PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Jackelmyer]

Just want to say thank you Madmole. I know we can all be a bunch of asshats sometimes. But getting to have us all chat with you now and then is incredibly appreciated. I think we all know you and the rest of TFP are super busy. So just wanted to put the appreciation out there.

Thanks a bunch!

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That doesn't go against the point he's making, though. If those cheap or free games were of good quality and engaging from the first minute, and free of game-breaking bugs or annoying interfaces then the average amount of hours that players play it would increase.

Not really. You can make the best game in the world, for... Some people. But you'll still get a revolving door of 2 hour or less people. It's basically window shopping.

 

[Gazz]

so is there not a block property that I can set that makes it PlayerDestroyable = TRUE/FALSE ? this would allow us to build (in designer?) places with a mix of breakable and non-breaking items.

There is no such thing.

We are thinking about some new functionality for the perk books but no promises.

interesting. Empyrion also does this via their "cores" you must destroy first.

Yeah, was gonna say.

For Empyrion I built myself a super tiny SV with a gatling gun that can fit through regular doorways so I CAN choose to go through the occasional wall without carrying 20 stacks of explosives. =)

 

[Cirion]

Yeah, was gonna say.

For Empyrion I built myself a super tiny SV with a gatling gun that can fit through regular doorways so I CAN choose to go through the occasional wall without carrying 20 stacks of explosives. =)

Except for those annoying POI's which are invincible/admin bases... and certain sadistic scenarios like what piddlefoot made which has virtually all POI's as admin bases...

 

[Guppycur]

Finally Guppy and I can agree to agree! This is truely an amazing day. Now I'm just waiting for Jax to see the light in what I said.

Woah.

I've heard that's the secret 8th seal, I wouldn't attempt that...

Let's just be happy the two of us have agreed on three things this week and not temp fate.

(Modders role, new skill point gate ideas, and that you're not suddenly going to take away 2500 hours of content to target the 30 hour players).

...I've been laughing at this whole thing because the thousand hour players arguing with you are the proof against their own argument.

 

[Roland]

Good sir, I am 99% sure most people would gladly pay for a great DLC (a New York Map with subways and factions for example)

With a storyline, I am 100% sure if you follow the advise in the book "The Hero of a Thousand Faces", you will make a great story.

George Lucas used it as his "Play Book" in his Star Wars series. Focus on the Heroes Journey section if time is short, free to download.

If only time could have been a bit too short for Ewoks and Jar Jar...

EDIT: lol...reread that and realized I took it wrong. You were telling US to focus on the Heroes Journey section if OUR time is short. I thought you were quoting from the book that storytellers should focus on the heroe's journey if time is short...

 

[Drithyl]

Not really. You can make the best game in the world, for... Some people. But you'll still get a revolving door of 2 hour or less people. It's basically window shopping.

So in your opinion, game developers are 100% powerless when it comes to making people play their game for more than 2 hours? Man, I wonder how the successful games pull it off. It can't just be sheer luck, can it?

 

[Cirion]

So in your opinion, game developers are 100% powerless when it comes to making people play their game for more than 2 hours? Man, I wonder how the successful games pull it off. It can't just be sheer luck, can it?

You can increase the % of players who play more than 2 hrs but you can't get rid of SOME people not playing more than 2 hrs. Even if you literally made THE best survival game in the world, not to be topped by any game in the past, present, or future, there will STILL be people who shelve it after 2 hrs because survival games aren't their cup of tea, they bought it and forgot about it, or some other reason. I think that's the point he was trying to make.

 

[Demonoid74]

There are no zombie games with perks or attributes are there?

Dead Island 1 and Riptide...But that was more of a skill tree/borderlands style perk system with 4 different playable characters...

That game was pretty damn fun , loved using Sam B and 2 handed hammer smashing everything...would play online occasionally

and always had people laughing how I would just charge in and smash stuff...Who do you voodoo female dog!

 

[Jay_ombie]

No I meant I don't like to make content that only 2% of the players might see. Which is why we unblocked vehicles from books.

You see I fit into the context of playing the game a lot but love starting again a lot...

So I am personally glad that things are not to far ahead blocked behind level 345 say... ><

 

[Drithyl]

You can increase the % of players who play more than 2 hrs but you can't get rid of SOME people not playing more than 2 hrs. Even if you literally made THE best survival game in the world, not to be topped by any game in the past, present, or future, there will STILL be people who shelve it after 2 hrs because survival games aren't their cup of tea, they bought it and forgot about it, or some other reason. I think that's the point he was trying to make.

That still increases the average amount of hours that players play your game for. And some games are so good that they cross boundaries and draw in people that are not usually attracted to that genre.

 

[OzHawkeye]

At the end of the day it takes money to keep things rolling. If we improve the first 20 to 30 hours of the game we'll have more people say its a great game (2 hour customers are going to review bomb us) and we'll sell more copies and have more revenue for future features. So in a round about way to get what you guys want (late game, more content) this is the correct way to achieve it by finishing the game in a high quality fashion so it sells well and gives us funding to keep updating it. Adding more and more crap to alpha just makes more bugs and keeps us from delivering our KS promises.

I wish more people would realise this.

It's also why I'm such an advocate of player choice - the more people who play the game, the more people who highly rate it, the more the game sells, the more money you guys get, and then, the pay off for me, the more likely you are to add even more content to the game.

I, for one, fully support you spending time adding content that caters to playstyles I'll never use, simply because I expect that the more successful 7days becomes the more tempted you'll all be to keep working on it. ;-)

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

There is no such thing.We are thinking about some new functionality for the perk books but no promises.

so I assume each block in the game is an object with properties right? if you are looking at those properties, please consider a property for ownerID so I can query with a mod for who placed it.

 

[madmole]

First look at the great heist book set!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1105234404379508736

 

[danielspoa]

so I assume each block in the game is an object with properties right? if you are looking at those properties, please consider a property for ownerID so I can query with a mod for who placed it.

and give experience according to the owner for traps /justsaying

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

First look at the great heist book set!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1105234404379508736

awesome looking book, will there be an Audio Book version?

So Interesting on more PVP content. one of my Son's only likes to play PVP, he is also an armorer in the Military and says some of your mods are not behaving like they would IRL.

 

[madmole]

That doesn't go against the point he's making, though. If those cheap or free games were of good quality and engaging from the first minute, and free of game-breaking bugs or annoying interfaces then the average amount of hours that players play it would increase.

Exactly. The guys with 5000 hours are screaming "more content" the new players are saying one or more of the following" Bad graphics, bad framerate, stutters, too hard" etc. We're doing our best to make everyone happy but we've been told over and over again if we can just polish up what we have its a hell of a game already "if you can get past the bugs, performance, etc". That shouldn't even be a thing. So we're focusing on bringing up the quality of the game. Sure we're adding mid and late game content, but we need to focus on all the issues instead of add tons of new stuff. Tons of new stuff is getting added now though, but meanwhile we're scrutinizing everything and making it better if we can.

 

[madmole]

Woah.
I've heard that's the secret 8th seal, I wouldn't attempt that...

Let's just be happy the two of us have agreed on three things this week and not temp fate.

(Modders role, new skill point gate ideas, and that you're not suddenly going to take away 2500 hours of content to target the 30 hour players).

...I've been laughing at this whole thing because the thousand hour players arguing with you are the proof against their own argument.

Lol Jax will come around. Yes lol we're not removing anything except maybe the old perk books that were kind of temp filler content that only last half an hour or whatever.

 

[madmole]

You can increase the % of players who play more than 2 hrs but you can't get rid of SOME people not playing more than 2 hrs. Even if you literally made THE best survival game in the world, not to be topped by any game in the past, present, or future, there will STILL be people who shelve it after 2 hrs because survival games aren't their cup of tea, they bought it and forgot about it, or some other reason. I think that's the point he was trying to make.

I KNOW though, that if we could get people past the first couple of hours there would be more 500+ hour guys out there. I tried Ark and thought it was pretty stupid, punching dinos and waiting literally 3 hours for it to wake up because I didn't have some ungodly amount of tranquilizers. Finally I played some coop with my kid and learned there were options to make it better (faster dino tames, more xp, etc) and got hooked on it, then played with friends hosting a server with a few mods and racked up like 1350 hours I think. My brother who never played it again like I did still thinks it sucks for the same reasons I did.

So if you can get past some klunky things a game you kind of like the premise of (you wouldn't buy otherwise) but didn't like the implementation or game play can become a great game. So we need to remove as many addiction blockers as possible so people can discover what a great game it is.

 

[madmole]

Dead Island 1 and Riptide...But that was more of a skill tree/borderlands style perk system with 4 different playable characters...
That game was pretty damn fun , loved using Sam B and 2 handed hammer smashing everything...would play online occasionally

and always had people laughing how I would just charge in and smash stuff...Who do you voodoo female dog!

I probably should have included open world... I only play open world games. I bought dead island and didn't like being told what to do and never made it out of the hotel. Oblivion and GTA ruined me lol I just love freedom and sandbox ability in a game.

 

[JaxTeller718]

Finally Guppy and I can agree to agree! This is truely an amazing day. Now I'm just waiting for Jax to see the light in what I said.

Ok let's try this.

As a creator who would never put myself in your circle (because you are way more talented than I) I respect your opinion on what you want for the game you created. I always have. Doesn't mean I won't push a little at times for the chance to see some stuff I like too. Usually a pipe dream with other companies, with you and TFP you are very consumer centric and take a lot of time to interact with us and I respect the hell out of it.

I also appreciate the modding capabilities. Its my passion now, and you can say with certainty you have inspired a generation of people who never even thought about modding. Look at all the names here who never opened an XMl now doing asset work, scripting etc. That's you big man. That's YOUR Arnold inspiration that you leave behind to US.

Do i agree that i want this game to ever focus on casuals etc? No. But i recognize its my opinion. And I will never hate you or this game to allow that to prevent me from enjoying it. You have given us the tools to take a massively entertaining game and add and twist it to our desires. For that I will eternally be grateful. Because I plan on being here with this community and game for years to come. And Im even dabbling in to the possibility of creating a small game to challenge myself so who knows where that will go.

I have a feeling we are a lot alike. I am constantly talking to my team about what the future is, what we can add and how big we can get and they often have to bring me down to reality and remind me we don't have 5 years to release the next update to my mod. I believe you to be similar. You're seeking the next challenge. You crushed this one. We are both obviously passionate. And we LOVE to stir the pot

I may criticize but in the end its In Pimps We Trust. Even a master chef has customers who use salt or ketchup every now and then. Doesn't mean they dont enjoy the meal, just means preference in flavors are a bit different.

So go Gold. And I promise as my way of showing thanks I will do my damndest to continue hyping and supporting this one way after the next project is underway. It is the least I can offer back as a way of saying thank you for all the memories and experiences you have given to me.

Edit - Wanted to add that i think I understand the 20 hour thing now. Its like an appetizer. Give them a great experience in the first 20 hours, and the ones who truly love it will turn that 20 into 1000.