Milton, we could have been great together..

[Stinky socks]

I don't understand how to put this, but whenever I visit this place, I get depressed. I cannot pinpoint what causes it. The supplies are there, plenty of shelter, food.

Take timberwolf mountain for example, there's only one man made cabin, but somehow she felt dear to me. I had a fireplace, a bench, fishing cubby few steps away and that felt complete!

Maybe it's milton being meant to have people, but here we are, a ghost town! All these structures that long for some human presence and all they have is me. All alone.

Milton seems like the place that doesn't feel natural. A ghost town. You wander in what looks like a wintery western and everyone packed up and left, save for an occasional corpse.

Or could it be claustrophobic setting that causes me this grief? Coastal highway has enough structures, but yet it feels like home. One might argue though that it's easier to take in because of all the open acres, view for miles and all the deer, wolf and bear one could hope for!

Even pleasant valley doesn't feel as desperate as milton. So, here I am. At the crossroads of sadness. Should I go back or try and push forward into hushed river valley? One can only wonder if peace and comfort will be found there..

..

[xAnAngelOfDeathx]

HRV was my nemesis, I got so lost there multiple times and almost died so may times. I hated that area the first 10 hours of exploring and surveying it. Then the map clicked with me, I could find my way pretty decently and I liked the area even after getting destroyed by a moose while lost in a blizzard in a valley that I couldn't get out of (but I did finally get out of the valley when it occurred to me to use the 1 stim that I had on me to get up the damn rope and head to my home cave!

I think that CH is my fav area, I know it inside and out.

[Stinky socks]

Well it's not that TWM is my favorite area(maybe it is, not sure yet), but it just feels much more natural to my human brain. It's wilderness, so it is rather normal lacking human species, but milton is meant to be occupied, and it isn't. That's what's bothering me. It feels bad walking house to house and not a single soul.

One thing I loved about wintemute is every once in a while, you get a human. And I always looked forward to going home to moma in the evening, even with limited conversations that we had.

[s7mar7in]

3 hours ago, Stinky socks said:

it just feels much more natural to my human brain. It's wilderness, so it is rather normal lacking human species

Milton does have a negative feeling in that the struggle to survive was snuffed-out, (Bus crash outsiders and School Building fire), whereas the other areas seem to have lost the struggle to survive against natural hardships.

The people of Milton did not seem to wonder-away in search of a more hopeful home but rather were driven-away in haste. 

[Luca Loquax]

"There is a difference between a place that is quiet and a place that has been abandoned..."

Milton has the story of despair written all over it.   There are signs everywhere of how things progressively got more and more desperate.   Little things like cash being left laying around and some of the home already having been scavenged to the bare walls.  The bank and the post office are cornerstones of any town and it is obvious that the last delivery and the last loan were in the rear view mirror while people still clung to hope that things would get better.  The Church and the Orca Station were both converted to survival shelters.   Know what happened at the school house....

I give a lot of credit to Raph and DEVs for telling a story of the past with what was left behind and I think your observations of the cloud of depression over Milton is credit to their hard work.

My humble two cents.

[Syraith]

I get what you mean. I would love to settle in that cabin in TWM just for the view, and I might, just that wind shelter only is killer.

I kind of commented on the surreal feeling of the wreckages, just how emotional they can make you feel, even being a game.

I think Milton though is a little more so in a way when tied with the story. Are you wandering after the events of the story? Did the events of the story take place? Being the plentiful supplies maybe not...

Still though, going into Mother’s house and seeing the knocked over chair next to the fireplace knowing the events that occurred, and knowing about the fire, and like you said, seeing the once active town brought to nothing even before the aurora due to the earthquake. The developers created a very amazing world for sure.

[stratvox]

I generally find the abandoned places of human habitation and industry more depressing than not, and have really learned to love living away from (most of) those places; as you say, there are some exceptions: Mountaineer's, Trapper's, Fishing Village, Foreman's, but by and large I tend to spend a lot more time 'camping' in caves before living in houses... once I've got the stuff together to make it effective (big one being high fire skill).