Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Lemmers]

Seems like in regards to a large ravine, you would just need the ceiling to be made out of a special block with a large SI support trait. Obviously would need to be uncraftable by the player, so it would only generate with the ravine and break into normal small stones when destroyed by the player, but it could look otherwise like normal stone.

[Damocles]

They would still collapse as soon as you farted near them. You've delayed the problem, not solved it.

 

The cave generator needs to guarantee a minimum structural integrity for each block otherwise you're curing the symptom, not the disease.

 

It's certainly possible but also time-consuming, there are higher priorities.

 

They collapse because the SI calculation regards them the same as any other player-placed voxel.

Thats why I've said, that calculation need to consider them differently.

[KingSlayerGM]

They would still collapse as soon as you farted near them.

 

They collapse because the SI calculation regards them the same as any other player-placed voxel.

 

No, nothing would collapse because when the number of blocks involved is large enough, the SI system can't handle them.

 

Also why are we having this conversation? The caves we used to have did not collapse and they were large enough to me.. I'd just make them longer and deeper.

 

POIs need to be inside the caves, not the caves themselves. Imagine large randomly generated cave systems, with randomly placed camps, abandoned mines, treasures..

[Space4Ace]

POIs need to be inside the caves, not the caves themselves. Imagine large randomly generated cave systems, with randomly placed camps, abandoned mines, treasures..

 

I like it, I like it a lot!

[DaVegaNL]

Oh no! You just alienated all the Boulder Watchers!

 

DaVega even does it for a living...somehow.

 

Lol didnt see your comment ^^

[xyth]

Good then you guys can listen to everyone cry about your performance problems

 

<Grin> Yea, but unlike you we can just tell them not to load it until they have better hardware :-)

[Obsessive Compulsive]

Its not that, its being realistic about the demographic audience. Most people have better things to do then play one game for thousands of hours.

 

Most AAA games have about 6-10 hours of play, so aiming for 20-30 with hobby potential is still a very admirable design goal. The fact people play it 5000 hours or more is just bonus. I'm happy if I buy a game I play for more than 2 hours. If I can get 20-30 hours out of a game I'm super happy with it. We do want to create games that can become a hobby, but we can't expect people to play for thousands of hours and people who have played it for thousands of hours can't expect us to keep making it fun for them.

 

Then your on a slippery slope of adding late game crap 2% of players see. Its better to have less content that is super engaging for 20 hours than a ton of content that is meh or blocked.

 

Like I have to wonder how many players actually legit got tek gear in Ark on vanilla servers lol. What a waste of time making all those models and code for that stuff nobody ever got to use it unless they cheated.

 

 

Stop designing the game for you and make it for the people that backed you with millions of dollars to make this game. We honestly don't care what you think man. We really don't. You told us during your videos that you had not played for months. What good are you? Are you making this game for you who doesn't play or for the people that paid you and still play it?

 

Why not be honest about this so the fighting can stop. If you don't intend to produce what your end game goals stated, just say it so we can delete this game and move on since most of us already played 30 hours and you say that was the goal. You keep pretending you are moving forward and then every single major alpha update is a giant leap backwards that takes months to sort out and drops content you spoke of prior.

 

WE PAID YOU based on what you touted early on. Now you are back tracking out of things and saying its reasonable because that is the way YOU see it. Again, we didn't pay to find out what you thought Joel, just like many of your forum mods don't care what we say and let us know that. We paid for the touted features and game style you purported the game would become. If you are not going to hit those goals, stop pretending. We are only mad because you are leading us on to keep your popularity going.

 

You have strayed from the goals once spoke of and people are saying they don't like this. You just keep pushing it through and the player numbers keep falling. What is the purpose of not listening to the code monkeys that keep trying to help you, ignoring the modding community that makes the game worth playing, while ignoring the long term players who have been asking you to fix the base content and start adding mid to late game things to do for years.

 

Are you telling me minecraft is better vanilla? Your game is much closer to minecraft so that would actually be realistic to compare instead of ARK. Mods kept that game going even now but you plan on making sure your game ends in 30 hours while admitting people play hundreds. Rather than get everyone playing hundreds because they love the game, you would rather aim for 30 hours.

 

Ark has brought out expansions and supported modders with entire new islands to adventure on. They continue to bring out more content and late game balance. Why are you planning to not do this while using ARK as an example of why you are taking this stance?

 

You could have added server options to make things go faster. Have options to allow quick servers that intend to wipe or reset after 30 days just like dozens of ARK servers do. ARK does that because the balance is SO bad between high and low tier due to the grind, that new players do not stand a chance. Finding the balance would make you one of the best games out there for combo survival, pvp, adventure, sandbox gaming.

 

JOEL! WE ARE STILL PUNCHING GRASS. What are you talking about? Addictive first 30 hours... you can't even add an animation to gather plants instead of punching. Did you post this early for april fools?

[Pegasus]

I never saw any posts stating updates every few weeks, just posts stating that alphas should hopefully come much more quickly.

 

I generally don't really care how long things take. I see the upcoming A18 as the A17 I was hoping for. I'm really looking forward to it, but I would rather wait longer than a few weeks for substantial differences in content, optimizations, and graphics.

 

However, I really am hoping that the extra swing bug gets fixed asap. That has got to be one of the most annoying bugs I have experienced in any game... and have dealt with it for way too long.

 

Yes, Very Yes, and Yessssssssssssss Pleaseeeeeeeee

 

I'm good with no more A17 updates ... shove everyone into the A18 room and let's get this baby mixed, baked and decorated.

 

And before someone has a heart attack ... when I say I'm good with no more A17 updates I mean I would be good if there were no more A17 updates if they are taking away from work on A18. The Devs did not say that at any point, and have in fact said there should be an A17.3 "soon" TM.

[n2n1]

@MM, On behalf of the modding community we vote that you guys carry on with optimizations. Every FPS gain from these efforts means more things we can do or add that will use all that new FPS.

modders should also make their mods optimized. I've seen in some mods models with hundreds of thousands of polygons (and hardly they had a LOD). So you will never have enough performance.

[n2n1]

Its not that, its being realistic about the demographic audience. Most people have better things to do then play one game for thousands of hours.

 

Most AAA games have about 6-10 hours of play, so aiming for 20-30 with hobby potential is still a very admirable design goal. The fact people play it 5000 hours or more is just bonus. I'm happy if I buy a game I play for more than 2 hours. If I can get 20-30 hours out of a game I'm super happy with it. We do want to create games that can become a hobby, but we can't expect people to play for thousands of hours and people who have played it for thousands of hours can't expect us to keep making it fun for them.

 

Then your on a slippery slope of adding late game crap 2% of players see. Its better to have less content that is super engaging for 20 hours than a ton of content that is meh or blocked.

 

Like I have to wonder how many players actually legit got tek gear in Ark on vanilla servers lol. What a waste of time making all those models and code for that stuff nobody ever got to use it unless they cheated.

Oh no.... what are you saying, what happened?

...that sucks.

 

You can't make a game that's "AAA".

You make a good game, this game is a completely different type's, but you won't make it to AAA, so... do what you can well!

 

You can't make a class AAA game! So do not focus on tasks that are not for you!

[Pegasus]

Oh no.... what are you saying, what happened?

...that sucks.

 

Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds, once you get over the initial knee jerk reaction to the statements.

 

They're saying they're focusing on finishing up the kick starter goals, and focusing on getting the game ready to be an official release. (ie getting it out of permanent Alpha status).

 

So they're not really adding more new stuff right now, they're focusing more on polishing and optimizing and making it run better so it can be released.

 

He has said they are looking at adding official Mod support after the release, which will be nice for the modders. And once the game is officially released (if I understand what was said correctly) then the engine will stop changing so the modders can make their mods without having to worry the next release is going to completely bork everything they already did.

 

So, things will be okay. Just some people (and I was one of them) got their feelings hurt by the way some things were said. Which, tbh, if I had to listen to all of us for years on end I'd probably have said it a lot less nicely. Or told everyone to go to HE** a long time ago.

[spacepiggio]

Caves collapsing: thats more a question how the structural integrity calculation are implemented.

The game could assume anything at gamestart (terrain dirt voxels) to have full structural integrity, and ignore any calculations.

 

Only dirt-voxels (and other voxels) that are PLAYER placed, (or near player made changes), are marked to be considered in the SI calculations. E.g.: only player-placed dirt can fall apart.

POI voxels (apart from the soil) can be handled like now.

 

Ignoring any dirt-voxels from the gamestart would allow any number of crazy caves, without them falling apart.

The cave-generator just needs to make them structurally meaningfull at generation time.

 

---

 

POI caves are the other options. There are already a number of them included.

This approach works as well ... but requires more manual work by POI designers at the end to have a decent variety.

 

I like the Cave-ins but I think a solution is to make it act like real a Cave-in where there is no Void above you. Blocks should be able to Regenerate as the Collapse happens just like a real Cave-in, it should not leave an Exposed Cavern above you. In other words the Whole World should not collapse upon you & leave Debris.

Blocks should not fall & turn into Debris & leave a Void above you but stay intact & BURY YOU...

[Lonestarcanuck]

I havent' played Rust in ages, but I heard they have scientists. What do their npcs do just attack on sight or are there any friendly ones?

 

you can have NPCs be neutral/friendly or aggressive and attack when something gets within NN meters. this allowed me to have NPS that would make statements when you got close but not attack you. you can also have neutral that only attack if you attack them first.

 

so:

- friendly - never attack - can't be hurt

- friendly - never attack - can be killed

- friendly - never attack - will attack if you attack

- aggressive - attack always - can said radius player must be in to trigger.

 

you can also outfit the NPC with same armor/weapons as players.

 

this was all a couple of years ago so I am sure its advanced since then.

 

my server (Rusttown) had 200 players and 30 mods loaded an a city with NPCs, etc.

 

I was/am hoping that we would be able to have controllable NPC in 7DTD so we could build quest scenarios and towns .

[n2n1]

Don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds, once you get over the initial knee jerk reaction to the statements.

 

They're saying they're focusing on finishing up the kick starter goals, and focusing on getting the game ready to be an official release. (ie getting it out of permanent Alpha status).

 

So they're not really adding more new stuff right now, they're focusing more on polishing and optimizing and making it run better so it can be released.

 

He has said they are looking at adding official Mod support after the release, which will be nice for the modders. And once the game is officially released (if I understand what was said correctly) then the engine will stop changing so the modders can make their mods without having to worry the next release is going to completely bork everything they already did.

 

So, things will be okay. Just some people (and I was one of them) got their feelings hurt by the way some things were said. Which, tbh, if I had to listen to all of us for years on end I'd probably have said it a lot less nicely. Or told everyone to go to HE** a long time ago.

Yeah, yeah, i get that, i even get that A17 is so disgusting because it's just a base for the next one. It's just, we weren't supposed to see her.

The potential of innovations that occurred in A17 is very high...

And the as they move to release this, too, understandable. But what they do with the game - is bad, you can't sit on two chairs at the same time. There are a lot of bad examples in the gaming industry, and they seem to want to repeat one of them.

[n2n1]

@Madmole... are the perlin caves permanently shelved? They were in ages ago, yanked, we were told they would return, and then bupkis for several years now.

 

Coupled with randomly scattered sleepers, they would add a lot of diverse gameplay.

I think most people want to see the return of 60 fps without hitches more than that. We're not adding anything that is going to put us in reverse. If the occlusion works out it might see a return someday.

Well, then do something simple, like a primitive shooter, and there will not have to solve many problems and add things that make the game interesting. There usually, there are no interesting features that can create potential problems.... all as you like...

Just more advertising at the launch.

[n2n1]

Tank? A real, working tank? I understood correctly? Will we be able to repair or create a tank in the future? Can we ride a tank, shoot and crush hordes of zombies?

We could...but they will not be able to add a crowd of zombies.

[Drithyl]

Stop designing the game for you and make it for the people that backed you with millions of dollars to make this game. We honestly don't care what you think man. We really don't. You told us during your videos that you had not played for months. What good are you? Are you making this game for you who doesn't play or for the people that paid you and still play it?

 

Why not be honest about this so the fighting can stop. If you don't intend to produce what your end game goals stated, just say it so we can delete this game and move on since most of us already played 30 hours and you say that was the goal. You keep pretending you are moving forward and then every single major alpha update is a giant leap backwards that takes months to sort out and drops content you spoke of prior.

 

WE PAID YOU based on what you touted early on. Now you are back tracking out of things and saying its reasonable because that is the way YOU see it. Again, we didn't pay to find out what you thought Joel, just like many of your forum mods don't care what we say and let us know that. We paid for the touted features and game style you purported the game would become. If you are not going to hit those goals, stop pretending. We are only mad because you are leading us on to keep your popularity going.

 

You have strayed from the goals once spoke of and people are saying they don't like this. You just keep pushing it through and the player numbers keep falling. What is the purpose of not listening to the code monkeys that keep trying to help you, ignoring the modding community that makes the game worth playing, while ignoring the long term players who have been asking you to fix the base content and start adding mid to late game things to do for years.

 

Are you telling me minecraft is better vanilla? Your game is much closer to minecraft so that would actually be realistic to compare instead of ARK. Mods kept that game going even now but you plan on making sure your game ends in 30 hours while admitting people play hundreds. Rather than get everyone playing hundreds because they love the game, you would rather aim for 30 hours.

 

Ark has brought out expansions and supported modders with entire new islands to adventure on. They continue to bring out more content and late game balance. Why are you planning to not do this while using ARK as an example of why you are taking this stance?

 

You could have added server options to make things go faster. Have options to allow quick servers that intend to wipe or reset after 30 days just like dozens of ARK servers do. ARK does that because the balance is SO bad between high and low tier due to the grind, that new players do not stand a chance. Finding the balance would make you one of the best games out there for combo survival, pvp, adventure, sandbox gaming.

 

JOEL! WE ARE STILL PUNCHING GRASS. What are you talking about? Addictive first 30 hours... you can't even add an animation to gather plants instead of punching. Did you post this early for april fools?

 

This might be news to you, but you didn't pay TFP to make you a game tailored to what you or the community wants. You funded them to make the game they want. That's the purpose of kickstarter and of buying a game on Steam. You don't hire a developer, you buy their product. You might be unhappy with the results, but all of this "WE PAID YOU", "We honestly don't care what you think man" is nonsense.

[madmole]

Caves collapsing: thats more a question how the structural integrity calculation are implemented.

The game could assume anything at gamestart (terrain dirt voxels) to have full structural integrity, and ignore any calculations.

 

Only dirt-voxels (and other voxels) that are PLAYER placed, (or near player made changes), are marked to be considered in the SI calculations. E.g.: only player-placed dirt can fall apart.

POI voxels (apart from the soil) can be handled like now.

 

Ignoring any dirt-voxels from the gamestart would allow any number of crazy caves, without them falling apart.

The cave-generator just needs to make them structurally meaningfull at generation time.

 

---

 

POI caves are the other options. There are already a number of them included.

This approach works as well ... but requires more manual work by POI designers at the end to have a decent variety.

I'm pretty sure as soon as a player sets foot in a cave that isn't structurally sound it will collapse, regardless if it was generated or man made.

 

We'll keep optimizing and see where that lands, then we can think about some kind of underground cave networks. We took them out because we had no occlusion framework and chunk generation / rendering speeds were unacceptable.

[madmole]

Seems like in regards to a large ravine, you would just need the ceiling to be made out of a special block with a large SI support trait. Obviously would need to be uncraftable by the player, so it would only generate with the ravine and break into normal small stones when destroyed by the player, but it could look otherwise like normal stone.

 

And then cause a mega server bogging gigantic collapse when someone broke the right block.

[madmole]

Stop designing the game for you and make it for the people that backed you with millions of dollars to make this game. We honestly don't care what you think man. We really don't. You told us during your videos that you had not played for months. What good are you? Are you making this game for you who doesn't play or for the people that paid you and still play it?

 

Why not be honest about this so the fighting can stop. If you don't intend to produce what your end game goals stated, just say it so we can delete this game and move on since most of us already played 30 hours and you say that was the goal. You keep pretending you are moving forward and then every single major alpha update is a giant leap backwards that takes months to sort out and drops content you spoke of prior.

 

WE PAID YOU based on what you touted early on. Now you are back tracking out of things and saying its reasonable because that is the way YOU see it. Again, we didn't pay to find out what you thought Joel, just like many of your forum mods don't care what we say and let us know that. We paid for the touted features and game style you purported the game would become. If you are not going to hit those goals, stop pretending. We are only mad because you are leading us on to keep your popularity going.

 

You have strayed from the goals once spoke of and people are saying they don't like this. You just keep pushing it through and the player numbers keep falling. What is the purpose of not listening to the code monkeys that keep trying to help you, ignoring the modding community that makes the game worth playing, while ignoring the long term players who have been asking you to fix the base content and start adding mid to late game things to do for years.

 

Are you telling me minecraft is better vanilla? Your game is much closer to minecraft so that would actually be realistic to compare instead of ARK. Mods kept that game going even now but you plan on making sure your game ends in 30 hours while admitting people play hundreds. Rather than get everyone playing hundreds because they love the game, you would rather aim for 30 hours.

 

Ark has brought out expansions and supported modders with entire new islands to adventure on. They continue to bring out more content and late game balance. Why are you planning to not do this while using ARK as an example of why you are taking this stance?

 

You could have added server options to make things go faster. Have options to allow quick servers that intend to wipe or reset after 30 days just like dozens of ARK servers do. ARK does that because the balance is SO bad between high and low tier due to the grind, that new players do not stand a chance. Finding the balance would make you one of the best games out there for combo survival, pvp, adventure, sandbox gaming.

 

JOEL! WE ARE STILL PUNCHING GRASS. What are you talking about? Addictive first 30 hours... you can't even add an animation to gather plants instead of punching. Did you post this early for april fools?

All that and I don't even know what you are complaining about. I already explained what I meant in detail ages ago and the community was fine with my explanation, you should read on before responding to 2 month old posts. In a nutshell we want more 2000 hour guys by focusing on polishing the first 30 hours. How can anyone fall in love with the game and get hooked if the performance, bugs and lack of polish are hindering them?

 

A17 is another A13. It was a LOT of changes but by the time we fixed the bugs and got it balanced (a14) it was received very very well and at the end of that phase 99% of the players would prefer A14 to A12 as they will A18 to A16.

[spacepiggio]

I'm pretty sure as soon as a player sets foot in a cave that isn't structurally sound it will collapse, regardless if it was generated or man made.

 

We'll keep optimizing and see where that lands, then we can think about some kind of underground cave networks. We took them out because we had no occlusion framework and chunk generation / rendering speeds were unacceptable.

 

Is it possible to stop the huge caverns a Collapse causes in your Cave or Mine? If you have a Cave-in say in your Forge Room underground it should bury the Room possibly Destroy Chests, Forges, etc. & you would have to dig the Room back out again.

Be neat to find the bones or bodies that were in the room so we can Harvest their Bones...

 

I kind of liked the time 1 caused on my mining but a lot of ♥♥♥♥ was lost & uncollectabe

[betam4x]

This might be news to you, but you didn't pay TFP to make you a game tailored to what you or the community wants. You funded them to make the game they want. That's the purpose of kickstarter and of buying a game on Steam. You don't hire a developer, you buy their product. You might be unhappy with the results, but all of this "WE PAID YOU", "We honestly don't care what you think man" is nonsense.

 

I came here to agree with this post. Also, to the troll: “You” didn’t pay TFP millions of dollars. The community did. Contrary to what you think, not everyone hates Alpha 17. Those of us with the hardware appreciate the visual upgrade and the refreshed skill tree is a breath of fresh air. Maybe you should have taken that Kickstarter money and upgraded your PC. :/

[Survager]

I'm pretty sure as soon as a player sets foot in a cave that isn't structurally sound it will collapse, regardless if it was generated or man made.

 

We'll keep optimizing and see where that lands, then we can think about some kind of underground cave networks. We took them out because we had no occlusion framework and chunk generation / rendering speeds were unacceptable.

 

But if the caves everywhere will have stone walls, it does not solve the problem?

[betam4x]

Well, then do something simple, like a primitive shooter, and there will not have to solve many problems and add things that make the game interesting. There usually, there are no interesting features that can create potential problems.... all as you like...

Just more advertising at the launch.

 

I get 60fps at 1440p max details. You people need to stop gaming on budget PCs. :/

[n2n1]

I get 60fps at 1440p max details. You people need to stop gaming on budget PCs. :/

I agree. But you have to be tolerant of our younger brothers

I think, i've never had a problem with the speed of cave generation.

Besides, now the way of generation is changed, for what? Why then wait for an hour when generate the map if it doesn't solve problems of "real-time generation"?