Raphael van Lierop

Yes, I can understand that perspective. We should do a better job of explaining, through UI, what is actually going on.

Ok I see -- apologies for adding to the confusion. I should have been more clear. I was thinking about "expanding the bar" from the POV of a full bar, i.e. we add Condition (not just make the bar bigger, we literally add Condition to the player's current level. So if they are at 100 their Condition goes to 105 (for example). If they are at 20 it goes to 25. When the Buff is removed we remove the extra Condition that was granted. But yes I can see how this could be problematic in certain circumstances. For the most part I've been ok with that but perhaps it warrants a revisit.

I didn't say the container is getting bigger; I think those were your words. I said you are getting a Condition increase when you get the Well Fed buff. Therefore, when you lose the buff, you lose the associated Condition increase. I'm not sure if it "seems right" or not, but you asked how it works and if the observed behaviour was something that should be reported as a bug, so I am merely clarifying. Sorry if it's not the answer you're looking for.

By nature of how it works (as I described it), logically it would be possible to die when the buff is lost.

Yes. Old analogue rotary phones can function with a very small amount of power. There are even some old ones that can be used with a hand-cranked magneto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_magneto I recall reading, years ago, about the importance of maintaining an old rotary landline phone in the event of a disaster -- not necessarily a geomagnetic one, mind you; it was more of a prepper-type scenario. The idea stuck with me.

Hello all! The weeks are getting longer these days, it seems, so the Mailbag is more frequently getting pushed to the weekend. Sorry about that! Thanks to everyone who submitted questions this week. There are some great ones! ***** Question from @Pinefarmer13: I see what you did there.... --> "Warmest Regards" We've talked about (and been asked about) many times, the idea of overheating/sweating and the risks that could introduce. I've always held back from it because it does start to feel very fiddly. There is currently a little Warmth bonus you get during Sprinting but it's pretty subtle; we could definitely build on that in the future. Some of these things start to step on improvements that might require significant overhauls to our entire Survival System infrastructure, and between you and I I'm not sure when the best time to do that would be. After 5+ years of active development on The Long Dark, I think there are things we can definitely still do to improve the core game, but deeper improvements will require starting from scratch, essentially, something I'd like to put off for a future game. At the very least we might be able to treat "sweating" as another form of Wetness (which we already have), that goes from the inside out (vs. the outside in as it currently works), and then you'd have to deal with the same risks of Ice forming and then Frostbite (or, at the very least, your Wet clothing loses a bunch of its heating value so you'd pay a cost there). I think we could do it but we'd have to feel the change was worth how many bugs and tuning issues it would introduce! ***** Question from @Starving Gamer: They are screenshots from the game, with an artful treatment from our talented presentation artists. ***** Question from @Dan_: Yes, I spent a couple of days in Reykjavik, which was an incredible experience! What a lovely people, and the city is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time there to get out and explore the landscape, but I plan to come back in the future. It's definitely a very dramatic, inspiring environment. I also had the opportunity to visit CCP, developers of EVE: ONLINE, at their HQ in the city. They were super friendly and it was great to see how their studio and teams are organized. Definitely gave me some ideas for Hinterland. I can't speak for others but I find travelling to be hugely inspiring, and typically whenever I embark on creating something new I try to do it from a new location, just because the change of scene seems to really stir up the creative juices. I think it's something about breaking routines that readies the brain for fruitful enterprise. ***** Question from @BESt: I thought it was equal parts interesting and funny. I also think it kind of misses the point of the game. ***** Question from @Timmytwothumbs: Yeah I've thought a lot about hygiene and how to incorporate it into The Long Dark. I'm generally always impressed by RDR/RDR2 and a bit jealous at how effortlessly they incorporate basic survival-type mechanics into those games. For us, we get stuck on a lot of these things because the realization aspect becomes kind of tricky to pull off. But I'm sure there are good solutions that would work within our game as well. I do agree that this should be part of the overall Survival System. ***** Question by @TheRealPestilence: The Buff expands your Condition bar and also gives you a boost to Carrying Capacity. When the Buff expires (due to starvation), you lose these benefits. ***** Question from @Azdrawee: Partly based on reality (research this online and you will find some answers) and partly poetic license. Not everything has to be explained and not everything has to be 100% realistic, as long as it is true to its own fiction and players accept it as logical. There are a lot of things in The Long Dark that don't line up 100% with reality. I'm totally ok with that. ***** @MikeV -- please use regular formatting for your questions. As we've stated many times, we're not offering dates so I'm not going to tell you how long it will take for us to deliver all five episodes of WINTERMUTE. ***** Question from @PlayerPawn: I had the good fortune to have Cris and Sascha score my last game, SPACE MARINE. I really enjoyed working with them so when I started putting THE LONG DARK together I reached out to see if they would score it. In terms of selecting composers -- of course you want to find a composer with a style that fits the kind of experience you are creating. In this case, Sascha is great with electronic music and created this really cool sound for Survival Mode, while Cris's strength is in orchestral and we found a way to use a small ensemble and some key instruments like piano, guitar, strings to create a "frontier" feeling in the soundtrack that also hits on the emotional depths of the story. Mostly you just want to find people that you gel with well creatively. I love soundtracks and listen to them almost exclusively, but mostly movie soundtracks when I think about it. Lately I've been listening to the soundtracks to INTERSTELLAR and WESTWORLD a lot, for no particular reason than I really enjoy them and they help put me in the right mood for the work I need to do. ***** Question from @liam: We just wanted to provide a tool that felt desperate and like something you'd use when you are in a really bad situation, whether it's trying to make it to the safety of that shelter in the distance, trying to get away from that Bear, etc. It felt like a tool that let us play with some of the survival mechanics in the game and something that might save you from a bad fate, but also something that came with a heavy cost, so you'd kind of hate to need to use it, but it'd be better than dying (and losing your save). Do you have opinions about the Emergency Stim? ***** Question from @Jendo: I think it would create a tremendous amount of busy work and also require us to add a lot of new mechanics to counterbalance it, so I'm not sure it would really be worth it? ***** Thanks again for all your questions and enjoy the rest of your weekend! - Raph

Hey everyone! It's been another busy couple of weeks in the studio. The team's been hard at work on Episode Three and a bunch of other things, but you already know that because that's what we're always doing. Things are coming along really well, and I and the rest of the team are really excited to get to the point where we can share some more definitive info with you. You also may have noticed we added some new Merch items to hinterlandstore.com. I know the items are on the pricey side when considering shipping and the power of local currency -- we're doing some work to figure out how we can support our fans in territories where our CAD prices and shipping make things cost prohibitive. I missed last week's Mailbag due to workload so let's see what you all left for me to discuss this week. Onward! ***** Question from @JujuBear: Welcome to the forums! I'll take each question in turn. 1) We read everything the community says about the game and use it as a kind of extended "sensory system" to judge game health, quality of life for our players, and what areas of the game might need a refresh. Beyond that, we have an internal roadmap of new things we'd like to add to the game. Often it lines up well with what players are asking for which is always nice, but often we work on things we just believe will make the game a better experience. In general I have a big-picture roadmap for where I'd like to take The Long Dark that goes out for years (multiple projects -- far beyond the current game -- I doubt we could ever do it all) so we're just working on layering things, putting the foundations in place for the future, both for the Episodes to come but also for things we want to do in the next standalone game set in The Long Dark IP. 2) Design, implement, test, iterate. Repeat until it's good enough. Release, then repeat again based on community feedback. Iteration is our core development philosophy. 3) We found the Brandishing action was a bit hard for players to understand -- it wasn't a nice discrete action with an understandable outcome, while throwing something and getting it close to a target, then having success in scaring that target, just made more sense. Keep in mind that Throwing the Torch was the original option. Brandishing replaced the Throw, and then we decided to go back to the Throw because it wasn't working the way we wanted it to. ***** Question from @Azdrawee: I don't think adding another Experience Mode beyond Interloper is the right approach -- at least, I don't think that yet. My feeling is that if some players are surviving for very long on Interloper, there is something in the XP Mode that isn't quite working. It requires us spending more time analyzing how people are playing it, how some of them are managing to survive for so long, and then tweaking the tuning or revising the approach to make it more challenging. If however we felt that we could sufficiently differentiate an even more Survival-focused experience mode beyond Interloper, we might do that. For now, though, I think offering 4 different XP modes that map to different play styles should be enough. We just need to tune them better or differently. ***** Question from @Jendo: Knowing how hard game development is, I try very hard not to criticize other developers. In terms of No Man's Sky, I think the team delivered an incredibly ambitious experience and it was very hard to see the incredible hate and anger that was channeled towards them at launch. I recall tweeting something in support of the devs on launch day during the outcry, and I think to this day it's the most "popular" (in terms of impressions) tweet I've ever posted -- but it's because I was positively hammered for DAYS afterward, by angry NMS players, for daring to say something in support of the studio. That was already years ago now, but it seems things are even worse now than they were then. So, did I feel sympathy for them? Hell yeah. I also think Sony should have/could have done a much better job of shielding the developer from the abuse, as it was largely their marketing machine that brought so much attention to the game (and yes, the NMS devs were happy to talk up their game and promote it excitedly and fuel that anticipation, and really you shouldn't expect anything less from a dev -- it's not our business to talk down our own games). In the years since I think the NMS team have proven that they mean to live up to their promises and their player's expectations, despite maybe not hitting the mark right out of the gate, and I applaud them for that. I feel a lot of empathy for that as it's a very familiar situation (cough), and my hope is that one day when we ship Episode Five of WINTERMUTE, people will look back on the previous years of waiting and acknowledge our own journey, hopefully in a positive way, in the same way people can now acknowledge the good work that Hello Games has done. I'm not expecting any billboard ads singing our praises, for the record. ***** Question from @smaointeoireacht: Glad to hear the Accessible Struggle feature has been useful for you! If you haven't also tried it, the Hold to Search (vs Tap) can also be pretty useful, depending on what type of interaction you find comfortable. In terms of connecting regions -- we know where they'll go and what we want them to connect to, so we'll usually decide up front if we want it to be linked through a cave, a rope-climb, or whatever. ***** Question from @rancid0: Yes, I have an idea but we're not really sharing info about new Regions because we don't want people to be disappointed if they don't happen, or if they don't happen as quickly as they would like. ***** Question from @Themadlad94: I like the limited aspect of it -- six rounds and then you have to deal with reloading. Most other hand-guns have more ammunition. Also, a Revolver feels like a better deterring to wildlife than, say, a 9mm. And finally, it has a kind of simplistic roughness about it that really suits The Long Dark (vs. something more sleek, more modern). I know there are tons of guns out there but The Long Dark isn't really a "gun game" -- for us, a firearm is just another tool. The Revolver balances well against the Rifle as they each have a clear role, and clear trade-offs. It happens to be quite useful against Wolves, but it's even more useful against Timberwolves, which you'll see in Episode Three. ***** Questions from @yollarbenibekler: I'll answer the ones that are questions. 1) Yes, Episode Three has its own soundtrack. At some point we'll create a "Volume Two" that will have more WINTERMUTE music and additional Survival Mode music as well. 2) I'm not sure about using Clothing for fuel but I'll think about it. Thanks for the 4DON idea. ***** Question from @Skelegutplays: Ask me again after Episode Three ships. ***** Question from @Tohono O'odham Man: We are currently only working on The Long Dark and have no other projects in active development. That said, we know what we want to make next. ***** Question from @Jolan: I believe we had more Blueprints as Trust Unlocks in the "Predux" Episodes One and Two. Fewer were needed for the Redux Episodes One and Two. In general we only unlock Blueprints that are relevant to the episode content. ***** Question from @SpanishMoss: The Energy Drink wasn't mean to replace the Stim. Stim, Go!, and Coffee all have different effects, different ideal use cases, and, more importantly, have different degrees of scarcity. You can't really compare things without taking scarcity into account. ***** Question from @Alex Azrael: You probably know I don't like to comment on release timings or when things might come out, but we have committed to Mod Tools and so you can believe we will deliver them. When we have more definitive news to share about them, we'll definitely post it in a Dev Diary which will end up being re-published here in the forums. ***** Looks like that's all the questions for this week's Mailbag! Have a great weekend and keep those questions coming. I'll do my best to stay on top of them and give you good answers. - Raph

We have the rights to use this music in the game, but that doesn't necessarily extend to it being shared in videos. It's up to the copyright holder to grant you permission to include the song in your own content.

Hello all, I missed last week's Mailbag so let's see what questions you left for me to tackle this week. I'll jump right in! ***** Question from @mateosega: I wouldn't say Jeremiah is based on Jeremiah Johnson. I would say I picked that name partly because I like that film, but any comparisons are entirely coincidental. So, unfortunately, as much as I like your theory, I cannot confirm it. ***** Question from @Sceh: We're working on what I hope will be a better solution for both Episode Three and the game in general -- a system that "protects" your gear items whenever an interior location or container ends up being changed for whatever reason (sometimes this can happen accidentally, for example if an artist is working in a scene and accidentally selects then moves a container item a tiny bit). The idea would be that we spawn a temporary container, something super obviously not part of the world, and move all your stuff to that magic container until you can get it back. This would hopefully address the various ways in which people might lose lot due to updates, and is generally a good failsafe for us because as careful as we are about not breaking the game or removing your loot, it does happen occasionally and sometimes things slip through our net (ex. one of our players lost a bunch of items they'd stored in the Mountain Town cave that links to Hushed River Valley when we added the cave transition). That said, I think your solution could also work. If you moved everything outside the PV Farmhouse, for example, and then picked it all up such that you didn't have to move (you wouldn't be able to anyway, you'd be so over-encumbered), the items would be on your character (and not in the scene) and therefore (theoretically) you wouldn't lose anything, and post update you could drop it all back into the world and move it back in. Not a very elegant solution (ours is only marginally more elegant), but better than losing all your stuff. That said, I think it's on us to find a good way to ensure your loot doesn't get wipe out, so we're working on that. ***** Question from @GothSkunk: Well you get more feedback than just carrying capacity being reduced -- you will hear, multiple times -- feedback from the character indicating how tired they are, and these cues will become progressively more serious as you become more Fatigued. We have experimented with some more screen-fx type solutions for Exhaustion, Freezing, etc. but haven't added them to the game yet. We might in the future. I agree that some more physical responses to being Exhausted (like stumbling, falling, blacking out for seconds, etc.) would be a good addition. Regarding giving the player the choice to rest X hours -- since Sleep is a resource, we leave it up to the player to manage it for themselves. If we locked you in on sleep based on how tired you were, I think it would feel quite frustrating to have this choice made for you, and since Sleep = Time and Time costs so many other things (Calories, Cold, Hunger, etc.) it needs to be up to the player to manage this as they see fit. We have discussed the idea of becoming "overtired" and oversleeping (rendering the timer setting a bit moot in those cases) and adding an Egg Timer item that you could use to wake you up, but we didn't add it because it felt noodly and overhauling the Sleep/Rest system isn't the most pressing thing for us. But, we might revisit this system in the future and come up with a deeper Fatigue simulation. ***** Question from @Themadlad94: I don't like anyone to "expect" anything because then they are bound to be disappointed. If you are asking me do we have plans to add any more Bears into the game, the answer is, at the moment, No. ***** Question from @FrozenCorpse: I would expect you to hit with aiming profile B. (The crosshairs seem to be a red herring, IMO, as they suggest the middle of the "circle" is the targeting area, when in fact you are lining up your front post with the rear "scoop" and trying to get your target right above the post.) ***** Question from @Skelegutplays: Grey Mother was not born blind. How she ended up blind is a story for another day. ***** Question from @Faithful Cartographer: I'm honestly not sure, but I'd love to hear what other people think. I think there are a lot of great survival games out there but they are all focused on different aspects of survival from the ones we're focused on...I think? I don't tend to think of The Long Dark as something that exists within a "genre", and I don't think too much about how we compare to those other titles, so I can't really say. I know a lot of people talk about Subnautica as offering a similar "feeling" as The Long Dark, so maybe they are the closest? ***** Question from @ajb1978: Nope, there's nothing I can reveal about that. But it's nice to hear people notice these little details. ***** Question from @SpanishMoss: I can see why you might feel like me making up a general "outside date" for when Episode Three will arrive would be a good thing, and that it would somehow be "doing a service" to you, but it wouldn't be at all. And it wouldn't be helpful to us either. So I think the best thing is maybe to be patient, and when you encounter a developer in the industry who has had to change a release date for whatever reason, maybe be one of the people who supports them and doesn't attack them or try to destroy their reputation, so that they can feel safe in sharing tentative dates. But no, I won't do this, because it won't give you what you want, and it can only hurt us. You're excited about Episode Three, we're excited about finishing Episode Three, and that's what we're focused on. I think delivering a good experience when it's ready is the best thing we can do. ***** [Skipping a bunch of wishlist questions since that's not really what Mailbag is about.] ***** Question from @thepatsbro: Last we checked it was over 50 square kms. Bigger than Skyrim, I believe. ***** Question from @selachias: Not a silly question at all. Some of our achievements need to be completed within a single session, and others can be completed across multiple sessions. We specify in the description itself. Good luck! ***** Question from @Pixel: 1 - Half-Life/HL2, STALKER, BioShock, Deus Ex...I think I've answered this elsewhere, maybe someone can point you to the response. 2 - You'll have to wait and see. 3 - You'll have to wait and see. ***** Question from @slvrsrfr: That's like...a hundred questions. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/achievements/ach_guide There's definitely some work involved, both on the back-end and content side. But nothing terrible. ***** Question from @PlayerPawn: We haven't had a look at Blender at all. We have a lot of tools and pipelines set up that use Max/Maya so I don't think switching to a different modelling package would be that time or cost-saving for us, initially, but yes the licensing costs for Max/Maya add up to 10s of thousands per year so they are not insignificant. I can't speak to whether the industry is shifting to adopt Blender -- I would say that unless all the additional plug-ins and tools we use that are based on Max/Maya workflows are also compatible with Blender, it would be quite difficult to switch over. But we could look into it for a new project. It would also depend on how much work is involved with transitioning artists to new tools and workflows. ***** Question @TrAlfred: Scary? He's just trying to give you a BIG HUG. ***** Question from @Moll: We produce dev diaries and I respond to questions in the Mailbag every week (more or less). Not enough? We always have to balance the time taken to produce updates like dev diaries and Mailbag entries against time spent making the game. I think we do a good job of communicating stuff out to our players but we're always open to feedback re: how we can improve. I think Rust's approach makes sense for a game that isn't trying to avoid spoilers. A lot of games use a progress report and "roadmap" update to keep people interested, and while we've done that in the past, it often just fuels disappointment when things don't go according to plan, so I think our approach, while it might be less satisfying to people who are looking for constant updates, is probably better for us. ***** Question from @Khan_Drichthyes: We haven't considered that, no. ***** Thanks everyone for the great questions! Remember, Mailbag isn't meant to be another wishlist thread, so please try to keep your questions related to development, game dev in general, or general references/inspirations, and don't ask me to share stuff you are are spoilers, because it's just going to be disappointing for both of us. Have a great weekend. - Raph

Congrats on finishing the book! That's a real accomplishment. 👍 Glad to hear the game was an inspiration to you, just like a lot of great literature has been an inspiration to while when working on The Long Dark.

I'll let @Admin and/or the @Support team comment on this. Also if you are so inclined feel free to report to our Help Desk directly: hinterlandgames.com/support We try to channel all support requests through one channel if possible, otherwise it just becomes too overwhelming for our team.

Hey all! It's that time of the week again -- time for me to open up the old Mailbag thread and see what kind of deep, thoughtful questions about The Long Dark, Hinterland, game development, and [other things] you've come up with to stump me and/or entertain me. Hopefully by now you've all had a chance to read the Dev Diary we released last week. Please check it out and post any comments or feedback you have! Now, on to the Mailbag questions for this week. ***** Question from @Themadlad94 This isn't really the kind of question I want to spend time answering on Mailbag, but I will in this case because I think it's instructive in some ways (although I think @ajb1978 did a pretty good job of responding to it already). I can see why this would bother some people, and the people who would be bothered by it are likely very focused on the realism of tiny little details like this. In game development, you often have to make compromises to simplify systems and for gameplay purposes. In this case, the reload process for the Revolver is complicated and lengthened by the player having to first remove spent shells and then manually insert all of the shells. When we first implemented the Revolver, we started by having the reload animation first open the cylinder and manually remove each spent shell before inserting new ones, but this was a hell of a lot of work for programming and technical animation and we didn't feel it added much to the experience of using the Revolver. So we skip the first part by "emptying" the cylinder of spent shells offscreen and then we load new shells manually, which ensures you pay the "time cost" of a full reload action vs. reloading one or two shells (this time cost can make a big difference in the middle of an altercation with angry wolves, where waiting an extra second or two could be very bad for you). Just a small window into the kinds of decisions we have to make every day! Everything about game development is a trade-off between the effort involved with implementing something against the value to the player experience (and as you can imagine, 100 players have 100 different opinions about where that effort can provide the most value). (All that said -- I reserve the right to discover that what you're referring to might actually be a small bug in which case we'll have a look and add it to the fix list. 😇) ***** Question from @ThePancakeLady: In general it becomes pretty tricky for us to support Operating Systems that the original creators no longer support. Specifically, I think we would do whatever we can to support all our players and their systems (provided they meet our minimum spec), but as you can imagine with a game that has been in active development for 5+ years, that spec may have to evolve over time, both as OSs get retired and also as the game itself becomes more demanding (due to more content and features being added). I hope that answers the question to your satisfaction. As for whether devs are worried about Win 7 -- my guess would be "no" because we tend to focus on platforms and not OSs. ***** Question from @winterstorm: Thanks for the question. I think the idea of having painkiller use lead to some kind of addiction/withdrawal pattern could definitely be interesting from the aspect of long-term survival -- although hopefully you wouldn't become addicted to painkillers due to too many sprained ankles. But if it was something like a more major wound, and you needed pain management to continue in your day to day activities, I could see painkiller addiction being an interesting balancing mechanism. As you said, it might be too micro for many players, however. The other potential issue is with the games ratings boards, who have fairly strict rules about the portrayal of narcotics/drug use in games. As you can imagine this could be a sensitive topic. In general though I'm a fan of these kinds of risks/rewards provided they are clear to the player. ***** Question from @Faithful Cartographer: Well, I don't think I personally know anyone who pirated the game so I don't really treat them in any particular way. I know whenever I meet someone who tells me they bought the game to support the studio I'm always very grateful. How do I feel about piracy? It's complicated. As a creator and studio head who provides a living for almost 40 people who depend on me and the business to support them financially, it's frustrating to think about people essentially stealing our game. They are stealing money from hard-working individuals with families and financial responsibilities, and they are stealing money from our ability to grow and build new games in the future. So, obviously I don't like that. I also think that, in general, Steam's local pricing and our frequent sale events (where the game is usually discounted by 50-75%) should make the game very affordable for pretty much anyone. I understand that this may not be the case on some platforms (like Xbox and PS4) where we discount less frequently. I also understand that there will be circumstances where despite all this, people just don't have the financial means to justify spending money on our game, but still want to play it. In that case, I would say that generally, if I can't afford something I typically don't expect to be able to have it. But I try not to think about it too much because (a) we can't do much about it and (b) I can't put myself in everyone's unique position to know why they might or might not be able to afford our game and (c) we've heard from enough people that they started out by pirating the game but later on decided to buy it because they wanted to support the studio, so I know that for some players this is their "entry" into the game and as long as they eventually buy the game and support the studio, I have to accept that. I think it's interesting to note that a big push towards Free-to-Play monetization models in North America over the past 10+ years was because of piracy of traditionally priced titles (which is easier to do now that so much is digital). There's no concern about people "stealing" your content if it's free, and everyone who gets it is a potential customer that you'll derive revenue from. ***** Question from @Skelegutplays: It varies from person to person, but in general we keep very reasonable hours in the studio. The folks in the office by 8AM are usually out by 4PM. Those who start later stay later, but the office is mostly empty by 6:30-7. We don't crunch (although we tend to put in some extra long days leading up to major releases and definitely put in some long days in the lead up to our original launch of WINTERMUTE and also, more recently, REDUX) but I can't think the last time we, as a team, worked on the weekend. We also have a flexible work week, and everyone has the option to work Wed+Thur from home vs. coming into the office (which is nice for people with longer commutes and gives some nice heads-down time if you want to hunker down and focus on stuff). So, I think we run a pretty reasonable, responsible work day and work week. That said, we did work longer hours and weeks in the earlier years of the company's history because we were more of a "startup" then, still establishing ourselves, and we didn't have the financial stability/security we have now. We're really fortunate to be able to make the choice to work a more reasonable schedule, and I know not every company is able to do that. I try not to make judgments about other people's businesses because I know how hard it can be to keep one going and everyone has to choose for themselves -- whether they are founders or employees -- what feels right to them. For my part, I put in some long days/weeks but you would expect me to, as the studio head. I expect to work more than anyone else on the team and it would be wrong if I didn't. But even I probably "only" put in 50-60 hrs/wk, when you add it all up. For years I've worked half a day most Saturdays just to deal with "overflow" from the week. I really like my work and nobody is telling me to put in those hours so hopefully this doesn't get quoted as "Hinterland studio head thinks working weekends is good". I think company founders tend to put in long hours/days and expecting otherwise is probably silly. I suspect there is strong correlation between successful entrepreneurs and people who are willing to put a lot of effort (which also means time) into building things. For me, it would be more stressful trying to cram everything I have to get done in 40 hours than to be able to spread it out a bit and having part of the weekend to get caught up on stuff when things are more quiet is an important part of my process. This approach also means I can be more available to my family during the week, as I can shift hours around to when people are asleep, etc. ***** Question from @thepatsbro: Specifically -- the Xbox Play Anywhere feature supported by The Long Dark means that your game should be in sync between Xbox One and Windows 10. On Steam, we use Steam Cloud so any account should automatically update with your latest progress. This means that if you have the game on Steam, and you have an account on more than one system (ex. a work PC and a home Mac), the game should be in sync between them and all saves and progress should be maintained. Besides that, we have no ability to offer cross-platform progress or saves, like between PS4 and PC or whatever. I'm not sure how we would go about doing that and I suspect these are things that would have to be handled on the platform side (ex. by Sony). ***** Question from @PlayerPawn: I think it's important to make a distinction between game streaming (which is a technology) and game subscriptions (which are a business model). I think game streaming like how Stadia is approaching it could be cool in the sense that if we remove ourselves from hardware limitations or the need for a customer to own an expensive console to play a game, this could potentially open up the market a lot and with a lower barrier games could be accessible to a lot more people, which is probably a good thing. Game subscriptions have the potential to be very disruptive to the current business models, as they will in many ways have the same affect as Netflix has had on linear content production. As a content producer, you get no more money from Netflix if your show or movie is seen by a lot of people, or by a few people -- they pay a flat rate, or "buyout", your content. This is contrasted against the theatrical model based on ticket sales, where a lot of people going to see your movie translates to more revenue. In games, how this might translated is that there will be less incentive to create long-running games like The Long Dark, because we would get paid a flat-rate fee from a platform holder. This shift could open the door to smaller narrative games being more viable then they currently are, and it could also mean that smaller studios might end up having a much more stable revenue stream, assuming they can make games and sell them to platform holders. But, you'll see fewer breakout hits that transform studios "overnight". So fewer troughs but also fewer peaks. This is all speculation on my part -- I don't think anyone really knows what will happen (yet). For my part, as a business owner, I have some trepidation about this shift but I'm also open to new opportunities it might present. I also appreciate some attempts -- as by Microsoft and Sony and (it seems like?) Google with Stadia, to create an ecosystem that supports different types of business models. I could see a version where a future game from Hinterland could exist at different pricing tiers across different platforms or services -- an "entry level" version in a subscription service like Game Pass for a limited period of time and with a clear DLC path, a full "premium" edition available for a one-time purchase, a version on a platform like Stadia that offers the choice between a monthly subscription and a paid version, etc. Different price points means we can bring different players into the game at different points in its life cycle, which has the potential to be really positive as everyone has a different level of price-point sensitivity and we don't to lose people just because they don't feel the game is worth $X to them at this point in their lives. If the industry eventually transitions fully to streaming subscription, this could be bad news for studios like ours, though. I think part of this transition is why you see mid-tier studios getting snapped up by platform holders right now. They need a guaranteed stream of content for their services, and those studios also know they are safer being inside that system than outside it. But I'm hopeful that games will be able to sustain several different business models, and there will be more opportunities and more players vs. fewer. ***** Question from @Wilderwalker: Good sleuthing. I think when Grey Mother says that she isn't saying that the "collapse" was literally ten years ago, but about ten years ago (could be a bit more or less). The September references -- they probably pop up fairly frequently as we have a few studio milestones built around that month. I think you can assume that, in the aftermath of either the Collapse event, or the events of the night Astrid and Mackenzie crash, people might be a bit fuzzy about dates, etc. ***** Question from @FrozenCorpse: You don't make progress towards accomplishing Feats when in a Custom experience mode. Reason? It's too easy to come up with settings that make acquiring the Feats super easy, which detracts from their value as an accomplishment. ***** Question from @hozz1235: On Steam, The Long Dark has been purchased in over 200 countries. The game has been translated officially (meaning, we paid a translation company to translate it) into 18 languages (and we are working on Ukrainian, to make 19). The language mods are community mods, which cover a lot of languages we haven't ourselves translated the game into, partly because it's quite expensive to translate the game (there is a LOT of content) and so it's difficult to justify the expense for languages where we have a really small number of players. ***** Question from @FrozenCorpse: Thanks for sharing your passion for the Sasquatch. I can't honestly say that I've had any kind of direct experience myself, and I don't believe anyone on my team has either. We did joke around with the idea of having a Sasquatch appear in a random 1 in a million chance for a few seconds, just enough to get people commenting in the forums with a "crazy story" about seeing one in the fog or whatever, but we didn't end up implementing it. ...or did we? 🤔 (I appreciate that you feel some kind of evidence-hunting experience would be well suited to The Long Dark's more pensive nature. I'll definitely keep that in mind.) ***** Question from @Hawk: I have a question about the decay rate of meat. The meat in the world is frozen. The meat you killed is not. That said, the game treats a placed frozen carcass differently from something that is harvested from an entity in the world. Once the meat is harvested it becomes its own object with its own decay rates. ***** Question from @Garden Gnome: Since Redux in Dec 2018, we moved the start of WINTERMUTE to Mackenzie's office in the Jackrabbit Transport hangar. But as far as where you end up on Great Bear, yes it was always the town of Milton. We went through a variety of iterations around exactly where you would "crash land" with regards to Milton itself -- sometimes closer, sometimes further away -- and how the story of Milton would unfold for the player, but in general Milton has always been meant to be the first introduction to the world of Great Bear, as far as the story goes. ***** Question from @SpanishMoss: Because every single system in the game has a cost, to development, testing, tuning, and from a game performance standpoint. Every system also has a cost in how it adds complexity to the game systems when they interact with each other. Adding a system that spawns empty wrappers and tracks those in the game world adds nothing meaningful to the player experience, which is why we don't do it. It's just an example of 100s of other little things we could implement and track that would add "realism" to the game, but wouldn't add much value to the experience. Game development is 100% a process of reduction to only the things that matter. ***** Question from @LilWolf: I'm not exactly sure when we'll release the music for Episode Three, but we definitely will at some point! ***** Question from @Azdrawee: I had a bunch on a whiteboard. For a long time the game was called "Survival Story" and I still really the simplicity of that title. ***** Question from @StrayCat: In terms of how the Wolf AI currently works, it works exactly as you suggested it should -- there are a bunch of possible behaviours (including Flee, Stalk, Attack, etc.) which have probabilities based on a variety of factors, including Experience Mode. While the behaviour might seem binary to you, outside of Pilgrim (where we make predator AI flee automatically), it's very much non-binary. Keep in mind that you pretty much tend to encounter the Wolves that have already selected you as a target, have decided to stalk you, and have managed to get into a place where you are now their active target. The ones that decided to flee or avoid you, you often never see. That said, we're working on some AI stuff that will hopefully make wolf behaviour more readable/less predictable. ***** Question from @jerry486: Yes, we've been talking about ways to allow for this type of activity. ***** Question from @Ape88: You'll have to wait and see what the Timberwolf presence feels like in the world. In terms of the threats adding up, since all dangerous wildlife are also a source or resources, I don't think you should be too concerned about the game balance. ***** Question from @Flagg: 1) Yes we changed their art style when we did a presentation pass on all signage, books, etc. when we originally launched WINTERMUTE. 2) Yes, all the time. When it happens, I usually go for a walk outside. ***** Question from @frickoffanddie: Yes. We're working on a film and have other extension plans as well. We also created a short film called ELEGY to communicate what The Long Dark might feel like if adapted to live action. I'm also interested in expanding the world into other mediums, and using the strengths of those mediums to explore different aspects of the setting. I don't feel constrained by the fact that The Long Dark started as a video game; I believe that interactive entertainment like video games are the uber-medium for everything linear (film, tv, print, etc.) so my theory is that IP created in interactive experiences are better able to make the leap to non-interactive mediums, vs. the other way around. ***** Looks like those are all the questions from the Mailbag this week! Thanks so much for submitting such thoughtful material for me to consider, and I hope you find the answers interesting. Enjoy your weekends and we'll see you next week. - Raph

She's smaller but definitely not weaker than Will, which you will discover in Episode Three. Let's keep the generalizations and ignorance around genders to a minimum, please.

(Just to make it clear, @Admin posted this on my behalf -- I probably should have posted it myself, but we realized we've always done it this way. I'm grateful to have help as we post this info across 6-8 channels so it's a lot of communications and timing to coordinate. Also, there won't be a Mailbag today because I spent all that time writing this dev diary.)

Hey community! You may have noticed I missed the Mailbag last week due to being at E3. I'm back now and ready to dive into the open questions. Hope you had a great week yourselves. ***** Question from @GudJob: Hey! In general we don't have any gas-powered or electronic tools because one of the effects of the Aurora and the geomagnetic disaster underpinning the game and its fiction is that electrical/electronic stuff doesn't work...at least unless it's "animated" by the Aurora on some nights, and even then that is very unpredictable. This is part of why, for example, none of the cars in the game work, why there's no snowmobile, etc. ***** Question from @RaukGorth: I think there is always area for improvement in the game. Also, when we add something to the game, while we don't intentionally try to break Experience Modes, we also don't necessarily focus on trying to avoid or promote certain common player strategies. All things being equal, it's already pretty challenging to maintain 72-hours without ever beginning the Starving process, and on Interloper this is even harder than anywhere else, so I would argue that if you can manage to secure and maintain the Well Fed buff in Interloper, you probably deserve to have it. If nerfing Well Fed specifically for Interloper players becomes a goal, we'll try to find a way to do that which is true to the core game. ***** Question from @Someone: Yes, when we added Simple Arrows it's because we had other arrows in mind. We may still have other arrows in mind. Re: the flashlight in struggles -- every item we add to the Struggle system creates a ton of extra work and testing effort so it'd have to be something really special, like we recently did with the Revolver. As for the Flashlight -- I think the Battery continues to work once the aurora ends but it will gradually deplete on its own. I don't think the idea is that batteries can "store" a charge from the aurora. The batteries are working because the aurora is active. ***** Question from @GothSkunk: We didn't intentionally pick the Rabbit to be the hardest animal to kill, but I do think the choice to take a life to extend your own should be one nobody makes lightly and if we can do so in a respectful way, we may introduce other situations like the Rabbit choice but they are not a core part of those systems at this point. (Some players feel the Rabbit kill already crosses a line.) ***** Question from @Torqen: 1) game tuning, that's "what's up" 2) you should also get ankle sprains; if you aren't that's a bug. Feel free to report here: hinterlandgames.com/support ***** Question from @PlayerPawn: Regarding the industry practice -- it's a complex question that deserves a more complex answer than I have time to provide here. As far as how Hinterland approaches crunch, we are trying to avoid it and one way we're doing that is being deliberate about planning and working towards internal deadlines but not broadcasting those publicly anymore. Typically the "pressure" to crunch comes from trying to meet external deadlines that you fear to miss, and mostly you fear to miss them because you either don't want to miss a financial quarter that will affect a stock price (public companies), or you don't want to disappoint your customers and/or have them turn into an angry mob (public or private companies). Hinterland is private so we don't care about stock performance, but we can do without the angry mob. In general, also, people tend to forgive a late game if it's good. ***** Question from @Vagabond: I'm a big Gibson fan. Maybe some of his work is lurking in my subconscious. Have fun with it. ***** Question from @ajb1978: How do you know that it's irrelevant? ***** Question from @Snowtippedwolf: Welcome to the community! I think I've answered questions about the Late Game "problem" elsewhere -- someone might be able to point you to some of them in the Index. The short answer is (a) yes I do think there's more work to be done there (b) yes we have ideas for how to address it, and (c) I have no idea when we'll get around to it as our plate is very full right now. But it's definitely something I have in mind (Keeping in mind also that the % of players for whom survival past 100 days is a real concern is pretty small). I also think it's possible that it's just TOO EASY to survive in the game since the best part of the experience is the first 0-50 days in my opinion. We recently had an Interloper player survive 1500 days or something which to me means we have work to do.) ***** Question from @Skelegutplays: We don't try to prevent it. Good reflexes! ***** Question from @hozz1235: We're hoping to do it, yes! ***** Question from @CalNieDaGtarGuy: We have a new Hatchet yes and it should be up in the store soon, along with some other new merch. ***** Question from @ibloud: 1) We're developing our own linear content around The Long Dark. 2) No. ***** Question from @SpanishMoss: We do sent keys out to YouTubers and Twitch/Mixer streamers all the time. We ask that they request them through Keymailer so that their identities can be verified because there are tons of key-scammers out there. We only give out keys to people who have over a certain number of subscribers/viewers, and only if we think their content is in line with the way we'd like to see The Long Dark shared. ***** Question from @Themadlad94: I'd love to, but I won't. ***** Question from @Annette: Yes. ***** Question from @TheUnknown: The main one that comes to mind is the Trust system we implemented in the first versions of Episodes One and Two. We didn't achieve what I was going for with them so we pulled the system out for the Redux episodes. I'd like to go back to the Trust system some day. I still think there's a lot of potential there. ***** Question from @Jendo: Honestly? Not once. ***** Question from @Pan Pastwa: Same vision as today but with 2-3 original IP games live and in the wild, 2-3 original IPs in incubation, 2-3x the team size, and 2-3 linear projects based on our original IP. ***** Question from @Azdrawee: Yeah we have some tech to add damage to labels and cans and I'd like to see it on other things as well. ***** Question from @punklor: Could happen at some point, yes. Right now we're focused on Episode Three and the remaining Episodes to finish WINTERMUTE. ***** Question from @EfoDom: Yes, accurate constellations and navigation is on my internal roadmap, but I have no idea if or when we'll get to it. That was the original intention for the night sky -- that you be able to use the stars to navigate. ***** Question from @jkripper: There are 100 different reasons why this might be the case, but if you think something looks like a bug, please report it to: hinterlandgames.com/support ***** Question from @Moll: Perhaps some day -- "near future" is a bit vague, so I won't promise that. ***** Question from @MarrowStone: Not sure what you're referring to here -- can you elaborate? ***** Question from @TheRealPestilence: I find it's best not to jump to conclusions and also best to give people the benefit of the doubt vs. trying to find fault or something to be upset about. I also find that if you find a way to ask questions that doesn't sound like you are attacking people, you have a better chance of getting the information you are looking for. I'll give you an example: "I notice it's been a few weeks since the last hotfix and the depot on Steam hasn't been updated -- just wondering if you'll be releasing more fixes for the game before the next major update. In particular I'm curious about [bug X]. Thanks!' Feel free to use that as a template in the future. ***** Question from @melcantspell: Yes, it is. And this is something we'll be pushing more in the future. ***** Question from @Cairngormless: It's a cool idea for Survival Mode. For Story, the notes are built around the story itself so we wouldn't add sets there. ***** Question from @Faithful Cartographer: Thanks! Hard to believe it's been a whole year since we started this!! E3 was...loud. And flashy. As E3 is. Walking the floor was pretty overwhelming, but keep in mind it's been 4 yrs since I've been (last time was when we demo'd The Long Dark in the Xbox booth at E3 2015) so I've been re-sensitized. I saw some cool stuff but mostly games that have already been announced or are expansions/seasons/DLC/etc for existing games. It felt like the E3 before the E3 where major new hardware is announced/shown. It's also very clear that E3 doesn't really represent the majority of what the industry has become, and to be honest feels like a bit of a relic of the "old industry". The business has changed so much since E3 started and having the big expensive flashy venue to show off your game isn't as important as it used to be. I think the smaller consumer-centric shows like PAX, or the developer-focused conferences like GDC, are a lot more relevant, but that's just my opinion! A lot of people still love E3 and I think if it's your first or second time at the show it can be really exciting and make you feel like part of a bigger thing. For me...it just made me feel tired, to be honest. ***** That's all the time for Mailbag this week. Thanks for the questions. As always, if I missed yours it might have been because it was something I've already responded to 100 times, or maybe you wrote it in a way that felt snarky or rude, or like you're trying to score points by showing how clever you are at our expense, which I don't have time for. Remember that the Mailbag is something I take time out of my work-day to do, it's something I do to show appreciation to the fans. It's not your punching bag for me or the dev team. Be considerate, or go post somewhere else where rudeness is more accepted. (Better yet, don't post anywhere, because the internet doesn't need more assholes.) Have a good weekend. - Raph

WINTERMUTE doesn't mean any of these things.

The game has always been developed using Unity. We did some significant modifications to the post-FX stack in our December REDUX launch, though. Best way to get help is to submit a request to our Support team, with as much information as you have: www.hinterlandgames.com/support In general we fix all the bugs we find, although we do prioritize, which means bugs that are most serious and affect most players tend to get fixed first.

Hey community! Hope you've had a good week. The Community team wanted me to remind you that I'll be producing a Dev Diary before the end of the month, with a general update on what's going on at Hinterland and some info on Episode Three progress (as spoiler-free as possible). Also, I'll be out at E3 next week (not showing) so I probably won't have the time to write a Dispatch next Friday. On to the Mailbag! ***** Question from @Its_the_Gman: Yes, we definitely want to add more Challenges to the game. We have some ideas. We were holding off on Hunted, Part III until Redux was finished, b/c of the Bear Spear and other things, so if we can, we'll wrap up this trilogy this year, and maybe add one or two more. ***** Question from @DaveMcD: It wasn't inspired by that scene, but it's cool that it makes you think of it every time! Curious to know what other sounds from the game evoke movie scenes in people's minds, and which scenes? (I've been playing this game for so long that I hear our game sounds in movies now, not the other way around.) ***** Question from @TheKaneB: Yeah -- there are some known issues with this screen. Currently it doesn't update the crafting time based on what Tool you pick, due to a logic order issue with how the screen was set up. We'll fix it when we can. Sorry about that! It's not great, I know. We'd like to clean up this interface in general. ***** Question from @IceOnecy: Google Translation: Response: Mackenzie is voiced by Mark Meer (most renowned for voicing Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series). We also have Jennifer Hale (who also voiced, amongst many other roles, Commander Shepard in Mass Effect), and David Hayter (Solid Snake), and a variety of other actors we're really lucky to have working with us on the game. I'm super excited about our Episode Three characters and actors! Google Translation: Маккензи озвучивает Марк Меер (самый известный за высказывание командира Шепарда в серии Mass Effect). У нас также есть Дженнифер Хейл (которая также озвучивала, среди многих других ролей, коммандера Шепарда в Mass Effect), и Дэвида Хейтера (Solid Snake), и целый ряд других актеров, нам действительно повезло работать с нами над игрой. Я очень взволнован нашими персонажами и актерами Эпизода Три! ***** Question from @FrozenCorpse: I'm not going to get into the weeds in responding to this because it would just take too long, but I'll cherrypick a few items to respond to. * Things you place on the snow surface should not "sink down" into the snow, although this has happened in the past (due to bugs). * After Blizzards, you will find that Sticks have been replenished. * Some things lose Condition faster when left in the snow, others lose Condition less quickly. * Blizzards damage your exterior Clothing layer. * All snow (light, heavy, blizzards, etc.) make your outside layer Wet. Once that layer is Wet, it loses a lot of its warmth properties (it also weighs more). One an exterior layer is 100% wet, the layer under it will begin to get wet. When that layer is also wet, it will also weigh more and will lose most of its warming properties. When your skin is unprotected by clothing, you become vulnerable to Frostbite. * Carcasses or Meat Bags you leave outside are subject to predation by wildlife, and may be ravaged (eaten) when you are not around. Hope that helps! ***** Questions from @kosatka: 1 - iSome aspects of it, yes, but probably not the way you are thinking. 2 - For the most part, the level of detail and object density you see in the world is what we intended, although there are still some locations that are getting updated to bring them to the same level as, for example, Milton (Mountain Town) which was built specifically for Story Mode. ***** Question from @SneakySquid: 1 - Mostly the Unity editor and a variety of things built for the game. 2 - We'll most likely provide tools to create your own regions when we provide official Mod Support in the future. It's likely that people will need to learn how to use the Unity editor in order to make region mods, but we'll do our best to support this with tools and documentation, when we are ready to do so. ***** Question from @Mr. TwoPump: Yes, I'd like to do something like this, but it's a deceptively challenging problem to solve. We'll see where we end up with it. ***** Question from @frickoffanddie: The Main Menu is a little scene, not a cinematic -- meaning it's a small piece of world that, if you could get into it, you could walk around. (We've had bugs in the past that spawned the players inside the Main Menu scene). Yes, it's inspired by Half-Life 2, which is my favourite game of all time. ***** Question from @noahvanbaal: More birds -- yes, hopefully. Base building -- I'm pretty sure I've responded to this before, so please check the Index thread. ***** Question from @bongoplayingmonkey: I like the idea of providing a warmth boost due to digestion at night, but it becomes tricky to communicate all these various states to the player. But I'll keep it in mind and see if we can come up with something. You do currently get a bit of a Warmth bonus from sprinting, but we don't expose this in any UI -- it's handled by the underlying system. ***** Question from @TheRealPestilence: That sounds like a bug. Drinking hot Rosehip tea should provided the Warmth buff regardless of where you drink it from (inventory, radial, or first aid). Please log: www.hinterlandgames.com/support ***** (Skipping a question about Sprains because after 3+ weeks of discussing it I'm a bit burned out on this particular system.) ***** Question from @MikeV: Survival for the sake of survival alone has been core to The Long Dark's Survival Mode from Day 1. We could add the idea of an objective, but most players seem to embrace the current game. So, to you I say -- it IS cool. ***** Question from @Gazbeard: Could happen some day! ***** Question from @ThePancakeLady: We didn't make our change for Stadia. It's fully about performance improvements (for us) and the code-wrapping preventing decompiling is, to me, a nice bonus. People should not be able to hack our game apart. But that topic has been discussed elsewhere! Re: feelings on Stadia -- I'm cautiously optimistic but we'll see what the biz model does for developers. As a creator, I like the idea of not having to limit myself to only thinking about what a "gamer" might look for an inexperience, so if I assume Stadia has the potential to really broaden the player community beyond the current core group who own high-end PCs and consoles, that's kind of interesting just on a philosophical level. (Even when designing The Long Dark, I try never to approach anything from the standpoint of "well this is how other games do it so this is how we should do it too", because I don't want to assume our players are familiar with any other games, genre tropes, etc.) I don't think we'll make anything specifically with Stadia in mind, but I do think the future is streaming -- to some degree -- so I'm trying to be open to what that means and trying to ensure our next projects capitalize on the strengths so that Hinterland doesn't become a dinosaur. Adapt or die, right? In my mind, all these new streaming/subscription game platforms means there will be a huge appetite for content (much as we've seen in TV/film over the past 5+ years) so companies that can create good original IP will be in a strong position. My goal is to ensure Hinterland can capitalize on our strengths in this area. ***** Looks like those are all the questions (that aren't also Wishlist items) we have for this week! Enjoy the weekend and I'll resume the Mailbag the Friday after next. - Raph PS Did you see the short video of The Long Dark running on Switch? We still have a lot of work to do, but we're one step closer.

If you want to play a board game based on The Long Dark IP, you might just want to wait a bit...

Hello community, It's been another busy week at Hinterland -- the team's been hotfixing and testing but we think we've nearly got most of the issues from STEADFAST RANGER sorted out. I hope you've been having fun with it! I was out on holiday last week so looks like we have a hefty double-batch of questions this week. On to this week's Mailbag Dispatch. ***** Question from @Jaffa: We've talked about adding stacking functionality and it's a bit tricky, but it's on our list. In general I'd like to provide a better way to organize and stack/arrange items so this might be something we look at in a future Survival Mode update. For me, better placement tools need to be about more than just arranging things more nicely -- I'd like to make sure improving this also enables other useful gameplay actions. ***** Question from @JeremiahJohnson: You're welcome! Splitting axe -- we could add one pretty easily. The main issue would be with Struggles. You'd expect to be able to use it there as well, and even new Struggle tool adds a bunch of animation work for the team, and right now our animators are very focused on Episode Three work. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't add a bigger/better axe in the future. Don't give up! ***** Question from @GothSkunk: The Long Dark is still a narrative single-player adventure in a remote part of post-apocalyptic Canada. If we'd known we'd create a "sandbox" and release that first, we would have made that part of our pitch -- i.e. produce the sandbox foundation first, and then build the narrative mode on top of that. The only thing this would have changed is probably fewer people feeling pissed that Story Mode has taken so long. All that said, if Survival Mode hadn't taken off, The Long Dark would have ended up being a much less significant game, because we wouldn't have had the time or budget to build it out to the degree we have, or to deliver on the scope and quality of assets we've been able to invest in the game. I'm happy with how things turned out in the end, but I'm not happy to have players who feel let down by progress or feel that somehow their favourite "part" of the game isn't progressing as quickly as they would like. But I think the only way to mitigate that is to one day finish The Long Dark and hopefully have fans (including people we lost along the way) come back and say..."yeah, it took hella long but it was worth it in the end." ***** Question from @Sito: It's a bit tricky to answer this because I'm not sure when you last played so what version you'd be comparing to. We've done a few different things that have improved the skies, most recently in the big Redux update (December) we completely redid our post effects "stack" which means all our colour and lighting effects for weather and skies are improved from before. We also did some work on the Aurora effect to remove the "banding". We have some other visual improvements in the works but you can't see those in the game yet, so I'd assume what you're seeing is the stuff we did for Redux. We didn't do any work on skies or lighting in STEADFAST RANGER. Glad you like them though! ***** Question from @Dan_: We're looking at this. Deadman is not an official Challenge so we didn't balance the Birch Bark around it, but we've seen this feedback from the community and we'll see what we can do. ***** Question from @OveRMolo: Growth cycle -- yes it's been asked about many times. I don't think most things regrow in winter so respawning Cat Tails feels a bit wrong to me. We do respawn some natural things though, where it makes sense (ex. Sticks that can be found after Blizzards). If you use up Cat Tails you should move to a new region -- the world is huge so there are a lot of Cat Tails to be found. Compass -- no plans for that. Geomagnetic disaster etc. etc. Mission Designer -- anyone can apply, but please meet our requirements before you do (also, all our roles are on-site). ***** Question from @amadeuszbx: We use standard artist/developer tools for the most part -- Max/Maya for modeling and animation. Photoshop for texturing. We have a few extra tools we use for optimization/quality of life here and there but generally we use all the same authoring tools as anyone else. No big secrets there! ***** Question from @yollarbenibekler: Steam Market -- we haven't really discussed this but we'll look into it. Could be cool. Crowdfunding Game 2 or DLC -- could happen; if it does, we hope our TLD players will jump in! ***** Question from @Drizzi: Glad to hear you're having fun with RANGER. Currently the Revolver keys off of the Rifle availability custom setting, but we should separate that out. We'll look at it for a future update. ***** Question from @Someone: I have a lot of answers to the first part of your question, but you're just going to have to wait and see what we cook up for you. (And no, that's not a subtle hint.) For the second question -- what other uses would you like to see for the Flashlight, keeping in mind it only works during the Aurora? ***** Question from @Hovejester: Yes, but only if it doesn't make the game too fussy. The more of these details we take into account in our simulation (meaning, the systems that drive the game), the more complex things like our UI become. It's a fine balance. ***** Question from @hozz1235: No, they don't grow back. ***** Question from @Azdrawee: Yeah we'll probably release something like this again. Spoiler: The numbers are all much higher now. Those stats were for our first 3 months on Early Access. ***** Question from @jkripper: I love working with Jennifer. We have a ton of fun. She brings so much to the character of Astrid, cares so much about the game, and is -- above all else -- a wonderful human being. I hope to work with her on all my games. ***** Question from @Samwise117: Glad you're enjoying the Revolver! Yeah, we do need not just a "fuel management" but a "liquid management" system/interface. We've discussed it a fair bit. Not sure where it sits in our internal roadmap but we'll get to it eventually. ***** Question from @Kenshinzen: Sadly, I don't have an answer for you, because I have no idea. Could be next year. Could be never. No idea. We have no plans to "port" the game to VR but we could create an experience in The Long Dark that is purpose-built for VR, but not until it makes business sense to do so. ***** Question from @AstraRune: I'll pass your compliments to the support team! Thank you. As for being able to sit down on chairs -- yes it's been discussed and could happen, but I have no firm plans for it at the moment as we are working on higher-priority things. I agree that it'd be cool and nice as a meditative thing (but only if I can move chairs like onto the porch at the Mystery Lake Camp Office and watch wolves walking across in the distance while I smoke my pipe). ***** Question from @Faithful Cartographer: I missed it, sadly, but I'm proud of Team Canada! I think anyone who played in the quarterfinals should be pretty proud of their team/country. ***** Question from @Skelegutplays: If I tell you it's a XX calibre, you'll start comparing the in-game behaviour to what you know of the real-world equivalent which is irrelevant. The Revolver is "good at deterring wolves" calibre and the Rifle is "better chance of taking down a Bear if you're lucky" calibre. That's great to hear! We're working on even more optimizations so hopefully it will just keep getting better and better. ***** Question from @Aiden Milroy: Sounds like you might have encountered a bug. You should hear music play at a pretty consistent frequency. We don't have an option or slider for this because we tune music frequency very deliberately so it doesn't get overplayed. ***** Question from @Alonzo.: I can't say it will never happen, but I will say we've only done it once (wiping story mode saves when we launched Redux). We provided warnings for months before that. If we do know we have to wipe saves, we'll always do our best to provide tons of warning. Sadly, we can't reach everyone if they don't read the in-game notifications, mailers, social media messages forum posts, Steam announcements, etc. But if you are plugged in to our comms channels, you will know well in advance before any intentional save wipes happen, for sure. ***** Question from @Wade: Maybe if you ask nicely. ***** Question from @alex_p: Yup, we've thought about it. ***** Question from @Nogen: I still think about it, yes. ***** Question from @Arran: Go to Options > Key Bindings. You can change a bunch of stuff. Separating out Struggle from other interactions (with its own key) is more work; we've discussed it and will do it when we can, unless we find a better solution. ***** Question from @hozz1235: Not at the moment. ***** Question from @yollarbenibekler: No plans for this. (But what if you fail?) ***** Question from @ThePancakeLady: Yes. Yes. Depends. ***** Question from @LkP: Most of them are from samples. There are tons of different varieties of birds you hear in the game. All have been researched to ensure you hear the right bird sounds in the right places (near the coastline, in the mountains, etc.), right time of day, and right altitude (in the lower areas near water vs. up in the mountains). ***** Question from @ajb1978: Could be. ***** Question from @Jendo: For the first question -- It's a combination of hardware, memory, CPU/GPU speed, engine optimization, etc. We're still finding ways to squeeze out more performance but we're also always trying to find ways to make the game look better so there are tradeoffs. For the second question -- we'll ship WINTERMUTE on this generation and we'll see what happens on the next one. We could do a re-release/uprez/remaster potentially, but we'll see. I'd rather be working on something new. ***** I think that's all the time I have this week. I know there are a few questions at the end that I didn't get to, and I'll try to tack them on next week's Dispatch. Otherwise, if I skipped your question, it's either because (a) I've already answered it before (check the Mailbag Index), (b) answering it will spoil things, or (c) you came across as rude (I'm not talking about people for whom English is clearly a second language -- I'm talking about people who should obviously know better.) Thanks for all the questions, and see you next week! - Raph

Thanks for sending the info to Support.

Can't speak 100% to which version GoG is updated to as the team is on holiday today -- I'm pretty sure they have 1.49. 1.50 might be on the way. In general GoG is a lower priority platform for us (due to very small player base and their generally slow update speed -- it often takes days between when we submit our hotfixes and then they get released). And, because they are much slower to update the game when we send them hotfixes, we sometimes bundle more than one together. In general, when we are in a post-update hotfixing cycle where we might release a hotfix every day or two, we prioritize the platforms we can update the fastest which are: Steam, Xbox, and PS4. GoG will get caught up eventually!

The second issue was addressed in the original release of STEADFAST RANGER, which is why it wasn't mentioned in the latest hotfix release notes.

Hello community, We'll it's been another busy week in Hotfix Heaven in the aftermath of STEADFAST RANGER's release. Feels like we managed to get a better handle on the Sprain system tuning, fixed some aiming issues with the Bow and Rifle for you, and hopefully got the Revolver spawn tuning feeling a bit better. We'll have another set of fixes coming out hopefully later next week or early the following week, but I think we've hit the more critical things so we'll let the game settle a bit. Fixing things in a hurry is sometimes necessary, but it can always have unintentional knock-offs so we'll take some extra time with the remaining issues on our list. Thanks to everyone who sent feedback, and in particular those who sent bugs to our Support portal -- that's been extremely helpful to the team, and we really appreciate it. Next Monday is Victoria Day, a stat holiday in Canada, so the team will be off for a long weekend, but we'll be back at it bright and early Tuesday morning. Now, on to this week's Mailbag! - Raph ***** Question from @Morphe: Just to be sure I understand the question -- are you saying the placement of this Rosehip bush means that a misclick may end up causing you to climb instead? If so, can you send a screenshot of this to our Support portal and we can get it onto the bug list (assuming it isn't already fixed and sitting in our fixed branch, waiting to be released): www.hinterlandgames.com/support **** Question from @Sito: Most of the team is not exposed to community feedback, by design. The people who have frontline interface with the community are trained to deal with that feedback. But, it would be a lie to say that negative feedback isn't occasionally frustrating. We've been updating The Long Dark for a long time now, and have survived some pretty big furors in the past (Parasites, various rounds of wolf tuning, every UI update, etc.) so I think we're pretty used to it. I've come to see patterns as well. Often the immediate reaction to something is negative, because something familiar has been changed. We all have this same reaction every time Gmail or any app we use regularly suddenly does some kind of interface or UX change that throws us off. But then over time when we get accustomed to the change, we can often recognize how much better it is. I'm not saying this is always true for all our players, but I've seen it happen more than once that the initial "hateful" reaction to something is tempered over time. In the end we all want the same thing -- for every player to have a great experience. If the negative feedback is based on something not working as intended, it's easy to take it well because we know it isn't working as intended and we want to fix it! If the negative feedback is based on something we've intentionally changed and believe is better (like many of our various UI iterations over the years), it can be harder to take, but in the end it's our game, our vision, and we believe firmly that we're making this game for the people who like it, not for the people who don't. Just, who those people are can change over time, as the game changes. I think that's to be expected for a game and community that's been "live" for almost 5 years now. ***** Question from @amadeuszbx: 1) Pretty sure you'll find this answer elsewhere, but my top-10 are probably (not in any order): Half-Life, Half-LIfe 2, STALKER, BioShock, Deus Ex, Fallout 3, Far Cry 2, Mass Effect, Thief, and Red Dead Redemption. (I'm sure I'm missing some but those are the ones that I can think of right now.) 2) Myself and most of my team come from "triple-A" so we've all been in the position of having to ship something earlier than we wanted to. This is something we really don't want to ever have to do, because ultimately we are craftspeople and artists who create interactive experiences, and the most important thing for us is that we can be proud of our work. Beyond that, I believe that long-term quality and good-will from our players will translate into long-term success for Hinterland, more than any short-term "cash grab" we might be able to gain by releasing something quickly. Also, you will find that when you focus on creating great things, other people who want to create great things will want to bring their talents and energy to your endeavour. This is not a guarantee of success, but it definitely takes you a big part of the way. Ultimately, I am not motivated by money -- I am only motivated by creating things I love and can be proud of, with people who feel the same way, and money is only a means to freedom so that we can create more things in the future. I think that as long as we are true to these values, even if we "fail" economically, we will succeed as creators, and leave something positive and lasting behind after we are gone. (So far, we are not failing economically either. ) ***** Question from @MarrowStone: 1) Not yet. 2) Yes, it should. ***** Question from @Azdrawee: I've noticed that you like to ask questions that are often thinly-veiled attempts to get me to share information about release plans or dates. I'm on to you! We haven't said anything about the contents of Episode Four, so you are making assumptions about the content therein. We will release Episode Three, and *then* Episode Four, and *then* (spoiler) Episode Five. And then WINTERMUTE will be finished. Then we will rest. ***** Question from @ThePancakeLady: Not sure. We'll see. We'll be doing big overhauls of all our websites this year (and into next I suspect) so we'll see how the Hinterland site turns out. If the team wants to be showcased more, I'll be open to including bios again. I personally like them having what small anonymity I can offer them. The internet is not always a friendly place, as you well know. ***** Question(s) from @vta4ever: Could happen! If we do, it'll be a new standalone game. Positive user reviews help. Sharing news about The Long Dark in your social circle. Reporting bugs you find to www.hinterlandgames.com/support. Gifting copies to friends when the game is on sale. Being in these forums and spreading positive vibes. These things all help a lot!! ***** Question from @LilWolf: I have two new non-TLD games I'd like to start on ASAP. Both of them push their respective genres forward a bit, I believe. One has links to survival and the other has links to immersive sims. I'm thinking about them in terms of how we've built The Long Dark over the years, and also in terms of how the business is changing right now. Not sure when I'll be able to get started on them, but I hope soon!! Every day I wake up worried some game will come out that is too similar to those ideas and I'll have to throw them out and start again. ***** Question from @CalNieDaGtarGuy: Even though the regions have different names (Forlorn Muskeg, Broken Railroad, etc.), geographically that whole area would be known as Mystery Lake, to the people who had built the lodge. Or, a better way of putting it, the lake would have been a pretty major landmark for that area, which is why the lodge is named after it. We have some internal lore about the hunting lodge and the area around it, but I'd have to dig it up out of the archives from years ago.... ***** Question from @apple_geek101: We don't have an official Discord server. We discussed it a while ago and felt we didn't have the bandwidth to manage and nurture another community. We also felt that Discord didn't seem to be doing enough to maintain a healthy community itself -- there seems (or seemed) to be a lot of issues with toxic people or groups using it. Similar, in some ways, to how communities like Reddit, which are not moderated by devs, can sometimes end up being really toxic places for players, and in the end just serve to turn people off. We made a decision early on only to spend our time and energy nurturing communities that we can moderate properly, because it does't make sense to spend money in a place that is hostile to you and your players, and we know that every toxic person turns off 10+ non-toxic players who might have become positive contributors to the community. If we felt Discord offered good tools for us to moderate a community there, and if we felt there was enough interest in an official Discord, we might consider setting up an official channel. But until we're confident it's a good place for our players, we won't encourage people to go there. Please note I'm not talking about individual Discord servers or TLD players at all. I'm just speaking in generalities about a business decision. ***** Question from @melcantspell: We don't, currently. We shut down our use of GameAnalytics because of GDRP, and Unity Analytics isn't GDRP-compliant at the moment yet either. Until we can roll out an opt-in analytics solution that complies with GDRP, we have no way of pulling this info right out of the game. That said, my gut tells me Mystery Lake is the most popular due to it being the first region that appears in the menu and also a good, well-balanced region in general. Someone could start a poll here in the forums if they wanted to do an informal survey. Could be interesting! ***** Question from @Aiden Milroy: Yeah...it's tough because we try to contact those backers and don't always get through. We're still hopefully we'll be able to get them to contribute their info. I don't feel good about the idea of taking those away from backers and giving them or selling them to the general player population, because they are meant to recognize the contributions of our earliest supporters. We might have to just take the blank ones out for now, so at least there won't be empty cairns. ***** Question from @ajb1978: 1) We don't have current stats on this, but I believe the Stalker+Interloper side of the spectrum is about 15% total. The rest play Voyageur or Pilgrim. When we can enable in-game analytics again, we'll share realtime data on that. I would say that Stalker+Interloper players are more highly represented in the community forums than they are in the game. (Feels like 30-40% of Official Forum users are Stalker/Interloper players.) 2) I honestly can't remember where those came from. People on the team I believe. We've replaced a lot of them over time. ***** Question(s) from @CuteBeaver: 1) Yes, I've been thinking about this. 2) Yes, we have. 3) Not unless I can find something interesting about managing frozen water supply. ***** Question from @Faithful Cartographer: 1) For the present, the whole team is currently focused on Episode Three and Survival Mode of The Long Dark. 2) Mackenzie's (family's) service is called "Jackrabbit Transport". Jackrabbit Island is unrelated to this. 3) I'm not religious about watching hockey, but I do check out the olympic and sometimes the worlds depending on who Canada is playing. It's always exciting to see the Russians and Canadians playing against each other. Old rivalries. I hope our teams don't meet before the final either. Good luck! ***** Question from @Its_the_Gman: Hi! Yes, we did retexture the train cars. Thanks for noticing. Not every headshot will result in a death. Might have been a "glancing" shot. I don't think you're using it wrong. ***** Question from @Moll: We'll see! The Rifle has been in the game for years. The Revolver, for days. Give it some time. ***** I think that's it for this week! Thanks to everyone who submitted questions, and I hope you have a great weekend. - Raph

If you have new questions, please add them to the Mailbag Questions thread. Thanks!