PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

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Keep doing your great job Laz, don`t listen Roland ! 

Aye, Mr. R, a 40 torches, a pitchfork and a couple of napkins. Snowdog is doing a party :)

Yes, you are invited. 

Laz Man said:
Edit: The POI in the previously released flame hazard video is one I created.  It is an HRSG power plant.
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Do you have a particular favourite POI in 7 days to die, just wondered, or it is still a WIP or yet never created. 

Keep doing your stuff, guys, we love it. 

 
Weazelsun said:
The snake is such a janky creature to kill. I hope its animations get made smoother so it actually slithers instead of that weird cha-cha slide it does. 
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Yes, but this isn't really a problem of bad animation, but a more or less general thing in many games.

An entity's foot never really connects to the ground to make it a fix point/hinge whatever (missing the right word here sorry).

If you pay close attention to the Zs feet you will see they all often slide/skate or even moonwalk.

Z dogs are really good at that if you ask me.

I guess the snake is just the more obvious thing because one assumes that the whole thing as it is should connect to the ground,

but instead it is often half floating...or doing the cha-cha as you say.

Which can look really bad especially when the surrounding ground is uneven (which often is the case).

 
beerfly said:
Do you have a particular favourite POI in 7 days to die, just wondered, or it is still a WIP or yet never created. 
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That's a tough one.  There are so many different POIs that are awesome for many different reasons (new and old). 

Apart from the huge effort from level design, all of the other departments have done alot of great work.  Regardless of what makes it into A21, it is clear to me that we are significantly closer to that 1.0 release.

 
Laz Man said:
That's a tough one.  There are so many different POIs that are awesome for many different reasons (new and old). 

Apart from the huge effort from level design, all of the other departments have done alot of great work.  Regardless of what makes it into A21, it is clear to me that we are significantly closer to that 1.0 release.
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Didn`t have a time to answer properly, but keep doing that.

You will be amazed between happiness and dropping jaw to the center of the planet we live on, by the fact of how much fun we have around, in the game you guys created, not a compliment, sort of a fact. Keep kicking. We mean it! 

....Oh. a torch ! 

 
Laz Man said:
That's a tough one.  There are so many different POIs that are awesome for many different reasons (new and old). 

Apart from the huge effort from level design, all of the other departments have done alot of great work.  Regardless of what makes it into A21, it is clear to me that we are significantly closer to that 1.0 release.
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To be honest... i feel like 7DTD change too much into.... Doom. I know it's sounds crazy that's why i will explain why 😜

Let's take days gone POI's as example - windows, opened door and except few places like university.... that's it. state of decay - like a days gone, project zomboid - some door are closed right but it's just.. normal. dayz ? similiar.

7dtd - almost every Poi is like some type of maze. Why? I know because "gAmEpLaY" But A13 - house was just... house. Complicated building are ok if there is a reasons - school, unviersity, military base, office, but Bar without stairs? Okay someone can say that dunno -  there was a nuke and that's why - i would agree but... collapsing stairs and left building intact? sounds too naive. Military? would sounds correct but if... this would happends in few buildings not in most of them + lack of military stuff on streets.  If this would dunno random furnitures on stairs would have much more sense. Plus most 70-80% should be just... "empty" no barricades, strange holes in  floors just simple building in and out - this would make looting crates more easier? Yes. so maybe..... reduce number of duff bags crates by 50%? It would be logical if most POI's had just basic stuff + junk. someone can say 'but but but fUn because always chance for loo......" SPOILER : you can use... logic! For example - you want gun? look at police station. Food , almost everywhere right? but tools? more probably DIY store. Project zomboid made when you can find loot much more better and logical

 
Roland said:
I should point out that this is the main reason for the long development cycle this time around. There has been a major overhaul of old art and introduction of new art and the task to integrate it into existing POIs has been monumental. It is all part of the process of replacing placeholder art with original art assets owned by TFP so that much much more of the world will look unique to this game instead of everywhere you turn you see the same assets you see in all the other Unity games.

I'm not saying, "Blame Laz" or anything but if you've got a pitchfork or torch in hand already and you don't want it to go to waste...well...he's right over there.

(BTW...pitchforks and torches are half-off right now on my new website!)
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Someone pointed out to me that simply replacing placeholder blocks like a toaster or changing the texture on a block would not need the POIs itself to be changed at all.

I understand that new shapes provide opportunities to redesign POIs, but there you could stop any time and anyway block **shapes** are surely not bought assets that need replacement for owing the art.

Naturally you could add a toaster with a new id and then touch each single POI with a toaster in it to use the new toaster, but only an idiot would do that when he could just replace the old toasters block definition, keeping the same id and automatically have the new toaster appear in every POI.

So do you have some good examples of art replacement that really needs a sweep of all or many POIs instead of simply changing a texture atlas or redefine the block to look different ?

 
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meganoth said:
Someone pointed out to me that simply replacing placeholder blocks like a toaster or changing the texture on a block would not need the POIs itself to be changed at all.

I understand that new shapes provide opportunities to redesign POIs, but there you could stop any time and anyways the old shapes are surely not bought assets.

So do you have some good examples of art replacement that really needs a sweep of all or many POIs instead of simply changing a texture atlas or redefine the block to look different ?
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Certainly a large part of Alpha 21 will be the art update but it is not the only thing holding up the Alpha.  Hopefully the we will be able to share more info. soon.

As far as POIs are concerned, there are many in various different states.  For example, an older POI will definitely take more time to update when compared to a POI that was created in A20.  The level design team is also adding in support for more quest types such as restore power to existing POIs where they make sense.

 
meganoth said:
Someone pointed out to me that simply replacing placeholder blocks like a toaster or changing the texture on a block would not need the POIs itself to be changed at all.

I understand that new shapes provide opportunities to redesign POIs, but there you could stop any time and anyway block **shapes** are surely not bought assets that need replacement for owing the art.

Naturally you could add a toaster with a new id and then touch each single POI with a toaster in it to use the new toaster, but only an idiot would do that when he could just replace the old toasters block definition, keeping the same id and automatically have the new toaster appear in every POI.

So do you have some good examples of art replacement that really needs a sweep of all or many POIs instead of simply changing a texture atlas or redefine the block to look different ?
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Its not just replace old toaster block with new toaster block. It is also a whole bunch of brand new items that they want to stage in POIs where it makes sense to place them. Its also going through older POIs and making sure they are updated to the level of the new POIs and in some cases it means replacing old structures or decorations that were jury-rigged together using existing blocks to a new asset that is just that thing. One example that comes to mind was a tractor that was basically made out of blocks being changed to something that looks like an actual tractor. Because it wasn't simply a single block id that could be swapped for a new block id it needed to be removed and replaced manually. 

When the game first came out there were a lot of instances of furniture and decorations and building that were done in a kind of Minecrafty way of using existing blocks in creative ways to to make chandeliers out of fences (for example). Now if they want a chandelier they can commission it to be created for them so that it looks like a real chandelier and not a creative repurposing of fences.

There are a lot of these types of changes coming for A21.

 
Seeing as you seem to be in a chatty mood, any idea on roughly how many new POIs there are in A21 as opposed to the updates?

 
Doomofman said:
Seeing as you seem to be in a chatty mood, any idea on roughly how many new POIs there are in A21 as opposed to the updates?
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And if you're really feeling chatty, can you let us know how many of the new ones are tier 5?  That is a weak point right now as there is little questing to do that isn't just repeating a few POI over and over right now.  Even one or two would help considerably.

Did someone say torches???  I'll take two.

 
Matt115 said:
To be honest... i feel like 7DTD change too much into.... Doom. I know it's sounds crazy that's why i will explain why 😜

Let's take days gone POI's as example - windows, opened door and except few places like university.... that's it. state of decay - like a days gone, project zomboid - some door are closed right but it's just.. normal. dayz ? similiar.

7dtd - almost every Poi is like some type of maze. Why? I know because "gAmEpLaY" But A13 - house was just... house. Complicated building are ok if there is a reasons - school, unviersity, military base, office, but Bar without stairs? Okay someone can say that dunno -  there was a nuke and that's why - i would agree but... collapsing stairs and left building intact? sounds too naive. Military? would sounds correct but if... this would happends in few buildings not in most of them + lack of military stuff on streets.  If this would dunno random furnitures on stairs would have much more sense. Plus most 70-80% should be just... "empty" no barricades, strange holes in  floors just simple building in and out - this would make looting crates more easier? Yes. so maybe..... reduce number of duff bags crates by 50%? It would be logical if most POI's had just basic stuff + junk. someone can say 'but but but fUn because always chance for loo......" SPOILER : you can use... logic! For example - you want gun? look at police station. Food , almost everywhere right? but tools? more probably DIY store. Project zomboid made when you can find loot much more better and logical
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If it was YOU making the POIs, I bet they would be much more realistic/believable, but also much more... boring.  :yawn:

 
Riamus said:
And if you're really feeling chatty, can you let us know how many of the new ones are tier 5?  That is a weak point right now as there is little questing to do that isn't just repeating a few POI over and over right now.  Even one or two would help considerably.

Did someone say torches???  I'll take two.
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I believe Roland already hinted to at least one new T5 in A21.... 😁

 
Laz Man said:
I believe Roland already hinted to at least one new T5 in A21.... 😁
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Yeah.  I know we will have at least a couple, but I'm hoping for half a dozen, though I doubt we will get that many.

Now, if they would add Area 51, we could really have some fun. Lol 

 
Riamus said:
Yeah.  I know we will have at least a couple, but I'm hoping for half a dozen, though I doubt we will get that many.

Now, if they would add Area 51, we could really have some fun. Lol 
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Could be, indeed, but @unholyjoe confirmed that aliens are not going in A21 not long ago. 

Who knows, fingers crossed :)

 
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