PC Developer Discussions: Alpha 17

[Jedo]

I made the mistake of posting after I read, not knowing someone had responded. Should have paid attention to how many pages back I had started to read. I started reading close to twenty back; if I had used my brain, I would have realized someone would have already answered and not have browbeaten you again.

Thanks. I looked at your other posts that you were making and realized that you were playing catch up, but that was after I already had responded to you. I should have paid attention, too, and I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. You're a pretty kind and considerate person, and I should have known that you wouldn't be like that.

What happened to Midnight Rook? We need some more cheer in here.

 

[RavenGT]

But they are working on the bugs that are allready known. There is no need for the "community" to find them. Strange way of thinking...
Cheers

I wasn't talking about bugs that are already known, but the ones that the community will eventually find after waiting over a year. I'm not sure if you caught my point or not, but this late in the game, it seems that it could help to find bugs sooner rather than later, AND have the community appeased at the same time by getting something to do other than be disappointed. Like I said, it's just an opinion that may or may not be based on a little experience with this kind of thing.

 

[RavenGT]

What? Us finding bugs is not "more hands faster bugs fixing" Releasing the Experimental with known game breaking bugs will just be "thousands of crappy bitching posts about the game is the SuX0Rs and hundreds of legitimate bug reports to wade through on bugs they already know exist." Hence, more work for every developer" Every dev team has its own ideas on what is a "game breaking" bug compared to "well this sucks but we can live with it while testing for other bugs" bug. You don't release, hell sometimes not even to internal testers, when the first list I mentioned exists.

You're assuming things with this post. There's legitimate value to the community helping find these bugs in an alpha. We already have somewhat of an organized method of reporting bugs on this forum, why not utilize that mid-alpha (at this point)?

Either way, TFP knows best and this isn't intended to be sold to them.

 

[PurgatoryWolf]

nothing they do will make people happy. They could roll out smaller patches all year long with fixes here and there, and updates to graphics here and there, but then people would whine and complain that they have to keep wiping their server and starting over each time the patch rolls out. or maybe all the changes are just better suited to all roll out at the same time, and wouldn't have been practical to send out in smaller chunks... we don't know, we aren't working behind the scenes for them.. If you are THAT bored, go play something else, or go play with some of the awesome mods that are out there or it.

 

[Prisma501]

I wasn't talking about bugs that are already known, but the ones that the community will eventually find after waiting over a year. I'm not sure if you caught my point or not, but this late in the game, it seems that it could help to find bugs sooner rather than later, AND have the community appeased at the same time by getting something to do other than be disappointed. Like I said, it's just an opinion that may or may not be based on a little experience with this kind of thing.

Maybe "but honestly I'd rather them release sooner rather than "less buggy" later" confused me to much then.

You were not saying release now with all the known bugs? Then i missed your point indeed.

Cheers

 

[RavenGT]

Maybe "but honestly I'd rather them release sooner rather than "less buggy" later" confused me to much then.
You were not saying release now with all the known bugs? Then i missed your point indeed.

Cheers

I'm confused as to what you're saying. Yes, I'd rather have the opportunity to help find bugs now than find them a day after a release in the future.

 

[Prisma501]

I'm confused as to what you're saying. Yes, I'd rather have the opportunity to help find bugs now than find them a day after a release in the future.

Yeh i get it. Just a strange way of thinking imo. Circle is round again

Cheers

 

[Sirre]

So, which do you want? The superior game or a faster release schedule? Because you can't have both.

I want the best game possible and for me personally waiting is not an issue but then again I am very patient and have other things to do in life.

I was simply writing about what the general feeling outside this particular forum is and it certainly is getting more hostile towards the developers. Most people are quite impatient and waiting for years for a game which has sold for millions can understandably even seem like a scam for many people.

Again I stress the fact that this is not my opinion, I trust the ftp to deliver the product eventually but it is obvious to me that there have been mistakes made in the development process perhaps due to the fact that ftp never expected the game to sell so much and could not handle the accumulated pressure of such high sales figures.

Never the less I am not here to blame or to judge I am here to simply to remind of the fact that whatever reputation ftp gets from this game directly influences the initial reaction of the masses to their next game project along the way.

Just something to keep in mind. This is a brutal business after all.

 

[Prisma501]

I want the best game possible and for me personally waiting is not an issue but then again I am very patient and have other things to do in life.
I was simply writing about what the general feeling outside this particular forum is and it certainly is getting more hostile towards the developers. Most people are quite impatient and waiting for years for a game which has sold for millions can understandably even seem like a scam for many people.

Again I stress the fact that this is not my opinion, I trust the ftp to deliver the product eventually but it is obvious to me that there have been mistakes made in the development process perhaps due to the fact that ftp never expected the game to sell so much and could not handle the accumulated pressure of such high sales figures.

Never the less I am not here to blame or to judge I am here to simply to remind of the fact that whatever reputation ftp gets from this game directly influences the initial reaction of the masses to their next game project along the way.

Just something to keep in mind. This is a brutal business after all.

Curious on what "mistakes in the development proces" you mean as they are obvious to you. I actually read the EA agreement i accepted when buying this game and am aware for years now that they could decide to rewrite the whole thing from scratch and still wouldnt break any agreement with me as a customer. So to me its not really obvious. Would you be so kind to share?

Cheers

 

[wicketness]

Ohhhhh!!!!

here we go again lol.

The forum is gonna explode.

I still stand by my release of Dec.13th (If we even get it this year)

GO!!!!

 

[akram22]

Roland ... can you make a GIF for a zombie getting hit with a power attack with the sledgehammer ? i really want to see one .. does the sledgehammer have mods? .... see if joel can agree if you publish these stuff .

 

[Henry77940]

I gotta say, that is actually a great music video.

They got some more music videos, one in particular is Jeep Stuff. Neebs gaming has some great content. 7DTD, Ark and Raft are thier popular ones right now.

 

[Nugetti]

So, which do you want? The superior game or a faster release schedule? Because you can't have both.

I wanted to chime in on this.
Let's say TFP has a "development rate" or a certain amount of things they can accomplish within a specified timeframe, let's say one year.

At the moment, a vast amount of features and other tweaks are added per update. If they were to split the workload into two parts, as in two updates, but with the same amount of content, it would roughly mean that there would be two releases within that given time.

Of course there would be more resources pointed towards bug fix patches etc. due to more frequent updates, which would in turn drop the "development rate" slightly. But I don't think it would compromise the game quality or make it any less inferior.

People seem to enjoy the game itself, and think of it as good fun.

It seems that the problem for most negative commenters is that ~one year is simply too long of a release interval between updates.

I'm not blaming TFP for working too slowly (or anything for that matter), I'm sure their office chairs are worn down to bare metal now from work. But reading all the "whining" makes me wonder if they have considered a "less stuff per update" approach.

My main point is that there must be a happy medium between gigantic "year-between-releases" updates and "A22.6 NEW CARDBOARD BOX AND ZOMBIE SQUIRREL UPDATE" -type of overly minimalistic deal that some companies push. :smile-new:

 

[Royal Deluxe]

Just bought The mist survival, hoping I come back =)

You mean because of the chance that "Mist survival" is so much better than 7D2D ?

See you in 10 Minutes

 

[Jedo]

I wanted to chime in on this.
Let's say TFP has a "development rate" or a certain amount of things they can accomplish within a specified timeframe, let's say one year.

At the moment, a vast amount of features and other tweaks are added per update. If they were to split the workload into two parts, as in two updates, but with the same amount of content, it would roughly mean that there would be two releases within that given time...

It seems that the problem for most negative commenters is that ~one year is simply too long of a release interval between updates...But reading all the "whining" makes me wonder if they have considered a "less stuff per update" approach.

My main point is that there must be a happy medium between gigantic "year-between-releases" updates and "A22.6 NEW CARDBOARD BOX AND ZOMBIE SQUIRREL UPDATE" -type of overly minimalistic deal that some companies push. :smile-new:

It depends on the things being added, doesn't it? If there is a system which by itself will take one year to implement, how do you break it up in to smaller chunks and have it be in there? Reasonably, it won't be in working order when only part of it is in there.

I'm pretty sure that TFP has done something like that (bandits? stealth? vehicles?), and the response has been grief for not finishing something that they started. (In some cases, people were quite happy to let the modders make those pieces usable, but plenty of others were not okay with that.)

Which is better?

 

[Jackelmyer]

I'm confused as to what you're saying. Yes, I'd rather have the opportunity to help find bugs now than find them a day after a release in the future.

I'm not entirely sure how long you've been doing the 7D2D Alpha. But when an Experimental version goes out, the first few weeks to the first few months can be incredibly rough. Even after TFP spends time, like they're doing now, squashing known issues.

TFP has walked this fine line many times. I understand the desire to get the game ASAP. However you may get something that's literally unplayable. So the best test you'll be able to do...

ALT+F4.

Which... Actually... may not work.... *bug report*

I'd rather wait and actually be able to test the game.

 

[Roland]

No amount of internal quality testing can compensate for tens of thousands of people with a wide variety of rig configurations getting their hands on it.

 

[Jackelmyer]

I wanted to chime in on this.
Let's say TFP has a "development rate" or a certain amount of things they can accomplish within a specified timeframe, let's say one year.

At the moment, a vast amount of features and other tweaks are added per update. If they were to split the workload into two parts, as in two updates, but with the same amount of content, it would roughly mean that there would be two releases within that given time.

I think one of the big differences with this update as to updates they've done in the past, is they're literally trying to finalize their entire game framework. With so many "gut" components reworked or freshly built, A17 is going to be a bit of a unique update. In past updates, they've done similar things if I recall. But it was more... tinkering than really defining and designing. If memory serves, the guy who implemented the new/updated physics to get cars attached to the road properly, allow jumping vehicles properly, etc, was a new hire for A17 or just before A17.

Someone else was too... I want to say fataal but I may be on crack.

I think what A17 is going to give us more than cool new things to play with, is a real near finished or finished gut of the game. That's no small feat and nothing to scoff at.

When you do take a large application, with a lot of dependencies, rip out it's guts, and put in nifty new ones, it takes a whole lot of time. With everything I've seen them put into A17 it's kinda like this...

Imagine you have an old Ford Mustang. She's a beaut to look at, but the guts just are kinda not all together. The frame itself is rusting through. You can patch the frame or you can fabricate a new frame, with enhancements, and take off all the good stuff of that old Mustang and slap it onto the new frame.

Pre A17, seemed like a lot of frame patching. May only have to jack up the car to get this done.

A17, new frame fabricated with a ton of cool new features that lets you modify that old Mustang in ways you never could before. You can't exactly throw tires on the new frame and go off for a cruise. Kinda need to do the whole bit.

Basically... If there was content that was nothing but "Add Cardboard Box and Zombie Squirrel", sure, TFP could absolutely choose to push that out all by itself with minor versioning overhead headaches. Minor being a relative word here...

But that's not at all what A17 is. At least... that's my take.

 

[DaMfS]

I'm totally okay with the delayed release.

But please give us some screenshots more often than once every 2 weeks.

That doesn't cost much time but helps a lot to calm down the community and keep us up to date. You know we need something to show our friends which are not in the forums but are really hyped for A17

 

[Gnomaana]

I wanted to chime in on this.
Let's say TFP has a "development rate" or a certain amount of things they can accomplish within a specified timeframe, let's say one year.

At the moment, a vast amount of features and other tweaks are added per update. If they were to split the workload into two parts, as in two updates, but with the same amount of content, it would roughly mean that there would be two releases within that given time.

Of course there would be more resources pointed towards bug fix patches etc. due to more frequent updates, which would in turn drop the "development rate" slightly. But I don't think it would compromise the game quality or make it any less inferior.

Those last 2 sentences shows a lack of understanding. You are assuming way too many things. 1) Half the features may not equal half the work. One major feature may have been 75 to 80 percent of the work. 2) Even if it did you are assuming that half the work could get done in half the time but it may not be possible to break it down in that way. Taking 2 devs to throw at the same issue will not cut your dev time in half. At least not for every task.

The part about 2 debug cycles instead of 1 "dropping the development rate slightly" is also not always true either.

From a dev standpoint Early Access is a lot of extra work. They have to put out much more playable code more often than a game developed just in house. The upside to the developer is that they get an infusion of money from people interested in the game and development process. The problem is that people think they bought a game and what they bought was a chance to watch the development process and at the end they get a free copy of the game.