LadyWYT

One thing I will note about the elk--while enemies don't seem to target the elk, I would recommend making a stable or holding pen to park it in when you're at home. The elk does stay in one spot, generally, but if you have a trough of food somewhere nearby it will notice and make a beeline for it. Also speaking of bears and fences...they can swat things through fences, if the target is standing close enough. One of my sheep got mauled by a bear yesterday, which was disappointing. Looks like I'll be building a fortified perimeter, which is ideal anyway given there's a cave nearby that will produce a monster or two every now and then. Edit: I correct myself--the elk will wander a bit when unmounted. So definitely a good idea to build a pen or stable to keep it in whenever you're not currently out on an adventure.

Summoning @ifoz for expert opinion! In my experience, I've not found anything particularly noteworthy about those ruins other than they're just a landmark, but then again, I've not gone trying to dig them up either. You could switch your gamemode to spectator for a moment and poke around to see if there's any loot to be found. If there is, then you can switch back to survival and go digging, but if not, then you can switch back to survival and continue playing as normal. Just make sure that you aren't clipped into the terrain or hovering too far above the ground when you switch back to survival mode; wouldn't do to awkwardly go splat.

You need to be actively blocking and facing the enemy head-on to get the most out of your shield. The effectiveness also depends on what kind of shield you're using; better quality shields will block more incoming damage and last longer. I'll also note that it helps to wear armor when using a shield as well, as that will further mitigate any damage that wasn't blocked by the shield. I'm assuming though that you're referring to the crude shield for early game defense against hostile wildlife. In this case, the same logic applies as above--you want to be facing the attacker and actively blocking in order to get the most out of the shield. It's certainly not going to soak up all the damage, but the idea is that it mitigates enough to allow you to survive the encounter. Pair with improvised armor to increase your survival chances a little more. I will also note though that the tradeoff to using a shield is that it will increase your hunger rate, and remove your off-hand slot as an option for holding a light source. In the later stages of the game, neither one is a particularly big deal, but early on the hunger penalty can pose issues if you have problems securing food sources.

Can confirm that the features listed in the trailer are available in the release candidate. Can also confirm that I've played through the main portion of the story. The only real rough spot I've noticed so far is that a few of the minor fluff bits are missing from the new lore/story stuff, but the main portion is playable to the end. I'll definitely need to give it another run through, as I'm fairly certain there are at least two different ways to complete it, and I would also expect a couple of pieces to be fine-tuned a bit more as they felt just a bit off. In any case though, I'm guessing that the friends were upset because they were expecting the stable release, and not the release candidate. Which, since we have a release candidate, I would expect the stable release soon, although perhaps not until after New Year's. We'll see. In the meantime though, despite the release candidate technically being an unstable version, I don't expect to see anything aside from bug fixes and a few minor tweaks, so I'm guessing that worlds created in that version will carry over to the stable release.

I did see a note on the wiki that indicated antlers will shed after full growth, and can be picked up by the player. I don't recall that being a thing when 1.19 originally launched, so I'm also wondering if that's what might have changed in one of the patches. IE, players are supposed to find shed antlers to display, as a nifty little treasure item, instead of getting a pair of antlers every time they shoot a male deer(which is honestly pretty easy). Either way I just want my antlers to decorate with. I could just cheat some in, of course, but it's a lot more fun to hunt them down...plus I typically need the meat anyway.

Personally the delay in pixel shaping doesn't bother me, and I'm a twitchy player a good chunk of the time. To me the delay is barely noticeable because it's so small, and the little bit that I might notice helps keep me focused on more precise actions instead of speeding through everything. I'm not Tyron either, but if I had to guess, it might be in place to provide a more immersive experience for the crafting. It takes time to shape pottery(speaking from experience here), same as it takes time to butcher a carcass, or pick berries, or complete any of the other tasks the game requires. Now Vintage Story could have made the completions instant, like how the other block game handles things, but it would lose its soul in doing so, I think. Not saying that everything needs to take a lot of time to complete, but one of the main vibes of Vintage Story, in my opinion, is that players are supposed to be intentional in their actions, and not just throwing things together on a whim. Having a small, definite cooldown might also make it easier to animate the actions as well.

Hmmmmm...maybe I should make a better effort to depopulate the countryside of antlered creatures and see if it just got changed to a low droprate. I know that previously, I was always getting the antlers/horns, and ended up having more sets than I knew what to do with. So it's entirely possible the droprate was changed to make them more of a trophy item.

For just the vanilla game, you can use shears on leaves to get a greater yield of sticks and tree seeds before you cut the tree down. Shears are also great for clearing brushland in order to keep things from sneaking up on you as easily.

The update is still very new, so it will take time for things to be figured out and turned into proper guides. Plus I daresay some things are left a bit vague in the official media so as to let players discover some of the things themselves. But in any case, for those wondering how to get the elk:

Very true. I don't play with gravity enabled for soil blocks, but boy did it cross my mind given how many times I nearly rode into one.

Oh, oops. I had always understood that to be the case. Then again, I was also pretty tired when I wrote that, which never really helps, but always makes reading the next morning rather interesting. Thank you for clarifying! In any case, my general experience has been that Decent or better readings are the spots to dig. The percentage value I don't really pay attention to unless I'm desperate enough to dig in a questionable spot, in which case I'll use the percentages to decide where I want to dig in the hopes of finding something. The only exception I can think of is in the case of halite--I've never seen a reading higher than Poor or Very Poor, but I have seen high percentages. However, I will also note that I generally opt for buying halite from traders instead of looking for it myself.

For some reason the deer aren't dropping antlers, despite it being wintertime and the males having obvious home decorations on their heads. Did the drop rate get changed, is it bugged, or did I just manage to break something when I last messed with mods back in 1.19? I'm not playing with any mods since updating to the pre-release. I know I was using the deer mod from Fauna of the Stone Age back on 1.19, and that was known to overwrite the vanilla deer and cause them to not drop antlers. However, I would have thought that disabling the mods and installing the pre-release would have overwritten any files that were affected by mods. Essentially I'm wondering if anyone else has had issues with it or has better ideas of a fix, before I go backing up my worlds and doing a complete reinstall.

Not to my knowledge. I pretty much just eat whenever I'm hungry and can finish the whole meal in one sitting, or if I'm fixing to head out to go do something and not bringing food with me. Of course, since I tend to sleep through the nights, I also make sure I'm not going to go hungry while I'm asleep either. Not that it would kill me, but it's not the best thing to wake up to. During the shorter winter days I was clocking around 7k per day, probably about 10k if I rode all day and night. It does depend a lot on which route you take as well; if there's a stretch of flatter land that skirts a mountain, it's often faster to go that way than taking the most direct path. I also don't really recommend riding at night if you don't have to. While it's easy enough to outrun things on the elk, you're not going to be able to see very far even with the lantern, so you have a much greater chance of riding into a hole. As for how to get the elk:

I think the shields have been changed to always block projectiles, at least when actively blocking. But even if not, a shield is still a good investment, as it will stop a lot of incoming damage. There's also somewhat cheesy strats too, such as hiding somewhere where enemies can see you but have a hard time hitting you, and then attacking them from relative safety. Granted, this strategy is harder to pull off now that it was before, due to the new monsters. If I'm using this strategy, I'll usually just hide in my house and play peekaboo with the door.

To try to elaborate on this: the "ultra high/high/decent" and other descriptors refer to the quality of ore; that is, how many nuggets each chunk will yield. You want "Decent" or better, typically. The numeric percentage is important too though--that gives you an idea of how much ore is actually down there. A high percentage even with a "poor" quality ore can still be worth digging for, as it probably means there are multiple ore blocks to find. Likewise, a low percentage with an "ultra high" reading is also worth digging for, as it means that the few blocks that are there are going to be high-yield. It's also worth noting that some kinds of ore are found in small deposits only, typically without exceptional yields, so you may not ever see any reading higher than "decent" or high percentage numbers. One example of this that I would cite is cinnabar. In these cases, you'll want to find the highest reading in that area that you can, and then dig to see if there's anything there. Last but not least...it's not a common occurrence, but just because there is a reading doesn't mean that the ore is actually there. The prospecting numbers are pretty much just the chances of what you can find in that particular chunk, unless something has changed. So it's possible you could have a really high reading, dig all the way to mantle, and find absolutely nothing. This is also why you want to use the node search mode every so often when digging--it'll tell you what, if anything, is nearby.

The hunger bar. I typically wind up calling it stamina, and not hunger. Granted, you can still keep doing whatever even when it's empty, but at that point it stops pulling from your stamina(since you have none) and starts using your health pool as a resource instead. And of course, when that runs out, you die. In regards to being a class thing...it kind of is that as well. Blackguards have that 30% penalty to hunger, which means they're going to burn through their stamina a lot faster than the other classes. Edit: I will also note that I made it back to my base after just over two full days of non-stop travel, barring a few quick stops to warm up. I will also note that I did not make it home before the next temporal storm hit...and it was the first medium one too. Riding through all that mess was a definite trip. Arrived at home half-dead from freezing, proceeded to nearly get stomped to death by my elk for some reason. Made it inside just in time though, so crisis averted! Overall, the entire trip took just over one in-game month, though I would still say the average trip will probably take about two months. It hinges a lot on world generation, player's navigation skills, and whether or not the player chooses to pursue the story exclusively or complete other tasks along the way. For those concerned about needing to make multiple trips though:

I disagree, for two main reasons: 1. Traders already have a spawn pattern that's fairly easy to learn once you've found several. There tends to be one every several chunks or so, and you'll be needing to do quite a bit of exploring anyway for various resources and whatnot. If you play with true map colors turned on, they're also a lot easier to spot. In any case, it's pretty simple to run around until you find the type you're looking for. 2. STORY/LORE CONTENT SPOILERS! This too. Keeping in mind that traders don't always have what you want for sale, and don't always buy what you're looking to sell. If there aren't any deals that you want to strike with them at that moment, you'll need to leave and come back later, most likely after a few days. In that time, you could easily go visit another trader who might have better offers, and with the new travel options that have been added it's also easier to travel around too.

Nah. I think I'm approaching 40 hours, and it's just barely ticked over into December. I generally sleep through the nights, as I don't like operating in the dark if I don't have to. I also generally take my sweet time doing things in the game, it's just this time I was really pushing my progress in order to see the new stuff so some things happened faster. Of course, the main thing I have to figure out now is how I'm going to get home; I started the journey the first of November, right after a temporal storm...so there's probably another storm bearing down for the return trip. *highfives* Pretty much. Once you know what you're doing it's not terribly hard, but the game is very good about lulling you into complacency and then punishing you for it. It depends on how big the gap is. They're big mobs, and need at least a two-wide gap in order to get through. I think they might need a space two blocks tall in order to navigate as well. The one thing you can't do with them is rely on a wall made from solid blocks, as my understanding is that they can climb at least two block heights. As for why they can't climb fences...I can only assume that's an oversight due to something in the code that prevents creatures from climbing over fences, in order to keep your animals in their pens. I don't believe they can. They have similar space requirements to the shivers as well, I do believe.

Finished the story...man, I'm going to need some time to unpack my thoughts on everything, because there's just so much... Overall, very well done, and I enjoyed it greatly! Now I just have to return to base and perhaps tinker around with upgrading a few things, before likely setting this particular world aside as the testing ground for future updates and starting the process anew. One important thing I will note, is that while you can pretty much grind out the entire story arc in a single session, it's probably best to tackle it in smaller chunks to avoid some burnout. My best guess is that the entire round trip will probably take a couple of standard in-game months to complete(that includes your trip home).

Without simply repeating everything I said in the other thread, I'll just drop this here: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/11954 While you've got a nice outline here, I'd highly suggest playing with a disease mechanic installed(assuming you haven't already) before getting too excited about how fun it might be. I would argue that it would be annoyance or irritation rather than tension, if it's a random occurrence. If one strikes while you're safe at home doing chores, then it's just a nuisance that's going to slow down your gameplay, that you couldn't really prevent because it's a random chance. If it happens while you're dungeon-delving or getting otherwise mauled by nasties, then yeah, it might heighten tension that's already there, but it's certainly going to feel awful if it proves to be what turns the situation from survivable to dead, again due to circumstances outside your control. Which the player should already be doing, really, and brings me to my next point: the game already encourages players to take decent care of their characters, and prepare for adventures. If you don't vary your diet, you miss out on health points, which you will need when fighting off enemies. If you don't take care of your clothes, you'll freeze to death faster. If you don't bring medical supplies with you on your dungeon runs, you're much more likely to die. So if taking good care of your character prevents contracting most illnesses, players aren't likely to encounter disease at all. Or on the flip side, you could do everything in your power to prevent illness, and still end up catching a disease anyway despite your efforts, due to the random illness mechanic suggested above. Not really fun. Honestly, if a mechanic like this were to be added...I would simplify it by dropping the disease mechanic entirely. Add something else like broken bones instead; while those are rather easy to avoid, it could serve as a deterrent to running around recklessly and diving off high places on a whim. Essentially, if the player takes too much fall damage, they can have a chance to break a leg, incurring a movement speed penalty until it heals. Splinting the limb could lessen this penalty, while getting a good night's rest regularly could help the injury heal faster. Broken arms could be sustained rarely in combat, probably from the higher tier monsters and have a higher chance of occurring if you're not wearing good armor. In that case, they could simply apply a penalty to damage until the injury heals. I will also point out that some of these effects are already in the game. If your stability runs too low, your vision will start getting a bit wonky, though the monsters you see are certainly not illusions. Movement penalties are already applied with armor. Health penalties are applied(or rather, health bonuses are lost) if you don't eat a varied diet. So I wouldn't say these are necessarily unique gameplay challenges. In any case, I still think disease mechanics are best left to the modded realm. I don't see it being very fun for most players to deal with, in the same way that I'm skeptical a thirst mechanic would be fun for most players. But with mods, the option is still there for those who are looking for that kind of experience in their games.

A very good point as well. Although if any disease got added, I'd expect it to be a future plot point of getting some sort of nasty Rust infection or something, that you have to go find a cure for before you turn into some horrible creature.

HOLY SMOKES I LOVE THE STORY SO FAR! In regards to the elk, it's a little janky, but rather fun to ride around on. It can outrun most anything and is rather durable, but perhaps the best feature is the fact that it can easily climb up to two blocks heights. So it can handle most mountains with relative ease, though you will need to slow to a walk in order to do this safely. Probably its weakest point is that it's ill-suited for traversing thick forest--you'll save much more time skirting these areas.

You know it! Though my face is my shield half the time. And just when I thought I was good at the game. Build the ugliest house possible, maybe? Just to see how ugly you can possibly make it. To elaborate on what @Thorfinn said--it is the new process for fire clay, since fire clay now only spawns under coal deposits, specifically black coal I think. You have to bake flint to get calcined flint, then grind that into powder and add it to red or blue clay to get fire clay.

Same, plus I'm pretty sure we can already pet some other animals. Stands to reason that dogs would be pettable too. I'd wager they could also offer some utility to the player as well, aside from just attacking enemies. A small pack could let them carry some stuff, and you could probably have a whistle or something that lets them go retrieve certain things. Perhaps they could chase down rabbits and other small creatures, and bring the carcass back for you?

Finally cleared the Archive, and just in time for the next temporal storm as soon as I got home! It's now November, winter is here, I have my elk(there may have been shenanigans to help expedite this), and the next destination is 15k blocks to the east. Should be a fun trip! I'll probably pack light this time, at least regarding food, as I overdid it on the Archive and most of those supplies have gone to waste. It's maybe not the best idea to go in winter either, but I still need to locate a source of borax and bauxite if I'm going to get steel, and east is one direction I haven't really explored so here's to hoping I find those along the way. Speaking of the Archive...I get the distinct impression that some serious knockback has been added to drifter attacks. The death message from fall damage is pretty funny though, and the shields make a much more satisfying sound when blocking.