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The editor, the game and and a catalogue of questions


Budelbert Calypso

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Hey Indie Stoners,

 

I'm playing PZ for about a month now and the 130+ hours i collected hopefully speak for themselves.

Congratulations for the release of the newest build. Having such progress after a few weeks may make

me a spoiled kid though. So I'm looking forward to build39 within the next weeks. ;)

 

I'm here to give a bit of a feedback but mainly to ask a catalogue of questions.

 

I'm quite tempted to make a map for your game by my own.

 

But I need to know what I'm getting into, as I am aware that this will be an effortful task.

 

For TF2 I carried a map within 5 months to its first alpha stage but eventually dropped it for the time being.

This was caused by the strict sets of options you get if you want the map to succeed gameplaywise.

There's so much to balance for a teambased game like this, that I was demoralized (after a few mediocre tests)

by all the compromises and their solutions one has to make.

(Link to the unfinished TF2 map)

 

With less "lod" but more freedom to build what I want to and focus on atmosphere,

I hope to have a better experience building for another game I got passionate about.

 

 

1. The Editor

 

I already downloaded it and checked it out, watched and read a few tutorials but quite a few questions remain:

 

1.1.

I can't understand why the whole process is structured like it ís if my observations were correct:

 

TL;DR

Am I forced to follow the order of the process as I understood it in the tutorials and

do I have to repeat most of the steps again every time I like to edit a part of it.

 

1.1.1.

Why do you have to draw the fixed basic structures as the first thing?

One has to know quiet exactly where the streets etc. (base map), the forests (veg map)

and the zombies will have to be (zombie spawn map) before he even started!

 

Also why isn't this part of the editor itself - why do you have to use another program to draw a

png and a bitmap? Why can't I just start with empty tiles and draw rawly on that?

 

1.1.2.

Why do you have to set the inner / exterior wall textures (f.e.) before you draw the wall

in the building editor? Wouldn't it be more intuitive to just draw an empty wall and detail it later?

 

1.1.3.

Is there really only one exterior wall texture you can choose for the whole building?

Or: How can I make a stone building f.e. with glass-walls in between.

When I change the wall type, it always changes it for the whole building.

 

1.1.4.

Why do I have to set the function of the room (bathroom etc.) before I draw the room?

Why can't I just build a house, then set rooms and do some detailing in between?

 

1.1.5.

How do you edit a map?

 

1.1.5.1.

If I feel a street is just a few tiles too long, do I have to draw the whole base/veg/zombie map again?

...each time I wanna test it out ingame?

 

1.1.5.2.

When there is new content (like the cars that might come sooner or later) - will i have to edit and update

the map again to let it spawn cars or implement some of them myself?

 

 

 

1.2.

What's randomly generated, how does spawn work and what is possible to do?

 

1.2.1.

  • "For sale"/lease-,
  • barricaded houses
  • "bleached" corpses
  • keys on corpses / zombies..

 

How are these generated?

 

If randomly:       Does this mean that a house I built might be empty / barricaded..., because it was chosen by random?

If not random:    How to add corpses with bleach/pistol or even a written note to it?

 

 

1.2.2.

Is it possible to have vegetation in buildings? - christmas tree! Or at different levels than 0?

 

1.2.3.

Does the population number you choose for your town affect anything? (like zombie spawn)

 

1.2.4.

How do zombies spawn in buildings on different floors?

 

1.2.5.

Is there any other way than stairs to get to a different level(for building, no sheet ropes)?

Roofs arent walkable. Any other way?

Is or will there be a way to introduce different ground levels to make a hill f.e.?

 

1.2.6.

Is there a list of things that can be spawned for each room assignment (bathroom f.e.)?

 

1.2.7.

Are there any more ressources; more props f.e. to download?

 

 

 

2. General Impressions / Bugs / Ideas

 

2.1. Bugs

 

In singleplayer a few bugs are persistent for me:

  • Pouring out water out of containers (pots, buckets, bottles) won’t work and causes error messages (red, rightbottom screen) occasionally and permanent after it happened once. Only a restart of the game fixes this for some amount of time
  • Can’t build something because some materials are missing which I actually have enough of in my inventory. Fix by restart or sometimes switching the item between different containers, then back to main inventory

 

In Multiplayer sometimes items disappear while changing container.

 

 

2.2. Wishes

 

2.2.1. Improvements

 

I like so many features. But quiet a few are implemented systems that aren't worked out:

  • Metal working
  • Electricity
  • Lids / Jars,
  • Shooting ; with low/no skill,
  • seeing what I can craft with it on 1 ingredient (like crafthelper mod)
  • Radio / TV system - what about cassetes and radiochannels after electricity is down? Or even the option for custom radio channels?

 

2.2.2. Additions

 

Animations / Cars / NPCs? ;)

 

  • seeds to plant trees ; build natural barriers / own forrest, alley,  etc.
  • more craftable weapons (maybe worse in killing than others but with f.e. stun effect): slingshot, sock with billiard-ball...
  • tbc

 

 

Whoever made it to the end of these lines: Thanks for the patience and energy.

 

 

Hopefully someone can answer a few of my question so I can find out how limited / unintuitive the editor is

so I can decide if I want to make a map with it and noone takes offense at my critism towards at atm.

 

Cya there,

Bud

 

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Holy cow that's a lot to read.

 

I work in the TileZed, which is used for making buildings. if you need help for that we can talk on skype and I can show you some simple things for you to use. A building usually takes about 15 minutes max to make with rooms and all. Depends on size rooms and so on. So if you want me to show you how I use, save and so on for making buildings message me in private and I'll set you up with a call. Cheers.

 

For other related questions I'll also answer, since there is a suggestion thread, a bug thread and so on and you mashed them all up in here XD Feel free to ask me anything but please via skype, my fingers are too tired to type anymore x.x

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1. Yes you have to basically go through the process before you can place any buildings on a map. I would think the reason for this is because of how each cell is broken up into a different file type once imported.  

 

1.1 you dont need to have it exactly. You could make a base image that's entirely just grass,  a veg image thats entirely black which would mean no vegetation, and a zombie image thats also black for no zombies. I wouldnt suggest it and would say if you want to work with a plain map to atleast get your roads done and make the veg map and spawn map black so you can detail those later however you wish. 

1.2 The only reason i see to having to set each room's walls and floors is because of the default selection but you could just make an empty room. 

1.3 there is not. i think theres like 40 or so walls you can choose, but probably like 10 are really exterior walls. 

1.4 you can, you can leave it empty.  But again to me seems counterproductive as then you have to go back to each room and give them their def. which can be a hassle. 

1.5 Assuming you're using an editor that has layers, it makes things pretty easy to edit, by simply removing the pixels on your street layer (or whatever youre editing).  you dont have to remake it, you simply edit it, save over the bmp and update the changed cells. 

1.6 from what ive seen it looks like itll be similar to foraging zones in that, the areas you mark have a chance at spawning cars. So like foraging zones, youll have to mark these "car zones" yourself. 

2.1 its random.

2.2 Yes, and good examples of this have been made. 

2.3 not sure what you mean, but just gonna go with no. 

2.4 im assuming it looks if the area the building on spawns zombies and then based on that spawns zombies to fill the floors accordingly (except the roof)
 

2.5 Im sure they could be made but none are currently implement aside from the stairs.

2.6 look at the room def thread or even the file itself to see what each room spawns. 

2.7 many have created different tiles, so potentially yes you just gotta ask the creators for it. 

 

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Thanks for reading, for the offer and the answers of both of you.

 

To me the editor is very unintuitive though I have worked with a few other editors like hammer or blender. I'll see if I get the hang of it.

Yet i don't even know how to have different exterior walls on the same building.

I just don't want to start a project which I know will take a big amount of time and energy, while knowing upfront that the tools I use will annoy me over the whole process.

 

We'll see.

 

Bud

 

Edited by Budelbert Calypso
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