Is it too late to change the story mode?

[digitalwand]

Now that the story mode is released, I resumed playing the game. As some already mentioned, I'm also (very) disappointed in the story mode.

The fragments of the story don’t make much sense, and feels as they were put together off hand, and by different group of people from those who developed the excellent(!) sandbox in first place. Also the interaction with the blind woman at Milton (bring me wood, then food, etc.), is somewhat “childish” and does not fit the atmosphere of the game.

 

Well. I’ll continue playing the story mode, to give it a chance – But, I will strongly recommend  Hinderland to consider improving/changing the story mode, and likely use a different group of people for this purpose.  I’m afraid that such (childish) story line will doom this excellent game. 

[Larkid]

I'm not sure what story mode you're playing but there's been nothing childish about mine.

Economic collapse, the decline of rural communities, an old, blind woman abandoned by her neighbors and desperate for someone to provide her enough supplies to survive the winter alone.   The tragedy of parents outliving their children, and the death of their relationship in the aftermath.  

Did I miss a part where talking ducks came out and did a little musical number with poop jokes?

 

[RossBondReturns]

Agreed with Larkid, this is a dark, broken world. Filled with broke people. You as Will are trying to both survive it and bring hope to it through your actions.

[selfless]

For a "survival" title there sure isn't a whole lot of "survivalling" going on.  More just loot and pillage.

[Mixxut]

Yeah, I don't know are we playing the same story, i mean I don't see anything childish

[TheBugfixer]

On 8/11/2017 at 9:33 AM, digitalwand said:

Now that the story mode is released, I resumed playing the game. As some already mentioned, I'm also (very) disappointed in the story mode.

The fragments of the story don’t make much sense, and feels as they were put together off hand, and by different group of people from those who developed the excellent(!) sandbox in first place. Also the interaction with the blind woman at Milton (bring me wood, then food, etc.), is somewhat “childish” and does not fit the atmosphere of the game.

 

Well. I’ll continue playing the story mode, to give it a chance – But, I will strongly recommend  Hinderland to consider improving/changing the story mode, and likely use a different group of people for this purpose.  I’m afraid that such (childish) story line will doom this excellent game. 

I must confess that you are not competely wrong. A Part of the Story makes me disappointed to. But i think the Story thats want to be told is coherent, the Charakters are believable and the Environment seems to be trustable.

So i can recognise what you mean ... theres something im missing too, but that tells me not that theres a bad game, theres something that tells me theres a game that has something, im missing.

So lets talk about what we are missing. I miss the experience-tree. Was shure it would take it to the final ... but it didnt. What are you missing?

[selfless]

"Childish" seems to refer to the trivial busywork rather than whatever-it-is the plot is doing. (What is it doing?)

[Ruruwawa]

I think a much better way to put is "not interesting to me."  I think a lot of the story is relevant to folks who have personally experienced some of the hardships it depicts: a job lost to a changing economy, divorce, the death of a close loved one.  

I didn't mind the tasks for the NPCs either, and enjoyed it quite a bit in some parts.  I've been in the "Trust" situation in real life, sort of, joining a tiny, remote community in Alaska and having to earn my place in it by working.  Seems credible enough to me.  Whether it makes for generally fun gameplay is a valid question, however.

[Patrick Carlson]

3 minutes ago, Ruruwawa said:

I think a much better way to put is "not interesting to me."  I think a lot of the story is relevant to folks who have personally experienced some of the hardships it depicts: a job lost to a changing economy, divorce, the death of a close loved one.  

I didn't mind the tasks for the NPCs either, and enjoyed it quite a bit in some parts.  I've been in the "Trust" situation in real life, sort of, joining a tiny, remote community in Alaska and having to earn my place in it by working.  Seems credible enough to me.  Whether it makes for generally fun gameplay is a valid question, however.

That's a very fair and thoughtful critique, @Ruruwawa, thank you. Stories, experiences, trauma - these things are all very personal and different people react to them in different ways. I know I do. 

[mrrrmrrr]

9 hours ago, Larkid said:

I'm not sure what story mode you're playing but there's been nothing childish about mine.

Economic collapse, the decline of rural communities, an old, blind woman abandoned by her neighbors and desperate for someone to provide her enough supplies to survive the winter alone.   The tragedy of parents outliving their children, and the death of their relationship in the aftermath.  

Indeed. That said, I think that the inclusion of mature themes and/or content in a work of fiction does not automatically make it mature in and of itself. What you could call a work's 'maturity' largely appears in the way it approaches such themes. The real world is messy and unpredictable and very rarely fits within the idealized confines of a pleasing and structured narrative; the extent to which the story diminishes this chaotic aspect and asserts order and coherence in its place is linked to its level of maturity or, more appropriately, to its intended audience. I guess my point is that mature themes can still appear in immature or "childish" works when these themes are drastically simplified or circumscribed, and not given an amount of space and consideration adequate to their real-world impact. That is how I felt, for instance, when I learned the Grey Mother's backstory: not that backstory was not mature, but that it was presented a bit suddenly and 'cheaply' or glibly considering how tragic an event it represented. In that sense, I can understand OPs criticism--which I interpret as being: "the errand-boy style interactions with the grey mother seem at odds with the serious tone of her backstory." 

Edit: I guess I should add that in the grand scheme of things I didn't find the grey mother episode particular childish or poor from a writing perspective, I simply wanted to explain why I think that there is merit to OPs line of criticism.

[SnowWalker]

Haha, that's funny. I've always told myself, about every video game out there, none of them are going to be winning any academy awards. Have you not acclimated yourself to this by now? Can't you just accept it and move on? For the sake of game-play? I've enjoyed all of it myself so far.

[Mystery guy]

Personally I felt that story mode (mainly ep2) was more of sandbox but with objectives. The tasks were lengthy and annoying, and hard considering the amount of wolves that somehow know were u are. Then not to mention the bear challenge which was incredibly difficult even for a middle of the road player like me(could u imagine how newbies must be feeling). And over all I felt that story mode never quite set everything up for the newbies. I'd suggest giving info on the controls and how to use the UI (some ppl were trying to find a pot to melt snow I mean come on don't be vague). For me I found my way around though I had trouble making rose hip yea for a bit because I was never told that u now had to prepare the hips. I would definitely suggest also that when making the next episode, aim for a bit more story and characters (probably 2-4 ish npcs). That's just my two cents.

[MueckE]

18 hours ago, Larkid said:

I'm not sure what story mode you're playing but there's been nothing childish about mine.

Economic collapse, the decline of rural communities, an old, blind woman abandoned by her neighbors and desperate for someone to provide her enough supplies to survive the winter alone.   The tragedy of parents outliving their children, and the death of their relationship in the aftermath.  

Did I miss a part where talking ducks came out and did a little musical number with poop jokes?

 

Only a child would say that (no offense). Children and teenagers talk about these topics all the time. I bet every second test in school is about these topics. It's not the topic but how you talk about, and understand it.

I'll give you an example why the characters are like if a 13 year old would have written them. The grey lady. This is an old, blind woman who has suffered a lot. Life made her mean and hard. She knows everything you do, has expereienced and felt everything you ever did and much more. Life treated her like shit and now nothing is left. All the people abandoned her, took the first chance to spit on her. Her husband was a walking peace of .... . The only one thing that was precious to her - the part of her human soul - died with her daughter. All that is left for her is to suffer a little bit more while waiting for death. She wants to die, but can't because the memories of her lost a bitter sweet.  That's the baseline for her character but nothing of what she is saying or doing makes any sense in that regard. McKenzie wouldn't even be able to enter the building without beeing shot by her. You can not earn trust from such a person and she would never ask you for anything because she doesn't give a f** about anything - especially you.

Now there are several ways you could build gameplay around such a great character. For sure it would need some sort of sacrifice from you without gaining trust and beeing humiliated and threatened by her all the time. But you know better, you as an adult understand why some old people are like this so you overcome this and maybe you proov her that you can surprise her and that there is still something out there to live for. Hell, you could do so much out of that character.

In story mode, the grey lady is painted like children would view her. As the angry old people who shout at them if they are too loud while playing, but if you playby there rules you get sweets. And in this way all characters are in storymode. Right out of a soap opera or a text a 13 year old has written in school. Stereotypical, one dimensional "objects" without any depth, created just to fullfil their job within the story.

The real problem here isn't so much if they are realistic, it that these charcaters just limit the gameplay and storyoptions.

Oh by the way, the topics are presented the same. "The evil company from the mainland who destroys the enviroment and doesn't play by the rules. The world would be so much better (again) if they wouldn't have power." "Not rich, powerful people can change something for good because they are all evil. Only ordinary, hard working people are not corrupted and can have a good moral."  You mean this? Yes, this is exactly how teenager view the world because they don't understand anything. Because they don't have to weigh their decisions and don't have to be responsible. They view the world in black in white, good and evil.

 

So yes, OP is right, the story is childish. But again, that's not the problem in itself. It just leads to very limited, boring options regarding gameplay.

 

[Hotzn]

Interesting and thoughtful thread. Personally, I enjoy the story so far, not to mention my roughly 400 hours spent in the sandbox which I obviously enjoyed as well. But I have to admit that parts of the story are not well-executed and lack the "maturity" the game is advertising. It pains me to write this, as I imagine some people at Hinterland have poured their hearts' blood into it, and of course they want people to be blown away. Maybe we have to keep in mind that the story has not yet fully unfolded. I remember reading the first book of The Lord of the Rings (many years ago) was a chore, but when I reached the second and third book, my hands were sweating and I could not put them away.

How could the story be more mature? For example, by making obvious choices possible. When I first talked to Grey Mother, of course I saw that she had a rifle. Naturally, I would have asked if I could borrow that rifle to protect myself from wolves while procuring wood and food for her. So that should have been an option in the dialogue. She could have said no, but to make the story coherent she would have had to give me a reason. Maybe that she needs the rifle to protect herself, whatever. And then I would have liked to have had the option to wrestle the rifle from her. I probably would not have done it (heck, I didn't even try to open any of her containers). But it would have made for an interesting choice. Why not be able to just wrestle the rifle from her, take all her stuff and leave her to freeze and starve? Even shoot her? Now that would have provided for an interesting dialogue - the old woman cursing Will McKenzie on her dying breath, suddenly revealing some intricate knowledge!

"Will McKenzie! Is that how you intend to fulfil your dreams? To fight your inner demons? Even if you find your beloved Astrid now... what you did here to me can never be undone. If you should finally meet her, save her, stand before her questioning eye... if she asks you how far you went... what will you say? Tell the truth and see that rekindled glimmer of lost love in her eye die forever? Or build that new house of love on the sand of lies? Will McKenzie... you are cursed... your hopes can never be fulfilled... hrrrgchh..."

Of course such course of action would raise the question of how the player would continue the story. Not fulfilling the quests of Grey Mother would mean not getting the climbing gear. That of course is a question of game design. There would have to be an alternative way to continue on to Episode 2, either an alternative way to get to ML or an alternative way to get the climbing gear. But if the game wants to offer choices (and we will agree that meaningful choices are great for storytelling in computer games), there have to be alternative routes as well.

[MueckE]

The freedom of choice comes naturally if the frame is a proper one and the best teacher for that is the real world.

You have basicly two opposite characters. The old lady who is waiting for death and Mckenzie who is struggeling to survive, who would do everything to fight for life, are forced in contact with each other by a simple, but logical reason. For example could Mckenzie be injured very badly and needs to steal something from her or is passing out on her porch or she has the only climbing equipment in town. You've discovered by EXPLORING that you need this gear and so have to deal with her although you don't want to (and she neither). Whatever, the fantasy of an authour is needed here.

Or maybe Mckenzie isn't looking forAstrid but just wants to go home. This would be a understandable reason to do what he does and allows you a diffrent pace in storytelling. But no, he doesn't even know himself why he is looking for Astrid. His ex-wife who obviously left him, is a DOCTOR, survived the crash without any injuries but left her husband back to die. The only reason i would look for my ex-wife who tried to kill me is to kill her, and this would be a natural human behavior everybody could understand. But Will doesn't understand himself and that's why i can't have any sympathy for the characters and that's why you are so limited in gamedesign.

[KnkyJohnFowler]

22 hours ago, SnowWalker said:

Haha, that's funny. I've always told myself, about every video game out there, none of them are going to be winning any academy awards. Have you not acclimated yourself to this by now? Can't you just accept it and move on? For the sake of game-play? I've enjoyed all of it myself so far.

Many games have well paced and enjoyable stories. 

^{The Last of Us
Uncharted 4
Bioshock
The Witcher series
Spec Ops: The Line
Arkham Asylum
Bloodborne
Max Payne
Portal/Portal 2
Shadow of the Collosus
Red Dead Redemption
The Telltale games
Life is Strange
Deus Ex: Makind Divided}

etc

Wintermule so far is clearly very rushed and the story feels disjointed.

[SnowWalker]

32 minutes ago, KnkyJohnFowler said:

Many games have well paced and enjoyable stories. 

Yes, I agree. That's not what I meant. I wasn't talking about story line. I meant that even the best of games have 'dialog' that's a little, not quite right. I played a lot of those games and enjoyed them too but couldn't finish 'Life is Strange' because to me it's corny as hell. Deus Ex MD was awesome and yet some of the bad guys had, you know, video game worthy dialog. I'm enjoying Wintermute so far, and there's still three episodes to go so even though I wasn't referring to story telling, why is everyone so quick to diss the story already? I'm loving the bear quest.

[Hotzn]

8 hours ago, KnkyJohnFowler said:

Many games have well paced and enjoyable stories. 

^{The Last of Us
Uncharted 4
Bioshock
The Witcher series
Spec Ops: The Line
Arkham Asylum
Bloodborne
Max Payne
Portal/Portal 2
Shadow of the Collosus
Red Dead Redemption
The Telltale games
Life is Strange
Deus Ex: Makind Divided}

etc

Wintermule so far is clearly very rushed and the story feels disjointed.

Ah, those games. The makers of Max Payne even managed to make an excellent part II. Other games worth mentioning for their storytelling: Beyond: Two Souls, Mafia, Blade Runner.

[digitalwand]

Reading through the replies to the post, I thought to  further clarify my impression of the story mode.

As many others, I also spent many many hours in the sandbox and recently in the story mode.  “The Long Dark” is indeed exceptional and excellent game.  But the story mode was disappointing to me.  I understand the difficulty of creating a good story, in any context, and especially with this game, and tie it to what we all enjoyed in the sandbox. 

And this is why I was disappointed with the story mode – after waiting for several years – the result was so simplified (I’ll avoid using “childish”), as somebody stated, was “busy work”.  Bring me wood, bring me 5k of fish, fix my coat, etc.  etc. 

I’m not trying to compare to other games, each has its own pros and cons, but the excellent sandbox game design gave me expectation of more rich story.  It is not my place to suggested other story lines, and is not relevant and this time.

I really want this game to succeed, from my experience it is indeed unique, but for now I move forward.  May revisit the sandbox, and monitor the story mode.

Thanks a lot for the many hours of fun playing in the sandbox, and good luck with the story mode.   

[Fuarian]

On 8/11/2017 at 0:10 PM, Larkid said:

I'm not sure what story mode you're playing but there's been nothing childish about mine.

Economic collapse, the decline of rural communities, an old, blind woman abandoned by her neighbors and desperate for someone to provide her enough supplies to survive the winter alone.   The tragedy of parents outliving their children, and the death of their relationship in the aftermath.  

Did I miss a part where talking ducks came out and did a little musical number with poop jokes?

 

The only childish thing about it is the way people react to it. Vet players see it negatively and new players see it positively. From observation.

[digitalwand]

I believe Fuarian has a point.  Overtime playing many games, beside the fun of the game play, one recognize and comes to appreciate good story -  Hotzn above listed some of such games; another example might also be the Metro series which I think has a good mix of gameplay and story.

I'm not saying that new players can not appreciate good story, but "vet players" have better point of reference to compare, I think.

Back to "The Long Dark", I decided to finish the story mode anyway, killing the bear etc., with the hope the feedback provided in this forum and on Steam, the next 3 chapters in the story mode will improve, so I'll be ready..

[Carbon]

 To answer the OP's question: Yes.

[Frosty]

I started this game with Story mode and although I was not blown away by the storyline presented so far, I was enamored with the gameplay itself and wanted more and was eager to learn the mechanics of the game.

I realize that there are tutorial elements as you progress throughout the storyline by fulfilling tasks for the NPC'S, but my first impression was that it didnt match well with the style of gameplay. The tips also appeared to be spaced too far apart or even absent when you needed to know them beforehand.

Like sleeping for example - Before the addition of the bedroll in the cave you are expected to reach the Church at the very least (if they mention you can sleep in the cars it was vague on how btw and unwise anyway) after leaving the plane crash which is pretty far considering the very little you know at this point such as dealing with wolves effectively (throwing the torch for the first time after being taught that's how you scare off wolves and not having it work at all is very frustrating) which are more difficult to avoid on the smaller more linear Milton map imo.

I want a challenge that's why I like survival games but you have to prepare the player with the knowledge of the tools that will help them survive and thrive and I feel like this was poorly implemented. I think an entire tutorial section accessible from the main screen separately would have been a better fit to introduce the gameplay mechanics instead of the tutorial being conjoined with the story which is basically what it is now. Story progression requirements to unlock abilities and items isn't uncommon in video games but it feels too restrictive in TLD.

Carrying a rifle you just repaired but cannot even use throughout wolf infested territory despite having ammo in your possession is so ridiculous and immersion breaking and is something I will never forget about this game 

The story itself is not bad at all imo just somewhat cliche in certain aspects, and like all Unfinished stories it's going to feel incomplete to the player in some form because it isn't complete and we do not have the full experience for story mode yet. Episodic formats are a fickle beast that only Telltale has really done successfully imo, and I only understand why Hinterland did this because they’re an Indie team and they cannot accomplish what AAA development studios can achieve in constrained time frames.

So not only do they have the task of retrofitting their sandbox style game into a storyline cohesive with the gameplay, they also have to balance what they deliver in pieces episodically - which most players I would wager are not fond of - because they don't have the resources to do it all at once. Hinterland bit off more than they can chew and with all the bugs that surfaced I am amazed at what they accomplished during August and I am impressed at how they handled all these obstacles all at once while dealing empathetically with the community which has been established since early access and impatient for new developments with the game.

Another great thing about this developer is they're very communicative which is a refreshing change of pace for frustrated gamers to experience and we should all keep that in mind when professing our grievances to them as consumers. 

I only engage in forums with games I love and I am glad I did due to the rough learning curve in this game which has allowed me to avoid a lot of the irritation I would have experienced otherwise.

I hope the game and the developers attain the success and recognition they deserve in the future