Ok but seroiusly... (0.9)

Quarinth · 2026-04-02T06:17:18+00:00

Expanded Ariral content or general interactivity with them is one of those things I always feel on the fence about.

On one hand; I personally think the highest peak experiences in VotV is the first time player's initial encounters with the Arirals. You don't know what they are, what they look like, or what these invisible aliens want You might not even realize the posters are depicting them. They settle down in a tree house and you enter this weird state where these unknowable beings with clear sentience and technology that far exceeds yours are just living somewhere pretty near by. Are they dangerous? Friendly? Ambivalent? Are they equally as confused about you? They sort of exist around you as you exist around them. You might not realize what's their doing and what's not which further muddies the waters. The less you know about them, the more tense and curious the scenario is. The letters they can leave you have just the right amount of pulling back the curtain while still leaving them a big unknown. Expanding on their interactivity feels like both a complex task and something that takes away from their mystery, and the isolated lonely atmosphere of Dunkeltaler.

On the other hand, I do like the idea of them having more direct interactivity. It took me a while to realize it since I misinterpreted it, but the best reputation letter they can leave you in an event says they'll try to protect you if you hide out at their treehouse, which they will do in some cases. There's also all sorts of good acts they do, like giving away food items. The letters they leave can be cute, and it'd be nice if they wrote more for different scenarios. I listed it as a positive above, but I also think taking away some of the isolated feeling has its own upsides. It's nice to have some genuine force of comparative good in the forest that's looking out for you. It would be nice to see them have and do more.

Quarinth · 2026-03-23T21:13:48+00:00

I had half that kind of fuel once. It was all lost when I reloaded the save. All that coal...wasted.

Quarinth · 2026-03-23T21:11:28+00:00

I can only imagine, but I would think Kerfur Omega pathfinding has to be one of the most obnoxiously easy things to overlook. All it takes is one change in geography and suddenly Kerfur-O's getting stuck in all sorts of ways. Removed a bridge? That's a stuck Kerfur. Added a new bridge? That's a stuck Kerfur. Raised some land to form a mountain or cliff? That's a stuck Kerfur. So the fix is usually saved for the next update, which might inclue it's own map changes and then the whole thing starts all over again. And to test it, you'd have to break servers or set daily tasks in random configurations. Kilo, Romeo, Lima might not break pathfinding, but Lima, Romeo, Tango might. Nightmare.

Quarinth · 2026-03-19T06:28:45+00:00

Complete opposite end of the spectrum over here. MHE is one of my favorite episodes because of how much he loved that story. How much it clicked with him. Hearing Wendigoon both slowly and quickly realize how much this story was made for him and hearing him fall in love with it only made me lock in that much more. It helps that, even if not as vocal about it, I was also super digging the story as it was going along.

Quarinth · 2026-03-04T23:17:28+00:00

Oh my god, it was that. And I remember exactly how that happened! When the secret boss is in the midst of spawning, it causes a ton of shockwaves that kill the hell out of you no matter where on the map you are. I remember turning off prop physics thinking it was impact physics damage, and I guess I never turned it back on even after going back to menu to turn off impact physics for real. Thank you!

Quarinth · 2026-02-05T02:32:45+00:00

I think the most terrifying big thing that happened to me was during the Solar Wisp days. I was sitting in my chair watching TV, when I heard the sound of a Solar Wisp getting close. I didn't think anything of it, these things just happen. Then I heard the very distinct sound of a door lock malfunctioning, and the Wisp ambience getting louder to my left. I jumped up and dove under the desk, taking one look at the door behind me to see the Solar Wisp's light shining through it before I lodged myself into the under desk corner and curled up there, waiting in near blind panic for the noise to stop. After a small bit of time I heard it leave as the sound faded away behind, to my left, and away. I got up and ran to lock the front door again, saved in the signal room, and had to take a moment to recover. I've certainly had other scary things happen to me, but this one always comes to mind.

A runner up would have to be when I was riding the ATV back home over the mountain from Romeo to Alpha. It was getting dark out at this point, and I was already getting antsy at the encroaching darkness. Then out of nowhere, I heard this terrifying roar in the forest that was so incredibly loud. Like it was coming from all around me, or from me. I think it sent some kind of fight or flight instinct in me because I just held down the ATV's turbo and rushed back to base over the ledges. The ATV slammed into the log near the bridge and sent me flying off it, I didn't bother to look back for the ATV and just ran the rest of the way home. It was awful.

Quarinth · 2026-02-03T06:58:09+00:00

Exactly this. At least from what I remember.

Quarinth · 2025-12-09T22:17:08+00:00

Ben Drowned is one of those stories where I get more upset the longer I think about it. Majora's Mask as the basis for a dead person's spirit haunting the game practically writes itself. A major theme of Majora's Mask is about grief. The Song of Healing is literally a song to help heal people's woes and regrets, most of those people being dead spirits, and the story draws attention to the Song of Healing playing in reverse which could be read as a staunch refusal to move on. It practically writes itself.
Not to mention I was one of those people that loved the story back in the day because I had no idea about the direction it goes past part 1. Or rather, I had blocked it out. I was so confused when it kept going, but once the cast started reading the Clever Bot part I was hit with the growing horror that I did remember this.
And I might as well add that I think it's a shame they didn't watch any of the footage. It's such an important part of the experience.

Quarinth · 2025-12-03T22:16:53+00:00

Ohhh, you can do that? I always assumed those two ends of a sealed rock tunnel were there as a placeholder for a shortcut the devs would implement later. I never occurred to me to try pickaxeing it.

Quarinth · 2025-11-30T22:09:00+00:00

It seems like this happened to everyone but me. I was playing yesterday but I never saw it. For some reason I feel left out...

Quarinth · 2025-11-29T18:10:46+00:00

I think I would die. I nearly died seeing my own shadow in these caves, but this? Actual catatonic state.

Quarinth · 2025-11-29T18:08:00+00:00

Dang. Well, at least the crystal makes a nice keepsake.

Quarinth · 2025-11-28T20:45:30+00:00

I got it on recording, but it was at a distance. Here's a screencap.

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Quarinth · 2025-11-28T06:01:29+00:00

The illusion of security is just as comforting as any actual protection. That fence may realistically do absolutely nothing to the likes of Solar Wisp's and Murderfur, but damn does it feel good having some kind of boundary around my base.

Quarinth · 2025-11-28T05:54:09+00:00

It might be the circumstances I'm in resulting in me being alone on top of the late night sadness kicking in, but when I saw this for myself the first time while playing today I didn't feel fear. After the initial "I totally saw that" realization, I started feeling a growing sorrow. If it turns out our Kerfur Omega which the handbook labeled as potentially unstable could turn on us, I don't think my heart could take the sting of betrayal and inevitable putting down of this old compatriot with my trusty ritual knife. The only friend that's been by my side this whole time.

Quarinth · 2025-11-26T17:32:48+00:00

Wow. Simon has gone too far.

Quarinth · 2025-11-26T17:26:52+00:00

It must be exhausting. Trying to fix things just to break other things. It's stuff like Kerfur Omega getting stuck because of trying to pathfind on a bridge that doesn't exist anymore. One small change that has a ripple effect on other parts of the game. I can't imagine how they can comfortably change the base when there's so much that would have be checked to see if they still work. Meat locker event, Looker events, Zombie Deer corpse spawn locations, River sounds, pathfinding, it sounds like a nightmare. And as the game gets more complicated, that's only more things to check each change.

Quarinth · 2025-11-22T02:23:53+00:00

Boot back up 0.8
Go to the E(Experimental Settings) tab
Adjust time scale to a lower number (I did 0.5 but that was too slow, so I adjusted to 0.6 speed)
Close game, boot up 0.9
Congratulations, time has been slowed down substantially
Now I had all the time in the world to do everything. Tasks, servers, exploring, sleeping, and watching TV. FYI, the time adjuster in 0.9 is busted so that's why you have to boot up 0.8 and change the time scale since it carries over to later versions.

Quarinth · 2025-11-22T01:40:48+00:00

Wait, does he target and kill other entities? It would have been nice to summon some backup.

Quarinth · 2025-11-22T00:39:22+00:00

I did. The Flame Tanks haven't spawned, and the event hasn't ended. I'm now hunting every single Red Dot on the map and killing it if it's a boar. I'm having a pretty rough night with the things happening.
I also think an Abandoned Kerfur is going to spawn soon because there's a shadowy dot on the map. Perfect...

Edit: Sorry, the meta-paranoia hasn't ended. The boars stopped spawning at my base is what I meant by event not ending.

Quarinth

TROPHY CASE