Question Thread :: Milton Mailbag


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Pretty much since the beggining of the games development you guys have talked about adding NPC's into the game, which sounds amazing by the way! The only thing that would scare the me more than a Wolf and a Bear, is seeing another ''living'' person in the Survival Mode. I was just wondering, how far you have come in the development with the NPC's? When you made the ''Survival Vignette'' videos on youtube back in 2013,  the Tent and the Cabin videos, it made me really excited to see what you guys were gonna do with them. I don't expect to get alot of information about this... but i'm just curious. Also, my mom wanted me to ask if you have thought about adding Wolverine's in to the game.

 


Anyways, love your game so much! It has become one of my favorites, i'm really excited to see what you guys will do in the future!  Best of Luck! :)
 

Edited by DavidinNorwayHD
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I just started a new game for faithful cartogropher, so visited all places and thought about how TLD has changed over time and how every map has it's unique features. Then i realized that there is potentially a big issue regarding the story and how places are designed. Some places look like they have been abandoned for many years, others look like in the weeks after an catastrophy. Hydro dam for example looks like a place where people came long after the plant has been closed. At the same time you find to many things (loot) that tell a story of people all of a sudden just disappeared because they didn't even bother taking important items with them (abducted by aliens? :) ).

In Maintenance Yard, a car is still on the lift with the toolbox beside it, as if someone who worked there just disappeared from one moment to the other. At the same time it looks like an abandoned place where vandals and thieves have raged over many years and also at the same time it has elements that says that people had to leave in a hurry, but will come back as soon the "earthquake" is over.

Will there be an overhaul of the enviromental storytelling? I don't see how the story will explain why the whale facility (and many other places) looks like a place that has been shut down 20 years ago and since then has been scavanged, looted, experienced vandalism but you still find items you only would find if all people suddenly would have disappeared. If the story takes place in the weeks or months (even 2 years) after a catastrophy, where people would have left in a hurry but planning to come back, Hydro dam would be clean and organized (except damage caused by an earthquake or something).

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Do you think polls on this forum accurately show what the community wants in the game? Or is it possible users of this forum might have completely different expectations of the game than the general audience that just play and don't get involved? 

Being a community informed project, have polls generated by users ever been exceptionally useful?

 

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Why did you choose Unity as game engine? Maybe you knew it already? But have you considered other engines and what they could bring you technically? I am using Unreal Engine (UE) myself, and was surprised you went for Unity knowing the landscape/terrain is an essential part of your design, with lots of items on sight, trees etc.  I tried Unity a few years ago and was totally disappointed by the almost inexistant terrain management, as opposite to UE where things were very advanced there (several subdivision concepts, tesselation, layers+in-layer blends, height blend...) plus features such as grass tool (pops up in player space, no footprint on landscape), instanced meshes (all instances of the same mesh rendered in a single draw call), auto LODs, proxy LODs (combines meshes at distance, this was not there back when you started though), shader graphs (only came up this year on Unity!), lots of lighting features etc. Generally the engine is advanced in many ways even though Unity has evolved since I checked it and is trying to catch up in some areas. Well, I don't want to start a "game engine endless debate" :) but clearly, if I wanted to make a game with the ambition of TLD, I would opt for UE with no hesitation. Knowing that now you have made the choice of Unity, you have built an experience on it and you may be "tied" to it for quite some time, even maybe for your next game(s) if you want to benefit from the experience earned and reuse components.

Edited by yoli
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Going forward, will you be providing any substantive warning before rendering old content inaccessible by new updates? 

For example, in purely hypothetical terms, were you to decide to completely remove an existing location and replace it with a connecting point to a new zone, going forward, would you provide advance notice of this change, or otherwise rework integration to ensure that existing player items remain intact in the transition? 

 

Thanks,

RB

Edited by RationalBassist
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I'm sorry if it has been asked before, but I made a quick search, unsuccessful.

Have you ever though of using the community to introduce a bit of variety in the game on simple things? Like, if you gave out the texture file for let's say the chocolate bar and organize a 1-month challenge and pick the 10 bests you prefer, I'm pretty sure many players could come up with many different sort of packaging for a chocolate bar. Then on such an item, a texture would be picked at random in a database of maybe 10 textures? The month after that, the granola bar, next month pork and beans, etc...

I'm not a programmer, so excuse me if it's a silly idea from a technical point of view.

(I would also like more variety in voices because I don't like to disable it, it becomes repetitive quite rapidly, but that's another matter and much more work)

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Now that cannabis is legal in Canada, do you plan to send something to us or do you want to smoke it all by yourself? :D

That would be a really amazing and funny addition to TlD, a cannabis plant. When you drink a tea from it, you will be able to sleep although you are fully rested. How cool would that be? "Adding more canadian style things"? - Here you go, i bet every gaming site would report about that. Any chances you consider adding this?

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first off, I love this game and especially hinterland as a whole.  It seems like you guys care more about your customers and your game than other studios so thanks for that :)

I noticed that when a wolf if stalking you or even noticed you at all, he will go into a dead sprint if you aim at him with a bow or gun. Is this solely for balance purposes (no easy headshots) or are the wolves smart enough to know that it's a do or die moment when you aim at them? Thanks :D 

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Have you ever considered adding a sort of "practice mode" where you can practice shooting with the rifle or bow, or hunting with stones without the fear of losing ammo/the hassle to find it? I've been very hesitant using the bow because I suck at aiming with it, and I don't like wasting ammo/arrows by doing target practice.

Also, do you have any plans on extending the skills further? Ex. being able to sew makeshift clothes with the mending skill after you get a good enough skill? Clothes you sew yourself would have lower stats of course, but I can see that being useful for interloper when you need a hat and they're not as easily found. Another potential for the sewing skill is decorative objects like pillows and curtains to spice up your home base.

Thank you for your hard work on the long dark. It's an amazing game and it makes me so happy to see how much it has grown since it's early days.

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I just asked another question so I'm sorry for bringing a new one, but this is something I've been curious about for a while now.

My name is Astrid and this is the first time I've ever come across a fictional character that shares my name (and we're both in the medical field which is nice as well). What made you choose the name Astrid? As far as I know it's not very common outside of Scandinavia where I live. Was it because you wanted a unique name? Is she named after someone you know, or was it simply because you liked it? I would love to hear your reasoning behind her name, and also the other character's names as well.

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So, this is an unusual question, but I feel you're the best authority to answer it. 

You've worked on TLD for a while now, hinterland is small, but well versed in what a indie survival game should be. From creation to distribution. I'm curious if you have heard of the game 'stranded deep' also a small indie survival game. Thry just had to pull their game because the publisher (telltale) fell through.

Have you ever considered offering assistance or guidance to other small companies ? I know it sounds weird to help a technical ' competitors ' however as a company knowing the struggle, it makes sense for your company to be one of the dominant voices and faces of the indie genre, survival genre, etc. 

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Heya Raph. A few things:

1: I’ve seen the Hinterland Gear on “The Long Dark” FB page and I was wondering what percentage of the revenue from that goes to the dev team/studio. I’d like to support the team but those mugs are expensive. Just wondering how much those sales help keep the lights on.

2: I think that you guys releasing all 5 episodes for free with the base purchase of the game is awesome and noble of you, and I get that you might catch flak for dlc, but that shouldn’t apply to survival mode, which is basically an extra. I for one would gladly pay $5-6 for the ability to customize interior spaces. Especially if I could build furniture or remove dead bodies. You’ve mentioned adding customization anyway and I don’t see it being major value added for story mode, why not let us drop a few bucks on it to support the team?

3: Last one. I have an idea for your sound guy/gal. There’s an awesome sound effect that’s currently missing in the woods. That “FLOOMPH” of snow falling from a tree branch to the ground. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the woods in the winter and I just love that sound. Just an idea. It wouldn’t need an animation if it sounded distant.

Thanks for building a great world for us to freeze in. This is one of only maybe five games I keep going back to.

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Hi hinterland,I was wondering why the militar pants are that weird to found,  I know that there was not much,  not to say scarce, militar presence for what we know of great bear until now, but it is very difficult to find them even looking in the zones whit more resources in the game. Some reasone to make them to scarce?

By the way, I hope to find my pumpink pie this halloween, I never found it

Edited by Sipriano
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Just curious if Hinterland was able to get anyone to the GAC (Game Accessibility Conference) In France this year? I know you are very aware of accessibility issues in video games, and have taken steps to make TLD more accessible. I also know you are all very busy, and having someone away in France for the conference may not have been possible. Any plans on trying to work with gaming accessibility advocacy groups or organizations, to build the next game you make, from the ground up, with more accessibility built in, for more people with different types of disabilities or special needs?

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