Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[TSBX]

they're clearly not talking about updating existing textures, but the texture array has a.) decreased, and b.) the ability to add custom paint textures has been removed or disabled via the new " texture streaming" thing.

 

edit: Cant paint so good no more, more paint cant do.

[madmole]

Exactly, and this leads me to believe that we will see weapon parts like we do mechanical parts and electrical parts, only named as one item per weapon. Not as we used to with each weapon consisting of four parts.

 

Yes but not super common, and it will feel more immersive crafting a gun from ak 47 parts than 40 mechanical parts, and the higher the quality the more ak 47 parts will be needed.

[Roland]

I liked Roland's idea where you get exp based on days alive. This way, zombies are pure threat and not something to go looking for.

 

It was a good idea in theory.

 

Now it's a good idea in practice...

[Demonoid74]

Any update to the Cotton , Chrysanthemum , goldenrod models coming soon?

They just stand out so much now!

[sinda]

They're clearly not talking about updating existing textures, but the texture array has A.) Decreased, and B.) The ability to add custom paint textures has been removed or disabled via the new " texture streaming" thing.

 

sing it!

 

as much as i love me these new "empty" book cases, they're amazing. that doesn't mean i wouldn't like to paint a bookshelf texture on something.

 

even terrain textures. i can still paint "dead grass" and "gravel" but with the removal of forest, that texture is gone. could maybe move it to "pine forest" instead.

 

just top of the head examples.

 

ALSO, paintbrush functionality went downhill. you can no longer repeat fire on either action buttons.

meaning to paint it's *clickclickclickclickclickclick* now. tgfpsb.

 

editedit- would also be nice to get proper, advertised rotations to place in the world again. such as on the "cable" block. it still shows all rotations, but on placement they don't behave. and yes it's been reported (i did, and without acknowledgement) and i've seen similar on others that have also been reported. i can understand the focus may not be in fixing such things atm, but it sure makes things look shoddy when they spawn in the world improperly, and discouraging to use the bug forms when it seems pick and choose.

[HungryZombie]

as much as I like Killing zombies, I really prefer the questing and building out a base. pre-A17 I liked that I could find a place to hide and zombies would ignore me. every zombie movie/show/book had limits on Zombies - basically no smell and no noise and no light and you could hide from them.

 

Horde night is fun but would be better if I could control boundaries again like if I am at bedrock or at least 50 blocks away they won't find me.

 

let me build and hide and quest and sneak.

 

Why would you not just turn off horde nights if you just don't want them to find you at all?

[Trekkan]

I'm far from on this whole "The game is going to suck now!" train, but I can say that I've never liked the traders. Seems like a cheap way to get stuff, instead of looting for it. Sure,I can simply "not use traders", and I don't.

 

My only concern and reason for posting this, is that it seems that when a good system takes more work to implement, the answer is "Get it a from a trader" or some such thing. If I can turn off traders and the game still works, I'd consider that a design win. If not, its a fail (IMO).

[Roland]

Why would you not just turn off horde nights if you just don't want them to find you at all?

 

Or change them to the maximum infrequency to lessen their impact in the game. A17 gave us this tool.

[Lonestarcanuck]

Why would you not just turn off horde nights if you just don't want them to find you at all?

 

this is for multi-player servers - many players on these servers want options to participate in HN or hide/mine/cook/craft.

[Sirillion]

I think a unique weapon part per weapon or weapon is essential if we unlock recipes via the governing perk. So if we went with shotgun messiah unlocking all shotgun crafting, then you would need double barrel parts, and pump shotgun parts. If we went with books that unlock them, then you could a more generic route.

 

Personally I like specific parts for guns. Tools might need to just remain generic and use forged iron and steel. The problem is we overlap melee into tool area. Like a fire axe is a great tool and weapon at the same time. So it makes it harder to balance these decisions.

 

When it comes to tools and melee weapons I would say you guys should consider doing whetstones to repair bladed weapons like metal axes, the hunting knife and machete. Then consider doing tool handles to repair the hammer, sledgehammer, pickaxes and shovels.

 

Whetstones makes sense as a bladed tool/weapon is more likely to dull than break and the same holds true for blunt weapons/tools. What gives first on a sledgehammer? The handle would be my guess, far more likely than damaging the head. And if I am not mistaken all the tools in the game have wooden handles

[Naz]

Why do you keep pretending like none were removed? I don't understand it's a plain simple fact there are textures in A16 that are no longer there in a17 without even a substitute. Where's the ashhalt Texture? The metal pipe textures in A16 were just removed all together. There's 2 off the top of my head and there's more like some terrain textures and bookcase texture. The reason people are upset is these are basic textures that are commonly used and when you take them away with no alternative what are you supposed to do you can't make flat roads with blocks anymore for example. The other reason people aren't happy is most of the new textures are all the same bland dull mucky dirty brown textures that makes sence in the apocalypse to have lots of options in that category but there is no variety they're all very similar what's the point of the painting system if you have no choice but brown. I get there are more important things on the todo list but you could at least acknowledge it instead of denying there is even a problem. People just get frustrated with the little things those of us that care about things like this kindly ask you to please just have a look before dismissing the issue that is all. Thank you

[skynetsingularity]

My family and I (and I mean three generations) absolutely love this game. We particularly love to build bases! I would love to ask if the developers would consider adding more paint colors (maybe even just some base primary options) for more customization. I hope you don't change too much because of the overall game play because this is by far the best game ever. I am always telling my friends that they have to buy this game.

 

Thank you so much for everything.

[madmole]

MM - Repair is to complex and needs to be simplified/streamlined

 

Board - oh, here are some ideas

 

submits 10,000 ideas that ALL make repair more complex

 

 

 

I think I see an exploit here MM. Just tell us that you want a more complex and deep repair system. We will come up with all sorts of simplistic ideas for you

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I reallllllllly want to start a new game but 17.3 is not here yet

Funny, but probably would get a few bites.

[madmole]

It's as though what people really want are deeper and more complex mechanics.

 

"Who'd 'a thunk it?"

- Bill Hicks

 

Only the 2000+ hour crowd. Simple and deep has always been our motto but we have strayed a few times. Things should be easy to learn, but difficult to master and have a lot of deep game play to it.

[Star69]

Mining is not necessary anymore plus no longer as fun as it used to be. Ore deposits are so uncommon that mining has a useless feeling and surface rocks give you everything you need. In the past, we used surface rocks for just coal & nitrate, now they are the main source for all ores.

 

I’m hoping someone takes another look at zombie spawns. Back in A14 maybe, a slew of complaints about clearing an area of zombies should allow you time to put up a base.....makes sense. If I remember correctly, that was supposed to be 5 game days then they start to spawn again. What we see now is the area you clear to make a base never spawns the number of zombies that were present before clearing, nowhere near the same number. I have zombies set at 90. On day 1 there is a zombie every 30 feet or so. Clear a region, build a base, day 40 You might see only a zombie or two excluding screamer hordes. Wandering hordes don’t wander anymore, they just stand around jumping in place so zombies are no longer a threat unless you go to a poi. However, if you clear a poi then it also no longer spawns as many zombies as it started with though definitely more than outside. So what I’m getting at is, clear a area, clear poi’s in that area, zombies are no longer a threat, ever. Maybe that’s intentional, I’d like to hope it’s a bug.

[Roland]

Mining is not necessary anymore plus no longer as fun as it used to be. Ore deposits are so uncommon that mining has a useless feeling and surface rocks give you everything you need. In the past, we used surface rocks for just coal & nitrate, now they are the main source for all ores.

 

I’m hoping someone takes another look at zombie spawns. Back in A14 maybe, a slew of complaints about clearing an area of zombies should allow you time to put up a base.....makes sense. If I remember correctly, that was supposed to be 5 game days then they start to spawn again. What we see now is the area you clear to make a base never spawns the number of zombies that were present before clearing, nowhere near the same number. I have zombies set at 90. On day 1 there is a zombie every 30 feet or so. Clear a region, build a base, day 40 You might see only a zombie or two excluding screamer hordes. Wandering hordes don’t wander anymore, they just stand around jumping in place so zombies are no longer a threat unless you go to a poi. However, if you clear a poi then it also no longer spawns as many zombies as it started with though definitely more than outside. So what I’m getting at is, clear a area, clear poi’s in that area, zombies are no longer a threat, ever. Maybe that’s intentional, I’d like to hope it’s a bug.

 

That must be a bug created when you changed the zombie numbers. I cleared an area of zombies to build a base and they were gone for about 4 days but then returned. I killed them all and then again after about 4 days they returned. This was in the forest biome. I also have started actually seeing wandering hordes and they do what they've always done but not always right towards me or my base. Sometimes I see them in the distance walking off to their pitstop. I didn't notice them at first but now that my gamestage is getting high enough to generate larger hordes I am noticing them and they are not just standing around. They definitely move towards some target area.

[Tin]

That must be a bug created when you changed the zombie numbers. I cleared an area of zombies to build a base and they were gone for about 4 days but then returned. I killed them all and then again after about 4 days they returned. This was in the forest biome. I also have started actually seeing wandering hordes and they do what they've always done but not always right towards me or my base. Sometimes I see them in the distance walking off to their pitstop. I didn't notice them at first but now that my gamestage is getting high enough to generate larger hordes I am noticing them and they are not just standing around. They definitely move towards some target area.

 

I would love for that to change to something like:

<spawn maxcount="1" respawndelayMinMax="0,4" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

In the above example, 4days is the max delay but they can respawn any day in between.

 

Just would be cool to not know when they could respawn, but still could set it up with some breather room also like:

<spawn maxcount="1" respawndelayMinMax="2,4" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

-or-

<spawn maxcount="1" respawndelayMinMax="4,4" time="Day" entitygroup="ZombiesAll" />

If you still wanted it to be a full 4 days before respawn.

[FA_Q2]

I sincerely doubt you'll be changing anyone's mind any time soon. MadMole has been claiming they're going to go Gold at the next release for about three or four alpha's now. Notice that word "alpha", there's usually another period between alpha and gold which is when balancing and bugfixing get done properly. I fear we may miss that step altogether and have an unbalanced, bug-ridden, and rushed gold release.

 

Leading members of TFP appear to want this project completed and seem willing to cut almost anything and everything to get it done. Understandable but a shame nonetheless.

 

I wont be changing minds here - jax put out a better argument than I ever could so this is his dead horse BUT I did think it was rather amusing that they stated they wanted simplicity and they got complex suggestions. My statment was a joke after all if that was not utterly clear. I don't think they are cutting things like this for gold as much as these were things they always planned on changing before going to gold and, based on the rest of the game, I cant really say that I think they are going to ruin the game. The crying from 16 to 17 just is not warranted even if some of the multitude of changes are not what some are looking for. The game is still a damn good game and most of the worst complaints are being addressed - the perk system, looting, craft everything etc. Some of these systems have become MORE complex over time.

 

I agree that some things are getting over simplified but before damming the ideas of the dev team I actually want to see it in place. Assuming that the replacement for repair kits was (because they realized it is to much work to change) going to be worse is silly without even knowing what they are going to do with it.

 

Finally, TFP are not idiots or a terrible dev team and as such they are not going to skip an entire phase of development. Of course they are not talking about beta - beta is not fun or interesting to the player base. Once that rolls around, most changes are going to stop entirely. What would you like to hear from them about beta? What type of statements would be of any interest at all about the coming beta process? Personally I like that they are not talking about beta at all - not only because it will not have much interesting to talk about but because I am still hoping that they are not going there any time soon. For my utterly selfish self, I don't want the game in beta because I want to see it change and grow. The talk about A19 when they were stating A18 was going to be the final alpha is good news to me

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Sorry, it's 100 iron. Probably a typo?

 

<recipe name="meleeClubIron" count="1">

<ingredient name="resourceScrapIron" count="100"/>

<ingredient name="resourceWood" count="10"/>

</recipe>

 

New recipe for the final cure - 1000 steel, 100 electrical parts and the new uranium:

[Roland]

Finally, TFP are not idiots or a terrible dev team and as such they are not going to skip an entire phase of development.

 

I think that if people are paying attention they will see that from A18 and onwards the phase of development is actually a hybrid of Alpha and Beta. They are primarily bug fixing and optimizing and polishing and filling out existing features.

 

Is the "new" perk and book system something brand new? Not really. Just a re-organizing and fine tuning of the already existing system. With the amount of localization work he's done on it I can tell you he considers it the finalized product... I would say that Madmole's work on this for A18 could be at least as much considered beta as it is alpha. Even things like water and bandits already exist in the code and just need some polishing. Modders have been polishing bandits as best they can and including them for a couple of years now. When the devs turn their attention to it would it be considered a beta task or an alpha task since its not technically a new feature?

 

Maybe Madmole wasn't really telling stories when he said A17 would be the last Alpha. The last pure Alpha, anyway....

[The Gronk]

<snipped for space>

 

Honestly? I'm really not that bothered about the weapon systems, this is why I pretty much kept out of the discussion. I've played enough RPG's and shooters to play with just about any system, I have my preferences but I'm not that fussy about what's implemented. I'm one of those who like the game as a fort builder with a reasonably easy threat to tackle on a daily basis.

 

It's other details like rivers and lakes that disappoints me. The last I heard the entire mechanic was being pushed towards a completely flat system, bypassing the need for a water physics upgrade entirely. I know rivers and water physics are neither easy nor a priority but it would have been a wonderful addition that not many voxel engines have pulled off well.

[FA_Q2]

Honestly? I'm really not that bothered about the weapon systems, this is why I pretty much kept out of the discussion. I've played enough RPG's and shooters to play with just about any system, I have my preferences but I'm not that fussy about what's implemented. I'm one of those who like the game as a fort builder with a reasonably easy threat to tackle on a daily basis.

 

It's other details like rivers and lakes that disappoints me. The last I heard the entire mechanic was being pushed towards a completely flat system, bypassing the need for a water physics upgrade entirely. I know rivers and water physics are neither easy nor a priority but it would have been a wonderful addition that not many voxel engines have pulled off well.

 

Cant argue with that. A flat system with a water table would be a horrible direction to go to IMHO - I would prefer the water remain the buggy mess that it is now to that. Flat is easy though and without and real water game here I can understand the direction. Personally I would like to see water integrated into game play - a few underwater POIs and possibly a resource or 2 that is water specific. Barring that, it should be removed entirely, not 'fixed' into something that nether has a point or an impact in game play. If we are not going to get real water - leave the water as it currently is and regulate to pools and water towers.

 

Easy and not gimmicky.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

MM - any update on RWG being included in 17.3 or pushed to 18?

 

I remember that it was in question what update RWG would be ready in.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

What are you on about? We went from ugly photoshopped 16 to 256 pixel hack textures to proper 3d PBR textures that are 1024, and added many new ones. What was removed?

 

Paint textures MM. Paint textures. We pointed out pretty early in this thread that you guys gutted painting when expanding the available textures for development. Right now we have limited access to blocks - there are a ♥♥♥♥ ton of block shapes/types that we cannot create - and almost nothing in painting. These 2 things should be rather wide open - they are purely decorative. I think that many of us players are confused by the decision to limit (or more likely not open) the options the player has in accessing both decor and painting options.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Hmm, having the slots showing but X'd out in red or something might give a hit to newbies that better quality would open those up.

 

Without a tutorial though, to hand hold walk them through, many won't read the journals tips. (people don't read. bane of tech support since forever. )

 

This is a different problem in 7 days though - the dev team has actively encouraged the journal entries to be ignored by not pausing the action in the background when you are trying to read them. No one is going to spend time reading when time is the most important resource in this game. Particularly if a zed walks up and eats your face when you try and read up on mining...

[Grue]

Why would you not just turn off horde nights if you just don't want them to find you at all?

 

Or change them to the maximum infrequency to lessen their impact in the game. A17 gave us this tool.

 

Eliminating them completely is not the point. At least not for me.

 

I want to have a constant environmental threat of "something nasty" that I need to either confront or run and hide from.

 

Do I really need wood bad enough to go chop it at night knowing there are running irradiated feral wights out there, or can it wait til morning?

 

If I can defend my base, I will, but alternatively, if my base gets overrun, I should be able to take the secret tunnel out to safety or hide til dawn in a bolthole without having them magically find me 50 blocks underground.

[Pille]

What are you on about? We went from ugly photoshopped 16 to 256 pixel hack textures to proper 3d PBR textures that are 1024, and added many new ones. What was removed?

 

Obviously he was not talking about the graphical quality of the new textures but about their style. The new concrete textures are designed to create old and dilapidated-looking prefabs. If you build a new base, it should look like freshly painted. Would be nice to have some additional concrete textures where the paint does not peel off.

 

 

 

Paint textures MM. Paint textures. We pointed out pretty early in this thread that you guys gutted painting when expanding the available textures for development. Right now we have limited access to blocks - there are a ♥♥♥♥ ton of block shapes/types that we cannot create - and almost nothing in painting.

 

We have (a few) more textures available in A17 than in A16 but a lot of them are unsuited for base building purposes.

[AtomicUs5000]

Only one way to settle the texture complaints. We need screenshots from A16 and A17.

 

All I know about them is that there are some textures in the world that aren't available as paint, as I found when in dm. I can't provide a list of them, but an example of these are the very rusty ones. There are quite a few aging metal textures, but darker vibrant ones such as a rusty pipe are unavailable.

 

I'm really hoping someone will take the time to show a comparison of the paints. I could be wrong, but I thought there were more solid colors available at one time. In particular, I can't seem to find one that is black, or nearly black. There is one that is really dark, which could be the same one, but perhaps changes in other things makes it appear gray in the light.

[Gareee]

If you spend all of your time looting just to get items for traders, then you're not spending any time building and preparing for the larger horde nights. And yeh, whether you're mining above or below surface, if you're whacking something to get materials, you're mining. =)

 

Once you have a tunnel horde base, you don't need to do anything at all base wise. I beefed it up with reinforced concrete, and added electric fences and blade traps, but those were just for thee fun of watching them working more than need.

 

Turrets were a pipe dream in a17, and no one unlocked them at all because they were so far off progress wise.

 

Almost all the tower defense play seems stripped out now, and instead of scavenging materials and crafting, we ended up quest looting and shopping at traders.

 

I like that the traders are useful now, but hate everything else missing they replaced like mining for metals to make bullets instead of just buying them from traders now.

 

a17 brought some nice new things to the game like quests, but SO much has been simplified and stripped out.

 

I just hope a18 gets some of the old feel back, but I'm not that optimistic about it anymore.

 

Sadly we are finding minecraft deeper and more fun than 7 days right now. 8(