Insidiousness

@lemmy101 It can't be much fun getting all the flak you do about npc's, I have to resist blasting the bastards that comment on the facebook updates, It seems to me that a lot of people on facebook (and steam for that matter) are self entitled little shits.
You guys have made an awesome game and during the 2 years I've played it's got better and better.
I literally cannot think of any other form of entertainment where I've got 500+ hours for only 15 bucks, even if you guys stopped now (please don't though) the value would still be amazing.
Keep your chin up man, annoying fuckers gonna be annoying fuckers.

At the end of the day I know devs who get it MUCH worse on games that have sold MUCH less. We have a lot of praise and love and are very lucky.
 
On the whole it goes without saying our community is great and the positivity toward our game from the vast majority is great. It's just tough when amongst that, almost every complaint and bad review is directed at you and what you're doing and I feel a lot of guilt about being that negativity lightning rod that undoubtedly gets the team and support guys down too.

That's good to hear, you deserve better.
 
You're not the only devs i follow (i have a thing for people who knows how to work), and each one of them is at this level of exasperation or worst, so I envy you and I don't at the same time

It's not all bad - I still have a lot of love for a lot of stuff I do on Zomboid, still get excited like a kid about stuff I'm working on, I just miss having the NPC joy. I say all this but I'm sure I'll get NPC love back once anims are in and it can hit full stride again. And regarding breaks I do take breaks, but like keeping name out of the Mondoid I keep well shtum about it if I do
 
thanks all and sorry for the rather emotional outpouring I'm just very much in a 'get it all out there' mood lately.

Well hot damn, thats a very sad analogy to hear.
 
Jesus man, the stress and pressure finally carved into you now, haven't seen you explode like that since around 2011 and 2013.
 
Shame that there is noting we can do to stop the people who dont know about all of this, no matter how many times you explain this, cluless people will keep asking about NPCs and assholes are going to continue begin assholes just making remarks on the NPCs.
 
I seriously feel sad to see how something that someone liked working at slowly became a nightmare to them.

This right here is heartbreaking I hope your able to reclaim some of that joy eventually.
What you guys have put into this game really shows, you guys are doing an amazing job and everyone who frequents the forums knows that.
 
Though I do think king kitteh is on to something....

We should take all the people who complain about NPCs and put them in a sweatshop. In the sweatshop they each have a small room, with a bucket and a computer.
 
Installed on the computer is PZ (and ticktacktoe for some reason), they are then forced to act as NPCs on other PZ players Single Player worlds.
 
 
This is the most obvious solution, two birds with one stone! Complainers disappear, and they also get a free bucket!
Meanwhile everyone else gets to play with NPCs, albeit NPCs who complain about some evil Indie Stone conspiracy where they're trying to enslave people for cheap labor (wait, isn't that what game development is?).

If I ever meet you, I'm buying you a pint. 
 
You deserve it. 
 
But seriously, as shitty as it must feel with people constantly forcing the 'NPC Issue' down your throats at TIS, most of us on the forum understands that you're all doing a fantastic job on the game so far. Keep it up, man. 

For that matter I'm getting tired of a few people who aren't interested in a particular feature assuming that this preference applies to the entire playerbase and that development of the entire game should fit around their own personal wants. If we said 'right, NO MORE MP STUFF WILL BE DONE UNTIL NPCS ARE OUT' we'd just be doing a search and replace on the complaints we get on the forums and how we're focusing on NPCs too much, and this isn't fair to the MP communities, and how NPCs aren't really required when you have humans and humans are so much better to play with than dumb AI, and WHY IS THERE NO VOIP?! You CANNOT win.
 
FAO EVERYONE. NEWSFLASH: There are a lot of people who own this game. NOT EVERY ONE OF THEM WANTS THE SAME THING AS YOU DO AND STOP BEING SELFISH TRYING TO DENY THEM IT JUST TO MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY.
 
We're a tiny team, and we're hiring outside help to do the multiplayer stuff for this very reason (well not just this reason, they are also awesome and can do stuff we cannot), yet even when spending extra money on an external team to avoid it affecting your fabled NPCs in any way whatsoever, and making that clear mondoid after mondoid, we still put up with all these constant complaints and opinionings whenever we talk about ANYTHING non NPC (and yet, ABSURDLY, we get 10x the complaints when we DO talk about NPCS), we are pritoritizing the work that gets done to try and keep the most people happy we can, to provide regular updates to make people feel they are getting their moneys worth, and the reviews suggest we're doing the right thing.
 
If I have to read more whinging about NPCs its SO tempting just to stick static 'shopkeeper' characters in there, soak up the complaints, and never speak of them again. Sick to death of it.  YOU GUYS are the biggest risk to NPCs out there, I tell you. We GET it. We read complaints about NPCs ALL THE TIME. It amazes me so many seem to think by posting a comment on the forums or on an unrelated mondoid we're going to go 'oh what?! WAIT. PEOPLE WANT NPCS? I DIDN'T REALIZE! Sorry! Right, they will be out next week!' - We're so very obviously aware people want NPCs, its like the worst kept secret in the world. Why people can't understand after a certain point it becomes MASSIVELY detremental to a small team where the developers themselves, who are human and bound by such human traits as motivation and stress have to READ this endless stuff themselves, there is no PR guy soaking it up.
 
It's also tempting to put a complete ban on any versions until NPCs are out, and then direct all the huge anger at a list of email addresses I collect from NPC complaints, and see how they like it. Nope people excited for VOIP, you're NOT allowed it because the NPC gang want their NPCS and THEY are who matter, NOT YOU. Doesn't matter that we got extra external people to do all the work. If we talk about it, or god forbid release it, then that's unfair to NPC fans. They don't want other people having any enjoyment of new features if they aren't getting it themselves. Here's a list of people to go and harass about it every week.
 
We try to be good to our customers, we try and be on their side all the time, we bleed for this game, but it's bloody hard. So so so tired of it. You wonder why NPCS aren't out?  I used to love working on NPCs. Now it practically gives me ulcers, because of you lot. THAT is why. Thanks for taking something I loved, was obsessed with, had huge aspirations for,  looked forward to 'getting boring stuff out the way' so I could get back to them, and instead making me want to puke every time I think of them.  They'll still come, as we've said a bazillion times, but it'll be 1000x shittier working on them in the meantime, so thanks. And yeah, they'll come slower too when I have to nail myself to the desk to force myself to work to them, instead of gleefully thinking about them in bed and thinking 'screw it' and jumping up to quickly to my pc to do that cool thing I thought about and them realizing its 10am and I've worked all night.  That happens to this day but not on NPCs no longer I'll tell you that straight up.
 
Perhaps they would come faster if they weren't such a poisonous thing, a three letter acronym of the dark horrible side of PZ that makes most of the community groan and wince when they hear it, the cause of 99% of the stress and discord in the community, and maybe there'd be a lot more pep in development if the people who mention them so often didn't so often act so completely selfishly toward other features people are excited about or talk in such gross belittling terms about the work of other developers on the game. "Oh boy got to get those wonderful people their NPCs, don't want to let them down <3<3<3' If it weren't for all the wonderfully lovely and understanding people, and those who've never posted on the forums at all, nothing would give me more pleasure at this point than just canning them, tell you the truth. As it stands its all those I don't want to let down and why I'll work through the grime and muck and tears and get them out as promised. Sadly my lofty aspirations of them standing out as something special and unique has slowly been strangled over the past year or so, they are tainted and I just want them done and all that pleasure and love is long dead, so its only responsibility to those people that drives me now.  
 
To make matters worse, when I do anything that's not NPCs I have to omit my bloody name out of the Mondoid and take no credit whatsoever, for fear of people going 'WHAT HE'S NOT WORKING ON NPCS?' (I hope the above gives some indication of why working 100% on NPCs day in / day out is now an impossibility for me without some recharge time) I get no sense of satisfaction or recognition for what I do do on the game apart from the much delayed NPCs because I have to keep it quiet because I'm known to be doing NPCs, and the OPs post is proof that this is not done out of paranoia due to not understanding game development and the simplistic 'if this then not that' mentality that dominates these kind of NPC complaints. So basically, despite being one of two people who built the game from the ground up from day 1 before the team grew, writing the base of the entire multiplayer in my spare time within a month, as well as the animation overhaul, creative, professions and trait overhaul and numerous other things, often as a bit of refuge from NPCs or in my spare time,  and having to run the company to boot, all I ever get back in terms of personal accomplishment or recognition is complaints about lack of npcs, accusations of being slow, and comments like one on Mondoid yesterday that 'I wish I had lemmy101's job so I could do nothing for years and still get paid!' - so fucking draining and demoralizing and people wonder why they aren't hurtling out the door at a billion miles an hour.
 
Only in Early Access do you suffer the indignity of constantly having random people come in and start telling you how your team should be organized and what people should be working on what. We involve the community heavily with development but it only coincidentally seems to be people complaining about NPCs that seem entitled to that control over the development and team and start saying 'I don't think this person should be working on this, you should put them on that!'. And there are some people on the Steam boards right now wondering why we vowed never to do Early Access again. There's also a thread there right now saying 'are we the only people doing Early Access right?' yet that right ain't good enough as long as there's one thing on your list you've not gotten out the door. A lot of Early Access developers would have closed doors a year or two or three ago, NPCs or no, but the fact we're keeping at it, still updating the game, working on it 100%, and can't think of starting anything new or fresh or exciting, mainly down to our commitment to YOU means nothing because you still not got your NPCs.
 
VERY IMPORTANT TRIP IN THE TOTAL PERSPECTIVE VORTEX: The people who post on this forum, and the people who post on steam, and the people who post on reddit, represent probably 0.001% of the playerbase. Just because the NPC noise is so deafening, the majority of people out there just want the game updating with new features. Most who bought the game did so long after we shut the fuck up about NPCs and we're keeping quiet so they can be content and not become more NPC noise dragging us down. All those people probably want updates coming out with features added to the game, not some total FULL STOP on any development that's not NPCS that wouldn't come much sooner if we did that ANYWAY. (to those without development experience, just consider the adage: "Too many cooks". Add 100000 developers to NPCs will not make them come out in 0.2 seconds) Ask yourself if our review score wouldn't be somewhere in the 20% if the majority truly did align with your own opinion? We should be getting nothing but NPC delay complaints. Instead we get reviews about the game that's there, and praising regular updates of new features, because lack of NPC tunnel vision means they appreciate all the massive work we put into the game in general. Npc complaints are, gladly, in the minority exactly because we don't keep going on about them and just work on them quietly, yet the minority who do complain do so so constantly, at such a deafening volume and with such incredible laser focus it just make me MISERABLE. I've always stuck up for NPC complaining people, 'oh its just because they are frustrated' and 'its our fault for hyping it too soon', full of apologies and sympathy, but it becomes harder and harder with each passing day. I think I'm hitting a threshold.
 
We owe the majority their updates, and sorry that this makes NPCs take their time but that's the way it is. Apparently hiring external help to do MP stuff, and endlessly talking about how we're doing that in the Mondoids, isn't enough, so I'll just have to lay it out in black and white for you. I think I've done pretty much that. That's why NPCs are delayed, it has nothing to do with VOIP. or any other feature by any member of the team or even features I may myself work on instead of working on NPCs. If I'm not working on NPCs it's because I've hit a roadblock or am otherwise being unproductive, and my time is then better spent on something I'm making progress on. This constant NPC noise just makes that MUCH more frequent and MUCH more severe. The reason NPCs have been delayed is working on NPCs is now like working in a sewer, and when you work in a sewer you're only there as long as you have to be, you have to come up for regular breath to get the stink out of your nose and keep yourself from getting ill. And this is why I'm not being hyperbolic when I say if you'd all have shut up about them you'd probably be playing with them right now. This is perhaps a the most valuable thing to take away for future reference when talking directly to anyone relying on creativity to create something you want.
 
I'm sorry if this all comes over as harsh, its your first post and from your perspective the heated response may not seem appropriate for your question, you may not have seen the sea of people saying the exact same things day in and day out that have wore our nerves and patience to a nub. but they are still there from our perspective and after so long the camel's back snaps.. a lot of this is general and not directed at you, though a lot applies to your comments,
 
Have a nice day

*Cough* Now that that's out of the way ... *Hugs everyone*
 
Positional audio is one of the goals; it'll be using mumble for a back-end; it'll be customizable  for servers where possible. Even General Arcade isn't re-inventing the wheel, but it's a nice feature found commonly in MP games and regularly requested for PZ. There's no real reason not to do it.
 
It helps that this is the sort of thing General Arcade is known for.

Going to have this conversation every time anything that's not NPCs is mentioned, it seems. Blanket statement for everyone, not just the OP:
 
Just because TIS hires an outside contractor to implement VOIP doesn't mean the feature you personally value above all others isn't getting the love and attention it needs. Likewise, just because members of TIS not directly involved with NPCs should work on a feature you don't personally value, doesn't mean your desired features are being ignored.
 
Smaller things (e.g. "Why don't towels dry over time?") will be implemented when other devs find the time and enthusiasm to do. There are thousands of similar nothings like that that need to be done, along with larger and far less fun things.
 
Your desired feature is still being worked on diligently by TIS and will continue to be worked on. The only reason said feature is not out yet is because the version that currently exists wouldn't be fun to play or is incomplete. If it were possible to expedite the completion of this feature without harming the quality of said feature, Project Zomboid, or TIS, all necessary action would be taken.
 
Nothing is being held back because of VOIP. You're not missing out on anything by not having NPCs out now.
 
Replace VOIP with any other feature you feel strongly about, such as easier co-op.

Is it possible to disable the sound for the longswords? Sounds really annoying.. Good weapons though!

i played beta for few hours , also read other posts , i played all survival games who are available on market , also played project zomboid since its humble beginnings , just not seen reason to post anything as it was ether posted or not relevant
 
I dont understand why we are keeping "hunger moodlet" as technically calories are "hunger" if we are going for realism , as constantly my character was starving while being 3000 calories (who makes no sense) or having minus calories while being well fed
 
I dont understand why carbs , fat , are not "digested to actually give us calories , instead being set value who is burned giving zero benefits(or atleast its not explained) 
 
I also dont understand how this going to improve game play , in current shape or form its overcomplicating the game , i used to suggest this in many games but i got huge doubts seeing it in this form , instead of "cooking balanced nice meals" how i always used , it will turn into mathematician game to balance "numbers who make no sense so we got everything we need"
 
everything feels super counter intuitive
 
 
Idea i had was similar , but instead of numbers , make 3 stats bars , carbs , protein , fat
 
and that they would interact with you , carbs turning into calories , fat turning into calories(but slower , more effective with some level of carbs) and protain who would effect muscles body (minimal body weight), strength , and fitness XP bonuses
 
in current form it feels very overcomplicated , much more then it needs to be
 
At least consider scraping "hunger" and "hunger/well fed modlets" and leave calories and tie moodlet to calories
 
Also kinda i feel whole "carbs , and fat" could be replaced with simply calories , and we would focus on things who actually would make you die in apocalypse , lack of vitamins , and minerals , but that would be harder to implemend

This is exactly what I have always done in the past. In games there are always things worth describing with diplomatic language because huge quantities of games cheat in clever ways you would never expect, and there's never enough memory to accurately model huge worlds and everything in those accurately. At some point saying respawning explicitly became a thing. I blame RJ

If the warehouse is packed with zombies (which it normally isn't for me), then you can either:
1- Wait a few days for the zombies to go away or disperse, since that's what the helicopter and gunshot sounds are for. Zombie migration. I recommend setting up a mini safehouse near the warehouse so that you can check on it every couple of days without taking up too much of your time.
 
2- Use a distraction to lure them away yourself. This might very well endager you if you're not careful, since you're basically getting a bunch of zombies to run after you and potentially (and probably) kill you. For this, Id recommend getting in close to agro a few of them, since that way you can agro the ones you want, and take their group apart 2-3 at a time. You can use forks or knifes to separate the zombies and kill them quickly. Just don't use a gun, unless you plan on attracting every single zombie on the face of the map, the planet, the solar system, and probably the cosmos.
 
About the thing about killing zombies. 120 in 12 days is a lot more than you need, and as I said, is reason your baseball bats keep breaking, I mean, that's 30 zombies per bat. you should try sneaking around them instead, since going in to attack the zombies is a surefire way to get yourself killed and disarmed.
 
EDIT - Oh, and, sorry I came off as patronizing. My intent was simply to give you some pointers on how to make your strategy better, either by pointing out what I find were flaws, or by adding something that would help.
 
The lesson is, forks are the best zombie killers ever. Never underestimate the common fork, for one days, forks shall rule the earth.

What do you think about this?  Equipped items go at the top of the list.
 

Spoons are horrible weapons!

This would give the water dispenser a good use in my base
Boil the water in a cooking put, fill up the water dispenser = Drink from it and fill water bottles from it for expeditions.
 

This would give the water dispenser a good use in my base
Boil the water in a cooking put, fill up the water dispenser = Drink from it and fill water bottles from it for expeditions.
 

I was thoroughly disappointed when I couldn't be an insane spoon collector running around in a skirt and bra.
 
Well, straw grasping time!
 
These developers are REALLY misogynistic. They're completely against gender freedom! Who says a man can't wear a skirt, or a woman can't wear men pants! (You know, pants, but for men! Or something. i couldn't actually think of a male only clothing article)
I bet they also hate puppies.
#AbolishTIS
#SpiffoGate

Spoons are horrible weapons!

Spoons are horrible weapons!