Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[Ryiah]

19 hours ago, Doomofman said:

Would FSR make much a difference in 7 Days? With it being more of a CPU heavy game, I feel like FSR won't help very much, but if it's easy to implement then I suppose it's an easy win?

Upscaling can allow you to purchase a less capable graphics card than you might have had to for the same quality. Jumping from an i7-13700 ($340) to an i9-13900K ($560) is cheaper than jumping from a 4060 ($299) to a 4070 ($599) and it's way cheaper than jumping from a 4070 to a 4080 ($1199).

Edited May 20, 2023 by Ryiah (see edit history)

[NekoPawtato]

1 hour ago, faatal said:

We have the list of must fixes every alpha. It has been trending down. Currently at 30 tickets across 15 different people, but that is not 2 per person as some people, like programmers, tend to get more of the bugs. I have 7, of which 3 appear to be the same issue, but that is a non trivial issue with stray floating terrain possibly caused by a terrain corruption bug fix I did last week.

Out of curiosity, what types of bugs don't require programmers? Is that something like POI designs and art?

Edited May 20, 2023 by NekoPawtato (see edit history)

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, NekoPawtato said:

Out of curiosity, what types of bugs don't require programmers? Is that something like POI designs and art?

Off the top of my head, I can think of various bugs that don't require a programmer. For example, problems with balancing or problems with textures or structural problems in POIs. Many bugs I have seen in past alphas could be fixed simply with changes to the XML files. You don't need a programmer to do that.

 

And level designers can fix the POIs where, for example, a part collapses when you place a block and the stability is recalculated.

Or various problems with quests. For example, I remember a bug where a spawn point was floating in the air and you couldn't complete the quest because the zombie couldn't spawn.
 

Edited May 20, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[Pernicious]

2 hours ago, NekoPawtato said:

Out of curiosity, what types of bugs don't require programmers? Is that something like POI designs and art?

 

The original kind!

 

[zicky]

Wow!  That takes me back to the [not] so good days of the past.  Haven't seen something like that since I was a child.

[vedrit]

19 hours ago, faatal said:

A lot of game development does not work like that. Bugs are often their own unique tasks with many unknowns which makes time estimates vague. Many bugs are also not yet discovered, so how do you estimate time for something you don't know exists? Right now we know about x amount of bugs we want to fix, but each day testers may find zero or 5 more that are must fixes, which then takes of x amount of time each. One could be 10 minutes, another 3 days.

Except when we say 80% of bugs fixed and then the next day say 76% of bugs fixed as new ones are found. They will LOVE IT!

Exactly. It's why meme's like this exist.

[Necro42]

11 hours ago, NekoPawtato said:

Out of curiosity, what types of bugs don't require programmers? Is that something like POI designs and art?

Maybe menu work in the XML, maybe localization items in the text. Maybe item rotations in the gun joint for new items, maybe new art / textures that didn't look/render just right.

This is a glorious and complicated beast. Glad the list is down to 30

[Mister Forgash]

Obviously any extreme is possible, but 30-ish big ones isn't sounding terrible- dare I think that a June 3rd weekend is plausible? [I probably shouldn't, but I'm going to.]

[meilodasreh]

I can't see any need for another trailer next to the one from Paulie.

Yes, almost 10 years old, from a totally outdated alpha...but can never be outmatched if you ask me.

 

...dammit, now I will again watch it the whole day, jiggling my head just like she does her hips to the rhythm.

[RipClaw]

33 minutes ago, meilodasreh said:

I can't see any need for another trailer next to the one from Paulie.

Yes, almost 10 years old, from a totally outdated alpha...but can never be outmatched if you ask me.

A trailer or teaser per alpha would be a good way to highlight new features and create additional hype. Coffe Stain Studios does this for updates of Satisfactory.

Basically some gameplay with dramatic background music. You can see how this could look like on the Guns Nerds and Steel channel.

 

[meilodasreh]

yeah Temreki is my favourite, I like his calm narrative style much better than many "agitated" others who would also perform great as soccer commentators in South America.

Btw I still wonder why he missed to do a summary of the fourth dev stream. Or did I miss something?

[Jost Amman]

1 hour ago, meilodasreh said:

yeah Temreki is my favourite, I like his calm narrative style much better than many "agitated" others who would also perform great as soccer commentators in South America.

You mean like JaWoodle? 

[Space4Ace]

6 hours ago, meilodasreh said:

yeah Temreki is my favourite, I like his calm narrative style much better than many "agitated" others who would also perform great as soccer commentators in South America.

Btw I still wonder why he missed to do a summary of the fourth dev stream. Or did I miss something?

GNS (Temreki), went on vacation, but was also sick around the same time as stream #4. He posted that he wouldn't do the video on stream #4, but that we should watch WaywardEko's video instead.

[DanLW]

15 hours ago, msilenus said:

This is maybe a weird ask, but is there going to be a new gameplay trailer for A21?

A competition for a fan made trailer to potentially become the new official would be cool!  Not sure what the legalities of that might be.  Essentially a good agreement saying any submissions can be used by TFP forever without any payment other than bragging rights.

[Cr0wst0rm]

it was May and now it is June?  What broke down again?

[RipClaw]

2 hours ago, Cr0wst0rm said:

it was May and now it is June?  What broke down again?

There are still about 30 must fix tickets open and on Monday 29 May is Memorial Day. So June it is.

[TheRealKrash]

I think in my opinion that the dev's or people actually working on this game should be the one's posting in this section and answering their customer's ?'s, not the moderator's who have no work into the game physically. Makes no sense to me, might aswell let pee-wee herman be a moderator and post about this topic, it means the same, does it not? It does kind of seem 50/50 when the moderator's speak here?

Edited May 21, 2023 by TheRealKrash (see edit history)

[LilGraece]

16 hours ago, TheRealKrash said:

I think in my opinion that the dev's or people actually working on this game should be the one's posting in this section and answering their customer's ?'s, not the moderator's who have no work into the game physically. Makes no sense to me, might aswell let pee-wee herman be a moderator and post about this topic, it means the same, does it not? It does kind of seem 50/50 when the moderator's speak here?

 The more time the devs spend posting here and answering questions, the less time they spend working on the game.  I definitely understand the desire to hear direct from development, but any time they have to "get out" of their coding zone to talk to us, adds that time + the time it takes to get back into their "code zone" to the final delivery date.  (Yes, there are exceptions, and yes some coders can get into/out of their zone more easily then others, but the buffer is helpful overall.)  Spoken (typed) not as someone who has any insight into TFP specifically, but as someone with more years than I care to admit running interference for developers trying to get code out.  The moderators are our friends and it's when the devs themselves start throwing dates around that TFP (and others) gets into trouble.     

[Roland]

2 hours ago, LilGraece said:

The moderators are our friends

 

We for dang sure aren't food!

[CyberHellKen]

On 5/21/2023 at 9:59 AM, Cr0wst0rm said:

it was May and now it is June?  What broke down again?

"Hype" broke down again. Nothing was promised, at best, hoped for.

 

I was thinking Summer Sale time in late June, so if it's before that, I'd consider it a win.

[Old Crow]

1 hour ago, CyberHellKen said:

"Hype" broke down again. Nothing was promised, at best, hoped for.

 

I was thinking Summer Sale time in late June, so if it's before that, I'd consider it a win.

 

That's been my guess. It'd make sense honestly - the hype could get new players interested, and with the game on sale, they'd be more likely to give the game a try.

[Old Crow]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

 

We for dang sure aren't food!

 

The zombies would disagree.

[Roland]

I think this past weekend would've been ideal for the summer sale if they could've been ready. It would be best to be able to finish up experimental and have stable A21 be the version that updates along with the sale instead of stable A20. They still might have time to get to stable before the sale as A21 is probably the most polished version yet but that window of possibility shrinks with each weekend that slips by.

 

That being said, marketing concerns are always secondary to programming concerns. It is exactly for this reason that indie studios exist and why working conditions for programmers in triple A studios are often criticized.

[BFT2020]

22 hours ago, TheRealKrash said:

I think in my opinion that the dev's or people actually working on this game should be the one's posting in this section and answering their customer's ?'s, not the moderator's who have no work into the game physically. Makes no sense to me, might aswell let pee-wee herman be a moderator and post about this topic, it means the same, does it not? It does kind of seem 50/50 when the moderator's speak here?

 

That's your opinion.  Glad that it isn't the way things run around here.  Glad that the Moderators engage with us in everything we ask / discuss / talk about in the forums.

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, CyberHellKen said:

"Hype" broke down again. Nothing was promised, at best, hoped for.

 

I was thinking Summer Sale time in late June, so if it's before that, I'd consider it a win.

Keep in mind that experimental will not be the version most players will play, so setting experimental to come out for any sale wouldn't really matter.  Most would still end up in A20 and the interest would be for A21 that they'd then have to wait for, which isn't ideal.  As Roland said, it would be far better to release experimental sooner and then have stable release right before a sale.