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Alpha 19 Dev Diary


madmole

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8 minutes ago, rivle said:

That’s very unfair. Nitrogen is a great tool and a lot better than the ingame one. It was updated 2-3 hours after release of A19 EXP and it still worked very well. What do you expect? No bugs 2-3 hours after release?

nitrogen at least good due to the fact that the world can be finely adjusted. At the moment, it is much better than the standard RWG. I think the game generator will never be better than nitro, since initially the goals are set different.
Perhaps for someone this is a disaster)) but not for fans of the game.

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8 minutes ago, rivle said:

That’s very unfair. Nitrogen is a great tool and a lot better than the ingame one. It was updated 2-3 hours after release of A19 EXP and it still worked very well. What do you expect? No bugs 2-3 hours after release?

I think the point he was making is, its not without it flaws either...

1 minute ago, custom_hero said:

nitrogen at least good due to the fact that the world can be finely adjusted. At the moment, it is much better than the standard RWG. I think the game generator will never be better than nitro, since initially the goals are set different.

Will just have to wait an see.  Given the proper attention, I think the devs can surpass what Nitrogen has to offer as far as flexibility. They definitely have more resources to do so.

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9 minutes ago, rivle said:

That’s very unfair. Nitrogen is a great tool and a lot better than the ingame one. It was updated 2-3 hours after release of A19 EXP and it still worked very well. What do you expect? No bugs 2-3 hours after release?

You should have read my whole comment (where I said it is a great tool). As it stands in the state of experimental and experimental version of Nitrogen, you're better off just sticking with the in-game gen to avoid major bugs that'll just ruin a playthrough.

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48 minutes ago, madmole said:

You just said yourself that it has more issues than we have, yet wonder why we aren't inspired? Like I said all hands on deck to get RWG fixed for A20. Its a complex problem with a lot of interacting systems with future plans you guys aren't even aware of. You can't just copy/paste stuff and have it work, it has to be developed with all the features you need in mind, and integrated with all the game systems. For the record I'm not a fan of middleware, mod ware, etc. It just never works out when you have a seriously customized engine you licensed... Unity doesn't give out source and if you do change it after licensing it, you basically are saying no more new unity updates for us, or a difficult merge. So its best to just code our own things.

Wise words. What are those future plans and when can I buy them ? [insert "when it's done" here]

 

So far so good with a19. The content isn't nearly enough to keep us entertained until December though. 

 

 

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39 minutes ago, custom_hero said:

 

 

39 minutes ago, custom_hero said:

universal answer. 
Do you think it is possible to add graphic settings to the game, the level of color saturation, from black and white to rich, as it is now? Like in dying light.
I dont like the texture of ground in the desert. colors are too rich. The desert is just red.  let's say I would set the saturation to 70-80% and everything in the game would look great

those who read this, what do you think about it?

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3 minutes ago, Blake_ said:

Wise words. What are those future plans and when can I buy them ? [insert "when it's done" here]

 

So far so good with a19. The content isn't nearly enough to keep us entertained until December though. 

 

 

Give the community some time to keep you busy :) I have some stuff cooking but lets people enjoy vanilla A19 for at least a week shall we? LOL

 

Honestly, I think everyone should play vanilla at least one full playthrough before they even look at mods.  It allows you to feel how the game has changed especially when it comes to balance.  Hard to do that when everyone is running to the mod forums and loading stuff up right away...

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1 minute ago, Laz Man said:

Give the community some time to keep you busy :) I have some stuff cooking but lets people enjoy vanilla A19 for at least a week shall we? LOL

I don't know if I shall give you "poop" or "knuckle rub". Oh, the choices ! 

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16 minutes ago, Jugginator said:

You should have read my whole comment (where I said it is a great tool). As it stands in the state of experimental and experimental version of Nitrogen, you're better off just sticking with the in-game gen to avoid major bugs that'll just ruin a playthrough.

I read your whole comment. My point was only we should just give mod developers some time after a new alpha release before we judge them.

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1 hour ago, wolfbain5 said:

uhm comparing questing in here to skyrim is foolish. skyrim doesnt have a time constraint that leads to horde night. early game, 1.7 km is almost a day away. then do the questing and almost a day back. that is alot of time away spent mostly traveling early on. most level 1's should be under 1 km. perhaps even level 2's. I mean once you reach level 2, you are gonna be traveling far enough to find the next trader anyways

You are the one who brought it up. Like I said it's a work in progress and we will try to get closer distances by A20 for the t1s. By the time you get a vehicle it will be fine, if you think it's too far don't do them. Come back later and do the shorter ranged quests, and just do what you can.

Honestly I think it is more efficient to not do quests. One time I was really wanting a vehicle and a motorbike came up for sale at Rekt's and I was about 12k short with two days to earn it. At the rate I was earning doing quests there was no way I could make 12k in two days, so I just started looting everything near hiim and raised the money in a day and a quarter or so. The quest rewards are nice, but when it comes to flat out earning coin/loot/XP just smashing every POI as close to you as possible and selling everything you don't want is the most efficient way to play the game.

There is nothing we can do now, it will take a whole new alpha to change it. Your best bet is to ask around for seeds or just grind through it until you get a vehicle.

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1 hour ago, Ranzera said:

Lets not blow the distance out of proportion. 1.7km is about 2 game hours of sprinting naked and less than that if you're using roids or mega crush. The return trip might suck though, if you're encumbered. I agree that traders should probably try to prioritize a closer POI for one of their offered quests though.

 

I basically lost my entire first day because I spawned 2 km from my starting trader, I barely even made it in time before he closed. I spawned in, did my tutorial quests, then got the pop up and realized how far away it was and had to run the whole way, I only had enough time to loot a tiny bit along the way, like cars and part of one half opened house

 

Sounds like Madmole already acknowledged it's a problem though, by saying it will be fixed in a20 when the terrain generation is fixed. He's still ignoring my poor lack of Junk Parts early game though, leaving int builds with no week 1 weapon at all =(

 

I can an Iron Sledgehammer and iron tools on day 3, but need magical uncraftable parts that don't drop this early to make any of the weapons that actually scale with my attribute lol

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1 hour ago, Jugginator said:

Yep, just had a friend DM me about his RWG world issue that he was playing 4 hours on. He had duplicated POIs (i.e., two POIs merged into the same POI), some cave POIs that collapsed on him, lots of missing blocks with phantom block replacements, then told me it was made from the new Nitrogen update for 19. It's nifty and an awesome tool, but not perfect. Same as RWG, but at least it works functionally *shrug*

That is like buying a brand new car and tearing out the floor boards and engine so you can Flintstone around. I can't believe people want to subject themselves to mods on a new experimental.

59 minutes ago, custom_hero said:

universal answer. 
Do you think it is possible to add graphic settings to the game, the level of color saturation, from black and white to rich, as it is now? Like in dying light.
I dont like the texture of ground in the desert. colors are too rich. The desert is just red.  let's say I would set the saturation to 70-80% and everything in the game would look great

No, just let us finish the game before "thinking".

10 minutes ago, rivle said:

I read your whole comment. My point was only we should just give mod developers some time after a new alpha release before we judge them.

Yeah and do it somewhere else, so we can focus on A19 discussion. Mods are cancer when we're trying to sift through bugs and get our product stable.

6 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

 

I basically lost my entire first day because I spawned 2 km from my starting trader, I barely even made it in time before he closed. I spawned in, did my tutorial quests, then got the pop up and realized how far away it was and had to run the whole way, I only had enough time to loot a tiny bit along the way, like cars and part of one half opened house

 

Sounds like Madmole already acknowledged it's a problem though, by saying it will be fixed in a20 when the terrain generation is fixed. He's still ignoring my poor lack of Junk Parts early game though, leaving int builds with no week 1 weapon at all =(

 

I can an Iron Sledgehammer and iron tools on day 3, but need magical uncraftable parts that don't drop this early to make any of the weapons that actually scale with my attribute lol

You didn't lose anything, you wasted time looting a POI. I finish the tutorial before 8:30 AM and can run 2km in  2 game hours, so obviously you jacked around and blame us for your lack of focus when you could have been to the trader before noon easily.  :D

Where in the description does it say "must have junk parts in inventory" to use a blunderbuss, bow, or any other weapon you find? Obviously shotgun  and stealth builds have an advantage because you can get those weapons right away, but that could change in the future, until then embrace it and adapt. Use what you can find. I have robotic parts and I'm not to day 14 yet. I've scrapped a few brown batons too.

BTW, mining isn't going anywhere, I mine every game. I recall you mentioned this some time ago but I was too busy to reply.

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1 hour ago, madmole said:

You just said yourself that it has more issues than we have, yet wonder why we aren't inspired? Like I said all hands on deck to get RWG fixed for A20. Its a complex problem with a lot of interacting systems with future plans you guys aren't even aware of. You can't just copy/paste stuff and have it work, it has to be developed with all the features you need in mind, and integrated with all the game systems. For the record I'm not a fan of middleware, mod ware, etc. It just never works out when you have a seriously customized engine you licensed... Unity doesn't give out source and if you do change it after licensing it, you basically are saying no more new unity updates for us, or a difficult merge. So its best to just code our own things.

I've tried Nitrogen a few times to give my honest opinion about it, and while Vanilla RWG has its flaws (so does Nitrogen), I much prefer the more varied and unpredictable (aka replayable) towns that are found in vanilla. The towns in Nitrogen are almost cookie cutter, carbon copy, copy paste, and the majority of POI's that are found are outback POI's. (The only change in Nitrogen that I do agree with is that barns spawn outside of towns. Perhaps that could be something worth to consider in a future iteration of RWG in vanilla, maybe A20?) My verdict: like I said, vanilla has its flaws, but its far more polished than Nitrogen, and even though Nitrogen's terrain generations is astronomically more customizable, the decent RWG and the subjectively superior towns in vanilla keep me from trying Nitrogen evver again. Plus, I've always had a small amount of bias regarding interest of what the original devs cook up vs modders. 😛

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56 minutes ago, madmole said:

 

Yeah and do it somewhere else, so we can focus on A19 discussion. 

People completely disregard rules now days. I blame you for how bad its been. Since you opened up beta testing, they have been coming out of woodwork. Most obviously were not eligible with rules posted. Also Roland's fault for slacking.

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Here's an important question though. Was Lois Griffin from Family Guy the inspiration for the new zombie Darlene model? 😛

6 minutes ago, Dethar said:

People completely disregard rules now days. I blame you for how bad its been. Since you opened up beta testing, they have been coming out of woodwork. Most obviously were not eligible with rules posted. Also Roland's fault for slacking.

It is also human nature to find people to blame, even if the fault isn't entirely on them, if at all.

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14 minutes ago, Dethar said:

People completely disregard rules now days. I blame you for how bad its been. Since you opened up beta testing, they have been coming out of woodwork. Most obviously were not eligible with rules posted. Also Roland's fault for slacking.

Off topic. Lets move on now.

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1 hour ago, Khalagar said:

I basically lost my entire first day because I spawned 2 km from my starting trader, I barely even made it in time before he closed. I spawned in, did my tutorial quests, then got the pop up and realized how far away it was and had to run the whole way, I only had enough time to loot a tiny bit along the way, like cars and part of one half opened house

Posts like these get me in the mood to play a game where I avoid the trader for the first week just to prove that the game is completely playable without the trader. I like the trader but so what if the trader is 2 or even 3 km away? Why try and run the whole way at one go? Play nomad for 3-4 days staying in a different place each night until you eventually get to the trader. 

 

IMO, the game doesn't need to be fixed in this regard. If sometimes the beginning quest doesn't get finished before 12 noon of Day 1 so what? Same goes when spawning in to the game with friends. Why must we all start in the same place? I like it that way sometimes but I also like it when we have to survive individually for a day or two as we figure out where to meet. I remember when two of us were separated by a hub city and we would have to go the long way around to meet up.

 

I just hope this "fix" doesn't make every game the same.

 

Day 1:

Tutorial quest finished by 11am

Digging quest finished by 11:30am

Digging quest 2 finished by 12pm

Clear Quest finished by 1pm

Fetch Quest finished by 2pm

Digging Quest finished by 2:30

 

To me, this looks just like another way people are trying to push more speed running back into the game. I swear I can already expect the "The game is forcing me to run for kilometers all day long!" threads.....

 

Here would be MY fix:

 

No trader quest after the tutorial. Instead, on Day 3 you meet an NPC who is dying and he gives you the quest to the trader. That way you have to either find the trader on your own or just do without until you get the quest a few days later. This is a way better "story" to me than just do the tutorial and head straight over to the trader (who better be just over the next rise, btw). I think living on your own for a few days without getting into quests and the whole trader meta could be really good and if you happen upon him (like we used to have to do) then bonus but if not then at least you'll get some help in plenty of time before the first horde night.

 

I'm definitely ready to start over now and play no trader for the first 3 days.

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8 minutes ago, Roland said:

Posts like these get me in the mood to play a game where I avoid the trader for the first week just to prove that the game is completely playable without the trader. I like the trader but so what if the trader is 2 or even 3 km away? Why try and run the whole way at one go? Play nomad for 3-4 days staying in a different place each night until you eventually get to the trader. 

 

IMO, the game doesn't need to be fixed in this regard. If sometimes the beginning quest doesn't get finished before 12 noon of Day 1 so what? Same goes when spawning in to the game with friends. Why must we all start in the same place? I like it that way sometimes but I also like it when we have to survive individually for a day or two as we figure out where to meet. I remember when two of us were separated by a hub city and we would have to go the long way around to meet up.

 

I just hope this "fix" doesn't make every game the same.

 

Day 1:

Tutorial quest finished by 11am

Digging quest finished by 11:30am

Digging quest 2 finished by 12pm

Clear Quest finished by 1pm

Fetch Quest finished by 2pm

Digging Quest finished by 2:30

 

To me, this looks just like another way people are trying to push more speed running back into the game. I swear I can already expect the "The game is forcing me to run for kilometers all day long!" threads.....

 

Here would be MY fix:

 

No trader quest after the tutorial. Instead, on Day 3 you meet an NPC who is dying and he gives you the quest to the trader. That way you have to either find the trader on your own or just do without until you get the quest a few days later. This is a way better "story" to me than just do the tutorial and head straight over to the trader (who better be just over the next rise, btw). I think living on your own for a few days without getting into quests and the whole trader meta could be really good and if you happen upon him (like we used to have to do) then bonus but if not then at least you'll get some help in plenty of time before the first horde night.

 

I'm definitely ready to start over now and play no trader for the first 3 days.

I'm with you Roland.  Thanks for the great idea...meet you in the same bat channel to brain storm implementation...😀

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33 minutes ago, Dethar said:

Also Roland's fault for slacking.

I am wearing gym shorts most of the time these days and definitely NOT slacks.

 

I learned a long time ago that the chaotic crazy and emotionally charged time surrounding the big release day is best left to itself to run it's course. I don't even read everything but just skim and post a jab here and feint there. Madmole has dropped the hammer (again) on mod talk and non-A19 chatter so as long as we stick to discussing what we are experiencing with the new build we should be fine. 

 

So far both A18 and A19 have been extremely tame launches as far as public backlash over changes is concerned and for that I am grateful. In the past we have had epic gates over changes and A17 about killed me.... ;)

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10 hours ago, Blake_ said:

Seems like I speaked too soon. Performance is indeed a little bit  worse overall due to shadows.  They are better close to the player which impacts performance by a lot. I had to turn them off for the horde night and some POIs which is awful. 

Once turned off, the game runs way better ( +15 fps)  in every way. In a18 I had better performance AND shadows , so I wish there was another crappier option for shadows.

 

@faatal ,can we get  crappy updating shadows back as an option below  the usual "low" setting  ( the option would be shadows : simple/fast) for potato pcs and not so potato? 

 

I 'd love to have shadows back in some form.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Edit: Any option that optimizes the game on top of that one is welcome too, like fast reflections or less mapping textures for everything, who wants diffuse texture for cars anyway, uh?

I don't know if there is any lower shadow options worth doing. Enabling any type of shadows probably has a fixed amount of overhead.

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On a positive note, I successfully got our rented server up and running today on A19 exp. (8k RWG map).

 

I generated the map locally, did alittle editing of map via the world editor then copied it to the server.

 

My brother logged in for the first time this afternoon and I got to watch him via live discord stream since I was busy with the kids.

 

It was nice to see his reactions to the new lighting and HD zombies (steve, moe and the new crawler had him genuinely scared lol).  Oh man was his aim with the bow soooo horrible but I can tell he was enjoying himself...😅

 

The town he spawned in had the town hall POI as well as alot of new POIs he hasnt seen before.  Were already contemplating what POI we will fortify for horde nights....fun times ahead.

 

Edit: Our group is more on the casual side so I setup the only spawn point near a trader (500m)...😅

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