khzmusik

I absolutely did miss that. I knew Crator Creator was a mod but thought Roland was still the lead moderator on these forums. Obviously I should have directed my criticisms to Roland and not TFP.

Right here: Do you think Roland is not a representative of TFP on these forums? And those statements absolutely are denying that there was any significant controversy around the character, especially among women or girls. All it takes is a passing familiarity with Lara Croft to know that he's wrong, and that's what I wanted to point out. But I won't say any more about this. I'm not a woman or girl, I'm not a feminist, and I don't really care about whether they have a character in the game that is obviously designed to be ogled by men like me. I am upset mainly because it's a legitimate criticism, and if TFP respond to it by burying their heads in the sand, or gaslighting people into believing it isn't legitimate, then it's going to eventually become a game that I can't recommend to anyone I know. It's my favorite game - and since I'm also a modder, it's also a huge part of my creative outlet - and I don't want that to happen.

It's probably a chicken-and-egg situation. Some women got into video games for whatever reasons. Game companies changed their games in order to make sure they didn't alienate those women. As a result more women got into video games. And so on. Similar things happened with tabletop RPGs like D&D. When I played it, in the 80's, not a single girl was interested in it. Now it's something like 40% female players. Along with that came a discussion about chainmail bikinis and the like.

Well, as a counterpoint to that argument, it would mean you could no longer have a "one size fits all" base for blood moon. You would have to figure out a base design that didn't rely solely on ranged weaponry, and still allows zombies to get into melee range, even at higher gamestages. It would make blood moons dangerous again instead of just "free XP" nights. I think many people would like that. If this is controversial, then maybe a setting for them would be needed. Even if not, there is always the option to remove them from the blood moon hordes via XPath.

I would say "fair enough"... but seriously, you were completely unaware that gamers and the gaming industry have been arguing about how she's a sexist character since the time she was introduced? I find that hard to believe. I'm not a huge Tomb Raider fan (I have one of the 90's games on CD ROM somewhere, and I own and finished the 2013 game, but that's about it). And even I knew that she is the first character that people bring up when talking about sexism in video games. And if The Fun Pimps didn't know about all the controversy, then they don't know enough to put an homage to her in the game. Especially not an homage to the 90's version of the character, which was almost universally considered sexist, and not the modern/reboot version. If they want to own the controversy, then that's fine. They could say that they don't care about sexism (which is probably true, most people don't). They could say that the Lara Croft character is still empowering to women, despite (or even because of) the fact that her body was designed to be sexy to men. They could say that they know she's a sexist character, but they have nostalgia for that character so decided to include her in the game anyway. All of these are fine with me. What they can't do is deny that it's controversial at all, which is what you were doing.. (EDIT: I also have a lot of unpleasant memories about how self-described "gamers" complained about the 2013 version. "OMG the PC police got rid of the 80085!" It was the most annoying outpouring of entitled crybabies that I'd seen at the time. I do not want TFP to be attracting those sorts of idiots.)

I vote against having zombies wield any kind of weapon. There will eventually be human NPCs, they can do that. I do like the idea of zombies that are more immune to one kind of damage than another. The "rotted" zombies could be largely immune to projectiles (which go right through them) but take more damage from "smashing" weapons like clubs or sledgehammers. Zombies that explode when killed would also be cool, and probably not horribly difficult to implement.

I would 100% love to see the Laura Croft clothing on the male as well. But my point stands. TFP put more time and effort into making a player character look like the player character from a different game who they knew was controversial because it is considered sexist. (And if they didn't know this then they didn't know enough about the character to do an "homage" to it.) They can do that. In fact I'm perfectly fine with them doing that, I like boobies. But what they can't do is put this "homage" in the game and then deny any controversy. This is a completely ridiculous reply. Every single sentence in it is factually incorrect. The original Tomb Raider character intentionally was "reduced" in the 2012+ video games (if you're talking about breast size, but also in terms of showing skin - Lara Croft no longer wears shorts or shows her midriff). Ironically the 2012+ version of Lara Croft looks more like the male version of the 7D2D character. The movies followed suit. Alicia Vikander looks nothing like Angelina Jolie and the "sex appeal" was intentionally toned down. And it was controversial. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/bizarre-tomb-raider-review-slammed-a-lack-of-curves-and-not-an-ounce-of-sex-appeal/G5IY3CTGXVP5M3QA7SLLHOIHXI/ As I posted in a link, the gaming community has been nearly half women for a very long time. But even accepting your "skyrocketing increase" premise, the increase of women in gaming came at the same time as the "reduction" of Lara Croft. It didn't happen "somehow someway" - according to your own arguments, it happened because video game companies thought twice about producing sexist characters like her. It is not a "small but loud minority" who believe her character is sexist. Her designers and marketing material described her as a "cyber sex symbol" back when she was released in the 90's. Literally everyone has acknowledged that she was intentionally designed to appeal to the "male gaze" (even her defenders). I've yet to see a single person say otherwise. Plus if you were right, then her character would never have been changed to be less cartoonish - video game companies (especially AAA game companies) don't do that unless there are good financial reasons for doing so, and a "small but loud minority" does not translate to a good financial reason. Once again - TFP have every right to put a 1990's Lara Croft looking character in the game. I'm a dude and my gaze is male, so I don't have a problem with it. But they cannot do that and also deny the controversy that does now, and has always, surrounded that character. They should just acknowledge that they don't care about being sexist. It would be a much more respectable and honest response than what you posted. (EDIT: This whole topic should probably be moved to the "overflow" thread.)

Is this a joke? Because Laura Croft (or at least the non-modern Laura Croft character that TFP have paid homage to) has been the very definition of sexism in gaming for twenty years. The innate sexism of the character is almost certainly why the modern Tomb Raider games avoided the old character. https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/3/17/17128344/lara-croft-tomb-raider-history-controversy-breasts https://pitjournal.unc.edu/2023/01/06/lara-croft-and-gaming-feminism-in-a-hyper-masculine-industry/ https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180314-why-lara-croft-is-no-feminist-role-model EDIT: It is true that Laura Croft has also been seen as "empowering" because she is the player's avatar in a videogame, and that videogame is action-oriented, and she is female. But those reasons (or excuses?) for her being seen as "empowering" fall by the wayside if that character is only one among many that can be chosen, and the others are not big-busted, midriff-showing females - in this case the avatar's only defining characteristics are that it's a big busted, midriff-showing female. Look, TFP can replicate that character if they want, but what they can't do is replicate that character and also avoid all of the cultural baggage and debate about sexism that surrounds that character. TFP made that bed and now they have to lie in it. (Also, this is coming from someone who likes the outfit, and also likes both midriffs and breasts, regardless of whether they're bare and/or big.) EDIT 2: You know what would have avoided this whole problem? If the clothing on the desert female was the same as the desert male. The female could have the same body type, same bust size, everything, but just not have been dressed in short shorts and a shirt that covered nothing but her breasts. This actually seems to be easier then the clothing option on her now. Why are we all not focusing on why TFP deliberately chose to do more work to make the clothing different on the female?

You're a bit late for the congratulations. Females have made up between 45-50% of the gaming market for over a decade. https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/ The question is not "how do we make a game that will attract women to the market?" The question is "how do we make a game that won't alienate almost half of the existing market?" Having said that - I'm incredibly amused that people think an attractive female character baring her midriff is the most "problematic" part of this game.

Glad to see you're back. To be clear - the Vanilla Biome Redux modlets will work as is, right? Or do we need to wait until the "baseline" pack is updated?

Any chance to allow XML configuration on the next pass, whenever that is? Even if it's just a flag to not display the tool? I know a lot of modders like to add (or revive) different tools for workstations, and this would help with immersion.

Well, don't get your hopes up. Unlike the randomization algorithm for entities spawned into entity groups, the probabilities in quests are not normalized. It's a simple roll of the dice: the game picks a quest at random, gets its "prob" value, and if some random number is below that value, the quest is accepted. It doesn't care about the other quests in the quest list or their probabilities. I actually wrote a couple of Monte Carlo simulations of the different probabilities, to record how often the non-vanilla quests were presented vs. the vanilla quests. And even after doing that I still had to tweak the probabilities from what the Monte Carlo simulations gave me. My advice: for a first pass, treat them as if all of your quests should have probability values that add up to 1. You'll need to tweak them but it's a good baseline.

It uses less RAM even with all the new art assets? That's very good to hear.

I just pushed a minor update to the Faction Reputation and Quests modlet. It fixes a few bugs and adds a new feature which I think people will like. NPC "steal" (fetch) quests now use a new SCore SetRevengeTargetsSDX action, so NPCs will attack the player when they take the satchel. This means "steal" quests will be a challenge, even if they go to "friendly" POIs. Added custom quest items (supplies) for "steal" quests, including separate translations. Removed non-existent military "murder" quests from trader quest list to avoid NREs (these were commented out, but still). Quests now provide probabilities rather than re-adding the same vanilla quests for balance. (I previously, and wrongly, thought that quest lists did not support probabilities.) Please note, this version requires the latest version of SCore (20.6.471.1518 as of this writing). Not only does the latest SCore contain the SetRevengeTargetsSDX action, but it also fixes a bug with the RandomTaggedPOIGotoSDX objective - for whatever reason, the code to check the POI quest tags (fetch, clear, etc.) was commented out. Repo: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-a20-modlets/-/tree/main/1-khzmusik_Human_Factions_Reputation_Quests D/L: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-a20-modlets/-/archive/main/7d2d-a20-modlets-main.zip?path=1-khzmusik_Human_Factions_Reputation_Quests

I think you are talking about the zombies using UMA (Unity Multipurpose Avatar). That is the same system that is currently used for player characters. It is also used by some modders (ErrorNull, Snufkins) to make custom zombies. They were talked about in a dev diary for one of the earlier alphas (can't remember which). TFP didn't "give up" on them, and the issue was not that they "looked bad." The issue was performance. The resources needed to render UMA characters on screen meant that the game could have about half of the number of zombies that it can have now. TFP decided (probably correctly) that players would rather see a greater number of zombies than a greater variety. (But also, yeah, the UMA assets didn't age well.) UMA is also a third-party tool, so there wasn't much that TFP could do to optimize it. I am also hoping that the new player character system can be exploited to make custom zombies (or human NPCs). Even if TFP don't do it themselves, it would be cool if modders could use it in a way that is similar to using UMA now.

Two questions. Does the "learn by looting" mechanic also affect food recipes? I didn't see this mentioned in the first post or in the stream. Are we getting a dedicated forum topic for these dev streams? It kind of sucks having to dig through all the posts here, and/or wade through Twitter, to get details about when they start and on whose stream. Also, I like what I saw so far. The extra art assets look great and were sorely needed, and the ability to attack through doors is a huge win. EDIT: Also the ability to pin recipes looks a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I still might have reservations about the "learn by looting" system - but then I realized that it could be turned into a "learn by doing" system by modders, with a lot less effort than what they had to do previously. So I think on balance it's a good thing no matter what crafting progression system you like.

So your program's output is supposed to be the XPath XML that you put into a modlet? That's an interesting way to do it. FWIW, the reason that XML doesn't work is that the <set> tag only takes the "xpath" attribute. The value is the text/XML children of the <set> tag (and, hopefully obviously, it's not parsed for methods, which only work in XPath predicates). Also, you target attributes by putting them in the XPath expression; they're prepended by the "@" symbol. Hopefully you didn't need me to tell you that, and that's just "placeholder" text for what your program is going to be doing itself. EDIT: I'm also curious how it's going to deal with other modlets. Is it going to first apply all those modlets' XPath patches on the vanilla game XML config, then examine the result to see what needs to be modified?

Not even that. In your list, all the commands after "remove" are not available. This is the actual list: set setattribute append prepend insertBefore insertAfter remove removeattribute (If you decompile the game's assembly-csharp.dll file, it's in the XmlPatcher class.) But this is plenty. For example, here's how you could select any gun in the game, and if there is a chance for it to spawn with a mod, you set that chance to 0.5 (50%): <set xpath="//item[starts-with(@name, 'gun')]/@mod_chance">.50</set> For the paper, you could create a new group that chooses between the existing paper groups: <insertAfter xpath="//lootgroup[@name='groupResourcePaperLarge']"> <lootgroup name="groupResourcePaperAll"> <item group="groupResourcePaperSmall" loot_prob_template="high" /> <item group="groupResourcePaperMedium" loot_prob_template="med" /> <item group="groupResourcePaperLarge" loot_prob_template="low" /> </lootgroup> </insertAfter> Then, use that lootgroup instead of the "resourcePaper" item, by adding and removing the appropriate attributes: <setattribute xpath="//lootgroup[not(contains(@name,'groupResourcePaper'))]/item[@name='resourcePaper']" name="group">groupResourcePaperLarge</setattribute> <removeattribute xpath="//lootgroup[not(contains(@name,'groupResourcePaper'))]/item[@name='resourcePaper']/@count" /> <removeattribute xpath="//lootgroup[not(contains(@name,'groupResourcePaper'))]/item[@name='resourcePaper']/@name" /> ...And so on. EDIT: Also, if you want to try out your XPath expression on the game's XML files, then I recommend BaseX: https://basex.org/ It's free and open source.

You can't do what you're doing with that code. Unity uses C# but that's not the issue. The issue is that 7D2D itself uses its own implementation of XPath, which uses XML as an XPath DSL. (If you're familiar with XSLT, it's similar to that.) The basic format of an XPath command in 7D2D is this: <command xpath="xpath expression">...data...</command> ...where "command" is an XPath command: "append", "insertAfter", "remove", etc. There is also no "SelectSingleNode" feature - the XPath expression always returns multiple nodes, so it's equivalent to calling "selectNodes" in dom4j. There are no variables, and data is always a raw unparsed string - you could us an XML string when you should be using an attribute value, and the XPath engine wouldn't know nor care. So there is no way to, say, "take the value of attribute X, parse it as a number, and add 1." There's no way to "take a value" (no variables); there's no way to "parse" (no data types except string); and there's no way to "add" (no numeric operations).

EDIT: Please delete this, it was supposed to be an edit of my previous comment.

If you want to totally replace the entity groups used by blood moon hordes, you can use an XPath expression that targets those XML nodes, and remove them. They all start with "feralHordeStage" so you could do something like this: <remove xpath="//entitygroup[starts-with(@name, 'feralHordeStage')]" /> EDIT: Here's a detailed explanation of what that does. "remove" is an XPath command. In this case the command is "remove any XML nodes that match this XPath expression." The "//" in XPath means "any descendant, not just a direct descendant." Since it's the first thing in the XPath expression, it means "any descendant of the root node in the XML document." "[" and "]" define a predicate - only nodes that match that predicate are selected. Predicates usually (but not always) target XML attributes. "starts-with" is an XPath method that selects any node whose text starts with a particular string. "@" means "select an attribute". In this case it selects the "name" attribute of any entitygroup tags in the document. You would then add back all of the entity groups you just deleted, with your own version: <append xpath="/entitygroups"> <!-- ...whatever entity groups you copied over and modified --> </append> Incidentally, if you haven't done this already, then you should bookmark this forum post and refer to it whenever you're doing XPath modifications:

We just think fast. A minute to normal people is like an hour to a programmer. So if we forget something after a day, it's like a normal person forgetting something after a couple months. ...Who are you again?

That will generally be true of all overhaul mods (Darkness Falls, War of the Walkers, Undead Legacy...) and also some non-overhaul mods as well (ErrorNull's zombies). These mod authors often create their own entity groups for spawning. When they do, they sometimes get rid of the vanilla spawn groups altogether. This is what WotW does. So if you want to spawn NPCs that aren't in the mod already, it's not enough to simply add the NPC pack. You have to also make a "patch" that adds those NPCs into the spawn groups used by the specific mod. And, each mod/overhaul is different. In general, overhauls are not meant to be modded. Part of this is because it would conflict with the overhaul author's vision, the work they did balancing things, etc. But a practical reason is stuff like this. If either overhaul authors or modlet authors tried to support everyone who said "hey, I just tried dropping random modlet X into overhaul Y and it didn't work", they'd do nothing else, forever. So you have to either do it yourself, or find some other third party (like GNS) that has already done the work for you.

Just FYI, I released my first batch of NPC-related POIs. It's in the Prefabs section of the forums:

NPC Prefab modlets I am very pleased to release a series of prefabs that are designed for human NPCs. Each modlet is dedicated to one faction (like bandits or Whisperers). Requirements for all NPC Prefab modlets These POIs are designed to be used with SCore and NPC Core. SCore Git repo .zip file (copy only the 0-SCore subfolder into your Mods folder) NPC Core Forum link .zip file SCore and NPC Core have custom C# code and assets. They must be installed on both clients and servers. You must turn EAC off when launching the game. By default, NPCs in sleeper volumes spawn in "always awake." I find it better if they obey the rules of the sleeper volumes. If this sounds like something you want, then I recommend also installing this modlet: Variable NPC Sleepers Git repo Download (copy only the 2-khzmusik_variable_NPC_sleepers subfolder into your Mods folder) Each POI modlet should have related NPC Packs installed. I will talk about them in the relevant prefab section of this post. If you want the POIs, but do not want NPCs, then see the instructions at the end of the post. Included with each prefab modlet Prefabs (currently just POIs - future modlets may also have RWG tiles, parts, or decorations) There should be at least one prefab for each tier Most prefabs support fetch and clear quests Localizations for each prefab (see the end of the post for support) Loading screen background images (these are the screenshots you see in this post) Like all modlets that contain prefabs, these modlets must be installed on both clients and servers. Bandit POIs This modlet contains these Bandit POIs: Bandit Ruins Bandit Camp Bandit Settlement Bandit Oil Well Bandit Theater Bandit Oil Refinery Repo: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-a20-modlets/-/tree/main/3-khzmusik_NPC_Bandits_Prefabs Download: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-a20-modlets/-/archive/main/7d2d-a20-modlets-main.zip?path=3-khzmusik_NPC_Bandits_Prefabs (copy only the 3-khzmusik_NPC_Bandits_Prefabs subfolder into your Mods folder) NPC Packs While it will work with only SCore and NPC Core, the only Bandit NPC that comes with NPC Core is Harley. You will probably want to install NPC Packs that add additional bandits to the game. I recommend these modlets: Rogues and Psychos Pack Forum link Git repo .zip file (copy only the 1-khzmusik_NPC_Rogues_and_Psychos subfolder into your Mods folder) RaiderGurlz Pack Forum link Git repo .7z file Raiderz Pack Forum link Git repo .7z file To adjust the probabilities of the Raiderz and RaiderGurlz, so that they are properly gamestaged when spawned into POIs, I recommend also installing these progression modlets: Progression modlet for RaiderGurlz Pack Forum link Git repo .zip file (copy only the 1-RaiderGurlzPack_khzmusik_Progression subfolder into your Mods folder) Progression modlet for Raiderz Pack Forum link Git repo .zip file (copy only the 1-RaiderzPack_khzmusik_Progression subfolder into your Mods folder) Screenshots Whisperer POIs This modlet contains these Whisperer POIs: Whisperer Barn Whisperer Campsite Whisperer Church Whisperers at Tumacácori Whisperer Cathedral Repo: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-a20-modlets/-/tree/main/3-khzmusik_NPC_Whisperers_Prefabs Download: https://gitlab.com/karlgiesing/7d2d-a20-modlets/-/archive/main/7d2d-a20-modlets-main.zip?path=3-khzmusik_NPC_Whisperers_Prefabs (copy only the 3-khzmusik_NPC_Whisperers_Prefabs subfolder into your Mods folder) NPC Packs You will need at least one NPC Pack that add Whisperers to the game. AFAIK I'm the only one that made one (but I would be happy to be wrong). Whisperers NPC Pack: Forum link Git repo .zip file (copy only the 1-khzmusik_NPC_Whisperers subfolder into your Mods folder) Screenshots Spawning zombies instead of NPCs If you don't want any NPCs in your game at all If you want to use these prefabs, but don't want to install any NPCs into the game at all, then you can install this modlet: NPC Prefabs Spawn Zombies Forum link Git repo .zip file (copy only the 0-XNPCCore_khzmusik_Prefabs_Spawn_Zombies subfolder into your Mods folder) ⚠ This modlet is incompatible with SCore and NPC Core. If you want to use those modlets, or if you use an overhaul or other mod that uses those modlets, you can not install this modlet. That modlet uses XPath to modify XML files, and does not use custom C# code. It should be compatible with EAC. It does not contain any new assets (such as images or models). Servers should automatically push the XML modifications to their clients, so separate client installation should not be necessary. (You still need to install the prefab modlets on both clients and servers.) Editing the POIs to use zombies If you want to have NPCs in the game, but want particular POIs to spawn zombies instead of NPCs, then you will need to edit the POIs in the 7D2D prefab editor. This involves using zombie spawn groups rather, than NPCs spawn groups, in the sleeper volumes. To do this: From the game's loading screen, select "Editing Tools". Select "Level/Prefab Editor". Once the prefab editor is open, hit "esc" to bring up the editing menus. On the top right, you will see the level tools window, with icons representing four tabs. Select the fourth tab (with the "house" icon). This opens the prefab browser. In the second search box, type in the name of the POI that you want to edit. You can also search for a partial name, like "whisperer", and select from the results. Click the "Load" button at the bottom to load the POI. In the level tools window, click the second tab (with the "hammer and brick" icon). This opens the Level Tools window. Check "Show Sleeper Volumes". The blue borders of the sleeper volumes should now show. (If they do not, try saving the POI - that usually fixes the issue.) Click "esc" to leave the editing menus. Select each sleeper volume by targeting it with your mouse and left-clicking it. You might need to have a block in your hand. Sometimes sleeper volumes can be tricky to select, just keep trying. With a sleeper volume selected, hit "k" to edit the sleeper volume. An editing window should open. In the search bar in the editing window, search for a different sleeper volume spawn group. If in doubt, a useful group is "Group Generic Zombie". For tougher POIs, you could use "Group Zom Badass" or "Group Zom Badass Only". Click on the spawn group name. In the upper-right hand window, the "Group:" should show the spawn group you selected. Repeat these steps for all the sleeper volumes in the POI. Save the POI. This should be sufficient. If you load the POI, it should now spawn zombies rather than human NPCs. If there are (invisible) SCore blocks in the prefab, then they will still be there; but this should not make any difference, since zombies ignore them. The POIs might need to be rebalanced, since human NPCs are usually "tougher" than zombies. For example, a tier 3 NPC POI might be a tier 2 if spawning zombies. As such, the tier level may need to be adjusted in the prefab XML, or the loot might need to be nerfed. But that is a matter of opinion, and you do not need to rebalance anything if you don't want to. Localization support These modlets include localized strings for the POI names. However, by default, the game does not support translating the names of prefabs. Some overhaul mods (e.g. Undead Legacy) already have support for POI translations. If you are using one of those overhauls, you probably do not need to do anything. If you're not using such an overhaul, or if it doesn't work in that overhaul, you can use this modlet: Localize Prefabs Forum link Git repo .zip file (copy only the khzmusik_Localize_Prefabs subfolder into your Mods folder) That modlet includes custom C# code. It must be installed on both clients and servers. You must turn EAC off when launching the game. Stay tuned... I am still working on more prefabs, so check occasionally to see if this thread has been updated. Enjoy!