CastIronFabric

Although the next two updates do not sound like something I am going to be overly excited about I am in part relieved because it means I can dedicate about a year to my current world without being concerned about updating breaking anything.

100% agreed and I had the same experience. VS videos where showing up on my feed for more than a year and most of them talked about how 'brutal' the game was leaving me pretty much uninterested. That all changed when I saw a video by Rhadamant doing mechanical work and smithing, I was sold at that point.

I would like to point out that industry wide only 10-30% of players finish a story. I think there is a possibility that in the Mean the 'subset' as you say is actually the inverse. That is to say people who play for the story are the subset, not the other way around. I think that is absolutely true with this game given how many videos I watch of people playing this game, in 1 1/2 years I have seen only one covering the story aspect. I do not mean a RA run, I mean the actual story anyway, side note

I highly suggest you try out 7 Days to Die. I find hunting in this game as enjoyable as hunting in Medieval Dynasty (that is to say A LOT). However if I wanted creature combat as a focus I think I would go back to playing 7 Days to Die to get that itch scratched.

I am slighting interrupting this broadcast for a quick side note on the topic of 'encouraging players to travel' As a side note, I just got finished watching all the Better Ruins videos they have on their Mod page. Oh..my...god All I can say is this when it comes to encouraging players to travel, Better Ruins...full stop, that is 100% the reason I am excited to travel. In fact, just last night I worked on my road system for way longer than I should have -Now back to regular programing

Here is my guess. 1. The developers of this game clearly enjoy making a story, the hint is in the name. However they understand or have come to learn that many players (I would argue the vast majority of players) for a game like this are not really tightly into story telling as a game mechanic as such the developers have made the experience optional. 2. The second project they have however has been described as: 'focuses more heavily on narrative, exploration, and combat.' I think this is wise on their part. If I had to guess, they have done some monitoring on what players actually do in game and have found that most players are engaging in building/crafting and far less on story. They have decided that they should make a different game that is focused more on Narrative than it is on building. Side note: How would they know? Sure developer staff can read player feedback (via Discord for them) on which updates players liked and which they were 'meh' about and get a general baseline however it can also be code based. I do not know exactly how they would know without you connecting to their server however that aside, they could put in triggers in the story that lets them know how many people get that point. Industry wide only 10-30% finish a story in a game making is safe to say its not something people actually do in the majority. In fact, given that number of 10-30% there is a very wide discrepancy between the volume of people and industry leaders that suggest story is important in game play to that of how many people actually truly engage in a story. I have theories as to why this discrepancy exists but when I mention those reasons it tends to turn into an unpleasant argument so I will just state that there is a discrepancy and leave it at that

Personally I do not like stories in video games full stop. That said, I do think locking knowledge behind books that can only be gotten from NPC is compelling game play. Although, I personally prefer a 'object oriented' approach to progression, meaning later games items are harder to make because the material to gain them are harder to get. With that said, I do not have an aversion of NPC holding books of knowledge. Stories however is like 3rd person view for me, I am not remotely interested. I will do a story if I have to get something or to have fun loot or to go to a cool location but the story itself I am going to save for movie time. EDIT: To be crystal clear when I say story, I mean the words on the page, the dialouge. I do not mean visting and exploring the story locations or the 'to dos'. I feel like that is important to be clear on.

thanks that is very good because I have four large ponds in my immediate area so this is good to know

I do not think so, I might be wrong on this but my understanding is that fish population is determined by 'chunk' not specifically a body of water. So if you over fish one pond it would affect the other pond if you are in the same chunk which I think is 32x32.

There is about three game ideas I have had for decades that I would love to see someone do. The one below is one of them that is related to your planes idea. A game like Vintage Story but focuses 100% of progress through the ages from effectively outdoor pit toilets to space travel. As a side note that is basically exactly what happened between 1883 to1973 a 100 year span that is considered to have the most technological advancements in human history. I fully understand that would be a huge project to do it in a way where the progress is not to fast and each stage is still highly detailed. I also can see how such detail could make all of our brains hurt (I struggle with Stormworks and late game Stationeeers so yeah)

Regarding Travel, here is what I am doing. I am planning for a very long play run. very long. I currently have two bases (with 2-3 more in the plans). One near spawn that effectively is the main base and another one at 2,000 blocks south (I found an awesome Better Ruins location) which I use for offloading, re up on cooking, boiling water (I have a mod) and I stay there for a few days while I get what I need. Now unless I absolutely need something, what I find at that base I leave at that base and I do not allow myself to bring too many tools to the base. So as an example of an exception is that the base currently is close to the only iron I have found so Iron I can bring back to any base. Now, I plan to build a road not only to this base but eventually all the way to 20,000 blocks where I found a Better Ruins Village which undoubtedly has all the goodies 20,000 blocks has. I am also using the Cartwrights Caravan mod in which I plan to use a cart on my travels to make the road that eventually goes 20k blocks. So along that road there will likely also be small little makeshift bases I made along the way on building. Also, there is another Better Ruins location I plan to build another base along the way to the 20,000 end point. So before end game I plan to have about 4-5 bases. I plan to do most of this without translocators although I might do it in later game. Now a few observations about that. 1.Did I need a story to compel me to do this? no 2. Would a story be required to compel a implemented game mechanic balance that would compel a person to do that without role playing it like I am? no a story would not be required. 3. I would argue that Better Ruins Mod alone builds compelling reasons to travel better than any feature or other mod out there. 4. Just do it. The game does not need to give you permission. Make your own rules RP style. Is my option compelling for to you? I do not know but one can make their own compelling RP reason because the default game play at least for me does not provide compelling reasons to travel because 1. I do not care about the story missions very much and 2. the trading system seems lacking. I can not put my finger on it exactly but trading feels like its more bother than its worth other than to get the money for an Elk. Not to mention, at least until a year ago pretty much 100% of the travel one would be compelled to do is was over by the time they were qualified to get an Elk. So the game is not perfect, balance of that kind is not easy so its not a moral failure to not get it perfect and its ok to RP or adjust settings. In conclusion, for me personally all that is needed for compelling reason to move is an amazing new location to move to because working in the same location for 200 hours can get a bit old. A story is not required. For other people that might not be enough though and I get that. EDIT: Here is a compelling way to encourage travel. For a late game item or build you need a material that only spawns in savanna but you can not carry it by running and your walk speed is reduced greatly because its heavy.

I could not disagree more and I plan to refrain from engaging in explaining why. All I can say is that I feel very confident given my experience with the game playing with others and watching likely hundreds of hours of game play that the story and lore is lower on people list of game play experience priorities by a long shot than what people on the forums seem to think it is. I will refrain anymore from debating over 'how the game is indented to be played because that will always go sideways

I am suggesting it goes much deeper than 'allows you to play as you want' I am suggesting 'play as you want' is a core tenet, fundamental, main pillar, it IS specifically 'exactly how its indented to be played'. Now I am not saying the developer has said that, I am saying the evidence suggests that its likely accurate. In a game where 'making it mod friendly' has been a core pillar for the architecture of the game from the start it begs the question, doesn't the developer intend for you to use mods? EDIT: To be clear if how you personally want to play is the default settings that is of course your personal choice, but those settings do not make them 'correct' becasue there really is no 'correct', its just an option nothing more.

The way to play the game as its indented is to play the game as you like. I do not know if the developers have said that specifically but considering the fact that the game is 1. a Sandbox game if not even the first choice to use an example for describing what a sandbox game is 2. is one of the most if not THE most customizable game ever made. Having said that, although I have only been playing this game for about 1 1/2 years, I am retired and I spend nearly every day either playing or watching videos of people play. I personally know people who play, I have been on public servers and I have watched many different youtube channels covering VS lets play from heavily modded ones, newbie ones, tutorials, live streams etc. In aggregate of all that experience what I can say based on that experience is this, I am confident that the vast majority of people likely do not really care much about the story or lore other than a side note at best. Regarding farming for TP gears during storms, I have personally experienced one time on a public server of people doing that one time in about a month of game play. I have seen about a total of 2 videos of people farming for TP gears during a storm. Now just becasue people are not recording a video of them doing it does not mean they are not doing it, but it does mean they do not see it as compelling content because most people likely do not care about that. It also might be possible that youtube algortim knows I do not care and thus does not show me but on that I doubt it highly that it gets that granular within one game.

the 'indented way to play' is to play how you want to. This obsession in the community to fixate on playing 'how the game should be played' in a game that is 1. a sandbox by definition 2. one of the most customizable games ever made can get exhausting for sure. So on that, here is what I am doing on my playthrough, I am making multiple bases BEFORE any one base is completed on purpose. Not only do I want multiple bases, I do not want to wait until absolute end game so that all I am doing is building bases for no reason. So I am applying my own personal rule set that gets me out in the world making multiple bases. Now, I gotta ask you? How many people have an elk and about 10-20 T gears to waste while going down 20,000 steps to get some Poppy seeds for the alchemy mod in mid game?

As a side note, I feel rather confident that most people do not fight during storms and most people do not do a ton of trading. I feel fairly confident that in a full playthrough the large majority of people do not have a ton of T gears to be throwing around about 10 times while they make a trip to 20,000 blocks and back. I feel fairly confident that most people are base locked near their location and that most people do not have multiple bases. That all said, my current playthrough I am manufacturing my own RP rules for having multiple bases and I use the bedspawn mod and that is all good (some people just creative mode in a teleporter or use translocator relocator mod). I get why people would not want to do that and build just one large base. However I can see why some people would want to have multiple bases in different biomes, with different styles and build a trading route between them and use carts. Its not for everyone clearly but its what I am doing. as another side note: BedSpawn mod has 243,148 downloads while Better Ruins mod has almost a million downloads now. The estimated number of copies of Vintage Story sits around a million as well however to be fair one player likely downloads a specific mod several times over the course of their full ownership so its not unusual to see the that number of Better Ruins mod downloads are about the same as the estimated number of game sells. I guess the point of all that intresting data is that mods are used a lot

I think its safe to say though by the time you have more temporal gears than you need there is not really a compelling reason to have a second base other than just do it. I like the idea of having multiple bases useful in or around mid game. At least speaking for myself, having even 3 temporal gears before I have at least Iron is fairly rare.

yes. however, at least with the better ruins mods the ruins will be different locations and different types. I think that is also true for traders in default game play

I have to mention what I say can cause circular logic for example: 'the way I want to play is how the developer intends the game to be played' which is a perfectly fair position to take however if the game is intended to be played as you wish then...there is a logic circle there. That said, I understand why a person would want to play the game based on how the developer sees the game play. I just think they should not be overly religious about it and understand that is purely a personal decision. Anyway, I digress.

Here is what I think is compelling: A. having a need to create multiple bases Here is what I do not think is compelling and makes the above problmatic. B. not making it easy to set a new spawn point. In my view, B is making A problematic. That said what I do like about this game is that its literally the most flexible game I have ever played regarding settings, mods and going into creative to solve a game play experience one does not agree with. As a side note, the irony is that 'playing the game as its intended to be played' is often an argument on these forums despite the fact that the game goes out of its way to make the game the most flexible game ever (I am likely being unknowingly hyperbolic here) so that the player can play as they wish. In fact, I would go as far as to say 'play as the player wishes' might actually be how the game is indented to be played

My previous 'favorite game ever' is Wurm Online/Unlimited. It has a map but does not tell you where you are. However it works rather well because the vast majority of what you need to build your village can be found fairly locally. Anyway, I find the concept of no map location to be compelling but for me it would not work in Vintage Story because for my current play thru I had to go 10,000 blocks to find lime.

I prefer story locations being very far away. I also prefer with being required to do a task with a trader who is very far away in order to get the map location. As a side note, I am even ok with traveling 3000 blocks to do a trade. I know that might sound like a contradiction to my thread regarding trading but its not. My issue with the trading has less to do with distance and more to do with the store itself now that I have had time to think on it, as an example, passing 3 Clothing Traders that I will never use, to get to a Treasure Trader that I will only ever use for a map who is near other trader types I will never use, never need and I can not sell anything to. However to be fair that complaint is a different subject I just wanted to clarify my historical position as it might seem contradictory here. EDIT: oh and as far as the story goes, speaking personally I have never done it. I usually burn out on a play thru by the time I get all the stuff I really want to get done. The story itself is literally on the bottom of my list so I never get to it. I would rather have more wine than I would ever use than do the story, that said, this time I plan on doing the story but again...last.

It would be helpful in the early/mid game if traders sold more leather or wait, they do not sell leather at all. Anyway, I really should punt for the day (I will try I promise)

I know I said I was going to take a pause but I do want to say a few things I think the travel time as it stands is not unreasonable IF what you can buy and sell is more helpful. I personally do want to build a large village with traders in said village and I am going to do that, however I think the simplest solution to the traders issue is simply expand what there is to buy, that would not involve much programming at all.

I think maybe its time we get back on topic. I have not played Minecraft and that is that, I have said pretty much all there is to say that is directly related to this topic so for now I am done, everyone else enjoy the conversation.