The Long Dark

Smee

Smee

New member
Hi all,
I searched the forum but couldn't find any threads on The Longest Dark...

Is there a community of people that play the sandbox mode here etc?
And more importantly are there other people who are ridiculously excited for the solo play story mode to be release?
 
Yeah, I love this game. Been following Hinterland for a while and love their direction. I have it on PC and Xbone.
 
I played the preview version on Xbox One, and I loved it. I own it on PC though, so didn't buy it

I must say though, I found it difficult to get into. The game is not all that clear on exactly what you are supposed to do, so I just wander around the wasteland, collecting food and trying to find the elusive weapons the game promised it had. Each time I get attacked by a wolf, however, I shit myself, quit the game and stop playing games for like a few days. Scary shit that.

Also, here are some screenshots from my stint with the game on Xbox One:

Screenshot-Original (9).jpg


Screenshot-Original (11).jpg
 
DieGrootHammer said:
I played the preview version on Xbox One, and I loved it. I own it on PC though, so didn't buy it

I must say though, I found it difficult to get into. The game is not all that clear on exactly what you are supposed to do, so I just wander around the wasteland, collecting food and trying to find the elusive weapons the game promised it had. Each time I get attacked by a wolf, however, I shit myself, quit the game and stop playing games for like a few days. Scary shit that.

Also, here are some screenshots from my stint with the game on Xbox One:

View attachment 21430


View attachment 21432
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That is exactly the point for now in the Sandbox mode.. Kinda wonder around and try survive.. There are now new things such as challenges where you are tested to do certain things in some parts of the maps etc.. Very difficult it seems (meaning I tried 3 times and failed terribly) but yea, cannot wait for the story mode to come out...
 
I just bought it on the steam sale. Have yet to play it but hopefully will get some time tomorrow. Don't really know anything about it but good to here there is a story mode coming soon.
 
d15C said:
Don't really know anything about it but good to here there is a story mode coming soon.
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That's the best way going into it. Don't go an use any wikis or guides now!

Also, still in early access, so what did you expect.
 
Awesome, maybe I'll give it a whirl. I liked playing Fallout on Survivor mode, so this might take it to the next level for me.
 
DarthRiven said:
Awesome, maybe I'll give it a whirl. I liked playing Fallout on Survivor mode, so this might take it to the next level for me.
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Currently there's no real objectives in the sandbox mode, besides to survive. My first attempt ended on day two or three. Though they have now added challenges, which are great, but dive into that without an understanding of how the game works first. Play sandbox for a while and get familiar with the mechanics.
 
BeoTeK said:
Currently there's no real objectives in the sandbox mode, besides to survive. My first attempt ended on day two or three. Though they have now added challenges, which are great, but dive into that without an understanding of how the game works first. Play sandbox for a while and get familiar with the mechanics.
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Cool, thanks man. Will do, and I'll let you know if I get into it!
 
The Long Dark is one of those rare gems that just simply capture a genre perfectly. From the sound to the lighting, it is a truly gripping and immersive experience. I for one have only two games that I look forward to playing this years. The long dark's story mode and No man's sky.
 
BeoTeK said:
Currently there's no real objectives in the sandbox mode, besides to survive. My first attempt ended on day two or three. Though they have now added challenges, which are great, but dive into that without an understanding of how the game works first. Play sandbox for a while and get familiar with the mechanics.
Click to expand...

I seriously cannot wait for the story mode, or objectives to come out. The challenges are great to hone those skills, but they are hell of tough.. I haven't yet been able to complete any of them...
 
Wow this is looking good...

Dear Community,

It’s time to talk about Story Mode again. Since this is the last community update I’ll be posting in 2016, this is also a good time to reflect on the last year of development on The Long Dark. The two stories are connected.

2016 has been a challenging year for me, and for Hinterland. We opened the year with the plan of launching Story Mode this past Spring, but I just didn’t feel good about where things were at, given the compromises I felt we were making to do that. I wanted to push further, do more, with the game, knowing that after all this time of you waiting for Story Mode, it would have to be something truly groundbreaking to really live up to your expectations. And to live up to our expectations.

It’s been a constant balancing act between keeping our Sandbox players engaged and happy with updates, and also having the majority of the team working away on Story mode. Since it’s difficult to share Story progress without spoiling it, people sometimes feel as though we’re not working on it, which is frustrating for them, and for us. We deal with this by trying to stay focused on our launch and remember Miyamoto’s adage: “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” We appreciate all of you who continue to support us patiently.
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In Story Mode, we’re introducing new regions designed to help present the backdrop of The Long Dark’s quiet apocalypse.

With the pressures of wanting to make significant progress on Story Mode without abandoning our players who mostly care about Sandbox, I grew the team to about 25 developers this year, with — at various points — most of them working on Story Mode content and systems, and either small “maintenance” teams working on Sandbox updates, or — depending on the complexity of the update — occasionally pulling a large portion of the team into helping finalize or test Sandbox mechanics (as we just did for our latest update). I’d say this has been the biggest challenge for our team, and for myself personally. I’ve led large game teams before — up to 150 developers — but in trying to stay lean on management overhead and also having a lot of the team being distributed (i.e. not everyone works in the same physical studio space), at some point we hit a size where things just became a lot more complex to manage and to move forward. We’re working through it and have taken steps to improve certain aspects — including opening up a second physical studio space to house about ⅓ of our development team who were all living in the same city but working apart — but to some degree these are challenges you solve while on the run, laying track while the train is running, and it’d be dishonest to pretend they don’t have an impact on development progress.

So that’s a lot of words but what you want to know is — where do things stand with Story Mode? Well as always, in the interest of withholding spoilers, I’ll keep things high level. We have about 6 hours of playable Story Mode gameplay, currently split into two episodes, and these are the episodes we will launch with. The first part serves as a prologue and sets the tone of the story and explains something about the world you find yourself in. The second part continues the story of Will Mackenzie, and what he encounters and learns about the quiet apocalypse of The Long Dark. Astrid’s story, unfortunately, will not be playable at launch, but her Episode will come soon after. We are still planning to release five episodes in Season One, all of which our Early Access/Kickstarter/Game Preview players will get automatically as they are unlocked, for the price they have already paid. We have some cinematic content, we have some in-game character moments, all the voice recording for Mackenzie and Astrid is done, as it is for most of the supporting characters (but not all). We’ve created two whole regions that are new to Story Mode (not counting the new Sandbox region we’ve just released, Forlorn Muskeg), one of them is finished and being polished, and the other is getting a bit of an overhaul for story reasons, but it’s close to being complete, and is pretty unique for our game. We’re about to start scoring the game — Cris Velasco, who I was fortunate enough to work with on Space Marine, will be composing the score for Story mode, to complement the beautiful work done by Sascha Dikiciyan in the Sandbox score. We’ll be starting that after the holidays. I have some more design work to complete on the remaining systems I mentioned earlier, and then we can finish those as well.
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Source: http://hinterlandgames.com/story-mode-progress-december/


 
So does anyone else play this?

I started up again last night on Xbox, unfortunately only had about an hour. I did however move from Pilgrim to Voyageur, I am really not used to this but it presents a nice challenge. I managed to survive a whole 20 hours, granted I didn't have the best start, and still getting au fait with the map. It always helps to have your bearings, when that blizzard, snow, wind, whiteout comes you are BLIND! I actually walked around in circles for a little while.
 
Solitude said:
I bought it yesterday after you recommended it to me. I'm very keen to start playing it. In fact, it's going to mess with my backlog schedule a little bit but I'm thinking of maybe starting it next weekend. Will see how things go.

Here's the review by Rock Paper Shotgun that will probably convince most people to get it:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/01/09/the-long-dark-sandbox-review/
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I can fully relate and understand to people holding off, it doesn't even have a story mode.... yet! So that puts people like you off because of a lack of progression. But what it does offer currently is a fully fleshed out sandbox mode, which as you can see from my previous post, creates so much different styles of play and immensely different stories from different players.

This is the closest game I have come across that actually relates to wilderness survival. I have been out camping in the 'berg and trekking it with only maps and your wit and this brings me to that feeling again. Using landmarks as waypoints while navigating terrain. For example you will move slower in thicker/softer/deeper snow, you will use more energy whilst climbing a hill, trees and cliff faces provide cover from wind over being in the open.
 
  • People often say Mystery Lake is the best region for starters, however I think it's Highway. Because it has lots of houses (thus lots of water/items) and it's hard to get lost in. The only downside are wolves. However, this allows you to quickly learn their behavior.
  • When starting a new sandbox, first thing you need to do is to find an indoors shelter while collecting sticks along the way.
  • Always have some sticks because they are good to start fires and raise temperatures with.
  • You get water at fires, in "snowflake" tab.
  • Good location for a fire is where it will be protected from three sides, at least two.
  • Wood matches have extra 5% of fire starting chance over cardboard ones.
  • After starting fire, raise temperature with sticks until it's warm enough. Extend duration when needed only. You don't want to dump lots of wood into a fire because wind may change and blow it all out.
  • Cedar is the most weight-efficient wood to carry.
  • To regain condition, you need to sleep while having calories.
  • If sleeping outside with a fire, don't sleep for longer than 2-3 hours. Fire may go out and you may freeze to death.
  • Sprinting costs about 4 times as much energy per distance.
  • Fire and falling can hurt you.
  • You can cancel eating meat to have a small piece to use as a wolf decoy.
  • Meat lasts longer when stored outside.
  • Cooking fish gives a bit of oil.
  • Drinking a heated drink/soup temporarily increases resistance to cold.
  • Drinking herbal tea increases condition gain while sleeping.
  • Frozen meat harvests the fastest with a hatchet, while skin/guts – with a knife.
  • You can use hook & string instead of sewing kits.
  • Being encumbered increases the risk of sprains and wolf attacks
  • Toolboxes currently are basically useless. In the past they were used for crafting/repairs.
  • Crawling allows to get closer to animals.
  • Torches are more fuel efficient than lanterns.
  • You can use torch/flare/brand to start fires.
  • To catch rabbits, snares have to be put in their walking areas.
  • Every region contains at least one rifle.
  • How adrenaline shot works: it increases your condition and you can sprint without tiring. After it wears off, you will be exhausted (unable to sprint).
  • Climbing up a rope takes a lot of energy. Depends on its length and your weight but about 1/3 of a bar.
  • If a wind is blowing sideways, you can walk alongside a wall/bank to reduce its effect.
  • When walking, try to maintain as big line of sight radius around you as possible to avoid wolves. Take Mystery Lake tracks for example – walk on top of them so you don't get surprised by a wolf on the other side of the bank. Avoid corners.
  • Wolves can smell you better if you carry fresh meat. Especially if you're downwind from them.
  • Clothing system was recently changed. Walking during a blizzard makes clothing wet. It decreases warmth and increases weight. After getting fully wet clothing starts to freeze, further increasing the effect.
 
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