Update on Build Status for Xbox, PS4 & Patching Process

[Raphael van Lierop]

30 minutes ago, Rick8rooke said:

Thanks for the apology and update Raph, I understand these things can happen with a small indie studio and its very much appreciated when you keep us informed - please keep this communication going with your players in the future.

I just got the game for my PS4 Pro after hearing good things about it, and while I have had many bugs and crashes I will give it a chance to get patched as I can see there's a fantastic game underneath.

Thank you! Are you playing the PS4 Europe version or the Americas version? Reason I ask is that the PS4 Americas version should not be crashing much, and in particular we've seen the PS4 Pro being more stable.

That said, we should have a new PS4 Americas patch out tomorrow that has some additional memory optimizations that will help with performance and some of the crashing people are experiencing.

[Harryvok]

Thanks for the update. I'd been hanging out for ages to play this in Australia, so its disappointing it could still be a while before it comes out, but appreciate the details. I've now preordered Lost Legacy and bought Hellblade rather than keep waiting for this, but will probably give it a go early next year after I get through the other games I'm waiting for. Hopefully all the issues will be solved by then.

[thekillergreece]

I will just wait. But please, do not discrimate PS4 consoles over PS4 Pro, that's not fair at all. PS4 Pro is more stable? Try your best to make PS4 more stable as well please! Europe particularly.

[plofkonijn]

Thanks you verry much for thise massage, it give us some more look into the progress of patching games on a ps4, and other things. 

Im just waiting and hoped when the patch is out the game is more stable. All i wana say is, your guys have put a wonderfull game together!

I whas allraidy there from the beginning on the pc, and the steps are beutifull well thought together. Now i'm waiting to relax in the sofa and play on my ps4 pro

Again thank you for the update!

[Raphael van Lierop]

15 minutes ago, thekillergreece said:

I will just wait. But please, do not discrimate PS4 consoles over PS4 Pro, that's not fair at all. PS4 Pro is more stable? Try your best to make PS4 more stable as well please! Europe particularly.

You misunderstood. PS4 Pro isn't more stable because of anything we have done. It's just that the hardware is different, which seems to help.

[chrischris]

Thanks for the update and thorough explanation, that post was a good way to handle the situation. Best of luck in improving your processes going forward.

[ThePrivateer]

Shit happens, man...  I think I paid $10.99 for this game on Steam during early access, and I have gotten 100 times my money's worth.  I salute you for your hard work.

There will be obstacles, and you will once again overcome them.

 

[lvl1989]

having heard so many not-great things about you, it´s just a delight to see this post! it has definitely changed the way I see you and your team. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to explain things to us about the launch, much love! i´m an xbox player, i had to put down story mode after some constant crash to menu episodes, but i´m waiting patiently for the fixes! thank you for clarifying things!

 

[Sciencepol]

Indeed, thank you for having a degree of transparency and a willingness to update your players that I have rarely (never?) seen elsewhere. As a new player having lost 6+ hours of playing from losing a saved file after a patch, this helps with the frustration. I will go and practice in survival mode until I know it's safe to go back to story mode then!

[johnny solo]

8 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

The Xbox crashing is fixed or significantly diminished by the CU2 patch which we hope will be out very soon. We'll update on progress ASAP, once we hear back from the MS Cert team.

I haven't had any crashing since the first patch to fix the problem,im on xbox in the uk. I did a hard restart after the patch update and everything seems to be fine. I bought this game in 2014 and now enjoying the story mode I'm  taking my time with it,im just doing stuff with Jeremiah at the moment.. any way thanks for the update and great game 

[Raphael van Lierop]

3 hours ago, lvl1989 said:

having heard so many not-great things about you, it´s just a delight to see this post! it has definitely changed the way I see you and your team. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to explain things to us about the launch, much love! i´m an xbox player, i had to put down story mode after some constant crash to menu episodes, but i´m waiting patiently for the fixes! thank you for clarifying things!

 

Thanks. I've posted some things occasionally thank rankled people. In general I don't understand where the hate towards comes from but I get internet culture and I've come to terms with it. Often a small comment can be taken out of context and becomes a "thing". I'm also a vociferous defender of the game and team and so I don't shy away from telling people off when I think they are being unfair. I'm not perfect. But, apart from my family, this game means everything to me, and I've been working 15 yrs to get here. Not making excuses, just showing that this is a personal work of deep passion and not some corporate thing.

[EricTheGreat12]

36 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Thanks. I've posted some things occasionally thank rankled people. In general I don't understand where the hate towards comes from but I get internet culture and I've come to terms with it. Often a small comment can be taken out of context and becomes a "thing". I'm also a vociferous defender of the game and team and so I don't shy away from telling people off when I think they are being unfair. I'm not perfect. But, apart from my family, this game means everything to me, and I've been working 15 yrs to get here. Not making excuses, just showing that this is a personal work of deep passion and not some corporate thing.

I really don't think that the dislike for the countdown had anything to do with "internet culture" .....

 

Anyways, I've played games such as Civ where there is no discussion in between devs and the players; Firaxis overall unfortunately seems to be like this. Hinterland is probably one of the best studios at being in constant communication with their players, and I would like to congratulate you and your team for the work you've done. 

 

The Long Dark I would say is possibly the best survival game ever made, and you should all rightfully be proud of The Long Dark and it's impact on the industry. 

[SnowWalker]

1 hour ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

I'm not perfect. But, apart from my family, this game means everything to me, and I've been working 15 yrs to get here. Not making excuses, just showing that this is a personal work of deep passion and not some corporate thing.

Well I think you're brilliant. Your vision gave us one of the most enjoyable sandbox experiences of all time. My forever game. I never, ever tire of it. Wintermute is fun and compelling and I'm not having many problems myself on PC. You're burning the candle at both ends, probably, and getting tugged on from all directions yet, you still take time out to speak to, reassure and pacify we fans. You could have just left a few words to shut us up but you spoke to us in great detail explaining everything we could want to know. I haven't missed the fact either, that the game that I love so much was developed by amazing people who care. Seems so appropriate and justifies my deep, adoration for the game, even more so.
Your words for Elegy were stunningly, beautiful as well. Hit us right in the heart.
Peace, love and happiness to you and yours Mr. Raphael Van Lierop, and to your wonderful team.

Edited August 11, 2017 by SnowWalker

[stratvox]

Thanks for the update on what's going on. I managed to get very lucky and get this game on the steam summer sale; I've had my eye on it for a while. It's beautiful and I really love the overall vibe of the game; very Group of Seven/old NFB/Glenn Gould to my eye and ear. The sound design is incredible.

I'm willing to bet us lonely linux players are down the list a bit... we are not that numerous after all, and I would really like to be able to ditch the workarounds I've come up with. A bit of a game stopper in Story mode is that when dialog with NPCs switches to text... well, there is no text. I have found workarounds for the death by cutscene and the mouse in menu issues which you can find in my earlier posts, in case they happen to steer you folks towards a solution. I'm an Ops guy more than a dev (most of my programming for the last decade has been quick and dirty shell scripts to deal with some kind of a system problem on Solaris and linux though I've done work in C and Rexx (yes I'm old )) so I do grok how these things go.

This game is quite an accomplishment, and since I got it to go after figuring out the mouse situation I have been hooked. I'm playing Survival in the mean time, and dying a lot. I really appreciate what you've done here. Thank you!

[Raphael van Lierop]

2 minutes ago, stratvox said:

Thanks for the update on what's going on. I managed to get very lucky and get this game on the steam summer sale; I've had my eye on it for a while. It's beautiful and I really love the overall vibe of the game; very Group of Seven/old NFB/Glenn Gould to my eye and ear. The sound design is incredible.

I'm willing to bet us lonely linux players are down the list a bit... we are not that numerous after all, and I would really like to be able to ditch the workarounds I've come up with. A bit of a game stopper in Story mode is that when dialog with NPCs switches to text... well, there is no text. I have found workarounds for the death by cutscene and the mouse in menu issues which you can find in my earlier posts, in case they happen to steer you folks towards a solution. I'm an Ops guy more than a dev (most of my programming for the last decade has been quick and dirty shell scripts to deal with some kind of a system problem on Solaris and linux though I've done work in C and Rexx (yes I'm old )) so I do grok how these things go.

This game is quite an accomplishment, and since I got it to go after figuring out the mouse situation I have been hooked. I'm playing Survival in the mean time, and dying a lot. I really appreciate what you've done here. Thank you!

Thank you -- yes we have a bunch of Linux fixes on the list, and will get to them ASAP. We know you are a small community, but what you lack in numbers you more than make up for in passion. 

[stratvox]

3 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Thank you -- yes we have a bunch of Linux fixes on the list, and will get to them ASAP. We know you are a small community, but what you lack in numbers you more than make up for in passion. 

Yeah... sometimes that's a good thing.... sometimes not so much  

Gaming on linux is going through a renaissance period now... it's very happy making

[Raphael van Lierop]

32 minutes ago, SnowWalker said:

Well I think you're brilliant. Your vision gave us one of the most enjoyable sandbox experiences of all time. My forever game. I never, ever tire of it. Wintermute is fun and compelling and I'm not having many problems myself on PC. You're burning the candle at both ends, probably, and getting tugged on from all directions yet, you still take time out to speak to, reassure and pacify we fans. You could have just left a few words to shut us up but you spoke to us in great detail explaining everything we could want to know. I haven't missed the fact either, that the game that I love so much was developed by amazing people who care. Seems so appropriate and justifies my deep, adoration for the game, even more so.
Your words for Elegy were stunningly, beautiful as well. Hit us right in the heart.
Peace, love and happiness to you and yours Mr. Raphael Van Lierop, and to your wonderful team.

You're being far too generous, but thank you.

[Lrrr Ruler of OP8]

43 minutes ago, SnowWalker said:

Well I think you're brilliant. Your vision gave us one of the most enjoyable sandbox experiences of all time. My forever game. I never, ever tire of it. Wintermute is fun and compelling and I'm not having many problems myself on PC. You're burning the candle at both ends, probably, and getting tugged on from all directions yet, you still take time out to speak to, reassure and pacify we fans. You could have just left a few words to shut us up but you spoke to us in great detail explaining everything we could want to know. I haven't missed the fact either, that the game that I love so much was developed by amazing people who care. Seems so appropriate and justifies my deep, adoration for the game, even more so.
Your words for Elegy were stunningly, beautiful as well. Hit us right in the heart.
Peace, love and happiness to you and yours Mr. Raphael Van Lierop, and to your wonderful team.

Can't stress enough how true this is. In love with your game, in love with your team. Keep up the great work.

[SnowWalker]

40 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

You're being far too generous, but thank you.

Oh no I'm not. I'm not just some person who's squirreled away day and night playing video games. I also have a rich family life and a husband and friends and a steady job. I remember a lot of boring down-time in my life though, nothing good on TV, no good books to read, but thanks to gaming, not anymore. A great game is kind of like a book or show that I can interact with. Even more fun and always there for me.  There are a lot of games that I love, but there aren't many that are as constant as TLD. A constant companion. If I'm able, I know I'll still be sandboxing TLD when I'm 80. You gave that to me and you and Hinterland deserve every bit of the praise.

Edited August 11, 2017 by SnowWalker

[thekillergreece]

Good news, Xbox fans are finally getting their patches! Now, let's hope we the Europeans will get our patches as well. PS4 Version of European sometimes gets freezes, especially after leaving interiors. Not sure if this has been checked out.

[SnowWalker]

(Poignant) That's the word I was looking for to describe Elegy. Stunningly, beautiful and poignant.

[The Gentleman Bastard]

4 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Thanks. I've posted some things occasionally thank rankled people. In general I don't understand where the hate towards comes from but I get internet culture and I've come to terms with it. Often a small comment can be taken out of context and becomes a "thing". I'm also a vociferous defender of the game and team and so I don't shy away from telling people off when I think they are being unfair. I'm not perfect. But, apart from my family, this game means everything to me, and I've been working 15 yrs to get here. Not making excuses, just showing that this is a personal work of deep passion and not some corporate thing.

Well if anyone starts being a dick towards you or the team, you can count me among the mass of raving fanboys(and girls) that will jump to your defense. Not that youd need it, the quality of your team and the game in general speak for themselves  

[ChillPlayer]

1 hour ago, SnowWalker said:

Well I think you're brilliant. Your vision gave us one of the most enjoyable sandbox experiences of all time. My forever game. I never, ever tire of it. Wintermute is fun and compelling and I'm not having many problems myself on PC. You're burning the candle at both ends, probably, and getting tugged on from all directions yet, you still take time out to speak to, reassure and pacify we fans. You could have just left a few words to shut us up but you spoke to us in great detail explaining everything we could want to know. I haven't missed the fact either, that the game that I love so much was developed by amazing people who care. Seems so appropriate and justifies my deep, adoration for the game, even more so.
Your words for Elegy were stunningly, beautiful as well. Hit us right in the heart.
Peace, love and happiness to you and yours Mr. Raphael Van Lierop, and to your wonderful team.

Exactly my thoughts, better said than I ever could so I won't even try. The Long Dark changed my life in the literal sense and I will always be grateful for the hard work you guys at hinterland put into it. You should be proud of everything you have accomplished against all odds, it's not a small achievement and everyone who's longer involved with TLD knows that this is a piece of art made from the heart and not the corporate mind. I am thankful for the past three years and I am looking very much forward to the release of the next episodes

Btw, is there an ETA for the next eps?

[Thrasador]

2 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Thanks. I've posted some things occasionally thank rankled people. In general I don't understand where the hate towards comes from but I get internet culture and I've come to terms with it. Often a small comment can be taken out of context and becomes a "thing". I'm also a vociferous defender of the game and team and so I don't shy away from telling people off when I think they are being unfair. I'm not perfect. But, apart from my family, this game means everything to me, and I've been working 15 yrs to get here. Not making excuses, just showing that this is a personal work of deep passion and not some corporate thing.

I wasn't here for the countdown thing, that was just before my time...but I read about it.

I think the root of the anger and frustration stems from the waiting. Some of your die-hard fans have been "waiting" for the story mode since potentially 2013 or 2014. Then to have it finally release and have it be anything but flawless after the years of waiting caused anger and frustration. No one is perfect and as others have stated releasing games a little prematurely HAS become the norm. Almost every big game has a day 1 patch now....and then STILL requires a month of patching afterwards....or more.

So I don't know, maybe we were just holding you to a higher standard and being perhaps a bit unfair in our expectations. Also, it's easy to act like a big jerk when you are being anonymous on the Internet. It's not like people normally behave like this face to face and in person.

What I will say is before Story mode was released this game was already becoming my favorite game of all time, with just the Sandbox. Once the bugs get hammered out, lets redouble our efforts to make sure the remainder of the story functions more smoothly upon release. Like myself and others have offered we are even willing to help test the game. I would do so for free....

This game being as good as it is, and how quickly I myself became attached to it, I would think most people who try it like it. I found it on accident on YouTube, and after mentioning this fact in threads it appears this is how others found the game too. I have referred to it as, "The best game I never heard of." I don't think I have ever seen an advertisement for it ANYWHERE... I think myself and other fans should start a word of mouth advertising campaign on FB, Twitter, Steam, and Reddit describing it as, "The best game you never heard of." Maybe link a trailer and/or a gameplay video....

It's time for more people to appreciate "The quiet apocalypse!"

Thanks again for making the game @Raphael van Lieropand crew! Sorry for those of us who were being jerks the last couple weeks....myself included!

 

[Strategizer]

@Raphael van Lierop I purposely waited to buy this game on the X1.  My reasoning was that I wanted to experience a solid polished game.  The Sandbox is fantastic, you and your team did excellent work truly AAA quality.  Of course I'm underwhelmed by the story mode due to bugs and a few other things.  So I've put it aside for now which is unfortunate for new players as it also acts like a bit of a tutorial.  

Your post and apology above is only the second time in gaming* that I have no shadow of a doubt about you commitment to both resolve the issues and create excellent content going forward.  It is incredibly rare to see this type of post directly from developers, and the amount a good will this garners is unmeasurable.  Based on what I have seen here, and playing the game for a week I can easily recomend TLD to anyone.  Never stop interacting with the community.   

*(and I have been gaming on and off since the Sears Pong Console)