The Long Dark

[Burning Bridges]

Requests for new features are strewn all over the place. Among other things people ask for modding, bigger maps, buildable houses, sleds, running water, boats, seasons, cooking in real time, autogenerated maps, better realism options and much more.
Obviously 1 other requested feature would be NPCs, and that is the only that I expect the update will eventually introduce, at the cost of turning everything in the same canned experience like the usual generic console shit where whenever something happens you see a face with a sexbot expression and three dialog options next to it. And those games are dime a dozen whereas the idea of a simulated open world type arctic sim was something special.

 

[Burning Bridges]

What do you get when you wait for a Hinterland countdown?

http://steamcommunity.com/games/305620/announcements/detail/1288437600375445845

Spoiler

 

[imajia]

"[...] and I’m sorry that it created frustration for some of you[...]

hahaha, didn't see that coming.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Hinterland has reacted to the critique of their countdown and increased the price to 31,99$

Nothing new was released of course, the game is the same as before the countdown, only the price is 60% higher.

 

[imajia]

Hinterland has reacted to the critique in more than one way:

"I don't go to reddit anymore."

https://twitter.com/RaphLife/status/865683497746259968

The new test branch seems to be a very mixed bag (haven't tried myself and won't, just read a few posts)

• you now have to keep the mouse button pressed until each action is completed (includes entering a building or searching a container)
• you can't see the status of the items in your inventory. You have to select each one.
• you only see 12 items instead of 24
• no more "tab" to quickly check your status
• you can't see how many hours are left from the main screen
• seems that quick craft menu was removed as well
• etc.

Spoiler

via http://imgur.com/a/PW4C2

 

[Burning Bridges]

Consolitis

 

[imajia]

shitty UI is shitty UI, console or no console.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Look up the changelogs, they redesigned the UI literally once every year.

First they had a kind of norton commander apporach with text, which was ugly but workable. Then they migrated to a more classic RPG style with well made icons which was great.

Then they came up with radial menus and took away lots of important information like time of day and condition which made no sense. And now they have apparently gone even more down that philosophy, while also making the icons needlessly larger and and necessitationy more scrolling, meaning they can not have been developing for the PC since they went strangely secretive about 1.5 years ago. You can look that look that up as well, it coincides with the announcement that they go to consoles. After they had released the second or third map, and when we just began thinking they were on track they announced TLD of consoles and now we know what happened afterwards.

 

[LESS T_T]

Hello fans,

We're thrilled to be able to share the launch trailer for The Long Dark.

We can't wait to hear what you think about the game on August 1st, and we hope you find it was worth the long wait.

The Long Dark launches Worldwide on Steam on Tuesday, August 1st at 8AM Pacific Time.

Thank you for your support over the years.

- The Hinterland Team

 

[Burning Bridges]

Ah, the August 1 deadline eventually approaches this time without countdown

My prediction is there is a shitstorm coming on the horizon, and Hinterland either folds or turns into a full front console developer (which they basically already appear to have). I for one am not going to support them if they have a 10 year plan to release 1 shitty new map a year that people play for 1 or maybe 2 days.

 

[cvv]

Ah, the August 1 deadline eventually approaches this time without countdown

My prediction is there is a shitstorm coming on the horizon, and Hinterland either folds or turns into a full front console developer (which they basically already appear to have). I for one am not going to support them if they have a 10 year plan to release 1 shitty new map a year that people play for 1 or maybe 2 days.

I don't doubt there were all the good intentions behind making the game. Just goes to show it's a tough business and nothing is ever certain or even predictable. My takeaway lesson from that is, never buy Early Access for game by a brand new idealistic studio. Or better yet, never buy Early Access full stop.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I would not even say I regret Early Access. I played ~200 hours which I really enjoyed and another 100 which I increasingly didn't. There is rather a lesson to be learned that just because a project thrills you at the start, it does not mean it will last when time and people change.

Now let's see what they release on tuesday and how the dumb tale of hipster Will Mackenzie and his badly painted friends translates into the 1st walking sim with some genuine gameplay, or if it will completely kill the game.

By the way the main character looks exactly like the CEO of the company, I don't know if that is supposed to be funny
I would not be surprised if all the characters are modelled after someone in the studio, and we can look forward to some genuine cringefest.

 

[Darkzone]

So The Long Dark or Grimoire? I will go with The Long Dark.
The EA was not a mistake and neither for D:KC. In itself the sandbox it is a great game. I also have spend 213h in the Sandbox and it was a great time, but i also have stoped to play it over half a year ago, so that i will have more fun as it comes out.

 

[Arnust]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/he...il-producer-developing-long-dark-film-1025426
Developing 'The Long Dark' Film

Spoiler

Jeremy Bolt is adapting the Hinterland video game, which has already sold 1.3 million copies ahead of its release Tuesday.

The acclaimed survival videogame The Long Dark is ready to jump to the big screen.

Resident Evil producer Jeremy Bolt has partnered with videogame studio Hinterland for a live-action film adaptation of the game, which has hints of properties such as The Walking Dead and The Road.

The game has already sold 1.3 million copies ahead of its official PlayStation 4 release Tuesday, and has been building buzz for several years after an alpha version was released to ravenous fans.

"My goal with Hinterland — starting with The Long Dark — has always been to create original entertainment properties that could span multiple mediums, exploiting the storytelling potential of each form," Raphael van Lierop, founder and creative director at Hinterland, said Monday in a statement. “Partnering with Jeremy on this project is the first step in achieving that vision of true cross-platform storytelling in the world of The Long Dark."

The post-apocalyptic videogame centers on bush pilot Will Mackenzie and Dr. Astrid Greenwood, with the pair becoming stranded in the wilderness of Northern Canada following a geomagnetic disaster. As they search for each other, Astrid and Mackenzie come to terms with the ways the world around them has changed due to an aurorae in the sky.

“I first reached out to Raphael, as a fan of The Long Dark," said Bolt. “I was immediately taken by the game’s stunningly immersive landscapes, eerily solitary and realistic nature; it is an existential tale of moral, emotional and physical endurance with strong characters to build on; it is also a mystery. It is an honor to try to do justice to it on film.”

To give fans a taste of what the Long Dark film will look like, Hinterland has produced Elegy, a five-minute short film featuring Oscar winner Christopher Plummer and directed by Jared Pelletier. Hinterland's van Lierop wrote the short.

Spoiler

“I describe Elegy as a visual poem," said van Lierop. “Jared’s passion for the source material is evident — he really connected with The Long Dark’s artistic sensibilities, and the game’s unique sense of identity within its own fiction. I think Elegy stands as an example of the level of quality and the overall tone I’d like to deliver in theLong Dark film."

Alright, so this is weird. Can't be too bad, though.

On the game itself, it's the Survival game that has gripped me the most ever since I was younger with the very first hours of the olde Minecraft Alpha. I also genuinely love the watercolor art style and the substraction in the design. Definitively one of the best things I've seen come out of Early Access, and they've transformed that kind of shitty generic game in a snowy setting to one worthy of competing with the big boys.

 

[agentorange]

Definitively one of the best things I've seen come out of Early Access

not yet it fucking hasn't. what the hell they wasting their time doing movie deals for when the game has been in early access for 4 years or so. i haven't played the game in about a year now and i'm honestly scared to after some of the dumb shit they did last time.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I assume what they done half the time is gather around coffee machines, put plants in the office, dealing with switching people in and out and making the Long Dark ready for console plebs.

If not some miracle happens this will be the exact same game we had 1,2, and 3 years ago with an inane story that caters for millenial hipster and 3 new maps that could have been done in 1/2 year tops.

The movie .. pfff. Interesting to see how my opinion went from "don't give money to people with such beards", to amazement to "dont get overexcited by games with such beards".

 

[Burning Bridges]

1 new sandbox map

+ story mode which I predict is suckee-suckee



I expect some first class LULZ in the next 48 hours when a 3 year long (!) excitement abates and realism sets in. I envision lots of fanbois + haters battle it out, and beaucoup locked threads.

They probably have 2 more maps that they save for chapter 2 and plan to sell at 20$ around summer 2018, when the next projected "development cycle" is over (realistically = summer 2019).

 

[Burning Bridges]

Ok here my first impressions

fucking hate everything so far

On screen text flickers, dont know what this weird shit is.

New UI / Radial menu etc sucks, as expected. Console plebs

DAY 1

First I need to remove the shard from my hand by repeated clicking This is a gameplay mechanic that they have rediscovered from the 80s (decathlon)



The hand holding in the first level is overpowering. Cannot pick Rose hip berries "you dont need those yet". Almost froze to death in front of several plane crash fires.

DAY 2

Wanted to apply a bandage to my wounded hand, no effect. Pointless!

DAY 3

Now I must make a fire that last through the night.

Making fires in previous versions was more enjoyable. I cannot even place a new fire over an old one, so my cave gets littered up with burnt up campfires.

Thankfully there are now new pieces of wood around the cave or I would have had a fit. I had used up my wood in the second fire, because I didn't know that the game would simply autoquit the second day, and I should have made 3-4 extra litres of water.

 

[Burning Bridges]

DAY 3, 4 and 5

I was supposed to make a fire all through the night, and I was initially hopeful but after I had turned everything - I mean literally everything - every crate, cardboard box end even the fucking branches - around the cave into firewood and had boiled over 50 liters of potable water, day 4 passed by, and the night approached and with it day fucking 5, I realized that someone was trying to fuck me in the ass.

"You dont need those yet" Hey asshole, the rose hips would have given me 100 calories each and I starved in front of 50 liters of water and a fire with a final output of over 80C that I was supposed to keep running for 9 hours and made eventually 36 hours or so.

So far I can say:

Hinterland Games

Thanks for wasting 3+ hours of my life, I guess thats the reward for waiting the 3 years.

This also proves that you guys cannot program for shit, such a simple timer, in such an important release, which you had years to prepare.

You know what, I also already know that its probably because I Alt-Tabbed out of the game and thats not how the game is supposed to be played amirite?

Who would've thought of that someone Alt-Tabs because sitting 9 hours next to a fire is boring even to a quasi-autist like me.

Fucking amateurs. Game left EA and entered early early Alpha, for a beta such shit is not acceptable.

 

[Starwars]

Don't go full-on Celerity dude, walk away.

 

[imajia]

Making fires in previous versions was more enjoyable. I cannot even place a new fire over an old one, so my cave gets littered up with burnt up campfires.

You can reuse burned up campfires since an update or two. Just click on it and you get the fire menu. No neeed anymore to plaster the map with campfires.

Who would've thought of that someone Alt-Tabs because sitting 9 hours next to a fire is boring even to a quasi-autist like me.

That's a bug. After you put enough wood into the fire, the day automatically ends.

More annoying than the tutorial levels is the part after that. I haven't played that far, but the map is more like a corridor level. And of course the chockepoints are infested with wolves.

 

[cvv]

Well the devs are saying in their press release to remember the new mode is not a survival sandbox and to give the game a chance. Seems like BB simply ran out of chances to give.

 

[MediantSamuel]

Oh shit, this thing actually released?

 

[Burning Bridges]

You can reuse burned up campfires since an update or two. Just click on it and you get the fire menu. No neeed anymore to plaster the map with campfires.

For some reason that didnt work for me, so I had to make a second fire.

That's a bug. After you put enough wood into the fire, the day automatically ends.

More annoying than the tutorial levels is the part after that. I haven't played that far, but the map is more like acorridor level. And of course the chockepoints are infested with wolves.

That's actually what I meant. I can already see the storymode being designed by someone who obviously doesn't play or understand the game, a player would have figured out that one instantly.
I mean how clever if fire.duration>9: trigger proceed_checkpoint else: wait_until_kingdom_come
There is currently a plethora of threads where people got stuck on all kinds of situations, so the entire storymode seems to be designed by this prosper person.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Well the devs are saying in their press release to remember the new mode is not a survival sandbox and to give the game a chance. Seems like BB simply ran out of chances to give.

Thats a strange thing to say to "give the game a chance" as if he already knew that the existing playerbase will hate it.

What would you say if you played a game in 2014 that was actually a ton of fun and it has deteriorated year after year after year? It sometimes looks as if they fired the entire team and replaced them with interns or something. I have never seen anything like this before. This basically went very well for 12 months and then got worse and worse.