TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY Launch Clarification & Apology

[Admin]

Hello players,

 

TL;DR:

• I’m sorry about the issues around launch.
• If you owned THE LONG DARK before Monday, you still own it and also own WINTERMUTE. You do not have to repurchase it.
• THE LONG DARK includes both Survival and Story. SURVIVAL EDITION is only Survival, and you can upgrade this by buying the WINTERMUTE episodes as DLC if you like.
• TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY is completely optional. Both paid and free content is being released in multiple Parts over the next year.
• We’re still fixing some bugs. If you encounter any, please report to: hinterlandgames.com/support

 

Long version:

I want to apologize for the hiccups around last week’s launch of TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY. I know we didn’t hit the quality you expect from a paid product, and I want to try to explain a few things that happened to hopefully provide a bit more behind-the-scenes info on what was going on. Unfortunately it seems that between confusion around some aspects of the launch, and some deliberate misinformation, some of you have been given the wrong impression and I want to clear some things up.

The inception of TALES was the community’s own desire for us to continue expanding Survival Mode, which we’ve done with free updates over the past 8+ years of development. Between Episode Five work and other new projects at the studio, there are many things our team can be working on, and it no longer made sense for us to continue putting out free updates to Survival. But we knew there was interest in us continuing to expand Survival, so we put together various potential plans, one of which was to launch a 12-month update campaign that would bring back some of the energy and “buzz” of our original Early Access. It’s an experiment, as we’ve often said. 

Since our players have received free updates for so long, it was important to us that we continued to provide some amount of free content alongside the new paid content, because we know not everyone is in the position to spend more money on the game. We also didn’t want the “base game” to start to feel too outdated compared to the paid stream in TALES. So we planned dual update streams -- one paid, one free -- that would launch simultaneously. The paid updates are entirely optional.

We’ve never telegraphed too much about what would go into our free updates, and for TALES we wanted to maintain that same strategy because it’s allowed every update to feel like a big exciting moment that our players can celebrate together. But we knew that for TALES, as a paid product, we’d have to provide a bit more info so people would know what they’d eventually be getting, so we set out a Roadmap that outlines what will be included over the course of the entire 12-month campaign. All through our communications around the expansion, we’ve been clear that the full Roadmap would be released gradually over the 12 months, with new content dropping every 8-10 weeks.

In order to be able to embark on this update campaign, we needed to split the Survival and Story parts of the game, because over the years the testing burden of having to review all the Story episodes, every part of Survival, all the Challenges, etc. has made it very difficult to update things frequently, or quickly. And since we had to split the game anyway, we thought this might also be a good opportunity to offer a stand-alone Survival Edition to new players, which could later on be updated with the WINTERMUTE episodes via DLC, for anyone who wanted both parts of the game. This way, you could get into THE LONG DARK’s Survival Mode for a lower price point, and not pay for Story if you didn’t want it.

All through communicating this process, we’ve been super clear also that anyone who bought THE LONG DARK before Monday’s launch, would continue to have both Survival and Story, and would still get Episode Five (included in the price) at launch. Same for anyone who buys THE LONG DARK moving forward. You only pay for WINTERMUTE if you want to upgrade the SURVIVAL EDITION, and again, it’s entirely optional.

On Monday, we made a mistake, and a few unexpected things also happened. The combination of those things meant that we confused a lot of people, and it seemed like we had gone back on promises I’d made. 

The mistake was releasing an incomplete game package to Steam when we launched at 10AM on Monday. This meant that as soon as players started updating the game, they got a failed package (it was missing some important files) and the game crashed. We realized the mistake immediately, worked to fix the package, and verified it internally, and then released the fixed package to Steam. So the crash issue existed for about an hour, between the initial launch and the moment where we were able to get the fixed package out. We also requested that people restart Steam, or restart their machines, because often this forces Steam to get the latest game update, and without that we couldn’t verify if people were struggling with the initial crash we’d caused, or some other issue in the game. Unfortunately, quite a bit of damage had already been done at that point, with thousands of the first players encountering the crash bug, and many of them going straight to Steam to write negative reviews. Most people, upon restarting Steam, were able to get the corrected update and the crash was resolved.

Simultaneous with this crash, we discovered -- to our surprise -- that our Survival Edition SKU, which was meant to be a standalone $19.99 version of Survival Mode that could be updated via DLC to include WINTERMUTE, was instead set up as an “Edition” on the TLD Steam page. An Edition in this sense is a different version of the base app. It doesn’t get its own Steam page, and so all the material we’d prepared -- screenshots, copy, infrographics, etc. -- to help communicate how the SURVIVAL EDITION and WINTERMUTE DLC fit into the overall plan, and how it was different from THE LONG DARK (combined Survival + Story) was missing. And to anyone who came to the TLD page, it would look like they had the option to purchase WINTERMUTE DLC. Many people interpreted this to mean that we were asking them to re-purchase WINTERMUTE -- which we had said over and over would not be the case. It was a misunderstanding, caused by a mistake in how the SURVIVAL EDITION product was set up, but again, people were understandably confused, and some were angry and felt we had misled them. 

I apologize for this mix-up and take full responsibility for it. 

We spent a lot of time on Monday -- through our community team -- in Steam and the various forums and social channels, the support team, and on my own Twitter account, to try to clarify these things, to reach as many people as we could. We appreciate everyone who approached this moment with patience, and also regret that we inadvertently caused the initial crash. We’re still working with Valve to try to remedy the issues with the store page.

Besides those two issues, and some other bugs we discovered over the first couple of days of launch -- ex. local settings being reset which put the game back to Low-quality settings, or reset of Autowalk, a change in the radial due to the addition of the new Tool Variants, etc. -- we also found that some very old Steam packages, going back to Kickstarter Backers, or the 2015 BAFTA Awards judge’s package, hadn’t been given the proper WINTERMUTE entitlements, and so for those players it appeared they no longer had access to WINTERMUTE. This reinforced the fear that we were asking people to repurchase the Episodes. This issue has since been fixed, but if you have bought WINTERMUTE a second time, please request a refund. 

Within the first 24 hours of launch, the team released 3 hotfixes, and we had the crash (fixed in the first hour) and most other game issues resolved within the first few days. There are also some other minor issues trickling in that the team is working to fix before the studio shuts down for the holidays. If you encounter issues, please consider reporting them to our Support Portal, so the team there can help you out.

Again, I apologize for the launch issues. This isn’t the way we wanted things to go after preparing for more than a year, which included splitting the game into two and rebuilding the entire foundation from scratch, making other global changes to the base game (ex. loot respawn), adding the structure that will enable us to add paid content to the game, adding the additional SURVIVAL EDITION and WINTERMUTE products, as well as the huge new region plus transitions, the other new features and content we added in the Paid and Free streams of Part One of TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY. We’ve learned a lot in this first week, and we’re confident that the release of PART TWO, as well as the console launches in the new year, will go more smoothly for all of you.

I hope this information provides a bit of insight into what happened last week. Again, I’m sorry to anyone impacted by the launch issues, and we’ll work hard to earn back your trust.

We hope those of you who chose to join us in the FAR TERRITORY are finding things they like in it so far, and we’re excited to roll out the subsequent Parts based on the Roadmap over 2023.

 

- Raph
 

 

[MarrowStone]

I undersdtood the dlc structure was an experiment and is tailored for the unique case of how this game was released and the community's need for more survival content. I actually really like that you guys are trying to bring back that early access bizz feeling with the regular updates! You all revealed just enough of whats to come on future updates. You all should still celebrate!

I just think that knowing what's in this particular release to explore with should be more clear. The roadmap doesnt really let you know what is already able to be played with now vs whats coming in future. 

[Karl Grylls]

That's a very nice summary and i think few people have seen a more personal apology from a studio boss. For me, this is not a problem since i know you (Hinterland) since 2015 and had the feeling that you are positive different from the first moment. This impression proved over the first days and weeks
I know that there are people who won't read this and are still mad, but i hope this message will reach them. I hope the next week will be more relaxed for you, as like the holidays.

But i have to say, updates about fixing the game shouldn't belong to twitter only, since there are quite some people who aren't on the "social" media. It felt like second class for us forum users to not get the status updates here If i had a wish for the new year, than it would be a bot that is sharing the tweets with the forum.

Okay, enough from that. Thanks for the update Raph and don't hang your head. We are all looking forward what you will give to us

Edited December 13, 2022 by Karl Grylls

[ManicManiac]

On 10/28/2019 at 12:36 AM, ManicManiac said:

Hang in there survivors, it's going to be alright.

I've made posts like these several times over the years, but I suppose it bears repeating.

I think some folks might benefit more from taking a breath and maybe being a bit more patient, rather than perhaps jumping to certain conclusions.
After major updates (historically) there are almost always new bugs and issues found, and Hinterland usually has always had the first round of Hoxfixes out pretty quickly.  With TFTFT, yes there were initial issues, but I think it's fair to say they did address them pretty quickly.

I think it's also fair to say that most of us have greatly enjoyed and benefited from the work done by Hinterland in continually updating and expanding The Long Dark.

I'd say they've more than kept their promise to provide free updates as they worked to complete Wintermute... I say "more than" because they'd continued updating the Survival Sandbox as well.  I'm sure most of us here still remember that the Sandbox was only initially a sort of testing ground for things they wanted to weave into Wintermute, and for us to sort of inhabit and make our own Survival Stories while Wintermute was being worked on.

I think it's also fair to point out that we as a community (many times) asked Hinterland for paid expansion/DLC content to give those (like myself) who'd missed out on being able to be initial backers and wanted show Hinterland some extra support.  ....And later they put up a poll, and we seemed to again confirm that this was something we wanted them to do.  I was among those who felt that way too.

Personally, I thought it was pretty clear when they mentioned that the Expansion would consist of updates on a six to eight-week cadence, to indicate that the length and breadth of what they had been discussing would be features and additions for TFTFT would come in waves over that 12 month period they spoke about.

To my mind, Hinterland has always come through for us in the past.
If things got delayed or bugs/glitches cropped up, I think we've all seen Hinterland's willingness to do what they can (as quickly as they could) to make things right.

I know I've benefited from those free updates since late 2014... and when I found the game initially it was on sale through steam at a deep discount.
I've paid for the soundtrack volumes (because I felt they deserved a little more support from me personally).
The first day that TFTFT released, I got that as well (because I still feel they deserved a little more support from me personally).

I think that when it comes down to it... Updates nearly always come with bugs and issues, when adding to stable code and with enumerable individual platforms it has to run on (speaking specifically of PCs, who's individual hardware components can vary wildly) any game will have unexpected issues once an update is "released into the wild."

I don't mean to ramble on, I suppose the short version is:

I think Hinterland has built/demonstrated/earned a lot of good will over the years...
We can't know all the challenges going on behind the scenes, or what they are having to do to adapt and overcome just to bring us what they have so far.

I feel like our patience has ultimately always been rewarded in the past.

So again I say, "Hang in there survivors... it's going to be alright." 

Edited December 13, 2022 by ManicManiac
minor wording adjustments and fixing some typos :P

[TFA303]

I was confused, but not angry, and this all makes a lot more sense.  Just very very happy to have a ton of new real estate in which to play. 

Keep up the great work!

 

[yollarbenibekler]

There is another issue with the prepper bunkers are disabled in the game and it's said that they will be back in future. Do we have to start a new game to activate bunkers or will they be available in our current run once they're enabled again?

 

Btw, you got this. Whatever happens, I support you guys. We all need patience, that's all. Thanks for everything. 

[Glacia]

Also, the game-breaking bug about wrong warps and progress reset to 0 is still in the game, albeit very rare.

The other bugs are incredible minor issues and nothing important.

29 minutes ago, conanjaguar said:

Sadly, I think that it will take more than an apology for you to regain the trust of a few of us

It is better to separate the game or product from the problem. Im gonna keep playing and supporting the game but like many, i feel very uncomfortable with what happened recently. It's better anyways to avoid the topic because it leads to nowhere 😟

[RossBondReturns]

Speak for yourself mate...

Forgiven and forgotten right here.

This game is absolutely art, and fine art at that, and it keeps getting better and better!

[ChillPlayer]

I don't have anything to forgive, it's a game and I am glad as a bunny that you are still putting out new stuff into survival mode. The launch bug was rather hilarious and a fix was provided by the community even faster than by the devs (copy the dll), so I was playing 15 minutes later.

But Raph, why still no patchnotes?

[RossBondReturns]

5 minutes ago, The Riddler said:

Please change the roadmap on the website so that people understand exactly what will be available and when @Admin

The problem with that is that they themselves simply don't know when certain things will become available.

In fact if  you read the small print at the bottom of the Expansion page it says:

Where each item fits into the release plan depends on development progress and priorities. We will strive to deliver every item on the Roadmap, but some items may be swapped out for others based on progress and community feedback. In the event that we choose to swap an item out from the Roadmap, we will always endeavour to replace it with something of the same “value”.

This is not something as simple as saying well this will go there and that will come way down the line. Some things that might have seemed easy to do might take much longer and vice-versa.

[Mistral]

The rough estimation roadmap, as suggested by The Riddler above, would be absolutely fantastic. But even more needed is the old style detailed patch notes immediately upon launch of every single new version. Patch notes are critical basic feature.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Mistral

[Ghurcb]

6 hours ago, RegentRelic said:

Wrong. Hinterland knows they screwed up and knows they've been put on shaky grounds.

Oh my god, what happened?! 

6 hours ago, RegentRelic said:

Use here on the forms are the most likely to forgive, but the least likely to forget.

Wh-what have they done?..

6 hours ago, RegentRelic said:

Hinterland set themselves back years in the good will department. If they don't learn from their mistakes here, they might be better off being a new studio with a clean slate. 

You know what? If it's that bad, I don't want to know about it, I'd rather--

Oh, you're talking about that one time when we couldn't launch the game for a few hours, before Hinterland rolled out the hotfix? Yeah, that sucked, I guess. I don't know, I was asleep when this carnage went down. 

Seriously, though, what is this?! 

6 hours ago, RegentRelic said:

Hell, we should make the back lash seem worse than it is! Hang over their heads! Maybe then they would feel some genuine guilt.

Like... Could you chill? Please... 

Hinterland had a rough launch and you're writing about art and murder. Quite an overreaction.

[chrislacruz]

Thanks for the update, it is a shame it had a rocky release by the sound sof it (I'm on console so watching from a distance so to speak) but I have been suprised by some of the anger and frustration I've seen on the forums, it's a game, if it's broken for a day or so, play something else,.

Of course you shouldn't have released with errors, it looks a bit naff, but compared to the outrageous loot boxing and money grubbing that passes for gaming in 2022, I still find TLD the best value of any game I own and I genuinely don;t understand the frustration on the Season pass, some new regions, some new mechanics and flora / fauna, released as you do them over the next 12 months.

Any goodwill you might lose should be after the 12 months if you have failed to deliver, not at the beginning IMHO.

That said, if we are waiting in 3 years fior the rest of the Far Territory, as we still wait for Ep. 5, then your goodwill would rightly slip...

But anyway, can't wait for the console release, a loot refresh and some new regions to explore!

[Serenity]

4 hours ago, The Riddler said:

Please change the roadmap on the website so that people understand exactly what will be available and when

They can't make promises for the future, but they should at least add a checkmark or something to show what is currently in the game. I was fully aware that it's just a start and I didn't expect complex things. But I thought something relatively simple like burdock root, acorn coffee or the new arrows might be in.

And as others have said there are plenty of developers who show roughly what they are planning. Often not even with times, but the order in which things are worked on. People generally understand that this isn't set in stone and doesn't always work out

 

For example here is Grounded (the game is released so almost all is "Done", but before that it showed "Planning" and "In "Progress"): https://grounded.obsidian.net/feature-board

Here is Darkest Dungeon II, although the roadmap is just published in news posts: https://www.darkestdungeon.com/news/darkest-dungeon-ii-community-update/

Edited December 13, 2022 by Serenity

[Karl Grylls]

3 hours ago, RossBondReturns said:

The problem with that is that they themselves simply don't know when certain things will become available.
 

Come on, they do know. Not right now, but as time progresses, things getting clearer. It's not like they find out on the release date and then say "oh let's make a trailer and upload the update". Having the trailer a few days prior to the release would be fine, even if this means they push the update ~3 days behind

Edited December 13, 2022 by Karl Grylls

[hozz1235]

9 hours ago, RegentRelic said:

Hinterland set themselves back years in the good will department.

I don't think it was THAT big of a mistake!  Can't expect perfection, but I do believe people were expecting a tad bit more from this rollout (and I'm speaking generally).

[hozz1235]

6 hours ago, RossBondReturns said:

The problem with that is that they themselves simply don't know when certain things will become available.

In fact if  you read the small print at the bottom of the Expansion page it says:

Where each item fits into the release plan depends on development progress and priorities. We will strive to deliver every item on the Roadmap, but some items may be swapped out for others based on progress and community feedback. In the event that we choose to swap an item out from the Roadmap, we will always endeavour to replace it with something of the same “value”.

This is not something as simple as saying well this will go there and that will come way down the line. Some things that might have seemed easy to do might take much longer and vice-versa.

I don't think we're expecting it to be laid out for the next 12 months - that would be unrealistic and set HL up for, potentially, false promises.  I DO think it is fair to communicate what will be released as they finalize it - maybe a week(?) before Part 2 comes out, or days, or heck, THE day.

[hozz1235]

As others, I wasn't angry, I was somewhat disappointed, as I think is normal.  We spent so much time thinking, reading, discussing, anticipating about this Part 1.  To have that squashed, even for an hour, was pretty tough.  I do very much appreciate Raph's explanation and his taking responsibility - that redeems in my eyes.

[RegentRelic]

9 hours ago, RegentRelic said:

Is it a big deal. No.

I’m mostly being dramatic. @hozz1235heres what I think of self so far.

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by RegentRelic

[RossBondReturns]

1 hour ago, hozz1235 said:

I don't think we're expecting it to be laid out for the next 12 months - that would be unrealistic and set HL up for, potentially, false promises.  I DO think it is fair to communicate what will be released as they finalize it - maybe a week(?) before Part 2 comes out, or days, or heck, THE day.

I 100 percent agree with this.

I just think certain people are blowing this out of all proportion to reality.

I was working when the update went live...and yes I know it went roughly...but it was fixed within an hour or two and we've been playing since then.

I've been through other games in the past that have bolloxed major updates...was it annoying, you betcha...was I saying- "That's the LAST STRAW I will never trust them again ever, and neither should all the other fans that have devoted so much time to this game!"

No- of course not.

Will the next release be better...absolutely.

[stratvox]

I was not mad in any way; in general, I experienced very few problems. There are some bugs I've discovered (and submitted to the zendesk page; I'm sure I will find more) but by and large this has gone as I'd expect. I have an advantage, though; I work in software and have an idea of what kinds of things can go wrong on release day, and the various ways little things can add up to big problems (ask me about how to better manage node's heap sometime... actually, don't) and let's just say that I lost the delusion that things ever launch perfectly; sorta like when playing music nobody ever plays a clean show. 

A big part of the reason I like this place so much is because there's no mealy-mouthed bull from you folks. As for the folks who are losing it over the fact that it wasn't perfect, well, I feel bad for ya son I got ninety-nine problems but bs ain't one. Shit happens, and it esp happens when you're working in a small dev team; it's not like these guys have the thousands of devs on staff of a bungie or a ubisoft. It might be a good idea for folks to go to https://notalwaysright.com/ and reflect. Personally I've seen enough bad behaviour both online an irl where someone buying something thinks that the twenty bucks they're laying out means that they have the dispensation to be shitty to people. Hell with that.

[Nogen]

Like I said multiple times in others forums, between the price I paid for this game 5-6 years ago, the hundreds of hours of entertainment (and still counting) and the continuous support and development Hinterland provided for the game, I feel that I owned them money and glad that we have a way to give a little back. Even if what we got so far from the DLC was the whole DLC and no more content was planned I would still consider a fair trade for what I got, overall. 

The only thing they could had make to avoid some backlash is call this DLC a Season Pass. 

Because that's what it is. You pay a certain amount for a constant support and development over a defined period. Most people in the gaming hobby knows that concept. 

 

For DLC, however, people expect a complete set of new features upon a payment. It's a one-time deal, you pay, got this and that, see you when the next DLC hit. 

A simple better product advertising would avoided ton of confusion. 

[Jolan]

9 hours ago, RossBondReturns said:

The problem with that is that they themselves simply don't know when certain things will become available.

In fact if  you read the small print at the bottom of the Expansion page it says:

Where each item fits into the release plan depends on development progress and priorities. We will strive to deliver every item on the Roadmap, but some items may be swapped out for others based on progress and community feedback. In the event that we choose to swap an item out from the Roadmap, we will always endeavour to replace it with something of the same “value”.

This is not something as simple as saying well this will go there and that will come way down the line. Some things that might have seemed easy to do might take much longer and vice-versa.

All very true.  What I would love to see is a clearer understanding of what roadmap things were put into the update.  They've done it in the past.  I'm not saying listing every single tiny thing but since they keep teasing with things like cougars, are there cougars in this update?  I loved the last teaser right before this release it showed does! Yay! Does! Honestly a simple - this thing from the wish list is in this update list is helpful.  They've done an awesome job in the past.

[yoli]

Besides the incomplete release (for which I guess you may have adapted your QA procedures since then?), the Steam presentation one I guess could not be devised before it happened? I mean you folks had no way to test the new layout before making the actual release? In such a case it's a blind test and well, it's difficult to do otherwise.

Anyway what matters is the issues have been solved very rapidly and the DLC is a super good news, so don't worry, that's really a minor trouble compared to what we get!

 

[Jolan]

Basically at the end of the day - trust was earned when the studio went back and redid Wintermute into something that is playable.  I've purchased plenty of early access stuff that went absolutely nowhere, and frankly some big name games that were utterly unplayable out the gate (Looking at you Fantasy 14).  Was there a massive snafu - oh yes, were there real time updates on social media - again yes, was the problem solved quickly - mostly.  Was there responsibility take, yes. So that's it, moving on.