Hello there dear Don't Starve Community,
first of all, let me tell you how much I adore this game and how much it means to me. I have been a gamer all my life basically. I am 28 now, and basically started gaming when I was 4. And by a long shot Don't Starve has been one of my favourite game franchises ever. Rivaling even the other games that defined my youth like WoW. I have around 250 hours in DS and 1050 hours in DST. I know it's not that much, but the "Dilemma" I refer to in this topic is the main reason why it's not more.
Also, I want to apologize in advance. I actually really dislike when people just come on the forum to complain. But this just troubles me so much that I just have to get it out at some point.
What's been bothering me ever since the release of DST, especially with A New Reign and ever more so as new DLCs for singleplayer like Shipwrecked and now Hamlet came out or are about to is that there is never quite a complete version of Don't Starve. One that comprises everything that has been made for the game so far. So basically all the assets from Don't Starve, Reign of Giants, Shipwrecked, Hamlet, A New Reign, the Forge & The Gorge.
Sorry this is not about me, but I feel like this needs to be clarified so you can maybe understand me better. I am quite a troubled person. I am a bit autistic and I have never had friends in my life and I have strong social anxieties. So for like 95% of the time I play alone, it's the same for Together. Most of the time I play DST since I feel like it has the most content combined in one game.
What I do and the "Dilemma".
For my solitude I have gotten used to building mega bases most of the time, like big ones that encompass at least one entire biome, the more the better. My dream is to turn an entire world into a base. But the so called "Dilemma" frustrates me to a point now that I find myself unable to play this game anymore. What I particularly miss when playing one version of this game is the assets from the other games. Like all sorts of trees (pine, birch, totally normal tree cave banana, Sugarwood trees,, cocopalm, SW jungle, SW totally normal, Mangrove Trees, Tea Trees, Tropical Trees, Corc Trees, Tubers) the bushes, normal ones, fancy ones, juicy berry bushes, coffee bushes, lichen, cactee, the spikey cactees in the SW volcano, grass, twig saplings, spikey bushes... all the animals to put in a pen. The new ruin walls you see near the fountain of youth.
Well sorry, I should stop listing things. You get the idea. Basically I just need everything to be able to include them in worlds.
Now technically, DST feels like the most complete version to me, it seems to have the most content. However, on the contrary it also seems to be, (now after playing the Hamlet beta even more so) the most dull when it comes to the biomes. You only have Pine trees and Birch trees (Twiggy Trees) aren't really tree-ie enough to make forests out of them or use them as a reliable road decoration in my opinion)
They did an amazing job for the hamlet world when it comes to bio diversity.
Hamlet
Now Hamlet also introduced housing and trading and basically all these new cute pocket instances, which seem to me like the best addition they have ever made in any iteration of Don't Starve. Not having access to them in DST just sucks the life out of me. I don't see how I will ever be able to go back to playing the normal DST once Hamlet has its full release. Because not having housing and trading just means that such a vital part of the game will now be missing.
Why not just use mods?
You could say that I can find these things in Mods. Sure, and I tried that. Endless times, I wasted hours upon hours of trying to get worlds running that include like 50 different mods that just add assets from other versions often leading to the world being really unstable or not even being able to generate to begin with. So it's not really possible. Most of you probably know the Streamer Glermz. He also likes to build megabases, he seems to have some loyal subscribers that regularly and very quickly port all the assets from new updates into small, functioning DST mods for him, and uniquely for him. They are not accessible to the playerbase. Watching his stream and seeing him having these assets and now way for me to ever get them frustrates me to the point that I am now completely unable to continue playing any of my DST worlds. As it always makes me feel like I am playing an incomplete version of the game, like I am missing out on too much for it to be worth playing. I know it's all in my head and that I should just shut this of and have fun. But I am afraid I cannot. Playing the game in any version other than its prime raw "vanilla" version also gives me the feeling of "I am not good enough, I am a noob if I use mods".
The Forge and the Gorge
When it comes to these events. I am actually really impressed by Klei how they tried to push the boundaries of this game and try to implement new concepts into this already very rich game. However, on the other hand I am also quite frustrated, as it leaves me with a feeling that the effort and time put into development of these events was "wasted" (sorry if this sounds harsh). Don't get me wrong. I love that they did that. But these events are only available for a limited time and don't add anything that I can implement into my worlds. So many working hours went into something that is only accessible for a short period of time. I would have prefered for them to try to work in the Forge fighting system and the Gorge cooking system into the base version of DST... just with all other DLCs like SW & Hamlet. Furthermore, I run into problem of my solitude again here. Public groups or Quick Matches unfortunately frustrate me too much. I wish it was otherwise. I wish I could not take these games so seriously. But to me they just are more than a game.
"It's a chance for Klei to earn some money via accompanying these events with purchasable skins" does not cut it for me. In my opinion they could also release these skins alongside a patch that introduces actual content to the base game.
I am starving for assets..
If I could have just one thing it would be more trees in DST.
It would just give me so much life, if they tried to eventually work some of these assets into DST. Like, I'll pay you 100$ to pay the employee who spends a day to replace the birch trees at the oasis with jungle trees or palms or whatever. Like they actually do work on things all the time. Skins for characters, for structures the seasonal events for DLC, the new Events like Forge and Gorge. The singleplayer DLCs. But they are just all spread out so much.
I can only only build so many chests to cover all the different items. Even with the 7th or 8th or how manieth ever chest skin. I am really starving for new assets...
I see sooooooo much potential in this game. And for a change and to our fortune,Klei is really one of these good companies (one of the few that are left). Who actually care about what they are doing and are passionate about their games. Especially in a world were you see other companies that accompanied my childhood and that I used to care about like Blizzard turned into greedy victims of capitalism and only ever care about how to increase the profits for their investors. to the huge downfall and loss of their games that suffer for it. It's like getting to know that Santa is not real... seeing these companies turn sour really shatters my world and breaks my heart. I am glad Klei is here, as one of the very rare beacons of hope these days. The fact that Don't Starve is not played by millions of people is just beyond me. It's really one of my favourite IPs of all times.
They could go so much further with this. I would love to have a MMORPG version of DST. The world, the way the items and interactions and the bosses and everything just seems like such a perfect fit. One can dream....
Playing DST, turning these wild worlds full of danger and mystery into gardens. Taming this wild beast is what calms my troubled mind... But recently I found myself just too distressed with feeling incomplete due to the lack of a combined DS version.
I don't know what to do. Does anyone have suggestions on how I could fix this issue for me?
I just wanna say thank you Klei. Thank you for being this beacon of hope in my life. Thank you for these endless hours of joy and peace to my soul you have given me with the creation of your wonderful game.
I love you guys... <3
Thanks for hearing me out. And sorry for unloading here. I just care about this so much.
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