Milton Mailbag -- Dispatch #29

Raphael van Lierop

By Raphael van Lierop
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Raphael van Lierop Pathfinder

Raphael van Lierop

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Hello community!

With the Easter long weekend, we're publishing the Mailbag dispatch a day early! And as promised since we skipped last week, this week will be a "double header" Dispatch. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

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Question from @Azdrawee:

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As far as I can tell, the new soundtrack released in Vigilant Flame is not in the game's OST you can buy on Steam and Bandcamp. This is the only thing stopping me from buying it, because these are one of my favourite tracks and I would love to listen to them on their own. Will there be an updated version or will these release along Ep. 3 in Volume Two, perhaps? Thanks for your answer. :-)

We should clarify some terms to make sure we're talking about the same things. A "soundtrack" (to me)" is the collection of music, and a track is a piece of music in the soundtrack. So yes, we added new music (tracks) in Vigilant Flame, which are not in Volume 1 of the "Music for The Long Dark" as that was created when we first launched WINTERMUTE in August 2017. But, good news, everything we add to Survival Mode + the new WINTERMUTE music that gets added in Episode Three and beyond will end up in Volume 2 (we might even end up with a Volume 3). So yes, the tracks you're talking about will be added to the next volume of the soundtrack. :) 

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Question from @SlippedGear:

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Is there any chance there could be an option added to the custom settings to turn off dead bodies, even though they are loot containers? I would like to play this with my younger nieces and nephews and not have to explain why there are frozen people in all the areas. Thank you for your consideration.

Thanks for your question. The Long Dark has an age rating that is appropriate for its content. We don't currently have any plans to make it possible to turn the corpses on and off. But, I'll keep your request in mind.

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Question from @Pan Pastwa:

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Hello! I'd like to ask you, what is the direction of future updates of Survival Mode. Are you going to focus on increasing the amount of new content (like adding Revolver and someday  the new region, which I'm looking forward to!) or maybe on overhauling mechanisms (like starting fires or fishing) or something else? Is there an aspect of the Survival Mode which in your opinion is currently a problem? (like not enough places to visit? too little variety of items? no goals after exploring the whole world?)

I have a very long list of things I'd like to add and improve in the game. We'll see how far through the list we get. I'm being evasive because as soon as I provide details people will think I'm promising those things. :) 

In terms of what tends to be in our updates to Survival Mode, the updates usually offer a mix of new systems and content, improvements to existing systems and content, tuning changes, and bug fixes.

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Question from @BareSkin:

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I have a simple question: why did you (personally or as a team), at some point, chose to reward players exponentially for sleeping long stretches?

Something linear like "in a bed, after the first hour, every hour slept heals twice the normal awake recovery" would have seemed more natural to me. That would still make players sleep long stretches, but not come back from the other side of the Styx in only one night.

It stills bugs me that you can go to bed after a wolf fight with frostbite risk, 4 sprains, hypothermia, eat 7 cattails, drink, choose 10 hours, and start as if nothing happened. As if it was not a big mistake to be careless.

 

In general, the goal with Rest was to add a benefit to deeper, more restful sleep over taking lots of little naps over the course of the day. It's true that you can regain some Condition from a good night's rest, but it's not a magic bullet -- Rest alone won't heal most afflictions and you can still only rest until you are no longer Fatigued. There are checks and balances.

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Question from @Moll:

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Why you added revolver instead of more common shotguns? Its story purposed?

In wilderness handguns are not very likely used, compare to long guns.

Why revolver over more common semi auto pistol? 

 

Because I think adding a Revolver is more interesting. :) Hopefully once you've been able to play with it, you'll see why.

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Question from @XAlaskan_420X:

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I am not sure if this has been ask before or not. But I notice how Characters have there own unique clothing that is not in survival. Is there any chance you will be adding Will's coat & boots, Jeremiah's hat, coat & boots or Mathis's sheepskin jacket into survival mode as a wearable clothing item that can be found but not crafted? Or do you wish to keep those unique to the characters?

Yeah those are custom clothing loadouts and we don't currently have any plans to make them usable in-game. That doesn't mean we won't add new playable clothing in the future, though. It's nice for the story characters to have special clothing -- gives them a unique visual identity.

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Question from @EpiK_Deadman:

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Has anybody at Hinterland thought about a VR version of this game. A sort of, branch off of the game like The Forest did?

Yup, it's been discussed. VR is not ideal for games that depend on a lot of locomotion. Also, the market for VR titles is still very small. That said, we're still open to doing a contained VR experience that is in The Long Dark IP. But I don't believe a full VR "version" of the current game can be a good experience.

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Question from @Mr. TwoPump:

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Since the lore of Great Bear Island is that it was pretty much an industrial powerhouse, would we see a more industrial side of Great Bear instead of some small logging camps and mines or waling like habrina, like if we saw huge logging camps or coal fired power plants or possibly steel mills

The lore really talks more about how Great Bear was exploited for its natural resources, not that it was an industrial centre. That said, there could be other Hibernia and Carter style environments in the future.

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Question from @Kitsune_Wizard:

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My question is: do you plan on adding attachments or customizations to our weapons? I love my rifle but i'd love it even more with some bear fur wrapped around the stock as a little trophy. Alternatively, a scope or one of those little keychain things hanging off the end of the barrel. A rabbit's foot for luck or something. Something to make the weapon mine. Even the option to carve notches into the stock with a hunting knife for each kill would go a long way. 

Of course this is all optics and none of it really matters to survival, but I think getting attached to your weapon is always a nice feeling. 

 

Yes, we have some ideas about this!

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Question from @Smellyfries:

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Is there something that really excites you and the team to get done for a future update?

Yes! I really can't wait for [redacted]. ;) 

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Question from @UraniumAnchor:

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I just found out about Wilderness: A Survival Adventure (old DOS game) and I was wondering if you'd ever played it or taken inspiration from it? It even has a similar 'crashed plane in the wilderness of Canada' setup in one of its scenarios.

I've never played it, but someone on my team recently found a copy (somewhere?) and we were looking at the packaging and manual together -- looks very cool!

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Question from @Annette:

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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?

I hope to add a bunch of new Merch items to the store soon! Love the idea of a Survival Snack Pack, though. 

Community: If you all made your own "snack packs" for when playing The Long Dark, what would you put in them?

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Question from @thepatsbro:

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I've been playing TLD on xbox for a while now and I want to switch over to pc/mac. Will there ever be a progress transfer feature from one system to another?

- Thanks :)

 

This should already work between Xbox and Windows 10 versions, based on XPA (Xbox Play Anywhere).

Beyond that, there is no platform compatibility between Xbox, Steam, PS4, etc. so that's not something we can offer, unfortunately. 

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Question from @Rhett987:

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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?

We really focus on marketing our updates to our current players, to bring them back to the game. We often get awareness from press who cover the updates, and we sometimes run sales around updates as well as sales + updates tend to support each other in terms of player attention. We've love The Long Dark to be even bigger than it is. We have some ideas about how to market the game even more effectively, but mostly we're focused on producing the best quality experience we can and making sure people feel good about their purchase of the game.

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Question from @Skelegutplays:

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I was looking at the merch store and was wondering why the pricing of the tld logo mug was 3 EUR less than the other mugs at 22 EUR, answer?

Not sure. All the mugs are the same price in Canada...

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Question (not really) from @ThePancakeLady:

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Hi. Yeah. I was gone. And now I am back. And no Pancakes. 

What gives Boss?  My return deserves at least one little plate of Pancakes somewhere in the game. 

Doesn't it? :(

 

I'm eating Pancakes in your honour, right now. :) 

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Question from @Smellyfries:

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When you first started making TLD, how much do you feel that your Company's skill with making and improving the game has increased?

Honestly? Depends on the day. :) 

We're definitely better at making the game, but the game is also HUGE compared to when we started which makes adding and improving it a much more painstaking process. Just the increased testing burden alone slows things down quite a bit. So, skill has increased. Speed has not always increased. I think we do some things very well, and I think we have a lot of areas we could improve. We're always working on it and hopefully, from the player's perspective, the game gets better every year. The team is always learning.

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That's the Mailbag for this week. Thanks for reading and have a great long-weekend!

- Raph

 

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ThePancakeLady Pathfinder

ThePancakeLady

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17 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Community: If you all made your own "snack packs" for when playing The Long Dark, what would you put in them?

Beef jerky, (something I never really ate much until TLD), Dried fruits and nuts (aka/GORP or trail mix), Apples... I munch on apples a lot while playing, Pepperoni sticks (not Slim Jims, ugh... real Pepperoni, requiring a knife to cut off chunks or slices),  popcorn, GF pretzel sticks, peanut butter in little single serve cups, coffee, always coffee. Yes, these are things I gnosh on while playing TLD already. Ooooo! And Swedish Fish... the original red ones.

 

No Pancakes in my snack pack... Pancakes are really hard to package that way, Though Tupperware makes silver dollar pancakes a possibility.  ;)

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Guest kristaok

Guest kristaok

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23 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Community: If you all made your own "snack packs" for when playing The Long Dark, what would you put in them?

Beef Jerky, Trail Mix, Granola Bars, and Pretzels.

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ajb1978 Pathfinder

ajb1978

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My snack pack currently does not fit the TLD theme as I'm trying to cut some weight here.  Christmas and Thanksgiving took their toll and I never really reigned myself in so time to do that now!

Baby carrots and pickles.  Lots of carrots and pickles...nobody ever got fat or stayed fat filling up on carrots and pickles.

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