UpUpAway95

Very nice!!! Looking forward to it.

I know it said I didn't have an opinion; but honestly, I would prefer a NPC to some sort of "trading mechanic" without one. One NPC in the entire world is NOT going to affect my sense of being alone, regardless of whether he appears wherever I'm at on rare occasions or is tucked away in a static shop somewhere in the Far Territory. Communicating with a remote "trading mechanic" or computer would be more "alien" to the game world, IMO, than another "lost soul" being encountered from time to time.

It's possible. I'm looking forward to finding out in Episode 5. I think his being "old Will" imparting the story and lessons learns to, perhaps, his grandchildren (meaning he and Astrid got back together) would be a great "happy ending" to the tale - that, in the end, they healed whoever (or whatever) Astrid's quest was and lived happily ever after on a restored GBI. (Yeah, yeah - I'm sucker for happy, romantic endings 😀)

I think the story is actually taking place in Will and Astrid's past, and Methuselah is "old Will" injecting the wisdom he learned over the course of the adventure into the story. The question in my mind is to whom is "old Will"/Methuselah telling his story?

That's what I understand (mostly from streamers who have commented on it in the past) - there is a point where, even in Loper, the world doesn't get any colder. Some have said at 50 days, others at 100 days - so take your pick on that or take it with a grain of salt. I think it's only reasonable that the setting would not allow for the world to get infinitely colder. As you know, I seldom take any run beyond 50 days. From my own experience, I can verify that it does seem to get colder on average over time within the first 50 days when the settings in custom for "World gets colder over time" are set to either low, medium, or high; and it doesn't when set to none.

The weather does get worse over time on some difficulty settings, but not on all of them. It's also can be changed in the custom menu. As I understand it, it also has a cap (I believe somewhere around 50 to 100 days), so a 3,000-day loper run would not be any colder than a 100-day one.

I don't really have an opinion either way and I'm not doing special stocking up on stuff to prepare for it either. Best to just wait to see how they implement it.

The art style, for sure; and the custom settings menu (i.e. being able to tweak the game difficulties in a hundred different ways is what keeps the game interesting for me). Finally, the little historical touches that take me back to my childhood (e.g. my dad had a hatchet that looked almost exactly like the one in the game and a WWII surplus Lee Enfield. I'm sure I had a brown ski sweater that looked very much like the one in the game and red nylon mittens. The list just goes on and on.) For me, it's a great romp into the past - growing up in Canada.

I still don't think it is necessarily a bug nor that the spawns and the loot issues you're having are related in any way. The odds of getting one spawn vs. another or one loot table vs. another don't have to be all equal. HL could have intentionally "loaded the dice" such that one spawn or one loot table comes up more frequently than another. They could also tie the probability to any number of data points your system keeps track of (e.g. the date). Those still wouldn't be a bug. Of course, there could be a bug as well - e.g. some tag that's gotten stuck in your system. To actually determine whether it's outside the realms of reasonable randomness would take a large number of repetitions. All I can say is that my starts (and I've made several in the last couple of weeks on a variety of custom settings and a couple of standard ones) all seem to have sufficient variability to both spawn-in regions and points and loot found in those regions. I haven't paid attention to any of the new loot tables, so I could not honestly say if I'm on the save loot table for some of those runs when they've spawned in a different region.

Perhaps a multi-tool key fob with the TLD axe or wolf on it.

On the flip side, I've had a run recently, where the weather was much worse than normal and I've watched one streamer who found that they hit a run (I believe it was on stalker difficulty) where they got almost constant blizzards (about 4 in a row IIRC). Random is random - sometimes when you roll dice you get streaks of the same numbers coming up.

Again, I think some item discrepancies are going to be "necessary" between custom settings and the standard interloper because custom needs to accommodate whatever the player dreams up as a "challenging" combination for them. Gunlopers complain about not finding cleaning kits and it is more of a problem for them than it is for bow-oriented interlopers to find them. The solution would be to tag the items more specifically in the custom settings so they could be turned on or off individually (or in more precise groupings). I think it would probably be a very complicated change to make in the code - and would probably result in even more bugs. However, back on topic - Since custom "random" spawns allow for spawning in any zone generally, I doubt the random spawn setting in interloper is in any way related to the issue of finding differing loot in custom loper and standard loper. In short - OP, I think it's just your luck. They may have set probabilities for different spawn points that are higher or lower (that is, that random is not completely random), but that would make it intentional then. It all the odds in the roll in the code are the same, then you're just on a "lucky streak."

Custom Interloper (baseline resources low setting) accommodates "Gunloper" options, so custom interlopers will find gun cleaning kits and the like whether or not they have actually turned on rifles and/or revolvers. It shouldn't be a big deal since, IMO; particularly since they are useless items to the bow-oriented interloper player. I've put forth an item on the wish list to allow gun cleaning kits to be harvested into 1 cured leather which would give these items some use in interloper (which would affect the balance slightly, but not significantly since they are so rare a find anyways). The bunkers, I suspect, are also not completely tied to the "baseline resources" setting since a custom player may want to play with baseline resources set to low but still have the bunker loot available. If you don't want it in your run, just leave it in the bunker or throw it in a trash can some place would be my recommendation. It doesn't really affect your run unless you want it to. IMO, having custom interloper be slightly different than the standard is an OK compromise since it allows for the customization part. Of course, bringing in individual toggles for those specific items would solve it completely (but it would make the custom menu inordinately long and even more complicated than it already is).

I think items do need to be branded in some way. There are already a lot of great camping and survival equipment stores in Canada for those sorts of things; and I don't think HL necessarily wants to try to compete with them. Branding, however, can be done in subtle and tasteful ways.

A TLD themed camping blanket.

How about TLD themed climbing socks, perhaps with a moose, deer, bear, wolf, etc. knit into the pattern and perhaps with the red patches like the climbing socks in the game.

For a picturesque scene in Coast Highway, they could perhaps use the lookout tower since Mystery Lake already sports both the Camp Office and Trapper's Cabin.

... or a TLD aviator's jacket. 😀 (Seriously, I still see people wearing the Mass Effect N7 leather jacket (streamers and the like). I think an aviator's leather jacket, based on the in game design, might be a great addition to the TLD merch store.

They would be perfect as drink coasters - perhaps as a set.

I like attempting one-zone challenge runs (50 days in a single zone) on various difficulty levels (not saying I'm very successful at going the full 50 days on the higher difficulties, but I do find them fun). Black rock is, perhaps, one of the zones with the most to offer in the way of potential for variety in such a run, so for that I love it - it's brutal, but that's what a challenge run is all about. PS: I absolutely hate T-wolves, though.😀

Let's see: 1) Playing Cards, perhaps a wooden boxed set of two decks with different images on the back of each deck. 2) Mugs that can look like the current ones, but that can go into the microwave and dishwasher. 3) Wood-carved desk set (blotter or perhaps updated as a cooling base for a computer, pencil holder, paper clip holder, desk picture frame) with carved scenes/animals/items from the game. (I once bought my spouse one with carvings from the oil industry that he's cherished for 50 years. ) The wood carving was machine done, so it wasn't terribly expensive. For example, the blotter has a wood strip down each side of the rubber blotter mat that has carvings running the length of it. Pieces could also be sold separately. 4) They could also do little wood-carved statuettes of the various animals in the game based on the icons that appear in the lower right of the screen when loading. These could, perhaps, also be offered inside snow globes (😀 @Leeanda) 5) Canada toques, for sure, adding some print that say The Long Dark, perhaps. Although not in the game, they could offer also matching mittens. For those who live in warmer climates, of course, a similarly themed ball cap. 6) Posters done in the art style from the game, perhaps using the various intro scenes that have appeared over the years (I especially like the one they used when they redid Pleasant Valley, showing Thomson's Crossing). The art style of this game is really exceptional, so I think any number of these would sell well. Perhaps one that shows them all as a tribute to how the game has changed over the years. 7) TLD cowichan sweaters that are perhaps not hand knit and, therefore, less expensive and come in children's sizes as well. The hand knit ones are very nice, but I suspect they don't sell too well due to their price.

Hopefully you're right about an eventual reopening of the store with some new merchandise. HL - I already put in a hopeful suggestion for microwavable versions of the mugs (just more practical or everyday use these days). I'd also like to put in a suggestion for a deck of TLD playing cards (for me to pass time at home 😀 when I'm not playing TLD, of course), as well as some less expensive items. I'd also like to see the Cowichan sweater design available in a less expensive version in children's sizes (since that brings me right back to the ones my mother knit for me as a kid).

I missed out on the mugs. Here's hoping for a restock and some additional new items in the future. For example, I really like the look of the Hinterland mugs, but would actually prefer something that is microwavable, please.

So that's where that hit box is located. Thanks. That bit of rose hips has been frustrating me in my recent Ash Canyon run. I've also noticed that some of the climb-related rose hips I've become accustomed to finding are not spawning in some of my test runs where I have the harvestable plants jacked up to their maximum (or at least they aren't spawning berries). I think maybe some of the old potential harvestable plant spawn locations have been removed or the number of active ones have been reduced (but it's just a guess at this point).

I think that the rationale is that, perhaps, making a tea doesn't boil the water long enough to make it potable. It takes less time to make tea than to boil even 0.50 L of non-potable water. Perhaps the teas could take a little longer to make if non-potable water is used?