PC Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

I knew Memorial Day was a no go and rightly so.  I'm hoping more for a streamer weekend this Friday and a release the following Monday.  I'm not getting my hopes up, its just that I'm intrigued by the learn by looting magazines and I'm anxious to try it out. 

 
pApA^LeGBa said:
Sales after release will bring in a bit of money, not much in my opinion though, but right now i don´t think they can earn a lot of money from sales.
Click to expand...


I would expect a new console version to sell a few copies, given the time between updates.

Callum123456789 said:
There's a specific company in mind that does milk a game and their customers huh I wonder what it could be *cough* *cough* grand theft auto 5 online.
Click to expand...


Look into ARK, IMO they are the 'champions'...

There is an ARK upgrade to UL5 scheduled for Aug 2023 (which was originally advertised as free).

When it drops they will upgrade all official servers to be exclusively the new UL5 version, wiping out years of playtime in the current version.

Unless you play single player or on a private server you will have to pay for the base game and all of the expansions again (some of which won't release until late 2024).

 
@Cr0wst0rm I am not exactly sure what feature or number of features would satisfy your  expectations.

It is no secret what features are left for gold based on promised kickstarter features (e.g. bandits, character overhaul, story quests, etc.)

All I know is our programmers bust their butts off to get their work done.

The dismemberment system was not an original promised feature but it was greenlighted and the game is so much better for it.  I know Steve has spent a ton of time squashing bugs left and right while rolling that feature online onto more zeds.

Faatal's work on the vehicle changes was just one of many tasks he has worked on this Alpha.  As our lead programmer he is involved in so many different areas its hard to keep track.

I wish I could clone the guy as he is always willing to listen to my level design rants and even fix bugs on the spot instead of telling me to get in the back of the line...😅

It sounds like you develop games too, so you should know that not all games are created equal.  Let alone one studio vs another.  

I think it's unfair to compare development of a racing game to an open world voxel game like 7d2d.  Yes, I am sure there are some similarities, but the scope is much larger and there is much more moving parts under the hood imo...

Hopefully once A21 lands, I hope you feel all of the work that went into it.  If not, I hope you at least get a good amount of enjoyment.

 
Laz Man said:
not all games are created equal
Click to expand...
Some people are very funny. They were given a game with a completely destructible and built-up world, where each block takes into account physics. Hordes of zombies come at night, up to 64 at a time, who can normally navigate this world and the player's buildings. The player has several branches of leveling perks, a lot of clothes, armor, tools, weapons and the progression of experience accumulation. And it all looks modern, not like Minecraft. And they're like: "Hey, we need extra wheels on the car. What have you been doing there all this time that you couldn't add it to the game????" lol😅

 
Games'n'Grumble said:
Some people are very funny. They were given a game with a completely destructible and built-up world, where each block takes into account physics. Hordes of zombies come at night, up to 64 at a time, who can normally navigate this world and the player's buildings. The player has several branches of leveling perks, a lot of clothes, armor, tools, weapons and the progression of experience accumulation. And it all looks modern, not like Minecraft. And they're like: "Hey, we need extra wheels on the car. What have you been doing there all this time that you couldn't add it to the game????" lol😅
Click to expand...
you better tell me when 21 alpha will be

 
I'd like to suggest for Alpha 22 the Dev Diary thread is locked to staff and moderators for news and update posts only. Maybe there can be a separate Dev Diary discussion thread for 200 pages of arguments and in-fighting? Personally I'm Interested in what TFP staff and moderation team have to say on the subject in the Diary thread more-so. Don't know if this is out of pocket but that's my two cents. 

 
Cr0wst0rm said:
slowing development iteration intentionaly.

EDIT: It feels like nothing has been done other than the landscape, water physics, optimization of word destruction (async collision cooking?), some balances etc. Maybe it's the later features that are expected to be released the later alpha (overlap). Still I think more could be done. Maybe coders were blocked with the new art coming in the game (support)? Either way I think over a year there could be many other features done, I managed to code a vehicle Physics system with suspension, dynamic damage (almost wreckfest like) and animated interiors just in 1 year (+ racing events + vehicle customization support + saving system etc etc (Unreal Engine, pure C++)). Considering the team has like +- 3 code guys? I think there could be just a tiny bit more, considering it way a YEAR.
Click to expand...


Ok, but how is that milking? Milking means making money with unnecessary sales. Like DLC´s that should be part of the maingame and such things.

If they do achieve anything by making the development time longer than it would have to be, it´s people beeing p´ed off. How could that possibly something they want?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I came here to complain about the catfishing mechanic. I believe that after all these years there should be people that hide their real identity in the game, only to meet a potential partner and have them realize that we are naked all the time. Also,  coming from a dev team that makes streams in underpants and the fact that I'm an astronaut (they do not use pants), this should be easy to implement. Fun Pimps plz get your sh** together, as hard as that might be without undies. I'm sorry but I have proof : It gets itchy.

 
VoltraLux said:
I'd like to suggest for Alpha 22 the Dev Diary thread is locked to staff and moderators for news and update posts only. Maybe there can be a separate Dev Diary discussion thread for 200 pages of arguments and in-fighting? Personally I'm Interested in what TFP staff and moderation team have to say on the subject in the Diary thread more-so. Don't know if this is out of pocket but that's my two cents. 
Click to expand...


We've done variations of that in the past and it stifles developer participation because there are no questions for them to answer. If you follow the developers who post here you can see all of their contributions without the rest. We usually prune this thread every few days to move player discussions over to the overflow thread in general discussions but when we get close that kind of slacks off because the developers are often so busy trying to get the update out they rarely post.

EDIT: Okay, I did a huge prune back to the last time faatal posted.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Roland said:
We've done variations of that in the past and it stifles developer participation because there are no questions for them to answer. If you follow the developers who post here you can see all of their contributions without the rest. We usually prune this thread every few days to move player discussions over to the overflow thread in general discussions but when we get close that kind of slacks off because the developers are often so busy trying to get the update out they rarely post.

EDIT: Okay, I did a huge prune back to the last time faatal posted.
Click to expand...


I guess that works, though the discussion thread would also support the interaction aspect as well I suppose. I'll follow up on your suggestions though thanks for the heads up. 

 
seven said:
They passed 100,000 a long time ago, 1 million by 2015. The last official figure I've seen is 15 million. I do expect there to be a respectable number of sales after gold but I do wonder if most people who would be interested already have it, and most new sales will be from people new to gaming.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I figured we were well beyond that but rather than over-inflating the number and having someone say I'm making stuff up, I chose to use far lower numbers than I expected as those also got my point across.  But 15 million?  That's more than I had expected even though I was expecting over a million.  Very nice.  So even if you had 1/100 of the sales after gold, you're still looking at 150,000 in sales * whatever the price is that people end up paying at the time, which is pretty good sales.  And I'd personally expect a much higher number.  Maybe you're right and the number of people buying the game after gold will be low but I would still expect plenty of sales.  Either way, there will be more sales then than there are now and so they are better off getting gold released than continuing to stay in early access.  Certainly no "milking" going on by staying in early access.

 
VoltraLux said:
I guess that works, though the discussion thread would also support the interaction aspect as well I suppose. I'll follow up on your suggestions though thanks for the heads up. 
Click to expand...


Its time consuming to quote a question in one thread and answer it in another. Developers wouldn't take the time to do that. They would simply answer the question within the discussion thread and we would be back to where we started.

 
Riamus said:
Since they haven't said anything about Streamer Weekend starting, no, it won't be this weekend.  It looks like it'll be later.  Laz Man mentioned they were still dealing with bugs that they need to fix before they can release experimental.  Once they can get those taken care of, they should announce it.  No way to know how soon that'll be.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the information!

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top