PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

  • <img alt=":)" data-src="" src="___base_url___/applications/core/interface/js/spacer.png" />

    Votes: 1 33.3%
  • Total voters
    3
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Players: OMG we need food spoilage nao!TFP: Sure. Your food will spoil.

Players: OMG this is horrible! All my food is just rotting away! We need working refrigerators nao!

TFP: Okay, have some refrigerators, gated by appropriate electrical engineering perks.

Players: OMG this is horrible! Intellect is now the only way to play the game!

TFP: Sigh. Fine. Everyone will be able to craft ice boxes that use up snow as fuel.

Players: OMG this is horrible! My map does not have a snow biome conveniently close! This is broken!

TFP: FINE. Everyone will be able to craft ice boxes that always work.

Players: Meh. Food is way too easy to manage. This sucks.

TFP: WTF guys?
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LOL exactly. Lets focus on shipping the game, and polishing what we have and some late game content, not adding new features and bugs and perma alpha.

 
That is some great info. Thanks for the link. I am too lazy to actually get into game development, but love reading about any potential advances.
Is it the voxel requirement that "limits" 7D2D as far as number of rendered objects? Limitation of the Unity engine version? I see a game like Dying Light which has amazing graphics and animations and wonder why the limitations in 7D2D. Granted that is a static game world, but the amount they render, and what they render was always impressive to me. Still have more hours in 7D2D though because frankly it is just better in bed.

I am certainly ignorant of much behind the scenes so it is most likely not a very fair comparison, but would love to be educated more on what is going on under the hood.
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No idea mate never attempted something similar but I guess that textured meshes would be infinitely more taxing than static terrain even if you cull anything that you don't have to render, with memory management being the worst thing about them in an engine like unity and every kind of change happening at runtime as MM said. If you want to learn more, I think that the best way is to get your hands dirty with a learning course on sites like e.g. udemy.

Players: OMG we need food spoilage nao!TFP: Sure. Your food will spoil.

Players: OMG this is horrible! All my food is just rotting away! We need working refrigerators nao!

TFP: Okay, have some refrigerators, gated by appropriate electrical engineering perks.

Players: OMG this is horrible! Intellect is now the only way to play the game!

TFP: Sigh. Fine. Everyone will be able to craft ice boxes that use up snow as fuel.

Players: OMG this is horrible! My map does not have a snow biome conveniently close! This is broken!

TFP: FINE. Everyone will be able to craft ice boxes that always work.

Players: Meh. Food is way too easy to manage. This sucks.

TFP: WTF guys?
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Meh, exaggerating as always...

Spoilage will never be a legit topic to discuss until it has a three letter acronym....
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I thought you were going to support me on this!

 
There is another strange thing: I damolish building, run away at 100 meters, look back and.... It still WAS there! Walk to it and at 30 meter distance it dissapier. WTF?!

Sorry for bad english

 
Personally I like complex mechanics in my survival games, look no further than Conan Exiles. Problem with CE is you cant dig or destroy the map and well its not Zombies but the complex crafting system is realistic and very immersive and I hope 7D2D will get there or at least get close to that at some point. If not then no worries I am still going to be happy. I was talking with my friend the other day and the topic of "whats your favorite game of all time" came up. I explained to him that 7D2D is my all time favorite game because its complex in its own right and you have to constantly be playing. Whether its gathering materials by looting POI's to digging out an area of the map that you are making your base at. There is an infinite number of ways to play and you can literally do what ever you want in the game. There is no mundane story path you have to go through or anything. its truly open world and you can do whatever you want. He said League of Legends was his... a sad way to end that discussion in deed as LoL is the polar opposite of 7D2D.
I can't tell you all how many times my wife saw me running like a mad man through the house desperately trying to get back to my computer because i went AFK to get a drink or use the restroom only to hear on my wireless headset that my character was getting attacked by a Z. truly a helpless feeling. That my fellow survivors is how you know when 7D2D is your Favorite game of all time. Nothing is more evident than when your on the porcelain throne doing your business while listening hopelessly as your character is getting devoured.

if you want to kill this game just give it the Bernie Sanders treatment and give everyone everything free without having to work for it. I know that will never happen but the day i start a new game with a lvl 6 gun, lvl 6 tools, lvl 6 auger, Is the day i stop playing.
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This was a great read, thank you.

 
There is another strange thing: I damolish building, run away at 100 meters, look back and.... It still WAS there! Walk to it and at 30 meter distance it dissapier. WTF?!
Sorry for bad english
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Buildings are imposters. There is a modder we're working with a bit that is working on distant buildings updating to show destruction, but performance is a big concern, but it is a technical proof of concept.

 
If we switched to static terrain and isolated voxels we'd pretty much solve water, fps woes and slow vehicles all in one fairly easy to do move.
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I have often wondered if there might be a way to combine static and voxel terrain to improve fps. Like only doing voxels 3-4 deep for terrain until the player starts digging and then converting to voxels as the player moves into what would have been static terrain.

And grass. Would it make sense to get rid of grass as a separate, harvestable voxel and just make it part of the ground block? The last couple of alphas have seen grass become less and less important (I'd argue we really don't need grass clothing now that we have a weather-protection buff at the beginning) and it seems like a lot of items to spawn and make destructible for little gain.

 
Buildings are imposters. There is a modder we're working with a bit that is working on distant buildings updating to show destruction, but performance is a big concern, but it is a technical proof of concept.
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Thank you for answer! Not very big problem, but sometimes want to destroy entire town =) Grind to dust!

 
Compare us to minecraft and you'll see how far we've come. All the limits are because of a fully destroyable world. It makes everything more expensive. Lighting, AI and pathing, reflections, shadows. In non destroyable worlds all that stuff is preprocessed and baked into the world but in a fully destroyable world you have to do everything at run time so it eats way more cpu, so its very challenging to look as good as other games that aren't fully destroyable and have decent framerate.
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You've come very far graphicswise! And that is a huge deal! ..however minecraft can have servers with hundreds of players and hundreds of animals. How about that?

- - - Updated - - -

Players: OMG we need food spoilage nao!TFP: Sure. Your food will spoil.

Players: OMG this is horrible! All my food is just rotting away! We need working refrigerators nao!

TFP: Okay, have some refrigerators, gated by appropriate electrical engineering perks.

Players: OMG this is horrible! Intellect is now the only way to play the game!

TFP: Sigh. Fine. Everyone will be able to craft ice boxes that use up snow as fuel.

Players: OMG this is horrible! My map does not have a snow biome conveniently close! This is broken!

TFP: FINE. Everyone will be able to craft ice boxes that always work.

Players: Meh. Food is way too easy to manage. This sucks.

TFP: WTF guys?
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I understand your point, but I felt compelled to show also the side of the comminity that doesn't want it.

 
I think all acronyms needs to end in BD, because it just sounds funny. SBD. Spoil by Decaying lol.
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An acronym has to be pronounced as a word though. So maybe FATS: Food Atrophy Trepidation System

 
I thought you were going to support me on this!
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For sure :) I've always been on board for "spoilage by decay" Now that we have the acronym I'm unleashed.

SBD is a key component of survival games in my opinion. If 7 Days to Die wants to be a survival-lite game with more of the emphasis placed on killing zombies and tower defense and character development that is certainly up to the developers, but I would like to see the survival aspect beefed up. Absolutely make it optional so arcade players can have their fun too but there is a huge chunk of survival missing by not having "spoilage by decay" along with the tech progression of preservation that goes with it. It doesn't even need to be complex. Make it an abstract system like other games are already doing and call it done. But with SBD farming will be more meaningful, hunting will be more meaningful, looting canned food will be more meaningful, and obtaining the tech to preserve food (which we get now for free) will be another game objective.

If there isn't time now- at least keep it as a consideration for later because it seems like a glaring omission from the survival aspect of the game.

 
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I think all acronyms needs to end in BD, because it just sounds funny. SBD. Spoil by Decaying lol.
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Spoiled Boys are Delusional? No? ok sorry.

Zombie Boy Confirmed...neither? mmm, maybe I'm delusional...

 
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QoL [sug]

Can you all look into adding enough crafting queue slots for the player, so all the grass fiber clothing items can fit in all the queue slots in the beginner quest?

Edit: Or just adjust the quest a bit, to only need a few pieces of clothing, enough to let the newbies players know you can craft them.

 
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