Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Janna3921]

I thought about it last night and real zombies would not be carrying a bunch of junk. If we all turned to zombies right now, what would we find in our pockets? Not much. Some people may have a backpack on with supplies they were carrying to bug out and then died and became a zombie, but not many.

 

The POIs contain the loot. Zombies block access. Kill/evade zombies to get at the loot. Yes, on your 100 dude server you would need to increase loot respawn or a bigger map, so you can drive farther to find stuff.

 

Bones from zombie corpses? Maybe corpses could stay around longer, it would look better, but on bloodmoons we remove oldest ones, so FPS does not tank? Would I really want to hack up zombies ever? Good way to get infected. I think more animals would be nice, to get bones and fat, with zombies killing them, so you need to thin out the zombie population to encourage more animals to survive, but if a zombie kills a boar, could you not just kill the zombie to loot the boar corpse? Lots of ways you can go with this.

 

Much testing and tweaking to go.

 

To some extent I disagree with you. The apocalypse happens and you want to escape the area. You grab a backpack, suitcase, something to carry important stuff. Money, food, heath items, medication, small amount of tools, weapons, even if just the kitchen knives. Blankets, cooking pot, bottled water, matches, lighter, matches, anything to start a fire. Flashlights rope, string, something like that. some idiots will grab a cell phone, tablets, iPads.

We already have in our garage a package of emergency food that will last for 25 years, enough for a couple weeks, we keep bottled water as the water here is lousy. We have the start of a emergency kit, with some of these items in them and are getting others, such as iodine, magnesium strips, pads, tampons, they are great for wounds.

Now, in all honesty, not everyone is going to think of what they need and keep it in a container. But I have a son who is into being prepared and has read up on a lot of survival tips needed. What parts of a animal can be used to make what. And watches survival shows. He even has a book that shows what is safe to eat in our area. Did you know that you can chew bark from a willow tree to help with headaches? You can eat dandelions leaves, cattails for soup, chew pine needles for vit C, pine resin can be used as a adhesive, spider webs help keeps wounds from getting infected, as does honey. Mint plants can help, when rubbed on fingers and toes to help in not getting frostbite. Helps to have a son who is into survival and a hubby who is from West Virginia and his step-mom and step-grandparents were the "hillbillys" who knew the old ways. We aren't " the world is going to end" type, just be prepared somewhat in case something happens. We also have several guns, pistols and ammo here.

 

But, many will grab the basics, food, water, first aid kit, weapons, flashlight, blankets. So, you would find that in a back pack on some zombies. Not a lot, I agree, but there would be some and cars would have lots of loot, people who packed up what they thought they would need and tried to escape before they turned or were killed.

[MidnightRook]

Right , didnt understand a word he said . maybe he should leave.

 

Who should leave? I think its more of a party when we have MORE people.

[Prisma501]

loooooove yoooooou! and its probably better that way, not seeing my posts, in some events they have actually caused brain damage. See my earlier rants about panties in general...even at one time mailing mine to MM was mentioned to convince them to ADD undies slots as wearable clothes to the game. You can join the Legion of Panties for Peace campaign with me if you like!

 

Ah well. If the cause is good, the avatar will be undies

 

Here ya go

 

Cheers

[MidnightRook]

Ah well. If the cause is good, the avatar will be undies

 

Here ya go

 

Cheers

 

I am sooo happy! Thank you so much Prisma! You are a sweetheart...and really there are LOTS of sweethearts here. I am so glad to be among such awesome people. Power to the Panties!

[akram22]

more panties? we should stop by now

[MidnightRook]

more panties? we should stop by now

 

........I'm sorry to bother you.

[akram22]

welp , if i got a clear permission from Roland to use a panties avatar i would gladly amaze you , heheheheheh

[MidnightRook]

lol I think he gave me permission with the underoos statement. But I could be wrong. Panties are only sexual if you make it that way. I just want my character to be able to wear them like a civilized person.

[Brimstone]

Blasphemy! No no, its ok, they can't be the thing for EVERYBODY....or CAN they? Am I going to have to win you over? I am GOING to try you know!

 

The only thing I have against panties is the me wearing them part But I can support the idea. Having clean underwear in the face of the zombocalypse can only be a good thing. I have a couple pair in my GOOD bag among other useful things.

[Melthe]

I have a question and I apologize now if it was already answered. With 30 plus pages of the forum just in the last 20+ hours I tend to skip over a lot of posts.

 

During the MM video, he had I think a Shotgun Blueprint. MM just kept it in his bag. If we are not assembling Guns from parts any more what is the current purpose of those blueprints?

[Boldero]

Is it because you got old, or because you are out of practice? It takes about 3 weeks to get razor sharp playing it 8 hours a day then I'm pretty good again. Even in my old degraded form I'm still way faster than most young dudes in their prime, but I always had super human twitch reflexes. Its true reflexes degrade, but somehow I'm stronger than ever and play guitar better now than in my 20's. If you practice, you get better at anything. I quit playing competitive multiplayer because the stress of it makes me hot flash. My ears turn beat red and stay that way for hours afterwards and its pretty uncomfortable. But I'm super competitive so I take getting fragged like very seriously, so as soon as I'm in it, my pulse is racing and its like a weird high. I used to play quake 8 hours a day, 16 hours on weekends I loved it so much. Now I just play skyrim because single player games don't stress me out. 7 Days stresses me out sometimes, but its fun.

 

Hell putting on headphones to make videos does it too I need a pair of ice pack head phones lol.

 

Dude, seriously, you need to lay off the roids lol

[MidnightRook]

The only thing I have against panties is the me wearing them part But I can support the idea. Having clean underwear in the face of the zombocalypse can only be a good thing. I have a couple pair in my GOOD bag among other useful things.

 

Lol, you are on the right track. I see and LOVE your new avatar in support of our movement. You don't have to wear them of course. Just having the option to wear underwear (Of any gender you want) would be very nice. Can I count you as joining the Legion of Panties for Peace campaign?

[Alpacko]

count me in

[MidnightRook]

call me in

 

YAY! And thank you very much!

[kamer1337]

During the MM video, he had I think a Shotgun Blueprint. MM just kept it in his bag. If we are not assembling Guns from parts any more what is the current purpose of those blueprints?

 

to craft shotgun maybe?

[Guppycur]

Repairs.

[Janna3921]

For me it means not side stepping the matter and not sweeping it under the rug to save feelings. Therefore giving a full honest opinion. Funny how it means different stuff for different people.

 

 

 

Isn't I that way in many places in life? How one see something in another part of the country, or even in another country is different. Was watching a video of a girl from Ireland talking about how different our country is from her's in compliments. She is wearing a outfit here that you think it pretty and go that is a nice outfit, you look good in it. Here in the U.S. we would respond with a "thank you, how nice of you" with a smile. In Ireland, she stated the response would be "this old thing? It's nothing special". They brush off compliments. We state thank you for it.

It's perception of how you are raised, the culture of the area you live in that affects responses and what you say. It would be seen as extremely rude and hurtful to tell your friend that in a public place. Someone could over hear you and that is just not acceptable behavior. in the dressing room, or at her home or yours, you could tell her honestly what you think, she can then decide to keep it or return it. That is how I was raised. The remark I would make lets her know how bad it is.

[MidnightRook]

Isn't I that way in many places in life? How one see something in another part of the country, or even in another country is different. Was watching a video of a girl from Ireland talking about how different our country is from her's in compliments. She is wearing a outfit here that you think it pretty and go that is a nice outfit, you look good in it. Here in the U.S. we would respond with a "thank you, how nice of you" with a smile. In Ireland, she stated the response would be "this old thing? It's nothing special". They brush off compliments. We state thank you for it.

It's perception of how you are raised, the culture of the area you live in that affects responses and what you say. It would be seen as extremely rude and hurtful to tell your friend that in a public place. Someone could over hear you and that is just not acceptable behavior. in the dressing room, or at her home or yours, you could tell her honestly what you think, she can then decide to keep it or return it. That is how I was raised. The remark I would make lets her know how bad it is.

 

This is an interesting concept. Have you run across similar examples?

[Roland]

I have a question and I apologize now if it was already answered. With 30 plus pages of the forum just in the last 20+ hours I tend to skip over a lot of posts.

 

During the MM video, he had I think a Shotgun Blueprint. MM just kept it in his bag. If we are not assembling Guns from parts any more what is the current purpose of those blueprints?

 

I think they might become part of the recipe for making the particular gun now. But I could be wrong. Still some finishing up going on in that area. Haven't been able to read them though. I always get a message that I already read it. Knowledge skills and crafting are still getting finalized.

[argeos]

Madmole posted something new:

 

https://twitter.com/joelhuenink/status/1034537943216476160

 

[NeferPitou]

[bloom_meister]

I'm pretty sure I could destroy you in any game, I used to smash whole teams of people against me alone in quake and counter strike and was offered to be sponsored years back to travel and compete but I was wanting to make games so I declined. I do stupid stuff deliberately to make the videos entertaining so think what you want to think. I already proved the game can't kill me in my dead is dead video series I posted an alpha or two ago, and look at my kill 20 dog challenge video. After we shipped Gore (a pvp shooter) the best guy who was hands down the top player in the whole community challenged me and I smoked him 20 to 3.

 

And your the one who is comical, the pvp player base is less than 1% of our customer base. Maybe its 40% of the vocal minority community, but its literally nothing, all our players are friends playing coop with friends or single player on private servers.

 

Thats funny man, you're sure you could destroy me in any game based upon....? your internet ego? I mean really, talk about taking criticism to heart...next thing you'll be telling me your dad is bigger than my dad...and on that topic I have been gaming longer than you've been living, just saying!

 

My point, which you missed, is that you should use someone who is familiar with the game, perhaps Roland as he has played a lot of A17 as it develops, further that the videos are structured to show what it is you want to show the audience so that your message comes across clearly and informs people on the topic you want to cover. You're a dev, you dont 'need' to be good at the game, stop over reacting and get it ready for shipping.

 

As for the player base i would love to see where you get your stats from as all the top servers by population on the server browser are PvP. The majority? no way, a big minority? definitely, a few years ago when there was a debate about pvp numbers someone actually went and counted all players on the server browser by game type (pve v pvp) and it was, from memory, around 15%. Now yes, I know that doesn't include the many many people playing solo or on private servers but still, 1%? no.

[bloom_meister]

Madmole:

 

I also used to go around the country for LAN tournaments (but for Descent II, a man's game, not the bunny hopping clickfest Counterstrike), and I also used to be very good.

 

But the bad news is MM, we got old. I know, I know, it sucks, but it's true. Now when I hop into a PvP game of any kind, I'm like Mr. Magoo (and if you know who that is, then you're also old)... sure, I bumble along and get some kills, but nowhere near my prior life's level of mayhem and destruction.

 

So what I'm hearing from you is though, that you and Bloom can have a 1v1 PvP game which of course will be streamed live, and the winner gets the steam key for the test branch going forward?

 

He can have a 600 sniper and full 600 mil armour and 200 health

I will take a 300 hunting rifle, no armour and 100 health

50 rounds each and no medkits

Best of 3

If he wins I will stop posting here

If I win he can add a little byline to his avatar saying 'PvP players need love too'

 

I'd handicap myself more but I'm trying to keep it entertaining!

[Roland]

I don't.

 

In my personal experience, I know six other people who play the game apart from myself. We all have a few hundred hours each, and none of us have ever played on a public server. We play single player games or play together in various combinations, but never with strangers.

 

I've also just checked in the last few minutes for a snapshot...

 

Number of players currently playing (according to Steam): 7,409

 

Number of players on servers advertised as PvP or PvPvE (according to the in-game server screen): 129

 

Therefore as of a couple of minutes ago, the percentage of players currently playing PvP is 129/7409x100 = 1.74%

 

(Obviously there's going to be an error margin in those numbers, since they're just a single snapshot; but they're probably representative. That number is likely to be within a standard distribution or two of the actual mean percentage. I'll leave it to the resident maths teacher to explain about normal distributions, error bars, sample sizes, standard deviations, and the like...)

 

You're forgetting about the thousands of people playing PvP by themselves privately....

 

But to be serious, all this back and forth about the actual percentage of PvP is irrelevant. The key here is that in the mind of the man responsible for putting out the game, PvP is essentially 1% and single player and MP Cooperative is 99% of what he feels is important for this game. Who cares what the actual tallies are. The developers are making this into a Single Player game first and foremost and a PVE game among friends and family second and any features that happen to benefit PvP are completely coincidental. Even if you could prove that PvP was actually 20% it wouldn't matter in regards to Madmole's approach in developing the game. He decided long ago that for this game PvP would be a non-factor. That's the actual significance of him saying 1%. And with that attitude it wouldn't surprise me if the current percentage really was 1% at this point as Cup's quick ratio seemed to signify.

 

Any features that would benefit SP and PVE even if it is at the expense and to the detriment of PVP only give the devs 1% pause before they are added with 99% confidence that it is the right thing to do.

 

Nobody needs to lecture them or help them understand the popularity of PvP or exactly how much more money they would make if this game focused on PvP or how much more longevity this game would have thanks to PvP. They've considered it all and rejected it. They have a vision for what they want this game to be and they have the means to do it. Maybe if the game wasn't so popular as it is they might feel a bit of pressure to listen to the advice to make this game just like every other similar MP game on the market and focus on PVP first. But they don't have to do that because they have succeeded to the point that they can make this game be whatever they want it to be without worry.

 

If they ever decide to take the core of what they have created here and put out a separate product that is focused on PvP I think that would be fantastic. Contrary to some accusations I don't hate PvP. I just am so thankful that there is at least one game like this on the market that has kept Single Player as its primary focus. I would think that you guys in the "1%" would be satisfied with the fact that 99% of games on the market are designed with you as their primary target. You can let us have this one.

[Jedo]

btw Gnomaana I never said you hated PvP, I said everyone here hates PvP. Every time PvP is mentioned a million people come out of the woodwork with pitchforks to shout down the PvPer and cite the developers saying it's designed as a coop game for up to 8 players.

 

For sure I'm not making any claims there. In fact I could probably figure out myself how many people are playing SP. I'm sure the majority of people play SP. That's not what I was getting at. I just don't want my community to be made to feel extremely small and insignificant because when I hop on and see almost half of the active servers with PvP tags it's like, I can plainly see we're not so small to be made to feel like some worthless speck in the community.

 

Leaving aside your "everyone" exaggeration, I don't think that it is hate PVP so much as dislike PVP for this game. (That may be what you meant anyway.) Maybe they think that because that's not their preference for this game, or maybe because that is what TFP has stated. In the end, that is where the argument stops for me: what TFP intends (if you couldn't tell). I don't see that pleading with them does much, if any, good. I also don't see the position of "that may not be what you intend but it's what we have used it for" being very strong. I mean, lots of people find alternate uses for things, but that doesn't mean that the makers should change their product to cater to those alternate uses (even if the alternate uses have gone mainstream). If the maker wants to capitalize on that and make some more money, then fine. If not, oh well. Somebody else can do it.

 

To your other point, I want to say (gently, Anabella) that your community of PVPers may be small and insignificant. Your participation in it and the numbers you see may make it seem significant even though it isn't. Just like a neighborhood full of similar people might think that there are a lot of them in the town even when they actually are the minority. *shrug* That doesn't mean that the community is worth less, but it probably is not the target demographic. TFP has no responsibility to cater to every demographic.

 

I have listened to you for a couple days now. Bullying and putting peoples ideas down. Acting like you speak for TFP. They are very capable of speaking for themselves and maybe....just maybe you could give it a break. You want to say what you like in a game that is fine. We can respect what you like and how you want to play but the constantly putting down others is getting old.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way. Feel free to PM the offending posts to me in order to bring them to my attention. The one you linked doesn't fit your description, as far as I can tell. I will say that I don't think my posts are bullying, nor do I think that I'm putting down ideas. (Most of the things I read are not "ideas" but complaints of dislike.) Usually, I'm trying to bring some realism and logic to the situation which seriously lacks it...and my response usually is mixed with some condescension. The doomsaying, overreacting, and sensational misinterpretation wear on me.

 

I don't speak for TFP, but I'm pretty good at repeating what they have said. I remarked somewhere that Roland must have a rolodex of standard replies with how often he has to repeat the same arguments. I figure the more often I can get those out there to counter the complaints, the less likely they are to flare outward. Maybe that doesn't work. It's probably better just to ignore the complaining and not give it any oxygen at all.