SpitztheGreat

This is something that I commented on a few weeks ago; if the stats are accurate then Wintermute is all but dead with players. I play on PS4, and the achievements for Episode 4 are all listed as "Ultra Rare". Just like you said, even the very first achievement in the episode which should take like 30 minutes to unlock is "Ultra Rare". If that's the case then no one who downloads the game is even bothering with Wintermute. To me it's pretty clear that Wintermute in its current form was a mistake. The devs have poured their hearts and souls into it, and I think it's a very respectable product, but from the time they announced their plans for a story mode, to when episodes 1 and 2 were released, years passed. And then they went back and remade the episodes with a new engine, and that cost another 12+ months. In all of that time, the community gravitated towards survival mode and stayed there. Hinterland caught lightning in a bottle with survival mode, and they've done a fantastic job of supporting and nurturing it for years. Meanwhile, Wintermute feels like a niche passion project. They put a ton of effort into it, even though it doesn't seem to be what 95% of players care about. The wait for Episode 4 pretty much broke any interest I have in the mode, I'll happily play Episode 5 but another 12 to 15 month wait for the episode pretty much kills any momentum Wintermute built. To each their own, but this feels like a really odd choice. You bought a game, and are going to wait years to play it, even survival mode? Just in case you aren't aware, this game is NOT a buggy mess, if your afraid that the game is unplayable until it's finished because of bugs you're badly mistaken. But meanwhile you're totally missing out on the awesome survival mode. I'll admit, I came for the story mode too. I didn't think survival would interest me at all, and when I saw this game had a story mode I figured "Ok, that's what I want." But survival mode is really great and it's the core of the game. If you can do some role playing in your head, it becomes a really compelling game mode. Once you get into survival mode, Wintermute feels like the kiddie's pool.

Because the game has enough going on and it doesn't need Methuselah. It was a mistake to include a character like him, they can rarely be handled well because their supernatural nature makes them difficult to incorporate in a story. Think about it like this: So far, the world of the Long Dark has: A world-wide geomagnetic storm that has knocked out technology This storm has contributed towards the mass death of animals (such as we saw at the end of episode 3) A jet airplane has crashed on Bear Island with many fatalities Wildlife that hasn't died has been made extremely aggressive A prisoner jailbreak threatens to unleash one of Canada's most notorious killers There's some sort of plague infecting the people of Great Bear Island. The island's remote location means that no help is coming. In ALL OF THAT, do we really think there's room for a supernatural being to be adequately accounted for? Any ONE of the above issues would be enough for a game, but Great Bear Island is dealing with all of them at once. At this point I hope that Methuselah only gets a passing reference to write him out of the story. Maybe an optional side quest can address his nature, but the main story should stay away from him.

Is it me, or are animals much more resilient at Blackrock? Be it wolves or deer, glancing shots don't seem to kill them from blood loss. I'm currently tracking a deer that I (intentionally) put two rounds into and it hasn't gone down. I got into a fight with a regular wolf that took one revolver round, ran around, attacked him, ran around, attacked me again, ran around, and attacked me for a third time before running off and dying. I'm fine with a challenge, but this doesn't feel like a challenge, it feels like something is broken.

I did see that, and I'm not sure I agree about Methusela. If we're thinking that a simpler story would have worked better, a mysterious/mystical stranger who acts as an omniscient narrator and speaks in riddles, then I'm not sure he would have helped things. Personally, I was never a huge fan of Methusela. Rarely do I see stories include characters like him and use them in a satisfactory way in the eyes of their audience. There's just too many pitfalls with these types of characters. I did notice his absence while playing the episode, and at no time did I think to myself "You know what would make this episode better? Methusela." I suspect the devs made the conscious decision to not include him and that it wasn't a simple oversight. If that's the case then I trust that Hinterland knows what they're doing since they know the nature of Methusela.

I can tell you right now that whatever unique loot they put behind suffocation points would have to be REALLY high end to justify the risk. Something like extra carrying capacity, or another weapon, simply wouldn't be worth it; not for players who are really advanced. It would need to be something like a piece of clothing with extremely high warmth/weight ratio, and 100% waterproof & wind protection. But that would almost cheat the challenge of the game. Maybe the end of the mine could be a really great shelter and have an outdoor egress but can only be reached initially through the really dangerous subterranean route. The shelter would need to be really great, including windows for light, and lots of storage, and a big stove, to justify the risk; but I could see late stage players wanting to use it as a base.

In hindsight, the story is too ambitious. A simpler story of survival where the main characters are trying to escape the island after the auroras have made life there impossible, would have been better. That may sound harsh, but I think Hinterland has done a very admirable job with Wintermute, the problem is that it's just too much. As I get older I'm a big believer in keeping things simple.

The story in Episode 4 was really, really, uneven. Gameplay wise I think Hinterland did a pretty solid job with this episode, but the story was all over the place. The side missions were really well handled in my opinion, but the main quest just felt sloppy. The entire premise of being captured of by the inmates only to be set free and repeatedly & willingly recaptured was a real head scrather. I felt like I could feel the poor writers over at Hinterland trying their hardest to bring this story together and it just not coming easily. I really feel as though the concept of introducing the prison and antagonist came first, and the story was shoehorned around it. As the game progressed I felt like I could feel the seams in the efforts and better understood why this update took so long. If someone from Hinterland came here and told us that they went through three or four total rewrites I could believe it. Sometimes these things happen, so I don't want to insult anyone. Some stories just struggle to come together, and perhaps limitations in the engine, resources, whatever, made it difficult to execute a story like Hinterland would have liked. At the same time though, Mathis was really well written. I thought he was a great antagonist and was very well voice acted. One tidbit that I couldn't help but consider regarding Donner. By the time you find the detonators, Donner has been locked in solitary for many days without outside access to the outside world. I'd estimate that he's been locked in there for at least three days maybe as many as six without contact with the outside world. That means he's not getting fresh food or water. He may have access in his cell to water, but without power who knows the condition of the pipes and if he's able to replenish the water. Without water you can only last about three days. Obviously you can go much longer without food. The point is that Donner would have been in rough shape by the time Mathis got to him, even without the explosion. I actually felt like the episode could have used the sense of urgency this detail would have provided. As it is, like with many open world games, leisurely exploration is allowed even though narratively the situation is urgent.

Episode 4 was the first time I really noticed that the events of the game didn't jive. The aurora, blackrock, the Collapse/GBI's continued economic depression, the plague, plane crashes, there's a lot happening on this island that is supposedly completely isolated.

You seem very determined that everything is going well with Wintermute. The game has been in development for going on four years, with probably another two years still in front of it. That's close to six years for five episodes. Is this really ideal to you? That's an honest question. Because to me, this development process is less than ideal. I mean, sure, we're on the official forums so the people here are the most dedicated fans around- but if Wintermute had been developed more efficiently, imagine how much bigger the game would be. That may not matter to you, but I'm sure HL wouldn't have minded more players buying their game. And if Wintermute had more momentum, word of mouth about Wintermute may have carried it to even greater sales. If you're honestly ok with all of your entertainment needing four to six years to tell their 15 hour story, then we're so radically far apart that I don't think we'll ever agree on much. To me, very few things are worth waiting years for and Wintermute does not rise to that standard. Also, I feel like this is important, I'm a guy that waited 20 years for Shenmue III. I can be patient. But maybe there was a lesson there in Shenmue III that sometimes it's best just to move on.

That's why I said "In hindsight". It's a lesson to learn for the future. I hope there is a season 2, but if there is then it needs to go in a radically different direction. That's why I made the observation and suggestion, five self contained stories would be easier to write than 1 overarching story with mysterious/mystical elements. The redux would have been the only opportunity to scratch the current formula and do something different, but I think at that point it was already too late. This isn't really related to episodes 4 and 5, it's just a general comment, but your comment about the kickstarter reminded me. As someone that only discovered TLD in early 2019, I find it really interesting how the kickstarter is this subtly referenced thing that feels like ancient history. It kills me that so many backers failed to add their comments to their cairn. Also, it would be interesting to know if episodes 4 and 5 are taking so long because the team knows that they have a lot of ground to cover. You're right, I don't think 6 hours of gameplay across two games is going to be enough to organically finish this story. Maybe the original idea was to leave it on a cliff hanger and come back for season 2; and maybe that idea has been scratched. If that's the case, then the next two games may have been redesigned to cover a lot more ground so that we get a satisfying conclusion in episode 5. The team really may have decided that they can't do another season like this.

In hindsight, you know what else may have made life easier for HL? Simplify the story by dropping the mystery element and make Wintermute focus on the survivors of Bear Island as they try to escape. I'm guilty of this myself, but I feel like too many times we expect some sort of mystery to drive the plot; and while that can be good I think it can add challenge to the writing process. I think if Hinterland had dropped that idea and just made this a story about surviving the long dark and navigating the various survivors on the island, I think it would have been an easier story to write and execute.

This is a personal preference, but I would argue that the trend towards 2 year development cycles for 10 episode seasons is not in the best interest of story telling and is only done as a way to spread profits out longer. But to the broader point about narratives losing momentum, the term "strike while the iron is hot" exists for a reason. When you have something like a episodic narrative, it's very helpful to keep the momentum going with the audience. When episodes end on cliff hangers, people are engaged, they want to know what comes next, they're talking about the game/story/whatever to their friends, excitement builds, buzz around the product increases, this is the sense of momentum that I'm talking about. This keeps the audience engaged in the long off-period when there's no new content. But that can only last so long, and the length of time it lasts varies case by case. The longer between releases, the more momentum that is lost. People have a lot of options these days, even the best narratives can only hold on to their audience just so long before the audience begins to lose interest. So in a perfect world, the creative team behind any work of fiction would strive to find the right balance. You don't want to flood the market with an inferior product just so you maximize momentum, but you don't want to take so long that the audience has moved on. While I would argue that your idea that audiences are "use to waiting" is not a badge of honor, it misses the point of what we're dealing with. Let's assume that waiting 2 years for a new season of content is agreed upon as acceptable. The critical element to this is that these seasons are delivering a fully formed story as compensation for their long development cycles. It may take two years to develop one season, but once it's released it's all there (either in weekly installments or mass released at once). That obviously hasn't happened for TLD. Instead of waiting years for an entire season to be released all at once, we're going a year+ between each episode. And while the nature of video games is different from TV or film, it's still creates a problem for pacing. In four years, Wintermute has only had (roughly) nine hours of content. And to make matters worse, those nine hours don't even tell a complete story. In order to get the full story we need all five episodes which will probably take until 2022 or 23 at this rate. That's a long time to wait for a story. Do you know what may have worked better? Self contained stories. If each episode had three hours of content and told a self contained story, that could have helped by at least providing players with a complete product while they waited for the next episode. But a serialized story that may take 5 years to tell, that's asking a lot. I think very simply this was a growing experience for HL, and that there's a lot to learn here about deploying their resources. I think adding a mode to the game that included a narrative was a good idea, but in hindsight I think they went about it the wrong way.

I wasn't going to contribute because the wait hasn't really bothered me, but then I saw that number. 15+ months. I sat here and let that sink in. 15+ months since Episode 3 was released. That struck me hard because it made me realize something; I don't care. Whatever momentum this game had is completely lost. In those 15+ months, I've moved on. I'm either playing Survival mode, or I'm dabbling in other projects. Will and Astrid's story simply isn't compelling enough to survive 15+ months of near radio silence. It's not a bad story, there's a lot of care put into it, but very few narratives could survive such a long hiatus. And it wasn't as though the first three episodes came out in rapid succession and built up momentum, they were released very slowly in a sputtering development cycle. I'm of the opinion that HL owes us nothing at this point. For the number of hours of entertainment that I've gotten out of TLD, HL are heroes. They made one hell of a game and that's the biggest compliment I could pay them. But I think it's fair to criticize them at this point for the development of Wintermute. Wintermute's development feels like it has turned into an example of poor project management. Two episodes, then a remake of those two episodes, then a third episode, and then radio silence on episode four, all over a 4 year period. That's not good. Meanwhile, Survival mode is still getting great new (FREE!) content. It doesn't take a genius to see that something is amiss behind the scenes. If they were to just straight up cancel Wintermute at this point, I wouldn't be surprised. At minimum, they've got to be muttering to themselves "Never again" regarding a game with episodic narrative structure.

I recently left Ash Canyon for the final time, and since then the game has run flawlessly. No crashes, no getting hung up on minor elevation changes. The difference between AC and playing in Timberwolf Mountain was night and day.

I find Ash Canyon to be extremely glitchy like this. I'm not as experienced as many players here, but ever since I entered the map I find it is one big trap. The game randomly crashes (base PS4), and it's extremely easy to get hung-up on the lips of rocks, bridges, or as you discovered- logs. Ash Canyon is a really great map, but I don't think it's fully baked and needed more play testing.