Episode 3

[Tbone555]

I'll address the elephant in the room here. when can we expect episode 3? whom will we play as? who was the chick using the laptop in the ep 2 cinematic? what was she doing using the computer when, if the electric grid is down, the internet would be non existent? was she playing space pinball? I would be. Perhaps she found a way to rig up internet and was on hinterland forums wondering when ep. 3 is expected.  can we expect characters that don't act like their legs are paralyzed and will actually move around and interact with us?

Let us discuss, fellow survivors.

[private duksworth]

epode 3 is not coming out this year as confirmed by the december update notes. the chick will probably be a person we meet in a future episode maybe she was in the radio tower. for the moving npc i don't know maybe we could have wandering traders and stuff like that

[selfless]

Next year at the earliest but I would not expect it before September.  Astrid has been promised as the character.  Perhaps playing from where she left us but that could mean yet another whole new tutorial level so maybe we will join her farther along.  But there's no telling how Hinterland would present her backstory then.  If it's going to be a bunch of cutscenes maybe I'll push my expectation out to 2020.  NPCs that move around while we are looking at them?  Maybe 2021...

But here's the thing, if we are going to play as Astrid, and Astrid has this big history and a mission shes set on, we are going to have to be told what the hell she is up to day one, end of mystery.  She knows what her goal is and we are her.  So I'm almost certain the first moment of Episode 3 we will end up with "amnesia". Which would be just another reason why I will probably never play it.

[Tbone555]

September? Christ man surely we will get it before September next year. That's absurd lmao.

Hinterland simply stated that the remainder of season 1 will be realeased over the course of 2018. I'm hoping we will see an episode 3 by March, at latest. I seriously lol'd at that 2020/2021. sad thing is it's probably true xD

I love hinterland to death and I loved the game since I said eyes on it. I think it's a work of art. but man does hinterland take their time. which would be okay if it was breathtaking. but let's just be honest. It's not. with as much time as they took for the wintermute release I expected a bit more than npcs that don't move that shovel you fetch quests over and over again. we didn't even get a single moral choice other than "steal the ammo or don't steal the ammo" which didn't have any kind of impact at all. I was completely let down. and that makes me sad, since I've been following this game since, what, 2015? That's almost 4 years and I think the moose is the biggest change I've seen to the game.

[cekivi]

My guess is also March. There has been a lot of feedback on Episodes 1 and 2 and it is clear that Hinterlands is making an effort to address some of the criticisms it has received. One example is the December update's story mode difficulty. Presumably this feedback is being extended to future episodes to improve them. Since the writing, dialogues, and quest structure has also been criticised it is very possible that the current delay is a result of re-working these aspects of the game. At the end of the day though, the game has been released, received a lot of attention in the Steam Fall sale and there is a customer base that expects episodes every few months. While it is certainly possible to only have an episode a year I don't think Hinterlands would be foolish enough to actually do so. Unreliable updates would poison any future games they try to release. 

[stratvox]

On the subject of "taking their time", these guys don't have the resources of EA or Ubisoft. It's a small dev team, and there's a saying about software dev: "cheap, good, fast: pick two". Yes, the game has sold well, and they're responding by hiring more people, but the simple truth is that this is being done on a shoestring when compared to most games. Since they are by necessity doing it pretty cheaply, you get either good or fast. Personally, I'm happy with good. I'm also very encouraged by seeing how Hinterland (i.e. Raph) has engaged with the community and is attempting to address the problems (both in code and in overall execution of the concept) with the game. The patches came out fast and furious in August/September, and given the size of the team that means that there was a lot of lamp oil burnt by the dev team, and now they're working on addressing the shortcomings of story mode by making it something that can be more engaging with the highly experienced early adopters of TLD as well as newbs to the game.

I'm very much looking forward to the December update, and I'm very interested in what the unspecified "other surprises" we're going to get... craftable headgear being high on the list for me. New Challenges maybe? I'm also kinda hoping they'll take the wish list suggestion and add a body up on TWM summit with a pair of mountaineering boots, being the guy who authored the note you find in the cabin down below. Maybe with a new note scratched out as he froze to death up on the summit after a bad encounter with a bear meant that he couldn't descend. "Pardon the chicken scratches, but my right arm has been destroyed after a bear attacked me up here and I'm writing with my left..."

Oh, and I've always wondered... where's the crew cabin of that airplane anyway?

[nicko]

Based on the feedback from gamers and HT I think it will be within 3 months maybe. That's my guess. any longer people might lose interest.

 I believe HT have  some great talented people working hard on all aspects of the game. They will want to make EP3 it a lot better gaming experience, so this will no doubt take a lot more time .  Keep up the great work at HT your doing awesome.

[Fuarian]

We will play as Astrid and see her side of the story. And that woman using the laptop I'm guessing is Alice from Milton, I'm also guessing that she wasn't using the laptop but just had it open or something. It wouldn't make sense to use a broken laptop. 

I'm aiming for Summer 2018, I doubt they'll get it done by Spring 2018.

[Tbone555]

3 hours ago, Fuarian said:

We will play as Astrid and see her side of the story. And that woman using the laptop I'm guessing is Alice from Milton, I'm also guessing that she wasn't using the laptop but just had it open or something. It wouldn't make sense to use a broken laptop. 

I'm aiming for Summer 2018, I doubt they'll get it done by Spring 2018.

Who's this alice character you mentioned? don't remember anything like that from Milton

13 hours ago, stratvox said:

On the subject of "taking their time", these guys don't have the resources of EA or Ubisoft. It's a small dev team, and there's a saying about software dev: "cheap, good, fast: pick two". Yes, the game has sold well, and they're responding by hiring more people, but the simple truth is that this is being done on a shoestring when compared to most games. Since they are by necessity doing it pretty cheaply, you get either good or fast. Personally, I'm happy with good.

Is it really that good though?

As I said, I'm just being honest. I've followed this game since their release on Xbox one preview, and it hasn't really been improved much.

The voice acting and cutscenes and music are ON POINT. but let's quit kidding ourselves. the immobile npcs and fetch quests really weren't. and I was lucky enough to only stumble upon only one of the many gamebreaking bugs in my playthrough. props to them for fixing those so quickly though. It's just, they put out so much hype around this release that everyone got their hopes up for something they weren't able to deliver. even the trailer was misleading. that make things right trailer had my thinking I was gonna be involved in some deep storytelling stuff with a bunch of different npcs that would end in bloodshed. when will was grabbing the rifle and gray mother was like "this is how we make it right!" I was all like "awwwwww man imma kill somebody today!" and in reality I was just taking a necklace to a grave. and then the climbing sequence? it looked like will was climbing up a huge cliff side in the middle of a blizzard to get to some much needed rose hips, risking his life for survival, when in reality you end up climbing a 4 foot ledge on a sunny day. they need to stop hyping it up and making it look intense when it is just not intense at all. It's incredibly misleading and had me feeling disappointed.

And believe me I'm not attacking them or the game at all. this is just my honest opinion as a player, and I think hinterland could be doing a much better job. I'm very very excited for episode 3, and I don't have a doubt in my mind that they will get it right this time, given the community feedback. even if they don't, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it to some extent and I'll continue to play sandbox as I always have, and I'll still recommend this game to everyone I know. It's a good game. they've done a good job with it. I just think they could have done a lot better with the ample amount of time and patience they have been given over the years. nevertheless I'm very excited to see what's in store for the rest of the season, and hope with all my heart that we get to see a season 2, possibly set in spring time. that would blow my mind.

[Fuarian]

1 hour ago, Tbone555 said:

Who's this alice character you mentioned? don't remember anything like that from Milton

Is it really that good though?

As I said, I'm just being honest. I've followed this game since their release on Xbox one preview, and it hasn't really been improved much.

The voice acting and cutscenes and music are ON POINT. but let's quit kidding ourselves. the immobile npcs and fetch quests really weren't. and I was lucky enough to only stumble upon only one of the many gamebreaking bugs in my playthrough. props to them for fixing those so quickly though. It's just, they put out so much hype around this release that everyone got their hopes up for something they weren't able to deliver. even the trailer was misleading. that make things right trailer had my thinking I was gonna be involved in some deep storytelling stuff with a bunch of different npcs that would end in bloodshed. when will was grabbing the rifle and gray mother was like "this is how we make it right!" I was all like "awwwwww man imma kill somebody today!" and in reality I was just taking a necklace to a grave. and then the climbing sequence? it looked like will was climbing up a huge cliff side in the middle of a blizzard to get to some much needed rose hips, risking his life for survival, when in reality you end up climbing a 4 foot ledge on a sunny day. they need to stop hyping it up and making it look intense when it is just not intense at all. It's incredibly misleading and had me feeling disappointed.

And believe me I'm not attacking them or the game at all. this is just my honest opinion as a player, and I think hinterland could be doing a much better job. I'm very very excited for episode 3, and I don't have a doubt in my mind that they will get it right this time, given the community feedback. even if they don't, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it to some extent and I'll continue to play sandbox as I always have, and I'll still recommend this game to everyone I know. It's a good game. they've done a good job with it. I just think they could have done a lot better with the ample amount of time and patience they have been given over the years. nevertheless I'm very excited to see what's in store for the rest of the season, and hope with all my heart that we get to see a season 2, possibly set in spring time. that would blow my mind.

Alice was mentioned about in various notes found around town. 

And I get what you are saying, immobile NPC's are a little immersion breaking. But what else would you want? NPC's that walk around the worldspace? I'd rather have them sit tight instead of having to run around searching for them all the time. And fetch quests, I get it, they suck. But there's not much else you can do either. The game is based around resources, resources that other people need to help you along.

[Tbone555]

7 hours ago, Fuarian said:

Alice was mentioned about in various notes found around town. 

And I get what you are saying, immobile NPC's are a little immersion breaking. But what else would you want? NPC's that walk around the worldspace? I'd rather have them sit tight instead of having to run around searching for them all the time. And fetch quests, I get it, they suck. But there's not much else you can do either. The game is based around resources, resources that other people need to help you along.

I'll have to go back and read those notes! I collected all the notes in Milton but didn't pay close enough attention to even notice this alice person.

But about the npcs, I wouldn't expect to have to go walking through the woods to find Jeremiah, no. But. He literally does nothing. I'd expect to see him up and about, might stoke the fire every now and again, sit in his chair, clean his rifle, grab a bite to eat. normal stuff. instead he just. lays there. And what's the deal with him making you kill the old bear for him? I mean come on. It takes me one day to recover from a bear attack. Jeremiah is just being lazy. you'd think he wants in on some of that action to get his revenge and hunt the bear with you. Or might come on a deer hunt with you from time to time. after giving him like a week to rest up I'm pretty sure he'd be recovered and ready and eager to get his boots dirty again. Why not get off his lazy behind and teach you some of those survival skills? like I said. laaaaazy. probably too busy hitting that morphine he tricked you into getting him while you're outside being mauled by a bear... grey mother had an excuse. It was implied she didn't have the best use of her legs. Jeremiah does not have an excuse after at least 3 days of continuous rest.

I reckon you're right about the fetch quests though. this game is 60 percent inventory management so I guess you can't expect anything more. hunting the old bear was an awesome change of pace, when it didn't glitch out constantly.

My question is, where are the deep, meaningful choices we were promised? so far it seems completely linear to me. And the question , nay, the ENTIRE selling point of the game, "how far will you go to survive the long dark?" is just not at all put into play anywhere. now, if I was able to steal the grey mothers rifle from her, rob her blind (pun intended) and leave her to die as opposed to helping her, now THAT would have impressed me. that would have felt like a meaningful choice.

[Fuarian]

11 hours ago, Tbone555 said:

I'll have to go back and read those notes! I collected all the notes in Milton but didn't pay close enough attention to even notice this alice person.

But about the npcs, I wouldn't expect to have to go walking through the woods to find Jeremiah, no. But. He literally does nothing. I'd expect to see him up and about, might stoke the fire every now and again, sit in his chair, clean his rifle, grab a bite to eat. normal stuff. instead he just. lays there. And what's the deal with him making you kill the old bear for him? I mean come on. It takes me one day to recover from a bear attack. Jeremiah is just being lazy. you'd think he wants in on some of that action to get his revenge and hunt the bear with you. Or might come on a deer hunt with you from time to time. after giving him like a week to rest up I'm pretty sure he'd be recovered and ready and eager to get his boots dirty again. Why not get off his lazy behind and teach you some of those survival skills? like I said. laaaaazy. probably too busy hitting that morphine he tricked you into getting him while you're outside being mauled by a bear... grey mother had an excuse. It was implied she didn't have the best use of her legs. Jeremiah does not have an excuse after at least 3 days of continuous rest.

I reckon you're right about the fetch quests though. this game is 60 percent inventory management so I guess you can't expect anything more. hunting the old bear was an awesome change of pace, when it didn't glitch out constantly.

My question is, where are the deep, meaningful choices we were promised? so far it seems completely linear to me. And the question , nay, the ENTIRE selling point of the game, "how far will you go to survive the long dark?" is just not at all put into play anywhere. now, if I was able to steal the grey mothers rifle from her, rob her blind (pun intended) and leave her to die as opposed to helping her, now THAT would have impressed me. that would have felt like a meaningful choice.

That pisses me off the most. How the main moral of the Long Dark isn't even present one bit in The Long Dark... Although, Methuselah does say EXACTLY those words near the end of Episode 2. So maybe that's setting it up for some more tough choices. (I also did a bit of digging in the audio files which may also support this, but I won't spoil anything or redistribute those files.)

[Boston123]

The question "What will you do to survive?" has been answered.

The answer is "fetch quests". No moral ambiguity, no meaningful choice. Just fetch quests.

[Tbone555]

12 hours ago, Boston123 said:

The question "What will you do to survive?" has been answered.

The answer is "fetch quests". No moral ambiguity, no meaningful choice. Just fetch quests.

That made me lol.

16 hours ago, Fuarian said:

That pisses me off the most. How the main moral of the Long Dark isn't even present one bit in The Long Dark... Although, Methuselah does say EXACTLY those words near the end of Episode 2. So maybe that's setting it up for some more tough choices. (I also did a bit of digging in the audio files which may also support this, but I won't spoil anything or redistribute those files.)

Let's just hope so. This game is SUCH a great premise. The ambition and base is THERE. Just gotta make it happen.

[stratvox]

On 29/11/2017 at 3:17 PM, Tbone555 said:

And believe me I'm not attacking them or the game at all. this is just my honest opinion as a player, and I think hinterland could be doing a much better job. I'm very very excited for episode 3, and I don't have a doubt in my mind that they will get it right this time, given the community feedback. even if they don't, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it to some extent and I'll continue to play sandbox as I always have, and I'll still recommend this game to everyone I know. It's a good game. they've done a good job with it. I just think they could have done a lot better with the ample amount of time and patience they have been given over the years.

I'm not much of a dev myself; I'm a sysop and most of the programs I write are one-timers that are a few lines long (find, grep, awk, and sed are your friends!), but I've been working very closely with devs for a decade now, and I suspect that you don't really understand how labour intensive software development is. The last place I worked is developing a fairly extensive web application complete with full motion video and (among others) a UI for scoring those videos. My team was also quite small (much smaller than Hinterland's) and it's been under development for over two years. The scope of this app is considerably smaller than the scope of TLD; you're looking at least an order of magnitude difference. Hinterland's dev team for most of those years you're talking about has been about three times the size of the dev team at my last place.

My experience in this field tells me they are doing very good work and quite quickly, which is not a surprise given the CVs of the devs working on this game; I'd expect them to be very productive and from my POV and looking at the results I think they're doing good work in a reasonable time frame. I will allow that there could be some ways of looking at Ep. 1 & 2 that would stand some improvement, but... given that at this point the player has been fed all the mechanics and the ending of Ep. 2, I think you can expect to see a lot more of that moral ambiguity coming up.

I think it's totally reasonable to criticize certain aspects of the game as they stand, but I don't think it's fair to criticize them for not having done a lot; the time frames here actually show that you're looking at a group of very skilled people here.

I think if Raph had an EA or Ubisoft budget you'd be seeing things happening much more quickly, but then again, if he'd had that budget he'd never have been allowed to make the game he has.

[Wade]

I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring here and say that the story mode won't be finished in 2018.  I see it finishing summer 2019.  That is 6 months to do each new episode.(may revise this if they keep taking whole months off at once)

On 11/28/2017 at 8:04 PM, Tbone555 said:

Hinterland simply stated that the remainder of season 1 will be realeased over the course of 2018.

If this proves to be the case, then I doubt you will really want to play those episodes, as that is way to fast given their track record.  If you have followed this game for the past few years you should know by now that the projections are always a matter of "we bit off quite a bit more than our small team could handle".  Problems come up, working on sandbox and story mode concurrently, blah, blah, blah.  Bottom line: don't expect another episode until sometime next summer.  Personally I don't care if they ever finish the story.  Its not that the story mode is terrible or anything, I just feel the future of this game has been and always will be in sandbox.  To me story mode is just delaying the stuff that could make this great game something truly special.  Mod support, seasons, maps, npcs, etc.  Be careful what you wish for as far as how soon you want them to finish the story.  Think about how long it took to put out the two episodes we have currently.  Were they what you expected for that amount of time?  Now imagine what the final three episodes will look like if they do each one in four months......  There is a reason there isn't a road map anymore.

[hozz1235]

At least they can integrate the Story content into Sandbox.  I believe content will be coming quicker - it seems that the past years was working out many base architectural issues - once you get those nailed down, additional content should be easier.

[Darkwater]

You know mod support gives me an idea

Once it's added they could have a little thing where every few months the most popular mod (that actually fits the game I think we can all agree that moders can be weird) gets fully added into the base game. kill two rabbits with one stone new stuff gets added at low development cost and encourages people to make quality mods.

[MrJade]

Well, March has come and gone, and we are still waiting to hear anything about anything.

[Carbon]

 As much as I appreciate what HL are trying to achieve with story mode, I still find Survival Mode to be where the essence of the game is and where it shines the brightest. I can't imagine where the sandbox would be if all of the resources had been put into it: more maps and environments (keeping within the winter/North theme), more animals, more crafting...the same thing but bigger, wider and deeper. Particular objectives and challenges presented through clues and hints embedded into an expanded sandbox would be much more compelling, imo.

 I suppose people want a story, a narrative to follow but for me, the acts are the story, playing out in real time. Not having all of the blanks filled in allows the player to do so with their own narrative. I wasn't disappointed with story mode, I just found it superfluous and as such, look forward to survival mode expansions far more than the next episode in the story.

[nicko]

1 hour ago, Carbon said:

 As much as I appreciate what HL are trying to achieve with story mode, I still find Survival Mode to be where the essence of the game is and where it shines the brightest. I can't imagine where the sandbox would be if all of the resources had been put into it: more maps and environments (keeping within the winter/North theme), more animals, more crafting...the same thing but bigger, wider and deeper. Particular objectives and challenges presented through clues and hints embedded into an expanded sandbox would be much more compelling, imo.

 I suppose people want a story, a narrative to follow but for me, the acts are the story, playing out in real time. Not having all of the blanks filled in allows the player to do so with their own narrative. I wasn't disappointed with story mode, I just found it superfluous and as such, look forward to survival mode expansions far more than the next episode in the story.

yeh I tend to agree, I think HT also found that the sandbox / survival mode was gaining momentum. Either way HT have the commitment to finish story mode as promised and have stated they will finish it.

Sandbox / Survival Game play is more of a bonus game addition if you think about it. Awesome one at that, HT also said they will be expanding Survival game play as well.  So all good afaik.

 

[Le Petit Prince]

I find survival modes annoying and pointless. It is only my opinion. Because, you are collecting items to survive -most of the time without any other mission- and then of course the day comes that you die... Survival games' purpose is to get highest score of yourself, when you're out of supplies you have to start over, and try again for better, and ofcourse everything you've done before will be gone. Thats why i don't like survival modes. I don't feel like i have a reason to fight for. I mean there are two ways. You survive, or you die. If you will die at the end, why play? Because you know it will end with nothing, with no final scene or sth, it's just you're dead. If you don't die forever, so still why play? Game gets so monotone. Find supplies and it's just it.

Like i said earlier it is only my view, i know that it changes depending on player and i respect players who finds survival modes more enjoyable.

On the other hand, in story modes, i wonder what's coming next. And to see it, i have to survive. Just like a book or movie, there is a written story and it makes you go on. I am very curious about what happened to Astrid. As being taking up seriously with my character, i want to save or help my ex-wife. With mysterious i believe stories makes everything much more enjoyable and attractive. (If TLD was multiplay game, i would think different.)

However, i think Hinterland lost this story adventage. Since it's been so long since i've finished the 2nd episode, i lost my curiosity and desire to play. Even in the upper paragraph, i had to check woman character's name from google because i couldn't remember it. I was almost writing Ashley . Now it's been 8 months, still no specific date for next episode, and 1,5 months since the last news we got. One thing i know is if Hinterland makes players wait about 1 year for each episode of story they will keep losing story's attractiveness.

[stratvox]

18 hours ago, Le Petit Prince said:

I find survival modes annoying and pointless. It is only my opinion. Because, you are collecting items to survive -most of the time without any other mission- and then of course the day comes that you die... Survival games' purpose is to get highest score of yourself, when you're out of supplies you have to start over, and try again for better, and ofcourse everything you've done before will be gone. Thats why i don't like survival modes. I don't feel like i have a reason to fight for. I mean there are two ways. You survive, or you die. If you will die at the end, why play?

Heh... as a person who plugged way too many quarters into arcade games back in the eighties, I can tell you that almost all of the games worked that way in the old days. Didn't keep us from playing them though.

I actually really like permadeath because it really reminds me of that style of game programming. It's something that's been lost for a long long time.

Get MAME and try Berzerk sometime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berzerk_(video_game)

 

[Doc Feral]

I played the story mode and now I'm playing sandbox. Story mode has saves and missions, so you won't be compelled to explore everywhere in search for supplies and you will take more risks. Survival mode makes you slow down to a crawl in exploring and moving around (I personally still move too fast and take too many risks and this explains why my games are depressingly short). It's a totally different way of playing.

[Wade]

On 11/28/2017 at 8:44 PM, cekivi said:

My guess is also March.

So much for your guess.  I still think it will be late May or early June for Episode three.