Video Interview with Gamasutra: Raphael van Lierop of The Long Dark talks surviving a rough launch

[Mel Guille]

A few weeks ago our Creative Director @Raphael van Lierop was interviewed by Gamasutra  on their Twitch channel about launching The Long Dark.

Watch it here!
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/303632/Raphael_van_Lierop_of_The_Long_Dark_talks_surviving_a_rough_launch.php

[nicko]

honest and very informative and interesting. thanks for the insights.

[togg]

Listening to it, roadmap was brought up, I'm particularly interested to know if the roadmap that we had will ever come back, it's such a nice thing to look at. Of course it creates expectations but not having stress is not the solution Now he is saying that you'll keep more cards to yourself, no roadmap then! Sad.

And I agree that 1 august lunch was the good thing, everybody has bugs.

 

edit: good to know that you want to put some more story elements to surival mode. that's what I would like. Notes and pile of stones are already very nice for me, this can definetelly built up upon. even NPCs can find their path it, we also have black spots where they could move to another place and, for exemple, clear the path from resources going to the place etc etc

[togg]

I was thinking about the fetch quest mechanics in story mode. Probably what bothers people so much is having such a standard way of bringing objects back to a single place. The sandbox has so many different situations in which you need to move and find resources. I feel like the team could build a lot of small narrative experiences that follow those kind of movements.

An NPC can move during the night, he/she can shoot with a rifle in the distance, you can find paths in the snow, dead wolves to follow, think about where she could have gone, see the smoke of a fire. There's no need to animate any of that, like I said the game is full of black spots where things can happen leaving you to reconstruct and act upon them.

Fetch and bring back to location is the most basic of all these forms, I'd say almost empty. It makes the game look dull.

[Frosty]

3 hours ago, togg said:

An NPC can move during the night, he/she can shoot with a rifle in the distance, you can find paths in the snow,

The whole "fetch quest" makes the story mode boring is a strange argument to me, perhaps because I am a new player idk I just don't understand when players say this about games in general.

Most games have this form of gameplay in some way or another, where you are obtaining something from area A  (for whatever reason gameplay wise) and taking it to area B, whether it is to acquire points or for interactions that will progress the game further.

At least in this game the people you are "fetching" items for are characters that are developed enough to illustrate WHY they need you to accomplish these tasks for them and WHY the player should even care to assist them.

Grey Mother is elderly, blind and starving and wielding a rifle who has info the player needs but is distrustful and the player needs to gain that trust to progress.

Jermaiah just got viciously mauled and is in no shape to do anything and the player needs to assist him for information and for knowledge that will help his own survival as well.

I'll agree that there is a running theme here in regards to the NPC’S state of being which makes it necessary for them to risk trusting the player so far, both being physically impaired to provide for themselves.  Hopefully not everyone will be incapacitated in some way to require the players assistance because that could get predictable and uninteresting imo 

Maybe it's the building expectations with vet players over the years which has resulted in this disappointment, because as Raphael says you're doing the same things that you do in Survival mode just for a more meaningful reason than your own perseverance in The Long Dark 

[togg]

1 hour ago, Frosty said:

The whole "fetch quest" makes the story mode boring is a strange argument to me, perhaps because I am a new player idk I just don't understand when players say this about games in general.

Most games have this form of gameplay in some way or another, where you are obtaining something from area A  (for whatever reason gameplay wise) and taking it to area B, whether it is to acquire points or for interactions that will progress the game further.

At least in this game the people you are "fetching" items for are characters that are developed enough to illustrate WHY they need you to accomplish these tasks for them and WHY the player should even care to assist them.

Grey Mother is elderly, blind and starving and wielding a rifle who has info the player needs but is distrustful and the player needs to gain that trust to progress.

Jermaiah just got viciously mauled and is in no shape to do anything and the player needs to assist him for information and for knowledge that will help his own survival as well.

I'll agree that there is a running theme here in regards to the NPC’S state of being which makes it necessary for them to risk trusting the player so far, both being physically impaired to provide for themselves.  Hopefully not everyone will be incapacitated in some way to require the players assistance because that could get predictable and uninteresting imo 

Maybe it's the building expectations with vet players over the years which has resulted in this disappointment, because as Raphael says you're doing the same things that you do in Survival mode just for a more meaningful reason than your own perseverance in The Long Dark 

I don't want to be the voice of disappointment. I couldn't even play more than two hours of Wintermute because for me it's just too easy, I'm not asking for me. For me the game is already what I like and I don't particularly care about having a story mode that I like, it's fine.

Said that, you talk about other vgames that do the same thing. Problem is that when this happens it's either a bad choice, for me, or a way for the developer to highlight the strenghts of the game. I don't know if you've already started play some sandbox but there your movements are connected in a multiple ways to the world around you. It's not find this object, bring it back.  It's completelly different that what I saw happening in Wintermute, both my small experience and watching streamers. And it's not about inventing our own story in survival, I don't do that. It's just a way more complex and interesting relationship between gameplay and world building. Try it, move up with the difficulties in survival. You'll see.

To sum it up. I dislike every game where you have to do some standard action that is just making you loose time without any kind of thought/button action/other feelings. For me it's just filler. TLD is refreshing exactly because it avoids a lot of errors that games like Skyrim, Don't Starve etc do.

[Frosty]

5 minutes ago, togg said:

It's not find this object, bring it back.  It's completelly different that what I saw happening in Wintermute,

Hey @togg it wasn't my intention to single you out as the voice of disappointment regarding this topic. It's merely a recurring type of statement I'm seeing on the forums typically by veterans such as yourself.

I'd have to argue the above statement somewhat however, as in Survival mode you are always searching for something and bringing it back for storage or use somewhere, it's a major element involved with the gameplay. And in Wintermute I would also argue that is more difficult and different than Survival in that way espicially, as not only do you need items for NPC'S but you need to take care of yourself along the way while accomplishing the required task. Not having cabin fever or Parisitic meat and any other things that I'm unaware of that isn't in Story is balancing the mode for ALL players.

They have made many different modes in Survival to try to cater to the varying differences in playstyles that people have and I don't believe that can be done with the story imo 

I am enjoying Survival much more at the moment because I am learning how to take care of myself and having the freedom to go and do whatever I wish without the pace of the game in story controlling the direction which is always forward while unlocking items and abilities.

You aren't expected to camp and base in a region for too long as the story is propelling you forward towards your ultimate goal which is another major difference between the two modes. Like yourself I also have game preferences in certain areas and one of them is episodic formats as I am not fond of waiting for the content to release as I want to experience it at my own leisure not the developers, which is another reason why I am not playing the story right now so I see the merit in the points you've made  

[deepanddark]

On 8/29/2017 at 11:34 PM, Mel Guille said:

A few weeks ago our Creative Director @Raphael van Lierop was interviewed by Gamasutra  on their Twitch channel about launching The Long Dark.

Watch it here!
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/303632/Raphael_van_Lierop_of_The_Long_Dark_talks_surviving_a_rough_launch.php

Thanks for sharing!

[Carbon]

 The 'fetch quest' discussion has 2 sides: newer players who like it/need it and older players who have been traversing these maps for literally years and are thus jaded and find the whole thing quite trivial and unnecessary.

 Obviously the first group are 'right' in the sense of what the first episodes needed to establish and the second group have to suck it up this time around. No biggie really and I for one can completely understand why HL had to do this. They can't assume that every player has survival mode experience and must be welcoming to new players with these 'tutorial-like' introductory episodes.

It's good to get to know the framework for what's coming, get clues to why things are the way they are, meet some key characters and have a purpose outside just surviving. A new context for old ideas is still very cool.

[JAFO]

24 minutes ago, Carbon said:

Obviously the first group are 'right' in the sense of what the first episodes needed to establish and the second group have to suck it up this time around. No biggie really and I for one can completely understand why HL had to do this. They can't assume that every player has survival mode experience and must be welcoming to new players with these 'tutorial-like' introductory episodes.

Agreed.