Feedback @ 150hrs of gameplay

[octavian]

I've been stalking the forums, seeing people's wishes and reactions; how they account for them, if at all. It's obvious that I'm alone in my thoughts and ideas which means they're of no use in the big picture but maybe someone will nonetheless find a use for all this.

One of TLDs remarkably familiar problems: houses being a good fraction bigger on the inside than the outside. This is interesting to me; Fallout 3, plus everything Bethesda made, had this problem too. I consider F3 being the major source of inspiration for TLD; seeing it having at least one of the same obvious problems as its inspiration had, I can't help wonder how much different are they? I can't help wonder if it also has the biggest problem F3 had.

routine_.jpg[/attachment]

It's not the alien "simply happened" to come out then. It's breaking of a routine. First it breaks the routine of eating with choking, itself a "rare routine" if you allow the atrocity, which is in turn broken by the alien. Only an excess can overcome a lack, there's no middle ground. And it's not the first scene where people eat either,

[Naut]

You are not alone in your thoughts. But you have simply way more talent in writing them down in forums. I have to admit, much things you talk about didnt even came in to my mind. But its true.

To be fair, i had quite some moments in the game where it broke my routine. Well, it changed it atleast. Getting surprised by a wolf as you go around a corner can change your plan quite abit. Getting surprised by a bear could even end all your routines (though it never happened to me yet). Getting surprised by a blizzard is almost a routine, it never happened to me in the early phase, so i always had good clothes on and could (routineslly(is that even a word?)) find windcover, make a fire and sleep through it.

Anyway, i wished TLD had way more random elements to it. What feels like total freedom in TLD is, on second thought, nothing but a couple of routines. A game which should break a human, feels too much the other way around at the moment.

[Shanti]

Well said octavian. I also feel that TLD is a very different type of horror game, one that creates suspense with lack of violence and silence, punctuated by short bursts of in-your-face violence and noise. Perhaps on a grander scale, that is what you mean by routine, and breaking it.

I like what you are saying about how everything is the same - even down to the exact same type of pot-bellied stove in every fishing shack, from Mystery Lake all the way to the Coastal Highway. However, for me personally, this sameness goes hand in hand with the feel of the game, blending into the oil-painting feeling of the artwork. To me, a dresser is just a dresser, and the fact that each of them have the same stain on the top only leads me to one conclusion - the pre-collapse world is dead; static and inert. It is of limited use to me, and to remain alive, I need to turn my attention to the only dynamic and living portion of the game - Nature.

So where you request different pictures, radios, televisions and dressers, I would rather have variation in wolves, bear, deer and rabbits. Animals of different colors, sizes, and temperaments, areas where they are prevalent and areas where they are scarce. Herds and packs of animals that slowly migrate through each areas, foraging and hunting, their numbers increasing or depleting not only by my hunting, but also on their own ability to scavenge food or stalk prey. Animals with rules that govern their behavior, which are not immediately obvious to me, and may vary. In short: Personality.

Leave the pre-collapse buildings a blur of surrealistic sameness - a drab and shadowy, disconnected space that is subtly wrong, punctuating the beautiful, variable, immersive world of nature. Are we the monster? Or was society the monster which imposed it's will on nature, and now the player is faced with this truth: We must return to being an animal to survive, now that the monster is dead. We must assimilate nature and reject the drab surreal reality of our previous existence in order to stave off death for another day.

In this context, the mixture of eras makes a subtle point. It doesn't matter what era the game is set in. Flatscreen TV's exist alongside vacuum tube radios. Everything sits silent, everything is dead, waiting only for decay, and for nature to reclaim it. The one exception is the vibrant Canadian flags, brilliant in their red and white, flying proud, defying nature. If only they too would degrade, slowly becoming threadbare, slowly fading through wind and weather, fading into the Long Dark.

[octavian]

What I mean by routine and breaking it is just that, breaking routine.

An instant camera, a vintage handheld Tetris game, a Rubik's cube or a typewriter, a HUD-less toy to break routine with by choice and pass time.

The world itself would break routine too, from seeing sun dogs to seasons to geese migrating to a weeklong blizzard to cutting yourself sowing. Makes no difference as long as you can't predict the future.

You also go at length to paint a picture I don't see.

We agree what objectively is, right? Using words you can make whatever you want mean anything you want. Borrow meaning from there and put it here like a band-aid that reads "shark bite" on a paper cut.

Birds and squirrels and bees and trees are fine but alone don't make any difference. You blow their insides out with a phallic instrument of destruction, or worse, impale them with one, what does it mean?

I argued for Nature's atmospheric optics, I'll argue for Her creatures anytime, however the game has to do better than this. If the world is dying, surviving isn't the issue, do you personally want to turn off the lights? What's keeping you from putting a bullet in your brain? If the game doesn't answer this I think it's missing the point.

What if they set the game 400.000 years ago? Survival, but asking a different question.

It's metaphorical to have a carbon copy world only when no other game does it. Otherwise, you're a chameleon and you justify objective problems, money, time, market share, taste and choice with something you make up.

And let me ask you this, what are the standards you go by? Suspense? Violence? Noise? Are you considering TLD in a vacuum? Video games? Life?

Amnesia, Hotline Miami, Silent Hill 3. Suspense. Violence. Noise.

Suspense violence and noise are part of our personal lives too. Should we use a different standard, should we lower the bar, just because its a video game? Stories too. Shouldn't I put down my 1$ used book and laugh at how bad the story is in 60$ games with >100M$ budgets boasting story?

Best part? You see it other than me, we debate, a wolf eats somebody for the nth time while another grinds to climb the leaderboard and Hinterland does its best to please most of us while sticking to their vision.

Because we can see it differently means it's not lacking meaning but as a gift, .236 is a sweater. Best sweater you ever saw, but not what you wished and everybody wants something different. What's it going to be, I can't wait to see.

[Boston123]

-snip-

Poetry, sheer poetry.

My friend, you have a way with words