Roland
Community Moderator
A recent negative review of 7 Days to Die on Steam made the claim that the kickstarter goals have seemingly been abandoned by the developers. The reviewer encouraged his readers to google 7 Days to Die Kickstarter to see for themselves. So I did. Here is my analysis. Please feel free to add your own feedback and feelings about how 7 Days in its current state compares to the original vision presented to gamers in order to get their backing.
1) The World - Explore a beautiful, hand crafted, voxel world with a multitude of biomes including: wasteland, forests, snowy mountains, pine forests, plains, deserts, burnt forests, and radiation zones.
Navezgane is what is being described here and seeing the difference in the game when it first released and the A17 screenshots there is no doubt the developers have delivered on this promise. The world of Navezgane is being lovingly designed. In fact, many fans wish TFP would put less effort into Navezgane and more into Randomly Generated Worlds. Yes, the variety of forests will be reduced to simply "forest" and "burnt forest" and the plains biome is no more represented as a full biome but counting sub-biomes there is a lot more variety in the world than was mentioned in the original goal. A+
2) Points of Interest - Discover hundreds of great Points of Interest ranging from caves, campsites to cities and skyscrapers. Each and every building can be explored inside and out.
POI's are going to be better than ever in A17 and with level designing for many and sleepers plus the helper blocks for full and empty versions of containers they are more interesting and varied than I think even TFP envisioned when they made that goal originally. A+
3) Dynamic Story Generation - The story unfolds through our "Dynamic Story Generation System" which guides the player to other survivors, better loot and undiscovered Points of Interest through story note quests.
There is no dynamic story generation as of yet other than the rudimentary beginnings in the form of the second quest of the game that guides you to your first trader. There are notes that give quests and challenges but they aren't really part of an overarching story. The only other survivors at this point are the traders. Quests will give some life to this in A17 but even those are all side quests with no main storyline quest chain implemented. D-
4) Basic Survival - Scavenge the world for food and water maintaining and boosting health, food, stamina, and hydration levels. Grow and harvest a variety of crops and hunt, track or domesticate a multitude of wildlife to live off the land.
While there will always be controversy between veterans and newbs & hardcore and casuals about whether there is truly any meaningful threat to survival in the game nobody can deny that the elements of managing hunger and thirst and stamina and health are in the game. You can farm a variety of crops and you can hunt. Tracking and domesticating are absent however. C
5) Day and Night Game Play - Spend the day looting, mining, crafting and building up your forts defenses as light slows down and weakens the zombies. Hold up somewhere safe at night as the lunar cycle speeds up and strengthens the zombies.
This has been a staple of gameplay from the beginning. The addition of the blood moon enhanced the lunar cycle effect of strengthening the zombies. There is some controversy in the community about how fun blood moon hordes are on a regimented weekly schedule. A
6) Looting, Mining and Crafting - Loot and mine a multitude of items and ingredients to create hundreds of items including melee weapons, guns, traps, generators, motorized tools, motion detectors, landmines, auto-turrets, salves, potions, and more using our 5x5 grid Crafting System
Everything on that list has been delivered. The 5x5 Crafting system was also delivered but then ultimately cut and changed for a different system. Depending on how strongly you feel about the grid crafting system will dictate how you feel about the fulfillment of this goal. I like what they've done. A+
7) Relentless and Special Enemies - Enemies will claw, jump, climb and break their way through the world in order to get to you. They can see, smell and hear the player and can work in a group. And watch out for the unique special infected enemies like the Acid Puking Hulk whose acidic vomit can melt blocks.
This goal has been met and exceeded in some ways. Smell is currently broken and the AI was pathetic in A16. In A17 enemies will be relentless once again and there are plans for more special infected enemies. Based on current status I would probably mark TFP low on this just for the circle running zombies alone but I also know what A17 is bringing so I have to grade it up in anticipation. B
8) Block Physics and Stability - Our Physics System simulates real-time structural integrity, durability, and mass. Blocks don't float in the air nor can you build an unsound unsupported structure. Build it right or watch it come crumbling down. Weak blocks can even fall from the weight of the player or zombies.
7 Days to Die nails this hands down. Building is so much more interesting than in other floating block voxel games. A+
9) Item Quality and Food & Water Purity - Every item in the game has a quality level and degrades with use and combine items to create better items. All food and water items have a purity level and the higher the purity level, the higher the health and stamina benefits. Improve crafting to make better items. Improve cooking to make purer food and water.
This goal is technically met for food and water purity but just at a basic meh level. It remains to be seen if TFP will deepen this aspect of the game or add a spoilage system for food. Item quality and degradation is good. B-
10) Stealth and Distraction System - Crouch and sneak your way past enemies or throw objects to distract them. Find or craft sight, sound, or smell deterrents and attractor recipes and items to exploit the sight, hearing, or smell of zombies to throw them off track.
Stealth was implemented for the first time in A16 but because of the horrible AI it wasn't challenging or very fun. A17 does a lot to fix that. However, as far as distractors we basically have rocks that we can throw. That is fun to do and A17 fixes that strategy as well....but there is not yet a variety of distractors that take advantage of sight, sound, and smell and no attractor recipes yet in the game. D+
11) XP and Skill Trees - Earn XP and upgrade your skills to become the ultimate Bruiser, Gun Nut, Gadget Man, Chemist, or Stealth Agent. Upgrade your melee skill learning to craft better melee weapons and swing them harder & faster and even learn special finishing moves.
This is in progress now. We saw the first iterations of the XP and Skill Tree systems during the past few alphas. In A17 we will see the final version that will ship with the completed game. A17 will introduce a new power move for melee but there are not yet any special finishing moves. B-
12) Solo, Cooperative and Multiplayer - Play solo, coop or multiplayer in our unique Zombie Nomad Mode be a human, a bandit, or a zombie for a no rules experience. Watch the leader boards and fight to be the Big Clan of the Wasteland or the Duke o Navezgane.
Technically the goal of different play modes is met. You can play solo, coop, or pvp as you desire. The implementation of these modes favors solo and coop with little support shown to pvp up to this time. You can certainly play as a survivor or as a bandit but there is currently no way to play as a zombie so that feature is still missing. C
13) Creative User Tools - Build your own worlds and play them with friends using the Creative Mode Tools featuring hundreds of block shapes, prefabs and random generation tools. Create dedicated servers with your own unique game rules and settings.
A17 will see the first iteration of this goal being implemented on an official level. C
1) The World - Explore a beautiful, hand crafted, voxel world with a multitude of biomes including: wasteland, forests, snowy mountains, pine forests, plains, deserts, burnt forests, and radiation zones.
Navezgane is what is being described here and seeing the difference in the game when it first released and the A17 screenshots there is no doubt the developers have delivered on this promise. The world of Navezgane is being lovingly designed. In fact, many fans wish TFP would put less effort into Navezgane and more into Randomly Generated Worlds. Yes, the variety of forests will be reduced to simply "forest" and "burnt forest" and the plains biome is no more represented as a full biome but counting sub-biomes there is a lot more variety in the world than was mentioned in the original goal. A+
2) Points of Interest - Discover hundreds of great Points of Interest ranging from caves, campsites to cities and skyscrapers. Each and every building can be explored inside and out.
POI's are going to be better than ever in A17 and with level designing for many and sleepers plus the helper blocks for full and empty versions of containers they are more interesting and varied than I think even TFP envisioned when they made that goal originally. A+
3) Dynamic Story Generation - The story unfolds through our "Dynamic Story Generation System" which guides the player to other survivors, better loot and undiscovered Points of Interest through story note quests.
There is no dynamic story generation as of yet other than the rudimentary beginnings in the form of the second quest of the game that guides you to your first trader. There are notes that give quests and challenges but they aren't really part of an overarching story. The only other survivors at this point are the traders. Quests will give some life to this in A17 but even those are all side quests with no main storyline quest chain implemented. D-
4) Basic Survival - Scavenge the world for food and water maintaining and boosting health, food, stamina, and hydration levels. Grow and harvest a variety of crops and hunt, track or domesticate a multitude of wildlife to live off the land.
While there will always be controversy between veterans and newbs & hardcore and casuals about whether there is truly any meaningful threat to survival in the game nobody can deny that the elements of managing hunger and thirst and stamina and health are in the game. You can farm a variety of crops and you can hunt. Tracking and domesticating are absent however. C
5) Day and Night Game Play - Spend the day looting, mining, crafting and building up your forts defenses as light slows down and weakens the zombies. Hold up somewhere safe at night as the lunar cycle speeds up and strengthens the zombies.
This has been a staple of gameplay from the beginning. The addition of the blood moon enhanced the lunar cycle effect of strengthening the zombies. There is some controversy in the community about how fun blood moon hordes are on a regimented weekly schedule. A
6) Looting, Mining and Crafting - Loot and mine a multitude of items and ingredients to create hundreds of items including melee weapons, guns, traps, generators, motorized tools, motion detectors, landmines, auto-turrets, salves, potions, and more using our 5x5 grid Crafting System
Everything on that list has been delivered. The 5x5 Crafting system was also delivered but then ultimately cut and changed for a different system. Depending on how strongly you feel about the grid crafting system will dictate how you feel about the fulfillment of this goal. I like what they've done. A+
7) Relentless and Special Enemies - Enemies will claw, jump, climb and break their way through the world in order to get to you. They can see, smell and hear the player and can work in a group. And watch out for the unique special infected enemies like the Acid Puking Hulk whose acidic vomit can melt blocks.
This goal has been met and exceeded in some ways. Smell is currently broken and the AI was pathetic in A16. In A17 enemies will be relentless once again and there are plans for more special infected enemies. Based on current status I would probably mark TFP low on this just for the circle running zombies alone but I also know what A17 is bringing so I have to grade it up in anticipation. B
8) Block Physics and Stability - Our Physics System simulates real-time structural integrity, durability, and mass. Blocks don't float in the air nor can you build an unsound unsupported structure. Build it right or watch it come crumbling down. Weak blocks can even fall from the weight of the player or zombies.
7 Days to Die nails this hands down. Building is so much more interesting than in other floating block voxel games. A+
9) Item Quality and Food & Water Purity - Every item in the game has a quality level and degrades with use and combine items to create better items. All food and water items have a purity level and the higher the purity level, the higher the health and stamina benefits. Improve crafting to make better items. Improve cooking to make purer food and water.
This goal is technically met for food and water purity but just at a basic meh level. It remains to be seen if TFP will deepen this aspect of the game or add a spoilage system for food. Item quality and degradation is good. B-
10) Stealth and Distraction System - Crouch and sneak your way past enemies or throw objects to distract them. Find or craft sight, sound, or smell deterrents and attractor recipes and items to exploit the sight, hearing, or smell of zombies to throw them off track.
Stealth was implemented for the first time in A16 but because of the horrible AI it wasn't challenging or very fun. A17 does a lot to fix that. However, as far as distractors we basically have rocks that we can throw. That is fun to do and A17 fixes that strategy as well....but there is not yet a variety of distractors that take advantage of sight, sound, and smell and no attractor recipes yet in the game. D+
11) XP and Skill Trees - Earn XP and upgrade your skills to become the ultimate Bruiser, Gun Nut, Gadget Man, Chemist, or Stealth Agent. Upgrade your melee skill learning to craft better melee weapons and swing them harder & faster and even learn special finishing moves.
This is in progress now. We saw the first iterations of the XP and Skill Tree systems during the past few alphas. In A17 we will see the final version that will ship with the completed game. A17 will introduce a new power move for melee but there are not yet any special finishing moves. B-
12) Solo, Cooperative and Multiplayer - Play solo, coop or multiplayer in our unique Zombie Nomad Mode be a human, a bandit, or a zombie for a no rules experience. Watch the leader boards and fight to be the Big Clan of the Wasteland or the Duke o Navezgane.
Technically the goal of different play modes is met. You can play solo, coop, or pvp as you desire. The implementation of these modes favors solo and coop with little support shown to pvp up to this time. You can certainly play as a survivor or as a bandit but there is currently no way to play as a zombie so that feature is still missing. C
13) Creative User Tools - Build your own worlds and play them with friends using the Creative Mode Tools featuring hundreds of block shapes, prefabs and random generation tools. Create dedicated servers with your own unique game rules and settings.
A17 will see the first iteration of this goal being implemented on an official level. C
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