UpUpAway95

29 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

The barn would be a nice one to have..the red would really give it that Christmas feel.. but yes there's so many places that people love to stay at.. I agree about the Quonset though,maybe a fishing hut or  one of the islands?

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.

41 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

I forgot the Feats Merit Badges... so I've added them to the previous post now.
I kind of want them all... I might even consider making a sash.  

Or putting them all over a bomber jacket.  

... 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.

2 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

I'd also love to get some physical versions of the "Merit Badges" I've earned for feats/challenges/events.  

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.

3 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Demand massively exceeded supply. They explained the reasoning in their post but basically they had to shut the store down due to COVID and it's been down this whole time. Presumably they didn't reorder anything, and simply opened the store briefly with whatever merch they had left in stock, just to get some stuff out for the holidays. People have been asking for it for a long time, after all, makes total sense that they'd opt to liquidate remaining stock vs. let it sit in some back room. They have plans to open the store for real, this is just sort of an appetizer if you wanna call it that.

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).

16 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

Oh no, I meant on top of regular water too..   it'd be a grind if unpotable was the only option.

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?

It would work for me, gameplay-wise, as long as we could use either type of water in teas.  I'd hate to have to carry around a separate bit of unpotable water just to make teas with during a quick stop.

Hidden crevasses - run can end anywhere at any time as the snow opens up and swallows the player whole.

After just having watched another interloper player in a custom interloper game complain about finding a gun cleaning kit in their run (and going on about how it just shouldn't happen in interloper), I thought it would be nice, instead, to give the find a small purpose by allowing the player to harvest the kit into 1 cured leather.  Certainly, gunloper players would never think of harvesting such a precious find and, perhaps, custom interloper bow oriented players wouldn't mind finding one quite so much.

2 hours ago, FaT McMarlin said:

I really drank my last hot coffee and sprinted with the wind towards the dam. Spent the day looting it out and warming up, hit the trailers as well. Birch bark tea and cat tails fix my condition enough where sleeping got me back to 90 percent or so. Maybe not the safest immediate choice, but it worked out in the end.

 

Not a horrible choice and basically it comes down to whatever works.  Surprised you were able to loot the dam in the dark (I simply can't see these days in the dam without a flare or torch). 

I actually agree with your choice not to return to the logging camp since you had already looked there.  That's why my choice would have been to goat down to the Lonely Cabin, just in case I could find matches or some clothing or food at that location.  I still could have warmed up  and, hopefully, the weather would have cleared.  I then could have made my way to the Trapper's Cabin and from there out to the Mountain Town region if necessary. 

Understandable that, without really knowing that matches are a guaranteed find at the FM forge, you went for ML.

1 hour ago, Dr. S. said:

Spawn must have been FM in order to  be at the camp office on the morning of day 2. 
 

Logging trailers will be warm if you sleep or pass time in bed, so I would return there. 
 

But I also would have gone from the camp office straight to Trappers rather than go to the lookout tower. Or probably stopped at Trappers first upon reaching ML. 

Agree - that seems the most likely unless he's on a custom interloper template and chose to spawn in ML.  If spawning in FM, I would have made my way to the forge to pick up the matches there.  It's possible he made directly for ML, but then he still should have picked up a flare at the railway car along the way.

23 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

Okay, I'm wrong.

Not saying you're wrong.  Over all the maps, it is virtually impossible to run out of cloth; but you know, I do tend to do one-zone challenges.  In many zones, finding excess clothing is a cause for intense celebration because it equals cloth.

Where did you spawn?  I think you've missed finding matches or flares someplace in getting to Mystery Lake.  Your map shows you at the broken lookout, so goating to the lonely cabin seems like the best location to survive without a fire.

ETA:  I hate the weather in Mystery Lake.  The blizzards are frequent enough and the terrain is quite open in places that you can find yourself in trouble quite easily.  I also seem to get an inordinate share of sprains in that region - the hills are just steep enough to slip and sprain and ankle or wrist.

Just now, hozz1235 said:

I was specifically referring to the usefulness of clothing as clothes.

Sure, I get cloth is not obsolete.  With all the bedrolls, couches, pillows, drapes, etc., is it even possible to run out of cloth??

 

Depends on the zone you're in, doesn't it? and whether or not you have the tools to tear down bedrolls, couches, and pillows.

20 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Yes.  To me, a game being a "survival" game does imply that it's necessarily difficult.  To me, it's a genre that says I'm going to be asked to pay attention to things like sleep, hunger, thirst, etc. rather than, say, dps and weapon styles or upgrades (shooter genre) or story choices, conversations, and personalities (rpg genre).  Also, I believe difficulty is a relative thing - some things are more difficult for some people than other things.  I also think a game can benefit (sometimes) by expanding to be inclusive to people with different abilities, ages, and interests.  Of course, the devs are in the best position to assess this and make the ultimate decisions on what criticisms they take into consideration when plotting out what they want to do.  I don't believe anyone here thinks TLD is a bad game - or else they wouldn't be here suggesting improvements instead of being elsewhere, playing something else.

I'm quoting myself here to correct a very serious typo in this post.  I'm flattered that people are liking this comment, but if they wish to withdraw their likes after I correct it, I'll understand completely:

The first line should read:  Yes.  To me, however, a game being a "survival" game DOES NOT imply that it's necessarily difficult.  To me, it's a genre that says I'm going to be asked to pay attention to things like sleep, hunger, thirst, etc.

I apologize for my sloppy proofreading and any misunderstanding that has resulted.

On 11/1/2023 at 2:20 PM, hozz1235 said:

Yeah, there are actually quite a few items in game that become obsolete (I'm thinking clothing now).  There is a mod that allows using tinder as a fire fuel source, which I think makes sense.

Obsolete clothing = cloth, which is never obsolete.  Socks always need repair and torches and snow shelters require it.  I do use tinder plugs and cat tail heads as trail markers a lot since they are each to gather at any place (even if I wind up breaking sticks), unlike spray paint which I don't usually carry on me.  Of course, the advantage of spray paint is that it places a marker on your map (if you're using charcoal to fill it in, which I usually don't bother with now that I know the maps).

Allowing for the use of cat tail heads to make torches (as suggested on another thread) seems like a good idea.  I'd hate it though if HL stopped allowing us to pull torches from fires as a result.  Perhaps they could disallow the breaking down of torches into sticks to make the practice or overloading a fire with sticks and then pulling tons of torches less beneficial as a rebalance if they allow us to craft torches from tinder.  Newsprint could also be used in the making of another type of insulating undershirt (perhaps a little heavier and less effective that the ptarmigan down one).

29 minutes ago, KingFuzz said:

This is a really good point. Sometimes I the confusion comes down to using words to describe something when those words can mean different things. Some games are intentionally difficult to play from a skill perspective. Others are difficult because they are poorly made. Same word; different meaning. Which is why HL (and I imagine every game developer) wants us to be constructive in our feedback. 
I don’t know. What do you think?

Yes.  To me, a game being a "survival" game does imply that it's necessarily difficult.  To me, it's a genre that says I'm going to be asked to pay attention to things like sleep, hunger, thirst, etc. rather than, say, dps and weapon styles or upgrades (shooter genre) or story choices, conversations, and personalities (rpg genre).  Also, I believe difficulty is a relative thing - some things are more difficult for some people than other things.  I also think a game can benefit (sometimes) by expanding to be inclusive to people with different abilities, ages, and interests.  Of course, the devs are in the best position to assess this and make the ultimate decisions on what criticisms they take into consideration when plotting out what they want to do.  I don't believe anyone here thinks TLD is a bad game - or else they wouldn't be here suggesting improvements instead of being elsewhere, playing something else.

14 hours ago, KingFuzz said:

Are you intentionally trying to be antagonistic? If people don’t agree with your assessment are their opinions just invalid? @Leeanda has done an excellent job at helping foster a sense of community here. Why degrade them just because you don’t like the valid points they’ve been making?
 

You play with mods to change the base game more to your liking, but then complain about the base game when it doesn’t perform to your liking? What exactly is your point? 
 

Just today I was playing and my game bugged out. (PS4) I had to reload the game 3 different times. But I kept reloading it. Care to guess why? Because this game is an amazing game despite its bugs and because Hinterland seems to have a pretty good track record of fixing the bugs in due time. 
 

The eyesight thing is possibly a good point that @UpUpAway95 is making but conflating removing permadeath and fixing lighting glitches is ridiculous. Permadeath is literally the point of the game. Your decisions are made to matter. It’s part of what makes this game as amazing as it is.

Not everyone plays every game for the same purpose or desiring the same level of difficulty or challenge.  Other goals could be to find every cairn, map every location, find every recipe, etc. and some players invest many, many hours into a save file to accomplish that.  Many do it in pilgrim files expressly because they don't want to see their file delete when their goal for that run is only partially completed.  If the permadeath deletion of the save file was something that the player could opt not to do if they do have a different goal for that run, they might be inclined to do it at a higher difficulty and take some risks - maybe have more fun in the process.

As I said, nothing stops me from playing any game as a permadeath game.  I just have to opt to manually delete my save file and start over if I mess up and die.  For me, at least, that personal commitment is enough for the game to feel like my decisions matter and that the last thing I want to do is take a stupid and die.  It's nice when a game gives me the added option of turning on a feature that will delete the file automatically for me (like Minecraft Hardcore mode), but it's also nice to know that I don't have to play Minecraft that way every time I start a file - that on some runs, I'm free to take more risks.

53 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

Some of us don't have the option to back up saves... Does that mean we're silly?  

Just because permadeath is only in survival it doesn't make it wrong or bad. It's part of the game ,that's why it's called survival..

It just sounds to me that you want all the rules of wintermute in survival ,but why not just play story or try and choose custom settings and mods that will give you that..

It's better than blaming htl for bad game design.  Which in my opinion is not remotely true.

I would absolutely love it if HL would give us the option to play with saves or without them.  Currently, the option to play with them is the one that is missing.  I play a lot of games that don't arbitrarily delete my save file as "permadeath" games and have no problems starting over when that's the way I intend to play it.  In those other games, I don't feel that having an option to not play every run as a permadeath one detracts from the suspense and challenge of my permadeath ones.  Non-permadeath survival is still different than playing a story mode, so I can understand the "why not" for just playing the story.  I think adding the ability to save would make TLD a better game; whereas others feel that it would detract from their permadeath experience.  That's why I would favor it as a toggle one selects when starting a new run.  If one opts to play with saves off, then they would still have no option to change it mid-run.  The default can even be to have saves off so that it becomes the conscious decision of the player to change it to allow for saving.  Why not allow the ability to make the choice at the start of each run without having to resort to mods?

Tbf, the gaming industry puts itself in the position of pre-selling things with promises to finish things on a schedule; and then all sorts of things inevitably cause delays to that timetable.  The devs really shouldn't be surprised then that people get frustrated and upset at this practice and that some studios feel compelled to add pressure to their employees (crunch) to get things done.  I also find it hard to believe that the gaming industry is devoid of employees who just don't work as hard as they could during the work day or who don't procrastinate certain tasks to their "too hard" pile to be tackled later.  That's been an issue for employers in virtually all industries for as long as I can remember.  It's a balancing act.  Overall, I think HL has done a good job about communicating things; however, it still stings that it has taken so many more years than I expected to see Episode 5 of Wintermute and now that completion of Tales is also taking longer to complete that initially expected.  That said, I paid my money and there's not much to be done about it other than keep waiting and hope that it does get done sometime.

I think that the snow shelter uses snow is a given and just not animated, much like going outside to get snow and put it into a container each time to melt for water isn't animated.  The sticks and cloth used are merely used to support the blanket of snow that would be shovelled on top. 

Igloos would require that ice blocks be cut and would assume the snow depth to be sufficient to allow for such compaction of the snow pack.  They are meant to be a more long-terrm shelter, so perhaps if we are ever allowed to actually build our own bases.

Snowballs might be fun, but I don't see them as really being practical or really different enough from tossing rocks to personally care whether they add them to the game or now.

5 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I just quartered a bear so I did a quick test.  I killed the bear near Unnamed Pond late one day, slept for the night, then found the frozen carcass the next day.  I lit a fire to thaw it enough to quarter, then made a few trips to Trapper's cabin with the hide, guts, and quatered bags.  By then it was near the end of that day and I left one quartered bag inside and the rest outside.  All were showing 39% at the time.

I did something else for a few hours, slept for 10, then checked the bags in the morning.  Indoor and outdoor, all were at 25%.  It follows what @ajb1978 said, their condition losing 1% per in-game hour.  I harvested a piece of meat from the indoor bag and from one outdoor bag, both pieces are 25%.

So in this short test, there's no difference in rate of decay with quartered bags left inside or outside, thawed or frozen.  I didn't think to leave a bag in my inventory, maybe that would decay quicker?  I might try another test with a couple of the bags left outside to see if it makes any difference.

 

Must have been a bug then - can't explain it.  All I know is that in the end I had one bag that gave me steaks that were "moldy" and the bag that I left outside and harvested immediately following it resulted in "gamey" slices.  Maybe it is just if the bag is in inventory and maybe being right next to the fire also played a role.  I'll maybe set up a test myself at some point trying to repeat exactly what I did before (if I get the notion to waste a bear on it).