-Glue-

I feel like Tyron's response was well done. It gave all the required information and then some, plus they took full responsibility for how things went down, both before and after the events. They also gave plans for how they intend to improve. I think I am also happy with how Maltiez was handled. They are seemingly no longer associated with Anego, and are effectively banned from the mod DB and Discord, which a lot of people called for, but is still helping to further the game under more strict supervision. Some people may not like that Maltiez is still working with Anego, but one thing I kept asking myself during this mess was, "How is this going to affect the games development going forward?" Sure, Anego could easily continue development without Maltiez, but they obviously saw them as an asset, so I believe they can, and will help the team make VS even better, faster. What Maltiez did was really, really stupid and short sighted, but it was obviously not done out of malice, or to harm the game or community. If anything it was to protect it. So, yeah, I do feel a little bad that things went this way for them. We are all human, we all make mistakes, but mistakes often have consequences. The only thing I am not happy about is that Tyron seemingly made these responses everywhere EXCEPT the official forums... Which just feels really odd. Not everyone is in the Discord, and not everyone is on Reddit. I shouldn't have to be linked to an official response by a community member when I am already on the official forums... It often feels like this is the WORST place to have up to date info on the game. Also sorta makes me feel further detached from the community and team overall.

This is exactly why I think the first thing that should have been done was an official post about the issue. There is so much misinformation and bias being flung around, its hard to know exactly what is happening. All I do know, is hiding forum posts about the topic was the WORST thing that they could have done here. The intention of the action does not matter here. What matters is the communities perception of said action. In this case, it was perceived as hiding information and minimizing concern to save face. Because in most cases, thats how companies would handle something like this. I'm not saying that IS what's happening, but its how people will see it under those actions. They need to appeal to the emotions that people are feeling. Trying to simply put out the flame will only be seen as an attack.

I trust that you have our best interest at heart, but you really should make an official pinned post here about what is happening and what is being done about it. As someone who is not on the Discord, it looks really, really bad not getting any official information from you guys. Hiding and locking posts was probably the worst thing you guys could of done, and has really fanned the flames. I understand you are likely overwhelmed with a whole flood of community anger that most of us can't even see, but I think an official statement should be the priority. It will help quell some confusion, and give a more centralized location for discussion on the topic here. Transparency is the best rout for getting things back on track.

Thank you for the clear and concise rundown. Its hard to piece everything together through all the disjointed forums, as someone who is not on the Discord. I think while the actions Maltiez took were morally understandable, in that they were attacking cheaters, the way they went about it was absolutely reprehensible, and a major breach in trust. It would be one thing if they were just a modder. People could simply make the choice to stop using their mods or not. However, the fact they are now an official developer at Anego, and this information was kept hidden, does damage the trust in the studio as a whole. I know Tyron and the rest of the team would never do, or allow anything to negatively affect their game, or the user experience. However, the way this whole situation was handled was just awful, and does significantly damage trust. Instead of simply making an official announcement, laying out the facts, and informing us of what is happening/being done, they chose start hiding forums. Apparently even banning people from the Discord as well. Which only serves to further damage trust, and let the issue fester. This is where my issue lies. Moderators chose to try and cover up the issue, instead of simply clear the air with facts. The only post I have seen from a moderator, or dev themselves, was Tyron saying he wasn't going to allow inflammatory titles, before locking and hiding posts. Which simply does not look good under any circumstances. It comes across as sweeping the issue under the rug, denying the problem. If this was handled better by the mods and devs here, I don't think it would have been blown out of proportion quite as much. As for Maltiez. I'm not sure. I don't think they would be so bold as to do something like this in an official update, but I don't feel as comfortable having them on the team now... I really just want to hear from the team to know what is being done, what they are thinking.

Ahh, yeah. As soon as I made the post I managed to find what I needed to get started. I've been learning gamedev recently, so was really overthinking it. I'm so used to having to code the actual functions and when/where they happen lol. I forgot I only needed to add onto an existing system in this case. Thank you for the mod example! I was struggling to get my audio to play in game, but it was just because I misunderstood the file path. I thought I needed the assets folder to have a file named after my mod id, but since I was replacing vanilla assets, it just needed to be in a file called "game". I should hopefully be able to figure out how to get multiple sounds. I'll just need to figure out how to properly set up an array for it.

I see all the tutorials on making models, textures, entities, etc, but nothing on audio. I want to replace the thunder audio, and if possible, add a larger variety of sounds to it. I imagine I can just swap the audio files, but, I would prefer something a bit more refined than that. Plus, it would be nice to upload it for others to use as well. I've never made a mod, and am a novice with coding in C#, but figured an audio mod couldn't be that hard to start with, right? I just need to be pointed in the right direction, but any help on the topic would be greatly appreciated!

A shamble of shivers.

For whatever reason, I can't use brass nails and strips to craft the bellows. Looking in the handbook, it seems to be the only metal that isn't able to be used. EDIT: Apparently brass can't be used to craft chests either. Huh... I don't have a github account, so can't make an official bug report myself.

I agree, I would love more aquatic content. Its not something most people think about, but the more filled out areas like lakes and oceans are in a game, the deeper the world feels. Swimming, or sailing over an ocean, knowing that there is a whole other side of the game to explore underneath you, is such a great feeling. Its like you are actually in a large, living world that exists even without you. Not many games pull it off. I imagine VS will get another big ocean update eventually. It doesn't seem like them to leave such a large content deadzone. But there is definitely more pressing features to get in game first. Personally, I would love some 1900's style diving gear that we can find/craft to explore the oceans. With lots of flora and fauna to find throughout. Unique aquatic ruins, shipwrecks, large coral structures, water themed rust creatures, unique crafting ingredients. Maybe even a story dungeon that takes place in an ocean. Lots of potential!

It would be a great way to naturally implement the knapster mod. Using the pottery wheel could make it auto complete valid recipes. Things like shingles or molds could be handled by making stamps or wood molds of some sort. I love the knapping and clayforming system, but it does get tedious pretty fast. Especially with shingles...

Honestly, being able to sort different entries into custom tabs, as if they were physical markers in the book, would be really neat.

Honestly, an interesting idea that fits the game pretty well. Though, I could see it being easily abuseable, so it would have to cost something. Perhaps a temporal gear gives 1-3 uses of it? It likely would only work on food that is about to rot, since I don't think there is currently any way to distinguish different rot from each other, or tell what it used to be. I'd love to see more mechanical and temporal features such as this added to the game though!

Honestly, I love that its not a horse. It makes VS feels more distinct and whimsical. I think it would be neat if they added more non-traditional mounts. Imagine being able to find, or breed a dire wolf that you could use as a mount. Or tame a dolphin to hold onto while swimming. Maybe even some tameable rust corrupted creatures in the future? Or a mechanical creature for completing the story, or a late game dungeon? Lots of interesting ways they could go with it! Heck, I've been wanting to learn to make mods for VS lately, so maybe I can look into custom mounts once I learn the basics. That being said, I wouldn't be opposed to normal horses being added either. I just personally would chose the more interesting options every time lol. At the very least, horses would make getting a mount easier, and add variety.

It is pretty odd that the official forums don't get these small updates and teasers. I only ever see them on the official YouTube, or Twitter accounts. Like, they have shown off water wheels, fishing, new mechanical parts and features, tests for procedural dungeons, new decor system updates, the new shelf/storage system, huge updates to smithing, including quenching, tempering, and grinding, etc. So much crazy cool content that has yet to be shown off here on the forums. Its pretty wild. I imagine they only want to post stuff on the forums that are confirmed to be coming next, or have proper details, but its still odd to post everywhere but here. I don't like using Twitter, but I peak my head in every now and again to see if VS has made any posts lol

If you really do want to give VS a chance, and weren't just shitposting, then lemme try to help you get started. The bears are a real pain point for everyone. They are unnecessarily aggressive, suspiciously stealthy, and very persistent. (The devs are looking into fixing this). For now, its just something you need to be vigilant of. Wandering dense woods is dangerous, as you can't see what dangers are lurking just around the brush. IIRC, animals only spawn under certain environmental conditions, so you wont see bears and wolves everywhere. My tip for being chased by animals is to try and get them caught up on stuff. Jump over water and pits to slow them down, or get them stuck. Weave between trees, etc. If worse comes to worse, try to fight them in the water, as you can typically push them back more than they gain on you. (Reducing creature swim speed in the world options can help a lot) For getting better worlds, if you don't want to mod, I suggest changing these world gen options: Landcover (Not landcover scale!): 70% Landform Scale: 120-130% That should make the landscape feel a bit larger, and reduce areas that feel aggressively bumpy and impossible to traverse, along with making water more common. Some people also like upping the upheaval rate, which makes hills/mountains less sheer, but I personally never messed with it. (Note. World gen changed recently, and probably will again, so preferred settings may change with time. I suggest looking into the settings so you can adjust to your own tastes in the future.) For soil fertility, I believe its tied to the local rainfall. More rain = more fertile. More heat = less fertile, etc. As for the map. There is a setting when creating your world called "Color-accurate World Map" which makes it easier to see what you are looking at. Though, VS doesn't have traditional biomes. Flora, fauna, and I think even geologic landform are tied to the local weather and temperature. The only significant different is that you get more snow to the north, and there is an equator to the south that has warmer areas, both of which have different flora and fauna that can spawn. I believe mountains and stuff spawn relative to the local geology? As VS simulates different things like Sedimentary, Metamorphic, and Igneous rocks, all of which affect what sorts of materials you can find in the area. I think it even simulates tectonic shifts/overlap? Its pretty crazy. I imagine if you know a lot about geology, you would know where to look for specific materials. The learning curve is definitely harsh when going in blind. Just make sure to use the handbook. It has all the information you should need, and what it doesn't, you should be able to figure out through context. My last tip, is that if you hit H (The handbook button) when mousing over something in your inventory, or when crouching and looking at a block, it opens that items specific handbook entry, so you can instantly see what its used for and stuff. The handbook also has entries for most major gameplay elements. How to prospect, how to smelt ore, how to smith tools, etc. I went into the game mostly blind, and I was able to get most of it figured out, though that first winter was brutal lol. Hope it clicks with you soon. Once you get set up somewhere and start looking to progress your gear, that's when the game really opens up and hits you with those cozy vibes.

I'm also really hoping for some status effects to increase the survival difficulty. Early game would be much more brutal, and that would make mid to late game feel all the more gratifying to reach. The more inconvenient and challenging something is, the more satisfying it is to have the means to easily fix it, or overcome it. I think VS's existing systems could do some really interesting things as well. For example, imagine if you sprained/broke you leg, and had to hold a crutch in your off hand to reduce the movement penalty, or to help it heal faster. Obviously splits would be a must have as well, but I really love how VS requires you to use tools in your off hand. A hammer for chiseling, tongs to handle hot objects, etc. Its very unique, and interesting. Things like infections could be penalties for not treating wounds. Food poisoning for not properly preparing/storing food. Eating too much of a single item, such as the very OP berry bushes, could have diminishing returns, or make you sick over time. All of these aliments could have their own treatments, which gives you more items to work towards, craft, and stockpile. Personally, I would really love a complex brewing system for tonics and medicines. I want the satisfaction of spending time and effort brewing tonics and tinctures, knowing they will be a massive help to have on hand for curing ailments in the future. Or, just to boost stats, like jump height, movement speed, damage reduction, etc. Having a shelf full of helpful and shiny bottles of different shapes, sizes, and colors, which I spent days making, feels like it would scratch my brain in a very satisfying, and very Vintage Story sorta way lol.

To be fair. Most block games are typically trying to be a cheap MC ripoff, so I get the misunderstanding. Pretty sure I just passed VS off as an ugly Terrafirmacraft ripoff when I first saw it lol. Plus, it can take a bit to get to what I would consider peak VS. To me, VS is at its best when you have your first real house set up, and are able to start stockpiling resources, making farms, and working towards the next tier of tools. Chilling at your homestead, cooking or smithing while rain taps against the windows, distant thunder rolling through the hills, anticipating your next big journey out, THAT is peak VS for me. I'll admit that VS's combat and vanilla world gen are pretty rough, but the more you play, the more you will appreciate it. I've seen some gorgeous landscapes with vanilla gen on my adventures... Combat could definitely use some tweaks though, imo.

> Sees blocks > Instantly assumes its trying to be Minecraft > Mad its not like Minecraft Ok This is almost as bad as saying Terraria is just 2D Minecraft.

QP's Chisel Tools is a must on ANY playthrough if you are a builder. Stone Quarry is also a staple in my VS playthroughs, helps remove the tedium of getting stone blocks in a really immersive and in-depth way! Carry On is also pretty good. Very useful, but not OP. From Golden Combs is also a pretty good one that removes tedium with new, immersive systems. Oh! And Farseer is a really nice one to have! Even if you don't necessarily need it. I run the game perfectly fine, but its a nice bit of added background detail! I recently started playing with Terra Prety, and Terrain Slabs, which are both super transformative to the games experience. Terrain Slabs may be a new permanent addition to my mod list, it works super well! However Terra Prety, as good as it looks, does sorta leave me missing the more dynamic and random feeling vanilla world gen at times. (I had some good vanilla settings lol.) Then there are great mods like Shelf Obsessed, Purposeful Storage, and Food Shelves. The latter two I haven't used a whole lot, but are popular, and seem really nice to have. Though, an upcoming VS update may make those mods obsolete, or at least Shelf Obsessed will be. The other two may just update to the new placement system. VS Roofing Mod may be of interest to you. I have it installed, but haven't tested it much yet. But I love the concept! I'd also love to recommend Volumetric Shading, but its been kinda buggy lately, may not be worth it atm. A lot of people will say Better Ruins, and Primitive Survival are a must, but I kinda disagree. Depending on how you play. Don't get me wrong, Better Ruins is fantastic, and I really enjoy it, but its a bit cheaty at times. You find a lot of good loot and materials pretty fast, which ruins the games natural sense of progression. And Primitive Survival just kinda feels off to me. Like, it adds too much content that doesn't really feel right? Idk, I may need to give it another shot... Take a look, see if they interest you personally at all.

I normally hate making accounts for websites I never use, such as GitHub. But I probably should, since I love the game, and have had a lot of very specific and niche bugs that no one else seems to talk about. Such as chiseled glass losing the rain taping audio, which almost makes custom chiseled windows not worth making lol.

Fair enough. If it really is such an underutilized feature, I can see how it would slip their minds to make sure it still works. I'm honestly surprised IFP isn't more commonly used. I get that its janky, but up until now, the only real issues I have had is placing beams, and swimming in tight spaces. I guess a lot of people may not even know it exists, since its off by default. Like I said, I really enjoy the sense of in world presence it gives. I always hate having play as a floating pair of arms in games, and try to find mods to fix it whenever possible. Its genuinely one of the main reasons I play Fallout NV so much more than Fallout 4. Because F4 doesn't have any immersive mods like that lol. I still hope it gets more love in the future. It would be so depressing if they ended up scrapping it, or letting it degrade more and move over time.

I figured it was something like that, but like, how did an issue this big not only slip through to the main branch, but no one else (that I have seen) has said anything about it here? Am I the only person who actually uses IFP consistently? lol. Heck, even some mod makers don't add compatibility for it.

I haven't played VS in a while, but coming back I noticed that when walking down slopes on an elk, my characters torso sticks forward in front of my camera. I've used IFP with the elk in previous playthroughs plenty, and never once had any issues like this. I know its just a fun side option, but I really hope IFP gets some attention soon. It feels like its getting more and more buggy, but I love feeling physically grounded in the world.

Its one of those ideas that sounds cool on paper, but would be extremely tedious in actuality. It would turn away a lot of new players too. I'm all for cranking the realism up, and making the survival aspects even more difficult, but at a certain point, realism ends up taking more away from the experience than it gives. However, one thing that does bug me is how there isn't an option to start completely naked. I want to have to EARN my clothing! I want to craft crappy, itchy grass clothing, and progress through raw hide, leather, fabric, silk, etc. Clothing feels really disconnected from the gameplay/progression of VS. Yeah, they have warming values, but most are the same, so it feels more like cheap cosmetics. I usually end up wearing my starter clothing for the entire game, unless I find something fancy in a ruin. I also rarely bother to repair my clothing.

I play as commoner with class recipes unlocked. Its a simple life. Personally, I don't think VS really needs the classes, they really don't have much gameplay to offer other than incentivize large groups to properly play their assigned roles. It can work in those specific situations, but in small groups, or solo, its not even worth having on. Why limit yourself? I think it would be interesting to have items and artifacts that boost specific traits. So you can make a specific build, but are never locked into that build via skills or traits. Don't want to play as a tank anymore? Just swap out the tank gear for archer gear. Sorta like Terraria accessories, but more subtle. Though, I am not sure how much it would fit into VS. I don't think it should necessarily focus on classes and builds. Instead, just let the player be the player. A few consumable boosts here, a couple trinkets there. Nothing crazy. However, I am more than content as the commoner with no traits or abilities. Just a guy trying to survive. Classes, skills, accessories, none of that is really needed imo.