LadyWYT

I...may have been a little bit of an over-eager try-hard on that...

I think this is probably where the majority of the frustrations come from...that, and the whole comparison being somewhat of a meme in the VS community. When it's popular to dunk on something, it's not unusual for several people to jump on the dunking bandwagon, regardless of whether or not they actually dislike the thing in question. As for which game is better...that really depends on what one is looking for in regards to gameplay. Vintage Story holds the advantage if one wants a proper story, more challenges, and grittier enemies/more realistic setting in general. Minecraft is better if one is looking for a more laid-back experience with a more whimsical nature, as well as a wider range of building styles to pick from. Not that Vintage Story doesn't support multiple styles, but the overall aesthetics of VS heavily favor realistic medieval-style builds, and not so much modern, fantasy, or other styles that aren't medieval. I might be a grumpy veteran by saying this, but I think some of it also stems from Minecraft players jumping into Vintage Story expecting the same kind of gameplay but with fancier graphics, learning rather quickly that the gameplay is very different from Minecraft, and then insisting that Vintage Story change various mechanics to be more like Minecraft.

Isn't a bucket technically just a small barrel with a handle?

I'll also point out that Vintage Story also has auto updates and community features...the modding database, anyone? That, plus the fact that Tyron made the game incredibly easy to mod, even if you're a beginner. You can even look through the source code on github, I do believe. As for the auto-updates, Vintage Story will notify you if there's a new stable update(or unstable, if you're running a release candidate) when you boot the game, and then you can choose when to install it! Steam...doesn't really offer that, at least not by default. By default, Steam downloads and applies any updates it finds; you have to specifically tell it not to update particular games(I had to go through this with Skyrim SE, and it still updated automatically due to an accidental opening of the Skyrim launcher). Cloud saves I wouldn't expect to be a feature of VS, but I mean...there's always the option of external drives and thumb drives, and thumb drives have improved quite a bit in regards to storage capacity.

Oh it's still interesting! By unreadable lore book, do you mean that the book isn't giving a lore entry when you try to read it? That happens sometimes; I think when it does, it's due to you already having the lore entry assigned to that book.

I think most menu shots are either user-submitted screenshots, or screenshots of specific things from the game itself(like the ruin pictured here). In some cases, the shots showcase story locations, but unless you've been there or otherwise seen the location, you probably aren't going to know exactly what you're looking at.

I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to there. I don't recall being prompted for such on my installations.

It should, yes.

The Vintagestory folder should be in the same place as the VintagestoryData folder, unless you installed the game somewhere else than the default drive(the C drive). If you changed the installation location, then you will need to look for the Vintagestory folder on the drive you installed Vintagestory on. In my case, I installed the game on the F drive, so my Vintagestory folder is on the F drive, instead of being listed under AppData on the C drive.

There are mods to reduce spawns in general, or make monsters spawn only underground, but I'm not sure that there is one to limit monsters to story structures and ruins only. If fighting monsters is the issue, you might have better luck either using a mod to reduce spawns, or setting creatures to "neutral" so that they'll only attack you if you attack them first.

You need to look in the folder marked Vintagestory--this folder contains all of the actual game assets. The folder marked VintagestoryData is where all of your mods, saves, server mods, game logs, etc. are stored.

Maybe. By "beefy" I mean the absolute top-of-the-line specs; you could probably get some playable results if you have an absolute beast of a machine. I would assume in that case though, you'll probably also need to turn your view distance down, as well as turn down other graphics settings(like god rays and shadows) in order to get something playable. Of course, that's just guesswork on my part, based off observations about shaders, extremely high resolution textures, and extremely detailed models. There's also this monstrosity, and its accompanying warning: https://mods.vintagestory.at/sphericalblockmodels Not that anyone wants spheres instead of blocks, but I think it's also a decent example of how more complex shapes increase hardware demands.

It's wherever you installed Vintage Story. By default, Vintage Story will install to the C drive, under AppData. If you don't see the AppData folder, you'll probably need to make hidden files visible in your File Explorer search options(assuming you're on Windows).

I do believe more complex creature behavior is on the roadmap, it's just a matter of figuring out what to implement and how, while keeping performance and gameplay solid for the average player. Eh, partially agree. A larger predator that's hungry should absolutely be more inclined to hunt the player. I think it's fine for larger creatures to get aggressive when the player invades their space, but it would be better if some of them tried to keep some distance from the player, or otherwise gave the player a clear warning, before resorting to aggression. Wolves kind of do that already, in that they will offer a warning growl when you start getting too close, but the difference between "close enough for a warning" and "close enough to attack" is very small--the player typically just gets attacked. In any case, the space requirement is important in order to keep players from walking right up to an animal and getting a relatively easy meal. Currently, this is an issue for pigs and sheep, since most of the time you can just walk up to them and provoke a fight rather than needing to actually hunt them. Deer are more polished in that regard, in that deer will flee if you get too close, and the males may try to attack you if you hit them. Male moose are an exception, since they will generally attack instead of run.

Weird. Did you try rebooting the server? I think there've been some odd issues on the server my friend runs, but a reboot usually straightens things out.

Welcome to the forums! You want to find the Vintagestory folder, and then go to assets > survival > sounds > creature > bell You should be able to find what you're looking for there.

Better Ruins is a mod that adds many more ruins that are much larger and more detailed to the game. Most of these ruins have a lot of elaborate chiselwork compared to vanilla ruins. I've said as much elsewhere on the forums, but Better Ruins, while a great mod, is notorious for being demanding on hardware, and is often the cause of reduced performance. I don't have a potato pc, but I don't have top-of-the-line either, and the times I've played with the mod, there was a definite performance hit. Pretty graphics are nice, yes, but a good framerate is critical to actually playing the game. Incidentally, I suspect this is also the reason that vanilla ruins are fairly simple--the game needs to run well on a wide range of hardware. I'm with @Thorfinn on this one--I don't see how you optimize such a thing enough to operate on a wide range of hardware without running into performance issues. It seems more an option that will require some beefy hardware in order to have a playable framerate, and as I said before...you could solve that just by making it an option at world creation and putting a bold disclaimer on it about hardware requirements. At that point, if players choose that option and run into issues, that's on the player. However, I'm not sure such a thing is in enough demand as to be worth the development time currently. I like chiseling, but as much as I like it...honestly, I don't want to spend the lion's share of my time just trying to make my builds fit seamlessly into the world. Yes, blending a build into terrain is optional, but I'm betting that most players prefer their builds to look like they at least fit into the landscape, even if the build itself is simple. If a build looks like it's just been copy-pasted onto the land, it doesn't look very good, and it's not uncommon to see players complain about "ugly" structure generation due to the structure generation not blending with the surroundings. Yes, but what do you do about composite block types? Part dirt, part clay, etc. I am assuming that composite block types would be included in this type of generation, in order to make things look even prettier. I will also note that if you include dirt clods as a sort of "partial dirt" drop...it would really need another use aside from just crafting a dirt block. Otherwise, it's just a nuisance item that will clutter a player's inventory. Except I'm pretty sure that you can already cause plenty of pathfinding issues for creatures, just by using chiseled blocks. They don't need to jump in order to have problems navigating the space. Additionally, if creatures no longer need to "jump" or "climb" as much in order to navigate the world, that brings with it the issue of...what options does the player have to escape hostile wildlife and monsters? Currently, the player can manage to outrun most fast enemies by navigating more difficult terrain, assuming that the player can manage to time more of their movements properly than the enemy can. I'm not saying that creatures shouldn't have smoother pathfinding, but it is a factor to account for, given that most players don't like feeling that the creatures have unfair advantages when it comes to navigation and other things. I'm pretty sure you don't blend this kind of terrain with the current--you'd pretty much have to pick one or the other. Maybe pre-existing worlds could be remapped, but that's likely a LOT of waiting time, as well as a lot of potential for things to go wrong. Likewise, if you make this the default setting, and lower-end hardware can't run it...it's going to really suck for the players with lower-end hardware to figure out they can't play the game anymore due to this kind of change. In short, the only way I really see this kind of thing working, outside of mods, is an optional setting at world creation that can't be changed after creating said world, and that comes with a disclaimer about the stronger hardware requirements.

This, plus deeper snow slows you down slightly, as well as makes it harder to see smaller objects/entities. It's not a huge problem, but it's a similar niche to the scythe--you could do all the work by hand, but you could also do it faster over a larger area with a specialized tool.

It's also a tool that you only need in areas it snows heavily too. If you live in a warmer climate band, or even the tropics, you probably don't need it at all. Still very useful for the specific circumstances though.

I'd figure you could make it even simpler than that, and perhaps just use a variation of the frost overlay on top of everything exposed to the icy conditions. Then it's just a texture that appears and disappears when necessary, instead of an actual model that has to be accounted for.

If they're at risk of despawning due to light level, there should be a warning on the creature's nameplate that reads something like this: "Deprived of light; will probably die soon". I'm not sure how long it actually takes them to die though. It's not instant, but I don't think there's a long grace period since the intention behind the mechanic is to keep natural creatures from getting stuck underground.

Better Ruins is pretty notorious for being rather demanding on system resources, if I'm not mistaken. I don't have a potato pc, but I don't top-of-the-line either, and I recall taking a definite performance hit the few times I played with the mod. The ruins are interesting and all, but it wasn't worth the performance loss, in my opinion. Likely why the vanilla ruins are rather simple, instead of being so elaborate.

Welcome to the forums! Are you using any mods? Sometimes mods can interfere with standard gameplay processes, either by causing code to function improperly or by making changes to the processes that you may not have been aware of(like adding extra steps to make it harder). If running mods, try disabling them and testing the vanilla game on a fresh world to make sure everything functions properly, and then add mods back one by one, testing as you go, to figure out which is causing the problem. You could also double-check mod descriptions to make sure they aren't making vanilla processes more complex. I would also check your game version. If you are playing a release candidate, those are unstable and usually contain several bugs. If you aren't playing a stable version of the game, it's likely you've encountered one of those bugs, in which case you'll want to head to the bugtracker on github to report it: https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues

Welcome to the forums! It's a neat idea, but requires a pickaxe to mine stone. And if you have a pickaxe, then you have a cookpot, given that making a pickaxe requires pottery unless you happened to get very lucky with cracked vessel loot. Additionally, even if you could cook this way, you'd still need a way to actually eat the food, and bowls are also part of the pottery tier. I don't see it being all that useful for travel either. A cookpot you can easily carry on an elk, if you have one, but if not, then you'll need to sacrifice an inventory slot anyway to carry a pickaxe to dig a hole. Stone holes don't spawn very often at all, so it's not worth the time to try to search for one, or the risk either since you'd likely have to search a cave. As others have said, this already exists with rawhide clothing, as well as fur clothing. Early Chiseling: https://mods.vintagestory.at/earlychiseling Ancient Tools: https://mods.vintagestory.at/ancienttools Early Chiseling adds a mallet and flint chisel, so you can start making chiseled decorations much earlier in the game. I've not used that mod, but it seems a fair balance for those wanting to start decorating early. As for being usable in crafting recipes...no, something that cheap shouldn't be used to make querns, since a big part of that recipe change seems to have been for balancing purposes in the early game. Ancient Tools(not sure it's working properly on the most recent version) adds a mortar and pestle, as well as a variety of other useful things. The mortar and pestle functions like a quern, but is very tedious and inefficient since it only grinds one thing at a time...and slowly. The upside is that it's very cheap and easy to craft--you don't need a pickaxe or anything fancy, which balances it well against the quern.

Right here: https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues