PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

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Fanatical_Meat said:
@faatalwhen can we expect a stream showcasing your fabulous contributions to the game.
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Probably Oct 6.

jeromeN7 said:
@faatal or whoever wants to and/or can answer these questions and ideas, I'd love to know... Thanks to all TFP's for taking the time to share some info.

5) Shadows...

    A) I've noticed that at dusk and dawn the far shadows have a very big impact on performance. Will something be done about that?
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I increased the clamp by 5 degrees. That should help and still looks fine.

 
dcsobral said:
One thing to consider regarding dismemberment is that we were seeing close ups of it on a steady camera in a loop. In game you'll be moving and probably not staying that close to the zombie and it will happen pretty fast. A non-exaggerated animation might just go unnoticed. I know most of the details they have shown on things already in alpha 19 are things I have never noticed in-game because of how subtle they are.

It's sort of like Hollywood sound effects. They are utterly unrealistic because they are meant to be noticed. This is what "artistic license" truly means.

It reminds me of a story I heard from a Civilization dev. People thought the computer was cheating and they were right but not in the way they thought: the game actually cheated in favor of the player because, otherwise, player's felt they were cheated to be point of outrage. So they had the game cheat in favor of the players just to make them feel a semblance of fairness. It's not about what things actually are, it is about players perceive them in-game.
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That's deep. But quality is quality. And while a non-educated person might not be able to put the finger on it, it shows and produces enjoyment if done right. The latest Doom games would be crap without that ridiculously polished dismemberment system. TES: Oblivion on the other hand has ugly faces and that alone damages an otherwise amazing experience very dearly. It's all about the little things. Player's perception has its place, but not so much in this case IMO.

 
Well they were pretty clear about it being a proof of concept, and of course it would need to be scaled for each particular zombie; I imagine the skater punks gibs would be smaller than Mama June's gibs...

What we saw was just a mock-up. I would not read too much into it this early.

 
Has there been any thought to tweak the status effect area of the hud? Maybe lock it so it'll only show maybe 3-5 effects at once? As it is currently the whole left side of the screen can easily turn into icons and timers pretty easily.

 
bdubyah said:
Has there been any thought to tweak the status effect area of the hud? Maybe lock it so it'll only show maybe 3-5 effects at once? As it is currently the whole left side of the screen can easily turn into icons and timers pretty easily.
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Got hit that badly huh?

 
unholyjoe said:
its been known for a long time now... when zombie has no arms he/she BITES. :)
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Bully


Tired of being bullied by the undead? Zombies can't bite if you knock their damn teeth out! Craft quality 2 poor knuckled weapons and deal 10% more damage with fists. Punches to the head negate infection ability. Unlocks Iron Knuckles crafting.




Confirmed, A20 Fortitude is the new A19 Strength!   😜

 
Strength has been pretty wildly OP for a fair while, so they def might try to distribute the goodies around. I just want wrench perks to be in the same tree as mining ones, it's really weird that wrenches are under perception randomly instead of with all of the other builder perks. Anyone who's ever tried to take a wrench to a rusted old car knows it's not got anything to do with perception, and it's all just brute force strength to break everything loose

I could see strength being the building focused tree, while int is the crafting one

 
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Here's a little idea I thought about which could be very epic, but it is understandable if such a feature is very hard to implement. But, wouldn't it be cool to be able to place multiple non-building-blocks (like switches, torches, etc) in a single voxel, like this:

(It's an edited image)7 Days to Die hack.png

 
Burrfly said:
Here's a little idea I thought about which could be very epic, but it is understandable if such a feature is very hard to implement. But, wouldn't it be cool to be able to place multiple non-building-blocks (like switches, torches, etc) in a single voxel, like this:

(It's an edited image)

View attachment 21022
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@Roland : it's the Gazillionth time I have to put the "afraid" reaction because there's no "surprised" reaction... *hint hint*  :mmph: ;)

 
Burrfly said:
Here's a little idea I thought about which could be very epic, but it is understandable if such a feature is very hard to implement. But, wouldn't it be cool to be able to place multiple non-building-blocks (like switches, torches, etc) in a single voxel, like this:

(It's an edited image)View attachment 21022
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As far as I can remember this was proposed a few times already and there was a reply by Faatal that there is no place for it in the current world data definition. So it would massively increase world data size and surely decrease FPS in consequence and make handling of world data a lot more complicated.

Josh, your memory must be even worse than mine.

 
I've been lurking for a long time, and i have to say that alpha 20 is looking fine A.F. 

I have a question tho, is player movement ever gonna change? It feels kinda clunky IMO (like you're floating or something), the game is reaching some insane quality levels (for a sandbox, random gen, fully destructible, etc. game) and I feel like movement is the same from Alpha 4.

Love you guys, can't wait to see what you have in store for us. 

Tranquitas.

 
I don t know if it was asked before:

Did the pathing on z's got reworked/improved?  Now the z's are to smart in a stupid way,  we can tell them were to go ( one way bridge/ditch)  and just shoot at them with an M60, etc...

 
Nimeni said:
I don t know if it was asked before:

Did the pathing on z's got reworked/improved?  Now the z's are to smart in a stupid way,  we can tell them were to go ( one way bridge/ditch)  and just shoot at them with an M60, etc...
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aren't zombies like that irl :D

 
Trankitas said:
I've been lurking for a long time, and i have to say that alpha 20 is looking fine A.F. 

I have a question tho, is player movement ever gonna change? It feels kinda clunky IMO (like you're floating or something), the game is reaching some insane quality levels (for a sandbox, random gen, fully destructible, etc. game) and I feel like movement is the same from Alpha 4.

Love you guys, can't wait to see what you have in store for us. 

Tranquitas.
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Give me clunky. I tried first person on Night of the Dead, which features some fine player animations, and got motion sickness really fast. When you walk the brain adjusts what you are seeing based on the motion detection of your ears and experience. These elements are absent when you are sitting down looking at a screen so your brain can't do much except adjust to short term experience -- which causes that strange dissonance when you end a long playing session --, and that causes the motion sickness. So it really should be up to the computer to do the adjusting to give you a stable view.

That doesn't mean the avatar shouldn't get some better animations, and it did receive some updates in this regard on alpha 18, iirc. Just don't move the view up and down to simulate walking.

 
It's weird that people talk about motion sickness when gaming.  I suffer from motion sickness in real life (have to take medicine when flying or riding in a car on long trips, no boating or rollercoaster activities for me).  But I have never gotten sick from playing a video game.

But I figure it is the same reason I never get motion sickness when I drive - I am in control, even when the game tries to say I am not in control  😉

 
Nimeni said:
I don t know if it was asked before:

Did the pathing on z's got reworked/improved?  Now the z's are to smart in a stupid way,  we can tell them were to go ( one way bridge/ditch)  and just shoot at them with an M60, etc...
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(IMHO) This is an important ingredient in the tower defense part of the game. You should be able to goad them through your traps, you should be able to concentrate your fire on them through careful planning of your base.

The M60 is great, but uses a lot of expensive ammo. At the moment we easily get enough ammo in vanilla to just mow down the zombies on horde night, but think about what you would do if you needed to conserve ammo.

 
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