LadyWYT

The point I was trying to make there is a much shorter distance isn't really going to feel like a real journey unless there's several obstacles there for the player to overcome. That is, the distance could be as short as 4-5000 blocks, but if it still takes the player 3-4 days to actually reach the location then it will still feel like a proper trip. With the current setup, it's easy enough to clock 7000 blocks or more in a single day, so all shortening the distance really accomplishes is turn the expedition from a journey into a weekend getaway. Personally, I don't think it's a very good idea to shorten the distance and pile on a bunch of challenges, because that tends to frustrate the player and cause problems elsewhere. It's kind of like trying to go somewhere in Skyrim--the distance isn't actually that far, it just feels like it is because you had to fight your way through three different bandit groups, two pairs of necromancers, a handful of trolls, and whatever else decided to crawl out of the woods and hang out by the road. Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at in my original posts, before things got derailed into knocking heads over distance exclusively. Adding more procedural dungeons for the player to get distracted by, more flora and fauna to see, and more environmental conditions(sickness, injury, mount condition, scarcity of regional resources, etc) would give the players a few more things to manage on longer trips, as well as add interest to the daily activities while the player isn't traveling. Pack animals are a great idea as an option for players to manage their travel as well; managing more creatures at once will slow the travel a bit, for sure, but it would also allow the player to take a lot of supplies with them and camp more comfortably, or bring a lot more loot back home. I still really like @Facethief's idea about placing temporary checkpoints at certain story locations.

The dear old friend that gives you the schematic does mention the cooldown, however, you are correct that the rickety translocator is still a bit buggy. Or at least, it was when I last toyed with it. Though in my case, the issue was related to getting my end of the teleporter to actually work--it would spin up but wouldn't actually teleport, and I had to use console commands to travel to the "other side" and use it from that end to get it working. In any case, welcome to the forums! Unfortunately I'm not exactly sure what the issue is here, aside from a bug. To my knowledge, the way the rickety translocator is supposed to work, is that you should be able to teleport to the guy's residence and then teleport back to your base before the cooldown kicks in. I suppose it's possible that the trip could be one-way before the cooldown goes into effect though, given that the village is supposed to have a room at the inn you can rent. However, room rental hasn't been added to the game yet, so if that is the intended design and not a bug then it's a mechanic that's going to feel very clunky until there's room rental and more stuff to do around that area.

Welcome to the game and forums! These don't respawn. These don't respawn either. Wild crops(turnips, carrots, spelt, etc.) don't grow back once harvested--you'll need to plant the seeds in farmland in order to get more, or other purchase seeds from traders or find them in ruins. Cattails and tule will grow back periodically as long as their roots are left intact. If you dig up the roots for food or otherwise destroy them, they won't grow back. Resin will respawn periodically, as long as the resin tree is left intact. Mushrooms will respawn periodically in the same general area that you found them, provided the appropriate conditions are met. Generally, all that's needed is a good rainfall, but some can take a while to respawn. Mushroom varieties that grow on trees will need trees to grow on. Ore does not respawn. However, if you find nuggets on the ground, that means there's a deposit of that ore lurking beneath the surface. Some ores are technically renewable since they are sold by traders, but this is generally not the primary method you'll want to rely on for obtaining ore. Shrubs don't respawn once destroyed. Neither do berry bushes. Berry bushes, however, can be cultivated now by taking a cutting from an existing bush and planting it elsewhere. Well it really depends on who you're playing with and the rules the group has agreed to abide by. If you're all playing a cooperative game, resources shouldn't be much of an issue aside from making sure you collect enough to keep the entire group supplied. If you're splitting into different groups or otherwise intending to run off and do your own thing, then it can start to become a problem rather quickly, since resources are more likely to be hoarded by individual players(especially those with more time to play). I think any way you cut it, you'll probably want to set some ground rules at the start to make sure everyone knows what the general expected behavior is, and what the consequences are for breaking those rules. That is, if you don't want someone hoarding all the cattails from spawn or otherwise picking it clean just because that's the most convenient action, you might want a rule that requires players to leave certain resources in an area alone(don't dig up all the cattails to eat/transplant). If you start playing on a server that's already been operating for a month though...honestly it doesn't seem to be an uncommon trend for the spawn area to get picked clean rather quickly. At least, it seems to be a common complaint about multiplayer. If this turns out to be the case, it's probably a good idea to see if the other players can help you get started, or if someone with admin privileges can teleport you to an area that's still fresh and set your spawn there. It's also worth noting that there are mods that alter resources and enable some to respawn, or otherwise make some easier to obtain(like stick crafting), so if the server is modded it's possible that some of the above information doesn't apply.

It depends on the setting. World generation settings tend to be the most dicey, since trying to fiddle with those after world creation can produce ugly transitions in landscapes or strange behavior, if not break the world entirely. When it comes to story locations specifically, they all generate at world creation, so changing that particular setting after creation isn't going to do anything except maybe apply the new value to future story locations, or perhaps only apply if there's some command to regenerate the structures specifically--to my knowledge such a command doesn't exist.

Aside from the fact that you'd need to account for chiseled blocks(because these can easily be made of mixed materials), you'd have to have an option to allow players to turn this feature off. Hiding might not be an exciting option for dealing with a temporal storm, but it is a safe one, and an option players should be able to use if they don't want to handle that storm for some reason. Removing that option and forcing players into the storm is a good way to get more players to turn off storms entirely rather than try to engage with the mechanic.

My main beef is that when lightning burns down a forest, that spot is going to be forever barren unless I go and fix it myself. I'm not really sure how to let the areas regenerate though, without running into performance issues.

This is why the game is geared to heavily support mods, and make creating mods as accessible as possible. While it would be nice to have a setting for everything, it's not really feasible to do so simply because there's no way to account for each individual playstyle. Menus will get cluttered, and code will get very complicated very quickly since changing certain values can have unintended consequences elsewhere, and it's not always possible to separate everything into neat little isolated boxes. Players who break their game just by changing settings also, understandably, get rather frustrated, so it's generally a good idea to make sure that there's as few chances for that to happen as possible(hence why certain VS settings have warnings about potentially making the world unplayable). Honestly, I would say that if the player isn't interested at all in fighting, not even with the creatures set to "never hostile" or settings otherwise adjusted to make the combat easier...Vintage Story probably isn't the best game for them. And I don't think it would be a very good idea to allow them to change the settings(outside of mods) to do things like let every surface drifter drop temporal gears, since that sets an expectation that the game will always bend to the player's will rather than require the player to engage the game on its own terms and improve their own skills. That's harsh to say, but I don't think it's unfair. I think it's also fair to say that a player who struggles with combat probably won't find it exceptionally fun at first, but as their skill improves they'll likely start to enjoy it more, because their efforts will have clearly meant something. To attempt a bit of a silly example, I suppose it would be like me trying to play GTA but expecting there to be an option to complete the game without going to strip clubs, stealing cars, or acting like a criminal. The entire point of the game is to do crime stuff; the game itself doesn't need to change or otherwise add options to accommodate players like me. Eh...kind of? Difficulty settings are there because not all players are going to be playing at the same skill levels, and not all players want the same amount of challenge. Some players just want to play the story and have a relaxed experience, while some will accept nothing less than the ultimate permadeath setup. Typically, difficulty settings tend to be rather generalized, with maybe a handful of specific options for accessibility reasons or controversial features. If a player wants to have a specific tailored experience, that's where modding comes into play. Mods allow players to season the game to their exact preferences, without changing the game for everyone else. Likewise, I think it's fair to note that making the game more accessible to the general public by removing the "difficult" parts isn't always a good thing in the long term. Skyrim did this, and while it was a successful game...it really doesn't hold up that well over time, especially when compared to its predecessors. To cite a specific issue with it--the player can pretty much do all the quests on a single character, and thus see most guild stories and everything in one playthrough. This is great for more casual players who aren't familiar with RPGs, since it lets them have fun without locking themselves out of content, but for those who enjoyed the RPG aspects of what TES games were it's a terrible feature, because it means that player choices no longer have any meaning. What does it matter if you join the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild, if no one's ever going to call you out on the bad behavior? Likewise, what's the point of playing a heroic character if you can act like a complete scumbag and still get the same results? In previous titles, player choices actually mattered, since helping an NPC(or choosing not to help them) could affect how other NPCs saw you. They might be more difficult games to get into, but they hold up better because they're catering to a specific audience. Maybe like Apocrypha from the Dragonborn expansion in Skyrim? As I recall, the player was technically killable in that realm, but rather than die when their health hit 0, they would fall to their knees and just be kicked out to wherever they read the associated Black Book. Reading the Black Book again would drop them back in at the start of whatever chapter they were on, making it relatively easy for them to just try again without the risk of getting caught in a quicksave deathloop. Now to be fair, I don't think that system really works for the first two chapters in Vintage Story. However, it would probably be an interesting way to expand on what was introduced in chapter two, as well as a good way to handle challenges in more far-flung story locations when they get added.

There's a link in your profile that you may have copied and pasted somewhere and then forgotten about. In which case, it's possible that it got picked up by the Google algorithm or something, which tosses a random new player your way every now and then. Or there's some weird website glitch. I'm not entirely sure what causes it to happen, this is just my best guess. Currently, the links do nothing. Referrals are potentially to earn commission, I think, probably as a reward for those who want to be really ambitious about recruiting players to the game, but whether it actually becomes a thing or not I'm not sure. In the grand scheme of things...I would hope not. As nice as it would be to get money for it, I think that people should only buy the game if it's something they're actually interested in. I don't think it's a good idea to encourage players to pressure others into the game just so they can get a cut of the profit, so to speak.

The problem with giving everything an equal outcome regardless of the risk involved, is that it renders choice meaningless and pushes players into opting for the easiest option every time. After all, why risk life and limb in a temporal storm to acquire a pile of temporal gears if you can just spend the same amount of time panning and get the same amount of gears, without the risk? The appeal of low-risk actions is that the player doesn't need to invest very much, but the return, although modest, is basically guaranteed. The main drawback of such actions is that they tend not to be very exciting since safety is a priority. In contrast, high-risk actions require the player to invest more resources, that can easily be lost since the returns aren't guaranteed, but the actions tend to be more exciting as a result, and produce rewards appropriate for the risk involved for players who can manage that kind of challenge. The above is how panning is already set up. It's a very safe way to collect copper for your first tools, but not a very exciting one. Scouting for surface deposits or delving for deep copper is much riskier and more expensive, since it requires tools and leaves one open to monster/animal attacks or accidents, but it has a bigger return and tends to be a more interesting task to do, partly because of the risks involved. If panning were more lucrative or exciting, players probably wouldn't be bothering with mining and scouting unless they absolutely had to, because acquiring copper would be as easy as digging up the nearby beach and panning it from the safety of boxed-in puddle.

I could make the same point about always changing things to fit the desires of new players; if things always change to make the game more convenient/accessible to them, then what the game is telling veteran players is that their experience and what they enjoyed about the game doesn't matter, and the game ends up turning into something else entirely. That's not always a bad thing, but I think it's fair to say that's why a lot of players left Minecraft for Vintage Story, or otherwise walked away from other games and IPs they once enjoyed. I've been one of those "new players" in a few cases, and in hindsight, those grumpy old veterans that I didn't listen to at the time were right about a few things. Honestly, I figure the base return teleporter could probably be made a little cheaper than it is, especially since it's a single-use item. It shouldn't be so cheap that the player just takes one on every long walk, but if it were a little cheaper and perhaps more accessible toward the mid-game, then it might help push players to utilize tech more and be more ambitious with their exploration. Right, which is why I tend to harp on a lot as a factor of Vintage Story's design--it really does require some major shifts in one's thinking. Personally, I don't really think that's a bad thing. It's nice to have warnings that actually mean something, and have the game trust me enough to make my own decisions. Maybe, but it also seems like that NPC doesn't really know much about what's inside the location. There's also stuff that they would realistically recommend bringing, that the player actually shouldn't due to the protections on the story locations. Granted, I don't think it'd be appropriate to have the NPC try to explain location protections, but it's probably a good idea to put a note about that in the handbook. Call it "General Adventuring Notes" or something, put it in the guide section, and give a brief overview of location protections and a very basic list of supplies(food, armor, medical, etc) to give players an idea of what to pack and what to generally expect. I think that would probably be a pretty fair way to ensure that players have some extra pointers if they need it, without resorting to explicit hand-holding as many games tend to do. I would also note that story locations could potentially draw some more inspiration from older game designs here as well. It used to be that players would know a boss fight or other tough challenge is coming up simply by the placement of healing items and other useful consumables. Depending on DM styles, it's a trick in TTRPGs as well--make a little supply room and place it conveniently before the boss area, or give the players a rest to recover spell slots before they go fight the big bad monster. That being said, if you want players to manage their resources carefully, you don't want to provide rests or supply drops every time, since that ends up teaching them that the game will always cover the shortcomings. I don't think this really works unless travel is made much more challenging. Right now travel is fairly easy to handle with some halfway decent supplies and experience maneuvering the elk; the only hazard I can think of is falling in a hole, getting completely blindsided by an enemy, or forgetting to bring a cookpot and bowl. Falling in a hole isn't much of an issue, since the elk is quite tough and will soak up the damage, and can be teleported out of the hole via the flute. Enemies aren't really a problem since the elk can outrun them easily. Forgetting a cookpot and bowl isn't the end of the world, but it makes scrounging up food more of a hassle if you need to supplement your supplies with hunting and foraging. If the player could potentially get sick due to traveling in inclement weather, needed to care for their mount, needed to sleep, or otherwise had more things that would significantly impact their travels, then I'd be more inclined to agree that this would be a more reasonable distance in general, since traveling would have more teeth to it and managing all those at once is going to be rather tough. Basically, the distance might be shorter, but it'll still take the player a few days to get there and a few days to return. As it stands currently, I would say that 5-6k is more half a day's travel, since mounts don't need rest and neither does the player. One thing I do want to note specifically on chapter two--yes, the distances are quite long, but it is intended to be a journey. Chapter two also establishes the precedent of the player not needing to make that trip every single time, since the player unlocks a "fast travel" option. Future story chapters that involve travel may not be quite so intense, and will likely also have some sort of "fast travel" for the player to unlock as well. In that case, I don't think having a long journey as a one-time thing is all that bad, and the distance also acts as a bit of a narrative break, allowing the player to mull over what they know and imagine what could be coming. It hits especially hard on the third location of chapter two, both riding to that location and returning from it. Having that kind of distance for one journey also helps the world to feel believably big, which helps it hold up better over time. So, like a checkpoint? If it's just for certain story locations, that might be all right, since it can make specific areas a little more forgiving while still leaving the world at large dangerous.

I can where one would get that impression, but I think you summed it up better in that...it kind of boils down to individual player preference. What feels slow and frustrating to one player can feel like a satisfying challenge to another player, and vice versa. When it comes to travel distances specifically, shortening them to 3000-5000 blocks would certainly be more convenient, but I also believe that it would make the world feel rather small and inauthentic. Likewise, I don't really see the purpose in doing much planning for an adventure, if I'm literally just going to be gone for maybe a day or two at most. At that point it doesn't matter if I didn't pack supplies, or played carelessly with the supplies I did bring, or looted a bunch of stuff I didn't need, because I can just zip back home and grab what I need/drop stuff off, or just make whatever I need on the spot. If there's a checklist I'm given of specific stuff to bring, then I no longer need to bother with planning--that's already been done for me. Having a detailed explanation of exactly what to expect in the location is similar, in that now there's not that much excitement to the exploration since I already know what's there. As a side note on the 3000 block minimum distance--the distance really can't be lower than that due to one location that is easily noticeable from around 2000 blocks away. There's a little more to it, but I'll drop that information behind spoilers. Sure, but looking at it from my side of the fence, so to speak...I don't really think it's fair to new or veteran players to lower the bar for the standard experience, just because new players aren't experienced at the game yet, especially for a game that wants to cater to a more hardcore demographic. I think for a game that wants to be taken seriously as a more difficult game, it's better to set the bar higher, and let players improve their skills accordingly or adjust their settings as needed, rather than make the game for a casual audience first and then expect it to attract hardcore players. Edit: I suppose if the argument is that the location distances are too far, then the question to ask is...what exactly constitutes a reasonable travel distance then? It's easy to argue they should be shorter, but what does shorter actually look like, and how does such a change impact the story and game as a whole?

I think it's just bad luck. Typically, there's at least one male to go with the females, but not always. Male mouflons are distinguished by bigger horns and a beard. To my knowledge they haven't, and I'd be a little surprised if it was a thing outside of specific cases(like breeding horses and donkeys to get mules).

Tackling this in a different post because I already wrote one ranting novel. But in any case, I I'm not sure it should necessarily be easier or quicker to get temporal gears, since that both cheapens their value and it's already relatively easy to acquire a hoard of them. Crafting them would have to be a late game process, and also turn them into a mundane object rather than a valuable esoteric artifact. Purchasing them from a certain old friend is probably an option since there's probably a good supply in that case, and it also requires the player to have completed part of the story before they get access to that kind of convenience, which I think is probably fair. Other NPCs could also sell them, I suppose, though I'd expect the price to be fairly expensive since temporal gears are rare items, even they aren't very useful to NPCs otherwise. What's more needed is more things to spend them on, since rift wards don't require that much power, night vision is very situational, and using the gears for respawns is negligible if one is good at avoiding death. That being said, I think I'd like to see an option of allowing the player to start with a temporal gear in their inventory; that way players who prefer to roam around a little more can have a chance to set their spawn at their base and then proceed as normal, without worrying as much about losing a lot of progress thanks to an untimely death. That being said, they would still need to be careful, since gear respawns are limited by default.

I think this is why a lot of the lore is set up to be discovered indirectly, and not directly explained to the player via NPC exposition. Show, don't tell. The player character is a specific individual, however, there's also room for the player to make their own assessment of how said character reacts to things like revival after death. That doesn't mean there aren't hints as to how NPCs or even the player character generally feels about certain things though. The tapestry flavor text, for example, is written from the player character's point of view, and the flavor text for some other items seems to be written from the same angle. For death, or the inability to die specifically, there's a couple lines of dialogue that cover this as well, though it's not something the player will discover until they've played through chapter two. Except certain locations contain things that are highly useful for completing locations that come after, or important information is revealed in later chapters that makes the experiences from prior chapters feel even more impactful, because you know what lead up to that point. For example, the first story location, the Resonance Archive, makes the impact that it does, because it's the first real glimpse into what came before, and where the plot is headed now. Completing chapter 2 before completing the Archive, however, is going to lessen that impact, since the reward is no longer that useful and the mechanics introduced in chapter 2 aren't a factor in the Archive, which might be confusing to some players. The Archive is also what provides the clues for the player to even start on chapter 2 to begin with, so while the player could complete chapter 2 without completing the Archive, they're probably going to be a little confused over why they're doing what they're doing or why it's important. It's also worth noting that the third location from chapter 2 specifically has a lot of narrative buildup before the player actually encounters it, which helps further set the mood when the player arrives there since they have some scraps of information of why that area is the way it is. If the player could easily stumble across it first though, then they're probably going to be disappointed when they can't talk about it with NPCs aside from the preset dialogue for how the story is intended to unfold, and the location just isn't going to have the same impact when the player needs to actually go there later. I wouldn't say that the player is prohibited from interacting with those locations when they find them. It's more that the player will be required to choose whether or not they want to explore and loot it right then, just explore it a little and come back later, or simply mark it on their map for a future expedition. Some of the teasers for potential dungeons looked pretty wild, so I have a hard time believing that spotting a few while traveling wouldn't be at least mildly interesting. For me, it was the opposite. The fact that it's not immediately clear what the world is, and that it seems to be some sort of fantasy sci-fi realm, is what makes the reveal about the world's history interesting when one starts digging into the lore. If France and the Byzantine Empire and other pieces of the real world are talked about, then it must have been the real world in the past...which begs the question, what happened to twist it into what it is today? How much time has passed since the player's apparent disappearance from and return to the world? In contrast, stories that start with the premise "This was 100% the real world, but now it's not" or "The main characters are from the real world, just pulled into this fantasy realm for most of the book"--those I don't really find very interesting, partly because the real world is something I see every single day so the parts of the story that involve the real world tend to be pretty boring. It can also feel like a rather cheap way to draw the reader in, simply because there's generally a distinct line of separation between the two worlds, and the "real world" tends not to matter at all save for being a plot device to explain why the main character knows nothing about the fantasy world or doesn't have skills/has overpowered skills. This one I'm a little on the fence about. Yes, there could probably be a few more direct suggestions of supplies the player should bring, however...supply lists are also somewhat subjective. Part of the fun of Vintage Story is also that the game doesn't hold your hand and instead allows you to think through things yourself and draw your own conclusions. It's a different mindset than what most other games tend to require. When it comes to planning journeys, NPCs shouldn't have to tell you to bring food, weapons, armor, or medical supplies--that should really be a given. If an NPC is saying an area is dangerous, it's a very good idea, I've found, to take those warnings very seriously, since those warnings aren't just narrative dressing. Are you playing with temporal storms enabled and do you fight through most of them? Temporal storms are one of the main sources of temporal gears, since they occur semi-regularly and spawn tough monsters that tend to drop those gears. It's not unusual to get a handful of temporal gears from each temporal storm. Story locations do have them as loot, as do ruins to a lesser extent, I think, and treasure hunters will sometimes sell them. However, temporal storms will still be the best source, followed by hunting monsters deep underground. Which is why the option to change location distance exists, and I think it's a good thing that option exists. However, personally I draw the line at cutting those distances further in the name of player convenience, because it cheapens the story significantly. The devs should be allowed to tell their story in the way they feel is appropriately challenging, which includes choosing how far the player should have to travel to experience the entire story. And that is what the default should be, otherwise the devs don't really get to tell their story. This is why it's generally a good idea to play a game on the defaults first before installing mods or really tearing into the settings. Meet the game on its own terms first, figure out the general expectations, and then adjust what needs to be adjusted. Yes, a game's design should be such that the first experience players have with it will be a good one. However, that doesn't mean that the game itself needs to be made so easy that the player won't have any challenges to overcome, especially if the game's target audience is one that prefers a more challenging environment.

Flipping the situation around and putting oneself in the trader's shoes for a moment--it's easy enough to say the NPCs should provide an in-depth exposition about the history of the world up to that point of meeting. However, there's a lot that's likely passed into myth and been twisted over the years, if not forgotten entirely. I think it's also worth noting that it's quite difficult to explain things that are taken for granted, especially if you're unfamiliar with the world outside your personal bubble. From the trader perspective, they probably just assume that everyone knows the legends and basic survival tactics(like living behind fortifications), and in the event someone doesn't...assume they're a little addled in the head(if not lying) and set some safe boundaries.

I think that's an issue that really only applies right now, simply because the world still hasn't been fleshed out that much yet. Yes, there's a good variety of flora and fauna to see, but it also doesn't take a lot of effort see most of that variety either. It's also a drawback of sticking to a realistic world, since it means that not as many creative liberties can be taken. You're not going to find ice spikes or mushroom forests, to use an example from the other block game. It's also worth noting that procedural dungeons are only starting to be added to the game. Once more are added, that should provide more interesting landmarks to see along the way--landmarks that will certainly tempt players to get sidetracked from their journey, or at least mark on their map to come back to later. Honestly I don't think this is quite a fair assessment of Vintage Story's design. The player can certainly approach it as a "take-no-risks" situation, but like you said--that tends not to lead to a very fun experience. I think a more fair assessment is that Vintage Story places a lot more importance on risk management: that is, the player needs to plan more carefully than they might need to in other games, simply because their actions will have consequences, and those consequences might not be easy or pleasant to recover from. This is where I would note that planning is important. No, you can't necessarily improvise armor repairs while on the road. However, if you know you're traveling to a village, you can bring gears to barter for repairs and other goods, in addition to just making sure your equipment is in good shape before you leave base. Likewise, if it might be a while before you can make repairs then you might be picking your fights a little more carefully than you normally would. Corpse runs can be avoided by improving skills and practicing good situational awareness, as well as remembering to pack along a few temporal gears. If the player has crafted a terminus teleporter then it becomes as simple as spending a temporal gear to teleport to the last point of death. Basically, travel planning is important because there are things the player won't be able to easily do while they're traveling, so they should make sure they've taken care of those things beforehand and otherwise packed supplies as appropriate. Otherwise, planning has no purpose and the player can play rather carelessly since mistakes aren't going to actually cost them anything. I have to disagree here. Traveling in daylight, avoiding rough terrain, and making camp at night is rather realistic and how travel should be...or at least, it should reflect those qualities. As it stands currently, the most efficient travel method is to move at a constant gallop, day or night, using the minimap to avoid holes and otherwise diving off cliffs and swimming across lakes as needed. As long as you're moving, you'll outrun enemies and they won't really get a chance to attack. There's no penalty for riding your elk at a full gallop with no rest or making it swim across an entire lake either. Likewise, the elk is rather tough and tends to heal fairly fast, so careening over the edge of the hill you just climbed and letting the elk absorb the impact isn't a big deal either. I think it would be a little more interesting if the elk had actually stamina and needed to rest from time to time, or suffered penalty for large drops, so that the player had to actually be mindful of treatment to keep their elk in optimal travel condition. For example, an elk at Good weight might move faster than an elk at Normal or Low weight, and elk could lose weight if they've been ridden hard without rest for a couple of days. In that case, the player could ride hard and cover a lot of ground quickly, at the expense of needing to make camp and rest a day or two to allow their elk to recover, or they could choose to move at a slower overall pace but not need to rest much at all. Circling back to this point--one thing I forgot to mention earlier, is that while chapter 2 locations are quite far away, the devs built in a "fast travel" option that you unlock after completing the travel. It does have a recharge time attached to it, so you do need to be mindful about when you use that feature, however, it's a great way to travel back and forth between your base and the "main hub" of chapter 2, essentially.

Honestly I feel the distances are shorter than what they should be. I know why the devs decided to adjust the distances from what they originally were, and in the long run that was probably for the best in terms of game design, but the story also lost some of its impact with that change. It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, however, the distance is what makes the world actually feel impactful--that is, it's going to require some planning and cost you something to see those places. If you plan poorly or run into trouble, then you'll have to improvise a solution, since turning around and going back home isn't necessarily going to be an option. That travel difficulty also means you'll need to be careful about what items you choose to pack, what items you buy from NPCs, and what loot you take from locations, since you won't be able to just go back home and drop off your loot whenever your bags are full. In contrast, worlds that are very compact are very convenient for travel, but can easily wind up with stories that feel just a little bit silly rather than serious. Take Skyrim, for example--it's supposed to be a vast wilderness inhabited by dangerous creatures, dotted with ancient ruins, and otherwise sparsely sprinkled with something resembling civilized society. And to an extent, that's true. However, it's also difficult to take that setting seriously when there's a village or farmhouse over almost every hill, or you can run from one end of the country to the other, on foot, in a single day and still have daylight to spare. Even moreso when an NPC asks you to make a delivery to the village next door, that they couldn't make themselves because it's "too far to travel". Really? You couldn't just...go for a short walk and do it yourself? It's also worth noting that from a design perspective, the distance also helps the player uncover the story in the proper order, without skipping steps or otherwise venturing into areas that they maybe aren't yet prepared for. For example, it's possible to skip chapter one entirely, as well as most of chapter two, and still have the story make sense. However, the player would probably be pretty disappointed to do that and learn that they missed half the plot in the process. More "rails" could be added to force players to complete various steps before the story progresses, however, that's not ideal as that kind of design removes even the illusion of choice from the player.

This is a very good way to balance such a concept, since the expense of obtaining such a machine means that it's going to be a late game item. Likewise, the maintenance cost means that it's not just a big price the player pays once and then never has to worry about again--if the player wants the power, they have to put in the effort. I think you're right, in that this one likely won't be very fun to play with since it renders the contraption pretty much unusable. Most likely the only way this option works is if the machine in question is relatively cheap and requires no maintenance, meaning that the player can easily break it during a flying attempt, but can also reasonably expect to replace it when that happens. While this is definitely a realistic way to handle it...it's also going to be very difficult to code. Some players enjoy difficulty like this, however, it's worth noting that as a general rule, more players seem to gravitate towards easier mechanics rather than harder ones. Ultimately, I think it runs into the same issue as #2, in that it's probably going to be more frustrating than fun to play with. Maybe for a glider, but an airplane it shouldn't be a slog...assuming that the player had set up the proper infrastructure to support that kind of travel, or was otherwise smart about where they chose to land. I think overall, a simplified flight system is ideal in order to let the player easily make use of the vehicle once they have it. The main key to balancing it, I think, is making the flying machine be quite expensive to obtain, with a reasonable smaller maintenance cost after creation in order to keep it functioning properly. That should give players a good goal to work towards, without overshadowing other means of transport or otherwise rendering them entirely useless. Players still need elk, because that's more efficient for traveling shorter distances or rough terrain, or hauling lots of cargo. Sailboats remain useful because they're cheaper, don't require maintenance, and can easily haul lots of cargo. A plane is excellent for covering long distances and bypassing terrain, but the expense means you'll want to be very careful with it and consider whether or not the time you save using the plane is going to be worth the time you have to spend performing maintenance. If you want to have a little more nuance regarding flight conditions, I think it's probably better to do some sort of rough weight calculation, as well as account for whether the plane is equipped with high wings, low wings, tricycle gear, taildragger, or floats. A plane that is heavily loaded with fuel and cargo is going to need more space for takeoff and landing; likewise, facing into the wind can shorten the distance required while facing away from the wind can lengthen the distance. A plane with high wings means the player won't be able to see what's above them, but a plane with low wings means the player won't be able to easily see what's underneath them. A tricycle gear is much easier to steer on the ground, since you can see where you're going. A conventional gear(taildragger configuration) makes it harder to see where you're going, but can help protect the propeller from groundstrike and tends to be better suited for rougher landing environments(like unpaved landing strips). Floats mean the plane can land on water(and be reusable after!), but not on land. Maintenance isn't something that should be overlooked either. Players might get away with ignoring it for a while, but failing to perform regular maintenance(which includes pre-flight checks--those exist for a reason!) can lead to the plane having reduced performance or perhaps even suffering an engine failure...in which case the player is going to need to pick an emergency landing site and do their best...ideally they can reuse the plane afterwards, but that may or may not be possible. Not necessarily. The pilot and passengers might be fine, but the plane might not be very usable without some time in the shop.

Support ticket here: https://www.vintagestory.at/support/ The little envelope icon next to your profile name in the upper right corner of your screen will take you to your message box--from there you can DM other users. Rorax and Zaldaryon are the forum moderators, and I think moderators on the Discord as well, but I'm not entirely sure.

Welcome to the forums! If it was just a ban from the VS Discord, you can try DMing one of the moderators, either here on the forums or on Discord, about the situation, or create a support ticket explaining what happened. If you got banned from the Discord platform itself, then you'll need to submit an appeal to Discord's support team, or whatever process Discord has in place for appealing such.

Welcome to the game and forums! If you're having issues with the supporter tag not appearing in the game, you'll want to submit a ticket to the support team, since they'll be the ones with the tools to fix it.

Forgot to link this earlier, but you'll probably find this clip interesting:

I don't disagree that it would be somewhat interesting, however, I agree with @Rainbow Fresh--that kind of feature is very niche, and a massive headache to actually implement. It's also worth noting that one of the distinct hazards of playing an early access game version is that lots of things are likely to change and require players to create new worlds from time to time to deal with those changes. Likewise, the general point of starting a new world in a game like VS is to have a change of scenery as well as play with different settings or approach the main story in a different way than the last playthrough.

It's mostly just casual observation of various media as well as real life, my own personal worldbuilding, and various bits of sound design that I have seen explained over the years. No actual experience in the industry. I like to pick things apart and figure out what makes them work, as that helps me write my own stories or critique other works more constructively. One bit I recall in particular that I recall listening to, that perhaps served to stimulate that kind of curiosity, was a brief explanation of what went into creating Aslan's roar for some Narnia audiobooks, and it's not what you'd first expect. A lion's roar was part of the sound, for obvious reasons, but a lion's roar alone lacks the power that a supernatural lion's roar should have, so they mixed in a tiger's roar for raw power and some whale noises to give the roar more rumbling depth. An example of "bad" audio design is the Wilhelm scream--it's not exactly a bad effect itself, but it's very...unique...and it's been overused to the point that it can immediately break the audience's immersion as soon as it appears.

Not exactly a developer or sound designer, but I do toy with stuff like this from time to time, though it tends to be more for visual designs. But I would say that sound design employs the same general principles as visual design--you need things to sound like they belong in the setting that's been crafted, just as they need to look like they belong there. Sounds also need to be appealing enough for the audience to tolerate for extended periods(if not enjoy); intolerable sound effects or music can turn players off a game entirely. Warning sounds need to be sharp enough to grab the player's attention so they can react quickly; monster sounds generally need to be unsettling, loud, or sometimes a little obnoxious depending on what reaction the player is intended to have towards the monster. Sound effects and music play a pretty big part in environmental storytelling as well. Soft footsteps on grass or a soft crunch of gravel underfoot can make just walking around doing nothing a very relaxing, pleasant experience. Adding some sharper sounds into the mix for player footsteps could indicate that the character isn't very skilled in stealth, or is wearing heavy equipment that makes movements more noticeable. Softening the sounds from the default can suggest that the character is skilled in stealth or wearing equipment that allows them to move quietly. Environmental noise like birds chirping or wind rustling grass can make the surroundings feel alive, even if there's not actually a simulated ecosystem to be found. Music can greatly enhance the environment, if done well, and provide a sense of the area's history and culture. Compare Oblivion's music to Skyrim's--both have the same composer, but one feels like a jolly adventure through a civilized medieval countryside, while the other feels more fitting for a land filled with snow, ice, ancient ruins and wild magic.