Ian086

3 hours ago, manolitode said:

Always nice to find undiscovered TLD content what was your impression of wintermute theme hearing it for the first time?

It's very good, I can totally understand that this would be a fan favourite. I think that the same would count for me if I started playing the game sooner, but for now the Crossroads Elegy theme remains very identical for me, because I always heard that on the main menu. Maybe I enjoy the wintermute theme even more if I listen to it more often. It has to grow on you, you know

11 hours ago, manolitode said:

@Ian086 I'll clarify, I used to hear the intro theme for the other episodes but ep 4 theme won't play on my console. Found it here though:

New Main Menu Music, Fury, Then Silence(The Long Dark) - YouTube

Returning to your original question I rank the themes as follows. Keep in mind that the theme being in question when you start your TLD adventure seem to become the favorite to many, it's all very subjective. 

1. Wintermute. Masterful composition. I wonder if I'll ever get weary listening to it (or talking about it 😉). There's something about the interplay between the plucked strings and mellow piano that summons a certain mood. The tune truly captures the soul of TLD in a way. The calm atmospheric beginnings, the beauty of your surroundings, the crisp cold, and then the sudden panic at a predator encounter or a blizzard and your fighting for your life. Then the calm after the storm. If the TLD movie becomes reality this truly deserves to be the main theme. While obviously not as expensive, the Wintermute theme is right up there with excellent movie theme songs like Time from Inception or the Interstellar main theme. I'll heartily fight anyone who disagrees 😉. 

2. Fury, then silence. Dramatic from the start. I thought it was a good choice to flirt a little with the horror genre to return TLD to its barren origins. Piano and strings switched parts this time around. You get the feeling that the piano had been glancing jealously on the strings for years and finally got the free reins it deserved to go fullblown classical. 

3. Crossroads elegy. A likeable tune no doubt. The least melodic of the three and too jolly to me personally to feel like TLD. Still very beautiful when the strings act as locomotive around 0:50, I feel somehow like they're dragging the piano along like Astrid carries her survivors to safety. 

Just googled the wintermute theme, so now I pretty much understand what you mean haha. I started playing the game almost a year ago so I have never known anything other than the crossroads elegy theme ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2 hours ago, manolitode said:

Are you guys hearing intro music at startup? Feel free to share, I'm hearing zip since download. Or rather, I hear atmosphere only and figured it was a deliberate choice by HL. Music is set to 100%.  

Yes, below is a video from the main menu after Episode 3 release. It is the same music as after the release of Ash Canyon, only then the background region changed to that one. 

The developers changed the background and the theme of the main menu to fit with the newest update. I think that it looks really good and has a fitting soundtrack. But if I have to be honest, I'd say that the previous background and music was even better, which captured the atmosphere of the game to a greater extent. Every time I started the game I waited at the menu until the music was over, whereafter the wind would pick up and night would fall. For that reason I hoped that the developers would do a similar thing with the new region, but this time it is just a still image this time with some animated effects. With the new one I don't feel like waiting until the end of the music anymore and I get less into the spirit of playing the game, unlike the previous version. What do you think? Do you prefer the previous concept of the background or the new one and why?

I found a deer that was able to defy the laws of gravity. Also I just found out about the heritage filter and I really enjoy to take screenshots with it😁

Thanks  

Suggestions for special locations are always welcome. I'm at least thinking of adding a coast guard harbor somewhere in the southeast because there has been discussion about such a location being on the island in another forum page

Alright, I have decided to make an attempt at creating a map of the entirety of Great Bear Island. If anyone is interested I can post several updates here, otherwise I will only post the result if I finish it. For now it will only be the part of the island that already have the existing regions, because who knows what other regions will be added with the remaining episodes. In the second picture you can see the maps from the previously mentioned Steam community page as a basis on which I will draw the map.

Finally managed to reach the lighthouse for the first time  

All of these ideas sound very interesting. Although it is reasonable to have on the island, I personally do not expect there to be huge built-up areas in the game itself. It is a survival game with a focus on the hostile nature after all, so if the devs add something big I expect that such a location will be balanced to make the game more enjoyable to play. I haven't explored the whole map yet so I don't know how it is with other places, but the Town of Milton for example is destroyed for the most part. It is a relatively large settlement for the game, but still, because many buildings in the town have collapsed there is just enough loot to give the game a sense of difficulty in other places.

Thanks for your feedback. I honestly created the map before ever visiting the forums, so I should dive into them and find out the other background theories of the island. As for the map itself, it is indeed cultivated and developed to a great extent, which would make unsuitable to be implemented as a survival region in the game. It is just how I imagined it to be the gateway to Great Bear Island, sitting in the bottom left corner of the map and being the only bit of civilized grounds in the hostile island. If I ever expand the map, I will for sure reduce the amount of connectors and make the terrain more difficult to navigate. 

As for Perseverance Mills, I'm really curious whether we get to see that place in the game itself. Would it indeed be the the biggest, most advanced settlement on the island or is it the isolated community Astrid was talking about? Is it the key to understanding the apocalypse? Only the remaining episodes can tell...

So, during survival mode I sometimes use the maps from this Steam community page https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1901570789. The game itself and these maps inspired me to think about what the rest of Great Bear Island could look like. I decided to try and make an imaginary region map myself, because I just learned to find my way around Illustrator and for my profession I must be familiar with Illustrator eventually. The map you see is visually inspired by the maps from the Steam guide. It is meant to be some sort of touristic map with basic information prior to the events in The Long Dark. I named the region Cape Cod because I imagine it as the southernmost point of Great Bear Island. It connects to Bleak Inlet on the east and Broken Railroad on the north, and has a transition to Carter Dam via the power lines. Because of it's strategic location, Cape Cod has a ferry to mainland Canada and the biggest airport on the island, which is only serving two flights per day and is there mainly for the forest fire department. Besides that, the second largest town on the island is located in the region. There is also an old abandoned settlement that was built by the first pioneers that set foot on the island. Once again, this is purely an imaginary map that would actually not fit in the story of The Long Dark. It is just how I personally would imagine the most prosperous region of Great Bear Island before the apocalypse. 

I posted this map here in case anyone else is interested in seeing it or feels like having a discussion about this region or the other places in Great Bear Island that aren't in the game. I'm also thinking about drawing (my take on) the entirety of Great Bear Island, including all the regions that are in the game, but that can only be completed after episode 5 releases.