Mroz4k

I was just about to say something on this thread when it was locked by the Admin, before I could. Im not going to make a new thread on it, at least not yet, but this is an issue I want to bring up after some time goes away and I give Hinterland time to settle the initial hard work on implimenting the new update.

Here is my post:

 

Quote

Was this the best way to go about this topic? No. Getting upset and posting while upset is never a good way to handle any kind of confrontation. I read everything carefully, I don't think the real reason why Kristyok was upset was because of the game. It was the fact that after posting a few comments about it on steam, on her latest where she wrote something along the line of  "I wish I could play so I can test out the revolver" she was branded a spammer on the Steam forums and warned for it. I think that would make everyone upset. As far as I can tell, a comment like that is not dissing the update in any way... (then again I did not read it, perhaps it did in some way, but the way Kristyok described it, I can't see anything wrong with it, and I would be just as upset as she is if that happened to me)

If there is one area in which the Hinterland Staff severely lacks, it will be the management of Forums reports and the whole warning system. I understand locking threads that blame Hinterland for the new update not working. But it is not a fair treatment to punish someone for "spamming" just because they made a few upset posts about it at first, then posted a different kind of post instead and got punished for this particular different one. What about punishing people who reply to threads about faulty update with a tip to back-up the saves, then turn off the steam cloud and make a completely freshly reinstall the game? These people are often branded as trolls and warned for posting this tip. Yet, as you can see from others posting in this thread, doing this can fix this issue. (I had this issue in the past during one of the previous major updates, had the same kind of error and this was the only solution that actually worked. I dont believe this was ever an issue of the game or the update, but more likely an issue of corrupt update files, caused by some issue Steam had mid-updating. Not unreasonable if internet connection gets interrupted for a moment during the update).

If my experience tells me anything, I will probably be banned for this comment and it will likely be deleted because it criticizes one of the most sensitive subjects on these forums. But on the off chance it is not, there is a long-standing issue with transparency and unfairly judged, biased reports on these forums. Of the inability to distinguish when reports are filed legitimately, and when they are filed out of spite. It is most likely the reason why these forums are so tiny compared to the actual game community behind this game, and why long-standing community members eventually "run their life expectancy" due to various reports amassing over the years. It greatly favours bullies who abuse the reporting system to manipulate with other forum members, and harass them through the hands of Administrators.

I wish this could change one day but that is unlikely. It would require self-reflectment of a sort that only very few people are capable of.

Apologies, I was wrong. I woke up in the middle of the night. Well, I made my way through the cave, cooked up the meat from the deer I found mid-way up, and made it to the other side. There I decided to repair most of my clothing while hiding by a toasty fire, hidden behind a rock, sheltered from a wind. I was rather succesful, and my previously terribly torn-up clothes no longer looked so grim. I also found a decent thin wool sweater mid-way up. Most of my clothes are still crap, but at least I am not going to lose the temperature so fast now. Nevertheless, my condition would make travelling over greater distances an issue. I will spend a day here at Marsh ridge, and recover my strenght enough to make a decent push through the Muskeg all the way to my destination of Camp Office. Maintenance yard had a small rifle book for me. And the way sprains are right now, I will need to do my best to avoid getting overencumbered too much. which means regularly dropping gear and leaving it behind for later visits. 

It is Day 4 and I plan to make great use of this birch forest... to stock up on the kind of food that will allow me to quickly regain some of that lost condition.

Now I only hope I dont run into a moose in here... although for a late game, I would not mind having a moose in here.

Back to the Voyager time!

So, last night, I paused the game while in the cave with blizzard raging on, then fell asleep after a long IRL session of cooking, now I am continuing on!

After warming up a bit in the shelter, Ive decided to press on through the blizzard, regardless of the condition hit. Ive reached the other cave, by my favorite hunting spot, and seeing as how my meat reserves have been almost depleted, I decided to wait with my "return" to Camp office, and instead spend two nights and whole day in the ravine cave, hunting, processing my hunting spoils, cooking up some extra steaks and preparing for a more stationary survival from now on. For that, I will need to have some supplies of food, fuel and of different hides.

This place is always teeming with deer that are fairly safe to hunt, and should not be that big of a problem to carry over to camp Office, if I clear the road from all the predators that would othervise interfere (and incidentally, add them to my food & hide reserves as well). This is going to be my plan after I have finished my stay in this ravine cave, resting up & sorting through the hunts.

It is first night of my stay here at ravine. Ive got out of practise, I must say... although in the end, I managed to get all three deer living here, the last one was quite elusive and took 2 graze shots before I was finally able to hit its heart and finally put an end to the chase. I have also caught a couple of rabbits - while I dont need them per say, I will need to spend whole day here in the Ravine to rest next night and then on the morning of second day, get on my way towards the Camp office and during my travel, clear all the predators out of the way so that I can proceed in carrying my hunt spoils over.

Been playing a lot of Skyrim Special edition with mods, a lot of em are hunting related mods, I felt like playing a more RPG centered game and add survival aspects to it to make it more realistic, yet still let it remain a magical RPG  

Gotta love all the hunting mods that exist for it. I love TLD, but right now, the amount of mod content that Skyrim has allows me to get more satisfaction in there. I do plan to come back to TLD eventually of course

Climbed a small rock incline, only to be greeted by a bear, staring me down some 5 meters away from where I just climbed up. He reared up, I crapped my Snow pants, he charged me and I just enough in time managed to back away and fall down the rocks before he could give me a bear hug.

Damn, that was close.

But I do need to wash my snow pants now.  

I will take this as a sign that I have overstayed my welcome here in the Hushed River Valley  

Due to the new update bringing in an entirely new skill, no doubt neccesary for the skills achievement, I will be starting out a new game of Voyager for achievement run. I wouldnt be able to get them in my previous game because I already looted all the game´s places with skill books, and basically looted entire "game" without the containers which would severely limit the amount of bullets and revolvers Id find in that game.

Also kinda wanna start all over again using the new game update features from the start.

First day I spawned in Broken Railroad, below the bridge leading up to Hunting lodge.

I climbed towards the Hunting lodge. I decide to look inside the cars... what do you know! A revolver! I stuff it in my pocket. No bullets yet, but a nice find!

I proceed to loot the Hunting cabin next. Found some better clothes, some food, a rope and cookbook. Also a rifle and bullets for both firearms - now I have fully loaded revolver and rifle! Too bad I dont plan on using them any time soon... 

Evening is coming and I decide to climb down into ravine next. I goat down the rocks behind the hunting lodge and make my way towards the climb. I sprain my ankle - so I pop the pills and bind my ankle with a bandage. Then, I drop some gear and climb down.

End of the road loot was disapointing. Turned my direction towards the Cinder hills mine - that is my next target. The blizzard was raging on, and I was exhausted.

Screw it. Dont care, I can rest up in this cave here, got enough fuel to last with a nice 10 hour nap. So that is what I did. I shredded an old hoodie to wait with fire for the use of my coal lumps. Made a nice, warm, lenghty fire in the cave, and took a nap till mid day. Woke up at around the noon.

Nice weather outside, snowing midly. Took five steps out of the cave - blizzard again. Whomever said PV is 18h of blizzards a day was not joking. A cruel, cold one, too. Did not even reach the mine as I started losing condition to freezing again. But no matter now - soon after, I reached the mine.

Gonna be probably quiet for next couple of days. Visiting family in a neighbour country, not sure how much access to the internet I shall have.

Hello friends.

It is with heavy heart that I have to say, I expect that I will be banned within next few days, for my post in here. Here it is in a quote:
 

4 minutes ago, Mroz4k said:

Walking around this unnecessary argument, Id like to return back to the topic at hand.  

I have much to say about this, I could get into how this suggestion suggests a weapon that would have quite possibly more features than the recently added Revolver, which is a weapon that has been on the development shelf since alpha (the files existed for it since long before Story mode). While I agree the feature of wind-dependent weapon is very interesting, I don't believe it is worth the great amount of work it would have to be put into it to see it added. Because, lets take a look at what is actualy important - game relevance:

This weapon game-wise is almost entirely identical to Distress pistol in what it does. It is a mid-to-close defensive weapon which is light to carry, designed to scare the animal away instead of actually killing it (before you argument that Distress pistol can kill, I think its safe to say it is not intended to, only as a "one in a thousand" kinda shot, sadly most people are so proficient with the gun that they developed hunting techniques to use distress pistol. If anything, I would rather the devs removed this feature from the Distress pistol instead, make it 100% non-lethal, because it would make the game more challenging). The only "relevant difference" I would see in this Bear spray and the Distress Pistol is that Bear Spray comes in pre-loaded with 2 shots, and the wind feature with added conditions (condition pain is fine cause it is already in the game, I imagine the added visual blur would be treated by potable water, to wash out the irritant from the eyes). The loper argument is moot because Distress Pistol spawns in Interloper as well.

I also suspect that most of you have realized this weapon idea is basically a copy of Distress Pistol but no one said anything out of fear. Pity what this place has become. 

As you can see (in case it gets removed), I doubt there is anything less passive then what I wrote, yet if you are reading this and I havent been to forums for a couple of days, it means that this got me banned.

I refuse to be threathened by a ban in what I can or cannot express on these forums anymore. I imagine there are a lot of people who feel exactly the same way. I just hope, that in case I get banned for this, that there will be someone brave and inspired who will stand up for this community in my stead. Against all the nasty shit that has been plaguing these forums since before the Ranger update, and all that threatens the very core of what this community stands for. 

Know that all I ever did on these forums was out of love for all of you, my fellow community. I never had any authority here (contrary to what the Staff would like to portray me as), but I had earned a lot of influence here, because of the respect you have all given me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for it, it has been my greatest honor. 

If I get executed, it is my last wish that someone within this community takes over my mantle, and watches out for the interests of this community.  We may not have authority, but we can become influencers on these forums, and with that influence, born of respect by your fellow community members, you have the tools to protect them, in our own, unofficial kind of way. You have my blessing to do so.

Here are the "lyrics" to Elegy, the visual poem of Long Dark, pretty sure yall know what I am talking about. I needed to write them down for a reason I wont say right now  
 

Do you remember?

The steady thrum of the city´s heartbeat.

Technology
Always pumping lifeblood to thousand, now dead industries

Industry,
now erect husk on a long forgotten shore

Remember the sky?
The light with beautiful fire,
Skies so bright that you forgot stars even existed,
But the stars, they didnt forget us.

What kind of survivor were you?

Did you walk the expanse of the nature, feel the wind burning your soul?
Did it remind you who you were?
Did it shape you?
Did it break you?
How did you keeo breathing when it took everything you knew and loved? Did you survive with compassion? Did you remember truth of humanity? Did you survive for yourself alone? Did you revel in the solitude? Did you hunger for connection? 

Did you seek out others, and could you save them? Could you save yourself?

Did you hold under the promises of old men after their fires died out?
Did you hear their voices echo in your head as you face the wrath of nature that they ignored? Unleashed? 

Did you settle into the silence?

Did you crawl into it, whimpering?

Did it crush you? Did you embrace it?

Did you remember the power you could summon?
It flowed through the wires
A ghost in the machine, a Trojan Horse
Our glory, our servant
Our doom

Did you stare at the sun, the moon, the wind, your constant companion?
Do you remember yesterday? What is tomorrow?
How will you face this quiet apocalypse?
Where were you, when the lights went out?

How far will you go, to survive...

The long dark...

I am ashamed now.

I have just gotten a warning by the Admin (and I know which one , saw them reviewing the same topic where this happened) - because I was very cold to one of my fellow members in my feedback towards their idea.

First, I am sorry, and this little warning, as harmless as it was, helped me realize that recently, my behaviour here on forums have not been the best, in the past two days or so, I have reviewed my own posts and I have been less warm & more critical and colder then I would usually be. This brings me shame, and now that I have realized this, I am hoping I will be able to combat it and return to my usual cheerful, more friendly approach. The last thing I want is to make someone uncomfortable here on forums.

I am also pondering over why this change in me happened. I have recently gone through a bad personal experience, but as far as I can tell, this did not influence my behaviour here, because it happened well over a week ago, and in fact, I have been more inclined to be even friendlier to others than usual. Making new friends is kind of the best way to mend a broken heart...

I have gotten into a nasty scrape with another forum member lately, a person that I will not name, but this person has been very hostile to me in recent days, jumping at every chance to assault me, report me or denounce me. As I am trying to ignore such attempts as best as I can, I am also just a human person, I too have feelings and this kind of behavior is something that I am not immune against. This not an excuse for my behaviour - I own to my mistakes, but I guess this might be the reason why I have been more detached, less warm and more inclined to snap out at others then I usually would.

Well, realizing where the problem is, that is the first step. Now, I just have to make sure that I keep this in mind at all times, so I won't be rude to anyone again.

I am back. I am too tired, too upset and too pissed off to say more about it at this time.

I am straight up terrified to post a single comment anywhere on the forums.

It takes 3 warning points that never expire to obtain a permanent ban on the forums. I have gotten two of those points in the last temporary ban for something I have not done. Instead, for many days I was berated and harassed by a different forum member, first directly through messages, then later via endless reporting of my posts (at least I suspect so, there is no way to prove that). Or, it may have been a biased admin, monitoring me so closely & pushing me with endless public warnings just to unnerve me until I did something that could be considered against rules. I don't even want to consider that possibility, cause if that's true, I have earned myself a permanent ban...

There is nothing I can do to report such harassment. But instead, my personal advice to help others improve their forum content is being reviewed as moderating & telling people how to post (HOW??! Never did I say "you have to do this!", I made a suggestion to do it differently, and explained why!), and the fact that I get more influence on the forums is considered as "establishing authority" on the forums. (I have no authority here!!! And I cant stop that I get more influence because I post more, that is how it works. Experienced community member is a form of influencer). What is even more sad is that I used this influence for good things, to help breathe in life to the very stagnant forums by encouraging more discusssions and for people to spend more time in here. (Unlike the same person I suspect of mass-reporting me, who has been going around, claiming things Hinterland said without pointing into where they said it, which is an actual moderating, and showing their influence around as a badge of authority to boost their ego.)

I have integrity, I made promises not to escalate things with this said user to prevent escalation, and for that, I earned myself harassment and eventually ban. Meanwhile this person continues to defile this community and noone can say anything about it. 

For months I was a part of this community and it was never a problem. This person comes back and suddenly, everything I do is a problem. Id say the cause of all the problems would be the "recent" change, the person coming back, the cause and effect would point towards that. 

If I do get banned, the rest of you be careful. It is just a matter of time till this person picks a different target, perhaps because you upset them, and this whole situation will repeat again with a different victim. Free speech posting is no longer as safe on the forums as it used to be.

I would ask for more transparency with reporting, how it is done, how it is considered, what are the chief decision factors. And abuse of reporting to harass and berate others for revenge or other personal bias should be strictly prohibited by the Forum rules, othervise this cannot be a friendly community, because it takes one angry, self-righteous prick to mass-report all you do to put the admins on your back and strangle you with warnings and endless observations. How can a normal person not feel depressed, stressed and desperate when everything they do is being put under the microscope?

I thought taking more time off from getting unbanned before posting would help, I slept twice since then and I dont feel any closer to knowing what to do. 

I admit that I am scared, desperate, stressed and I feel abused and violated, and hopeless because there is nothing I can do about it.

I am thinking of doing a forum series on "the mysteries of the Great Bear", which would focus on the mysterious and unexplained of the island, as well as on some conspiracy theories as to the nature of individual locations, events, or other phenomena of The Long dark.

I have many things in my mind, and wonder about plenty of things as I sip the reishi tea in the evening.

Things like - where the Blackrock prison is located on the island? To whom did the bones found in Forlorn Muskeg belong to? Why is there a constant winter on the island, even if we see indication that there were farms before... any many more.

I have great many theories and would love to discuss them with my fellow forum members.

Might call it Crazy Prepper´s Ted Conspiracy theories.

thoughts?
 

I have done a very bad thing earlier today. Ive done something awful, like in the past. I deserve a punishment. If I am no longer active, that is what happened - it would mean I have gotten myself banned once again, for my big, unwashed mouth.

But I have faith everything will go well.

I will be playing more Voyager, but I think Im gonna stop writing about everything. Just in case something interesting starts happening.

Ive recently had an inkling to go play a game I used to play during my childhood, the Heroes of might and magic 4 - and beat some of the campaigns in there. That is why my appearance on the forums dropped after the release of Steadfast Ranger. I guess it was a good thing for my new survival game for achievements, because I think that by now, the most glaring issues with the new release would be at least toned down. I had a craving to play some Long Dark today, so Imma go do that.

Most of the ideas I have would come from a very long deliberating at the issue where I consider all benefits, demerits and potential challenges, as well as the impact on the current balance of the game... till I am certain it would not alter the game too much.

But occasionally I get enlightened and the idea, that is so simple yet so elegant just falls into my lap  

Like the idea with the medicinal plants. I think it could improve the game so much it would bring in a lot of the sandbox survival players back, even if it doesn't necessarily bring anything outright new to the game.

My plan to collect up the hunt has went well at first. After my 2nd night at Ravine ended, I started walking towards home with full backpack of my gear from Coastal & Desolation point, and a couple of fresh deer steaks as well. More of cooked & uncooked meat was waiting at me by the entrance of the cave at Ravine connector subregion. 

The way to clear the road went okay, too. Two wolves decided to step in my way - they both ended up dead. One was killed and quartered right away by the trailer camp in front of the Dam. The other from derailment got arrow stuck in the side, and whimpered away somewhere into the hills. I shall go searching for it in the next day. By roughly 2 PM, I arrived safely to the Office.

I quickly removed much of my loot, even took off some of my clothes - to travel lightly. I still took my bow, arrows, tools and bedroll - one never knows... On the way back to Ravine Deer cave Ive collected sticks to build up my hunting spot fire making reserves. I stored these sticks into the backpack in the rabbit grove in Ravine subregion. By around 5 PM, I was back at my hunting spot, very tired.

Took a 2 hour nap, loaded all the meat (roughly 24 kg of it) and went on the way home to the Camp Office. As I was passing the quarters of the wolf and stepped on the bridge by the dam, the sun hid behind the mountains, and I noticed a strange shapes in the sky.

Of course.

Aurora. Havent seen one in 10 days while traveling, and now when I carry three worths of deer meat, all of sudden here it is.

Okay. Change of plans. Spending the night at the Dam - dropped the meat, and took & processed the quarters of the wolf, as well as an old deer carcass that was still lying there (despite it being a day of 60 or so). Surprisingly, the meat of the deer was still sorta edible, so I cooked a liter of water and this deer steak, as I watched from the safety of the fence the aurora descending in all its frightening glory... 

Should you need to contact me for whatever case, you can usually find me these days on my Steam account Mroz4k. In case you dont have Steam, you can also try your luck at Twitter, also Mroz4k, albeit I have not spend a lot of time these in these past few months. I do check in there from time to time.

So did a couple more runs of Voyageur, moved forward a little bit.

After passing through the coal mine, I got up on the other side. Found a skill book there. It was still a blizzard so I decided to push through to the Lookout. Lookout had nothing of significance. I quickly climbed down to the level of highway, and headed straight for gas station, taking advantage of the blizzard. Inside I found another sewing primer book! Next was Misanthrope. There I also found a skill book, and Ive decided to try and loot the Desolation point next. The Commuters lament had the car as per usual, there I dropped off all the unnecesary gear, and by the evening I have entered the crumbling highway.

Dettered a wolf on my way through, Ive managed to get into the basement. Another book there, another Sewing primer. The night begins and I push onward to the coal mine, with intention to rest there. And so it happens.

Next day I drop extra gear at the mine (I will pass through here on the way back anyways, so I can pick it up then) and go loot the DP. I spend next three days here, searching through DP for valuables. Amazing finds! Frontier book, a book on fishing and another sewing primer. During my search through Rikken, a bear suprised me, so I went through the ship on board, and shot it from the safety of higher ground straight into the head. It ran off and I decided to read a book to let it bleed out.

I didnt check my statistics, because for some strange reason, this bear survived... my arrow broke on contact with its skull. Yet, the bear was nowhere to be found. Later on, when I looted through the other locations, I heard bear sounds a couple of times, but not knowing the bear survived, I chalked it to my imagination. Didnt see it again afterward. I paid a visit to the Wolf den, hoping for a book, but no luck there. Suprisingly, there was no longer that skull with antlers there... There was just a single inhabitant in this time. I saw it for a glimpse of second after entering the second hall, and it went back into the main hall. I realized following it would not be wise, so I made a fire, picked a stone up and threw it at the end of the corridor straight ahead of me. Wolf was baited in, when it saw me, it charged. 

Thump.

One shot straight in between its eyes, the beast perished into the long dark. 


After almost three days spent in this forsaken place that is Desolation point, it was time to pack up my belongings and leave back for home. The next plan is to slowly move my way over to the Camp Office in next two days, after I checked a couple of more places that could still hold some survival knowledge. This last few checks will conclude the "soft loot" of the entire world, where I mostly focused on looting just the items found outside the containers, focusing mostly on survival knowledge.

Thank you all for following me. Let me know if you are keeping up with my status updates  Would like to know im not just writing to myself.  

That said - I will start posting my tips & various tricks from TLD I picked up over the years. Give you guys an extra edge if you want it  Not to mention various other stuff, too.

The Cave

At merely 3% of condition, I fall down onto a bedroll. Im tempted to make screenshots but right now, every second counts...

I sleep 1 hour, wake up with 7% condition. I sleep another hour and at the very beggining of this hour, my biggest fear comes to realization... the infection, caused by the wolf bite, develops.

I wake up with 3% condition again.
I drink the reishi tea. I drink a full load of water.

3% condition remaining.
I eat a bunch of peanut butter.
2% condition remaining.

I go to sleep for 10 hours.

I wake up fully rested, it is early in the morning, and I have about 12% of condition.

I survived. I was clinging to life, but I have lived through it.

Trying to put together some of my past ideas and see if some were still relevant today, maybe re-posting them once again to get the feedback of people, currently around these forums

So far most of what I remembered and found seems to still be relevant.

Voyager continues! 

Not sure where I left off, but at day 52 Ive spend most of that, running through the PV, trying to reach the mystic campsite and the cavern, because I believed it might have a skill book for me. The morning I started at the Radio tower, and since I brought a rope with me from the Ravine´s train, I deployed it on the rock behind the tower and climbed down. Normally a futile task, but there is a corpse mid-way there usually, and sometimes has a backpack with a skill book in it. No luck this time. Ive traveled up the road to the long curve, but nothing of interest there. Ive heard a bear as the wind picked up, but could not see it - so I quickly removed myself from that area. After a brief stop by the lonely cabin, I made my way up the other part of the path towards TWM. I was nervous because of the bear that resides there, but luckily, a blizzard took off and i was able to pass with relative safety, altough a bit of a discomfort. Sadly, in the low visibility I lost my bearing and didnt find the point of dissagreement. Ive reached the mystic cave, though - another bow, an arrow, but no skill book, and a rifle outside. Havent seen many rifles this game but I know of a few in case I need to go grab one. Spend the night in a cave by the nice fire. Got jumped by a wolf outside in the morning. Damn, these bastards bite... took down about 20% of my condition, not bad for the fact I have pretty sturdy clothes on... (by not bad, I mean it hurt quite a bit). I stopped by the Preppers hatch to drop off some heavy items there, and continued on. Took a short nap, too, to regain some extra fatigue and condition in case I got into more struggles as I continue on.

Day 53 is now ongoing. To shorten it up - I found the rope by the Skeeter edge, but I laughed at the prospect of climbing it down. I instead expertly climbed down the ledge next to it - took me less time, no fatigue drain and I took no fall damage. For once, I didnt even sprain anything.

The weather got windy, but no worries. Heavy snowfall, gotta be carefull. This soon turned to Blizzard. Eventually I got into the Barn. I decided to take advantage of the blizzard´s savety and visited the "bear country" - the birch forest behind the barn. Then I cut through to the Derelict cabins as I started losing condition from the freezing. At Derelicts, Ive build a fire to warm up. I put on two hours worth of fuel, and I dropped a can of peaches NEXT to the fire (not actually on the top). Then I went for 2 hour long sleep. When I woke up, I have a toasty can O peaches waiting to fill my stomach.

The plan now is to get to the car at the End of the road, and then make it to the mine connector to Coastal Highway, where I plan to spend the night and recover a bit.