Pillock

Wouldn't the eggs just freeze solid? Are there any types of birds that nest and lay eggs in the depths of a Canadian winter? I wouldn't imagine there are many, if any.

As far as I can tell, there is is very, very little point in doing manual fishing any more at all! Why would you sit there wasting time watching a progress bar, when you can put down an automatic fishing machine to do it for you? The materials needed for the tip-up mechanism and the basic fishing lure are so easy to come by (and you don't need any tools to make them - just a workbench) that it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense not to use them, as far as I can see. You just leave it there, then go off and do whatever you want for a couple of hours, come back and you've caught a fish! Even if you want to stay nearby, you're better off setting the tip-up instead of doing it manually - you can tend a fire, boil water, cook, prepare food, do repairs, whatever. And if you catch a fish in the mean time you can see the tip-up trigger, and stop what you're doing to deal with the fish and reset the line. It makes fishing really, really easy (almost too easy?). I've caught loads of fish at Mystery Lake. Absolutely loads. Granted, it might be a favourable location compared to others, but I do play Custom mode with all wildlife (including fish) set to "Low" spawn chance.

I've found 2 rifles in the 3 regions I've explored so far (DP, CH, PV). I've found about 8 pistols! I'm playing on Medium "Base Loot" (to enable hatchets and knives), with all the other loot spawn options set to produce minimum quantities. I've got about 70 revolver shells in storage and maybe 20-30ish rifle shells. Personally, I think that's a bit too much for my liking, but I can't turn down the loot spawns any further without disabling hatchets and knives, which I don't want to do. I have noticed that guns are spawning in some different places from before, as far as I can remember.

Find matches, then go exploring! I'm not going to spend hours and hours doing stuff I've done before, when there's new regions to get lost in. Might even start the game with matches for a change, and skip the panicky running-around phase so I can get going straight away.

For me, the most important feature that's ever been implemented to TLD since I started playing it has been the Custom Survival Mode. I honestly don't think I'd still be playing the game without it. As long as the Custom mode continues to support allowing players to tinker with which features they want to include or exclude from any particular game start, I will never have any concern about whether or not some new feature will 'break' the game for me. (I personally always play with Timberwolves switched off, for example, because I don't like them.) If the new Trader feature changes the game for some players to the extent that they lose some fundamental aspect of their enjoyment (the feeling of total isolation and aloneness, perhaps), then I do think it's important that we're able to disable it in the Custom menu and play without it if we choose to. That way, no-one need have any complaints or concerns.

"Trader, where are the eggs? ANSWER ME!"

I read novel a while back called "Out in the Open" by Jesus Carrasco. It's about a young lad who goes on the run from his village in central Spain (early 20th century-ish?), and is constantly being chased down by the evil local magistrate/sheriff. The setting is kind like an antithesis to The Long Dark's: hot, dry, arid plains. The kid has to survive by staying cool rather than warm, water is difficult to come by, food is scarce; and he has to keep moving on while staying out of the way of civilization, in order to avoid the lawman. He finds a donkey, which helps him carry stuff. And he acquires a goat, which provides him with small amounts of milk (as well as bruises when it's not in the right mood to be milked!). Both need to be fed, watered, rested and kept cool as well (or eaten?), posing him dilemmas. It's very bleak, as a story. But while reading it I was constantly thinking of TLD, and how the book's premise would be a good basis for a similar game. I mean, I'd love to take Hinterland's advice and make it myself, but that'd be a bit like asking me to build myself a new car from scratch! Here's hoping the idea finds its way somehow to someone with the capability to do it, I guess.

abundance of cattails, mushrooms and rosehips. I think it's Ok. But then again, I don't play Interloper so I don't really care either way!

I find Bleak Inlet quite enjoyable - but that's probably because I always switch Timberwolves off completely in the Custom settings. I've encountered them in the Story Mode, but that's led directly to me not playing Story Mode at all since shortly after Episode 3 was released! I just can't be bothered with them - they only make the gameplay worse, in my opinion. But the Custom survival mode does allow you to play TLD without them, and it's still a lot of fun. It's got the same feel for me as it ever did - if I hadn't started looking at the forums again recently, I'd have forgotten that Timberwolves ever existed! Bleak Inlet does feel a little empty, I suppose (though there is a bear). But it's still one of the more challenging regions to start out on, even without wolves.

"Did I ever mention that I hate being cold? Because I really do." Yeah, Astrid, you did mention it - like five minutes ago. And five minutes before that. You go to a rural part of Canada in the depths of winter and then complain that it's cold? What do you expect?

There used to be a preppers cache next to Pensive Pond in Pleasant Valley. That was a very nice place to set up home, but I haven't seen it for donkeys years. I don't know if it's been moved, or removed, or I've just been unlucky. But I'd say there. Otherwise, the Signal Hill radio shack thing is nearly as good. I also enjoyed living in the plane wreck on top of Timberwolf Mountain for quite some time. It feels like you're king of the world up there in your mountaintop castle!

"The Wild doesn't care if I am here or not. It doesn't care if I have enough food or not. It doesn't care if I am lonely. It doesn't care if I am so miserable that I start going insane. The Wild is just here. It's The Wild. It's hard to go and try to live your dreams and find that... it's so difficult." -Ed Wardle, from his documentary film, Alone In The Wild, for Channel 4 Television in the UK (2009). Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alone_in_the_Wild The film also seems to be available on Youtube!

Yeah, I think you get less condition regen overall if you set it the way you do. But it feels more intuitive to me to have it regain during rest; also, when I first started playing TLD, sleep-regen was all you got anyway, so that feels more natural to me. I don't like completely disabling any single feature altogether (except for Timberwolves!) so I keep fishing switched on, along with firearms and knives/hatchets. Having no sleep-regen disables Herbal Tea, which is another reason I don't do it that way round. With awake-regen on 'none', you still get some from Birch Bark, if you can find it. I have all the natural resources (sticks, tree limbs, OMB, mushrooms, etc.) on minimum, so birch bark is fairly rare. But yeah, there's still plenty of them - more than you tend to need! It would be nice to have more flexibility with the Custom settings to make certain things even more extreme than you currently are allowed.

I haven't finished Episode 3 yet. I, too, got annoyed with the Timberwolves and just abandoned it. I've always played Survival Mode with Timberwolves switched off ever since!

I think the moments I've enjoyed the most are when you are very close to death, but you manage to pull through - either by your own ingenuity or by sheer luck. In fact, the lucky escapes are possibly the most fun. For example, when I first set foot in Pleasant Valley after making the journey through the Winding River for the first time: I was lost (obviously, being my first time on the map), it was evening and a blizzard was starting up (obviously, being Pleasant Valley, though I didn't know that yet). I kept my character awake for an entire night on a hillside, tending a fire stick by stick because the wind wouldn't allow the fire-duration to go above 9 minutes. When dawn broke I was exhausted and starving, but my fire had kept me from freezing to death, and the storm was easing. I came out from behind my rock and looked out over the valley - there in front of me, just down the hill, was the Farmhouse. I think I let out an audible cheer, and just ran straight for it. Once inside, I immediately set about smashing chairs for firewood, got a blazing fire going in the living room, and gorged myself on the contents of the voyageur-stocked kitchen! It was a great moment. The feeling of relief, of being saved, was immense. I've never played another game that made me feel that, I don't think.