long-time motivation

[JohnKree]

First I have to say I really love this game.

But for my taste the longtime motivation for the sandbox mode is in question.

I've made it to 14 days now and then I did something that surprised myself: I committed suicide. I simply jumped of a cliff intentionally.

I went to all places, looted as much as I could but I didn't find the rifle. It wasn't in the trappers hideout so I looked everywhere else, nothing.

I went out for days to find frozen cadavers and survived barely but it worked.

Then I thought: Why am I doing this? Without the rifle I will run out of meat much faster so maybe I will make it to day 20 or so but what then?

As my hope vanished I had no more reasons to live.

Just to be clear, I see myself as an optimist but even when you have ways of infinite wood, food and water, what is the reason to live on when you are all alone and you already know the only possible outcome: death? If I really would be in the protagonist's position, I wouldn't want to spend my last days alone without hope.

Maybe there is a way to implement NPCs also in sandbox mode, like an old trapper or people you help to survive?

Then we would have 1 more reason to live: I want to help another person. This would be my choice, like sharing my food etc.

or letting him die to take his stuff.

I guess some of these things will be implemented in story mode but I hope there will be NPCs in sandbox, too.

Another idea:

you try to find you way out of wilderness. First you have to make it till it is spring, the mountains are free of ice and you can go south, to make it back to civilization or something like that. And to do that you have to cross all maps which would be a very hard thing to achieve. But it would be another kind of hope that will drive players to go on.

[levism84]

I've got to agree on this one, hope is very important for a player even in the sandbox.

[ThePope]

im 30hours of playtime in to the game and have a 54day life that is no where near starving/cold/thirsty or anything, ive bascially found solutions to find unlimited food/wood/water and i think i can live hundred+more days before warmth is an issue.

so im going to start challenging myself. tonight i think im going to load up a new character and try to survive off the land. im not going to loot any man-made objects from anywhere, the only thing im goign to allow myself is to go indoors.

another challenge i may try is a nudist challenge where youre never allowed to wear any clothes