If you want to go over outdated facts - let's go over them.
Those facts are not outdated when they are about TFPs original intentions for the game. And I only wanted to make the point that their plan all along was a survival/RPG/tower defense/openworld/FPS... hybrid.
I thought you implied they tried to do something else and somewhere in the middle of development changed course and added RPG (and magic?). If I am wrong and I misunderstood one of your arugments then we can forget about it further on. If not, some counter-evidence from your side would be helpful.
It sadly says nothing about whether they planned to be a realistic simulation or not (apart from zombies who are in any case unrealistic) except for a few hints.
But the tower defense element is mentioned. The tower defense part is the blood moon by the way. You build something where you can place traps, funnel the zombies through your traps and shoot at them the same time, just like in many tower defense games. You don't need to, you can also play the blood moon as FPS only, but that is your choice in this genre-mix game. For example I play the blood moon as tower defense.
The blood moon is hinted at in the kickstarter as well, quote "Hold up somewhere safe at night as the lunar cycle speeds up and strengthens the zombies.". And the blood moon was in the game from the start. So at least the magic in form of an occult occurence was always in the game. And occult zombies as well, quote " And watch out for the unique special infected enemies like the Acid Puking Hulk whose acidic vomit can melt blocks."
Blood moon and acid puking hulks sound like occult stuff and not a realistic game. Though this isn't conclusive, just an inconclusive clue they didn't intent to make it as realistic as PZ.
Quote - "7 Days to Die is an open world, voxel-based, sandbox game that is a unique mash up of First Person Shooter, Survival Horror, Tower Defense and Role Playing Games combining combat, crafting, looting, mining, exploration, and character growth." Is the game a shooter now - definitely yes. Survival Horror - I can't say. Survival - only partially - yes. Horror - I don't think so. Why? Ask yourself when was the last time you were scared in this game. Find that moment in your life, that very memory when you were scared. I remember being scared in A15, on a bloody night. I was sitting in some cellar, afraid that zombies would find me and ruin everything I did. I was about 15 years old then. A completely immature mind. As soon as they changed the graphics, the game stopped being scary at all. I'm a thousand times more scared in Rust than here.
Every game looses most of its horror when you have played a game long enough and know its mechanisms. At least for me. But I am not the immersive type anyway. The only time I was a little scared in the game was in the first night of my first playthrough.
I agree with you that it lost a lot of the inherent horror over time, but that may also come from the fact that they added a lot of genres to an initially empty shell of a game in development. What it still has are effective jump scares, when I get surprised by a zombie.
Is it tower defense just because there are turrets? Or is it just a veil of the fact that you can build in the game? Was building unpopular?
As I said above the horde night (and in a lesser way all nights) are the tower defense part. With traps, turrets, funnels and a base you can design yourself to make your traps as effective as possible. Many action-oriented players don't do that, many players who like the game for its almost limitless building capabilities do exactly that. It is one of very few reasons I play this game for ~8 years now.
Also, I'll note that you (or someone else) somehow said this isn't a role-playing game, even though the text you gave me literally says "Role Playing Games." Leveling up your character through different branches confirms that.
I said previously that there are a few people here on the forum who say it shouldn't be labeled RPG because it is missing a lot of its characteristics. I don't agree, for me the game certainly is not a pure RPG, but it has enough RPG elements in it to be called a genremix with RPG in it.
Quote: "The World - Explore a beautiful, hand-crafted, voxel world with a multitude of biomes including: wastelands, forests, snowy mountains, pine forests, plains, deserts, burn forests, and radiation zones." Radiation zones have never been and never will be explorable.
First of all, you can't know what will eventually be in the game. Secondly this is already in the game: The wasteland currently has deadly radiation that kills you but you can still get in for short times to explore the rim. Until you have your radiation equipment, then you can fully explore it.
Quote: "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's no dynamic story generation in this game because it hasn't been added yet, even though the game has officially been released. Right now, everything is at the level of fetch-and-get quests.
The game is officially released but officially also still in development. You don't need to tell me that that is a bit of semantic trickery on the part of TFP, but TFP have always said they are not finished yet. At least bandits and story are definitely still missing. But in my previous post I already mentioned that there were exceptions. It is possible that that will never be in the game, or they could put in some small feature eventually that ticks that box as well
Quote: "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." I won't even mention crafting. It's good that they changed it. But there's something here. You see, they wanted to add potions, right? Potions! Instead of potions, we have candies, simply because they "fit the game world better than potions." But in reality, it's just a different icon. What sounds more logical, a candy that removes fall damage, or a potion that removes fall damage?
In an SF game you would have anti-grav shoes or rocket boots. It has the same function but is explained differently. Grats, by the way, you found some evidence that they were not after a realistic simulation game right from the start. But also their use of candy seems to suggest that they don't want it to look like a fantasy game with wizards and combat spells, so they call them candies.
Quote: "Item Quality and Food & Water Purity - Every item in the game has a quality level and degrades with use and combination to create better items. All food and water items have a purity level, 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." I have nothing to say about item quality. But water...? Water purity? Are those like three different items: "jar of dirty water," "jar of water," and "mineral water"? Fine. Food purity? I don't see dirty food.
The kickstarter told their plan at that time. Not every detail is now exactly as it was planned at that time. For example not *every* item in the game has a quality level, but many important ones have. Despite those minor differences the kickstarter plan looks very much like the game we have now.
Quote: "Grow and harvest a variety of crops and hunt, track, or domesticate a multitude of wildlife to live off the land."
Domestication of animals? I don't see that, and I don't even see an attempt at it. The chicken coop and bee house don't count.
Why do they not count? Tracking and hunting, growing and harvesting are in the game. Chicken coop and bee house will certainly be used by them to show that they fullfilled this point. And I don't see why not. Naturally some survival players will point to Valheim for example and say this is how you make domestication in a game, but for the "survival light" of 7D2D those two should suffice.
I can say that not everything written on the Kickstarter is necessarily true and not an exaggeration.
The game was originally conceived as a mix of genres, true, but in the game, as the quotes indicate, they tried to implement as much realism as possible. After all, potions are only mentioned once.
Please show me the quotes that indicate they tried as much realism as possible. On the opposite side there is occultism hinted at and an acid puking hulk, you yourself found the potion. As I said above, the kickstarter page does not say anthing about whether the game was supposed to be funny and light or serious realistic. Except maybe the name of the company.
