What will the Seasons Bring?

[Wülkure]

I think you should be able to swim across bodies of water. For example to get to the lonely cabin across Mystery Lake or to Jackrabbit Island. Swimming should be like mountaineering ropes, so you tire as you swim. Also there should be a possibility to drown or possibly getting killed by a pusuing bear?

[cekivi]

2 hours ago, Wülkure said:

I think you should be able to swim across bodies of water. For example to get to the lonely cabin across Mystery Lake or to Jackrabbit Island. Swimming should be like mountaineering ropes, so you tire as you swim. Also there should be a possibility to drown or possibly getting killed by a pusuing bear?

Now that would be bad. Fortunately, I doubt a bear could attack you in water. Bears can swim well but their claws wouldn't be able to maul you since the bear would need them to swim in deep water.

[vancopower]

On 9.5.2016 at 2:40 AM, cekivi said:

Now that would be bad. Fortunately, I doubt a bear could attack you in water. Bears can swim well but their claws wouldn't be able to maul you since the bear would need them to swim in deep water.

That would be a nice way to save yourself from a bear that is hungry, I mentioned above that it would be nice that bears should be more aggressive and in larger numbers in spring since that is the time when they come out of hibernation so there should be more ways to save yourself from them and diving in to cold water would be one way.

[ShawnB]

I've mentioned this in other threads and sorry if this may be off topic but don't season changes just seem wrong for this game. The game description given by hinterlands says "frozen wilderness"...

There is a beautiful simplicity to winter that the Devs have brilliantly captured. This might be lost in other seasons or take a lot of work and time that could be focused elsewhere. Maybe in the Long Dark 2 different seasons can be the focus?!

Winter is and always will be the most challenging season and I just like challenge.

Maybe look at it this way; Would you want more regions, better wildlife behaviour, more crafting, etc or different seasons? Maybe this should be another thread with a roadmap survey looking at development priorities.

[cekivi]

4 hours ago, ShawnB said:

I've mentioned this in other threads and sorry if this may be off topic but don't season changes just seem wrong for this game. The game description given by hinterlands says "frozen wilderness"...

There is a beautiful simplicity to winter that the Devs have brilliantly captured. This might be lost in other seasons or take a lot of work and time that could be focused elsewhere. Maybe in the Long Dark 2 different seasons can be the focus?!

Winter is and always will be the most challenging season and I just like challenge.

Maybe look at it this way; Would you want more regions, better wildlife behaviour, more crafting, etc or different seasons? Maybe this should be another thread with a roadmap survey looking at development priorities.

You can always make that thread

Even with seasons you'll still be frozen most of the time. Winter can still be 6-8 months with a short spring summer and fall. I'm still a fan because of the meta-game it would add. Survival then becomes a campaign of using the short plentiful seasons to try and survive the Long Dark one

[boshmi]

7 hours ago, cekivi said:

You can always make that thread

Even with seasons you'll still be frozen most of the time. Winter can still be 6-8 months with a short spring summer and fall. I'm still a fan because of the meta-game it would add. Survival then becomes a campaign of using the short plentiful seasons to try and survive the Long Dark one

Yeah, the reason seasons are high up on my "holycrapi'mgoingtopoopmyselfi'msoexited" list, is because my main problem with TLD at the moment is finding stuff to do. There's only so much you can explore before you memorize the world map off by heart, know all the mistakes you can make, and take all the precautions possible to avoid them, because you know how to play the game off by heart, and then you just hit a rock (or a snowdrift, hehe) with not much else to do. The game overall kind of loses it's charm and engagement the more you play, and I find myself hungry for something new to deal with. This is what I'm hoping seasons would bring to the table, with new wildlife, plants, gameplay (running water) and areas, giving incentive to migrate and keep playing.

Especially with the recent "Tireless Menace" update, which, I must be honest; was a little disappointing for me (Mostly amplified by the fact that I was expecting a story mode and/or major game-changing update), and I'm not saying this game is boring, or even that Tireless Menace is garbage because that's just ignorant, and on par with committing a small felony. It's a fantastic, beautiful, magnificent game with loads to do, and I love it to pieces, I've followed it through thick and thin, all the way from back in deep forest, (which seems like ages ago now) and I've played through countless blizzards, cold nights, wolf struggles, and experienced so much more than I ever expected, emotionally and literally, from a game.
I just feel like I've experienced it all.

On that ridiculously long introductory note, lemmie kick off my list of personal things I'm looking forward to the most from seasons, I tried to organize them, but I'm not an organized person, so it didn't work. Sorry.

- Transitional titles. I have this great image in my mind of walking outside one particular morning, ready to start another day of collecting firewood to keep warm, when you notice there's a few patches on the ground the snow isn't covering, and a few flowers have begun to appear. Filled with elation, you look up at the frigid world melting away, and the grand title of "SPRING" appears in the center of your screen. Aw yiss. Ain't that just the most satisfying thing?

- Salmon run. Or just wildlife migration in general. I'd like large herd animals like bison to be added, and combined with herd/pack behavior, you could watch thundering herds of bison cross the great plains, in winter or summer. The salmon run is a good example because it's a short period during autumn, where you can stock up on salmon before the winter months. Combine this with the canoe, and you've got a recipe for a fun day in the sun.

- Three Axes Crossing's dynamics. before you go; hey boshmi, what on earth are you on about, allow me to explain; see one of my pet peeves with TLD is how the world is *almost* huge. It's so close to being a massive, explorable world, but not quite. If it's possible to make the trip from Mystery Lake to Timberwolf Mountain, to Desolation Point within seven days, (like the challenge says) it's just not big enough. I envision a world where I am at the far south, Costal Highway, living it up in the Misanthrope's Homestead, but I'm preparing for a trek that with take me months and months, I will travel through season upon season to the far north, where I will reach my destination. What is my destination?, you may ask, well, I dunno, but there's one obstacle that lies in my way - Three Axes Crossing.

My Map.pdf

(Apologies for the garbo map editing skills. PS is not a strong suit of mine)

Three axes crossing is my own brainchild. It is a brutal stretch of river with tall cliff prone to avalanches and rock falls. It links pleasant valley to the soon-to-be regions, and it is deadly. The other ways into the North, via PV and ML are frozen ice bridges, which thaw over in the spring, summer, and autumn, meaning if you mean to cross over, three axes crossing is your only option for the majority of the year. It is a wide river, and by wide I mean double the width of winding river, having rapids during the spring and autumn times, yet in the summer it is home to huge waves annihilating all but highly skilled canoers. Couple this with rockfalls and avalanches, and you're in for some trouble. Despite all this, there are a few coves along it's path where you could stop and camp a few nights, even set up a temporary home during the autumn months to make the most of the salmon run, however, if left too late, your canoe may get stuck in the ice when winter comes, and the herds of bison which migrate south through the crossing can be a real threat, as a re the wolves and other predators which trail behind them, picking off any stragglers.
That's just my vision of this particular point, and I've talked way too long about it let's move on.

- Different flora and fauna. Goes without saying. Different seasons give different behaviors to Mother Nature as a whole.

- Insects. Insects bring disease, irritation, and fear. During the warmer months, the Yukon is known for it's relentless mosquitos and bugs, which could be a major part of gameplay.

- Different diseases. Hinterland have stated that they are going to add more "real" diseases to the game. (At the moment, there aren't actually any real ones, unless you count hypothermia). IF you couple this with seasons, you get waterborne diseases in spring, for example, and different types according to different seasons.

I've gone really off topic now and I'm not really sure where this reply is going, so I'm just gonna cut myself off there and add more later if I feel like it. Thanks for reading if you did, I know my posts are far too long for many people to really bother with, but it's nice when they do.

[cekivi]

12 hours ago, boshmi said:

- Transitional titles. I have this great image in my mind of walking outside one particular morning, ready to start another day of collecting firewood to keep warm, when you notice there's a few patches on the ground the snow isn't covering, and a few flowers have begun to appear. Filled with elation, you look up at the frigid world melting away, and the grand title of "SPRING" appears in the center of your screen. Aw yiss. Ain't that just the most satisfying thing?

- Salmon run. Or just wildlife migration in general. I'd like large herd animals like bison to be added, and combined with herd/pack behavior, you could watch thundering herds of bison cross the great plains, in winter or summer. The salmon run is a good example because it's a short period during autumn, where you can stock up on salmon before the winter months. Combine this with the canoe, and you've got a recipe for a fun day in the sun.

- Three Axes Crossing's dynamics. before you go; hey boshmi, what on earth are you on about, allow me to explain; see one of my pet peeves with TLD is how the world is *almost* huge. It's so close to being a massive, explorable world, but not quite. If it's possible to make the trip from Mystery Lake to Timberwolf Mountain, to Desolation Point within seven days, (like the challenge says) it's just not big enough. I envision a world where I am at the far south, Costal Highway, living it up in the Misanthrope's Homestead, but I'm preparing for a trek that with take me months and months, I will travel through season upon season to the far north, where I will reach my destination. What is my destination?, you may ask, well, I dunno, but there's one obstacle that lies in my way - Three Axes Crossing.

- Different flora and fauna. Goes without saying. Different seasons give different behaviors to Mother Nature as a whole.

- Insects. Insects bring disease, irritation, and fear. During the warmer months, the Yukon is known for it's relentless mosquitos and bugs, which could be a major part of gameplay.

- Different diseases. Hinterland have stated that they are going to add more "real" diseases to the game. (At the moment, there aren't actually any real ones, unless you count hypothermia). IF you couple this with seasons, you get waterborne diseases in spring, for example, and different types according to different seasons.

A salmon run would be awesome to see. Regrettably, you're in the wrong part of Canada to see bison or other mass migrations of land animals. Caribou, bison and muskox are all in either central Canada or the tundra. On the bright side, you may see migratory birds and definitely salmon. Fighting the bears for the salmon though would certainly be an interesting dynamic...

Your three axes idea sounds interesting. If it doesn't make it into the game would you make a mod for it? Hinterlands already said that they don't plan to release all of the story mode maps into the sandbox. They want story mode to have a few surprises after all

Yes to more variety! Mountain sheep and waterfowl are two obvious possible additions.

Ugh - mosquitoes On the bright side, Canada does not have any major insect borne illnesses except West Nile (which 90% of people don't develop symptoms for) and Lyme Disease... which is actually terrifying and can kill you. I wouldn't want Lyme Disease in the game just because without a doctor and modern medicine it would be very hard to diagnose and treat. You'd likely just slowly die with no way to prevent it.

There are real diseases in the game but hypothermia isn't one of them Dysentery from dirty water and sepsis from infections are both real world  diseases that can kill people.

[boshmi]

55 minutes ago, cekivi said:

There are real diseases in the game but hypothermia isn't one of them Dysentery from dirty water and sepsis from infections are both real world  diseases that can kill people.

I didn't even know dysentrey and sepsis were afflictions in the game XD! As a general rule I never touch dirty water ingame, and due to the suspicious abundance of first-aid materials, I've never lacked the Hydrogen Peroxide to treat an infection. 100+ hours of gameplay, and many more of trawling through forums, and here I find something I haven't seen.

It's disappointing that there can't be Bison  for me, that would be the entire purpose of a tundra or wide-expanse map (think a larger pleasant valley without trees or farms), to see herds of large things thunder across them.

I doubt three axes would make it into the game, considering that hinterland have probably started work on that transition zone already, but it would be really cool if it did. When watching the update video I could jump up and shout "THAT WAS ME!" to my friends XD

Generally here I meant more fevers and viruses, because (to my knowledge) they don't appear to be ingame.

I can't mod to save my life, and my coding ability extends to HTML and CSS, and even then it's pretty dodgy.

Yay! Variety is something I think this game needs more of at the moment. It feels a little lifeless when the dominant species is wolves, with some deers, rabbits, and rare bears. I meant that different animals could appear in different seasons, for example voles and mice (trappable with snares) appear in warm months, but burrow underground and are uncatchable through the winter months.

[vancopower]

On 11.5.2016 at 10:26 PM, ShawnB said:

I've mentioned this in other threads and sorry if this may be off topic but don't season changes just seem wrong for this game. The game description given by hinterlands says "frozen wilderness"...

There is a beautiful simplicity to winter that the Devs have brilliantly captured. This might be lost in other seasons or take a lot of work and time that could be focused elsewhere. Maybe in the Long Dark 2 different seasons can be the focus?!

Winter is and always will be the most challenging season and I just like challenge.

Maybe look at it this way; Would you want more regions, better wildlife behaviour, more crafting, etc or different seasons? Maybe this should be another thread with a roadmap survey looking at development priorities.

Yes when the project started it was all about that how much you can survive in the frozen wilderness with the limited resources, But as it developed it became much more than that. New regions crafting mechanic suddenly it was possible to survive for long time like 1.000 more days so people started talking why is it winter the whole time ? The weather should change ? and after a while  BAMM!!! the Roadmap says seasons are coming  so there you have it. There is a small game called Stardew valley which has seasons and it is awesome because of it, Imagine what TLD will be like when we will finally experience that  I believe that it will set future standards for survival games. The games that will come out after that will try to copy it and develop something similar. I just hope that Hinterland will stay true to their word and see it through, which I believe they will based on their posts and comments and news videos.  

[hauteecolerider]

Let's see, diseases currently in the game . . .

Infection developing from bites/maulings. Check.

Food poisoning from spoiled food. Check. BTW, this would be dysentery . . .

Parasitism from eating carnivorous meat. Check. BTW, we are more likely to get this from herbivore meat, but that's just nitpicking . . .

What else can we add?

Rabies. That would really knock down those who want to strip naked and melee with wolves.

Leptospirosis. Now we really need to boil that water!

Malaria. Definitely a potential risk in the summer months when mosquitoes are active. 

Hmm, what else can my mind come up with? Chronic Wasting Disease? Sure, it's detected only in deer. But if it turns out to be similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? What if, like scrapie, it turns out to be transmissible to people? So little is known of this condition found in deer and elk, that if I were a story developer for TLD, I would totally run with this . . .

Arthritis. Yup. Hauling 30+ kg around icy/snowy slopes and incurring repeated sprains over and over again is sure to set up degenerative joint disease (DJD). Especially if we don't stop and RICE immediately but keep slogging on . . .

Of course, the last two only come into play if you are Drifter Man going for 1000 Days in the Dam . . .  

[ShawnB]

No doubt seasons will be a good addition. I just hope it adds different gameplay dynamics and doesn't mimic current dynamics with a different skin or name. For example if cold is replaced with wetness in spring but they function relatively similar then what is the point? Also if fishing is done in running water vs. a ice hut but they still work the same then what is the point.

Animal behaviour will need to be drastically improved to make seasons worthwhile. Things like animal migrations, aggression levels and absence/presence will be needed rather than the stagnant aimlessly wondering wildlife we have now. I don't mean to sound harsh here, still love this game!

I think adding seasons because players are surviving for a long time is the wrong reason. I just hope the addition of seasons is motivated by creating more diverse and complex gameplay dynamics.

[cekivi]

11 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

Let's see, diseases currently in the game . . .

Infection developing from bites/maulings. Check.

Food poisoning from spoiled food. Check. BTW, this would be dysentery . . .

Parasitism from eating carnivorous meat. Check. BTW, we are more likely to get this from herbivore meat, but that's just nitpicking . . .

What else can we add?

Rabies. That would really knock down those who want to strip naked and melee with wolves.

Leptospirosis. Now we really need to boil that water!

Malaria. Definitely a potential risk in the summer months when mosquitoes are active. 

Hmm, what else can my mind come up with? Chronic Wasting Disease? Sure, it's detected only in deer. But if it turns out to be similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? What if, like scrapie, it turns out to be transmissible to people? So little is known of this condition found in deer and elk, that if I were a story developer for TLD, I would totally run with this . . .

Arthritis. Yup. Hauling 30+ kg around icy/snowy slopes and incurring repeated sprains over and over again is sure to set up degenerative joint disease (DJD). Especially if we don't stop and RICE immediately but keep slogging on . . .

Of course, the last two only come into play if you are Drifter Man going for 1000 Days in the Dam . . .  

Rabies, while a risk, I would be hesitant to add because it is a fatal. Unless a pristine hospital happens to be around contracting rabies is 1005 fatal without medical intervention in the form of the rabies vaccine/treatment.

Malaria, fortunately, is not something we have to worry about in Canada. It's too cold here for the malaria mosquitoes to survive.

I don't know how common Letospirosis is but we definitely have Giardiasis here. Beaver fever - not good 

And, yeah, if I've lived long enough to contract arthritis than I probably am @Drifter Man's character!

 

[hauteecolerider]

Leptospirosis is zoonotic from wildlife. 

I was trying to keep things limited to diseases you contract from wildlife. 

I had forgotten about Giardia! Thanks for adding that in!

Rabies is still pretty fatal, even with a pristine hospital. The couple or so people who have survived rabies infection only did so because they were in a medically induced coma for months while on life support. And they still have extensive neurological damage. So in most situations, it is still fatal. And the vaccine only works if given before signs manifest. 

Your counter arguments for those conditions are pretty spot on, though I'm not sure about the whole malaria thing. I mean, we spray up here in the frozen Midwest for mosquitoes exactly because of malaria! West Nile Virus is a relative latecomer around here. And the further north we go, the bigger those sonsab--ches get. In the 19th century malaria was prevalent (though less common up north) throughout the Great Plains states, all the way up through North Dakota (and I presume up into the southern part of central Canada). Anywhere there are marshes or standing water, that's where you'll find malaria. That's why there are public spraying programs up here. 

From CDC History of Malaria in the US

[cekivi]

Interesting. I know that a lot of the malaria mosquito species can't survive the winter here. Still, most does not mean all

And yes, I did mean getting preventatively treated for rabies.

Scurvy may also be a good ailment to add provided you could dig up spruce roots for vitamin C in addition to rose hips.

[hauteecolerider]

Oh, the mosquitoes don't survive the winters here! 

But somehow Plasmodium spp. survive . . . *runs off to peek at veterinary parasitology notes* Ah-ha! I knew there was something there! Most parasites, including Plasmodium spp. which cause malaria, live the asexual part of their life cycle in vertebrates, including humans. So Plasmodium over-winter in humans, dogs, cats, et. al. to reinfect emerging mosquitoes in the spring. Then they reproduce sexually in mosquitoes, transmitted via mosquito bites into vertebrates (us humans) again, and the whole thing starts over again.

Larval visceral migrans is another disease caused by parasites, and quite deadly in its own way . . . 

Love the idea of scurvy - especially as we run out of vitamin D and sunlight in the Long Dark . . .

[Aelaera]

Someone above mentioned river crossings, and I think that would be fantastic. Attempting to cross a river can be deadly to even the most experienced hikers, especially with heavy pack and gear, as between current and the weight of your equipment, it's a very real danger to slip and fall, or simply to be pushed over by the force of the water and drown. It would add another use to mountaineering ropes as you could have a safety line tied around your waist, attached to a nearby tree, not a foolproof method, but an acceptable one, which could then be tied to another source (rock/tree/etc.) that would enable the player to always have a safe crossing each time at the expense of stamina. As a rule of thumb, you avoid crossing rivers, but if a player found themselves wanting to reach a certain point without wanting to find a path around, it would add a good danger in my opinion. 

[Wastelander]

I guess starting fires outdoors would be easier, since you need less of your own energy to start the initial combustion when it's warmer outside. However, humidity would definitely be a problem, with rainfall and all that snow melting. Setting up rain collectors would definitely be cool though - here in Germany, a lot of people use simple rain collecting systems to water their gardens. I wouldn't drink it without boiling it, keeping the demand for firewood roughly the same in the game, but it's definitely usable water.

[beechel]

First let me say - seasons or no seasons - I love this game, its grit and determination and battle to survive, Hinterland have not messed around and I love that!  If I don't die, repeatedly in these kind of games - I am not impressed.  I have died so many times - so thanks Hinterland!  

I only checked out the roadmap today - very exciting to read what they have planned. I love the idea of seasons and as another player said - it too reminded me of Don't Starve. The season's would provide so much scope for development, different challenges, wildlife, flora and fauna.  Nearly everything that springs to my mind has been said already, however a few things that I can think of (that are tied into some of the topics raised here):

People have spoken about being able to drag the Ice Huts off the lakes before a thaw, but there is also the issue of stamina loss.  If Hinterland are talking about bringing horses into the game, combined with the use of the climbing rope these could be used to pull the ice huts to safety

On a similar vein - good old fashioned horse power for ploughing ground for planting crops

With the introductions of seasons, it has already been mentioned that certain areas will probably be better in certain seasons, as such, it would be reasonable to expect that if you produce and harvest a truck load of food - you need to move it - possibly a fair old way back to your winter camp.  Someone (i think in another thread) mentioned a craftable sled - again horses could be utilised for pulling these enabling moving of larger quantities of items at season end.

As for the seasons themselves - lots of people have mentioned what they would like to see in the seasons - as I said this has been covered and I can not really add to the fab ideas in this thread, but going back to Don't Starve, there is a default setting in DS for season length - so if you are on the ball you know exactly when the season will change.  What I love in TLD is the unpredictability, yes there are spawn sites but things do not always spawn there - imagine my surprise in this game I am playing now when I hot footed it all the way to Trappers, then ran to the old shed opposite to harvest the deer only to find it was not there!  Its always there! Game before last I found two rifles and three knives in a few days. This game, one rifle and only a knife on my fifth day!  That's what I like about the game and I think the seasons themselves should have an element of unpredictability to them.  For example - winter can last anything up to 30-50 days, spring can be anything from 10-30 and so on, that way people are not day counting... they have the very real risk of being caught with their pants down if they do not pay attention to subtle changes in the weather and environment and prepare Their food could spoil, they could get trapped on jackrabbit island to starve to death - so many more ways to die  

A few of the other things that spring to mind linked with the seasons. - I would love to be able to build a hunting blind up in the trees, go up there in the spring and bunk down and shoot my prey from up there or even just do a bit of nature watching!

Canoe - I am looking forward to that, but I echo what people say - a fishing pole is a must  again I imagine midnight fishing under the stars in my little canoe with my fishing rod.

With the thaw comes the opportunity of different hunting styles... the digging of traps for bigger prey... so we would need a shovel and due to stamina this would take a few days to dig out... cutting down of trees so we could put spikes in the bottom etc... but that would be great... resources are finite (arrows and rifles) so that would give another way to catch big prey longer term.

Oh and the romantic in me would love to find a cave behind the waterfall in mystery lake when the water thaws... 

It would be good to be able to create basic 'meat and two veg' meals after growing crops that would provide slightly better calorific content than the single items.  I know that if I was stuck in the wilderness alone and I had grown some crops and shot my deer  - I would damned well make some tasty venison stew!

Im sure more ideas will come to me but those are mine for now

 

 

 

 

[Wastelander]

Quote

It would be good to be able to create basic 'meat and two veg' meals after growing crops that would provide slightly better calorific content than the single items.  I know that if I was stuck in the wilderness alone and I had grown some crops and shot my deer  - I would damned well make some tasty venison stew!

Also, with the coming willpower stat, I think different food items could (or rather, should) give different morale boosts. Cooked meat is great, but not without salt. Soda and chocolate are unhealthy IRL, but gosh are they tasty. And a venison stew? I had one once, 10 years ago, and I've been craving it ever since. Sorry if this post is a little off-topic.

[beechel]

 

1 minute ago, Wastelander said:

Also, with the coming willpower stat, I think different food items could (or rather, should) give different morale boosts. Cooked meat is great, but not without salt. Soda and chocolate are unhealthy IRL, but gosh are they tasty. And a venison stew? I had one once, 10 years ago, and I've been craving it ever since. Sorry if this post is a little off-topic.

Yes,great minds think alike - I was just thinking something similar - currently there is no way to treat cabin fever - but some comfort foods could stave off the condition and result in the player needing to spend only 3 hrs outside or something like that.  

Venison stew - delicious, I don't have it often but I am lucky enough to live in a rural area and occasionally get given some venison/pigeon/rabbit at which point the entire family stampedes over for dinner!

[Wastelander]

Just now, beechel said:

 

Yes,great minds think alike - I was just thinking something similar - currently there is no way to treat cabin fever - but some comfort foods could stave off the condition and result in the player needing to spend only 3 hrs outside or something like that.  

Venison stew - delicious, I don't have it often but I am lucky enough to live in a rural area and occasionally get given some venison/pigeon/rabbit at which point the entire family stampedes over for dinner!

Due to being a university student who lives in a student dorm next to his university and also works for his university (center of my life, lol), I actually experienced mild cabin fever during some holidays when my parents were on vacation and all my friends were caught up in something else. I basically spent that time eating comfort food (gained a couple kilos, would you be in for a body weight mechanic?) and making/repairing LARP equipment to pass the time. It helped, actually. Keeping yourself occupied and occasionally gratified is a great way to stave off what I call 'mental starvation'. Granted, I still went out for at least half an hour at least daily to buy groceries and glue

[beechel]

Lol!  I have actually been going through something similar - I have owned horses for the last 21 years and six weeks ago sent my boy away to a trainer as I was working so much, up until then there literally has not been a day when I have not been up to the yard to de-stress and get out of the house (I run my own company and my office is home   these last six weeks have been hell.  But work has now cooled down a bit - I will be so glad to get my horse back this week!!

On the subject of in game cabin fever-  I simply can not see myself spending the majority of six game days/nights inside a building in the first place.  There is so much that needs to be done in game - I would starve  I would be interested to see what the break point was in terms of hours/percentage of time inside for CF to be triggered. 

 

[Wastelander]

I think wood harvesting is what would save me, actually - I love to keep huge stockpiles of wood in my main base. The seasons would actually change that, too - in fall, tinder should be abundant with all the dead leaves and twigs all around (although I never ran short of tinder by now). Summer could also dry dead wood on the ground, making it way easier to chop.

Also, once the snow is gone, food could actually be abundant. I don't know if nettles grow in Canada, but if they do - congrats! Nettles have been a big part of nutrition in 20th century Germany and actually helped a lot of people survive in the winter of 1946/1947 - one of the coldest ever recorded in northern Germany and Great Britain. 2 Million people still died, but it would've been a lot more if not for the nettles. They've got protein and a bunch of vitamins, grow so quickly and abundantly that companies are hired to remove them and can be cooked in a few minutes. Also, at least I, personally, like the flavour. However, I think nettles would make the game too easy - balancing will, despite all realism, always be an issue I guess, and rightly so.

Spring could actually be really dangerous - wild veggies and fruit are just beginning to grow and wildlife is more aggressive (I suppose).

[beechel]

On 5/13/2016 at 1:58 PM, ShawnB said:

No doubt seasons will be a good addition. I just hope it adds different gameplay dynamics and doesn't mimic current dynamics with a different skin or name. For example if cold is replaced with wetness in spring but they function relatively similar then what is the point? Also if fishing is done in running water vs. a ice hut but they still work the same then what is the point.

Animal behaviour will need to be drastically improved to make seasons worthwhile. Things like animal migrations, aggression levels and absence/presence will be needed rather than the stagnant aimlessly wondering wildlife we have now. I don't mean to sound harsh here, still love this game!

I think adding seasons because players are surviving for a long time is the wrong reason. I just hope the addition of seasons is motivated by creating more diverse and complex gameplay dynamics.

I think the adding of seasons because players are surviving for a long time is not such a bad thing... handled correctly, it could and should do exactly what you wish 'creating a more diverse and complex gameplay'.  I have only been playing for a short amount of time compared with others, and as such I still have much exploring to do and experiences to have! However, when the subject of season's came up I was excited, the main reason being that I am so impressed with Hinterland so far, their aim is to create a truly unique game with a full and complex experience - I simply can not see them just chucking a few more seasons into the mix without putting as much thought and attention into them as they seem to have done to the game so far.  I think the one struggle that I can see with the integration of the other seasons is that winter is the harshest season, as you start in winter - I would be disappointed if the others seemed like a holiday.

The storyline of this occuring post geomagnetic storm could be integrated further into the gameplay  -  just a quick research shows that geomagnetic events affect crop growth - and different plants react differently - perhaps this could be woven in to the gameplay.  

I completely agree, that if you just have the same challenges and mechanics but a different season - it would be pretty pointless.  I would like to see (for whatever reason) a depletion of certain wildlife in certain areas when there is an abundance of crops - to balance things out.  Perhaps a toxicity in fish when the rain season hits... some real environmental impacts for the changes to the season - so that each season is its own battle and each is as hard as the next, I would not want to start in winter then feel like I am having a holiday for the rest of the seasons.

What I would also love to see is further unpredictability, for example a change in spawn sites for the following year - so that even though you are familiar with the map and food sources for last year, you have to learn the new spawn sites for some items all over again next year - I am talking primarily animals here (and that could fit with your migration mechanic), however - mushrooms, rosehip bushes - they could have died off in their old site but grown somewhere new over the past year... saplings would probably stay the same.  This would help to keep the freshness of the experience.

I think that from what I have seen so far, Hinterland have excellent vision and an ability to turn that into gameplay reality - just as key they have excellent hearing!  They do seem to listen to their players and integrate much of their recommendations into the game play, so I have high hopes for the seasons to come. 

[beechel]

23 minutes ago, Wastelander said:

I think wood harvesting is what would save me, actually - I love to keep huge stockpiles of wood in my main base. The seasons would actually change that, too - in fall, tinder should be abundant with all the dead leaves and twigs all around (although I never ran short of tinder by now). Summer could also dry dead wood on the ground, making it way easier to chop.

Also, once the snow is gone, food could actually be abundant. I don't know if nettles grow in Canada, but if they do - congrats! Nettles have been a big part of nutrition in 20th century Germany and actually helped a lot of people survive in the winter of 1946/1947 - one of the coldest ever recorded in northern Germany and Great Britain. 2 Million people still died, but it would've been a lot more if not for the nettles. They've got protein and a bunch of vitamins, grow so quickly and abundantly that companies are hired to remove them and can be cooked in a few minutes. Also, at least I, personally, like the flavour. However, I think nettles would make the game too easy - balancing will, despite all realism, always be an issue I guess, and rightly so.

Spring could actually be really dangerous - wild veggies and fruit are just beginning to grow and wildlife is more aggressive (I suppose).

Im pretty sure nettles do grow in canada - they also have fantastic antioxidant and analgesic properties - they could be added to the arsenal of 'healing tea's' and perhaps chamomile - could be another cure for Cabin Fever.  Im from the UK, so yep we have lots of nettles here, I think I tried nettle soup many years ago although I can not for the life of me remember what it tasted like.  

It would be nice in the spring to see some harvestable things that are actually poisonous although Im not sure that would work because when you examine the item it tells you what it is - so you could easily identify whether it was deadly or not - I think in the roadmap there was something about developing knowledge base - perhaps there could be a book on foraging  - what you can and can not eat and it was only after reading that you would be able to identify if somethings were poisonous or not.