Vratislav

Originally, I had a title "Victims" and users of the hacked clients were labeled "No mercy." Then I considered it too subjective and changed it this way, without actually redrawing the first group. I should, yes.

I tried to clear for myself, what was the real extent of harm on gameplay and what are possible positions of people who lost their trust or are just commenting the situation. It it is incorrect in some aspects, let me know. I did not put the numbers into the plot, but I assume that ConfigLib with the payload was installed by up to 100 000 players, and the players who used mods triggering false positives were hundreds or thousands in maximum.

I value Vintage Story as before, what is important for me is the gameplay experience. I am waiting for future chapters, and particularly for worldgen changes that will include rivers - I have found some very satisfying combination of worldgen mods recently, but it should be a base game for sure. . . . And.... ...It would be nice if those who want blood running respected safe space for them who do not need to see their opinions shout loud in every corner. Do not make end of the world from this, it is happening elsewhere.

Well, this makes virtually impossible to compensate everyone who downloaded ConfigLib (including, e.g. me on using it on singleplayer). Caves and Caverns and VSRadio have about 5000 downloads together, so damage on gameplay experience would be much more narrow and then addressable. However, I am afraid, that the compensation cannot reach to people who lost their trust, although they did not experienced broken game.

The same, I have no clear idea, how a possible compensation should look like. A full or partial refund? Free additional game key? There are not many other feasible possibilities. About the identification of players affected, I am surely not expert. I may only assume that there is probably not straightforward way. There may be server owners, who can prove running that unfortunate combination of mods had they public lists of mods used on their servers, or by providing logs, or I don't know. They may provide lists of players affected. I'd be quite generous in this case if it is feasible financially. Also, I can imagine that some a..holes, particularly from the "dark side" using rogue clients would be happy to fake proofs for such compensation and then laugh it out how they overplayed Maltiez and the studio. Still, if there are "false positives," they should be on the side of the compensation, though.

I honestly believe this is not final statement on the situation. There was explanation and apology that I personally consider mostly acceptable. Still, the clarification was not responding to the the case of false positives, whose victims should deserve specific apology or some kind of compensation (if possible). The most important: there are promises that shall be fulfilled ("We will write clearer rules/disclosure standards for mods maintained by Anego team members"). For me, this is rational approach if these rules will be made public after they are defined. Although I see it will be not good enough for many. I am not very sure if there even exist a response that would satisfy people, who want see the blood. I understand that various VS players have various values and differ in judging particular actions. There are people who value quality of the game more, there are people who value honor and purity of all contributors, there are people who have strong belief in particular principles that were clearly breached. Just for this reason, not everybody may be even theoretically fully satisfied with any outcome of this crisis. Finally, whoever is confident that some criminal activity happened in this case, he has full right (in fact, he is even obliged) to make appropriate announcement to the law enforcing authorities. However I am not really sure, if such approach will lead to better outcome for the quality of the game.

As I have written in next thread, I am waiting for solid official response oriented particularly on the future approach to mods and code review. Until then, just some comment on forums moderation and approach to community. I have some experience with such situations from the other side, from a NGO with team about 20 people, that is, I assume similar size as the studio. Guilty or not, to react to such public backlash properly is not easy if you are not trained for it and if you have not prepared procedures for this beforehands. Even experienced moderators and Tyron himeslf may make mistakes if there is not clear guidance. That's why I am not angry much, as what I see from the studio's people reactions, there is no bad intent, they are just desperately trying to keep situation under control, when missing proper tools or guidance. This is also not against community, do not take it like way to fool you people. Good damage control approach must be set up with the fanbase and its trust in mind, otherwise it is not good. Rules of communication in crisis are in fact, quite simple: There must be clear, what exactly to communicate. The main message must be "we are making steps that we announce as soon as they will be prepared or implemented." . All channels must communicate the same message or be silent until the message is specified. There must be somebody, who is in charge on communication, who coordinates all communication, formulates answers for the most serious concerns, and prepares factual reactions to mininfomration - and who is ready to do it full time in such situation, so the role cannot be joined, e.g. with team leader, who has own problems. If you have no such structure prepared before the crisis hits... God help you. And this is the reason I cannot be angry much for clumsy way of handling the forums now. Just pity that the collateral damage is getting larger.

They should say asap that they are preparing some steps they will announce in detail. That gives them few days of breathing time to prepare it the way it is not rushed to be wrong.

I am not concerned myself to the level of considering a removal of the config lib or refund the game itself. I feel like "he has his reasons, but generally fucked up. Still, problem was solved, so whatever." But I see how the trust was damaged for other players. This will require very clear steps from the studio (I am sure they are in the process of preparing proper public response that requires some procedural changes - which is the reason it takes time). I would wait for steps towards more thorough mod curation, and of course some more detailed statement about how the code is being reviewed inside the team. I may make a bit speculation now. I have long time experience from scientific work close to SW development and also a non-profit work in small but steadily growing teams. I know there are limits to which extent the teamwork can be based mostly on trust. From some size of team or company, control mechanisms has to be established and trust based shortcuts, that worked as the most effective for smaller team or company, has to be cut. But the change of internal processes this way is not easy, and usually is not done, unless some incident (or series of incidents) happens. I believe that we will be informed how the studio dealt with problem not only for this time, but - and this is the most important - for the future. Also, I must admit that I am exceptionally forgiving guy. In my 20+ years long working career I have seen too many people screw up with good intentions (including myself) to take it as the end of the game. If they teach from it, of course.

Yes, the functionality "as fences" is the same. I usually make rough hewn fences in early game, as sticks are a bit scarce and have more priority usages. But if you are located in area with plenty of bush and not many trees, wattle fences may get more accessible. (Also, as the first window blocks before glass, I prefer rough hewn fences, as they allow to see more outside trough bigger holes in the fence .)

Local doyens will clarify, but in the past the forum probably did not require to buy the game, and this restriction came later. I assume that the separate login to forum is for these historical reasons.

I try to join with similar question: In my otherwise lovely world with nice rivers and watersheds, for which I was balancing its settings with great effort, one thing makes me trouble: I have found a trader post just in the middle of my biggest river, his house comfortably laid on the riverbed, only a top of flagpole sticking from the water. At the first moment, I thought shipwrecks from TOBG were added . Is it possible to relocate this poor guy with a bit of creative mode work, either to a side of the river, or (if not possible), at least above the water? I will surely build small island for him in that second case.

... is pure aesthetic. Usually IRL, the waterwheel water source goes from some kind of pond to have enough water stored when the stream itself lacks water. This setup shall look like it as you cannot have rapid going through water body in VS.

Well, yes, especially if you need to switch among multiple powered devices. It can be combined as the sluice may work as a main power switch - I take as big advantage that it makes the workshop much quieter when the water is turned off.

I am lazy to check particular number in my aqueduct, but I am pretty sure that neither 3 nor 6 is correct value (correcting also myself), it is something between. Rapids reach less than regular water, I have a stream under the waterwheel, that works only for regular water, while rapid water stops.

Although the slope for moving the rapid water stream is very steep (as Rainbow Fresh mentioned), the good news is that usually you will not need more than one rapid stream to power in your forge. Single waterwheel is pretty strong, if powered by 5 active blocks, it can run three geared up helve hammers at once.

Well, I am surprised. Maybe, I had bad luck during my several gameplays, but let assure myself: These are chests you buy their location by Treasure hunter trader? As what I remember, I tried about five times and found like really nothing of value, particularly I do not remember to find there anything resembling content in this chart. In some cases I even did not find the chest, despite digging like 15 blocks deep 5x5 around. Well, time to check some Treasure hunter traders in my neigbourhood then, as I really underestimated their content!

Really nice. Which mods do you use to ease the chiseling process?

I see, chiseled out as hell. (I assume it is a creative build, if vanilla. But I see it feasible with ChiselTools mod in survival too.)

Differences are not big. If you have it next to your hands, make bismuth bronze first. In mid- to late game, having diversity of bronze helps with trading, as traders frequently require tool made from bronze variant you actually do not have

It is just a nice thing to keep it leaned next to the door as a reminder of incoming winter and not to bother with putting the actual shovel into the hotbar when snow comes. Nothing more. Still, little buff would be welcome, at least as a part of some vanilla tweaks mod - if anybody bothers.

For needs of protein and veggie combination, stew with cabbage is a killer combination. I usually double it with fruit pies to have 4/5 nutrients balanced. (No dairy as I usually have bad luck for goats, and buying cheese is really big luxury.)

Except improving base and chiseling, there is other stuff to do, if you are not focused on building nice stuff. You may extend your reach: You can build road infrastructure, like direct stone paths to your nearby locations (mines or traders), increasing speed of movement. For distances up to 2000 blocks, making "elk rideable" paths in difficult terrain segments like forests or mountains may benefit. There are even people who build path to the first story location. You can explore nearby caves specifically for translocators and make network of connections for mid-distance travel. Translocators are frequently close to each other, so you may have chain of 2-3 translocators, reaching areas around 15 thousand blocks far, if your are lucky. If you have oceans (good chance if you have 70% and less land set up), you can build a boat, a port and explore by boat. Travel with eyes open to find rare or missing resources Do not rush during the first part of journey to the second story location, especially if you are in group. Spread and explore for rare or missing resources (e.g. exposed marble, rare seeds in ruins, or so.) Up to 5-10 thousand blocks, you may return there from the base to gather there resources effectively. If you are missing particular ore, take propick and check time from time. Travelling to the south will bring you new flowers, seeds and wood types. If you started in default climate, first redwood forest can be found up to ten thousand blocks south. You may explore all kinds of technology available and make everything is possible. Make a glider and You can make all four Jonas tech devices available in game. It requires nickel, coke and good amount of gold. To have fuel for them and for translocators, you can create some kind of temporal gear grinder (haven't build it, but some schemes do exist) In the second story final location, you get a device that allows you make one more Jonas tech machine, that is genuinely usable. Establish economy to make large deals with traders Grow lot of flax, breed lots of pigs with flax grain using autofeeder (chest -> chute -> trough). Then 1) flax -> flax twine -> linen -> profit, 2) pigs -> leather -> profit. Learn the best things to sell. E.g. use flax twine either to sell directly, or to make required product (linen, linen sacks, boots or so) on the spot. Find around 10 traders around your base up to about 2-3000 blocks far. Establish convenient round trip to make deals, that may be done in 1-2 days by elk riding. You may make paths or use translocators to reach good traders. Find what all traders on your round trip want and expand your portfolio accordingly. Bronze tools that do not require smithing are quick to make (axe, shovel, pickaxe, hammer, hoe) and can be sold for 4-6 rusty gears. Make all three kinds of bronze and take only tool heads to the trip, as they can be stacked. Colored linen (blue, brown) and leather (orange, black) is usable for items bought by clothier and other traders. Agriculture trader buys soya beans that are durable and otherwise not much usable. You may try more demanding stuff like lanterns, if you need some quick money, but this stuff is not very suitable for repeated trading as it is time consuming to make it. Some people take flour and fireclay oven next to traders who buy bred and make it on the spot, but it is rather mid-game approach. Then you may buy various stuff and go to the next step. Focus on luxuries Buy broken Forlorn Hope armor and repair it to the perfect condition (requires quite amount of gold) Make full plate armor from meteoric iron (shiny!) If you have a tailor in your group, let's make him/her all kinds of nice clothes and colored fitted gambeson armor. After you are rich thanks to established trader economy, buy all kinds of luxuries from furniture, artisan and luxuries traders to decorate your base neatly. Also, after you finish second story location, And there are more things to do I haven't mentioned for sure.

This looks like very specific kind of challenge, that may push the player to stay in the early ages much longer. It is also pretty more realistic and based on history, as e.g. late bronze age East-Mediterranean civilizations had to establish trade routed for tin, as they did not have good deposits in their areas. As other mentioned, it may be achieved by making landform scales bigger, resources rarer and distances to story locations farther. Also, landform mods are mostly going this way, especially combined with increased world height. Maybe, such kind of gameplay would be much interesting for multiplayer. 5-10 thousand blocks spaced but bountiful resources would lead to establishing mining towns specialized on tin, iron or even silver or gold. For this, however, these deposits should be not only much rarer, but also much bigger, so finding e.g. gold mine would suffice needs of tenths or even hundreds of players. Some very small deposits may be still found elsewhere, but they should be really tiny. Here, rivers should play significant role, as they may be source of small secondary deposits of these ores. And if we want to play it big, then secondary deposit should mean that there is maybe some rich primary source somewhere upper by the river - that would make prospecting much more interesting and realistic... But it means to build complete ore generation from scratch.

I really like this idea (having several thousand blocks of paths done, I am looking for such challenge in my actual world). What is the design? Like width, maximum slopes, surface? Is it designed preferably for running or for smooth elk ride?