MarrowStone

17 hours ago, odizzido said:

It would be neat to try to implement delay based sounds in TLD though.

I just learned about delay based sounds this week, what a coincidence. 

The audio of TLD used to be top-notch; it was up there with Battlefield games. The audio is still really good and TLD now has more complex audio scenes but I feel like the sources and volumes have gotten fairly disorganized in the process of becoming more complex. 

I agree that the cinematic parts and visual improvements to the game were very well done in this episode! Things "Pop" more yet it doesn't detract from the game's tone.

The episode did feel a little anticlimactic, but the thrill of learning Astrid knows Mackenzie survived the crash and the cutscene at the end in Coastal Highway really makes you feel like things are building up for later. 

I think the point of Molly's calls was her trying to make more sense to herself rather than to Astrid. Sometimes my thoughts don't fully develop until I've heard myself try to explain them to someone else. I don't think anyone can easily make sense of what they did if they were in Molly's shoes. It's left a little vague whether the husband was physically abusive or not, but we do know he was neglectful. She says "Some ways heal, other ways... never do" suggesting it was probably emotional trauma she was experiencing. At first I wondered why she didn't just leave, but this is Great Bear Island, she probably had nowhere to go. While not justified, Molly can at least be understood. 

There also seems to be an issue with blizzard audio in storms that aren't blizzards and vice versa. Making it hard to tell when you can step outside. 

Owl or loon? Where were you?

3 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

That is shocking to find the loot missing.  Great that yo found it too.  Where was it,  the BR or ML tunnel?  

ML Tunnel. Left side, can't miss it. 

@Ice Hole, I thought I was being clever by breaking down the tables too, i just wrote it off as the entirety of the stage being accessible by the one door. 

(check the cabinet in the kitchen, it's still at 200 kilos capacity even outside of story mode!) Im afraid to use it in case they patch it since I've had bad experiences with the lost and found moving 100s of kilos of stuff on me already in forlorn muskeg. I think they replaced the roof of the forge with a colorful blue one and it moved all my coal, tools, and hammers to the railroad tunnel. 

On 11/21/2019 at 2:19 AM, jeffpeng said:

I guess we should be grateful using the hacksaw to cut little bunnies into pieces doesn't take 5% per 500 grams.

Using a hacksaw on a non-frozen bunny sounds completely batty!

10 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

I really think most people, especially those new to the game, do not realize that part of the "fun" of this game is getting lost.

I agree, once you get a good 70 percent reliability on knowing where you are and how to get places, you only truly get lost in blizzards, fog, (and HRV) lol. My most memorable deaths were from the uncertainty of what's around the corner. 

Personally I disagree with a compass of any sort in survival, but contributing to the ideas around it and sharing how I'd prefer it to be implemented is more fun than saying, "No" and leaving it at that. I feel like a lot of new members of the forums get intimidated when they're shot down for suggesting something outside of the game's vision. It also hopefully helps ideas get implemented in a way I'd prefer if it is adopted by the developers.

Walking in this game has become terribly loud. Every water fall sounds like the Niagara Falls too. 

1 hour ago, Dum_Gen said:

I would disagree with you in a sense that this type of compass is more useful for the new players. More experienced ones can disable this option to make their game harder.

At the same time, I partially agree that this option should be activated only when a new game is created, as a customization option. However, I don't think that it should occupy a feat 

Yeah, It only being an option upon creation allows for player choice on a feature they may not want. 

It occupying a feat is the only way I'd see it working in the original difficulty modes. If youre playing a custom run, you could just enable it inside the toolbox.

It's meant to be a feat that encourages exploration (map/discover locations) so that in a a way it's sneakily training new players to not need it in the first place, especially since it would most likely be replaced by better ones when they run out of extra feat slots. 

To balance it out, maybe it just spawns you in with a filled map, but no location. Or maybe it shows location but not direction. I don't want it to be very effective during blizzards/fog so showing direction is a no-go for me. 

1 hour ago, ajb1978 said:

And while it's unlikely some malicious coder will program a virus or worm to exploit a newly-discovered vulnerability on a fully deprecated OS, that risk is non-zero.

I definitely agree, and It's more likely than you think. A lot of businesses (At least where I'm from) seem to be behind several years when it comes to hardware/software for their records etc. Ransomware scammers can exploit this. I still see Windows XP being used in hospitals and retail stores! 

 Sometimes it feels like the 70's but with smartphones and other signs of the 21st century dotted everywhere, kinda like Great Bear Island with its 90's cars, and century year old guns mixed in with Flat screen TVs and delivery drones. 

4 hours ago, stay puft said:

I'm waiting for the release of more zones🤞 until I go for it

Youre crazy! I guess you can be even more proud of your accomplishment when youre done. haha.

On 11/15/2019 at 2:24 AM, ThePancakeLady said:

The folks who want only photo-realistic graphics in games will never get it, and are missing out on a great experience.

The best part of stylized graphics is that they're both memorable, unique, and age well! 10 years from now this game would still be beautiful in my eyes and memory, while current photo-realistic games kind of just blend together and will look obsolete. 

5 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

@ThePancakeLady / @LkP
When I previously saw screenshots like those I always just assumed folks were lining the lantern room with... you know, lanterns    
I mean that lighthouse (since it's inception anyway) has definitely been one of my favorite places anyways... but now?!
I can't wait to get back there (I'm still working at my personal challenge so it will likely be a while before I get to that region) and see this "in person."

I'm more excited about this than I would have thought I would be...  

Me too! This is definitely relatively new because I remember being disappointed that the lighthouse didn't work during auroras.

I usually breeze through that region due to feeling trapped by the hostile wildlife occupying every choke point. You have to play like a madman, or a caveman to live there long term! It also doesn't have very good hunting prospects until your cooking level negates parasites. For this reason I hardly experience any auroras there. 

The bear skin bedroll seems to be bugged, I think. I've noticed steep declines as well. 

5 hours ago, stay puft said:

I see what your saying now

To be honest I didn't know the game recorded locations in that way.. good to know

I'm okay with it using either "map" or "discovered", the discovered location route might be better since newer players might not have the time or knowledge to map and we want this Feat to be unlocked relatively early (But not first) so that newer players can use it before it can be replaced by better ones. 

I'm thinking it should show position but not direction so that it teaches you to use landmarks to find your heading. 

10 hours ago, Alitari said:

but it clearly isn't a constant phenomenon

 To me it seems constant, but very weak outside of auroras, that would explain certain things working outside of the aurora in story mode. 

1 hour ago, ajb1978 said:

I wouldn't mind a Custom mode toggle "show player position on map" being added to enable this feature in Survivor mode

It should be a Feat, "Map X amount of locations cumulatively", that way players can choose to equip it when starting the game instead of toggling it if they get hopelessly lost in a game they didn't prepare for. It wouldn't tempt players with an "easy way out".

It also would reward new players for exploring a little bit first! This way, when they do get the feat, they might realize they don't need it, and have to sacrifice a feat slot (which shouldn't be an issue for newer players or those on Pilgrim/Voyageur)

3 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

I could swear I found a candy bar up in a visor back in an early version, like before Timberwolf Mountain existed.  But nothing in years since.

Do you by chance remember if it fell or stuck to the visor? I feel like they'd have to rig that area for it to either swing with the visor rotating or animating it falling so it wouldn't look weird stuck to the ceiling. That sounds like a lot of work for something so rare.

However, I still check when I feel lucky XD.

On 11/12/2019 at 3:56 PM, Sceh said:

I realize that even if this is intentional and not a bug (anyone?)

I think the main goal of these changes is for accessibility.

I believe it's so players can pick up specific items easier since some items would have bigger "grabbing" hit boxes than "placing", like matches and sticks. Playing with a controller would be hard if the "grabbing" hit box for matches were just as big as the matchbox itself, it's sometimes difficult to pick small items up on the PC as well, especially for players new to first person games.  Another issue is if you have a bunch of small items stacked around a larger item, the small items with bigger grabbing hit boxes will prevent you from picking up the bigger item they surround. The downside is that it makes organizing your base frustrating!

Another thing that's always bugged me is that the rifle is laid down with the bolt poking into the ground. A really nice feature I'd like to see is having "r" rotate an object, and "T" toggle between some different orientations, like a hatchet with the blade pointed the other way or a book standing up. 

21 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

If the Climber's Journal in the TWM hut is any indication, the game takes place early September.  The journal entry describes the crash of the cargo plane at the summit, and is dated September 5.  And I mean yeah, if I needed to bust out my parka on September 5, I'd find that unusually early too!

Oh crud! I forgot about that! Explains why cattails have their fluff and the moose are temperamental.

On 11/11/2019 at 12:04 PM, velonews said:

It's not possible to kill the ghost stag. I caught the stag in a pathfinding loop and shot at it many times with both rifle and revolver.

@Ice Hole, has probably found a way to craft an Ecto Containment Unit using Battery.

Heres Some screenshots of the ghost:

10 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Mysticism is something we sorta deprived ourselves of in our age and time.

I wrote something about this in the forums somewhere too! And while our current scientific understanding of the world isn't bad, we are a species of storytellers, it's in our blood to explore the unknown with our imaginations. 

Similarly, music is just as integral to us as storytelling, it may have even helped us develop our speech! A good song is just as enthralling to our imagination as a good story. 

10 hours ago, BESt said:

I don't think that the event has anything to do with the weather. I don't recall story saying anything about the weather getting colder, but I might be wrong. And Raphael van Lierop suggested that they might in the future make a TLD 2, with changing seasons. This implies that the disaster isn't causing a permanent winter.

In the hanger in Episode 1 Will says something about not remembering needing his parka so early in the year. I don't think it means a permanent winter, but more severe weather in general, like what we see with climate change causing more storms and colder winters due higher pressures in the North and more evaporation in the atmosphere. It could be a freak October storm from mother nature unraveling. 

Unstructured mess of idea dumping inbound:

Im a fan of "Hard Scifi" too, but I think the story falls more into science fantasy now. But it's done very well, they use a sort of magical realism that suspends your belief but also keeps you wondering. When there's an unrealistic thing, it's left mysterious and magical instead of trying to explain it: 

150 year demon bear or coincedental story? 

Old tech taking the "precursor technology" role now that it's the only stuff that works in a post-digital age. Magical phone-lines, Radios, Elevators, Flashlights, Buffer Memories. Might as well be Halo rings. 

Methuselah/Molly: Enigmatic guiding character or figmant of imagination? 

Speaking of Methuselah, it was a bug that he was able to teleport down the rope, he was supposed to leave the gas station before you got there. But he doesnt need that bug to question his tangibility. 

Do magnetic anomalies cause colder winters though? I know they can possibly irritate animals and nukes at high enough altitudes can fry power grids in a huge area without killing anyone, but I dont know if EMPs and the like affect temperatures. I know global warming can disrupt the usual paths of cold northern air and create more precipitation with more evaporation. 

Also. I get that the plane's black box and communications are fried, but after the plane failed to return wouldnt someone on the mainland come looking?

Maybe Methuselah is right and all this is just Nature's doing. And it doesn't need an explanation because there's nothing anybody left behind can do about it except try to not fade into the dark. 

On 11/10/2019 at 4:53 PM, jeffpeng said:

But I've heard stories about some of them being so itchy they fire from just dropping them

Depends on if the hammer is pulled back. If yes, then they can be super sensitive. If the hammer is not pulled back (double action) it takes a relatively high force to pull that trigger back completely. It's safer but less accurate.

Im with you on the game wanting you to be careful but not having to always fight the controls. I always holster the pistol in game before interacting with stuff because it just makes sense, but the missclicks while holding a torch really annoys me because I can't just throw it on the floor every time i want to search stuff. 

On 11/10/2019 at 10:39 AM, ajb1978 said:

Challenge modes on the other hand give me the chance to make full use of the equipment at my disposal.

Yeah. I love how we can spoil ourselves in story and challenge modes due to the objective based structure. It's a completely different and fresh playstyle after a long survival run.