ChillPlayer

in theory maybe but a few catstalks more won't be a big gamechanger and experienced interloper players usually know already where to get the important stuff like hammer, hacksaw, firestriker and so on. The difficulty in Interloper comes from not having a rifle as an easy solution to all animal problems and very low temperatures, I don't see this changing with the addition of a new region (unless they introduce a rifle and rename it to Stalker 2.0 :D). The only question is if the Lodge will replace Jackrabbits as my perma base on my future runs Or... because of the lack of difficulty we even had the chance to notice the weak story and dialogue. If it'd be on Interloper level keeping us constantly busy with surviving we wouldn't much care about weak story or even enjoy the little breaks from survival the dialogs provide - so I have high hopes for the new difficulty settings Thanks also for mentioning the achievements, I hope it will be confirmed that they work now 100%. And I think it goes without saying that Permadeath is the only viable mechanic for Sandbox. Very excited about Moose, should be a big-game animal without Parasites - I wonder if you can trick it to charge into a tree

Thank you again @Raphael van Lierop for being open and straightforward with what is and was going on - like you always have been. It saddend me a bit to read some of the negative feedback and how quickly people forgot that their critizism is targeted at hinterland, the studio which brought us this amazing experience in the first place, was always very close to the community and as far as I can judge stayed true to what it set out to accomplish. This was not a "No Man's Sky" disaster launch where only 10% of what was promised got delivered, it was simply bad luck as you described in the Dev Diary. On the other hand, people only critisize what they are passioned about and I believe very much that you'll get many of the critics back if the launch of Ep3 will be more smoothly. Honestly, I don't understand this and I think you are too hard on yourself or listen to the "wrong" voices. You always said that Story Mode will be released in episodes and being a passioned sandbox player myself I was amazed to see how much freedom we have in Story. As I've said several times before, my biggest fear was that Story would bring us a "Telltale Games Experience" completely separated from Survival Mode, an interactive movie rather than a real game. But that's not the case, when playing Story I can leverage 90% of what I've learned in the Sandbox (don't have to deal with Cabin Fever, yey :D) and that's a huge achievement on your side. So enjoy your free time and come back with new fresh energy, I'm very excited to see what will come next. One last thing though: please make the guy responsible for the Flare Cache first fix the bug before he goes on vacation - you are the boss, you can order him to

Aurora Mania

Hmm bummer, I thought I remembered that all three remaining episodes will be released this year but according to the official FAQ that's wishfull memory So maybe we get 2 out of 3 this year, depends on how much they will let the feedback provided so far influence the future episodes (like full audio dialogs which I hope for more than anything).

ah I see but I doubt any german speaking person who's not a scholar would know this. What the dictionary describes is commonly known as a "Wendehals" (turncoat).

ah lol now I know why Wintermute sounds so familiar, it's the Swiss AI in Neuromancer yes, a book I've just read a few months ago. Dunno about the Americanized German part though, Winter means Winter in German and there is "Mut" for courage but not "Mute", it's also pronounced differently (you'd write moot to have it sound the same as "Mut" in German). Btw I've a new theory about Jeremiah: I think he is either one of the founders of the Forest Talkers or at least strongly affiliated with them. We learn the story of the Dam in the text about Mystery Lake which we receive from him. Forest Talkers sabotaged it back in the 1990ies already and are the main reason why it was finally shut down (after financial strungles, earthquakes and so on). The Story in Wintermute is set in the future (or an alternate universe but I prefer the former) because the world economny is already collapsed, something we haven't achieved yet although we are trying really hard. So lets say it is 2030, which means Jeremiah would've been between 20-30 years old when the Forest Talkers had the Dam closed for good, perfect age for idealistic activism. He has knowledge of the dam and the FT and then there's the final scene where he opens the secret hatch with a radio inside. I think he is in contact with the remaining Forest Talkers for unknown reason. But "Jeremiah = Belongs To Forest Talkers" is something I feel quite strongly on my current playthrough. And lastly: I think it was planned to release all 5 episodes this year, I hope they stick to it

So I'll repeat myself, hehe: Explain leaving Will of her own will and dropping clues this near the crash site already, it just doesn't add up. I agree that everything else is just guess work for now

I'm playing Ep2 just right now again with focus on the story, doing every sidemission and reading every bit as I did in Ep1. I can imagine a grand conspiracy scheme as well as some little "wrong place at the wrong time" plot. I can't imagine though Astrid leaving Will behind while simultanously dropping little clues along the way without being specific to whats going on. Maybe she left because she wanted to get help and was abducted then by a prisoner for some reason, but the first piece of cloth is found quite far away from Milton, after we climb out of the crash site and I therefor believe her abduction was planned and not something that "just" happend, someone went up there to fetch her.

and who says she was abducted by the prisoners? At this point we know nothing about the situation and you are assuming things we don't have any implications for. For all we know someone could've shot the plane down with a missle or sabotaged it - given what we know (not assume) it's as valid a theory as believing Astrid just left Will behind. Again: why leave pieces of cloth behind, why write Perseverance in blood, why leave the Hardcase behind? Those are the little hard facts we have and those are actions which in most movies are typically done by someone who was abducted due to lack of other means. So if you wanna follow the road that Astrid is travelling out of her own will, explain those little hard facts. "Astrid left Will but is playing scavenger hunt with him by leaving little clues where she might be going" just does not click for me. The end of Ep2 strongly suggests a man behind the scene, someone with a meditated agenda and not someone just grabbing an opportunity. And if you follow this train of thoughts alot of possible explainations emerge, it's quite possible that there's stuff going on of the goverment-level-kind, like CIA, NSA and stuff. "Goverment caused the Aurora somehow, Astrid has proof for it, Goverment wants proof and get rid of her", that kind of stuff. It's the last scene of Ep2 that hints at something in this direction.

What makes you think that she left by her own choice? After all she left her Hardcase in the plane too and apparently it's all about the content of that Hardcase. She wrote Perserverance with her own blood, is that something you'd do when you are free to do what ever you want, like gather charcoal to write? I rather think that she was abducted and who ever took her either thought Will was already dead or that he won't survive for long anyway.

Exactly my thoughts, better said than I ever could so I won't even try. The Long Dark changed my life in the literal sense and I will always be grateful for the hard work you guys at hinterland put into it. You should be proud of everything you have accomplished against all odds, it's not a small achievement and everyone who's longer involved with TLD knows that this is a piece of art made from the heart and not the corporate mind. I am thankful for the past three years and I am looking very much forward to the release of the next episodes Btw, is there an ETA for the next eps?

thanks for that, I was just going to open a bug thread because of this^^

Ha weather gods gave us a short hail shower and some rain for an hour, gives me a few minutes for a first look - now hinterland just please be on time

Well turns out I won't be playing today after all, we have a big Nation Day party here in the hood and I'm expected to help out from 16h CEST on

This movie will be awesome, can't believe it yet that it is really happening but I'm all hyped

Surprisingly enough my two year old "Comprehensive Guide to Surviving Wolves in Stalker" is still valid for the most parts and packed with information for new players: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=391000817 The section about handfighting wolves needs a rewrite, I will update the guide once the final release is out

I am playing the Nomad challenge right now and it feels like an antidode to the constant fear of CF lol. Staying for 3 days in a single location, just sleeping/resting and nothing else todo, you know, as it used to be, makes it abundandtly clear to me why it was necessary to introduce CF as a countmeasure to hibernation. It just went a bit too far, with the two suggestions @BIGwooly made we would have a CF mechanic that feels resonable while still preventing hibernation. @Scyzara thanks for bringind Patrick and (hopefully) the devs on board, I wanted to give you a hundred reputation points but I'm not allowed to give out more than one

and that's wrong.

don't put bad ideas into the devs head lol, they might actually implement this But yeah, it's a perfect analogy for what's wrong with CF.

@BIGwooly I think you just fixed CF Those are probably the best adjustments to still have CF act as a counter to hibernation without feeling arbitrary or punishing you for playing with a survival mind. Curious that I couldn't put my finger on it but when I think about it that's exactly why CF bothers me so much. I am changing locations, moving around the maps, spending my time inside productive but still get punished for doing the obvious thing when it's -30C outside. I hope the devs will read your answer and think about those adjustments, it would take away the frustration from doing stupid things simply to not catch CF and it would let us play again in a natural way as one would do in a real survival situation.

In Stalker you have a rifle, hatched and knife right from the start if you find it - completely different gameplay. And Interloper is not for masochists but for people who want the most intense experience TLD has to offer. In part it feels like in the good old days where having a sewing kit or not would decide your fate and typical Stalker days survived were 50-100 days, anything above was already considered to be elite to some extend. Believe me, I understand because I argued this point of view enough that TLD is a survival emulator, not simulator. I am not drawing conclusions solely based on RL, which is why it never bothered me for example that I could melt 5L of snow without going outside, I understand that this is a necessary shortcut the game needs to take to be playable. But every fibre of my body is screaming wrong wrong wrong when I do something only to not get Cabin Fever, it just feels wrong and arbitrary.

you're missing my point. What I tried to say is that the fix for feeling sick of being in a huge house is to stay inside a much smaller place, be it the cave or the fishing hut. Also, if you say you never got CF I guess you haven't played Interloper for more than a hundred days? I get the warning very seldom too and haven't catched CF in a long time but when there's a blizzard going on for almost a week with the only clear weather being in the first 2 hours of the day, you know, when "Feels like" is around -35C, it's very tempting to limit the outside hours to a minimum. But again, I didn't start this topic because I didn't know how to deal with CF but because the solutions to the problem it provides have not much todo with common sense. Just read what I've said before and read your answer. You have a big cozy home with bed, stove and even a workbench but you prefer to stay in a cave where you need a fire going during the night and can get attacked by a wolf on the way there, not to mention that you only waste material without being productive, you burn through precious wood and loose matches/firestriker condition without even getting a single calorie of food just to not freeze to death. It goes against everything the game otherwise does right, you no longer play with a survival mindset but against the game mechanic.This was not the case before CF.

The thing is, the best way to cure the risk of Cabin Fever when you stay too long in the big two-storey Camp-Office is to leave it and spend 24h in a 3 square meter fishing hut nearby It just doesn't make sense other than accepting it as a pure gameplay mechanic. But it feels so contradicting in many aspects that I have a hard time doing so, might as well have zombies knocking on my door when I stay too long inside, the level of arbitration would've been the same.

Vitamine/Mineral System as proposed by me two years ago: Scatter the needed resources across the maps and you won't need an arbitrary system to keep us on the move.

Probably yesterday on my interloper run pass day 50, I was very lucky by having a mag glass and a firestriker, also managed to craft bow and clothes and wanted to hunt for food. So I hunted down a deer with my bow and began harvesting it by the kg and cook the meat in the fishing hut some meters away. A wolf noticed me so I went into the hut and waited for it to pass by. I shot it dead and was cheering for my first piece of wolf coat. Then I continued prepping the meat of the deer, it was night already when I noticed another wolf nearby. "Hey there's coat piece number two," I thought and tried to get it's attention. I went inside the fishing hut and waited for the wolf to pass by but it didn't come. So I went back out and tried again to get noticed, he approached, I went inside the hut, he walked away. This went on for 3-4 times until he finally began to charge me. "Screw it, I'm going to shoot you right here eye to eye" were my last thoughts just before "oh nooooo" because I overshot it.. My condition was already down to 25% when the struggle began and I faded into the dark within 1 or 2 seconds. Bottom line: Overconfidence is Killer number one in TLD!