LadyWYT

I should note that I beat the shiver to a pulp, and not my chair. My poor chair has seen better days, this is true, but it should still see several more before it finally needs replacing.

I mean, I've only played for about two years, as I think 1.18 was still pretty new when I picked up the game. But even so, I 100% agree with this sentiment. The devs have done a phenomenal job so far, and while there have been a few goofs they're quick to resolve the problems while keeping the community informed. Plus like @Teh Pizza Lady noted, the performance updates, polish, and bugfixes were what the community voted for to be the temporary focus(by a significant majority, if I recall correctly) when Tyron did that poll there a while back. Which the devs have absolutely delivered on in 1.21.

Shiver Me Timbers So was playing with my friend the other day, and I went out to go look for resin. I found an interesting looking cave while out roaming around the forest, so I poked my head inside to see if there was anything interesting. Once inside, I heard some kind of odd noise, that sounded like slow tongue clicking, and didn't sound like it was anything in the game. Since I was in a voicecall with my friend, I asked if that was him...and it was not. The noises he described on his end of the call were nothing like what I had heard. I took a look around outside the cave, but didn't see anything. Rift weather was calm, so there were no rifts nearby to spawn anything either. Feeling a bit spooked, I left the cave area and continued looking for resin. Not two minutes later and I get jumped by a shiver from the bushes. Admittedly, I jumped in my chair and yelped, before promptly beating it to a pulp. But hey, that explained the clicking noise! I think that particular forest might be haunted, as that is not the first time that me or my friend have been jumped by monsters in that area.

Ah cool, good to know!

Yeah, as long as any monsters in the pen don't have enough LOS on you to launch a shot, you should be fine. Making the fences at least two blocks high should help a lot too.

My solution was to just avoid that area like the plague during a temporal storm, since it's the presence of players that provoke rotbeasts to attack. They'll never go after animals specifically, unless the rock hits the wrong target.

Unfortunately, what probably happened is your poor deer got hit by a stray shot from a drifter, attacked the rotbeast, and got killed as a result. It could have possibly been a bowtorn, but a drifter is most likely, especially if you recently had a temporal storm. I lost one last server to a nightmare drifter--killed in two shots. Giant deer should be able to handle surface drifters, but perhaps not if there are more than one or two.

Oh yes, that scene, as well as many other instances in fantasy media. I'm not gonna say I'm expert on the subject, but it's material that I do like researching for funsies, as well as developing my own fantasy stuff in a way that's believable.

Honestly, I have no idea how it actually works. I just know that in regard to memory leaks, turning that option on and then triggering the leak will spit out more information in the logs, so that you(or someone else) can better pinpoint what's causing the leak. If a mod is the cause, then the logs should be pointing to something in the mod's files, and not the vanilla game.

Last I checked, horses don't magically defy the laws of physics. The rider still needs to be able to swing his secondary weapon(because on horseback the primary weapon is the lance, which often breaks or sticks in the targets) efficiently for extended periods, and you can't always count on just riding away once you charge in. The horse could die, or otherwise be incapacitated, and the sheer number of bodies(live and dead) congregating together impede movement. Likewise, while horses are very strong, they have their limits as well, and there's only so much weight they will tolerate before they either attempt to throw the rider, or are injured. That's not to say there wasn't heavier armor, but that stuff was typically reserved for jousting and not actual fighting.

To my knowledge, you can stick a tree seed into any planter and get a bonsai bush version of the adult tree. There's just only one bush model.

There is this mod: https://mods.vintagestory.at/offlinefoodnospoil It doesn't solve the issue of stored food spoiling, but it will stop any food in a player's inventory from spoiling while they're offline. It seems like it should be feasible, but then again I'm just making my best guess on that since coding is not my strong point. You might be able to tie it to player land claims somehow. I've not played with land claims in multiplayer, but the potential drawback that I see for "exploits" is abandoning claims or otherwise remaining logged out for a long time. Granted, that's not just a food problem though.

Oh, I gotcha. It should just be one vein. To my knowledge, iron veins are somewhat of an exception to typical ore spawn rules due to their size.

As a general rule, the mod versions should be up-to-date with whatever version of the game that the server is running. Older mods will still sometimes work on newer versions of the game, but it's not a guarantee. Mods made for newer game versions most likely won't work on older game versions due to changes in the game's code. You could still try it, and see what happens of course, but don't test on worlds that you care about.

Given that the iron ore you seem to be digging for is magnetite, there's a decent chance it's not there at all, as that's a trickier one to find consistently. Hematite tends to be easier to find. In any case, if you've dug some deep shafts around the prime spots, and found nothing, I would pick a different area and try again. Decent or higher readings are better sites to dig, but it doesn't hurt to try Poor or Very Poor readings either, as the density reading is only an indication of what could have spawned, and not what actually did.

It should be the VAO option--that's the one I've used while hunting memory leaks. Make sure you check that option every time before loading the world, as it does seem to like to turn itself off. I get it on PC with Dev mode off, so I don't think it's just a Mac thing. I don't recall if there was anything I did to enable it though...I figure it just kinda happens automatically.

Welcome to the forums! Sorry to hear that you're having such a rough time. You should be able to turn down/off the camera shake in the Accessibility tab of the Settings menu, and may also find this wiki page helpful: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php/Accessibility What's almost certainly happened is that you have run out of temporal stability due to being in an unstable area. Temporal stability is something that, as @ifoz says, is esoteric at first, and catches many players(veterans included) offguard. A stable area is noted by the teal gear on the hotbar turning clockwise--the gauge will fill in stable areas. An unstable area is noted by the gear spinning counterclockwise--the gauge will drain in unstable areas. There are also neutral areas, where the gear does not spin, and neither drains or fills. The deeper underground you venture, the more unstable the surroundings become. To recover stability, the simplest solution is to hang out in a stable area for a while, but it's also possible to restore some stability instantly by killing monsters(the tougher the better) or by sacrificing a temporal gear and a bit of health(if you just started the game, this likely isn't an option). Honestly, I recommend starting over on a new world so that you'll have a fresh, full stability meter, and trying again. Doing so will probably be less frustrating than trying to recover from your current situation, as well as allow you to improve on any other gameplay decisions you made and weren't happy with. While these are true, the "more realistic/immersive Minecraft" is not, and I think that throws a lot of people off the first time they play. It's a convenient description since both games have similar voxel graphics, and have some similarities in crafting concepts, but the similarities really stop there. Vintage Story is its own thing, with very different gameplay systems, expectations of the player, and proper lore with a story to tell. Minecraft is mostly a whimsical sandbox world where the player can do whatever. What I recommend for Vintage Story, is making sure that you start your first world(or worlds, if you're inclined to go through multiple while learning the game) on Standard or Exploration difficulties, not Wilderness Survival or Homo Sapiens. The latter two are the hardest difficulties and absolutely merciless; Standard is still tough, but more forgiving of mistakes, and also the game mode that is the developers' vision. Exploration is easier than Standard(and disables temporal stability entirely as a mechanic), but it's easier to handle learning basics here before graduating to a harder game mode.

Nah, I just ready my shortsword and get ready to start stabbing when it starts trying to maul the hunter.

Honestly, it's not even a concept limited to game design, but rather it's an impossible task. There's absolutely no way that everyone can be pleased, because people have varying tastes, and some of those tastes directly conflict with the taste of others. Pretty much, though it's not just Minecraft that's suffered from the "gotta please everyone" mentality. Skyrim, as popular as it is, also suffered from it, as did other titles. That's not to say they're bad games, and they've obviously sold very well for a reason, but they're very shallow games and leave a lot of players wanting. Which I don't think Vintage Story has those problems. The devs have a clear vision for the game, and while it is a bit niche, it does a very good job of appealing to its target audience. The level of customization available also makes it very easy for players to "season to taste", so if the presets aren't quite right for someone, it's easy enough to tweak a few things to achieve it. Obviously, there's been some controversy over certain aspects of the game, but the game itself doesn't seem to be hurting, but rather still growing, given the increase in new players showing up on the forums.

Or I mean, just apply heavy penalties to work speed while submerged in water.

Are you referring to CO stats here, or vanilla? In vanilla, having tier 2 armor like gambeson will make bear attacks mostly a non-issue(aside from hitboxes), since bears have tier 2 attacks. In any case, just checking, because I got confused by the preceding paragraph and thought you were talking vanilla armor mechanics, until I realized you were still referring to Combat Overhaul. Silly me! This is 100% a CO change. To my knowledge, the only things in vanilla that allow for AoE attacks, are bombs. And those are quite situational in use. I do want to note that while this is true, it's not really a problem for Blackguards specifically, unless they have very bad aim. Blackguards are able to oneshot locusts, provided said Blackguard is decently armed.

I dunno man, I go toe-to-toe with bears fairly often, though generally I avoid picking the fight until I'm ready for it. As for hitboxes, I don't know that most players would notice any changes about them specifically, but I bet that most players would notice something in combat had changed for the better if they feel like all of their hits are landing as expected. I do agree on the tweaking versus testing though--tweaking numbers is fairly easy, but what's not so easy is testing thoroughly to make sure the changes were the right ones.

Welcome to the forums! @Thorfinn has covered most of it, in that the handbook covers pretty much all the information you need/could want to know about various game items and systems. It has a Guide section that includes a brief summary of different progression "tiers", and the general steps of how to advance through them. The handbook is also good about cross-referencing things, so there are often links on one page that will take you to other relevant game items and concepts. It's a lot to handle at first, but reading through the Guide section and picking simple first goal from there is a good place to start. I will also note that there is an optional tutorial upon first creating a world, that will walk you through the process of learning basic controls and acquiring your first set of handbaskets and starter tools. It's not much, but if you haven't played the game in quite some time it could be a handy refresher. Overall, I would say that the general vibe of VS is that the player needs to learn to think quickly on their feet, as well as get good at planning certain activities well in advance. Death happens a lot, especially for newer players, however, I will note that the game is rarely unfair about it. Most of the time, there was something the player could have done to avoid death, so when it does occur it's important to review the circumstances and figure out how to improve in order to avoid similar situations in the future. As for in-game hints...there aren't any for standard gameplay, at least if you exclude the handbook. You can learn certain bits about the world through simple observation, but the handbook is still going to be the primary source of information when it comes to learning gameplay systems themselves. In-game hints apply more to the game's main story and lore--a lot of the storytelling is done via various clues hidden in location design and certain flavor texts for certain items, and the player is often left to draw their own conclusions. I will note though, that if a lore item/NPC makes a point of describing something as dangerous, you should absolutely pay attention, as those warnings do actually mean something.

Honestly, this is a situation best solved by mods and special rules for the server(s) in question, instead of changing the base game. The game's story and basic progression still needs to be easily completed by any class in singleplayer, without needing to disable class-exclusive recipes. I do agree on this point being weird. Really, the shortblade option shouldn't even show up as a forging recipe unless the player in question is a Blackguard, or class-exclusive recipes are turned off(so it's an oversight). Aside from just disabling the recipe for non-Blackguards, I think a better fix would just be to add a plain shortsword that utilizes the same forge pattern, but has worse stats than the Blackguard blade. That way, players have a "normal" sword option they can craft and use, while still letting Blackguard equipment retain its advantage, while still letting the falx have its niche advantage with the autoloot feature.

It's not a unique location, or special to any particular biome. It's just a small compound that's roughly the same size as those trader camps you find on occasion, though perhaps slightly smaller. It's also not unusual for these treasure hunter shacks to generate within strolling distance of world spawn. Probably the most "realistic" place for manual placement is somewhere within walking distance of your base(so not right next door), in an open area so the trader could feasibly spot approaching threats as needed(so not in dense forest, though they can spawn there). I've not measured the structure specifically, but it should absolutely fit in a 20-block diameter area.