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Alpha 19 Dev Diary


madmole

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I just binge-watched the first 4 dev streams. I've been waiting for these kind of update for years (especially the redoing of the lighting/color space). It's just wonderful. I just hope the performance is not worse like in every update before. But there is 2 things I wanted to see improved that didn't happen sadly:
1) In the third stream where they show the new textures all looks great but the ground textures (at 00:37:00) look even worse (low quality) than before next to the new beautiful hight quality textures. They look kinda blurry and it seams as if there are no bump/normal maps on them. It's especially bad when there are rocks drawn on the texture but are flat and look like drawn rocks not real one.
2) I really like pistols. I am crazy on that topic. They're my favorite weapons in every game. I've always hated the pistol (normal pistol, not 44magnum)  animations (idle, walk, run, fire, reload (the reload is kinda OK in A19)) in 7DaysToDie. Especially when some of the other weapon have so good animations. I've always thought that the animators just hadn't had time to redo them. But now as I'm seeing the new animations I think that they either don't know how to create satisfying looking pistol animations or that their style is very different from all the other games and is not to my liking at all. I like the pistol animations in pretty much every other game (AAA: Doom, Apex Legends, Wolfenstein: The New Order / The Old Blood, Far Cry, Any Battlefield, Any Call Of Duty, Crysis, Borderlands (2,3), Counter Strike (Source and later but even 1.5-1.6) and even Dying Light which is primarily a melee game; Indie: Rust, PUBG, etc.) but in 7DaysToDie it feels really bad and stiff. Well I guess I'll have to figure out if I can insert new hand animations at runtime with DMT.

3) And why the guns are still so close to the screen? Wasn't this change made to cover the ugly hands model? Now that the hands have been redone I see no reason for why the gun has to be so close to the screen. This kinda makes the pistol animation look even worse.

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reading the comments on YT made me happy Im not the only one concerned about the combat music. It doesn't fit with the suspense theme inside the skyscraper, and it seems more repetitive than others. Its also loud as hell compared to everything else.

I want to emphasize I liked the other themes, and that suspense was like my 10/10.

Hope you consider this feedback, allowing a few changes through xml. ;)

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2 minutes ago, danielspoa said:

reading the comments on YT made me happy Im not the only one concerned about the combat music. It doesn't fit with the suspense theme inside the skyscraper, and it seems more repetitive than others. Its also loud as hell compared to everything else.

I want to emphasize I liked the other themes, and that suspense was like my 10/10.

Hope you consider this feedback, allowing a few changes through xml. ;)

How about wait until u try it first.  Lathan upped the volume during the stream so people could hear it.  He also increased the frequency of the music so may not feel so out of place on default settings.

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1 minute ago, Laz Man said:

How about wait until u try it first.  Lathan upped the volume during the stream so people could hear it.  He also increased the frequency of the music so may not feel so out of place on default settings.

I saw both. Im comparing volume using same settings, feel free to check the video and see when it changes themes on the fly.
Also, if we were to wait for the actual release to comment this thread would have zero feedback. We are here to discuss the features of A19 unless I misunderstood it. And lets be honest, between gameplay, graphics, sound effects and music, the last one has the most realistic representation in stream of what we will experience when playing the game.

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4 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

How about wait until u try it first.  Lathan upped the volume during the stream so people could hear it.  He also increased the frequency of the music so may not feel so out of place on default settings.

That's a good point. I found the combat music to be a little discordant. How often I hear it will definitely impact whether it turns into an annoyance.

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3 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Good Afternoon MM, are you HYPED for the release?!?  Think the release notes will be out today?

 

I really enjoyed your stream with rick and lathan.  It was cool to see both you and rick tag team that safe at the beginning despite your obviously different playstyles and skills.  I hope the game is still very much how you both envisioned it (or more) many years ago over thanks giving dinner. :)

 

My brother and I have many different things different between us but gaming is that one thing that we can enjoy together.  Especially 7d2d.  We are anxiously waiting to update our rented server and see what new experiences we can have together. :)

Yes, the notes are out :) Each alpha is a step closer towards the vision. It was great fun playing with Rick and Lathan and it uncovered a few holes we patched up in the loot progression.

I nerfed the tier 1 quest rewards to exclude weapons, tools and armor. I'm on day 2 now and its a real struggle, I just have a blunderbuss and crude LQ armor bits. I'll have to push through 10 quests to advance and that will take me a week probably since I'm not getting a good firearm to speed things up. I'm excited for that early game to be about a week long instead of a half a day which can happen with too good of quest rewards. While this wasn't the perfect fix, it will work for A19 while we develop a proper scaled trader inventory and quest reward system to match the new slow loot progression.

Its really all about progression and this version is going to be pretty good I think.

I'm glad you and your brother can game together. It warms my heart when I hear how 7 days brought people together.

1 hour ago, fragtzack said:

Ok, 7D2D did add better modding support with a17. In particular, the XPATH system does allow overrides instead of whole XML pushes. 

 

I did some modding with a16 and have not kept up to date. 

 

Still, hope 7D2D is not done adding more modding support. The XPATH system is a good start. 

 

Growth areas for modding support:

 

1. Steam Workshop

2. Versioning dependacies enforecement

3. Selection of mods "in game main menu" not before the .exe is launched

    --Think of the way Rimworld and other games do this: If played selects a mod in game, these games force a reload of the .exe

4. Some sort of per mod / modlet logging structure without requiring writing .dll 

Mods are off topic here. We'll add mod support when the game goes gold. Said this 1000000 times. Considering your intimate knowledge I'd think you would know this BASIC fact.

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3 hours ago, faatal said:

I've watched most of our streams. Saw the standing.

AI standing deaths are must fixes that I've been working on this week:

Fixed SDTD-11108 Zombies left standing after death for clients (Fixed server controlled entities (turrets) not sending damage they cause to the client that owns them).
Fixed SDTD-13118 Zombies can stand after death (after falling) (Added death check for CanFall and SetFallAndGround func, which StartDeathAnimation calls to clear fall).
Fixed SDTD-13121 Spider zombies can be standing after being killed (Fixed leg crippling turning spiders into walk type cripple).

Wow, that is impressive, thank you very much ! 

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2 minutes ago, danielspoa said:

excuse me the stupid question, the keys streamers will be giving are for the game itself or for the alpha access this weekend?

its just for the code to enter the alpha.

 

kinda like a beta....... wished i got one

 

Just now, SnowDog1942 said:

Patch notes are out?? Nice!!

 

Time to print out the notes and rub them on my body in the tub,   In candlelight!

Ill eat them with salt and Orange juice!

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