From the Archives: THE LONG DARK "Pre-Alpha" gameplay video, May 2014

[Raphael van Lierop]

This was post-KS but pre-Early Access (by about 4 months or so?).

[Raphael van Lierop]

Oh, BTW, it's confidential pre-alpha footage so, like, do not distribute. 😅

[ThePancakeLady]

Oh, wow. The fishing hut with a bed in it, and Carter Hydro was so small outside, and so empty inside!

Thanks for that look back at how the game first started out before we ever got it. It really shows how much the game has grown and changed over the years. I love it! 

[thekillergreece]

Lots of things have changed. 

I might misremember something, was there ever a revolver weapon in the pre-EA stage?

[Raphael van Lierop]

26 minutes ago, thekillergreece said:

Lots of things have changed. 

I might misremember something, was there ever a revolver weapon in the pre-EA stage?

Nope! We didn't add the Revolver until the Steadfast Ranger update.

In fact, in the early days of development, pre-Early Access, we didn't even have a Rifle! The only tool you had to keep Wolves away was the Flare. Back then, we didn't even have a Struggle system. If a Wolf got to you, it just killed you. Made the game super stressful, let me tell you. (Sometimes I miss that simplicity!)

[ManicManiac]

[Karl Grylls]

I miss the old Hinterland Logo

[thekillergreece]

9 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Nope! We didn't add the Revolver until the Steadfast Ranger update.

In fact, in the early days of development, pre-Early Access, we didn't even have a Rifle! The only tool you had to keep Wolves away was the Flare. Back then, we didn't even have a Struggle system. If a Wolf got to you, it just killed you. Made the game super stressful, let me tell you. (Sometimes I miss that simplicity!)

Interesting development facts! 

I asked about the revolver thing because there's a .38 Hand-gun item in one of your pre-alpha videos. 😁

I wonder how many (if any!) items/gameplay mechanics/etc were scrapped or revised in a major way. Perhaps still planned in the future. (I think I'm going a bit offtopic)

[Max21]

50 minutes ago, thekillergreece said:

Interesting development facts! 

I asked about the revolver thing because there's a .38 Hand-gun item in one of your pre-alpha videos. 😁

I wonder how many (if any!) items/gameplay mechanics/etc were scrapped or revised in a major way. Perhaps still planned in the future. (I think I'm going a bit offtopic)

The revolver was only in the game files. This is what it looked like in 2014 or 2015.

[Pyroxene]

Well the game has improved a lot, look at the way that wolf was running in the video

[Leeanda]

Was fluffy not always in the dam then?

[Raphael van Lierop]

3 hours ago, BugReportEnthusiast said:

..wait why are you showing this publicly then?

It was a joke.

[Raphael van Lierop]

3 hours ago, Leeanda said:

Was fluffy not always in the dam then?

Not this early. Remember, this build is pre-Early Access. I believe we added her/them just before we launched on Steam. The goal was to set the expectation that you shouldn't get too comfortable visiting places between saves/sessions as the risks might change. We kept her in as long as we could, but eventually the Dam became so dense with art assets such that it was impossible for the AI to pathfind around. So we moved her/them. 

Another thing to note about the game this early on -- ML was the only region, and as a result resources we quite limited, and with the instakill wolves, it was very difficult to survive more than...10 days? So dying often and having to try again was very core to the loop. This diminished over time, as the world got bigger and we added more and more tools to the gameplay mix. Players could survive longer, deaths were more painful as a result, and at some point I think a lot of players decided that permadeath wasn't really their favourite idea.

We tried to mitigate some of this with profile-level progression systems like Feats, etc., but ultimately it's tough to accept that you've lost your 100+ day save with tons of loot stored up, etc. etc. and backing up your save file seems like a reasonable decision...

[Raphael van Lierop]

3 hours ago, BugReportEnthusiast said:

Also holy hell those voicelines "ah someone's stash" are were recorded 10 years ago, i thought they were new

Most of the gameplay VO in the game is the same as it was when we first recorded it. We occasionally add more when we get Jennifer or Mark in to record for the Wintermute episodes, but otherwise that system has not really changed since we first implemented it.

[Raphael van Lierop]

6 hours ago, thekillergreece said:

Interesting development facts! 

I asked about the revolver thing because there's a .38 Hand-gun item in one of your pre-alpha videos. 😁

I wonder how many (if any!) items/gameplay mechanics/etc were scrapped or revised in a major way. Perhaps still planned in the future. (I think I'm going a bit offtopic)

Yeah we had some early loot stub-ins for development but we didn't have any Revolver gameplay until Steadfast Ranger. I have always opposed to putting more guns in the game, but with the addition of Timberwolves we knew we needed a different tool than the Rifle or Distress Pistol for them. Note that we always refer to firearms as Tools, not Weapons. 👍🏻

It's crazy to look back at this old stuff and scan old Unity files and realize that some of our game tuning has not been modified since we launched. Probably one of the most "mature" survival game platforms from that standpoint. There are some very old bones in the depths of this game.

[Leeanda]

3 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Not this early. Remember, this build is pre-Early Access. I believe we added her/them just before we launched on Steam. The goal was to set the expectation that you shouldn't get too comfortable visiting places between saves/sessions as the risks might change. We kept her in as long as we could, but eventually the Dam became so dense with art assets such that it was impossible for the AI to pathfind around. So we moved her/them. 

Another thing to note about the game this early on -- ML was the only region, and as a result resources we quite limited, and with the instakill wolves, it was very difficult to survive more than...10 days? So dying often and having to try again was very core to the loop. This diminished over time, as the world got bigger and we added more and more tools to the gameplay mix. Players could survive longer, deaths were more painful as a result, and at some point I think a lot of players decided that permadeath wasn't really their favourite idea.

We tried to mitigate some of this with profile-level progression systems like Feats, etc., but ultimately it's tough to accept that you've lost your 100+ day save with tons of loot stored up, etc. etc. and backing up your save file seems like a reasonable decision...

Ah yes,sorry..    I did wonder why she was moved..  I've seen a few videos that I could still find and it looked terrifying in there😁. I can see why it caused the problems .