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Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!


madmole

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!  

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  1. 1. Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

    • A18 Stable is Out!
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    • :)
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@Madmole:

Ok, first you hinted about a big reveal a few days ago no one picked up on, and now this.

 

The graphic guys are obviously knee deep in a surprise something...is it for 18 or 19? (I'm hoping its a big a18 surprise. ;) )

 

You've already said you weren't updating the current zombies, so its not that. Since they've been really hitting pois hard, I'm guessing its poi or possibly sub biome related since thats a thing now.

 

You already said dilapidated smaller pois were added so thats not a surprise.

 

You also said no new clean textures, so nope on that count.

 

I'm hoping maybe a few new skyscrapers, new underground pois, or above ground non building pois.

 

Any hints??

 

We're looking at running npcs/zombies through substance to see if there is some low hanging fruit there to improve visuals without redoing everything from scratch or hurting performance.

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Should a vulture have viable bones? Bird bones are light and weak, and vultures are already feather delivery systems... Maybe take bones out of the harvest?

 

They don't drop a ton, its fine. I mean if we take away bones from them that leaves animals.

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Wrong. All you have to do is break line of sight using whatever obstacles you can find (Buildings/large stone outcroppings are best) and then change direction. They will path to the last place they saw you and you're home-free.

 

Its wrong anyway, you can outrun them, unless your an idiot whos running around with less than 50% stamina, encumbered etc. All you do is sprint away and they give up when you get too far away. Your method works too but usually animal attacks are out in the open with not much cover.

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will the flame trap ever be implemented? or maybe a flamethrower type turret? the molotov we have now is ok ..but to be honest they suck since most of the time they hit the edge of the bars even if you see the sights right on the zombie and you think oh ok that's where it is going and nope you become the human torch.

 

Maybe, we need to get a grip on performance before introducing a particle heavy trap.

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I'd rather the game continue to be hard and keep its uniqueness than continue to try and be a AAA game catering towards Consolers and their inabilities.

 

"But fallout has it" is madmole's weakest argument, it sure as hell doesn't bolster anyone elses. :)

 

You might get out of your tunnel vision cave someday and play some great RPGs so you have an idea of what we're trying to achieve here.

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Where's the fun in throwing around explosives if you know exactly where they'll land?

 

Bungie never had trajectories in the HALO series and I was still quite capable of landing a ♥♥♥♥-shot with a sticky grenade.

 

I don't see it happening, but we can probably improve it so it doesn't blow up on the player so easily.

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I believe you misinterpreted his question. He said a lot of zombie drop bags had despawned before you could get to them. Any thoughts on this?

 

I thought they lasted all night. Its possible they got chopped up or destroyed. If they don't last all night, then its fine, I'll just have to start looting them in between killing or let it despawn.

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Logical, as usual. On the other hand, it would be interesting to increase the hit points of animals (including harmless animals) according to the level of difficulty. When I play in extreme difficulty, animals should be more difficult to kill, as are zombies. But hey, it's not that important. Forget it : just release A18 :strawberry:

 

Yeah I would think they would scale too.

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You might get out of your tunnel vision cave someday and play some great RPGs so you have an idea of what we're trying to achieve here.

 

You already have the greatest game on steam, I hope one day you realize it and stop trying to be like other games.

 

/Flipping the script, in a complimentary way :)

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You already have the greatest game on steam, I hope one day you realize it and stop trying to be like other games.

 

/Flipping the script, in a complimentary way :)

 

Nope. The greatest game sells more copies. There are games with 10% of the content we have outselling us like the forest and subnautica. They aren't riddled with bugs and run like crap though or deal with voxels shafting their graphics. Once we polish our game up to be at least single A quality we will dominate them.

 

7 Days has a unique appeal so some players are willing to subject themselves to low quality visuals and performance issues, and deal with bugs to play it. If we were polished we'd sell 3-5x as many copies. 18 is a huge step in that direction.

 

Success depends on how good an idea it is, combined with how well its executed.

 

A great idea executed poorly will fail.

A crappy idea executed AAA will fail.

I'd say we have a great idea executed ok, about 40% with 0% being horrid and 100% being AAA perfect and we've had some pretty good success. If we could raise that execution level to 75% we'd sell double the copies, 100% would sell 10x the copies.

 

This is why those other games do better, they are an OK idea executed at a 80-90% level. If we can land on a single a quality maybe at roughly 70%, I'd say AA is 85% and AAA is 100% we'll be doing great. It would be very difficult to make a voxel game like ours AAA without throwing a billion dollars at it. That said, I think if we can reach 70% we'll be good.

 

Its great you think our game is the greatest, but most people expect better graphics, performance and no bugs from a game. So we're working towards that. 18 will be a real treat and by 19 I think we'll be smashing most survival games.

 

The aspect of other games we are trying to be like is performant, bug free, and nicer visuals. Fallout has great looting and we have that now, so that pursuit is nearly over. It has great NPC and story but that will be out of our reach for another game or two.

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Nope. The greatest game sells more copies. There are games with 10% of the content we have outselling us like the forest and subnautica. They aren't riddled with bugs and run like crap though or deal with voxels shafting their graphics. Once we polish our game up to be at least single A quality we will dominate them.

 

7 Days has a unique appeal so some players are willing to subject themselves to low quality visuals and performance issues, and deal with bugs to play it. If we were polished we'd sell 3-5x as many copies. 18 is a huge step in that direction.

 

Success depends on how good an idea it is, combined with how well its executed.

 

A great idea executed poorly will fail.

A crappy idea executed AAA will fail.

I'd say we have a great idea executed ok, about 40% with 0% being horrid and 100% being AAA perfect and we've had some pretty good success. If we could raise that execution level to 75% we'd sell double the copies, 100% would sell 10x the copies.

 

This is why those other games do better, they are an OK idea executed at a 80-90% level. If we can land on a single a quality maybe at roughly 70%, I'd say AA is 85% and AAA is 100% we'll be doing great. It would be very difficult to make a voxel game like ours AAA without throwing a billion dollars at it. That said, I think if we can reach 70% we'll be good.

 

Its great you think our game is the greatest, but most people expect better graphics, performance and no bugs from a game. So we're working towards that. 18 will be a real treat and by 19 I think we'll be smashing most survival games.

 

The aspect of other games we are trying to be like is performant, bug free, and nicer visuals. Fallout has great looting and we have that now, so that pursuit is nearly over. It has great NPC and story but that will be out of our reach for another game or two.

 

Do quests and NPCs count as "content"? If you left everything that's already there as is and just gave us some story with main quest line and NPCs to interact with, it would make it much more attractive to me, but that's just me.

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Nope. The greatest game sells more copies. There are games with 10% of the content we have outselling us like the forest and subnautica. They aren't riddled with bugs and run like crap though or deal with voxels shafting their graphics. Once we polish our game up to be at least single A quality we will dominate them.

 

7 Days has a unique appeal so some players are willing to subject themselves to low quality visuals and performance issues, and deal with bugs to play it. If we were polished we'd sell 3-5x as many copies. 18 is a huge step in that direction.

 

Success depends on how good an idea it is, combined with how well its executed.

 

A great idea executed poorly will fail.

A crappy idea executed AAA will fail.

I'd say we have a great idea executed ok, about 40% with 0% being horrid and 100% being AAA perfect and we've had some pretty good success. If we could raise that execution level to 75% we'd sell double the copies, 100% would sell 10x the copies.

 

This is why those other games do better, they are an OK idea executed at a 80-90% level. If we can land on a single a quality maybe at roughly 70%, I'd say AA is 85% and AAA is 100% we'll be doing great. It would be very difficult to make a voxel game like ours AAA without throwing a billion dollars at it. That said, I think if we can reach 70% we'll be good.

 

Its great you think our game is the greatest, but most people expect better graphics, performance and no bugs from a game. So we're working towards that. 18 will be a real treat and by 19 I think we'll be smashing most survival games.

 

The aspect of other games we are trying to be like is performant, bug free, and nicer visuals. Fallout has great looting and we have that now, so that pursuit is nearly over. It has great NPC and story but that will be out of our reach for another game or two.

 

I get you equate sales to game greatness, you're an owner and it's a business, but there are other factors, from timing to marketing to whatever, that have nothing to do with how great the game is, that give it sales. I'm a little bummed by your post.

 

You have something special here.

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I get you equate sales to game greatness, you're an owner and it's a business, but there are other factors, from timing to marketing to whatever, that have nothing to do with how great the game is, that give it sales. I'm a little bummed by your post.

 

You have something special here.

 

Since I play 7 Days (to get off your ass), when I read the reviews of a game on Steam, I first watch the game time of the players. And there is only "7 Days" that displays as many hours of play, even when the criticism is negative. I think the value of this game is in those hours.

 

I'm 50 years old and no solo game has ever brought me so much satisfaction and pleasure. Sometimes, when I'm tired of playing "7 Days", I totally change and start a game of 7 Days to die PVP. These are my two favorite games.

 

So yes, something special...

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Nope. The greatest game sells more copies. There are games with 10% of the content we have outselling us like the forest and subnautica. They aren't riddled with bugs and run like crap though or deal with voxels shafting their graphics. Once we polish our game up to be at least single A quality we will dominate them.

 

7 Days has a unique appeal so some players are willing to subject themselves to low quality visuals and performance issues, and deal with bugs to play it. If we were polished we'd sell 3-5x as many copies. 18 is a huge step in that direction.

 

Success depends on how good an idea it is, combined with how well its executed.

 

A great idea executed poorly will fail.

A crappy idea executed AAA will fail.

I'd say we have a great idea executed ok, about 40% with 0% being horrid and 100% being AAA perfect and we've had some pretty good success. If we could raise that execution level to 75% we'd sell double the copies, 100% would sell 10x the copies.

 

This is why those other games do better, they are an OK idea executed at a 80-90% level. If we can land on a single a quality maybe at roughly 70%, I'd say AA is 85% and AAA is 100% we'll be doing great. It would be very difficult to make a voxel game like ours AAA without throwing a billion dollars at it. That said, I think if we can reach 70% we'll be good.

 

Its great you think our game is the greatest, but most people expect better graphics, performance and no bugs from a game. So we're working towards that. 18 will be a real treat and by 19 I think we'll be smashing most survival games.

 

The aspect of other games we are trying to be like is performant, bug free, and nicer visuals. Fallout has great looting and we have that now, so that pursuit is nearly over. It has great NPC and story but that will be out of our reach for another game or two.

 

What is wrong with the visuals of 7 Days to Die ?

9C6C864D55C650B45DB6DF543A16A2A934E15695

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I thought they lasted all night. Its possible they got chopped up or destroyed. If they don't last all night, then its fine, I'll just have to start looting them in between killing or let it despawn.

 

In A17.4 the loot containers remain 20 minutes before they despawn. At a 60 minute day this is long enough to be collected after the horde. In A17.0 the time was 5 minutes.

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I feel MM got disappointed in voxels, they bring all that trouble with bad graphics and performance and I'm afraid his next game would be no voxels. Which saddens me. To combat all those top selling games you really need to be special PLUS have a miracle luck to hit that elusive string that no one can put a finger on. Lets hope you will succeed, but my point is:

 

From a business point of view, making a plain sequel, 7d2d-2, with voxels again, but on a new level, with all the accumulated knowledge and the dream team you are having now, would be a guaranteed success. And it will not take all those years again to make it.

 

But that is a view from my sofa..

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