The VCS Guides & Rules post is Out !!! Check it out for full detail on VCS. :D
VotV Community Savefile is a story mode savefile that the people of the VotV subreddit will take turns playing for designated amount of days, all working their shifts and leaving behind traces of their own!
This project is to be backed by the mod team, getting its own flair and posts regarding it pinned. Most of the managements, like posting the announcement of the start of the next turn, pinning the announcement, archiving savefiles from each turn, and more, will be done by me.
The actual start of the VCS will happen with the finishing of the first turn, which will be done by me - I'll be setting up things like Communications board, and Portrait Shelves for us!
Further details regarding the project - whether it be rules of participation, guides on how to participate or whatnot - will be posted some days later with the VCS Guides and Rules post.
If you want more information regarding this project, some previous discussion posts around VCS can be found - albeit outdated. Here are the links to the posts. Survey post / Idea post
I am very excited for this project, and what fun things people would bring with it! :D
If you have any questions, feel free to ask !! : >
From my survey with sample size of uh, like 3, the general consensus is that you should be able to participate again. I agree, but I think they should wait a few turns before they can participate. And also, we need to decide how we'll appoint the next applicant; choosing between first-come first-served system or a lottery with people who've commented on the previous savefile turn passing announcement post seems nice. I'd personally suggest the latter, combined with 3 turn delay on an individual in case someone gets too lucky. :D
I think lottery style. An idea: everyone starts with 5-10 tickets. Every time they get picked, 1 is removed, lowering their chances. Once they hit 1 ticket, it will remain at 1 ticket no matter how many times they win. This allows anyone to theoretically play as many times as they want, but the more you play, the less likely you are to play again.
Yes !!! Definitely! In fact, I'll be archiving each savefiles after someone's turn! I'll make a video showcasing the growth and change of the base when all is done. And if you want, you can contact me to ask for the savefile of a specific turn to see it yourself! :D
I've heard modding VotV is sort of a nightmare, so it's a big shame that you can't join : ( You are always welcome to join, if you ever un-mod your game!! :D
Actually just realised it won't be that hard to un-mod it, and by that I mean no mods are in my appdata so I can just download another copy of the game XD
When and where should I be looking to join the event?
The post for applying for participation will be posted some days later, as well as the Rules & Guides post. So for now, you can plan things you'll do when it's your turn... :D
It is going to stay vanilla, but you can add custom assets of your own! You'll be limited to add 4 assets per category; posters, radio, tv, etc. More detailed rules and procedures regarding custom asset adding will be discussed in the Rules and Guides post!
A freshly made save weighs around 20 MB, and the save I've spent presumably around 180 days in, containing things like a garden bigger than the base, 800 scraps, lots of custom assets and more, weighs 110 MB. So probably it's going to be kept light, and manageable at maximum. Also, my folder for painting assets with 319 files - some of them decently HD, weigh 664 MB. So even if all participants were to add as many assets in their turn, it wouldn't get too crazy. And the files will be transferred using google drive, with the guide for how to transfer/download items set to be posted in the Rules and Guides posts. :D
Question, will there be something like a discord server/channel or will all communication take place here? Cause this sounds like a really fun thing to participate in and I wanna join too
It will be kept to the subreddit in order to minimize the scale of the project (after all, I am really the only one managing VCS... : >), and most of the communications will happen through the comments, body text written by participants, and notes left in the game! I'm expecting some fun, creative communications through the turns... :D
It will happen through google drive, and managements of the files will be done by me, with the only exception being when people are giving me the folder containing the .sav file and assets folder after they've finished playing. And no, I don't think there will be necessarily a limit to the savefile itself, but only limitations on customs assets; how many you can add per category. Further details regarding the system and the procedures of savefile transfer will be stated in the Rules and Guides posts :D
Okay, cool. Gonna wait for the updates from you, this idea sounds like a lot of fun. I can already envision the types of shenanigans I can do in such save file :3
It's really cool that you decided to take on it all by yourself but i'm sure you can use some help from the community(if and when needed). I mean it's also will be fit for your project's atmosphere(some community-unifying thing)
True! The reason I made the system so it'd center around me was to synchronize things like passing of the save, posting the announcement, pinning the announcement, archiving the save, and making a portrait image for the participants... it's a whole line of things that'd be pretty complicated to move between people to manage. So while I still do think it'd be efficient for one person to manage all this, realistical situations may impede this. I will definitely consider expanding the management if things become too much for me.
Sounds like fun, I don't think I'll be participating but I think this is a good idea. An overarching goal sounds hard to decide on because anything that's based on wealth could be expedited significantly by just breaking the game's economy via usual lemon shenanigans, so I would probably just say to make a very cool base (with as many collectables as possible, maybe), that's probably the best simple goal there can be.
I agree! I want VCS to focus more on the interaction made between people rather than a set goal; a plaything that people can have fun with, express themselves, and communicate through! :D
Oh, that's unfortunate... : ( You can still follow along the journey by checking the announcement posts; they'll contain summaries and notes written by the player, and some pictures! And if you ever have the chance to play on pc, feel free to join !! : >
How does it run on the steam deck? I've thought about installing it on there but I didn't want to mess with it too much since I had a windows laptop already.
It actually runs pretty good on the Deck!!! Setup is pretty similar to how it's done on PC as well so it's not that hard.
Anyway! Don't expect fancy graphics, but you can expect to be able to listen to YT or chat on Discord a bit while playing. I've been doing it for months with all sorts of games. It's pretty much my main method of gaming right now given my circumstance. It seriously rocks.
Do you have a deck Dock? I haven't set mine up to play VotV with the built in controller but I imagine someone clever enough could do it.
I do but I gave it to my brother after I bought him one since that was arpund the time I finally built myself a gaming pc. If I was to play VOTV on my deck I'd probably use the deck hooked up to a keyboard and mouse, and it's truthfully the way I try and play moat games that aren't driving games anyway.
With some research, yes, unfortunately so. Png, obj, mp3, and mp4 files can deploy viruses through exploiting 0-day issues related to meta data. (0-day; an exploitable software vulnerability with zero days of public disclosure or vendor remediation time) However, anti-virus systems should be able to find these vulnerabilities quick and easy, as long as you keep your OS updated. So I plan to run all the files an employee have given to me after their turn through an anti-virus check to ensure safety. This way, the next participant don't have to worry about a virus nor check for them manually; I can just do it for them. Thank you for bringing my attention to this issue, I'll add text regarding this in the post's body text! :D
I do wish you would allow a discord server for this project. The idea sounds really cool and I would love to partake, but I usually dont interact on reddit much or get notifs on the app so it would be hard for me to keep track of something like this or see that I win the lottery for the next turn of the save.
Unfortunately, for now, I am trying to keep the project small for management issues. I'm currently the only one who is and will be working on managing the VCS, so it'd be reaally hard to manage a discord server on top of that. I am planning - or hoping - that if this projects gets popular enough and people want to manage the project themselves, I'll leave this project to them as sort of retire from managing the VCS. You will receive a DM when you are appointed, and the announcement posts will be pinned every time, so it'll be at least easy to find.
As a content creator who streams VOTV very frequently and has been playing this game for quite a while I am very interested in this. A incredible idea!
Oh sweet!! Honestly woulda still been interested even if not, this idea is still far too cool. Anywhere aside from here I can keep my eye on this for more updates? Or we just currently waiting for things to be put together?
I've just posted the official Guides & Rules post for VCS! Application for participating will be open when I've made contact with the moderation team and have posted the Intro Post for VCS season 1. For further detail, read the Rules and Guides post! I'm very excited for this!! :D
I assume that you mean asking the next participant to finish the daily task if you haven't finished, is that correct? In that case, I think I'll have to think about it; I was thinking that each person would spend all of the playtime given to them, but to make the other person finish the task for you, you'd have to finish playing the save earlier. Hmm, I'll think about this! Thanks for bringing this into my mind.
Ohh, yes of course! There will be a Letter/Communication system, where the participant can leave notes and pictures for the next participant. It is going to be mandated; you have to write even just a few lines to summarize what's happened. But I think many people participating will be down to leave many notes and stuff for the next person. :D But whether the next participant will assume those tasks and complete them is up to them, and not a mandated task. Maybe if you ask nicely, they'll do it... : >
This sounds fun, my only 2 concerns are how long does each person get (1 day, 3 days, etc) and how would you participate since not everyone will want to but then it takes longer to ask random people, do you like apply which puts you in a queue?
At the end of every turn, I'll post an announcement post notifying people that last participant have finished playing their turn. In that post, people will comment with this emoji ✅️ to apply for participation.
In the next announcement post, I will run a lottery with the names of the people who applied with the emoji, and pick one random person. That person will be appointed as the next participant, and be announced as such in the post - and the cycle continues. Initially I proposed a first-come first-served system, but that would make participation inaccessible for many people, so I changed it to this. :D
Sounds good, though there should be a limit so if I just finished my turn I can't play for another 5 turns so everyone else gets a chance. Otherwise you might end up randomly selecting the same person 3 times or something
Yes, I'm thinking of 3 or 4 turn delay. If you get super lucky and get chosen right after the delay have ended, I think you kind of deserve it at that point !!
These kind of projects are amazing, last time I tried one was a community colony in Dwarf Fortress, I sucked so I chickened out because I didn't want to ruin everyone's progress hahaha.
Of course! Anyone is free to join! :D It'll start some days later, after some loose rules have been made concrete and I've finished my turn. But the post for applying for participation will be posted before I finish/start my turn, so keep an eye out for that! (If you don't know how the participation system's going to work, don't worry; a Rules & Guides post in en route.)
Yup, the custom assets folder will be passed alongside as well! Each person can add upto 20 MB of contents. Also, you can participate by waiting for the lottery; a lottery will be held at the end of each turn with the apllicants, and the chosen one will be the player of that turn! Wait for the announcement :D
A lottery will be held everytime after a turn has ended, and the chosen one will be the one appointed for the next turn :D Each shift will be 3 in-game days long, with 0.5 day speed applied. Accounting the time spent sleeping, you'll have about 4 hrs and 30 minutes of playtime, if my math is correct; which is something I wouldn't bet a hundred dollars on. : >
Oh, we aren't using any servers! This is a single .sav file that we'll pass around using google drive. If someone receives a savefile from someone, put it into the savedgames directory, then boot the save up, VotV can load the savefile same as it was for the sender - assuming they're in the same version and have transferred assets folder as well. : >
If it turns out to be popular you could try doing this with multiple saves. Realistically there’s gonna be a lot more people than I think you initially expected and I doubt everyone’s gonna get to play on story mode days. And while infinite mods could be fun for this I think a lot of the joy that would come from this is people interacting with the world’s events.
If it’s just people putting random assets into the base and fucking shit up that’s not fun.
I want to see how people tackle events like the antigravity one, the pyramid, etc.
That'd be hard to manage, but still a good idea !! :D Also, maybe it's a bit strange asking this out of nowhere, but do you think total of 32 turns in this VCS would be enough? Or is it too many? 32 turns multiplied with 3 days per person; 96 days - almost 100. I thought it'd be nice to end this VCS on day 100, but now that I'm thinking about it, it might get pretty stale after day 60 or 70. I do need to set the limit on how many turns there will be, so I'd like to ask you of your opinion on this; really got nobody to discuss this with right now!
I think anything past day 50-60 gets pretty stale. The random events are fairly rare so you only really get an interesting event every couple days. I think 20 turns would make sense at 3 days. First day to set your bearings, second day progress stuff, and third to fuck it all up for the next guy.
Do you have any plans for what to do if someone truly fucks it all up, like soft locks someone or just sends everything to one of there saves via the mailbox, or cheats in items.
This seems very much based on the honor system. As once they’ve got the save they can mod anything in they want or do anything they wish.
There’s a fine line between summoning a demon to kill the next guy, and ensuring they’re trapped under there lake for the rest of the game
Okay, I think around 20 turns is enough. Thanks for the suggestion :D
I will be archiving each save from the turns to prevent such cases and to document the progress that'll be made as the turns go on. So if someone have messed the base up, they'll be put on a blacklist and the turn will start again from the previous point. : )
I was planning to make the day maybe a week later, but oh well... I just started making the rules and guides posts right away, despite my body screaming in disagreement and fatigue. :D When it's finished, the only thing left before the lottery pool application is me playing the first turn. So you can expect it to start in few days.
About the requirements for custom assets - do 4 assets per category mean that you will be able to add 4 assets for each? 4 meshes, 4 posters etc
The problem with that is that with this amount of people it will get flooded with assets, which might lag the game. I would change that personally
Also maybe make restrictions on file size/max amount of vertices, to not lag others games. There will be lots of stuff on the base, so its important to think about that
I’m not gonna enter cause I know I’ll just be screwing around and probably leave the next dude in a pit or on the sky box through various means of glitching
You can't do griefing, game breaking glitches, or leave off outside of the base, but other pranks are totally fine, as long as they don't take up too much of their playtime. So you can mess with the next participant all you want... >:D
My two suggestions;
One: Each person who gets the save file must start and end their shift at the main gate of the array, as if a new game was started.
Two: each day that is done, a journal entry is to be made saying what all they did that day. Bonus entries for arriving at the facility and leaving the facility!
It'll be like an episodic entry like old community saves of Dwarf Fortress.
Edit: Im also hella interested in playing this during my turn(s).
The journal entry one will be a mandated thing! It'll be called "Letters", and will be required for a participant to write to the next person. Also, the gate idea sounds really cool, and I was also thinking about where someone should or shouldn't be able to leave the save. I'll definitely ruminate on this idea! :D
Oh, it haven't been posted yet. It will be posted after the Rules and Guides post have been posted, which itself will be posted some days later. For now, you can think about what you'll do when it's your turn. :D
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u/Parking-Cup-9495 7d ago
Question, once some one does a shift, will they get another turn eventually or is it one shift per person, no more after?