Revelation_jeff

Nice update. I'm both positive and negative about various aspects. I'm really grateful for the hand/arm clothing updates to more properly immersive us into the experience. That is wonderful. I'm eager to see the new harvest animations as that's been a long standing criticism of mine for years. The Travois is one of the features that most excited me about the expansion and I really well it's well executed from a gameplay & physics perspective. The new regions contamination wolves feel a little more video gamey than I'd like to see, but I hope it will be balanced to not be too silly. 😃 Keep up the great work and as a fellow lighting artist/world builder in the games industry I'm most looking forward to the next-gen updates to the game as it is really starting to look its age. I'm really hoping for real time GI, rock mesh updates, new or up-scaled textures, volumetric lighting and material shader tweaks to allow for a better specular interaction with the lighting than current. Those type of improvements would sure re-breathe a lot of life into the game for old & newer generations of people to re-experience and increase sales of both the base game and expansion a lot I believe. Thanks for the continued work on the game. It does mean a lot to us! 😃

I have no clue who that is. I'm another Jeff. Interesting mystery you got going though hah.

I disagree. The fact we had to watch one single update video to find out that's all the included content is NOT good communication. The steam page should be updated to show clearly what is live in the current version. Also I find a contradiction in the price per content assessment. I was being generous with saying its about 20% of the content in the base release with its price point at 60% rate. That just does not add up. But the lack of path notes makes everything worse and unclear. All the marketing prior to the day of launch didn't mention the launch content or how little it would be reduced down for the first release. If the price matched the content released and scaled properly or the design of the pipeline was better it wouldn't be as much of an issue. It was rushed, allowed to be almost featureless in terms of legitimate mechanical infrastructure to meet a holiday release and I just don't like giving die hard fans an inferior product at release. They should have upped the base amount of content making it worthy to release or adjusted the asking price to buy in at this phase. Early access has restrictions generally on content which recommends closer to around 50% complete to build off. Here almost everything available in the paid content stream is purely cosmetic and involves minimal code: - New Transition & Hub Region - One new region Forsaken airfield - Item Variants or cosmetic re-skins with modified stats - Electrostatic fog & Insomia affliction (New particle system & Post process FX and condition state) My beef as a developer is that this content generally violates the general rules of early access like content being able to deliver an experience of the core gameplay of a product and the value matching the cost. The only real substantial aspect of this phase was the world building of the new region & hub. So it bothers me to know how little effort they put into the pre-development of a initial release candidate representing DLC and that they felt okay with that as the core representation. It will be a dramatically different gameplay experience 12 months from now compared to what people are experiencing now on the new regions and I hate that. =(

Umm, I'm not sure if you've seen the trend the last 20+ or so years with game re-masters and HD updates like the recently released "The last of us", but those cost money to produce and companies always charge for those sort of updates. That is not a quality of life feature but a re-master updating the relevancy of said product and making it re-viable to a new generation of gamers. It's our pre-orders that are going to help and or pay for those features to be added. I assure you out of this money pool the HD updates will be green lit as well as new animations etc. It is entirely just to keep this in the paid tier. It re-vitalizes the content and creates more sales. However, this is where things get more confusing. A "Season pass" under the category of DLC can create confusing expectations. People understand DLC as an additional completed extension. This DLC actually is "Early Access" again but in a way they could make it work with their existing product since steam does not allow "Early access" additions to a finished product, I don't think. Hints why they spent SOO much marketing time trying to communicate that but failed by their mysterious non-transparent info on what was actually available in the game on launch release. For this product to have been well received as a early access DLC, they should of released at least 50-60% or more of the core mechanics for the update along with one region to test the new experiences and polish and add additional content over time. My issue is they were sneaky about talking about the "Launch experience" because they were afraid to down play it too much to loose the hype and thus pre-orders. But even in their last marketing video, they didn't explicitly say what was "NOT" in the current update. They only spoke about some features, leaving open speculation and assumption that more would be in the core experience. A season pass always launches with a core code base and set of mechanics. This was way too light and lacking to be what I'd consider the base level of development to launch a DLC Early access product. You're looking at about 20% of the content currently for a 60% price tag. This should of been sold at $10 to compensate appropriately.

Hi all, Fellow game dev here and once in a while I like to try to throw in my critical feedback to developers about what I think went wrong. I went from hyped about the expansion to absolutely uninterested (in terms of an immediate purchase). Let me explain why: The initial marketing was solid and the website was great listing out content about the DLC. However, it began to take a turn for the worse on the release of the trailer when no new gameplay features were really shown other than peaks at the new regions. Which we were then promised another video was coming where I was expecting gameplay content updates and to show us WHY we should be purchasing this product. You guys failed to do that in my opinion. The majority of the marketing time was spent on trying to justify the products existence and DLC design rather than show us WHAT it was and why it was cool. I had to scroll down to youtube comments to find out for sure how limited the scope of gameplay systems were upon release. This is only going to fuel people's confusion on what content they are actually paying for now. Several posts of people in the various forums looking for the content like base customization, sled and other features that aren't even live yet. I feel Hinterland could of been much more transparent about this since the store page lists only the full content and not this first initial stream people are paying for. The marketing was confusing at best. Based on the loose math you're asking people to buy in at a 60% ish price point with about 20-25% or so of the core game's content available now which seems a little off to me. But here's my real issue with the DLC so far as a game dev who's had a hand in marketing as well for years. It really does not give an incentive or respect to people who buy into the content and support you. Let me explain: Early access incomplete DLC like this is all about "Perks or first viewing of content". Yet the most compelling content is being given out in free updates or coming several months later (FPS Harvest animations, Visual enhancements etc) In my opinion Hinterland should give early access to these new big features as PART of the paid DLC stream to incentivize us to purchase it. Of course it can still be released later as a free update and still true to the announcements, but why in the world would you not put these compelling features into the DLC's paid content stream and give people something back for supporting you instead of making it just for everyone else? Why not give the buyers an early look at those new features by 3-6 months or so? That way everyone would still get those free updates later but your most hardcore supporters would actually get something for buying in that was more compelling in terms of the current lack of content within it. I just feel like this DLC's release pipeline was not ready to be launched and went too early to hit a time of year deadline instead of rewarding people with enough content being worth the purchase. So basically only your diehards will purchase and the casuals who do purchase are all going to be still confused on what content they're getting with their purchase and what comes later. I personally expected more core gameplay infrastructure to be already in the game such as "base customization, Travois, cougar, acorns, birds, trader etc. And instead the additional maps and narrative content released over time. In my opinion those who play now will actually get a worse incomplete experience compared to those more casual supporters who come several months later and I always think that's sad to do your most hardcore fans that way. What could be done to improve here: 1. Give DLC supporters first access to big new features like the FPS animations, Visual improvements and other features as part of early access so they get something exciting to test out before others as the package increases. Then release that tested content later 3-6 months to the free base later. 2. Better more clear communication on what content is in game NOW instead of the future content stream and what is coming with each upcoming update. We need more understandable goal posts with the road map. Tell use the features coming and when we can expect them roughly. Going a route like this would make the DLC package more valuable at its current stage and going forwards would make people feel rewarded for helping to keep the funding going for it's development. Personally I would of launched the DLC with exclusive time based access to new features like the new animations, visual enhancements and core gameplay loop established to incentivize people to buy now instead of waiting because if they wait, they don't get to enjoy those cool new selling points right away. It could of really helped with sales in my opinion and still been entirely honest and fair since those features don't steal from anyone's previous experience but only enhance it for the DLC's content. Anyways still love you guys and I mean all this feedback as constructive. 😃 My two cents. Looking forward to the update and of course still be supporting it.

Okay great. I look forward to it! 😃 And you're welcome. Love the game!

Dear Dev's, As a fellow developer in the games industry, the long dark is one of my favorite games ever. Such respect I have for you all for what you've created here. It's unique and special. That being said as a developer there are several things I wish would be improved on a technical level that bother me and I think would elevate the game much further. Here's my list 😃. Gameplay Improvements: - Ragdolls on animal deaths - Nav mesh agent improvements for animal movement and turn animations for alert/combat states (The bear is one of the worst creatures to look at due to the poor nav mesh agent setup, and or lack of custom state control for movement. lack of turn animations and movement issues in dealing with static objects.) He glitches out constantly around objects because his settings and due to the fact he cant' turn due to nav mesh agent turn speed limits. So he literally runs in circles try to get around objects, it kills the experience. He glitches out also on basic surface movement as well when he collides with meshes mixed into the terrain. - Start/stop run animations for big animals like bears/moose to make movement transitions less jarring and more realistic. - Wwise audio improvements for animal distance sound ranges. Animals need a better tuned mid range, as of now, wolves especially sound either too close than they really are in initial detection ranges. Not in the middle at mid range when most detect you. Often he sounds 5 feet from me and he's in reality 25 feet away. - Improved basic wolf charge behavior with random charge direction angles & min/max Strafing time to produce more unpredictable movement before heading you off. Visual Enhancements: - Volumetric Lighting for depth and light interaction with fog & Sun/moon & Point lights. - Material tweaks with specular levels adjusted for better lighting interaction for most textures & ice visuals with lighting. Everything is too flat and dry looking when it should look much more wet. - Reflection probe issues improved (that appears to at times cause the strange rim glows and other update issues.) - Upscaled or improved HD ground textures with improved normal maps helping to create more depth in models instead of appearing so flat/simple. - Updated meshes & Textures for base rock & Boulder models. These up close make the game look worse than most other aspects. The large boulders would do well with a slight geo increase and improved texture and normal map redo to fit better in a next gen setting. A secondary detail normal map could go along way to making these look more interactive with the lighting around it as well. - Campfire & Stove fire lights should have additional lights to at least fake perception of bounced lighting in interiors. Stoves and surfaces are too dark without enough light bouncing to make the scene realistic/attractive. As a lighting artist and world builder with secondary skill of game design I wish I could play around with some of your assets to see how they could be improved in the final render. Keep up the great work! 😃

Nice looking trailer, sad to see it really didn't show us much in terms of gameplay features but I guess we'll have to wait. I just want to say that with base customization, we desperately need some sort of way to light our bases/interiors at night. Without wasting tons of lamp oil. Please give us candles and some way to produce them so we can enjoy our areas at night more. It drives me nuts that a game that takes place in Canada and no one anywhere has any candles in their homes lol. That is like survival basics 101 to have stacks of candles in your house. I'm in Texas and we have several candles for storms. =P