Question Thread :: Milton Mailbag


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Have you thought about adding a knife in the merchandise store with a handle carved like a fox. and i would think it cool if you got backpacks that has pictures of the charaters filled with snacks that you guys like to eat while playing the game or you might pack in your survival kit of your own?

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Hey just wanted to say I've been playing this game since very early in its development and its been a blast watching this game grow. It's nice to see developers working hard and being honest. (cough, cough, fallout 76) I have bought the game on both my computer, early in development and now, the PS4 and I would like to say that apart from a few glitches (falling through the ice) this game plays very well on both systems without a feeling of a 'need of a mouse' when I am in the inventory screen. 
I've had many questions about this game but I'll stick to two since you are doing a double batch. 

Why can't I use lines with reclaimed wood to create snares? This has always confused me because it looks like a line attached to wood. I could see it being because the gut is supposed to attract the rabbit in some way? Is it a gameplay issue that you don't want people creating 2 snares off of every gut? 

Do you guys market the game/try to get it more exposure with every release of Wintermute? I feel as if this game doesn't get nearly the amount of praise it deserves and every time I mention it to a friend looking for a new survival game they seem to never have herd of TLD. I know obviously you market the game and running ads are very expensive but do you find it hard to get press about a game that was released years ago but yet gets massively better every year?

Thanks again for the sweet game and hard work. 
P.S: Backpack from Andrew Jackson Jihad would be an awesome song for a trailer. 

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Please use these forums, and this thread, in a community minded and friendly way. There are a large number of places on the internet you can go to be combative. 

This isn’t one of them. 

@Raphael van Lierop takes time out of his week to try to answer fan questions. If yours are basically “why do you not do exactly what I want” and “why are you so bad and I’m so great” then you’re wasting your time because that sort of question isn’t going to be answered. You’re just making points in a debate that isn’t happening in this thread. 

If you have honest questions about how game development works, how we as a studio prioritize things and why certain decisions are made find a way to ask them that shows you want to learn rather than to make it known what your opinion is. 

I think most people want the Milton Mailbag to continue and so far the vast majority of questions have been great but if it turns into people just yelling at Raph then it won’t last long. 

To be clear if you use this as an opportunity to treat anyone, including the game’s developers, disrespectfully then you will be removed from the forums. 

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I think this was with the update release of the redux but this is not specifically a redux question. I just remember being surprised to see stuff do this. So this has been around for awhile.

When I drop meat, fish, most any canned good, or tea, the item lands on the snow (only the snow not ice or rock, etc.) and lay in strange ways. The attached jpg is for dropped bear meat. The four pieces that lay flat I had picked up and laid down from the pile of meat I had dropped.  So far this happens consistently on any snow surface.

Just wondering if this is Working As Intended or an actual minor glitch in how the game is functioning?

One secondary effect is that when I use the pick up and place function, sometimes the meat will rotate in the horizontal plane "unpredictably" rather than remain in a fixed orientation. Once I place it anywhere then pick it up again with intent to place it, it will again have that fixed orientation. So it is not like there isn't a work around of sorts. 

20190417072217_1.jpg

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I have another question, thank you for your reply. It's about the genre that The long Dark is. I'll explain.

An experience I'll never forget; I think I was only two days into the game at this point, so I was a little survival whelp with no idea  how not to die. Travelling through broken railroad in fog so thick it was like a choking blanket of white, lantern out trying to see farther. There is no soundtrack, there is just the whistle of wind and the crunch of snow under my boots. I am sufficiently spooked to say the least.

I never even see the bear. I just hear the growl. I screamed in real life and immediately paused the game, spent a couple minutes pacing around trying to calm myself until I got up the nerve to just let it maul me and run away like a little girl. This has happened to me so many times, traveling with low visibility and the growls of an animal causes me to jump in real life. The only other games I remember being this terrified by was Silent Hill 2 and 3.

My question is: Do you intentionally add in horror elements to your game or are they just a nice side effect?

Another thing,  the first time I slept in Carter Dam I remember leaving to go sleep in the trailers outside because I was almost certain it was haunted. I do not believe in ghosts but metal cannot creak in that same exact pattern so many times in a row. There's something wrong with that place I tell you, it gives me a genuinely uneasy feeling that I only get from horror games. Couple that with the echoes of a dead world that you hear from radios and read from computer screens during the aurora and I have to wonder what other "echoes" there are I haven't seen yet.

...From the safety of my comfortable home in the forestry lookout, with generous sightlines so nothing can sneak up on you. 

 

Edited by Kitsune_Wizard
Grammar
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i don't know if this is only me, but I was playing tld and in the very early morning my character woke up and i went outside. I kept hearing a sound i've never heard before in the game (I have been playing for 2 years). It sounded like a plane flying overhead, but there wasn't anything above me yet the sound was very loud. (this wasn't during an aurora and I was in crumbling highway; definitely did not mistake the sound for not just being the waves from the ocean) I even have a clip of it and and you can definitely hear this weird sound.  Was this purposely put in the game or is it some type of glitch possibly on my end?

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13 minutes ago, thepatsbro said:

i don't know if this is only me, but I was playing tld and in the very early morning my character woke up and i went outside. I kept hearing a sound i've never heard before in the game (I have been playing for 2 years). It sounded like a plane flying overhead, but there wasn't anything above me yet the sound was very loud. (this wasn't during an aurora and I was in crumbling highway; definitely did not mistake the sound for not just being the waves from the ocean) I even have a clip of it and and you can definitely hear this weird sound.  Was this purposely put in the game or is it some type of glitch possibly on my end?

Let's see the clip and we'll know more. I have never encountered the sound you describe. Have you posted this before or am I having deja-vu?

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Hey guys, been playing TLD for a pretty long time now but this is my first question:

Is there any possibility that at some point in the future wolves, deer,  or possibly rabbits will roam more naturally through the maps using waypoints or something similar instead of walking back and forth in the same small area in which they spawned?  Bears already do this I know, I'm not sure about moose.  Will they ever get longer paths so it's harder to predict where they are?

Thanks!

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A long long time ago, you mentioned following a "Half Life 2" line of thought where you'd prefer to place narrative moments in-gameplay rather than in cutscenes. Is that still your goal? If so, how far do you intend to take this concept in future episodes?

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I am always thrilled to see Indie studios advertising  for new hires. It means they are doing well enough to be able to afford expansion of their team(s) or studio(s), usually. And I have seen Hinterland advertising for new positions recently. Congrats, that makes me smile. :)

 

But it makes me wonder... are the new hires all for The Long Dark, or are you building up the team and studio for a new game, possibly already being worked on?  No need for details,  just a simple 1) 2) 3) answer, please? New hires for:
1) The Long Dark
2) A new game
3) Both.

 

(No matter what, congrats on growing your dream, your team and your studio's successes. Onward.)

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Hi Raph,

Do you have plans to adjust the interior lighting to make it consistent among regions and buildings? for example, the farmhouse in PV is darker then the inside of a cow but the cave from ML to MT is like a walk in the sun.  I know you keep tweaking things to get the lighting right. Your fan base is patient. Ignore the trolls :)

 

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Please tell us about development of the visual style of the game. So one day you came to graphic team and told them you want a game looking like moving water-colour painting. And they answered smth like "okay we can make computer to do X and Y, but for Z you need an actual artist to draw, not the algorithm, Z is impossible". What were challenges in implementing the graphic engine? Which pieces of art were used as prototypes if any?  Which compromises your team took diverting from original vision due to implementation difficulties?

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Hi, a couple questions about being a game developer in general. 

1.) How has being so deeply involved in game development and design impacted your enjoyment of other people’s games? When you have the time to play, has being in the industry ruined any of the fun/magic of games? 

2.) When/how did you know game development was right for you? And what steps did you initially take to break into the industry?

Thanks!

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Ralph, long time player of the long dark here and I want to start by saying I really enjoy the game, currently on 326 hours played! I'm not usually the sort of person to post on a forum but I read every Milton Mailbag. I saw that last weeks mailbag didn't have as many posts so I created this account to post my own comment. I hope you will excuse the length but it's something I've been thinking about for a while.

I should say that I play almost entirely on Interloper so this may not be as relevant to others but as I reach the 50day+ mark I start to 'run out' of in game goals for my character, this becomes more pronounced on my current run which just passed the 125 day mark. Beyond that 50 day period once I have my bow and have cured my bearskin hides I'm left with something of an anticlimax.

I understand there is a certain amount of setting self goals in the game (for instance I just camped out in Desolation point and decided to move to Hushed River Valley in as few days as possible), but these self challenges often feel counter-intuitive to the enjoyable desperate survival and goal driven play of the first 50 days, having further in game goals would provide some playability enhancements. Probably the biggest example. My first Moose or second Bear is a real challenge with an in game reward, but once I have that wonderful +5kg backpack or bearskin roll I'm left with no reason to hunt any further dangerous wildlife.

I understand that you've previously said the reason for different furs being used for different clothing slots is to ensure the players need to interact with all of the wildlife types and this is understandable logic. My suggestion is to add a secondary use for in game materials which provide a relatively small bonus but represent significant time investments. Using existing resources but in new ways to create additional 'content'.

 

I'll leave game design to the experts but a few illustrative suggestions below so you can see my thought process:

An 'enhancement' to clothing (lining maybe?) to provide a small additional bonus at a cost of additional furs. For example a moose skin providing +10% water protection, a Bear skin lining providing +1deg C of additional warmth, rabbit lining a move bonus? This would present players with both an additional 'resource sink' and goal at the endgame. I'd see making a 'full set' of bear lined gear a goal that may take hundreds of hours to complete. Bear fur lined rabbitskin mittens anyone?

Campfires currently remain in game after creating them. What about being able to craft a 4 slot cooking enhancement to fires. Perhaps requiring 4 large pots, a hammer and multiple scrap metal to craft at a forge? Let me turn that campfire in the cave into a real home!

This logic could be extended to metal and reclaimed wood or cloth. 'Enhanced bed frame' providing a small boost to warmth or health regen requiring sacrificing a bedroll? Make the reward small and the investment huge, the aim wouldn't be to make the game easier exactly but provide a longer term challenge with a tangible reward.

 

I really do enjoy the game, I suppose after 300+ hours I may have just naturally reached the 'end' of the games playability but the Long Dark keeps drawing me back and I hope that's not true. I just wish I had some additional in game goals for my Long Dark character to strive for.

 

Whether you take any of this on board or not, great game and take care.

 

CJ

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Okay Raph. I searched the Index, and did not see this covered, though I may not have searched every keyword I could have. Bear with me, the question may come out a bit wordy...

Everyone defines "Indie" differently it seems, on social media, and in the world of programming/coding and SW/game development. Gamedevs on Twitter seem to have their own individual definitions as well. Yes, I follow you on Twitter, and I know you have talked about it at times. But many here may not have seen the Tweets. So, I am asking you to define what "Indie" means to you, as an Indie dev, running an Indie studio, making an Indie game. Is it all about publisher vs. self-published, or is there more to it than that, from your individual POV? Understanding that opinions are your own, not necessarily shared by your entire team at Hinterland.

And yes, I understand if the question is hard to answer without possibly causing some trouble for you on social media or elsewhere, so feel free to ignore it, if it might be too controversial right now with all of the excitement over crunch and union vs non-union, and a number of well-known AAA studios being dragged right now for their parts in it. But, I am curious, and had to ask, since my internal definition is probably very different from yours, or anyone else's.

You can always revert to the tried-and-true, and tell me when we will get Pancakes in the game. ;)

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How about the mysterious geomagnetic storm that happened in Milton?

i think how crazy was the peoples in Milton are and how did Astrid survived from the storm?

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Greetings!  There has been a recent forum post on shooting bears with a bow, getting blood splatter, bear flees and leaves blood trail.  Some time passes and the bear does not die but resumes it's normal pathing.  According to the wiki (and we do understand this could be outdated, in which case we/I would like to update it) all (excluding moose) animals shot with a successful bow shot should bleed out and die.  Could you clear up how this game mechanic works for us?  Thanks.

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Are you guys planning to change the stats on the Mackinaw Jacket? I LOVE the jacket in both real life and the game but I find it doesn't offer any unique trait considering how rare it is in the game.  I often compare items in the game based off of their weight and the expedition jacket (which is less rare) beats it in weight and every other stat apart from +/- 2 Mobility. I'd love to see the jacket have at LEAST two stats that beat the expedition jacket. Is there any hope for this? They are really tough jackets in real life so maybe durability? (Food for thought: Because the jacket is made out of wool, it would be great for preventing sweating, if you guys ever had an intention of adding "sweat monitoring" to the game...because sweating in the winter can be deadly...and Mackinaw/Merino wool wicks sweat well)

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