Morrick

Yes. Yes. 😁

Just recently, I was staying in the Island Cottage in Forsaken Airfield, and the blizzard outside lasted a whole in-game day. I had time to not just sip, but finish my whole mug of tea (spiked with whisky).

This is Winter Survival's Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1394960/Winter_Survival/ I saw some gameplay on YouTube. There isn't a sci-fi or post-apocalyptic premise. You get hurt and lost in the wilderness and have to survive until rescue comes, but in the gameplay I saw many things that reminded me of The Long Dark: having to evade wolves and bears, the resource management, the 'start a campfire' mechanic, etc. I don't know if it's tougher, but maybe it's worth keeping an eye on…

I seem to have a penchant for tower-like structures. One of my early favourite places to spend the night was the Lonely Lighthouse in Desolation Point. And whenever I pass through Mystery Lake or Coastal Highway, I make sure to spend a few nights in the Lookouts. I like the fact that you can look out from the windows, keep an eye on the weather and watch the day/night light change.

Behold the floating coal lumps at Brittle Cave!

Glad it helped! The other night I also tried double-clicking tld_borderless_dx11 and it worked as well (for me). Cheers!

LOL! All those GO! drinks, surely.

Started a second survival run. Female character this time. Started, again, in Broken Railroad. Again, very little useful clothing. But thanks to favourable weather, and sheer luck in choosing when to move onward, I made it to Junker's Paddock travelling this lightweight! I immediately started a fire to celebrate -- and warm up!

Me too. Glad I found this thread, because I was about to create one with exactly the same question, but wasn't sure in which subforum to post it. Another account I've noticed appearing as "Guest [username]" is kristaok, and — if memory serves well — she was also a nice person and I doubt she did or said something that warranted a ban. I just hope it was them who requested the deletion of their account, and that nothing serious was/is going on. It's a pity. Like @UpUpAway95said, jeffpeng was a wonderful contributor, and after 9 months of personal hiatus I was looking forward to read his posts when I returned here two weeks ago...

Thanks for the explanation. As I said in my previous comment: "I may be missing some important background information, though, because I still haven't played Wintermute", so I didn't know.

Having been playing this game for 5 years now, I have of course experienced a lot of lucky moments (along with terribly unlucky ones, mind you). I was positively cheering that time that I — who am still awfully clumsy at hunting wildlife — managed to one-shot kill a bear in Forlorn Muskeg near the Poacher's Camp. With a revolver. At an impossibly long distance. (It was of course pure RNG Gods' intervention, not skill, but still!) Another time I well remember was shortly after Bleak Inlet was added to the game, and I went exploring the new region. I wasn't well-equipped, and I was exploring the new-to-me Frozen Delta area, I noticed it was getting cold, so I started taking short naps to retrieve a bit of warmth. It was getting dark, I wasn't finding anything (also due to the foggy weather), so I decided to light a quick fire, maybe prepare some coffee for later, and take another short nap. I click on the bedroll and the Sleep/Pass Time interface appears as usual. Right then a notification on my iPhone distracts me… it's a message from my wife, she's at work and she's asking me to retrieve some information on a paper she had left at home. When I finish with her, I return to the game, forgetting what exactly I was doing, I see the Sleep/Pass Time interface and out of habit I select "9 hours". My character was tired and so he goes to sleep. When he wakes up, it's night, a blizzard is raging, and soon he's already at 40% hypothermia risk. Shit. Shit shit shit. I drink the coffee (but it has gone cold by now, you fool) and, panicked, I try to light another fire (but you're not in a windproof spot, you fool). I light my storm lantern and start wandering around. Not knowing the area, I obviously have no clue where to go. I eventually bump into the northernmost Hunter's Blind (the one closer to the exit to Forlorn Muskeg). At that point I have 98% hypothermia risk. The Hunter's Blind is better than nothing, but still it isn't that great of a shelter when you're in these conditions. Just when I'm thinking I'm not long for this survival run… the weather changes, the wind calms down, the blizzard recedes, and it's just light snow. I light another fire just outside the Hunter's Blind, and stay there for a few in-game hours until I'm warm again and hypothermia risk goes away. I exhale and feel… spared.

I'm male and an equal opportunity player: I alternate male and female characters. I like to start different survival runs and go in different directions in each sandbox, so I pick MacKenzie for run 1, Astrid for run 2, MacKenzie for run 3, etc. I do agree with others here when they say that the female character has better lines and is voiced a bit better. Too often MacKenzie sounds constipated and frustrated, and has a constantly complaining tone; even when he says things like "Looks like I survived another night" he sounds defeated; he makes me want to drive a fist in his upper arm and say, Dude, come ON, get to work, get out of this rut! Astrid has a more varied tone — sometimes she sounds hopeful, sometimes practical, sometimes sarcastic, and I think I would sound more like her if I were in the same situation.

Alas, I neither have a garage nor a separate storage space. The building where I live has parking spaces to put your car, there aren't individual garages. So, in this situation I would have to loot my car, and I wouldn't find much: some matches, work gloves, a thin vest, painkillers, a flashlight, some pieces of cloth, and that's basically it. I wouldn't survive for long in this real-life version of The Long Dark, LOL!

That last screenshot, with the silhouette of the cabin barely visible in the dark, is just fantastic and reminds me of so many times when I found myself in very similar circumstances… really an inch from 'fading into The Long Dark' but saved at the last minute. The worst of such circumstances was perhaps that one time in Forlorn Muskeg where I was desperately out hunting for food, wounded a bear after sunset, lost sight of it when trying to track it, it got dark, and the weather rapidly changed into a blizzard. I thought "I have heavy-enough clothing, I can take it", and started wandering in what I thought was the direction of the Poacher's Camp. Instead, it turns out I was going straight into the middle of the marsh, and fell through a spot of thin ice. "That's it, I'm done" — I thought, as I pulled out my last flare. At that point the only thing I could do was pick a direction and hope for the best. I was freezing, drained, overburdened, and walking in the blizzard at a glacial pace (no pun intended). I think I was down to maybe 15-20% condition when I recognised the familiar shape of Old Spence Family Homestead. The utter joy I felt at that point! Thankfully I still had 6 lumps of coal lying about, and the forge's furnace kept going for many hours as I recuperated in bed. Thanks for sharing your survival story!

The v2.05 [106000] hotfix created an issue on my system where the game doesn't launch after the initial Disclaimer screen, presenting a black screen instead. It is a relatively old Windows laptop (circa 2014) running Windows 10 Pro (2H22); the GPU is an integrated Intel HD4400. The version of the Long Dark is the one distributed via Steam. The solution indicated on the Hinterland Support website for this specific problem ("Black screen after disclaimer") suggests installing the Media Feature Pack optional feature in Windows, but such feature doesn't appear for my system/Windows version. After spending 30 minutes in utter frustration trying several other things, what eventually worked was this: Select The Long Dark in your Steam Library and click on the gear button on the right: In the menu that appears, select Manage > Browse local files This will open a new window in the File Explorer showing the root directory of your TLD installation within Steam. There are various executable files here: I double-clicked on tld_borderless_dx9 and the game launched without issues. I believe this is an option that instructs the game to launch with an older version of DirectX. While it's not really a bother to launch The Long Dark this way, I really hope a subsequent update will fix this issue. The game was running just fine prior to installing the v2.05 [106000] update.

I'm generally pretty happy with what Hinterland has provided so far. A personal wish would be to have a new region with more human settlements, something like Milton, but of course with a different vibe. I'm not saying this for the possible loot or shelter opportunities. It's not a gameplay-related request. I would be fine with having a town with 80% inaccessible buildings. I'm saying this because for me the biggest mystery of Great Bear Island is how many people actually live there. From what we've seen in the regions released so far, if you count all the houses that are not isolated cabins, I'd say very few. Too few compared to the traces of industrial activity witnessed so far, which would suggest serving a bigger population. Unless the island is essentially a place to extract and export resources + a penal colony, so the only homes we're seeing are workers' (and isolated hunters') residences. Even if that were the case, I'd still think we should see more houses about. The Blackrock Penitentiary itself seems a disproportionately large place unless it's also meant to host criminals from other places outside the island. I may be missing some important background information, though, because I still haven't played Wintermute; and yes, this is a game and there's ultimately suspension of disbelief, but still…

That was indeed a great capture. And yes, I totally sympathise. It reminded me of so many times I thought I was really done, but something life-saving appeared last-minute. It's a good feeling.

These two screenshots may be nothing special, but here's some context. I was exploring the south-east part of Forsaken Airfield, so I literally was in uncharted territory. I found a small crashed helicopter, and just as I finished searching inside of it, the weather turned and I got engulfed in glimmer fog. I didn't want to stay put in the helicopter, but that's what I probably should have done, because I started wandering aimlessly in the hope of reaching some place, any place. So you have no idea how relieved I was to see these sights after walking blind for 20 real-life minutes! I didn't have time to reach the hangar basement before insomnia hit, but oh well. 🙂

I wholeheartedly agree with you on the navigation. When I decided to leave the Mindful Cabin and go explore Shoulder Lake, the weather quickly turned foggy (regular fog), and after what felt like an eternity wading through a completely ash-grey nondescript landscape, I found myself near the Airfield again! Also, I know this is by design, but going from one major location to another is one tedious trek. It's also a trek that is tricky to plan. The first time I moved from the Airfield to Mindful Cabin, I got lucky because I started on a clear, crisp, windy day. Visibility was excellent and I could make it in one go without stopping anywhere. But even in the best weather conditions, you feel like taking a break on the way… and there isn't even a interesting spot to do so. Final Approach can be a nice candidate, but if the weather's bad and the crows are not around, it's quite easy to miss, as the helicopter is hidden from the road by the snow. I know that it's just a smallish airfield and not a big city airport, but I expected to find a few more houses in the white expanse surrounding it, places where the airfield's workers live (something like the Cannery Worker Residences in Bleak Inlet). That said, I love the region, really. I just wish it had more landmarks to help you orient yourself by sight.

A note left behind a visor with a key led to a memento cache near the bear's cave. The cache contained the revolver, a box of revolver ammo, and a pair of worn mittens. As for the rifle, I didn't expect to find it in the usual spot (fireplace in Hunter's Lodge), but it was there. But I'm more of a revolver guy, and since I had already found a surprising amount of revolver ammo, I left the rifle and exited Broken Railroad with just the revolver and — I swear — 81 bullets. 🤠

Same here. And I didn't even have tea to drink. (Since the updating of the loot tables, I'm finding herbal tea way less frequently, by the way). In my case, insomnia lasted 27 hours. I slept twice in that time interval, and sleep was peaceful in both instances. Insomnia had no impact whatsoever over my regular activities. In my opinion, what insomnia should do (better) is to accelerate your fatigue level when you're up and about, because you're supposed to be more tired than usual. If your status got to 'Drained' mid-afternoon, this affliction could have the potential of being truly annoying. 😉

Same here. I had to reach Forsaken Airfield to find a firearm cleaning kit. Nothing in Broken Railroad. And same here for the flare gun. I have found the flare gun case in a crashed helicopter, but it was empty — no gun, no shells.

For now I've only been playing a new survival run on Pilgrim, starting in Broken Railroad and finally reaching the Forsaken Airfield after a long and treacherous journey. What I've noticed so far: The newly-reshuffled loot tables hit me hard: I went looking for the prybar in the Maintenance Shed, but of course it wasn't in its usual place. "Fine," I thought, "I'm sure it'll be somewhere else — maybe outside, maybe in the Hunter's lodge, maybe in the bear's cave or some other cave, or in another truck…" Nope. Not a prybar in the whole Broken Railroad region. Then, when I finally decided to leave the region without being able to look inside lockers and trunks, and I entered the train tunnel past the Broken Bridge, what's the first thing I see lying on the ground? Why, a prybar of course. And what do I find when I finally exit the tunnel on the other side? What do you know, another prybar. Even on Pilgrim, resources seem scarcer than before. I'm finding a lot of empty containers, more frequently than before. This doesn't really bother me, except... ...I'm also having a hard time finding good clothing. My survivor has trekked from Broken Railroad to Forsaken Airfield with only a pair of jeans, a pair of long johns, trail boots, a thick wool sweather, a simple parka and a Mackinaw jacket, a wool toque and a long wool scarf, and a pair of wool mittens. I had to repair everything because even the better articles of clothing were found in average to very low condition. I completely used the only two sewing kits I've found in my whole run so far. I haven't found anything warmer than Mackinaw jackets, but lots of useless worn t-shirts, dress shirts, and cotton toques. I don't know if it's bad luck, or if it's typical of the new regions, but the weather I've encountered traversing Far Range Branch Line, Transfer Pass, and Forsaken Airfield was relentlessly awful. But even in Broken Railroad, a more familiar region, it was a blizzard after another. I wasted three in-game days just hanging around indoors, burning through resources, before I could prepare to move out of the region (the light clothing didn't help). Other essential items that are strangely missing (and are sorely needed): Storm lantern, hunting knife, and a hatchet. I found an improvised knife stabbing a tyre of a truck in Transfer Pass. Conversely, resources I seem to be finding everywhere, and more frequently than before, are pieces of cloth and cured leather.

Haha! True. New item found: silver lining. 😄

Fair point. My somewhat cynical take is that on paper it may look a little bit underwhelming, especially for people who aren't Long Dark veterans. I am, and am okay with it and gladly purchased the expansion; others may not focus on 'the grand 12-month plan' and think they're getting too little for what they paid. It's just a guess, of course.