PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

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    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
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No plans as its not needed to go gold. We're not making the game to extend 4000 hours to 5000 hours of fun, but targeting 20-30 hour customers who the hair looks just fine to. You guys are crazy with the stuff you ask for. Its fabulous you play this long but old is old. Changing the hair isn't going to add any value to the average consumer and you could care less 10 minutes after its in and its the new "old".
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Not going to lie. Probably the single most depressing thing I have ever read on here, especially coming from a modder who I genuinely looked up to. Out of a lot of things over the years I can not pinpoint why a statement like this stings a little. I remember a time when we all loved talking about potential ideas and wishes. Now its seemingly about numbers and rushing to release to move on. The fun is definitely missing, especially these past few months.

Eh it was a great ride though. Once in a lifetime experience to watch this game develop and grow. I wouldn't have changed it for the world.

- - - Updated - - -

That is the most discouraging post from that I have ever read. Going for the quick hit and run consumer is the polar opposite of what this game deserves.
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Im seriously rethinking my future with this game right now. It's a corporate line, and the worst one a developer can ever tell his customers, most of whom HAVE over 4000 hours of play and following this journey. We are nothing more than a number.

As true as that may be a company who grew with its fans and supporters should never tell their fans they are just a number....

I mean, what does that make me for spending thousands of hours modding this game so that new and old fans can enjoy a different experience? And what of the future? Am i just an idiot? For seeing thousands of hours of value? For WASTING hours of my life in a game that's intended to be no more than a 40 hour AAA title time waster?

 
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...snip...

Im seriously rethinking my future with this game right now. It's a corporate line, and the worst one a developer can ever tell his customers, most of whom HAVE over 4000 hours of play and following this journey. We are nothing more than a number.

As true as that may be a company who grew with its fans and supporters should never tell their fans they are just a number....
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Jax. You and I can probably agree we don't always see eye to eye. ;-p

However, I absolutely understand and agree with how Madmole's response feels.

I do think we all could use taking a step back.

Madmole, I don't recall, or any of TFP, has ever said 7 Days To Die was going to be their legacy. I don't think they offered to be anything more than a game developer.

It doesn't change how it feels when we hear what motivates a game developer or what a game developer feels is "good enough". It can be truly disheartening to hear. Especially when some of us have invested nearly career levels worth of time in a game we're passionate about.

Which, is also fine. People have made lives out of chess and never profited from the game. It's passion. And it's all good.

But I think we all, including me, could use a dose of honesty and fairness in our expectations of TFP.

They're not the original developer of Minecraft. They're not a group run by Bill Gates creating the first PC. The Fun Pimps is a game developer. That's it.

Regardless whatever potential we may see in 7 days to die, I don't think we were ever promised anything more.

EDIT: I won't delude myself into thinking my experience is the same as yours Jax. I've not spent the hours your talking. I'm over 2000 hours if I include time not counted by steam. But not at your level by far. Still, at over 2000 hours, I absolutely can empathize to a degree.

 
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Dude I absolutely agree on the priorities. Imposter generation at runtime would be waaaay low on the totem pole in my lil world of what comes next.
Was just talking about the feasibility. *shrug*. Was an interesting topic. Felt like chatting it up. :-D
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Sure, and I wasn't trying to be a jerk to you or anything.

Just pointing it out, because sometimes if a thing is even considered possible, there's a pile of demands that it be in the game, regardless of other priorities.

But I do find this interesting:

There is a modder who is working on this, if it works out we'll use his code.
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Given the conversation we've been having, I'd love to see if this works out too.

 
No plans as its not needed to go gold. We're not making the game to extend 4000 hours to 5000 hours of fun, but targeting 20-30 hour customers who the hair looks just fine to. You guys are crazy with the stuff you ask for. Its fabulous you play this long but old is old. Changing the hair isn't going to add any value to the average consumer and you could care less 10 minutes after its in and its the new "old".
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So how many new customers do you project on picking up with the game changing wagon wheel that was added? Id say if you ask anybody out here zombie variety is way more important to this game over a wagon a modder could add in 30 seconds.

 
Not going to lie. Probably the single most depressing thing I have ever read on here, especially coming from a modder who I genuinely looked up to. Out of a lot of things over the years I can not pinpoint why a statement like this stings a little. I remember a time when we all loved talking about potential ideas and wishes. Now its seemingly about numbers and rushing to release to move on. The fun is definitely missing, especially these past few months.
I mean, what does that make me for spending thousands of hours modding this game so that new and old fans can enjoy a different experience? And what of the future? Am i just an idiot? For seeing thousands of hours of value? For WASTING hours of my life in a game that's intended to be no more than a 40 hour AAA title time waster?
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Every game gives its player base different degree's of journey time, depends how that particular game conjures up the idealisation and imagination of the individual player.

Most will come and go and many will defiantly stay and play on, your mods will never be seen as a waste.

They have have up to now spurned many hours of extended play and encouraged many other modders to take up the mantle to make great content for this game.

Regardless where this game has been and where its about to go and eventually end, your mod(s) and those of others on this board will forever as long as they are out there will provide vast amounts of play time for those that seek it.

The game will only die when we stop playing it.

 
snip for space
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I'm not disagreeing with you. It is no revelation that this games future is in modding. Long after Pimps have moved on there will be streamers playing Darkness Falls and Ravenhearst who will buy this game based on what they see modders do.

What he is saying is 100 percent the truth. At a certain point you move on. BUT that doesnt mean its ok to come out and wave your hand over the audience who put those hours in, who extended the life during droughts, who stream and advertise and who were here way before i ever was by being dismissive.

In a boardroom or a meeting its fine. Public relations goes a long way sometimes. The lack of it over the past few months is astonishing. The air around here has gone from hopeful promise to standard business of a AAA company whose long been ready to move on.

Which is fine. Move on. But do it gracefully without giving the appearance that if someone has thousands of hours in your game they just aren't important to you because you're chasing new customers. Those statements are best left to the team internally not out on a forum for your supporters to read.

 
7 Days to Die was the very first game I'd ever put more than 200 hours into. An open world RNG game about surviving the zombie apocalypse checked off ALL of the right boxes for me. Then i realized playing SP was depriving me of a different experience, so I joined a MP server. Then I realized that playing "against" other people was not much fun if there was no conflict, so I joined a couple PvP friendly servers and did alright. THEN I got invited to Red Wolf's Steel Marauders RPG server with factions, classes and a whole bunch of other cool ♥♥♥♥, and that's when I realized how accessible xml modding really was. Fast forward to today, I have over 2500 hours into the game and have learned (with much hand-holding by the modding community) how to import assets and do a lot of things to mold the game into my preferred vision.

That being said, I do feel like making this open world experience into a 20-40 hour game out of the box really waters down the experience and doesn't really make the game's potential shine. The most popular Skyrim mods added depth to gameplay (intentionally leaving out the dong and boob mods because everybody knows that teenage hormones rule the internet) and while it could be said that was a bonus of modding and not a malus of development, there is always the middle ground.

TL;DR - It's your game, if you want to rush to gold do it, but you're doing your overall fanbase a disservice by trying to make a 20-30 hour attention span experience. Dwarf Fortress has hands down the most fanatical fanbase because of it's depth and long-game ramifications. If that's too spergy for you, look at RimWorld. 20-30 hours? That's your first base.

 
Havent played since just before 17.1 release...played a bit after the loooong wait and was disappointed with the game direction and changes...and now after reading the last few pages...my conclusion

Coughs*

*Coughs
 
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Its not that, its being realistic about the demographic audience. Most people have better things to do then play one game for thousands of hours.
Most AAA games have about 6-10 hours of play, so aiming for 20-30 with hobby potential is still a very admirable design goal. The fact people play it 5000 hours or more is just bonus. I'm happy if I buy a game I play for more than 2 hours. If I can get 20-30 hours out of a game I'm super happy with it. We do want to create games that can become a hobby, but we can't expect people to play for thousands of hours and people who have played it for thousands of hours can't expect us to keep making it fun for them.

Then your on a slippery slope of adding late game crap 2% of players see. Its better to have less content that is super engaging for 20 hours than a ton of content that is meh or blocked.

Like I have to wonder how many players actually legit got tek gear in Ark on vanilla servers lol. What a waste of time making all those models and code for that stuff nobody ever got to use it unless they cheated.
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Lmao, I'm sure Skyrim had the same goal (maybe 60hrs of play) and look what happened. I don't know if you realized this but 90% of AAA games are hot garbage now days. There are people saying another gaming crash is gonna happen/happening and I kinda believe them at this point. Indie devs will rule the wastelands and awesome game play will be the law of the land. The games I have the most hours on are indie games by far (yours included) because they usually put game play first.

Biggest lesson you can take from what's happening in the gaming industry right now? Don't neglect nor insult your hardcore fan base.

Diablo: Immortal anyone? Just to name one example.

 
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Its not that, its being realistic about the demographic audience. Most people have better things to do then play one game for thousands of hours.
Most AAA games have about 6-10 hours of play, so aiming for 20-30 with hobby potential is still a very admirable design goal. The fact people play it 5000 hours or more is just bonus. I'm happy if I buy a game I play for more than 2 hours. If I can get 20-30 hours out of a game I'm super happy with it. We do want to create games that can become a hobby, but we can't expect people to play for thousands of hours and people who have played it for thousands of hours can't expect us to keep making it fun for them.

Then your on a slippery slope of adding late game crap 2% of players see. Its better to have less content that is super engaging for 20 hours than a ton of content that is meh or blocked.

Like I have to wonder how many players actually legit got tek gear in Ark on vanilla servers lol. What a waste of time making all those models and code for that stuff nobody ever got to use it unless they cheated.
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Might want to ditch rwg efforts. You dont need it for a 20 hour game

 
Like I have to wonder how many players actually legit got tek gear in Ark on vanilla servers lol. What a waste of time making all those models and code for that stuff nobody ever got to use it unless they cheated.
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This is a completely out of touch statement. There are a lot of servers where people have Tek and streamers who have long term games that got to Tek.

Have a look around at the most popular servers for your own game. Day 300 plus. The world exists OUTSIDE of Navezgane.

The game world is changing my man. People pledge allegiance to one or two games now. 3000 hours is average now for survival games.

Your line of thinking is going to sink your ship.

 
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This is a completely out of touch statement. There are a lot of servers where people have Tek and streamers who have long term games that got to Tek.
Have a look around at the most popular servers for your own game. Day 300 plus. The world exists OUTSIDE of Navezgane.

The game world is changing my man. People pledge allegiance to one or two games now. 3000 hours is average now for survival games.

Your line of thinking is going to sink your ship.
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That’s why mods that add end game content are so popular ;)

 
What I think MM says is that they have to achieve their goal to get gold. They cannot stay early access too much in time, all of us know that. They have good kickstarter goals that they need to finish them properly (finally). With the time of the developement we got used to have really nice features, some of them got accepted, some not. But lets move on.

Didn`t they work on a better mod system, a one that could brings what some of us want, but modded, after gold (Steam workshop is not yet out, remember) ?

Having an awesome base game as a gold version, and the ability to mod it and create content with no limits is what I think is their final goal.

 
What he is saying is 100 percent the truth. At a certain point you move on. BUT that doesnt mean its ok to come out and wave your hand over the audience who put those hours in, who extended the life during droughts, who stream and advertise and who were here way before i ever was by being dismissive.
In a boardroom or a meeting its fine. Public relations goes a long way sometimes. The lack of it over the past few months is astonishing. The air around here has gone from hopeful promise to standard business of a AAA company whose long been ready to move on.

Which is fine. Move on. But do it gracefully without giving the appearance that if someone has thousands of hours in your game they just aren't important to you because you're chasing new customers. Those statements are best left to the team internally not out on a forum for your supporters to read.
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Exactly this. It's fine for a company to make the decision to focus on new customers and making the gameplay strong for the first 50ish hours. What I'm NOT cool with (and this is coming from someone who has defended TFP extensively in the past) is being told that I should have better things to do than put the over 2000 hours into this game that I have. Not cool.

 
So how many new customers do you project on picking up with the game changing wagon wheel that was added? Id say if you ask anybody out here zombie variety is way more important to this game over a wagon a modder could add in 30 seconds.
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Exactly my thought!

 
Its not that, its being realistic about the demographic audience. Most people have better things to do then play one game for thousands of hours.
Most AAA games have about 6-10 hours of play, so aiming for 20-30 with hobby potential is still a very admirable design goal. The fact people play it 5000 hours or more is just bonus. I'm happy if I buy a game I play for more than 2 hours. If I can get 20-30 hours out of a game I'm super happy with it. We do want to create games that can become a hobby, but we can't expect people to play for thousands of hours and people who have played it for thousands of hours can't expect us to keep making it fun for them.

Then your on a slippery slope of adding late game crap 2% of players see. Its better to have less content that is super engaging for 20 hours than a ton of content that is meh or blocked.

Like I have to wonder how many players actually legit got tek gear in Ark on vanilla servers lol. What a waste of time making all those models and code for that stuff nobody ever got to use it unless they cheated.
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quite conservative bordering on underestimating everything, most AAA PC games have between 30 and 60 hours of game play, but if you were referring to console games 6-10 hours is still a very conservative estimate. I have 3800+ hours in 7D, have seen how gameplay has progressed, so ya i do expect better from you and TFP. I

 
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Any Thoughts on Mid or End game? its fair to say by level 100 you are able to take on pretty much anything and also have the ability to make everything you need.

something that is only attainable at levels 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, etc. things I would like to see:

-- Quest with rewards that are level specific with significant items

-- Artifacts - the Indian Lore chest is cool so maybe take that further?

-- Peerless items, mods (see my previous post)

-- clothing that is level specific. Everyone wants a "I got to level 300 and all I got was this MM t-shirt"

 
Any Thoughts on Mid or End game? its fair to say by level 100 you are able to take on pretty much anything and also have the ability to make everything you need.
something that is only attainable at levels 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, etc. things I would like to see:

-- Quest with rewards that are level specific with significant items

-- Artifacts - the Indian Lore chest is cool so maybe take that further?

-- Peerless items, mods (see my previous post)

-- clothing that is level specific. Everyone wants a "I got to level 300 and all I got was this MM t-shirt"
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Madmole basically said, "You will get nothing and like it!"

Seriously though, he just confirmed that making end game stuff is a waste of time as only 2% of players will see it. Modders will have to take up the task.

 
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