Maelstrom

Think of it from a player perspective. As a designer if I imagine that my players want to reduce the impact of storms not only will they want fewer storms, they'll likely want less intense storms as well.

Same. I just wish the frequency and intensity were separate. I wanted longer frequency but default intensity.

Game mechanic wise, storms are a nuisance; BUT they (and the temporal instability) are laying out the foundation the story is built on. As a new player the storms and instability drew me in to search for the lore of the world. What happened here? Why is this craziness going on? Finding books, scrolls and tapestries answered those questions. Now the traders and story locations add in a lot to the random lore bits before the RA dropped in 1.19.

So dig out the translocator, duh! Yeeeeeaaahhhh... There's that.

Given that Tyron has worked on VS since 2016 I doubt he'll get tired and decide to move on. Although technically you could say he's been working on VS since the days of VintageCraft for TOBG.

This is not the place to request a refund. Submit a support ticket here: Support - Vintage Story

In the past year we've seen a dramatic increase in popularity of the game. Based on what I've witnessed, if there were another dramatic increase in popularity there would be two things that happen. An increase in traffic on VS social media (like these forums) and devs might have to pivot to performance enhancements of the game and other planned features may be delayed. I think Tyron and team managed the unexpected 300% increase in sales about a year ago very well leaving me without worry that any future unexpected increase in popularity will cause any problems with development.

Congrats! Good thing you didn't do this before the 1.18 change to world gen. Back then there were arctic mountains up to world build height pretty much spanning the width of the world in the polar regions. Very dangerous ascending and descending when said mountains were 200+ blocks tall and usually almost sheer cliff faces.

1.20 changed rift spawn rules. They can now occur during the day for any rift activity. I saw a shiver spawn in middle of the day during low rift activity (although faulty memory says it was calm when it popped into existence in front of my eyes). Tyron has confirmed daytime spawns are now intended.

I was just using your example as a springboard for a generic comment.

But as mentioned, there's reality breaking mechanics that are necessary lest the game become a real life simulator and most decidently UNfun! The reason I adore VS is the uncompromising challenge to it. It doesn't pull punches when you make a mistake forcing me to figure out how to not fall prey to mistakes or misadventures. It forces me to learn the mechanics of the game in order to overcome my weaknesses (like cheesing combat since I'm not one of those mount and blade style combat afficionados.)

Learning curve is pretty steep. Although reading accounts of new players since about 1.18 seems that it isn't as steep as it once was. I think the tutorial and guides have helped to reduce the curve from a cliff to a very steep climb. The challenges that VS provides is why I don't play most other games. I grew up on games that came with a book that taught you the controls of the game but anything in the game was left to you to figure out. Most games in the past 15-20 years dumb down the challenge factor so much there isn't a challenge anymore. I blame TOBG for this.

The other night I was working on the platform that will become my workshop. No temporal storm and a drifter popped into existence about 5 blocks away. Uhhh... Hello? Then another 2 or 3 popped into existence. Checked the sun, yep still an in game hour before sunset. Check the rift activity... Holy Hell Batman! apocalyptic! And it lasted almost the entire night! Until recently apocalyptic levels of rift activity have been exceedingly short.

Not just prevailing wisdom but actual game mechanics. At least they don't spawn on the same block as the seraph anymore. That's really fun to get your first storm and have a nightmare drifter one shot you from behind before you even know it popped into existence. By the time double headed drifters came about drifters had the courtesy to respect about 2-3 blocks of personal space and take a second or three to orient to their new dimension before bopping your noggin' back to spawn.

Given your intial post about how impossible food consumption seems to be compared to what your perception of reality was I wanted to get a reading of how realistic you expected animal feeding to be before providing an answer since the answer about animal fodder is even more ridiculously unrealistic than that for seraphim. To answer your request in total: animal need food for only two things, breeding (mechanics described by others) and fattening for slaughter. If you do not have either activities intended for the animal (here's the absurditly unrealistic thing) they do not need be fed at all and will not ever starve; even if enclosed in a stone enclosure with no possibility for foraging.

Apocalyptic level land wibble wobbles the likes even Tobias hasn't seen that makes the hardiest of sailors get sea sick!

How come everyone assumes I'm a dragon? Is it because I compassionately warn others about their dealings with dragons? I just thought it to be some wise advise; better than the "don't eat yellow snow" variety. Hmm... Maybe I'll have to research what it takes to be genetically transformed into a dragon, now.

Let's also consider the length of the month. 9 days is default, indicating that time is condensed. However, changing it to a more "realistic" 30 days still condenses time as the days are not actual 24 hours, but about 20 minutes. So none of this is very realistic. As others have noted, the realism label is in comparison to that other popular block game not a comparison to real life. If this (or any game) did not make unrealistic mechanics nobody would play the game for it becoming a Real Life Simulator. Why simulate real life for fun, when you can live real life for real? As for the goats? I'll refrain from answering until you indicate what level of realism you're expecting. Because if the eating thing makes you go bonkers, the answer your asking for will send you over the edge of the world.

As in mostly harmless? Said lit torch should not be extinquished. It should burn up the items in the inventory and finish by destroying the baskets, backpacks, etc. leaving the seraph as devoid of inventory as they are at 10 am May 1, year 0. Amateur! This game doesn't have enough grind! Farming should yield one crop a year and not planting before June should result in a real danger of winter time starvation. Same with animals. Birth should happen in spring once a year, no later than Jun 1. That first winter should be a real threat of repeated death to the point that multiple attempts at surviving that first winter result in rage quitting, deleting the world and trying again. And natural animals should not respawn. They should migrate from other areas, if those chunks aren't loaded, tough noogies. Figure out some other source of food, hopefully you'll survive that 1,000 block hike to forage for some 'shrooms.

In one of my first (maybe even my very first) long term worlds (I had a half dozen short term worlds I cut my teeth on which weren't intended for long term play) I got the depressing end of a featureless cave. No ores, no ruins, nothing but rock, water and darkness. Well, at the bottom of a deadend I hear some drifters bemoaning their loneliness and figure I'm close to another cave. So I start digging towards the moaning and find the only salt dome I've ever found.

Like TOBG water don't freeze if there is a block obstructing it's view of the starry sky. If you catch my meaning.

Some do. Some don't.

From how well Luke is portraying Lovecraft I'll argue that it's a mix of the two. Yes, those that delve into knowledge that should not be delved into are incredibly intelligent, but there's typically an aspect of someone on the other side providing information, but not in a Faustian bargain kind of way. It's more that humans are ants compared to the extra-dimensional being and they're imparting trivial information so insignificant to them that there's no need to strike a bargain. Then the problems begin because the expirementations (misspelling intentional) do not play well with our dimension. Jonas' story of developing the lens has al the earmarks of Lovecraft. Initial delvings are harmless as the poor sod becomes proficient with understanding such alien knowledge. As the person delves deeper the warnings begin but they are now (over)confident in their ability to control the consequences of the alien knowledge that they blunder on where angels aren't even fearing to tread but do not tread. The end game is that our world is impacted dramatically and it takes herculean efforts to repair the damage, IF it can be repaired. I agree that Tobias is of great concern because his attempts to meddle in alien knowledge was much more disastrous than Jonas' blunderings. BUT, Tobias would be completely blind to it if not for Jonas. And here is where VS departs from typical Lovecraft literature. The one that opens the gate to disaster does not stop and someone else discovers the results of their ill advised inquest to alien knowledge. BUT, we could also be in the middle of the Lovecraft story since the rot is not cleaned up with a nice bow. It will return unless something can repair what Jonas (and Tobias by extension) have started. The seraphim may be the ones to fix what Jonas started.

There's a difference between fright and horror. Horror can have fear associated with it, but that would be more from thinking through the implection of the horrifying event or scene. I will point you to two excellent horror films that have little if any blood and not very much screaming. Alien and Poltergeist. Neither are screaming slasher fear mongers, but the build a sense of dread in the way that Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley did in their classic horror works.

We know that before Jonas the earth was the same as ours. Then Jonas builds the lens and their earth goes sideways compared to ours. So where did Jonas get his knowledge to build something that our 21st century technology cannot do - peer into an alternate dimension?