CliffExcellent

Um, I don't recall saying they ruin the whole game for me. They do at the moment I suppose, but I'll keep checking back to see if they've been fixed. It was just an example. Christ it's like you're trying to find something to complain about. Just because it's in alpha doesn't mean it's immune to criticism. That's the entire point of having an alpha in the first place. If the developers couldn't handle criticism then they wouldn't bother with alpha funding. And no, the definition of a word is not an opinion and applies to all games equally. Why the hell would being an alpha change the meaning of a word? Are you mental?

You can be immersive without being realistic though. it's more to do with ignoring the actual nuts and bolts of the game and just enjoying the experience. Realism can break it if it's something obvious, like if a historical game set in the 18th Century had Napoleon speaking in a Valley Girl accent or something. My immersion is broken when I think "Woah, the developers really dropped the ball there". Giving you some items for a tutorial and taking them away afterwards would not do this at all. Giving you extra items just to teach you how to play the game and then taking them away would have no negative impact on the game whatsoever. Even if it forced you to do so the first time you played the game, wouldn't be a huge deal. A bit annoying maybe, but hardly going to ruin the experience for you.

Okay then, how about being able to construct an entire house in the space of a few days with no experience in carpentry? If you tried that in real life it would almost certainly collapse. And yet, it's fine in a game, because realistically planning out and building a house would just be tedious. Try to argue that it is somehow realistic as much as you like, you're insane if you think this game is 100% realistic. But it can still be immersive, because realism and immersion are not the same thing. FTL: Faster Than Light is a very immersive game but it's not even slightly realistic.Immersion simply means that you can get deeply engaged in a game and play it for hours on end without getting distracted at all. If a game isn't immersive, then you'll start thinking "Hmm, what's for tea" and won't really be all that focused on the game I don't find Project Zomboid all that immersive, but that's more because of the bugs. I'll stop playing because a bug meant that I couldn't pick up an item I needed, or because I searched the entire map for an item I needed to continue and couldn't find it anywhere, not because you can read an entire book in the time it takes to eat a bit of chicken, or because the newspaper disappears when reading it.

He said "you MAY start at a house". I assumed it was being suggested as an option. Would be pretty weird to force you to play a tutorial every time. Besides, non-realistic is not the same as immersion breaking. Being able to live on a diet of only a few tubs of ice-cream a day is not realistic but I wouldn't call it immersion breaking. Realism isn't always a good thing.

Saying that Project Zomboid isn't like Day Z is basically the same as saying that Fallout 1 is nothing like Fallout 3. Same setting, same basic goal: create a semi-realistic zombie survival game with a focus on surviving rather than combat (whether Day Z actually achieved that is debatable but I won't get into that here). They are both in the same genre (survival) and have the same setting (zombie apocalypse). They may have slightly different methods but they're still similar, especially to someone just looking at the Steam page. It's allowed to be similar to other games if it does it better than them. "PZ has a community that supports the dreams of the devs." By criticising them I AM supporting them. How the hell are they ever going to get better if all you do is blindly accept everything they do? That's fine, all I wanted was to discuss it. I mean, I could be completely wrong, this is just my opinion at the moment.

From the perspective of people who haven't played either of the two games, Day Z and Project Zomboid are very similar. The only difference is that one is 3D and multiplayer and the other is isometric and doesn't have multiplayer yet. Then there's Dead State, State of Decay, The War Z and one other one that I can't remember the name of right now (I think 7 Days to Die might be the one I;m thinking of). And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are plenty more that I haven't heard of. Now, let's look at games like Minecraft: bugger all apart from Terrarria and some games that pretty much copied it. How about some other popular indie games? Games like FTL; Faster Than Light: Pretty much nothing. Games like Papers, Please: Nothing. Games like Hotline Miami: Nothing. Games like The Stanley Parable: Nothing. Pretty much all the most successful indie games are fresh and unique. Project Zomboid is not. Maybe it plays differently to those other games, but the basic idea is the same. From the view of someone who hasn't played the game, there is no reason for me to pick Project Zomboid over any of those other games. And you can't just say "You don't understand how it works" and then not explain how it works. They've only got one or two people working on programming and almost every suggestion involves programming. You know what else the programmer has to do? Fix bugs and polish the game. Again, as evidenced by the fact that polish has not improved in the slightest in two years. Two years ago it was a simple game with a few rough edges, now it's probably the buggiest game I've ever played. That says to me that the developers might not be able to cope with the workload. The only response to that I;ve gotten is "Oh no they can you just don't get it". You can't complain that I'm unwilling to change my view without actually trying to change my view.

Well that is kind of the point of a suggestion forum. It's not that I'm unwilling to reconsider, it's that you haven't convinced me. I have seen no evidence that the devs are talented enough to balance all of these features while continuing to add new stuff. I have plenty of evidence to the contrary. I bought this game two years ago, and since then I have seen significant progress (although admittedly not as much as I'd expect in two years) in terms of features, but no progress whatsoever in terms of balance. 2 years ago, the professions were horribly unbalanced and there was no good reason to choose anything besides the construction worker. Today? Exactly the same professions, no progress whatsoever. Either the devs genuinely think the current professions are good or I'm right and they can't handle the work load. Not sure which is worse. Everything you've said about having different parts of the dev team to work on different things applies to AAA studios, who also have problems with having too many features and not being able to balance. Ever heard of feature creep? It pretty much killed Duke Nukem Forever and it seems to be happening to Project Zomboid right now. Suggestions can be criticisms as well you know. What? No it isn't. At all. Are you saying that because it's popular it must be good? I honestly have no idea. Besides, Minecraft could get away with poor design because there was nothing else like it. There's plenty else like Project Zomboid, and there's going to be plenty more by the time it's finished. I can tell you without a doubt that I'd probably never have bought this game if I only heard about it now. I've seen plenty of indie zombie survival games, and Project Zomboid certainly doesn't stand out at all. Don't get me wrong, I do like the game, but I'm only accepting of the flaws because I know most of them will probably be fixed at some point.

I know... and this was my suggestion. I don't think Minecraft is a well designed game and would be disappointed if Zomboid went the same way. Therefore, I am suggesting an alternative.

Don't think they were saying you should get to keep the stuff. Just try it out so you know what to do when the time comes. Which sounds fine to me. No idea how you misunderstood that.

I don't remember ever saying that Minecraft was a well designed game. So what you're saying is "As long as it's popular, it doesn't matter if it sucks." It's still gonna take a long damn time. Also, that leaves no-one for polishing or bug fixing. The game at the moment is incredibly unpolished. Bugs everywhere, loads of balancing issues and some features that are completely useless. I'm fine with this in the alpha but if the finished game is like this I will not be pleased. Use pretty much any game as an example. The games with loads of features and massive maps end up lacking polish. Those that focus on a single aspect of gameplay end up being better at those things. L.A. Noire for example. Almost every single thing in that game has been done better by someone else. Compare the shooting in that to the shooting in Spec Ops: The Line. Compare Just Cause 2's map to Saints Row 2's. Just Cause 2 is a lot bigger but I can say for sure that Saints Row 2 has the better map; more secrets to find, less dull travel time, less copy-pasting the same village. If you are going to put in features that most people will ignore, save them till later. Make sure the stuff that everyone sees is good, then add in extra stuff if you've got the time. Don't favor the obsessive players with loads of spare time over the average player who will play for maybe an hour a week. Think of it like this, when the game is finally out and the reviews start coming in, nobody is going to be talking about whether you can amputate your limbs or rewire the electricity. They're going to be talking about the character creation, the combat, etc. If that stuff isn't up to scratch (and at the moment it isn't. Keep in mind that these people have probably played loads of zombie survival games, and most of them will have done the basic stuff better). Most of these suggestions should either be left to modders or added in once the basics are finished. I'd say add in the most important features right now (NPCs, better stealth/combat, vehicles once the map is bigger) while adding in new items and expanding the map. Then focus on polishing and fixing what there is. Balance the character creation (I know I use the same profession and traits every time, and as far as I can tell so does everyone else). At that point you've pretty much got a good finished product and can focus on adding in extra features like hunting and all that. TL;DR: A smaller polished game is better than a massive but broken one.

Who the hell suggested rape? That's messed up.

Had the same problem here. Searched all over West Point and didn't find a single axe. Decided to go on over to Muldraugh instead, finally found an axe in a trailer somewhere, then turned around and immediately got torn to pieces by a crowd of zombies. Such is life.

I was mostly referring to the stuff you have to do. There are a lot of suggestions for stuff like having to keep your sanity up, having to regularly go to the toilet, keep yourself clean, etc... And if you have to do all that just to survive then there's no point adding more crafting and all that because nobody's going to get to do it anyway, even if you want to. I've wanted to do carpentry and farming for ages but only recently have I gotten round to it, and only with the help of a lot of advice from other players. That's another thing; if you add all of this stuff, then you're pretty much forcing the players to look up a guide or they're never going to work it out. That's bad game design. And there's no way they're going to be able to balance all of this and get the game out at a reasonable time. I'd much rather they expanded on the stuff they already have; more weapons, more types of loot, a more varied map, etc. If they add all of this stuff then this game is still going to be in development in five years time, and by that point someone else will already have done the same thing but better. It's more like having a map so big that no-one could ever see all of it, so it's just a wasted effort. I'd much rather have a smaller but really well designed map.

It isn't even out yet...

You're buggered if you want to play the game without joining any NPCs though.

Ah yeah, didn't think about that. Still sounds like it would be a pain to organise though.

While some of these suggestions are pretty cool, reading through the list of suggestions makes it pretty clear that it'll be impossible to do all of this stuff. There's no way you'll be able to handle constructing a safehouse AND doing plenty of farming AND doing masonry/electric work AND building traps AND maintaining your sanity AND still finding enough loot to keep you going. There just isn't enough time to do all of this, if all of this is implemented then the game will quickly become insanely difficult to get to grips with. It'll be a massive turn-off for new players too. So yeah, keep up with the suggestions, but be reasonable about it.

Agreed. This should be implemented in general, not just for combat. I was taking some stuff out of a container, realised it was too heavy, and walked away from the container in the hopes that it would cancel the action. Nope, I was on the other side of the building and still somehow taking stuff out of the crate.

I'd like to see the option to turn off or adjust weapon durability. They break way too easily for my tastes.

This has been in older versions and will presumably be back in with the NPCs. Being a bandit probably wouldn't cause other NPCs to kill you on sight though, unless they've all been warning each other over Skype.