cosmobeau

I'm not 100% wrong- I'm just old enough to realize that demos for other games inside of games died a long time ago. You don't see them anymore, at least not in the way you're describing. This is more a generational thing. Yes, there was an era of games where you could play demos for other games inside them, as a popular form of advertising. What I'm about to say has nothing to do with my take on Vintage Story, but I will talk about why game demos died. In the rise of digital distribution, streaming, and steam's "demos" & refund policies (which is basically, download and play the game, instead of playing a programmed demo, which back then were separately programmed from the game, which costed more money to make a demo on top of a game) companies moved away from demos. Some reasons, - instead of having to make demos, companies saw that streaming and YouTubers provided enough information about the game. - some people who played demos were actually less likely to buy the full game - refund policies made it so they didn't have to allocate resources making a game demo - early access business models worked better than demos - free to play games also shifted companies away from demos - the rise of Internet usage, and more people online reporting content made demos obsolete for advertising. There are a lot of great articles and video essays that go into why game demos died in a more detailed and informed way if anyone is interested.

See if this was the update post... This sounds way more technical, no bias (mentioning friends, etc and such) it would sound a lot more clean. Thanks for a detailed, well organized post. Putting into perspective the progression of the game's development like that sounds incredibly good to hear, and it's got me excited for another server update/reboot to get people playing more again. Setting aside the game engine thing, which makes sense for including in VS as a mod the way their engine works, it also seems off because the intention is to make it it's own separate game for purchase. (With perhaps a discount for people who own VS.) Not sure If I'm personally sold on that idea, but I get why they're doing it. I think my brain is stuck in a mode like, "well a lot of people use unreal engine/(whatever engine here) and have seperate game clients" which could definitely be flawed logic. The other things mentioned in that announcement is that handling another team and making another game will come at "no extra cost" and won't stall VS at all, I can't claim if they can do that or not but if seemed pretty iffy. At least the "no extra cost" part was, I think that's fair to feel initially reading it lol. I mean I'm sure they will develop it now at no extra cost *to us* but it's like... If that game failed, was if because it didn't have enough funding... Time, organization? That's where the concern started coming into play for me. Because even if they are two separate projects, they are still taking on at least they pay(?) for the new team and overseeing it. Overall though I am way more convinced that this decision won't overly impact game development of that is the current trend if things.

Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. And I did go smoke a bowl. Lmao My post history is mostly just in depth lore dives, detailing my server's lore, and answering gameplay and troubleshooting questions. I think it will be some time if ever I make a post like this, it's not really my thing. Just wanted to get some concerns off my chest, tbh I didn't think it would blow up bc I felt like I had a pretty luke warm, semi unpopular opinion.

Do we sincerely live in an era where when people are upset over a decision a company makes, in a industry that has failed products all the time, is called "outrage culture"? Lmao I barely think Vintage Story is a topic that garners a lot of drama and outrage. I think things are going to be okay I don't think I'm feeding anything especially considering that overwhelmingly people disagree or only softly agree with some of my points.

Unless you know these people personally, I'm not sure how "transparent" it actually is. In what way does the transparency help, though, if we take everything face value? I still just straight up disagree with certain aspects of the reveal, that have nothing to do with deception. I don't think I framed it as shady so much as confusing, frustrating and concerned. You can have devs that are transparent all day long and still stall development, without even picking up a failed projected on the side. That's the main thing, it was a failed project, and my main "shady" accusation was around them picking it up because they're great friends with them, not necessarily because it was a good idea or allocation of efforts. Other than that, I don't think I really accuse them of anything that heinous. Understanding now that a lot of people hold not just the game in high regard like I do because I've been playing it, but they also have a high opinion of the devs. I am not that quick to develop a parasocial appreciation for companies and groups of people I don't know outside reading game updates. From my perspective, it was - VS is in development - Tyron & his wife technically own and run the show - A game called Hytale failed - Tyron is close friends with the people who made that game - Tyron decides to pick up failed game and put it into VS while its in development - The failed game will appear in VS when you play - The game will be nothing like VS - Tryron claims this will come at no extra cost - Tyron claims that VS can't develop any quicker and this won't slow development - Tyron says that he and his wife still have a very distinct vision for the game and where it should go - Contradictorily, he also says he lets the whole team decide it's direction to the point that there's so much input on its direction that he's had to split the team into two meetings - Also complains that they don't have enough time to write devlog updates?? - Explains away any concerns people have about VS current development and explains away two different type of popular requests that this be a separate project Now if you were an outsider, had no attachment/personal bias for Tyron & Angeo, how would that look to you? Like honestly, for people who don't follow the company who makes the game, and they just play the game and only look at the updates, this is whiplash.

For sure, Tyron did say himself that they worked there, how much they liked the devs, and wanted to keep their dream alive. I honestly knew nothing about Hytale, and I'm a huge fan of Vintage Story, but I'll admit I don't follow the people who make the game outside reading updates to the game. I don't have a huge opinion of the studio outside this game they've made so far is awesome, obviously. It is cool to have an option for more modes such as Dwarf Fortress "Adventure Mode" which doesn't actually depart from the game or it's genre, look or feel that much at all. This however, is something they intend on making a whole other game. I'd like to see them commit to that, and actually just make it a new game from the get-go instead of tacking it on to the Vintage Story Client. Still make your seperate team, let them develop this game using your engine & code. It's from a failed game sure, you want to continue it that's your free will. However from an outsiders perspective of someone who just plays the game and knows nothing of Angeo/Tyron, the reveal added in the updates seems weird, personally motivated, and a confusing course of action? I just don't know of many indie devs who pickup a failed project and inject it into their game while their original game is still in development, that's what threw me off so hard. If you're making a new game, then make a new game. Why pretend it's a story mode for Vintage Story, when you admit it's not like vintage story at all/doesn't follow its lore? And damn, how much is love a survival horror RPG actually based off of Vintage Story's lore and aesthetics. But we get Hytale instead (something I had no idea existed LOL) :'c

Honestly implementing More Piles and different storage containers other mods have brought to the table would be nice, feels like they should be apart of the vanilla experience. Although, this is kinda a non issue, Clay Vessels are pretty damn early game too IMO if you know where to look, and things like cold resistant foliage, just like clay in VS, is very difficult to spot in the snow. They're adding more variants of utility blocks, decorative blocks, entities and new things too to the game in these recent releases so we might expect some more variety when it comes to preparing for winter, or venturing into the northern climates. I don't think I've ever spawned in a region so cold it was always snowy. This is because there aren't actually biomes in the game, there are poles, an equator, etc and regions, geology, all those things determine the weather, climate, and ecosystem of any given area. Tropical areas spawn in places that would make sense in real life, as do colder areas. You have to venture pretty far just to get to the tropics even after tinkering with world gen settings, nevermind snowy areas unless you reach high altitudes. So you kind of have to go out of your way to get there, and by that time you can get cattails and roots along the way

Honestly the more I hear other people's opinions I think my majority issue was - the timing for revealing they're working on basically a completely different game was kinda poor. I think some people would have received it better after a STABLE Ch.2 release. - The language around their friends at Hytale, on top of it being a failed game, seems very personally motivated. If you just like Vintage Story, and know nothing about Angeo Studios or the people who work there, just reading the reveal does look sketchy. Most people are defending Tyron & Co based off of their perceived endearment to them. Some people have no prior engagement or knowledge to base off how much they "like" or "trust" them. - First stating it is a game mode then saying it will be it's own game and it's wildly different, then saying it will be in Vintage Story threw me off. I still sincerely believe if their intention is to make a new game, they can still share all the code and such, and actually just make it a new game from the start. Don't put it in Vintage Story if it won't even look, feel, or be the same genre of game. Just literally make another game.

I do really respect the game devs, I'm just wondering why pick up a project that's already failed. On the bright side, they get the fans of that game to maybe buy their game. Maybe not so great for those fans, if the adventure mode doesn't go well they effectively get to see Hytale die twice. Meanwhile, chapter 2 isn't stable enough, they recommend against multiplayer/long-term play. It's just frustrating, and as you said, the whole ineffectiveness to me at least seems to come from letting everyone have endless meetings over what every single employee wants in the game instead of Tyron & Saraty telling their devs what to work on. They even admitted to splitting the VS team into two seperate meetings because everyone has too much input. I'm not the most tech savvy, my boyfriend works in IT though and I'm not so sure if this is a "9 women can't have a baby in 1 month situation" if it's bug fixes, errors, and certain busywork, a bigger team will definitely get that done faster. But I'm not a fly on their wall, I have no idea what they're working on. Hopefully this all goes fine, I posted this to Reddit and people are losing their sh!t over it. Hopefully I don't have to go back and say I told you so, I love this game and want to see it finished. I've seen the most trustworthy devs, hardworking and all, flop a game, even with the best intentions for their player base.

Fair enough, but they didn't put a Portal Demo inside of a early-access Half-Life. It would've been seen as distasteful then, so it should now.

EDIT: When talking to other people on this forum, please be kind. If you disagree with their take, then offer information as to why. That's how a forum works, to share information. Do not attack anyone personally. My view on this decision has changed a lot because of people who have respectfully disagreed and were not rude. So if you agree with me, and want to debate why, do not use ad hominem. Even if you agree with me, if you're being rude to other people in the community I'm going to completely disregard your position. Honestly the more I hear other people's opinions I think my majority issue was - the timing for revealing they're working on basically a completely different game was kinda poor. I think some people would have received it better after a STABLE Ch.2 release. - The language around their friends at Hytale, on top of it being a failed game, seems very personally motivated. If you just like Vintage Story, and know nothing about Angeo Studios or the people who work there, just reading the reveal does look sketchy. Most people are defending Tyron & Co based off of their perceived endearment to them. Some people have no prior engagement or knowledge to base off how much they "like" or "trust" them. - First stating it is a game mode then saying it will be it's own game and it's wildly different, then saying it will be in Vintage Story threw me off. I still sincerely believe if their intention is to make a new game, they can still share all the code and such, and actually just make it a new game from the start. Don't put it in Vintage Story if it won't even look, feel, or be the same genre of game. Just literally make another game. End of Edit I can't be the only one that felt that Tyron's post about their new idea "adventure mode" is filled with excuses, deceptively optimistic language, biased takes, red herrings and contradictory reasons why it's suddenly okay to absorb Hytale into Vintage Story, effectively developing a whole other game with a completely different theme using Vintage Story's resources and funding, and admitting it "Could spin off into another game entirely." Let's get this right... Hytale didn't make it, and now they're making a new game "mode" that will be: "departing significantly in aesthetics, setting and game mechanics compared to Vintage Story. More focused towards fantasy and adventure/rpg-y compared to the gritty, realism based nature of the current experience. " On top of that, they've said: the purely hypothetical scenario where it really takes off we could spin it off into a fully separate game. Because, you see, even though you're supporting Vintage Story with your money, attention, and playtime, and had no interest in Hytale, Tyron is buddy buddy with the people at Hytale. So now you're getting a fantasy RPG game tacked on inside your gritty, realistic survival game??? We are reaching out to the Hytale community and its devs as they too truly and deeply believed in Hytale. This is a chance to maybe maybe at least partially keep that dream alive. When I worked for Hytale in 2015 I really felt their passion for what they are working on. The team there really believed in the work they did. It was also this very experience that gave me the confidence to start Vintage Story in the first place. It was Noxy that saw my work on worldgen and handed an olive branch to me - believed in my skills to work on their project. And they claim, well, it's helpful to do this so they can share code between the two projects. They also claim somehow they can develop a whole other project that's completely different than Vintage Story in genre and gameplay at "no additional cost" & somehow claim both they hardly have enough time to update the devlog posts for ONE game because of how many changes there are, but adding an ADDITIONAL GAME - a whole new project- won't slow Vintage Story's development??? It is already a significant struggle for me to put together the devlog posts, because there is so many changes being made to the main game on each update. More people means more opinions, means more possible development directions. We had to split our weekly meetings into 2 subgroups where each group can talk only every 2nd week because there were simply too many voices going on at the same time. I don't like it because I want everyone in the team to have a voice, but due to the team size this is no longer possible. We in the VS team are not fond of a strongly hiearchical management structures where only the leadership gets to decide what to add. If we want Vintage Story in its full glory AND with its original vision, then we need to stop diluting the vision. Tyron claims they don't like a hierarchy, but continuously talks about how they also have a main vision for Vintage Story, mainly from their wife Saraty, who came up with the visuals and the gritty mechanics of the game. I'm sorry, but a bigger team isn't the problem, and not having enough projects isn't either- tell your developers how to develop the game. I'm so done with the kindergarten logic, honestly. Maybe not every single person on your team needs to have such a hefty sway on the development of the game if you already have a vision for it. You are hiring on more people to deal with the bulk of the work that comes with said vision, not to get more people into a democracy on what mob or fence variation we feel like adding that week. You are not "diluting" the vision you are allowing your vision to be diluted RIGHT NOW by adding a game that completely conflicts with Vintage Story into Vintage Story. You also claim you're not adding more people to that vision- but also talk about hiring- which is it? Are you keeping the VS team the way it is, or hiring on more people to save and develop your friends game, Hytale? adding more team members to original VS is very difficult. So if not more team members why not make us of these additional funds for a small side project? There are no "extra funds" to the early access game your community is giving you money to finish, until it is done. What you're really doing is deciding, well all these people bought and support Vintage Story, but I'm going to use their money to also make another game. Meanwhile, the next chapter of Vintage Story isn't recommended for long term multiplayer play, because of how buggy and undeveloped it is. "I paid for Vintage Story, not this" And you got Vintage Story in the very exact form as advertised with many more updates to come. I am not sure how this is not a fair exchange. It's not fair because we can see straight through the bs. Yor community is that of gamers that have supported early access and small indie devs for decades now. It's unfair because not only are you using Vintage Story's funds to make another game, Vintage Story isn't even close to being done yet, hell not even the first part of the actual "story", and that game is going to be APART OF THE SAME CLIENT even though it's a genre that conflicts with VS, you're also giving us the poor excuse of not wanting to tell your team how to develop the game, while we see that become not just one game that takes too long to finish, but two now. We did not get it exactly as advertised, and we have no idea what updates to come you're talking about. This is vague posting and not encouraging to hear, it sounds like Kickstarter language. > "This new mode should be a separate project" This would prevent us from sharing code between both projects, decreasing the symbiotic benefit we can get from this Actually, you can make this an entirely separate. I don't want to be forced to download another game in a early access game. You can actually share all that stuff, and have it be a separate game, separate team, seperate lead, separate game page and patreon, all that. You have full permission to use your own code however you want. But that's not the real reason you're making us download another game inside Vintage Story. This is called free forced advertising. Every time you launch Vintage Story, even if you have no interest in Save Hytale, The Game that's Nothing Like Vintage Story, you will see it every time you launch the game. If you want to play VS? You have to keep "Adventure Mode" aka Hytale downloaded and updated. It feels really scummy that you'd literally admit this is basically just a whole other spin off game that will be it's own thing, but we have to be apart of it no matter what just because... Well, nepotism really. Your friends want to make another game, so you said yes, and you also said I'm going to force my players to download it. It's honestly not acceptable to force players who are paying for Vintage Story to download another game that you're literally using our money on instead of the game we paid for. At least be a decent human being and separate the clients and games, so I don't have to see a thinly veiled advertisement for a different game I'm not interested at all whenever I just want to play Vintage Story, nevermind also have it FULLY INSTALLED on my machine.

I posted the solution that helped my players in the mentioned post, today.

First, do the following: Check your Game Version Delete ALL mods in your mods folder & attempt reconnecting to re-download them, Check the IP of the server Get Whitelisted if your Host is in a different country and they may have GOIP blocking, Check if YOUR IP has Changed!!! Check if you can connect to the Test Server, Mac Users: give the application permission to open in System Preferences > Privacy > Security, To play Vintage Story multiplayer on a Mac, ensure you have the x64 version of .NET 7 Runtime installed. All OS Users Check your Firewall Settings, CONTROL PANEL SETTINGS Set to private & public in Windows Defender Firewall (Control Panel > System and Security > Windows Defender Firewall > Allowed apps) Change Advanced Sharing Settings: (Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center) . "Change sharing options for different network profiles": set to Turn on network discovery

I've found something close: https://mods.vintagestory.at/vsvillage "This mod adds villages and their inhabitants to your Vintage Story playthroughs. You can found your very own villages and watch its inhabitants follow their daily routines. If you install an extension for village generation (or create your own for that matter), it will even generate villages into your world."

Vintage Story Server Still up & running, new people joining every month, and old players still engaging! Now running a Palworld Server on the same IP, and our Minecraft Server is now running the latest snapshot, so you can enjoy all the new Copper Blocks, Items, Decor, New Redstone Engineering, Copper Golems, Shelves & much more new vanilla content!

Yes! They absolutely are. And now we have teleporters to the Tropical Continent Epicurea, and the people who settle there call themselves Epicureans.

Spawn point is roleplay ready and fit for new survivors. Who will you be on Hedonia? https://discord.gg/blisseyonsen to join!

Help and resources for our roleplayers!

I'm at about 40 mods, some are very small mods and others are medium, large, or need to be installed before generating a world. Hosting on a server rack at home for Multiplayer & I will say now that we've done some play testing and removed problematic mods, everything runs very smoothly and we've gotten to the point where we are very selective about adding more. My main concern with many mods, is that some of them are no longer updating, in hiatus, are outdated, don't match the server's version (1.20.4) are incompatible with mods we won't part with, and/or have many bug complaints in the comments with no response. In these cases, I just won't add those. Some mods were removed for causing clients (or even the server) to crash, when identified as the issue, they were removed. I think if you have a good internet & a hefty hosting machine you should be good to have 30-100 mods, it's just the more mods you add, there's more possibilities for Jank™ to occur causing performance issues.

I also play League of Legends and most of my friends on my discord server do. Normals, TFT, Arena for awhile... Yes, you can definitely be a fan of both lol, they all also play on my Vintage Story world.

For players who need to run different installations of Vintage Story:

We have proximity voice chat and are always welcoming new rp players.

Our server is new player friendly and old player engaging, we love creative works and everyone's been helping develop our town near spawn, which has a teleporter to a landscapes tropical area to escape the winter. We are getting ready to do the story content as a group!

I'm now writing canonical lore based off our server's Story Location Progression! With explanation of the Resonance Archive, here: Theories before Full in-game Story Completion here: Roleplay post here: