PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

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Since I'm just a silent reader, I'd also like to share an idea and ask what you think of it.  Imagine there are areas where there is some kind of "gas" or "fog" where it is not possible to breathe.  This requires a breathing mask with a tank on the back that has a certain capacity.  For example, if a zombie hits the player, there is a 25% chance that the hose will be damaged and need replacing before the player dies within 30 seconds.  The equipment cannot be crafted, only found.  The zombies in the area do double the damage per hit.  I'm not a programmer and I don't know how difficult it is, but my naive thinking says: define the area for the zone, let zombies do more damage in this area.  The item with mask and oxygen tank or filter, whatever, is of course also needed.  And that's all.  Tadaaa

 
faatal said:
Well....there is that raft prototype I did last year. Works, but with a few bugs. That may become a feature at some point.
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I got a general question about these "did a Prototype, Stopped working on it stuff" 

How does it comes like that? Is it like, you get the job to program a raft, because someone thinks it's a great idea, and then, when testing, someone decides it's not as fun as its supposed to be as Feature, so it's cancelled? Because, at some point, someone has to had the idea, that the game needs a raft, am I right? I just try to understand how it works since im not working in a gamecompany, neither am I a Programmer. 

Just need clarification, because every stuff thats gonna be programmed an then canceled is lost time in game development or not? Hope you get my point since my english is not flawless at all. 

Thanks ✌🏼

 
Philipp said:
Since I'm just a silent reader, I'd also like to share an idea and ask what you think of it.  Imagine there are areas where there is some kind of "gas" or "fog" where it is not possible to breathe.  This requires a breathing mask with a tank on the back that has a certain capacity.  For example, if a zombie hits the player, there is a 25% chance that the hose will be damaged and need replacing before the player dies within 30 seconds.  The equipment cannot be crafted, only found.  The zombies in the area do double the damage per hit.  I'm not a programmer and I don't know how difficult it is, but my naive thinking says: define the area for the zone, let zombies do more damage in this area.  The item with mask and oxygen tank or filter, whatever, is of course also needed.  And that's all.  Tadaaa
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There's certainly merit in the idea of time pressuring the player in certain areas (the tank capacity in this example) but I think existing systems could do that perfectly well without adding new elements such as toxic gas.

Radiation is the obvious one, and we may well see something of that nature when the clothing overhaul comes in. I'm rather hoping the weather/environment update brings in similar concepts: That the extreme biomes are unsurvivable indefinitely, in the open, without very high end and hard to source outfits. Something like a 'core temperature' value that means you have to get indoors and warm up, or under shade in the desert, regularly while in those areas. It would make the higher tier biomes feel very different to the forest, and should be able to be balanced so it adds excitement to gameplay rather than just being a chore.

 
Uncle Al said:
There's certainly merit in the idea of time pressuring the player in certain areas (the tank capacity in this example) but I think existing systems could do that perfectly well without adding new elements such as toxic gas.

Radiation is the obvious one, and we may well see something of that nature when the clothing overhaul comes in. I'm rather hoping the weather/environment update brings in similar concepts: That the extreme biomes are unsurvivable indefinitely, in the open, without very high end and hard to source outfits. Something like a 'core temperature' value that means you have to get indoors and warm up, or under shade in the desert, regularly while in those areas. It would make the higher tier biomes feel very different to the forest, and should be able to be balanced so it adds excitement to gameplay rather than just being a chore.
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I already wrote earlier that it would be great to make the anti-radiation suit functional. make areas with a high radiation background in the wasteland and desert, radiation rains, because of which one would have to look for shelter, perhaps even a couple of contaminated reservoirs ... But the most important thing is that I do not ask you to do this, but simply say that it would be great to see it in Game)

 
DuHast_Play said:
about zombies in the water, I don't think they should swim at all. I do not think that they have enough coordination of movement and buoyancy for this. they should rather just go under, because they don't need to breathe per se. it would be great if a flooded town appeared, on 1-1.5 floors. so that there are ordinary, private houses on 1 and 2 floors, and buildings up to 4-5 floors. and perhaps between some houses there would be bridges, so that it could be seen that there were once survivors
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I think we had that before and players would exploit it by swimming above them in water.  If anything, allowing them to swim would allow us to create more water exploration encounters like the one you described.

 
Philipp said:
I got a general question about these "did a Prototype, Stopped working on it stuff" 

How does it comes like that? Is it like, you get the job to program a raft, because someone thinks it's a great idea, and then, when testing, someone decides it's not as fun as its supposed to be as Feature, so it's cancelled? Because, at some point, someone has to had the idea, that the game needs a raft, am I right? I just try to understand how it works since im not working in a gamecompany, neither am I a Programmer. 

Just need clarification, because every stuff thats gonna be programmed an then canceled is lost time in game development or not? Hope you get my point since my english is not flawless at all. 

Thanks ✌🏼
Click to expand...


I'm pretty sure that Fataal, as head developer, can just follow his creative impulse and try things out. But I would guess that everyone on the TFP team can do that from time to time(?)

And as head developer he can shelf that idea again until a raft seems like just the item that is missing from the game or other conditions like better water physics have been implemented.

Think of game developers as artists not just production workers, at least if they are on small teams or the person is high in the hierarchy. 

 
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Philipp said:
I got a general question about these "did a Prototype, Stopped working on it stuff" 

How does it comes like that? Is it like, you get the job to program a raft, because someone thinks it's a great idea, and then, when testing, someone decides it's not as fun as its supposed to be as Feature, so it's cancelled? Because, at some point, someone has to had the idea, that the game needs a raft, am I right? I just try to understand how it works since im not working in a gamecompany, neither am I a Programmer. 

Just need clarification, because every stuff thats gonna be programmed an then canceled is lost time in game development or not? Hope you get my point since my english is not flawless at all. 

Thanks ✌🏼
Click to expand...
If i remember correctly the raft was put on hold until they got around to fixing the water. how can you raft when the water surface had holes in it? you would also leave a track in the water surface behind you as the water blocks were destroyed. 

i remember building a castle in water quite a few alphas ago. every zombie thay came into the water and was killed destroyed the water blocks on the bottom of the lake when they despawned leaving unsightly holes ... plus i think i remember a gurgling water sound too..  we have been asking for water to be fixed fo 4 or 5 alphas at least.

 
Jugom said:
Does that mean avoiding the BM horde by building in the middle of a big enough body of water is finally over?
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I would assume not. Placing sleepers underwater in a POI is a bit different to the game spawning them in on horde night. 
Maybe though.

 
Philipp said:
I got a general question about these "did a Prototype, Stopped working on it stuff" 

How does it comes like that? Is it like, you get the job to program a raft, because someone thinks it's a great idea, and then, when testing, someone decides it's not as fun as its supposed to be as Feature, so it's cancelled? Because, at some point, someone has to had the idea, that the game needs a raft, am I right? I just try to understand how it works since im not working in a gamecompany, neither am I a Programmer. 

Just need clarification, because every stuff thats gonna be programmed an then canceled is lost time in game development or not? Hope you get my point since my english is not flawless at all. 

Thanks ✌🏼
Click to expand...
Have you ever worked at a large company? I am not a dev but do project work, my team all the time gets asked for stuff, get a week or 2 into development then leadership is like "yeah, nevermind, we don't need that anymore." It is absolutely lost effort but I'd imagine stuff like that happens all the time. 

 
Philipp said:
Since I'm just a silent reader, I'd also like to share an idea and ask what you think of it.  Imagine there are areas where there is some kind of "gas" or "fog" where it is not possible to breathe.  This requires a breathing mask with a tank on the back that has a certain capacity.  For example, if a zombie hits the player, there is a 25% chance that the hose will be damaged and need replacing before the player dies within 30 seconds.  The equipment cannot be crafted, only found.  The zombies in the area do double the damage per hit.  I'm not a programmer and I don't know how difficult it is, but my naive thinking says: define the area for the zone, let zombies do more damage in this area.  The item with mask and oxygen tank or filter, whatever, is of course also needed.  And that's all.  Tadaaa
Click to expand...
I like this idea, the same can be said about radiated zones where there's POI's to explore and you can only go here if you have a hazmat suit (when the hazmat suit gets fixed of course.)

 
Another question

Am I high? I thought that A21 would have a new UI, I think Madmole stated several times about a new UI being designed. 

UI looked exactly the same on the Dev Stream.

@Sirillion Made an amazing UI mod, that looks extremely better! Thoughts?

 
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Fish36 said:
Have you ever worked at a large company? I am not a dev but do project work, my team all the time gets asked for stuff, get a week or 2 into development then leadership is like "yeah, nevermind, we don't need that anymore." It is absolutely lost effort but I'd imagine stuff like that happens all the time. 
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From a level design perspective, we create / experiment with all sorts of POIs of various themes / sizes, but need to prioritize those that need to be finished for the current alpha.

It's common to shelve some work for later and even some to never get finished.  World of production / development.

 
Beelzebubs Ghost said:
Just as I suspected, mostly fluff that no-one needs, such as text lore on in game paper for a game that doesn't have any sense of coherent story, and no new zombies.

The game has gone to the dogs in my opinion, whether or not Rick Huenink was exaggerating when he said 1000 doors/variants updated (even a paltry number such as 100 new ones added) while new zombies has been neglected is just pathetic.

Clone army was a tiring turn off in the previous alpha - and as long as there's no inclusion of new zombies in this iteration, neither I; nor the bunch of friends I got into this game, will touch it.

I also share the sentiment of the 'Omg wowzers a new quest!' criticism.

Increased density of the same clones in any given area may be new in the sense the density wasn't the same as previous alphas, but that is little different to adding 'new' forest biomes by simply placing more grass and trees. Yeah, no.

Now bring on the hate, disapproval, dislikes, and la de dah. I will keep an eye out for A22 but as for A21, no thanks.

For those wondering why I'd post then not play, it's in hope that any dev reading this can relay the overbearing sameness up the chain and maybe they can dedicate the time to adding more zombies, even a few new ones would make all the difference.
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Zombies are one of the main things in this game, so yeah, I agree with you on adding more zombies. At least four new zombies would make a big change to me anyway. I know there would still be a clone army of zombies here and there, but hey it's better and it's always nice to see new zombies anyway. I'm sure there going to add more zombies at some point before gold anyway. 

A list of zombies that I have:

  • Miner zombie (I was thinking about the miner 69er perk and thought of this)
  • Postman zombie
  • Farmer [SIZE=14.6px](got[/SIZE] removed) there is farm POI's
  • Trackstar zombie (this zombie could run at you)
  • Football player (got removed)
  • Maybe a zombie with a knife in his/her head (just a thought)
  • Armored zombie (when your gamestage is higher) This is a zombie that I really want to see get added in
  • Another zombie dog that's different from the existing one (just a thought)
  • Inmate zombie (because of prisons)
  • Another cop zombie (that's different from the existing one)
  • Guard zombie
  • Bandit zombie (When bandits get added in because this can show that a bandit got infected and turned)
  • A brute zombie that's very muscular
  • Cheerleader zombie (got removed)
     These are just my ideas on new zombies, not saying that I want all of these zombies in. I'm just putting ideas out there for TFP and other people. 

 
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