PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

Status
Not open for further replies.
madmole said:
So just delete it because we're not doing an overly complicated clunky survival simulation? Yeah lets make players get all their macros otherwise suffer vitamin deficiencies, that is so cool 😛 Food was always meant to be an easy milestone for a new player to get past. You have to give new players some victories to get them into the game. The horde is coming. You still have to take some time out of your day to eat/loot. I run out of food if I get OCD building/mining for too long so it does force you out of your mole hole.
Click to expand...
I have an honest question and please do not take this as some challenge to your views.

After modding for years and now assembling what I need to try my hand at my own self published game this comment also serves to prepare me for what to avoid going down this road.

You mention numerous times how players with over 1000 hours are not an accurate judge to how the game should be balanced since they are so good at it, and have years of repeating their play styles over and over.

As a developer who i assume has seen thousands of restarts and plays how do YOU stay objective with how many hours you have under your belt. Do you find yourself developing to what makes YOU happy as a dev and player or do you try to think outside the box and stay ahead of locking yourself into one style of play.

Embarking on my own road I can see tunnel vision becoming a very real concern in thinking my way is the only way. If a player with 1000 plus hours shouldn't be making balance and direction decisions how do you draw the line from becoming that 1000 plus hour player yourself and making biased decisions?

 
That's a really great question Jax.  It must be really tough to stay true to the vision Joel and Rick originally started off with.  From past comments from MM it seems he and Rick didnt always meet eye to eye on things.

Edit: It would be nice to hear how they approached/handled those disagreements and what they learned as I'm sure it wasnt always perfect.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
mr.devolver said:
Can we at least get a gameplay video of Alpha 19 any time soon, please? I want to see the new lighting in action!
Click to expand...
Yes this, no need to wait for horde night or building fortress, just some good old fashioned exploration of the new world would be nice. Shoot and Loot baby.

 
JaxTeller718 said:
After modding for years and now assembling what I need to try my hand at my own self published game this comment also serves to prepare me for what to avoid going down this road.

...

As a developer who i assume has seen thousands of restarts and plays how do YOU stay objective with how many hours you have under your belt. Do you find yourself developing to what makes YOU happy as a dev and player or do you try to think outside the box and stay ahead of locking yourself into one style of play.
Click to expand...
The design part is not that hard but it certainly is a lot of work. You make a plan for what a feature is supposed to achieve (silly as that may sound), how the player will overcome the problem you throw at him and how much effort this will be at various stages of the game. If you don't define or even know your goals you are quite certain to not achieve them.

Now playing your own game, generating feedback on it - that's tough.

You have to develop something akin to a light schizophrenia to "forget" what you know and limit it to exactly what you see on the screen and in quest/item/buff descriptions.

Add to that that players happily ignore quest/item/buff descriptions or journal entries. (You know who you are! =P)

If you make something important blatantly obvious, be prepared for the support requests about it not being obvious enough.

One example is that our buff icons now blink for the first 3 seconds if they come from an "outside source" and are not triggered by your own action like eating food.

That should make it easier to spot the one new buff that you just got from... somewhere.

Watching a player who is new to the game is invaluable. They ask questions that you won't ever have thought of.

Example: Do you realise that in 7D you cannot use a ladder if you jump at it? Oh, you can? Now try that without your muscle memory and when you keep holding the space bar for too long.

There's an improvement ticket on that for whenever someone gets around to it...

 
Gazz said:
hat's why I keep an eye on Twitch. Occasionally a genuinely new player pops up and it's quite enlightening to see the problems they see
Click to expand...
Every now and then I'll go into the "popular clips" section to see "the best of the weird stuff" and yes, its fun to watch people discover things in the game for the first time (or carefully crafted bases falling apart).  My personal fav: when people eat broken glass for the first time.  The look of confusion, the look of surprise, the scream "what the hell.  I ate glass?", the frantic attempts to bandage it up (unable to select the bandages, if they have any,  as panic is setting in), the disbelief of death. Then usually their friends laughing at them while they sit there dejected.  It brings back that fond memory of me doing the same thing ;)

And people shooting barrels/stepping on mines blowing themselves up.  That never gets old.

 
Ranzera said:
Like I said, it's extremely unlikely anyone in this thread will figure it out. The guy that just bought the game today has a better chance of figuring it out than anyone here.
Click to expand...
am watching, too, some mod or other also removes the ability

 
Jugginator said:
+1 because I want the passenger in the 4x4 have the ability to shoot. I want to equip/have the passenger equip an M60 with a drum mag, so we can ride around full speed bullets flying while blaring Rammstein.
Click to expand...
SMG Turret attached to the back of the 4x4 directly controlled if there is a passenger but other wise functioning on auto with just a driver.

 
I was thinking about zombies and it should be more models of them e.g. doctor, zombie riot , decayed survivor, pilot, infested bandits, mercenary zombie, very weak rotten almost skeleton,  cutting in half crawler, infested child , more civilian zombies what do you think about that? 

 
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the more involved player injuries bits don't result in having to allocate more backpack space to medical items than we already do.

Or mandate that you always carry food due to healing concerns.

Would love to see a 'real' First Aid Kit that would hold various supplies, that could be restocked, and when needed (outside of combat) you'd open it up and use antibiotics or a splint etc.

"Immediate Use" items like bandages could still be on hotbar.

Comes from thinking about how many healing items Empyrion has now. Way too many imo and they take up too many backpack slots.

 
new image! guys

EYJk1xJWsAAelxN


 
One thing down the road i am looking for is linking generators together or being able to repair say a substation to bring power back to a large area, heck id even like to see us being able to build a hydro dam in the water for more seaside bases, i mean we can build an advanced drone so why not larger or more types of generators haha

 
Hmmm... I remember there were talks in this forum, during A17 iirc, about bringing in a blueprint system. That would allow you to construct entire POIs . I remember referencing games like Space Engineers and Planet Explorers, that have similar features, where you can even build such blueprints, and then share it online. 

I can't remember where that discussion ended, but it would probably be in 7 Days to die 2 . It would be awesome to have a modular building system like that as well, but it would likely be too much work to implement, or even not possible on this engine.  Seems quite difficult to get right, if you consider all the bugs and issues in say Fallout 4 settlement building etc.  

 
Operator_Death said:
@madmole will we be keeping the current book system? Will you add new books possibly to A19?
Click to expand...
madmole said:
New Books

  • Tech Junkie Learn from MacDyver himself to build useful gadgets from common household junk!
  • Grease Monkey Learn to modify and craft vehicles of all currently existing shapes and sizes
  • Bar Brawling Learn from Irish legend "Lucky @%$*#!" himself and never get bested in a good ol' fashioned bar room brawl.
  • Spear Hunter Get connected with your inner caveman and master the forgotten art of spear hunting.
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top