PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

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My Dad once April Fooled me by saying we were going to Disneyland. I got really excited and then he said "April Fools" and I just went to school that day instead. Trust me. I chose the less anger and disappointment inducing path.
april_fools_joke_362.jpg


 
Good morning all!,

Just catching up from the weekend and the april fools list was great!

I think it would be fun to have an entry of:

Character growning from being hungry, thirsty, hot or cold has an increased Heat Value of 500%.

So make sure you give them food, water and clothing to stop their noisy b****ing.

Have a great rest of your day!

 
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I tend to stay away from video game sites and forums on April Fool's.

My brother and I have still never fully recovered from the World of Starcraft joke Blizzard pulled on us many many years ago.

 
My Dad once April Fooled me by saying we were going to Disneyland. I got really excited and then he said "April Fools" and I just went to school that day instead. Trust me. I chose the less anger and disappointment inducing path.
When I was about 12, I woke up one April fools day without realising the date, put the radio on and there was this big discussion about how due to something or other, we had gained a day too much over the past century, hence next Thursday would be cancelled.

I got so excited over only 4 days at school sigh

 
I had a dream that I came here and the red bar was almost all the way filled up again

I was pretty happy to wake up tbh

EDIT: Wow apparently you guys even did an HP bar gag yesterday? I haven't even visited the site for like a few days now lmao

 
I have to agree with Hob[/URL] to some extent. He is wrong about a number of things tho.

Yep totally admit that :)

The 7dtd devs are some of the most community-interacting dev's I have followed throughout the last 6 (?) years. While especially madmole was constantly communicating with players, for example the DayZ developers just sat around not listening to their community whatsoever. So after like 6 (?) years of doing that and doing nothing about the fact that DayZ pretty much has no gameplay to offer and so all players just turn on each other, DayZ is practically dead. In 7dtd that is not the case, TFP kept communicating with the players about features and adding player requested stuff, and while some decisions are and were rather dubious (oversimplifying the crafting system, adding the health bars now, getting rid of gun quality difference outside of just 6 main states the guns can have, some more), most did the game really good and always resulted in a better gameplay. I've been playing this since the very first Alpha version and I'll admit that I used a cracked version from Alpha 1 to Alpha 4, loved it so much that I bought it and have bought it for a few friends since as well and recommended it to many others. This game is unlike any other game out there and so is the community. In 7dtd there is so much to do even in MP you don't feel the need to go out and kill players. As long as you don't have a heavily fortified base, you can't even afford to. You need all those 7 days to prepare for the horde night and make sure your base will make the stand, and you need those 7 days to progress in the crafting system, to unlock perks, to grind resources.And lots of features have been added that were requested by players.

I was the one who first came up with sleeper zombies back in the day when TFP still used to respond to Pimp Dreams threads every now and then. And guess what, the next version ingame while the map was loading, Sleeper zombies were announced on the "Upcoming Features" screen. It has become a core feature of the game, requested by a player and not having been mentioned by anyone on the forums before that thread.
I don't disagree with that at all, well maybe I disagree with "most did the game really good and always resulted in a better gameplay."

Madmole has always been a great representative for 7d2d, the questions and answers he did etc, I'm not disputing any of that.

Likewise they've added in some user requested stuff, and top marks for that.

My quoting those other two peoples reviews and saying I agree with them is regarding the update times and the games release date.

Wont repeat what I said in my earlier post, surely they have some sort of time frame when they will finish this game? It would be very bad business practice if this was not so.

I totally understand that if they give a release date and don't stick to it, all hell gets released as players complain and complain.

likewise I play a reasonably popular online game that has had loads of updates released with game stopping bugs etc even though they were pointed out by players on their test server, I presume because the suits upstairs insisted the game/update was released on the advertised date, regardless.

So I know it's a kind of catch 22 situation.

I don't want a firm date, I just want a rough time line, say we are hoping to release x more alphas before the beta stage etc.

The trouble is, the time between Alphas is soooo long thst it becomes frustrating for many (Alpha 16 was released 10 months ago)

To be perfectly honest, had Madmole not given his time frame for the game to be gold, I would have kept my MP server going, but we had a chat, and decided rather than restarting every update, we would wait until the end of 2017 when it gets released and come back then.

Now that's gone and no future date is mentioned.

While some people may argue this is a good example of why they shouldn't give time frames, I disagree, it's a good example of why they shouldn't pick a time frame out of thin air, and while I'm sure at the time MM thought this time frame to be accurate, they really do need to work out what they want to do with this game, how far they want to go before it's ready to be released, whether they will stop working on it once it is released (in which case they need to get everything in it before hand) , or whether they will work on updates once released.

But of course they also need to know that future paid updates wont require a game restart, I'm not saying this sort of stuff is easy.

Personally had the horde situation been fixed and many other bugs fixed, I would have been happy if it was released then, and would happily have paid for the Gyro-copter, better motorbike etc (I appreciate they might have been promised early in so that night not be an option).

But time and time again we wait for an update, it's feels like years of waiting, and when it does come along, it's got a ton of new stuff in it which is good, but quite often the old bugs are still there and the core game play still hasn't been fixed.

Then we patiently wait for the next update to find the same, new stuff added, old problems not fixed.

Of course getting rid of bugs isn't easy.

This game was released I think mid 2013, bearing in mind they must have been working on it before it was released, to have some sort of game for the early access guys to play with, that's a good 5 years so far.

I appreciate they are not a big studio, but by not being a big studio it also means they need a steady income coming in, they probably haven't got huge backers giving them millions to play with like some other companies.

I suspect the console release was done out of necessity to gain some more funding, what does the 7d2d wikipedia page say about that

7 Days to Die received "mixed" reviews for the PC, and "unfavorable" for Xbox and PlayStation 4, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic in 2016.
As of June 2017 the game scored a "very positive" review by over 35,000 reviews on Steam and was one of the "top 100 selling games ever released on Steam" despite still being in alpha stage development.
While the last sentence of that quote is no mean achievement at all, and something they can be proud of all their lives, there is the danger (pure presumption on my part of what possibly could happen) ithat they can get caught up on the hype themselves so to speak.

It's easy to think "hey this game has been bought about 3 million times, people love it, lets take our time and get it right

Rust has been in development about the same time as 7d2d (from what I can see on the internet) and was released Feb this year.

Likewise Ark development began in 2014 and was released August 2017

But still zero info on 7d2d going to beta yet alone gold.

If I look at steam stats for the three of them.

Ark: Owners, 5.8 mil, players in last 2 weeks, 506,873, Peak concurrent players yesterday 58,388, Price $59.99

Rust: Owners, 6.6 mil, players in last 2 weeks, 523,751. Peak concurrent players yesterday 34,328, Price $34.99

7d2d: Owners, 2.9 mil, players in last 2 weeks, 177,354. Peak concurrent players yesterday 12,614, Price $24.99

The figures I cant find is how many Rust and Ark had sold prior to release, it could be they were worse than 7d2d and their releases have been huge successes, in which case I hope the same is true for 7d2d.

But people are fickle. Sure you will always have die hard fans of any game whether it's a great game like 7d2d or some crap game, there will always be people that stick with it for years and wont hear a bad word said against it.

But the majority of people switch to the next greatest thing whenever it appears.

And like it or not, while I think most of 7d2d is better than Rust or Ark, it is another survival game, it has competition that have actually released their games, and it runs the risk that if it takes another year or two to get released, missing the boat, and I would hate for that to happen.

And of course I agree that 7d2d is unique in a lot of ways, but it isn't me that has to be convinced, it's someone whose played rust for a few hundred hours etc.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-best-survival-games-on-pc/

lists 18 games including Rust, Miscreated, DayZ and Ark but sadly not 7d2d, no idea why.

We can argue until we are blue in the face about what (if any) on that list are any good.

In my opinion someone who has played Rust, Miscreated etc and then sees 7d2d, on FIRST impressions, looking at scenery, houses etc etc, in my opinion, many people who see 7d2d will sadly make an instant wrong opinion that it's more of the same.

I know this isn't the case, you know this isn't the case, but it's not you and me thats got to be convinced.

Sorry for yet another long rant about this, I'm honestly doing it in support of 7d2d, I'm not just having a go for the sake of it.

Continued in next post :)
 
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With regards to my comment on you saying "most did the game really good and always resulted in a better gameplay."

I've no problem with the sleepers, or any other new stuff thats being added.

But like you mentioned, I personally think (and have ranted about it loads before) that to me, they annihilated a good crafting system into a generic easy mode that lost all it's appeal.

I don't dispute for one second that some people prefer the new system, but something that's become prevalent over the past 10 odd years is most games end up dumbing down the game play to the lowest common denominator (Dark Souls series which I love is one very good exception) , meaning everyone can get instant gratification, no one wants to work for anything any more.

I loved having to finish chopping down a tree to get the wood, that way of a Zombie appeared, you had to do something about it or no wood. Now you can run past trees, hit them once and get some.

I preferred the look of the old crafting system it felt like you were using a forge, not a spreadsheet.

I liked having to kill different animals to get different meats

I also liked having to start off by building a basic chack (or repairing a house with basic mats) then haviong to demolish those bloclks before you could place your newer stuff.

That gave the game longevity to me, it meant it would take months of gameplay to get my perfect building.

Now all I have to do is get the mats and I can change one block into another.

I used to spend hours online building and creating (and mining) what used to take me a week can be done in a couple of hours now. If the hordes and zombie fighting was non stop full on, you could possibly have an argument for this (although I would still say you should find a brick building, get up high and start from there etc)

I'm sure many people are horrified at the thought of doing what I suggested, but I want a long term survival game I can play for months if not years, not one ewhere once I have the mats, I can build fort knox in about an hour.

I once spent two weeks of about 4+ hours a day mining with a pickaxe to join two of our bases together, getting that tunnel complete was a real achievement to me and gave me great satisfaction. It's that sort of thing that gives me more pleasure than actuary fighting the zombies.

With the current one, 4 hrs a day, you would be twiddling your thumbs, having ransacked everything, and have nothing to do while waiting for the next 7th night etc

And I loved it when we were onthe roof fighting zombies and the hornets suddenly started attacking.

Then again, I love the crafting aspect most in MMOs and get just as much enjoyment gathering mats for a few weeks as I do in a raid.

Here's one of my mines

71.jpg

Here are 3 pics of our main base that we all enjoyed building before crafting was simplified. We spent ages and ages on it, and finishing it felt like we had accomplished something mammoth

72.jpg

73.jpg

74.jpg

 
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Edit:// Not exactly A17 related but related to a 7dtd discussion that is related to A17 which we're having in this thread so pls don't move, or move all related posts please (hobgoblyn and mine and 2-3 other that would be). Also apologies for the wall of text. I appreciate everyone reading through the whole thing even if you disagree. But tl:dr: 7dtd can't be compared well to the other survival games out there but if you insist on a comparison, it will always win.

Can't argue with most of what you said and I even made alot of these points myself which makes me think that you didn't really read all of what I wrote. My comment was more of an addition and slight correction, not an answer to yours.

As for comparing 7dtd to Rust and Ark (and DayZ).

You really cannot compare them at all. The only thing they have in common are that they are all open world survival games.

A brief description for each of them:

Rust.

A game that was released into early access as a zombie survival game based on the concept of the original dayz mod which meant you were in a static open world map with structures on it, crafting your way and having the ability to actually properly start a base. The world cannot be mined, only certain objects in it can be. Loot is scarce. It was sold as a zombie survival game, then the developer removed the zombies, effectively scamming everybody who had bought it as a zombie survival game until then, without making refunds. And pretty much nobody called him out for that (WTF??). Then it turned into a purely pvp game with no real gameplay. Just find other players and kill them. Don't bother grinding your gear, you can just kill another player and maybe they have better loot than you and thats how you progress. Its kill on sight with a toxic community and nowadays mostly empty servers. Rust was released not all that long ago and was a complete failure, most people with a brain have moved on by now. The sales are all from the early days when Rust was the new kid on the block and the dev promised to give the players of the old dayz mod a standalone game that would deliver the playstyle they were looking forward to and not getting in the DayZ standalone that was already going down at the time.

DayZ.

DayZ is an incredible static open world survival game and best example of developers just wasting huge potential and flushing their concept down the you know. The distances in this game are incredible, and so is the atmosphere. Unlike most other games you don't leave a village and immediately end up in the next. You have to take a long walk and the terrain is realistic. DayZ also has the best gun system I have ever seen in a game with the different gun types, ammo types respectively, attachments, finding ammo in ammo cardboard boxes, and different mag sizes for firearms with external mags. That is an incredibly in-depth system. And thats where the depth in DayZ ends. The engine is clunky, the rendering is godawful, movement is clunky, melee combat is clunky, the health system is just godawful. You eat something that may or may not have a bad effect on you, or a zombie hits you. Some time later you check into your inventory and see a text telling your status as "sick". And it gives no further indication as to what is wrong with you whatsoever. And medication is so scarce that its impossible to survive said sickness anyway. Not to forget that there is essentially no food in loot and you start off hungry. And you have to eat every 15 minutes in a game with essentially real-time day durations. By the time you arrive in the next village, you are almost starved already if you already were hungry the moment you arrived in the previous village and didnt find any food there, which happens extremely often. DayZ is practically unplayable, has a very small community left, will never get out of Alpha and the community that it has is trained to kill on sight so the lone wolf assassin or the "group of murderous ♥♥♥♥heads" are the only two possible playstyles where you might have a chance to actually get good gear at some point. Oh and the servers are empty as well.

Ark.

I don't even understand why people bother to compare Ark to 7dtd. Ark is basically just a huge grind, taming the big dinosaurs takes hours and hours and by the time you leave the server, some russian clan might just hop on minutes later, walk around, find your half-tamed dinosaur that is probably goin' to leave the area by the time you come back anyways, and kill it. And there you go, hours of your life wasted getting food for that thing that just takes ages to tame. Apart from that you have a mediocre building system, as a newspawn you run into level 30 dinosaurs that just easily kill you in seconds all the time, and players also just kill on sight. The game technically even offers endgame content with technology and all that, but you'll never get there. I've never seen anyone get there and I've been following this game ever since its earliest phase. What else.... hm. The graphics are gorgeous but thats to be expected from a game with a static game map that cannot be mined. It has almost no gameplay to offer outside of mediocre base building, taming dinosaurs and the progression that is so slow and gets prevented by so many factors that its pointless. I guess it works as a jurassic park simulator but I don't see this game getting any better anymore, since the devs already announced its the release version now and they will only occasionally patch in small additions. Small community of fanboys, big community of russian guys hopping from server to server griefing best as they can. Really not something you wanna get into.

7dtd.

Completely destroyable world composed of blocks in a voxel sandbox system that prevents it from looking as gorgeous as Ark because its not a static map and so a ton of calculating has to be done for rendering, shapes and textures. People say it looks ♥♥♥♥ on console but so does everything else. People even say it looks ♥♥♥♥ on pc despite it being the best looking destroyable sandbox game out there by far. And especially with distant terrain, the render range is bigger than pretty much anything besides space based games and Crysis maybe. The gameplay has alot of depth ranging from the skill system to the crafting and the different crafting surfaces, the trader, the looting, the building, the farming and the hordes themselfes, as well as exploring and questing. The game has so much danger and also gameplay to offer that the community are not like the other games where they just go out and kill on sight hunting other players as their main goal for the game. In 7dtd, those 7 Days until the next horde... you need those. To gather materials, to loot, to fortify your base, to level up so your attacks will be more lethal against the enemies, to have a save place to use your chem station and workbench and cement mixer and all that. If you go out before reaching endgame to hunt other players, you will be unprepared for the next 7th day horde, and you will either die or at least your base will take heavy damage. Unless you're the kind of chicken who just spends the horde nights on top of some roof without any fortification and hope that the building doesnt collapse. The health system actually tells you when something and wrong and what is wrong, and you don't have to permanently eat and drink all the time, especially if you have the right kinds of food and drink.

Anything more I have to say? In a reasonable comparison, 7dtd will win against any other of these so called survival games. Which are not survival of the elements or survival by skill, but just surviving other players or in the case of DayZ, surviving starvation (which is almost impossible nowadays) and sickness types you don't ever find the medicine to heal.

Why are the others selling better, or having more players?

Ark was being hyped by the review sites which gave them a huge kickstart early on, and with the "full" release now it got hyped by the big sites once again.

DayZ was being hyped early on by its own community from the dayz arma mods and so also got a huge kickstart early on, and it kept selling better because DayZ was an established name people already knew and so they weren't very cautious as to what they are actually buying there, and nowadays pretty much all of them stopped playing.

Rust was being hyped as the new great thing after DayZ has failed and drew alot of attention from the big sites which all promoted its early access and gave it good reviews despite the game even to this day still playing like a barebones proof of concept and not like anything finished. With the release now it brought back a number of players who haven't been around since legacy Rust who are giving it a shot, but give it a year and the game will be just as dead as DayZ again... I'd bet good money on that.

7dtd was never hyped, review sites gave it bad reviews for the most part, it was very often just called a "more mature minecraft" and seeing it compared to minecraft already drew off alot of people who didn't bother to look into it after reading that. 7dtd also doesn't have graphics as good as most other games in the genre, but its the only game with a destroyable voxel world and for that, the graphics are actually brilliant. The name also drew off some people who didn't bother looking into the game just assuming that it was a "spend 7 days in the game preparing for the horde and then the game is over and you either win or you lose" kind of game. I've heard that presumption from alot of gamers and it took me years to convince some of them to give it a try and make them understand that the name doesn't really describe the gameplay and that its nothing likey they assumed it was.

So there you go, my two cents on the whole 7dtd vs survival games thing.

Hope you enjoyed reading,

have a nice day everyone!

Cheers

 
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The best April Fools joke was when Capcom , for Resident Evil 2 , showed that you could unlock Ryu from Street Fighter...took him out of Street Fighter 3d and superimposed him into a screen from RE2 with the zombies head being blown off with a shotgun , but made it look like he did it with a dragon uppercut...

They said you had to beat the game with Tofu...which was an unlockable joke character , literally a giant block of Tofu that couldn't do much...without healing sprays OR saving the game...people tried for YEARS to do it and unlock Ryu...even after they told everyone it was just a joke...eventually...

 
Hey Roland, just outta curiosity would there be any chance of having out characters needing sleep or needing to use the bathroom in the future? I'm only asking cause it would add to the survival aspect of the game not to mention it would be amusing to be looting a house and need to sit in the bathroom hoping a zombie doesnt hear or smell your presence lol.

 
Just curious who thinks A17 will drop around July 5th? I hope it will be early but the FUN PIMPS have been hard at work making another awesome Alpha (that's almost like a new game every time) and that takes a lot of hard work. So thanks Pimps keep up the good work I can hardly wait to play the next version.

 
Just curious who thinks A17 will drop around July 5th? I hope it will be early but the FUN PIMPS have been hard at work making another awesome Alpha (that's almost like a new game every time) and that takes a lot of hard work. So thanks Pimps keep up the good work I can hardly wait to play the next version.
Still hoping August.

 
Just curious who thinks A17 will drop around July 5th? I hope it will be early but the FUN PIMPS have been hard at work making another awesome Alpha (that's almost like a new game every time) and that takes a lot of hard work. So thanks Pimps keep up the good work I can hardly wait to play the next version.

Still hoping August.
Remember when Alpha 16 was going to drop by 4th of July or Madmole was going to eat his beard? Good times...

 
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