Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Odetta]

16k is the technical limit anyway with the current implementation. Its the max texture size in Unity (used to process the world files).

Independent of generation, bigger worlds can not be loaded.

 

Really really big worlds would require a change in the way the world files are handled ... with the associated additional complexity and bugs.

 

I'd really love tiny maps too. Like only a little island or city. For custom games.

[stallionsden]

16k is the technical limit anyway with the current implementation. Its the max texture size in Unity (used to process the world files).

Independent of generation, bigger worlds can not be loaded.

 

Really really big worlds would require a change in the way the world files are handled ... with the associated additional complexity and bugs.

 

Yeh 16k still pretty good. Altho wont say no to a bigger bigger BIGGER world lol

[Laz Man]

 

I'd really love tiny maps too. Like only a little island or city. For custom games.

 

I agree 100% would be great for a horde mode mod. I think the smallest map size is still pretty large.

[The Gronk]

16k is the technical limit anyway with the current implementation. Its the max texture size in Unity (used to process the world files).

Independent of generation, bigger worlds can not be loaded.

 

Really really big worlds would require a change in the way the world files are handled ... with the associated additional complexity and bugs.

 

Use more than one texture and tile them.

 

The real technical limit is character shake when far away from 0,0,0.

[Ranzera]

 

Wow really? I get you like the plains biome but dont hate on the devs for keeping the burnt biome and wasteland...

 

...which are vastly different looking then the rest and will potentially be more value add in the long run...

 

...do you expect for menancing threats like radiated zombies and the dukes men to live in the plains biome?

 

bombed/destroyed buildings look better in a dark/destroyed biome....

 

I'm baffled that your baffled....lol

 

They keep bringing up nonsense like "the plains were useless" while they have 2 fugly as hell biomes that are ACTUALLY useless. It's fair game if you ask me.

 

Where would bandits live? I dunno. Are these the remnants of humanity or supernaturally stupid people? I think the former group would hole up in the least hostile place they can find. The later group would go chill with their homeboys, the zeds and swap spit.

 

The Duke would hole up wherever his casino happened to be regardless. Stay in your stronghold as it were.

 

Bombed and destroyed homes are useless to survivors unless you create some kind of double think logic that somehow all the good stuff left wasn't destroyed by said bombs and for some unfathomable reason the pristine locations only have stuff that's literally falling apart. I'm looking forward to hearing what their logic is on that, I'm sure it'll be hilarious.

 

You must enjoy being baffled.

[Odetta]

If you guys ever decide to bring back zip lines just think how cool it would be for your POI designers. Zip lining from one skyscraper to the next, over a pit of sleeping irradiated zombos. Or zip lining from a timed explosion that's about to bring the POI down.

[madmole]

will zombies get new Animations too, when alpha 19 gets released?

 

Walks, runs attacks, etc will stay the same. There will be some added animations for when they fall and break through doors and stuff. Imagine them pouring into a room, some stumbling, some boosted from the force when the door breaks down.

[Laz Man]

 

They keep bringing up nonsense like "the plains were useless" while they have 2 fugly as hell biomes that are ACTUALLY useless. It's fair game if you ask me.

 

Where would bandits live? I dunno. Are these the remnants of humanity or supernaturally stupid people? I think the former group would hole up in the least hostile place they can find. The later group would go chill with their homeboys, the zeds and swap spit.

 

The Duke would hole up wherever his casino happened to be regardless. Stay in your stronghold as it were.

 

Bombed and destroyed homes are useless to survivors unless you create some kind of double think logic that somehow all the good stuff left wasn't destroyed by said bombs and for some unfathomable reason the pristine locations only have stuff that's literally falling apart. I'm looking forward to hearing what their logic is on that, I'm sure it'll be hilarious.

 

You must enjoy being baffled.

 

Not as much as you must be enjoying it. Lol

 

Lots of video game villains live in ominous places. Not everything in video games have to be 100% logical.

 

For the record. I dont dislike the plains biome. I just happen to disagree with your thoughts on the wasteland and burnt biomes. You dont have to agree with me. ?

 

 

 

 

[Ranzera]

 

Not as much as you must be enjoying it. Lol

 

Lots of video game villains live in ominous places. Not everything in video games have to be 100% logical.

 

For the record. I dont dislike the plains biome. I just happen to disagree with your thoughts on the wasteland and burnt biomes. You dont have to agree with me. ?

 

 

 

 

Do I appear to be enjoying it? smh

 

Most villains are in full control of the ominous aspect of their surroundings. Villains avoid risk too.

 

I'm happy to ignore those 2 biomes. I do think that removing the plains biome citing "useless" while those 2 biomes exist is hypocritical at best.

[MechanicalLens]

 

Walks, runs attacks, etc will stay the same. There will be some added animations for when they fall and break through doors and stuff. Imagine them pouring into a room, some stumbling, some boosted from the force when the door breaks down.

 

[Roland]

 

Not as much as you must be enjoying it. Lol

 

Lots of video game villains live in ominous places. Not everything in video games have to be 100% logical.

 

For the record. I dont dislike the plains biome. I just happen to disagree with your thoughts on the wasteland and burnt biomes. You dont have to agree with me. ?

 

 

 

 

Do I appear to be enjoying it? smh

 

Most villains are in full control of the ominous aspect of their surroundings. Villains avoid risk too.

 

I'm happy to ignore those 2 biomes. I do think that removing the plains biome citing "useless" while those 2 biomes exist is hypocritical at best.

Regardless of the reason or what you think of the explanation, the fact is that the plains biome is gone and is not coming back. Time to move on now. You have suggested returning the Plains biome and the answer has come back in the negative. Accept that and be constructive.

[Damocles]

 

Use more than one texture and tile them.

 

The real technical limit is character shake when far away from 0,0,0.

 

Tiling would be one way to do it. (That would also allow faster map generation)

 

They already shift the origin regularly to avoid floating-point imprecisions.

[Roland]

Biome talk should be related to the future of the game and not it's past. We have been told repeatedly the plains biome is not coming back except as a sub biome. If you want to discuss biomes then lets be constructive with what TFP has revealed about the future of biomes rather than waste time arguing about what the past was like. It's over.

 

If you have ideas about biomes talk about decorations, threats, and rewards that could pertain to the biomes we do have to make them better. Talk about what you would like to see in a plains sub-biome since that is still on the table? What are some reasons that could be developed to visit the specific biomes currently in the game?

[Roland]

 

There are 5. RIght now there are only 2 good biomes, desert and forest. Nobody likes the rest. I'd like to see all the biomes interesting, visually compelling and useful, why add more we can't actually make interesting?

 

Which is why it's so baffling that you got rid of a biome that people loved but kept 2 biomes that people avoid (and even removed things that gave them a shred of usefulness, like fertilizer).

 

The plains were useful. The plains were beautiful. The plains were loved. But here you go trying to shove the wasteland and burned forest down our throats.

 

Can you bring back the golden hue in the sky in a sub biome? I haven't seen your sub biomes change the sky so far.

 

If you ask me, burned forest makes far more sense as a sub biome. "This section of the forest was burned," not suddenly "we transitioned from the desert to a burned up forest."

 

The plains make more sense as a full biome. Tall grasses, bushes, wetlands, stickers, grains everywhere. It could be unique in that it'd be hard to see zombies along the tall grass. It had coal deposits everywhere, yucca, wild corn growing and atmosphere in spades.

 

What is the burned forest? Just trees you get coal from and zombies that light you on fire.

 

Which one is useless again?

Plains are useless because they are cut from development. You can't get more useless than that. Thank you for your feedback about wanting the plains to come back. The developer has given you a definitive answer: They are not coming back. Continuing in this subject is not constructive.

[Roland]

I actually loved the plains biome waaaaay back when (A9 or A10?). Even now, i still miss that distant machine, horn sound. It was eerie and really counterbalanced the tranquil beauty of the biome. I really miss that biome.

 

As for the radiated zombies and such... Some kind soul uploaded a modlet to remove all that nonsense. Now, i can play a more pure zombie game with just regular ol' zombies (except the spider zombies are still there) I'd really like an in game menu with check boxes for the zombies we want/don't want.

Kind of like this but more distant...

[MechanicalLens]

Biome talk should be related to the future of the game and not it's past. We have been told repeatedly the plains biome is not coming back except as a sub biome. If you want to discuss biomes then lets be constructive with what TFP has revealed about the future of biomes rather than waste time arguing about what the past was like. It's over.

 

If you have ideas about biomes talk about decorations, threats, and rewards that could pertain to the biomes we do have to make them better. Talk about what you would like to see in a plains sub-biome since that is still on the table? What are some reasons that could be developed to visit the specific biomes currently in the game?

 

I personally believe one huge contributing factor to people favoring the forest and even the desert biome(s) is convenience. By logic, the forest biome should contain every ingredient that every survivor requires to sustain themselves, and by a huge extent, it does; all that it lacks is aloe, sand and yucca, which the desert biome provides in extremely plentiful amounts. (ie is exists everywhere on the surface.) Listed below are a list of cons that I see in the remaining three biomes, at least from my perspective:

 

 

 

CANADIAN BIOME (AKA THE SNOW BIOME)

 

 

Cons:

 

- Cold weather (manageable, makes sense)

- Lumberjacks everywhere, which happen to be one of the toughest base zombies in the game

- Lack of animals to hunt, besides cougars (and perhaps the very rare boar/deer? I am not sure on this one)

 

 

BURNT BIOME

 

 

Cons:

 

- Lack of animals to hunt

- It's ugly

- Lack of cotton

 

 

WASTELAND:

 

 

Cons:

 

- Landmines, bears, vultures, dogs, higher gamestage... All great features, except there is a lack of incentive to visit there at the moment

 

 

I'm sure I could add more but this list was semi-rushed. I'm not hating on any of these biomes, but one change I will suggest is greater variety of zombies in the snow biome other than the Canadians (er, I mean, lumberjacks). Other than the cold weather effects early on, one of the reasons I choose not to settle down in this challenging biome is because basically every zombie that spawns naturally are walking tanks. Traditionally in games however (example: The Forest), the snow biome has been the least hospitable location to visit, let alone settle down in, therefore the former should be tackled and not the latter, or at least as much.

[GloomyMP]

After a hiatus following alpha 17, I got a chance to put in a few hundred hours in 18. First thing, I think nearly everything is a massive improvement, so great job there.

 

I do think a few changes would be amazing, listed below.

 

1. Meat spoilage. I’m sure this has been tossed around before, but I can only see it as a positive thing:

a. Meat spoiling could happen over the course of 7 days into spoiled meat, which is still a useful item.

b. Meat in a cooler or refrigerator could last 14 days and give a reason to craft/buy such items, and in the case of the fridge, be one more reason to have electric.

c. Spoilage of both raw and cooked meat would promote canning options in game already. This would also allow for item management decisions, do I want more low return long term meals or high quality short term meals?

d. This would strongly support crafting and hunting, which would give more incentive to cooking and hunting skill trees.

 

2. Randomized zombie behavior and appearance

a. Randomized clothing will help be more immersive, but each zombie currently has a certain personality assigned to its model. If you’ve ever played scorched earth, they assigned different attitudes to AI opponents and maybe that could work here.

b. Instead of simply saying these zombies are slow, these are fast, you could categorize them by tactics. Some will shuffle at you, others might try to get behind you instead. Others might just start screaming while others make no noise at all. Some might wait around a corner, while others might try to get you to back up into another zombie. Some sleepers might just wait longer to wake up so you overlook them.

 

3. Mobile traders. While it’s nice to have a set trading post, it might be interesting to have a caravan that moves around on the map that you could run into for trade options. This would help increase exploration, and could be a semi-safe area to trade after dark. Perhaps it could use similar scripting as the bandits in the future, but an automated turret would work fine for now so that any player spotting their campfire could have relative safety and trade at night. Being mobile would keep people from overusing it. Offering rare or hard to craft items, or a buyers premium of some kind could also be a huge incentive to go out at night for some players who usually stay put.

 

4. Zombie density. Over time, if you keep clearing out zombies, there should be less of them in an area and their spawn rates, as well as item spawn rates should drop. Conversely, areas that aren’t seeing much traffic should increase zombie frequency, difficulty, and have better loot. A system like this would prevent people camping out high reward POIs and would force more interest in other typically low stakes locations.

[FranticDan]

 

 

Oh how I'd absolutely LOVE for zombies to face plant when falling 3+ meters, for that added immersion!

[Roland]

For wasteland, I'd like to see the components for making mines and other explosives being more common as well as the books having to do with explosives and their recipes. I also like that one highway overpass section. I'd like to see a few more varieties of these like maybe an onramp that ends suddenly. I'd also like to see subterranean POI's buried in the rubble like a subways station with maybe 30 meters of tunnel ending in cave in or a mall that you have to lower yourself down into like in The Day After Tomorrow or that one buried mall in the Maze Runner second movie I believe. it would be cool if there were quite a few POI's underneath a few layers of destroyed stone and you'd have to excavate them a bit before getting inside and descending into them.

[Laz Man]

One idea is to move all Tier 5 Quest POIs into the more difficult biomes (e.g. wasteland, burnt, radiation, etc.) and balance quest rewards accordingly. Maybe have a unique loot container that has better loot for the harder biomes (e.g. radiated reinforced chest)

 

Edit: These can all be accomplished by modding. Maybe I will look into this at some point lol...

[Laz Man]

For wasteland, I'd like to see the components for making mines and other explosives being more common as well as the books having to do with explosives and their recipes. I also like that one highway overpass section. I'd like to see a few more varieties of these like maybe an onramp that ends suddenly. I'd also like to see subterranean POI's buried in the rubble like a subways station with maybe 30 meters of tunnel ending in cave in or a mall that you have to lower yourself down into like in The Day After Tomorrow or that one buried mall in the Maze Runner second movie I believe. it would be cool if there were quite a few POI's underneath a few layers of destroyed stone and you'd have to excavate them a bit before getting inside and descending into them.

 

I agree 100%, more remnents of freeways (POIs?) and more signs of more dense population (more apartment buildings, Malls...like Hernan's No Hope Mall) could be a thing in the wasteland/radiated biomes.

[MechanicalLens]

For wasteland, I'd like to see the components for making mines and other explosives being more common as well as the books having to do with explosives and their recipes. I also like that one highway overpass section. I'd like to see a few more varieties of these like maybe an onramp that ends suddenly. I'd also like to see subterranean POI's buried in the rubble like a subways station with maybe 30 meters of tunnel ending in cave in or a mall that you have to lower yourself down into like in The Day After Tomorrow or that one buried mall in the Maze Runner second movie I believe. it would be cool if there were quite a few POI's underneath a few layers of destroyed stone and you'd have to excavate them a bit before getting inside and descending into them.

 

Or as a simpler solution, greater and unique loot. Perhaps bandit camps that could be raided for highly coveted, maybe unique forms of loot (ie Legendary weapons), but doing so could increase the hostility between you and the bandits even further, putting you on the map. It would be a trade-off essentially.

[stallionsden]

 

Or as a simpler solution, greater and unique loot. Perhaps bandit camps that could be raided for highly coveted, maybe unique forms of loot (ie Legendary weapons), but doing so could increase the hostility between you and the bandits even further, putting you on the map. It would be a trade-off essentially.

 

If you sneak in to a bandit camp without being detected or killing anyone you should get away with what you steal and not increase or decrease any hostility meter. if you get detected or kill a bandit then they will track you down and yes the hostility between you and the bandit fraction would increase.

[Matt 1977]

Yea Forest and Desert ive only ever used as base biomes.

 

I used to live just outside of Hub City but alas........ ?

[Onarr]

 

Not until we can make large sub biomes where they are thicker and thin them everywhere even further, right now there is one density setting for the entire biome and it kills the FPS to turn that up.

 

I know that, once I tried to plant 100 trees around my base and droped to 10 fps. Why are they so resource intensive? Is it because they are growable?