PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[hotpoon]

Feedback on Loot spots
I apologize if this has already been addressed in A20, but just wanted to give some feedback on what it's like playing with selfish, lazy people...which I'm sure will happen to most of us at some point.

So, I was playing on a server where these 2 guys built ladders on the sides of all the major buildings and would have a 'daily' of going to each building to collect all the rooftop loot. Of course that spoils it for anyone else who decides "Hey I'm going to do the crackabook tower today, or the shamway factory" or whatever because they fight their way through the whole building only to be faced with empty crates at the top. Bit of anti climax.

So I was thinking of two possible ways to prevent this kind of behaviour:

1) Change the main loot location to a random location within the building.

or
2) Make the roof top crates indestructible, and unpickable, and have the key to open them on a random zombie within the building.  

Personally, I prefer the second option, but maybe there are other ways to address it.  Anyway, keep up the great work Pimps. Those POIs are so awesomely designed, it's a shame that some people skip them just for the prize at the end.

 

[dcsobral]

Can someone summarize what was on the stream ? Thanks in advance.

• RWG looks very promising -- we didn't see any worlds, but we saw the tiles and they are awesome. It is supposedly much faster. 
  
• There's a ton of new content. 145 new POIs and rising. Plus a lot of POIs redone.
  
• Almost 1200 shapes to choose from when building.
  
• Zombie models redone.
  
• Little actual change in gameplay, though. Crouching zombies, feral sense, restore power quest and one way doors are all I recall.
  
• The drone is coming, but it's essentially a pack mule/medic.
  
• Harder survival. Less food, less honey, more infection. Loot tables redone, but not trader's. This might well have a bigger impact on gameplay, imho. It might force people into doing things differently.
  
• Lathan is a spoilsport.
  
• One can make a pipe gun on day 1 or 2 (allegedly).
  

Shape menu:



POI with all shapes:

 

[Morloc]

Make the roof top crates indestructible, and unpickable, and have the key to open them on a random zombie within the building.

Not sure I'd trust having it drop off a zombie. Perhaps the key could be in something like the courier satchel. You wouldn't get tracking on it unless you had the quest.

-Arch Necromancer Morloc

 

[dcsobral]

Timestamp for the tile stuff below. They first show one tile, talk about it, then use a feature that auto-populates the tile with sample POIs. Then they do the same with other tiles. RWG wasn't actually shown, but just seeing the tiles was awesome. Honestly, 1200 shapes and the tile stuff were the highlights of the night for me. 

 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1143220952?t=00h30m11s

Timestamps for zombie models. We saw some (most?) of them already, but I don't recall having seen some of them before. Looks like they actually started showing a zombie then skipped to other stuff before going back to zombies, so there's a second timestamp for when they go back to zombie models.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1143220952?t=00h52m09s

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1143220952?t=01h44m43s

Timestamp for weapon models. Pipe weapons, old weapons, and a lever action rifle that is going to replace the marksman rifle. And a new chainsaw model too!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1143220952?t=01h08m18s

 

[Matt115]

I gotta say, the RWG stuff they showed on the stream was awesome. And some cool new hd models too! And some new POIs! Now, if only Lathan would have given in to the dark side of Richard...

Honestly i'm such dissapointed about changes - okay so first what is good :

RWG looks rly good, news POI are fantastic (destroyed skyscraper looks perfect). this new zombie doc, burned zombie, screamer looks good

Bad things

SRLY? head of teddy bear on drone -.- 

Honestly anoyone could add more models of corpse because we have - decaying dead guy, half of woman (which is halve of zombie type ) , few bones and skull? Rly guys add more please. 

Junk guns looks... like something from mad max or fallout XD lever rifle looks rly good but junk guns.... honestly why you guys if just don't use sten or blyskawica as junk smg?

Spider zombie- what the hell? this is still 7dtd or RE2? if this second game please add 20 ft gigant zombie -.- gg from changing walking dead into cod after BO1 

Wright- this looks more like normal zombie that special type.

So conclusions? Few good things a lot of bad thing i'm dissapointed as hell

 

[beerfly]

Timestamp for the tile stuff below. They first show one tile, talk about it, then use a feature that auto-populates the tile with sample POIs. Then they do the same with other tiles. RWG wasn't actually shown, but just seeing the tiles was awesome. Honestly, 1200 shapes and the tile stuff were the highlights of the night for me. 

 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1143220952?t=00h30m11s

Was literally gonna post about that. Brilliant job, the look of the towns from far distance is something ..I guess all of us already want to see. And we will in next streams. 

@Kinyajuu, you gave so much for RWG to come to this point. This is probably one of the best systems many of us have seen. And in Our favorite game. Get outta here, man! Thank you! 

Smile, we are proud of you 

 

[dcsobral]

Honestly i'm such dissapointed about changes - okay so first what is good :

RWG looks rly good, news POI are fantastic (destroyed skyscraper looks perfect). this new zombie doc, burned zombie, screamer looks good

The "destroyed" skyscraper was Dishong, wasn't it? Or do you mean the building fallen on its side? The one was amazing. By Hernan(andez), iirc, who made one of two Mall prefabs that were very popular back in alpha 18 later days. The non-OP one which was my favorite of the two. The guy knows how to make stuff look good, even with the limited block options from alpha 18, so I can hardly wait to see what he can do with the shapes in alpha 20!

 

[rigmormortis]

and here we are, last "mayor" update alpha 19 experimental was on july 2, 2020! nice workrate

 

[dcsobral]

I don't know, the text you printed is too small for me to read!

(In all serious though, most likely all of them will be added to Navezgane.)

145~170 new buildings? They could add two or three new cities with that many POIs, easily. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if Navezgane lags behind RWG for the first time.

 

[Matt115]

The "destroyed" skyscraper was Dishong, wasn't it? Or do you mean the building fallen on its side? The one was amazing. By Hernan(andez), iirc, who made one of two Mall prefabs that were very popular back in alpha 18 later days. The non-OP one which was my favorite of the two. The guy knows how to make stuff look good, even with the limited block options from alpha 18, so I can hardly wait to see what he can do with the shapes in alpha 20!

Yeah fallen on its side looks great. so big + one of the best POI in my opinion. 

But guns models and some zombie  looks just bad.

RLY they want to replace marksman rifle with lever rifle? WTF what's go wrong . Who the hell was thinking it is good idea?

 

[dcsobral]

Yeah fallen on its side looks great. so big + one of the best POI in my opinion. 

But guns models and some zombie  looks just bad.

RLY they want to replace marksman rifle with lever rifle? WTF what's go wrong . Who the hell was thinking it is good idea?

The winchester was a childhood favorite of mine, so I'm all for it. Besides, the marksman was just a crappy sniper rifle.

 

[Matt115]

The winchester was a childhood favorite of mine, so I'm all for it. Besides, the marksman was just a crappy sniper rifle.

Yeah but this game looks like it was nuke war in 2010. So modern guns like -P90, M16, ,scar etc could be common. ofc Lever rifle suit to ghost town but more like "legendary" variant of hunting rifle

 

[Blake_]

and here we are, last "mayor" update alpha 19 experimental was on july 2, 2020! nice workrate

But it was worth it.  Lemme tell you a story:

 in POI alone:

145+ new POI is like a18 and a19 fused together content-wise (a18 had ~101 new locations and a19 had 43 new POIs [12 remnants and 31 POI] ). So 145-170 locations vs 143 from the last 2 alphas is an extremely good time tradeoff.

In weapons: A whole new tier. Comparable to the higher tier weapons of the previous two alphas.

In quests: At least 1 new tier 3 buried supplies quest and the new generator quest which is more in raw content than the two previous alphas combined (only trader to trader quest and improved buried supplies were provided).

In world building and graphics: A 240-shape menu to play with and with every (allowed) material available plus a full block redesign (and in some cases retexture). Hundreds of new modules, assets, props and decorations, including landscape and shader improvements (grass, foliage etc), sidewalks, signs....etc . I'm not even mentioning the new 25 zd models ( finished old ones and brand new too), all the mod remodeling, animations, etc. New video options too! I'm not saying everything there is here, but close.

Gameplay: new mechanics like zd crouching+feral sense, vehicle mods+paints, dismemberment redone more realistically and satisfyingly cool and loot progression rebalance (not for traders).

I'm not finished, but you see, all of this was made in just 12 months vs 22 from a18 and a19. I very much prefer a lenghty alpha like this one with a huge chunk of content than a bland alpha that stands out thanks to its mommy's money and took almost double to make (meaning mommy a17 made the whole framework for a18 and a19, and those last two just improved over it).

Do you still think that a couple of months more were unworthy of your wait?

Welcome to the forums by the way.

 

[Gazz]

So, I was playing on a server where these 2 guys built ladders on the sides of all the major buildings and would have a 'daily' of going to each building to collect all the rooftop loot. Of course that spoils it for anyone else who decides "Hey I'm going to do the crackabook tower today, or the shamway factory" or whatever because they fight their way through the whole building only to be faced with empty crates at the top. Bit of anti climax.

So I was thinking of two possible ways to prevent this kind of behaviour:

1) Change the main loot location to a random location within the building.

or
2) Make the roof top crates indestructible, and unpickable, and have the key to open them on a random zombie within the building. 

#3 take a quest that takes you there. That will completely respawn the entire building.

 

[dcsobral]

In world building and graphics: A 240-shape menu to play with and with every (allowed) material available plus a full block redesign (and in some cases retexture).

Almost 1200 according to Lathan yesterday.

 

[Matt115]

But it was worth it.  Lemme tell you a story:

 in POI alone:

145+ new POI is like a18 and a19 fused together content-wise (a18 had ~101 new locations and a19 had 43 new POIs [12 remnants and 31 POI] ). So 145-170 locations vs 143 from the last 2 alphas is an extremely good time tradeoff.

In weapons: A whole new tier. Comparable to the higher tier weapons of the previous two alphas.

In quests: At least 1 new tier 3 buried supplies quest and the new generator quest which is more in raw content than the two previous alphas combined (only trader to trader quest and improved buried supplies were provided).

In world building and graphics: A 240-shape menu to play with and with every (allowed) material available plus a full block redesign (and in some cases retexture). Hundreds of new modules, assets, props and decorations, including landscape and shader improvements (grass, foliage etc), sidewalks, signs....etc . I'm not even mentioning the new 25 zd models ( finished old ones and brand new too), all the mod remodeling, animations, etc. New video options too! I'm not saying everything there is here, but close.

Gameplay: new mechanics like zd crouching+feral sense, vehicle mods+paints, dismemberment redone more realistically and satisfyingly cool and loot progression rebalance (not for traders).

I'm not finished, but you see, all of this was made in just 12 months vs 22 from a18 and a19. I very much prefer a lenghty alpha like this one with a huge chunk of content than a bland alpha that stands out thanks to its mommy's money and took almost double to make (meaning mommy a17 made the whole framework for a18 and a19, and those last two just improved over it).

Do you still think that a couple of months more were unworthy of your wait?

Welcome to the forums by the way.

Yep it was unworthy as hell.  Okay we will get new POI and most of them are good few of them exelent.

Weapons: this looks just bad. we loose blunnderbuss and marksman rifle but and  will get guns from fallout or mad max.  so this change is most on -

Props: honestly most of them looks good but... honestly - it can be this same wood crate like HL2 and nobody will complain. but this same looking corpses looks just bad- halve of zombie woman, decaying man and few bones nad skull. if you ever was in bear cave under construction site you will know what i mean. 

Zombies: honestly few of them looks good - but they change setting  of walking dead into resident evil 2 - screamer could suit perfect to resident evil and spider zombie looks like "generic" feral alien.

Drones with teddy bear head looks just bad.

So i have feeling like - we first get mix of minecraft , fear and l4d1 ( A11). But now we are goint to have  colorfull american post apo like with mad max vibes but with  zombies. 

So yeah this was unworthy- like : you exepect this game will go in the last of us and days gone vibes but are getting something more similiar to cod when they decided to add magic and multiverse or this black comedy zombie series on netflix xd

 

[hotpoon]

#3 take a quest that takes you there. That will completely respawn the entire building.

The quests are fun, but not really a solution because you can't choose what building you're going to get. Also you can be in the middle of the building and some knob decides to nerd pole up to the roof and grabs the loot while you're fighting your way through.

 

[stallionsden]

Feedback on Loot spots
I apologize if this has already been addressed in A20, but just wanted to give some feedback on what it's like playing with selfish, lazy people...which I'm sure will happen to most of us at some point.

So, I was playing on a server where these 2 guys built ladders on the sides of all the major buildings and would have a 'daily' of going to each building to collect all the rooftop loot. Of course that spoils it for anyone else who decides "Hey I'm going to do the crackabook tower today, or the shamway factory" or whatever because they fight their way through the whole building only to be faced with empty crates at the top. Bit of anti climax.

So I was thinking of two possible ways to prevent this kind of behaviour:

1) Change the main loot location to a random location within the building.

or
2) Make the roof top crates indestructible, and unpickable, and have the key to open them on a random zombie within the building.  

Personally, I prefer the second option, but maybe there are other ways to address it.  Anyway, keep up the great work Pimps. Those POIs are so awesomely designed, it's a shame that some people skip them just for the prize at the end.

Just cause the ladders are there does not mean you have to use them.. go thru the poi as you want. Let them go thru it how they want 

But for you  you can place a well placed land mine to give them a boost to the roof .

 

[dcsobral]

Just cause the ladders are there does not mean you have to use them.. go thru the poi as you want. Let them go thru it how they want 

But for you  you can place a well placed land mine to give them a boost to the roof .

OR, just a thought here, but TFP could add a "trap ladder". Similarly to the floor, it breaks and causes the player to fall. There would have to be some mechanic to avoid the player simply catching on the ladder below it, but if it does then one could replace a few pieces of ladder at the top of the building...

 

[Blake_]

Almost 1200 according to Lathan yesterday.

Yes. The total block number is close to 1200. I was talking about when you use an individual material, like wood, you get to choose from a menu of 240 shapes (edit: Erm... it says 270 on the dev stream screenshot so I might be wrong) , same with stone, concrete and steel. Before it was like 40 and sometimes even less, and completely random and unordered shapes.