Major Game-Breaking Bug - First island disappears!

[toryoom]

I just bought this game and less than 10 minutes in I encounter a major game-breaking bug:

After landing on the first island and piddling around there for a few minutes, the whole island disappears, dropping me into an empty ocean with no means to escape. The island is completely gone, the shark is gone, the debris is gone, and I have no means to craft a new raft to keep moving (though I suspect the absence of all game elements floating in the remaining ocean means I'm no longer in a proper-functioning game session to get anywhere to), because nothing happens when I try to use my builders hammer. I'm just floating there in the dark ocean with nothing to do.

This happened BOTH times I attempted playing the game by deleting and starting a new world after encountering the issue the first time. It might just be incidental, but I noticed that it happens when the game is transitioning to night time.

[Anonymous Helper]

Did you anchor your raft? World only exist certain radius around your raft. If raft moves far enough away from things, they will despawn, including but not limited to island you might be standing on and as island no longer exists you'll end in water. To prevent this, always anchor your raft in place when leaving your raft for any reason.

Also be aware that the raft you start with is the only one you'll have. You can't build a new one, only expand the one you start with. Also you can't build anything on land, only on your raft.

You should ignore islands until you have basics setup (grill, water purifier 5x5 raft, container or two and anchor. It's also good to have sail by that time.). You don't need most of the resources on islands early on and you miss nothing ignoring them. There's always more island in the horizon. It's easier to get the resources you need from the sea early on.

[toryoom]

Thanks for the explanatory replies! That context definitely adjusts my approach to the game.

But, I guess...yeah...the whole setup of something like that does feel a bit buggy, which is why that was the first thing I imagined I was experiencing.

I hope that functionality gets adjusted before the game leaves EA--or a least very heavily smoothed out, with maybe some kind of built-in assistance available for player to better prevent or reverse out of such a situation, instead of having to basically restart. Because, even as a mechanic, it definitely feels counter-intuitive and just straight-up jarring to encounter in a game like this.

Is it not possible to have some kind of 'world existence' anchored at least partially to the player? While I'm sure having a persistent world on such a vast randomly-generated scale could be problematic from a design perspective, it feels very counter to the survival/exploration mechanic having the possibility of the world just disappearing out from under you like that.

A simpler solution, I suppose, would just be having the (logically intuitive) ability to craft another raft (I am on an island full of appropriate resources, after all) that served to despawn the old one and 'recenter' the world focal point onto the new one, if it must be, for whatever background reason, centered around the raft itself. No?

[GunArm]

I saw it happen in a youtube video so I knew about it. I don't think of it as a bug though. The game is called "Raft" it's about surviving on your raft and building up your raft. The raft is the game. There are other "scrap" rafts that sink when you step on them, it's not about those rafts, it's about your raft. Similarly, the islands are there to get resources, to improve your raft, not to move onto and let your raft float away. If you let your raft get away from you while you're on an island, you lose, basically.
I don't think building another raft is really in the spirit of the game. Even if you could, what if you didn't have the resources? Ocean trash is stationary relative to islands.
The only thing "buggish" about this is people often incorrectly *think* it's a bug -- because it's not explained. But how could it be any different? They could have it explicitly not despawn the island with everything else, but once your raft is gone, you're dead there. Eventually you'd run out of food/water. I'd rather it kill me fast than waste 20 minutes frantically dying of thirst. And anyway, it's not "Ocean Survival Game On Rafts and Islands", it's "Raft".

The idea is, when you stop at an island, make sure your precious raft doesn't get away from you. There are anchors, but usually just guide the raft so the current presses it to the back side of the island and holds it there.

` if it must be, for whatever background reason, centered around the raft itself. No?`
The world is generated around the raft, yes. But it's not just a background reason. It's because your raft is your game. That's what this game is.