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StreamZed II


nasKo

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Hi everyone, blog-writer has been drenched in the vomit of children tonight so it’ll be short with occasional sweetness. (Even if the actual smell of the blog-writer is quite sour.)

Item 1: We’re going to have weekly streams of the internal test build up until the public IWBUMS beta release. Last week’s with Mark.exe went really well, and was also super valuable in terms of all the team being present together to watch out for bugs and frailties.

(Because of the usefulness of seeing the game played for an extended period for us, they’ll only be English language streams we’re afraid).

This week, then, it’s the turn of Cromulent Archer.

The Cromulent Archer will be streaming tomorrow (Friday) at 6pm Eastern US time – which equates to 10pm GMT, and 11pm BST. More international timings here. The vid will then also be hosted at his home on the YouTubes.

So what will have changed from last Thursday’s Mark.exe stream? Read on, MacDuff…

POST-MATCH REPORT

Overall the stream went very well, with almost every comment we’ve seen being positive about the longer look at the animation build: unedited and unfiltered. Something we were anxious about!

Viewers got to see Mark limp around in a panic after a thigh injury, get eaten multiple times while reading his chat, dress up like your dad, sport a Spiffo backpack, and nearly but not quite wear a dress.

The stream was, however, hit by a few gremlins: some graphical resolution bugs, errant zombie behaviour giving him a much easier time than he ought to have had, and a crash due to a vehicle bug that we’re still in the process of ironing out.

Mark, in fact, had to turn vehicles off for the remainder of his playthrough – and it’s likely Crom will have to do similar tomorrow. However, the flow and steadiness of the gameplay encouraged us that beyond technical gremlins like these it’s getting closer and closer to being ready for the wider IWBUMS audience.

As well as looking into said gremlins, then, we’ve also spent the week improving zombie grouping and attraction rates (rural surviving was just too easy for Mark, despite the tougher multi-zed combat) – while EP is also doing some exciting work with general pathfinding, although this will be a big change and as such might not be something that’s part of the IWBUMS beta on first release.

Zac, meanwhile, has been spending more time on his optimization efforts, his AnimZed performance tracker and horde-handling – which is all part of our ongoing effort to bolster the new build’s playability on lower-end systems.

CURSOR-Y MENTION

Not a biggie, but still one that’ll have an impact – but we’ve added an optional isometric cursor when aiming, that will allow new players (or those who struggle with estimating the direction of facing from the mouse cursor when aiming) to see in isometric space where their mouse cursor is situated in relation to the ground plane of the character

Since characters do not automatically turn as much now to engage zombies, having an accurate idea of the character’s facing is more important than ever, and we’ve tried to make something as unobtrusive as possible.

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Sadly due to what seems to be an LWJGL 2 bug we’re unable to turn the mouse cursor off when the cursor is visible, but it still looks pretty neat. As you may notice, we’ve also got the custom cursor system working so we’re finally free of the ‘default windows cursor’ lack of polish we’ve had on display for a long time. The shown cursor is not final however, and we are working on a more zomboid appropriate one as we speak.

MEANWHILE IN ART LAND

There has been a changing of the guard in terms of map creation. The remainder of the work on our version of Louisville will be undertaken by Binky and RingoD (who initially landscaped the overall ‘ground map’ of the area) – in order to free up Mash to improve the look, feel and general feeling of variety of the game in general.

For example, her first mission is to add overlays thanks to EP’s addition of an overlay system to TileZed. So, for example, at the momen tshe’s adding numerous overlays to help make walls and floors look more natural and less tile-y.

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Cracks and worn away mortar around bricks, peeling off wallpaper, and other details will  appear throughout the entire map, and with Mash’s 100% focus on art instead of having to divide her time between that, buildings and assembling and dressing the map, she’s hoping to improve the visual detail of the Zomboid game world dramatically.

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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In love with the overlay stuff. :lol:

 

The isometric cursor is good too! You've probably thought of it already, but what about moving the highlighting of the Zeds to rather highlighting the cursor for the aiming of a weapon? Perhaps even have the circle grow to encompass multiple targets that are closest to you? The idea is clear in my head but I'm not sure how it would be in practice though.

 

Looking forward to the next stream! Good work!

Edited by Okamikurainya
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4 hours ago, nasKo said:

we are working on a more zomboid appropriate one as we speak.

 

Something classy, minimalist and "normal" would be perfect. Please don't make it a "zombie hand".

 

Really there's nothing wrong with the standard mouse pointer, but I understand why you wouldn't want to use it. 

 

There's no "good reason" that I have to not make it. Other than it's something I personally don't want so, ya know, take the comment as you'd take any other recommendation that's a bit petty and kinda dumb. 

 

 

Also, strong Fantano vibes from the featured character.

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Edited by Sick Boy
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This game has improved so dramatically with the last few builds finally adding in much needed changes like more complex weather and vehicles, and now we're about to get animations!!! I can't wait for this build to drop so I can dive right in and teach all of my newbie friends how to get munched on by zombies in style! I can't wait to see what Mash does too with the art style. The more post-apocalyptic looking, the better! 

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4 hours ago, Blake81 said:

God, I hope we get it this week.... having to watch all these streams is like your parents buying your X-mas present in July, showing it to you, but instead giving it to the kid next door to play until X-mas morning, and you have to spent all that time watching him have the fun you can't have...

yeah but we're learning so much from the streams, and it's quite clear that the build isn't there yet. two weeks ago cars crashed the game and zeds wouldn't aggro properly. last stream we had zombies not biting often enough and the animation at double speed. who knows next time. programming is very complicated, and i'm looking forward for the next stream in hype. i'd kill in order to get my hands on the build but i don't really expect it that soon, let's give them time to do it properly (and add my unbuttoned lab coat. MUHAHAHAHAHAHA) 

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On 9/30/2019 at 8:34 AM, Livio Persemprio said:

eah but we're learning so much from the streams, and it's quite clear that the build isn't there yet. two weeks ago cars crashed the game and zeds wouldn't aggro properly. last stream we had zombies not biting often enough and the animation at double speed.

 

Yeah, but besides the cars one (which was major) all the other bugs look like stuff that could be fixed on IWBUMS; it's not like we haven't had similar issues on those in the past...

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16 minutes ago, Blake81 said:

 

Yeah, but besides the cars one (which was major) all the other bugs look like stuff that could be fixed on IWBUMS; it's not like we haven't had similar issues on those in the past...

yeah, we probably went through worst stuff, but it's not the bug per se, it's that in just a week so many different things happened. they probably want to get to a point where fixing something doesn't guaranteed break something else (and adding my beloved unbuttoned lab coat :D) 

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4 hours ago, Blake81 said:

 

Yeah, but besides the cars one (which was major) all the other bugs look like stuff that could be fixed on IWBUMS; it's not like we haven't had similar issues on those in the past...

 

Understand, this is just 'a build of a game you're waiting for' for you - this is our livelihood, reputation and future. It's not ready yet, it still needs a few important fixes, and even then it'll still have millions of bugs for you to find in iwbums. We're not releasing it until we're confident it is as close to playable that the reaction from the majority will be positive since a lot of people treat IWBUMs as 'complete' and have been waiting for years for this, and will think nothing of bad reviewing our game out of visibility if on their first play, beta or not, they don't like how it plays with all the changes. We want it out there ASAP and are not holding it back out of some evil sadistic glee, we're holding it back only as long as it takes to get our 'MUST BE FIXED BEFORE IWBUMS' list of serious issues wiped out, and just because you may not have seen these issues in the relatively short time you've watched someone (who had instructions on what to avoid) play doesn't mean they wouldn't cause you and many others serious issues if we released today.

 

We have a LOT riding on this release going down well, we've sunk a TON of money into its development, and we need it to be positive and help push zomboid further out and get attention for something other than horrible bugs making it unplayable. Just because you think you'd be satisfied with it from the streams you've seen doesn't mean it wouldn't go down like a lead balloon and potentially screw us up going forward toward NPCs. We're already anticipating some pushback from some about the Survival difficulty and weightier controls and don't need game breaking bugs risking too much upset after such a long wait. We just need a week or two more to make sure we release the IWBUMs right and that's not going to change.

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2 hours ago, lemmy101 said:

 

Understand, this is just 'a build of a game you're waiting for' for you - this is our livelihood, reputation and future. It's not ready yet, it still needs a few important fixes....

 

Don't worry Lemmy, I'm sure it's going to go great for you guys. I know it must be very intense to release an update of this magnitude as you stated but you guys have always done amazingly great work in the past for this game (especially when you must be so burnt out on this game and want to move on badly) and everyone is very excited for it, especially with all the awesome footage you've released already. 

 

I know it's obvious but just keep on doing what you're doing. Take your time and don't rush it just for the sake of other people. 

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Hi devs ! Just a word to say thank you for your work. I bought the game on Desura, it was already fun and I expected some updates in the future but I never thought you would update the game so much. I never felt so proud to "help" (with some money, as many of people here did too) a project. The game is absolutely wonderful now I love it and I'm attached to it. I don't play every day, I don't even play every week but each time I play I'm loving it.  Moreover, it's a game I can play with my gf thanks to the splitscreen option and we have good times on it, one of (if not the) best games we can play together. So, thank you everyone involved in the development.

 

I also have a question : when will you consider the game as "finished" ? Is the next major update (animations if I understand) the final one ? 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Plopaplopa said:

Hi devs ! Just a word to say thank you for your work. I bought the game on Desura, it was already fun and I expected some updates in the future but I never thought you would update the game so much. I never felt so proud to "help" (with some money, as many of people here did too) a project. The game is absolutely wonderful now I love it and I'm attached to it. I don't play every day, I don't even play every week but each time I play I'm loving it.  Moreover, it's a game I can play with my gf thanks to the splitscreen option and we have good times on it, one of (if not the) best games we can play together. So, thank you everyone involved in the development.

 

I also have a question : when will you consider the game as "finished" ? Is the next major update (animations if I understand) the final one ? 

 

 

 

Thanks! :)

 

Anims -> Hunting -> NPCs -> 1.0 is the current broad plan, not necessarily 3 builds though, we'll likely phase npcs in over about 3.

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