Glflegolas

Alright - It's official. I have managed to visit every single region on Great Bear Island, without sleeping once! (YouTube videos of my feat will be uploaded over the coming days/weeks). Now, I have a question for you. What should the end-goal of this series be? To survive to 14 days? That's pretty much a given, as I'm on day 12 and still have enough coffee for ~4.5 to 5 more days, easily. Trying to go to the bitter end... ehhh. That would likely end with me just staying put somewhere like Mystery Lake or Coastal Highway, eternally exhausted, surviving on bear meat and fish. It would be extremely repeditive, and I wouldn't really enjoy playing it, and I don't imagine you'd like watching it either. Something else? This is what I've been leaning towards for the past little while now. My initial thought is to kill the moose on Monolith Lake using a revolver, as the moose doesn't spawn there often and will take a lot of ammo to take down. And I feel like that's a good excuse to finally earn a good night's sleep :). I could also kill Scruffy, but that's not very exciting. Just call it quits here? I mean, I guess I could consider visiting every region on Great Bear without sleeping a victory condition in itself? Maybe it's time to start a new challenge. Let me know your thoughts.

Mmmm, that sweet, sweet, Canadian lemonade... For that matter, why isn't the water in the toilets frozen, given that buildings are often below 0C? Seems kinda odd, but no odder than your water bottle not freezing solid even at -40C I guess. I guess those Mainland Springs water bottles must be very well insulated.

@StrelokYou know, I'd actually use those water purification tablets all the time if you could get unsafe water directly from (freshwater) ice fishing holes or waterfalls. Maybe that could be an idea for a future update or a mod?

I'm back! Due to excessive lag in Ash Canyon, I ended up doing a time-lapse of my walk to the goldmine, featuring music from the game. However, since then, I have upgraded my GPU, and get much better performance than ever! I have recorded an episode on the new GPU, and will be uploading that and the Ash Canyon montage within a few days. P.S. I just might pick up a companion somewhere along the way. Staying awake at night can be such a lonely experience, don't you think?

Never laugh at live bears. Or dragons.

Hello folks, As you might be aware, I'm recording myself doing a No Sleeping Challenge in TLD. Recently, I've changed computers, and with that, have been forced to use different recording software. On my old PC, I used the XBox Game Bar for recording, but my new (to me) PC can't run that, so I've used OBS Studio. My new PC runs TLD better than my old one, even though the specs are about the same, but that's mainly because it's a desktop and doesn't suffer from thermal throttling. I can get a nice smooth framerate at 1080p, as long as I don't go overboard on the quality. Only problem is, that OBS software causes severe lag spikes, both in-game and in the videos I record. I've tried messing around with the settings a bit, but it doesn't seem to help much... no matter what quality level I set in-game or in the software, the lag spikes are still there. Are there any alternatives to OBS out there that don't cost a small fortune and don't use as many resources? I know that the ideal solution would be a GPU upgrade, but that's difficult to justify (GPU prices are crazy pricey right now), given that 90% of the time that I'm using this PC, I'm using it to surf the web, check emails, and write research papers -- all of which are well within its capabilities.

Here's my list of the top 5 most useless items. Car battery. Makes the list as it's the only item in Interloper that has no use whatsoever. You can't even use it as a missile to throw at a pesky bear that's charging at you. If there was some item that you could find/craft so that it charges during the aurora, maybe it would make the flashlight more useful by giving you ~3 flashlight charges per car battery charge? Ballistic vest. It's just too heavy 99% of the time. However, it can be a game-changer if you're playing Interloper, and especially Deadman. I'm currently using the vest in my No Sleeping Challenge, where getting lost condition back is a rather slow process. Flashlight. It makes exploring during the aurora really easy, but just too heavy and useless the rest of the time. If the batteries held their charge post-aurora, though... maybe I'd consider using it a bit more often? It'd be nice if you could use the car battery to recharge it a few times if it goes dead before the next aurora. Water purification tablets. You need a fire to melt snow anyways so why not wait a little longer to make potable water? The only use of these tablets is if your fire gets blown out and you've got some unsafe water lying around your inventory. Or you're in a big rush to go somewhere and don't have the patience to boil your water. I might use tablets once ever 40-50 in-game days on average. Otherwise, I don't. Painkillers. Most useless item in-game IMO. Pain simply isn't debilitating enough to warrant their use. I'll take them if they're conveniently available, but otherwise... I'll just wait it out.

This is kind of what I was thinking. The Collector's Edition could be incorporated as a DLC for existing players, and added into the price of the base game for anyone new purchasing the game. I see your point. I also would like to see Episode 5 released sooner rather than later. However, once that's done, I think we need to do some serious thinking about the future of the game. Hinterland could keep adding new regions almost indefinitely as DLC, but is that really the best future for the game? I think -- and this is my opinion only -- that once Episode 5 is released, that Hinterland should make mod support a priority. Then, they should focus on improving what's already in the game, instead of adding more stuff. At some point post-Episode 5 release, it's time for Hinterland to change gears, IMO, and start working on an entirely new product. However, because they were proactive and have incorporated mod support, TLD is by no means coming to an end. New regions will be added for some time to come by the community -- I'm really excited by Kai's work in The Long Development, and I'm sure all kinds of new gear will be added too. Personally, I think TLD will remain at least somewhat popular for ~5-7 years after Hinterland releases its last update to the game (in ~3 years from now). Keep in mind that the game is already about 7.5 years old (since its Alpha release), and ~15-17 years is a pretty good lifespan for any computer game.

I will admit, the micro harvesting trick is a bit of an exploit, but so is daytime starvation and eating just before bedtime. And climbing down impossibly steep slopes, and a hundred other things, some of which I've done and others that I don't know about. With a game as hard as Interloper though, I don't have a problem with using a few exploits. Still, I'd prefer if the risk of parasites gradually decreased as cooking skill increases, rather than being all or nothing. I also use the 1 piece of bear/wolf meat per day trick, as I'm OK with a 1% risk of catching parasites per day. I've done the math, and even after 50 days, the risk of catching parasites that way is only 40% or so. By that time you should have Level 5 cooking anyways if you're being proactive.

Hello everyone, As you may know, I'm a bit of a nomad in the game, rarely staying in any one region for more than 10-14 in-game days at any one time. One side effect of this, however, is that I know most of the regions pretty well. In my opinion, there appear to be three "generations" of regions in their detail. 1st generation The oldest maps in TLD, namely Mystery Lake, Coastal Highway, Pleasant Valley, Timberwolf Mountain, and Desolation Point, along with The Ravine and Crumbling Highway. They also have the least amount of detail, most noticeably with the rocks, which are all one uniform colour. 2nd generation These maps include Forlorn Muskeg, Broken Railroad, Mountain Town, Hushed River Valley, and Bleak Inlet. These maps feature many different shades of colour to their rocks, new grass textures, choppable scrub brushes, climbing up roots, new waterfall textures, and just look generally more detailed than the 1st generation maps. 3rd generation The most detailed maps in-game, this includes Keeper's Pass, Ash Canyon, and Blackrock. Once again, there is a massive upgrade to the textures of rocks, along with many more models of trees, grass, fallen trees, decayed buildings, flowing water, etc. Why do I bring this up? Some of the older regions are really well laid out, and aesthetically pleasing -- Coastal Highway is a prime example of this, and the houses on Jackrabbit Island and Misanthrope's Homestead are some of my favourite bases in-game. However, compared to the newer regions, Coastal Highway looks very dated, compromising its aesthetics. The most stark contrast is the transition from Keeper's Pass South to Pleasant Valley; the terrain in Keeper's Pass South just looks so much better than in Pleasant Valley. In my opinion, it's worth giving some of the game's older regions -- especially the 1st generation regions -- a bit of a facelift, giving them the same amount of detail as the newer regions. Would it be time-consuming? Sure, but it's time well spent as far as I'm concerned.

That's of course assuming that your cooking is Level 5 or you're playing on a difficulty where parasites aren't a problem. However, I guess level 5 cooking is fairly easy to get from a couple ravaged deer carcasses if you chop them each into a thousand tiny steaks...

I have actually used all three forges at various times. Desolation Point is the most convenient for coal, but it's a bit out of the way, and the Riken is really dark inside, meaning I always need to use light sources. Desolation Point tends to run out of food rather fast too, so it's not really a good place to live for any length of time. Forlorn Muskeg is the most central forge and offers lots of light to see by and sufficient coal, but it isn't indoors (so no carrying smelly food when forging) and I don't really like navigating the Forlorn Muskeg unless the visibility is at least halfways decent. Broken Railroad isn't a bad region overall with the massive hunting lodge not far away, but, as others have said, all the coal has to be lugged in from Forlorn Muskeg. It's not a forge that I have used very often for the latter reason.

===Warning: post contains spoilers=== For point #2, I think what Jace is referring to when she says "I've been dealing with guys like you", what she refers to is *probably* that, as a young Black woman in astrophysics, she's dealt with a lot of racism over the years from older white duds like Mathis for years. I personally don't have a problem with that. That scene you're referring to in general, however, is a bit goofy-looking IMO. As someone with a black belt in karate, I'm gonna pretend to be "CinemaSins" and show you what I mean: Why is Mathis the only one of all those criminals who's armed? What are all his thugs there for? Emotional support? Come on, they had rifles and were shooting at Mackenzie as he was trying to escape the prison! Really, Mathis? You look like you've never fought with an axe before. The fact that you're about to strike next is so obvious literally anyone could block it and/or hit you. I'd give this a pass if you were some inexperienced thug, but you're a career criminal and must have been in a street fight or two. If I were Mathis, I'd use my left hand to stun Mackenzie (who's no doubt focusing highly intently on that impending axe-strike) and then follow up with the axe. Or, why not get my feet involved and smash out Mackenzie's knee? Steel-toed boots would make short work of it. See, this is what happens when you give your moves away. I have no complaints about Mackenzie on the other hand. He did as well as can be reasonably expected for someone who hasn't had to fight hand-to-hand for his life before.

Here's a real Canadian bathroom. These open-air toilets are quite common in the backcountry, where privacy generally isn't the top priority.

Wait what? Is this really a thing? I need this. Now, if we could only have a decorate mod, that would allow us to build chairs and furniture out of reclaimed wood to sit in while crafting and repairing so we wouldn't get tired as quickly...

You know, it's entirely possible that this will be added to the game someday via a mod. I'd also enjoy a greater ability to build in-game.

Nova Scotia.

Finally it snowed! What better time to go out and fly a drone?

For those of you who are asking: on camera (but not necessarily uploaded yet), I have been to Hushed River Valley, Mountain Town, The Ravine, Bleak Inlet, Forlorn Muskeg, Broken Railroad, Mystery Lake, and Winding River without sleeping a wink. Here is Episode 5: Episode 6: And Episode 7:

Full disclosure: I use maps whenever I play Interloper. Yes, it makes the game easier, but you know what it also does? It means that I can actually plan ahead, survive, and not freeze to death. Even with a map, Interloper is no joke, but having the map makes the difference between challenging but still manageable survival (FUN!) vs constantly being lost and freezing to death (NOT FUN!). If I'm not having fun while playing this or any game, something's wrong.

There hasn't been much in the way of snow where I'm at, but that doesn't mean I can't get some top-notch winter photos!

Episodes 3 and 4 are out!

You start referring to your night's sleep as "filling up your sleepy-eye".

The most complicated randomly generated map ever has to be that of Dwarf Fortress. Quoting the wiki page: Terrain generation works as follows (quoting Tarn Adams): The map's history is generated as follows (quoting Tarn Adams): This process can take over half an hour (even on a modern PC) but you do get a world that is far more impressive than most procedurally generated game worlds out there.

@jeffpengI can give you a rough guess to the size of Great Bear Island. I have estimated it to be about 27.85 km^2. broken railroad 0.45 bleak inlet 3 ash canyon 1.87 blackrock 2.57 coastal highway 3.70 desolation point 0.58 forlorn muskeg 2.75 hushed river valley 1.32 mountain town 1.50 mystery lake 2.57 pleasant valley 5.46 timberwolf mountain 1.62 old island connector 0.11 the ravine 0.10 keeper's pass north 0.13 keeper's pass south 0.12 The biggest in-game map that I know of is the Lord of the Rings Minecraft Mod, which is semi-procedurally generated (terrain/structures are random, regions pattern is fixed). It measures about 200,000 km^2 (about the size of Great Britain). Still, Great Bear is a very large map, especially considering it's all hand-designed.