Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[SnowDog1942]

5 hours ago, JamesKirk said:

Watch this video and rethink..

 

 

So far the very best water simulation I've ever seen.

 

Water IS this game though... its like saying Microsoft flight simulator has better flight physics and controls than the Gyrocopter in 7 days.   

[Syphon583]

5 hours ago, JamesKirk said:

Watch this video and rethink..

 

 

So far the very best water simulation I've ever seen.

I'm not a developer, so I am not disputing one way or another whether Unity is good with water, but you're comparing apples to oranges here. One is a simulation game where models flow through the water (from what I saw, water is not flowing dynamically), the other is a fully-destructible voxel world where the water is constrained to dynamically changing shapes.

 

From my understanding based on the comments from devs, water flowing is not impossible, but difficult. It sounds like water will "flow" or fill into available space, but then stop. Continual water flow is a different story. Rivers will not provide a continuous flow of water. The amount of water is finite.

[Morloc]

On 10/30/2022 at 10:30 AM, Roland said:

A city not visited for the timer length will completely reset. It’s an option so it can be disabled if you want your scavenged cities to remain emptied

 

Thankfully that can be turned off because it doesn't sound very 7D2D. I suppose I do like loot to respawn, after like a month or more. I justify that because wind/water/etc. can stir-up/uncover things you would have never seen before. Other survivors or even zombies may have discarded or lost things, or most important of all, the loot we see in a city is representative of piles of loot, and doesn't actually show every pile of trash/junk you'd find in an actual city. I'm also playing on 25% loot, so it's balanced on the front end. Would be nifty if the respawn was randomized with trash piles respawning sooner on average, and things like mailboxes/cars respawning over a very long time or never.

 

 

-Arch Necromancer Morloc

[meganoth]

15 minutes ago, Morloc said:

 

Thankfully that can be turned off because it doesn't sound very 7D2D.

 

It sounds very 7D2D in an "open multiplayer server with lots of players" kind of way. But even there I doubt a bit that it will be very beneficial because a full server will have players go almost everywhere in the space of 15 days. I would assume most server operators will set that parameter to less than 15 days.

 

Most players will just ignore this feature like they ignore the zombie-off option. As unholyjoe said it is default off as it should be.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Bert82]

Just had a quick question, if land claim blocks block the chunk from resetting, and you have your Home Base on a different chunk than your Hoard Base, then would you risk losing your Hoard Base during a chunk reset if you don't move your land claim block? 

 

If so, are multiple Land Claim blocks going to be a thing now? Or are we going to be tied to keeping our Hoard Bases in our Home Base location? 

[meganoth]

47 minutes ago, Syphon583 said:

I'm not a developer, so I am not disputing one way or another whether Unity is good with water, but you're comparing apples to oranges here. One is a simulation game where models flow through the water (from what I saw, water is not flowing dynamically), the other is a fully-destructible voxel world where the water is constrained to dynamically changing shapes.

 

From my understanding based on the comments from devs, water flowing is not impossible, but difficult. It sounds like water will "flow" or fill into available space, but then stop. Continual water flow is a different story. Rivers will not provide a continuous flow of water. The amount of water is finite.

 

One big problem with water flowing naturally into open spaces is that someone would have to define for the now thousands of blocks how permeable they are for water in what direction. And it even can depend on what block is adjacent.

I.e. a plate would not allow water through the plate but past it. And a plate with a hole would act differently if another plate behind it had the hole at the same or a different place.

 

Another is how to find out whether a water body is finite (like a lake, a puddle or a water tank) or endless like the ocean around a world or a river.

 

7 minutes ago, Bert82 said:

Just had a quick question, if land claim blocks block the chunk from resetting, and you have your Home Base on a different chunk than your Hoard Base, then would you risk losing your Hoard Base during a chunk reset if you don't move your land claim block? 

 

If so, are multiple Land Claim blocks going to be a thing now? Or are we going to be tied to keeping our Hoard Bases in our Home Base location? 

 

You have bedroll and LCB, so you can exclude two places even if nothing changes about LCBs

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Doomofman]

I see Guns, Nerds and Steel has an interview with Rick and Joel tomorrow on A21 and beyond. I wonder if this is the kickoff of A21 build up

[Laz Man]

Tune in, in about 3 hours from now.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Laz Man (see edit history)

[Doomofman]

There was some interesting info in info but it didn't answer the big question....

 

When are we getting A21 experimental?

[Laz Man]

4 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

There was some interesting info in info but it didn't answer the big question....

 

When are we getting A21 experimental?

 

Rick did mention he hopes A22 comes out around spring next year, barring no delays.  So sometime before that? 😄

 

*Goes back to POI land to finish updating POIs with all of the new art assets*

[POCKET951]

there goes rick saying if everything goes as plans A22 will be in spring 2023?

I will take that with a grain of salt, but I feel like we must be pretty close to A21 content lock/dev streams leading into the experimental release branch

[Fanatical_Meat]

55 minutes ago, Doomofman said:

There was some interesting info in info but it didn't answer the big question....

 

When are we getting A21 experimental?

He unintentionally kind of did.

he said (not a quote)

regarding A21 being last alpha not being likely because bandits probably won’t make A21. The he said there would be a short cycle to the next alpha maybe a few months between A21 and A22, he could imagine A22 in the spring because the scope of it would be limited.

Sounds like A21 by end of the year.

[KenGross]

that was a good watch thanks for the post!   hay with the new crafting system is there any chance we might get to craft tier 6 stone or iron tools?  

 

[Roland]

Really great interview. They answered a lot of questions regarding their design philosophy and their goals with the game. A lot of the anger from some people seems to go back to the idea that the community should have a voice in what goes into the game, what gets cut from the game, and what gets changed in the game. The developers were clear that these aspects of game development are not the domain of the community. The community is here to play what is offered and to give their feedback which will help with balancing and adjusting the fun-factor of the features TFP decided to make part of their game.

 

I understand that some may feel that development should operate differently than that model but now that the facts are known straight from Rick, himself, and not just me saying it over and over and over these past years we can have an end to people complaining that they never agreed to a change or that there should be a community poll to decide if a change should occur. That is never going to happen. The community helps through feedback after playing what is offered by the developers. Glimpses and reveals about what is upcoming is not to give the community a chance to change the devs' minds, it is simply to satisfy our curiosity about what is coming and give us time to acclimate how we will adapt to the new meta.

 

Another sore point over the years has been the lack of a public roadmap and they explained why they don't subscribe to that model even though they are fully aware that other game studios do it. That being said they did offer a few core features they see as critical for the full release launch of their game (and shortly afterward) and I have listed those on the first page of this thread. 

 

It was disappointing and a surprise to me to hear them say that bandits are not likely to make it into A21. I want to emphasize that it was a surprise to me because up until tonight it was close enough to go either way and it looks like they don't want to put in a partial unfinished version of them that isn't ready and so they are going to be in A22. I know this will cause reactions from the conspiracy theorists who say that bandits are smoke and mirrors and will never be in this game, to the streamer followers who predicted they would not be in A21 and will now gloat that they were always right, to the fans who still believe in bandits and trust that TFP knows best about when they are ready. I'm sure there will be lots of lively discussion on that count.

 

Finally, it was good to see them acknowledge their ongoing preparations for the console version and that they are aware of community desire for some kind of acknowledgement about the failure of the first title perhaps in the form of a discount of the new title by previous owners. They know that the community wants it and are willing to do it if they can get all stakeholders on board and a good methodology for making it happen. It was also good to hear that they are currently working on the console version as they also finish up the PC version.

 

Nobody believes Spring of 2023 for Alpha 22 right?   Lotsa knuckle rubs to Rick for saying that....

[Zombiepoptard]

I'm with Rick F*** Gold! I want the game to be baller. This game needs a lot of work and not just the basic stuff that are guaranteed for the game. Better combat being a big one and better RPG perk tree being the other. This ain't finished tell it's finished. Combat sucks in relativity to most games. More alphas baby!!!  

[Fanatical_Meat]

Some get googling and find the info Joel was talking about regarding their unannounced games.

I saw a video a while ago where they sort of leaked something but it wasn’t much.

 

[Zombiepoptard]

13 minutes ago, Roland said:

Really great interview. They answered a lot of questions regarding their design philosophy and their goals with the game. A lot of the anger from some people seems to go back to the idea that the community should have a voice in what goes into the game, what gets cut from the game, and what gets changed in the game. The developers were clear that these aspects of game development are not the domain of the community. The community is here to play what is offered and to give their feedback which will help with balancing and adjusting the fun-factor of the features TFP decided to make part of their game.

 

 

I think the community just wanted to hear from Joel and Rick to be honest. They've been distant and should re-affirm us on their plans for the game every once in awhile. 

[NekoPawtato]

I'd be curious what the benefits/perks to siding to each faction would be.

I recall reading somewhere (wiki?) that speculated the duke is responsible for the blood moon hordes/demolisher, so it wouldn't really make sense to me story-wise if you side with his faction and still get blood moon hordes thrown at you (could possibly debunk the theory that he's the one sending the zombies at you?)

 

Unless the other faction isnt necessarily the duke's faction? (I dont recall if they said in the interview who the other side was, only remember them mentioning white river)

Edited November 2, 2022 by NekoPawtato (see edit history)

[NukemDed]

wtf? where has @madmoles beard gone?

 

[Roland]

1 hour ago, NekoPawtato said:

I'd be curious what the benefits/perks to siding to each faction would be.

I recall reading somewhere (wiki?) that speculated the duke is responsible for the blood moon hordes/demolisher, so it wouldn't really make sense to me story-wise if you side with his faction and still get blood moon hordes thrown at you (could possibly debunk the theory that he's the one sending the zombies at you?)

 

Unless the other faction isnt necessarily the duke's faction? (I dont recall if they said in the interview who the other side was, only remember them mentioning white river)

 

Speculation. We don't know whether the zombies are being sent by the Duke or not. From the interview tonight it seems that the two factions are Noah and the White River Settlement and the Duke and his casino dwelling bandits. The story looks like it will be told and progressed using the quest system. In the original kickstarter, we were told the story would be progressed by finding notes that would lead to new notes. The quest system replacing that first proposal seems like good news and should make for a better story telling device-- not to mention that there would potentially be two stories to experience depending on which faction you decided to follow.

12 minutes ago, NukemDed said:

wtf? where has @madmoles beard gone?

 

 

It explains where all the empty jars went. One jar for each hair which is why there are none left for the game.

[Matt115]

17 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Tune in, in about 3 hours from now.

 

 

 

11 hours ago, Roland said:

Really great interview. They answered a lot of questions regarding their design philosophy and their goals with the game. A lot of the anger from some people seems to go back to the idea that the community should have a voice in what goes into the game, what gets cut from the game, and what gets changed in the game. The developers were clear that these aspects of game development are not the domain of the community. The community is here to play what is offered and to give their feedback which will help with balancing and adjusting the fun-factor of the features TFP decided to make part of their game.

 

I understand that some may feel that development should operate differently than that model but now that the facts are known straight from Rick, himself, and not just me saying it over and over and over these past years we can have an end to people complaining that they never agreed to a change or that there should be a community poll to decide if a change should occur. That is never going to happen. The community helps through feedback after playing what is offered by the developers. Glimpses and reveals about what is upcoming is not to give the community a chance to change the devs' minds, it is simply to satisfy our curiosity about what is coming and give us time to acclimate how we will adapt to the new meta.

 

Another sore point over the years has been the lack of a public roadmap and they explained why they don't subscribe to that model even though they are fully aware that other game studios do it. That being said they did offer a few core features they see as critical for the full release launch of their game (and shortly afterward) and I have listed those on the first page of this thread. 

 

It was disappointing and a surprise to me to hear them say that bandits are not likely to make it into A21. I want to emphasize that it was a surprise to me because up until tonight it was close enough to go either way and it looks like they don't want to put in a partial unfinished version of them that isn't ready and so they are going to be in A22. I know this will cause reactions from the conspiracy theorists who say that bandits are smoke and mirrors and will never be in this game, to the streamer followers who predicted they would not be in A21 and will now gloat that they were always right, to the fans who still believe in bandits and trust that TFP knows best about when they are ready. I'm sure there will be lots of lively discussion on that count.

 

Finally, it was good to see them acknowledge their ongoing preparations for the console version and that they are aware of community desire for some kind of acknowledgement about the failure of the first title perhaps in the form of a discount of the new title by previous owners. They know that the community wants it and are willing to do it if they can get all stakeholders on board and a good methodology for making it happen. It was also good to hear that they are currently working on the console version as they also finish up the PC version.

 

Nobody believes Spring of 2023 for Alpha 22 right?   Lotsa knuckle rubs to Rick for saying that....

 

To be honest : lack or public roadmap is... bad and they are wrong about that : if you know what will be exactly added into the game (song of conquest as example) you can be sure if this game if worth to buy or not. So things i think can be sure let's say - at least 40 types of zombie, 20 weapons , at least 200 POi's etc. If something is not 100% guarantee - they can wrote : possible features  - X,Z,Y. And... everyone would be happy about that.

 

Only problem with is this interview is about their next games - this sound like... how to say something and doesn't tell anything. You can say about everything - you sell car? " i hope that our fans will be excited about out future cars".  So... every company/  studio/filmaker/artist can say that people will be happy about next product/movie/whatever because if they like previous thing they will like this too. No this is nothing exciting. Exciting are specific informations

 

Rick told that " Big companies don't want do anything like 7dtd because it's too hard". No , there is diffrent simple reason. Stockholders. If you are Microsoft - why would make game similiar to minecraft? this would be inside competition bettwen this two games. Why sony don't want? simple - MS have MC so people would say that Sony what to create "new minecraft". CD Project? they are focused on RPG. Ubisoft? just stay alive.  EA? No option for monetisation of this game with microtransations. Activision - cod.

Sega? - story focused games mostly so that would be pointless for them - they have good IP. Techland - they want to be AAA company but they can't. Game like 7dtd would be just.... non optimal - too much costs and too small income. It's much more optimal just create dunno - another Cod, TES, fifa or Assasin creed

Joel told about new zombie i hope there will be new variants too because just buffs don't change anything. So this there would be "clone wars"

 

1 hour ago, Guppycur said:

Medieval.  Just a few of my prefabs; we have hundreds more now, this was a while ago.  

 

https://youtu.be/bODlCxI6eIg

 

Did you made props or prefabs only?

[Guppycur]

15 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Did you made props or prefabs only?

Very few modders make their own props, Rick was entirely right in that regard.  Most are purchased from the unity store then subjected to modifications. 

[Laz Man]

31 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

Rick told that " Big companies don't want do anything like 7dtd because it's too hard". No , there is diffrent simple reason. Stockholders.

 

Partially true.  It is very costly and risky to venture off and try something new and untested in the market.  There is the cost to develop tech. and the risk of failing to make X dollars.

 

CoD / Activision is a great example.  Relatively less new tech. to develop, and is a tried and true formula that still sells in the market.

 

Thankfully TFPs are willing to spend the time and resources to create a unique blend of experiences no one else has copied yet.

 

With the exception of Microsoft, as far as minecraft is concerned, so what?  Some new IPs and great games would never have existed if people were afraid to be competitive just be because there is already another well established game in the market.

 

 

[Syphon583]

22 hours ago, Laz Man said:

Tune in, in about 3 hours from now.

 

 

I was finally able to watch this and came away feeling great about the future of the game. A lot of cool things to look forward to.

• While a little disappointing that bandits are looking unlikely for A21, I like that both Rick and Joel want bandits (a critical feature) to be more fully baked and fleshed out when eventually released.
• They snuck in a little bit of news in that there are a handful of QoL changes coming to the game. I could have misinterpreted, but it sounded like at least a few of these are coming in A21. I would love to hear more about that.
• One of those QoL changes (again, sounded like it is coming for A21, but I could be wrong) is an update to the UI. Rick mentioned a graphic designer wsa working on that (as a side note, I hope by graphic designer, he meant UX designer. Two very different things. Whoever it is, hopefully they have experience in UX) Regardless, I think most players would agree this is an area that needs some love.
• The story details they shared are probably what got me the most excited. They couldn't share a lot, obviously, but the way they described how the story could potentially unfold is a bit different than what I've imagined. So far the ideas they have shared have me looking forward to that content now more than ever.
• Lastly, their comments regarding performance improvements make complete sense from a development standpoint. While we as players sometimes gripe about the poor performance in some cases, focusing on performance enhancements just does not make sense when systems and assets are still being finalized. That would likely result in wasted dev time and resources.

These are just my observations and I know not everyone shares my optimism, but I'm really looking forward to the next year as they get closer to gold.

 

P.S. - Also can't wait to hear about their new projects!

[SnowDog1942]

26 minutes ago, Syphon583 said:

 

These are just my observations and I know not everyone shares my optimism, but I'm really looking forward to the next year as they get closer to gold.

 

 

 

Im looking forward to the next 3 years as they get closer to gold

 

 

 

completely fine with me, honestly.

Edited November 2, 2022 by SnowDog1942 (see edit history)