The Long Dark Roadmap First Impressions

[illanthropist]

4 minutes ago, LucidFugue said:

But a meditation mode isn't a crazy idea - the sound design in this game is top notch. I've taken to using 2 hour long sound loops of howling winds, open fires, and rainstorms playing as a sleep aid.

Indeed, would be kinda funny if TLD racked up more hours of play than any other steam game in history because people knocked up 6hrs of playtime whilst sleeping.

[aurora]

26 minutes ago, LucidFugue said:

But a meditation mode isn't a crazy idea - the sound design in this game is top notch. I've taken to using 2 hour long sound loops of howling winds, open fires, and rainstorms playing as a sleep aid. 

I could imagine streaming this to my television: watching the campfire burn and listening to some cool ambient music and sounds of TLD at night, ... yeah ... There was indeed a time in my life when i could not sleep without ambient music playing all night long ...

[hauteecolerider]

5 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Sounds like we need to add a "meditation" mode which is basically just the camera fixed on an endless campfire and a snowy night.

Yup! Something I can enjoy a pot of tea to! Though sometimes I find myself writing in my RL journal while listening to a blizzard rage outside the cabin. Almost the same thing! 

And I can't help but thinking about the fireplace loops from YouTube that a couple of my cold-sensitive colleagues like to pull up on the iMac monitors (the big, 27" ones) when the temps take a dive . . . 

4 hours ago, LucidFugue said:

People have modded Skyrim to try to get to a 1:1 time compression, from memory as you approach that the scripting triggers begin to break down and it becomes unplayable. But the passage of time is definitely something that some people find really important from an immersion perspective. Personally I am more keen on using the day/night cycle for gameplay/balancing purposes - a bit of time compression doesn't bother me and the cycles are already pretty long. 

But a meditation mode isn't a crazy idea - the sound design in this game is top notch. I've taken to using 2 hour long sound loops of howling winds, open fires, and rainstorms playing as a sleep aid. 

TLD's sounds, particularly some of the "indoor during a blizzard" mixes give that sensation of being cosy and safe against a raging outside world. I'd love to be able to queue up a few scenes like that (take a location from the game, place objects etc., set your camera angle, select the weather and atmosphere) and have them rotate through the title screen at preset intervals the way the current shot of trappers cabin works. 

I agree about the time scale in Skyrim. Personally I like playing at 1:10 time, so a day feels just like that, a day. The default is 1:30.

I'm not sure I want a 1:1 timescale in any of my games, though. It would be difficult to make any sort of progress when I've got to stop to make dinner, go to work, take a shower, go to bed, have breakfast, drink tea, etc. And let's not forget entertaining our beloved pets who turn into pests when they get bored . . .

And yes, I love watching Trappers Cabin in the game menu! Once I saw a wolf walk by, and went "hey, that menu's not static!" I also discovered that the stars do move, though I have yet to identify a North Star (all the other stars rotate around it, IRL)

[Doc Gonzo]

Mr. Raphael van Lierop,

Do you envision your support of MODs to include player-made maps?  I realize this question might be entirely to specific given the long-term goal of MOD support but I think some of us would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

Thanks in advance!

DG

[nicko]

20 minutes ago, Doc Gonzo said:

Mr. Raphael van Lierop,

Do you envision your support of MODs to include player-made maps?  I realize this question might be entirely to specific given the long-term goal of MOD support but I think some of us would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

Thanks in advance!

DG

wow that would be a huge modding support feature? I want to see HT dev more maps first. but interesting post.

[Doc Gonzo]

2 minutes ago, nicko said:

wow that would be a huge modding support feature? I want to see HT dev more maps first. but interesting post if you want tools for nothing.

I confess I know very little about modding and modding support.  If it's a feature that's a bridge to far so be it.  Never hurts to ask however.

[nicko]

indeed

[illanthropist]

Think that would only work if the game world was procedurally generated rather than designed specifically as it is now to fit alongside story mode.

[cekivi]

Map making is a feature I would really like even if it's just stand alone maps. The difficulty is what type of editor would need to be included in the game to make it a reality. Unlike @Raphael van Lierop and the rest of Hinterlands I can't code beyond HTML so I would need some tools in order to make maps. Still, it's nice to dream

 

[Raphael van Lierop]

On April 9, 2016 at 3:00 PM, LucidFugue said:

People have modded Skyrim to try to get to a 1:1 time compression, from memory as you approach that the scripting triggers begin to break down and it becomes unplayable. But the passage of time is definitely something that some people find really important from an immersion perspective. Personally I am more keen on using the day/night cycle for gameplay/balancing purposes - a bit of time compression doesn't bother me and the cycles are already pretty long. 

But a meditation mode isn't a crazy idea - the sound design in this game is top notch. I've taken to using 2 hour long sound loops of howling winds, open fires, and rainstorms playing as a sleep aid. 

TLD's sounds, particularly some of the "indoor during a blizzard" mixes give that sensation of being cosy and safe against a raging outside world. I'd love to be able to queue up a few scenes like that (take a location from the game, place objects etc., set your camera angle, select the weather and atmosphere) and have them rotate through the title screen at preset intervals the way the current shot of trappers cabin works. 

You can sort of do this with our main menu currently, and our plan is to add more "scenes" that reflect your progress through the world (a la Half-Life 2), but we could potentially invest in something more meditative than that as well.

[Raphael van Lierop]

11 hours ago, Doc Gonzo said:

Mr. Raphael van Lierop,

Do you envision your support of MODs to include player-made maps?  I realize this question might be entirely to specific given the long-term goal of MOD support but I think some of us would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.

Thanks in advance!

DG

I think that for the game to have a vibrant modding community, we'd probably need to support this. It would take a fair bit of effort and Unity knowledge on the part of the modders, but it's theoretically possible.

[Raphael van Lierop]

7 hours ago, cekivi said:

Map making is a feature I would really like even if it's just stand alone maps. The difficulty is what type of editor would need to be included in the game to make it a reality. Unlike @Raphael van Lierop and the rest of Hinterlands I can't code beyond HTML so I would need some tools in order to make maps. Still, it's nice to dream

 

I'd have to investigate this but I doubt we would make a new editor tool for this. You'd likely have to learn to use Unity, as we have done.

[cekivi]

36 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

I'd have to investigate this but I doubt we would make a new editor tool for this. You'd likely have to learn to use Unity, as we have done.

Darn. Guess I'll have to hurry up and get out of grad school then. Sure don't have time to learn coding now

[Raphael van Lierop]

4 hours ago, cekivi said:

Darn. Guess I'll have to hurry up and get out of grad school then. Sure don't have time to learn coding now

Oh, you wouldn't have to learn how to code. I don't know how to code. But, you would have to learn how to use the Unity level editor.

[Doc Gonzo]

6 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

I think that for the game to have a vibrant modding community, we'd probably need to support this. It would take a fair bit of effort and Unity knowledge on the part of the modders, but it's theoretically possible.

Thank you for your prompt and informative reply.  Look's like I'm off to read up on Unity 101!

[cekivi]

1 hour ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Oh, you wouldn't have to learn how to code. I don't know how to code. But, you would have to learn how to use the Unity level editor.

Huh, I always thought all developers knew how to code. Outdated stereotype I guess

On the bright side, making my own just became slightly more of a reality. Yea

[SteveP]

A Coding Language is simply meta data about procedural machine instructions however lots of code is not procedural so any meta description of something is a type of code. A game designer may not write C or Java code, just specifications. If you write SQL DDL you are writing meta data that describes a database. If you write XML it can be anything at all. Code is just something that gets translated into something else.

Unity is done using C# and is procedural. A level map is probably just a meta data description of the map; it can be high level or low level. You might start with a level editor which might be an interactive graphical tool for creating the meta data for the map. I don't know much about Unity. It's not much fun coding in low level especially if its just structured data. You would want to work at a very high level with the object names perhaps with attributes such as X,Y & Z for coordinates. Rather than writing out a bunch of coordinates, it would be much easier to work with a graphical presentation tool that let's you select items from a drop down list and drag them around a visual representation of the map.

The system designers & coders who create TLD will know more. It is highly desirable to have a high level graphical development tool. The better that tool is at validating the map, the better. The problem areas in TLD maps are the places you can fall through the map or where the animated objects of the map can get "stuck" or where objects are too close together and interfere with each other (sticks or other items you cannot pick up or interact with). Sometimes a map has to get validated by either a validation tool or by trial and error with lots of testing.

A "mod" to a game can be as primitive as changing the attributes of existing objects, adding new objects (static or animated) or it can change the actual Unity code that operates on the object descriptions or it can simply be a map tool that works with a predefined set of objects. "Hacking" a game can be as low level and primitive as editing the raw data files (yuck) or very high level giving access to all features of the game itself. Typically a modding system would hide some aspects of the game design that are considered proprietary competitive intellectual property. From the perspective of the end-user, you would like to be able to create new objects, new level maps and new mechanics. (special interactions with objects that create new objects for example: fishing, spawning things, crafting, interacting with the player's internal state (warmth, hunger, thirst, afflictions) or changing an object's attributes such as Condition or Location.

A modding tool design is a non-trivial job for the system designer or "Guru".

I hope this makes sense. We grasshoppers must be patient. Thank you Hinterland, for considering a Mod system; I hope it is feasible and powerful!

[SteveP]

Here is some information I've dug up about level editors and Unity.

See also Basic gameobject inheritance

Strictly speaking in a high level language with inheritance (C#) an object is any data structure. A gameobject is typically something that is "visible" such as a stick or perhaps a square of ground. Without access to the game's source code, I can only guess  so much. Floor Objects could be surfaces such as flat or curved 2 dimensional polygons that comprise rocks, snow, ground and so forth. Sometimes in TLD you can actually get inside a visible object like a big rock. (a bug)

Multiple inheritance is another good question; apparently Unity doesn't use multiple inheritance (for good reason).

Unity Collections / Containers / Lists & Dictionaries which refer to C# data types.

Choosing the right collection type

Unify Community: Main Page you might want to start wandering around here.

What does a level map look like? I don't know. Here's a clue:
Multiplatform Runtime Level Editor and another clue: Make Your Life Easier: Build a Level Editor

I hope someone from the Dev Team can correct any misleading information and explain some of the basic design aspects of TLD and the constraints of the system.

I need sleep.

[Doc Gonzo]

37 minutes ago, SteveP said:

Here is some information I've dug up about level editors and Unity.

See also Basic gameobject inheritance

Strictly speaking in a high level language with inheritance (C#) an object is any data structure. A gameobject is typically something that is "visible" such as a stick or perhaps a square of ground. Without access to the game's source code, I can only guess  so much. Floor Objects could be surfaces such as flat or curved 2 dimensional polygons that comprise rocks, snow, ground and so forth. Sometimes in TLD you can actually get inside a visible object like a big rock. (a bug)

Multiple inheritance is another good question; apparently Unity doesn't use multiple inheritance (for good reason).

Unity Collections / Containers / Lists & Dictionaries which refer to C# data types.

Choosing the right collection type

Unify Community: Main Page you might want to start wandering around here.

What does a level map look like? I don't know. Here's a clue:
Multiplatform Runtime Level Editor and another clue: Make Your Life Easier: Build a Level Editor

I hope someone from the Dev Team can correct any misleading information and explain some of the basic design aspects of TLD and the constraints of the system.

I need sleep.

Hell, I need a drink after reading that!  :-)

[SteveP]

3 minutes ago, Doc Gonzo said:

Hell, I need a drink after reading that!  :-)

yeah a lot of java! ;-) pun intended.

[FINDarkside]

47 minutes ago, SteveP said:

A gameobject is typically something that is "visible"

GameObjects doesn't have to be anything visible. In Unity GameObject is more like a container. You don't inherit GameObject, your script is a component and you add the script to GameObject. Obviously you can add multiple scripts, and lots of other stuff like colliders, meshes, audio sources, lights etc. 

47 minutes ago, SteveP said:

Multiple inheritance is another good question; apparently Unity doesn't use multiple inheritance (for good reason).

It's not really Unity that is not supporting it, it's C# and .NET/Mono.

But if we're talking about creating maps you don't really need to know anything about that. Unity level editor looks like this, but I don't think that it's possible to let users create levels in it, so we would probably need separate in-game level editor.

[Viktor Kvasnica]

Hi folks,

in regards to the in-game level editor...

A quick googling gave me "Multiplatform Runtime Level Editor" from the official Unity asset store. So something like that could be used in the final game (as an optional "variant" of the game considering the price of the asset - thus someone, who plans to build an user level/-s will either buy a special, more expensive, version of the game with the level editor included or will buy the level editor as an add-on).

[hauteecolerider]

6 minutes ago, Viktor Kvasnica said:

Hi folks,

in regards to the in-game level editor...

A quick googling gave me "Multiplatform Runtime Level Editor" from the official Unity asset store. So something like that could be used in the final game (as an optional "variant" of the game considering the price of the asset - thus someone, who plans to build an user level/-s will either buy a special, more expensive, version of the game with the level editor included or will buy the level editor as an add-on).

Took a look at this. It seems that it is for mobile devices (iPhone/iPad, Android, Windows Phone) and not for PC's (Windows/Mac/Linux). 

As TLD is not supported on mobile devices, it looks like this particular program won't be useful . . .

[FINDarkside]

16 minutes ago, Viktor Kvasnica said:

Hi folks,

in regards to the in-game level editor...

A quick googling gave me "Multiplatform Runtime Level Editor" from the official Unity asset store. So something like that could be used in the final game (as an optional "variant" of the game considering the price of the asset - thus someone, who plans to build an user level/-s will either buy a special, more expensive, version of the game with the level editor included or will buy the level editor as an add-on).

If there's going to be level editor it's going to be free. It's just ridiculous idea of making users pay if they want to mod. The price of that asset is obviously not any problem for Hinterland, but it's definitely not as simple as just buying that asset and clicking a few buttons.

9 minutes ago, hauteecolerider said:

Took a look at this. It seems that it is for mobile devices (iPhone/iPad, Android, Windows Phone) and not for PC's (Windows/Mac/Linux). 

It does work on pc and mac, it's multiplatform. "Standalone" means Windows, Mac and Linux.

[Viktor Kvasnica]

I took a ride on my bike and, with cleared mind :), had an idea... What about contacting the Unity developers about the creation of the run-time level editor? The editor can be a part of the licensed package - i imagine it as an stripped down version of the actual full Unity editor, so game developers can include it in their games and users can create a new levels only (not entire new games). Such concept, I think, could be beneficial both for the Unity developers, game developers and users/players alike in the long run.