lyttol

been afk for the last couple of hours, realised I missed out my first night sleep, which was in the long cabins (seaward side) beyond the cannery. It would have been faster to just skip the cannery altogether, but where's the fun in that Forlorn connector was the second night... anywhooos, twas fun, and I was very lucky with some near encounters with the yap-yaps... thanks @ManicManiac @jeffpeng @micah6vs8

night sleeps at: transition cave to forlorn. trappers cabin in milton near HRV entrance paradise meadows farmstead (after hrv grave) cave on the plateau region in forlorn after milton basin mystery lake camp office (after the grave in broken railroad) (super day, very lucky with weather) misty falls picnic cave old island connector coal mine (after doing the timberwolf and rieken grave) (also a huge day.) then ravine on last day

No stims , no quits...

Or... be completely heroic and cook 100 fish at 0.03 liters of oil per fish... and take a screenshot of the fish laid out on the pensive pond. That would be AWESOME!!!

@peteloud Sorry to hear your frustrations... and getting eaten through the barn wall sounds really annoying. as for the timberwolves, things changed for me when I started using the terrain more to my advantage, but I may just have been lucky! I also had to use the flare gun to find the 3 survivors, I am 80% sure that they didn't spawn until I fired the gun, coz I checked right past the spot where one of them appeared... so.. interesting what @turtle777 says about finding them without the flare gun (v. cool btw), I'd love to hear what other people's experence was...

Okay, so I've had a little break and I'm writing up part 2 of my review, which is focusing on gameplay mechanics. I had this pasted as a comment beneath my part 1, but since moved it to this seperate post, because I think some people were not seeing it... Challenge Level : Several people (in this thread) have said that the episode is too easy, which to me is missing the point. My main problem with the episode was that I found it too easy, but I've read others who got lost coming out of the farmhouse, or who are having a tough time with the blizzard or with the wolves. We are each coming to the episode with a different experience level with the long dark. And it is, at its base a (really very good) survival simulator. And for a survival simulator to be engaging, all the wonderful mechanics that are in place need to be relevant. And to be relevant, the difficulty of the game has to be carefully matched to the experience leve each of us bring to it. For all of us, there is a difficulty level that is too easy, that would make us yawn and just go through the motions, and for all of us there is difficulty setting which is too hard, and we would get frustrated and give up. And... That difficulty level is different for each of us. So the chapter isn't too easy but it is missing more challenging difficulty settings, and this means that for experienced players, none of the wonderful gameplay mechanics kick in, and so we just go from A to B on the map, completing stuff, while enjoying the scenery, and perhaps yawning once or twice. This is very sad for us experienced players, because, we all love the long dark (we've played it a lot right, coz we like it!) The two basic things I'd want to see so I could enjoy a more challenging playthrough are: Less Loot. If you've played loper your used to blitz searching towns for stuff. There is just too much of everything to make the game challenging. Too much food, too many clothes, too much medicine, too many matches, too much ammo. etc etc. As someone else also mentioned, you can have hatchets, knives, revolver, hunting rifle, bow, a wolfskin coat and moosehide satchel with 2 hours of starting the episode... Less loot. Colder temperatures. This ties to having too many clothes available as well, but its also just too warm... I carried three of four survivors the whole way home without ever having to stop and make a fire... duh. Carrying Companions and Doctoring: This a great idea, but it feels only half way implemented.. On a more difficult setting I'd want to have to put them into warmer clothes, and have to worry about their food levels as well. The whole doctoring component is great but its massively under implemented, no one gets any illness other than dehydration and the one diabetic, what about infection, food poisoning etc... All the mechanics are already in the game! And four carry companions is just repetitive, I felt like I was just lugging living meat across the landscape. What about just one or two, and actually make it a challenge, so that you'd have to break the carry across several days, finding shelter along the way? Even overloaded, I just slung them across my shoulders and stomped all the way across the landscape to the community center without stopping for breath.. Except for one time... (here comes a vignette!) So I was carry the guy who is further away and I'd worked out that timberwolves aren't good at climbing terrain, so the "fight music" came on (more about that later) I climbed the nearest rock ledge and went to put the bloke down. Except I couldn't, because apparently you can't put wounded people down on the top of rocky outcrops.. I mean, it was pretty flat, but what'evs.. fair enough.. So then I'm climbing back down again, all the time getting mauled and watching my health bar disappear, and maybe muttering to myself under my breath. Anywhos.. I get they guy on the ground, get out my revolver with a bazillion rounds of ammo, and make like mad-max on those pesky pleasant valley wolves. As the smoke from my gun cleared, there was a righteous dead-dog fest all around me, but I was now down to about 10% health, and freezing, so I'm thinking perhaps stop for the night after all, and look on my handy satellite nav map and there a blinking prepper cache within one click of my present location (thanks sat nav) so I head for that. I navigate there like a satellite guided arrow, and get my man down on the bed with me having about 5% health. Hoorah. I'm thinking, some bed-time stories, perhaps a little bro-mantic bonding with my dude, who keeps on muttering for his mother and father, I think... Okkkay, maybe less emphasis on the bro-mance... Nevermind, at least a good night sleep amongst all this food and water... I stop short, oh crap, water. I'm down to a quarter which will be good for about 2 hours sleep, and a quick check of my dude (I can't use my sat-nav Doctor HUD thingy since I've put him down) tells me he needs water too. Okay... I need water. No biggie, this ain't my first rodeo, I'll catch two hours sleep and then pop outside and cook some snow up like the pro I know I am. Two hours sleep. Check. Pop outside... Nope. No can do. Can't leave the bunker without my companion... Oh right... no wait... WHAT? Is the game worried I'm going to run off without him? I just want to cook some friggin water FFS. Sense of humour failure... sigh... Okay. I need to take the dude upstairs while I make the water. Can do... Except... I can't see my hand in front of my face. Nooo problemo, Robinson Crusoe here has a lantern. Turn on lantern - check. Locate dude - check. Pick dude up - check. WTF my lantern has gone out. Of course... Can't carry lantern with dude... okay no biggie... I consider... I could put lantern on ground but then I won't be able to come back for it since I'll be leaving dude outside in cold (this actually makes more sense, thanks big brother). I decide, its a prepper cache, how hard can it be to find the exit in the dark once I have dude on my shouders... and.. I keep the lantern. WIN. Execute plan. find prepper cache exit... 30 seconds stumbling around in the dark feeling like a moron, and a little like its not entirely my fault. Literally 60 seconds (that's actually feels like 5 minutes, honestly, try it.) No luck.. Major frustration kicks in.. I persevere.. stagger stagger - dehydration kicks in, and then Astrid actually goes ahead and says it "Hang in there, we're making good progress". I laughed out loud, in a slightly manic-psychotic way... So eventually I do find the exit, and get me and the guy all toasty and hydrated and then start heading to the community center. And maybe I'm feeling a little bruised by my prepper encounter, so to show off, and make myself feel better, I walk along the railing of contemplation bridge, with a 200lb dude on my shoulders... I'm a friggin gymnast, I don't even stagger. hang on.. what... then I realise, there is absolutely no risk of dropping my companion... I dance to the left, then switch right, I even try dropping down a 3 meter ledge... torn clothing, major bruising... But I'm a Jedi, my dude (Wade I think was his name, remember now coz it struck me as slightly ironic.) is just glued to my shoulders, light as a feather.... So yeah, there is all this, at least on the harder difficulty settings: More doctoring, more illnesses, manage patient clothing, manage patient food levels, no auto-updating satellite GPS map, no sat-nav Doctor HUD thingy, perhaps a little staggering (and risk of dropping) when carrying a fully grown adult, certainly not going more than 100 meters without needing to catch breath, and not going more than a couple of kilometers without a longer pause for rest. Timberwolves: I had a major downer on them damn timberwolves to begin with. They felt like randomly occurring forced encounters, not like meeting a dangerous brand of wildlife out in the wilderness. I mean... the fight music and the spiffy changes to the head's up display... I thought Hinterland is all about minimalist HUD stuff, and now I'm looking to see how many wolves there are by reading a number on the bottom of the screen rather than counting the nasty snarly things with the sharp teeth? And who needs the morale counter... how on earth would you ever know that anyway... Its simple keep on shooting at them or running away from them until they get scared and run off, or you get to safety, or die. right? And the fight music... well okay, its kinda fun and dramatic, but I think I should know I'm in a fight before the music kicks in... And that's another thing, the wolves aren't out there stalking for prey, they start off running madly towards you. I'm like 95% sure coz I watched them from miles away once and they just beelined for me. Its lame. Sorry, but it is. The wolves shouldn't just appear out of nowhere and beeline for you, they should be roaming across the map (or at least across the terrain near the player), with the chance of the player evading them, I mean not safely, not consistently, but there should be a chance to spot them first and hide. In the end I did have one good timberwolf encounter, that felt more organic, when I was going up the mining road to the coal mine, and they attacked. This time after I broke their morale they headed higher up, one died, and then they regrouped with one less and attacked again. It was fun because I killed them ALL, but actually more importantly, because it felt they were wildlife in the environment, not just demon wolves swooping in to mess with my live human meat return service. Oh... and, you guys need to fix the AI so they don't all get stuck behind you when you drop down a ledge, and the weirdness when they die and fall into the landscape... Storymode vs Survival: So... Are any of you old enough to remember the "choose your own adventure" story books? You reach a fork in the road, do you : turn left (go to page 3), or turn right (go to page 5)... That sort of thing? Well story mode TLD is one long "choose your own adventure book", except that there is always only one ending. Its okay that it is, I understand that huge titles like Fallout have a limited number of different endings, and that with each parallel storyline you are doubling the work you have to do. And I'd rather have a single good story, than the choice of x different lame ones, and yes I'm still comparing TLD to fallout But if you're going to have one story then make the "turning the pages" bit as fun as possible... Part of this I've already addressed in the challenge level section, but I'd love to have seen more than this... I mean in the end Astrid gets through the mine, but what meaningful choices has the player made to get there. A game that does this really well is This War of Mine. It doesn't have a prolific story arc, but you have to make choices, and sacrifices. What if... all the survivors were out there in the game world from the beginning? All deteriorating slowly from the start? What if rather than being told to collect X amount of stuff before the blizzard, you were just abstractly warned that a blizzard might hit? What if you actually had to feed the survivors in the community center, and tend to their medical needs with all those good medical supplies and doctoring know-how, but you didn't know that at the beginning. What if the wood you collected actually went to stoke the fire there and keep everyone warm? First playthrough, you keep yourself well and healthy, and you get through all the quests, but it takes so long that everyone dies. Is that okay for you? Do you want to try again, and try to rescue more people? What if you can't rescue everyone? How does it sit with you telling someone's loved one's that you were too late and they had frozen to death... Personally that's the game I want to play. A lot. But instead everything is totally wrapped-up, you can't carry Gwen down from the plane until you've found all ten ID cards???, what about just letting us choose and then tell the person "I couldn't find your loved one", how does that feel? I even think that someone at hinterland knows all this, that at some point this other game was the vision, because otherwise why bother with the passenger manifest? But somehow, all the good stuff missed the final cut One response to all this is that this more complex non-linear gameplay belongs in survival mode, and that its just not what storymode is about, but that response saddens me because you guys have done SO MUCH WORK in storymode, and it has all the elements of a terrific and meaningful survival experience, it just needs (needed ) a little more cooking... Thanks for reading. Love the game.

I hear you @Dum_Gen the devs are in a tough bind, with some people wanting more balancing and refinement and others wanting to get to finish the story !!! Given how many hours of wonderful gameplay I've had from the game already, I'd be totally willing to pay for it again twice over. Its already been worth that value to me, and it would give the devs the resources they need to continue the amazing work... But.. that's just me...

You know what @Blankshield that's a nice idea I just hadn't really connected those dots, especially given that there is also a tail section at the crash site in PV and two wings dotted around timberwolf mountain as well...

Yep, lol, also sometimes when they die they roll over into the terrain! .. also, love it that when you walk away from them and drop down a small ledge, they often get stuck and just yelping and running animation... its funny coz with other wildlife, (I'm thinking bears here) I've been super amazed at how vigilantly they will work to get you if there is any route to you... but the timberwolves... not so much... since the episode happens exclusively in pleasant valley, perhaps they should be called pleasant wolves, or valley wolves...

I've just finished episode 3 and wanted to share my reflections on it. I'm an avid Long Darker, and am coming from the perspective of many hours spent playing Deadman (well birchman, heh) so I appreciate that this is one perspective, and that the community of TLD players has many different parts to it. That said I am going to try to strike a balance between being both respectful but also direct. I will break the review down addressing visual enhancements, narrative, and gameplay mechanics, which will start off with the most positive reflections, and go frome there... Visual enhancements: One of the joys for me of the long dark is the visual appeal of its game world, and the new update extends this in subtle and yet tremendous ways. From the cave behind the waterfall, to the stunning new sunsets with their myriad hues, to the revamped blizzard textures, its all just gorgeous, hats off, amazing. When I'm playing TLD, I feel like I get to live in a work of art... Oh, and... -> When I'm playing TLD, I feel like I get to live in a work of art. Also, nice job revamping the tree limbs, and, I think, some new tree textures? There was one that stood out before the bridge that crosses just below the Misty Falls picnic area. And the revamp of thomson's crossing, and the PV farmstead, I noticed and love it all. Narrative elements: From the start of episode 1 with its edgy heavily-laden dialogue between its two main protagonists, reunited after a long separation following the (implied) loss of a child. TLD struck me as taking a new approach to weaving more "real world stuff" into a video game, and I loved this from the beginning. I was curious about the slightly x-files twist that the aurora and the changes to nature created, but all the time felt nourished by the way the game world reflected the plot, exploitation of natural resources, industry over nature, all left abandoned, it felt amazing. Episode 3 continues these dark themes with Molly, the housewife/assasin, who is wonderfully real and clearly at least half-crazy. And Father Tom, whose sincere and... *kind* belief in God made me question my own doubts, that were wonderfully voiced by Astrid's halting responses to him. Its just so nice to see a game address these sort of human mysteries. Okay, so that is pretty much all the good stuff, if you want to walk away feeling warm and fuzzy, stop reading now Narrative elements that I was not so fond off... How many crashed aeroplanes can one island take? Having seen timberwolf mountain's crash-site I was just confused to see yet another crashed airplane (that's 3 so far!). I get it, the electrical problems, the aurora, planes falling out of the sky... But its also a metaphor, for being "on track" in life, and things suddenly and unexpectedly going to shit. Its what prompts us to have to grieve the life before, or risk living a zombie life after. I get it. Its what Grey mother was struggling with for years with the loss of her daughter (climbing accident -right- things unexpectedly going to shit...), and we helped her along with her process by visiting the daughter's grave. That's the second loss of a child after Astrid and Mackenzie's kid. Okay, lot's of airplane crashes, both real and metaphorical, lots of unresolved grief... Now in this episode, we have... another airplane crash... And lot's of grieving survivors we have to help, only this time its the other way round, we bring the "grief tokens" (ID cards) from the bodies back to the survivors rather than from Grey Mother to her daughter's body. And hearing Astrid say "I'm so sorry, I found *him/her, they didn't make it" ten times in a row is just repetitive, I felt like the army death notification guy... Which isn't soo bad, I mean, it must be a horrid job, cool to feel it firsthand. However...I get that delivering the IDs cards ends the uncertainty of not knowing, but its not the human part of helping with grief, the human part is sharing the survivor's memories of the dead loved ones, witnessing and being part of their grieving process, and that was absent from this episode. Also, three of the survivors asked us to go find out what happened since we couldn't find the bodies. If TLD wants to be all hearts and minds, (which I think it does and I agree with) a huge opportunity was missed in not seeing the reunion of the survivors with their loved ones whom we rescued by carrying half way across the map... And speaking of carrying 4 people half-way across the map, how much do we remember about the breathing lumps of meat we were carrying. I found myself straining to hear what they were muttering while I carried them, but I really never felt like I bonded with any of them... And that felt really sad because I think I would have bonded pretty powerfully with them while I cared and carried them, if only there was a bit more narrative material tucked in there. But I digress from my main point, which is that I feel that there was a LOT of repetition of plot elements throughout the story. Another thing that bugged me a lot was the way the landlines just popped up everywhere, ring ring, Molly here. I get that they needed someway to allow the relationship between Astrid and Molly to develop, but really... I found it hella-clunky. And while feeling chaffed by it when it rang in the burnt out hut =as I was carrying Gwen down from the crash site, I realised that it reminded me of how forced it felt when Methuselah kept on showing up in random places. So more repetition, this time of clunky plot devices. A final gripe that I have in terms of narrative is Astrid's monologue. How many times can I hear "I've never felt so cold in my life" while freezing again for the fourth time in one day, or "that doesn't sound good" as the wolves approach, or "its okay, we're going to make it", "we're making good progress" spurted out at random when I was carrying someone. Feeling engaged requires that you feel "in" the game world, and this sort of repetition rips me away from it. Or when you open a fridge, find a rancid piece of rabbit meat and hear Astrid enthusiastically proclaim "I'll take it!" or "This could come in handy!". Compared to the expense of the complex (and beautifully crafted) cutscenes, would it have cost too much to have say.. five times more way of Astrid telling us that she is cold, and that she doesn't like wolves... and personally, just once or twice hear her say while she's carrying a dude 4 miles across a frozen wasteland something akin too "Christ your one heavy son-of-a-b*tch!" And could we just have had a bit more logic to when she says things... why not wait and see if we accept an item we've searched before saying "I'll take it" for example? Or the impact of having her say something like "huh, freezing today, sucks as much as it did yesterday, who'd have guessed" *when you had actually been freezing the day before*... This sort of stuff for me is really important... Okay, so if you've read this far, thanks for taking the rough with the smooth. I love this game, its my favourite game ever, which is why I care so much. Please try to respond constructively, if you feel I'm not being constructive, feel free to let me know that, I am trying to write in good faith. This is already a huge post, I have at least as much to say about gameplay mechanics, I'll write it up in a bit! with my very best wishes and deep gratitude to the team at hinterland who have to my mind, and I really mean this as mcuh as everything else I have written, created a masterpiece. Thank you.

It ended for me when I got back to crossroads after getting bored and slogging it up to signal hill.. So yeah, it ends... "left my rifle somewhere".... pray god you never have to say this while on army exercise... NCO wrath is real.

I had trouble too, but found it eventually... Just do a methodical search of the crash site, there is no map... Check all the way up to the main body of the plane, there is one corpse there. Also another one is just behind a piece of plane, on the "outside" of the plane's crash path, easy to miss.. And don't feel guilty about Gwen, just make sure she has enough water... Its a bit weird that they force you to spend hours hunting for an ID card while you have a wounded survivor to rescue IMHO....

Also... exploit the terrain... Its much easier if you have a rock wall behind you, as it limits their approach angles. Or for total safety climb up one of the angled tree trunks, or climb up onto a rock.. Just beware that these last two won't work if you are carrying a survivor, as the wolves can still attack them (you can't seem to drop survivors on top of rocky areas, even if they are flat...) Also, if you find a "niche" somewhere, the wolves often get confused and don't attack at all, just yelping and trying to work out how to get to you, which gives you time to reload, and breath...

How sad that such a rich and community-mending thread would end with this two liner. Perhaps it was intended as a joke but to me it feels callous and disrespectful.

Hi there @Ankster91, As @Comet777 says the motherload of loot is on top of the summit on timberwolf, and it can be fun working out how to get there. If your gameplay evolves in the direction of trying harder settings (interloper and beyond), then random loot becomes more sparse and you will want to start knowing where the 100% spawns are. But while you are in this golden phase of the game where you are still exploring on the easier levels, I agree with everyone else's advice, enjoy exploring everywhere, knowing where all the cars and buildings are will come in useful if you go for the harder levels...