Johnny

Build 32.3 released:
Force the player to walk to a gas pump before taking fuel. (Issue #001694). Added translations for some things. Moved the "Random" button in the first character-creation screen down beside the "Play" button (same as it is on the profession screen). Fixed window sprites not changing after removing broken glass.  (Issues #001690, #001698) Fixed zombies spawning in water and other weird places due to the chunkdata_X_Y.bin files needing to be reexported with a fixed WorldEd. (Issue #001692) Expose Vector2 and Vector3 Java classes for Lua modders. Fixed two bugs with desired zombie population calculation. Fixed exception with null ItemContainer in IsoDeadBody.reanimate(). (Issue #001675) RJ and I were talking about ramping up the zombie population over the first several days.  I'm also going to experiment with migrating zombies from overpopulated cells to underpopulated cells.
 
EDIT: If you have an existing savegame and want to reset all the zombies to the new levels, delete the zpop_*.bin files in the save directory.

I fixed two things that caused zombie numbers to be too high in this build.  In Build 31, if a chunk was not allowed to spawn zombies (because it was in a building, or all water) those chunks would not contribute to the desired population at all.  But in Build 32 I was counting zombies for those chunks and spawning the zombies elsewhere.
 
In Build 31 there was a random 1/3 chance that a chunk would have no zombies at all.  I'd left that out in Build 32.
 
With these two changes the population numbers looks like this now in part of West Point.  Quite a bit lower but still zombies everywhere.  (In my previous screenshot for Build 32, the numbers clockwise were 635, 946, 675, 746).
 

Okay, quick story: Started a survival game, started as an Axe man, standard trait settings, spawned in Muldraugh. Tried to start being sneaky, number of zombies force me to run like hell! Great fun, trying to evade the chasing zombies, breaking into houses and escaping out the back, dashing through trees etc. Finally made my way to McCoy Logging, hardly any zombies, so managed to find some great items, (3 x axes!). Carefully made my way back toward town, stopped at the big Warehouse after luring a group of zombies away. Grabbed some more supplies and headed to the North Farm. So far so good, nice and quiet there too.
 
Anyway, decided to go on a looting run, some very tense moments trying to sneak my way around. All was going well until I was entering a house East of Kate and Baldspot's home, then the alarm went off...and this happened:
hehehe, that was awesome fun! I did manage to get away, and am currently on day 8, no bites or scratches...yet. Just heading back to the North Farm, and can hopefully avoid setting off any more alarms! 

Self explanatory I guess, if there were mobile phones we could use some functions such as the alarm and ringtones for distractions, the latter being the inferior due to the fact we could set the alarm for a specific time to go off, the ringtones would draw them close before you throw it so it really would be pointless for them.
 
Also, some alarm tones (if it wasn't just the standard alarm clock sound) are louder than others so maybe you could choose volume of the alarm and draw a rough amount of zombies you want, say... 30, to any area, and not 100.  
 
Phones should really be a starting item, you can have a diary and to-do list, also there's earbuds so you could listen to music too? 
 
I searched and found some suggestions but that was then discussing the time period, well most phones (from the time period I read the game is roughly set in) had alarms and those annoying random songs no one likes to listen to.

Damn, shame that the Zombie danger didn't seem to carry on later in the game - can you confirm where your safehouse was?

What's more annoying is dying from zombies hugging me 1 second after I spawn. I guess I must have been chilling with him before.

To be frank. It would be easier to give appropiate suggestions if there was a fast way to read about what exactly the dev's have envisioned for each mode, if there is i haven't seen it.
 
On the one hand there is talk about how radio and tv transmissions will report about the world slowly going to hell, but then it is not appropiate to suggest a little bit of gradual increase that would fit with that. Noone said anything about wanting to have a grace peroid, it should still be hard from the start, but not stomping you right away, is all i meant. But we all are just wuss and want easy mode so we should go play sandbox right?
 
Whatever, it is to frustrating to try give appropiate feedback here, i opt out of iwbums, good luck with the game.

^ I feel like I can't post my opinion on the forums anymore without getting a comment like that. And if I give talk like that to a moderator I get banned. Where did "be lovely" go? Or does it only apply to people on the forums with no power? I'm not starting an argument, it's just what I've noticed lately on some replies from the devs and mods (and I understand the devs stress though). I'll leave it at that. I assume I'll get a warning point but if it's at the cost of making the forums be lovely again I don't mind.

I'm just trying to help and it was a valid concern of mine, if you don't think planned features should be kept in mind when balancing this game now, then fine, don't worry, i won't post my junk anymore.
 
Have a good day.

As someone who has played a fair bit of build 32, I want to say that I liked the "zombies not reacting to knockback from weapons 100% of the time", even if it wasn't intended. I think that should be kept as a feature, at least more refined. What the hell am I talking about? I'll be a bit more clear :
 
When you are in a character creation, you get the "strong" and "stout" traits that, among increased carrying weight, have the sentence "increase knockback chance" as the pro's. However, what "chance" are we talking about when every attack on a zombie with melee you land ends up knocking it back?
 
When you hit zombies normally in the previous, not fixed build, you ended up hitting zombies and could see blood splatter, but they didn't get knocked back until you pushed them away. I think THAT should have a chance to happen with every character, making them consider again whether they should approach those three zombies or flee. If you end up hitting a zombie but not knocking it back, you end up gifting them about a second of advance and ability to grab on you. 
 
Take a look at this let's play of build 32 - a simple overconfidence that all your hits will knock back made a zombie, that wasn't much of a deal before, be able to get within the grabbing and scratching range.
 
https://youtu.be/P8UqWskucCE?t=20m20s
 
If you allow this to become a feature, I think the percentage of "successful knockback from melee" should be determined by your strength and "Blunt Aiming". The better these are, the better you are at combat, with 10/10 at both skills meaning you have 100% chance of knocking the zombies away, like it currently happens in build 31. What are the thoughts? Sorry if I made this huge wall of text.
 
EDIT: On the topic of zombie hordes, isn't this what we ALWAYS wanted to see again, after so long since pre-alpha version of the map and it's mega hordes?
 

 
I REALLY, REALLY love these new zombie numbers. Maybe we could keep the other people happy by including the "newer, fixed zombie spawning" to Beginner mode/Low zombie numbers in sandbox? Survival should be challenging and hard to win against. Wasn't that the whole point of Operation Kill You Before The End Game?

We have an electricity skill?

meh, your thinking too small
 
using a car to go from the mall, to the muldraugh police station, the military base in Bedford, the hospital in New Denver, the hospital on the Rebuild map, stopping by the church and cemetery in west point and back to the shooting range before finally pulling into the mall parking lot again............and that's before we get Fort Knox and Louisville

Hello desperate survivor. I can offer you the latest news on Project Zomboid development in return for two Spiffos OR ten nails. Okay, thank you. That will just about do. Now let’s just go our separate ways… but not before we hit you with the baseball bat of Build 32 banditry of course!
Build 32 is currently in internal testing – the top-line of which is the extended crafting system (featuring traps and generators), the new challenges, the new tutorial and a myriad of tweaks, fixes and under-the-hood fiddlings. It’s going well so far. Here are some new items of note that will also feature.
New Zombie Respawn and Management system
Deep in EasyPickins’ Canadian fix factory, a new zombie-respawning system has emerged from a fiery furnace. Below is a pictorial rendition, accompanied by the man himself’s explanation.
“This picture shows a part of West Point. Each large rectangle is one cell (300×300 tiles). The small rectangle is the loaded part of the map around the player. Each red dot is one zombie. The yellow dots are the ‘real’ zombies in the loaded part of the map. In the top-left corner of each cell you can see the number of zombies in that cell followed by the number of zombies there were when the game first started (the desired population). The third number is how many hours before new zombies can spawn.”

“The sandbox option ‘Zombies Respawn Interval’ controls how often zombies respawn. Zombies will respawn only when the current population in a cell is lower than the desired population. In multiplayer, the HoursForZombiesRespawn server option is used instead. In survival mode this is set to ‘Every Day’. Meanwhile, the sandbox option ‘Zombies Respawn Percent’ controls how many zombies respawn in each of these intervals – adding a percentage and then another percentage until it hits a overall desired population. In MP the ZombiesRespawnPercent server option is used instead, and in Survival mode this is set to ‘10 percent’.
“Zombies won’t respawn in loaded parts of the map. This is to avoid zombies popping up in front of the player, and to double-down on stopping players from noticing it they also won’t spawn in any part of the map that was loaded within the last hour of game time.”
“Another benefit of this new system is that zombies should never respawn in any buildings or fenced-off areas. The game will check to see if there is a clear path from one randomly-chosen square on the edge of the world to the place it wants to place new zombies. If a path can’t be found, then no zombies will be spawned in that part of the map.”
You Have One Day Challenge
A challenge that we’re getting ready now, but will likely release towards the end of the Build 32 IWBUMS process to keep things fresh, is a challenge that takes place in the old PZ map from the 0.1.5d days. Community mapper BobHeckling rebuilt it with the current PZ toolset, and with his permission it’s now going to be part of the full game.
The challenge gives you one day of relative safety – filled with only sporadic zombies who won’t attack you. Come morning, however, zombies will arrive in huge numbers – and they will find you.

 
The jury is currently out on whether we recreate the old jukebox crash bug, but other than that your nostalgia glands should be pumping out rose-tinted endorphins like no-one’s business…
Death by Mall
The moment the zeds break through in the Opening Hours challenge is so much fun that we wanted to share. Slight spoilers in that it’s better to play, rather than watch. (It’s still good to watch though!)
 

Other Stuff
There’s currently a lot of work going into making the online experience smoother and far less niggly both as player and admin. There’s several irons in the fire on this one, some big and some small, so hopefully you’ll start to see improvements in both build 32 and 33. Oh, and in 32 you can remove broken glass from windows too by the way. Which will be a relief to patched up legs/groins everywhere.
We’ll hopefully be seeing some streamers and youtubers blessed with an early version of Build 32 showing off our wares later this week, so keep an eye on @theindiestone for news on that. See you all next week!
Oh, and check out the Russian community’s awesome Spiffo drawing contest. Still some time to go if you want to join in!
 

Today’s Featured Image taken by your own correspondent after a TV dinner burning incident after 25 hours in the You Have One Day Challenge. Want to get Mondoid in your email inbox amidst all the other companies pleading for your attention? Click here! 

....you check the forums and post while walking home from work at 12:30 AM.

You know you play too much PZ when you walk around town with a nailed bat in your hand...

I know it's a silly one, but having a tent act as well...a tent to stay outta the rain (especially in multiplayer) is huge

Hi guys!

this is my first gaming project. It took me 3 months to finish on the side of school 
It's a tower defense game using heroes instead of towers. Your feedback is important 
 
Download
App Store
Google Play
 

_Gold_ Would be a gold titan.
With significantly less forum posts than me.
Because a titan can't use a computer.
And according to himself, because he is insane crazy.

Man, loving it... Working on a small fort in this apartment, I've burn't down another apartment complex, and I've tried to get into the cinema... Oh, not to mention I set off an alarm, and was noticed by several billion (At least) zombies.... Heh

Polish presentation Drayton 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVOvkucOj_0 

Thank you for this exceptional work, guys!
Really, the map is fantastic, thanks again for your great contribute.
 
-
Stephen
 

BTW, Since I'm horrible at everything... How do you install this, Map? 

I survived only one bite so far. In build 23 I think?

I personally never survived a bite before and I wonder how other people do.

You know you play too much PZ when you walk around town with a nailed bat in your hand...