Question Thread :: Milton Mailbag

[Mroz4k]

Hello, Mr. van Lierop,

I was curious if the Hinterland considers adding animals, specific to certain regions - for an example, an animal which would spawn exclusively in mountainous regions like Timberwolf Mountain or Hushed River Valley. I think it would improve upon the game tremendously - forcing players to travel to these parts in order to hunt specific animal they need, not to mention the immersion it would bring.

On a side note - thank You all for your hard work - not only on this amazing game, but also on all your contributions to the indie gaming industry as whole. Your team achievements are an inspiration.

[Sipriano]

Did you introduce on the game the afflicton of paralysis for temperature change in some part of the time?

[MadTropic]

Really excited for the update this week. I'm sure there will be some surprises. I'm wondering about new regions. Will there ever be a region that may be a bit more snowless? I mean, still frozen and everything but maybe there's a low valley on the leeward side of Great Bear Island that doesn't receive so much precipitation. There probably wouldn't be much advantage or special purpose to having such a place, but a slightly greater variety of terrain/landscape/atmosphere could be pretty cool and I'd love to see what your artists could do without so much snow everywhere.

[ThePancakeLady]

In Episode 3, 4 , 5 of Wintermute, will we find lore notes, or see any type of flashbacks/cutscenes that will show us more about Will and Astrid's past, together or apart? I always wonder what their relationship was before, how good or bad was it, what happened that was referred to in the original Episode 1 opening scenes? What was life like on the Mainland, that kept them together, or drove them apart? I want to know about their past, and how it affected how and why they find themselves on Great Bear in Wintermute. Really interested if you will be introducing any new forms of lore-finding or interesting ways to learn the history of the characters, Great Bear Island, Mainland Canada, or the World the game takes place in. Mental Health System(?)... Will and/or Astrid go a little off-track and have hallucinations or lucid dreams about the past? I know the story will move forward... but the past interests me immensely.

[Smellyfries]

Will there be alternate versions of different clothing? Like you got deer pants, so why not Wolf pants, and Bear pants? Same with the hat?

Second Question: Will there be more items that go in the misc category similar to the Moose Satchel and the Ear Wraps?

[Smellyfries]

When do you plan on adding the Bear Spear into Survival?

[henroe32]

Why did the studio decide to shift back to a menu UI System when cooking? The process of the add fuel, water, cook menu as of redux - in my opinion - breaks the immersion of the game and is just a pain to use on XBOX at least. 

[AltkanzlerSchmidt]

First of all, thank you for the new update! Im especially excited about the "well fed" buff, i think adressing to what many refer to as "starvation exploit" is leading the game in a very good direction. I think it could have an even bigger impact like a struggle bonus (and malus while starving) too though. After playing for a while and trying to go for long run survival in higher difficulties, i always reach a point where i have the nescessary items, crafted tools etc., that set me up for veeery long months... If i would just stay stationary and sit in my cabin and live of 800 kcal a day. I think we reach a point where exploring the world is rather punishing than rewarding in terms of survival. The new buff increases the value of food drastically- perfect to create the need to go out and, well, do stuff!

Now to the question: Do you see this phenomenom as well and do you think its a problem? And do you plan to add more functions that drive us out of our cozy cabins into the wilderness to ensure our survival? Maybe the blueprints of craftable clothing that apear in Wintermute now could be found in certain locations? It always felt kinda odd to walk up to a workbench and having all the knowledge to craft things like boots and coats. Maybe the better ones can be only found in remote areas and get their values buffed as a reward for the risk we took...

Keep up the good work!

Edited December 22, 2018 by AltkanzlerSchmidt

[Moll]

What is future of Long dark after finishing All 5 episodes of Wintermute? Another story? Or Longdark will continue with updates into survival mode only?

[Sipriano]

Jeremiah hada military past?

By the way the new animationsare so good, all the team  made an amazing job

[White_SnowTree]

On 12/22/2018 at 12:14 PM, Moll said:

What is future of Long dark after finishing All 5 episodes of Wintermute? Another story? Or Longdark will continue with updates into survival mode only?

They have stated in past Reddit AMAs that after the 5 episodes are completed, we would have a 2nd game called "The Long Dark 2"

 

No idea if they would continue to update Survival Mode after the Story is finished...

[Jendo]

What's the thinking/logic behind outdoor fires "lasting longer"? Way back when, I thought it was a bug, but it's survived numerous updates to the game. Is it to do with increased oxygenation outside, or...?

Edited December 27, 2018 by Jendo
Removed a question I'd already asked

[Serenity]

Is there a chance for more difficulty settings in custom mode? With a few settings you an exceed the presets, but the most part you can only mix and match between the existing difficulties. Most notably, loot is abundantly available on anything but Interloper. This means there is rarely an incentive to craft animal clothing, making most of the recipes useless. What you can easily find everywhere is simply better. This is the case even on Stalker, but then there is a huge jump towards Interloper. It's similar with temperature decay where the only options are "barely noticeable" and "brutal"

[Guenter]

In which quarter of 2019 or later is Episode 3 planned to be released?

[Ghost79]

Why are feats disabled in custom survival mode?  

I like to custom my game between voyeur and stalker so I don't see why feat should be disabled in this case 

 

 

 

[Messyjesse81]

Why is the rabbit unafraid? 

[Brulreursdeloups]

Hello Raph!
Thank you and all your team for the Redux! It is the best game in 2018 by far! The second episode was epic! The first one so much better too. Now I am sure, you are the team everyone is looking at in the game industry.  You should start the new game asap

You made the Story mode the true fun to play! New story opening is much better, characters dialogs and animations are extraordinary. Hobbs character improve so much the storytelling. New map notices are welcome. And the dramatic fight with the bear in ep2 is a beauty! You improved so many things in the game that only few small-small further 'improvements' I can think of (in the DLC) :

• Auroras are unpredictable. The only big issue I see is then you harry up to the Carter Dumb to join Astrid after 7-8 ingame days and the bear fight and you need to wait 10-20 days waiting for an aurora. The frustration is 9,5/10 at this point. It may be cool to know 2-3 days in advance then the aurora will appear so one can plan all actions to be ready. May be Jeremiah can tell us about auroras to come.
• Hard mode is too easy. I know 95% of us are playing in easy mode but I am bagging you on my knees : please make the hardcore mode for the Wintermute. It was such fun to play this game. I want to play and replay it many-many times like other good games I used to play. But with so many food, soda, cloths and warm weather where is no challenge to play the game then you know the story and all locations.
• Long way to Milton no more. To me the long way from the cave exit then you find the road for the first time and Milton was the very best part of the Predux. It was challenging, it was fun. You run from the wolves, you are starving, you have cold and you have a long way to go. After that you find food, you find cloths and you pass to the Rambo/God mode. I hope to see this long way back in ep3 then Astrid will run through the Milton. Will she?
• Milton story rush. I feel like it can be so cool to know some more about Milton. The names of all houseowners, what happened to them? May be you can put the Id cards to the corpses so one can find out who this people are and their story. The night tragedy in the school can have some more light on it. It can be a very dark and very strong point in storytelling.
• Astrid strange acting. Astrid story is much much better in Redux but it is still strange. She left Will, she left her bag and her case! Why?
• Jeremiah rifle steal. Then Jeremiah throw out Will from the house, Will keeps the rifle in the inventory. It is cool to have it but I have feeling like I stole it. It feels like a story loophole.

My question is : You are constantly improving the game making it better and better. It take some time and where is no limit for this. How you decide then to stop and move to another project? As an artist/gamedeveloper? As a businessman? As a team?

Thank you again and sorry for my English. I am French.

[Io125]

Please can you draw some gloves on character hands? I  just cannot watch him/her holding gun/rifle/some coal with his hand bear this makes me so uncofortable becouse his/her hands a white and i imagine that they suffered from frostbite.

[hozz1235]

I have an old Survival game (on day 740) and I've noticed that the placement of certain objects are different than more recent Survival games (e.g. the truck outside CHD is in a different place, items in the Camp Office, etc.).  How is it you preserve those "earlier versions of the game" in recent versions?

[Tri13]

Will, you ever consider adding a feature where you can just have your hatchet equipped and out to where we can see instead of only being able to use it in a wolf struggle?

[MueckE]

Can you please finally fix the animation of the lantern (automaticly going up) and make it again more organic as it was before?

[Its_the_Gman]

Hey Ralph. Want to start off by saying I love this game to bits. I've been following it since early access, and I immediately bought the game on my PS4 when it was released. I also thoroughly enjoyed the REDUX of Episodes 1 & 2 of Wintermute. The gaming scene needs more developers like Hinterland, the fact that you guys listened to the community's feedback and actually went back to improve upon Wintermute was awesome. I have a list of questions, and I know it's quite a lot, so it's perfectly ok if your answers are brief or if you skip some:

1. I'm currently spending my time in Survival Mode in the Big Milton House in the Mountain Town region, on Voyageur difficulty. I'm in the process of curing wolf, rabbit, deer pelts and even a Bear pelt, which I obtained from a Bear stalking the Spruce Falls Bridge. I would love to find a moose so that I can make a Moose-hide Satchel, but I can't seem to find one. I know from previous runs of Survival Mode and from the Wiki page that a moose can spawn either in the little Birch Forest in the Milton Basin and to the North of the Region, near a small pond, a little south-east to the trailer. I've had no luck near the small pond, so recently I made my way to the Milton Basin birch forest, where I found 4 trees with clear moose markings, but no moose. I thought "alright, well it probably just de-spawned for the day". So I went over to the Hermit's Cabin with a bedroll and spent the night there, only to return the next morning to still find no moose. I repeated this process for 3 more days until I got impatient and returned to the Milton House. Have I misunderstood the game mechanics? Do moose markings on a tree not guarantee an actual moose spawn? I've also had no luck with moose spawns in the Forlorn Muskeg. Is my game possibly glitched/bugged? Are there some in Mystery Lake or Broken Railroad?

2. The Bear Spear was an awesome addition to the Episode 2 Redux, and I'm pretty sure you've hinted at adding it into Survival Mode in the future, and this sounds awesome! Some questions concerning its addition (i understand if you and the team haven't worked out all the mechanics, not asking for concrete answers):

- Will you be able to find it in the world? Or can it only be obtained through work at a forge?

- Will it lose condition in survival mode? In Wintermute ep. 2 it does not, and it also doesn't have weight. If so, will you be able to repair it, or will it be similar to a prybar? Around how much will it weigh?

- Will it be effective against moose and wolf charges? I've tried using it against a wolf in ep. 2 and they keep their distance and growl at me when i have it ready, but given the limited stamina, after dropping it they immidiately charged me. Is the spear working as intended, in the sense that it is only meant for bear engagements? I imagine if the answer is no, then the weight of the weapon would have to be relatively low, due to it being much more situational than something like the hunting rifle.

- Will it take as many stabs/succesful struggles as it does in ep. 2 to bring down a normal Black Bear?

3. Are there any plans to add more animals into the game? I've seen talks of you showing interest in the idea of a cougar, which is cool. Some ideas I have are; foxes (since it's the logo of Hinterland and the Pilgrim difficulty), racoons, skunks, beavers, Buffalo/prairie bison, lynx/bobcats and some sort of flying animal, such as an owl, which you could set a trap for and use it as another means of acquired feathers for arrow crafting?

4. Have you ever considered adding more firearms to the game? I understand that you wouldn't want to turn the game into a First Person Shooter, but I feel the game is sorta empty only having the hunting rifle (which is way too common on Voyageur btw), Survival Bow and the Distress Pistol (which is so rare i've only found it at Timberwolf Mountain). I'd be cool to have an old revolver in the game, possibly a break action? A shotgun would also be pretty cool, either an old Remington pump action or a Double barrel, break action shotgun. These wouldn't be used for hunting, mainly only for defense from wolves. A crossbow would be awesome too, although that may be pushing things. To address these, the "rifle firearm" perk could be renamed to "firearms"? The fact that you find Military coats, boots and combat pants could say that some of the residents of Great Bear were in the military, and when they came back they brought with them a firearm. Will even hints at Jeremiah about being in the Military in the redux of ep. 2 through a couple dialogue lines.

5. The Moose Hide Cloak is kind of underwhelming, and I dont see why anyone would chose to craft it instead of the Moose-hide satchel. Would you consider giving it a buff in the future? Also, every pelt in the game at the moment has 2 craftable items, except for the wolf pelts, which you can only use to craft a wolfskin coat. Will another craftable wolf-skin related item be added in the future?

Alright thats it. Thanks for taking the time to read all this. I hope you had a wonderful Winter Break and I'm looking forward to what 2019 has to offer in terms of new content for The Long Dark.

[Faithful Cartographer]

Hello Raph! I hope you had a good rest this wonderful weekend! Thanks for the Redux! That bear really got on my nerves... Hope now Wintermute forever will remain in such a-style. Now for the questions!

1) What about the plans for the game in 2019?

2) When is about the next developer diary? I love reading them!

3) You are talking about the realization of a spear in survival mode. Will it be implemented as in WINTERMUTE or will we be able to throw it? Will it be possible to hunt with a spear not only on the bear, but for example a wolf or moose?

Thank you for your attention! And successful work in 2019!

[tulkawen]

Hello,

After the last update the survivor health bar looks really bad hence I can't judge cause and effect. Is there a way to enlarge just the bar and most importantly turn on the %? 

I'm just starting to play Loper and it looks like regeneration and how much you get hurt from ailments is different than in other modes or maybe there is update change is Dec. That approximate up and down mess doesn't give me any valuable info. I can't even understand if thirst or hunger hurts the survivor more. This is really annoying.

[Stapeldiagram]

GREAT game for introverts like me! I have now manage to survive 1100 days at voyager. Wheatstones are out and im starting to run out of cloth and birch sapling after looting every region. Beach combing is a possible never ending source of stuff but I dont think I will find enough things to survive doing that. What is the theoretical maximum days to survive? Which lack of rescource will finally kill me (removing self inflicted damage from the equation)?