How TLD could continue to thrive (after Wintermute)

[Guest jeffpeng]

I just want to preface that this is all very personal and hence unimportant opinion, and should be taken as such.

Recently, in the Milton Mailbag Dispatch #4, @Raphael van Lierop mentioned, and rightfully so, that HL would, at some point, have to stop giving away new content to the game for free since making a game like TLD costs millions. And as a developer (of totally different, much less entertaining software) I can agree on that wholeheartedly. There are only so much patches, fixes, tiny quality-of-life improvements and shiny new features you can squeeze out of your own pocket before you need either a new gig that pays the bills or the old gig to ramp up the budget.

I was wondering how that could possibly be done, and I am sure you guys at HL have plentiful ideas how to procure those precious Canadian dollars, but for reasons still mysterious to myself I found it a good idea to share my thoughts on that.

My roots lie with playing all sorts of simulation, strategy and RPGs since I got my first C64 at the age of 8. As such I am a longstanding and loyal Cities: Skylines player despite its many flaws and shortcomings. And C:S is one of those games on steam that managed to quite successfully improve and expand over the course of it's now 3 years of life cycle - with no foreseeable end in sight.

C:S has done that with a pretty simple formula it didn't invent, but applied better than most: Offer content that is engaging and interesting but optional as DLCs, while make the mandatory changes in the game available to everyone.  And while I'm not generally a fan of DLCs, if it is done right, which happens rarely enough, it's an amazing way to bring a product you already sold forward. It is perfectly possible to play the base game and still have no worse chances at "winning" in C:S (which isn't hard to begin with, but that's not the point). But these DLCs enrich the game with many things you wouldn't wanna miss once you had them, and so I find myself spending a few dollars every couple of months, both to get new stuff, and to keep the game alive.

And I think this could work for TLD, too, if it would be done right. I mean, sure, you people at HL will have to come through with Wintermute at some point (about which I am happy to hear amazing news this week. No pressure ), but beyond that it would probably work.

Let's take the last update as an example. Could the new cooking system haven been a DLC? Hell no. Being a core mechanic of the game and affecting game play on so many levels, making this optional would be the 7th circle of balancing hell, and because of that inevitably make the game worse without the DLC, demoting the original game. But could the Hushed River Valley haven been a DLC?

Suspecting it won't play a part in Wintermute I say: Yes, it could have been. I mean I'm glad it wasn't (because it's awesome), but the base stock of maps is big and diverse enough to let you play ingame-months and ingame-years of TLD without having a lacking experience. Plus, and that part would have been important, HRV doesn't offer resources previously unavailable, and also the game is getting so big that you will have a harder and harder time both finding and collecting all stuff from all maps before most of it decays away, so even the argument that having a DLC map would give you unfair advantages in terms of long term survival games is suffering from diminishing returns with every new added map. But, still, while being completely optional, HRV is a rich and engaging experience with interesting gameplay elements and of superior quality (it's actually my favorite map design-wise). So would I have paid, let's say, 5 dollars for that? Hell yeah. Even 10, just for the map.

Same could be true for subsequent seasons of the story mode. While a large player base is playing TLD because of it, a big part of the player base has no interest in it whatsoever. And if anything screams optional to me, it's the story mode. So players so completely not into the story mode wouldn't have to buy it if they didn't want to, but people waiting for new adventures on Great Bear would be frantic about it.

I personally do think TLD has a lot of life left in it, and speaking of a TLD2 is beyond premature in my opinion. TLD is iconic in a way rarely ever achieved, and a big part, for me at least, is coming "home" to well known regions I spent real-life weeks in after heading off to explore the unknown - or the other way around. As weird as that might sound: I have emotional connections to some of the places in this game. My first successful wolf struggle down in the trenches of the broken railroad; the heartbreaking demise of my almost 300 days stalker getting lost on that plateau with the tiny rock spur on TWM after being surprised by bad weather and bad wolves, stumbling into literally The Long Dark; the moment I found my first prepper cache in the far north-east of Mystery Lake; hiding out for two days on a small "island" in Forlorn Muskeg after falling thru the ice and being cornered by wolves to one and a bear to the other side, only to realize I was literally ten steps away from the train lines, etc, etc. I would miss all those places dearly in TLD2, but I am still hot and curious for new land to find, explore and conquer.

The same iconic-ness also applies to the artwork and graphics. A big part of TLD's appeal ares the painting-like graphics of many parts of the game, and I think that should be preserved. TLDs identity is one of it's most outstanding things. Anyone who ever played TLD for at least a day will be able to tell by a mere glance if you are playing TLD on your PC.

So basically, what I do think and do mean is that offering new regions and stories as DLCs would work if they
- would remain fully optional and not fall into a pay-to-win scheme
- offered engaging and exciting content that stands out enough to make it worth the money
- changes and improvements to mechanics and gameplay relevant content such as items, and to technical aspects such as the UI or textures, etc, would continue to flow "upstream" into the base game
... and so would probably help the game to progress with the funds raised that way.

Of course I would love to hear what you people at HL think about it as well as my fellow survivors. 


 

[romerabr]

I only play TLD on Xbox, and it's a play anyware game, so, I can play it on pc, but I also bought it on steam, because this game worth many times the original value I paid for. I would gladly buy any DLC to help further development. 

[Carbon]

 I am prepared to pay for the next and every episode released and sandbox updates until they stop making content.

 This is one game that is so undervalued I felt it was my duty to purchase something from the Hinterland store. If you want to support the devs, do the same. There is some crazy cool stuff there and they ship all over the world in very well-protected packing.

[Looper]

Nice post - thumbs up

[Cr41g]

I would gladly pay for additional content... this is the only game I will not delete from my console and continue to play...

[stratvox]

I don't do consoles, but yeah, I agree. The replayability of this game is incredible. In the medium term I'm very much looking to see modding/mapping tools come out; I'd love to start building a set of regions based on the Killarney region of Ontario.

[Senauer]

I think it's absolutely reasonable that HL will start charging for future content at some point, and when this happens I will gladly pay for any of it too. What is crystal clear to me is that the team deserves it, the game deserves it, and the entertainment value that the game provides for the current price definitely deserves it (in my case TLD has yielded so far an impressively low cost per hour of entertainment ratio).

The way such additional payments would be structured could be further discussed though, as optional DLCs would make sense but it should not be overlooked that the development effort of the "core mechanics" entails a huge amount of work, which I believe should be also offset in some way.

Anyway, my 2 cents. 

Now, I'm fully in to continuously support HL and their outstanding work and effort, and I also believe that purchasing some items at the Hinterland store it's an awesome way of doing so!

[major0noob]

mods...

[justyr1]

I would easily pay whatever price for a 2 season survival mode. They have talked about having 4 seasons before on the old road map and they have stated it would be something they would love to do, but not for free. Whatever price they set for something like that, I won't hesitate to throw money at them for it.

[Spakerman]

1 hour ago, justyr1 said:

I would easily pay whatever price for a 2 season survival mode. They have talked about having 4 seasons before on the old road map and they have stated it would be something they would love to do, but not for free. Whatever price they set for something like that, I won't hesitate to throw money at them for it.

Agreed. I’m curious what environmental challenge would be appropriate when there are no blizzards. Monsoons? Flooding? Extreme heat?

would love to see mystery lake thaw out

 

though I believe they mentioned that a four season game would most likely be a be standalone game. 

I would buy that. I would also buy new regions as DLC for sure. 

[Hotzn]

Good points @jeffpeng, I for one would definitely buy DLC from Hinterland under the conditions you suggest. AND praise them highly in the process.

[justyr1]

18 hours ago, Spakerman said:

Agreed. I’m curious what environmental challenge would be appropriate when there are no blizzards. Monsoons? Flooding? Extreme heat?

would love to see mystery lake thaw out

 

though I believe they mentioned that a four season game would most likely be a be standalone game. 

I would buy that. I would also buy new regions as DLC for sure. 

Something interesting to think about would be planning for the following seasons. Obviously the first winter wouldn't be *too* bad because you had all the lootable foods to get, but I think that things should be generally harder to scavenge in the winter forcing the player to prep when it's warm. Also, if you overlook certain tasks then it could ruin things for you pretty much permanently in the future. One example being to move the fishing huts off the ice before it gets to warm, otherwise they will sink and you lose that form of food gathering for the next winter.

 

I agree paying for a second game. It would happen in a heartbeat. I would also second on being willing to pay for new regions.

[Spakerman]

it's funny because I was thinking about the fishing huts as well.

[Stone]

I'd be interested in what the HL team have to say on this (I haven't looked for existing comments to that end yet). I'd happily spend more money on TLD - its awesome.

I believe HL were keen on allowing users to upload their game stats. If this could be standard/automatic for all player's you'd get a great picture of how people play. That would really inform you about the different player 'personas' and which, perhaps, to focus on. I'm a game with limited time for games, get maybe two new games a year and play games I really love as the mode takes me. This year the only games I've spent time on are TLD (mainly) and a little time with roller coaster tycoon and OpenRA. I'm not like most gamers and HL may wish to attract main stream gamers with a game and play time budget 20 times my own.

The market, like many creative markets, is large but quality is rare. So whatever form its in, I believe HL are best delivering quality - which they certainly have done to date.