Haha this old chestnut. It often gets quoted like some holy commandment of objective correctness, yet "the customer is always right" is a customer relations philosophy used by big companies with lots of customer facing employees which means 'even when a customer is clearly obviously wrong and is being unreasonable, which will happen so damn much we need to come up with this rule, just be polite and pretend they are right. AKA The customer is always right'. It's got NOTHING to do with the customer genuinely being right. Sadly a lot of customers seem to have taken this as some legitimate proof to their infallibility. All it takes to disprove this notion is to go to the checkout and say 'this iPhone costs $1' and see how right the customer is then.
Are you missing the bit where I said I was getting messages to my personal twitter feed telling me they hope I die of cancer? Can I politely ask you in what universe do you propose to tell me its inappropriate for me to tell such people to fuck off on my own personal twitter feed? On our official indie stone twitter, or even on these forums, you'll notice a distinct lack of telling anyone to fuck off. But that is kinda akin to someone knocking at your front door and shouting it in my face. I would ask you to honestly tell me how you would respond if someone knocked on your door, awaited your answer then shouted in your face that they hope you die of cancer?
I should add, that due to the massive backlash over that entire incident, I DO refrain from saying such things to such people now, but I still stand by the fact that when we have an official indiestone twitter, my OWN twitter is MY OWN twitter, me as a person, and has a disclaimer saying my views don't express that of the indie stone, I shouldn't really have to bite my tongue against wishes of cancer or death threats or plain insults nothing to do with zomboid, even though I've felt intimidated into doing so out of fear of some onslaught of hate.
And hey, this is the first 'NPC ETA PLS WHERE ARE THEY?' thread I've replied to in god knows how long, and when I reply, in length, politely, exactly as to the situation, in a way I would have assumed would have left no more room for argument or complaint, yet the thread is STILL GOING ON two pages later with people taking issue with it. At what point am I permitted to start clawing my 'thicker skin' off with my nails? 20 pages, 40 pages, 100 pages? If someone came up to me in the street and started going 'When NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCs' repeatedly, following me around all day all night every day and every night, would it be my responsibility to just take it with a big smile on my face for the rest of my natural life, being lowered into a coffin to the sound of 'when NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCswhen NPCs', and any slight display of frustration in the meantime be somehow grossly unreasonable and be viewed as some gross unprofessionalism? Forgive the hyperbole but hopefully you see my point through the powers of illustrative exaggeration?
No, the gritted teeth relentless politeness comes from the guy behind a retail desk on minimum wage dealing with a customer where they know they will get into seriously trouble if they respond even remotely curtly. The customer is always right.
we always try and be polite and friendly, repeatedly again and again, but that only lasts as long as our own human willpower can. With me, the customer is always right, until the 1000th time they are wrong and I have no manager that's going to fire my ass if I respond a little curtly, it doesn't mean we don't massively appreciate your custom, and I apologise that this is the case, but damn if you had any remote idea of how it is on the other side of the fence you would so understand that you're seeing the patience of a saint chipped away bit by bit over years until leaks of annoyance are completely unavoidable. Comparing me to the hired community PR guy for Blizzard or something, who is in the same boat as I mentioned before, who would get their asses fired for losing their temper, is not fair. I've seen countless other indie devs lose their rag too, and that's purely down to the fact that we're game developers, under a ton of pressure, with a massive premium on our time, and when we go out of our way to communicate with the community with detailed information as to why something is the way it is, and yet that time seems wasted since people continue complaining or disputing it for pages after (usually the same damn people too), it's bloody infuriating and disheartening. You ask for more information but what is the bloody point if the information is at best disputed or at worst ignored?
I did the polite Why no NPCs yet' thing time and time and time again, in depth, spending a ton of time that hey, could perhaps have been better spent DOING the NPCs. It reminds me of the Bill Hicks bit, totally different context. "Pick up the gun." "No sir, I don't want to" "Pick up the gun!" "But I..." "PICK UP THE GUN" *picks up the gun* BAM! "You all saw him, he had a gun!" - like I get prodded and prodded and prodded and prodded and prodded and prodded and prodded into getting annoyed, and then get dragged over the coals for getting annoyed.
And we are, of course, grateful people care. But it doesn't stop that caring in certain cases from getting frustrating, stressful or scary. If I woke to find 'WHERE NPCs?' scrawled in excrement on my front door I don't think my first reaction would be to be pleased that whoever wrote it 'cared'.
The ultimate irony, due to my participation in this thread, both the time replying and the calming down from reading the replies, the ETA for NPCs is now: What it was before this thread + 1 day. I've not gotten a line of code written for NPCs all today (well its Saturday, but that's still a net loss of coding time) So all in all it's not been too successful an exchange no?
and cut to next week, when a new thread pops up bemoaning the lack of NPC updates in Mondoid since whenever, and I will stay well clear. Probably annoying people for 'WHY DO NO DEVS REPLY ABOUT MY QUESTION ABOUT WHY NO NPC INFO?' and so on ad nausium. There is no winning. We post on Mondoid about NPCs, people complain because they are hyped. We don't post on Mondoid about NPCs and people complain that they get no info. There is no winning. The ONLY way to stop it is to get NPCs out, and as I've already stated on so many occasions I can barely recall, they are coming as fast as I can make them come. If there were any wonder why this whole NPC thing is getting more and more stressful as time goes on, there's your answer folks. Stress and frustration does not make for a super productive day. Is there any wonder I need to take periodic NPC breaks in the first place? They have gone from my most beloved anticipated feature, and the biggest joy to work on, to being a thorn in my side, a curse, a dark smudge that gives me cold shivers when I think about them, and I wish we never mentioned them in the first place if I'm quite brutally honest, and its all this relentless repetitive complaining I have to wade through while trying to keep up the motivation to work on them amidst it that's made it so. And then I have these same people puffing their cheeks out in bewildered shock if I can get a bit crabby in response to the 10000th NPC complaint post I've read that morning.
Rome wasn't built in a day, but please can we know exactly when Rome will be built? I've been telling everyone about it after I read your description of what Rome will be like and they are so excited for the due date! Hey, you said Rome was going to be built today! Where is it? Is it built yet? I read all the information on Rome you posted and it sounds really exciting, I've told all my friends Rome is coming soon! I told everyone about it and they are all really excited. Here they come! When's it going to be built? Why won't you tell me when it'll be built? All my friends were really excited about all the pictures of Rome you posted, I shared them around and all my friends have signed up to ask you a question: When will Rome be finished? Wait what?? It's going to be that long until its built? Hey! You said Rome was definitely going to be built today! When is it really going to be built? Hey? I asked you a question! Tell me when it'll be finished! Why won't you tell me? Well that's not very professional, you're not even going to give a vague time? Why not?! Also where's the information on how the construction of Rome is going? I've not heard anything about Rome's construction in ages, have you just forgotten about it? What do you mean you don't want to hype people up for Rome so you're keeping quiet until its done? We could at least get some information on how it's coming along so we can pass it to all our friends so they can get excited about the upcoming Rome? Hey, why are you being so impolite? That's a bit rude!
TL;DR: YES it's not escaped our notice you want your NPCs. We did get a slight inkling. As such we're working on it. There will be nothing but cursory mentions in Mondoid until they are within weeks of release. End of story.
He can play in single player? if he does, open c:/users/"username"/Zomboid/server/servertest.ini and change the "Map=Muldraugh, KY" line to Map=Bedford Falls, KY
I've tried installing the map as a mod and didn't work well, just replacing the files worked for me. Didn't try the map that i'm working on...
