The Upcoming Erosion Feature

[Jatta Pake]

Although I've never tried out the mod, I am very excited to see the erosion feature being added to the base game along with seasonal changes.

 

It will definitely provide a better sense of time passing, and I love the idea of the world landscape looking more post-apocalyptic over time.

 

It's more than "This is how you died." It's how the entire world died.  Mother nature would reclaim the earth from man using man's own scientific hubris which created zombies.

[Suomiboi]

I've tried the mod and have nothing but good things to say about it! I just can't wait to see what it'll look like with Mash's awesome textures. Winter in Muldraugh!

[Connall]

Turbo is a boss when it comes to mods, his radio mod is pretty awesome as well, which would be worth checking out.

[Blasted_Taco]

I wonder in what build are we going to see the Erosion mod in the game, i mean that plus MP is going to be an amazing gaming expirence overall.

[Gammlernoob]

I think it would be great if you could add the starting day in the sanbox-mode start-options ( how much erosion already has happened) if that would be possible in any way

[Blasted_Taco]

I think it would be great if you could add the starting day in the sanbox-mode start-options ( how much erosion already has happened) if that would be possible in any way

 

I think you can tho

[Jela331]

What? Where did they say that? I'm not really keeping up with the new PZ updates and stuff.

 

 

Oh never mind, forgot that it's monday. Mondoid time!

[iMfRoMtHeFuTuRe]

+1

I have not tried the erosion mod either ,but I have thought about installing it. I guess now I don't have to. I think this will be a fantastic addition to Project Zomboid. I absolutely love PZ and this only makes it better.

[Jabberi]

Nice to see the devs cooperating with modmakers and the changing seasons are a welcome addition. Some nice eye candy for surviving until winter makes you appreciate more how far you have come.

 

I wonder at what speed the erosion happens. Any info on that ? I hope there won't be trees everywhere after a month, but it could be a nice visual reward for playing on one save for years.

[MontanaZA]

SOOOOOO excited for this, and for the upboming b28!!

[Realmkeeper]

The only downside I can see from this announcement, is the inevitable feature creep - especially with the news of Turbo starting to work on soil moisture maps (more realistic farming, anyone?)

 

Honestly, I'd like to think it's a good thing, the game development responding to the wishes of the modders/community while maintaining it's own forward drive, but feature creep is the most crippling thing I can think of to a game in progress (I've experienced it myself on several projects: month-long development turns into year-long development, turns into something that's never quite complete)

It worries me a little that by the time PZ reaches the end of Beta, heck, even emerges from Alpha that it might be trailing behind other similarly themed games with faster development cycles.

I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned this recently, and it looks almost as if PZ's release could still be yet another few years away.

[EnigmaGrey]

The reason it isn't often mentioned is because there's no outcome to the discussion.

Seasons have been planned for the past two years, Turbo just beat them to it. If he beats them to a more detailed farming model, too, then does it really matter?

[Cdr.Keen]

I wonder at what speed the erosion happens. Any info on that ? I hope there won't be trees everywhere after a month, but it could be a nice visual reward for playing on one save for years.

 

yes, here in middle europe it takes decades for buildings. Only grass and small plants are growing fast.

[Jabberi]

 

I wonder at what speed the erosion happens. Any info on that ? I hope there won't be trees everywhere after a month, but it could be a nice visual reward for playing on one save for years.

 

yes, here in middle europe it takes decades for buildings. Only grass and small plants are growing fast.

 

I meant how fast it will happen in PZ with default settings. 

[Smiley]

This is one of the things PZ has really needed - seeing the world change around you gives you a sense of 'wow, I lived long enough to see the nature overtake civilzation.' I sincerely hope though that there are ways to reverse said erosion in small amounts using things like garden shears (Large bushes/plantclumps), axe (trees, just like vanilla), concrete (fill in cracks in roads), and so on, so as to tidy up areas inside safehouse perimeters. It would be a great time to add in that Chainsaw, too - if you are setup enough to be able to withstand the attention of the noise.

 

It would be nice to see hold outs cropping up on multiplayer servers and to be able to recognize them by well kept grounds. Outposts of lost civilization. After all, the safehouses are likely to outlive individual characters.

[lemmy101]

The only downside I can see from this announcement, is the inevitable feature creep - especially with the news of Turbo starting to work on soil moisture maps (more realistic farming, anyone?)

 

Honestly, I'd like to think it's a good thing, the game development responding to the wishes of the modders/community while maintaining it's own forward drive, but feature creep is the most crippling thing I can think of to a game in progress (I've experienced it myself on several projects: month-long development turns into year-long development, turns into something that's never quite complete)

It worries me a little that by the time PZ reaches the end of Beta, heck, even emerges from Alpha that it might be trailing behind other similarly themed games with faster development cycles.

I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned this recently, and it looks almost as if PZ's release could still be yet another few years away.

 

Erm isn't taking on mods that already do the job of intended features the exact opposite of feature creep?

 

What's all this objection to PZ being developed for years anyway? I cannot fathom it. We already said 1.0 is vehicles, NPCs and map completion (and prob hunting) and anything after that is a bonus, do people WANT us not to 'creep' features and just leave the game as is once NPCs hit?

 

How would adding EXTRA features ever cause us to 'trail behind' other games? What is the obsession with 'done' anyway if a game is enjoyable and stable why would anyone want development EVER to stop? Damn when devs do announce they finally stop development on an alpha-funded game people go NUTS

[Suomiboi]

I agree with Lemmy here. I just can't understand (from a customers point of view) what's bad in having more and more features and the game being tweaked "endlessly". That's just more fun being added to the game. And also I haven't seen anything that'd be complicating the game too much to affect playability.

 

If a game's devs want their "quick money" from making a full release and then only offering seemingly random updates like minecraft is currently, that's just fine. But I prefer this evergrowing universe, again as a customer that has already bought the game. And I totally understand if and when there comes a point where they "have to" make a full release, but why should it be hurried?

 

edited stuff

[EnigmaGrey]

I agree with Lemmy here. I just can't understand (from a customers point of view) what's bad in having more and more features and the game being tweaked "endlessly".

If you really must know, it's because more often than not, new features mean old features aren't "tweaked endlessly,' or even completed. That's when it becomes a problem.

Personally, I don't think that'll be an issue for TIS.

[CaptKaspar]

Will the change of seasons and the soil moisture map effect how fires burn?

 

If it was very dry and the soil was parched, then there was a player created or natural spark in all the kindling laying around from the autumn leaves, would that change how fire reacts? Probably asking for too much here and likely isn't worth developing, but if you had to worry about a fire and zombies!!!

EDIT: Double Post

[Viceroy]

I love how everyone throws around buzzwords lately, *featurecreep* lol.

[Kajin]

If pavement is going to be slowly but surely taken back by erosion, I'd love for the ability to take a sledge hammer to the asphalt and do it yourself beforehand. It'd make the downtown hotel a viable fort for a decently sized group, because then you could bust out the pavement in the center of the building and put in a farm.

 

I know you can already do that with bags of dirt, but this just feels more natural. Plants would have access to better moisture drainage and a larger cache of soil nutrients.

[Suomiboi]

 

I agree with Lemmy here. I just can't understand (from a customers point of view) what's bad in having more and more features and the game being tweaked "endlessly".

If you really must know, it's because more often than not, new features mean old features aren't "tweaked endlessly,' or even completed. That's when it becomes a problem.

Personally, I don't think that'll be an issue for TIS.

 

Yes I know that, but I was saying it in the context of pz development where it is more or less endless tweaking anyways.

[EnigmaGrey]

Discussion of feature-creep ends here, guys. Sorry about this, but reliving that discussion just isn't in the cards. It's far too depressing and it never ends in anything good. Just know that the devs are aware of its dangers.

[Realmkeeper]

I love how everyone throws around buzzwords lately, *featurecreep* lol.

Buzzword?

I think you'll find that the term "Feature Creep" has been around, and recognised within software development, for decades.

 

The reason it comes close to being a buzzword is probably that it applies now more than ever, in this generation of alpha-funded video games where the developer receives vast 'premature' funding, and they consider themselves able to do so much more with this additional unexpected revenue.

 

Wikipedia - Feature Creep, so you can read up on it briefly yourself.

Also, I think 'Buzzword' is becoming a bit of a buzzword: over-used when technical jargon or terminology ends up exposed to the mainstream public, usually through it's use by media. People suddenly see this word or phrase they've never or rarely seen before, plastered all over the place and figure it must no longer pertain to it's actual definition, even when it does, and therefore consider it a buzzword. 

 

Edit, you ninja'd me Enigma! That's hardly fair 

[Blasted_Taco]

If a game's devs want their "quick money" from making a full release and then only offering seemingly random updates like minecraft is currently, that's just fine. But I prefer this evergrowing universe, again as a customer that has already bought the game. And I totally understand if and when there comes a point where they "have to" make a full release, but why should it be hurried?

 

 kinda edited stuff

 

Take Starbound for example, those MFs havent done anything for almost a year, now people are piss off beacuse nothing has change, so what they do? They start working on the 1.0 version so everyone shuts up and say they have a full on release game. 

 

So far i am happy to see how PZ is going about it progress, still some things feels from alpha but everything is moving along