PC v1.x Developer Diary

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This^

We are not only seeing the game getting to its gold version, but we are assured that we will get even more after that.

p.s. This is about Laran`s post, not DaVega`s ;)

DaVegaNL said:
Also; cosmetic DLC's? Yaiks.
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Yup, Steam Workshop would be full of stuff, but let the designers have something of their own after gold.

Many games have this sort of DLC. If you don`t want it, don`t buy it. 

 
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Well.. Yeah. Many games have cosmetic DLC's. That's pretty common, and indeed, if you don't want them, don't buy them.

What is not common is for those games to be rushed out of Alpha, make some vague statements about Alpha game-features to come, and start selling those cosmetic DLC's off the bat.

Which would be bad enough on it's own, but when that's coupled with a doubling of the price of the game? That smells like trouble. Or teen-spirit!

 
Making them announce 1.0 might be for a corporate reasons, consoles have finished products sold with dlc released after that further in time.

Having an early access version of this kind of game could bring uncertainties in console game community, or could be forbidden by rules. I think it is sort of a solution of what we have as situation here by renaming EA, Alpha to 1.0.

For me it is just words changing, not the further development of the game or the experience that we will have in 7 days to die ;)

 
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beerfly said:
Making them announce 1.0 might be for a corporate reasons, consoles have finished products sold with dlc released after that further in time.

Having an early access version of this kind of game could bring uncertainties in console game community, or could be forbidden by rules. I think it is sort of a solution of what we have as situation here by renaming EA, Alpha to 1.0.

For me it is just words changing, not the further development of the game or the experience that we will have in 7 days to die ;)
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Nah don't worry mate! I like the smell of wet dog! Better than diapers to be honest..

 
mstdv inc said:
There is one topic that bothers me. Attracting and retaining new players.

This concerns how the game is being talked about on the Internet.
Most often in the tops and articles, the game is referred to as "survival in the open world in a zombie apocalypse with horror elements."

Sometimes it is called "voxel-based".

Do you know what "voxel-based" means to ordinary people? It doesn't mean anything. An incomprehensible set of words. And they are not interested in finding out what it is, they are unlikely to go Googling. Yes, that's not necessary.
They want to buy a game and play it.

And the "voxel game" is the main reason why it is incorrect to compare it with ordinary AA, AAA, AAAAAAAAAA-class games.
But people don't know this and compare instead of trying to play on their own. They rate the game based on articles and tops that miss one of the most important features of the game.

There are very few official materials on the game. Screenshots and videos for the press.
Game reviews often use old screenshots or videos.
Personally, I learned about this game in 2018 from a YouTube video with a review of the games. I was shown the gameplay from the old alpha version, and I just scrolled through it.
Right now, open Google images and write "7 Days To Die". You will see a couple of new covers and screenshots, and then only the old alpha versions.
I was so surprised when I first launched the game in 2020. It was completely different from what I saw on the video. It was much better.

I think it is important in the video about the release of version 1.0 to focus on this and show clearly what can be done in this game, but cannot be done in 99% of other games.

I do not know who wrote the text that Rick voiced in the Alpha Exodus video, but this text is addressed to people familiar with the game.
To attract new players, it is necessary to show everything that this game can surprise and delay, without using definitions that are difficult for ordinary people like "voxel-based".

Show how you build a beautiful building, and then destroy it, show that you have a huge city in which you can enter every building.

The video that will be released for the 1.0 release is very important to attract a new audience.
 

I also really hope that you will pay attention to the training quests.
Journal entries are evil. Nobody reads them.
Show the basics of the game in the form of short videos. Tell us about the tools and their levels from simple to steel, weapons, survival and base construction.
Biomes, loot, progress, and more.

Here's the right way to beat the grass. Here's the right way to defeat zombies. It can be cured, and it can relieve a headache, it can cure an infection.
That's how to build, and that's how to modernize. With this, it is better to extract wood, and with this, stone and iron.
You can barricade yourself in a ready-made building or build your own base.
And so on and so forth. 
You shouldn't expect people to figure things out on their own or turn to google. 
They will close the game and make a refund.
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We have a couple of new things shipping with A22 / 1.0  that should help in this area. 

 
DaVegaNL said:
What is not common is for those games to be rushed out of Alpha, make some vague statements about Alpha game-features to come, and start selling those cosmetic DLC's off the bat.
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Just curious, but where does it say TFP would be selling the outfit DLCs?  I'm not saying they will or will not, I'm asking where the information was posted that they WILL be paid DLC.

 
Ricowan said:
Just curious, but where does it say TFP would be selling the outfit DLCs?  I'm not saying they will or will not, I'm asking where the information was posted that they WILL be paid DLC.
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Didn't see it anywhere meself. 

I know way back in like a10 or 12 or something 3 dlcs were planned. Didn't say they were ginna cost back then either but honestly 

The game pays you in the end.  

This game cost me  - $35 ÷ 16687 hrs = $0.0020974411 an hr

 
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faatal said:
We do optimizations regularly, but that does not mean any of those optimizations will improve whatever feature or situation you are thinking about.

For example, I have some optimizations in the works for larger explosions that effect many blocks to stop them briefly using hundreds of megabytes, which can actually crash the game on consoles. This also improves FPS for the fraction of a second the explosion is initially happening, but otherwise that is not helping FPS.

Another example, RWG has a new building density limit calculation to keep complex buildings away from each other. This should help FPS in some cases, but depends on many factors.

Optimizations will continue, as that is one of my favorite things to do, but many of them will be small gains, in specific situations.
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I understand that multithreading is not worth waiting for? I understand that this is a huge job, but without it, the game is unlikely to ever work well. Of course, the game with multithreading will remain difficult for computers, because this is not some kind of miracle. But still, without this, we are unlikely to ever see normal performance in cities or with a large number of zombies.

By the way, could you tell us a little more about the work and the difficulties that need to be overcome to implement multithreading? Even if it never will be. It's just that in the view of many players, this simply requires changing a couple of lines of code that "lazy developers" can't get to in any way. Although this is not the case, because in that case you would have done it a long time ago. The same applies to bandits — few people realize that this is a very large amount of work, especially for a small team. Thank you for putting up with us)

 
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DaVegaNL said:
Well.. Yeah. Many games have cosmetic DLC's. That's pretty common, and indeed, if you don't want them, don't buy them.

What is not common is for those games to be rushed out of Alpha, make some vague statements about Alpha game-features to come, and start selling those cosmetic DLC's off the bat.
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Have we been watching the same games getting released? These last few years in particular.
I know I'm leading with the low-hanging fruit here, but there was this lil old game called Diablo 4 that dropped.. not all that long ago. Made by some real famous place- I trust they threw more money and people at it than it needed. It released hilariously unfinished.

I dare say the market is knee-deep with games that are rushed out of alpha [I didn't play it, but I think Starfield? (one of those space games) was another one] And granted I think it's dumb when games release and it's slapping-your-face-obvious that it needed another half-year to cook. I give TFP a partial excuse on this one because the way everything lines up, It's very believable the "1.0" tag is there just to get the console version shipping. We don't know how much time and money and good faith is tied up in that deal, and just getting it out there might be worth more than the drama of a launch that misses the mark. 

Maybe the information was vague because since the announcement was only a few days ago and it was only few-minutes video and a split screen to give us a peek

From about the time Civ4 launched, I've seen day1 DLCs almost normalize. I don't like it as a practice. Particularly when it's game elements [Like factions, maps, items ,etc] that they had ready for release, but put behind another pay wall. Cosmetics are a different story though. [ULTRA Joel skin!?] - Anyhow, the situation changes farther when you put some time between release date and the first DLC drop. I certainly wouldn't call DLC 6 months later as 'Off the bat' .. I just think it's too early to be mad about it- but there's a certain nuance to DLC, i'll know it when I see it, and if it's like '$10 to make your game feel complete' I'll grab my pitchfork then.

 
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I would be fine with any DLC, cosmetic or new content. 

7D2D has provided almost 4000 hours of entertainment to me for only $14. (Alpha 15 release) I see no reason not to give TFP more $ for such entertainment value. In fact, I also bought a tshirt and coffee cup already. 

A fan.

 
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Ricowan said:
Just curious, but where does it say TFP would be selling the outfit DLCs?  I'm not saying they will or will not, I'm asking where the information was posted that they WILL be paid DLC.
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As far as I know on the roadmap under the section with the 2nd update.

If they're not selling the DLC.. Then it would just be an update. Why would they call it a DLC?

 
Laran Mithras said:
I believe many seek validation by being contrarians - even if it means hopping over their sacred fence.

7 DTD 1.0 doesn't hurt anyone, though the lamentations sound terrifying. Queue up the Doom Prognosticators next...
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I mean, yeah, good point, I'm sure some people are like that, but some people are just throwing out their thoughts on it.

But there are some genuine concerns here.

For instance, in an interview, the 2 cofounders of tfp said "the biggest optimizations will come with gold". Now we're learning that they're optimizing, yes, but there haven't been any extreme improvements, and we're already pretty much at gold, and the other features on roadmap they released before this one is coming afterwards as well. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the team have made a bunch of improvements as they work on a22, but it sounds more like performance will be an ongoing thing. I saw an earlier comment saying the game didn't support multithreading? I'm curious about that. Games without that tend to struggle a lot more, I wouldn't be surprised if thats holding the game back a lot, even if its a major undertaking, it may be worth looking into if it all possible.

I personally have some issues, but nothing too new, communication is kind of lacking, outside of a couple people of the forums. None of this is particularily agregious, or anything to get extremely mad over. tfp kind of reminds me of valve in that regard. I think people get more negative or critical about this stuff because of the lack of communication. Generally, when people feel like they aren't being heard, they talk a lot louder. I believe most people just want to say their peace about the state of the game.

Quite a few people can get frustrated at the current magazine system's rng nature, for instance. Perhaps you raid a gas station and get no vehicle books? Or you raid a tier 5 military poi on day 1 and you get a pipe pistol with some magazines as your reward? Or how water flows? Misc stuff like this, and stuff relating to roadmaps, releases, etc, are all important to talk about and discuss. Hell, a pretty good portion of the stuff I've said or suggested have been pretty dumb, but maybe some of the people's ideas are good? I don't know.

My biggest issue/suggestions is about communication. It'd be sick if they posted a steam update blog/announcement every month or so, tell us what theyre working on (that they can tell us), show some teaser images, talk about community suggestions or questions on these and the steam forums. Terraria's devs sort of do the same thing, and its great. Also helps build up hype. What are the devs thinking? What are they trying to decide? What bugs have come up? etc

I'm happy with some aspects of the roadmap, like how we're getting the weather update in q4 this year, which is far earlier than normal, excited for how weather impacts gameplay, as well as some of the other stuff, and for some reason I'm oddly happy about having our gear reflected on our fps model.

🙂

 
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DaVegaNL said:
As far as I know on the roadmap under the section with the 2nd update.

If they're not selling the DLC.. Then it would just be an update. Why would they call it a DLC?
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Many games have free DLC.  It's something that is technically separate from the vanilla experience that a user can add or not add depending on preference.

 
DaVegaNL said:
As far as I know on the roadmap under the section with the 2nd update.

If they're not selling the DLC.. Then it would just be an update. Why would they call it a DLC?
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You can have DLC that is free, and it is basically like an optional workshop item.  Lots of games have done this for cosmetic items.

Hopefully it won't be "DLC" like Keen is so good at with making it basically be microtransactions for paint colors.

 
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