New Sandbox Region Coming October 29th!!


Raphael van Lierop

Recommended Posts

  • Hinterland

The Long Dark -- New Sandbox Region Coming October 29th!!

On October 29th, we're more than doubling the size of The Long Dark's Sandbox, with the addition of a whole new playable region.

We're also adding a new type of wildlife, a new way to hunt, many new locations, dozens of UI fixes, more optimization and bug fixing, and widespread tuning changes to account for the larger Sandbox world.

For now, here's a tease. We'll share more in the days leading up to October 29th.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah its a bit confusing.

[glow=red]On October 29th, we're more than doubling the size of The Long Dark's Sandbox, with the addition of a whole new playable region. [/glow]

I think he means the existing Mystery Lake is getting bigger, but unsure if he means "double the size" as in playable map area or if he simply means the new locations + new zone will provide us 50% more sandbox content... Or... if as you say the regions are connected by load screen or some form of Hinterlands studio magic.

[glow=red]We're also adding a new type of wildlife, a new way to hunt, many new locations, dozens of UI fixes, more optimization and bug fixing, and widespread tuning changes to account for the larger Sandbox world.[/glow]

If I had to bet It sounds like they are going to use load-screen magic. Otherwise why would they re-tune things? Or maybe they are just so badass there is no load screen at all. o.O Maybe we are over thinking and the Mystery Lake Map is 50% bigger with the addition of a new playable region as well. That would be jaw dropping. In any case...

beaver_hug_by_sweetcandyteardrop-d5cmnec.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All the coordinates of the Mystery Lake region range from 38 - 1676 (for the x) and -93 - 1383 (for the y), not counting bunkers. That has had me thinking the area was supposed to be bigger (why else would you not have 0, 0 somewhere centered on the map?). So an expansion of Mystery Lake is not completely impossible, but I'm not expecting that. [glow=red]On October 29th, we're more than doubling the size of The Long Dark's Sandbox, with the addition of a whole new playable region. [/glow]

That implies it's not an expansion of the Mystery Lake map.

Ans since the sandbox is made up of all regions in the sandbox whether they are connected or not, it could very well be that the regions will be separate. But, one of the devs has at least hinted at the possibility to be able to move to another area after all the resources in one area are gone. So I'm hopeful the new area will somehow be connected to Mystery Lake. Maybe you will be able to follow the tracks near the dam to the new map...

There will probably be a load screen if the maps are connected though. The entire outdoors seems to be loaded when you go outside the first time after loading, so without a load screen it would probably mean a serious performance drop for many people.

[glow=red]We're also adding a new type of wildlife, a new way to hunt, many new locations, dozens of UI fixes, more optimization and bug fixing, and widespread tuning changes to account for the larger Sandbox world.[/glow]

If I had to bet It sounds like they are going to use load-screen magic. Otherwise why would they re-tune things?

The game needs a good deal off tuning anyway even without the new region. It's still in Alpha, so that's to be expected. But yeah, I think this statement means the regions will be connected and that means resources etc should be tuned, because we'll be getting another regions to loot. That could mean that the game becomes too easy if nothing is done (twice as many resources...).

Also, there will probably be quite a few new items and item types so that would also require the tuning of the existing stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why not let people on Kickstarter know in advance about the release on 29th?

Well they might do that. But frankly, it doesn't really matter all that much. The backers that do want to be part of the developing phase of the game are already taking part in the process, here in the forum or via the steam community. Additionally, information is distributed through Hinterland's facebook page. So the people that care about knowing already know (and are maybe getting all excited about it, like myself). But to those that don't really care, and judging by how many backers are registered that have 0 posts there's a whole lot of em, it doesn't make a difference wether they hear about it 2 days before the update or one day after. just my 2 cents.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We will be able to start a different savegame or we must first lose the current game?

I'd like to know that too since I just started a new run on the old map as a Let's Play on Youtube and I don't want to already stop it after 2 hours of playing, but I really want to test out the new stuff as soon as possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's only a patch, an update to the alpha, not the final game that will be released today. That said, there are plenty of thing that can prevent the update from coming today, so that wouldn't surprise me too much. I would have expected to hear from them by now though, if they didn't think they were going to deliver the update today. So I'm still hopeful we will be playing the update very soon. Well, I won't... Going to the movies tonight, so TLD will have to wait for tomorrow.

I slept outside last night in preparation for this. Can't wait!

:lol: Now you're a die hard fan if there ever was one!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.