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Alpha 19 Dev Diary


madmole

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10 minutes ago, FileMachete said:

Do you know what "it"s name is by chance Joe?

it refers to companies gathering and creating analytics. it is not pointing at a specific because there are quite a few different companies that offer the service.

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27 minutes ago, bjurney said:

How will this data be collected? Is there an opt out or will we be required to agree to it per terms of use? 

As a former IT Security Specialist for a large global company and in favor of collection of GAME data to enhance the gaming experience, a couple notes about collecting personal data:

 

1. Legal.  While the United States (as a country) currently (but we are headed there) does not have a broad scope of united formal regulations like GDPR, several states have started down this path.  Companies that utilize collected data that originates in some states and countries (especially GDPR ones) probably ought to be aware of what impact they might have - now or in the near future.

 

2. Liability.  While it may seem improbable that 'game' data could be utilized to 'hurt' companies or people, 'bad guys' (mostly nation states, crime syndicates, etc. - not little individuals hackers) have all kinds of resources to gather all kinds of data from all kinds of places (including vast databases of previous stolen information) and are linking (using AI) all of that data to be able to determine more of a company's or person's profile (and other things).  Which then can be used not only to access other things, but to better 'spoof' the person or the company.  (Very often, breaches are caused by individuals (naive most of the time - but not always) who have fallen for some sort of spoofing.  Targeted emails ('phishing'), and it's brethren ('vishing', etc.) are getting better and better all the time.

 

The company I was at decided a few years ago to 'scrub' almost of their data to remove any personal identifiable information.  Data is still tracked and retained - but cannot be tracked/traced back to an individual company or person.  For the cases where it is required, it is handled by outside companies (who are then liable - hopefully...) or it is really locked down and has several layers of very narrow controlled access.

 

 

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50 minutes ago, madmole said:

Right there is no disputing the value of them, but we're gearing our efforts towards progression so the last one needs the least amount of priority right now. We have a new tagging system to make sure there are enough tier x within a reasonable distance of a trader. I will do a T5 if I have to, but I prefer the smaller ones.

It is not about there being no T3s or T4s near the trader, I get them offered at the right stages. But once you have unlocked T5s, those T3 and T4 are not offered anymore. Even though they clearly are inside reasonable distance to the trader since they were offered before (and haven't moved 🙂).

 

It may simple be that there are so many T1 and T2 that by randomly picking them T3s and T4s are seldomly seen !?

 

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1 hour ago, Roland said:

Starting with A19 they will have the means to see what regular players are doing with the stable build and not just internal testers and ultra-fans are doing with the experimental build. So they will be able to track gameplay of those who play to Day 1000ish if they want. I suspect they will be much more interested in those who play to Day 100ish though. :) 

 

For Alpha 20 and onwards Joel will be able to give actual percentages and we will find out whether our preferences are held by the majority or just the fringe. Do we really want to know....?

I hope they'll make telemetry optional... otherwise they'll have to rename it "Trojanmetry" lol

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4 hours ago, madmole said:

We are planning some infestation quests which add more zombies and raise a tier though, so a 4 could become a 5 if its infested.

 

Do you have any other plans for quests that you can share?

If you build great tools for moders to keep adding quest lines, it would vastly increase the game length. The game already looks like Fallout on steroids. Getting some quality story on it would be killer!

 

It would be cool if it was possible for quests to take players to instances. Like there could be a custom starter island where you wake spawn and have to do bunch of tasks to build a boat so you can get to the main (random gen) map.
Or ppl could build really cool little custom instance maps with a cool side stories that you can enter through a quest. This way you can add new quests even to a old map without having rely on a certain location being spawned there.

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What Quantum said. The telemetry is going to be gathered using a 3rd party service and it is only game data in large generalities. They are not going to be able to look and see that Snowdog spends 90% of each day at the Booby Trap. Instead they might be able to see whether the Agility Tree is used or largely ignored by most people.  It is trends. No personal info is going to be collected by TFP afaik. The company they are using most likely scrubs anything private or that could be traced to one specific individual. As for opting in or out I have no idea. You can opt in and out of EAC which is another 3rd party tool TFP uses so...maybe?

 

I'm sure that there will be more information given on this once the official announcement is made. Joel has been talking about telemetry coming but there hasn't been any kind of an official press release yet on who TFP is partnering with nor specifics on opting in or out, etc.  That will come at some point and then we can decide how Orwellian it is.

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20 minutes ago, Roland said:

What Quantum said. The telemetry is going to be gathered using a 3rd party service and it is only game data in large generalities. They are not going to be able to look and see that Snowdog spends 90% of each day at the Booby Trap. Instead they might be able to see whether the Agility Tree is used or largely ignored by most people.  It is trends. No personal info is going to be collected by TFP afaik. The company they are using most likely scrubs anything private or that could be traced to one specific individual. As for opting in or out I have no idea. You can opt in and out of EAC which is another 3rd party tool TFP uses so...maybe?

 

I'm sure that there will be more information given on this once the official announcement is made. Joel has been talking about telemetry coming but there hasn't been any kind of an official press release yet on who TFP is partnering with nor specifics on opting in or out, etc.  That will come at some point and then we can decide how Orwellian it is.

I can see the Steam threads now... " They should just rename the game to 7 Ways to Spy"  ... 🤣

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2 hours ago, mr.devolver said:

It's not just experimental build, I'm playing on stable and still testing. I'm testing the mods and restarting the world often, so while I do play quite a lot, I'm not really getting too far in game to actually reach T5 quests. The farest I got was T3 when I was testing. I think the data would be much better if they could filter out modded games. They would probably have much lower amount of data overall, but in the same time the data collected would have much better coverage of vanilla experience, which is what they are after if I'm not mistaken...

You might be surprised how many play unmodded.  I'm willing to bet thery are a larger % more then modded.

 

However, I bet those with the most hours logged are those that mod. 😂

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2 hours ago, Roland said:

I think it would be good if there is always one of each quest tier below the current tier you have reached. I hadn't considered the quality 6 reward you get for T5. That certainly is a strong incentive to do them multiple times under the current loot system.

Why not have it so, you can just pick whichever tier quest you are qualified for?

 

If you are only qualified for tier 1 quests? obv you can only get tier 1 quest to choose from.

 

If you are qualified for tier 2 quests?

You can get the tier 2 quest, plus able to choose any repeatable tier 1 quests.

 

You are qualified for tier 5 quests?

You can choose tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4, repeatable quest, along with the tier 5 quest.

 

Choose the quests you feel up to doing. Don't feel like doing the same set of tier 5 quests? choose a lower tier quest.

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23 minutes ago, Roland said:

That will come at some point and then we can decide how Orwellian it is.

So this is why console gets no updates, people on consoles probably can't be spied on that easily!

 

On a serious note though, I wonder how much impact will this telemetry have on game performance which as we all know has been giving more headaches to many players with each new Alpha version. If for nothing else, I think for this one reason people should be able to opt-out of it.

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2 hours ago, madmole said:

Right there is no disputing the value of them, but we're gearing our efforts towards progression so the last one needs the least amount of priority right now. We have a new tagging system to make sure there are enough tier x within a reasonable distance of a trader. I will do a T5 if I have to, but I prefer the smaller ones.

Please, please, please consider adding another Tier 5 quest or 2 to Navezgane. I play in a group and it's pretty much all we do, it's a ton of fun and we really love the rewards -- but I am tiring of the same 3 locations.

 

I understand it's a lot of development to add, but would it be easier to add the Higashi and Construction site as quests, since they already are on random gen? Even if they're not, a "clear" should be a lot easier to accomplish than making an entire new POI :)

 

I can only hope

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40 minutes ago, Worrun said:

Please, please, please consider adding another Tier 5 quest or 2 to Navezgane. I play in a group and it's pretty much all we do, it's a ton of fun and we really love the rewards -- but I am tiring of the same 3 locations.

 

I understand it's a lot of development to add, but would it be easier to add the Higashi and Construction site as quests, since they already are on random gen? Even if they're not, a "clear" should be a lot easier to accomplish than making an entire new POI :)

 

I can only hope

You want a mod for this?  I probably can crank it out pretty fast.

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7 hours ago, madmole said:

I'm not sure why you think people even play T5 quests, I don't they aren't worth 2 hours and 500 rounds of ammo IMO and create player fatigue. I stick to the tier 4's they take long enough. I think t5's are for MP groups. We're able to collect data now and see how many people actually bother with T5's, my guess is a very small percentage and our development bucks are much better spent on more T2s and 3's. T5's are so big they take forever to make too, one designer could make 5 pois in the time it takes to make one of those.

We are planning some infestation quests which add more zombies and raise a tier though, so a 4 could become a 5 if its infested.

Well, we don't play them because of the lenght. Starting a tier V should not trigger a horde when activated until 24 game hours after everyone can get out of the POI or fails the quest.

 

That way your experience is not dampered by the clock and you can do them as big as you want and as difficult as you want.

 

Another option is making them shorter but a lot more interesting, like you said. More POIs are always better than less, regardless of size. 

 

I love bigger POIs though. Higashi is awesome and the Fallout DLC feeling is always welcome. It just has to be interesting enough. Zombie after Zombie it's not. A mini storyline inside the POI? awesome sauce.

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1 minute ago, Blake_ said:

Well, we don't play them because of the lenght. Starting a tier V should not trigger a horde when activated until 24 game hours after everyone can get out of the POI or fails the quest.

 

That way your experience is not dampered by the clock and you can do them as big as you want and as difficult as you want.

 

Another option is making them shorter but a lot more interesting, like you said. More POIs are always better than less, regardless of size. 

 

I love bigger POIs though. Higashi is awesome and the Fallout DLC feeling is always welcome. It just has to be interesting enough. Zombie after Zombie it's not. A mini storyline inside the POI? awesome sauce.

Admit it, story is what this game needs. Everyone knows that. Generic quests like clear the area, fetch the misplaced satchel of this otherworldly unreliable courier for the millionth time are fine, but story and interesting NPCs that actually feel like they are a part of the world is what makes similar open world games feel more alive, much more immersive and realistic.

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2 hours ago, Laz Man said:

You might be surprised how many play unmodded.  I'm willing to bet thery are a larger % more then modded.

 

However, I bet those with the most hours logged are those that mod. 😂

Also will depend on how soon after an alpha is released vs prior to an alpha release.  In the former, there will be a lot more vanilla plays, in the latter, the % of modded plays will shoot up significantly (not saying it'll surpass the vanilla plays, just that it'll go up).

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2 hours ago, Tin said:

Why not have it so, you can just pick whichever tier quest you are qualified for?

 

If you are only qualified for tier 1 quests? obv you can only get tier 1 quest to choose from.

 

If you are qualified for tier 2 quests?

You can get the tier 2 quest, plus able to choose any repeatable tier 1 quests.

 

You are qualified for tier 5 quests?

You can choose tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4, repeatable quest, along with the tier 5 quest.

 

Choose the quests you feel up to doing. Don't feel like doing the same set of tier 5 quests? choose a lower tier quest.

Because then the game wouldn't have a linear gameplay that it seems to focused on.  C'mon Tin, that's sandbox talk!  😃

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2 hours ago, Tin said:

Why not have it so, you can just pick whichever tier quest you are qualified for?

 

If you are only qualified for tier 1 quests? obv you can only get tier 1 quest to choose from.

 

If you are qualified for tier 2 quests?

You can get the tier 2 quest, plus able to choose any repeatable tier 1 quests.

 

You are qualified for tier 5 quests?

You can choose tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, tier 4, repeatable quest, along with the tier 5 quest.

 

Choose the quests you feel up to doing. Don't feel like doing the same set of tier 5 quests? choose a lower tier quest.

I think that's what I said. It is what I meant to say. I agree with this.

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