NPCs (shameful post)

[dsant5389]

I've been looking around the site and the Mondoids and I couldn't find a time-line for when NPCs might be re-introduced. For me, NPCs (or the lack thereof) are what is keeping me from DLing the newer versions of the game and playing it at all. I know TIS isn't into setting "dates" and whatnot but is there any general idea of when they might be put back in? Other than "soon"? 

[EnigmaGrey]

"Soon."

[Ontogenesis]

It won't be before the Steam Early Access release, quote from the last Mondoid:
 

 

As stated in previous Mondoids, we’ll not be risking adding the 3D engine changes or NPCs prior to Steam, as the risk for completely destabilizing the build before we go onto Steam and risk us either slipping to next year or having an unplayable version on release and potentially blowing first impressions on there. As soon as we appear on Desura and Steam with a stable build, and release on Early Access, we will begin in earnest to add these features.

 

[AdmiralClassy]

I am slightly disappointed that they aren't in yet as the big update which added the new new map and other things we'd been waiting like a year for I think was supposed to have npc's so tbh I thought they'd have been in a long time ago.

 

I can't play for too long without getting bored and I think npcs will help stop that so hopefully they'll be in sooner than "soon"

[Rathlord]

NPC's were never once correlated to the new map as far as time frame for release.

 

"Soon" is all you're going to get, unfortunately. Rest assured, it is one of the highest priorities as soon as we get it released on Steam, but you should put a little faith in the developers that they know what they're doing.

[Suomiboi]

Yes, they have been postponed quite a bit but I don't think you're not seeing the whole picture here. There has been a LOT of things that have been done this year that I think well over justifies the fact that they have pushed the NPCs a little forward. First of all the graphic overhaul has been immense, first with the sprites etc and now with the 3D system. Also when big changes are made, they don't come without bugs...

 

It is a slow process when you have such a small team such as TIS. As pointed by them they want to make sure the NPCs are well made before they are released. So "soon" is in my mind better than now when that would mean a sloppy release.

 

EDIT:Baahhh!! Ninja Rath got there before me!!

[Lexx]

Some time after steam release for sure. 

[TheCenturion]

... shamefru dispray!! SHAMEFRU!

[mieksta]

We're all like that kid who goes "are we there yet" over and over and over on roadtrips.

[EnigmaGrey]

We're all like that kid who goes "are we there yet" over and over and over on roadtrips.

We were there an hour ago but, out of spite, I drove past.

[Guest easy AI opponent]

Lemmy101 Posted 21 October 2013 - 09:22 PM (cannot quote because of locked t)

 

"We could spend a few more month getting NPCs in, and then get beaten to Steam by about 20 different Zombie survival games that have been announced and created since we started Zomboid, go on Steam and fail miserably, then shut up shop".

 

http://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php/topic/1378-question-about-the-npcs/

 

Given that and the fact that the implementation of the (yet unfinished) 3D engine previous to the NPCs is told to be mandatory because of memory issues, i think it should be at least 6 months but more likely a year+.

 

Also dont forget that NPCs are largely coded by a maximum of 2 people and that game development sometimes mimics "learning by doing" ( coding -> run into constrain -> solve problem by re-code everthing from the start -> run into new constrain -> solve problem by re-code everthing from the start....and so on).

 

 

By the way, it is often stated that NPCs are the "making or breaking" feature of PZ. Initially i thought so as well but looking at minecraft i have changed my mind (people were saying the same about mincraft NPCs as well). But similar to minecraft it is the inital game concept that makes (and made) PZ so popular. Also NPC or their AI is incredible difficult to code to make them functional and a fun mechanic. Again when looking on minecraft, the NPCs (villager) are not very sophisticated (at least what i remembered havent played for a long time) but still took a hell lot of time until they were implemented (post mincraft v. 1?).

 

Here in PZ NPCs should act very dynamically and independently (go looting, manage their recources, build fortifications, fight, team up, interact with the player, have different moods, etc)..that is actually quite a lot. Like a mix between "dwarfen fortress" and literally "The SIMs: Zombieapocalypse". If this really should all be realized it means adding NPCs is like developing a complete new game on top of the PZ framework. This is a very ambitous project and therefore will demand an adequat amount of time. 

 

In any case "SOON" is just plain "WRONG".

[RoboMat]

In any case "SOON" is just plain "WRONG".

 

Time is relative.

[Headshotkill]

SOON

 

 

Standing for:

 

S orry

 

O ur dev team is hard working

 

O ver a couple of updates

 

N ot ready for release

[CareBearCorpse]

... i think it should be at least 6 months but more likely a year+ ...

In any case "SOON" is just plain "WRONG".

I'd replace "is just plain" with "may be" : trying to find reasons for optimism, we don't really know how much progress has already been done on the NPCs front in the devleopment branches ; plus the devs might consider a step-by-step implementation/release strategy to make the path from "last man on earth" to "fully functional NPCs" a bit smoother for lonely survivors. Who knows ?

[Guest easy AI opponent]

 

... i think it should be at least 6 months but more likely a year+ ...

In any case "SOON" is just plain "WRONG".

I'd replace "is just plain" with "may be" : trying to find reasons for optimism, we don't really know how much progress has already been done on the NPCs front in the devleopment branches ; plus the devs might consider a step-by-step implementation/release strategy to make the path from "last man on earth" to "fully functional NPCs" a bit smoother for lonely survivors. Who knows ?

 

True.

 

What i would love to see is something popping up like the latest APZDTISA only dedicated to NPCs. Where people could asked (and get answers) to everthing they want to ask about NPCs (well except for ETA... as this is known to annoy the devs to no end). The overall conzept of their implementation and so on.

 

[Rathlord]

If you have questions about them feel free to ask here. They've actually gone into a lot of detail about them in the past with varying Mondoids over the last 6 months or so, and I've read them all. And who knows, maybe they'll notice the thread ana answer you, too.

[Guest]

Been waiting for an year or two for "proper" NPC's, so what's another Three Hundred and Sixty Five days.

[dsant5389]

Hearing people say 6 months to a year is discouraging.... but I know that it is what it is. 

 

For me personally, NPC's ARE sort of make or break it because there is only so much one can do in the game right now. Loot > Fortify > Kill zombies. That's really it.. 

 

I need activities, relations, other characters to do things with to keep me interested, but that's just me. 

[RoboMat]

We're not dumbing anything down, it's just taking longer due to small team where the devs working on it are routinely needed elsewhere on more pressing things.

 

We'll get there, and while i'm sure version 1 may have their issues, our plans for what the NPCs will ultimately be is pretty much the core of what PZ will be in the future. they are a huge deal and if this game is remembered at all I'd put money on it being remembered for the NPCs.

 

[Rathlord]

You shouldn't put any credit in people saying it will be a year. I'm not making any guarantees, but as you can tell from Lemmys post it is VERY high priority.

[lemmy101]

It's not going to be a year. We know the date we're going on Steam Early Access and I can guarantee it's sooner than you'd probably guess. Once that happens, and the initial rush of fixes and whatnot, the 3D stuff will be finished off. We're talking weeks for that. Then onto NPCs, which let's not forget we're far from 'starting from scratch' and have working (to an extent) on another branch of the game already that encompasses Kate and Bob, the meta-game, groups going looting, fighting or joining other groups, and so on. 

 

With NPCs comes Kate and Bob, and we were long adamant they HAD to be in the Steam build. But we were also adamant we had to be on Steam this year. 

 

The only reason we decided against doing this before Steam is because the codebases of NPC and the active development build split what must have been a year ago now. While working on NPCs I'd periodically merge code changes romain was working on the active branch into the NPC code, to keep them in-line and get the latest features and fixes into the working NPC build. And each time was a supreme head ache despite only being a week or two of changes, and each time there was a multitude of issues carried over from two different builds being merged together. Romain changes code X to do this, I change code X to do something completely different on NPC branch. I go to merge, and there's a conflict I have to resolve so both Romain's fix or addition continues to function, and so does mine.

 

Then there are various hacks I made to the NPC stuff to get NPCs to function for testing purposes, like disabling the lua triggered spawn points, and tying it into the flowcharting system we detailed a long while back. Likewise to allow the NPCs to work some systems have been heavily changed.

 

And this is before I was drafted onto the development build to do engine changes, optimizations and fixes and whatnot alongside Romain as we geared up for a new version. 

 

So the situation we have now is we have two code bases that over the past few months have diverged and diverged. At some point, for NPCs or just Kate and Baldspot, I'd have to do a code merge in the opposite direction, from NPCs into the development branch, and in that process I come across a line of code different on the NPC end and different on the current build end. IT's up to me at that point to remember if that particular piece of code was something I changed for the NPC build, or if it's been changed by Romain since, or heaven forbid a line of code that we've both changed independently and differently. I have to then copy the code across, possibly altering to fit.

 

This over thousands of java files, all with hundreds, sometimes thousands of lines of code. Will it work? Yes. But you can imagine even a photographic memory super genius to make at least a few errors. Overwrite one of Romain's fixes with the broken code that was branched off so long ago and suddenly people are complaining about bugs reappearing that were fixed six months ago, or perhaps I don't merge something subtle across that's required for the NPCs.

 

And so on and so forth. The result? Almost certainly, the main development branch of the game would regress to being a buggy mess (and to those critics of the last build, I mean buggy to the level of closed test version 1 of 40 before anyone here ever saw the 2.9 builds. It would then require probably a month maybe even two of testing and bug fixing to get the general build back up to scratch. It's end of October now. Assuming we did this tomorrow, what's a month or so from now? December. Exactly the worst time we could pick to launch on Steam. So then we're into next year, and let me tell you delaying Steam until then isn't going to help the game reach the pinnacle of NPC brilliance in the long run.

 

So we could give you NPCs now. They would be buggy, and wouldn't do themselves justice, but we could totally do that. Then when that Steam release date crops up, we have a choice. Release what will be a near unplayable crashing buggy stuttering mess (and we're giving ourselves hernias trying to get THIS build fast, polished and stable for Steam in time), or wait until its ready again, which would be way after Christmas.

 

This is why NPCs are delayed. It's more important to us, the game, and the future of Zomboid that we get on Steam soon with as stable and polished build as possible. In terms of going on Steam the existing community getting bored of Zomboid doesn't matter, as much as it may displease you and us in the meantime. New Steam people will be looking at it with fresh eyes and won't miss NPCs that they've never seen or heard of being in the game. They have all that time to explore Muldraugh and West Point out of the box, build a base, try some farming, making videos or writing their survival stories, and that buys us some time.

 

And then, we can start merging over code into a beta build, and hopefully get Kate and Bob in rather quickly after Steam, though as said above 3D stuff has to come first. There's a ton less work involved in getting that in too, but we delayed it for similar reasons. An engine change immediately before going on Steam? We know what affect that would have. Once we're on Steam and we've planted our feet, dipping into destabilizing the build won't matter so much since I can take the time to fix it all up while Romain continues supporting the active build, and we could release special NPC beta versions as we go.

[Realmkeeper]

Lemmy's wise words once again come in to comfort the lost souls.

 

I for one appreciate the level of thought and detail you put in to explaining your plans, and the game mechanics in your posts lemmy, even though quite likely 90% of it flies over the head of the average person.

I think it is reassuring to the community as a whole that you feel you can be (reasonably) transparent with what's going on, and how priorities get reshuffled, and the reasons for that.

 

Keep up the good work.

Oh, and a Clyde for good measure 

[Rathlord]

We all appreciate the clarification, Lemmy.

[Ozin]

As a new player that has browsed the forums for the last week, I've got to give you big props on the way you communicate with your community. Hold on to that in the future! (and brace for a wave of impatient complainers in the few weeks after the steam early access release, some people just don't understand the concept of alphas and betas ^^ )

[Blasted_Taco]

After that post i really most give props to leemmy, i mean he really went into detail explaining everything and now i see the big picture of why the delays and how steam is really going to help the game and how everything has a cause and effect

 

I guess we can explore West Point in the meanwhile and by the time we finish up exploring that DayZ SA will be out and i will have something to do to quench my thirst of zombie games for a while too.

 

I have like 13 friends in stand by to buy the game on Steam and its true, they dont know about the all holy and mighty NPCs or anything like that so they really have a long way to go before they hear about them.