PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[madmole]

Yep, just had a friend DM me about his RWG world issue that he was playing 4 hours on. He had duplicated POIs (i.e., two POIs merged into the same POI), some cave POIs that collapsed on him, lots of missing blocks with phantom block replacements, then told me it was made from the new Nitrogen update for 19. It's nifty and an awesome tool, but not perfect. Same as RWG, but at least it works functionally *shrug*

That is like buying a brand new car and tearing out the floor boards and engine so you can Flintstone around. I can't believe people want to subject themselves to mods on a new experimental.

universal answer. 
Do you think it is possible to add graphic settings to the game, the level of color saturation, from black and white to rich, as it is now? Like in dying light.
I dont like the texture of ground in the desert. colors are too rich. The desert is just red.  let's say I would set the saturation to 70-80% and everything in the game would look great

No, just let us finish the game before "thinking".

I read your whole comment. My point was only we should just give mod developers some time after a new alpha release before we judge them.

Yeah and do it somewhere else, so we can focus on A19 discussion. Mods are cancer when we're trying to sift through bugs and get our product stable.

I basically lost my entire first day because I spawned 2 km from my starting trader, I barely even made it in time before he closed. I spawned in, did my tutorial quests, then got the pop up and realized how far away it was and had to run the whole way, I only had enough time to loot a tiny bit along the way, like cars and part of one half opened house

Sounds like Madmole already acknowledged it's a problem though, by saying it will be fixed in a20 when the terrain generation is fixed. He's still ignoring my poor lack of Junk Parts early game though, leaving int builds with no week 1 weapon at all =(

I can an Iron Sledgehammer and iron tools on day 3, but need magical uncraftable parts that don't drop this early to make any of the weapons that actually scale with my attribute lol

You didn't lose anything, you wasted time looting a POI. I finish the tutorial before 8:30 AM and can run 2km in  2 game hours, so obviously you jacked around and blame us for your lack of focus when you could have been to the trader before noon easily. 

Where in the description does it say "must have junk parts in inventory" to use a blunderbuss, bow, or any other weapon you find? Obviously shotgun  and stealth builds have an advantage because you can get those weapons right away, but that could change in the future, until then embrace it and adapt. Use what you can find. I have robotic parts and I'm not to day 14 yet. I've scrapped a few brown batons too.

BTW, mining isn't going anywhere, I mine every game. I recall you mentioned this some time ago but I was too busy to reply.

 

[rivle]

Fair point. But I haven't started discussing and judging about mods in this thread. I just answered.

 

[MechanicalLens]

You just said yourself that it has more issues than we have, yet wonder why we aren't inspired? Like I said all hands on deck to get RWG fixed for A20. Its a complex problem with a lot of interacting systems with future plans you guys aren't even aware of. You can't just copy/paste stuff and have it work, it has to be developed with all the features you need in mind, and integrated with all the game systems. For the record I'm not a fan of middleware, mod ware, etc. It just never works out when you have a seriously customized engine you licensed... Unity doesn't give out source and if you do change it after licensing it, you basically are saying no more new unity updates for us, or a difficult merge. So its best to just code our own things.

I've tried Nitrogen a few times to give my honest opinion about it, and while Vanilla RWG has its flaws (so does Nitrogen), I much prefer the more varied and unpredictable (aka replayable) towns that are found in vanilla. The towns in Nitrogen are almost cookie cutter, carbon copy, copy paste, and the majority of POI's that are found are outback POI's. (The only change in Nitrogen that I do agree with is that barns spawn outside of towns. Perhaps that could be something worth to consider in a future iteration of RWG in vanilla, maybe A20?) My verdict: like I said, vanilla has its flaws, but its far more polished than Nitrogen, and even though Nitrogen's terrain generations is astronomically more customizable, the decent RWG and the subjectively superior towns in vanilla keep me from trying Nitrogen evver again. Plus, I've always had a small amount of bias regarding interest of what the original devs cook up vs modders.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Anywho, back to A19 talk.  

 

[Dethar]

Yeah and do it somewhere else, so we can focus on A19 discussion. 

People completely disregard rules now days. I blame you for how bad its been. Since you opened up beta testing, they have been coming out of woodwork. Most obviously were not eligible with rules posted. Also Roland's fault for slacking.

 

[MechanicalLens]

Here's an important question though. Was Lois Griffin from Family Guy the inspiration for the new zombie Darlene model?

People completely disregard rules now days. I blame you for how bad its been. Since you opened up beta testing, they have been coming out of woodwork. Most obviously were not eligible with rules posted. Also Roland's fault for slacking.

It is also human nature to find people to blame, even if the fault isn't entirely on them, if at all.

 

[madmole]

People completely disregard rules now days. I blame you for how bad its been. Since you opened up beta testing, they have been coming out of woodwork. Most obviously were not eligible with rules posted. Also Roland's fault for slacking.

Off topic. Lets move on now.

 

[Laz Man]

Off topic. Lets move on now.

Hey mm, hows your current playthrough?  Doing a specific build?

 

[Roland]

I basically lost my entire first day because I spawned 2 km from my starting trader, I barely even made it in time before he closed. I spawned in, did my tutorial quests, then got the pop up and realized how far away it was and had to run the whole way, I only had enough time to loot a tiny bit along the way, like cars and part of one half opened house

Posts like these get me in the mood to play a game where I avoid the trader for the first week just to prove that the game is completely playable without the trader. I like the trader but so what if the trader is 2 or even 3 km away? Why try and run the whole way at one go? Play nomad for 3-4 days staying in a different place each night until you eventually get to the trader. 

IMO, the game doesn't need to be fixed in this regard. If sometimes the beginning quest doesn't get finished before 12 noon of Day 1 so what? Same goes when spawning in to the game with friends. Why must we all start in the same place? I like it that way sometimes but I also like it when we have to survive individually for a day or two as we figure out where to meet. I remember when two of us were separated by a hub city and we would have to go the long way around to meet up.

I just hope this "fix" doesn't make every game the same.

Day 1:

Tutorial quest finished by 11am

Digging quest finished by 11:30am

Digging quest 2 finished by 12pm

Clear Quest finished by 1pm

Fetch Quest finished by 2pm

Digging Quest finished by 2:30

To me, this looks just like another way people are trying to push more speed running back into the game. I swear I can already expect the "The game is forcing me to run for kilometers all day long!" threads.....

Here would be MY fix:

No trader quest after the tutorial. Instead, on Day 3 you meet an NPC who is dying and he gives you the quest to the trader. That way you have to either find the trader on your own or just do without until you get the quest a few days later. This is a way better "story" to me than just do the tutorial and head straight over to the trader (who better be just over the next rise, btw). I think living on your own for a few days without getting into quests and the whole trader meta could be really good and if you happen upon him (like we used to have to do) then bonus but if not then at least you'll get some help in plenty of time before the first horde night.

I'm definitely ready to start over now and play no trader for the first 3 days.

 

[Laz Man]

Posts like these get me in the mood to play a game where I avoid the trader for the first week just to prove that the game is completely playable without the trader. I like the trader but so what if the trader is 2 or even 3 km away? Why try and run the whole way at one go? Play nomad for 3-4 days staying in a different place each night until you eventually get to the trader. 

IMO, the game doesn't need to be fixed in this regard. If sometimes the beginning quest doesn't get finished before 12 noon of Day 1 so what? Same goes when spawning in to the game with friends. Why must we all start in the same place? I like it that way sometimes but I also like it when we have to survive individually for a day or two as we figure out where to meet. I remember when two of us were separated by a hub city and we would have to go the long way around to meet up.

I just hope this "fix" doesn't make every game the same.

Day 1:

Tutorial quest finished by 11am

Digging quest finished by 11:30am

Digging quest 2 finished by 12pm

Clear Quest finished by 1pm

Fetch Quest finished by 2pm

Digging Quest finished by 2:30

To me, this looks just like another way people are trying to push more speed running back into the game. I swear I can already expect the "The game is forcing me to run for kilometers all day long!" threads.....

Here would be MY fix:

No trader quest after the tutorial. Instead, on Day 3 you meet an NPC who is dying and he gives you the quest to the trader. That way you have to either find the trader on your own or just do without until you get the quest a few days later. This is a way better "story" to me than just do the tutorial and head straight over to the trader (who better be just over the next rise, btw). I think living on your own for a few days without getting into quests and the whole trader meta could be really good and if you happen upon him (like we used to have to do) then bonus but if not then at least you'll get some help in plenty of time before the first horde night.

I'm definitely ready to start over now and play no trader for the first 3 days.

I'm with you Roland.  Thanks for the great idea...meet you in the same bat channel to brain storm implementation...

 

[Roland]

Also Roland's fault for slacking.

I am wearing gym shorts most of the time these days and definitely NOT slacks.

I learned a long time ago that the chaotic crazy and emotionally charged time surrounding the big release day is best left to itself to run it's course. I don't even read everything but just skim and post a jab here and feint there. Madmole has dropped the hammer (again) on mod talk and non-A19 chatter so as long as we stick to discussing what we are experiencing with the new build we should be fine. 

So far both A18 and A19 have been extremely tame launches as far as public backlash over changes is concerned and for that I am grateful. In the past we have had epic gates over changes and A17 about killed me....

 

[faatal]

Seems like I speaked too soon. Performance is indeed a little bit  worse overall due to shadows.  They are better close to the player which impacts performance by a lot. I had to turn them off for the horde night and some POIs which is awful. 

Once turned off, the game runs way better ( +15 fps)  in every way. In a18 I had better performance AND shadows , so I wish there was another crappier option for shadows.

@faatal ,can we get  crappy updating shadows back as an option below  the usual "low" setting  ( the option would be shadows : simple/fast) for potato pcs and not so potato? 

I 'd love to have shadows back in some form.

Thank you in advance.

Edit: Any option that optimizes the game on top of that one is welcome too, like fast reflections or less mapping textures for everything, who wants diffuse texture for cars anyway, uh?

I don't know if there is any lower shadow options worth doing. Enabling any type of shadows probably has a fixed amount of overhead.

 

[Laz Man]

On a positive note, I successfully got our rented server up and running today on A19 exp. (8k RWG map).

I generated the map locally, did alittle editing of map via the world editor then copied it to the server.

My brother logged in for the first time this afternoon and I got to watch him via live discord stream since I was busy with the kids.

It was nice to see his reactions to the new lighting and HD zombies (steve, moe and the new crawler had him genuinely scared lol).  Oh man was his aim with the bow soooo horrible but I can tell he was enjoying himself...

The town he spawned in had the town hall POI as well as alot of new POIs he hasnt seen before.  Were already contemplating what POI we will fortify for horde nights....fun times ahead.

Edit: Our group is more on the casual side so I setup the only spawn point near a trader (500m)...

 

[Dethar]

Ok, deleted

 

[RBN]

I noticed a big decrease in performance in this new alpha.

I used to get 40-50 fps and now barely get 30 with lower graphics options.

Any suggestion to improve performance?

 

[Jugginator]

That is like buying a brand new car and tearing out the floor boards and engine so you can Flintstone around. I can't believe people want to subject themselves to mods on a new experimental.

It may be because I'm tired but that gave me a knee slapping laugh lol good one. But yeah... I agree completely. Maybe small mods but not something that you may potentially find out 4 hours later that completely broke your world and ya gotta start over.

 

[Dethar]

I am wearing gym shorts most of the time these days and definitely NOT slacks.

I learned a long time ago that the chaotic crazy and emotionally charged time surrounding the big release day is best left to itself to run it's course. I don't even read everything but just skim and post a jab here and feint there. Madmole has dropped the hammer (again) on mod talk and non-A19 chatter so as long as we stick to discussing what we are experiencing with the new build we should be fine. 

So far both A18 and A19 have been extremely tame launches as far as public backlash over changes is concerned and for that I am grateful. In the past we have had epic gates over changes and A17 about killed me....

I just like to call you a slacker, but you would be moving post all day.

I had 2 dig quest under 300 first day, then next was 1700. Was great, found new town without aimless wandering.

 

[gizmomelb]

You probs went from GTX to RTX too from the sounds of it, and that is a big deal. The RTX cards are a newer chip architecture and the first gen of "Real Time Raytracing" cards, a decades old pipe dream in the graphics world. The dif is significant, I highly recommend everyone to at least get something from the RTX if they have GTX or older, hot damn will you feels it, and as you pointed out in the deal you got those cards have become far more affordable... well, the dang 2080 Ti is still around $1,200 which is more than I paid for my Titan way back. But still, there is a decent range of good and afforbale RTX cards out there right now.

agreed.. I noticed a huge upgrade in performance across all games (and also video encoding, which I do a lot of) when I upgraded from my 6GB GTX 1060 to my RTX 2060.

 

[Roland]

I noticed a big decrease in performance in this new alpha.

I used to get 40-50 fps and now barely get 30 with lower graphics options.

Any suggestion to improve performance?

The current build is unstable meaning that performance is going to vary widely across the community. As they get feedback and dial in some things the number of people who have improved performance will increase until there are just a few edge cases at which point they will call A19 "stable". Then all the edge cases will post their outrage....

In any case, the best way to fix this is to post your video settings and your output log in the bug forum.

Oh!....one more thing. If your texture streaming option is turned to off then turn it back on.

 

[MechanicalLens]

The current build is unstable meaning that performance is going to vary widely across the community. As they get feedback and dial in some things the number of people who have improved performance will increase until there are just a few edge cases at which point they will call A19 "stable". Then all the edge cases will post their outrage....

In any case, the best way to fix this is to post your video settings and your output log in the bug forum.

Oh!....one more thing. If your texture streaming option is turned to off then turn it back on.

Doesn't texture streaming mess up some of the textures for some people? Boxes, cars, etc.