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The Sound of Mucus


nasKo

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Hi all, short Thursdoid as hopefully videos can speak louder than words. Here’s a couple of videos taken from the latest internal build.

We won’t tell you what’s changed beyond the general polish we’ve been doing, but please make sure your sound/speakers are turned up.

Second up, here’s another video showing off some more gameplay – but please make sure you make it to the thrilling/chilling dénouement to see some of the more recently tied-in animations.

Please note that, even though these vids are direct from gameplay and lookin’ pretty cool, we still have a lot of stuff we want/need to get in before we IWBUMS.

There’s body masking and rotational anim tech from Zac, Savegame improvements from Yuri, a fair amount of MP-poking to get it all operational, more optimization and a several other things besides.

This is all falling into place at the moment, but right now a playable beta isn’t imminent and we’ll only open it up when the time is right – and when we’re at a point at which we’re able to deal with the flood of new external feedback. Right now there’s nothing that we don’t already know needs fixing/improving – but as soon as it’s ready-enough, we will let folks in.

Elsewhere this week RJ’s done a lot of loot balance – in the new version you’ll find house loot separated into more realistic cupboards and drawers rather than appearing all stuffed in together alongside polish to various different anims alongside Martin.

In terms of ‘dev’ stuff too, we’ve got a new version of AnimZed through from Zac now (1.4.0) which is helping us track down various issues in the animations, alongside our own rejigging/smoothening as we go.

We’ll do a full round-the-houses of all the different devs next week, but for now hopefully the two vids are enough to go on. Hope y’all are well!

This week’s soon-to-be-mulched survivor from Nernemes. A general list of stuff added to PZ, and vids of features being worked on, is kept here – so you don’t have to plough through endless dev blogs for info. 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 hereOur Discord is open for chat and hijinks too!

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Looks and sounds really cool!

 

I hope you create a large enough sound base for the sounds not to repeat very often.

 

Also, any plans on weapon reloading animations to go with or without progress bars (i.e. racking a shotgun)?

Edited by Geras
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Amazing work!

 

I was actually thinking this past week about the moaning of the zombies and whether it'd ever be tweaked. I remember watching the video of the original zombie sounds being created in a very unique way. (It's amazing how much of a fleshy pulpy sound you can get from stabbing and orange).

 

These new sounds are very guttural if that's the right word? More akin to something you'd find from The Walking Dead or maybe even games such as Dead Island/Dying Light. Gives a very savage and animal like tone to them. I don't know if moving away from the moans completely would be good but then again I've been so used to the old sound effects that maybe I'm just used to the old sounding groans and mumbles.  I don't want to sound stubborn but I absolutely refuse to play Zomboid until the new update. I'm teasing myself and I'll be damned if I'm going to cave now (Not that Zomboid isn't already in an amazing state) but I'm holding off... I've lasted since 2016 and dammit I'll last a while more (Well, okay I caved for cars for about a week but c'mon, cars!)

 

The payoff will be worth it and to be honest this was confirmed to be the Zombie Survival game I've always wanted waaaay back before now. I've been following you guys since 2011 but as soon as that first Anim vid came out all that time ago I've held off for the most part, the wait will be worth it and I hope you guys take all the necessary time to make this update shine.

 

Well Done Guys!

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Dammit, guys. I almost ruined a perfectly good computer chair when I heard that female scream. That's some solid quality even some Triple-A titles are lacking...

 

8 hours ago, nasKo said:

Elsewhere this week RJ’s done a lot of loot balance – in the new version you’ll find house loot separated into more realistic cupboards and drawers rather than appearing all stuffed in together alongside polish to various different anims alongside Martin.

 

I'm 120% sure you guys are gonna tell me you already fixed this but I'm gonna mention it anyway. Could you please fix the "meats" section of the stores? Those counter fridges that, from the image, seem to be filled with nothing but steaks, but when you go loot them they have nothing but fruits and vegetables. I always found that kinda irking- how you'd have a much easier time looting a Spiffo for raw meat than a supermarket or a store. Just my two cents here.

 

Also, once we go back to adding places to the map, you may wanna add a butcher shop somewhere. I somehow find weird there are none at all.

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I hate to be the negative Nancy in the group, but I think the zombie sounds are a bit over the top. Now, I do agree they should make the moaning and groaning and stuff. But the ravenous growling is too animalistic.  It's too intense. Like they're mad at me.  Loud is fine. but they don't seem like zombies when they make that much noise. They seem like angry cannibals. 

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1 hour ago, Sick Boy said:

I do agree they should make the moaning and groaning and stuff. But the ravenous growling is too animalistic.  It's too intense.

Not sure how it currently works but they could have it so that the faster the zombies move, the more ravenous they sound.

 

So a slow plodding zombie moans and a running zombie is full on ravenous growling!

 

I imagine this is how it is anyway but it just needs some fine tuning???

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3 hours ago, Sick Boy said:

I hate to be the negative Nancy in the group, but I think the zombie sounds are a bit over the top. Now, I do agree they should make the moaning and groaning and stuff. But the ravenous growling is too animalistic.  It's too intense. Like they're mad at me.  Loud is fine. but they don't seem like zombies when they make that much noise. They seem like angry cannibals. 

 

I was thinking something similar. None of the sounds should clearly stand out in front of the others or be easily memorable because they'll get boring really quick.

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Good sounds, but please, remember about adding getting in and out of car animations with animated doors. 

 

Also I do think sounds are a tad over the top.

 

Suggestion: If you plan on keeping sprinting zombies, make sure they sprint maniacally just like in 28 weeks later ( with according animations too! /VERY/ IMPORTANT ), and then use THOSE sounds. They sound more like raging maniac running at you and honestly, if you kept moaning to slower zombies and then add this gutwrenching gurgles to the sprinters - I'd personally open a brick factory. 

Basically those sounds fit sprinters more because they sound actually maniacal like an infected individual in blind rage would.

Edited by Eggtooth
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I agree that the sounds are a bit over the top.  the video seemed really loud (maybe intentionally so).  I don't mind the variety and it is def way scarier, but I could see the atmospheric sounds getting annoying after a while.  

 

I play this game with my 13 year-old nephew and the sounds frightened him (not in a good way).  Maybe some settings around this to scale the sounds back a bit?  

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Hear the 'difference':

 

 

The zombie sounds we've added are surprisingly similar (though we didn't consciously imitate) to a show that probably represents the most culturally relevant modern depiction of the zombie in popular culture, so to those saying 'too animalistic' or 'over the top' I respectfully disagree. The vast majority of feedback we've received has been overwhelmingly positive, we're extremely happy with the results, we may tweak volumes and hearing distances before release, or add more variation and degrees between different zombies, but this is how the zombies are now and there's nothing wrong with them. If they are 'too scary' then they are doing their job well, and someone of a nervous disposition or young age should not probably be playing if they are too scary. Zomboid has never been intended for the faint of heart and always blatantly and clearly intended and advertised to be a dark, bleak, nerve-wracking survival horror experience, and if it wasn't before these zombies, then it was a failing we've managed to overcome. This ain't Minecraft, it's Project Zomboid.

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I really like those new sounds, much like you evolved from the bald-headed aliens from the earliest alpha builds to more humanlike zombies, the sounds have also gotten a much needed upgrade towards the more recognisable humanlike growling, hissing and snarling. Especially in "Atmospherics" video at 1:30 a zombie makes a long highpitched snoring sound, either choking on it's own blood and mucus or just rotten vocal cords. That is what uncanny means as someone previously mentioned.

I think the problem people who have critique, be it needing more variation or it being too agressive actually want to say zombies shouldn't sound like this always, I aggree those barks and growls should be reserved for when a zombie has spotted a player and is chasing the player. 

When idling I'd expect a zombie to moan or just make sounds like it has trouble breathing (if it even breaths), much like the first and only sound a baby makes "euh", it's logical cause making the "euh" sound doesn't require any special position of the tongue or lips just opening your mouth and making noise, that's why we also use it a lot when we don't know what to say and want to bridge the silence.

 

Also please in the future make a difference between fresh zombies and old rotting zombies both in sound (progressively less humanlike, from normal voice to more hissing, gargling) and visuals (torn clothing, green/black discoloured).

 

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