7DTD - Will it ever leave Early Access?

[Cadamier]

With the huge influx of early access games all set to leave it and release massive content updates, it's finally time to recognize what this game really is. I started playing this game in Alpha 7 or 8; in 2014. It seemed very creative and was on the right track to becoming "THE" survival-pvp game.

 

Nearly four years later, the content and improvements don't outweigh the waiting. It's simply just not enough. This game has so many flaws, errors, bugs, hacks, abuses, and exploits, along with lag and no existing game servers, so we're forced to play on servers controlled by random people that are often heavily abused.

 

I don't believe this is the product people hoped for when they pledged on Kickstarter for this game in August 2013, or purchased it thereafter hoping one day for a finished product.

 

Please don't get me wrong; I have 2115 hours of 7 Days on Steam. I have gotten my money's worth. I just feel this game should have been so much more and at a much quicker pace. I feel that The Fun Pimps' vision was not matched with effort.

 

I'd like to hear how other long-time players of this game feel about the status of this game relative to other large early access games that have come and launched while this game stagnates.

 

Well, I've only been 'with the game for just about a year' but here we go.

 

For me and the 9 of us whom play together on our own Dedi - We think its progressing fine. We only started during Alpha 15.2 or so though. I do know and see that apparently a lot of people don't understand a lot about game or 'software development' in general and are apparently equating 'this game' to a 'finished' or almost finished product, which is a grave error. Wither that's "Steams" fault or their own, donno...

 

Anyway - I don't see all the flaws, etc you're talking about or more likely exaggerating about. I do see some 'errors'/'issues' and such but this the "ALPHA" development stage. But you may already know this.

 

Here's something you may not know by

just listen for maybe 10 seconds or so.

[Blazer777]

7dtd may be in its 6th year of development but final fantasy 15 took 10 years and its insanely good so much so that it blew sonys expectations so dont underestimate this game yet

[Ornias]

Honestly as long as the modders keep doing their thing, the Pimps can take their time. I do believe I have gotten about 10x my moneys worth at this point.

[Scyris]

In its current state 7 Days to Die is very similar to other survival games:

 

* It has a lot of (unused) potential

* but no long-term motivation (apart from unmotivated base building and playing or creating mods)

* and the game becomes trivial once you've learned how the AI works

 

There's still a good chance that TFP will fix these weaknesses though...

 

The game gets trivial once your established, and the main issue with the game that I have is the lack of stuff to do once established. Once you got a base, and a steady food/water source, there is literally no reason to keep playing that world. Not with how boring and repetive killing the same 10 zombies gets. There needs to be more to it, alot more. Give people a reason to go and explore. Maybe some super rare items, that are some of the best in the game, and only appear super rarely. Just something to do because sitting in your base twiddling you thumbs is not what I'd call entertaining. My most fun in the game is when I start a new game and have to find the stuff I need, gives me drive and a reason to go and look for it. However once I have the stuff, I lose most desire to play the game as I know there is nothing better out there.

 

We need: randomized zombies, with random looks/stats, like you could have a nurse zombie class, and it'd have stats like health from 80-250, Damage 8-20, looks randomized lets be honest no 2 zombies should ever be identical. If the engine can't handle it, then the wrong engine was picked for the game from the getgo. Items with much more varied stats, Even when crafting a gun the same gun recipie should be fairly diffrent each time. Do you want high damage but low refire/clipsize? or medium dmg, for better fire rate/clip, that sort of thing, randomized a bit to keep giving you a reason to try to make a better one.

 

That said A17 does fix alot of issues i've had with the game in its past versions. though it still hasn't seemed to fix the problem of nothing to do once established and the lack of variety in the enemies. Sorry but more carbon copies of the same zombies doesn't do it, we need entirely new enemies, or randomized zombies both in stats and looks.

 

Also I feel TFP needs to stop bascally remaking the games systems from scratch, its not getting us very far. This is why I hope they finally are settled with how A17 goes and they start to expand it insted of redo the systems yet again in A18/B1.

 

That said, 7dtd is still my game on steam with the most hours on it, I usually play dead is dead, on the highest or 2nd highest diffculty. Usually 2nd highest as on the top one stuff is just way to much of a bullet sponge even with headshots.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

7dtd may be in its 6th year of development but final fantasy 15 took 10 years and its insanely good so much so that it blew sonys expectations so dont underestimate this game yet

 

FF15 took 10 years and its one of the worst rpg's ever made, this is coming from someone who has played pretty much every rpg that has had a english release. The game is pretty, but i've played snes games with better combat, story and characters.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Honestly as long as the modders keep doing their thing, the Pimps can take their time. I do believe I have gotten about 10x my moneys worth at this point.

 

Yeah it'd be nice if the game got proper mod support though with an override folder where it uses anything in there over the games base files, this includes: xml's, models, textures, sounds and music, pretty much any asset the game uses. Kinda like Elder scrolls/fallout, anything loose in the data folder will replace anything in the base folders when the game loads, makes modding textures and weapons in a breeze. Just have them referenced in the xml's like the mod files in elder scrolls/fallout.

[ColdSteelRain]

I've got just over 1,000 hours, starting at A15.

 

In my opinion, TFP seriously underestimated the level of effort required to produce the game they wanted, but have been able to deliver a progressively better game with each release. I think their approach has been fine, and I'm glad they're not rushing development to meet an artificial deadline.

[DeadMole]

And how can anyone seriously believe this is abandonware in any form? MM post regular videos. The forums are constantly active.

 

The thing is most players will only wait for an update without watching those videos about developement and reading the forums. They don't know what work is being done between updates.

 

FF15 took 10 years and its one of the worst rpg's ever made, this is coming from someone who has played pretty much every rpg that has had a english release. The game is pretty, but i've played snes games with better combat, story and characters.

 

As a long time FF fan (it's my favorite series) and big fan of open world action RPG games, I actually agree with this. It's one of the worst FF games I played and if you compare it to games of the same genre, it doesn't hold a candle to Skyrim, The Witcher 3 and Breath Of The Wild.

[Blazer777]

basically what im saying guys is lets not underestimate 7dtd the devs know what their doing otherwise i doubt the game would be where it is today

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

I'd like to hear how other long-time players of this game feel about the status of this game relative to other large early access games that have come and launched while this game stagnates.

 

This is the second early access game I've bought.

 

The first was Godus.

 

That's what an abandoned game looks like. 7DTD is doing fine.

[SylenThunder]

I've got just over 1,000 hours, starting at A15.

 

In my opinion, TFP seriously underestimated the level of effort required to produce the game they wanted, but have been able to deliver a progressively better game with each release. I think their approach has been fine, and I'm glad they're not rushing development to meet an artificial deadline.

Not really. It's more that their idea of what the game will be, has changed a lot since they first started. Updates to the Unity engine have also unlocked additional abilities that weren't possible before. To be honest, it's very common in a development cycle for things like this to happen. This is far from the first game to spend a really longtime in development. Thankfully Early Access allows us to play it before it's ready to be fully released, and also allows us to assist the developers in finding bugs.

 

Which is the big part a lot of people forget. The whole point of Alpha and Beta tests in development is to have a lot more people than your little dev team play the game and find bugs. It's to have a lot of people pushing the envelope of what the game is capable of, so you can determine limits that need to be set, or fix things that are making limits where you don't want them.

[fragtzack]

I have like 1500 hours playing 7D2D. Think I only paid $15 for the on sale early access game.Heck of a bargain. This game still has so much potential.

 

Unlike the original poster however, I am concerned that this game is leaving Alpha too early. There is many features and issues in the current state the prevents 7D2D from becoming a top tier "in the history books" type of game.

 

So if the development takes until 2022 to become gold, I am good with that date. In addition, I hope there is DLC coming.

 

Trust

In

Pimps

[Gamida]

Not really. It's more that their idea of what the game will be, has changed a lot since they first started. Updates to the Unity engine have also unlocked additional abilities that weren't possible before. To be honest, it's very common in a development cycle for things like this to happen. This is far from the first game to spend a really longtime in development. Thankfully Early Access allows us to play it before it's ready to be fully released, and also allows us to assist the developers in finding bugs.

 

Which is the big part a lot of people forget. The whole point of Alpha and Beta tests in development is to have a lot more people than your little dev team play the game and find bugs. It's to have a lot of people pushing the envelope of what the game is capable of, so you can determine limits that need to be set, or fix things that are making limits where you don't want them.

 

 

While true it's also a sad fact that a lot of us can't help with reporting bugs as we play modded games which is a big no-no in reporting bugs.

So all you vanilla players buck up.....you have to take up the slack for the rest of us

Thank you for your service...

[ColdSteelRain]

Not really. It's more that their idea of what the game will be, has changed a lot since they first started.

 

No trouble believing that.

 

I can tell you from too many years in the business, that when a developer gives me an estimate on how long it'll take, I'm pretty safe doubling that number (and going to the next unit of measure .)

 

What kills me about these threads, and it's worse on the Steam forum, is that people gripe about how long it's taking to finish development with absolutely no idea of how many hours work have gone into the game. It strikes me as not much different than the kid in the car whining about how long the trip to Grandma's takes because it doesn't take as long to get to the grocery store.

[Kosmic Kerman]

My guess is that the people who keep raising this are PVPers who are under the mistaken impression that releasing the game will magically alter the fact that this game was never designed for PVP. They can’t accept that duping or other exploits might always be an issue because 7dtd was not designed for PVP.

[canadianbluebeer]

Just got the game w while ago and already up to almost 500 hrs. Had never played a survival based game before.

Was watching a Gaming on Linux stream and it went like this:

 

"hmm... this looks interesting"

"ok, this looks really interesing. I may have to open my wallet"

20 min later..

"ok, I"m going to have to get this"

GOL: well if you do, you can join us!

little bit later....

"ok, game installed... what's the server"

 

Shortly after that is an epic run to save my sorry backside, as I had no clue what I was doing, spawned in the desert

well away from everyone.

 

With their base in site, I died (again).

GOL: oh noes, .... I don't wanna have to..

However, I had just dropped the bedroll (and I figured I was gonna die)

So it was just a short hop to their base.

 

Yeah, got hooked just like that, bugs and all.

(and I do tend to rage about some of the bugs, but hey, it's amusing to find them, and then, well, that's what

god weapons are for. "oh yeah? Take That!"

 

 

Development does take time, particularly if you're trying to get it RIGHT.

 

Looking forward to A17, particularly to the Jeep. (heh-heh. I gots plans for that thing!)

 

As for PvP: bleh. Hate it. Always turn that off. Had too much of that in WoW, to the point where I equate PvP == Griefing.

(comments etc about that really for a separate thread, but yes, get the base game going set for PvE/Co-Op and do PvP later, as balancing IS gonna be a pain. There are parts of PvE/PvP that are mutually exclusive, so...

 

ok, now I need more coffee.

 

(oh, I think the supply pilots heard my threats, they've actually been much better lately)

[Dusk78]

With the huge influx of early access games all set to leave it and release massive content updates, it's finally time to recognize what this game really is. I started playing this game in Alpha 7 or 8; in 2014. It seemed very creative and was on the right track to becoming "THE" survival-pvp game.

 

Nearly four years later, the content and improvements don't outweigh the waiting. It's simply just not enough. This game has so many flaws, errors, bugs, hacks, abuses, and exploits, along with lag and no existing game servers, so we're forced to play on servers controlled by random people that are often heavily abused.

 

I don't believe this is the product people hoped for when they pledged on Kickstarter for this game in August 2013, or purchased it thereafter hoping one day for a finished product.

 

Please don't get me wrong; I have 2115 hours of 7 Days on Steam. I have gotten my money's worth. I just feel this game should have been so much more and at a much quicker pace. I feel that The Fun Pimps' vision was not matched with effort.

 

I'd like to hear how other long-time players of this game feel about the status of this game relative to other large early access games that have come and launched while this game stagnates.

 

I was about to make this exact post.

The Fun Pimps did not have a clear road map, creating and scrapping a lot of features on the way and progress has been really slow as a result. The game will be out of date by the time it launches and the community will have played it out. The single player campaign and much of the final content will go unplayed by a majority of the player base at this point.

[Guppycur]

God,I hope not; but yeh eventually the free updates and new content built on an already good game are going to end, sadly.

[Dusk78]

basically what im saying guys is lets not underestimate 7dtd the devs know what their doing otherwise i doubt the game would be where it is today

 

There is nothing to underestimate, 5 years later and no clear roadmap, its an observation. it's ALREADY passed its expiration date. Development is ALREADY moving at a very slow pace. Was 7 days to die a pretty good game? absolutely. I don't regret buying it, but i do regret that i won't be around for the final product and campaign that i signed up for. Its too played out and dated and at this point even the vehicle hype is not keeping my attention.

 

The fun pimps are great guys, but i wouldn't back them again because i'm not waiting 5 -7 years for a finished indie title.

[Royal Deluxe]

Fallout 4 = AAA Title = Release 2015

 

Now its 2018 and 7D2D is more stable in its Alpha than Fallout 4 >2 years AFTER release and after being abandoned by Devs except updates toward CC.

 

So thats a Pointless Discussion

[Sakurambo]

diablo 3 had 11 years of development and it was a pretty ♥♥♥♥ty game when released for 60 euro

most AAA original (not clone like fifa or cod) title has 6-7 years of development with dozens if not hundreds of people working on it

this game started with two guy and an idea, they could polish and release the game a couple years ago but they decided that 7dtd was worthy of more effort and i personally appreciated

i bought ark a couple years ago, pretty game but i abondoned when i saw the direction they want to go

release paid dlc in alpha? seriously?

 

pvp players could go play rust or dayz if they want, i wait here for their return

[Kosmic Kerman]

Dated how? Is there some similar game that is superior that I can play? Specifically, is there an open world survival builder that is light years ahead of 7dtd?

[Royal Deluxe]

Dated how? Is there some similar game that is superior that I can play? Specifically, is there an open world survival builder that is light years ahead of 7dtd?

 

Yes, if you know one please name it. I search since months comparable games.

The search is very frustrating

[Sakurambo]

Specifically, is there an open world survival builder that is light years ahead of 7dtd?

you forgot voxel in the list of feature

if there is i definitely spent some time with it until a17

[Royal Deluxe]

3D egoshooter game with a decent settlement/base build part would be enough for me.

Sadly all i tried failed

 

* Fallout 4

* Empyrion

* Ark

* The Long Dark

* Planet Nomads

 

(next i try is Space engineers)

[Sakurambo]

the long dark is funny for a few hours, then you get bitten by a wolf and die bleeding

rinse and repeat

[SnowDog1942]

3D egoshooter game with a decent settlement/base build part would be enough for me.

Sadly all i tried failed

 

* Fallout 4

* Empyrion

* Ark

* The Long Dark

* Planet Nomads

 

(next i try is Space engineers)

 

How come u didnt like Empyrion. I bought it on sale, havent tried yet