Sherri

I want to clarify... I didn't mean this as a criticism in any way. This is my favourite game of the last ... hm almost decade... I just get bothered by the impatience and complaints and wanted to offer one possible theory.

The long and the short is that I feel like I somehow got this game for a steal (Steam Summer Sale) and wasn't expecting to get so much fun out of it. Just wanted to offer an opinion that more paid "stuff" would not be out of line and I'd be happy to invest more money in TLD *if* money was a possible roadblock.

Since @Raphael van Lieropassures us that money is not an issue... I rest assured.

1 hour ago, Admin said:

We know there's a lot going on in this post, but we'll address these bits at this point...

• Episode Four and Five are in progress. Our focus is on Episode Four right now, and it's coming along. We hope to be able to speak more about it soon, but as always we want to avoid setting a target that we miss, so making promises on dates at this point isn't going to happen.
• The time and attention of Creative Director @Raphael van Lieropis one of the most vital resources for the studio and is limited. The previous Mailbag would take a couple hours of his week each week we did it, and we want to find a way of reaching our players and community without taking Raph away from working on the game and studio growth. We're talking about things internally, and leaning towards a few ideas but until we can do something on an ongoing basis we don't want to say too much.
• We hope to have more information soon, which loops back into the first answer.

The other point to be made is that we are working on the game, as mentioned, and not releasing the last two Episodes is not an option on the table. So while we appreciate the desire to help us financially, we've promised them and we will deliver them without our players having to buy anything more.

Oh I'm not asking these Qs. I'm happy to wait. And I know progress is being made.  I just see a lot of impatience. lol

Lots of players questioning things like:

• Where is episode 4&5?
• Why don't they answer the Mailbag anymore and they haven't replaced it yet.
• Why no news when we were promised news?

My business-person perspective on this, is that Hinterland might have had to drop their devs to part-time or layed people off, but not wanted to make this widely known.

• The pandemic made in-person working a no-go and added a lot of personal strain on employees esp. if they have children.
• Hinterland AFAIK has no other games on market. Long Dark... while AMAZING, peaked its sales long ago I'd assume. And is probably just providing a trickle of income now - usually spurned by sales. But games sold on sale earn less profit. I can't fathom how you pay several developers, designers, voice actors, motion capture people, Ralph and any other managers, testers, etc... on the trickle of income from a popular yet several years old game. The market for people who love open world, peaceful, survival games must be pretty close to saturated.
• They are located in  Victoria and Vancouver, BC... two of the most expensive places in Canada so salaries must be competitive aka high.
• They do a lot of donating... which is cool, but costs more $.
• They don't sell addons and no longer sell swag.

If they had to switch folks to part-time or lay people off... I wouldn't be surprised or upset. It happens. But it's also not a surprise if they want to keep it on the down low so there isn't a freak out of people crying for episodes 4 & 5. That would hurt any potential future sales.

I can't for the life of me figure out why they don't make a bunch of 'semi-official' sandbox level packs and release them as paid expansions. They don't have to be QUITE as huge and detailed as regular levels, but they would keep sandbox players interested in fresh content and generate more income. Once you have a cool game engine that people love playing in... adding level packs should in theory be easy-ish. Heck, I'd pay for some of these. They could be in a new survival mode "Beyond Great Bear" and give you other real and made up environments to explore in.  They could make it so these levels don't connect to the main Great Bear levels, so that the 'real' survival mode is kept pure. Maybe disable achievements in these levels. The only restriction is they have to be cold regions of course. But that doesn't HAVE to mean snowy Canada. Since Ash Canyon introduced those awesome rope bridges... imagine a whole level set in the tops of great redwood trees with networks of bridges and ropes. Or a whole level of ice caverns. An entire level of densely packed forest like the birch area in PV. A crowded town like a full map of Milton. A large indoor complex. Etc.

Heck, I know this is unpopular... but I would PAY for episodes 4 & 5. At this point I have played so many hours of this game and bought it on sale... my entertainment value is a few cents per hour played. I feel like I owe them more money. I would have bought swag if it was still available. LOL.

Even a $5 addon with a pack of unique clothing items would be neat.

There is a reason so many game studios monetize the heck out of their games, running a game studio is expensive. I get wanting to not be like the other greedy, crunch-loving, pay-to-win, 500 cosmetic items to buy.... type of game companies... but you do need to be a little bit greedy in monetizing your amazing work, if you want to stay healthy as a company. You don't have to be jerks about it, it can be done WELL to benefit both players and company.

Even a Patreon or another Kickstarter is better than NOT getting the final episodes.

I want to give them more $ but have no way to do so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just my 2-cents.

EDIT: Did the math... I've now gotten under 5 cents per hour of entertainment value from this game. Currently the CHEAPEST form of entertainment available to me beyond reading free books. HAHA. Holy smokes Hinterland. Sell some expansions.

On 12/15/2020 at 8:53 AM, Grignard_TN said:

I don't want to spoil things but when you go to the Aurora make sure you bring cutting tools, the repair tool and something that can move heavy objects.

To get down to 500 meters you'll have to do something to the seamoth. If I remember correctly what you need is in a certain cave beneath the red grass area. It's very large you'll need the seamoth.

I've upgraded the Seamoth to 300m and started exploring the glowing mushroom cave. Very exciting!

I definitely have to look away. The sound effects are brutal too.

I think I'm still going to wait on playing TLD until another patch comes out. Too many issues still happening.

22 hours ago, Grignard_TN said:

Have you gone up to the crashed ship yet? It gets quite interesting where the water gets murky

One pod was located x distance from the rear of the ship. So I went over to the engines to drop a waypoint and I got chomped by a reaper and almost destroyed my seamoth. LOL. I haven't gone close to there again... but I almost have to board the ship soon because I now have the tools to explore inside. I have a location to visit that is apparently 500m deep and I'm trying to figure out how to get that deep. Pretty damn fun... and a lot of tension when exploring!

That was fast. Awesome work Hinterland!

Some gentle tips from a dev, for anyone submitting bugs. It might help to include:

- Operating system.

- System stats if it's a performance issue.

- Steps to reproduce the problem if you can.

- Before and after situation (Ie, I had X, Y, Z badges before, then I did ABC and I gained badge D.)

1 hour ago, Serenity said:

Yes, they're together with the backpack in the mine. Unlike the pack they are an accessory however

So there's now a 'foot accessory' slot?

@ahmyin  I absolutely love this story and the framed map!

I've also enjoyed playing single-player games with someone else sitting shotgun! It's a fun way to turn a solo game into co-op. My husband and I do this with some of the Telltale games.

When I was younger, my mom and I would play the very old Hugo's House Of Horrors games. You had to do a lot of typing so she would take the keyboard, and we'd try to solve the puzzles together. Good memories! <3

Well done!

On 11/2/2020 at 3:51 PM, Grignard_TN said:

I must recommend subnautica, at least with the popular mods. It pretty much covers all your bases and I liked it better than Stranded Deep ( Though in fairness I haven't played it since it was in development). Don't Starve is a great game with lots and lots of crafting from resources. It also has a multiplayer if you're interested in that.

On 10/18/2020 at 7:21 PM, ManicManiac said:

Subnautica is another one where the exploration can get pretty interesting.

@Grignard_TN & @ManicManiac... I must extend my sincere thanks for the recommendation of Subnautica, I bought it on sale last week and hooo boy is it ever fun. It feels like the spiritual sister to TLD with the added bonus of base construction. I am really loving it so far.

@BlinkMoFried absolutely give Subnautica a try. It's hitting all the same feels as TLD ... it's almost an underwater clone.

Caveat that the new player onboarding is pretty sparse in that game, you might need some new player tips/guides to get rolling. lol

On 11/14/2020 at 3:17 AM, Adamo said:

Super new to TLD and really loving it, i can't see a stick in real life without wanting to grab it

Playing Wintermute as a way to get into the mechanics of the game as ive never played a survival game before, or one that has crafting as an element. I've gotten as far as the Bear spear and am about to take it back for repair at the forge.

However, I'm starting to feel that i need to go start again on Voyageur, once i got past the shock of the plane crash and the immediate canyon survival ive started to feel the embarrassment of riches lying about to eat and drink just means its too easy. I presume things are going to continue being pretty easy on Pilgrim? 

 

100% restart now.

I made this mistake, got all the way through Ep 3 on Pilgrim and it's stupidly easy.

I started my first challenge ever with Whiteout this week. It's a ton of fun. You find a stupid amount of supplies everywhere, but getting a hatchet was the big difficulty for me.

I really love having a Quest tab again since I finished Wintermute a while ago.

I'm almost done the challenge and I think I'll be able to do it without leaving Coastal Highway. Bagging a bear really helped the food task item. XD

20 hours ago, Gracia_WolfSlayer said:

Green Hell has been treating me well. It's a bit harder than TLD survival-wise and a bit more... um.. graphic? Like you get infected wounds you have to treat and it's photo realistic. You also can get 'worms' from sleeping on the ground and you have to... uh.. .remove them.

It has a story mode and challenges just like TLD and the game is gorgeous. There's a bit more crafting than TLD, mostly by way of shelters. But there's fires, cooking, and hunting. Predators like snakes and jaguars and tribal folks that want to eat you.

It's a fun game. You might enjoy it.

lol sounds... interesting.

Took me AGES, but finally got it.

Whew that archery skill was a pain.

Posted by Raphel on Twitter.

Yes, you can get in there. Walk along the angled piece of floor on the right.

I hope the latest update didn't introduce a bug there. But you should definitely be able to get in. I think there's also a door in there on the other end.

All the bulkhead compartments are searchable too. 

On 11/17/2020 at 9:29 PM, Fars said:

THIS WAY OF MINE. It's available on Steam n mobile. Excellent survival game similar to TLD.. Managing inventory and surviving in an unforgiving environment. Also check out frostpunk by same devs.

Do you mean This WAR of mine?

On 11/17/2020 at 9:29 PM, Fars said:

THIS WAY OF MINE. It's available on Steam n mobile. Excellent survival game similar to TLD.. Managing inventory and surviving in an unforgiving environment. Also check out frostpunk by same devs.

Cool thank you!

I've got all the complainers beat....

I'm still waiting on the further Half-Life episodes that Valve promised us. LOL

On 11/12/2020 at 6:43 AM, Danielviomusic said:

To be honest I wish there were no campaign mode and the whole team was totally invested in upgrading survival mode and adding new areas. We've come such a long way since release, and there's still SO much potential for this game and its amazing survival mechanics. That's just my opinion though.

New maps for Survival is so great, I'd happily pay for expansions to the game that just provide more maps that don't even appear in the Story mode.

Heck they could probably hire a 2nd team that just pumps out map-only expansion packs, as another revenue stream.

47 minutes ago, PrincessAutumn said:

 I nearly cried when I killed my first rabbit.

Same.

One of my sons (6 yr old) loves bunnies, bed full of bunny stuffies... I have to make VERY sure that he isn't watching me play over my shoulder!

I still look away when the bunny is picked up.

I dunno how you turned bad news into great news but you did!

Adding it as a challenge we can play any time & with the ability to defeat it is SUPER awesome.

Thank you.

Learning the ropes of a new platform is a speed bump players will understand. Sorry that Nintendo seems to have a ton of hoops.