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4 hours ago, Karl Grylls said:

Well.....there isn't a test branch, is it? :o

Oh god please no. I hope imploringly that they will release a sandbox update and not just the lame website. I planned to travel home at the update weekend, because it's the only place where i can play it!!!!

Don't worry,  I even took a day off from work.  The good thing, however, is that no matter what happens I have no doubt I'll be busy. Either playing the game or playing firefighter on the forums.  :D

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13 hours ago, Karl Grylls said:

As i know Hinterland and by the experience we made with them, i guess it will be a sandbox update and story mode will come in autumn or even winter.

 Not sure about the foundation for this assumption. I'm not saying you're wrong (who can really know, right?) and I personally haven't read everything said on the subject by the developers, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. A countdown in and of itself seems too grand for a simple sandbox update; Raphael said in the December update post that story mode and the final sandbox update would be released together and what other sandbox update has come with such a buildup as this announcement? I am unaware of how past updates were handled but I am not under the impression that they were equally bold in buildup. That they seem to be soon coming out of early access is also quite a meaningful implication; the 'last chance at early access prices' seems to mean that they will soon be done with EA and it will move to a full release and this will only be true if story mode arrives. The sandbox is early access, after all.

 I suppose it's good to temper expectations - shoot high, aim low - but the evidence seems to point toward something more.

 As for asking the devs to ring in and crash their own party, well, that's not going to happen. Not long to wait and then we'll have our answer.

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Quick question specifically for the developers:  Will "whatever" happens when the countdown reaches zero happen across all platforms?  I play on an xbox, and would be very disappointed if there is any sort of update for the steam version but xbox users have to wait another week, or two, or an undisclosed length of time....

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7 minutes ago, WildGPS said:

Quick question specifically for the developers:  Will "whatever" happens when the countdown reaches zero happen across all platforms?  I play on an xbox, and would be very disappointed if there is any sort of update for the steam version but xbox users have to wait another week, or two, or an undisclosed length of time....

Sadly, based on the past, there's no good example of Xbox ever being up-to-date with Steam; you may end up waiting a week or two. There is hope, though, that you might get it at the same time; as far as I know we've never seen what happens when an EA game launches officially on Xbox so maybe it'll be good to go on Thursday.

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34 minutes ago, Willkwi said:

Sadly, based on the past, there's no good example of Xbox ever being up-to-date with Steam; you may end up waiting a week or two. There is hope, though, that you might get it at the same time; as far as I know we've never seen what happens when an EA game launches officially on Xbox so maybe it'll be good to go on Thursday.

Cross platform release relies of validation on the part of Microsoft to make sure that whatever Hinterlands is planning will work on the x-box. It usually takes 1-2 weeks. So, if they sent whatever it was to Microsoft when they started the counter you should be good to go ;) 

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I also took a day off from work too and will do a long night of THE LONG DARK on twitch - whatever happens.

The-Long-Dark-Nacht.thumb.png.c40cb5bed4fc2d7c2b126b3710751f75.pngWorst case, if the end of the countdown doesn't bring anything new to show, I have three challenges to solve:

- Map-Challenge of costal highway

- Blizzard-Challenge

- Rescue Challenge

 

 

Details here (stream will be in German): 

 

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6 hours ago, Carbon said:

 Not sure about the foundation for this assumption. I'm not saying you're wrong (who can really know, right?) and I personally haven't read everything said on the subject by the developers, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. A countdown in and of itself seems too grand for a simple sandbox update; Raphael said in the December update post that story mode and the final sandbox update would be released together and what other sandbox update has come with such a buildup as this announcement? I am unaware of how past updates were handled but I am not under the impression that they were equally bold in buildup. That they seem to be soon coming out of early access is also quite a meaningful implication; the 'last chance at early access prices' seems to mean that they will soon be done with EA and it will move to a full release and this will only be true if story mode arrives. The sandbox is early access, after all.

 I suppose it's good to temper expectations - shoot high, aim low - but the evidence seems to point toward something more.

 As for asking the devs to ring in and crash their own party, well, that's not going to happen. Not long to wait and then we'll have our answer.

After all, i guess you are right. I was in panic when writing the last post. So i forgot about logic. The sentence "last chance of early access price" is a strong indicator. I forgot about that, thinking only about the release of the website. Otherwise, they have always released a test branch. But maybe this time they don't do it because of surprising. But thanks for calming me down :)

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Honestly, my bet is we see new cooking, two new regions, the revolver, and the moose added into Sandbox along with the aurora, with a blanket statement saying "test bugs until May 31st and then we launch with everything we've got and drop Story Mode episodes 1 (and 2 if I recall?) on June 1st", or something like that. That would still meet the "last sale" requirement while also giving us one more Sandbox update before Story Mode, as also mentioned.

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This is nuts. When the countdown appeared, I was 100% convinced it was for story mode and the game to have its official release. The same argument as everyone else is making: we've never had countdowns for sandbox updates, and the dev team knows that as a community we are frothing at the mouth to play story mode.

I work in marketing, in a similar industry to games. So I expected the countdown to be mostly community-bait to get us talking and speculating for a week or so before the dev team made an announcement with a release date, and then we would see all sorts of other announcements and media around the official game release in the ten days or so leading up to May 4.

But still, we have nothing. Literally nothing. That is crushingly disappointing for either scenario that will play out on Thursday:

  1. If they have put up a countdown for a new website release or a future date announcement or a minor sandbox update (no new maps are expected before story mode) then they will get even more disappointment from a fan base that they know are desperate for news about the much-delayed story mode.
  2. If this is a countdown for the full release of the game and story mode, then they have done an abysmal job of marketing it. A countdown clock has only succeeded in generating confused conversation within their existing community. Where are the press releases? The early previews on game websites? The brand ambassadors spreading the gospel about this incredible game? I would hate to see such a perfect game fall flat on release day because they have put 100% of their pre-release marketing efforts into a countdown clock.
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8 minutes ago, GorillaDust said:

This is nuts. When the countdown appeared, I was 100% convinced it was for story mode and the game to have its official release. The same argument as everyone else is making: we've never had countdowns for sandbox updates, and the dev team knows that as a community we are frothing at the mouth to play story mode.

I work in marketing, in a similar industry to games. So I expected the countdown to be mostly community-bait to get us talking and speculating for a week or so before the dev team made an announcement with a release date, and then we would see all sorts of other announcements and media around the official game release in the ten days or so leading up to May 4.

But still, we have nothing. Literally nothing. That is crushingly disappointing for either scenario that will play out on Thursday:

  1. If they have put up a countdown for a new website release or a future date announcement or a minor sandbox update (no new maps are expected before story mode) then they will get even more disappointment from a fan base that they know are desperate for news about the much-delayed story mode.
  2. If this is a countdown for the full release of the game and story mode, then they have done an abysmal job of marketing it. A countdown clock has only succeeded in generating confused conversation within their existing community. Where are the press releases? The early previews on game websites? The brand ambassadors spreading the gospel about this incredible game? I would hate to see such a perfect game fall flat on release day because they have put 100% of their pre-release marketing efforts into a countdown clock.

I'm glad you've said this, because I've been thinking exactly the same thing. But not having any experience of the marketing industry, I felt I was sticking my neck out, rather - so it's nice to have my thoughts echoed by someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

Obviously, it's not for us to be worrying on their behalf about how they choose to market their own product, but it does seem really strange on the face of it.

But who knows what they're going to announce on Thursday... maybe we'll be proved wrong. And all the best of luck to them, however they choose to do it - they deserve every penny of revenue that comes their way.

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15 minutes ago, GorillaDust said:

If they have put up a countdown for a new website release or a future date announcement or a minor sandbox update (no new maps are expected before story mode) then they will get even more disappointment from a fan base that they know are desperate for news about the much-delayed story mode.

Resolute Outfitter was considered a 'major' update and had re-done the entire clothing system while also adding Forlon Muskeg, as well as other minor fixes here & there. If the new sandbox update has no new regions but improves the cooking system, the graphics and adds the moose and revolver (perhaps the aurora can be released to sandbox...) , that's major enough for me.

So they could release the date of Story Mode , while having a substantial Sandbox upgrade, or they can go the route of releasing both Sandbox and Story Mode at the same time, although based on dev comments the second idea is less probable. 

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We should have had a poll or something, so everyone could vote on what they guess is going to happen!

Anyway, I'll say it'll be a sandbox update, a season one reveal (with a load of screenshots, teaser trailer, new systems and items etc.) and the release date in July/August.  That will generate a load of buzz on news sites, and if they keep drip-feeding new info between now and release then that should keep the game's profile up (and GorillaDust happy).  It'll also give them enough time to squash any new bugs the community finds in the sandbox update in the meantime.

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5 minutes ago, GlasWolf said:

We should have had a poll or something, so everyone could vote on what they guess is going to happen!

Anyway, I'll say it'll be a sandbox update, a season one reveal (with a load of screenshots, teaser trailer, new systems and items etc.) and the release date in July/August.  That will generate a load of buzz on news sites, and if they keep drip-feeding new info between now and release then that should keep the game's profile up (and GorillaDust happy).  It'll also give them enough time to squash any new bugs the community finds in the sandbox update in the meantime.

There is a poll! ->

http://www.hinterlandforums.com/index.php?/topic/14921-counter-poll/

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2 hours ago, GorillaDust said:

This is nuts. When the countdown appeared, I was 100% convinced it was for story mode and the game to have its official release. The same argument as everyone else is making: we've never had countdowns for sandbox updates, and the dev team knows that as a community we are frothing at the mouth to play story mode.

I work in marketing, in a similar industry to games. So I expected the countdown to be mostly community-bait to get us talking and speculating for a week or so before the dev team made an announcement with a release date, and then we would see all sorts of other announcements and media around the official game release in the ten days or so leading up to May 4.

But still, we have nothing. Literally nothing. That is crushingly disappointing for either scenario that will play out on Thursday:

  1. If they have put up a countdown for a new website release or a future date announcement or a minor sandbox update (no new maps are expected before story mode) then they will get even more disappointment from a fan base that they know are desperate for news about the much-delayed story mode.
  2. If this is a countdown for the full release of the game and story mode, then they have done an abysmal job of marketing it. A countdown clock has only succeeded in generating confused conversation within their existing community. Where are the press releases? The early previews on game websites? The brand ambassadors spreading the gospel about this incredible game? I would hate to see such a perfect game fall flat on release day because they have put 100% of their pre-release marketing efforts into a countdown clock.

those were my points can I work in your field as well :P

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