What is your Favorite Region?

[PurpleWolf13]

So what is your favorite region from Great Bear Island? Reply which one and give your reasoning down below. And I'm talking personal favorites, not as in which region you think is the best or most efficient.

My favorite region is the classic, Mystery Lake. I never played The Long Dark while it was in Alpha or Beta or when it was released officially (I first played it in May of this year) so it's not a nostalgia thing in that sense. Although it WAS the first region I choose for my first playthrough.

My reasons for it being my favorite?

First, I love the name. 

Second, I like the geography? of the region itself, a blend of wilderness and cabins. And I love the lake, because I love lakes in real life. Would have a cabin besides one If I could.

Third, I have some memorable moments from the region. Surviving my first day, my first death, my first moose attack and etc.

Fourth, I am pretty comfortable with the region in general as I am familiar with where everything is and what I can kinda expect to find when I go there.

Runner-up for being my favorite region (is my second favorite region) is Mountain Town. I also do like Desolation Point, that might go in my third favorite spot honestly.

 

 

 

[PrincessAutumn]

Mystery Lake is my favorite too because that was the first ever region I played in back in the very beginning. I always choose that region when I start a new game as it holds sentimental value to me.

Pleasant Valley comes next and even though the weather patterns are all over the place, The Farmstead has a lot of items, you can find some of the best items in the game at Signal Hill Radio Tower and now with the addition of Thompson's Crossing, the region doesn't seem as remote as it used to be.

Mountain Town is next for having basically all the water you'll ever need lol plus a lot of items can be found there too.

I also love Broken Railroad for The Hunting Lodge. I have made the lodge my basecamp a few times as there's an abundance of wildlife(Wolves, bunnies and sometimes a Moose will be hanging around)

[TiffTastic]

I’ve gotta go with pleasant valley. There’s a good number of places for bases, and I like the fact that you always have to have contingency plans to survive the sudden blizzard that seems to be summoned by shooting and harvesting any animal. The scenery is varied, and it’s big enough that you can take your time, and spend 50-100 days there easily before getting bored. And Timberwolf mountain is next door.....

Tiff🦋

[PurpleWolf13]

39 minutes ago, TiffTastic said:

I’ve gotta go with pleasant valley. There’s a good number of places for bases, and I like the fact that you always have to have contingency plans to survive the sudden blizzard that seems to be summoned by shooting and harvesting any animal. The scenery is varied, and it’s big enough that you can take your time, and spend 50-100 days there easily before getting bored. And Timberwolf mountain is next door.....

Tiff🦋

Yeah, Pleasant Valley sure is big. I have had it as my main base for a while, and was planning to go to Timberwolf Mountain. BUT I think what will be a better decision is to actually explore the entirety of Pleasant Valley itself first. Because there's a LOT I still haven't explored. 

[TiffTastic]

Also, I just came back from a year long hiatus from the game, and I gotta say, a whole lot was added to PV. Like Thompson’s crossing, and the plane crash, and several other buildings. It’s made it a lot better imo, it’s not just the farm and a radio tower anymore😁

[Mistral]

Hushed River Valley, not only do I find it the most realistic region (save the magic ice caves and waterfalls) because of the lack of human settlements and the contradictions they bring, but it's also the most difficult and beautiful to survive.

The rest:

2. Timberwolf Mountain

3. Mystery Lake (for long term survival it is the ultimate home and in truth it's my favorite region to actually stay in and walk around in the magical world that is TLD, but I still have to give the barren wilderness regions above the nod)

4. Bleak Inlet

5. Forlorn Muskeg

6. Pleasant Valley

7. Desolation Point

8. Mountain Town

9. Coastal Highway

10. Broken Railroad

[odium]

Coastal Highway easily is my favorite.  Allows the most variety of gameplay styles in a small area... and i love fishing, for whatever reason I really enjoy stocking up a hut and going on a 2 day fishing binder, stocking up my lamp oil and food. i have never leveled fishing to 5 so thats probably why i enjoy doing it, the chase of the max efficiency ive never reached

[Catlover]

My favourite. Hmm, I may choose HRV or TWM. 

Reason no1-I'm a sucker for the more wild maps with very few shelters. It really makes you feel more isolated, and everything is so much harder than in densely housed areas. I'm looking at you, Milton.

Reason No2-They're both beautiful. Whether it be the caves and breathtaking falls of HRV, or the deadly-beauty of the mountainous alpines, both just never cease to amaze.

Reason No3- The names, and fact that there are no timberwolves in TWM.

They probably go like this, in terms of ranking, favourite to least

Hushed River Valley

Timberwolf Mountain

Mystery Lake (Due to nostalgia and memories) 

Desolation Point

Coastal Highway

Broken Railroad

Forlorn Muskeg

Mountain Town, or Milton.

 

(Pleasant Valley and Bleak Inlet have no say as I barely know them both well enough)

Edited October 5, 2020 by Catlover
Forgot a few

[Catlover]

On 9/28/2020 at 8:33 PM, Mistral said:

Hushed River Valley

2. Timberwolf Mountain

3. Mystery Lake

Haha, we have the same three favourites. I wrote mine before reading the others, so it's pure coincidence. Glad to see another who prefers the wilderness

[piddy3825]

TimberWolf Mountain

Hands down, the single best end destination region imho.  

I like it the best because there are relatively no man made structures, save the Mountaineer's Hut and the adjacent fishing shack and the fact that the hut has the one and only workbench in what could be considered the remotest area in the game is the bonus because with the crafting ability you can truly live off the land indefinitely.   There are some things that your gonna have to bring along cause you wont find much of some things if at all.  (Like two liter pots or arrow heads.)  However,  the natural resources throughout the map are abundant so you can stay well stocked in herbal medicines after the ample supply of salvaged drugs runs out.  

With the Mountaineer's Hut as your base camp, you have immediate access to abundant sources of firewood fuel, medicinal herbs and non aggressive meat food sources ie, rabbits and deer.  There are also two nearby moose spawn locations that seem to see their fair share of horn rattling activity.  There are wolves and a bear in nearby proximity, but their "patrolling" pattern typically doesn't bring them to close without you noticing.  But when they do, another excellent source of food and clothing resource.  

 Here's a shot of a couple wolfs patrolling across the frozen expanse of Crystal Lake from the doorway of the fishing shack.   That's a considerable distance and I typically never encounter them any where near my domicile.  I like to just crouch in the door way and wait for them to come walking close enough for me to pop up and skewer them with an arrow!  

The weather patterns are fairly consistent as well.  Usually get a  blizzard every three days on average, so you can almost time your foraging excursions to best coincide with the weather.  There are ample caves and tunnels in the area providing warmth and shelter as well so when your out and about salvaging airplane lockers and the weather turns sour, you have a quick place to duck into.

If your not playing a spartan, resource restrictive setting, the loot from airline containers and wooden crates can be extremely rewarding.   No different really from looting 
a fishing cabin on Mystery Lake, but just as rewarding and usually overly abundant as well.  

The Summit Provides

By the time you have explored the area and managed to haul that booty of looty back to your lair, you will have acquired enough stuff to open  a sporting goods store...

 

Your gonna wanna retire up here.  Trust me, this is the place to be.

 

The only down side to TWM,
no forge here and since no other man made structures, no metal here either...  No two liter pots anywhere either.
Since you gotta climb in to get here, bring a couple dozen arrowheads, a few two liter pots and all the scrap metal you can carry.  
After that, all the rest is gravy!

 

 

[Valuable Hunting Knife]

Some great answers on this thread.  I'm probably leaning towards TWM at the moment too- I like the challenge of a good but not perfect base, hunting opportunities if I want to but also the option to fish or lay traps, lots of plentiful loot but paucity of ammo and eventually cloth.  I've never got 'settled' in HRV, it's usually just a quick starting dash to the mysterious signal fire, or a mapping run,.  Maybe with the cairns I may be more tempted to set up a base cave.  

A shout out too to the transition zones, and 'regions within regions' such as Milton basin, these can offer either respite or a fun setting for a self imposed mini challenge.

Chart rundown:

1. TWM

2. Mystery Lake (for the sentimental reasons listed above- if the game was just ML it'll still be great)

3. Pleasant Valley (post Thompson's Crossing addition)

4. Muskeg (definitely love hate though!)

5. Bleak Inlet (I like sardines)

6. Mountain Town

7. Coastal Highway

8. Broken Railroad

9. HRV

10. Desolation Point (too many interloper runs ending without a match or flare to get out through the mine...)

 

Could we end up with a round dozen with Black Rock Penitentiary (ep 4) and Perseverance Mills (ep 5)?

[TiffTastic]

Ok, now everyone had to go off and make lists lol.....heres mine

1) pleasant valley

2) mystery lake (just fun)

3) broken railroad (ok I’m weird, but I like outdoor bases and wolves are the best thing since pizza delivery for food)

4) TWM

5) muskeg (wasn’t kidding bout the outdoor bases)

6) desolation point

7) milton

8.)coastal highway

9) HRV (this will likely rise as I play it more

10) bleak inlet (seems to simply be a vehicle for deaths by wolves, probably as a social experiment to see how many times it takes before Tiffany smashes her Xbox)

Tiff🦋

Edited October 10, 2020 by TiffTastic

[FluffyComeHome]

Timberwolf Mountain!

This region has bountiful and renewable supplies and the caves are located in areas where there is enough wood and hunting to stay outside for days at a time. Not only does it have plenty of loot stashes (amount of loot dependent on your play level) but all types of animals are here; fish, rabbit, deer, wolf, and bear. And plenty of cattails. All the 6 food groups are represented here. LoL Plus, its close enough to PV to do some day runs for extra cloth or supplies. The only downside is that its a bit of a haul to get to the Riken for the Forge, but the trip makes for a nice change of pace while looting along the way.

After TWM, my other favorite is Desolation Point, but I am also becoming quite fond of Bleak Inlet these days.

 

 

Edited October 10, 2020 by FluffyComeHome
Add Other Favs

[Perren]

For me:  Desolation Point.

I think it would be cool to live in a lighthouse.  That's not going to happen in real life so I can do it virtually at least in game. 

 

 

 

[piddy3825]

1 hour ago, Perren said:

For me:  Desolation Point.

I think it would be cool to live in a lighthouse.  That's not going to happen in real life so I can do it virtually at least in game. 

Me too!  I absolutely love glamping out at the old lighthouse at DP.  takes a little effort, but honestly one of the easiest places to navigate up and down the stairs at night in near pitch darkness.  I recently launched a new game spawning in DP and I've only briefly left the area merely to acquire some two liter pots and a couple more birch and maple saplings due to the extreme scarcity of those items in the region.  In the 200+ days that I've been there, I've been blessed to have no less than 4 moose spawn on the bridge, one about every 60 days or so!  My meat lockers are full and so am I, that well fed benefit ain't going away anytime soon.

[Guest jeffpeng]

I'll always be torn between HRV and TWM. Both are similar in approach and design, with caves connecting compartments of the map, (almost) no man made structures and that distinct feeling of being out there on your own.

TWM sort of became my "home" in the game after a long series of TWM-only interloper games, but I fell in love with the region years ago when it took me 3 ingame weeks to climb the mountain, not knowing where to turn, and running circles around the peak, living off the land in caves and whatever goes for a shelter up there I found. And then all that work pays off with that silly amount of loot, that solves all the problems you'll ever have (at least on Stalker/Voyageur). Best time in TLD I ever had.

But even I have to admit that HRV is the more complete work. It takes the approach farther, if hammers home the concept with more finesse and grit, and it uses a lot of mechanics that simply were not in the game yet when TWM saw the light of day. I still regard HRV as one of the best examples of level design in all of gaming.

The only region that really, really pales in comparison to the others is Broken Railroad, which isn't just small, but also feels unpolished and .... yeah... barren. Its (mostly) linear level design makes the region feel like it was designed to fit the requirements of the second episode (with which it was originally introduced) and then left behind. I sincerely hope we'll at some point see either a reworked expansion of the region, or another region connecting to it, making it at least an interesting transition zone.

The region I'm most torn about is Bleak Inlet. It's beautiful, varied and interesting, and I'm a big fan of that decay of industry theme it has. The idea to split the region in two with the two vantage points to separate parts of the map is genius. But I cannot love the timber wolves. They are a living nightmare on Interloper and hence I hardly ever go there.

I used to hate Pleasant Valley with passion, but since the rework the region at least has some color. It's still a pain to get through and around, and I still dislike the permablizzards, but at least the map isn't just an endless frozen waste with a single key location at the center anymore.

And of course there is Mystery Lake, which sort of embodies TLD. The map has aged astonishingly well despite it lacking a lot of mechanics introduced into the game much later. The Carter Dam is one of the most iconic locations I've ever seen in a game, especially since the rework, and both the Camp Office and Trapper's always evoke feelings of home in me whenever I get there. The overall tone and diversity of the map is just amazing, and it deserves to be the center of Great Bear.

The Forlorn Muskeg still gives me chills. The level design is unique in the game, with the weak ice patches acting as sort of invisible barriers. You can see miles and miles across, but you just can't get where you want easily. With no indoor structures FM has become my favorite one-map challenge second to only TWM.

Coastal Highway would not evoke any particular emotion in me, wouldn't it be for Quonset and its trecherous surroundings throwing wolves and bears and - since the update - moose at you. The rest of the map is more or less just there, although the endless ice is an interesting contrast to most of TLDs layout, and the new mine is definitely an intriguing place to go. Too bad it's usually a death trap.

Milton, as the only area in the game that has dense housing, is a fine map on Interloper, but I hate it with passion on Stalker, referring to it as the "urban warfare region" with wolves jumping you from every other corner. Up to 11 wolves can be found in and around the town, which makes the stretch from Orca's to the church the most densly populated region in the game - just not by humans. However: the basin is gorgeous, and together with FM's Marsh Ridge makes for one of the best late game hideouts for cave dwellers. The Trailer near the HRV cave is one of the best locations in the game with windproof outdoor cooking and an indoor crafting bench. The biggest drawback, however, is that getting there always involves climbing, which makes it hard to access.

Lastly, Desolation Point is mostly that: desolate. It's a region I loot and get out. It's too small to sustain you, and being put behind the infamous Crumbling Highway miles away from everything else on the island you can't just venture out to pull in the food you need. The indoor forge is great, but the one in the 'skeg is more accessible, and Hibernia is plagued by wolves.

Edited October 15, 2020 by jeffpeng

[Catlover]

I'm really enjoying reading through peoples' favourites. I'm rather pleased to see that Timberwolf Mountain is a popular choice. (I thought I was one of the minority for preferring wilder places 😅)

[Dan_]

I feel like there are no inherently "bad" regions, but there are multiple favourites.

If I had to pick one it has to Timberwolf Mountain. It's scenic, wild, great hunting, interesting spots, has fishing and perhaps the single most charming building on all of Great Bear, the Mountaineer's Hut. The plane crash site has much less gore than the PV one and the scenery is absolutely beautiful. Maybe it's my own role-play of Dick Proenneke's twin lakes lifestyle talking here, but I absolutely love TWM. Just sit by the porch and face the peak, watch in awe as the blizzards rage on and get slowly replaced by the spectra of northern lights, go out distracted and get chomped on by the wolves. It just embodies what the game is all about.

I'm also a huge fan of Forlorn Muskeg, for the lack of proper shelter. PV and ML are also old favourites, HRV is wonderfully sprawling and interesting, DP is an absolute cracker, it's just missing some ice fishing and a slight expansion. Even CH , MT and BR have redeeming features, like the hunting lodge and ravine at BR and the backwoods at CH with cabins tucked in are really cool, I just wish the cabins were less generic looking, you know what I'm sayin'?

Forgot BI. I'm learning to love it, pretty cool structure and some very cool spots. Timberwolves are also not so bad if you have enough arrows.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Dan_
Ate some words, sorry 'bout that!

[piddy3825]

1 hour ago, Dan_ said:

Forgot BI. I'm learning to love it, pretty cool structure and some very cool spots. Timberwolves are also not so bad if you have enough arrows.

that last line made me laugh!  There you are in the bullet making capital of the known world and you you're talking about killing wolves with arrows!  the irony does not escape me...

[piddy3825]

7 hours ago, Catlover said:

I'm rather pleased to see that Timberwolf Mountain is a popular choice. (I thought I was one of the minority for preferring wilder places 😅)

the summit provides and the summit taketh away...

[Dan_]

3 hours ago, piddy3825 said:

that last line made me laugh!  There you are in the bullet making capital of the known world and you you're talking about killing wolves with arrows!  the irony does not escape me...

I usually kill wildlife to eat in TLD, if I don't need the food I usually won't mess with the animals if they don't want to mess with me, given the bow is absolutely and undeniably THE superior hunting weapon, it's only a natural choice my friend! I'll give you that the revolver is very good for self-defense, but the bow is not too shabby either. Also I like roleplaying discount Legolas, so there's that.

 

[piddy3825]

8 minutes ago, Dan_ said:

I usually kill wildlife to eat in TLD, if I don't need the food I usually won't mess with the animals if they don't want to mess with me, given the bow is absolutely and undeniably THE superior hunting weapon, it's only a natural choice my friend! I'll give you that the revolver is very good for self-defense, but the bow is not too shabby either. Also I like roleplaying discount Legolas, so there's that.

Spoken like a true archer and woodsman...  you should make Legolas your avatar.  I think it suits you!  
I agree, the bow is such a superior weapon of choice.  Especially after you've reached level 5 in the archery skill!  
I so rarely use the firearms any more, that the ammo I find in my travels is typically more than enough to get me by.

 

[hozz1235]

HRV.  Survival at it's basics and so much to explore.

[SnowItWhite]

Desolation Point. I learned how the mechanics work and how unforgiving anything can be, 100% shaped the way I play. 

[Jimmy]

The Ravine.

With no wolves to worry about, several rabbit groves for trapping, plenty of wood, two caves for shelter, and a nearby crafting table at the dam, the Ravine is the perfect holiday home for the weary cabin fevered Interloper. You can spend your days  gathering wood, boiling water, harvesting bunnies and just listening to the blizzard howl outside your cave while the fire crackles.

Eventually you'll want to go explore new regions, fight wolves, and get mauled by a bear, but for pure relaxation, nothing beats the Ravine.