LadyWYT

You don't have to watch YouTube tutorials to understand the handbook...video tutorials are simply a different way to learn for those who don't want to do a lot of reading or would prefer someone to explain it to them. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what else to say here. Multiple explanations have been offered at this point, but advice is only useful if you listen to it, and there's plenty of information out there to take advantage of as well when it comes to learning the game. If you're not having fun, that's also okay too; it may not be the right game for you, and the devs have a generous refund policy. You can request a refund here: https://www.vintagestory.at/support/

If your temporal stability drops too low, your health will drain and cause temporal storm effects regardless of whether a temporal storm is actually taking place. To keep this from happening, you need to recover your temporal stability by using one of the methods listed earlier. That's a temporal rift. They appear and disappear depending on the current rift activity--you can check rift activity by pressing C to open your character information panel. Standing too close to a rift will drain your stability and cause these effects; moving away from the rift should return things to normal unless too much stability has drained. A temporal storm will always produce this kind of distortion, as will standing too close to a rift. These effects will also occur if your temporal stability drops too low, but in this case, the gear in the middle of your hotbar will also be gray.

Are you cooking the whole fish or flaying them and cooking the fillets? Cooked fillets won't be very filling unless you cook them into a meal. Try cooking the whole fish over the fire if you don't have a cookpot. There's currently no system in place to impose penalties for eating raw meat. You can eat raw fish fillets, but they won't be very filling at all--it's better to cook the whole fish over the fire, or cook the fillets into a meal. You need a knife to butcher a carcass. Hold the knife in your hand, then hold shift + right-click while looking at the carcass to harvest it. As I said, Vintage Story teaches the bare basics with its tutorial, but most of the game requires the player to figure it out for themselves via reading the handbook, looking up guides if they wish, experimenting to see what works and what does not, or asking other players for help. If you don't want to listen to advice or use those resources to learn, that's fine, but I'm not sure what else to tell you other than it's going to be a very rough time. If the game isn't to your liking, you can ask for a refund here: https://www.vintagestory.at/support/

Chisel some seashells and call it a sandcastle?

You can find this information either in the in-game handbook or the wiki. https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Main_Page Bricks are mostly decorative, but fire bricks and refractory bricks specifically are used for refining iron and steel, as well as creating glass or advanced pottery kilns. Putting a hay bale into the crafting grid should allow you to turn it back into individual bundles of grass. Other items, like the hay bed, will need a knife in order to deconstruct them, and won't return all the ingredients used to craft them. Most items in the game, however, can't be deconstructed into raw materials, so it's a good idea to make sure you want a crafted item before actually crafting it.

Look at the gear in the middle of your hotbar. It should be a blue/teal color. If the gear is gray/mostly gray, that means you have no temporal stability left, which will trigger the same effects as a temporal storm in addition to draining your health. To restore stability, you need to kill some monsters(the tougher the better), sacrifice a temporal gear and some health, or spend time in a stable area to recover. You can tell if an area is stable or not by the way the gear spins; spinning to the right is stable, while spinning to the left is unstable. Temporal storms can occur regardless of what color that gear is, will always drain stability and spawn monsters regardless of local conditions, and will always be announced by a couple of warnings in the chat box before they occur. They also only last a few in-game hours, and their end is signaled by a message in the chat box, so as long as you have enough stability remaining the temporal storm effects will clear up once the storm is over.

As @Rainbow Fresh already noted, there's no illness involved here. Various activities can increase your hunger though, like sprinting, healing naturally(not via bandage), holding something in your off-hand slot, wearing armor, etc. Like I tried to explain elsewhere, basic foods like raw berries, mushrooms, and cooked fish/meat will keep you alive, but won't be as filling as meals you cook in a cookpot. Once you have a cookpot and bowl, you will want to cook raw ingredients into meals to get food that is both more filling and pauses the hunger drain for a short. That way, your foodstuffs will last longer, and you won't need to focus so much on hunting and foraging. It's also worth noting that hunger rate can be turned down at any time via console command: Open the text box in the game and type /worldConfig globalHungerSpeedModifier 0.5 Hit Enter. Exit the world. Reload the world. The new hunger setting should be in effect, and in this case, should mean that hunger drains at half the speed it did before. Vintage Story only teaches the very basics, and leaves it up to the player to figure things out otherwise. The handbook is your best friend and contains information about pretty much every item and concept currently implemented in the game, though the wiki and forums are also full of information and YouTube has several video guides too. If you need a more specific walkthrough about how to survive and make progress through your first few days, you can find such a guide here:

I didn't know I wanted this until now.

I think it's just an awkward growing phase of the game right now. Players can complete the entire tech tree and story within about one in-game year, so sinking time into bushes and fruit trees or even livestock can feel "useless" unless one makes the conscious choice to take their time. However, completing everything that fast also seems a bit silly for the kind of game that VS presents itself to be--after all, what's really the point of having seasons and making winter a challenge if the player is only going to need to survive one winter? That's not to say that the player needs to be prevented from making faster progress and be forced to play at a particular speed. I do think though that bush overall is pretty good, and bushes are working the way they should, especially since the "complete" story is probably meant to unfold over the course of a few in-game years. It's probably going to feel a little off though, since we're so used to just breezing through everything and taking advantage of berry bushes that were quite overpowered before, but will feel better once other slow-pace mechanics have been added. My advice in the meantime is to just relax a bit and enjoy the game at a slower pace. Perhaps focus on decorating your base with chiselwork instead of rushing iron. Explore for dungeons. Sleeping through nights instead of constantly working can also help, since it will progress time faster. Try to collect all the shells or fish or something.

Don't forget the Iron Hands...at least, I think that's the right chapter. And the Necron faction, though I'm not sure they quite fit the aesthetic. Space Wolves would be great too.

Or maybe the devs wanted respawn mechanics to be harder, and then built the lore around that so the concept would actually fit into the world rather than just be something that's an obvious videogame thing? In which case, the devs are gonna need to change the lore if they change that mechanic. Like @Diff said, being anchored to a fixed point in time and returning to that point is not the same thing as just touching a bed and magically tying oneself to that point. From the home page itself: Yes, that phrase has turned somewhat into a meme, and what constitutes a proper survival game will depend on who you ask. But I think it's fair to say that the devs are building their specific vision of what a survival game should be. I also think it's fair to say that death absolutely has weight in the game--why else are some players complaining about not being able to play according to Minecraft spawn rules? The player can't just cut some grass and slap a spawn down anywhere, which means that if they play carelessly or plan poorly they can end up losing their stuff or needing to backtrack. Some of that harshness can be mitigated by turning on "keep inventory", sure, but the player will still need to manage their gears and play somewhat carefully if they don't want to potentially lose a bunch of progress. That might be as simple as not poking the bears, or remembering to bring temporal gears along for story locations. In contrast, death doesn't mean much in Minecraft. You can turn on "keep inventory" and lose nothing on death, and plunk down a bed most anywhere. That's not really a problem since Minecraft is supposed to be an easier game with relatively low stakes, but that's also why some of us have moved on from Minecraft and picked up Vintage Story instead. VS is more challenging, and personally I don't want to see it go the Minecraft route, where everything ends up watered down for the sake of player convenience. If we're going to say those older game examples don't count in this argument because they're different game designs, and thus shouldn't be considered in the context of Vintage Story, then it doesn't seem fair to turn around and argue that bed spawn mechanics are a good thing to add to Vintage Story because those mechanics work in games that are very different from Vintage Story. Ultimately, I don't think we're going to agree on what make for good game design in Vintage Story. There was probably also a time I would have agreed with you that adding bed spawning wouldn't really be an issue. But I've seen what's happened to other games that made similar convenience decisions...once that needle starts moving, so to speak, the game in question can easily become a shadow of its former self and lose the qualities that made it great in the first place.

This was definitely part of the polish they put on this update. However, I do think the performance in general has been increased, at least, it's improved on my particular setup. I had some weird stuttering with VSync enabled in 1.21, that now seems to be gone in 1.22. Though in fairness, I'm not sure if that's due to the game update itself, or some other update/change on my system.

Not only that, but lowering the overall difficulty bar is somewhat patronizing as well, since it's basically telling players they either don't need to develop their skills/are incapable of developing their skills to be good at the game.

It won't break the pot, no. If the pot is still a raw vessel though(that is, not fired in a pit kiln), you won't be able to store things in it. You can enclose yourself with the vessel if you wish to see the modifiers while it's in the cellar. Creatures are lethal in this game. Equipping some armor and using bandages will help, but you'll also need to learn when to pick fights versus when to avoid them, as well as how to kite enemies around to avoid getting hit. The spear is the best early game weapon. It has more reach than other weapons and does a decent chunk of damage when thrown. Once you've formed clay into items, you can't recycle those items back into clay.

I mean...some of the 40K stuff would make for some pretty awesome Jonas tech power armor, with a few tweaks.

The area you built in is unstable, which means your temporal stability will drain while you're in that area. When your stability drops low enough, monsters will start to spawn nearby, temporal storm effects will occur, and you will start to lose health unless you do something to recover your stability. This generally means finding a stable area to hang out in; if you built your base in an unstable area, you'll want to either relocate or start a new world and be more careful where you choose to settle down. Temporal storms are different--they occur semi-frequently, cannot be stopped, and will drain your stability and spawn monsters nearby regardless of chunk conditions. Temporal storms and temporal stability can be toggled on/off independently of each other either in the settings at world creation, or by using the appropriate commands after world creation and reloading the world. You can read more on such here, and the handbook contains information related to the mechanics as well: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Temporal_stability

Cellar? Or storage vessel? I'm a little confused. Clay is used to craft pottery and certain building blocks(like cobblestone), but is not a building material itself. A cellar is a hole you dig in the ground, fill with storage containers, and seal off with a solid block or a solid door; to qualify as a cellar it also needs to meet certain dimension requirements(7x7x7). A storage vessel is just a container and will need to be fired before it can be used. It will also need to be placed in a cellar to actually prolong the shelf life of food if the outside temperature isn't very cold. Staying at range is the safer way to hunt. If a beast or other enemy tries to engage you in melee, you'll need to learn how to kite--that is, hold sprint while moving to keep out of reach while poking at the target with your spear/other weapon. You can also try digging a hole and luring animals to fall in by provoking them into a fight and then running away, but you will need to take care not to fall into the hole yourself. Only metal tools can be sharpened--you'll need a grinding wheel to do so, which comes later in the game. Flint weapons are as-is; it's typically ideal to carry a few spears so you have extra shots and kite the target to pick up spears you've already thrown. Break the storage vessel with left-click to pick it up; right-click to put it back down. If it's not been fired yet, you can right-click it with an empty hand to pick it up and then right-click to place it somewhere else. As I said before, if you want to actually use it for storage, you will need to fire it in a pit kiln first.

No. You lose stability by experiencing temporal storms, standing too close to rifts, or otherwise hanging out in unstable areas. The latter is most likely. If the gear is turning counterclockwise, the area is unstable and the color will continue to drain from the gear, until monsters start spawning nearby and your health drains. If the gear is turning clockwise, the area is stable and a good spot to potentially settle down or otherwise hang around in if you need to recover stability.

Rope and bandages can both use cattails; if you remain on the recipe page, it will cycle through all the ingredients that are viable. Alternatively, you can go to the cattail handbook page to see all the recipes that require cattails as an ingredient. Farming and base building are perfectly viable, but you need to figure out how to establish your immediate food supply first, since farms take a while to actually produce food(as does livestock) and time spent hunting/foraging/fishing is time you don't have to spend doing other things. Hunting, foraging, and fishing should be enough to keep you going while you acquire your first pottery items; a cookpot and bowl will allow you to turn basic foodstuffs into more filling meals, making the food you find last longer and leaving you with more time to devote to other things(like building). Building a basic cellar can help extend the shelf life of extra food, especially if storage vessels are the containers you put in the cellar. You might also consider picking Hunter or Malefactor as your class, since the former has bonuses to hunting and the latter has bonuses to foraging. Tailor isn't a good pick, since it has penalties to hunting and foraging; neither is Blackguard, since it has penalties to ranged combat, foraging, and a higher hunger rate than other classes.

Loose items will despawn after a few minutes, at least, if the chunks are still loaded. Logging out causes them to despawn immediately, to my knowledge. Turning the keepinventory rule on can help with the item loss, but until you return to a more stable area and recover your stability, or otherwise turn stability mechanics off, death is still going to be a problem. Respawning doesn't restore stability, to my knowledge.

I would say it's fine to use low fertility soil to farm, but fertilizer shouldn't be relied on in that case. It's better to just make bigger fields, rotate crops, and make sure that the crops are planted as early as possible in order to have enough time to mature before frost(which is going to be tough on the first year). As for farming in general, yes, terra preta is the best dirt, and requires compost to craft, but building an entire farm out of terra preta is a task to be completed over several in-game years, and not the first year or two.

I disagree here, because there are a lot of designs that get labeled as "good" or "bad" due to the individual preference, and that goes for games in general, not just Vintage Story. If someone really hates a particular feature and doesn't find it fun, you're probably not going to convince them it's a good design, because to them, it's not. I think it's also worth noting that a lot of older games have "bad" designs when it comes to their mechanics; things are inconvenient, clunky, confusing, too complicated...the list goes on and on. Many newer games tend to prioritize player convenience. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, exactly, but it seems to me that older games tend to hold up better over time and attract new players, while newer games tend to fall to the wayside and get forgotten. Or just...turn on keepinventory and don't worry about losing stuff? I'm pretty sure that's why the devs added that feature. I'm not saying the game needs to constantly grind players into the dirt, but...it's advertised up front as "uncompromising survival". I can't say that I really understand what the point of making challenges or that kind of setting is, if the end result is going to be giving the players the options by default to strip out every single challenge from the general experience. Or for that matter, I don't really understand why some players keep playing VS despite begging for it to copy some other game's mechanics. Wouldn't they be happier playing the other game that was designed with X mechanics in mind? What works in one game doesn't necessarily work in another, and part of what kills some games is they change the features that endeared them to fans in order to try to appeal to a broader audience. Sometimes the game doesn't die, but it will be haunted by its past--just look at Minecraft--and won't have the hardcore following it perhaps once had.

It's been a while since I played the tutorial, but as I recall, once of the things it teaches is how to make and light a torch. Otherwise, as I said before, Vintage Story doesn't do a lot of hand-holding. Some things the player will just need to spend time reading through the handbook, thinking things through themselves, and learning through trial and error. Sometimes that means making mistakes and dealing with some pretty brutal consequences. This is how most players started out, really. Learning how to secure a food supply and avoid/deal with threats is the key to progressing through the rest of the game. If you can keep yourself fed, and do a decent job of keeping yourself alive otherwise, you can do most everything else in the game with relative ease. I will note though that creature aggression can be turned down in the settings, and you can also set a grace period for how many "safe days" you get before monsters start to spawn. On the latter, rifts will still spawn, but won't produce monsters until the grace period is up. Fishing is better done with a fishing pole--you can use a worm grunter and a stick to collect worms for bait. For hunting, thrown spears are the best, though it takes practice to learn how to aim. Keep in mind that gravity will apply and spears are a heavy projectile, so you will need to account for projectile drop when setting up the shot(that is, aim above the target to hit targets that are further away). Most wildlife tends not to want to be dinner, and tends to be capable of defending itself, so hunt with caution and make sure you have bandages to fix the injuries. The larger the animal, the more dangerous it tends to be--sheep, goats, and deer all have tier 2 attacks, and the males tend to be more aggressive than the females. If you're using a fishing pole, you don't need to actually see fish in the water in order to catch fish. That being said, you'll want to fish in bodies of water that are reasonably big enough to contain fish(so not puddles), and you'll want to fish from a variety of spots to avoid overfishing an area. Raw foods or simple foods like fat or cooked meat are fine for the start of the game, but aren't very filling, so it's not ideal to rely exclusively on these to sustain you long-term. Cooking those ingredients into proper meals with a cookpot(or turning them into pies later with a quern and oven) will provide food that is not only more filling, but pauses hunger drain for a while. If you've not read the basic progression guide in the handbook, I recommend taking a few moments to do so. Doesn't hurt to flip through some of the other guides in the Guides section either, as that will give you ideas about other things you can do in the game and goals to work towards. Most raw fruits and vegetables will have 80 points worth of saturation, though there are a few exceptions. Mushrooms may or may not be poisonous or induce certain effects--it depends on the variety. Psychedelic effects won't be listed in the tooltip or handbook, but poison will; the former won't hurt your character but the latter will, so you'll want to check the tooltip/handbook page of mushrooms you aren't familiar with before you eat them. If it's Standard difficulty, the game will still be pretty tough(especially compared to Minecraft or other similar games), but it should be manageable. However, if it's tougher than what's fun, I'd recommend making a new world and giving Exploration difficulty a try for a more relaxed experience while learning, or otherwise make a new world and customize the game settings to whatever kind of difficulty you feel is appropriate. I can't stress this enough though, make sure you read the handbook guides! Vintage Story is quite complex, and while it is technically possible to ignore the handbook and play completely blind...it's probably not gonna be an experience that most players would consider fun.

Right, which is why I said that penalties should only start to occur after a few days. It probably also wouldn't be a bad idea to let that kind of feature have some sort of toggle so that server admins can turn it off, as otherwise players can end up having to essentially "time out" since not all players might share the same schedule. From a singleplayer perspective, needing to sleep once in a while doesn't feel as intrusive as it does in Minecraft, since days in Vintage Story are actually long enough to get stuff done while Minecraft days are relatively short. I think there's also a difference between slapping the player with a small debuff after a few days, that could be safely ignored for a few days longer before it absolutely demands attention, and dumping some monsters on the player to harrass them until they sleep(monsters that are tough to deal with because they're fast fliers, no less). To be fair, it could turn out to be a monkey's paw. But I've been testing a mod system out for a friend lately and the general idea(without spoiling too much) is to buff the player and make those buffs stronger with work, but with the built-in drawback of progress slowing the longer the player goes without resting. In this case though, "resting" can either be sleeping in a bed(which decreases the exhaustion faster), or simply taking it easy/going AFK for a bit(which is slower, but better for multiplayer). Since monocles seem to be a major point of discussion, it's worth noting that technically, monocles are already in the game since you can occasionally find traders wearing them. It's just not an accessory that's available to players...yet.

I don't think respawning needs to follow a real-world process, since it's not exactly a realistic mechanic to begin with. It is, however, part of the lore, and shattering an esoteric item with similar properties to the player is believable enough, as well as a fair design choice to get the player to think a little about how and when they use that kind of power. I do agree though that beds don't really feel incentivized enough. They're great for passing the time, but for a game that's trying to lean into realistic survival, staying up all night and going entirely without sleep is kind of silly. There should be some drawback to going without sleep, but it's also very easy to get that kind of penalty wrong--just look at Minecraft, for example. I think this is where the status effect system will come into play, in that going a couple nights without sleeping won't hurt the player, but going longer than that without any sleep will start to rack up penalties. Maybe the player finds themselves moving more sluggishly the longer they go without sleep, or perhaps they become more susceptible to disease. Difficulty for the sake of difficulty can be a mistake, but so can convenience for the sake of convenience. It depends on the devs' design philosophy and goals. In the case of Vintage Story, having a keepinventory rule feels fair to me, because some players prefer a more relaxed experience with less challenge, and that kind of setting takes some of the pressure off without removing the challenge entirely. A bed spawn setting goes too far though, since it's both a copy of TOBG/commonly used, and removes whatever challenge is left from the game.