PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[rdunham3]

Zombies biting the player would be difficult to do, let alone in a MP game.
Ah yes, 7 days is a very generic zombie game with horrible graphics, yet we have outsold every truly generic zombie game ever made. I think your assessment of what makes a great game is spot off. Our game is flat out fun and has nothing to do with voxels, but good game design. There have been hordes of minecraft clones that all failed, if voxels were the magic secret sauce then the industry would have switched to them.

Spot on, although I must say that the better games I've played in the last few years happen to also be voxel-based. Could be coincidence.

Space Engineers comes to mind. For all that the voxel-based nature of it gives a lot of flexibility, and designing ridiculously complex machines with the pistons and rotors can be quite entertaining, the game itself is missing elements that good games need. It could probably be made good but they don't appear to be trying to. Sad, really. The last couple of weeks my kids and I have been kicking the tires on Empyrion. I can see where they're on a trajectory similar to the Fun Pimps' 7 Days to Die...but they're arguably earlier on in the process so it'll be interesting to see if their product matures as 7 Days to Die has and continues to.

 

[madmole]

I love special zombies, and there should be special zombies that show up when you find a loot room - or at least a chance of one.

Yeah until pc's/unity/tfp can afford 1000's of zombies and even if we could, I think special infected are fun. Players like new puzzles to solve mid and late game, it would get boring if every zombie was basically the same.

 

[rdunham3]

There is no evidence that they are dead people who rise yet.

The ones with a big chunk of skull and brain missing would argue with you, though it may come out more as moans and groans than a coherent argument.

 

[madmole]

Bring on as many specials as you can. Having the abilities is fun to play with, and like you said a romero mod is simple and easy to achieve. Ive nothing more to add except i wanted to be positive for once
Also for you Romero fans out there remember even Romero zombies used tools like rocks and climbed up ladders, they even retained basic knowledge like pathing and using elevator buttons. Dawn of the Dead features a zombie who REMEMBERS where the heroes were hiding out so stop being so serious guys. Its a game!

We've talked about the t2 construction guys having hammers, t3 versions wield sledgehammers and would do devastating block damage

 

[madmole]

madmole i have a question you said in your character build vid or the one before levelling became really grindy and said you would add a cap do you roughly know what that is? maybe like 15k? or 18

Uhhh probably like 100-200k per level, not sure where you grabbed that number.

 

[rdunham3]

Ooh, can tier 2 strippers shimmy up the poles of stilt towers? Biker zombies steal your ride if they come across it on the way to you? :biggrin-new:

 

[MechanicalLens]

This is a good idea and should be easy to do. Instead of spider zombies just chewing on your shoes they explode, that would cause some serious issues damaging catwalks, hurting the players, etc.
It would be funny if the cops vomited some kind of head crap egg thing that was full of acid and sat there and damaged whatever it stuck to until you killed it, like a little c4 loogie mud crab

This would be an amazing feature honestly. ^^ I've always found it a shame, for example, that the wights - which look badass, and were the OG "boss zombie" - are now just regular zombies with a ton of health and that always run. It would be cool if the odd one had some... abilities. Just saying.

 

[MajorMunchy]

Ooh, can tier 2 strippers shimmy up the poles of stilt towers? Biker zombies steal your ride if they come across it on the way to you? :biggrin-new:

I think stripper zombies should make you drop dukes if you have them on you when they hit you #realism

 

[madmole]

speaking of trees...
Any chance we will see some desert trees? maybe date/fig/coconut ?

We just added that new tree to the desert in a17. The desert is gold shippable in A18.

 

[madmole]

are there more poi's in a18

Yes lots of new ones, and tons of reworked old ones that are now the new higher standard.

 

[BlashaKente]

This is a good idea and should be easy to do. Instead of spider zombies just chewing on your shoes they explode, that would cause some serious issues damaging catwalks, hurting the players, etc.
It would be funny if the cops vomited some kind of head crap egg thing that was full of acid and sat there and damaged whatever it stuck to until you killed it, like a little c4 loogie mud crab

Lol I love how a moment ago someone was asking for zombie lore to understand their incentives and you come back a moment later with acid mudcrab cop loogie. Pretty much the opposite direction, build the fun and we’ll follow.

I still don’t really know what Borderlands 1 or 2 were about, just loved the gameplay of point, shoot n’ loot.

 

[madmole]

Why do I have this feeling MM going to release the game to the streamers this Friday?The feeling is strong.

Its like some... force.

Nope, and I would probably throw the 13th out the window because this week is short. If things go well I would guess Friday the 20th, if we can't make that we'll postpone until Oct because of Twitchcon the end of Sept.

With 47 MF's I don't see that happening, but it could, new MF's are still added daily.

Remember these are optimistic madmole guesses, and not a TFP announcement.

 

[madmole]

For alpha 18 do I have to recreate the world? in my dedicated? and reset everything from 0?

LOL. We're getting better with not destroying save games, but a major alpha update will destroy your save.

 

[MajorMunchy]

Nope, and I would probably throw the 13th out the window because this week is short. If things go well I would guess Friday the 20th, if we can't make that we'll postpone until Oct because of Twitchcon the end of Sept.
With 47 MF's I don't see that happening, but it could, new MF's are still added daily.

Remember these are optimistic madmole guesses, and not a TFP announcement.

honestly would get a good laugh if they released it on dec 31th at 11:59 pm JUST to say they TECHNICALLY got it in in 2019

 

[madmole]

I really wish that in A18, that zombies will try to pathfind around cars, or at least jump on top of them. Currently they almost gravitate towards them and decide to beat them, which results in the cars exploding. :/

I haven't seen that.

 

[AngryGamer]

Nope, and I would probably throw the 13th out the window because this week is short. If things go well I would guess Friday the 20th, if we can't make that we'll postpone until Oct because of Twitchcon the end of Sept.
With 47 MF's I don't see that happening, but it could, new MF's are still added daily.

Remember these are optimistic madmole guesses, and not a TFP announcement.

Was the claim release cycles would decrease significantly a madmole guess too?

 

[madmole]

Another thing I find weird and hate.. the idea that we are supposed to do something at given times... What happened to sandbox?

This is a misconception, but beware that there could be consequences.

 

[madmole]

Thing is, sometimes you don't want to spend the best part of an in-game day in a building just because, as Guppy said, you want to find a can of food or a pair of shoes. Sometimes you just want to make a quick stop at a simple POI, enter, kill the undead residents if any, get whatever junk you can find inside and be on the road.
Being able to do that is, imo, part of the fun in exploring.

Nothing is stopping you from looking at a house and saying, ok this looks like the front door, and break in and loot that room or two, and then leave. IRL if you were to say loot a living room then heard footsteps upstairs you would probably run. Nothing says you have to "clear" a POI. You can break in loot a few rooms and run off to the next one.

 

[Eliphas the Inheritor]

I haven't seen that.

Bro, are you sure you're playing Alpha 17? because that stuff is old Alpha. The only thing that could happen to the car is to just be destroyed instead of exploding(I'm talking about cars that you can loot, not player-made vehicles). Be specific about what "cars" you're talking about.

Edit: Sorry, I didn't mean to respond to you madmole. It was for the other guy.

 

[madmole]

Levelled everything.

Not this again. Give grandpa his bedtime pills.