A20 Developer Diary Discussions

[MechanicalLens]

6 hours ago, KhaineGB said:

This actually really annoys me. One of the big arguments I see is "Oh well the zombies would perform better if it were on unreal." Or "Oh it'd look so much better on unreal..."

No. Not being a fully destructable VOXEL WORLD would help in both of those regards since it won't have to constantly recalculate nav meshes, distort meshes on player interaction, etc.

(Plz don't remove world destruction in this game, kkthx)

 

Try explaining the technical side of things to those that lack complete technical understanding as well as the unwillingness to try to understand. 😜

[Matt115]

13 hours ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

Try explaining the technical side of things to those that lack complete technical understanding as well as the unwillingness to try to understand. 😜

well people say good and wrong it this same time - well if it was on unreal it could work better but it is too late to change engine - so maybe 7dtd2 will be on unreal. but know better left it as it is. 

btw zombie would preform better if they will make a alphas thematical - like in a21 we will focused on zombie - 50 new variants, change in ai maybe change in gore effect , a22 - more types of ores , a22 venicles , a23 spam of new poi, a 24 water updated etc

[KhaineGB]

2 hours ago, Matt115 said:

well people say good and wrong it this same time - well if it was on unreal it could work better but it is too late to change engine - so maybe 7dtd2 will be on unreal. but know better left it as it is. 

btw zombie would preform better if they will make a alphas thematical - like in a21 we will focused on zombie - 50 new variants, change in ai maybe change in gore effect , a22 - more types of ores , a22 venicles , a23 spam of new poi, a 24 water updated etc

Completely incorrect. It would not work better on unreal at all.

It would work better with a complete code teardown and refactor. But that's a LOT of work, and not something I would expect TFP to do this late into the project.

[Gazz]

No, you don't casually port a game to a different engine. 😃

 

How an engine renders, animates, or even organises things in general can be very different. You don't just take all the content and plug it into another engine.

That only works when you make an ad for your engine. 😃

 

Was Unity the right choice? Probably - based on the goals of the KS campaign in 2013. That was a game with something like Quake 2 graphics. You would not even recognise this game as the current 7DTD.

[Matt115]

1 hour ago, KhaineGB said:

Completely incorrect. It would not work better on unreal at all.

It would work better with a complete code teardown and refactor. But that's a LOT of work, and not something I would expect TFP to do this late into the project.

i know? i'm saying if it was ported on ue not in to unity and i wrote it is to late now so I DON'T MEAN TO CHANGE IT NOW  please guys read all post not only a part

15 minutes ago, Gazz said:

No, you don't casually port a game to a different engine. 😃

 

How an engine renders, animates, or even organises things in general can be very different. You don't just take all the content and plug it into another engine.

That only works when you make an ad for your engine. 😃

 

Was Unity the right choice? Probably - based on the goals of the KS campaign in 2013. That was a game with something like Quake 2 graphics. You would not even recognise this game as the current 7DTD.

i mean : unity was better choice that stuck on old engine bu if it was ported on unreal instead unity could works better. but now it doesn't matter because we can't change past so we only can think "what if" .  well i have a question to you before i will tell about something else. could you and your team create a system for example to 7d2d 2 which will make random zombies like - diffrents colour of tshirt , give zombie hat or diffrent types of hair , diffrent jacket  variants or diffrent shoes ?

[JCrook1028]

21 hours ago, Matt115 said:

this was realeased in 2013 so people had... 8 years to buy?  ofc  a lot of people have on pirate version too but they are playing without buying so i don't count them. always 7dtd can get "fresh air" like the last stand to l4d2 like : 200 new pois ,50 variants of zombie etc - something so big that people in yt , news pages will talk about it

Ah I see, You invented them. Thx for letting us know you have nothing to back up your assertions.

[Matt115]

1 minute ago, JCrook1028 said:

Ah I see, You invented them. Thx for letting us know you have nothing to back up your assertions.

ok quick question : how long game is selling usually? you can find statistic about that . the best sell is in first month in the most situation or after big sale . well i'm sure that 5-15 guys buying after sales on steam for example company of heroes 1.  BUT it will not be like coh 3 - i'm sure that at least 1000 bought this game in preorder

[KhaineGB]

56 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

i know? i'm saying if it was ported on ue not in to unity and i wrote it is to late now so I DON'T MEAN TO CHANGE IT NOW  please guys read all post not only a part

i mean : unity was better choice that stuck on old engine bu if it was ported on unreal instead unity could works better. but now it doesn't matter because we can't change past so we only can think "what if" .  well i have a question to you before i will tell about something else. could you and your team create a system for example to 7d2d 2 which will make random zombies like - diffrents colour of tshirt , give zombie hat or diffrent types of hair , diffrent jacket  variants or diffrent shoes ?

I did read your post. I recommend reading my reply.

Doesn't matter what engine you use. What 7DTD is NOW, would not run better on UE. At all. Assuming it went through the same development process/stages.

[KindaCringe]

On 7/7/2021 at 11:44 AM, meganoth said:

 

Ah, the beta with the RWG overhaul. Lets call this a bug fix. 😁

 

and the vehicles mods are balancing fixes

? weird that you go futher into the fact that i said it was further in development as a Beta instead of Alpha game. You make my case even better lol. A game clearly in Alpha stage then, would have to have a lot more updates since the fact it is Alpha stage lmao

[KindaCringe]

On 7/15/2021 at 3:29 PM, Roland said:

You may be right. However, TFP doesn’t decide what to do next by polling the community. They decide what to do based on what they think is best for development and testing. 

i know, but a forum exists for writing opinions, so that's what i did

[KindaCringe]

On 7/7/2021 at 6:56 PM, Roland said:

 

The solution is to adjust your expectations to align with the reality of what the developers are doing because your expectations can't change a blasted thing. Leave the game alone for awhile and go play something else and then return. That is something you can control that can have a positive effect on your enjoyment of the game. There is no expectation from the developers that players must stay glued to this one game racking up 1000s of hours and burning out before the game ever reaches gold. If you are done with A19 then go do other things until A20 releases whenever that is and then come back. Their release schedule is their own and there is no feedback from anyone on earth not on their team that will make them change their schedule from what it is. 

what stupid thing is that? i bought this game when less then 6 months were between alphas. If they are suddenly going to take more than one year an update while saying their dev team expanded, then that's either laziness or there is something going on in the back we don't know. Normal devs release a roadmap so you know what to expect, but 2-3 twitter virgins gave them dead threats and now they are 'scared'?

[Matt115]

1 hour ago, KhaineGB said:

I did read your post. I recommend reading my reply.

Doesn't matter what engine you use. What 7DTD is NOW, would not run better on UE. At all. Assuming it went through the same development process/stages.

engine matter a lot- that's why source was always problem in the past because limits , performace etc but . if assuming everything being development this same probably work this same i can agree. but if they decided in the past to change not into unity but into unreal probably few thinks they would done diffrently - but there is nothing 100% sure

[KhaineGB]

That I can agree on. Like A16-A17. That was a BIG unity update that broke a lot of stuff.

If they'd switched over then, it probably would've made a difference as it'd be a clean code base.

[Gazz]

No, don't worry. TFP are not scared by comments such as yours.

[meganoth]

7 hours ago, KindaCringe said:

? weird that you go futher into the fact that i said it was further in development as a Beta instead of Alpha game. You make my case even better lol. A game clearly in Alpha stage then, would have to have a lot more updates since the fact it is Alpha stage lmao

 

I just objected to one of your claims. The other claim you made then was correct though IMO, there are expectations by (many) players that the time between alphas in EA is shorter.  Though there are no rules from Valve how EA is supposed to work, how long between alphas, how many alphas, ...

 

Quote

i bought this game when less then 6 months were between alphas. If they are suddenly going to take more than one year an update while saying their dev team expanded, then that's either laziness or there is something going on in the back we don't know

 

And here you are correct again, at least at the end: Yes, there is probably something going on in the back you might not know about. For example:

 

1) You probably don't know that at least the last three alphas took nearly a year. So what seems suddenly to you has been the norm for some time now

 

2) You probably didn't work as software developer, right? So here a few facts: The bigger a software project is the harder it gets adding features to it. Because inevitably there are a lot of cross dependancies all over the code base and adding one thing makes it neccesary to touch a lot of other places in the code. Changing old code makes it neccessary even for the writer of that code to first reread it to find out how it works in detail. Bug fixing gets more difficult for the same reasons.

 

3) Expanding the dev team is normal when a project increases in size. But it actually isn't a unproblematic fix, because any developer added needs someone to ease him into the code base so he is a liability at first. Then there are diminishing returns: Add one dev to a group and they spend 80% working and 20% coordinating among themselves. Add another dev and the group now spends 70% working and 30% coordinating (those are invented numbers, the principle is know in software development for decades). It is somewhat like the cores added to a CPU speed up the CPU less and less.

 

4) TFP added a lot of artists/designers to make more content like POIs or higher resolution graphics but good programmers seem to have been in shorter supply (according to TFP). Now designers can't help on the coding work or on the bug fixing, and bug fixing takes a long time now, each alpha now had ~2-3 months where we only heard about the number of critical bugs going down slowly.

 

 

Naturally TFP could have decreased the feature size of later alphas to make it appear as if each alpha took the same time as the previous one. But they apparently have a few habits that are not easy to break or a feature list with many big features not easily broken up. And releasing an alpha to the players is partly extra work that would interrupt the work on the big features. So they might not be so happy to change their routine.

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

5 hours ago, Gobarg said:

I'm interested to know how the Devs are liking/disliking the new building menu and if we can get a peak?

I think you meant a peek... unless you want to see the biggest mountains from the new RWG! 

[Gamida]

5 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Nice, but meilodasreh has already posted a pic of twin peaks...

 

[meilodasreh]

New hiker zombie confirmed for A20

 

[MechanicalLens]

4 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

New hiker zombie confirmed for A20

 

 

So did Trader Rekt finally go out of business and then got eaten by zombies?

[Boidster]

On 7/10/2021 at 1:36 PM, Fanatical_Meat said:

You have an awfully wrong shaped body if when looking down you only see the wrist to fingers of your hands. Perspective makes it seem like you eyes are in your chest.

 

DON'T BODY-SHAME ME BRO!

 

 

[meilodasreh]

4 minutes ago, MechanicalLens said:

 

So did Trader Rekt finally go out of business and then got eaten by zombies?

Probably he got robbed so he hadn't anything to sell left. 😁

 

Does anybody else find it weird that you can reach behind their desk and take their stuff? I mean you lockpick their safe while they stand there just staring at you?

works with

-Bob's safe (from the front)

-Hugh's safe (from the side) ...well he clearly deserves it 

-Joel's bookshelf

 

-Jen : no success so far...boobies too distracting

 

-Rekt : can't remember now, I usually don't drive that far south a lot

[doughphunghus]

 

25 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

New hiker zombie confirmed for A20

 

And the graphics for the hiker skin and terrain is very nice! It looks so real! I can’t wait!
 

 

(Probably should have included that above pic and not just left this as a bare comment/joke, just in case…)

Edited July 19, 2021 by doughphunghus (see edit history)

[MechanicalLens]

5 minutes ago, doughphunghus said:

 

And the graphics for the hiker skin and terrain is very nice! It looks so real! I can’t wait!
 

 

(Probably should have included that above pic and not just left this as a bare comment/joke, just in case…)

 

Agreed, I can't find a link anywhere to this "hiker zombie".

[JCrook1028]

23 hours ago, Matt115 said:

ok quick question : how long game is selling usually? you can find statistic about that . the best sell is in first month in the most situation or after big sale . well i'm sure that 5-15 guys buying after sales on steam for example company of heroes 1.  BUT it will not be like coh 3 - i'm sure that at least 1000 bought this game in preorder

You can't back up your claims with any data so instead you think I should have to show data to prove you wrong? That's not how it works buddy. Nice try inventing even more fake stats in your latest post tho. Some people never learn.

[Matt115]

45 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

You can't back up your claims with any data so instead you think I should have to show data to prove you wrong? That's not how it works buddy. Nice try inventing even more fake stats in your latest post tho. Some people never learn.

it doesn't need % . you can agree that in 2021 at least 75% more of kids wear shoes outside  in USA that in 1900. have i any data? nope but you can hear about it from people. 

more? i'm sure that more that 25% of people buying legal consoles ( on license ) that in 1990.  diffrent sitation? i'm sure that less that 45% kids are spanking in UE. this is illigal in this countries so parents won't tell yes even if they do it. so statitic can be false . if you don't belive on in look how much lepin or liego bricks you can find in internet. my point is : some things are sure : number of registed cars,  number of salt in water etc. but most thing only you can presume : like number of people who use drugs