What is one thing that surprised you about Ash Canyon?

[theisaactrain]

*Spoilers*

Ash Canyon has brought me back to this game for the first time in 5 months. I was surprised how I was having fun walking around for hours, almost dying. But i'm not going to get ahead of myself here. I want to know things that surprised you, or you liked, or you didn't like about Ash Canyon. I think the region holds a lot of secrets, and visually its a spectacle, and that music by Sascha that seems to play every 5 minutes is chilling. There's an area high up in the region wheres there's a wooden bridge, cant remember the name, but from the bridge you can see all the rope bridges. It's super cool, upset I didn't get a screenshot. 

I'm quite the sucker for lore, I love reading 'The Sitting Dead' by piddy3825, if you have never read about the sitting dead, it's basically just them documenting the corpses on great bear, and speculate on how these people met their demise. During the trailer for this update, Raphael says that the crampons, along with the tactical pack were left behind by an 'unfortunate survivor',  I expected a corpse in the mine, but I got more. Once you get to the mine, and make it to the survivors little camp you come across a note which was written by the survivor talked about in the trailer. It informs you that this survivor was exploring, and trying to find the mine. He rekindles about how his clothes are in good condition, and that he was going to set off for home in the morning. He never made it out though. to the right of his little bed is his body, laid out, and frozen. There's no blood, no sign to how he could of died. It's a grim scene. I believe he either died from something like a heart attack, or some form of choking, perhaps. On the way out of the mine you find another corpse, sitting and enjoying the view. I don't think he has any relation to the survivor in the mine though.

Please, be welcomed to share your thoughts on Ash Canyon, and any theories you have about the region.

 

Edited December 9, 2020 by theisaactrain

[eric4x4]

The swaying rope bridges really got me.

[theisaactrain]

11 hours ago, eric4x4 said:

The swaying rope bridges really got me.

Yeah, unfortunately I couldn't find my way up to Miners Foley, so I ended up taking those two ropes to the exit of the mine. I'm gonna come back there next week to try to find my way to Miners Foley.

[ajb1978]

On 12/9/2020 at 8:06 AM, theisaactrain said:

He never made it out though. to the right of his little bed is his body, laid out, and frozen. There's no blood, no sign to how he could of died. It's a grim scene. I believe he either died from something like a heart attack, or some form of choking, perhaps.

Heart failure.  If you read his note, he mentions feeling tightness in his chest, and refers to surgery.  This is a man who should've been on light duty, not mountain climbing.

[theisaactrain]

6 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

Heart failure.

That's interesting, I don't remember that being in the note. Guess I have bad memory 😅

[Daymo]

I got lost in a blizzard, climbed a couple of ropes, and found myself at the crane above the entrance to the mine. A nice surprise.

[TiffTastic]

The surprise that got me was the amazing wolf geyser in the little canyons. One of them had 5 wolves, another 3. I did somehow survive em all, including 4 back to back attacks in -44c temps. Thank god I was wearing all animal clothes. Now I’m half naked and I gotta stop to light a fire every 30 feet it feels like....glad I entered AC with a mature character...it’s kinda a fun challenge

[TIMBERBEAR810]

Mostly the amazing landscape of the region, and that damn bear near miners folly that I had no idea about until I almost walked into him.

[TiffTastic]

12 hours ago, TIMBERBEAR810 said:

Mostly the amazing landscape of the region, and that damn bear near miners folly that I had no idea about until I almost walked into him.

Yeah. It woke up when I walked right next to it! I thought it’d come out of the wall! That bear got to maul me twice. 

[Catlover]

The things that surprised me include

The freezing temperature and strong winds

The fact that so far, during my little 2 day game, I have not run into any animals

The MRE ration and water bottle by a random ledge. Nice little surprise for my starving survivor who's probably fed up of those cattails

And, of course, the stunning landscape, especially the canyon

 

I'm yet to visit the mine, but I found the fishing cabin by a waterfall and inside had a note. It said, and I quote 

'They're digging too deep, they are. Too deep' 

I have no clue on the lore of this place, but that part of the note gave me chills

Edited December 13, 2020 by Catlover

[Bean]

Something that struck me was a shadow.  A bridge shaped shadow on the ground.  I look up towards the sun and there’s a bridge hanging way up there in the sky.  Detail like that is spooky somehow.  

[piddy3825]

I've never been hungrier and colder on any other map than on this one.  

That being said, I gotta give Raphael and  the dev's an atta boy for really bringing some really emotionally charged and
visceral feelings into this region of GBI.  The scorched earth and trees, so blackened by whatever disaster befell them
still continue to shed their ashes, polluting the landscape regardless of how much new snow falls over it.  The soundtrack 
seems to pull the life outta the air, making the surroundings feel sinister and ominous.  Coupled with the visual swaying affects
of the rope bridges capable of igniting a feeling of acrophobia in me that actual made me feel nauseous a couple of times,
yeah this is an awesome map.  I really loved that they put all the tricks into here, like the underground waterfall crossing and the crouch walk tunnels
in addition to the rope climbing tunnels.  Angler's Den is my lowland lair and Foreman's Retreat up in heights.  

btw, @theisaactrain thanks for mention!
 

 

[DaveMcD]

I'm loving the zone, the rope bridges are amazing, but the thing that surprises me is that none of the outdoor caves offer any warmth bonus or let you cure hides in them.... seems strange to have just one zone that goes it's own way in terms of the game mechanics. It's particularly brutal on interloper and harder custom runs, the outdoor caves are no better than a wind sheltered rock.

[peteloud]

2 hours ago, DaveMcD said:

. . . none of the outdoor caves offer any warmth bonus or let you cure hides in them....

I have found two caves that have warm zones.  I didn't try curing a hide so I don't know about that.

[DaveMcD]

Just now, peteloud said:

I have found two caves that have warm zones.  I didn't try curing a hide so I don't know about that.

definitely outdoor ones though? as in no loading screen? I'd be curious where they are.

[Dan_]

4 hours ago, DaveMcD said:

definitely outdoor ones though? as in no loading screen? I'd be curious where they are.

I can confirm one of them, I forgot where the other one was:

The bear cave on the way to Miner's folly can be used to cure hides and warm up. Gotta deal with Smokey first but, pretty cool spot.

[peteloud]

On 12/15/2020 at 9:34 AM, peteloud said:

I have found two caves that have warm zones.  I didn't try curing a hide so I don't know about that.

I am wondering if my memory is playing tricks on me.  I definitely found one cave with a warm interior where I was able to cure a birch sapling, but I haven't re-found a second warm cave.

[DaveMcD]

6 hours ago, Ps4Methuselah said:

I am surprised that a mining outfit lacks a forge? A ship in the middle of a bay has one, but folks digging mines seem to go without.

Maybe that's why they dug too deep? They were trying to get to the Riken. 😉

yeah me too. I'd nick the one out of Broken Railroad and chuck it in Ash Canyon if I could.

[DaveMcD]

1 minute ago, Ps4Methuselah said:

Yup...or at the very least fix that broken bridge & make it lead to Ash Canyon.

I was convinced the BR ravine was going to be the entry to the new zone. I thought it would connect BR and HRV. I kinda liked TWM being the end of the road.

[BlinkMoFried]

On 12/11/2020 at 12:02 AM, theisaactrain said:

That's interesting, I don't remember that being in the note. Guess I have bad memory 😅

I feel you dude. Having a bad memory is really bad. Yeah " bad "

[neslim32]

*spoilers*

i hate that map!
Without any spoiler or knowledge about map, i tried to find out that Gold Mine(and 2 precious items)
After entering the region(without cave), i saw a lot of rope bridges. i was thinking there should be only one rope bridge (Rafael showed us with update video) and that leads me to the Gold mine. But it wasn't easy like that.
i climbed almost every broken trees, jumped from rock to rock connections hundred times with a new hope everytime but no. They all, sent me to begining  so i tried again and again and agian... Then i found that note; "deep, too deep". i much confused  Where should i focus? Underground mines or bridge hills?
And by my own rules, i cant use sticks for fuel. İt doesnt too much problem in other regions but this one is different. it was already burned! So this map lack of fire limp or cedar firewood and i cant chop woods. 
Finally, i found that damn gold mine with a smile in my face and got my items. That 15-20 days (or 1 real day) and swaying bridges were amazing. i love this map
Sorry for my grammer.

[UTC-10]

I haven't been to Ash Canyon - still in preparation phases for my various Pilgrim sandboxes - but I was a bit surprised not that Ash Canyon connected to Timberwolf Mountain, but that there were two connections to Timberwolf.  I had hoped that Ash Canyon would have more than one access but wanted it to be to two different regions.  For instance, one connection to Timberwolf and another to some part of Pleasant Valley or a ravine projection from the Ravine Basin or to Desolation Point (past the currently destroyed bridge).  I didn't want to see a deadend region though given Ash Canyon is on the world map NE side of Timberwolf, that seems to imply that there may eventually be a connection to a future new region for Story mode.   One can hope.  

[stirfoo]

How big the map is but the load time was a pretty good clue. Also, a lone fire barrel in the middle of nowhere.

Edited December 25, 2020 by stirfoo

[stratvox]

Oh, I'd say they could keep it going a lot longer than that. I'm heading into year three (🤔) playing this game, nearly 3k hours... If they were releasing new regions every six months I'd just keep playing.

I imagine at some point it'll switch to DLC for new regions that has to be paid for, but given that I'm significantly below a penny an hour on this game, I don't think I can really complain. Graphically, the only think I can think of that might make things better would be light extinction/rayleigh scattering a la the scatterer mod for Kerbal Space Program and ray tracing to really exploit shadows created by the surrounding terrain, as well as the ability to deal with snow reflections, snow blindness, sun dogs, and so on. I think the art style is very good (and I recognise its influences, people like Emily Carr and Lawren Harris and Tom Thompson) and doesn't need changing. I think the animal AI and animations could use work... but I think a lot of that would be more appropriate for TLD II, along with using streaming resources to dump most if not all of the loading screens. But even as it stands right now, it's an excellent game and if the regions keep coming it'll be good basically forever.

[Slow_wandering1]

Yea Ash Canyon was a pretty good addition. The only few things I didn't like about it is that they could have used it as a chance to add another Ammo workbench so the damn thing is actually a useful addition, the fact that it's designed to FORCE you to waste time walking the same circle for days making no progress. The fact that 5 kilo extra carry weight isn't worth hiking all the way there for (shoulda made it 10) but it is a nice area with great views but that is literally the only positive.