zombo

Does it have a Linux dedicated server and if so, how much memory would be required?

and the threat actually being outside. And you are FORCED to go outside on the street, because supplies - they deplete. You are going to starve, you are going to die, But you see that horde just outside your 7 story building... Not as safe as you imagined, heh? This is also what I would like. Exactly, and although they are not all FPS', that's generally what you actually get when AAA games claim to be "survival". It's the same old story, that's the kind of gameplay most people want, despite them saying they want a survival game. Most of these games, zombies or otherwise, just use the post apocalypse scenario as their setting and slap some light survival elements on top. But even those elements are often just the same old contextual actions, having to reach a mission objective and push a button to get medical supplies so they can call it "survival", when those supplies could just as easily be anything else in some other setting like a "shield generator" or something in some sci-fi action game . At best they might have a very light food mechanic where you have to down a snack occasionally . I would really love to see a big budget game with a huge realistic looking post apoc world that bridges the gap between AAA so called survival games and what the indies are doing with games like PZ. Unfortunately it's just not going to happen, it wouldn't sell enough, we all know that. The closest we'll probably ever see will be something like State of Decay. They were smart, they knew the market, and they stayed well on the traditional third person action side of the spectrum because that's where the big numbers are. All we are going to get from the big players are basically core action shooter type games, with a post apocalyptic "survival" coat of paint thrown on them.

It would certainly be a waste of time if your safehouse is a building in an urban area where wheelie bins and similar are abundant. If you're in the middle of a forest, sleeping in a tent, then being able to assemble something like this yourself would be incredibly useful, no? I guess so but in the game you are not limited to that forest scenario. Most people are going to travel around the map and unless you're under attack carrying a very light plastic garbage pail out to the woods would be pretty easy. I'm speaking practically about how this situation might play out in the game rather than in real life where you might begin in a place like that and stay there. I think using such existing containers would be a far better choice for the majority of players.

Ohh the Steam forums, I have never read those.

Crafting rain barrels or even a frame seems like a waste of time. In reality there would already be so many things around that are barrels, or as mentioned garbage cans or bins you can put a bag into and you're done. Am I weird in thinking this?

I follow their forums almost daily, and they seem to be pretty lenient in that respect. I have seen a few threads bashing the game, or even a bit of questioning their credentials as developers, stuff like that. In the cases I've seen, they seem to handle it pretty well, some of those threads got locked but only after they allowed a fair bit of discussion including some polite defenses and such. Maybe I just haven't seen it myself, I don't read every thread there, but when I saw some mentions here of them being super strict like this I was surprised.

It's recent so maybe unfairly fresh in my mind, but Takedown Red Sabre was a big one. I really really loved and missed those old games like Rainbow Six and SWAT so I was so hopeful for that type of game to return. I had forgotten SimCity until I saw it here, but yeah that was a big one too. I pretty much knew it wasn't going to be like the previous ones, but then the beta cemented that fact. A few weeks back I found it for $12 and bought it, don't really know why, still haven't opened the box.

Wow, I didn't know about this stuff. It's surprising, almost like a conspiracy . I also noticed reviewers and other staff on gaming sites were praising the game but not even mentioning one single negative, which might be because there are none, but that's just not likely to be true. This is surprising though, the banning and such, because a game like this you don't expect that kind of behaviour from the makers. I think a situation like this is a perfect example of a problem in game reviewing that probably also happens in any art communities. Reviewers feel like they have to educate the masses about why the masses should like a game, basically like a personal agenda rather than just simply doing a review the way they normally would for other games. The game review turns into something like a political statement. The problem isn't really about the merits of the thing being reviewed itself, but rather with the fact that the reviewers are not willing to even consider alternative opinions or any conflicting criticisms. Reviewers expect a certain level of trust from their audience, but then no trust is given to the audience that maybe they are not ignorant and maybe they actually have some valid arguments for why the scores are too high. A few rants here and there are one thing, but when there are hundreds of criticizing comments, you should at least give it good amount of consideration, not just brush it off as ignorance which is many reviewers are doing. Gamespot gave it a 9.5 and only days later they stopped doing decimal scores. I joked that it was a conspiracy to keep Gone Home undefeated by any future game unless a 10 happens which is nearly impossible . They didn't announce the policy change afaik, it was brought up in another review about a week later when someone suggested a x.5 score, to which the reviewer stated they no longer give half (0.5) score points.

Critics are going crazy about this game, they love it. Personally I am not big on the interactive story kinda thing, I prefer more active gameplay in games. I believe critics often rave about story heavy games because they themselves are writers to varying degrees, possibly coming from very literature focused backgrounds, and so they have a passion for that field.

I thought about this too, but it's not totally unbelievable that many would die on duty. Getting shot by a person, hit by a vehicle, getting overwhelmed or trampled by people. I guess you could even imagine them getting swarmed by zombies but not being torn apart due to the armour, then turning. There's a bunch of possibilities. I still think that they should be quite rare though.

Yup, but in some cases it still bugs me. I like to think of it as the "crowbar problem", and it's quite common lately with all the zombie games around. Some things, like crowbars, would probably last forever, but yeah games gotta balance. Thing is, there are many ways to balance things like that. Often games just take the sort of easy way out and just treat all weapons/tools the same and they all have to wear out, in most cases much quicker than in reality.

I pre-ordered PayDay2 and haven't even tried it yet. I think it's a cool idea but I always have trouble getting into multiplayer games, I like to be able to play instantly and at my own pace, pause, etc. I'm stupid for buying it , although it does have singleplayer I hear the friendly AI is terrible.

While SWAT or other "armoured" zombies offer a change of pace and tactics, the problem is realistically how many such zombies would you actually encounter? I guess you could say that in an emergency situation many soldiers and law enforcement people would be deployed in that kind of gear, but still it would be a tiny number compared to the overall population. Of course it could be an option in sandbox to alter their numbers, but then we also start to cross into the notion of the game having special zombies which I believe was generally something to be avoided. There have been other discussions about putting elements into sandbox that are not in line with the fundamentals, and even restricted to sandbox mode those suggestions were often met with much resistance.

Do you mean the entire fence? I meant each section by itself.

I agree with your definition of alpha and I already knew it, but I still don't think it fully applies to all of my criticisms. Maybe some, but overall I disagree. Anyway I'm not gonna argue about it, a few people don't agree with me and that's fine. The only reason I posted in the first place was because my initial reaction was like woah this sounds awesome, and then the videos didn't match up with what I thought. It's also entirely possible that I don't even understand what they want the game to be, I didn't do loads of research before running off to find videos because I was excited about it.

I have to admit I am not liking a lot of the indie early access pricing I've been seeing. I'm not calling out any in particular, but in general I think there are some that are seeing the growing trend in popularity of the early access thing and setting their prices in terms of simply how much money they want to make, rather than what they need to get the game made. Maybe that's a legitimate fear of having poor sales when it does go final ages later. I think another problem is that for me, I view early access as a way to fund development, so basically that means minimal profit, the profit comes later when it's final and you charge full price. A lot of indies are not doing this anymore, you see KS games coming out at the same price as the lowest pledge tier. Again, this might be a business decision due to fear of low sales at the end, but it kinda bugs me, mainly for KS projects and such where they get the money well before even releasing the alphas. In 7DTD's case, they did release the alpha right away. Typical AAA price for most games at launch is $60, although in the world of PC digital delivery we know that doesn't mean much. Often major titles are already discounted before release, seems like most games can be pre-ordered from discounters like GMG for around 20% off. So yeah, I can definitely see $35 as pushing it. 7 Days doesn't really look like a game that would even have a $35 price at launch. Ah, I kinda went off topic, I did that every post tonight , sorry. It does look kinda cool, and those Minecraft-like elements (hate to always refer to MC like it's the only game in town but it's just easy) are certainly very popular, and only getting more popular as we can see with future games like Everquest Next.

Good point, but maybe the ground is too tough to "till" it with your hands? Got me thinking though, gardens of various types are quite common, whether it be food or just flowers. It would be reasonable to find houses with garden areas that are already prepped for gardening. Since it's not long after the apocalypse, they wouldn't be overgrown with wild plants or grasses for some time. Those should be easily diggable by hand or just small hand tools. Maybe we could even have specific gardening tools, rather than just a shovel, that make gardening easier/faster/better yields?

Can you really make a wall out of just cement? I know people use like Quickrete or whatever for small bits and posts into the ground and stuff, but for a wall wouldn't you need stone/gravel to make concrete? Not really that important but I was wondering. Overall, I'm not too sure about concrete/cement walls, like others pointed out with the framing and stuff it's a huge amount of work. Making a wall out of some kind of stone pieces, bricks, blocks, seems like a more likely solution given the situation. A solid concrete wall would be pretty badass, and so yeah like it's been pointed out it should take a lot of effort, wood, drying time, etc., be a pain to build. The problem is, what benefit does it offer? If we're building a wall to keep out zombies and NPCs, how strong does it need to be before getting any stronger is useless. Against zombies, there's probably not any difference between a concrete block wall and a poured concrete wall, right? Again, rebar would just be crazy overkill. If we go by movies, zombies are often kept at bay with only large commercial style chain link fence. The only thing I can think of right now that will really distinguish the strength of wall types would be NPCs (or other human players) using tools, weapons, or maybe even explosives, against it. Explosives can probably be just ignored for now, and heavy weapons too. So, how about tools like a sledgehammer? So maybe you have a chain link fence, easily defeated by any human with any kind of cutting pliers type tool. A wood wall, like say a strong wood fence, still not too difficult to bash through with a sledge or cut with a saw. Now we move on to concrete blocks, pretty tough but again still wouldn't take too long to smash through. Poured concrete wall, now we're starting to get tough,and rebar, well depending on the amount it might be impossible to a human with a sledge to make a hole big enough to get through. So maybe that's the benefit of these strong wall types, not for zombies, for humans? On a side note, this got me thinking about more advanced destruction of walls. Currently a wood wall is just a series of "tiles" I guess you might say and each one is independent. Maybe in the future we could have more complex structures that actually have points that if they are destroyed cause a larger section to collapse. Nothing too crazy, maybe just something like fences where you can go up to the posts and work on them longer, take 2 out and the section between falls. Or for chain link, work at the post and cut links to make a whole section fall. It would take a lot longer to do this, so it's not really to gain entry, but rather to screw over the other person by making a big gap in their perimeter. This is off topic, sorry, maybe it should be discussed in a new thread, although it's something that even if it was going to be added would probably be far off.

Most of what I said isn't really stuff that's alpha excusable, maybe the abundance of bandages since it is procedurally generated. Anyway, I watched another video and it does look a little better. It had dogs, which are much better at chasing you, and although we only caught a glimpse of one sort of large robot in the distance, it mentioned that there are multiple types of enemies, and the large one for example is nearly impossible to kill. The video also mentioned stealth kills, but I have not seen one. Overall I'm just not feeling this being hunted aspect, which as someone said could improve as they develop the AI. I was also expecting more use of hiding and sneaking, but it seems like you just run around and when you happen to get spotted, you run away.

I watched some videos. I was hoping for more of a sneaking game, but it doesn't seem like that. The enemies are not very hard to kill, and you can easily run away over and over. You can also take a lot of damage and survive, or easily bandage and there are lots of bandages. So when you run into the hunters, it's not really a big deal you can lose them so easily. I don't know, it sounded really cool but after the videos I have to admit it doesn't seem as interesting.

This makes perfect sense, never thought about it but a rationing level system would be useful. However, I don't think the underlying simulation was designed to handle it, or maybe it's been planned for, who knows.

I like this thinking, and for me it's especially important when multiplayer comes along, or I guess now in splitscreen. It makes for fun and interesting situations where you need to rescue someone. I've talked about it before in relation to climbing, being able to climb onto something but being stuck there and waiting/hoping/calling for help. Of course your idea about getting lucky and having a random event save you could work too, it's the same basic idea. Being trapped, holed up, surrounded by zombies but "safe" in terms of not actually getting killed by them. This is a key element in zombie lore, and is a major part of the hopelessness and impending doom that so many fans love about zombie stories.

I'd say to pry the stuff apart. Sure you could do that, but most typical "hammers" people have in North America are claw hammers, with the other side made for removing nails and it can do a bit of prying. Of course, a pry bar or crowbar would work even better. I'm guessing the screwdrivers thing is just to balance the game, so that hammers or crowbars aren't too "overpowered". Seems kinda silly though.

Why a screwdriver to dismantle things made with a hammer and nails?

I pre-ordered that and I plan on robbing some banks with my friends . I plan on playing as the Mastermind. I'm into stealth, but I have a hard time believing I'll ever be able to manage a great stealth run with random strangers.