PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary

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youeatcandy said:
Is there a schedule for dev diaries somewhere? I'd like to catch a stream, I missed the first one. Thanks!
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TFP continues the Developer Streams tonight at 9 PM CST! Join the Art Team with Host & Sr. Developer Lathan (@fubar_prime) for an in-depth look at the new Art coming to A21!

FuGc3MjWYAA66Qp.jpg

 
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youeatcandy said:
Gotchya thank you, but the initial announcement about the stream tonight that you shared with me--where can I look for that? Twitter? This site? Somewhere else? Sorry I wasn't clear the first time.
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That's on twitter on the 7 days to die account and I believe it's also on instagram too. 

 
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 ✌🏼
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The raft model has been in the project for years and the plan was to eventually do something with it. I made the vehicle system generic enough to support vehicles floating on water. I always have dozens of tasks I could work on, but some days you just want to have fun with something new, so back in September I spent a day setting up the prefab and xml to make it work and it does.

I showed it to the team and we had a laugh about what we could do with it someday, but it needs many more days to polish it up, so it was not deemed to be something we would do for A21. That work is not wasted, but simply set aside until in can be properly finished and combined with other water related features like say a shark and better shapes and quantities of water in the world, so you would actually want to make a raft to get around. I'd love to have a water map full of islands.

Game development often has creative rabbit trails where you try some idea and see what happens. People also work harder when given some freedom to try new things or work in areas that interest them. We are not an assembly line of robots. ;)

 
Boats are definitely doable (we have boat mods) and it really does add an element, but I honestly wouldn't consider it game changing unless there was a good *reason* to boat.  

Like fishing or diving.  And fishing mods require the block item swap property to work with the method we use, and I'm super curious if the new water will support that.  

All in all, as much as I like boats, they'd be wasted imo, without a reason for them. 

I hate arguing against new features. :)

 
I have a question about game development faatal, is it true that the further you progress with a game the more complicated it becomes. I heard something like this from some people and just wanted to know if any of this is true or not? Sorry if I'm completely wrong. 

 
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Guppycur said:
Boats are definitely doable (we have boat mods) and it really does add an element, but I honestly wouldn't consider it game changing unless there was a good *reason* to boat.  

Like fishing or diving.  And fishing mods require the block item swap property to work with the method we use, and I'm super curious if the new water will support that.  

All in all, as much as I like boats, they'd be wasted imo, without a reason for them. 

I hate arguing against new features. :)
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Yeah I've played with mods that added boats and never found a reason for using them.

Even if a modded in quest involved something with an island we could just fly over [or swim].

Also... nice to see you're still here Guppy.

Haven't been on these forums since A16.4

You must have 20k hours in 7DTD by now !😄

Cheers!!

 
Crypted said:
I have a question about game development faatal, is it true that the further you progress with a game the more complicated it becomes. I heard something like this from some people and just wanted to know if any of this is true or not? Sorry if I'm completely wrong. 
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I'm sure fataal will comment, but from my programming experience (not games), I would have to say that this is often true.  With any large programming project, the beginning stages are less complex because you were not trying to connect multiple parts together.  As you get towards the end, almost all of what you are doing is connecting things and making sure they work properly together and don't have bugs that are often more likely to crop up as you aren't always thinking about every possibility of how multiple parts work together.  The end is also where you do a lot of balancing and optimization and that can be more challenging than just creating a new feature.

LuckyStar said:
Yeah I've played with mods that added boats and never found a reason for using them.

Even if a modded in quest involved something with an island we could just fly over [or swim].

Also... nice to see you're still here Guppy.

Haven't been on these forums since A16.4

You must have 20k hours in 7DTD by now !😄

Cheers!!
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I think it comes down to what can be done if there is a boat (raft) available.  No one is going to make much water-related stuff if it is a pain to travel on water.  Making it easy to travel on water means it is more likely to start seeing water-related POI and islands and such.  Flying works for island hopping, if you have a gyrocopter.  But I'm sure a raft will be far cheaper to make and available early in the game, making it an option much sooner.  It also makes it easier to reach water POI as those may not have any way way to land on them or take off from them.

Even with increased movement speeds in water in A21, it is likely to be no faster than running.  I for one would prefer to travel across water faster than running speed, so swimming isn't something I'd choose to do for any long distance.  And if they really do add sharks like fataal suggested, then swimming is also more dangerous.

 
Riamus said:
I'm sure fataal will comment, but from my programming experience (not games), I would have to say that this is often true.  With any large programming project, the beginning stages are less complex because you were not trying to connect multiple parts together.  As you get towards the end, almost all of what you are doing is connecting things and making sure they work properly together and don't have bugs that are often more likely to crop up as you aren't always thinking about every possibility of how multiple parts work together.  The end is also where you do a lot of balancing and optimization and that can be more challenging than just creating a new feature.

I think it comes down to what can be done if there is a boat (raft) available.  No one is going to make much water-related stuff if it is a pain to travel on water.  Making it easy to travel on water means it is more likely to start seeing water-related POI and islands and such.  Flying works for island hopping, if you have a gyrocopter.  But I'm sure a raft will be far cheaper to make and available early in the game, making it an option much sooner.  It also makes it easier to reach water POI as those may not have any way way to land on them or take off from them.

Even with increased movement speeds in water in A21, it is likely to be no faster than running.  I for one would prefer to travel across water faster than running speed, so swimming isn't something I'd choose to do for any long distance.  And if they really do add sharks like fataal suggested, then swimming is also more dangerous.
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My concern for anything water/boat related is always time.

You make good points and those are certainly good reasons for boats.

I especially like the idea of sharks.

I'm thinking about what POIs we'd choose in early game.

There isn't much time to gather resources and it's slow going because of crummy tools.

Not sure wasting a couple hours traveling would be worth it.

By the time that's a non issue, you've got a Gyro.

If a raft was really fast then sure... what does it matter right?

How about a canoe?

Those are pretty fast.

[Not just saying that because I'm Canadian...... canoes are great! 😊]

So long as traveling by boat was a decent speed it could be okay.

If it's slow, I don't see them having much use at all.

 
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I asked ChatGPT to make me a Bingo Card for tonight's Dev Stream.
 
ZZ: Generate a 5x5 Bingo card using 7 Days To Die terms in each cell.


 
ChatGPT: Sure, here's a 5x5 bingo card using 7 Days To Die terms:










B


I


N


G


O


Zombie


Scavenging


Blood Moon


Horde Night


Crafting System


Mining


Base Building


Forging


Stealth


Electricity


Bandit


Quest System


Cooking


Heat Map


Skill Trees


Traps


Weather Effects


Vehicle Building


Farming


Weapon Mods


Radiation


Day/Night Cycle


Barbed Wire


Blade


Zombie Dogs

I hope this 7 Days To Die bingo card is what you're looking for. Have fun playing!





 
If sharks are really being considered, I would, love, love, love(hate) if instead of sharks, it were the freakin' living dinosaurs we currently know as alligators. 

Neither would be considered native to Arizona, but aside from being able to follow onto land, I just find alligators to instill a much more intense sensation of utter pants-wettening terror. 🤞

 
spud42 said:
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.
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The water simulation changes don't really effect the raft. It could have worked with the old water as well as the new. Large bodies of water are just idle voxels in the new simulation. Holes would cause the raft to hit a bump, but large bodies in the old sim rarely had holes in them.

 
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