From another thread:
Im a little bit worried about "having all systems in place for the first time" -- and no "no brand new systems are needed" part of this quote.
So,
1) Water doesn't need a new system?
2) We don't have bandits, is that a new system? are they gone for good?
3) Block selection interface that were talked about a long while back, is that a new system?
4) Smell system is gone for good?
Roland, talk me down... please..
I'm thinking he means that all main systems are in place, most everything else can be built from these new systems.
1) They put in some kind of new terrain system or something that helps it a little, I believe, I could be wrong. However, if so, water would be built from this pre-existing system, just tweaked for it's own use since it's somewhat different.
2) New AI and enemy system in place. Just need to add them to it and tweak the AI a little on their end to be more human-like instead of zombie.
3) The Gronk answered this one well earlier, it's already in place, just needs tweaking and expanding.
4) Smell can be done by the new buff system in place. Food now has a smell radius (debuff), if zombie in area, goes for you. BUT, smell needs to be refined more than that based on type of blocks, etc. It just takes a lot of ray casting continuously since what's between you and a zombie changes second by second. I could see that taking a lot of resources if not carefully done. Be easiest to scan your bag any time it changes, find the one with the highest smell range, and only base smell detection off of that. If not done right, you could have many things looking for smell range that'd be pointless and taking resources the game could use elsewhere.
So yes, I'd say all the systems are now in place. They can then just be expanded into, lack of a better word, "subsystems". But without these systems, the subsystems wouldn't work, or at least not very well as they can be now. Just needs time. Get these systems out now, start refining later. I expect updates to be much faster now that everything is in place and easier to program than it once was. Why fix old code that will be thrown out and push the release date of this update even further back.