Dev Diary — May 2018


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On 4/27/2018 at 2:30 PM, admin said:

Now you have to place food items -- either in cooking vessels like pots or cans, or on their own -- on hot cooking surfaces like stovetops or rocks around a campfire

I wonder if this will be true for water as well. Back when I first tried playing, I thought I needed to find a pot in order to melt snow or some bottled water.

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Guest jeffpeng

I sorta can understand that the community's patience regarding episode 3 is wearing thin, and that there is little understanding for remaking episode 1 and 2 before even 3 is out. You can't even say e 3 is late - it's outright delayed with no new ETA. That's something that gets customers either angry or worried.

On the other hand I can sympathize with the developer's desire to make things right now rather than later, and deliver a consistent experience throughout all episodes.  As a developer maintaining an ongoing project that evolved over half a decade (but that's totally not related to gaming) myself I know the point when you reach the conclusion that what you've got so far simply doesn't make the cut, and it's time to tear some things down in order to build them back up right. I guess with the story mode revamp it's similar. And yes, having to make such re-dos are evident of poor planning, but being willing to go through with them also shows the commitment the developers still have towards TLD.

I simply hope the story mode player base finds enough patience, and that you guys at Hinterland get it right this time, allowing you to whip out them episodes rather quickly after you're done - because the community won't forgive reworking episode 1, 2 and 3 again before 4 comes out. 

As for the survival updates I kinda like the idea of in-world cooking. As of now it's just a time-sink-style chore I personally use to skip hours after dark before I get to sleep. With cooking happening without the immediate and permanent attention of the player, you could maybe use the time for things like mending gear, reading books or collecting on game from your traps, etc.

The new region sounds interesting, and I wonder what the players incentive will be to go there. FM has one of two forges (and for players based in ML the by far more accessible one), TWM the most abundant resources in the game. Maybe being rather secluded and mostly untouched by humans could put an emphasis on being rich in natural resources, both plant and wild life, so making a trip there could be a good way to restock on food, hides and natural medicine. 

All in all I'm excited to see that the game obviously is still alive and kicking, and the devs are still far from done with it. Keep up the good work.

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On 4/27/2018 at 9:41 PM, EricTheGreat12 said:

Finally, we'll be able to access the region that's viewable from Milton! However, what I am not so keen on is the fact that the region seemed very small when I last went in there (via walls in Story Mode); if it connects Mountain Town to Pleasant Valley, then I think that it'll be enough.

Waterfalls received a nice graphics update, but will anything else come of it? Will we be able to gather water from the waterfalls?

Bear Spear is interesting- a spear made out of bear hide, or perhaps one that is good at killing bears? Nonetheless, it's good to see a weapon either than guns or a bow&arrow. 

I am overall very excited, and am glad that they are going quite nicely.

 

PS: Having 2 dev diaries so close to each other in terms of time is a great improvement. i hope that you continue this way in the future :)

I don't think that's the same region, actually that area you're thinking of is part of the Mountain Town region. Beyond the tunnel just leads to an inaccessible area at this point. Geographically there wouldn't be a region in between MT and PV. 

I think this new region is somewhere else, somewhere remote and far from any civilization. 

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1 hour ago, Fuarian said:

Beyond the tunnel just leads to an inaccessible area at this point. Geographically there wouldn't be a region in between MT and PV. . 

Why assume that it’s part of Milton when it doesn’t show on the map? Also, why wouldn’t there be any space North of Mystery Lake?

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1 hour ago, Farrgin Ice Hole said:

Seems like I picked a good time to come out of the cave.  This new content has me hyped.  Think I will go and climb Timberwolf Mountain the hard way.

I am eager for it to arrive too. I do wonder whether we will need a pot to boil water like I had assumed when I first started playing the game. So many deaths due to my assumption...

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 Because of this new system, all dialogue in the game will now be fully voiced.

finally, thank you - I think that this is the single most important upgrade to make story mode more immersive.

As for the bioluminescence... I cannot help but wonder if this the result of talks to the Subnautica devs?  But sure why not, maybe Subnautica will introduce some wolves as an easter-egg/wink towards TLD :D

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9 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

As for the bioluminescence... I cannot help but wonder if this the result of talks to the Subnautica devs?  But sure why not, maybe Subnautica will introduce some wolves as an easter-egg/wink towards TLD :D

Inspired or not, bioluminescence is just cool in general. Who doesnt like GLOWING things? Glowing sky, glowing aurora wolves, glowing moss! Makes the game world feel like its changing and magical xP. 

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I was pretty excited when I saw a new dev diary!  Thanks for the update.  Looking forward to the changes, but as others have remarked, I am a bit concerned about the RL cooking times.  I'm willing to give it shot before getting too worked up about it though.

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Glad the cooking is being overhauled. Hours spent sat watching meat cook or water melt is wasted time. 

I could be researching or sewing or doing something else.

Talking of food why does my meat degrade so quickly when left outside in freezing conditions?? 

In real life frozen meat can last a year.

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5 hours ago, Jacksy said:

Talking of food why does my meat degrade so quickly when left outside in freezing conditions?? 

In real life frozen meat can last a year.

Most freezers keep things a constant temperature and we wrap our meat to prevent freezer burn.

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On 28/04/2018 at 7:30 AM, admin said:

Our goal with this new region is to create an environment that doesn’t have a single human-made shelter on it -- so, even more rugged and isolated than Timberwolf Mountain with its lonely Mountaineer’s Hut. This new region has also been a test-bed of sorts, for a new approach to how we create our environments, including new rocks and more varied tree density. We’ve also added a new type of cave system, redone our waterfalls, and have focused on having the entire region be more of an “environmental” puzzle for you to solve.

You definitely got me interested! :)

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2 hours ago, Ape88 said:

Most freezers keep things a constant temperature and we wrap our meat to prevent freezer burn.

just because something gets freezer burned doesn't mean that you can't eat it. It just won't taste as good.

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Guest jeffpeng
On 5/4/2018 at 2:10 AM, Jacksy said:

Talking of food why does my meat degrade so quickly when left outside in freezing conditions?? 

In real life frozen meat can last a year.

Uncooked wolf meat keeps for 30 days outside, venison for 50. Considering we're not talking constant deep freeze that's actually not completely unreasonable. Especially if you factor in that the tools you're using to cut up the meat aren't clean and constantly disinfected as they would be in a butchery. Also there is some game logic to it, and, realism or not, you need to bow to some mechanics to make a game fun, which is the ultimate goal, I'd assume. You can stockpile cooked meat for up to a hundred days (or even a bit longer it you wait for it to reach 50% before cooking it), which is, in TLD terms, pretty damn forever. If you starve because meat you stored 100 days ago has gone bad, you are either in deep and long hibernation and probably near the end of your game anyways, or doing something absolutely wrong.

That you require a third of a deer per day worth of calories if you keep yourself well fed is an entirely different matter. I, personally, would like to see the system somewhat adjusted towards more realistic values, and instead see hibernation practices, where you only eat as much as you require to get you through the night, more heavily punished. There's only so much time a grown adult can get by on about 600 calories a day without suffering long-term damage, regardless of physical activity. But I guess there is a plethora of posts and suggestions addressing this very issue.

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It's not really 600 calories though, really. Just looking online they say an average deer has 55 pounds of lean boneless meat, which means with the fat, organs, etc that you would be eating in TLD you'd get what, 80 pounds?

36.4kg of real deer is around 68000kcal. TLD you can harvest meat in 0.5kg chunks with the average deer having 9kg of meat, so 68000kcal/18 is still 3777kcal per day if we use real harvest values and calorie density of real deer and assume 0.5kg of deer in TLD is actually 2kg. So really eating 0.5kg of deer in TLD is pretty realistic since you can really burn through calories in the north during winter.

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New waterfall effects in action.

Interesting... but how about also adding an area around waterfalls, where clothes would get wet. About twice as wet as in a blizzard maybe? It would be great for immersion.

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9 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

That you require a third of a deer per day worth of calories if you keep yourself well fed is an entirely different matter. I, personally, would like to see the system somewhat adjusted towards more realistic values, and instead see hibernation practices, where you only eat as much as you require to get you through the night, more heavily punished. There's only so much time a grown adult can get by on about 600 calories a day without suffering long-term damage, regardless of physical activity. But I guess there is a plethora of posts and suggestions addressing this very issue.

Agreed. This is for me the first balance-change we need for long term interloper to be playable / challenge. Food is way to abundant to challenge the player if it's possible to eat only 600-700 cal. a day. Plus the immersion-breaking factor of eating 600 cal. burning 3500 cals for 150 days without any consequence.

Several solutions:

  • Up the damage for starving
  • Make new affliction called starvation/malnutrition to kick in with prolonged undereating
  • Make cattails require water and give less cals. (hurts early game though)

Just my 2 cent. Good update comming - love the cooking and a use for the stoves and pans.

 

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Guest jeffpeng
3 hours ago, odizzido said:

I think it might be easier to just have your character screen have a weight. For example you start off at 180 pounds, you die at 140 pounds, and weight can go up and down depending on how much you're eating.

Well dying at 140 pounds is a bit harsh. I was boxing (5'11") at that weight and actually very healthy :D. But yeah, I guess I get the idea, and I actually kinda like it. But I can't help but giggle at the idea that you gotta carry around a belly because you've been munching those energy bars too much.

6 hours ago, Looper said:

Agreed. This is for me the first balance-change we need for long term interloper to be playable / challenge. Food is way to abundant to challenge the player if it's possible to eat only 600-700 cal. a day. Plus the immersion-breaking factor of eating 600 cal. burning 3500 cals for 150 days without any consequence.

Exactly. The immersion-break is the real argument here for me. I like to play stalker / stalker-ish (loper-esque wildlife and weather, but a tiny bit more resources than stalker to compensate) since I like those really long games I can play on for months while still having a challenge, but wanting to play the game the best way possible I usually am on low-cal / borderline starvation from day one just because I can. I don't say that some punishing starvation mechanic should be enabled by default (as TLD is rather punishing for new players already), but it would be a really neat trait for those seeking a challenge and/or improved realism. Also this change / option would thematically fit really well with the new cooking system. Make FOOD matter again :D

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