Burianu

It would not be bad balance at all. Right now carrying a very loaded bag in one hand, and a bag on your back, and still being able to fight dozens of zombies while sprinting and while having the weak trait is absolutely flawed, no argument.

And a frying pan as deadly as a full force, two handed baseball bat? Yeah okay. Actually, it very well could be. If I had an eight to ten inch cast iron skillet, and I were to use a motion similar to that which you would use for a mace (Wherein you begin with weapon raised to about shoulder height, arm back, elbow slightly out, pivoting at the wrist, shoulder and elbow to exert your force in a whip-like motion, in conjunction with a pivot of the hips and upper torso to maximize your overall striking force) and strike the skull firmly with the narrow edge (as opposed to the flat side) of the skillet, I'd be surprised to -not- shatter the relatively weak bones of the side of the skull. I think you're overestimating the strength and combat knowledge of the average person (which I figure is represented by a character with no traits). Cast-iron skillets are heavy, and their shape makes them awkward to wield - especially with one hand. I'm willing to bet that the majority of the population would NOT be able to wield it effectively with one hand as a weapon.

I disagree. Not every weapon is designed the same way, even weapons of opportunity vary. As several other posters have specified individual cases I'll get into the physics. Force = mass x acceleration, That is to say, an object with a given mass of X, traveling at a given velocity of Y would have the same force as an object with a given mass of (X/2) and a given velocity of (Y*2). An object need not be very heavy if it is moving fast enough, such as a bullet or an arrow. Likewise a car moving relatively slowly could still exert enough force on impact to severely injure a person if that force is not dispersed by other means. You must also understand that not all impacts are the same. If I were to strike a two by four with a hammer, I might dent the wood. if it were a particularly good strike there's a chance I might splinter it, even. But if I were to strike a nail against the wood with the same hammer, the same swing, I would put that nail deeply into the wood. Why is this? The force exerted remains the same, but the end result is clearly different. Surface area! By exerting that same measure of force against a much smaller point, I have driven a wedge into the material. This is why a spiked baseball bat would cause more damage than a standard one. By reducing the contact surface to a few narrow points, you have created a tool that will break and puncture a solid surface much more efficiently. This is also why we developed the axe, adze and a wide variety of chisels. We use the same basic principles of physics, but by changing the shape and size of the contact striking surface, we exert a wider variety of control over the outcome. Then there is the balance of the tool you are using. If I gave you a short kitchen knife and told you to use it with two hands, you couldn't effectively do so. The weight is wrong for the task. It doesn't require, or lend benefit to that effort. You would actually be doing so to your own detriment. Ostensibly a sledgehammer benefits from two hands. Its significant weight being at the far reach of the lever requires a steady fulcrum to maximize its force. But a framing hammer has neither the mass, nor the balance to require such an exertion. I get it. I'm just saying that a frying pan should not be as deadly as a two handed baseball bat. Hammer - okay maybe, but with much less knockback/knockdown chance.

And a frying pan as deadly as a full force, two handed baseball bat? Yeah okay.

The biggest problem right now for me is being able to carry a bag of loot while wielding a frying pan / hammer (less so) and having nearly the same power as a two handed baseball bat.

Simple suggestion. Carrying a bag while wielding a weapon should be highly ineffective - especially without strong or at least stout traits. An argument could be made for blade weapons, but I'd still say it should be less effective.

Thank you very much for your detailed response, ExcentriCreation. I didn't mean to sound demanding or ask for too much, just a section that covers it at some level - I think it would really help newbies like myself. I've already begun work on a mod myself using the information I've been digging up from the java docs and, of course, looking at other people's code. Thanks again.

You think so? I just think what with the complaints about zombie weakness something must be done soon to weaken the player. Their numbers, which people argue should be their most dangerous factor, can't be adjusted too high without being unrealistic, although I could see a small increase.

Hey all, this was brought up in the combat difficulty thread, but no one was interested in giving feedback so I figured i'd post it here. I believe the fatigue system needs a new addition: long-term fatigue. After > 4 hours of running around town, hauling loot and battling zombies, your character should be exhausted for more than just an hour or two. Continuing to sprint, loot, and battle during this exhausted period should be a risk - i.e. your character is weaker, slower, or fatigued easier. This seems fairly intuitive to me; all that would be required is a moodle informing the player that they need to rest to recover. Fatigue in general should also be specific to the muscle being used. Something like this, I believe, would encourage the slower, more careful approach the devs are looking to encourage - avoid fighting, move carefully, plan ahead, save energy for when you need it. This would also make large scale zombie wipe-outs a more difficult task, though more might have to be done in order to balance for multiplayer. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks, but I'm still feeling confused as to how the world is organized and how I can interact with it. I'm requesting an addition to this tutorial - an explanation of how the world is organized in terms of cells and tiles and grid squares and their relationships to each other. What are the main world objects and methods? I'm just not sure I understand how the world is organized and what methods I should use. Is this documented somewhere?

I would like to request a section on handling player movement. I've looked at your mod and saw the method "moveToObject"; is there a "moveToTile" method? or something similar? Thanks.

1 More animations and sprites. I.E. showing when you're wearing a backpack, holding a bag, looking through your bag, sneaking, wall hugging, etc. 2. A more chaotic looking environment. I.E. random broken windows, blood, etc. I know this is going to be "solved" by NPCs, but given how far into a zombie apocalypse this games begins at, you'd think there would be more evidence of a struggle or something. So it should start with a more chaotic environment NPCs or no NPCs; NPCs should just add to the chaos. 3. More character customization.

So only MP is being updated, correct? No news for us single-player folks?

I remember seeing a video showing a stress test of the streaming to check if it could handle a player moving car-speed across the world and I got so excited for vehicles! So, with that in mind, what is the relative priority for development of vehicles and other alternative means of transportation?

I believe that this idea makes perfect sense - not everyone has the spacial awareness and quick thinking necessary, especially in a moment of stress/anxiety, to create a mental picture and recall where you last spotted the pursuing zombies, so it should be something a certain character build is good at, not a certain player is good at. So depending on the character's "spacial awareness" stat or something like that, the screen will display indicators of where you last saw zombies. That way, if you're playing with an utterly incompentent character, it is entirely up to you to determine where the zombies were, whereas if you're playing with a sports star or someone with good spacial awareness, the assistance of indicators would highlight the character's strengths, and give them a clear advantage over the other. The higher the spacial awareness, the more precise the indicators. In fact, an interesting concept would be false indicators if you have particularly bad spacial awareness. You would think the zombies are closing in on you when in fact they are many yards away, and vice versa, but that would depend on a system of indicators that not only tracks where your character thinks they last were, but where your character thinks they were last moving toward, and the speed at which your character thinks they were moving.

I guess it does make more sense to have an unrestricted style vanilla game, and leave the restricted, roleplaying oriented modes to modders as opposed to the other way around. Good chat.

Fair enough. That being the case, it seems like vanilla online play will be limited to working with friends in small servers and not cooperating with strangers in large servers, because I'm guessing if it's unrestricted it will devolve into a dayz deathmatch with bands of killers everywhere.

Because in real life the power to kill another human being without remorse - regardless of circumstances - is not in every person, and people in video games jump to "I better just kill him/her" a hell of a lot quicker than someone in real life. What I say is each server would have to have a limited number of character roles, ala Space Station 13. There would be a psychopath role (or several) all roaming around the world doing whatever, given freedom to kill others whenever they see fit with no consequences. Other roles would be restricted to killing only in dire situations, or in self defense. There would be no way to tell if a player is the (or a) psychopath. The problem is that this relies on role-play, which usually has to be moderated and enforced.

Absolutely fantastic.

Every argument I've heard against children have been towards NPC's, and that I can completely understand; but could I get an explanation for no zombified children when other games have done it? IIRC, the reason is that NPC children won't be in because people would be killing innocent children and it would be bad press as few games have allowed such atrocities, but zombie children is relatively well-tread (I mean, look at the dead-island trailer, and that is far more emotional), and would go far (for me at least) in terms of immersion. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind if TIS holds firm to certain aspects of the game to stay true to their creative vision, but I mean really... for a game with this much atmosphere and intensity, it seems only fitting to at least include this less controversial, yet void-filling solution to a strange hole in the Project Zomboid universe, especially if many players would prefer it to be included. But something tells me, in this community, my argument will be disregarded by the moderators, chalked up as immature and I will be told that it "simply won't happen". P.S. or "leave it to modders" Actually the mods are just upholding what they know to have been confirmed or denied by the devs. The mods don't disregard posts, but they can't say yes to something that the devs say no too. Mods will moderate, if the dev's change their minds then the mods will adjust to this. While mods are entitle to their own perspectives they won't let it start controversy that will disrupt the peace of the forum and hinder or by means cause distress to the developers while they work. Fundamentally moderators are giving us the facts, it can be discussed but the developers have said no thus the moderators must enforce this fact. They mean no disrespect I assure you. Fair enough.

Every argument I've heard against children have been towards NPC's, and that I can completely understand; but could I get an explanation for no zombified children when other games have done it? IIRC, the reason is that NPC children won't be in because people would be killing innocent children and it would be bad press as few games have allowed such atrocities, but zombie children is relatively well-tread (I mean, look at the dead-island trailer, and that is far more emotional), and would go far (for me at least) in terms of immersion. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind if TIS holds firm to certain aspects of the game to stay true to their creative vision, but I mean really... for a game with this much atmosphere and intensity, it seems only fitting to at least include this less controversial, yet void-filling solution to a strange hole in the Project Zomboid universe, especially if many players would prefer it to be included. But something tells me, in this community, my argument will be disregarded by the moderators, chalked up as immature and I will be told that it "simply won't happen". P.S. or "leave it to modders"

I say zombie children... I get the whole "we don't want you killing children NPC's as it would be controversial", but even Dead Space had you killing mutant babies; and I for one would be more willing to suspend my disbelief of the lack of children NPCs in the universe if I could make the presumption all of them succumbed to the infection early on.

I'm going to go play it with no bugs or mods and if I come back here having killed any more than 50 zombies in one go I'm going to be upset with you. I recall someone saying that the new combat system made them feel like "rambo". That sounds OP to me.

Is it just me or am I seeing far too many pics of mass zombie slaughter? Fighting off, from what I read/see, hundreds upon hundreds of zombies is a bit much, no?

Interesting that you would only give yourselves positive traits.