Kuikka

I'm interested to know what could be the difference between official build and onlinetest. We have been trying to fix my friend's "black screen with visible UI" bug that came with the onlinetest-build but no results. Compability mode, safe mode, launching from the root game folder, disable steam overlay, lower settings, delete username/zomboid files, 32 and 64 bit versions etc etc etc. If he swaps to official build his game works (single player), but onlinetest-build produces that bug in multiplayer and singleplayer. His specs are almost identical to mine (better CPU) so this is a puzzlement. Spent two hours today testing various fix suggestions from 2013-2016 but none helped. I hosted and played with my bro and new easy hosting works superbly otherwise, so it's a shame that one out of three faces this annoying issue.

My friend only sees dark/blood splatters and UI when he spawns - I can see his character moving when he moves it but he cant see the surroundings (game world except UI). He tried to reinstall but no use. What could cause this issue? His game apparently crashes, as he cant quit without forcing it to shut down. Normal version works, but online test version doesn't.

But if zombies won't attack safehouse it would make a darn boring game... I like the idea that zeds focus on players for two reasons: 1. IF YOU STAY IN THE AREA, YOU NEED TO BUILD. The version I played didn't encourage building bases, as it was useless. Zombies never were a threat. 2: IT FORCES PLAYER TO BE ALERT AND KEEP MOVING. Your tomato garden might suffer from it, but then again, building a wall might help. Or then, run I have played enough past Farmville Project Zomboid versions to know this. This game wants players DEAD, and losing is FUN.

This was mentioned before, but I second the guy who said "one day is too soon, a week is too long"... so it would be nice to have more options between them.

Yep, more variebles and randomization is what it needs. Different group sizes and so on, but the complexity is the only restriction. In general it would be nice that the mechanics the scripting is based on could be influenced by the player. This has been discussed in other threads, but for example noises, smell and visibility could be factors that determine how fast zombies repopulate the area and how likely it would be that they attack player's building..

Still, this is far more preferred than "never-see-a-zombie-again" after barricading a bit. Defending things just makes things more FUN. Sometimes you just have to realize that without scripting the game comes to a halt. I find it unreasonable that people expect things to work without scripting, and expect that everything has a reason or butterfly effect which would be neat and nice, but UNTIL we get the npcs that are planned to replace the meta-events, it's 1. gameplay and experience, no matter what means are used 2. everything else More zombies, more threatening zombies + environment = true zombie survival. The more difficult, the more fun it is. My two cents.

IT IS REALLY HAPPENING?! So there's finally a reason to build a base that you actually need to defend? Ermagerd jeez oh boy oh boy.

I think when NPCs come in this will change. ... but only if THEY decide to attack the player /come near his safehouse. Otherwise zombies are still far away and wont present a threat. The best scenario would be a combination of - bandit NPCs - horde mechanic based on player's actions (visibility/noise/smell)

Finish the game into a stage where the community can happily build their own adventures via mods and stuff on top of a working platform. Tinkering with NPCs, adding more to build and explore. And voila, the game lives forever. You have already realized that the community is one of the strongest assests game developer can have, mad props for that.

Yet the problem is that this "true migration" isn't possible, as the technical limitation has been stated by the devs. It would hog too much resources, and forests, buildings etc would slow zombies down and it would require months for them to reach some of the places in the map. Like it or not, but the only sensible way to do this would be some kind of spawn mechanic based on player's actions, that allows players to prevent unwanted attention or they can take the risk if they feel doing so.

^ Yep, farming was so easy and player could sit in his safehouse from day one and get the first harvest quickly. It was annoying, and I still see farming too easy. I like the counter-idea. Kinda like measuring "points" for each action, like "wood cutting, 10 points" or "lighting a fire, 5 points", "running around, 3 points"... the problem comes when details such as indoors/outdoors, noice reducing elements etc etc are taken into account. But I may think this in a too complex way. Exactly. This would really encourage building and making it safe & sound, minimizing the sources of elements that would attract zombies. And even then there would be a chance that zombies arrive. Nothing should be 100% safe, and I would like to see a reward (=survival) for developing a "plan B"...

This is the main problem in a nutshell. There are elements related to this like you said - what are the disadvantages of "camping"? Player builds a base and starts to farm. So devs nerfed farming in order to increase the difficulty of early game camping. Should players move then? What forces player to migrate? What Kajin wrote sums up the basic "danger" mechanics. Game would check noise/visibility levels (smoke, hammering, sawing, amount of people moving around -multiplayer- etc) and decides whenever or not players attract wandering groups or not. Would it be fair to give player a chance to prevent this? For example, if player decides to scout the perimeters of his base a bit and he hears approaching moaning from afar, indicating that it could be wise to keep low profile a couple of days until the danger has passed. It's obvious that when npc's arrive it'll mess the deck but I hope it'll be enough.

I'm going to be SO disappointed if there are no camper/trailer/caravan variants. Walking Dead wibez...

Well, npcs have been described to replace the placeholder "zombie triggers", such as screams, helicopters and so on, so I think that's one job for them - to move zombies around. The performance aspect is still present, however. You can't presume that the game can track the movement of every npc and zombie if it's not possible in the current, smaller scale attempt (migrating zombies versus npcs and zombies moving around). Hostile npcs and the potential to mess up with aggro levels is still something that I wait eagerly...

I think it's a performance related issue, so wandering zombies around the map is a no-go situation. And some people here freak out if "horde" and "script" appear in a same sentence. In this thread I tried to gather some ideas how it could work. http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/13409-possibility-for-a-placeholder-zombie-script-that-makes-horde-head-towards-player-bases/