LadyWYT

I was going to mention XSkills--it covers this territory well, though one major issue I've found with that mod is that it's easy to "fall behind" in a multiplayer setting if everyone isn't playing at the same general pace. Likewise, it also homogenizes the classes a bit too much by the late game, unless you deliberately limit yourself in what perks you take. Also if I'm not mistaken, Tyron is already on the record for stating he doesn't intend to add that kind of character progression to the game(it was in an interview with Oscillascape, I believe). What he suggested instead was some kind of additional trait system, where you could earn extra traits(either good or bad, and not necessarily permanent) in addition to the ones your character already starts with. Personally, I think that kind of system is better for the kind of game that Vintage Story seems to want to be, as it allows the player to add a bit more to their character over time, without making the character progression the dominant focus of the gameplay itself. As it currently stands, character progression is tied to all available gameplay loops; that is, to become stronger, you need to figure out how to do things like acquire better equipment and more well-rounded nutrition.

Welcome to the forums! As for another dimension...that depends on what direction Tyron decides he wants to take the game. Based on what I've seen so far, there's technically another dimension that exists(the Rust world), but I don't expect it to ever be a place that be visited like Minecraft's Nether. I seem to recall a developer post sometime back stating as much, but I could be wrong. In any case, I think adding the Rust World as another dimension that you can actually go to would be a mistake, mainly because it would turn it into a combination of resource depot and tourist destination rather than a mysterious, highly dangerous place that none one really knows anything about. It's okay to have certain things remain as unexplained ominous parts of the background and lore--it helps keep the atmosphere interesting. The most I would expect to see from a "different dimension that can be visited" concept, is perhaps a one-time mission to a tiny piece of it as part of the main story. Hop through a rift, get a macguffin, hop back out--it's not a place you're able to stay or revisit.

I could be wrong, but based on everything I've pieced together so far, the Tower houses the Machine. When you put it and some of the stuff surrounding it together, it resembles what's depicted in the "Salvation" tapestry. And given what a certain old friend has said so far, I don't think what's contained in the Tower is something he could have orchestrated himself. The difference between the two is that the player character still has the ability to choose between good and evil. The shivers and similar monsters no longer have that choice--they're mindless monstrosities.

I moved recently and the new ISP had to install a line to the house. Unfortunately, since the area has also been hit hard by some of the recent storms, the line crews have been busy cleaning up the damage so there was a delay on installing the line.

I'm not an expert on the situation, but the general impression I get from everything I've seen about the matter is that it's Nintendo throwing a tantrum because they aren't the only game in town anymore, so to speak. Palworld and Pokemon have similar art styles and game concepts, but to my knowledge the gameplay is quite a bit different between the two. I could be wrong though. I don't think Mojang would file a lawsuit--Microsoft would probably be the one to do that, if it were going to happen, and I doubt it would hold up in court. Yes, there are corrupt officials that only answer to money, but money can only get you so far. There are similarities between the two, however, as others have already pointed out, the gameplay is very different. I would also say that the artstyles are very different as well, despite both being voxel-based games. Minecraft is more heavily stylized(often in a cutesy way), and relies primarily on 16x16 pixel textures. Vintage Story's textures are larger and more weathered and realistic rather than cutesy. As for why people keep assuming Vintage Story is just Minecraft 2.0, I'd wager it's mostly because they're only looking at the artstyles and not the actual gameplay. In its current form, Vintage Story does look very much like a heavily modded Minecraft client, though that may change in the future as the game receives more polish.

I'd actually disagree...or rather, I would more specifically say that the best sandbox choice depends on what kind of sandbox someone wants to play in. For players looking for a challenging survival experience, with some rather unique theming(I can't say that I've seen anything like the temporal business anywhere else), or perhaps just a chill creative building game, then I would say Vintage Story is the best thing out at the moment. I would say it's also one of the best games out there in terms of the development team(no controversies or shady business), as well as the built-in modding support. However, for players who don't really like medieval themes or prefer simpler or less challenging gameplay, I'm not sure that I would say that Vintage Story is the best choice. Yes, there are mods and game settings you can use to change the gameplay, but if you're having to change practically everything about the game before you can consider it fun to play then I would question whether it's really the best game choice in that specific circumstance. Of course, that's only my opinion, and I daresay it's rooted heavily in the number of complaint posts I've seen practically demanding that Vintage Story change some rather major parts of itself in order to qualify as a "good" game. And with my grumpy contrarian rant out of my system, yes, I do agree. The dev team has done a phenomenal job so far, and I've enjoyed many long hours dying to horrors both natural and not. Here's to many more successful updates!

Not really. The more I think about the idea, the more I like it. Even if it's a monster I would hate dealing with, lol.

Bleh, finally have internet back. I will note that I haven't had a chance to take a crack at any of the new stuff, but my initial reaction based on description is this is a good change. Predators still sound like they'll be hostile, but smarter about how and when they decide to pick a fight with you. I'm guessing if you intrude on their turf they'll obviously defend themselves, but if you put up a fight then they'll back off in order to avoid dying themselves. I think that's just part of being a cranky old VS veteran. I also think wildlife will still be plenty aggressive in the future, and very likely harder to deal with since creatures will have more unpredictable patterns than "if player is too close, make a beeline for them and don't stop attacking until dead". I vote diving bell. No, not the kind that actually helps you dive. I don't know about any new ruins, but I know the ones in 1.20 do have basements sometimes. There's usually not anything really exciting in them aside from an aged torch holder on occasion. I think the old default was 100%. If the new default is 500%, I'd wager terrain feels more traversable because it spreads everything out a lot more. That is, when the game generates flat/gentle terrain, it'll cover a much larger area, so you can travel much farther before you encounter mountains, swamps, or other difficult terrain. That being said, I'd also expect some parts of the world to be much harder to traverse as a result, since the difficult terrain will also cover larger areas. Even if it's not currently reparable, I'm still really excited to hear about this! Trophy armors are a great idea, and even better if some pieces can be equipped in clothing slots instead to serve as cosmetics(or maybe that's how it already functions, not sure). Plus I daresay someone will end up writing a mod to allow the armor to be repaired. It was worth using prior, but the auto-loot feature for the monsters sounds like it will a nice change for temporal storm fights. Harvesting with a knife wasn't too bad, but it could get frustrating when you were busy trying to loot and the storm insisted on dropping more nasties on top of you. At a glance, I think it's a much-needed change that will take some additional tweaks in order to perfect. One tweak I would make, assuming it's not already been implemented this way, is to make higher quality bandages restore health more quickly. That way story locations don't become a nightmare slog for players needing to rely more on bandages. It also helps push players to use the better bandages too, instead of just relying on the cheapest bandages possible because of their convenience.

I forgot those exist, to be honest. They make neat decoration, but outside of that they aren't very useful. Could possibly give them a bit of love by making them a six slot bag that can only store food/animal products. I mean, it is a hunter's backpack, after all. That would give it a specific niche that remains useful until you achieve sturdy leather, as it can help keep your inventory somewhat organized once you achieve leather backpacks. The treasure hunters will definitely buy them, and I think a couple of the other traders might as well. You can only sell one bag to a trader at a time, but it's a handy way to earn a few gears. How essential it is depends on how fast you want to achieve those things. If you're taking your time and playing at a slower pace so you can invest in things like livestock and fruit trees, then you don't need to scour the countryside for flax as you'll most likely be having multiple cycles of crops on your farms anyway.

They should appear on the map, but since they're a lot smaller than the other trees they're a lot harder to spot if you rely only on the map.

Pretty much what I was going to say. If you're very familiar with the game, linen sacks are rather underwhelming and your flax is better suited to other things, as a general rule. However, if for some reason you're missing a critical component of leatherworking, then linen sacks are your best option until you can acquire what you need for leather. Likewise, if you're doing some kind of challenge that prevents you from using leather at all(like a vegan run or arctic playthrough, where oak trees aren't an option at all), then linen sacks will come in handy. There's quite a few things in the game that are situational like this. We have several types of armor that vary in usefulness depending on the situation, for example. Something might be "the best" for overall gameplay, but it may not be the best thing to use in every situation.

Welcome to the forums! The first thing I will point out...paragraphs, my dude. They're very important for separating information into more readable chunks. A wall of text like this muddies your points, as well as turns away potential readers. Yeah this is one thing I actively don't want to see, outside of a possible one-time brief visit as a story bit. The reason for that is if it's a place that you can regularly visit and explore to your heart's content, it loses a lot of the mystery behind it. The Rust World is meant to be a dimension outside the scope of what constitutes normal logic--a completely alien place. If it's a place you can frequent, then it has to be explained at least partially in order to justify your existence there. Much like Minecraft's Nether(or other modded dimensions), it's no longer a strange place full of danger, but just a familiar place you need to visit to check off a box on your list of tasks. Now as a mod? Sure, fine--I'm sure someone will end up figuring out how to mod it. But it shouldn't be vanilla, in my opinion. Temporal storms. Outside of that, the fact that you can't predict when you'll encounter surface monsters is a decent threat itself. Assuming default settings, you can potentially go several nights without a single monster, which can lull you into a false sense of security or even make you more paranoid, especially for new players. Some nights it may be an almost nonstop horde. If you're hanging out around your base, it's not a big deal, but if you're venturing out into the wild for several days then it becomes a much bigger risk. You could don heavier armor to compensate, however, that will slow you down and eat through supplies faster. I'll also note that the game is still very much in the early stages of development, so I daresay more enemies(both natural and not) will be coming in the future to round out the experience a little more. I think this is one thing that's slated for a change in the future, in part because of how difficult it can be to start the storyline due to RNG. I will note that you don't NEED to talk to the treasure hunter at all in order to complete the story, however, if you're going that route you have to know exactly what you're looking for(which new players won't). How things are changed to smooth it out, I'm not sure, but it does come up in discussion somewhat often. The best proposal I've seen was adding some sort of "welcome mat" item that attracts traders to your base, instead of needing to scour the countryside to find them. Travel is going to be hit or miss; it heavily depends on whether or not you enjoy just meandering around the world and seeing different types of terrain generation. The mount system is still being worked on, and the gated system we have now is more of a placeholder than anything. Regarding ruins...they're mostly just part of the background, and not really meant to be something too incredibly useful outside of the early game or specific game challenges(like snowball earth). The loot they offer is useful, but nothing that will let you skip significant chunks of gameplay or otherwise progress too quickly--you'll still need to put in the legwork yourself. Now it is possible that more complex ruins with some sort of procedural dungeon and better loot might be added in the future, but that kind of thing I would expect to find underground rather than on the surface. Bear in mind too that larger and more complex structures tend to require more powerful computers to play on; the game still needs to run efficiently on a variety of machines, and not just the upper end of the spectrum. A teleporter. You can only build it once, and it links to a specific location in order to save you the trips later. Otherwise, there are translocators that you can find and repair, but they may or may not take you anywhere you want to go. That may or may not change later, but if players do get to set up their own teleport networks, I would expect that to be something unlocked at the end of the game. Teleporting is convenient, yes, but shrinks the world significantly and otherwise encourages the player to disengage from the world instead of appreciate/overcome their surroundings. As for navigating difficult terrain, yes it can be tedious, but that's part of what makes the world feel real. It's a challenge to overcome. Oftentimes there's an easier way of travel around the rough terrain, though it may be a longer route. If the terrain is something you'll be navigating frequently, then it's wise to invest in building some roads or other infrastructure to make your travels easier. I will note that needing to wait and investing a lot of time/effort into achieving a goal is part of a lot of Vintage Story's gameplay. It's not everyone's cup of tea, of course, hence why there are settings that you can adjust to make the game easier or harder as needed. If it's not covered in the settings, then there's usually a mod for it, and if there is no mod it's fairly easy to jump in and make your own. In the case of leatherworking, it's fine as it is; leather bags are a significant upgrade and leather also unlocks better armor. If it takes too long for your liking, I believe there's a mod or two out there that will speed up the process. Yeah...this isn't correct. Gambeson(or perhaps some kind of leather garment) needs to be worn under chainmail(or other metal armor) not just as an extra layer of protection from incoming attacks, but as protection from chafing. The "cloth" you're thinking of here to display colors/crests would be the surcoat. Now I do agree that it's a bit strange to have leather jerkin as a requirement to craft chain/scale(and requiring full chain as an ingredient for plate). However, I daresay this decision was made for gameplay balance, and not for realism. Leather is easier to obtain than the flax required for gambeson(and you'll need flax for other things), and there are things introduced in the leatherworking loop that you'll need later for things like steel. Regarding the chain requirement for plate...plate armor is extremely protective, so the cost needs to be fairly high to help balance it against other armor choices. I don't know about jumping when you hit the ground to avoid damage, but there is(or was) a bug that let you avoid fall damage entirely as long as you made no movements when falling. Can be a useful exploit while it exists, but I wouldn't recommend exploiting as it inevitably leads to nasty accidents. Without spoiling too much of the story, the current setting is the late Middle Ages, post-apocalypse. The kings and kingdoms of old no longer exist, and the remnants of humanity that survived(the villages) are very few and far between. That's why you hear traders mention settlements, and see a note or two about former nobility, but otherwise can't find proper civilization(for all intents and purposes, it no longer exists). The full story has yet to be implemented as well, so that's another reason that there's not much to find regarding specific locations. There is at least one though--play through the story, and you'll find it soon enough. They may or may not make specific mention of it in the future. I would assume the reason they don't talk about it, is that temporal storms are just a normal part of their world, and therefore something everyone knows about. Of course that isn't the case for the player character, but the trader isn't going to be aware of that, and traders don't necessarily need to share everything they know with a complete stranger. It's a dangerous world, after all, and the player character is obviously not human and rather addled... Wolf taming is on the road map. Until it's implemented, there are mods that fill that niche.

It's not yet been explained what the teal colored stuff is, and I'm not sure it ever will be fully explained. That might be a detail that's left up to the player's imagination. As for needing a rift ward to go dungeon delving...maybe if they implemented procedural generation for more complex ruins or something, like the other block game. For story locations and playing the game in general though, I see it being a bit frustrating. You're not really meant to spend a lot of time underground, save for certain instances for the story. In those cases, the locations seem tailored to allow the player to stay in them for a long time despite being deep underground and unstable. I suspect it's due to story locations having different rules for stability to ensure that players can complete them in one go, without a constant back-and-forth. Interestingly enough, the storms getting stronger is more of a gameplay mechanic than it is true to lore. As we learn from a certain NPC, temporal storms used to be a lot nastier than they are right now, to the point they were potentially strong enough to shift parts of the physical realm out of place. For actual gameplay though, it doesn't make sense to make the storms stronger at first and weaken as time goes on; it'd be frustrating to deal with early game, and make the late game more underwhelming since there's not as much value for the late game tech. Hence why the lore is broken here in favor of gameplay, so that the difficulty can ramp up in a manner more fair and fun to the player. Now of course, that lore could change as well. It could be that past temporal storms were a lot worse than what we have now, but maybe something has shifted again to make the storms start getting worse without certain characters catching on to it. I don't expect that kind of change to happen though, as the storm difficulty is mostly the way it is for gameplay reasons, and not the actual lore.

I figure it would be a variation of the bell intended to aid divers instead of miners, functioning as a sort of scuba-snorkel they could wear in order to stay underwater longer. True to bell form, it doesn't directly hurt you, but otherwise makes itself such an incredible nuisance that you really should deal with it before you get hurt.

...for some reason I've thought your name was Zippy Wanderlust this whole time. Whoops! Aside from that, I'm not sure that I've ever encountered this bug. There was one time that I managed to somehow skip a temporal storm by going to bed after getting the first notification(vanilla game, sleeping through storms was not enabled). Character woke up, storm started...and then immediately went away for some reason. Only time I've run into that kind of thing, not sure if it's similar to what you experienced, as I don't recall time passing super quickly at all. The temporal storm just started as normal but then stopped immediately after starting.

For now. Maybe they will never be either. Maybe it will just be a snorkel-like device that looks suspiciously bell-shaped, that swims over to latch on and prevent you from surfacing/breathing, instead of helping you breathe underwater.

In Vintage Story, they don't remain idle, as far as I can tell; they do move around and go about their lives, though some mobs do get more active when a player is nearby. I think in the other block game, there's a certain radius that the mobs will stop moving and just sit in place(which is why dolphins end up drowning unless you shove into an aerated box). That's not really a problem either, unless you have a LOT of mobs nearby. It could work, plus it would likely just be limited to chunks within a certain distance of the player. That way, only the areas that you're most active in(and thus, the areas most in need of "restocking") would be the areas affected. New chunks don't need this kind of simulation calculated, since they haven't yet been modified by the name. Old chunks that the player doesn't spend any significant time in don't really need that kind of simulation either. Perhaps there could be a check to see how many times within the past X months/years the player has visited the chunk(provided the player breaks a block), and if the player has made enough visits then the chunk could "update" every once in a great while with a few new flowers or something. It's another case of, I'm not sure how much processing it would end up eating through, but if it's just a rare occurrence for strictly chunks the player is active in frequently, it might be feasible.

I see, though I'm not entirely convinced there's not a way to restore from a "save point" with mods. It's sounding more like a mod that achieves something to that effect is going to require some rather heavy coding, and I'd hazard a guess that if that's truly what's required for a mod to achieve the goal...then it's probably going to take a lot of work to get the concept functioning properly in the game as well. And as I noted earlier, I don't believe there's a lot of demand for such a thing(especially when you can already achieve the desired effect in the present state of the game by backing up your own files), so I don't believe it would be worth the effort to try to add such a system.

Fair, but I will note that while lantern light can stop rifts and monsters from spawning in that area, it doesn't stop monsters from spawning on the fringes and running into the light. Well...I mean, right now it probably does, since monsters seem inclined to avoid bright lights to some extent, but I suppose that's something that could be potentially tweaked in the code in order to give rift wards a bit more value. Let monsters run from daylight(which would also keep them in caves a little better) outside of a temporal storm, but artificial light won't deter them(save for preventing spawns). Or just make a monster that, while a rare spawn, isn't stopped by artificial light at all, while having a larger spawning range from rifts. At that point you really NEED a rift ward to keep it out of your base, unless you really want to invest the resources into lighting up everything for miles around. Although while I'm spitballing ideas, I suppose you could just leave things as-is, but let the rift ward turn its affected area into a temporally stable area...provided that the rift ward is powered, of course. At that point, it's not just preventing rifts--it's a handy way to build in that scenic spot you found that isn't the most stable place in the world.

Refueling rift wards probably isn't an issue at this stage of the game--temporal gears are rather easy to acquire as long as you have temporal storms enabled and otherwise engage monsters on a semi-regular basis. Fourteen days is a generous amount of time for power as well, and you probably only need to power the wards during periods of high rift activity/before a temporal storm hits. If/when temporal gears are given more uses, then it might get a lot more expensive to keep multiple rift wards powered. Very true, but I also think it might be one of those things that's a bit situational in its use, or otherwise geared toward more passive players. If you live further north in the world, to the point that winter nights are very long, you might find having a rift ward or two invaluable. Same applies to those who do a lot of work at night and don't want to deal with monsters. If you sleep through nights, or otherwise have rifts turned off, then rift wards probably won't be as useful. For what it is right now though, yeah, it's a bit underwhelming for the resources it takes to build. I do think you're right though, in that when more monsters are added, it'll be more valuable to invest in one.

I read this, and thought you meant actual creature mobs, like rain frogs that only spawn when the weather is right, or something to that effect. Not an invisible entity that serves as a vehicle for spawning things. Overall, it's an intriguing idea, I suppose, but I think it still runs into the processing hurdle--how much power is needed to actually process all that computing.

If a player is getting through the winter by dying constantly to starvation, that's not really surviving. The starvation argument doesn't really work in favor of this "backup plan" either, as if a player is already at the point they're starving to death in the dead of winter, rolling them back to their previous "save point" probably doesn't fix the issue. Maybe if they didn't sleep for a very long time, but in that case they've just lost a LOT of progress they probably aren't going to be very excited about working through again... In any case, I think the main hurdle to get over is just the extra time it takes to make and reload backups. It can potentially take a couple of minutes, or even longer, and if one is accident-prone and/or sleeping frequently to save their progress, that ends up being a lot of downtime. A lot of downtime in which the player is just waiting, with nothing to do other than wait. That's not very fun, and can become frustrating rather quickly. Agreed, especially on the mod bit. A mod is often the proving ground for concepts before they're added to the game. Not every popular mod gets added, of course(nor should they), but the more traction a mod gets then the more likely it is some iteration of that idea will be added to the game later. Otherwise, yeah, I don't really see this being a feature that a lot of players want.

They're also generally smaller and more...treelike, if that makes sense. By that I mean that they have proper branches(not just leaf cubes) and more slender trunks. They also tend to be somewhat smaller than your standard tree as well, with many only being a trunk and few blocks of branches. I'll also note that it's easier to spot them in the winter or spring, since in the winter they don't have leaves at all and in the spring they flower, meaning those branches will stand out from other surrounding trees a lot more. Summer and fall they can be easier to pick out as well due to fruit-laden branches, however, that only applies after the first year.

Honestly, this statement could be applied to a lot of the criticism/suggestions leveled at Vintage Story. That's not to say that Vintage Story can't draw inspiration from other games and how those games handle themselves, but just because something works in a different game doesn't mean that it will work for Vintage Story. Perhaps I'm being a bit cynical here, but sometimes after reading complaint threads I get the impression that the player(s) in question don't actually want to be playing Vintage Story, but rather a different game with Vintage Story's skin.

I don't usually comment in this part of the forums, however...I think what you've got here is either going to be an interesting success or one of the world's fastest dumpster fires. The concepts you've presented are interesting, and solid regarding the lore--no problems there. However, the hazard of getting into religious themes is that it tends to be a rather polarizing topic(similar to politics) and can devolve rather quickly into heated arguments outside of the game. Doesn't matter if the religious themes are tied to any real world religion, or completely made up for the setting--in the case of the latter there's always someone to start an argument with a real world comparison. And given that Vintage Story's setting is(or was) real world medieval times, there's not really any way to avoid real world religious references if you're going to stick to the game's lore instead of writing your own setting. I'm not saying you shouldn't attempt this server idea, mind you; I'm saying the main hurdle I see is dealing with all the drama that will inevitably stem from running with the theme. That being said, if you're up to the challenge and can keep a lid on the drama, I think the idea will do well.