PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[akram22]

awesome detail, great art , scary nights , smart zombies and new video . MM gameplay is around the corner and the hybe train is going to turn on the engines soon, CANT WAIT!

 

[GrumpyGringo]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1031724154146283520

Nice! It looks really good.

I zoomed the pictures to get a better look at the light source behind what looks like the new screamer? I use to have one of those flashlights with the big yellow plastic housing. Now my brain is all excited. New in game object! Is it stationary, like part of a dungeon crawl? Or can you interact with it? And if its a new type of flashlight, has battery drain become a thing? Will you find yourself in the middle of a house with a dead flashlight? All aboard the hype train!

 

[dhlmaster]

Make sure to get adult diapers, these won't fit or be able endure it.

You'll need something absorbant for those all night gaming marathons. Try something like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007LG9WM8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XO.EBbMZDB5PN

 

[akram22]

Nice! It looks really good.
I zoomed the pictures to get a better look at the light source behind what looks like the new screamer? I use to have one of those flashlights with the big yellow plastic housing. Now my brain is all excited. New in game object! Is it stationary, like part of a dungeon crawl? Or can you interact with it? And if its a new type of flashlight, has battery drain become a thing? Will you find yourself in the middle of a house with a dead flashlight? All aboard the hype train!

yeah . the hype is looking on your face, ahm. i mean your words .

 

[quilmeshou]

Im hoping for a future update with underground biomes, something like bigger caves for better mining and some dungeon like places, or even metros and/or subways. Kinda like metro 2033, with even new enemies exclusive for it. What do you think guys? @Roland?

 

[Kalarro]

Hey Skippy,
No disrespect meant. I know not everyone reads every single post as they try to catch up on all the posts so I will break it down for you and everyone else who are wondering what happened.

In June Madmole said in a video that he was hopeful that they would be done with A17 by the end of July. He admitted that it was a guess but that it was his estimate on what he felt would be possible.

In early July the team made the choice to upgrade to Unity 2018.2 because at first glance it appeared that it would have some solid performance benefits and no major inconsistencies from the previous version. It was a risk but one they felt was worth it for the benefits. They were right about the benefits but they were wrong about inconsistencies. It turned out their shaders became incompatible and needed to be redone. This caused a delay much longer than they anticipated.

Towards the end of July, as people were submitting bug fixes and uploading new art assets from their local builds to the shared build the magnitude of new art assets overwhelmed the atlases that they use. This has caused another unforeseen delay as they have had to find an alternative solution to be able to include all the new art in the game. They have found a solution and are doing that conversion. The bad news is the delay it caused but the good news is that all the new content that will be included in A17 is awesome and will be able to be supported.

At the end of July when I knew that Madmole's guess was going to be wrong I changed the date to August which caused an eruption from a segment of the community who thought that "hope" and "guess" and "estimate" really meant "promise" and "vow" and "set in stone". Then when August 1st came and all the "It's August where is it?" posts started appearing I changed it to "August or....." so that people would know that even August was just an estimate. But people went ballistic and the dev diary went off the rails. I had to move over 150 posts out of this thread all because some people couldn't understand the difference between "Maybe" and "Definitely".

That is how "It's done when its done" came about. I realized that the immature segment would never understand the concept of "estimate" and if they were going to be mad no matter what then I didn't want to have to deal with constantly updating the date. I added the smilie because someone thought the phrase sounded petulant and passive aggressive and smilies always make forum posts better. Right?

But now....lol....we have people trying to assign special meaning to the smilie...

It will be done just as soon as the unforeseen issues are handled and the known bugs that are considered show-stoppers are squished. There aren't going to be any more Unity updates before A17 and they know the full extent of the massive amount of new content and have a framework that can support it all. They are not holding out on us and stringing us along. They will get it into our hands at the soonest possible moment they can.

wow wtf. I had no idea about all this. Last thing I knew is that the estimation was july and it wasnt here yet. Was I sad about it? of course, but I cant understand people getting mad really. It's not something about videogames or scheudles or anything, it's common sense. If somebody says: hopefully it will be ready in X, that isnt a deadline, nor a promise nor anything else than giving you some information about possibilities. I mean, it's common sense. "hopefully it will be ready", pretty clear IMO.

Can you be sad it's not? Sure, I am. Can you be mad? mmh maybe a little, but with the bad luck, not with them. The only thing they did was telling you what they THOUGHT may be the date. The only thing you accomplish by getting mad is not making them work faster next time, but not getting any estimated info next time.

 

[Tearstone]

With the crawlers "swimming" through the spikes, has their turning improved at all? When a walker turns it looks quite natural, but when a crawler turns it looks like they're laying on a turntable. Their centre of rotation is in their stomach somewhere and it looks really weird - is there any chance they could be made to crawl round in a realistic turning circle instead of turning on the spot.

I honestly think that might well require new motion capture, requiring a performer crawling around a few different obstacles, right and left... And maybe ideally up and down as well.

The way the current anim plays out, it's basically the model crawling in a straight line and the controller just changes it's direction, rather than there being included animation cycle of it going through the physical process of turning.

Remember though, this is alpha. So right now everything is a rough sketch, a rough draft. The Devs are just 'aping' in things with broad strokes and then drilling down in the fine details as we go along.

 

[Aldranon]

My guess is people who meme have em ready already. After all...time to waste atm. I'm expecting a 3 page deluge

I have a great "Release the Kraken", gif that I thought I lost. I will post right after the meme's fire off.

 

[beerfly]

I have a great "Release the Kraken", gif that I thought I lost. I will post right after the meme's fire off.

You would better keep it safe and ready. Hope it does not become flooded by memes here, but nothing wrong if we see a good ones.

@Bubo ? Are you ready ?

 

[TSRViper]

I have a great "Release the Kraken", gif that I thought I lost. I will post right after the meme's fire off.

Interesting...we don’t have a ‘release the kraken’ primer at the top - or is the release candidate meant to be that? (RC has a different meaning in commercial development)

 

[A Nice Cup of Tea]

I honestly think that might well require new motion capture, requiring a performer crawling around a few different obstacles, right and left... And maybe ideally up and down as well.
The way the current anim plays out, it's basically the model crawling in a straight line and the controller just changes it's direction, rather than there being included animation cycle of it going through the physical process of turning.

Remember though, this is alpha. So right now everything is a rough sketch, a rough draft. The Devs are just 'aping' in things with broad strokes and then drilling down in the fine details as we go along.

You could probably just use the "crawling forward" animation, but have them crawl in a curve rather than a straight line. I don't think you'd need a specific "crawling round things" animation unless you made the curve too tight.

Anything would be better than the current animation where they just spin on the floor like they're '80s breakdancers.

 

[beerfly]

Interesting...we don’t have a ‘release the kraken’ primer at the top - or is the release candidate meant to be that? (RC has a different meaning in commercial development)

I forgot that if we called The Kraken - the stable version or experimental. Simptoms are high amount of happiness, a big smile, and being ready to leave reality, yeah. Especially the last one.

 

[Aldranon]

Interesting...we don’t have a ‘release the kraken’ primer at the top - or is the release candidate meant to be that? (RC has a different meaning in commercial development)

Just a reminder to send A17-E to the streamers on Friday (and me if they really, really want to).

 

[Hameshy]

Hameshy, I would guess, seeing as you joined in 2014, you either didn't link your steam account or it didn't take when you tried way back when and then you just fell through the cracks.

Didn't even knewn about that lol.

Linked now!

Thanks a lot Tin.

BTW, used a lot yours Rwgmixers, thanks for you work!

 

[Tin]

Didn't even knewn about that lol.Linked now!

Thanks a lot Tin.

BTW, used a lot yours Rwgmixers, thanks for you work!

..and "Thank You" for giving them a try.

 

[Comino]

well i have hopes now

 

[Comino]

Hey,
It's all in the wind I guess. Especially since your particular combination of hardware isn't tested. But let me help you out as far as i can.

The specs were updated on steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/251570/7_Days_to_Die/ a while back.

I think I saw somewhere that a 17 wont raise the minimum specs beyond that - but that was a while back.....

First, thanks you very much for your answer

We play mostly via lan, 2 players, 3 if my brother connects. She dont care the quality, she loves loot houses XD go far away when i stay at home XD crafting and cleanning the house jajajaj then she cries me when the zombies are around she and she is alone.... so, for her gameplay, i think she can run it well. The pc it's a Macbook pro, so it has SDD HD. We put shadows off, quarter side textures, no reflexions, low-medium trees, 7 draw distance, 40% detail world, no extra effects (blur,etc)...well not the best, but it's the only way to enjoy playing with our personal mod (she loves found DORITOS looting the houses XD) thanks you very much for the hope

 

[SittingDuck]

Video, Video, Video!!!

 

[Burakin]

First, thanks you very much for your answer We play mostly via lan, 2 players, 3 if my brother connects. She dont care the quality, she loves loot houses XD go far away when i stay at home XD crafting and cleanning the house jajajaj then she cries me when the zombies are around she and she is alone.... so, for her gameplay, i think she can run it well. The pc it's a Macbook pro, so it has SDD HD. We put shadows off, quarter side textures, no reflexions, low-medium trees, 7 draw distance, 40% detail world, no extra effects (blur,etc)...well not the best, but it's the only way to enjoy playing with our personal mod (she loves found DORITOS looting the houses XD) thanks you very much for the hope

Yw mate. If she's happy like that there is no known reason afaik to worry the next update will make it impossible.

Good you have a work division - it's much fun working together if you aren't all after the same 'job'. And you can just ask her to also bring iron not just buritos so you can keep building

As a sidenote you may or may not have seen: She'll be sad to know that a17 starts you off with less backpack slots then you have now. but happy that with progression (xp/perks) you can get up to 45 (more then now) + toolbelt so she can play pack rat even more

Have fun.

dug up the extra info on that - sometimes stuff is a little hard to find here:

"player [will have] 3 rows (each with 9 slots) available = 27 open slots to start

2 rows under those rows are locked to start with = 18 locked slots [whjich you can unlock one row at a time we heard]

essentially your back pack has 5 rows total = 45 slots (this is back pack only) - - (a16 has 32 slots in the back pack)"

[add your toolbelt slots for total]

o/

 

[Topher]

just finished a play through of fallout 3, going to mod the hell out of it and do another run. Just thought I would put it out there for others looking for something else to play while waiting for this to get released....