you can simply throw a dirt block in to rid yourself of the lava entirely.

For a hot climate you might try out the Hydrate or Diedrate mod, and change your world settings so there is very little water to be had. For a "standard" style of game, you can also crank up the hunger rate, turn down the healing rate significantly(set it to 25 or 50%), and change your cold hardiness value to something like 5/10 C. Food becomes more of a concern at that point, and bandages become much more valuable as just waiting to heal naturally probably isn't going to be very viable. Likewise, you'll get cold more easily, so keeping your clothing in good repair becomes more of a priority as well.

Welcome to the forums! I think the most important aspect of this kind of sound design, is the sounds really need to be tied to an actual creature/object, and not just ambience. It's pretty easy to get used to ambience and just tune it out over time. For example, the wolf howls still remain a bit concerning even after several many hours of playtime, because you know an actual animal is making that noise, and thus there is a threat. If it was just ambience, it'd still be nice, but it'd quickly lose the fear factor since there's nothing actually there that can get you. Now in regards to the noises that the monsters already make...I think those already do a decent job at spooking players. Door rattling and whatnot would be scary, yes, but if they can't actually break the door(and I don't think it would be wise to allow them to do such) it rapidly loses the shock value. So I'd leave out the scratching and whatnot, and just keep it to the general monster noises they make. Just knowing there's monsters nearby is plenty, especially if you can't pinpoint the monster's location. Let the player's own imagination fill in the details and spook them.

Oh what a fun idea!

I seem to recall that being mentioned, along with the 300% increase in game sales with the launch of 1.20. Or something to that effect. In any case, the server host was already having issues at the time, but the big influx of new players also helped melt the infrastructure that was there.

Agreed. Though you can pop the slabs back into the crafting grid to make them horizontal-only or vertical-only, in addition to setting them back to auto placement. A ghost template is still a good idea though.

I would also assume too that it's also because Vintage Story is still very early access and quite a ways from completion. Once the game is complete, or nearly so, then it may see a Steam release, or it may not. Personally I think the game is doing fine as it is. One hazard of growing too fast is the strain on infrastructure for things like multiplayer. It takes time to develop infrastructure, and if the current can't handle a huge influx of new players, the new players may get frustrated with the growing pains and leave before new infrastructure can be acquired.

That was a thing in Vintage Story? I know it's a thing in the other block game, but it's never crossed my mind to try it here.

We've all been there at some point, don't sweat it. Glad to hear you're having fun!

Yeah, there's still a few issues with bowtorn. That being said, it is fun to charge into a big pack of them and watch them scatter. If nothing else, swap to creative and give yourself the admin blade. Wipe them out, dump the blade, and switch back when you've cleaned everything up.

Have you tried doing a complete reinstall of the game? It never hurts to try, just in case something's gone wrong in the main files somewhere. The other thing I'd check is your modlist, if you are running mods. If it was running fine before and you've fiddled with mods recently, it's possible a mod might be causing the issues.

I like the autumn colors too, and the special seasonal track that plays for autumn is probably my favorite of the bunch. I think the one thing that's missing is the male deer having fully grown antlers by then, instead of the velvet nubbins.

Sometimes it do be like that. The surface drifters won't stop dropping them for me on my friend's server. You should be fine. Not to spoil too much, but the boss always drops at least one temporal gear upon defeat, so you'll have at least one to reset your spawn again once you make it back home. There may or may not be a wtf moment or two in the Archive, but overall jank hasn't affected it too much. I think the worst concern there is the knockback bug that can trap you in a wall. On the rare chance that happens, you'll need to use spectator mode to free yourself.