DEV DIARY – NOVEMBER 2019


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🧡 my god 🧡 my god 🧡 my GOD!!!!!
thank you guys for giving me something to look forward to this month!!!!
Raph, seriously, I was dreading December until you guys announced the upcoming goodies,  

I’ll be on personal leave during “the time” and this is due to launch around then!!!!   I’ll stay busy and as always diving into  the long dark will get me through!

you always have the best timing hinterland!!!

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11 hours ago, Moll said:

Whole idea is immersion breaking, characters are not gunsmiths and with craftable ammo, you drastically decrease need for bow.

I don't see how that's immersion breaking; people do that in real life all the time.  Just because it's not common knowledge doesn't mean it breaks immersion, it just means you personally can't do it.  (Just like I'm willing to bet you personally don't know how to dress and quarter a deer, although I could be mistaken.)  Something like a HUD for Timberwolf morale...now THAT is immersion breaking.  Because that doesn't exist for anyone IRL.

Edited by ajb1978
I suck at English sometimes
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It can't be a coincidence that Fluffy returns on the first map that timberwolves make a debut in Survival Mode. Maybe she's like the den-mother Matriarch of the pack? Also, the fact that we need to access the region from two others and complete tasks all while avoiding the Timbers makes this sound like a challenge only for established or crazy players. If this is the case, I'm liking this approach to the new regions! 

The reason I say this is that we've already got enough regions to "start" in, but only a couple with clear goals and challenges. Timberwolf Mountain and Hushed River Valley are the only two on that list. Timberwolf mountain is an awesome story of climbing a mountain to discover a plane crash and hushed river valley is a maze for the bespoke moose satchel. All the other regions don't have a focused defining challenge in them (unless you're in interloper and need to access a forge, or on a quest to find prepper caches). That isn't a bad thing, we need areas we can set our own intrinsic goals and get a foothold in. But maps like Timberwolf Mountain work so well because they get the player to stop and prepare for a big task, and even while they explore Pleasant Valley, they feel that mountain looming, waiting, begging them to brave its heights. 

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As excited as I am about this update (and I am VERYYY excited!), I do have a lingering concern/question.  It seems that when new content is added (like the revolver for example), if you have a longer game in which you've looted most (if not all) locations, finding the quantity of new item(s) can be challenging.  Compare this to a new game with the same settings.  With this update I'm thinking of the Marine Flare (and it sounds like there may be other items).  It seems as though those of us with the longer games do not find as much of these new items.  Is there something that can be done to remedy that?  I prefer not to start a new game so as to maximize items gained.

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10 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

As excited as I am about this update (and I am VERYYY excited!), I do have a lingering concern/question.  It seems that when new content is added (like the revolver for example), if you have a longer game in which you've looted most (if not all) locations, finding the quantity of new item(s) can be challenging.  Compare this to a new game with the same settings.  With this update I'm thinking of the Marine Flare (and it sounds like there may be other items).  It seems as though those of us with the longer games do not find as much of these new items.  Is there something that can be done to remedy that?  I prefer not to start a new game so as to maximize items gained.

I don't think this will be an issue this time around, since the Timberwolves only appear in the new region.  It stands to reason Marine Flares will only appear in this region as well.

Once Timberwolves start to appear elsewhere...then yes this will be a problem.  In these cases it would be kind of nice if existing flares had like a 25% chance of magically converting into Marine Flares, just for the benefit of people on long run.

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12 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

It stands to reason Marine Flares will only appear in this region as well.

We may assume that but I wouldn't like to bet on it.  And, what of the other new items (as was the case with revolver and it's rounds)?

Edited by hozz1235
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Muaha. Haven't played in quite a while, but seeing this might just bring me back to TLD over Christmas. The return of Fluffy has been SOOOO overdue. I think that new players should be welcomed by her at some stage into the game. After all, this is a survival game, is it not?

Not sure how I like ammunition crafting as a game element (if that is what is coming), since I have always been a fan of dwindling resources. Renewables are kind of taking away from the atmosphere, but that's just me. Anyway, IF we get ammunition crafting, I think we should also get it in Interloper. Together with crafting a rifle from broken rifle parts, oh yes. That would be the super-late-game-reward for Interloper players: Collect parts from broken rifles plus ingredients for ammunition across several regions, collect and study books on crafting rifles and ammunition, travel to the new region, travel around it to its second access, unlock access to the drill, survive the timberwolves guarding access, bring kerosene to fire up the generator and enough food to spend some time in the workshop, craft a rifle plus ammunition... and then bring back everything to your base and put the rifle up on a rack on the wall! It should be designed to only take about 200 days on average or so on Interloper.

Also nice to see Deadman coming to the game. Some community challenges are really cool (I still remember when the Lighthouse-TWM Summit-Lighthouse race was on), it's good to see them becoming part of the game.

Thanks to @Raphael van Lieropand the team for the continued effort put into the game. Incidentally, recent reviews on Steam have returned to "Overwhelmingly Positive" now. It's been some time. Probably has something to do with the release of Ep. 3 and the new survival mode update in the pipeline.

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On 11/29/2019 at 7:59 AM, Admin said:

A new challenge. We’ve taking inspiration from the community’s “Deadman” take on custom mode settings, and have created our own version as a standalone Challenge mode which, frankly, we think is the toughest experience we’ve ever made. Nobody in the office has been able to complete it yet. (Don’t worry, we’re exempting this new challenge from the Challenge Mastery achievement. We’re not monsters.)

What? An impossible, unfair, monster challenge? Yes please! :)

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25 minutes ago, Moll said:

I never met Fluffy in TLD, because i met game after her extermination.

It's been fairly well established that we never lost fluffy.  ThePancakeLady spoke with Raph about it before.  I'll quote it below:

On ‎9‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 6:05 AM, ThePancakeLady said:

We have not lost Fluffy. This gets brought up, a ton. I asked Raphael about it on twitter after the update 2 years ago (my gawd, time flies...), and here is his response: https://twitter.com/evilginger013/status/893311638648082432?s=20

  Hide contents

The new indoor cave wolf in HRV, in the Ice Caves... some people call it "Sketchy", some of us call her Fluffy 2.0. And yes, I use the pronouns that way intentionally. I believe that is Fluffy's new home. She wanted away from Industry, and moved to the Country. 

 

:coffee::fire:
Considering the source, I'd say it's pretty well confirmed.  :D 

Edited by ManicManiac
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I've been wondering guys ... what if we've all been howling up the wrong tree regarding the new mechanic?

Maybe it's nothing to do with ammunition crafting, maybe it's refining generator fuel from lamp oil / fish oil.

That would be just as neat and useful in many ways too.

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21 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

What? An impossible, unfair, monster challenge? Yes please! :)

The achievement will probably be something like "Survive 20 days under these settings". And then some notorious freak frequenting these forums will do it for 200 days. Without using a match.

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10 hours ago, Gazbeard said:

I've been wondering guys ... what if we've all been howling up the wrong tree regarding the new mechanic?

Maybe it's nothing to do with ammunition crafting, maybe it's refining generator fuel from lamp oil / fish oil.

That would be just as neat and useful in many ways too.

And what would we do with a generator? It would only work during the aurora, and during the aurora we already have power.

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2 hours ago, Skelegutplays said:
13 hours ago, Gazbeard said:

I've been wondering guys ... what if we've all been howling up the wrong tree regarding the new mechanic?

Maybe it's nothing to do with ammunition crafting, maybe it's refining generator fuel from lamp oil / fish oil.

That would be just as neat and useful in many ways too.

And what would we do with a generator? It would only work during the aurora, and during the aurora we already have power.

But... (Spoilered due to Wintermute Episode 3 spoilers... don't look, if you don't want to know.)

And please don't quote the hidden content openly, leave the spoiler tag intact. Not everyone has played Wintermute Ep 3 yet, that may not want to see what is hidden.

In Episode 3, Molly very clearly tells us that they are used to power outages on Great Bear, and that it seems like they have to run the farm on generators half the time. But that the generators no longer work. So unless the new mechanic is "Mechanical Wizardry And Making Fried Combustion Engines Work Through Magic"..., generators, by all rights should not work even during an Aurora. 

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4 hours ago, Hotzn said:

The achievement will probably be something like "Survive 20 days under these settings". And then some notorious freak frequenting these forums will do it for 200 days. Without using a match.

You may have too much confidence in that particular freak :)

That aside, it's fantastic how much new stuff Hinterland is showering us with - again - and how they balance it to keep different kinds of survivors happy.

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2 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

You may have too much confidence in that particular freak :)

That aside, it's fantastic how much new stuff Hinterland is showering us with - again - and how they balance it to keep different kinds of survivors happy.

Drifterman! So good to see you again!

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Guest jeffpeng
2 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

I've become one of those who only leave their cabin around major survival mode updates...

Many great minds condiered geniusses became mythical, immortal beings only after they reclused themselfes hermits, like Syd Barrett, Bobby Fisher or Elvis (yes, Elvis).

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@Drifter Man Aye, I'm not plowing in the hours like I used to either. I'm looking forward to what we've got coming up though. I can see myself hammering in a couple hundred pretty easy as I really learn the new region (and more strongly familiarize myself with the new stuff in PV in survival).

I've been winding my slow way through Wintermute. I didn't do redux, so I'm doing the whole thing. However, I'm busy enough lately that I'm having a hard time getting the free hours in to plow my way through.

At any rate, I can hardly wait for the new update. It's going to be fun fun fun.

Edited by stratvox
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