Next Sandbox Update will NOT work with existing saves


GorillaDust

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Of note for anybody launching new sandbox runs in the next few weeks: according to the FAQs section of the new website, existing sandbox saves will NOT work with the upcoming sandbox update. This is not clearly stated in Raph's latest dev diary, which only indicates that Profile data (progress towards badges, survivor diaries, etc) will be maintained. .

So find a way to go out in a blaze of glory before late May/early June! Now is the time to test jumping off the Ravine railway trestle.

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Q: Will my saves from Early Access carry over into the 1.0 version of the game?

A: While we managed to maintain backwards compatibility with previous saves for our nearly 3-year run in Early Access, due to significant changes to the save architecture required to support our launch, we will be rendering all old saves obsolete as of the FINAL Sandbox update (currently targeting late-May/early-June 2017). In other words, your old games won’t work with the final Sandbox update before we launch our 1.0. It’s worth noting that your Profile data will carry over, however, which means progress towards Feats, or any Badges you’ve unlocked, will carry over. We will provide ample warning before making this switch.

Q: If you’re going to wipe all our saves, why not wait until you launch the 1.0? Why do this one update prior to your launch?

A: We want to make sure that when we launch our 1.0, the save system has been thoroughly tested, so players can have the best experience possible. Releasing the update to the save system one full update cycle before we launch will help ensure that. The good news is that the saves from the last Sandbox update should remain intact in our 1.0 launch.

 

Raph's dev diary doesn't say it in such black-and-white terms:

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Complete Save System Overhaul.
As you can imagine, maintaining backwards compatibility for saves over the past 3+ years has made our save system a bit of a tangled mess over time. We think this may be part of why there’s been some instability, on Xbox One in particular, with lost saves and some corruption at times. This new system should improve stability, and also prepare us to handle the new Save requirements of the WINTERMUTE episodes. Keep in mind that all your current profile data will continue to work -- this means existing progress towards Feats, or Survival Journals you’ve saved, will still be valid post-update.

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11 minutes ago, Daelda said:

Sounds like it's time to work on Badges/Feats.

For the last few RL days of play, whenever the weather permits, I've had my character settle down in a sheltered spot with a mountain of sticks and a magnifying glass, making fire after fire after fire, one stick at a time...

 

Edit: And welcome to the forums, @Daelda!

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50 minutes ago, JAFO said:

For the last few RL days of play, whenever the weather permits, I've had my character settle down in a sheltered spot with a mountain of sticks and a magnifying glass, making fire after fire after fire, one stick at a time...

 

Edit: And welcome to the forums, @Daelda!

Sounds like a good plan.

And thank you! Glad to be here!

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That's all right with me. As long as the achievements and feats carry over. I only have two achievements left to get which will give me something to do while waiting for launch. I'll try for both of them in one game to make it more interesting. I'm at 140 days to get the 200 days but there's no way I'll get that by the update. I could do it but I have other games also that I'm playing, plus the time I get to play is limited. My last two feats I think can be done by the time of the update though. I know they carry over but I just feel like getting them now. I better get crackin'.

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I'm thinking of working something in with my existing survivors and picking a rescue point and story for each of them, and working towards it. For my most attached character, Sophe Harlow, her rescue will be relatively easy and take place from Desolation Point lighthouse, after a short travel from Coastal Highway. I don't want to risk death for her. For John Bunyan, I figure a slough-of-despond adventure through Frozen Muskeg might be fun as he battles to get out of the valley, then turns back around and heads out for Desolation Point, as he manages to pick up a radio signal. 

In fact, I think I'll have all my characters in all my saves assemble at Desolation Point, in the lighthouse. Then I'll switch between them, finish off the journals, and try to weave a tale of quiet ends. 

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I have a Stalker game where I have looted absolutely every single item on all the maps (even FM), and catalogued the results. I am considering now hauling absolutely everything to the PV Farmstead and putting it on display (Think spelling out a giant 'HELP' in the snow with 100+ arrowshafts and such). Guess I have to decide how much IRL time I feel like investing on that and if it's even worth the effort it would take before the save is wiped. Would make for cool screenshots, and maybe I could post the results of exactly how much of each item there is (on average) in a game world (I literally recorded EVERY item of any relevance, even stuff like how many berries/mushrooms there are). But not sure if worth it.

Hard earned Trivia: Did you know that FM has over 300 cattails (I found 329) out of a total of over 700 in the game world (I found 772)?

Or that there is nearly 1000 scrap metal in the game world (at least on Stalker, on Interloper you would get a bit less since you don't get Prepper Caches)?

Or that FM is a forsaken wasteland that I pretty much despise at this point (not because of the thin ice that everyone complains about, but mostly because there is basically nothing there but cattails and herbs and wolves)?

Tbh none of my other saves have that much value to me. I have a bunch of late game Interloper games, and a Mega Hard Mode save, but I can always play them again (late game is kind of boring anyways). And I even have detailed notes on one of the Interloper games, if I ever wanted to post a story about that game (I was playing with some extra restrictions to make it harder), although I think it's a bit late for that/I don't think anyone would want to read it.

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9 minutes ago, Troxism said:

I literally recorded EVERY item of any relevance

Really?!  I would like to see those results.  Ya got them in a spreadsheet or something?


 

10 minutes ago, Troxism said:

Hard earned Trivia: Did you know that FM has over 300 cattails (I found 329) out of a total of over 700 in the game world (I found 772)?

Nice!  I've been wondering about how many there are.

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Yeah I have it recorded. I also have a bunch of 'cross reference data' for certain loot on Interloper, so I can say that for example stuff like Cattails, Herbs and Saplings have the exact same spawn amounts on every difficulty (but they are slightly random and fluctuate the exact amount game to game, but the total won't change much). And I can give a pretty good estimate for how much Cloth there is on Interloper (considerably less then Stalker mostly because certain buildings are always burned down on Interloper unlike lower difficulties).

But I would have to fix it up and make it readable which would be a decent bit of work. It's a mess of personal notes mixed in (since I played that save over the course of about a month IRL I had to keep notes on where I had been on each map so I didn't miss anything), plus I did stuff like record how much cloth you can harvest in each 'type' of building (different indoor layouts), so it's literally a mess of stuff written all over the place. A lot of it would need context because of how 'note form' it is.

Plus there is a lot of 'related information' that I would need to write out that would be relevant/interesting too. So it's not quite as simple as just linking it.

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7 minutes ago, Troxism said:

I also have a bunch of 'cross reference data' for certain loot on Interloper, so I can say that for example stuff like Cattails, Herbs and Saplings have the exact same spawn amounts on every difficulty (but they are slightly random and fluctuate the exact amount game to game, but the total won't change much).

I was wondering about that too. Good to know.


 

8 minutes ago, Troxism said:

But I would have to fix it up and make it readable which would be a decent bit of work. It's a mess of personal notes mixed in (since I played that save over the course of about a month IRL I had to keep notes on where I had been on each map so I didn't miss anything), plus I did stuff like record how much cloth you can harvest in each 'type' of building (different indoor layouts), so it's literally a mess of stuff written all over the place. A lot of it would need context because of how 'note form' it is.

And it might not really be worth it - who knows what might change in the upcoming update and story mode release.  Still, sounds like a bunch of cool info to have at hand!

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14 hours ago, Troxism said:

I have a Stalker game where I have looted absolutely every single item on all the maps (even FM), and catalogued the results. I am considering now hauling absolutely everything to the PV Farmstead and putting it on display (Think spelling out a giant 'HELP' in the snow with 100+ arrowshafts and such). Guess I have to decide how much IRL time I feel like investing on that and if it's even worth the effort it would take before the save is wiped. Would make for cool screenshots, and maybe I could post the results of exactly how much of each item there is (on average) in a game world (I literally recorded EVERY item of any relevance, even stuff like how many berries/mushrooms there are). But not sure if worth it.

Hard earned Trivia: Did you know that FM has over 300 cattails (I found 329) out of a total of over 700 in the game world (I found 772)?

Or that there is nearly 1000 scrap metal in the game world (at least on Stalker, on Interloper you would get a bit less since you don't get Prepper Caches)?

Or that FM is a forsaken wasteland that I pretty much despise at this point (not because of the thin ice that everyone complains about, but mostly because there is basically nothing there but cattails and herbs and wolves)?

Tbh none of my other saves have that much value to me. I have a bunch of late game Interloper games, and a Mega Hard Mode save, but I can always play them again (late game is kind of boring anyways). And I even have detailed notes on one of the Interloper games, if I ever wanted to post a story about that game (I was playing with some extra restrictions to make it harder), although I think it's a bit late for that/I don't think anyone would want to read it.

My current Stalker game is an in-progress version of this as well! (But it now seems unlikely I'll get to finish it in time for the Sandbox update + save wipe.)

I started by cataloguing everything I found in every location in the game's Journal, but this became so time-consuming and tedious that I quickly gave up. My purpose wasn't to do that, actually - it was merely a side-effect. My real aim was to systematically destroy every non-renewable item in the game world so that I could see what the experience would be like when forced to live entirely off of renewables and beach-combing.

I anticipated that the 'destruction of materials' phase would probably actually take nearly as long as the 'collection' phase and be fairly arduous in itself, possibly requiring some creative solutions for things like getting rid of absolutely all the cloth and scrap metal? In any case, I'm quite envious of your being able to have a great big orgy of consumption of your collected loot just before the save-wipe hits! It would probably be quite a therapeutic antidote to the normal habits of the game!

I'll maybe have a go at it again after the Sandbox update. The new mapping system will probably help a lot with this, anyway.

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It tis a sad day :( This is the second time since this game's 'release' that this has happened. The first time I didn't care. I wanted to start a new game with the updates and for the longest time I didn't even realize that the old saves were lost. lol. but, this time -- it's different. My guy have survived a LOT over the past 650+ days. In voyager mode because when I started playing this game they didn't have different modes. lol. I still even have a clock which I love and I HATE that they removed it.

I'm completely setup to survive easily for another 600 days too. I suppose there will be a farewell video to honor my survivor and all he's been through before he finally fades into the long dark.

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2 hours ago, Pillock said:

My current Stalker game is an in-progress version of this as well! (But it now seems unlikely I'll get to finish it in time for the Sandbox update + save wipe.)

I started by cataloguing everything I found in every location in the game's Journal, but this became so time-consuming and tedious that I quickly gave up. My purpose wasn't to do that, actually - it was merely a side-effect. My real aim was to systematically destroy every non-renewable item in the game world so that I could see what the experience would be like when forced to live entirely off of renewables and beach-combing.

I anticipated that the 'destruction of materials' phase would probably actually take nearly as long as the 'collection' phase and be fairly arduous in itself, possibly requiring some creative solutions for things like getting rid of absolutely all the cloth and scrap metal? In any case, I'm quite envious of your being able to have a great big orgy of consumption of your collected loot just before the save-wipe hits! It would probably be quite a therapeutic antidote to the normal habits of the game!

I'll maybe have a go at it again after the Sandbox update. The new mapping system will probably help a lot with this, anyway.

My goal isn't to have stuff. The only things you really need in this game to live 'comfortably' (You can even live without these in theory but it's a lot more annoying esp on Interloper to play without clothes/be mortally terrified of wolves/hunt without a weapon) long term is a Magnifying Lens, some Cloth, a few saplings and a few fishing tackle to fix clothes. Oh and either some OMB or Reishi Tea in case you get attacked by a wolf and get unlucky (but the only real threat of wolf attacks is clothing damage anyways if you don't exploit by stripping naked). And I've become such an absurd miser in this game that I don't use matches past day 20-25 on any difficulty.

In fact I can't think of anything I would do with all that stuff I collected in that game in terms of actually trying to use even half of it (14 hacksaws? 10 rifles? 25 Storm Lanterns? 708 matches? 53 Flares? What do you even do with all that garbage?). Like I said, the only plan I ever really had for any of it was to just set it out on display and take some screenshots of The Long Dark Shopping Mall.

As for your idea of playing without consumable resources, you can simply ban yourself from using them, no need to destroy them all. I might do such a playthrough for illustration purposes at some point (to show how little stuff you REALLY need once you have maxed skills).

*The reason I don't mention tools is you don't really need them once you have Carcass Harvesting 5. Rip that bear flesh from it's frozen corpse with your bare hands like a true wild man/woman! Or you could turn the absurd amount of scrap metal in the game (even on Interloper there is an absurd about) towards becoming the world's greatest fisherman and you can even skip bothering with a bow for a very very very long time. You can break the ice with a hammer, which only takes Fir to repair. While yes you would need a very tiny amount of scrap metal to keep repairing your tools you use to repair the Hammer, the reality is you would be burning through scrap to make hooks much faster then you would be burning through scrap to keep the hammer alive so it becomes mostly irrelevant.

Which is kind of why my main goal was more to record how much Cloth/many Saplings there are, as those are the real limiting factor on any playthrough (and even then, Beachcombing can arguably make them last forever if conserved carefully). Really it's just more interesting for me to see how much useless garbage you get to make the game easier.

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1 hour ago, Troxism said:

As for your idea of playing without consumable resources, you can simply ban yourself from using them, no need to destroy them all. I might do such a playthrough for illustration purposes at some point (to show how little stuff you REALLY need once you have maxed skills).

*The reason I don't mention tools is you don't really need them once you have Carcass Harvesting 5. Rip that bear flesh from it's frozen corpse with your bare hands like a true wild man/woman! Or you could turn the absurd amount of scrap metal in the game (even on Interloper there is an absurd about) towards becoming the world's greatest fisherman and you can even skip bothering with a bow for a very very very long time. You can break the ice with a hammer, which only takes Fir to repair. While yes you would need a very tiny amount of scrap metal to keep repairing your tools you use to repair the Hammer, the reality is you would be burning through scrap to make hooks much faster then you would be burning through scrap to keep the hammer alive so it becomes mostly irrelevant.

Which is kind of why my main goal was more to record how much Cloth/many Saplings there are, as those are the real limiting factor on any playthrough (and even then, Beachcombing can arguably make them last forever if conserved carefully). Really it's just more interesting for me to see how much useless garbage you get to make the game easier.

Yeah, I was more interested in fast-forwarding to the end-end game, where you've totally run out of material and really don't have anything left to find - and then experiencing what it was actually like to play it like that, rather than just theorizing. But I guess you'd only really need to bother emptying out Coastal Highway, Crumbling Highway and Desolation Point, since those are the only places with beach combing and therefore the only places that'd be worth spending time in by that stage.

Anyway, I've enjoyed the process of trying to find absolutely everything in the world, since it's given my game a sense purpose beyond mere survival, and also allowed me to explore the little nooks and crannies of each map that I might otherwise not have visited before - and I've found some interesting places in doing so that I didn't really know about. Interesting what you say about the effect of skills, though - I hadn't really thought of that.

But I'm not going to make a proper go at it again now until after the final Sandbox update, because there's no point in losing all the progress after a couple of weeks!

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