Zaph42nd

Think that's not a bad response but I'm a little unsure if whitelisting will be an effective solution to curb griefing, claims-system will probably need some overhauls and appeals to get added to whitelist I imagine will be a lot of work, especially for those of us who aren't on Discord (and therefore require more searching to cross-reference)... Regarding refunding, a bit of a precedent being set here with this, not sure if I'm overly for it since it means you could refund over non-game related issues (which I feel somewhat goes against how refunds have worked historically) but I suppose it's to appease the masses. Wholeheartedly agree, my issue with the malware accusations and firing is that it seeks mainly to just be divisive, I feel like we've already established what the issue is and Anego is working on it but no one solution will satisfy everyone. Also too, there's a narrative not being told here and a lot of people probably calling for these things aren't seeing, it's compliance with fair hiring/firing and contract law, that's probably being glazed over in a lot of these responses. At the end of the day though, I think it's important to know that this ultimately doesn't shape the game in its current state nor its development visions, it's a side effect of growth in popularity and development scaling up but will eventually come to pass...

Not against an open-source anti-cheat but feel like it'll run into the same problems seen elsewhere which is that hacked clients will evolve (that means codebase would need to also evolve constantly and require consistent updates), whitelisting seems like the more straightforward approach for smaller servers, larger servers blacklisting + checks for specific flags on a player's game state (ping, survival/creative mode, active claims/activities in claimed spaces, etc...) could work nicely... However I'm not sure how game-state checks would work in some situations, especially in a modded environment

Rivers + Watersheds is my recommendation, pairs well with some other world-gen mods (world of fortune is my current favorite, some love conquest and terra pretty but never loved them myself) since vanilla world-gen doesn't necessarily play nicely with either (that's to say, rivers feel a little too narrow and short). I'd also recommend dialing in river's config, you can easily disable rapids (which I do) and adjust width/length, but super wide rivers still open the door to some weird world-gen interactions (watersheds also can do that too if you put its values too high). Rivergen can work too (adjusting config settings for width and length) but I find it doesn't play nicely with world-gen mods or watersheds

Agreed, I think Vintage Story already has at least something resembling an end-game, that's when you've got efficient steelmaking and have your tools maxed out in my opinion; however, I've only ever reached that point a few times. Story content also is a good end-game marker, once you've beaten all the current story-content you'd not really need to do more than play at your leisure or continuously expand/build till satisfied. To me that's not really a worry but I also find myself enjoying Vintage Story more for its early-game than its late-game, homesteading is fun but gets tedious in a singleplayer world (maybe less for other people but you'd need to make your own fun at a certain point) whereas early-game forces you to move around and work to survive which I feel is a strong pull for the game

More ways to produce leather in the early-game, the tannin method I think should be kept in but I feel like hides are just underutilized and leather is overly expensive until the copper-age. I'd also like to see some more ruins or smaller structures, maybe rubble and broken roads could add a little more flavor to the game....

Similar sentiments, I think the drama is very much being milked by some bad actors (blowing the whole thing way out of proportion) for attention or just to vent, some of it I admit is justified (because yes, your mods should do what they say on the tin, fighting an unbeatable problem like cheating is very much not on the tin) but a measured response (like the one we got) is appropriate and fair for this situation I believe. A lot of games go through these sort of ebbs and flows of drama, like I've probably mentioned in the past, very similar thing happened in Starsector's community a few years back. Ultimately though, none of this changes my desire to play or enjoy the game, my modded setup never even used ConfigLib and even if it did, would I have noticed? The answer is probably no

Ditto, the expense I think is less an issue in servers, more an issue in single-player, quarrying mods help a lot but I don't love the idea of requiring stone roads, sodded or sandy roads I think are also a potential option, would be neat to see implementation with desire-paths (e.g. the paths you walk the most eventually become hardened soil which might slightly increase the effectiveness of carts and mounts) but that'd probably be code-intensive I think? Regarding elk-physics, I think that each mount may potentially have slightly different physics, it'd make a lot of sense if tied with generational breeding such that you'd eventually breed horses, elks, camels, etc... spec'd for speed, carrying/cargo, etc... but as it stands currently elks are less than ideal for long-distance travel and especially traveling more hilly/mountainous terrain

Late to this but the answer is both, both is good. From the little of Hytale I have seen, it is a very-different game sharing maybe at most surface-level similarities; however what I find somewhat interesting is seems Hytale under its current model of development is not too dissimilar to Vintage Story's development, albeit I think Hytale has a bigger team. Same goes for approach to modding too, similarly open to and encourage modding by design. On a gameplay side, Hytale seems more about building, mini games, and adventuring whereas Vintage Story seems more about homesteading and getting yourself established before doing some questing (albeit questing is still very much not the focus of Vintage Story nor is building necessarily) and building. So aside from potentially similar development cycles and approaches, I think it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges, most block-games I think are like that however

Also forgot to add it (and doesn't really make sense to edit in), I also recommend the malefactor class for this kind of challenge, you can sneak around slightly better and seeing as berry bushes and foraging make up a decent chunk of your diet, getting more drops from vessels doesn't hurt either. I've tried with hunter before which is fun, but the crude bow and flint arrows require a little extra time to get your supplies stockpiled to make it work compared to slings which just require stones after crafting (both of course suffer from reduced melee damage so best not fight bears or wolves unless you know you'll kill them)

Ditto to nomadism in the stone-age, I think it actually fits well into the general goals of the game, just sometimes makes me wish we had more transit options before getting copper-tools aside from rafts (I'd like wild/partially untamed mounts, although can see that not happening). As for staying alive, migrating south in the winters helps me a lot, traders for some tools too that would otherwise require smithing, and hunting is my main food source in stone-age. Builds wise, I'm privy to building into caves if I can or otherwise setting up basic log-cabins. Mods wise, I really like most of Salty's mods (immersive mining, bird's eye, etc...), Cartwright Caravan (recentish addition to my mods list), Shipwright (reed boats feel like a nice addition to rafts), and also like Frontier's Map and Wander's Sketchbook (both work nicely if you disable maps), optionally consider adding a rivers mod of your choice (I use Rivers, River Gen and Watersheds are also great options) since that adds more ways of traveling around

Love the idea since at the moment paths are really only good at increasing your groundspeed marginally, most players I don't think bother really building elaborate roads unless they are in a multiplayer game (or play without a map or simply have infrastructure as a world-goal). Makes me curious too if we could see very dilapidated/destroyed roads near some important story structures later down the line, it'd act as nice set-dressing and motivate players to consider building roads too

Been thinking about it, but with VS introducing new mounts in a future update, I'm also wondering if we might see carts and carriages get introduced as well? Currently the best way to transfer lots of items (or players) across the map in one trip is elk + boat, though that first requires logistics networks (waterways) to exist which is already a pretty massive task... Cartwright's Caravan (https://mods.vintagestory.at/cartwrightscaravan) I think is a good start, but mount-pulled carts, plows, etc... I think would be very fitting

The whole situation is unfortunate but I think a sign of growing pains, eventually every community and game will encounter this issue as it's just part of what moddable games bring imo.... Now the issue is I think that both parties, community and Anego Studios, were not equipped to handle the situation and that caused more controversy than it should've (I think community response was overly harsh (specifically dev in question is contracted out, not contributing directly to the game. That presents its own challenges I'd imagine) but it was reactionary to an equally reactionary moderation team who wasn't equipped to handle the situation). As to the response, I think it's measured since vanilla code isn't being impacted and mods aren't getting integrated into the game, but I do agree at least to some degree this should spark some changes to how Vintage Story ModDB is handled, more moderation and oversight couldn't hurt. You know it reminds me in a lot of ways of the situation that happened a few years ago with Starsector, very similar issue happened in that community but they did eventually make a recovery (albeit some bad-blood still exists for players but that's always going to be the case)

Bulk tannin production is the way to go for mass-producing leather, not really any easy-ways to produce till you've got a bunch of barrels crafted. I'll also echo others and say ancient tools is worthwhile for leather making, especially fits in well for mid-game leather making...

Morrowind for me, especially after discovering Tamriel Rebuilt, mainly because while it may be dated, very easy to get immersed into and feels unique even today among fantasy RPG games. I'd also argue Gothic and Gothic 2, although more so for their gameplay as the world didn't really sell me nearly as well

Honestly most flowers I think at the moment are just for aesthetics and foliage diversity, can see some form of alchemy or an expansion to the healing system since already some herbs/flowers get used for poultices... Would be very neat too if flowers got more uses for dye-making too

Elks are just more aesthetically unique I think, also probably was more straightforward to implement and test mount/riding mechanics on an already-existing creature rather than make a new one. I still think elks will have some appeal even with horses being added soon, maybe more specialized roles for each mount soon?

Even with boxy designs I find chiseling can go a very long-way in improving the aesthetics of builds, same goes for support beams... Generally what I do for boxy homes is smooth out the corners, add some flare-outs to the roofing (VS Roofing mod helps a lot), add internal support pillars, and chisel framings for any windows, that works well when you are modifying a rough shape/frame. Sketching out your builds also works well, dimensions also don't need to be geometrically perfect, I'd argue some roughness adds a bit of charm but some would disagree on that

As far as story-content yes, as far as monster behaviors and damage, no. I know a lot of people, myself included, tend to turn off or reduce temporal storms or otherwise modify rust monster spawns since Vintage Story's homesteading elements seem more engaging and thought out as it stands now (combat and monster AI will need an overhaul to make temporal storms and temporal activity more fun to engage with imo). In the future, I think the story could play more into the otherworldly elements of the rust monsters and temporal system, but it feels more appropriate as story content rather than just mechanic changes alone.... Thunder lord I think is a good implementation of the sort of otherworldly/slightly creepy elements of the world and I'd be curious to see more of that or at least subtle soundscape changes or just minor background creatures watching you would be pretty neat and mechanically wouldn't change much

Grain probably given that corn's historical (and modern) usage, although I'm not sure how it'd fit into the crops of VS since corn is a new-world crop (Americas) and would probably end up saturating the already pretty large list of grains. I do see its usage for alcohol-making and of course for breads, stews, etc...

Calculator is good while you are still new to the game, though I think the longer you play it becomes an intuitive decision as to what alloys you can feasibly make based on your stockpiles. I'm not, however, against some manual counting tool since it could also extend to other mechanics where you'd need a good #s count (off the top of my head, meals are one where a little math can help you get balanced diets faster)

Yep, setting free mouse makes knapping a lot less annoying, same goes for clay-forming (super tedious without free mouse). One tip too is if your mouse has a mouse 4/mouse 5 button, consider remapping either to alt as well (just to make it even less tedious)

Yeah tedium in multiplayer is definitely part of the fun since everyone's starving for the first day or two (and of course with new players, it's figuring out how to play), even in singleplayer there's some fun in the stone-age (stone-age feels like the ideal time to adopt a more nomadic playstyle actually or begin the search for where you'll eventually settle-in) once you get around the basic gameplay quirks (it took me a while to get decently fast at knapping).

I think the issue is to do with perspective and approach, Vintage Story first and foremost is a survival game with semi-realistic elements (or better said, grounded elements). The sandbox part of the game while present, isn't the first thing to jump to, I'd argue the creative experience starts once you've gotten past the stone-age and decently into the copper-age (by then you'll have access to chisels, ladders, planks, etc...)

Not totally against it, but I think falls more into modded territory or as a story dungeon reward for the post-steel age, gliders are a novelty first and foremost with Vintage Story since elks and boats serve as the main decently fast travel-tools for most of the game (and I suspect that is by design to encourage you to look around and slow down). I think I've only ever used the glider once, it's not bad for getting down mountains or hills in a pinch but rarely seems worth it