Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Laz Man]

7 hours ago, mstdv inc said:

@Laz Man @faatal

This is the second time I have encountered this problem.
There is a hidden setting in the world for the maximum number of objects that are simultaneously placed in the world.
During a level 6 (5) task, if a screamer appears at the moment when you are approaching a large area of the appearance of entities, it will spawn two or three more screamers, and those, in turn, will spawn two dozen zombies, those entities that were supposed to appear in the task will be destroyed. will not be displayed from the moment they reach the maximum allowed limit.
I came across this now while going through the Invasion quest at Dr. Karen Hihashi's residence.
Just when I was in the room with the last loot, 4 screamers and 2 dozen zombies appeared. I killed them and took the last loot, but the task didn't count.
I went through the whole route again from start to finish, but nothing has changed. And only at the moment when I entered the zone with the activation button to open the last room that I had already activated earlier, the necessary zombies appeared.

Perhaps it is worth disabling the "area heat" for the duration of all quests of the 5th and 6th levels for the corresponding POI? Or stop spawning screamers for the same period.

 

There is something in the works that may help in that scenario.  Stay tuned.

[meganoth]

8 hours ago, métaphore said:

 

Of course we won't have to buy this game again after it went Gold...

Hence, TFP perfectly know that: we already bought it and we won't pay again (the vast majority of us), even to support them out of sheer love.

 

That's the point. Because we are not going to buy the Gold version again, we'll also not be their targeted customers for Gold. What TFP would have studied, in order to cover their investment, are all those other people who still didn't buy it after more than a decade on the market. In fact, it might represent quite a different population and a new business model (my assumption).

 

The question we don't know the answer is would a Gold edtion of Seven Days to Die be rather bought at $60 or $40 by [insert the min number of sale required] of new people - or would it rather be successful as a barely Free to Play version with in game monetization?

 

 

 

What I've spent on hardware, only for running 7D2D, was mentioned to underline how cheap the software is compared to hardware upgrade. Since I've bought 7D2D, I've added no more than a dozen games to my library and, put together, it's probably less than 0.5% of the money I've spent to run them with my gaming set in the mean time.

 

And out of this software money, only a fraction is actually going to the Publishers. Unity and Valve would be taking a good share of TFP sales. Hence, even if they had sold 15 millions copies over a decade - an impressive number nonetheless, they probably would not cash, in average, a very large amount per unit. In fact, their strategy would be based on their actual level of sales and projection for the future rather than what they have sold in the past. Making game content is certainly a very expensive business but I agree that they have been, so far, quite successful at it.

 

When (if) they release an updated console version in the close future, I guess that we'll have a better understanding at what they are aiming for the gold version of this game.

 

15 million copies would be even after steams cut somewhere about or over 50 million. TFP did only grow slowly and is now at 50 people(?), but the biggest growth seems to have happened in the last few years, so as a crude estimate we could assume an average of 30. At 100k expense per employee per year they should still have a few millions left. Though some of that may have been already invested in getting developers for a second team that is developing a future income source (I don't know if that team is already included in the 50 people mentioned above or not).

And the release of the console version happening presumably in less than a year should get them new money.

 

I don't know if they have investors,  but it is entirely possible from the numbers that they are still fully independent and with a cash reserve. And they seem to have a lot of options besides getting whales or doing microtransactions even if that were possible.

 

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[vergilsparda]

18 hours ago, Laz Man said:

@Matt115

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0VxdDFVkpoYPWi7KwpVFnr3zNWT7enPsD37RRpQ3mmojkNeBbacRijgqacLgerdXSl&id=100064605135636&mibextid=Nif5oz

 

Yay! These look awesome! I'm noticing hair, clothing, and even skin color on Marlene there. While the models still look the same this is definitely a huge improvement and if this systems works well with little to no FPS loss like the current deco one does, this is going to bring even more (un)life to the game. And once modders get their hands on the new player models.... it's easy to see that there's going to be a lot more variation as the game continues towards gold. Y'all are knocking it out of the park in the past couple of years. It's awesome!

 

I do have two questions but it's probably better for A22 dev diary or beyond; has the demolisher zombie been updated to a new model yet, and if not, are there any plans to do so once more important/pressing features are implemented? And are the head hitboxes for the Hawaiian zombie, irradiated zombie and Big Mama going to be altered at any point? It's still been a struggle getting headshot damage on all three (and especially the Hawaiian zombie) because you have to hit him almost on the crown of his head instead of his face.

 

(I also noticed there was an update to the xbox/console version of the game to add in the blunderbuss and other mechanics... super awesome to see that too, it's been fun teaching my mom the (slightly) new mechanics now that it has "new" stuff (new be her standards since she doesn't play on PC)

[Jost Amman]

Would be great to be able to remove paintings and flags (at least) from POIs and put them in our bases. 

There's a mod, but is not balanced well for the overall game. 

[métaphore]

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

15 million copies would be even after steams cut somewhere about or over 50 million. TFP did only grow slowly and is now at 50 people(?), but the biggest growth seems to have happened in the last few years, so as a crude estimate we could assume an average of 30. At 100k expense per employee per year they should still have a few millions left. Though some of that may have been already invested in getting developers for a second team that is developing a future income source (I don't know if that team is already included in the 50 people mentioned above or not).

 

 

During A21 Dev stream, they mentioned a staff currently over 60 people and I would guess that this figure doesn't include those people working on side projects like the console version and the secret brand new game. There is so many facets of the game that still need a good deal of polishing that it would take quite some time and human ressources to finish it. In the mean time, their only revenue come from the sales of 7d2d, mostly at 67% discount.

 

 

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

And the release of the console version happening presumably in less than a year should get them new money.

 

 

Yup.

They are probably expecting a major income boost from this one but it's still not advertised as being close to be released yet. On the other hand, they have already sunk a great ammount of money and energy fighting the legal battle in order to recover the publishing rights for the console market. Releasing a game for this market is subject to very high standards and very large fees imposed by console makers.

 

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

I don't know if they have investors,  but it is entirely possible from the numbers that they are still fully independent and with a cash reserve. And they seem to have a lot of options besides getting whales or doing microtransactions even if that were possible.

 

Oh, having investors pouring cash (Banks are just doing that when lending cash to every business on earth) doesn't mean that they are not independant anymore. It's just placing some pressure on the leadership to reach a certain income level at a certain time in order to recover all this money, or risking to be cut off the lifeline and go belly up.  I do remember (Joel?) talking about their investors a good while back (A19 Dev stream?)

 

Finally, they rather still have a big pile of cash (in a hidden box) somewhere as a 7d2d Gold edition won't be published before at least a couple of years from now. You should also understand that in game monetizing would be the easier way to have an incentive for those 15 million Early Access customers to contribute again. Less than 1% of their player base would be able to cover over 50% of their future income.

 

So maybe it's the plan for later, even if moding the core game is still possible in A21.

[Roland]

@métaphore TFP has no plans for adding microtransactions nor for setting up any kind of exchange system between Dukes and real world currency. There is no plan to offer a free slow grinding path and a pay-to-win fast instant path. 
 

Traders were always meant to be a central part of the main game play and there are more developments that are planned, that will increase their influence in the game even more. These changes are not to set up a new source of revenue for TFP but are to set up the main story quests and the reputation system for gameplay purposes. 

That’s not to say they won’t ever release DLC content that will cost money, but they are not going to somehow lockdown Dukes so they can tie them to real currency and set up in-game pay-to-win transactions. That is just looney town talk. 

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, Jost Amman said:

Would be great to be able to remove paintings and flags (at least) from POIs and put them in our bases. 

There's a mod, but is not balanced well for the overall game. 

At least we can buy paintings and put them up.  Not sure why we can't craft them.  But it would be nice to be able to place flags as well beyond just the Thick44 ones.

[Arma Rex]

22 minutes ago, Roland said:

Traders were always meant to be a central part of the main game play and there are more developments that are planned, that will increase their influence in the game even more. These changes are not to set up a new source of revenue for TFP but are to set up the main story quests and the reputation system for gameplay purposes. 

It's odd to me that some people seem dissatisfied with the idea that traders should take up a good chunk of the gameplay, as it's been intended since the kickstarter in being tied to the main storyline. I suppose a lot of folks are just used to the general sandbox experience they've come to know for the past decade.

[Matt115]

23 hours ago, Laz Man said:

@Matt115

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0VxdDFVkpoYPWi7KwpVFnr3zNWT7enPsD37RRpQ3mmojkNeBbacRijgqacLgerdXSl&id=100064605135636&mibextid=Nif5oz

Oh realy thanks! good too see it!

 

I'm realy proud because this would solve my problem finaly!  i'm waiting for more news about that

8 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

15 million copies would be even after steams cut somewhere about or over 50 million. TFP did only grow slowly and is now at 50 people(?), but the biggest growth seems to have happened in the last few years, so as a crude estimate we could assume an average of 30. At 100k expense per employee per year they should still have a few millions left. Though some of that may have been already invested in getting developers for a second team that is developing a future income source (I don't know if that team is already included in the 50 people mentioned above or not).

And the release of the console version happening presumably in less than a year should get them new money.

 

I don't know if they have investors,  but it is entirely possible from the numbers that they are still fully independent and with a cash reserve. And they seem to have a lot of options besides getting whales or doing microtransactions even if that were possible.

 

 

I can agree about that but... i think TFP done " too much" to get to as wider playerbase as possible to get financial for future projects. Much better would be if TFP decided to make 7DTD like Blight: Survival - for narrow type of players

Edited July 26, 2023 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[HB_H4wk]

Seems to be issues with the rivers on RWG maps not having water. Has anyone else noticed this?

 

I'm also waiting for the Clown Zombies.

[unholyjoe]

3 hours ago, Matt115 said:

Oh realy thanks! good too see it!

 

I'm realy proud because this would solve my problem finaly!  i'm waiting for more news about that

I can agree about that but... i think TFP done " too much" to get to as wider playerbase as possible to get financial for future projects. Much better would be if TFP decided to make 7DTD like Blight: Survival - for narrow type of players

and now we see why you were not chosen as their consultant. ooops

[Matt115]

7 minutes ago, unholyjoe said:

and now we see why you were not chosen as their consultant. ooops

i woudn't be chosen anyway. 😜

But to be honest - making more harcore. darker would be much better option.

 

No more room in hell 2 is kinda something what i mean by this 

Edited July 26, 2023 by Matt115 (see edit history)

[unholyjoe]

2 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

i woudn't be chosen anyway.  😜

But to be honest - making more harcore. darker would be much better option

time will tell and of course there may always be the sequel for that as well.

 

[Matt115]

1 minute ago, unholyjoe said:

time will tell and of course there may always be the sequel for that as well.

 

There were talking something new about that? i rember that they were saying there won't be sequel after finishing 7dtd.  So - 7dtd :2 - 3 more years at  least. 5 year at least for another game. So maybe they will start 7dtd 2 .... in 2030? at best xd

[unholyjoe]

something like that... mostly there was too much grapevine chatter about them working on the sequel when they had already said they werent for a while... best way to not get burnt out is to not keep doing same game style by making sequels one after another... like movies that are too ridiculous with too many remakes and sequels that flopped.

 

[Matt115]

2 minutes ago, unholyjoe said:

something like that... mostly there was too much grapevine chatter about them working on the sequel when they had already said they werent for a while... best way to not get burnt out is to not keep doing same game style by making sequels one after another... like movies that are too ridiculous with too many remakes and sequels that flopped.

 

Other hand? i'm better would see already l4d4 uhh...

i was waiting sooo many years for new Age of Empires game and.. it's dissapointment xd so terrible artstyle uhh....

Company of heroes 3 (2023) -  coh 2 was released in 2013. and coh 3 is.... sad dissapoitment.  this not only my opinion - 53% positve and bad sales prove that is...  medicore game at best.  

 

So - unfortunatly back after so many years (except rare examples like dead island 2 which was made by diffrent studio that orginal one) not always good thing. Sometimes.... do this same over and over allow to gain mastery - biding of issac,  resident evil, are good argument about that

So - to be honest : i wish too see EA of 7dtd2 let's 3 years after 7dtd1  yet it's unlikly.

 

and probably would be too similiar, i don't believe that TFP would go into more serious darker vibes

[beerfly]

6 hours ago, Roland said:

@métaphore TFP has no plans for adding microtransactions..

So, for years we all gathered and stacked potted plants for nothing ?

[meganoth]

8 hours ago, métaphore said:

During A21 Dev stream, they mentioned a staff currently over 60 people and I would guess that this figure doesn't include those people working on side projects like the console version and the secret brand new game.

 

And is your guess a 50/50 guess or do you have any information that makes it more likely than the alternative? 😁 . Since they said that they would develop the console version inhouse it seems likely that at least those are included in that figure. It also seems likely (and may have even been mentioned by TFP) that some of the PC developers are at least part-time working for the console port. I know of at least one person doing that, the newly hired network guy. Though he isn't proof of the work splitting as the network work has to span all platforms anyway.

 

8 hours ago, métaphore said:

There is so many facets of the game that still need a good deal of polishing that it would take quite some time and human ressources to finish it. In the mean time, their only revenue come from the sales of 7d2d, mostly at 67% discount.

 

They could have released a much smaller game years ago with a short polish beta (a rather rudimentary form of bandits was already in the game files once). Nobody would have batted an eye. Forget finishing, in a way the game will never be finished. But it will get released eventually as TFP surely don't want to release multiple alphas on console!!

8 hours ago, métaphore said:

Yup.

They are probably expecting a major income boost from this one but it's still not advertised as being close to be released yet. On the other hand, they have already sunk a great ammount of money and energy fighting the legal battle in order to recover the publishing rights for the console market. Releasing a game for this market is subject to very high standards and very large fees imposed by console makers.

 

 

They already hint at the console version with "soon". They can't do that for years.

 

I don't see what the money sunk into the legal battle has to do with our argument.

 

8 hours ago, métaphore said:

Oh, having investors pouring cash (Banks are just doing that when lending cash to every business on earth) doesn't mean that they are not independant anymore. It's just placing some pressure on the leadership to reach a certain income level at a certain time in order to recover all this money, or risking to be cut off the lifeline and go belly up.  I do remember (Joel?) talking about their investors a good while back (A19 Dev stream?)

 

Ah ok, so they do have investors. I don't think they would take them in except to finance expansion, like the second game studio, or the new effort to go into console space. And what could they have promised investors in return? Probably a cut of the console sales or the second game sales. 

 

8 hours ago, métaphore said:

Finally, they rather still have a big pile of cash (in a hidden box) somewhere as a 7d2d Gold edition won't be published before at least a couple of years from now. You should also understand that in game monetizing would be the easier way to have an incentive for those 15 million Early Access customers to contribute again. Less than 1% of their player base would be able to cover over 50% of their future income.

 

And releasing the game 4 years ago would have been even easier as they could eventually sell what will be "7D2D" as "7D2D 2" (or "7D3D") instead. And have almost double income with much less trouble and from a much larger userbase than just the whales.

 

 

 

[métaphore]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

And is your guess a 50/50 guess or do you have any information that makes it more likely than the alternative? 😁 . Since they said that they would develop the console version inhouse it seems likely that at least those are included in that figure. It also seems likely (and may have even been mentioned by TFP) that some of the PC developers are at least part-time working for the console port. I know of at least one person doing that, the newly hired network guy. Though he isn't proof of the work splitting as the network work has to span all platforms anyway.

 

It wasn't clear if they were talking about their staff working on A21 or if it was for the whole studio. Any console release would probably need a dedicated team working on specific parts for integration with Microsoft and Sony framework. Of course, many shared ressources can be used for other parts of this project.

 

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

They could have released a much smaller game years ago with a short polish beta (a rather rudimentary form of bandits was already in the game files once). Nobody would have batted an eye. Forget finishing, in a way the game will never be finished. But it will get released eventually as TFP surely don't want to release multiple alphas on console!!

 

I haven't seen any previous alpha that was ever close to "full release" standard.

Since, they keep re-doing things over and over, including core parts of the game and they have barely added any real new content in years (a drone and a few pipe weapon?) - they are rather removing quite a lot of stuff and are making things much simpler. So, yes, they could have labeled any previous version "Gold" and go for DLC "updates" instead. Then what? Would they have been more successful at making more money out of it with a bugged base game and such underpar graphics & animations?

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

They already hint at the console version with "soon". They can't do that for years.

Really?

When I started playing it, they said 7d2d would be going Gold... "soon".

And some people thought A21 was going to be released for console. My guess: they probably won't see A22 either.

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

I don't see what the money sunk into the legal battle has to do with our argument.

 

Don't you?

For years now, they do have three main projects all running at the same time:  going Gold on PC, releasing for Xbox and Playstation, developing a new game. And all that, following you and others on the forum, solely out of 7d2d sales. My point is that it's taking too long to get any of the three to materialize in the close future and they rather be sitting on a big pile of cash in order to be able to complete any of the three. So many things may change in the long road ahead. Having sunk a big deal of money to recover and dev in house the new console version is also certainly not helping the PC game going Gold faster.

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

Ah ok, so they do have investors. I don't think they would take them in except to finance expansion, like the second game studio, or the new effort to go into console space. And what could they have promised investors in return? Probably a cut of the console sales or the second game sales. 

 

All investors are promised one thing only: it's called ROI. There is usually a schedule attached to it.

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

And releasing the game 4 years ago would have been even easier as they could eventually sell what will be "7D2D" as "7D2D 2" (or "7D3D") instead. And have almost double income with much less trouble and from a much larger userbase than just the whales.

 

But they didn't release 4 years ago for a good reason: it really felt too much "early access" and they couldn't have possibly sold again the same crap every two years after this point.

Edited July 27, 2023 by métaphore (see edit history)

[métaphore]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

And is your guess a 50/50 guess or do you have any information that makes it more likely than the alternative? 😁 . Since they said that they would develop the console version inhouse it seems likely that at least those are included in that figure.

Actually, I didn't made up anything about that. I do remember now that I get it from the Fun Pimps interview with Guns, Nerds and Steel where they said that they had hired a team of external dev to work on the console version. So those are probably not counted into their staff.

 

And about that again:

 

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

I don't see what the money sunk into the legal battle has to do with our argument.

 

You might not remember what was posted by TFP about the console version dilemna, nearly 4 years ago, on this very same website.

 

In fact, it's really worth reading again as they were making some very interesting points about how much investment this project to port the game on console would cost them while they didn't have, at this point, neither the ressources nor expertise to do it:

 

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

"The Fun Pimps are a PC game developer and publisher and we do not have the resources or expertise to do ports/updates to the console, so we licensed the console publishing rights to Telltale Games who hired Iron Galaxy who have done the ports with minimal TFP assistance.

 

We all had a great thing going a full Alpha 16 port was in the works, that is, until Telltale’s insolvency broke the cadence of builds, hurt our sales, reputation and created this unfortunate situation. Instead of investing in a new update, TFP spent a very large sum of money regaining the rights back in an auction, in addition to ongoing legal and auditing fees…

 

Now that we are the console publisher, as an operational business and out of obligation to our investors and our hard working team (who need to provide for their families too) we have to evaluate the expense and risk of porting any future versions of the game to consoles relative to the income it could generate. Full console ports cost into the millions of dollars, not to mention the restrictions the platform holders have on not breaking saved games which would be inevitable given our current framework and the technical challenges associated with porting a resource intensive game like 7 Days to consoles.

 

With Sony and Microsoft, no matter how small, any update has to go through a rigorous testing/submission process.

 

As you can see, this is not an easy problem to solve. We are exploring all options that would eventually deliver a new version of 7 Days to consoles but this would likely happen after the PC version has gone gold and could end up being an entirely new product or on the next console.

Please understand: Telltale going under has put the console version of 7 Days in this situation. TFP are just trying to lookout for the future of our company and the game we care about…"

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by métaphore (see edit history)

[Roland]

8 hours ago, métaphore said:

And some people thought A21 was going to be released for console. My guess: they probably won't see A22 either.

The difference being that anyone who thought A21 would be released for console was probably smoking something whereas anyone who thinks A22 will be released for console probably saw the official announcement about it….

[meganoth]

10 hours ago, métaphore said:

I haven't seen any previous alpha that was ever close to "full release" standard.

 

You might have standards, the game industry does not 😉. Especially indy games have a lot of leeway anyway, with graphics and anything, but even big AAA publishers bring out games sometimes that are only graphically at "full release" standard.

 

10 hours ago, métaphore said:

Since, they keep re-doing things over and over, including core parts of the game and they have barely added any real new content in years (a drone and a few pipe weapon?) - they are rather removing quite a lot of stuff and are making things much simpler. So, yes, they could have labeled any previous version "Gold" and go for DLC "updates" instead. Then what? Would they have been more successful at making more money out of it with a bugged base game and such underpar graphics & animations?

 

Lets say they released A16 after 5 months of polishing/fixing bugs. Then started Early Access for the follow up game 7d3d with what now is A17, which felt as the biggest break of continuity for many players (aka just like a new game) and continued. All the players still playing the game now would have followed and bought into the new EA, at a minimum to check out the new stuff which you call "re-doing things".

 

Sorry, I find that "re-doing" argument silly. While they have been experimenting with their progression all the time (the "re-doing"), a lot of new features appeared as well. But they never promised to **increase** content (for example new workstations, new weapons, new recipes) beyond what there is now and it seems they have no intention to. Understandable because they might think about adding that stuff into 7D2D 2 or an expansion. I suspect what TFP is doing is the same thing that Blizzard did (without the public watching) when it still had standards to bring out the "perfect" game, i.e. experimenting until every part of the game feels right for them. Naturally whatever is perfect for them is not perfect for everyone else.

 

10 hours ago, métaphore said:

Really?

When I started playing it, they said 7d2d would be going Gold... "soon".

 

 Good point. 👍

 

10 hours ago, métaphore said:

And some people thought A21 was going to be released for console. My guess: they probably won't see A22 either.

 

 

But here you got lost somewhere. "some people thought"? Some people think the earth is flat.

 

The only serious communication out of TFP (AFAIK) was a guess that the console version would come out late this year or early next year and that was the typically optimistic guess by Madmole if I remember correctly 😉

My guess is that A22 for PC will be delayed because they want to release it for both PC and consoles at the same time (at least one of the stable versions though, not experimental)

 

10 hours ago, métaphore said:

Don't you?

For years now, they do have three main projects all running at the same time:  going Gold on PC, releasing for Xbox and Playstation, developing a new game.

 

Console version only materialized as a project less than a year ago when they presented their publishing partner. Before that I would guess the only guy working on it was their lawyer and one of the studio heads probably to find and make a deal with some publisher. I assume that the publisher is also funding the external workforce for the porting and is paying the "bribes" to MS and Sony, so this might also be one of their investors (just a guess).

 

At least one game they are developing right now is simply because of the pipelining every mid-sized developer has to do as game designers have no work to do when the previous game is fully designed but still in production. This does not cost them anything extra as it concerns people among those 60 who would otherwise be reading newspapers or drinking daiquiries. The new studio they created for the other game may be contract work where whoever hired them fronts the bill. Or they actually have enough money that they were confident enough to create that second studio.

 

 

10 hours ago, métaphore said:

All investors are promised one thing only: it's called ROI. There is usually a schedule attached to it.

 

Probably. Which means they either have made sure to give themselves enough time when negotiating or not. In the latter case they will have to release whatever game they have financed by this as is (with bugs and all). But it doesn't mean they have to add microtransactions (your original point) unless they specifically had this in mind when they made the deal with the investor. 

 

Lets get back to your original point: Your theory seems to be that they were in financial trouble and so they have added investors to fill the gap until they get money and are now looking for ways to get money, like microtransaction. But we don't see any indications of this, no hasty release of 7D2D, no changes in schedule, no shrinking of staff, no crunch to get out bandits in A21 already.

 

My theory is that they are not in financial trouble (at least in their own view) as they have been expanding, adding new developers and a new studio. Which also often results in taking up investors, but does not mean the company has to take drastic measures. A lot of what I used as indications is either official knowledge or has been hinted at from TFP sources. And a crude calculation of their income and costs seems to check out as well.

 

10 hours ago, métaphore said:

But they didn't release 4 years ago for a good reason: it really felt too much "early access" and they couldn't have possibly sold again the same crap every two years after this point.

 

Not really  "the same crap". Notice how many players regard what followed A16 as fundamentally different than A16. I don't play the FIFA games so can't make the comparison, but the differences between A21 and A16 are probably much bigger than between any two consecutive games in that series. And don't forget that they easily could have added "fluff" content like more recipes, workstations and weapons to make A21 into a sequel instead of another alpha. And they didn't need to release in two years again, if they made 7d3d with Early Access again, much of the money would have immediately appeared in their coffins.

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

8 hours ago, métaphore said:

Actually, I didn't made up anything about that. I do remember now that I get it from the Fun Pimps interview with Guns, Nerds and Steel where they said that they had hired a team of external dev to work on the console version. So those are probably not counted into their staff.

 

And about that again:

 

 

You might not remember what was posted by TFP about the console version dilemna, nearly 4 years ago, on this very same website.

 

In fact, it's really worth reading again as they were making some very interesting points about how much investment this project to port the game on console would cost them while they didn't have, at this point, neither the ressources nor expertise to do it:

 

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

"The Fun Pimps are a PC game developer and publisher and we do not have the resources or expertise to do ports/updates to the console, so we licensed the console publishing rights to Telltale Games who hired Iron Galaxy who have done the ports with minimal TFP assistance.

 

We all had a great thing going a full Alpha 16 port was in the works, that is, until Telltale’s insolvency broke the cadence of builds, hurt our sales, reputation and created this unfortunate situation. Instead of investing in a new update, TFP spent a very large sum of money regaining the rights back in an auction, in addition to ongoing legal and auditing fees…

 

Now that we are the console publisher, as an operational business and out of obligation to our investors and our hard working team (who need to provide for their families too) we have to evaluate the expense and risk of porting any future versions of the game to consoles relative to the income it could generate. Full console ports cost into the millions of dollars, not to mention the restrictions the platform holders have on not breaking saved games which would be inevitable given our current framework and the technical challenges associated with porting a resource intensive game like 7 Days to consoles.

 

With Sony and Microsoft, no matter how small, any update has to go through a rigorous testing/submission process.

 

As you can see, this is not an easy problem to solve. We are exploring all options that would eventually deliver a new version of 7 Days to consoles but this would likely happen after the PC version has gone gold and could end up being an entirely new product or on the next console.

Please understand: Telltale going under has put the console version of 7 Days in this situation. TFP are just trying to lookout for the future of our company and the game we care about…"

 

 

Good catch with the "out of obligation to our investors". That does indicate that they had investors then already. Mentioning them in this way seems to indicate they needed investors specifically to bid successfully on the auction and promised them a cut from whatever the console release will make in return (hence the investors interest in a console release).

 

But again, this didn't prompt TFP to any desperate measures, this happened years ago and TFP has not made haste like a developer in cash trouble surely would. For example Faatal is still working on PC features, the weather, vehicle features, water physics overhaul, ... instead of being fully occupied with getting the console out or finishing the PC game fast to prepare for earlier console release or the next income source like DLCs or microtransactions.

 

[Cr0wst0rm]

I just hope TFP uses the modular character system for bandits and possibly for zombies in future (or atleast random coloring tweaks). It would not make sense for AAA game to not have this. Best wishes to them.

[Matt115]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

You might have standards, the game industry does not 😉. Especially indy games have a lot of leeway anyway, with graphics and anything, but even big AAA publishers bring out games sometimes that are only graphically at "full release" standard.

 

Indie studio and AA companies have problems with that too xd just it's much quieter about that - well if street kid slip and fall in Laos nobody care but when well known movie star slip and fall then everyone talk about it.

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

Lets say they released A16 after 5 months of polishing/fixing bugs. Then started Early Access for the follow up game 7d3d with what now is A17, which felt as the biggest break of continuity for many players (aka just like a new game) and continued. All the players still playing the game now would have followed and bought into the new EA, at a minimum to check out the new stuff which you call "re-doing things".

 

Sorry, I find that "re-doing" argument silly. While they have been experimenting with their progression all the time (the "re-doing"), a lot of new features appeared as well. But they never promised to **increase** content (for example new workstations, new weapons, new recipes) beyond what there is now and it seems they have no intention to. Understandable because they might think about adding that stuff into 7D2D 2 or an expansion. I suspect what TFP is doing is the same thing that Blizzard did (without the public watching) when it still had standards to bring out the "perfect" game, i.e. experimenting until every part of the game feels right for them. Naturally whatever is perfect for them is not perfect for everyone else.

 

Lack of increase content is the biggest problem. Song of conquest and Smallland survive the wilds is good example how EA should looks like : release game then roadmap what exactly will be in game.  Well that's kinda a point of that - increase things that you can do/get in game. until 7dtd 2 will pass 10 years. which is a lot. c'man people live usualy 70 years not 700. 

About Blizzard - blizzard was rich company during this period so they could do such thing + they were keeping WoW alive so it  was a lot. while TFP making only 7dtd. That's a diffrent.

36 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Good catch with the "out of obligation to our investors". That does indicate that they had investors then already. Mentioning them in this way seems to indicate they needed investors specifically to bid successfully on the auction and promised them a cut from whatever the console release will make in return (hence the investors interest in a console release).

 

But again, this didn't prompt TFP to any desperate measures, this happened years ago and TFP has not made haste like a developer in cash trouble surely would. For example Faatal is still working on PC features, the weather, vehicle features, water physics overhaul, ... instead of being fully occupied with getting the console out or finishing the PC game fast to prepare for earlier console release or the next income source like DLCs or microtransactions.

 

I think it would be much better for us if they already focus on DLC - because we would get more content.  Most added things during A21 is : rebalance ( not new content), rework ( again no new content - water, LBL), visual overhaul ( which is great yet... kinds 7dtd have problem with general art direction which is high problem unfortunatly). So - it woud be paid... yet it had to be something - new weapons, enemies, lore, new vehicles etc.. - meat and potatoes