LadyWYT

Welcome to the madness! Building at spawn is a solid strategy early on, since changing one's spawnpoint is more difficult in VS than in other games(for good reason, given that's a powerful ability to have). Winter though...I won't say it's not a challenge, because it is, but I feel this is probably how winter feels to many new players once it arrives, haha. It's a looming threat in the background, but once you've put in the effort to prepare for it, it's really not that bad. I do like that Anglo-Saxon dugout design though...definitely going to take a crack at something similar in one of my future playthroughs.

To my knowledge, it only affects crops and other things gathered in the wild, and not crops cultivated yourself.

I use a bit of both methods. The pre-built pieces look very nice, and are an easy way to get a simple but decent looking structure(s) set up as an initial base. Chiseling I tend to do later, and reserve for complicated murals and other detail work.

I don't think predators will go after tamed elk, but it's better to be safe than sorry and try to leave your elk somewhere relatively safe when not riding him. If tragedy should strike, the good news is that elk will revert to a mortally wounded state and you will have 24 in-game hours to revive them with a bandage before they actually die. Of course if they are injured, you can also heal them immediately if you have a bandage to do so--no need to wait for the mortally wounded state! And if you fall into a cave, the easiest way to get the elk out is to dismount, climb out, and call the elk with a bone flute. The elk should teleport to you, if no pathing is found otherwise, but the bone flute also requires you to have claimed the elk with a medallion(any will do) in order to work.

In fairness though, make sure you make backups of cherished worlds before making any mod/game version changes, just in case something goes wrong.

Pretty much. Constructive criticism is fine, but good constructive criticism is also fairly detailed about what the problem is, and how the problem could potentially be fixed, while still being at least somewhat polite. And unless there's an actual discussion happening about the subject, it's generally not necessary to make multiple posts about the same problem in the same thread. Kudos, but the funniest part of this to me is that he tried to pat you on the back, and the shoutout failed since you had changed your forum name. Pretty much. At the rate it's been going lately, I'm hoping the News threads don't get their posting restricted.

Actually, older worlds should be able to update to 1.21 just fine, assuming they were not worlds created on a release candidate. The devs have been pretty careful about doing what they can to make sure older worlds can remain viable on newer game versions. Those should survive an update, yes. Mods are going to be the main reason a world might not be able to be updated, so for the best chances of keeping a world across multiple game versions it's best to stick to vanilla. If playing a modded world that's intended to be long term though, it's best to stick to a small list of mods that are known to be kept up to date. The more popular mods like Primitive Survival and whatnot are good choices, as these have been consistently updated(and quickly) for new game versions, and are likely to be kept up to date by others in the community should the original author/caretaker step away.

Rotbeasts are very different than living creatures, as are the mechanical monsters, and I think how they're implemented in the game is actually quite tame in comparison to what they're supposed to be in lore. This short story gives a decent idea of what they should actually be like: https://www.vintagestory.at/stories/storyexcerpt-ghosts.html/ Mind you, I'm not arguing against critical hits/shots entirely(the main point I hold against them is they tend to be based on luck in many cases), but there is a reason that falxs are specialized for monster fighting and the flavor text on the weapon indicates that standard weapons won't do in that scenario. I mean...this is just realistic combat strategy, given that fighting isn't a good idea in general if it can be avoided. Fighting carries risk of injury, which while it might not kill, also might not heal properly either. Granted, Vintage Story is a videogame, yes, but the current balance of combat reflects that realism--sometimes, the risk is too much, even with good equipment, and it may be more in the player's interest to avoid the fight, or otherwise figure out a way to even the odds. Of course, it's not ideal for players to rely exclusively on towers and traps, but I don't get the impression that's the case either. It depends heavily on the player's preferred playstyle. I also don't think there's a way to stop players from using those strategies either, unless the enemies are able to just teleport around the obstacles...which definitely isn't going to feel fair.

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.