PC Future of this game?

Apocalyptical Survivor

Apocalyptical Survivor

Refugee
My wife and I just recently started playing 7 Days to Die, and we're really enjoying it. We're now up to Day 77, just got through a rough horde night, but base survived easily and we made it through the other side. 

This game is not only early access, it's in "alpha" stage. And yet it's one of the most complete, well-polished early access games I've ever played. I've encountered almost no bugs, everything I've used to date works perfectly, and there is so much to do, so much I've yet to see (we just discovered a desert biome), it's astonishing how much this game has to offer, and how fun it is.

So why is it still in "alpha"? What else is coming? I can see that there needs to be some compelling endgame content, always the biggest challenge in any game with this much structured progression. Is there  a development roadmap somewhere I can consult to see what's coming? 

All I can say is, if this game truly is in alpha stage and there's that much more to come, I'm deliriously excited for its future. But part of me thinks that this could be that the developers are just wary of making a "game complete" commitment and everything that brings with it. Reviews, critiques, warranties, etc., when they can just instead sit back and just keep adding stuff whenever they feel like it, without pressure (since it appears their early access is selling well as is).

What's actually going on, anyone know?

 
  • Bandits
  • Updating the armor / clothing system
  • Updating the crafting system
  • Updating POIs to utilize the new blocks and tile sets system
  • Improving water
  • Continuous improvement on the RWG system
  • Continuous improvement on performance issues
  • Improving the netcode
  • Improving the models (replacing the existing placeholders and updating to HD)
  • Improving the loot tables and removing legacy code
just to name a few

There was a big change from A19 to A20 if you happened to started playing before A20.  Even if you haven't, it might be worthwhile to install the previous Alpha just to see how much of a change has occurred.

They are close to getting to final release.  They have more items that want to implement and then bug chasing / improvements / balancing.

 
But essentially it is just bandits and a hint of a story about two factions that is missing. That was one of the kickstarter promises and their stated reason for waiting with a release.

Since a few of them are already doing preliminary work on new games I would guess their patience is running out as well.

It is a small team though so we are still talking about 2 years (my personal estimate), and in programming it always takes more time than expected ;-).

 
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Well - because alpha is the "safest" name for that. But this game is almost finished - maybe 1 or 2 years more. In Dev diary A21 you can find actual roadmap.  

 
pApA^LeGBa said:
Do you happen to know on wich page of the thread by any chance?
Click to expand...


Well first post

A21 Release Date: "Done When It's Done"

CONFIRMED A21 FEATURES

  • New Places of Interest
  • Updated and New (Decorative) Vehicle Models
  • Additional Advanced World Generation Options

    Biome Percent Sliders

[*]Learn By Looting System

  • 23 new skills to govern crafting (photo in gallery below)
  • 23 new magazines added to loot
  • Perks no longer unlock recipes or govern crafting at all
  • The only schematics that still unlock recipes are mod attachments. 
  • Crafting skill is increased by finding and reading magazines
  • Skill increases unlock recipes at certain points as well as increase quality of crafting for items with quality
  • Each tech level has a separate range in the skill spectrum so that you have to work up through primitive tech and then iron tech and then steel tech and being able to craft a blue stone axe no long means you automatically can also craft a blue iron axe.
  •  Some skills have 100 levels but others have less depending on how many unlocks there are for recipes and quality tiers.
  • A new skill page showing your progress has been added to the player interface (photo in gallery below)
  • Skill magazines can be found, bought, and/or received as quest rewards. The topic of the magazine matches the location you would expect to find it in the world.
  • Perks now govern the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgun parts appearing in the world
  • When you max out a skill, the probability bonus granted by perks for finding the corresponding magazine for that skill drops off. The magazine will still show up randomly in loot but no longer have a boost. The probability boost for finding matching parts will remain.

[*]Interactive Environmental Hazards https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0mgZ9zB9m4 

  • Flaming broken gas pipes blocking the way. A valve to turn off the gas flow is located elsewhere.

[*]Doors

  • Double Doors
  • Partially damaged doors with large holes can be shot/meleed through to damage enemies on the other side

[*]Water Simulation

  • All new water coding--water is no longer a block but a water voxel
  • Water voxels flow into neighboring voxels that are marked to allow it.
  • Water can be in the same space as a block
  • Water does not flow or fall continuously like a river or a waterfall
  • more details to come.

[*]Armor

  • New Iron Armor 
  • More details to come.


 
They have never published their roadmap to the public. You can see the kickstarter feature list here and each alpha has a feature list as Matt showed but without any progress tracking.

The game is technically still in alpha because not all features have been added yet. But in actuality their model is a hybrid because they are adding new systems and features but also refining and polishing existing features and systems. Once they "leave alpha" the beta phase will be short because they've been doing a lot of beta work already.

 
Roland said:
They have never published their roadmap to the public. You can see the kickstarter feature list here and each alpha has a feature list as Matt showed but without any progress tracking.

The game is technically still in alpha because not all features have been added yet. But in actuality their model is a hybrid because they are adding new systems and features but also refining and polishing existing features and systems. Once they "leave alpha" the beta phase will be short because they've been doing a lot of beta work already.
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Well.. alpha and beta now it's just name a lot of game even after "released"  can be called beta and often a lot of things are added  after 1.0 

 
meganoth said:
A released game is usually not in beta. Its maturity can be called beta as a synonym for "unfinished".
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Sometimes developer is "forced" to publish game even in beta state - they just change beta into "finished" doing nothing because they don't have time to finish game and after that they trying to fix things - like in CP situation

 
Ah dang it, i thought it was an actual roadmap. I knew this one already. Thx for the effort though. @Matt115

Wasn´t even hoping for any dates of release, just wanted to know what exactly is still on the list for the game overall besides the stuff for A21 and the kickstarter goals and maybe how many alphas we can expect.

@Roland i really hope they don´t go too short on Beta. Optimizing the game is pretty importnant, right now during alpha getting for example those huge fps drops downtown is ofc acceptable, in a finished version this is an absolute no go.

 
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pApA^LeGBa said:
huge fps drops downtown is ofc acceptable, in a finished version this is an absolute no go.
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In some game i have sometimes even worst fps drops - i have RTX 3080 and Lotr war on north iron fortress is still big problem.  Well probably downtown still will be big problem because this the most "richest" place for unique props, blocks etc. And.. TFP learned for years how to make RWG  so i think such problems will not exist in their next game because their new game code will much cleaner that  7dtd code

pApA^LeGBa said:
 Thx for the effort though. @Matt115
Click to expand...
I like helping  :)  

 
pApA^LeGBa said:
@Roland i really hope they don´t go too short on Beta. Optimizing the game is pretty importnant, right now during alpha getting for example those huge fps drops downtown is ofc acceptable, in a finished version this is an absolute no go.
Click to expand...


I think what Roland was hinting at was their plan to keep polishing and improving the game throughout the next Alphas to the point that there won't be much to do once the final Alpha is released and they go into the Beta stage.

We are seeing examples of it already.  Recall that faatal recently looked into the windows causing issues.  That is something they are already working on now, so hopefully it will be an item checked off before Beta rolls out.

We are also seeing balancing changes going on throughout the development phase.

They want to get the game to final status, but they are not under a self-imposed deadline to release it like some recent examples.

 
Matt115 said:
In some game i have sometimes even worst fps drops - i have RTX 3080 and Lotr war on north iron fortress is still big problem.  Well probably downtown still will be big problem because this the most "richest" place for unique props, blocks etc. And.. TFP learned for years how to make RWG  so i think such problems will not exist in their next game because their new game code will much cleaner that  7dtd code.
Click to expand...


Well, the game is in development still. So if there is no way of getting rid of those FPS drops and stuttering, they need to revamp downtown to be not as demanding to the hardware or the engine, even if that means that downtown buildings can´t be that tight together anymore.

 
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