Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Doomofman]

47 minutes ago, danielspoa said:

technically you are not wrong 😐

I dont remember the usual time gap between the announcement and the streamer weekend actually happening, like.. 2 weeks?
the announcement of the exact date I mean

*before someone asks, they didnt announce a date yet. Im just curious as for how long I can be sure its not happening 😁

 

From the looks of the A19 thread on here it was announced literally the day before so on the Thursday of that week. I assume the streamers knew in advance of that though

[Gazz]

Well, streamers are gamers, too, but adult-ish.

It's okay to tell them in advance as far as possible. =P

[Matt115]

15 minutes ago, Gazz said:

Well, streamers are gamers, too, but adult-ish.

It's okay to tell them in advance as far as possible. =P

Streamers are reason why YT fall- damn i miss times when only you could find gameplays and longplays - no stupid commentary "jokes" etc

32 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

 

Lets talks about this. You post a few arguments why the discussion above should not continue and I will bring up totally sound arguments against that. I'm sure we can get a string of posts going at least as long as the one above.

 

Honestly this discussion was better that usually 5 pages about change few stats in logs

[faatal]

5 hours ago, khzmusik said:

 

That's about half of the number of MF bugs that were around last week, and that's very good news. Considering most bugs take at least developer day to complete in most companies, that's very quick work.

 

I would be happy if we got A20 as an XMas gift, but the signs point to it being released long before then. Noice!

And you have to consider how many people those bugs are distributed across. Those 14 are across 9 devs with no one having more that 3. 1 is mine and it is not even a bug, but wanting some AI behavior improvements. I do have several other non-MF bugs I want to look at before exp, like sky on clients not syncing to current weather sometimes.

[meilodasreh]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

 

Lets talks about this. You post a few arguments why the discussion above should not continue and I will bring up totally sound arguments against that. I'm sure we can get a string of posts going at least as long as the one above.

 

 

for Lathan's sake?

[JCrook1028]

7 hours ago, Blue mame said:

I’m pretty sure the number of players is decreasing since the server cannot support more people

Funny then how the number of players keeps growing.

[Matt115]

26 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

 

for Lathan's sake?

THIS WILL NEVER ENDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO KNOW CAN STOP THE TRAIN

[Blue mame]

30 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

Funny then how the number of players keeps growing.

That's because of global language support and updates that equal reset each time

 

We can learn from the number of continuous online players after the update that if the server supports more players, the sustainability will be higher, and if the number of players supported by the server is small, death will be accelerated.

 

When a large open world is formed, it will attract more players who do not belong to this field to join. This is due to human psychology. As usual, most people's opinions are often correct. Obeying the majority is generally good.

 

The factors affecting herding behavior are mainly as follows
Group factors: large group size, strong cohesion, consistency of group opinions, etc., all tend to make individuals have herd behavior.

 

Many online games in our country are not fun, but there are many players. This is the psychological effect. More evolution is not determined by a line, but more by others.

 

Sorry, when it comes to psychology, we have deviated from the main discussion!

[mstdv inc]

Are there any statistics at least as a percentage: How many people play solo, co-op, and servers?

[Roland]

8 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

@Roland BTW: the "Oh man!" reaction is missing... 

 

There will never be enough reactions for you Jost… lol

[Blue mame]

33 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

Are there any statistics at least as a percentage: How many people play solo, co-op, and servers?

 

More than 60% multiplayer online in our country

 

That is, more than 6 of 10 people are in multiplayer online

[mstdv inc]

4 minutes ago, Blue mame said:

 

More than 60% multiplayer online in our country

 

That is, more than 6 of 10 people are in multiplayer online

I'm not interested in non-official statistics.

[Blue mame]

5 minutes ago, mstdv inc said:

I'm not interested in non-official statistics.

The official statistics should be higher. I count the players of the cracked version, because the players of the cracked version can only play stand-alone.

[Matt115]

Strange question but... UMA is going to be cutted right? but a lot of modders using it so my question is: are we get "alternative' tool similiar too UMA?

[Blake_]

4 hours ago, faatal said:

And you have to consider how many people those bugs are distributed across. Those 14 are across 9 devs with no one having more that 3. 1 is mine and it is not even a bug, but wanting some AI behavior improvements. I do have several other non-MF bugs I want to look at before exp, like sky on clients not syncing to current weather sometimes.

No biggie. Everybody is on edge due to the Hype train, but it's pretty obvious that you guys are busting your butt off fixing bugs, even on weekends. And I'm pretty sure very few of those bugs are "funny" to look at and/or fix. Tedious grinding against sneaky issues. I hope you get to do some fun features soon enough. It's always Christmas when the Lead Programmer unveils a new feature. Raft a nice week !

[Guppycur]

3 hours ago, Matt115 said:

Strange question but... UMA is going to be cutted right? but a lot of modders using it so my question is: are we get "alternative' tool similiar too UMA?

We already do; we can attach prefabs to bones.  The only thing that's hard to do now is add *player* clothing. 

 

...the biggest advantage of UMA at the moment is using game assets, thus making the mods server side.  That will be going away, BUT, in the long term it won't matter.

 

My two cents.

[Matt115]

21 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

We already do; we can attach prefabs to bones.  The only thing that's hard to do now is add *player* clothing. 

 

...the biggest advantage of UMA at the moment is using game assets, thus making the mods server side.  That will be going away, BUT, in the long term it won't matter.

 

My two cents.

I think it will matter a lot- well (except mod importing and using models from diffrent games ) perhaps every mod adding new types of zombies is using UMA  

Edited November 14, 2021 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[Guppycur]

14 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

I think it will matter a lot- well (except mod importing and using models from diffrent games ) perhaps every mod adding new types of zombies is using UMA  

No, server side only mods that add "new zombies" are using uma to do it; a far cry from every mod.

 

Client mods that do it are actually adding new entities; new models and animations... and I dare say more additional zombies are added this way than the Uma way, which actually just adds pieces of vanilla meshes to vanilla zombies.

 

At any rate, my statement still stands, we can add pieces to existing zombies without UMA already using the attach prefab ability, so the only real changes when we lose UMA are losing server side only "new" zombies which will be made moot later in development, and we will then have ADDED the ability to more easily change the player models.  Something right now, is very very difficult to do.  So difficult no one does it much. 

[Matt115]

11 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

No, server side only mods that add "new zombies" are using uma to do it; a far cry from every mod.

 

Client mods that do it are actually adding new entities; new models and animations... and I dare say more additional zombies are added this way than the Uma way, which actually just adds pieces of vanilla meshes to vanilla zombies.

 

At any rate, my statement still stands, we can add pieces to existing zombies without UMA already using the attach prefab ability, so the only real changes when we lose UMA are losing server side only "new" zombies which will be made moot later in development, and we will then have ADDED the ability to more easily change the player models.  Something right now, is very very difficult to do.  So difficult no one does it much. 

Well i hope you are right because "new zombie types" type of mod is most important for me

[Guppycur]

3 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Well i hope you are right because "new zombie types" type of mod is most important for me

Grab the creature pack and enjoy ...

 

A20 ideas have been flowing, as well; xyth (main creature guy) has had "jiggle tech" for a while now.  And no, I'm not saying the pimps stole his idea, calm down people, I'm merely pointing out that jiggle tech isn't a new concept for some modders. 

 

Are these client side mods?  Yes.  Will that matter later on in development?  No.  Not very likely. 

 

Bottom line is that uma going away isn't a huge deal imo.  Also, even though the players won't be uma and the support for uma is going away, I doubt the functionality of it is going to be removed to the point where modders can't still abuse it. 

[Blake_]

Let's hope that we don't get all the npcs with the same 5 faces. The character creation system needs a BIG pass to allow for that in the core game. At this point, it might be too late for Zds in vanilla though, a real pitty. Maybe clothing colour swaps? We wouldn't want a Darlene with the Fat Cops' face amirite?

[Guppycur]

I'm using a system where a single character generates and through the event system the game decides randomly what they are wearing, their hair style, etc... Even on the laptop with 50 entities I see minimal fps drop.  Memory usage is a bit higher of course, but one model using a lot of combinations for looks works well.

 

Mind you, this is recorded on a laptop with no space left enough for even a page file so the video quality and stuttering are related to that.

 

https://youtu.be/_3ohMgrCNHA

...and before everyone jumps in about seeing the items spawn in, that's just a timing issue that can be resolved.  This is a proof of concept.

[Scythe-Messiah]

11 hours ago, TSBX said:

Don't worry guys, the QA team is working tirelessly to find more MF bugs.

Seriously appreciate all the detail work you guys do. Good data reporting = better decision-making and more efficient use of time. As much as people are clamoring for a release, much rather you guys have time to find those show stopper bugs and the smaller bugs that wreck immersion -- like the first person hand model desyncing from weapon models. 

 

@faatal Would you happen to know if the Physician perk is shared with the done and its heal? I haven't seen any information on it in any of the streams. If it's not implemented yet: is it planned, not planned, separate planned interactions, or is it just not considered yet? I'd really love to see the "Medical healing items heal 25%/40%/55%/75% more health over time" apply to the drone's heal (or even just a reduced portion or reduced drone heal cooldown). It'd be a really cool option for co-op support folks who aren't the best at gunplay but want to contribute -- provided you guys can work out an agreeable balance on it. Secondary question is does drone heal currently confer XP gain to the owner when applying bandages to self/friends? And if so, does the Physician perk's XP bonus also apply to the drone's heal? 

 

Lastly, while thinking about the physician perk: It'd be great to see the perk reduce time needed for healing a splinted broken arm/leg just enough so your friends will bother the physician to make a house call before horde night.

[MechanicalLens]

2 minutes ago, Scythe-Messiah said:

Lastly, while thinking about the physician perk: It'd be great to see the perk reduce time needed for healing a splinted broken arm/leg just enough so your friends will bother the physician to make a house call before horde night.

 

The Healing Factor perk already does this.

[Scythe-Messiah]

2 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

The Healing Factor perk already does this.

Correct. While it's a great perk, it only impacts the player who took it.

 

I'm thinking more about the player applying the benefit of their perk. Though honestly, I've mostly done SP recently. I can't even recall trying to use a splint on someone else in recent memory.