Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Pille]

Personally, I like the radiation idea much less than I do zombies coming out of the ground. I want to defend my underground base and not be expelled from it by radiation or gas to go fight topside. The idea of the zombies spawning a block or two from air in these small pockets and then digging to air is also much less intrusive on SI than large caverns under ground.

 

How can food bars destroy your immersion if 'zombies spawning a block or two from air in these small pockets' is okay for you? lol

[Roland]

How can food bars destroy your immersion if 'zombies spawning a block or two from air in these small pockets' is okay for you? lol

 

Don't try to understand me. I share what I like and dislike. I never attempt to be consistent.

 

 

 

Okay serious answer...

 

I don't like the onscreen icons because the game is much more beautiful to interact with without them. For me, there are enough cues for status that I don't need them. I enjoy less clutter.

 

I've seen enough zombie movies in which zombies are crawling out of the ground to make what Kinyajuu describes as believable. We won't see them spawn. We'll just see them break through the sides of our tunnels. Maybe as a coder you can't disassociate the coding method that makes it happen from the visual result. I see zombies crawling out of the walls of my tunnels and think "Cool! buried zombies are being affected by the blood moon and being animated" and you see the same but think "Those things didn't exist until just a second ago when the game spawned them there". Right now I can just imagine that zombies from the Indian Burial ground that I had no idea I'd dug through are all mad because of the Red Moon and are going to go all Poltergeist Swimming Pool on me. I'll bet some land development firm simply moved the headstones but left all the bodies behind....

[Pille]

Don't try to understand me. I share what I like and dislike. I never attempt to be consistent.

 

Ahh ok, I thought moderators are like robots - self-consistent, flawless, emotionless and so on...

 

Edit:

Too late Roland. I am not going to change my comment. Just one short comment, ground != solid rock.

[Doombringer101]

Actually I am against all kind of underground challenges because they don't make any sense or they are hard to code (as Royal Deluxe stated).^^

 

No challenge = boring.

I get that you just want to build and play adult minecraft, there are settings that allow you to do this.

There is no setting that makes the underground challenging and there needs to be, simple as that.

I am all for you being able to turn it off tho so its a win - win.

As to being hard to code, let the Pimp's worry about that, they will make whatever choice suits them.

Immersion pfft, over rated, subjective and ultimately mutable (change the IP as required).

[Jackelmyer]

Personally, I like the radiation idea much less than I do zombies coming out of the ground. I want to defend my underground base and not be expelled from it by radiation or gas to go fight topside. The idea of the zombies spawning a block or two from air in these small pockets and then digging to air is also much less intrusive on SI than large caverns under ground.

 

From my perspective, the reasoning doesn't pair with this. The reason to push players top side for blood moon is to help simplify the game development IMO. Zombies chasing players underground adds way way way too much complexity from a coding and design perspective. Zombies in the caves without an entrance seems worse than Snakes on a Plane. That doesn't make sense or work well for me. If they're going to be popping out of the "earth", 40 blocks under the surface... I don't want it from an immersion perspective alone. That sounds ridiculous.

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of caves and caverns but using them as an argument to protect SI rather than Kinyajuu's originally presented idea is backwards.

 

Nah. Not even remotely backwards Roland. Cavern's placed as a POI using POI placement rules that mitigate overlap aren't ever changing against the terrain. They don't randomly bring things down. They're points of interest to discover. It dramatically simplifies underground content that has a far smaller impact to the SI system than anything else I've heard. Can it make someones base fall down if built over it? Yep. But did it magically appear AFTER your base was built? No. It's an absolutely fair counter to digging zombies.

 

The zombies would spawn right next to the existing excavations made by the player and then break into those already existing tunnels and chambers and start hunting the player. It wouldn't significantly add to the underground air pocket footprint that wasn't already created by the players themselves. These airpockets wouldn't even exist until a player was detected underground and then they would generate adjacent to already existing tunnels and chambers.

 

Caverns would greatly increase the number of underground airpockets causing havok with SI on the surface.

 

Drama queen. It wouldn't add havok if placed sparsely like rural placements and maybe a max 2 per biome. If you wanted, you could have indicators on the surface that a cavern lay underground.

 

The problem with zombies underground isn't really about the 1x2 or 2x2 block area they destroy when spawning. Though that could add up. The problem is the dang zombies often wander off with a mind of their own and create huge paths of destruction in their wake. If you put wandering hordes in under ground, they will cause repeated cave in's at a minimum. And that likely will just grow into an ugly pit.

[Darkfoxx117]

Well, I think people should be allowed to be safe underground, so they can actually leave their base for weeklong expeditions without coming home to a base wrecked by screamers. That's my main reason for building underground, so I can leave the base for more than 10 minutes to go do the fun stuff, raiding cities.

 

Alternatively you could just have a forge room underground then you won't get screamers and still be able to build up top it's the best of both worlds.

[Pille]

No challenge = boring.

I get that you just want to build and play adult minecraft, there are settings that allow you to do this.

No I don't want to play adult minecraft. I want a challenge that makes sense and I don't want challenges at all costs (no matter how silly they are).

[Jackelmyer]

Don't try to understand me. I share what I like and dislike. I never attempt to be consistent.

 

 

 

Okay serious answer...

 

I don't like the onscreen icons because the game is much more beautiful to interact with without them. For me, there are enough cues for status that I don't need them. I enjoy less clutter.

 

I've seen enough zombie movies in which zombies are crawling out of the ground to make what Kinyajuu describes as believable. Maybe as a coder you can't disassociate the coding method to make it happen from the visual result. I see zombies crawling out of the walls of my tunnels and think "Cool!" and you see the same but think "Those things didn't exist until just a second ago when the game spawned them there". Right now I just think that zombies from the indian burial ground that I had no idea I'd dug through are all mad because of the Red Moon and going to go all Poltergeist Swimming Pool on me.

 

Ok I agree with you on the cool aspect. I'm trying to keep game mechanics in mind though and the consequences of implementing mechanics like that. In the movies. Awesome. But then again, in the movies, they don't care about the world falling to dust unless it's a cool part of the 2.5 hour story. Movies are great to draw ideas from. Horrible to model after.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

No I don't want to play adult minecraft. I want a challenge that makes sense and I don't want challenges at all costs (no matter how silly they are).

 

Thank you. Though I do like the hazards of mining Nitrate, Coal, and Shale. Makes sense to me.

[Tin]

So if we think about how "filling underground with radiation" would work, that means we may have to see some fixes to the Voxel Map. Right now we still have issues where terrain dug out reappears for a moment and then blinks away. Snap points some how stretch out and seem like they're connecting to blocks that never connected to the voxel/block that has the graphic being stretched. etc. I would assume this is much the same data that would be needed define where radiation underground starts and ends. So it's likely still going to be a challenge.

 

Though yeah, air quality underground is probably going to be just as challenging as weather. Aaand likely not really worth it.

 

Disagree. No need for extra complex algorithm or some Volumetric calculation.

They could go the cheap route and use a lot of existing systems already in use.

 

Use the campfire/forge AOE mechanic already in the game <- works already done on that.

Underground block distribution to place the new block <- works already done

Layer depth placements <- works already done.

On impact property (to activate the effect) <- works already done.

Buff's to apply to lower o2 or cause and explosion or add radiation<- already done.

 

Probably the one of the things overly time consuming is they would need to add a way to set a probability to randomize it's triggering.

 

edit: changed word to better explain

[spacepiggio]

That's a neat idea.

 

I like to put Iron Bars in front of my Chests but you can not open them through the bars. You can shoot through them but not open Chests.

I use them underground so you can still access the Chest in the gap of the Stone & IB. It would be nice to be able to open them.

[Pille]

Thank you. Though I do like the hazards of mining Nitrate, Coal, and Shale. Makes sense to me.

Mhh what hazards? Collapsing blocks?

[Tin]

Don't try to understand me. I share what I like and dislike. I never attempt to be consistent.

 

 

 

Okay serious answer...

 

I don't like the onscreen icons because the game is much more beautiful to interact with without them. For me, there are enough cues for status that I don't need them. I enjoy less clutter.

 

I've seen enough zombie movies in which zombies are crawling out of the ground to make what Kinyajuu describes as believable. We won't see them spawn. We'll just see them break through the sides of our tunnels. Maybe as a coder you can't disassociate the coding method that makes it happen from the visual result. I see zombies crawling out of the walls of my tunnels and think "Cool! buried zombies are being affected by the blood moon and being animated" and you see the same but think "Those things didn't exist until just a second ago when the game spawned them there". Right now I can just imagine that zombies from the Indian Burial ground that I had no idea I'd dug through are all mad because of the Red Moon and are going to go all Poltergeist Swimming Pool on me. I'll bet some land development firm simply moved the headstones but left all the bodies behind....

 

I say go with greed and add everything >.>

Let the chips fall were they may and just pick up the ones that work out the best.

[Jackelmyer]

Mhh what hazards? Collapsing blocks?

 

Tin originally came up with the idea I think, but this was my elaboration.

 

Oh I kinda like this. On a small chance... Hitting one of these blocks ignites all same types of blocks and block hit.

 

Nitrate releases gas which rapidly reduces health in a 15-20 block radius. Start taking damage without an O2 tank or something.

 

Coal releases gas that slowly ticks down Wellness. O2 tank to counter as well.

 

Shale ignites when hit and has a 5 second time before it blows up. Radius 30. Zero block damage on blast. Run yer ass off.

 

That seems a bit more valid and immersive at making mining itself more hazardous.

[Doombringer101]

No I don't want to play adult minecraft. I want a challenge that makes sense and I don't want challenges at all costs (no matter how silly they are).

 

The 'makes sense' part is pointless to even mention, the Pimp's can define how the world works to suit whatever they like and it suddenly 'makes sense' within the IP.

The rationale may not suit individual players ideas of what the world should be but that is irrelevant, the Pimp's determine the storyline and therefore define the immersion/reality of their 'world'.

People have issues with immersion on corpses/infected punching through concrete but this is simply the way the world works to make the game more challenging etc.

Underground challenges are simply more of the same.

[Jackelmyer]

Disagree. No need for a complex algorithm or some Volumetric calculation.

They could go the cheap route and a lot of existing systems already in use.

 

Use the campfire/forge AOE mechanic already in the game <- works already done on that.

Underground block distribution to place the new block <- works already done

Layer depth placements <- works already done.

On impact property (to activate the effect) <- works already done.

Buff's to apply to lower o2 or cause and explosion or add radiation<- already done.

 

Probably the one of the things overly time consuming is they would need to add a way to set a probability to randomize it's triggering.

 

 

I don't follow you.

 

CampFire/Forge AOE mechanic - Don't think we can use this for Radiation. We could then end up with a radiation effect from every block near you which would be a huge performance hit I'd guess if done as Campfire/Forge effect. Though if you reversed it, and had the effect kind of work backwards originating at the player to determine if an effect would be triggered, maybe?

Not sure how block distribution works in this.

Layer Depth Placements is a part of the world generation process, a hugely non-performant task. Which is why it's in world gen processes.

On impact properties. What if I just don't move. I don't get a radiation effect?

Buffs? I think the best tie in here is the walk across effect you can apply to asphalt and such. From an activation perspective. Explosions? If we're talking about something like shale exploding, that'd be simpler, like tweaking the drop/turns into functionality I'd imagine or block damage received process.

 

Sorry, I think you're commenting on a lot of points in several smaller bullet points. <3 I'm lost homie.

[Pille]

The 'makes sense' part is pointless to even mention, the Pimp's can define how the world works to suit whatever they like and it suddenly 'makes sense' within the IP.

The rationale may not suit individual players ideas of what the world should be but that is irrelevant, the Pimp's determine the storyline and therefore define the immersion/reality of their 'world'.

People have issues with immersion on corpses/infected punching through concrete but this is simply the way the world works to make the game more challenging etc.

Underground challenges are simply more of the same.

 

'Makes sense' means the game world should be credible and consistent. They cannot simply 'define how the world works' without affecting these two properties.

[Jackelmyer]

The 'makes sense' part is pointless to even mention, the Pimp's can define how the world works to suit whatever they like and it suddenly 'makes sense' within the IP.

The rationale may not suit individual players ideas of what the world should be but that is irrelevant, the Pimp's determine the storyline and therefore define the immersion/reality of their 'world'.

People have issues with immersion on corpses/infected punching through concrete but this is simply the way the world works to make the game more challenging etc.

Underground challenges are simply more of the same.

 

 

I think zombies punching through concrete and underground challenges don't pair well in comparison.

 

Zombies punching through concrete? Well yeah. We want zombies to get at us but we want to build stuff. So... Zombies punch through concrete. Kind of required. And kind of already committed to from the Kickstart. Zombies were gonna come at you and you'd have a base to defend from but they could go through it.

 

Underground game play? I don't see much at all except "There will be mining" in the original goals of 7D2D. Underground is both the most free place 7D2D can design and also the more restricted, if simply considering their main goals.

 

They didn't commit to much in regards to underground play so, yeah, they can do whatever they want.

 

They built a Structural Integrity system that relies on the underground being stable... Aw nuts!

 

Rock? Meet Hard Place. Hard Place? Meet Rock.

[Doombringer101]

'Makes sense' means the game world should be credible and consistent. They cannot simply 'define how the world works' without affecting these two properties.

 

Those two properties simply realign with any changes to how the world works, they do not dictate anything.

[dcsobral]

Well, I, for one, absolutely want digging zombies. Not swiss cheese zombies, but if I'm underground during horde night, at least at higher game stages, then zombies should sure as hell dig to get me. Whether they are digging down, up, sideways or whatever, I don't care.

 

The ideas about pockets of gas, exploding rocks and similar, on the other hand, I don't like. It would slow down mining a lot, and I find mining already annoying enough. But if that's the challenge, that's the challenge. I like the buried zombie thing, at least on the dirt layer.

[Pille]

Those two properties simply realign with any changes to how the world works, they do not dictate anything.

 

So basically you say a world can never be inconsistent? Inconsistency doesn't exist? Don't understand you, I think.

[Janna3921]

Zombies won't even appear near your base if you are not in the chunk making it active.

 

Uuuummmmm, Wrong. My son (yeah, I know, him again lol) was playing and left his forge on. In the desert close to the trader. He went to the city to loot the skyscraper and when he returned the screamer was inside trashing the place and a few zombies were wandering around outside. He had been gone all day and it was dark when he got back.

 

Leave a forge on and they will come. Even if you aren't home they will still come. Determined little zombies to have your brains for a meal.

[Pille]

Uuuummmmm, Wrong. My son (yeah, I know, him again lol) was playing and left his forge on. In the desert close to the trader. He went to the city to loot the skyscraper and when he returned the screamer was inside trashing the place and a few zombies were wandering around outside. He had been gone all day and it was dark when he got back.

 

Leave a forge on and they will come. Even if you aren't home they will still come. Determined little zombies to have your brains for a meal.

 

So an active forge keeps the chunk loaded? Mhh good to know.

[ZombieToad]

Jackalmyer made a good point regarding the 40 blocks thing. That would actually make no sense at all thinking of it now.

 

People wouldnt be burried so far down, the term 6 feet under didn't come from nowhere. Noone on the planet would be digging down 40 meters to burry one corpse in a field (maybe unless they were a very practical serial killer) and whereby I can fully envisage Rolands ground bursting fantasy (and it is kind of nice) people would be coming out of cemetary ground, not an uninhabited island in the middle of a lake.

 

Remember this game seems to be set in the western world, and in the west we bury people in cemeteries and not beneath massive rock layers in the earth.

 

This sort of comes back to the other poster that was ok for shallow ground spawns, which I absolutely agree with. Just like the cemetary level zombies.

 

I remember when I came across zombies in graves in 7D, I broke into the little churchyard and came across a fat woman piled up on a coffin.

 

I must say, I thought I was in need of a new pair of underwear after that experience...

[Roland]

From my perspective, the reasoning doesn't pair with this. The reason to push players top side for blood moon is to help simplify the game development IMO. Zombies chasing players underground adds way way way too much complexity from a coding and design perspective. Zombies in the caves without an entrance seems worse than Snakes on a Plane. That doesn't make sense or work well for me. If they're going to be popping out of the "earth", 40 blocks under the surface... I don't want it from an immersion perspective alone. That sounds ridiculous.

 

You underestimate Kinyajuu and Prime and you are using present day AI to make your argument about future developments. If they can't solve AI and pathing issues then I agree that it would be unfeasible to have zombies moving around in complex tunnels. But with breadcrumbs and improvements it could be done and done well. I agree that if they are the same zombies that are topside it would feel ridiculous but if they are decayed and almost skeletal versions then fine. If that is still the line you've drawn in ridiculous concepts in this game then what about them spawning closer to the surface and then getting into the caverns and rushing downward to where you are. Then no surface destruction, you get to defend your base, and nothing is popping out of solid stone.

 

 

 

Nah. Not even remotely backwards Roland. Cavern's placed as a POI using POI placement rules that mitigate overlap aren't ever changing against the terrain. They don't randomly bring things down. They're points of interest to discover. It dramatically simplifies underground content that has a far smaller impact to the SI system than anything else I've heard. Can it make someones base fall down if built over it? Yep. But did it magically appear AFTER your base was built? No. It's an absolutely fair counter to digging zombies.

 

Yah. Completely bass ackwards Jack. Even if you make caverns be POI's using POI placement rules and only put two per biome, sure you won't have any problems with surface prefabs but players won't know whether they are building over a cavern or not and putting a surface indication of an underground cavern is lame, excuse my mobility disadvantaged metaphor. You even admitted that it will mess with player builds and yet Kinyajuu's proposal widens parts of a tunnel you dug by one or two blocks.

 

Your tunnel plus two whole caverns that always exist whether you dig or not or your tunnel with some nodes of air pockets attached but only if you dig in the first place. Which has the larger SI destabilizing footprint? It's not even close, Jack.

 

 

Drama queen.

 

Oh dang. You win. Great tactic. How did you do it? How can I ever continue the discussion?

 

 

It wouldn't add havok if placed sparsely like rural placements and maybe a max 2 per biome. If you wanted, you could have indicators on the surface that a cavern lay underground.

 

The problem with zombies underground isn't really about the 1x2 or 2x2 block area they destroy when spawning. Though that could add up. The problem is the dang zombies often wander off with a mind of their own and create huge paths of destruction in their wake. If you put wandering hordes in under ground, they will cause repeated cave in's at a minimum. And that likely will just grow into an ugly pit.

 

Glad you concede that the small pockets adjacent to existing tunnels aren't a problem. That is exactly what I was saying. As I said earlier it is pointless to apply current AI to the future. We know that the AI will be different than it is now and they are specifically working on improving pathing. Also-- Wandering Hordes? Who ever said that? You can't add something never suggested or hinted at by the developer to make your case either. Kinyajuu specifically said that it would be individual zombies while you were actively digging or Bloodmoon Horde night zombies. Period. Nobody said wandering hordes would stream into your tunnels from a pocket of air adjacent to it.

[ZombieToad]

Uuuummmmm, Wrong. My son (yeah, I know, him again lol) was playing and left his forge on. In the desert close to the trader. He went to the city to loot the skyscraper and when he returned the screamer was inside trashing the place and a few zombies were wandering around outside. He had been gone all day and it was dark when he got back.

 

Leave a forge on and they will come. Even if you aren't home they will still come. Determined little zombies to have your brains for a meal.

 

That seems right, that's what happened to me. Although it *is* possible as Doom said that as we leave the area the screamer may have spawned and began the smash up.

 

But I can attest to the experience.