ajb1978

I enjoyed Episode 3.  Pleasant Valley is my least-favorite region in the entire game, but Episode 3 actually made me enjoy exploring it.  The side quests were more enjoyable than the main story IMO, because it felt more like I was doing the exploration on my own initiative, rather than fetch food and fuel for Grey Mother Orange Father.  The side quests really satisfied that urge I have to find good loot.  I do wish Astrid's experiences in Milton weren't just glossed over though.  I mean a doctor trying to rescue people from a burning building, gets attacked by a convict, stabs him with a knife, runs towards a partially collapsed tunnel and barely makes it through.  Yes...we know that's what happened.  But it would've been nice to see it from her perspective, in an intro cinematic.  That sense of mystery surrounding Astrid's research and the contents of the case is starting to get a little forced though.  Why is it so important that she reveal absolutely nothing about the contents?  I suspect it's some sort of experimental serum intended to treat a specific exotic virus, so why can't she just say something like that?  "It's case containing a very specific medicine to treat a very specific disease, the details of which aren't important right now."  That would be a perfectly satisfying answer--even if it is inherently a bit of a non-answer--that digests more easily than "Not gonna tell you anything, stop asking."

Anyway, there's always going to be something about a game, story, TV show, movie, etc. that doesn't completely agree with people.  The only way around that is to write your own game, story, etc. and even then the odds of being 100% satisfied with your OWN work are slim to none.  So rather than rag on things I didn't agree with, I'm simply going to say this.  I enjoyed episode 3, enough to play it twice in a row back to back.  The part I like the most is how the side quests are laid out in a logical fashion, making it far more likely that you would see all there is to see.  As opposed to like...in Episode 1 there is that note stuck to the base of the chimney of the burnt down school house, where the player has no real logical reason to ever look.   Also the quests offer some real solid rewards, instead of the more mundane supplies the hidden caches in Episodes 1 and 2 provided.  I also like the Timberwolf encounters, complete with their own unique background music that really fits the scene.  One thing that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me was that on the one hand, Astrid is willing to put her mission in Perseverence Mills on hold in order to help the plane crash victims, but on the other hand she is strangely ok with Molly killing the escaped convicts.  "I don't think revenge is the answer" is the closest she gets to "You can't just go around killing people because your husband was an ass and you regret your life."

Ehh.  The wolves will probably get her before too long anyway.

Jerky has been popping up on the wish list for as long as the wish list has been around.  The most common argument against it is "it doesn't add anything to the game, and development time is better spent elsewhere".  The most common argument for it is "it provides the player with more things to do and additional options that they can take advantage of, or ignore, as they see fit."

A couple years ago I agreed with the former.  There were a lot of things that needed attention first, but I think that with how things have progressed, I'm leaning more towards the latter.  I would say making jerky or smoking meat is my #3 wish list item.  My #1 wish list item is the ability to dismantle furniture for transport and reassembly elsewhere.  Like...dismantle a storage chest, transport the parts to a cave, reassemble it.  And #2 would be a short range melee weapon, like a baseball bat or fire axe or something, that can interrupt a wolf charge if you time it just right.  And then #3 being smoking/curing meat or fish.

There's always a certain amount of random chance involved, and while unlikely, it is very possible to never find a single rifle.  I would suggest heading for the summit of Timberwolf Mountain.  On Pilgrim, one of the cargo containers always spawns a rifle.

I had an entire cavern fail to render in an explorable cave.  I was able to look out into this endless void, and even see other parts of the cave further on that would normally have been obstructed by the walls.  I didn't think to grab a screenshot though, and when I turned around and looked back, everything was rendering normally.

Weird little one-off glitch.

24 minutes ago, Mixxut said:

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one who missed the note in the store

It had me stuck for a long time as well.  It wasn't until I was meticulously searching every single vehicle and structure specifically looking for that one note, that I finally found it.  It just blends in too well.  A note stuck to the wall stands out. A note stuck to a bulletin board is essentially camouflaged.

16 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

My hat's off to you sir... I've been mapping so I tend to only gather up maybe 96-135 sticks in a given day (assuming good weather and abundance). 

In regions with a fishing hole I will spend 2-3 days straight without sleep pulling fish out of a hole, then I won't have to worry about food for a very, very long time.  Sacrificing 3/4 of my health to exhaustion can result in a month or more of food, especially at level 5 fishing.  And since "pass time and sleep" is not a fun use of my time, I spent it gathering sticks instead. Edit: And moose scouting.  I gather sticks and scout for moose, then go home and eat fish.  If I find a moose, I go back for my rifle.

16 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

 (or just to make room for all the sticks I end up collecting en masse)

I've had to seriously curb my enthusiasm on that one, after I accumulated enough sticks in a pile to crash the game 50% of the time I enter/leave!  It took hundreds of game hours to burn it all up.  I had a permafire going for several months without needing to ever once gather firewood.

You have to use the high powered light, and shine it directly into an aurora wolf's face.  They will stop a short distance away, similar to how normal wolves will stop if you hold a lit flare.  If you keep the light trained on them for several seconds, they turn and run away.  It must be the high beam, and it does take several seconds, which means a single fully charged flashlight will only repel one aurora wolf.

I like to use these to just find my way around "home" during an aurora, or to make coal runs in a mine with zero lamp oil cost.  I typically won't carry one early on when every kilo counts, but after I'm settled, I will carry at least one on me at all times.

Well the Lost and Found was a good idea...but it only "sort of" worked.    I'm missing 4 storm lanterns, 12 scrap metal, 88 cloth (it cleaned out my scrap cloth stores entirely), 10 cured leather, 5 arrows, and 6 bows, according to the inventory I took of the region last time I was there.   As near as I can figure, two of the cabinets in the Farmhouse kitchen were not included in the Lost and Found.

Also I had two moose steaks sitting on the grill outside the Pleasant Valley farmstead prior to Episode 3.  I went back and found the moose meat in the lost and found...but it had suddenly become raw.  When picking it up out of the lost and found, the image changed to raw moose meat, and they were again 900 calories each.  I dropped it on the ground and it became unclickable cooked moose meat.  Couldn't left or right click to pick it back up.  So I save-scummed back to when I had first entered the new barn and went back over to re-retrieve my moose meat.  This time I kept it in my inventory, and went to investigate the grill where I had left it.  Invisible cooked moose meat was on the grill, and when I clicked it, it's like all those cooked properties instantly transferred to the moose meat in my inventory.  It went from raw 70% 900 calorie moose meat, to cooked 100% 1125 calorie moose meat instantly.  It's like the meat got moved, but the "cooked" property got left behind on the grill.

So the TL;DR here is: Two of the cabinets in the Farmhouse got missed, so you might be missing items in the Lost & Found, and any cooked meat left on the grill outside make sure you go back and pick up that invisible "cooked" property off the grill!

48 minutes ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Carolina Reaper? 

Nupe.

I do like habaneros for flavor and heat in my chili, and for the habanero pepper jam I used to make. 
I am silly like that, but not crazy like reaper fans, lol.

😬

Not only am I that kind of crazy, I'm growing my own   But I digress....

2 minutes ago, ThePancakeLady said:

But when I play the Episode on Steam, I may go in without much food, and cook his big fishy butt up for a feast.  

Lol yeah I let him go both times I've played the episode, mostly because I kept every other fish I pulled out and was already looking at 2-3 trips back to the community center as it was.

I'm curious what people did with the Big Bass....

4 minutes ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Especially the veggie ones, cold veggies are bland.  

You've been eating the wrong veggies then!  Say hello to my little friend!

There is a mountaineer's rope up on Skeeter's Ridge, which you can use to create a shortcut down to Draft Dodger's Cabin, but you must first walk to Skeeter's Ridge the long way.  I like to use the cabin down below and basement up above to stash some food and water, so I can rest up from my climb and pass time until it's the time of day I want, without dipping into my field rations.

You can completely forsake the main questline and do all the side quests first.  If you keep your distance from the priest the dialogue never triggers, and you can go about your merry way with the "Trauma" quest paused in the background until you're good and ready.  That's what I did on my second play through.  The one exception is one of the collectibles is in Signal Hill and you have to advance the main quest to the end to get in there, but all the side quests that provide a reward or unlock a bunker, you're free to complete whenever you wish.  All that extra gear gives you a HUGE advantage.  And when you finally get access to the plane crash, you can head back up there whenever you want to grab up all that loot.

(I really wish we could heat up those airline meals by sticking them next to a fire...)

OK I'm enclosing this whole thing in a big fat Spoiler post.  If you're playing this episode for the first time, please please PLEASE ignore this.  The satisfaction of finding everything for yourself is paramount!  But if you're on your second or third pass and just cannot find a thing....you're the target audience.

So once again, if you are not on your second or third pass through Episode 3, please do not expose this spoiler.  Because this is the spoiler to end all spoilers.

Not terribly organized, but the location of every quest object.

Awww no Will Mackenzie contest?

I was missing the "local's side of the story" Forest talker note #1 until about 10 seconds ago, when I finally found it

I'm glad I finally found it too because it was the LAST thing I needed to accomplish, and

really makes "needle in a haystack" searches of buildings I've already explored that much more aggravating!

On 10/20/2019 at 1:56 PM, ThePancakeLady said:

I knew you'd know this, lol!  

Lol I think between me probing the physics of the game and @Ice Hole goating like a maniac, you're probably pretty well informed on the nuances!

1 hour ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Now there's an idea. If you don't finish cooking it for any reason, it reverts back to raw, I think? Like a can of tomato soup, if your fire burns out, or you remove it from the cooking surface before it is done cooking, will show it as uncooked, but (opened) (I think... I'll have to double check that to be sure). But your idea could very well explain the (opened) tag on it.

This is exactly how this happens

This can also happen if you RMB a fish onto a cook surface on a burnt-out fire, or set it on the pot belly stove in the fishing hut without a fire going.  When you take the raw fish back into your inventory, it shows as "opened".

I've probably sunk more hours into Doom and DoomII than any others.  Especially if you consider all of the source ports and total conversions.  Some allow you to play the original as an entirely different character, like the Guncaster, Trailblazer, or Metroid Dreadnaught mods.  Others are entirely different games altogether, like Castlevania Simon's Destiny.  Under the hood though, it's still Doom.

Skyrim is also pretty good for exploration and adventure, but what really took it to an 11 was the VR port.  It is a WORLD of difference between seeing it on a flat screen, and being IN the world.

And then of course, The Long Dark, where I've sunk over 2500 hours into it.  I don't think I really need to explain this one since we're all here for a reason.

This is something that happens more often than I'd care to admit, because I don't normally carry a rifle around with me. But going moose hunting, I finally find a moose, then realize I forgot to actually bring my rifle.  Edit: This has led to a change in strategy, where I now leave rifles all over the world, and just carry ammo with me.  That way if I do find a Moose, I know I have a rifle stored somewhere on that map that I can grab quickly.

Or sometimes forgetting to drink before bed, and I wake up dehydrated and missing a huge chunk of condition.

I'd say this can be relegated to the public when mod support is introduced.  While I would love to have more variety of foodstuffs just for roleplaying purposes, in terms of adding value to the game, more food options really contributes nothing considering the time it would take to create it.

So I'd say leave this one up to the modding community once that door is opened.  @ThePancakeLady will probably create a Breakfast Overhaul mod or something

4 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

 on time I even witnessed a little bug where the weather would snap to a different pattern instantly. ...
No transition at all, one moment it was clear the next suddenly fog as thick as pea soup. 

I captured a similar thingon Bandicam a few months ago and kept it in case it happened again, but this was a one-off for me.  Never had it again.  The weather snaps from overcast and light snow to crystal clear.

On 10/6/2019 at 3:21 PM, Raphael van Lierop said:

Just to be clear before anyone gets too excited about any particular resurrection plans -- our goal with Time Capsule was not to create lobbies for getting old features back. If they were removed or changed, it was for good reason. We have no intention of stepping backwards in any area of the game.

Try to enjoy the Time Capsule as a look back on the way the game used to be, particularly if you're a player who came in after some of these earlier updates. 

Good evening Raph.  Could you please explain the rationale behind why brands were replaced with torches?  I understand the rationale behind replacing the "brandish" mechanism with "throw", but why were brands replaced with torches?  TBH this seems rather counter-intuitive to me, and if there is a solid logical reason behind it I could digest this decision better.