ChillPlayer

maybe have a look at the disclaimer when the game starts - have you ever encountered a moose after a geomagnetic event?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

The bear in TWM near Crystal Lake is quite easy to hunt. When leaving the hut keep right to not attract any wolves and sneak/crouch up on the hill where you can overlook the bear cave and the way towards Echo Ravine. Once you see the bear far right of the cave, go left and climb ontop of the cave, the bear can't reach you there. Generally speaking this is the best tactic for bear hunting. Anticipate it's route, go somewhere where it can't reach you and wait for an opportunity to shoot it.

There wasn't much thinking involved on my part anymore, guess this was my Captain Ahab moment On the other hand though, I was living off wolves for hundred of days, most hunted with a bow and didn't expect that shooting one with a rifle would be a big deal.

I hope this is just an overseight by the devs and they will either prevent the crampons from decaying or make them reparable in a future update. It's not like we can replace them like a pry bar. And with the current sprain mechanic they are very valuable on longer Stalker or Interloper runs where you can't just shoot your way through a pack of wolves and need to go around them over "red" terrain quite often. Having them in my pack but not being able to use them whenever I need them would be a pitty 😕

Forgive my ignorance but I never bothered to check the display settings again once I've set them to my liking - which was years ago when FullHD 1920x1080 was probably the highest setting available (or my screen didn't offer more). Out of curiosity I checked if a new option was added to the display settings and also tried to set a higher resolution. Which to my astonishment I could, up to 3840x2160 and wow, what a difference this makes. Now everything is crystal clear and sharp, I forgot how beautiful the world can look, it's like playing a next-gen version of TLD Does anyone know for how long we have the option for 4k display?

Do you mean the climb point on the mountain where Climber's Cave is inside? Yes this point is reachable via another climb west and there is a rope, which I took and mounted on the point which leads down to the lake. Actually I think this was the first route I took to get to the High Medow from Angler's Den.

The High Meadom is a high plateu pretty much in the center of the map. It's your starting point if you want to reach the gold mine via bridges and also the cabine - Homesteader's Respite" - above the broken fishing hut, with the rope climb where you can mount a rope. You can reach it from anywhere on the map as Serenity has described. Once you reach Pillar's Footrest, either via Angler's Den or by entering from Deer Clearing, it's pretty easy to find, just keep right until there will be a bridge or a rope, can't remember it anymore. Continue north and you'll reach a frozen lake. On the southwest shore is Climber's Cave, north west shore is a rope climb but without a rope. Go further north and soon you'll find on the right side a rope, climb it, another one, and then you'll be on the Meadow. From there on it's pretty straight forward to the mine - beware of bears though @Serenity: completely agree, I just tried to retrace my steps from Pillar's but I cannot tell from the char coal map if I climbed a rope first or went over the bridge. All I remember is that I went right and then it was pretty straight forward. It's best use is probably to confirm which bridge is which for some basic orientation.

Ash Canyon is out, my excitement is huge and after almost a year away from TLD I went exploring the new region in Pilgrim-ish Custom to be prepared for when I enter the region with my long running Stalker sandbox, which I was playing for over 3 years. After I felt comfortable enough to know my way around AC I started the "real" sandbox and forgot that my survivor was camping in the Cannery, desperately waiting for half a month for an Aurora to arrive so I can finally enter the workshop. I lived off wolves I've shot around the Cannery but my last meal was almost a day ago, I had 2 hours of fire left, a blizzard was roaming, no food, hungry, fast-fatigued (I think from hypothermia, didn't check) - and no Aurora. So I gave up on entering the workshop and decided to patch myself together and venture into Ash Canyon. It was early evening and I headed over to the Worker Residences. There I had some loot luck, gathered two pieces of wood and some canned sardines and even found some ammo for my rifle. I went fishing and caught three trouts which I cooked right away, filled my stomach, happy survivor. When I left the fishing hut irony hit me for the first time: eerie music and the Aurora was blazing over the sky, noooo this can not be, why now? I kidd you not, I was out for 15 days in the Cannery without a single Aurora, when I finally left, the Aurora came. So, change of plans, determined to get into the workshop no matter what I went straight from the fishing hut back to the Cannery - which is when I noticed that I was tired out due to some affliction. But hey, that battery of hypo stims I was carrying around finally became handy, so shoot up survivor. I ran as fast as I could, shot another hypo stim into my leg, reached the Cannery, no wolves (guess I ate'm all 😈) and reached the rope. Had to take another stim to be able to climb it and parkoured my way to the workshop. Midway I noticed the wind picking up, snow getting thicker, almost blizzard like and no Aurora to be seen anymore. My last hope was that it was still there "over" the blizzard so I continued but I already feared for the worst, no lights in the buildings and of course, I couldn't enter the code anymore. Unbelievable, finally an Aurora but it went out before I reached the workshop. Irony lesson number 2. Out of desperation I've quite the game and loaded the Sandbox again, hoping that it didn't autosave my failed attempt to reach the workshop in time, and that is exactly what happened, I spawned inside the Worker residence building. Okay, this time I skipped the fishing, just grabbed the sardines and blazed off to the Cannery with the help of some stims. Climbed the rope, parkoured the place in record time and then finally, at last, reached the workshop, entered the code, the door opened and... a wolf was inside 😮 Luckily it ran away from me in fear, thanks to my weeks-long wolf diet I think, so naturally I tried to shoot it - but my stim weared off and I was completely fatigued, missed a few times with the revolver and switched to the rifle with 3 bullets left. I could only hold aim for what felt like 3 seconds and couldn't hit the beast, it was running around too crazy. One shot fired, two shots fired, went after the wolf, stepped into some live-wires and burned myself, last shot fired and... the wolf was no longer afraid of me and switched to attacking mode. I quickly drew my bow and tried to shoot it right before it jumped into my face - and missed. We struggled for a few seconds but I stood no chance, moments later my survivor faded into The Long Dark and a highly succesful 560 day Stalker run ended. Since then I cannot get Alanis Morissette out of my head, so I thought I share my experience as a form of therapy but she's still singing: "and isn't it ironic, don't you think?". Yes it is, yes it is... Fare well old friend, we had a good run, you are one with the Dark now, rest in pieces...

it depends (I think) on which route you take. If you follow the bridges via High Medow and paying Homesteader's a visit then yes. This is what I've done on my custom (pilgrim-ish) exploration run but I've just resurrected my 560 day stalker from his hiatus in Bleak Inlet and plan on going the other way around to the mine, from Angler's Den to the western edge of the map and climb 3 ropes up to the mine. There will be some timber wolves I think but it's much shorter. Or is there any reason this shouldn't work? Btw - mild spoiler: there are two ways into AC, via Echo Ravine or Deer Clearing. If you enter via Deer Clearing you''ll be on the High Medow plateau quite quickly.

nope, they go in the ordinary accessory slot.

Just watched the final episode of Alone Season 6, this time in the Arctic. One could tell that the contestants have learned from the previous seasons and were for the most part much better prepared, which is why the first half of the season was sometimes a bit boring. But then it picked up, especially when the snow came and true skill was displayed - and without giving away any spoilers, the candidate I was rooting for has won What we also learned first hand: you can't live off moose alone, it's just too little fat - you need fish or other fat sources or you'll lose a lot of weight pretty quickly. This is something TLD could maybe factor in to some extend without over-complicating things, like the need to have enough calories and at least some fat regularely (from fish, peanut butter, candy bars and the like) to prevent protein poisoning and in the end starvation.

Thanks for the update and the work you're constantly putting into the game! However, one fix is missing: *[ALL] lowered chance 10-fold for getting a sprain

Good luck with this approach in Interloper

That's what I dislike about the new system as well. At first I was excited for it showing me more clearly where I am at risk of getting a sprain but I didn't realize that they upped the chances severaly to a point where some paths will give you a sprain guaranteed. It's unfair to players who have spend hundreds of hours in the game figuring out the safest route from A to B and now they can't take that route anymore because they WILL get a sprain. Granted it was always a trade-off between being moderately safe from wolves (sometimes they surprised you on the "safe" path) and a minor risk for getting a sprain - which happened roughly once every ten times I travelled a certain path if at all, but now it's almost always, with a grace period between the warning and getting a sprain no longer than Weak Ice. For example if you travel from Trapper's towards Tunnel Collapse there will most likely always be a wolf patroling between the rails and below into the forest. But if you hug the cliff on the right side and go up the slope a bit, you could sneak past the wolf without him noticing you. Now? You can still take that route but you will end up with a sprain. Same with hiking up towards Rabbit Grove in CH following the frozen river. I don't think I'll ever got a sprain while hiking on the hills left of the river to avoid the bear and wolves, now the game wants me to actively seek confrontation with the beasts or get a sprain. Yes there are other paths which lead to the same location but they will also put you in the same dilemma, either fight a wolf (and get probably a sprained wrist anyway) or avoid the places where wolves are (which most of the times means somewhere uphill) and get a sprain almost for sure. In some places you might succeed in luring a wolf away with stones, leading to you carrying tons of stones and throwing them blindly where ever you think there might be one but cmon, I'm not playing TLD to have an animal tamer experience. Simply put: this is no fun. Please revert the chance of getting a sprain back to Pre-Steadfast levels but keep the indicator and new healing mechanism. After hundreds of days surviving in the wilderness alone our protagonist should be confident enough in he's abilities to judge when he is risking a sprain and should only very rarely misjudge the situation. Now it feels like playing a city kid on high heels.

Sometimes you get something you never knew you always wanted - like the new sprain system, I am truly excited about that! Finally an end to all the guess work of when I am at risk of spraining my ankle or wrist. And I am glad to see a true use now for the birch bark, I'm sure this will help a lot in Interloper. Thanks for all your work and for constantly improving the game

try the To all the knife-pushers: didn't Methuselah's scolding made you at least question your choice? It sure did for me, I find it pretty obvious that this was the wrong choice.

try again Seems there's a time limit.

*hmm why can't I edit my posts anymore?* So I had to redo that part with the knife due to the transition bug and this time I played like a gamer and pushed the knife. I immediately regretted it, it just fell wrong. Methusalem also gave me quite the lecture afterwards in the climbing area, which means in a sense the game is judging your actions. I think in future such moments I'll stick to being the good guy

lol made my day But for me it's the other way around, TLD makes me behave inside a game as I would in RL. As a player of any other game I would've killed the bastard without hesitation, the story offers enough reasons to do so. But in RL I don't think I would be able to kill a human being, especially not one who didn't cause me any direct suffering and that's the reason why I pulled the knife out. I didn't spend a single thought though on why I haven't received the knife, I already had a flare gun and a hatchet and that's all I needed at that point in the story.

you need to die enough so you can go out in confidence and venture to the Muskeg for crafting your arrows you so desperately need. TLD is really about learning by dying, no sense in holding on to a save if it hinders your development as a player

You can't live on nothing but cattails for ever, after a few months you'd have severe defficiencies in about every department of your body The arrow heads are something you have to craft, not find, as they are very rare - and for the bow you need guts but you can get them from deer carcasses, you don't need to hunt an animal for that.

I'm skipping meat because of my health and not for ethical reasons, so when my character is dying out of hunger I have no troubles snapping a bunnies neck But more humane and actually easier is to hunt rabbits with a bow, same technique as with stones but position yourself so they are running towards or from you. And it gives you points to level the skill up. Generaly speaking, someone on a strict plant-based diet, in this environment, will pretty fast become another frozen corps on the side of the road (in which I can store my freshly hunted bunny meat )

I had one of my best moments in test branch like when I almost run into a Bear in CH when there were only Bears in PV. I really love the ability to discover something truly for the first time that is not written in any forum, blog, reddit or shown in a youtube video. You only get this chance in test branch and for the first hour after release or so and then you either shut yourself out of all social media or get swarmed with info. As far as I can tell people showed great discipline in marking every thread with huge spoiler tags and only post in the test branch forum, making it easy to avoid spoilers. Or to avoid the test branch altogether and simply not participate in it, life goes on in the parallel universe without being impacted by the test branch so I don't exactly see why one would wish that it should be done with forever :\ [EDIT]: btw, man would I wish there'd be a test branch right now

Given how many bugs and troubles they had with the launch of Wintermute, a testbranch wouldn't be the worst decision, at least for the sandbox.