Don't Starve Together Info from Reddit (Unofficial but Convincing)

[Quady14]

So I don't know how much of this is legitimate, but a reddit user by the name of eryahu has posted some relevant observations from his time demoing DST's Pax Prime build. Again, this is unconfirmed and he didn't post any sort of pictures or video to back up his claims, but it sounds somewhat legitimate to me, hadn't seen it anywhere on the forums so I wanted to share the news since I've been checking back and forth on both the Don't Starve subreddit and the forums here, and this is the most information I've seen posted recently. A lot of it is familiar to us here on the forums already, but there are some interesting potential confirmations of certain strange topics which have been discussed at length here on the forums involving people... And food... And people-food.

 

SOURCE: eryahu's Pax DST info and impressions, Part 1

 

To summarize:

 

- The first release of DST will be purely vanilla gameplay, Reign of Giants will be implemented as development continues through the alpha phases.

 

- The version eryahu played had access to Wilson, WX-78 and Wigfrid (an RoG character, so maybe we'll get Wigfrid and Webber for DST from the start, minus the other content added by RoG?)

 

- The ghosts had custom sprites, known information as we've seen from this: Don't Starve Together Unique Ghost Concept Sketches

 

- Most significantly, cannibalism is a thing, "When characters die they drop one (insert flesh type name I forgot here) so you can eat the people you kill. The flesh stuff that I forgot the name of currently has a monster meat sprite. I didn't get a chance to cook it, but raw takes a huge chunk of sanity. I'd like too say 40 sanity, but take that with a grain of salt. But cannibalism is a thing, awesome."

 

- Mention of the Telltale Heart resurrection item, players in the demo begin with this item, though this was probably for sake of the demo, and it will likely have to be crafted in the final release. Also interesting to note is that when you use it on a ghost player, it supposedly goes into the resurrected player's inventory. Would this indicate it's reusable? Going off of that question...

 

- "You can kill someone, revive them with the heart and kill them again and pick the heart up and repeat that process for unlimited cannibalism meat."

This sounds a little too abuse-friendly. Chances are it's going to be tweaked significantly before alpha release, and it was left like this to more easily showcase the effect. Maybe the Telltale Heart should have a cooldown time before it can be used again, like Abigail's Flower?

 

- Another tidbit previously confirmed here on the forums: There is still permadeath, if you run out of life energy/spirit power (I forget the exact name for ghost hunger and ghost health) you will be completely dead, and will have to choose a new character, or something to that effect. This is probably subject to change, but as of the most recent info we've been given that's the current way things will be working.

 

 

That's all the info eryahu had for now, but he also stated the following:

 

"There is a don't starve together tournament on sunday about who can survive the longest that I will be participating in. I will have more specifics about the mechanics and any balance changes then. Ask any questions and I'll do my best to answer or i'll ask the developers.

Look for Part 2, sunday night."

 

So hopefully tonight we'll have some new information available for DST! Again, I can't be 100% sure this guy is legitimate, but I don't see any reason he would lie, even if cannibalism being confirmed just sounds weird to me personally. There was however plenty of talk about why it would be a cool feature here on the forums, and the guys over at Klei must have been listening closely! I'll post another update here as soon as eryahu comes out with Part 2 of his info and impressions on DST. Hope this is new info to you guys, I checked the last couple day's worth of topics and hadn't seen this mentioned anywhere, so I wanted to share it with everybody just to let you know that there are some minor developments happening in the community.

[PigRider]

Oh nice, thank you for this information, looking foward for the update

[Monkey_BBZ]

Everything about this seems like he's just trying to get upvotes on Reddit, but none of the stuff he says sounds like a lie at all or has been confirmed by the devs (except the whole dealio with Wigfrid being in Vanilla).

[the truthseeker]

Wow!

 

So cannibalism is a thing? then glad I have Wigfrid! Curse you Klei Crack peddlers Bless you Klei Developers for this combat fun character that you made!

 

 

 

[J20hawkz]

@TheKingofSquirrels so my friend we are getting cannibalism then

[The Letter W]

I'm guessing the character selection is so that there's a wide variety of characters in the demo and the different playstyles, particularly how they'll work either together or against each other. 

I do like the idea of cannibalism damaging sanity though. I mean, you just ATE ANOTHER PERSON. THAT IS NOT GOING TO LEAVE YOU SANE IN THE MEMBRANE. 

[J20hawkz]

I wonder if that new type of player meat can be used to craft a new type of meat effigy?

[Maximum124]

Ah...cannibalism.....im not....quite as hype anymore... just sorta....sick and depressed........

[bdiz4shiz]

super sad RoG is not compatible, i hope it is at some point, and not like a whole year from now.

 

But the rest sounds awesome!

super sad RoG is not compatible, i hope it is at some point, and not like a whole year from now.

 

But the rest sounds awesome!

[RalphKastro]

Yay, now I can finally be sure I can eat all my friends. 

 

- Another tidbit previously confirmed here on the forums: There is still permadeath, if you run out of life energy/spirit power (I forget the exact name for ghost hunger and ghost health) you will be completely dead, and will have to choose a new character, or something to that effect. This is probably subject to change, but as of the most recent info we've been given that's the current way things will be working.

 

well, this thing has been worrying and puzzling me since a it was mentioned in a Fireside Chat. What exactly do you guys mean when you say "there's permadeath" and then afterwards say "you will have to choose a new character"?
In my way of seeing things, when you die in a permadeath world and you die as a ghost, it's over. You lost. You're never entering that world again. But I don't really understand how it is perma-death, if you can just choose another character and just lose your map and other stuff.

Edit:Whoops, that was some weird stuff happening here...

[Pyromailmann]

Most of this sounds like he just wants upvotes on Reddit. I'd downvote it. Honestly, Seth was most likely trolling us with the Telltale Heart and Potato Cup. Cannibalism sounds like it's going to ruin gameplay and cause people on regular servers to run around and kill people like in DayZ and Unturned all over again. The tournament sound real but I'd dbout it'd happen. I'm not looking at anything on PAX Prime as I just came home a few hours ago from a vacation in Pennsylvania (I was with my mom and dad in a nice lodge and had a great time). The player specific meats sounds like he's actually trying to still get people to believe him. Klei knows it'd be easier to just make it so if *player* builds effigy then it can be used by all characters but it shows which character built the effigy. Example: Pyromaildragon (playing as Webber) built the effigy so it looks like Webber since Pyromaildragon is playing as Webber and he built the effigy.

 

I'll look at it and see what the thread's like.

[Quady14]

Yay, now I can finally be sure I can eat all my friends. 

well, this thing has been worrying and puzzling me since a it was mentioned in a Fireside Chat. What exactly do you guys mean when you say "there's permadeath" and then afterwards say "you will have to choose a new character"?

In my way of seeing things, when you die in a permadeath world and you die as a ghost, it's over. You lost. You're never entering that world again. But I don't really understand how it is perma-death, if you can just choose another character and just lose your map and other stuff.

Edit:Whoops, that was some weird stuff happening here...

 

I'm concerned about that as well, I guess I was trying to quote closely off of what eryahu said in his reddit post, but the phrase "permadeath" really doesn't apply anymore if you can just get back up as the same character in the same server and go grab your stuff again. I mentioned similar concerns in one of the recent Fireside Chat topics. Here's the relevant information I quoted from SethR:

 

Yeah, that's basically the idea: your time as a ghost has a hard limit, but you can extend that time by haunting stuff. At first, you're just losing life force (i.e. ghost hunger), but once that's empty (i.e. starving), you'll start losing humanity (i.e. ghost health). Right now, any lost humanity is translated to a health penalty if you do manage to get resurrected. If you're not quick enough, you'll lose all of your humanity and fully die, requiring you to start a new character. But yeah, the ghost meters basically work the same way as a living character's hunger and health meters.

And here's my response:

 

So by starting a new character if you die as a ghost what would the process entail? Would you simply go back to the character select screen, choose someone and be spawned back in either in a random location or at the group spawn spot fresh and without any items? Will you be able to select the same character over again? Or are you booted from the server? (hopefully not unless it's specified as a permadeath server)

 

I'm really hoping if they're going to let us die fully, it will impact us more than just selecting a new character, maybe not so harsh as booting you from the server unless there's a specifically set server-booting option when creating a server, but I want some significance in death, be it everything in your inventory poofing out of existence rather than dropping on the ground for other players, or all your personally crafted structures (as in you spent the resources to make them) disappearing along with you, those even might be a little harsh, but true death in Don't Starve has never been a happy affair, it should retain some gravity somehow, or at least have the option for it to keep that unforgiving nature.

[Quady14]

Most of this sounds like he just wants upvotes on Reddit. I'd downvote it. Honestly, Seth was most likely trolling us with the Telltale Heart and Potato Cup. Cannibalism sounds like it's going to ruin gameplay and cause people on regular servers to run around and kill people like in DayZ and Unturned all over again. The tournament sound real but I'd dbout it'd happen. I'm not looking at anything on PAX Prime as I just came home a few hours ago from a vacation in Pennsylvania (I was with my mom and dad in a nice lodge and had a great time). The player specific meats sounds like he's actually trying to still get people to believe him. Klei knows it'd be easier to just make it so if *player* builds effigy then it can be used by all characters but it shows which character built the effigy. Example: Pyromaildragon (playing as Webber) built the effigy so it looks like Webber since Pyromaildragon is playing as Webber and he built the effigy.

 

I'll look at it and see what the thread's like.

Do you really think the guy just wants upvotes? I guess I could see that with PAX Prime gathering hype this weekend, it's certainly a good way for a troll to draw attention to himself, and he still hasn't posted the update he said he was going to post. As you say, the fact that eryahu pretty bluntly stated that cannibalism is a thing now gives me some pause, yet after all the discussion here on the forums I don't want to deny that it was a pretty heated point of debate, and Klei must've made one decision or another seeing all the requests for it and against it.

 

Could be fake for sure, but I don't want to discount eryahu entirely just because he made a post to reddit, on the other hand this guy could be a valuable informant, certainly the only news I've heard about DST at PAX Prime as of yet (maybe with good reason?) so let's wait and see if he has more to say, either way once we see some footage it'll prove how legitimate his claims are.

 

Also I'm not sure if I understand your claim that Seth was trolling us about the Telltale Heart, maybe with the Potato Cup, but honestly the community has been trolling Seth more than the other way around, he more playfully joked about it,

 

 

edit: is there going to be a potato cup in the game? 

 

Maybe we'll just have to add a new type of trinket to dig up from graves...

 

and for the Telltale Heart, it doesn't sound like trolling at all to me based on this:

 

There will be a few new things that come along with Don't Starve Together, but our focus is more on making a great multiplayer game than on adding content to a game that now has multiplayer, if that makes sense? Most of the additions will tie into multiplayer in some way (like the Telltale Heart, which you can craft and give to a ghost to revive them). If we do end up adding anything that isn't strictly for use in a multiplayer context (a character, for example), we'll add it to the single player as well.

 

The way he describes it sounds perfectly legitimate, a valuable item added for the purpose of resurrecting ghost players more easily. He uses it as an example of new items that will be added to DST only because they need to be there so other features, in this case becoming a ghost, work as smoothly as possible. As he goes onto say, if anything isn't absolutely essential only to multiplayer, it will be added to single player as well. The fact that he uses a character as an example gives me some faint hope we'll be seeing a new face, but nonetheless, that's just wild hoping, and something for an entirely different topic (or 100 different topics that already exist).

[the truthseeker]

Didn't want to say anything here too distracting,  but that player reviews a LOT of other games and if you look at his Reddit links, you'll see it's true. This is not an upvote poster but a blogger on Reddit if you will. 

[CaptainClam]

What if cannabalism additionally reduced your max sanity.

[TheKingofSquirrels]

@TheKingofSquirrels so my friend we are getting cannibalism then

Holy mother of God...Yes! I can finally play out my fantasies! This is great news!

 

Hey, I´d love to have you for dinner someday, interested?  

[Crapplejacks]

I'm sorry, this guy just does NOT sound legitimate. I'll believe this stuff when Klei announces it's true. I mean, would Klei intentionally create an "abuse friendly" system?

[eryahu]

I just posted my second update. You'll find it's more in depth less confusing and much longer. 

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/dontstarve/comments/2f8e31/pax_dst_details_part_2_sorry_its_late/

[the truthseeker]

Drat, Wickerbottom, not Wigfrid. Oh well, cannibalism will not be *as* fun until RoG works...god, you all corrupted me!  

[The Letter W]

I'm sorry, this guy just does NOT sound legitimate. I'll believe this stuff when Klei announces it's true. I mean, would Klei intentionally create an "abuse friendly" system?

 

It is still in Alpha though, so things will more than likely be changed in the final product. 

[Quady14]

We have an update from redditor eryahu! He has some clarifications and new information for us, first off though, here's the source so you can read it directly from him:

 

SOURCE: eryahu's PAX DST details part 2

 

And once again, to summarize the main points brought up:

 

- Wigfrid was NOT in this build, eryahu accidentally confused her with Wickerbottom. An honest mistake in a game where every single character's name begins with the same letter. I don't think he was trying to mislead at all.

 

As an extra tidbit I wanted to add, this information sounds a lot more consistent with what we've seen from the early prototype playtests put up by SethR in his Fireside Chats.

 

- Willow was also present in the build, again, sounds consistent with what we've seen from Klei's official playtests.

 

- It's possible eryahu simply never ran into her, but I should think Wendy was also an available character for the demo, unless there was some specific reason for her to be removed.

 

- When another player dies, they drop everything they are holding along with a new meat type called "long pig" which can be both cooked and dried. He wasn't sure about its effect on hunger and health, but states that when eaten raw it drops your sanity by 40 points. This was explained in the previous update, but it's good to emphasize this new information.

 

- When eryahu asked one of the devs if the monster meat sprite currently used for Long Pig (human meat) was placeholder, he was told that it will most likely have custom art upon release. He also questioned whether characters would drop character-specific meat, since it doesn't make sense for a robot to drop meat, and the response was that it is possible that some characters will drop character-specific meat.

 

- Ghost hunger and health (life force and humanity I think?) are mentioned. True death occurs if your humanity runs dry, though the extent of death's permanency may range from one server to another, as we've discussed earlier.

 

- Haunting causes different effects based upon what object you choose to haunt. A tree may catch on fire, or it may turn into a treeguard. Haunted objects will glow to indicate that they have been haunted, probably a good way to track down (or evade) a ghost's path. Haunting was stated as not being meant as a griefing mechanic, though it has some capacity to be used as such.

 

- The Telltale Heart has a custom sprite, and, I thought this was cool, when placed on the ground it actually beats.

 

- DST closed alpha is planned to start relatively soon, and is meant for people who are okay playing DST in an unfinished, Work In Progress form. eryahu chose not to get specific with the release time since he could not remember the exact date and did not want to misquote. He remembers being told it will be towards the end of September. If this follows what we've been told by SethR, September 22nd is likely close to the release date, give or take a few days. In the case that it's after September 22nd, let's not get on their backs just because they said before the end of Summer, game development takes time, and delays will inevitably happen on any game project. Let's please be patient with them while they deliver the best possible playable experience for us.

 

- When it gets dark, every player will comment on it. Something the dev eryahu spoke to thought it would be cool if, when multiple characters are on screen, they might carry on a short dialogue/banter. Keyword MIGHT, this sounds fantastic and I'd love to see it implemented, but it could end up being pretty tough to add in complex banter for every possible permutation and character combination.

 

At a reasonable level of depth, maybe each character will have a comment for each other character, so Maxwell can say something snarky to everyone else akin to his opening quote when starting a new game, while Wolfgang might tell confide in another character that he's deathly afraid of the dark, while Woodie might remark just before a full moon that his allies may want to keep their distance for a day or two (this ones even a little too specific, but would be a great reminder in case the other players forgot the phase of the moon, as well as Woodie's unfortunate curse).

 

- Again, Don't Starve Together's closed beta release will not include RoG, however, DST will not be declared finished until Reign of Giants is FULLY compatible, so it is absolutely certain we will see RoG in DST by its final release.

 

- Beefalo plushies are cute.

 

- There will be a ton of things that you can configure serverside. You will be able to have servers with specific mods, and try out different mods on different servers.

 

- eryahu won the Don't Starve Together tournament on Sunday. Congrats to eryahu! Here's the sweet loot they got for it:

 

 

If anyone's still skeptical, eryahu also stated that Klei took a picture of some of the tournament participants that they would be putting up on their Facebook page soon, so we'll probably see that soon enough.

 

To finish up with some final notes:

 

- Mark Laprairie, who was brought on for DST and the PS4 build was the primary developer eryahu spent his time talking to, and I imagine the primary person who shared the dev information above.

 

- Mark gave a shout-out to the creator of the Up & Away team, I don't know the specifics of the mod or its creators myself, but props to you guys!

 

- Unfortunately, though eryahu asked about some backstory and inspiration for Don't Starve's characters, the main developer who came up with the story bits was not present at PAX Prime, so no backstory explanation for us (I think the developer in question was Kevin maybe? Not sure.)

 

I personally really want to know if WX-78 has some connection with Robert Wagstaff or the Voxola PR-76, haven't seen any mention of that bit of lore outside of the Radio's wiki page though: Radio

 

- The devs liked the idea of a torunament being a recurring thing, and possibly having a specific build just for tournaments.

 

I'm just going to copy and paste this last bit, and highlight the neat bits:

 

- "Some of my concerns with multiplayer is that only ranged weapons are currently viable for pvp since it's impossible to catch each other. This isn't something they liked and melee should be viable, they'll figure something out I'm sure. there will also be a few balance changes for example the ice staff would be really OP, and a few weapons are one-hit KO. They liked the idea of debuffs like snares to slow people. Stuff like that so I'm sure it will be awesome. In addition stuff like woodies werebeaver form and the fact that WX can have almost twice the health of everyone, which is a little unfair. I aksed about character changes and stuff and they agree that it's not ideal the wx should be able to take twice as many hits as any other character. I'm sure they'll figure stuff out balance wise. One last thing, in regards to boomerangs. If someone throws a boomerang at you, you can catch it and throw it back. Very cool."

[Quady14]

I just posted my second update. You'll find it's more in depth less confusing and much longer. 

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/dontstarve/comments/2f8e31/pax_dst_details_part_2_sorry_its_late/

 

Hey eryahu, welcome to the forums!

[Crapplejacks]

Well, I suppose with the pictures, they don't lie. Sorry for disbelief. Though now that tell-tale heart system is just going to keep me up at night, haunting me.

[Quady14]

"IT IS THE BEATING OF HIS HIDEOUS HEART!"

[the truthseeker]

*hides the heart under the floorboards*