Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[faatal]

On 1/31/2024 at 6:54 AM, Blake_ said:

Hi, @faatal do you know if we're getting new terrain stamps for RWG a22? Currently there is exactly 1 type of crater on repeat, 1 type of river on repeat, one type of "crack" and I believe little more than one lake aside from POI/remnants. 

 

RWG art could use a bit of variety for us manly men to put holes in them.

 

 

Not planned for A22, but would be nice someday. I did remake the biome filler stamp today to go with the new biome gen algorithm.

These are my recent RWG changes:

Added RWG preview camera moves 10x speed with shift key and clamps near ground.
Changed RWG preview camera move up/down to camera relative and C key also moves down.
Added RWG preview left click resets camera.
Fixed RWG preview camera jittering when looking past down and move rate varying with FPS.
Improved RWG Creation UI layout.

Added RWG highways can path across and carve into mountains (steep slope check often made no road!).
Added RWG country road corner smoothing (50% of highway).
Improved RWG road smoothing, blending and processing speed.
Fixed RWG road pixel precision (was offset and dirt edges not consistent).
Fixed RWG road line segments adjusting the same and/or missing pixels (starting point circles now in line segment loop. uses ids not colors).
Changed RWG preview texture to full res at default and point filter.
New RWG biome generation algorithm (seed biomes around a circle and grow each in a square ring that searches out from the middle of each side but skips if not adjacent to same biome).
Moved RWG wasteland biome to the center.
Improved RWG biome default percents and limited min/max range.
Improved RWG biome filler stamp (more square, to edges and 128 size).
Fixed RWG biomes could be missing (each biome gets at least 1 tile).

Changed RWG biome tiles to 1/4 sized.
Added RWG random biome stamp scaling and small rotations.

[Callum123456789]

5 hours ago, faatal said:

Not planned for A22, but would be nice someday. I did remake the biome filler stamp today to go with the new biome gen algorithm.

These are my recent RWG changes:

Added RWG preview camera moves 10x speed with shift key and clamps near ground.
Changed RWG preview camera move up/down to camera relative and C key also moves down.
Added RWG preview left click resets camera.
Fixed RWG preview camera jittering when looking past down and move rate varying with FPS.
Improved RWG Creation UI layout.

Added RWG highways can path across and carve into mountains (steep slope check often made no road!).
Added RWG country road corner smoothing (50% of highway).
Improved RWG road smoothing, blending and processing speed.
Fixed RWG road pixel precision (was offset and dirt edges not consistent).
Fixed RWG road line segments adjusting the same and/or missing pixels (starting point circles now in line segment loop. uses ids not colors).
Changed RWG preview texture to full res at default and point filter.
New RWG biome generation algorithm (seed biomes around a circle and grow each in a square ring that searches out from the middle of each side but skips if not adjacent to same biome).
Moved RWG wasteland biome to the center.
Improved RWG biome default percents and limited min/max range.
Improved RWG biome filler stamp (more square, to edges and 128 size).
Fixed RWG biomes could be missing (each biome gets at least 1 tile).

Changed RWG biome tiles to 1/4 sized.
Added RWG random biome stamp scaling and small rotations.

I can't lie, you are awesome for putting these updates about your work out, absolutely amazing. 😀

[beerfly]

40 minutes ago, Callum123456789 said:

I can't lie, you are awesome for putting these updates about your work out, absolutely amazing. 😀

Continuing Kin`s legacy, what a good guy and a future legend. And the whole team of course. 

Edited February 14 by beerfly
missed a letter, what ? (see edit history)

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, beerfly said:

Continuing Kin`s legacy, what a good guy and a future legend. And the whole team of course. 

He's already a legend! 

Spoiler

 

[Adam the Waster]

7 hours ago, faatal said:

Not planned for A22, but would be nice someday. I did remake the biome filler stamp today to go with the new biome gen algorithm.

These are my recent RWG changes:

Added RWG preview camera moves 10x speed with shift key and clamps near ground.
Changed RWG preview camera move up/down to camera relative and C key also moves down.
Added RWG preview left click resets camera.
Fixed RWG preview camera jittering when looking past down and move rate varying with FPS.
Improved RWG Creation UI layout.

Added RWG highways can path across and carve into mountains (steep slope check often made no road!).
Added RWG country road corner smoothing (50% of highway).
Improved RWG road smoothing, blending and processing speed.
Fixed RWG road pixel precision (was offset and dirt edges not consistent).
Fixed RWG road line segments adjusting the same and/or missing pixels (starting point circles now in line segment loop. uses ids not colors).
Changed RWG preview texture to full res at default and point filter.
New RWG biome generation algorithm (seed biomes around a circle and grow each in a square ring that searches out from the middle of each side but skips if not adjacent to same biome).
Moved RWG wasteland biome to the center.
Improved RWG biome default percents and limited min/max range.
Improved RWG biome filler stamp 

Going to add too unofficial diary 

[Roland]

13 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

7d2d 2 would be exactly what we get now, because the devs would have developed in the same direction they have done now. For example they were not too happy with lbd. So after releasing something looking like A15 or A16 they would have made the same changes and added a perk system, improved everything and landed almost exactly where they are now.

 

There would be two differences: 1) There would have been a stable game in say 2018/19, and more stable mods for that, correct. If bandits were included they would be rather disappointing zombies in bandit skins (just like they were in a few mods that had enabled them). Or they would have been postponed to 7D2D 2.

And 2) we would be about a year behind now because polishing for release and after release would have taken nearly a year.

 

 

3. We would have paid twice for what we essentially have now.

[beerfly]

30 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

3. We would have paid twice for what we essentially have now.

Damn, The Duke is harsh.

[Gamida]

As this is pretty much my favourite game I am hoping after they do go gold the forum stays thriving and the modders keep modding.

[zztong]

15 hours ago, faatal said:

Changed RWG biome tiles to 1/4 sized.

 

What does this mean? I'm confused by the word "tiles" as that is also an element to city building, basically 150x150 POI-like things. RWG had been dividing up the world into 150x150 plots for some gain. These "biome tiles" sound like something other than that...? What's the new size? That is, I get it is X/4, but I don't know what X was and I suspect 150/4=37.5 makes no sense...?

[Matt115]

15 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

7d2d 2 would be exactly what we get now, because the devs would have developed in the same direction they have done now. For example they were not too happy with lbd. So after releasing something looking like A15 or A16 they would have made the same changes and added a perk system, improved everything and landed almost exactly where they are now.

 

There would be two differences: 1) There would have been a stable game in say 2018/19, and more stable mods for that, correct. If bandits were included they would be rather disappointing zombies in bandit skins (just like they were in a few mods that had enabled them). Or they would have been postponed to 7D2D 2.

And 2) we would be about a year behind now because polishing for release and after release would have taken nearly a year.

 

for 100% no. Why? Simple - because even small change like... Madmole play one day in Gothic 1 as reference instead Rust would change something.

Yeah they could be not happy with that but say "well it's not best but some people like it. Okay modders will be change skills anyway if someone don't like it - just let's finish this game". Then let's say making on "Fantasy 7dtd" ( technical name because why not) they could invent LBD+T = learning by doing with trainers like in Gothic. Then 7dtd 2  would have totaly diffrent system or... even lack of it because they would focus on gear not skills. Who knows?

 

1) Well - no chances to be postponed for 7dtd 2 because of Kickstarter.

Yes would be like guns zombies but... What to expect from voxel game? it's not linear FPS with small maps like F.E.A.R. Even cod DMZ have pretty simple human AI - only are dangerous because of number of them and HP. 7dtd would looks like pretty like zombie mode in Cod MW3 : stupid humans AI using guns ( probably bandits only in strongholds lack of free roaming bandits = less problems to deal during production) + stupid zombies without guns. So yeah - it would be to totaly fine for such type of game.

2) hard to say - depend how situation would looks like with this fantasy game: it could be just 4 years of development so this would be first year of 7DTD 2 EA. or at least we would see first trailers or screens.

 

15 hours ago, Riamus said:

And, again, why?  I'm sure they get money from letting the other company develop a game related to this one and they don't have to do much of anything.  Sounds like a smart move to me.  It doesn't matter if this game is released or not.

 

Comparing this game and Minecraft makes little sense. Other than being voxel games, there isn't much similarity.  Minecraft is basically a kid game with limited real options besides building - what there is available is not great, while this game is focused on adults and so needs to have more flagged out features, would, abilities, etc.  Which it does, regardless whether or not people like a given feature.

 

Considering you can play almost any version, if you want to play an older version, you have pretty much what it would have been had that been the gold release.  Just less optimization, but otherwise close to the same.  But because they kept working on it, we have a better game overall.  Yes, some people want certain things that were scrapped, but that doesn't mean the older versions were better.  It only means some people liked certain things better.  Others like the newer things better.  Look at all the games that went good from early access before they were ready and how bad the reviews are for them because of it.  This game didn't do that, for which I hate grateful.  Not to mention the improvements to graphics and art in the game that wouldn't have happened of it went gold years ago.

 

I am not saying 10 years isn't a long time.  However, there are a lot of games that take well over 5 years of development time to complete.  You just don't notice because most aren't publicly available during that time.

 

Either way, I wasn't arguing that the development of this game wasn't slow or that things couldn't be better.  I was staying only that there isn't anything wrong with some other company being allowed to create a game related to this one before this goes gold.  Besides, if they had said this was gold 5 or whatever years ago and kept adding patches and updates, which would still break mods, and you would have basically the same situation we have today.  The game would just be 1.xxx instead of alpha xxx.  Or they would have stopped development entirely and we would be worse off for it.

I wrote you why. Yes it matter - Nobody will play in SW game connected with EP 10 when everyone will know that star wars ep 10 movie will be terrible. It could be good game but remember that IP sometimes mean more that quality of the game. 

Compare with Minecraft have tons of sense - which voxel games release during similiar period and are not cancelled? I remember game which was like.... let's say EARTH DEFENCE FORCES mixed with 7dtd. And this game is dead so nobody remember about it. You can say "what about Valheim or enshrounded" - simple in 2013 nobody even think about it. So : things then was completly diffrent that now. So if you told me there will be big epidemic in 2019 but everyone will be just sitting in home i would say "bro just stop watching SYFY channel".

And no - 7dtd is not focused adults. It's pretty soft and safe setting as hell - more like 16 old kids. If it was for adults it would be more like Days gone or The last of us about world building. Just you know - another "chill out " setting with pretty simple a and basic in their concept mechanics. Yes there was more advance like meat smell or neccesary to deal with corpses which is more like project zomboid. So - yep. It's pretty like minecraft just some mechanics works diffrent. You don't have 40 bolt action and 30 types of bullets, jaming, complexed weapon parts etc. 

 

Nope compare  new to old versions show how gameplay changed - quick example. 

DId you read SCP - infinite IKEA? Because we had this same situation thanks to this "corpses" feature. Or how mining was effective compare to this version - A15 was more "static" while now is more about looting

 

I notice - for example : deep rock galaxy EA? 2 years. Ofc some games have stuck in dev hell like Mount and blade bannerlord or dead island 2 but it's more law issues/ managment not clean production time. So - if ther wasn't soo many reworks it would be already finished.

 

This spinoff is realy wrong idea.  If they just added bandits ( no armor rework etc. only bandits), release as 1.0 then annoucement spinoff everything would be fine.

 

[Adam the Waster]

2 hours ago, Matt115 said:

*snipped* 

I wrote you why. Yes it matter - Nobody  1.0 then annoucement spinoff everything would be fine.

 

Yeah cuz ASA did so well doing almost this.  This is a way to split your fanbase

At least the spin off it could bring more types of players. Maybe they don't like survival 

[VoltraLux]

18 hours ago, faatal said:

Not planned for A22, but would be nice someday. I did remake the biome filler stamp today to go with the new biome gen algorithm.

These are my recent RWG changes:

Added RWG preview camera moves 10x speed with shift key and clamps near ground.
Changed RWG preview camera move up/down to camera relative and C key also moves down.
Added RWG preview left click resets camera.
Fixed RWG preview camera jittering when looking past down and move rate varying with FPS.
Improved RWG Creation UI layout.

Added RWG highways can path across and carve into mountains (steep slope check often made no road!).
Added RWG country road corner smoothing (50% of highway).
Improved RWG road smoothing, blending and processing speed.
Fixed RWG road pixel precision (was offset and dirt edges not consistent).
Fixed RWG road line segments adjusting the same and/or missing pixels (starting point circles now in line segment loop. uses ids not colors).
Changed RWG preview texture to full res at default and point filter.
New RWG biome generation algorithm (seed biomes around a circle and grow each in a square ring that searches out from the middle of each side but skips if not adjacent to same biome).
Moved RWG wasteland biome to the center.
Improved RWG biome default percents and limited min/max range.
Improved RWG biome filler stamp (more square, to edges and 128 size).
Fixed RWG biomes could be missing (each biome gets at least 1 tile).

Changed RWG biome tiles to 1/4 sized.
Added RWG random biome stamp scaling and small rotations.

 

Is there still plans to determine what types of POI will spawn in the generation screen before creating a map? This was mentioned in the A21 Dev Diary livestream #4, being able to influence the spawn rate of POIs by selecting tags or names specifically, including min/max counts? Didn't come out in A21 and hasn't been referenced since, just wondering if this is still something you guys are thinking about or if it's scrapped.

[FramFramson]

On 2/13/2024 at 4:14 PM, Matt115 said:

At first shoudn't TFP even consider so option to make deal with another company to make another 7dtd game when even first game is not finish. 

 

7DTD was release in this same time as Minecraft. What is a diffrent ? Minecraft get full version while 7dtd don't.

Is it better - yes and... no. If you compare 2018 and new build - yeah. But you can do this with almost every  game ( except games like cod warzone when another update make game worst). So it's not reason is to be happy. 

If 7dtd was set be finished let's say during 2018

 

1. We would have bandits, learning by doing etc. in stable form. Yeah there would be chance for bigger overhaul ( COH2, Mount and blade with fire and sword) but low chances. So if you bought this game then you could expect it will be as you like not another update which will change things you like into things you don't ( for example weapons models)

2. If 7DTD was already finished - we would have much more big mods. Now it's a little bit pointless because well - another update will broke such mod so not worthy

3. it's  above 10 years - so many modders just don't care about 7dtd anymore because... how long will take until release and mod production time? check how long was made black mesa or some big skyrim mods.  @Riamus - people are not immortal and can't wait forever. 10 years is  +- 1/5 of human lifespan. 

3. Okay so let's say devs are not bored with voxel games - then they would finish their next game during this or next game. Then probably we would get 7dtd 2 - probably on new much more powerful engine. Imagine 7dtd but with 120 RG zombies in this same time. Would be cool right? 

4. Years ago this game was hyped - so if it was full release you could expect that will be stuff like with Minecraft or Fnaf. Would be nice to have like... 7DTD Poit brick set like Cod had : Amazon.com: Mega Bloks Call of Duty Zombies TranZit Diner Building Set : Toys & Games

5. Probably 7dtd 2 would have much diffrent vibe that 7dtd 1. Why? because this is totaly normal things i will give few examples:

 

Age of empire 1 and 2 - realism but pretty "knight toys" because of technological limits. Age of empire 3 realism. Age of empire 4 cartoonish

Jax and dexter - cartoonish then realism.

cod - autentism into "light tone" like fortnite

 

So 7dtd 2 would be diffrent - maybe more like the last of us or days gone. Or would be cartoonish  like fortnite. Who knows yet... already we would know. Because there won't be 7DTD 2 for sure. Reason is simple - Devs are humans not "eternal" company like Activision which will be release cod when people who played in cod 1 during release will be gone. So - i no chances that devs will be making 7dtd 2 in 2040

 

 

So as you see - there is many reasons why there is no reason to be happy about it

 

A 'gold' label is just a label wouldn't change the amount of hours spent on development in any way though. Neither would it mean development would have stopped. There is literally no mechanical link between the two. Alpha, Beta, they're just words, not magical talismans.

 

As for Minecraft, that has a vastly wider appeal, to kids, families, etc. and a vastly bigger player base. It's also supported by Microsoft, which is why they can get big tie-in deals with like, Lego, or whatever. Zombie horror survival is a specific genre and subgenre, Minecraft on the other hand literally defined voxel games. It's okay to not be as big as Minecraft and it's also okay to not have the same kind of outside stuff as Minecraft does.

 

And not to be rude, but... who cares about tie-ins? I just want the game itself to work.

[faatal]

6 hours ago, zztong said:

 

What does this mean? I'm confused by the word "tiles" as that is also an element to city building, basically 150x150 POI-like things. RWG had been dividing up the world into 150x150 plots for some gain. These "biome tiles" sound like something other than that...? What's the new size? That is, I get it is X/4, but I don't know what X was and I suspect 150/4=37.5 makes no sense...?

RWG uses tiles for many things. Biome tiles were 1024 squares. Now 256.

I added the burnt forest back to RWG today. Seems to be generating correctly now after a few bug fixes.

[beerfly]

1 minute ago, faatal said:

RWG uses tiles for many things. Biome tiles were 1024 squares. Now 256.

I added the burnt forest back to RWG today. Seems to be generating correctly now after a few bug fixes.

Burnt forest was and it is one of the most atmospheric things in 7 days to die..

 

If it`s back, smile, because we thank you

 

If not, go out, find a dog and pet it. Hope it eats your sandwich.

[faatal]

3 hours ago, VoltraLux said:

Is there still plans to determine what types of POI will spawn in the generation screen before creating a map? This was mentioned in the A21 Dev Diary livestream #4, being able to influence the spawn rate of POIs by selecting tags or names specifically, including min/max counts? Didn't come out in A21 and hasn't been referenced since, just wondering if this is still something you guys are thinking about or if it's scrapped.

I've not heard mention of that.

 

My goal is good clean random worlds from any seed that meet our long term biome progression goals and generate fast.

Bug fixing and polish is primarily what it needs. A few new features may sneak in.

[Roland]

14 minutes ago, faatal said:

I added the burnt forest back to RWG today. 

 

4 minutes ago, faatal said:

A few new features may sneak in.

 

Can you tell us plainly whether any more biomes may be added in? Don't feel like you need to catch a plane to tell us in person as that would be plain overkill. Just curious on whether the plane of the game will ever intersect with the line of any other past RWG features again.  

[Callum123456789]

51 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

 

Can you tell us plainly whether any more biomes may be added in? Don't feel like you need to catch a plane to tell us in person as that would be plain overkill. Just curious on whether the plane of the game will ever intersect with the line of any other past RWG features again.  

heres my $0.02 onto this too, we all know that the 4 main biomes (technically 5) work well for what they do but i feel with you that having more biomes is more eye candy to look at and more diverse environments to explore with unique features and challenges is something that would complete the rwg experience imo, finding the plains biome back in the older alphas was nice as like i said earlier even though it wasnt everyones favourite biome it had unique features to it even if they are small, you also had biome specific pois which also made the biomes feel more unique like you went to the burnt biome and saw a bunch of burnt homes which makes sense in the burnt forest, i also know adding biomes would be a decent amount of work but the more the merrier would probably be what a large portion of people would love, i of course dont have a lot of ideas for biomes but i know there are many possibilities for more biomes and features that define them to create a compelling gameplay/visual experience.

[bdubyah]

I want my plains back. Gib....

[Jost Amman]

5 hours ago, Roland said:

Can you tell us plainly whether any more biomes may be added in?

I don't think they'll add new biomes... at least not before gold. As you know better than me, adding a new biome is a TON of work, because not only it needs to be configured and tested for RWG, but that would also mean that Navezgane would become outdated, so they'd need someone to integrate the new biome also on the static map.

 

That being said, I hope they'll give modders a way to create new stuff for RWG more easily.

[VoltraLux]

7 hours ago, faatal said:

I've not heard mention of that.

 

My goal is good clean random worlds from any seed that meet our long term biome progression goals and generate fast.

Bug fixing and polish is primarily what it needs. A few new features may sneak in.

 

It was discussed by Robert, he'd discussed that he created it for level designers to force spawn their latest builds, but would be coming to A22+. It's mentioned during the fourth dev diary stream at 8.40

 

Edit: Ah it may be something XML related only and already implemented in some capacity, though not included in the RWG gen screen as I wrongly assumed it may have been.

Edited February 15 by VoltraLux (see edit history)

[Adam the Waster]

9 hours ago, faatal said:

9 hours ago, faatal said:

I added the burnt forest 

. A few new features may sneak in.

Stop I can get only so excited 

 

So much more too add. I can't wait for the real Dev diary 

[User]

10 hours ago, faatal said:

RWG uses tiles for many things. Biome tiles were 1024 squares. Now 256.

I added the burnt forest back to RWG today. Seems to be generating correctly now after a few bug fixes.

Just want to say how excited I am for the return of the burnt forest. It had fantastic atmosphere, very happy to see it return. Thank you for the updates!

[meganoth]

10 hours ago, Roland said:

 

 

Can you tell us plainly whether any more biomes may be added in? Don't feel like you need to catch a plane to tell us in person as that would be plain overkill. Just curious on whether the plane of the game will ever intersect with the line of any other past RWG features again.  

 

Can you ex-plain what you mean by that?

[meganoth]

17 hours ago, Matt115 said:

for 100% no. Why? Simple - because even small change like... Madmole play one day in Gothic 1 as reference instead Rust would change something.

 

What wouldn't change is their long list of planned features (where they for example could have seen they wanted this and that part of 7D2D to get an overhaul, this and that to be added). And their tastes, which largely differ from yours. So sure, anything is possible, but what is the most likely? That it generally goes in the direction of their current tastes in gaming or that they suddenly turn into copies of you?

 

The butterfly effect may make me change my mind one day and not order my favourite food at my favourite restaurant. But the next time I go there I likely will order my favourite food again.