Sherri

10 minutes ago, Dan_ said:

I agree that Rudiger's experiment being completely unrelated to Wintermute would be a stretch, however, I do think there's a possibility that the experiments did not directly cause the First Flare. I don't recall if we got a concrete number on the size of each team operating within the industrial mine, but I do feel like the teams were relatively small to help keep secrecy. To produce a device, capable of strong and vast magnetic fields which are altering the earth's magnetosphere...

I agree. That's a really good theory. That the experiment here was just a small scale practice run makes a lot of sense. I was also wondering if the natural solar flare event somehow interfered with the experiment in an unintended way. Lots of possibilities to link these things together. I'm so excited for the next chapter.

23 hours ago, Semple Fi said:

I think there are two remaining maps to generate for this DLC release, and will likely incorporate the transmitter and additional bunkers, as well as more field notes that will expand on the storyline.  
In the words of @ajb1978, This may already be solved. Stand by.

Hmm.... I never considered more bunkers being added with the rest of the map. I'd be surprised, considering I received the Badge for finishing the Tale. But... more would still be cool.

I found this video which summarizes the story in Signal Void very well & helped me understand it a bit more.

It also adds some theories about it.

One thing that I didn't consider is the possibility that this science experiment & these sick people, are totally unrelated to the global disaster in the TLD world & the sick folks in Perseverance Mills. If so... introducing a 2nd sci-fi storyline to the game would be an odd choice. I'm of the assumption that they are related. But can't be sure. 🤔

Note: Light spoilers ahead!

So, I'm very pleased to say that I've finished the Signal Void tale (Voyager difficulty). I've repaired the transmitters and found + explored all 4 bunkers. Wanted to share my feedback and review. Hoping to hear from anyone else who also finished!

What I Liked (Loved):

My favourite part of this Tale, was the sense of purpose that has been reinvigorated in me to play Survival mode, return to the game after almost a year away, and discover the new features releasing in the DLC. It was so so wonderful to come back to the game for many dozens of hours of new gameplay, to cross the map (a few times), visit most regions, and see new sights. The new features that came with the DLC were a nice addition- the game feels new again and fresh. I think adding these small 'quests' to Survival mode, optional of course, was a fantastic addition to me. I'm a Wintermute fan myself and adding purpose/story to Survival was definitely my jam.

Repairing the transmitters was challenging but doable. Gathering the supplies was fun. Only a couple times did I have to lug a battery a very short distance. The towers were so spread out and sometimes tricky to get to, that it was a significant challenge. Having them unlock the handheld radio and the small supply caches you can find, really brought me out at night during the aurora - something I never ever do. Scary and really fun!

Finding the bunkers was really fun and satisfying. Several heart-pounding trips following the beep of the transmitter and trusting it to guide me through a windy cold night. Expecting an aurora wolf around every corner. A few times losing the aurora before finding the bunker and having to seek shelter ASAP often when in the middle of nowhere. Whew! A nail-biter sometimes and really rewarding. Felt really great to find those bunkers.

The bunkers themselves are awesome. Interesting interior locations. New furniture items and different layouts / objects inside. New food types and often really high-quality loot inside them. Very excited to find the rifle holster and technical balaclava. A nice reward for all our efforts.

Voice-overs for the field notes you find inside was a nice surprise. Much better than just reading text.

Each bunker I found, I spent a few days at, just scouring it top to bottom, repairing my gear and eating canned ham. 

Constructive Criticism:  (More spoiler-y):

My only disappointment was that the story players piece together with these field notes in the bunkers, is somewhat vague and unsatisfying. I understand that they cannot steal the thunder of Wintermute chapter 5. Don't want to tell us the details of this Event that happened and the fallout from it, because I assume (hope) that chapter 5 will do so. But my goodness... this told me nothing new. A scientist conducted experiments that went awry? Already guessed that based on the weird weather/geomagnetic problems happening in the game. It made a lot of people sick? We know there is a mysterious illness thanks to Wintermute. Are these the same/related illness? Remains to be seen. But I was really hoping for a more concrete story morsel that wasn't just allusions and slightly confusing hints. I'll be checking the wiki to see if there's something I just didn't piece together. But ultimately, I came out of this tale not really knowing anything new about the TLD world that I couldn't infer already, nor any answers to the many, many loose ends the game + Wintermute have dangling in front of us. I sincerely hope that chapter 5 gives us some meaty story answers.

To be clear, even if there were zero field notes to find in the bunkers, it would still be a fun adventure to have. So even vague story pieces are a good addition.

Conclusion:

All in all, a fun, challenging, and satisfying Tale. Brought me back to the game, challenged me out of my comfort zone, and got me back into TLD once again. A worthwhile purchase (on top of all the other DLC additions). Really loved this, and I hope more Tales are in our future. Great, great job Hinterland. The team should be proud of this addition to the game! 

My experience with the recipes so far have been that they are really cool.... but super hard to actually use because having all the ingredients is very very rare. Too heavy to carry the flour and stuff with you all the time, so finding everything you need is basically a stroke of luck. I generally have one 'base' in every map and have been accumulating everything in a region there. And even still... I rarely have enough to make much of the recipes. Maybe one or two things. This is on Voyager too. So it's kind of a novelty and not a core part of meeting your food needs in the game. At least that's my take. Maybe if I get the technical backpack I'll start carrying flour and oats.

6 hours ago, PilgrimReaper said:

The signal will come back once you get closer (again... since I think the road leads you farther away, after being "closer", if that makes any sense).

Yup, makes sense. Thank you!

**Spoilers ahead!**

So, I'm happily on my way to the final bunker in Forsaken Airfield. I saw the note on the wiki that it only pickups up the signal near the entrance to the region, so I trekked back to the Far Range, and camped out for a few days then re-entered the region during an aurora. Right at the entrance I picked up the signal for the final bunker. But after a short time walking farther into the region, the signal vanished again, although the aurora was still strong (and the radio was still lit up).

Is this still part of the glitch, or does the signal disappear if you're too far from the target location? I hadn't even made it to the first car along the road from the entrance.

I know the general area that the bunker will be in. Do I need to go all the way along the round, around the bottom mountain range, then back into the lower elevation part of the region to then pick up the signal again? Or, should the radio pick up a signal no matter where I am in the region and point me in the correct direction?

(I had luck with the other regions and was never more than half a map away from them when first pulling out the radio, so never had a radio fail to give a direction.)

TL;DR - does the final bunker only ping the radio if you are close enough to it, once you've picked up the signal at least once? Ie does walking too far "left/west" on the online maps make you loose the signal?

Thanks!

1 hour ago, MarrowStone said:

 

if the 2,602 daily peak of players rn watched 10 seconds of extra time, thats 18 days of all those players cumulative time gone.

It's also certainly valid to think of the cumulative electricity spent - the environmental impact. There are options that would keep the important messages present but avoid the time & energy wasted.

Agreed.

I wish all the opening notices & disclaimers had a timeout so I could at least boot the game, go grab a drink & be at the main menu when I come back.

An instant "press any key to skip" would be fantastic.

With the hundreds of hours I have in TLD... I am sufficiently warned about photosensitivity & that TLD is NOT real survival advice. Lol

There is a lot of "stuff" in this game's bootup & the one that used to make me smile - about the trees donation - was removed. 😭

10 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

 I suspect this disease is of extraterrestrial origin. Hence the military secrecy. Maybe biological like an alien virus, maybe some kind of radiation poisoning from some cosmic event we've never seen before. 

Ooo good theory! Maybe a tie-in with the experiments we learn of in the Tales DLC!

Heading alllll the way back to the Forsaken Airfield as I attempt to wrap up the TFTFT story, and I had my most lucky weather I've ever had in this game.

Made it all the way from the Camp Office in Mystery Lake to the Vacant Depot in Transfer Pass in a single day of slightly foggy travel (~12 in game hours). Drank 2 coffees and scared a couple wolves away, but wow I've never before made it so far & had such friendly weather across so many regions!

Thought I'd share the joy! I know the new regions are quite a hike - but follow the rail tracks & it's not too bad.

7 hours ago, Bloodskye said:

 If I'm understanding correctly the tipup doesn't actually level your fishing though. Only manually fishing does.

Oof. 😞

So I've never really paid attention to my fishing skill before, but decided to give it some attention.

I brought supplies to a hut in ML, set a tipup next to it & fished for 2 days straight. Caught dozens of fish. With a line and with the tipups. Used lures half the time. Got a big haul of fish.

But when I checked, my Ice Fishing skill had only gone up about 5% (I'm currently level 3).

Is this normal?

Am I messing up the skill gain by cancelling after catching a fish (so I can swap it for the cooked one on the stove)? Is it supposed to be this hard to level up this skill?

Thanks!

Awesome. I'm on Mastodon so I can follow & reply from that account.

The fediverse is so neat!

I agree about the sorting issue. And also being able to see how many servings are in a can of coffee or box of tea, because that one that only has 1 serving left is the one I want to cook & get it outta there. Lol

17 minutes ago, Serenity said:

With TLD we have effectively Early Access DLC, but were promised release quality. But adjusting my expectations, that's ok. I'm not happy with some of the severe bugs, but I also like the content.

Eh. I've played buggier games from AAA studios. LOL. But I fully admit I may be biased toward high tolerance being a software dev myself. 😆

These releases might be digging up bugs that are not necessarily caused by TFTFT changes. My bug was with snow shelters & AFAIK nothing was changed with them.

So, I think by the end of this year, the codebase will be more robust than ever. And I guess that splitting up Wiintermute & Survival has brought it's own challenges (and didn't Unity get a big update recently?). I think this DLC is a great opportunity to fluff the cushions, air out the (code) closets & improve things overall.

Adding new parts to a software project (ie a new map or a new Episode) is always less bug prone than modifying existing parts. This is possibly very challenging to do & I bet will improve longterm stability.

I thought about this too. I recently ran into a bug with snow shelters that briefly made me fear my save was permanently messed up. Happily it was not.

But I don't think I would want to change the release cycle. Maybe it's the software developer in me who believes in the "release early, release often" mantra... but I feel it will ultimately be healthy for the game. A few (possible) benefits:

- The steady trickle of updates keeps players engaged with a constant "hey, new stuff!" incentive. (Certainly true for me, I had mostly moved on & now I'm back into finding the transmitter towers.)

- A frequent cycle of bug reports - fixes - release - feedback keeps the QA team with fresh info & player feedback that's coming in closer (hopefully) to when the bug was introduced. A bug in a feature you released many months ago is harder to find & fix.

- The risk of more critical bugs is higher if you have many layers of changes on top of it.

- One HUGE release date would have a LOT riding on it, and game crashing or save file corrupting bugs could really kill the one & only chance to impress players.

- Granted I know nothing of Hinterland's QA team or processes, but keeping QA staff busy & engaged for a whole year of several releases is better from a software perspective than dumping a huge change on them in the end. Testing smaller chucks is more effective most of the time.

--

Yes I've encountered some bugs & I've happily reported the new ones, but so far every update has impressed me & nothing has barred me from enjoying the new content. (I generally wait 24 hrs before playing a new release just in case a hotfix comes out to fix something really critical.)

So far the stated goal of keeping players engaged & excited & talking about TLD all year with multiple updates has 100% worked on me! 😁

Just wanted to post about a bug with snow shelters (I've already reported it, so no one else has to).

Went into the shelter in the middle of Hushed River Valley, and couldn't exit - got stuck facing the back of the shelter. When I reloaded I eventually could exit but then I could only walk forward and strafe, couldn't turn around 180 degrees.

A reload fixes this.

Just an FYI in case any comes here searching for the same issue.

Found a bunch right outside the camp office. A pleasant surprise.

Woah tons of bug fixes in this. Nice!! 

I found the Forrester's Revolver today. As far as I can tell it's a net improvement. It's not heavier nor does it seem to aim any slower. So I dropped my regular revolver and now I'm using this green beauty.

18 hours ago, Admin said:

Known Issues list to highlight the top priorities:  
https://hinterlandgames.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/10522105337364-Known-Issues

This is a really helpful page. 

I encounted the dead/not dead bug with a bear mere steps from the PV farmhouse porch and it was terrifying indeed to have the growling bear flickering between dead and charging at me. LOL. Almost filed a bug but saw it was on this list. Worth checking this from time to time. 

4 hours ago, James Hickok said:

Is Your forum avatar Commander Keen? I remeber playing that game on my first ever PC  -  daaamn. Such a nice time. Wish i could go back in time 30 years. 

Yes it is!   If you miss those old games you should check out DosBox. I was recently replaying these old games after setting it up on my pc. Man those old platformers were hard! lol

Discovered that the peach pie- with the red headache down arrow icon on it, actually gives you a headache! I thought it would reduce headaches. Too much sugar! lol

The meat pies however it looks like they might temporarily increase your carry capacity? I haven't tested them out yet.