Unique Items.

[sir ice]

In the mystery lake map, there is a sort of park ranger cabin by the lake. Shouldn't there be special coats or something there? Some sort of coat with "CanadIA Park Ranger". Nothing special or too good, but just a nice touch to the game.

ps. In America we have park rangers, not sure what you canadians call them.

[Wastelander]

Interesting idea - especially with the coming NPCs, some personalized items would indeed be a nice artistic touch, making both the world and the NPCs seem more alive. Could be some simple items as you stated - maybe some unique skins for cups? "Dave's favorite coffee" - game-wise the same item as a cup of coffee, but with a unique reskin of the cup: "You don't have to be insane to work here, but it sure helps!"  Would give me a warm, fuzzy feeling if I could give it back to Dave, and make me feel bad if I drink it out of desperation 

[sir ice]

20 hours ago, Wastelander said:

Interesting idea - especially with the coming NPCs, some personalized items would indeed be a nice artistic touch, making both the world and the NPCs seem more alive. Could be some simple items as you stated - maybe some unique skins for cups? "Dave's favorite coffee" - game-wise the same item as a cup of coffee, but with a unique reskin of the cup: "You don't have to be insane to work here, but it sure helps!"  Would give me a warm, fuzzy feeling if I could give it back to Dave, and make me feel bad if I drink it out of desperation 

Or a "fluffy" cup in the dam.

[Hiemalis]

Also, adding unique items (or unique reskins, as I'd say) would greatly add to the sandbox mode metagames: "Hm, let me see if I can find and collect all of those unique coffee mugs."

Also, uniqueness adds to emotional value/attachment (see Tom Hanks' Cast Away), after all, and I can clearly picture not only the survivor, but ourselves, creating whole structured stories for one-of-a-kind items in order to try to make a sense of all this (i.e., not going totally insane).

Then again, this should be a low-priority bullet point in the to-do list.

[ZlatanHazard]

So basically adding easter eggs ?

[Dirmagnos]

Id prefer that devs would work on gameplay, rather on some irrelevant stuff like "collect all coffee mugs". So that game would be both engaging, from beginning to the end, and balanced. Instead of becoming too easy at some point that players would start wondering about collecting all those pointless coffee mugs.

[EternityTide]

On 28/08/2016 at 6:12 PM, Dirmagnos said:

Id prefer that devs would work on gameplay, rather on some irrelevant stuff like "collect all coffee mugs". So that game would be both engaging, from beginning to the end, and balanced. Instead of becoming too easy at some point that players would start wondering about collecting all those pointless coffee mugs.

That's a rather defeatist attitude. At this point, gameplay development has slowed down and entered the "refinement" phase.

The purpose of the game is to entertain, so minor distractions or secondary objectives make the game more varied and give it texture. Why are there achievements available? Is that not a "waste of development time"? Why do people spend hours of gameplay, avoiding the use of the rifle to get the "silent hunter" achievement? Because it adds variety and diversifies the playthrough.

So little things like "collect all the unique coffee mugs" or "repair the forest-scene painting", whilst I agree should not be high priority, they should not be excluded, as they add more to the game than just "grim survival". Sometimes you need a little side quest to avoid the main story becoming boring and repetitive.

[Wastelander]

I was writing some unique items for a pen&paper campaign I'm about to run, and I took the liberty of translating some of those to potential TLD-style, just so we have some more ideas to pitch around. If you think something you see here is inspired by something else, it probably is (being original is hard)

• The Trappers Rifle: An older hunting rifle with a beautiful, artistic carving on the stock. It looks like it has always been taken care of well. A small stamp dates it's construction to 1925. No mechanical bonuses but gets a reskin, unique fluff text and is always found in 100% condition. Base item: Hunting rifle.
• Timmy's Tuque: Timmy always felt cold, so his aging mother sewed a bit of extra wool into the inside. Where Timmy now is is unclear, unfortunately, but he left his favorite tuque here. +0.5c bonus warmth, unique reskin, requires two cloth to repair. Base item: Tuque.
• Bloodied knife: You find this on - or, more precisely, in - a corpse. Bad deeds have been done with this knife. What will you do with it? No mechanical bonuses. Slightly rusty reskin. Base item: Hunting Knife.
• Ahmad's MRE: The halal-version of the American MRE, with a lovely chicken-and-noodle dish. Ahmad always brought those when he went on a fishing trip to Mystery Lake. No mechanical bonuses. Reskin to add arabic letters and halal-certificate. Base item: MRE
• Pastor's Temptation: A good ol' bottle of Jack you found in the ruins of the church directly beneath the altar. Someone scribbled "Father forgive me for I have sinned" on the label. You guess even holy men need a drink every now and then - perhaps even more, considering the sins they get told of. Bonus to well-being when consumed but penalty to hunger, thirst, warmth and stamina. Contains 15 portions. Base item: Not in game yet
• Dad's mercy: You found this revolver near the frozen corpses of a family. Looks like they saw no other way out. Seems like the father did the sad deed. Perhaps this will serve you better than it served those poor souls. No mechanical bonuses. Slight penalty to wellbeing when used. Always found with two rounds. Base item: revolver.

The point to me here is giving some items some backstory. I already do so in my headcanon, but it'd stell be nice.

[alone sniper]

On 8/27/2016 at 5:52 AM, sir ice said:

 

In the mystery lake map, there is a sort of park ranger cabin by the lake. Shouldn't there be special coats or something there? Some sort of coat with "CanadIA Park Ranger". Nothing special or too good, but just a nice touch to the game.

 

Yes !!!! 
+1 !

3 hours ago, Wastelander said:

A small stamp dates it's construction to 1925

100 years old gun !!!!!!!??? 

 

[Salty Crackers]

I love the idea of giving items backstory, but they shouldn't be overpowered, like a large bonus to warmth. Things like the Trapper's rifle shouldn't always spawn, because that would be overpowered. Speaking of the Trapper's gun, you should make it the "Bearkiller Rifle" to reference the challenge. Finally, some of these things should spawn in a random location, like the corpse with a hacksaw on TWM or the prepper caches. That would make the world feel more varied and real.

[Wastelander]

1 hour ago, alone sniper said:

100 years old gun !!!!!!!??? 

Believe it or not, there are older weapons still in use - granted, they don't get used much and a lot of moving parts have been exchanged.

2 minutes ago, Salty Crackers said:

I love the idea of giving items backstory, but they shouldn't be overpowered, like a large bonus to warmth. Things like the Trapper's rifle shouldn't always spawn, because that would be overpowered. Speaking of the Trapper's gun, you should make it the "Bearkiller Rifle" to reference the challenge. Finally, some of these things should spawn in a random location, like the corpse with a hacksaw on TWM or the prepper caches. That would make the world feel more varied and real.

True. spawning should be randomized, but for some items with a backstory, the spawn-place shouldn't be if it's done like in my examples. 

[MarrowStone]

3 hours ago, Wastelander said:

 

True. spawning should be randomized, but for some items with a backstory, the spawn-place shouldn't be if it's done like in my examples. 

I believe what hes addressing though is preventing players from making a mad dash to the trappers cabin just because the know a rifle's there and getting it early in game. That kind of destroys the uniqueness of every playthrough when the payer has an idea where everything he can get is.

However, im all for these items to appear. 

The rifle can still belong to that trapper and end up very far away, you never know, maybe he died on a hunting trip and his corpse is in a randmized location around there, or he went to coastal highway to find survivors but dropped it in a wolf scuffle in the transition zone. The story behind it is a little randomized then 

Timmys toque could be found in any car in the game in a backseat suggesting timmy is a kid who had a caring mother. 

 

The revolver is pretty dark for a teen rated game but as long as the children are buried in a drift of snow or covered up (specifically their faces) it could probably get by. Child corpses are pretty frowned upon for being in games even the Last of Us as gritty as the game was had them covered up. I really want a revolver though and the backstories pretty great.

[Wastelander]

1 minute ago, MarrowStone said:

I believe what hes addressing though is preventing players from making a mad dash to the trappers cabin just because the know a rifle's there and getting it early in game. That kind of destroys the uniqueness of every playthrough when the payer has an idea where everything he can get is.

However, im all for these items to appear. 

The rifle can still belong to that trapper and end up very far away, you never know, maybe he died on a hunting trip and his corpse is in a randmized location around there, or he went to coastal highway to find survivors but dropped it in a wolf scuffle in the transition zone. The story behind it is a little randomized then 

Yep. As I said, I just loosely translated some items from a completely different setting to TLD so where they spawn is still up to debate I love the idea of unique items with sort-of-randomized stories!

1 minute ago, MarrowStone said:

Timmys toque could be found in any car in the game in a backseat suggesting timmy is a kid who had a caring mother. 

 

Yeah, that's sort of the point  I'd have the spawning chances like this: 25% PV farm house, 25% random car, 25% random shack in ML, 25% not at all.

3 minutes ago, MarrowStone said:

The revolver is pretty dark for a teen rated game but as long as the children are buried in a drift of snow or covered up (specifically their faces) it could probably get by. Child corpses are pretty frowned upon for being in games even the Last of Us as gritty as the game was had them covered up. I really want a revolver though and the backstories pretty great.

Thanks And yeah, stuff I write tends to go very wrong very early on - my players stop trusting everything that seems happy two sessions in  it's true that it's probably a biiiiit too much for a T-rated game, but at the same time, Bambi was pretty dark.

[alone sniper]

8 hours ago, Wastelander said:

Ahmad's MRE: The halal-version of the American MRE, with a lovely chicken-and-noodle dish. Ahmad always brought those when he went on a fishing trip to Mystery Lake. No mechanical bonuses. Reskin to add arabic letters and halal-certificate. Base item: MRE

Agree +1 !

[MarrowStone]

Awesome you agree. I think the randomized locations would give it a little variation in its back story for every game too while keeping the players on their toes to find it instead of just knowing, its a win-win!

[Wastelander]

Just now, MarrowStone said:

Awesome you agree. I think the randomized locations would give it a little variation in its back story for every game too while keeping the players on their toes to find it instead of just knowing, its a win-win!

I said it before and I'll say it again: My thought-process is pretty much pitching ideas at people and waiting until they pitch some back at me  You took my idea, modified it and in the process made it better by voicing concerns I didn't think about. In a TLD-sense, I gave you some raw materials and you crafted something outta it, and I like it!  

[starfighter441]

4 hours ago, alone sniper said:

Yes !!!! 
+1 !

100 years old gun !!!!!!!??? 

 

Why not? There are a lot of SMLEs still being used that were built during the Great War, and I doubt that there are many that are under 70 years old now.

 

[alone sniper]

Ok !! 

@Wastelander @starfighter441

[Thurman Merman]

4 hours ago, Wastelander said:

Believe it or not, there are older weapons still in use - granted, they don't get used much and a lot of moving parts have been exchanged.

 

Yep.  Not as old, but I'm going dove hunting Friday with my 48 year old shotgun.  And it's in perfect condition - no reason it shouldn't be the same in another 50 years. 

[Wastelander]

3 minutes ago, Thurman Merman said:

Yep.  Not as old, but I'm going dove hunting Friday with my 48 year old shotgun.  And it's in perfect condition - no reason it shouldn't be the same in another 50 years. 

You can't just say this and not post pictures of said shotgun 

[Thurman Merman]

Just now, Wastelander said:

You can't just say this and not post pictures of said shotgun 

It's just a typical 1968 Browning A-5, Light 12.  Nothing special about it other than it is in pretty close to mint condition.  

[Wastelander]

1 minute ago, Thurman Merman said:

1968 Browning A-5, Light 12

Upon viewing it on google, I am fairly certain I have seen this gun on Miami Vice. Also, this'd make a nice Unique in TLD!

[Thurman Merman]

2 minutes ago, Wastelander said:

Upon viewing it on google, I am fairly certain I have seen this gun on Miami Vice. 

Wouldn't surprise me.  Almost everyone I knew as a kid had one of these or a Remington 1100.  

[Wastelander]

I'm German, so I don't have a lot of experience with guns. Best I can do is stat the unique ones in established ones  

[MarrowStone]

3 hours ago, Wastelander said:

I said it before and I'll say it again: My thought-process is pretty much pitching ideas at people and waiting until they pitch some back at me  You took my idea, modified it and in the process made it better by voicing concerns I didn't think about. In a TLD-sense, I gave you some raw materials and you crafted something outta it, and I like it!  

And that is the essence of the TLD community :), the reason why i check every day to see how some concepts can grow, even when they dont necessarily make it into the game its still fun to elaborate on each others thoughts!