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Registered just because I wanted to say

I love The Long Dark!  The mods would all be pointless without the amazing game Hinterland has made.  TLD already has the best survival mechanics of any game in the genre, stock.  So, that said: to whatever extent another internet rando's opinion matters, I really enjoy many of the mods, too -- stuff that lets me remove the remnants of my emergency campfires from the world; stuff that let's me move a piece of furniture or two to really make my "base" feel I'm trying to make some small space for myself in a forlorn world.  You get the idea. It's not only redundant bugfixes, or godmode cheats, there's a lot of little things that have at least improved my personal games.

I'm happy this thread seems to be calming down, with everyone possibly understanding everyone else a bit better.  I definitely think mods are good for the game, in the same way that polishing improves a diamond.  I hope everyone understands that we don't hate the diamond by wanting to polish it.

This game is so good!

Take care, guys.

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1 minute ago, StrangerFromTheInternet said:

I mean, all of the asset stuff still works perfectly fine even with the IL2CPP backend. That's just down to how Unity packages its assets. And I'm not sure that you could even say that the code is protected. It's just an x86 binary. If you really want to find out how something works, or if you wanted to extract some secrets or whatnot, attach a debugger to it and go to town.

But what is changed fundamentally in IL2CPP is that the excellent interoperability and tooling support that C# (or rather .NET IL) provided, is gone. There's no easy way to reference the game's classes, to call the game's methods, to communicate with the game in any form, basically.

Most of our mods also relied on the Harmony library to change the code that the game executes. Being able to run your own code before or after any method, to change the basic IL instructions that a method is made up of, is incredibly powerful, and it has enabled the creation of so many excellent mods. But what worries me is that Harmony, and runtime code generation in general, doesn't work with native binaries, i.e. with IL2CPP. So I'm worried that most of the mods we currently have would never work with the IL2CPP scripting backend, or that enabling such mods would require a huge modding API that would be just unreasonable for Hinterland to create.

I understand that you and all of Hinterland want to pursue the absolute best performance for The Long Dark, this is absolutely obvious, and that this can never be outweighed by enabling better mods for a small part of the community. So I fully accept the move away from Mono and towards IL2CPP.

But what I'd like to ask you to at least consider would be to maintain two separate branches of the game on Steam - the main, default branch running on IL2CPP (once it has stopped crashing 😋) and a second one running on Mono or .NET that people would have to explicitly opt into - at least until Hinterland's official modding tools are ready. That way, we could keep our current mods for now and then smoothly transition to Hinterland's tools once the time is right.

Anyway - Raph, thank you so much for having this really open discussion with us tonight. You could've shut down this conversation, locked the thread, and started handing out warnings ten times over, and I really appreciate, and it really has changed my perception of you, that you didn't.

I'll go catch some Zs. Have a good one!

I'll think about what we might be able to do to help ensure some backwards compatibility for "old" mods, but only once we have official mod support rolled out, otherwise all my long-winded rebuttals are for naught. ;) Thanks for taking the time to articulate your points of view as well. It's been helpful to learn more about the what and why of the modding community we have, and gives me a lot of hope for what it could become in the future. In the mean time, have some :peaches:.

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But guys... what if I don't like Pancakes :/ they are too sweet. What if I like Chicken Nuggets, oo but I also like Chester Cheetoh Hot Fries hehe. :D 

Sorry but sweet foods make my sick. :P 

Now I could imagine the Aurora being a bunch of Hot Fries floating in the sky. Mmm! 

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1 hour ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Thanks for the thoughts. It makes me sad to think the community is shifting in tone and sentiment. 

I also apologize if I ever come off as hostile. That is not at all my intent. Yes, I tend to have little patience at times and the love I have for the community may not always shine through, although I assure you I am forever grateful for how much support we've had and how it's helped to get us where we are today. As passionate as any of you might be about the game, or modding, or this community, I don't think you can understand what it means to me. I've put 7+ years of my life into Hinterland and The Long Dark, expect to put many more (but hopefully along with some other things because nobody can eat steak every night ;) ), and have sunk countless hours, days, weeks, years, and a lot of $$ into this operation, all to try to create something special that is worthy of the respect of my family, my team, my peers, and my players. Yes, I may get testy at times -- the modding thing and the "we know better" attitude that sometimes comes with it can be hard to take when you've put 20 years of your life into a craft. But I get it. But not to butcher an analogy, I suspect this is what a chef might feel like if someone walks into their kitchen and says "I have a better recipe for that and I'm going to make it for your customers". It's not the hurt pride as much as the feeling of having failed the players for not having been able to deliver that thing first.

Also -- and I don't expect any of you to really understand how this feels -- it often feels as developers that were are in a new area of vulnerability or hostility with regards to the player community. I have peers in the industry who are completely shellshocked by the hostility of community interactions, the sense of entitlement that can sometimes be expressed by players and not in very productive ways. Many have left the industry as a result. We live in a society where complex thoughts are simplified to soundbites and it's not possible to disagree with someone without also hating them. (For the record, I don't hate anyone -- I just mean, there's a kind of calcification of points of view that is happening all around us and it can be difficult to find a place for empathy in the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down culture). I'm being vulnerable here so that you can understand a bit of where my head is. I'm not looking for sympathy -- I've been doing this for a long time and I understand the costs and the stakes and what it means to be "out there" in front of your players. But part of my feels an obligation to "hold a line" for my fellow developers who are not as fortunate as we are -- not as fortunate to have the financial means to take our time to work on things until we feel they are ready for release, not as fortunate to have the ability to have experts on the team who are trained in handling community interactions (I'm not talking about myself, clearly), not as fortunate to have a super stubborn head of studio who won't cave to outside pressure, etc. :) 

That has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. But, it's kind of part of the deal. If you want a game that feels like a personal outcome of someone's creative vision, and you want to have interactions with that person and have the ability to influence the thought process behind the game, it seems fair to me that you also respect the thought process that went into the creation of something. We have a really strange sense of ownership these days, believing that "liking" something and streaming something or modding something is the same as the fundamental act of creation of a thing (that comment is not targeted at anyone here, it's just a general sentiment about "internet culture") and I'm sure it sounds arrogant of me to say so, and maybe it is arrogant of me to say so, but I don't see those being the same thing. I believe what my team does is something special, is something we have dedicated our lives to (many of the Hinterland team are 20+ veterans of the industry; we only have a handful that have less than 10 yrs) is worthy of respect, just as we respect you by doing our best to give you great value for the money you have given us.

Sorry to ramble but I hate the thought that people feel I am hostile towards them. I'm certainly protective and yes I do bang the "it's our game!" drum a lot and if I do, please know it has as much to do with the world and what I see in our industry as it does with anything in this game or this community. I want you to love The Long Dark and feel a sense of ownership over your experience in it. And I think it's best for you too that we also love The Long Dark and feel a strong sense of ownership over it, how it is played and perceived, how it evolves, and the experience we are bringing to you. Because we have to wake up every day and try to figure out how to delight you, again.

/rant

Well raph I just want you to know - and a quick disclaimer here, I am absolutely not showing pity, this is my honest opinion - I believe hinterland is doing great, and will continue on to do great after this project. I've been following you guys since I was 14. I'm 20 now. I scraped up 20 dollars, in pennies, to buy this game because my mother wouldn't let me have a new game that close to Christmas that year. I'm not kidding. We have a penny jar in the kitchen. I emptied it. You've been a huge part of my life and this community has aswell, thus my rant about it going sour as it unfortunately has. I think this game has had a few hiccups along the way, *cough* pre-dux *cough,* but you have no idea how happy it makes me that yall did the right thing and went back and improved on it based on the opinions of your fan base. That itself puts you above most developers out there as far as listening to the community goes. And as I said in my previous post, I understand that your patience is growing as thin as the chance of not getting food poisoning from a 5% condition granola bar with the hostility coming from the community lately, and I wanted you to know that I I've never taken your occasional hot-headedness to heart. You're only human, raph, we all understand that and no one at all holds it against you. Just know that there are still plenty of us that stand by hinterland and support what you're doing. Y'all keep on doing what you do to make this game - nay - this masterpiece a reality for us. It is truly a work of art and remains my favorite game 6 years running. Wishing all y'all the best.

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26 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

I would be very disappointed if your mod doesn't turn Great Bear into a giant pancake and the Aurora into a maple syrup shower.

Oh, my. I have a ton of work to do creating new assets... :)

Raining syrup... we will need umbrellas... :D

1203384748_rainingsyrup.gif.77c189cb3cce1f3fc07c6e11b0b916cb.gif

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37 minutes ago, Tbone555 said:

Well raph I just want you to know - and a quick disclaimer here, I am absolutely not showing pity, this is my honest opinion - I believe hinterland is doing great, and will continue on to do great after this project. I've been following you guys since I was 14. I'm 20 now. I scraped up 20 dollars, in pennies, to buy this game because my mother wouldn't let me have a new game that close to Christmas that year. I'm not kidding. We have a penny jar in the kitchen. I emptied it. You've been a huge part of my life and this community has aswell, thus my rant about it going sour as it unfortunately has. I think this game has had a few hiccups along the way, *cough* pre-dux *cough,* but you have no idea how happy it makes me that yall did the right thing and went back and improved on it based on the opinions of your fan base. That itself puts you above most developers out there as far as listening to the community goes. And as I said in my previous post, I understand that your patience is growing as thin as the chance of not getting food poisoning from a 5% condition granola bar with the hostility coming from the community lately, and I wanted you to know that I I've never taken your occasional hot-headedness to heart. You're only human, raph, we all understand that and no one at all holds it against you. Just know that there are still plenty of us that stand by hinterland and support what you're doing. Y'all keep on doing what you do to make this game - nay - this masterpiece a reality for us. It is truly a work of art and remains my favorite game 6 years running. Wishing all y'all the best.

Wow...thank you so much. I don't know what to say. On behalf of the Hinterland team, thank you. ♥️ We strive, every day, to be worthy of this sentiment. Your penny jar is always in the front of my mind.

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I created an account to share my story. Thanks for allowing this conversation in the forum.

It's been clear mods are not sanctioned, but honestly my kids can't wait 2 years for mod support. They are 4 and 7 and LOVE this game right now. As do I. For the past 6 months, I've use the mods to help them access the game (esp the 4 year old) while I stick vanilla. The kids just don't have the nuanced understanding of the game - nor patience/dexterity - so I use mods to move easier on terrain (sprains), place things in the house and on the ground (stacking), remove and to speed up the game (faster searching) among others. 

Just know this game got played by us quite a bit this past winter, sitting all together it was a blast to play TLD in the morning while a blizzard is raging outside IRL. 

I know you say the game hasn't gotten to meet your vision yet, but in our eyes, the game is already there. It's so unlike any other game and we all love it for a variety of reasons. The challenge. The exploration. The struggle. The blood curdling scream from the kids as they go running away from the game when faced with a surprise bear. Or the "WE FOUND A BOW!" as they go running upstairs to tell mom about a new find. 

We see your vision every day and we LOVE it. This is all a journey. I look forward to the day you allow the mods to work again.
Thanks for the experience.

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Raph…. stop impressing me ,for gods sake I'm not supposed to feel moved in a modding discussion thread!

I am a 46 year old male whom has been playing computer video games since I around 11 years old the very first game I played was Zork ( I think that's the name) it was a word based game. For me at that age and time was... Meh. Then I played Kings Quest and that game lead to the lifetime hobby of computer gaming. I liked the complexity and problem solving that they offered as opposed to console games. I have been playing games on the reg for most my life. I however know very little about coding or modding, and copyright law. I have had a lot of experience in observing relationships between gaming companies and their forum communities for sometime I have seen some monumental blunders and to be honest very little humanity so im pretty much a average Joe whom tries to keep a open mind.

 

I have heard of another Raph, hes in the industry as well through the years I have come to like and respect him as well, his name is Raph Koster.

I mention this because the company he used to work for ( Sony on line entertainment) operated a game I loved and to my amassment had a such negative effect om me that it'll follow me to the grave. I will never be able to purchase a Sony product agian even knowing the parent company had little to nothing to do with its subsidiary. I cant go into what a train wreck that was but I saw pretty much what to never do done again and again. 

What I meant by motivation is ummm yeah money, to some people its all that matters and to other its the means to an end you can look at your forums and see a percentage number of the total units sold or you can see it as your customers who thought it worth their time to give it extra attention ( good or bad ).

 

Emotions and politics are a funny thing and often have more of an effect than even the facts on a issue, unfortunately a genius can say all the right things the wrong way and be passed over for a moron saying all the wrong things the right way. It so important to be patient and understanding to remember we are just human beings and cant be anything else. Locking threads and silencing voices will never be a positive thing if your wrong you cant change the facts but only your opinions. Boot licker's make us feel great using words like flawless, masterpiece, perfect and the like, words that don't even apply to the human species, I have never figured out what the true intent are of these types of people are unless its just to appeal and be accepted, as it can be tempting to surround yourself with yes men .. well I don't know anyone that helped.

When I play TLD I don't think about how much of Raph's life was poured into it or the effects it had on his life and a matter of fact chances are I may have given no more than a seconds thought to it other than reading the name I just want to have fun. When I leave comments I probably don't consider or even comprehend what emotional value it may have and thus having the completely opposite effect I was intending afterall we are the heros in our own stories and its hard to consider that we may in fact be the villain. Anyway back to the topic at hand.

 

Ok caught me!

I just recently started using TLD mods about 3 weeks ago. I used the Wolf hat, the bug fixes, the musical instrument, the dear skin coat, the water management, the one that bypassed snapping the bunnies neck (after all I want my daughter to love me), and additional clothing and food. I felt that adding these would in no way effect TLD's outcome. I have paid for the game and in that way supported Hinterland. I will say I was amazed by the mods and it crossed my mind several times why Hinterland wasn't working with the modders and at the same time understanding that the issues could be complex. It took me some time just to get them to work Im not as good with a computer as id like to think but finally figured out java enough to get them to work. In the process of trying to figure it out they made it very clear that if I chose to mod TLD that Support from Hinterland was omitted and to have the modded version watermarked on screen at all times it was repeated many times that reporting a bug to Hinterland would be a huge waste of their time.

 

I can still see people doing it just because of the nature of people and can understand why Hinterland would be against it, to be honest Im really not interested in playing without them now however that could always change I wish that both parties could work together but understand its a complex for example if Hinterland used a mod to add to the base of the actual game itself, is it stealing ,can they profit from a modders work. What if hinterland added something that appeared to be a modders work or idea would it cause conflict. I have no idea and (not to be callus) don't care. I just understand theres reasons I may have no knowledge of.

 

That's my 2 cents from an average guy (least I hope I am), now if it took money or profited from Hinterland id be against it I can also understand that they cant go on forever with no revenue stream, Ill also note that progress seems very slow and game in current form seems far from finished I can see a lot of potential in its design and hope it lives up to it. Just don't be an SOE. 

Keep up the great job

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@MinnesotaShouldBeInCanada That's neat you all play together as a family :) I hope things turn out soon for you guys, so you all can get back to playing just the way you like. :D - I know it can be tough for some without Mods, so I am VERY understanding. Perhaps during this time while we are waiting for Mod Support from the Hinterland Team, maybe we could just play some more and try to get even better and better at TLD? :P I know your children are young, but don't doubt them that they can learn quick. I been gaming since I was a young child, probably around 5 give or take? and yes attention spans are short, heck mine still is lol! but kids are smarter than we give them credit for. Your 4 yr old might take a little longer to be patient without the Mods, but I am sure your 7 year old may be able to handle this. Or what you could do until Mod Support rolls around, you could play and they could watch you. :D 

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In my 160 hours in the game, I've tried a few mods myself. I've experimented with cheats (I'm sorry, I was just curious) and explored some areas that aren't accessible in survival. I've even tried a few small mods (I remember using one for binoculars and more food items), but I've always returned to playing vanilla, because it was a much smoother and pleasant experience. Also, I was sure that it will (at least hopefully) work as correctly as possible and won't stop working in the future.

I absolutely understand Raph's frustration about unofficial mods and therefore I won't play with them, not at least until their official support.

The Long Dark is definitely my second favourite game of all time (because nothing really beats Portal 2 in my eyes, sorry), and I really respect Hinterland at what they're doing. No matter what people say, I will always look at Hinterland with huge respect, because I have never seen a game studio support their game so much for so long, engage with their community so much and generally care about their creation as much as Hinterland does. It's an amazing experience and the recently released REDUX update proves that - they really care about their game and it's quality so much that they will completely redo a huge part of it, even though it won't be as profitable as just moving on. I love that.

I understand that people want to use mods to fix bugs and I understand the reason - even though Hinterland fixes most of them, there are some so obvious that haven't been fixed for so long it's a bit sad, great example is the headgear slots being swapped - I really thought this will be fixed in Vigilant Flame yet here we are. But I still believe that the game is in great condition, so I don't feel the need to fix bugs with a mod. But I would really like to see this one fixed, since it's been so long.

I guess my point is - I understand Hinterland's and Raphael's approach to mods and I respect that, even though I understand modders as well. I'm looking forward for official mod support, because it will be a huge win for everyone and I'm super thankful for Raphael and Hinterland making TLD the incredibly amazing game it is today. Thank you so much for doing what you're doing. 🙂

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6 hours ago, kristaok said:

@MinnesotaShouldBeInCanada I know your children are young, but don't doubt them that they can learn quick. I been gaming since I was a young child, probably around 5 give or take? and yes attention spans are short, heck mine still is lol! but kids are smarter than we give them credit for. Your 4 yr old might take a little longer to be patient without the Mods, but I am sure your 7 year old may be able to handle this. Or what you could do until Mod Support rolls around, you could play and they could watch you. :D 

Thank you but please do not make assumptions about my kids capabilities or build expectations based on your own experience/life. I give all the credit in the world to them and their accomplisments. That's all I'm going to say about this personal situation.

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16 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Before I worked in games, I modded games (I won't tell you which ones because it makes me feel old).

Raph, I'm willing to bet that I can beat that. Here's one: I played pong on the original hardware in 1978 in my friend Ooz's basement.

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Ok, my 2 cents, for what it's worth.

 

Firstly, i love The Long Dark, it's one of my favourite games ever!  I have over 500 hours into it, but i wouldn't have anywhere near that if it wasn't for mods.  I physically would have been unable to play it without mods.  The reason being...the struggle mechanic.  My wrist just can't take button bashing.  Normally, if i buy a game that includes button bashing, i would uninstall immediately....in a bit of a rage i might add lol.  BUT, i love The Long Dark!  I wanted to play it.  So i installed a mod that helped me in struggles.

Now, some people would consider that a 'cheating' mod, but if the only option was to use that mod or not play the game....then is it?  Really?

It's great that HL have finally added an option to turn off said button bashing, but for the longest time the mod was the reason i carried on playing.  I would absolutely have just uninstalled the game without it.  I wouldn't have read through every patch to see if it had been added, i would never have given TLD another look or thought.  That's not a threat, it's just a sad fact.

Apart from that mod, i carried on playing the game mostly vanilla for a long time.....and had a blast i might add!  I did however, start to get a little bit bored then.  Not because it's not a great game, but because you can never possibly release enough content (and fast enough) to keep everyone's attention.  That's just a fact of life, and by no means a reflection on yourselves.  So that is when i started looking at other mods.  New foods, clothes, crafting....just things that freshened up the game for me, kept me interested between content updates.  Surely that is a good thing? 

I kind of feel like Hinterland should be encouraging modding to be frank.  Just look at TES and Fallout series.  Still today they are being played and modded (unofficially i might add), and that's because the modders were embraced.

 

Now, i'm not sure where the hostility between modders and HL came from (none of my business), but it's absolutely clear (as a player) that there is some.  I'm also not saying it's either side.  But that hostility is hurting absolutely everyone.  Hinterland, modders and players.  Absolutely no one benefits from it.  And personally, as a player, there's nothing i'd love more, than to see everyone working together a little more...not against each other. 

And of course, i'd love to see mod support accelerated.  Hey i can try right  :D 

 

Finally, i thank Hinterland for an amazing experience.  I also thank the modders that have kept the game fresh for me.

And i hope to play many more hours...with mods.

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12 hours ago, MinnesotaShouldBeInCanada said:

I created an account to share my story. Thanks for allowing this conversation in the forum.

It's been clear mods are not sanctioned, but honestly my kids can't wait 2 years for mod support. They are 4 and 7 and LOVE this game right now. As do I. For the past 6 months, I've use the mods to help them access the game (esp the 4 year old) while I stick vanilla. The kids just don't have the nuanced understanding of the game - nor patience/dexterity - so I use mods to move easier on terrain (sprains), place things in the house and on the ground (stacking), remove and to speed up the game (faster searching) among others. 

Just know this game got played by us quite a bit this past winter, sitting all together it was a blast to play TLD in the morning while a blizzard is raging outside IRL. 

I know you say the game hasn't gotten to meet your vision yet, but in our eyes, the game is already there. It's so unlike any other game and we all love it for a variety of reasons. The challenge. The exploration. The struggle. The blood curdling scream from the kids as they go running away from the game when faced with a surprise bear. Or the "WE FOUND A BOW!" as they go running upstairs to tell mom about a new find. 

We see your vision every day and we LOVE it. This is all a journey. I look forward to the day you allow the mods to work again.
Thanks for the experience.

Thanks for the thoughts. I have kids too -- they were too young to play TLD when we were first working on it, and honestly are still too young considering the rating. I would never tell another parent how to parent. All I can say is I have an obligation to call out the game's rating. I only bring it up because in general the game content is designed with a Teen+ audience in mind (I would say the story is more mature than even that, but from the ESRB or PEGI's points of view the game is a T (13) in NA and a 16 in Europe). 

All that said, each parent needs to decide for themselves what is appropriate for their children. I've seen a lot of people over the years commenting on playing with their children, and it's heartwarming to think that it could be an experience shared with kids. (I play Minecraft, Splatoon, PvZ:GW2, etc. with mine). How mods can make the experience more "family friendly" is honestly not something I've considered, as I tend to think of our audience as being skewed on the older side. I appreciate the perspective.

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11 hours ago, Kissodeath said:

I have heard of another Raph, hes in the industry as well through the years I have come to like and respect him as well, his name is Raph Koster.

I mention this because the company he used to work for ( Sony on line entertainment) operated a game I loved and to my amassment had a such negative effect om me that it'll follow me to the grave. I will never be able to purchase a Sony product agian even knowing the parent company had little to nothing to do with its subsidiary. I cant go into what a train wreck that was but I saw pretty much what to never do done again and again. 

What I meant by motivation is ummm yeah money, to some people its all that matters and to other its the means to an end you can look at your forums and see a percentage number of the total units sold or you can see it as your customers who thought it worth their time to give it extra attention ( good or bad ).

Sorry to hear about the negative experience you had with SOE. I know Raph Koster a bit and I believe he's a good person and an excellent designer. He gave a great talk at GDC a couple of years ago about lessons learned from MMOs and as a developer, it was really uplifting. He also wrote a great book on game design called A Theory of Fun, which I highly recommend.

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5 hours ago, MinnesotaShouldBeInCanada said:

Thank you but please do not make assumptions about my kids capabilities or build expectations based on your own experience/life. I give all the credit in the world to them and their accomplisments. That's all I'm going to say about this personal situation.

Okay... I was just trying to be nice.... yikes.... suit yourself... 

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20 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Thanks for the thoughts. I have kids too -- they were too young to play TLD when we were first working on it, and honestly are still too young considering the rating. I would never tell another parent how to parent. All I can say is I have an obligation to call out the game's rating. I only bring it up because in general the game content is designed with a Teen+ audience in mind (I would say the story is more mature than even that, but from the ESRB or PEGI's points of view the game is a T (13) in NA and a 16 in Europe). 

All that said, each parent needs to decide for themselves what is appropriate for their children. I've seen a lot of people over the years commenting on playing with their children, and it's heartwarming to think that it could be an experience shared with kids. (I play Minecraft, Splatoon, PvZ:GW2, etc. with mine). How mods can make the experience more "family friendly" is honestly not something I've considered, as I tend to think of our audience as being skewed on the older side. I appreciate the perspective.

Holy cow, i actually didn't know that it was rated that high. We only play Survival and the worst we hear is the character saying "Damn" at times. We live rural and embedded in hunting-friendly families, so maybe it's about guns? Or maybe Story mode has something. Honestly, this is the tamest game we've EVER FOUND to play with them, especially relative to other games my oldest asks about (and doesn't get). Also, many of these survival games seem to have zombies or other unnatural things that just don't cut it for us. Again, I think your vision is out there and embraced - despite it not being complete. I have started (and let go of) many organizations in my life (I'm nearly 50) and it's never easy giving up that control or even seeing things change. I am hopeful there's something constructive that comes out of this, not one-way, but with the community. I am finally able to post about this without fear of being banned so that's nice. :)

All said, THANK YOU for giving us some great family time in a lovely world.

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Guest kristaok

Actually there is one other curse word the Game says that I hate (I wish it did NOT have this word) if I heard correctly, it was " I am G-D D.mn freezing " or something along those lines. Thankfully I don't hear it often... :( 

Also there are things that probably are questionable in the Game for little kids, a friend of mine just posted yesterday they saw a dead guy slumped over with the Revolver beside his hand. I was like oh no... I wonder if he offed himself. :/ Little things like that do help to bring it up to T for Teen.

Also in one of the Cutscenes in the Story Mode we can see Will had some sort of Alcohol on his table, poor guy he REALLY has been through a lot with the breaking up of him and Astrid, and if I recall they also lost their child. 😢 

 I know I am not a kid, but when the Wolves and the Bears attack I freak out! It's SO scary! my heart races, I get sweaty, I literally hold my breathe a lot during these times! but then again I am a BIG scaredy cat! I play with the Animals attacking because due to the Aurora it would make sense that they would be more rabid, but if it were not for this Aurora they would not attack unless they had young or were provoked. :P 

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19 hours ago, WellsleyFarms said:

I mean, you're wrong on that front. It's not illegal to mod games and publish mods, they aren't being sold.
You can say whatever you like in your EULA, and we can agree to it, but if it's incorrect in the eyes of the law then that contract is void.

 

And I'm sorry but you're wrong as well. We do have a choice, continue to put effort and time into modding. They didn't approve of it before and look at all the great things we accomplished. 

I misspoke then.  It was my understanding from reading what modders were saying that with the architecture change, it would make modding almost impossible.

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23 minutes ago, MinnesotaShouldBeInCanada said:

Holy cow, i actually didn't know that it was rated that high. We only play Survival and the worst we hear is the character saying "Damn" at times. We live rural and embedded in hunting-friendly families, so maybe it's about guns? Or maybe Story mode has something. Honestly, this is the tamest game we've EVER FOUND to play with them, especially relative to other games my oldest asks about (and doesn't get). Also, many of these survival games seem to have zombies or other unnatural things that just don't cut it for us.

There are a few curses. Nothing too bad, though, IMO. Primarily the game rating is based on the possibility of visible violence (ex. wolf or bear struggle), the fact you can see blood in the game, etc. I don't think the presence of corpses impacts the rating (strangely) but I know it's off-putting for some adult players and I can imagine it would be uncomfortable and potentially shocking for kids.

WINTERMUTE definitely has at least a few moments I can think of that would not go down well with kids, I wouldn't think. At least I know I wouldn't want my own children experiencing them.

We also pre-emptively included mentions of Tobacco and Alcohol (there's a bottle of whiskey on Mackenzie's desk in Jackrabbit Transport) and we may add more in the future so the rating covers us for that as well.

In terms of overall themes in WINTERMUTE, I tend to think our content skews a little older than the average game, but there's always a range. There are certainly kids mature enough to get it, and adults who aren't. ;) 

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Guest kristaok
20 hours ago, WellsleyFarms said:

I mean, you're wrong on that front. It's not illegal to mod games and publish mods, they aren't being sold.
You can say whatever you like in your EULA, and we can agree to it, but if it's incorrect in the eyes of the law then that contract is void.

 

And I'm sorry but you're wrong as well. We do have a choice, continue to put effort and time into modding. They didn't approve of it before and look at all the great things we accomplished. 

I just saw this... ehh.... yikes! no - no I don't think Raph and his Team is wrong... I think he would know, I mean after - all he did make the Game! Plus he said in his Post he spent YEARS on this Game, it's like his baby... he wants it done right! so he WILL release his own Mod Support when it's time - in his timing.

Also this reply from you to Raph did help solidify the changing of my mind on Unsupported Mods, I used to be all for Modding... I couldn't understand why they were not Supported - well that was until Raph poured his heart and soul out yesterday. But anyway after seeing the attitude differences, I have realized that there is an air of entitlement coming from those who are for Unsupported Mods, and opposing Raph (and the Hinterland Team) REALLY bothers me especially now that I have a GREATER respect for him. 

Once you sign that EULA it DOES become a Contract... I admit I don't read them because a LOT of the language is BIG words that I just don't get, and well... I am LAZY there I said it. :P But when you sign those you are bound to what they say, you or others may not like that but you signed it, even if you didn't read it. 

Also you can continue to put effort into Modding all you want, but they are still NOT Supported by the Hinterland Team. If you care about TLD Game, The Team, and Raph you will respect their wishes. I have personally decided to respect their wishes, because again seeing Raph open himself up like that made me think... I mean REALLY think. I decided then on out I would not be for Unsupported Mods, I am fine patiently waiting on Raph and his Team to release their own Mod Support. And if you love this Game, you should consider waiting too.

Also I noticed at the end you put "look at all the great things we have accomplished", yes... but have you stopped to look at ALL of the GREAT things Raph and his Team have accomplished? Raph has spent the last few years of his LIFE making this WONDERFUL Game! This Game (and I never say things unless I REALLY mean them) is my FAVORITE Game! It really makes me feel calm when I am going through a lot. I have always wanted a Survival Game without Zombies or weird Cannibals, and YES! thanks to the Team and Raph I can play The Long Dark where it's only Nature that is against me! Plus I am HUGE into the Story of Chris McCandles (God rest his soul 😢 he is dead ) I recommend everyone here to read up on him, his story reminds me a LOT of The Long Dark! 

Anyway I know those who have Modded their Game are probably going through a lot, I want to sympathize but it's kind of hard especially after seeing the entitlement. 

So my advice is; Let's be kind, let's not go against Raph, the Team, and the EULA, and let's wait on the Teams Supported Mods or whatever. 

PS. Also by advocating Unsupported Mods, some people who may not know what they are doing will Mod their Game and mess it up... they will then send a Report in and waste the Teams time, and take away from others issues who have not used Unsupported Mods. 

Edited by kristaok
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Guest kristaok
1 minute ago, Hawk said:

I don't care for that phrase so much that I turn off the subtitles and the audio dialog. That's really my only negative feelings about this game.

Being a Christian, hearing that is a really huge turn off in an otherwise great game.

I agree ( I am a Christian as well ). But other than that, the other stuff I can handle. :P 

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8 minutes ago, Hawk said:

I don't care for that phrase so much that I turn off the subtitles and the audio dialog. That's really my only negative feelings about this game.

Being a Christian, hearing that is a real big turn off in an otherwise great game.

Personally, in relation to other media in our world today, TLD is very tame!  Music, movies, TV - it has all declined pretty sharply.  My wife and I have really gotten in to a 1940's XM radio station lately because of so much garbage today.

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Guest kristaok
7 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

Personally, in relation to other media in our world today, TLD is very tame!  Music, movies, TV - it has all declined pretty sharply.  My wife and I have really gotten in to a 1940's XM radio station lately because of so much garbage today.

I agree aside from that word being a REALLY big pet peeve for me, TLD IS VERY tame like you said. :D Which I am truly grateful for! 

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