PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[Gareee]

I'll take fewer zombies with voxel terrain. There are dozens of games that have lots of content but static terrain.
If that's where the game needs to go... so be it. /shrug

As far as Voxelgate is concerened, I'm of a like mind.

I can already play a LOT of aaa non voxel zombie games, like WWZ and Dying light, and lets fave it, they beat 7days presentation hands down.

BUT I have more playtime in 7 days that all of them combined, BECAUSE of the RWG and voxel gaming.

I get you crave performance improvements, but IMHO moving away from the nitch you've carved is the wrong direction.

If only the loaded chunks are voxel and everything else is distant terrain, I don't see why the voxel inclusion is so intensive.

Using the closest analogy of Minecraft, if you look at minecraft with shaders, texture packs and mods, its astounding of good it looks, and its performance is great.. we can play 1080p at 60 fps, and 4 k at 30 fps without drops.

You've already invested SO much work developing your voxel world code and engine, that it would be a damned shame to see the sequel fall back to being just like everyone else, when they have HUGE budgets and development houses to beat you hands down.

Instead I'd develop rgw further, with subways, rivers, bridges, and improved water. a LOT of that can just be done with pois and generation placements... modders have already done a lot of it as well already.

Build on your unique strengths, noy follow in others footsteps.

You replaced the cave system exploration with dungeon and more pois, which is ok, but Minecraft is HUGE, and other than Hytale no one else is challenging them. (Hytale BTW is simply astounding looking, so far.)

We started 7 days BECAUSE it was like adult minecraft, but its moving further and further from that with each update and while we like a lot of the improvements and additions, we'd also like to see the old perlin cave system added as an option, and see more underground pois and development like Minecraft has.

You stuck resources on the surfaces to eliminate the need to mine, but mining for resources is a nice diversion away from the frantic zombie battling, and 7 days lost a lot when it lost significant mining. You could have added underground poi mines, military bunkers, lava and even used the sleepers in the pois, and kept that adult Minecraft analogy going.

I have a hard time believing that the outdated minecraft engine can have shader packs and custom models added making it look amazing, and 7 days can't.

We love both minecraft and 7 days as well as aaa zombie games like dying Light and world war z, but I prefer to see more of a push back towads RGW and voxels instead of away towards things we can already get a lot better in big budget releases.

Play to your uniqueness, not towards a place with really stiff deep pocketed competition.

 

[FA_Q2]

I remember you announcing that in A17. Either I'm delusional or the announcement slipped through as well :cocksure:

I remember it as part of the railing against level gating. No one liked level gating in an open world like this one.

 

[Gareee]

You could ask the Pimps to include the zipline code/xml in a future patch so you can add them via mod.

I'd like to see them add the hitboxes to the behemoth and include him somewhere. Maybe just a later gamestage charger zombie slightly bigger than the biker with block demolishing capability if he gets close enough to smash through defenses.

His work was almost completed and he looks great, so it seems a shame to not at least repurpose that work and include him.

Its a small amount of work for a significant addition.

- - - Updated - - -

Sounds great, but I presume you are exaggerating. I doubt removing destroyable terrain only, keeping all the destroyable pois would allow you to have 500 on screen. Jeez even AAA games don't have that many on screen. In a multiplayer game also? Lol

Watch videos of the world war 7 game... multiplayer co op, static terrain, and ungodly zombie counts.

 

[The Gronk]

With static terrain we could pre bake nav mesh and it would run amazing. SI calculations would be limited to "chunk entities". You could build chunk entities with 360 degree rotations.

Even now you could implement a custom navmesh system that calculates on-the-fly. It's not like the concept behind a navmesh system is a secret and nor is it particularly difficult to implement. Damn near 80-90% of the blocks can be simplified to some form of cubic variant. That makes the polygon creation pretty damn trivial.

Your next point will likely be that you don't have the time. I'd say there's still time to do it. It's not like you can't afford to stick a programmer in corner for 6-12 months to implement it.

Is it not worth it to have spiders climbing along the ceiling or take the Behemoth from the cutting room floor? Is it not worth it for the extra zombies alone?

 

[Gareee]

They don't look like 500 to me.. also it's a cinematic

Watch the world war z gameplay trailer instead

100% agree

 

[RipClaw]

Don't you have to be level 80 or something in A17 to make a 4x4?

If you have all the parts and a workbench you can assemble the 4x4. No need to buy the perk.

 

[wolfbain5]

Maybe because they are already very powerful and effective in slowing down zombies. For balance bleeding barbed wires would have to be MUCH more expensive to build or lose much of their slowing effect. EDIT: or not last as long
All traps in 7D2D trade their own hitpoints for damage to zombies. It means a barbed wire with damage would also be gone much faster. I rather like the barbed wire to last all horde night.

what are you guys talking about, stand on a barbed wire, you get bleed while you stand on it, and just walking on it dmages the barbed wire. I have never had barbed wire last all horde night

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

If you have all the parts and a workbench you can assemble the 4x4. No need to buy the perk.

yeah I find parts all the time and we all get together on our server and swap what we find to get vehicles. its a cool system DONT MESS WITH IT!

 

[madmole]

Hey MM:What is the actual count of MF?

29

 

[Roland]

As far as Voxelgate is concerened.....

Its pretty bad when we have a #gate about something that never happened or will happen but is simply a "what if..." speculation by one member of the TFP team. If we are going to squirm about other timelines in the multiverse there are way worse scenarios than this one...

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

Remember the good old days when zombies spawned in the dark corners of your base (like the Borg)?

 

[MechanicalLens]

Yeah School doesn't prepare you for anything important.
Overall there should be money management courses, relationship courses, goal setting and importance of grinding and visualization, more programs to get people into the work force. History? Stupid. Doesn't do anyone any good, least of all teenagers. Yeah people fight and die over stupid stuff, I never learned anything from Rome's mistakes. They should have courses that build confidence and teach you to have a strong hand shake and make eye contact, most these kids are introverted because of phone life.

I chose to be introverted because there's nothing out there for me. (Believe me, I know what I'm talking about.) But yeah, I get what you mean.

The school system isn't entirely at fault here, but the greedy corporate heads at the top who make millions off of exploiting teenagers and the education system for profit. Until that changes (and it likely never will), people will continue to learn more in five minutes on their electronic devices than they would do in the entirety of six months at school/college/university.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

So please inspire me as to what history you learned from? People learn by their own mistakes not by others and certainly not history books in school. I try to tell people how to live their lives all the time and they just keep making the same stupid mistakes and learn slow AF. "What did I say would happen" "uhh yeah you were right" then they do the same crap again or new crap and barely learn.
Maybe I had crappy teachers, but I don't recall learning anything from history classes. I find it more interesting now, but as a kid or teenager it was worse than watching paint dry. I am curious what you think a student can learn from it.

I think it's useful to know how exactly the country came about it in which I was born and why there is a government giving me rules.

If there were zero history, we would easily succumb to tyranny.

While an individual rarely applies what is learned from history in his/her own personal life, that person could be in a position of power one day where their decisions affect everyone else. So, I hope they know their history.

 

[CannedSmeef]

29

That's terrific! You guys shaved off almost ten in a few days!

 

[madmole]

Really? Things like reading, writing, spelling, (typing), speaking and mathematics are are not important?
Also, it was from the Romans and people like them that we learned those skills from.

You want to talk about history ok.

Ever had surgery? Roman and Greek medicine that we built on.

Medical terminology? Greek and Latin (Roman).

Major buildings, roman architecture.

Our government. Yep follows much of what we learned from Roman republic.

Yes grade school is useful, I must have forgotten to say HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY.

Of course civilizations are build on the shoulders of previous work. None of that has to do with high school history classes, which teach nothing useful. I at least learned some useful skills in high school and took mechanics, welding etc once I got that bs out of the way.

I'm saying finance, speaking classes, computer basics, relationship with peers and romance would be 1000x more useful than knowing who was the 34ths president, who invented electricity (who gives a crap, turning on a light switch is all you need to know and was lbd by every 2 year old on the planet alredy). Wars over tea... who cares? How is that preparing me for my first job interview or helping me decide what to do with my life?

 

[SnowDog1942]

I'm saying finance, speaking classes, computer basics, relationship with peers and romance would be 1000x more useful than knowing who was the 34ths president

I tried to take romance class but they kicked me out

 

[Roland]

Well, we'll agree to disagree on your moderation decisions. It's the Alpha 18 Dev Diary, to be exact, not a diary in the traditional sense of the word in which one writes everything he's done today. At least, that's my take on it. Seeing madmole shoot down topics that are clearly related to a18 but encourage topics that are not even related to the game as a whole bugs me, what can I say. And it's not like this has only happened now that the release is presumably imminent, it's been happening for months *shrugs*
Many of the posts are full of controversial topics that, if they were addressed properly by another user, they would span a long conversation. I've seen you move other unrelated posts before, but for some reason those are left free to go on.

Madmole is the boss. I don't move his posts because he's "off topic". If he wants to talk about MMA and teach life lessons from his own perspective and experience then he gets to do so. If that is unbearable for you to have to read along with his perspective on the game design of A18 then just follow the twitter feed which gets the game progress highlights.

I have been very strict with this thread in the past and it is no good. A lot of work for me and a lot of bad feelings amongst the community because they can't express themselves. So I have learned to be somewhat lenient with this thread especially when one of the CEOs of The Fun Pimps is participating. When he isn't participating and it goes on and on then I prune.

I move long conversations out when he is gone for a few days and I want him to be able to find the questions directed to him without having to wade through jokes and nonsense and debates about stuff he's already answered.

I am generally more strict when the thread is new and still has that new thread smell. This one is very very......ripe.

 

[madmole]

Adesanyas most notable wins are an over the hill Anderson Silva and maybe Fatstalum I think? I honestly dont know him very well but has a lot to prove for me to pick him over Whitaker. Whitaker is pretty badass.
Im picking Whitaker but Adesanyas has a chance to rise to the occasion.

I can't stand him for his boasting and he's never even fought a wrestler yet. He has zero power and thinks' he is a 185 Jon Jones but he's not. Costa would break him in half, he ate Yoel's best bombs like tasty sandwiches and just kept coming. Yoel would take him down or KO Adasanya. He conveniently ducked Weidman on the way up, UFC shields their one dimensional flashy striker guys from less popular wrestlers who can expose them. They did the same thing with Pettis when Khabib was on the way up they had Pettis fight a bunch of pansies and all the tough guys fought each other and never climbed the ranks.

But yeah I think Whittaker will wreck him, Gastelum was too small, Whittaker can close the distance and get it done IMO.

 

[Lonestarcanuck]

Yes grade school is useful, I must have forgotten to say HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY.
Of course civilizations are build on the shoulders of previous work. None of that has to do with high school history classes, which teach nothing useful. I at least learned some useful skills in high school and took mechanics, welding etc once I got that bs out of the way.

I'm saying finance, speaking classes, computer basics, relationship with peers and romance would be 1000x more useful than knowing who was the 34ths president, who invented electricity (who gives a crap, turning on a light switch is all you need to know and was lbd by every 2 year old on the planet alredy). Wars over tea... who cares? How is that preparing me for my first job interview or helping me decide what to do with my life?

so MM. stop rotting kids minds and fix those MF bugs like religion and Politics education can be very biased on what is needed. my school streamlined but besides computers and math and shops, I loved history.

 

[madmole]

You can always do big sections, like a wall made out of several 1m blocks and expend just 1 call on them until destroyed (or not) . And blueprints. 1 meter is infinite both ways , it all depends on how you treat it. Specially now that you have the block tech mature and realistic. Limits on placing are gruesome even on FO4 building.

Not with mods, I built an insane hotel/casino with elevators and a ton of parts, wired up electricty, juke box and a lot of settlers and it ran great. MY biggest pet peave is 1 block per meter, which means you can't put a bunch of small decorations on top of a single block, and you are stuck on a 1 meter square grid, you can't build a house on a cul de sac. You can't rotate 360 degrees. We have some solutions there though for the next tech we've talked about. Hopefully we can overcome them for our future games.