ThePancakeLady

Twilight fading out.
The glow of eyes in the dark.
The wind eats my soul.

I enjoyed reading this. Thank you.  

Making progress on Blizzard Walker, whether i like it or not, lol.

(! & 3 are on a run in PV, (shocking weather there, I know...), 2 is from another run currently in ML. I was in the process of moving things from one base to another... and of course, all of my dry clothing is in the other base, in both cases. )

@Ice Hole The grinning one is perhaps the one who got away, escaped the nets. The second one does not look sad to me, it looks like it has that "I dare you..." look, a smugness, knowing that it has they key to the tin, and if you take it... you are going to be sorry. (Sardines are one of the top foods I get food poisoning from... that "I dare your." look may be a tad of a biased view due to that, lol.)

As far as your spoiler text...

Anger comes snarling.
Bared teeth,  hungrily snapping.
Death comes on swift feet.

17 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

 

 

KOP Orca

This appears in two locations.

 

 

 

I suspect this is related to this:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2018/08/orca-mourning-calf-killer-whale-northwest-news/

Note that the Orca to the bottom of the graffiti is smaller... a baby. With teeth marks in it (a bite taken out). I am not sure if there is actually a word there "Yo" or otherwise. The hole in what you see as an "O" could be symbolic of a hole in the heart of the Mother Orca, who carried that dead calf for over 2 weeks. In a known, and named pod, that has been in decline for some time, and has not had any babies documented for a long time. Orcas are in decline globally. But this story happened close to where Hinterland is HQ'd, so it may have hit home for them, and this is their documentation of their sadness over it. The endangered Southern Resident pods would be local to them, and known about.

4 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

EADING

Easing is not a word I am familiar with or can find using google.   Maybe that is slang.

41 minutes ago, JAFO said:

I'm pretty sure that says FADING.

My read on it too. FADING. (As in... into The Long Dark...)

6 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

6 hours ago, peteloud said:

My reasoning would be that it means that everybody is playing a different game, which makes it difficult to compare incidents that they experience with incidents that I experience.

Thanks, but isn't that already the case with different buildings being destroyed and corpse locations and loot tables?

Yup. And with starting gear, and starting location on any map, chosen or random. Hell, I've done Pilgrim runs where my gal spawns in almost all ragged starting gear, single layer only, that made "typical" Loper starting gear look "top tier" in comparison. RNJesus is not my friend, lol.

But imagine how many "outraged" threads there would be if Lopers spawned into the world with a random 23% total condition. Heck, even Pilgrims are not likely to enjoy that. But if it is a Custom Setting, and you could choose "Random Starting Condition" or "Starting Condition 100%", I'm good with that.

5 hours ago, Makex said:

 

I should have read this before previous post.

Nah, you're good. And really lucky, lol. Especially to get it in Loper. 

1 hour ago, ajb1978 said:

5 hours ago, peteloud said:

I am beginning to think that the game might be better if custom modes were removed.

It would not be better.

I second that opinion. 

Really amazing shots @Abz. 

4 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

I don't have actual statistics but maybe 1 in every 100 crates or cardboard boxes has something hidden inside of it.  And it always seems to be a guaranteed spawn, so once you find it once, you know to just check that specific box every time you play.  It's never anything that's likely to make or break your run, but there are some goodies to be found.  Bleak Inlet has a handful of crates that reveal sardines if you break them open.  Other than that, it's kind of hit or miss.

Or that one in the BR Maintenance Yard garage. 0-3 Dog Food. Rather rare for me to not get at least one, but a few times there has been nothing there. 

40 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

Allow this as a Custom mode option.  Don't mess with the existing experience modes or challenge modes.

This. ^^^

And only this. 

38 minutes ago, The Black Knight said:

Really? Survive interloper is not an issue, once you craft the bow and reach cooking lvl5 is almost a piece of cake for a regular player with more than 500 hours in game. Most of veteran players just start again after 200 days because we have already loot all the maps and survive is too easy... your suggest is very disrepectful for good players 

How is it disrespectful to actual, legit "good players"? The OP isn't talking about people who play the game legitimately, and are skilled enough to play without unsupported mods. The only way I could see it being disrespectful, is if the OP considers using Custom Settings, allowed in the unmodified game, as being "cheating". And *most* legit players who use Custom Settings, will say they are, and even share the code for those settings. Custom Settings aren't cheating. Third part cheat mods are. But it hardly matters in a singleplayer game with no leaderboards. @peteloud, if someone seems to be doing better than you think they should be, and bragging about it, you can ignore them,  disregard their advice on the forums, and follow that of people you trust or know personally. And yeah, some people are just that good, and have put that much time into the game, that they can survive on vanilla Interloper for hundreds of days, and make it look easy. While some of us can't, or don't enjoy that mode enough to even bother trying.

And @The Black Knight, I have around 3800 hours in the game now, between XBox One and Steam. And Interloper is not a "piece of cake" for me, irregardless of numbers of hours in the game. Mainly because I do not enjoy the mode at all. I like Stalker, vanilla Stalker. Loper is too restrictive and more linear-feeling to me. I get no joy from it. Loper is not the ultimate fantasy mode for everyone who plays this game, or the ultimate "victory". Your comment is a tad disrespectful to players who enjoy and do well in any other mode, including Custom Settings games. You like Loper. Good for you. I like Stalker, good for me. I have a friend who likes vanilla Pilgrim, and has over 5000 hours in the game. And enjoys the heck out of it. And it does not make them any less of a "good player" than you, I, or anyone else. It just means that they enjoy different things in the game than I, or you do.

3 hours ago, Dr. S. said:

I use tinder plugs for this. You can drop one for a quick marker or arrange them to form a V or an arrow if you want something more sophisticated. 

Same. After Lvl 3 Firestarting skill, you don't need tinder plugs, and heck, even before then, sticks and newspapers in the world tend to be plentiful, and I make tinder plugs to pass time after my gal wakes up from sleep, and it's still dark out. So I always have way more tinder plugs than I need. They make great trail markers. Cattail heads, not so much.

So do car batteries. But they are a little less useful for that purpose now that they have weight to them, when right-clicking them to move/place them. 33 lbs is heavy, lol. Tinder plugs weigh almost nothing. Stones work too, a big pile of them, or a line of them on the ice. In a pinch, sticks, arranged into arrows, pointing in the direction of shelter caves or buildings works too. But, i am an obsessive stick collector, I tend to pick up my sticks (markers) and burn them, so... that one doesn't work out too well for me.  Books are larger, and work well too, if you have a lot of them, but they get heavy if trying to carry 10 or so to mark a long trail. And cans of Tomato soup... that red color shows up well on a white snowy background. Not as helpful in Interloper, since you won;t find many, but in Pilgrim or Voyageur, even Stalker- cans of food... eat all but a tiny bit out of them, so they retain the colored labels instead of recycled cans, which can look like regular terrain from a distance, with their grey color. 

Yes, I play with all sorts of silly things in the game. 

Okay. A new thing I just noticed last night while playing:

I got stuck out in a blizzard, full-on whiteout conditions. I passed a location, and the location name came up on screen. I thought I had a bug, the name was displayed in a peachy-orange color, on the almost pure white background. Then my needs warmth meter came up on the HUD. Also in the same color. (The same color, basically, as the background of the new Straight To The Heart Feat badge, would be the closest I can describe it as.) Stayed up, since it was 3 arrows down. (I use a Contextual HUD.). Another location name as I passed another location . Same thing. The blizzard started to let up, and the HUD automatically (and gradually) changed back to white. 

It appears that they made the HUD auto-shift to a contrasting color, so the white meters and location names have some contrast on a white background, instead of getting lost. It wasn't "in-your-face" high contrast, just enough that I could see the HUD in white-out conditions. And nothing else on screen had any color-shift, it all looked as expected. Hoping this makes sense, the way I am describing it. I did not get a screenshot, sadly. I was too blown away to think to hit the [F12] key, lol. I know the white color of the HUD on a pure white background was something I have seen complaint threads written about on Steam, so... it makes sense to me that this is not a bug, but intended. Next blizzard I get my gal caught out in, I will try to remember to take a screenshot showing it, because I am sure someone out there is thinking I am nuts, or have a bug. If it is a bug, it's one I want left in the game, lol. It was really cool.

(And yes, that fishing hut next to the fishing Camp will sometimes have a door, and sometimes not,  just like which hut on Mystery Lake has a door will change from save to save. It's been that way in the game for a long time, not just since this latest update.)

According to someone on Steam, they can show up in any location that any Research Book might spawn in. So, all of the usual possible locations for any book, if you are lucky enough to know where all of those may be, and remember them all. Apparently all Research Books now may randomly spawn in any of the possible locations, or so I was told. 

13 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

Charcoal is used for gunpowder. Dismantling really helps when you've placed a fire in a slightly erroneous spot and it blocks a better placement.

Agreed.

And it's optional. If you find a great spot for a campfire, that *always* has wind shelter, and room for a snow shelter, or a bedroll, you can leave the burned out fire there, for relighting at a later date and time. Charcoal? I can dump it in a tucked away corner, or store it in a corpse, or an outdoor metal container I don't use for anything else. Or a car trunk. Ect.

Or use it when I am bored, to draw "questionable" things on the ice or snow. And by "questionable", I mean... pictures of anything that are not Pancakes.

I like the option, and have no issues with how it is. 

3 hours ago, DaPepster said:

On a related note, has anybody made a list of any of the locations where the gun smithing research books spawn...?

I haven't seen one yet. Might be a good topic for a separate thread, though. 

I've found one in the Maintenance Yard in BR, and one in the broken down shed in the Deadfall region in ML so far, and I know I had one somewhere else (too many runs going at once), but I can't recall where. PV, I think, but not 100% sure.  

(Yay, I can still edit this!)

Just found the Gunsmithing book in the Hunters Blind at Unnamed Pond in ML. 

Hey! Sorry the welcoming committee was indulging in a bit too much egg nog, and missed greeting you at the  door!

Welcome to the forums! 

Have some Pancakes, as my way of apologizing for not greeting you sooner!

🥞🥞🥞

Are folks reporting these things on the Support Portal?

42 minutes ago, ggtwnt18 said:

Hey all! New to The Long Dark and have absolutely loved it. However, this is the most broken game I have ever played on PS4 in my life. I am completely stuck on episode 1 because the game crashes constantly. I’ve scoured this forum for others having this issue and it seems there are others but they are few and far between. It’s completely unplayable as of now, so any advice would be greatly appreciated! Happy New Years to all!

Check the Technical Discussions subforum, and if there is no fix or suggestions listed there, file a formal bug report on the Support Portal:

Hinterland Support Portal

Keep in mind Hinterland is still on Holiday Break, so the Tech Team response time may be slower than usual.

Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. 

I would likely have missed this, if I had not crouched. 

Not saying where it is, exactly. But it is somewhere in ML...

I could go for some version of this, though I suspect there would be mixed reactions from the Community. Some folks already feel like there is too much micromanagement, and some felt that way before Gunsmithing was a thing. I do like the idea of harvesting recycled cans, and think they should yeild only a fraction of the scrap metal, perhaps a lower quality type than conventional scrap metal.  Used for repairing cooking pots, (patching holes...) or creating very low quality arrowheads that break more quickly, or do less damage. More chance to miss or only graze an animal, yes. But I am wary of making it too complex, and too micro-managed. Grim Dawn has gotten horrendously complex with socketable component crafting, and the grind to get everything you need to craft a higher level component can be a drag at times.. Farming, farming, farming. It loses its appeal after a few hundred hours.  

That bear at Unnamed Pond has been a "thing" in the game for some time. A few of my friends and I took to calling him "Spirit Bear", because of his eerie and magical presence there. Usually while we were trying to harvest the deer carcass there. We learned to always harvest from the top, on the snow, not from the bottom, on the ice. Since that seems to be where the Spirit Bear spawn box is. 

2 hours ago, Dx421 said:

I've heard the phantom bear before, and like @ajb1978 been attacked by them. 

Curiosity kills. 

Better to leave at once. 

The hunter's blind isn't the only place where the phantom bears can appear. I've encountered them in TWM and CH as well. It's a pretty old 'bug'.

This. ^^^.

PV as well, near the Farmhouse. Only once, but... that was enough for me to never open that porch door without listening for Bear Crows and bear noises first.

Spirit Bear gets around, lol.