don't starve vanilla : basic items should randomly respawn

[keylocke]

just something i've noticed in vanilla servers is that even basic items like twigs become so easily rare even just around 20 days into the game.

meanwhile these hoarders of twigs and other items occasionally lose these resources through fire (accidental or not) leaving people that joins later without even the most basic of crafting items.

although twigs and other items can also be randomly dropped by tumbleweeds. the things like saplings and grass tufts are non-renewable. which is a problem for new players joining old worlds since finding a desert biome where tumbleweeds spawn may take several days, which means that they have to log on/off just to avoid the night.

the non-renewable resources was playable in single player but on multiplayer, but this feature seems detrimental for new players trying to join old worlds, especially when trying to join during winter.

the death rate in don't starve together during winter for new players joining an old world (without assistance from other players) is probably much harsher than the death rate in any dark souls game.

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tl;dr

boulders, saplings, and grass tufts should occasionally respawn.

[keylocke]

can anyone reply why this is such a bad idea?

i've tried joining several vanilla servers on 20+ days and twigs are such a pain to find.

[Muche]

In endless and wilderness modes the saplings, grass and berry bushes are being renewed around spawn points if there are none found in the vicinity and there are no players around (in the radius of 240 units).

Also, it seems to me that the recently added resource variants feature is your friend here, since it will respawn those resources (at the price of removing old ones).

[Zillvr]

Hello @keylocke, welcome to the forums. It usually takes a while before people reply to threads.

Now on the matter at hand.

Firstly, joining while it's Winter is not ideal at all. Since you need to be prepared for it if you want to survive it comfortably. On the other hand, it's still totally doable. I'm sure you already know that you can filter out servers by its current season. If you want to survive for longer, play on Autumn servers.

Secondly with regards to making non-renewable resources renewable, I do believe DST is already on the track for that kind of features. If you haven't noticed, the devs have implemented the Grass Gekko neutral creatures that drops cut grass if you get too close. They regrow their grass tails after a few days, so it's renewable. Sorta renewable since no news yet if these creatures can multiply(afaik), but they do currently exist as another way to get grass if absolutely no other grass exists. These Grass Gekkos can be found in the Desert Biomes, btw. 

Thirdly, now that grass is getting covered, what about saplings? The devs have implemented Twiggy trees that drop twigs once chopped. I haven't been able to play on a DST server that started with Twiggy Trees, so my experience may be lacking. They do replace actual saplings, so getting twigs through Tumbleweeds in a Desert biome or Spiky Bushes in the Marsh biomes are your next best bets. Finding these early on are quite doable.

Fourth, with concerns about boulders? The devs already have implemented Meteors in Mosiac Biomes which was introduced multiple versions ago. So there would always be a boulder on the surface, somewhere. These Meteors drop periodically and would also have a chance of breaking down other boulders since they do damage in the area where they fall on. So hang around the mosiac area that has black burnt marks on the ground, that's the Meteor zone. We also have Petrified Trees that drops rocks once mined.

There could be even more ways to get grass, twigs, rocks etc. down the line. These things (grass gekkos, twiggy trees, juicy berries, petrified trees etc.) are a very tiny preview of what's to come in Through The Ages, the DST expansion.

Snippet: As a refresher, the focus of TTA is the evolution of your world over a longer period of time, and more variation between worlds...

So going forward, the very concerns you have now are probably already being thought about by the developers. Which I believe would make all the worlds be able to support new and old players on any server regardless of how long the server has lived. At the same time, keeping things interesting and unique. (to the devs, correct me if I'm wrong about this).

I take too long to reply, Muche replied to the thread before I could even finish...

Anyway I hope that helps, cheers.

[keylocke]

thanks zillvr for the informative reply.

i think it's cool that these are already being addressed, i guess i just have to wait some more until it gets implemented or do as you suggested and just cherry pick servers. though i mostly just stick to klei official servers or anything with low lag and vanilla..  :/