LadyWYT

There's at least a couple of easter eggs, if you know what to look for.

Kind of? But my point about XSkills remains the same. It's very easy to fall behind the power curve in multiplayer if you're not playing as much as everyone else. In singleplayer it was okay, but I found that by the time I was actually unlocking many skills, they weren't really that useful anymore since I was already a year or two into the game.

Welcome to the forums(and the game)! This was a much needed laugh. I mean, honestly...you really don't extinguish this kind of inferno. You just don a pair of sunglasses and stand back to enjoy the show, as well as eat whatever wildlife happened to get barbecued in the process.

I've never played Wurm, but the time sink required for skill progression in general is why I'm against such systems for Vintage Story. Most of VS's progression is tied directly to what the player does in the game; there's a few things the player needs to wait on(like steel refining, leatherworking process, etc) but for the most part the player can progress as fast as they want, if they have the knowledge and skill to do so. Additionally, the current vanilla system makes it much easier to jump right into multiplayer and start having fun, without the player feeling like they're perpetually behind the power curve. I've played with XSkills before, which does add a skill progression system as suggested in this thread. However, it's quite the time sink, and the player's skill and knowledge ends up being far less valuable given how effective most of the skills are and the fact that the only way to level up the skills is to sink time into those particular tasks(or eating skill books that were bought/found). In some cases, the skills end up very underwhelming, since by the time the player unlocks them the skills are no longer very useful. Another drawback is that while the player is limited to two skill tree specializations(which is required for picking certain special skills), there's no limit otherwise to how many skills the player can acquire, so a player could pretty much unlock most bonuses should they play long enough. I would say it's a stronger system in multiplayer since it can allow players to specialize a lot more, however, the problem is that unless everyone is playing for equal amounts of time there is absolutely going to be a massive disparity in character strength. Players who play more often will be much stronger than players who can't play as much, and there's really no way to catch up(outside of admin intervention) once a player falls behind, unless they somehow manage to play more than everyone else for an extended time. For those reasons, I vote no on a skill system. I prefer the status effect system ideas that have been floated instead. Basically, that kind of system could allow the player to experience some consequences for various actions taken in the game. Some of those actions could result in new, permanent character traits(either good or bad) in addition to the class traits that the player starts with, or they could just be temporary and wear off after a while. In the case of permanent traits, the player could perhaps pay an NPC for specific combat training and get a bonus to melee or ranged damage, or if the player makes a habit of harming NPCs they could get a bad reputation and get worse prices when it comes to trade. Temporary traits could be things like benefits from drinking certain concoctions(requires an herbalism system), suffering a broken bone in combat and having a movement speed penalty while the injury heals, or needing to practice archery regularly to maintain a bonus to ranged damage and accuracy.

From what I've heard sharpening and tempering mechanics are supposed to be part of 1.22.

It was originally just a line drawing that I was going to color digitally, but the results just ended up feeling...lacking, for some reason. I ended up scrapping the color and just leaning hard into the ink instead. I think it may have had to do with the fact that my general design here was supposed to feel like a faded memory, but my colorwork tends to be very bright and full of life.

Welcome to the forums! Adding on to what @Brady_The already noted, you can also just switch to creative mode and modify things to your heart's content, since creative mode will bypass claim restrictions. If you're aiming to actually live in the Archive or otherwise do things outside of creative mode though, then yeah you'll want to follow Brady's advice and disable the claims.

My general strategy when it comes to finding "good world seeds" is to focus less on getting a specific seed and more just playing with the worldgen settings until I get the ratio of land/water and land features(like hills and plains) that I want. For me, the default settings are a good mix, though I turn landcover down to 80% so that there are some large bodies of water to work with. The next thing I look for is what kind of building materials are available around spawn. Are there several rock types to choose from, or is the surrounding landscape dominated by a single rock type like granite, andesite, or bauxite? Multiple rock types are preferable since that not only means a greater variety of potential available ore, but also more variety of building materials to pick from and thus more style options. Pretty much, and one reason I worry less about finding the "perfect spot" and focus instead on just finding a nice spot that offers a lot of potential. Half the fun of building is picking a nice spot as the starting canvas and turning it into a stunning spot over time. A pond can be added easily enough to any build, provided that buckets are allowed to place water blocks. If there are plains but no hills, then I can build a grand watchtower to serve as a viewpoint instead. Lots of hills with no plains can easily become a series of terraces or hobbit holes.

With all due respect, the game's story is one of the major reasons that Vintage Story exists, not PvP. The focus is as stated on the homepage: surviving in the wilderness and uncovering the story of the events that wiped out past civilization and caused certain current events. The fighting that is involved is against monsters and wildlife, not human/humanoid enemies. That's not to say that PvP is impossible in Vintage Story, but a player will need to seek out that kind of experience on a server built specifically for that kind of gameplay, as that playstyle doesn't really play well with other styles at all. It's also worth noting that the minute PvP becomes a development focus, it will absolutely be a neverending cycle of balancing armor, weapons, and tactics to address the complaints about whatever the current meta is. That takes time and resources away from other things that could be developed instead. For a game that's not at all focused on PvP to begin with, I think it's better to just not even worry about that kind of gameplay and leave it up to the server owners to curate whatever specific PvP experience they want via mods and their own rules. Edit: For what it's worth, you can probably get refunds for the friends who didn't enjoy the game. I'm not really sure how refunds for gifted copies work, but the policy is rather generous so it's definitely worth asking about.

Fair enough. I think that's better suited to procedural dungeons, really, but for exploring the Rust world...I think I'd rather leave it up to the modders. That way the realm can keep its mystique, and modders can go absolutely nuts with their ideas while still fitting into the "lore-friendly" category. Are...are we dwarves?

It's not mentioned anywhere, to my knowledge at least, but it is there in the code. My friend stumbled across it while working on a mod. I'm guessing it's one of those things that currently is a neat little easter egg interaction, that will probably be fleshed out a little more later. Maybe with an herbalism system? That would be a prime opportunity to add hot teas.

There was also the infamous "glow squid" incident in that one Minecraft mob vote. In that case, the players were already present in the community, I think, but it's a prime example of how community votes can be exploited by popular streamers/media influencers. Technically, there was already a similar event in VS when Tyron put up a poll asking about development direction for 1.21 there a while back(no I don't think streamers were involved here). I forget what all the options were, but for full context it was pretty clear that the devs intended to cover all the choices they presented and were just polling to see which the community wanted first. The overwhelming response was bugfixes and polishing current content, which really upset some of the players that voted for the other options(like new content). I've harped on this before, but the Elder Scrolls games are another prime example of what happens when games get popular. Skyrim, while still a good game, pales in comparison to its predecessors since there are so many gameplay systems and so much of the lore that got watered down in order to appeal to a broader audience. World of Warcraft is yet another example--there's a reason that Classic up to Wrath are hailed as the game's prime, while the modern retail version is lackluster. In any case, I'm not saying that popularity itself is bad; high quality products tend to be popular as a result of their craftsmanship. However, chasing popularity is a bad thing, and a very easy trap to fall into. The typical result of chasing popularity is alienating a solid support base in favor of short term gains that will expire as soon as the product isn't "the thing" anymore.

My friend has floated that theory, but I've yet to confirm it. The activity still seems random to me. I actually disagree here. Outside of maybe a very brief visit or two for a story event, the Rust world really shouldn't be a place the player is able to visit and interact with. Currently, it's a mysterious place that's quite intriguing due to the fact that it's something the player has only really heard a few descriptions of, but isn't able to actually visit directly in order to experience it themselves. In any case, once the Rust becomes a place the player can actually visit and interact with, it loses its mystique rather quickly since the player no longer needs to imagine what could be there. Minecraft's Nether and End have similar problems, in that they're very cool when one experiences them for the first time, but they quickly become just the same as the Overworld biomes, albeit with minor inconveniences. In my opinion, it would be a disservice to have the Rust world become something so mundane.

I think it really depends on when the popularity boost occurs and how much impact the influx of new players and their demands has on the game's development direction. The devs have proven to listen to the community regarding available settings and balance decisions, however as I noted before Tyron is also making the game that he wants to make and play, which is a considerable grounding factor. The main issue I would see is the community becoming insufferable as a result of a massive influx of new players joining just because VS is "the current thing", and not because VS is a game they actually want to play and enjoy for what it is.

Turning it off and on will fix it. At least, it'll fix it for a little while. I think it's related to chunk loading, as the model seems to vanish whenever the player ventures too far from base. My main sticking point here is that if the devs decide to go that route, I trust it to be in an interesting manner that feels integral to the game's world and not an obvious loot drop event. Player suggestions I tend to be pretty skeptical of; generally when this particular suggestion comes up, what comes to mind is MMO events where a mini-event happens every X number of hours and players go kill monsters and get some sort of currency drop to spend on gear/other goodies. Or the player spends their time doing random stuff in the game to get tokens to empower their super special weapon, which turns into a slog quite quickly. EDIT: Thinking a little more about it, what I would rather see is the current "unique" temporal storm resource developed more, before just adding yet another special resource to figure out what to do with it. Currently, temporal gears are the main special resource for temporal storms--the player can acquire them elsewhere, yes, but storms are the best source. Temporal gears themselves are clearly some special nugget of esoteric power that can't be crafted(presumably) and are really only useful to the player and a few select NPCs. However, the only real use they serve to the player at the moment is changing spawn points, restoring temporal stability, and powering a couple of machines. In the case of the latter two, most players manage their stability well enough not to need to resort to the gear sacrifice, and the machines I think players either aren't aware those are options, or there's currently workarounds that are more convenient(like lanterns). In any case, I think the better option here is to add more Jonas tech options(which is already an area that desperately needs more options), and perhaps increase the drop rate of Jonas parts in storms so the player will have better luck actually building that tech once they achieve steel. Tying the part drops in to @williams_482 suggestion of adjusting mob strength with storm strength means that by the time the player gets the means to work on Jonas tech, the storms faced will be stronger and dropping more of the stuff they need(and they'll have the gear to face those storms too). And of course, if the temporal gear drops remain the same then those gears become much more valuable as a result since the player will actually be using them to power all of the various gizmos they end up building.

Or any other major corporate entity, really.

I'm skeptical that completing the story would stop storms, rifts, and associated monsters entirely, however...if it were possible, it would be a pretty great sense of accomplishment for completing the story.

I've heard this is also why American drinks like root beer never really caught on overseas, though I also suspect part of it might be due to those unfamiliar with the beverage trying to drink it without chilling it first. It's a drink that's really better served cold, especially when it includes ice cream. Of course, I've also heard that this is why mint isn't really a popular flavor for candy and other foods in America; many of us associate mint flavoring with toothpaste and mouthwash.

Oh I know. I tried to keep things relatively spoiler-free when writing up that response though. This is why I really like what @williams_482 suggested(and @ifoz as well), enough to actually change my mind about storms. While I still think the current system is solid, I would rather see their suggested changes instead, since the changes smooth out the gameplay significantly while remaining true to what the storms are: terrifying lore obstacles. Honestly, if the game is just going to ignore its own lore and worldbuilding in favor of whatever the most convenient gameplay option is for the player, it might as well just be a mediocre reskin of the other block game. The lore, whether one loves it or hates it, is part of what helps set Vintage Story apart from competitors. Given that the storms are teased within the first few seconds of the game's trailer on the homepage, as well as this statement: It's pretty clear that temporal storms as a mechanic are integral to the game's design. That being said, the home page also lists this statement: Obviously, everyone has different tastes, and not everyone is going to enjoy every mechanic, hence why there are options to disable things like temporal storms if one wishes, or even disable all lore entirely and stick to a strictly realistic survival experience(Homo Sapiens gamemode). I have a few stiff drinks and then go staggering around outside battling monsters and laughing at my hunter friend. If neither one of us is equipped to be running around in a temporal storm then we're probably staying indoors bantering about various things, or occasionally just reading the forums because why not. In singleplayer I'll battle the monsters if I have the equipment, otherwise I'll just take the time to study my map and plan an adventure, or browse through discovered lore bits, or maybe even organize storage(because my storage often makes temporal storms look organized). I mean, I pretty much stated the "why" in an earlier post--temporal storms can't just be up and removed/disabled by default, without creating a HUGE plot hole in the story. If the NPCs are frequently referencing temporal storms as these dangerous unnatural occurrences, then there really ought to be something in the game that reflects that, especially when pretty much everything else the NPCs refer to is actually in the game. In addition to a complete story rewrite, there would also have to be a complete rewrite of the game's advertising. Can't really feature a "world torn asunder by temporal storms" in the trailers and description, if there are no temporal storms to find. There's already an option to turn the temporal storms off, for the players who really don't like them. I don't think it's fair to demand that temporal storms(basically a flagship feature of the game) be removed entirely or otherwise disabled by default for everyone just because some players don't like them. Ah, gotcha. Yeah, those are pretty important exceptions that would still need to remain in effect. Maybe the rift spawns could be tweaked so the monsters are spawning where the rift actually is, instead of just in the general vicinity? The higher the rift activity, the faster they crawl out of the "hole in the air", as the player character puts it. It seems like the kind of tweak that could help keep the spawns from getting too out of hand, without opening the door to exploiting the mechanic for a monster farm or other exploit. I could be wrong on the exploit part, but there's nothing immediately that comes to mind in terms of "ways to break this feature". Maybe, but I'm looking at it as more of a way to coax more cautious/passive players into trying a game or two with the storms enabled, so they have a couple more options to ease themselves into that gameplay style comfortably rather than defaulting to just "turn it off" or "sleep through it". Being able to work a few tasks indoors in complete safety is a decent way to build up one's confidence(it's basically how I learned to deal with the storms), and it's also just nice to have as an option instead of feeling pressured to go fight through every single storm. Ironically, your suggestion about the "farmable unique resource" did give me an interesting idea: That being said...while what I suggested above does sound fun, it does strike me as a horrible idea(outside of a mod). It's something more befitting a fantasy action game and not really grounded in reality(or pseudo-reality) like most of VS's mechanics are, not to mention that players who turn off temporal storms get locked out of an entire gameplay loop. Rift ward doesn't really feel strong enough to create a "safety bubble" from something like a temporal storm, but I could see a more elaborate Jonas device being able to achieve that kind of affect. As for who builds rift wards...if you've not built one, you really should, if you have the means to. They're quite effective at cutting down on rusty hooligans, and one or two is enough to protect most bases.

They kind of are, but it hinges on the player having a very good memory and taking notes on when a storm occurs, and then making an educated guess on the time window the next is due to arrive. I have a good memory, but I'd rather see some sort of device that can give the player a rough estimate of the next storm's arrival, give or take a couple of days to keep it interesting. That would not only make tracking storms much easier, but make it much easier to just jump back into the game and pick up where you left off if you haven't played in a while. I forget who mentioned it earlier, but the idea about rift activity kicking up when there's a temporal storm incoming is a great one. A brief period of high activity shouldn't be anything to worry about, but an extended period of high activity should definitely cause some concern. I like this presentation. Ten blocks is definitely enough to keep a small room safe, or give enough buffer to maneuver around outside without getting jumped as much, but not so great that it can be cheesed to render storms utterly toothless. Or if nothing else, give the monsters a spawn animation(I think this has also been suggested before) and let them take a few seconds to crawl out of the walls/floor/ceiling. In that case, the inside is still dangerous, but the occasional monster unfortunate enough to spawn inside with the player can either be quickly killed while spawning, or softened up enough to be dispatched shortly after. Honestly I don't think they should scale with story/player progression, at least not directly, as realistically there are things that the player won't be able to handle without preparing for it first. Vintage Story doesn't really pull too many punches in that regard. However... In terms of temporal storm strength and how it scales though...the first storms will almost always be light, medium if the player is unlucky. Perhaps instead of scaling the storms directly with player progression, the storm strength instead determines what tiers of enemies are most likely to spawn. Light storms can spawn tier 0-2, medium could spawn tier 1-3, and heavy could spawn tier 3+. Special monsters like the double-headed drifter could still spawn in any storm, of course, but have higher chances of spawning in heavier storms than they do lighter. In that case, I think the player could be faced with opponents appropriate for their equipment level at the time, in way that feels more natural than just locking it to a story event. Given how much time it takes for storms to ramp up in strength on Standard difficulty, the player should have plenty of time to get themselves out of the stone age and acquire bronze/iron gear by the time the storms start getting particularly nasty. The more I think about it, the more I like what you've suggested. It keeps the lore behind the storms intact, while giving more options to passive/cautious players. At the same time, it also gives more options to the aggressive types. I know I would appreciate having a buffer radius between me and the fresh spawns, because I get jumped frequently while fighting. And if the nastier storms are what spawned the tougher monsters, that would make for better late game storms(no wimpy enemies allowed), albeit more dangerous ones(which by this time the player really should have decent enough equipment to handle them).

Lorewise, traders exist because they're the ones hardy and brave enough to fend for themselves in the wilderness while transferring goods from place to place. Unless I'm mistaken, it's also implied that the traders sprouted from remnants of the Hanseatic League, which is stated to have used their trading vessels to carry people to safety(or at least, attempt to) during the events of the Old World. There's also just the aspect that wherever there is civilization, there will be trade involved. Traders also exist thanks to the efforts of Jonas Falx and his associates in the Old World, since if Jonas's project failed there wouldn't exactly be anyone left to start civilization anew. As to how to figure all of that out...simply by playing the game with lore enabled, and then actually paying attention to how things are described and what dialogue/narrative text actually says. That's perfectly fine, but in order to get anything really useful out of a survey, it would need to be posted by Tyron or another developer in order to actually gain traction. Dev posts tend to get the most player interaction; posts by regular users are pretty hit-or-miss. With all due respect, since Tyron and Saraty are building their dream game, I think their interests are what should come first. Clearly, they have a story they really want to tell, and think is important to the game. If they want to put certain things to a community vote that's fine, and if they want to just forge ahead with a specific plan without a community vote I think that's fine too. But I don't think it's fair to just throw the lore/story out the window entirely when making design decisions just because some players only care about the gameplay and not about the world-building.

It's actually a thing in the game already, at least for soups and stews. You can reheat cookpots of food in the firepit, and eating hot food will restore some warmth. However, I don't think it's a well-known mechanic, since it's much faster and easier to just build a fire and warm up.

Unfortunately I'm not going to be of much help here, however, you might consider submitting a bug report describing the issue, as well as including your log files, over on the bug tracker. As far as using the dev tools to track down issues, it kind of depends on what sort of issue you're chasing. When it comes to hunting memory leaks, the VAO Dispose Debug was the option I was using. You might try that one if you're seeing messages in your logs related to some sort of item id missing vertices(or something to that effect, I forget the exact message). It spits out a LOT of information that can be difficult to read, but there should be at least something listed that can help you figure out the cause. You might try adjusting mouse sensitivity in the game settings or windows settings, in that case. Or if you can, try a different mouse entirely, in case the game is throwing fit about that specific mouse for some reason. It's a bit of a longshot, but worth checking. Any cheap mouse should do, and worst case scenario is you end up with a backup mouse in case your current one fails. When the fresh game copy was installed on a different drive, did you use the desktop shortcut to launch, or did you open the file on the drive and launch from there? If you launched via the desktop shortcut, you might check and make sure that it's pointing to the correct installation. Otherwise, the only other thing I can think of at the moment is to keep trying to narrow down the circumstances the issue occurs in. What you've described sounds an awful lot like a memory leak, but there should be some condition that triggers it, aside from playing the game for an extended period without rebooting your PC. I ran across a memory leak in an unstable release once, and the cause turned out to be a problem with item piles(my performance got worse as I made more piles, to the extent that the game was locking up whenever I looked toward my base). If you're on the VS Discord, you might try asking about the issue there as well.

OH THAT! I have no idea and honestly did not know that was something the player could change. My guess would be "no", since to my knowledge the density reading is based off the location of the first block that was checked. The main thing I would expect to change here is that you'll just have to walk farther between samples for the reading.

Pretty much. The absolute lore-breaker solution is removing the storms entirely, which can't be done without some major rewrites(not ideal). That leaves the question of, if the mechanic does get changed, then how does that change happen in a way that satisfies most players? The main hurdle I see there is that unique items critical to the story can't be added as unique storm loot since then there's no option for players to turn off storms and complete the story, and it's not really possible to add unique cosmetic drops to the storm loot table as then you get complaints from the same players about not having access to the goodies. Likewise, just forcing the player into storm combat doesn't seem like a great solution either, as that will most likely encourage more players to turn the mechanic off. The ideal solution, I think, would be something that strikes a balance between granting a better reward for facing the storm head-on, while still giving more cautious/passive players some passive options to deal with it and thus encourage the passive ones to try the mechanic instead of turning it off every game. And that's in addition to keeping the overall "looming supernatural disaster" flavor the storms have in the lore. How to accomplish that? I'm honestly not sure. Perhaps some wooden stakes and palisades could be added to the game, along with other fortifications, and the player could use them to reduce the likelihood of monsters spawning within the fortified area. In that fashion, a player could reasonably invest some time and resources in the early game to dig in and fortify an area prior to a temporal storm, and thus have a decent area to actually continue working in when the storm occurs instead of hiding in a bunker. For a proper bunker option, add fortified doors that lock from the inside, and prevent monster spawns in that space as long as all points of entry are secured via locked doors.