A20 Developer Diary Discussions

[Roland]

Yeah...what a shame all of THIS isn’t part of the A20 developer diary.....

[The Gronk]

A straw man argument?  Dude, I expected better of you.

 

"Did IQ's just drop suddenly while I was away?"

Ripley - Aliens

[JaxTeller718]

I suspect a lot of people are taking issue not with the fact that conversations are moved, but we are at the end of our journey here, not the middle or the beginning.

It happens in every game. Eventually EA is over, additions are over. TFP have made clear they are interested in either a 7D2D2 or a new genre game. Which I am fine with. Id like to see what is next. 

The time for debates and suggestions and wishlists are over. They have a vision for their end game, and are implementing how much of it they can before calling it and moving to a new project. It is no secret I am unhappy with many of the changes these past few alphas but I still feel the game is miles above all others and if some of the changes seen were feature creep from a 7 Days 2 I am happy they drew a line and are finishing. Modders etc will take care of your wishlists. 

 

Long story short this was never going to last forever. They were eventually going to call a deadline, an end date. They were eventually going to move to development on a new concept. There was never a promise of lifetime updates.

[Roland]

It's not a strawman argument. It is a perfect example of the types of conversations that fill the developer diary if lefted unchecked. What should stay and what should go is also completely subjective. I take it you agree with me that these latest posts would not be appropriate for the dev diary since you referred to them as a strawman, but someone else will feel the vibe is gone if anything is removed and others will say that the last page of this thread is not really indicative of the usual community spirit that pervaded the developer diary in times of yore and others will feel that it was 90% this stuff and only 10% on topic information. And some will say sure get rid of stuff like this but be sure to leave stuff like that and others will think that anything they post is sacrosanct and if a mere moderator dares to move it he obviously has had an IQ drop while they were away....

 

No. It is simplest to keep it as primarily a "sterile" Q&A thread with occasional discussion that directly involves the developers. That being said, it all can be posted to be sure. There is no restriction on making jokes or posting your opinion on random forum guy's question or statement and nobody is getting infractions. It just isn't going to stay there. The developers do browse this thread and faatal even answered someone a few posts up so opinionated discussions can still happen and be used as the information it is by the developers if they want.

3 minutes ago, JaxTeller718 said:

I suspect a lot of people are taking issue not with the fact that conversations are moved, but we are at the end of our journey here, not the middle or the beginning.

It happens in every game. Eventually EA is over, additions are over. TFP have made clear they are interested in either a 7D2D2 or a new genre game. Which I am fine with. Id like to see what is next. 

The time for debates and suggestions and wishlists are over. They have a vision for their end game, and are implementing how much of it they can before calling it and moving to a new project. It is no secret I am unhappy with many of the changes these past few alphas but I still feel the game is miles above all others and if some of the changes seen were feature creep from a 7 Days 2 I am happy they drew a line and are finishing. Modders etc will take care of your wishlists. 

 

Long story short this was never going to last forever. They were eventually going to call a deadline, an end date. They were eventually going to move to development on a new concept. There was never a promise of lifetime updates.

 

Completely agree.

 

@Mordock summarized it perfectly with his Madmole multiquote meme. I suspect the old energy and excitement and vibe will resurrect once they officially announce their next project and start releasing information and people can once again give voice to their hopes and dreams about future TFP development and get hopeful and positive responses back from the developers. This game is just about done. You can talk about what you don't like but it isn't going to change anything and you can talk about what you want to see but it isn't going to go in this game. Back when Madmole answered every wish for the the future with "Yeah, I'd love to see that added" and "Probably not this alpha but we can get that into the next one" it WAS an exciting time.

[The Gronk]

Fair enough, apparently discussions about the state of the community are indeed unworthy of the developers attention.

Justify it how you like, I've been lurking for quite some time now and the strict rule system is what killed the vibe.

[Jost Amman]

58 minutes ago, The Gronk said:

Justify it how you like, I've been lurking for quite some time now and the strict rule system is what killed the vibe.

I'm sorry about that, really. But personally I'm not here for "the vibe", or metagaming, I'm here for info on development and some light conversation with other players on the game we all love.

[Roland]

2 hours ago, The Gronk said:

apparently discussions about the state of the community are indeed unworthy of the developers attention.

How?  Developers have access to this thread too. They aren’t limited in reading the whole forum. Only that particular thread is limited in scope now. After they read all this here maybe they will direct me to just let the dev diary go back to being Super General Discussions Thread. If they do then I will. 

Edited January 31, 2021 by Roland (see edit history)

[MechanicalLens]

4 minutes ago, Roland said:

How?  Developers have access to this thread too. They aren’t limited in reading the whole forum only that particular thread is limited in scope now. After they read all this here maybe they will direct me to just let the dev diary go back to being Super General Discussions Thread. If they do then I will. 

 

Won't someone think of the lurkers and the new players? I meant some sarcasm there but seriously, you're doing those folks a huge favor by dividing off topic discussions from the real information at hand.

[Blake_]

29 minutes ago, work3k7 said:

Just an idea, but how about having 1 or more electrical traps. ik you guys said you're mostly done, but i think a really good t3, or t2 electrical trap would be a high voltage tesla coil. that functions like an area denial system. if something walks in range it strikes them with a lightning bolt, and rebuild charge to strike again, the bolt could do significant single shot damage, and also stun or even knock zombies down, perhaps even make them smoke/smoulder a bit from the direct strike for a while after. upside is it would need a bunch of fancy animations, the electrical attack animation already exist. the tower itself would be a simple 2 or 3 block tall design. it would be an easy, but excellent choice of a new electrical trap. As for the second idea. How about a punji plate/wall it would look similar to a dart trap, but would instead shoot out 5 or 6 spears. stabbing targets 1 to 2 blocks in front or above it. also easy, and unique.

https://preview.redd.it/w95xdrlqt1401.gif?format=mp4&s=9f7170f81bdd84eba09ecefcea6a076e3a01a0ea

[Astronomical]

1 hour ago, MechanicalLens said:

I understand that RWG for A20 is probably in very early stages of development, but will a toggleable option be added where the player could spawn in the middle of the wilderness as we used to? Spawning on a road next to a town is great for new players, but I personally enjoy the journey of locating my first town on day 1. I would present the same "argument" if the player was guaranteed to always spawn 10 meters away from a trader.

 

I like this idea because it used to be fun wandering the rwg wilderness hoping to find a poi or town before nightfall. However you'd have to also drop the starting "locate the trader" quest or a wilderness spawn option wouldn't change much. There would still be an arrow pointing to your first town.

[MechanicalLens]

1 minute ago, Astronomical said:

 

I like this idea because it used to be fun wandering the rwg wilderness hoping to find a poi or town before nightfall. However you'd have to also drop the starting "locate the trader" quest or a wilderness spawn option wouldn't change much. There would still be an arrow pointing to your first town.

 

True, but I always delete the "Locate trader" quest at the beginning of the game after completing my starter quests. The trick is to not look at the coordinates.

[MechanicalLens]

So I found an exploit to locate every trader in the game. You get the special quest to locate the next trader and you accept it. Head in that direction and before you visit the trader compound you cancel the quest. The new trader will offer the same quest to locate a new trader. Rinse and repeat until every trader in your seed has been discovered.

 

Edit reason: error in instructions

Depends on RNG though. It might send you back to the trader you have already discovered.

TFP might want to look into this.

Edited January 31, 2021 by MechanicalLens (see edit history)

[The Gronk]

On 1/30/2021 at 10:55 PM, Roland said:

How?  Developers have access to this thread too. They aren’t limited in reading the whole forum. Only that particular thread is limited in scope now. After they read all this here maybe they will direct me to just let the dev diary go back to being Super General Discussions Thread. If they do then I will. 

I realise you're just following orders but such things are why I no longer work for other people.

 

This is an overflow area for things not considered relevant to the development.  It's literally an area set aside for irrelevant discussion.  placing or leaving anything in here denotes it as to be avoided by the devs so they don't have to search through crap for questions.  

 

Why would a dev come in here?  It took three weeks and me causing a stink to get poor fataal to come on and answer the relevant questions*.  TFP have needed a dedicated community manager for years, some millenial with a boy band haircut and a pair of permanent finger-guns to pull out questions and stuff that might interest the devs from the maelstrom.

 

I love you Roland but you're a bit too goadable for social media management.

 

*Do you think TFP have a system to determine which mechanics to completely rip out each alpha or do they just pick names out of a hat  🙂

[MechanicalLens]

3 minutes ago, The Gronk said:

Why would a dev come in here?  It took three weeks and me causing a stink to get poor fataal to come on and answer the relevant questions*.  TFP have needed a dedicated community manager for years, some millenial with a boy band haircut and a pair of permanent finger-guns to pull out questions and stuff that might interest the devs from the maelstrom.

 

That's funny. I hope you were joking there. I would never trust a millennial with something as grossly simple as washing the dishes, let alone managing a community.

[BFT2020]

51 minutes ago, The Gronk said:

Why would a dev come in here?  It took three weeks and me causing a stink to get poor fataal to come on and answer the relevant questions*.

I bet Fataal would love to answer questions all day.  Unfortunately he also has a ton of work on A20 right now so most of us are okay with him answering our questions when he has the free time to do so.

[The Gronk]

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

I bet Fataal would love to answer questions all day.  Unfortunately he also has a ton of work on A20 right now so most of us are okay with him answering our questions when he has the free time to do so.

I thoroughly agree.  If only there was a job title for someone who managed social media for the devs, passing messages back and forth in a clear and concise way.  Some sort of social media... manager?

2 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

That's funny. I hope you were joking there. I would never trust a millennial with something as grossly simple as washing the dishes, let alone managing a community.

Unfortunately not, if you're looking for someone too scared to lose their shot at "the big time" to argue back with forum rats then anyone over 30 has likely become too jaded and contrarian to do it, myself more so than others.

 

[MechanicalLens]

15 minutes ago, The Gronk said:

Unfortunately not, if you're looking for someone too scared to lose their shot at "the big time" to argue back with forum rats then anyone over 30 has likely become too jaded and contrarian to do it, myself more so than others.

 

 

Sorry, but in my book, experience comes first. But I suppose we can agree to disagree on that.

[Roland]

3 hours ago, The Gronk said:

This is an overflow area for things not considered relevant to the development.  It's literally an area set aside for irrelevant discussion.  placing or leaving anything in here denotes it as to be avoided by the devs so they don't have to search through crap for questions.  

 

Why would a dev come in here?

Who can guess why they click on any particular thread in the forums? But they do

read around and mostly lurk when they do other than posting in the dev diary.

 

3 hours ago, The Gronk said:

It took three weeks and me

 

Why give three weeks ANY credit....?

[Adam the Waster]

7 hours ago, n2n1 said:

this is better... i didn't like "glowing speederman"

Now i like three new models. Stripper, dog, and burnt.

Gaser/gazer ... or whatever his name is - it looks bad. The old "guy in the Hawaiian shirt" is nicer.

 

Why do these screenshots appear on the forum after the "social networks"? The developers do not consider the forum to be the main platform anymore?

thats cuz i find them first and post them. or someone else does. Madmole ill wait for my paycheck (dukes only)

Daddy needed a New Bicycle!

 

[Adam the Waster]

700 REACTIONS!




 

[SnowDog1942]

4 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

The amount of people spreading the false rumor online that Alpha 20 will be releasing within the next month or two is insane. Could any member of TFP staff confirm this is not true? Concrete evidence is needed if I'm going to clear this up with anybody so a direct quote would be nice.

Probably started with them hearing a target of “Spring” from a dev or dev stream.  Trust me on this one - NOT gonna happen.

Edited February 1, 2021 by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)

[MechanicalLens]

2 minutes ago, SnowDog1942 said:

Probably started with them hearing a target of “Spring” from a dev or dev stream.  Trust me on this one - NOT gonna happen.

 

Not to mention I've seen plenty of smaller creators (not going to mention names) all hinting at, "A20 is probably not that far off." Well, they're just setting themselves up for disappointment. *Shrug*

[The Gronk]

13 hours ago, Roland said:

Who can guess why they click on any particular thread in the forums? But they do

read around and mostly lurk when they do other than posting in the dev diary.

 

 

Why give three weeks ANY credit....?

As you and I both know the forum rats tend to get more rabid the longer the devs stay away.  Why do they get more agitated?  Largely because they don't know when, or indeed if, the next interaction will take place.

 

Keen Software House, for all of their flaws, had something good going with "Update Thursday".  Of course, being Keen, they tried to post regular game updates at the same time which was a horrendously stupid idea and gave me no end of amusement watching the same bug get fixed and unfixed on a regular basis.  Regardless of that, the weekly update thing was good, all it takes is a single sentence from each department about what they're working on, possibly the occassional amusing anectode.  Do that once a week on a regular day and it'll help the community feel more included and less like a puppy with separation anxiety.

 

This would likely make your job much easier and slow down the rate of posts being shovelled out of the way.

[JCrook1028]

2 hours ago, The Gronk said:

This would likely make your job much easier and slow down the rate of posts being shovelled out of the way.

So would posting in a relevant thread. Moderation comments and how they are handled is NOT relevant to a development thread... You're proving the point more and more each and every off topic comment you make in this thread.

[MechanicalLens]

1 minute ago, JCrook1028 said:

So would posting in a relevant thread. Moderation comments and how they are handled is NOT relevant to a development thread... You're proving the point more and more each and every off topic comment you make in this thread.

 

Agreed. At this rate a new thread should be created that specifically holds criticisms against moderators and the dev team. The thread would be nicknamed "trash".