Dev Diary - September 2017


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Thanks for the explanation. It makes a lot of sense and I strongly believe most TLD players will fully understand and sympathise.

I'm near the end of Episode 2 now and have really enjoyed the journey despite the little bugs (which sometimes made it more entertaining and memorable!). You guys have made a wonderful game here and you have a great support team that listens to the community and provides fixes amazingly speedy.

I wish you all a nice September holiday and look forward to new content in months to come :)

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as a fairly new survivor (only been playing since may 2017) I just wanted to let all of you at hinterlands know, you have done amazing work. I mean yeah sure the story mode update wasn't spick and span of bugs and such, but really the only thing that hindered my enjoyment was that arsehole bear spawning 4 feet outside jeremiahs cabin when it was time for the hunt. nearly killed me in game (and startled the everloving fck out of me in real life). but really that was my only trouble. I know peoples brains work differently, but I really didn't have any trouble with how the story was presented, and when I did come across an issue, 90% of the time it was my own fault for not reading something correctly...or going the wrong way cause I'm a dingus. I saw a few youtubers having actual issues like bugs and stuff, but almost none of it affected my personal game. anyway, while not a perfect launch. it was still AMAZING and I'm itching for more. be it sandbox or story, I CANNOT wait. enjoy your time off, ill just be here playing TLD like a hermit.

with love and support,

                       a faithful cartographer ; ^ )

 

ill see you in the quiet apocalypse...

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I'm very happy about The Long Dark story mode, in episode 2 it's a open world enough for me, the mission You Fix My Rifle is great, we have to go pretty far and i almost starved to death on my way, but the long walk was very  rewarding near the end, found some very useful items :), all i will so i don't spoil the fun for others :).

I haven't played the survive mode so i liked episode 1, because i learned to survive and more, so i spend a lot of time there before i moved on with the story.

The dialogue in cutscenes dosen't bother me at all, some is cutscenes and the rest is not, that's okay with me.

I agree with others who say a break for you guys is well deserved and i'm looking forward to episode 3 and beyond, now back to The Long Dark and help Jeremiah some more and explore every inches of the map in episode 2 :).

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I love the game but I was seriously disappointed with how poor the release was.  Not only did it kick off with bugs so numerous that episode two could not even be completed, but you couldn't even spell check the darn dialogue.  Really?  Do any of you even bother to play this game you work so tirelessly on that you need a whole MONTH off?  Oh BTW thanks for the countdown to the countdown.  That was really cool.

If you are gonna take a month off, then please put the story mode on hold and add some new content so that the people waiting the next year for another episode will have something new to keep it relevant.

I loved the clothing update.  Please add some more crafting, wildlife, and maps please.  Content, more content, and even more content.

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10 minutes ago, Wade said:

I love the game but I was seriously disappointed with how poor the release was.  Not only did it kick off with bugs so numerous that episode two could not even be completed, but you couldn't even spell check the darn dialogue.  Really?  Do any of you even bother to play this game you work so tirelessly on that you need a whole MONTH off?  Oh BTW thanks for the countdown to the countdown.  That was really cool.

If you are gonna take a month off, then please put the story mode on hold and add some new content so that the people waiting the next year for another episode will have something new to keep it relevant.

I loved the clothing update.  Please add some more crafting, wildlife, and maps please.  Content, more content, and even more content.

Personally I probably would have waited until patching Wintermute was completed before declaring a month off for everyone. Fixing the mess would be the least that could be done before everyone gets to go into relax mode. We have been waiting over three weeks now for the flare cache to be patched. It was already patched once, but the patch didn't actually fix it. They had the same issue with the bear ear, the bear hide for repairing Jerimiah's coat, and the aurora not appearing for the dam quest. Those were all things that had to be patched multiple times, because the patches didn't even work....

It's pretty frustrating having to wait for patches, but I find it even more frustrating to wait for the same things to be patched multiple times.....

Edited by Thrasador
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18 hours ago, Thrasador said:

Personally I probably would have waited until patching Wintermute was completed before declaring a month off for everyone. Fixing the mess would be the least that could be done before everyone gets to go into relax mode.

I fully understand where you're coming from... but disagree with your second sentence. In anything that takes sustained effort over a long period of time, there's something called burnout. And that goes double for coding.. it's brain-frying work at the best of times. Doing quality work when all you really want to do is shove your keyboard through the monitor just isn't a realistic expectation. I'd rather they took a break and came back with rejuvenated brains before getting to grips with the remaining bugs. It might be frustrating for players, but not as frustrating as increasingly half-assed workmanship would be.

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4 hours ago, JAFO said:

In anything that takes sustained effort over a long period of time, there's something called burnout. And that goes double for coding.. it's brain-frying work at the best of times. Doing quality work when all you really want to do is shove your keyboard through the monitor just isn't a realistic expectation. I'd rather they took a break and came back with rejuvenated brains before getting to grips with the remaining bugs. It might be frustrating for players, but not as frustrating as increasingly half-assed workmanship would be.

I agree, from what i understand this is a small developer team with 20 employees, so it's better they have a break from the game now, instead of loosing interest for The Long Dark in the near future, lots of problems before release must been very discouraging, but they managed to release it and it's far from unplayable, so i don't have a problem with them for having a break and i'm sure they will come back with full force and make The Long Dark even better.

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4 hours ago, JAFO said:

I fully understand where you're coming from... but disagree with your second sentence. In anything that takes sustained effort over a long period of time, there's something called burnout. And that goes double for coding.. it's brain-frying work at the best of times. Doing quality work when all you really want to do is shove your keyboard through the monitor just isn't a realistic expectation. I'd rather they took a break and came back with rejuvenated brains before getting to grips with the remaining bugs. It might be frustrating for players, but not as frustrating as increasingly half-assed workmanship would be.

I am probably one of the most impatient people on the planet. I also like to treat each day like it's my last because you never know when you'll have a piano dropped on your head, or you'll be diagnosed with terminal cancer. Some people just don't have time to waste "waiting." In this instance instead of waiting for Hinterland to recharge their batteries to fix THIS particular game, I should be playing other games that are fun. I just didn't want to move on yet, because typically when I move on I never come back.

So in the event I suddenly vanish it's probably because a piano was dropped on my head, I got terminal cancer, or I moved on to another game....

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39 minutes ago, Thrasador said:

I am probably one of the most impatient people on the planet. I also like to treat each day like it's my last because you never know when you'll have a piano dropped on your head, or you'll be diagnosed with terminal cancer. Some people just don't have time to waste "waiting." In this instance instead of waiting for Hinterland to recharge their batteries to fix THIS particular game, I should be playing other games that are fun. I just didn't want to move on yet, because typically when I move on I never come back.

So in the event I suddenly vanish it's probably because a piano was dropped on my head, I got terminal cancer, or I moved on to another game....

That is very unhealthy and stress inducing way to live. Id suggest to try and relax a bit. I kind of wish I had a chance to live off the land like the TLD character does, because I believe this stressful "cant wait for nothing" mindset is whats slowly poisoning the human civilization. Boyfriend of my best highschool friend has a dream to run a 7 day experiment in wilderness, using minimum tools, and I will probably join him on this fools errand... but we both agree that this is going to be a great eye-opening experience. Because in survival, you have no time to worry about what tommorow will hold, but rather about taking care of the essentials you need today.

Give them time to relax - a wise man once said "All changes for worse are quick to come, a change for better always takes time". Think about it, doesnt it really apply to just about anything in life?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Raph, for the State of the Union address.  I had a good time playing Story Mode even though I am basically a 1000  hour Sandbox addict.  I hope the team is chilling with a few Stacey's sodas. 

As a relatively early early access purchaser, I loved witnessing the evolution.  I also loved your aspirational road map.  I understand your reasons for not making it public going forward, but I always thought it was fun and never looked at it like it was a politician's pre-election platform.

I will submit my vote here for survival mode development. :)

Congratulations on a great milestone, and I look forward to TLD future!

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@Raphael van Lierop, dude your game rocks. I wanted to play it for months before I got it (finally someone bought it for me as a birthday present, it was on my Steam wishlist forever!), and when I did finally get to immerse myself in your company's vision of survival I was not one bit dissapointed.

Additionally, Wintermute - superb. Ignore the haters, they will always find something to winge or moan about because that's how they get their jollies. The story is interesting, and the episodic structure is perfectly suited to the game dynamics - great decision.

You and your whole team should be suitably praised for your creation - as a gamer I thank you. ;)

Edited by TreeBeard
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So hey, its October now.. Soo are the proper devs back to actually fix the bugs, so i could play a game, that i havent been able to play for a month, cause of the bugs? 

 

 Hard work and everything, but the game was way better in EA.. 

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4 hours ago, Vermit said:

Soo are the proper devs back to actually fix the bugs, so i could play a game, that i havent been able to play for a month, cause of the bugs? 

What bugs is that? I'm playing story mode (250 in-game hours) and have just started suvival mode, just survived 15 days and counting, i have not encountered any game breaking bugs yet.

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20 hours ago, ingrobny said:

What bugs is that? I'm playing story mode (250 in-game hours) and have just started suvival mode, just survived 15 days and counting, i have not encountered any game breaking bugs yet.

None of the ropes work for me, if i try to use em, 2 things can happen, either game crashes completly or it lags so bad, that it feels like im using 56k modem to load a 1mb picture(if you know what that means), cant use water, i cant drink it. i have it in my bag, and i have an option to drink it, but if i click it, nothing happens. 

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2 minutes ago, Vermit said:

None of the ropes work for me, if i try to use em, 2 things can happen, either game crashes completly or it lags so bad, that it feels like im using 56k modem to load a 1mb picture(if you know what that means), cant use water, i cant drink it. i have it in my bag, and i have an option to drink it, but if i click it, nothing happens. 

Not be able to drink water is for sure game breaking, have you tried to delete the game and install it again? Maybe something got messed up during instalation?

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@Vermit Probably an xbox or p4 player I say?

Not sure why Hinterland got so early into porting to these platforms so early. I guess it a learning curve they needed for one of the best upcoming indie game developers out here. Keep it up HT.

Edited by nicko
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1 hour ago, nicko said:

@Vermit Probably an xbox or p4 player I say?

Not sure why Hinterland got so early into porting to these platforms so early. I guess it a learning curve they needed for one of the best upcoming indie game developers out here. Keep it up HT.

But the thing is that i'm playing on PS4 and have never had problems like this, so maybe something went wrong when installing? The only problem i have is that the game often crash when i enter or exit a building.

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