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Rosewood Residents


nasKo

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So Rosewood Prison became open for business in the last public IWBUMS beta build 35.20f, alongside the small services town of Rosewood itself and the military residential area of March Point. In amongst it all we’ve got a court house, guard posts, a large police station, a fire station, some Army dormitory apartment buildings that are taller than you’re used to, and various other cool stuff dreamt up by our mapper-artiste Mash. If you want to check it out then details on how to join the beta are here.

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The next IWBUMS beta build is being worked on by RJ who’s finishing off his MP factions system, while several other members of the team do what’s necessary to finalise the new map. Mash is clearly listening for feedback on the forum, fixing bugs reported on the tracker and adding in ‘lived in’ detail like garbage and general detritus. There’s also loot tables to define for new building types so (for instance) axes spawn at the fire station and foraging and fishing areas that need to be defined. We’ll also be adding an SP selectable spawn point to Rosewood, primarily because it’s less ‘uniform’ than March Point – which is in itself not too far away for adventurous players.

Testers will also have noticed low zombie numbers in some areas – which is why Binky will also next be creating a zombie population density map. This defines the number of zombies which can be spawned in that area: light areas are high population areas, and dark are sparse. [Rosewood Prison itself already has a high number of undead inmates, meanwhile, as there’s some magic code that spawns lots of zeds when anything has more than 200 rooms.]

We also consider it fairly necessary that we make sure you can slide down the pole in the Fire Station in the same way that you would a sheet rope.

IWBUMS MERGE

A portion of the PZ workforce has been bedridden this week with bodily ailments that would seem alarming even to a seasoned zombie-veteran, which put a blocker on other primary dev areas a bit, but we’re also in a position to merge some other cool stuff into the current public beta.

We held off merging the VOIP build into the IWBUMS branch last week as we wanted to wait for fixes to come in from the guys at General Arcade on dead player bodies still being able to speak, instances of remote hearing and an annoying crash triggered by USB headphones being plugged in during a game. These are all fixed and we just had a successful pre-merge sanity test of it all that went very well indeed, you can check out the shenanigans here if you fancy. As mentioned last week, this will also be alongside the moddable Radio/TV framework and community translations in Russian, Turkish, German, Spanish, French and partially in Chinese.

Keep an eye on the forums for when all this drops in, and we’ll also hopefully have news from the front in other ‘this build’ and ‘next build’ PZ departments next week. Thanks everyone!

This week’s image donators are Eudoxio and Atoxwarrior of the TIS forums. The Centralized Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is now open for chat and hijinks too. A general overview of the content of PZ builds past, in testing and upcoming can now be found here.

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Why not release the next official version minus animaition update? I think other updated systems excluding animation update can be done shortly. If it may spent too much time making it done, it would be better to let the update which has already been done, not the one imperfect go into the official version that we are waiting for :) 

 

Anyway, the upcoming update must be sensational. Good work!

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Am I the only one who thinks that March is better spawn point than Rosewood ?

Rosewood have many unique locations and for that matter imo it fits better for a nice loot place, like the mall.

A lot of people will just spawn there just for an easy axe or guns.

Without spawn option its a nice place to race for ( multiplayer in mind).

 

6 minutes ago, justcrow said:

Why not release the next official version minus animaition update? I think other updated systems excluding animation update can be done shortly. If it may spent too much time making it done, it would be better to let the update which has already been done, not the one imperfect go into the official version that we are waiting for :) 

People will rage if they see another version without animation update :-P But yea with or without its the biggest build up to date

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34 minutes ago, Zorak said:

Am I the only one who thinks that March is better spawn point than Rosewood ?

Rosewood have many unique locations and for that matter imo it fits better for a nice loot place, like the mall.

 

 

Hmm, well it's a fair point. Any other thoughts on this? Now's the time to mention it if so :)

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IMO casual spawning in Rosewood could go wrong if it's too close to the Prison as I imagine it's intended that be a late game location. So having the possible spawns be in homes/trailers closer to the highway could be a good compromise.

 

That said there is indeed more unique locations in Rosewood than March Point, but March Point is definitely a much more uniform and officially organized location. If you want a gameplay reason to not stuff March Point to the brim with zombies, not having players spawn there and have it be a far-away loot location could be a good one.

 

March Point is not as spread out, in my opinion, to be a good spawn point. I see the players spawning there, getting basic loot and then either basing there or moving somewhere else.

Edited by Kim Jong Un
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We didn't even get some animation update news, you know, at least you could say that you are working on some system to keep us up to date.

This is one of the most complex builds you've done, I'm very excited with RJ faction system/Admin Panel, now with this two towns it's going to be great, but I will not play again until animations are out.

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26 minutes ago, Zaojeth said:

We didn't even get some animation update news, you know, at least you could say that you are working on some system to keep us up to date.

This is one of the most complex builds you've done, I'm very excited with RJ faction system/Admin Panel, now with this two towns it's going to be great, but I will not play again until animations are out.

Likely not giving any animations news for the same reason they no longer give NPC news. People simply see the word mentioned and assume it's coming in the next I<3BUMS build, and then throw fits over it not being there.

 

It's going to be a pretty hefty revamp of just about everything with the new animations update so this is one of those things where they have to go by "Hawaii Time" or everything gets ruined.

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36 minutes ago, Zaojeth said:

We didn't even get some animation update news, you know, at least you could say that you are working on some system to keep us up to date.

This is one of the most complex builds you've done, I'm very excited with RJ faction system/Admin Panel, now with this two towns it's going to be great, but I will not play again until animations are out.

It honestly makes you wonder just why it's taking so long, considering they've already said it's most likely not even going to be the full build in the first IWBUMS. Why are they holding it back over bugs when the entire point of IWBUMS is testing bugs? Just how many game-shattering, game-breaking bugs can pop up in like, six months? I understand that these things take time, but it honestly feels like they're going to keep stuff like NPCs and animations internal until they're 99.99% done, for whatever reason.

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On 8/11/2016 at 7:03 PM, hunger john said:

It honestly makes you wonder just why it's taking so long, considering they've already said it's most likely not even going to be the full build in the first IWBUMS. Why are they holding it back over bugs when the entire point of IWBUMS is testing bugs? Just how many game-shattering, game-breaking bugs can pop up in like, six months? I understand that these things take time, but it honestly feels like they're going to keep stuff like NPCs and animations internal until they're 99.99% done, for whatever reason.

 

That's a good point, IWBUMS are for bug testing. I really have like 6 friends just waiting for animations like for 5 months, since animations were announced, they got very excited about that, even some friends that already have the game were planning in getting back to zomboid, to test all the new content, but it's getting so long.
For a while, in every monday I saw "We are working hard on animations", "We have bugs with female characters", "We need to do everything again",  they tested the anims and (for me) seems to work fine, after that they said that needed to do some "coding" and "making soft" to players in the main branch, then translating it to "Get exp, get bitten, killing zeds", but I don't know man, sometimes I just saw the mondoids to see that "We are working on them" in the anims branch, but now they not even say a word, maybe they just drop the towel and that's why the releasing of Rosewood and March Ridge, in case that they can't "complete" animations to this build but let us don't have the feeling of "Well, they didn't do anything", and say at least that they got a map update and an metal working system to the game.

Edited by Zaojeth
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9 minutes ago, Zaojeth said:

and say at least that they got a map update and an metal working system to the game.

The metal working system was castrated anyways with forges not making it in, which reduced the entire profession + skill + mechanic to letting you build a wooden barricade reskin instead of letting you produce your own items like axes etc

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I think that everyone is forgetting the fact that they clearly said:

On 7/11/2016 at 8:38 PM, nasKo said:

A portion of the PZ workforce has been bedridden this week with bodily ailments that would seem alarming even to a seasoned zombie-veteran, which put a blocker on other primary dev areas a bit, but we’re also in a position to merge some other cool stuff into the current public beta.

 

I think that is the reason of why they didnt give any news about the animations, it hurts to read it and know that it will be delayed even more than before (i always think; maybe this monday will be different, maybe today i will read the mondoid on my lunch break and they will say that they have the new system that was redone again in place and they will be out by the next week or this week, its never there.I havent started a good game of PZ (actually sitting down and playing the game more than 40 minutes) since January waiting for the backpacks to be implemented.)

 

If they went dead silent with the animations update trying to go the same route as they went with the NPCs staying dead silent, people would rage worse than ever before because we have been teased about those things and felt them so close, and i am sure they know that doing that is just shooting themselves in the foot in the eyes of the community.

 

Hopefully next week we get a beefy Mondoid regarding the animation system other than "we are still going at it doing the system again", just give us more details or something new to cling on.

 

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52 minutes ago, hunger john said:

Ah, yes, the entire development team suddenly bedridden with illness for perhaps the third time this year

This, incidentally is why TIS is so bad at communicating setbacks in game development with their community: It's spun into hostile hyperbole and used to knock them down even further.

 

Or maybe the implication wasn't intentional on your part.

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6 hours ago, EnigmaGrey said:

This, incidentally is why TIS is so bad at communicating setbacks in game development with their community: It's spun into hostile hyperbole and used to knock them down even further.

 

Or maybe the implication wasn't intentional on your part.

 

I'm not trying to be hostile here, it's also nothing personal, so please bear that in mind.

 

As many people here have noticed, the pace of development could be a bit swifter and content updates released more often. I'm also waiting for animations and vehicles and map updates and whatnot. I just don't understand the part where TIS get's upset because of people's negative reactions to delays or the lack of more thorough status updates. I mean, nobody asks me if I like my job or not, and my supervisors do ask questions when delays happen and they do get upset if I break something or not follow the rules. In this case, we - the players - are TIS' supervisors. We are not best friends here, and people expect nothing more than what was promised.

 

I'm not bashing TIS or anyone else here, and I'm also not complaining, as I understand that some things seem to take more time to get them done then expected. I also think that because people are so unhappy with Devs' efficiency, they are under some extra pressure to raise that unhappiness level. Also, Project Zomboid is, honestly, not the end of the world as far as gaming is considered. There are other games to play and other things to do in life. I also consider myself to be in privileged position to say what I say in this post, because I translate the game for them into Polish (as did some other great guys) so they can get more customers, and I've put a rather considerable amount of hours into it.

 

TL;DR

 

I don't get why TIS would get unhappy, it's their job to deliver. PZ is not the end of the world, go outside or play other games if you are tired of waiting.

I can say what I say because I actually help with development.

Edited by Geras
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1 hour ago, Geras said:

 

I'm not trying to be hostile here, it's also nothing personal, so please bear that in mind.

 

As many people here have noticed, the pace of development could be a bit swifter and content updates released more often. I'm also waiting for animations and vehicles and map updates and whatnot. I just don't understand the part where TIS get's upset because of people's negative reactions to delays or the lack of more thorough status updates. I mean, nobody asks me if I like my job or not, and my supervisors do ask questions when delays happen and they do get upset if I break something or not follow the rules. In this case, we - the players - are TIS' supervisors. We are not best friends here, and people expect nothing more than what was promised.

 

I'm not bashing TIS or anyone else here, and I'm also not complaining, as I understand that some things seem to take more time to get them done then expected. I also think that because people are so unhappy with Devs' efficiency, they are under some extra pressure to raise that unhappiness level. Also, Project Zomboid is, honestly, not the end of the world as far as gaming is considered. There are other games to play and other things to do in life. I also consider myself to be in privileged position to say what I say in this post, because I translate the game for them into Polish (as did some other great guys) so they can get more customers, and I've put a rather considerable amount of hours into it.

 

TL;DR

 

I don't get why TIS would get unhappy, it's their job to deliver. PZ is not the end of the world, go outside or play other games if you are tired of waiting.

I can say what I say because I actually help with development.

You're not TIS's supervisor. You're a customer that purchased a very clearly defined product for between $5 and $15: a license to the most-current version of an incomplete game.  You did not pay for a promise. This has been made crystal clear from day one. The only supervisor TIS has is themselves; had they wanted to be micromanaged and be dismissed out of hand, they wouldn't have bothered with starting a company and producing a game.

 

That said, the devs have an aim for a game and they've been killing themselves trying to reach it. Having people hurl abuse at them, invent conspiracies, and demand that it must, somehow, be faster than they can work is just soul crushing.  It's that constant erosion of moral that's largely to blame for the game in its current state -- it's certainly the reason the devs can't take pride in their work or even escape from it for a few days while laid out, sick.

 

TIS just wants to make the game they envisioned four years ago, regardless of how long it takes or if it ultimately harms the company's future. They've bent over backwards to avoid shady tactics common in the gaming industry while doing so; tactics that no doubt would have resulted in the game being completed faster and being a greater financial success, but at a cost to the game and consumer.

 

We appreciate your support and help in making Project Zomboid a better game.

 

 

 

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28 minutes ago, EnigmaGrey said:

-snip-

 

As I said, I'm totally cool with how the game develops, and I totally understand that a person can get sick - it was not my intention to make a different impression if I did so. I understand both sides of this 'conflict', both the Devs and players, no need to explain what's what to me :) Also, I'm obviously more than a customer if I put my time and effort into this. Just saying.

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52 minutes ago, Geras said:

 

As I said, I'm totally cool with how the game develops, and I totally understand that a person can get sick - it was not my intention to make a different impression if I did so. I understand both sides of this 'conflict', both the Devs and players, no need to explain what's what to me :)

 

 

We completely own up to the fact big game features have been coming slowly. Nobody's fault but our own. But I don't think it's fair to say we shouldn't get upset and correct people when people scold us for all the wrong reasons (blaming someone for getting sick and not working on the game in that time. I mean, really?) or come up with silly hyperboles or flat out conspiracy-theories.

 

Customers are in no way supervisors. Customers are right until they are wrong. Customers of PZ have bought a game for 15 bucks or less and most of them have gotten a fair amount of hours out of the game as is. The rest is just us fulfilling our promise on those cherries on top. We want those cherries to be the best cherries we can come up with. For that we need time and sometimes some slack (when it comes to shit like in this topic, for example). 


Just please get your thoughts far away from the idea that a customer somehow is a superior here.

When you are more than a customer and putting in time and effort, you are part of a community and that's entirely your choice. We're thankful for it all, we really are. I wouldn't be here anymore if it wasn't for the community overall. But you can't expect us to just swallow everything that's thrown at us, especially when it is unfair. And implying we're coming up with excuses or are lazy is certainly unfair. 

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18 minutes ago, Geras said:

I really see no point in discussing this further, as I have no problems whatsoever with anybody here on the forums or with TIS. It's even more than that as my voluntary work here as a translator gets TIS more sales.

Oh I didn't read anything you wrote as an insult or as an implication of you having a problem with something. It was solely the "supervisor" part of your post that got me nitpickin' :)

I certainly count you and other people like you towards the part of the community that got me to stay here back in the day and the reason I'm still here after all. 

<3

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There's no question that some things take longer to develop than others.

 

Some features take more effort to complete, but aren't as prominent. Some features take less effort to complete, but result in more drastic changes.

 

Take the map, for example. It took a lot of effort to complete and added in a huge section of the map. However it may not mean much to the people sticking to home that just want to see more to the general gameplay. Tons of effort has gone into the addition, yet people will still be confident that not much is new if they don't exactly have a demand in it.

 

The new map area is significant and added in some of the largest structures and compounds into the map. And it just came up. It should be a big deal, but the hype for it just wasn't there.

 

There also appears to be the misconception that the developer team is some network of thousands of programmers wasting time by the water cooler. But it's pretty much the exact opposite on both ends. It's a smaller team that has a laundry list of stuff being worked on.

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I believe that even with no animation update this update is big. The gargantuan list of stuff, the painting of crates and all the important stuff they are adding for multiplayer, new map, metalworking, sleep system, nutrition, and many more that i forgot to mention. So i agree with Kim that the animation update hype is overshadowing the whole thing. Dont get me wrong i am also very excited about the animation update and wish it can come out sooner. Get well soon to those still bedridden and God bless you all :)

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