Holy Cow

[nasKo]

First off, our apologies for the delay to the 41.66 patch. There’s a fair amount of new checks and balances being added under the PZ hood, and a few of them have been throwing up errors and unwarranted user kicks.
 

There’s been a lot of testing, and back-and-forth between coders and QA folk, but it feels like the patch is increasingly settled now.

We are planning a wider internal user test tonight, the results of which will direct us either to a release, or further into next week if anything unexpected crops up.
 

Here’s a link to the latest changelist for those interested.

BUILD 42 CRAFTING UPDATE

The crafting update team have been working hard on designing the huge tech tree of crafting that will go into B42. As such, we thought we’d share a few more details on the direction it’s heading in.
 

If you want to hear about some of the more technical aspects of where we will be taking Build 42 then please check out the blog from two weeks ago.
 

Before we dip in, however, please also be reminded that B42 is our next ‘major’ build – and that doesn’t mean that there won’t be more incremental B41 patches coming in from our MP coders in particular. Likewise, in these patches we will clearly be balancing and polishing the existing game.
 

CRAFTING GOAL

Our goal with crafting in B42 is to be able to fill out the tech tree to such an extent that a group of players could, in theory, spawn on a map with nothing but wilderness and (with a lot of perseverance and time) build up to a late medieval community without looting a single building.

This will involve multiple tiers of crafting stations for numerous crafting disciplines, and an interwoven web of recipes required to progress to higher tech stations and items that require the use of multiple crafting professions.
 

If you’ve played any of the primitive tech, hardcore Minecraft modpacks that revolve around slowly climbing a tech tree of interdependent recipes then you’ll know what to expect – although obviously with our trademark PZ realism angle.
 

Everything detailed here is WIP, and could change, but the long and short of it is that each profession will have workstations that are required to make item/subparts. These stations can then be upgraded to gain access to more and/or better items.
 

The professions we are planning are also dependent on each other. For example, to make a piece of leather armour:
 

• The hide needs to be obtained by a butcher or hunter
• The leatherworker refines the hide, and crafts the armour piece
• The blacksmith provides armour scales to be sown into the armour (and possible a needle)
• The tailor provides cloth inner linings for the armour piece, and thread for the leatherworker to sow with.
• Finally the workstations required to do these crafts are built by a carpenter/tinkerer.

On top of this lies the fact that this is a game set in the modern age. So, on top of that tech tree, we will sprinkle all the modern items that can be used to enhance on that late medieval tech, provide shortcuts or improvements, and provide for a mixture of modern and more primitive tech together.
 

Realistically, in practice, a lot of the early ‘teching up’ may be skipped if players have access to workstations or materials they have looted, but the option to go fully from scratch will be there for those who want to. Crafted materials will be there to keep things spinning once old equipment has started to rust and break, or to those who’ve come to a long-lived server where that sort of loot is no longer spawning or available.
 

On top of this, we will start to add diminishing returns on a lot of the technology found in the world. Generators will only repair so many times, their maximum condition slowly creeping down, and once we have alternatives available (unlikely in b42), we can look at how gasoline might start to go bad after many years.
 

The mechanics will slowly play a game of attrition with the loot on the map over time, but instead of this being a problem, the new crafting options will allow long-term server players to embrace the fall and start looking to more primitive solutions to their ongoing survival.

Our intention here is to allow you to play through the full fall of society, as seen in various long-running comics and TV shows. Clearly the different settings It’ll be tricky to pull off, but we are very excited about putting it into action.
 

We’ve had a ‘Many Years Later’ map sitting in Xeonyx’s ‘cool challenge map for a rainy day’ library that we’ll be using for testing once the crafting update leaves the design phase and starts being integrated too. It will likely be available as a playable Challenge map when the time comes.

 

OMG BACKTRACK

Okay, so a diversion from what we said originally.

 

While designing the new crafting update it became frustratingly clear that while trying to create a comprehensive crafting tree with all the options a low tech community would have open to them… there’s one thing that kept coming up.

Animals are used a fkin lot.

 

By pushing animals into (or beyond) the B43 NPC update, we were basically removing all animal produce from any crafting design. To omit them and still go ahead with the work would be setting it off on creaky foundations. Leather alone is used so much, it’d be a huge mistake not to have it feature in the overhaul’s DNA.

 

So we’ve flip flopped on this: that’s just how it goes sometimes.

 

We still cannot release our NPC code with the B42 update (for the reasons discussed in our 2022 and Beyond blogpost) however its clear that we’ll need to get animal husbandry and elements of hunting in there in some form for our crafting update to have its full potential realized.

 

So we’ve hit upon a compromise, we’ll have hunting and animal husbandry in B42. However, we’ll be doing some makeshift AI and behaviours that’ll likely not have the same capabilities that will be possible with the NPC behaviour code.

 

Our plan is to release with a more basic behaviour set (which, lets be honest, won’t hurt the realism of a cow’s portrayal much) and to replace said behaviours with the full NPC build in B43.

 

Here are some in-game bovine entities, coded by RJ and modelled by Martin, from one of our early design tests.

 

 

Hunting mechanics may also be cut down severely from what we ultimately envisioned, we’re viewing this primarily as a ‘minimum viable product’ to be able to introduce a supply of the crafting materials required for our tech tree and not to be considered our final promised system.

 

This will result in some work that’s wasted between the two builds, however its the only way we can see forward without designing a tech tree that’s much more limited and doesn’t reflect our game’s realistic angle players have grown to love.

 

Needless to say though, animals will likely be pretty dumb even by animal standards. They just need to be in there moving about in some fashion and respond somewhat appropriately, though we’ll do as much as we can without spending too much time on work that’ll ultimately have to be redone.

 

POST-APOC PROFESSIONS

So you’re a burger flipper, yeah? There aren’t too many open Spiffo restaurants around any more.

We’ll be redesigning the professions systems to have ‘expiry dates’ and ‘introduction dates’ to accommodate for servers that may progress years beyond a single lifetime since the apocalypse occurred.

 

If someone is born 10 years after society fell, they aren’t going to be categorized by pre-apocalypse professions, it ceases to make sense any more.

 

We’ll be introducing many new professions that are specific to more low tech societies that will unlock as the apocalypse progresses and those professions become more likely to be a character’s background. We’ll also be locking off pre-apocalypse professions based on the likely age of someone holding that profession at the point of the apocalypse.

 

Sandbox solo players will be able to crank up the years since the apocalypse to take advantage of these themselves from game start, if they should desire.

 

There will be crossover (a butcher, carpenter or a farmer fit into both) but old world concepts will cease to make sense going into the future, where a leatherworker or blacksmith profession will come back into fashion. Likewise, instead of being a fireman or veteran: you’re a scavenger or some form of ‘safe zone militia’.

 

Current planned professions related to the crafting overhaul include butchers, leatherworkers, herbalists, brewers, stoneworkers, potters, carpenters, tinkerers, blacksmiths, tailors, farmers, fishers and hunters.

AFFINITIES

To encourage team work and to avoid players getting through stuff too quickly (though, this will clearly be alterable in SP sandbox settings so as not to exclude solo players from playing with the new crafting) we will be introducing affinities. This may be in addition to, or replace, the current skill XP bonuses offered by professions and traits.

 

A profession or trait may grant affinity with various other skills tangentially related to the profession chosen. There may be an option to choose one more additional affinities within character creation.

 

Affinities represent all the general knowledge and skills related to a profession, or just a general cognitive aptitude, that make that character generally better at learning tangentially related skills and crafts.

 

It will only apply to crafting related skills (anyone can get better at using an axe, sneaking or fitness level), however learning something that’s not the character’s affinity (‘what they are naturally, or due to lots of experience, better at learning) will suffer a severe XP gain debuff.

 

It will just be ‘not the sort of thing they are good at’, and while they can get better over time and reach some functional level of usefulness it’ll be a long, long haul they are unlikely to master before they are eaten by a zombie. As such they’d be best off focusing on what they are, themselves, good at.

 

This will mean that, while a player may be able to perform several jobs within a community, no one person will be able to skill up to be 10 at everything. There will be skills they already start at a decent level on, and others they will be able to skill up relatively quickly.

 

There’ll be others that are just not in their wheelhouse, and are best left to someone else. This will encourage diversification within a community, and discourage the ‘meta’ pushing players toward a small subset of professions.

 

It also reduces the likelihood (on default settings, at least) that a small community will be able to produce everything required to thrive. This will encourage trade between communities, and if you’re able to offer something others can’t, it may keep you safe from any more hostile presences on the map.

WHEN?

All of the above, apart from early work on our basic animals, remains in the design phase. Build 42 is not imminent, and we expect there to be many patches to B41 between then and now.

 

We are going into detail a) to redress our earlier accidental misdirection on animals, and b) to hear the thoughts of the community on where we’re going.

 

There’s also many (many) other things going on elsewhere in the game – not least some new hires!

FRESH BLOOD

TIS would like to formerly welcome General Arcade’s Denis Trofiman to the PZ coding team, who will be looking at the integration of various cool middleware packages into the Knox Event codebase. Likewise our beloved Yana (aka Spiffo on the forums) is now a full-time QA alongside Sasha.

 

We have also made another recruitment grab from the community, and are absolutely delighted to have Aiteron on-board as a full-time coder on the game.

 

Aiteron, who you might know for his excellent work as co-dev on the Autotsar Yacht Club mod, and his own creations of lockpicking, better towing and helicopter mod, will generally be helping overhaul some of our existing (and some quite threadbare) features. The first of which being…fishing.

 

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS A WIP VIDEO. BETTER CHARACTER ANIMATIONS, WHICH WILL BE A VITAL PART OF IT, ARE NOT CURRENTLY INTEGRATED. 

 

Current controls:

 

• Choose a place to fish by aiming (Mouse right button) and preparing to cast the hook and float.
• Attack button (Mouse left button) has you cast out.
• Holding RMB puts you in control of the fishing rod and pulls/releases the line. Aim control also impacts on left/right position of the rod. (Version that doesn’t require a RMB hold also en-route for accessibility)
• Within all this you simultaneously lead the float towards the player to catch the fish.

 

This is all WIP and will need playtesting and polish (we really want a visible, correctly-sized, fish to be shown when caught too) but we wanted to show you the exciting fruits of Aiteron’s efforts.

 

This is only the first of the many different PZ systems we want to set him loose on!

OTHER ITEMS OF NOTE

 

• Mappers and modders, please be aware that the latest tilesets containing all the content used in the construction of Louisville have now been released for community use. The latest versions of TileZed and WorldEd will be released simultaneous to the 41.66 patch.
• Whoever it is doing the Simpsons/PZ memes on the PZ Reddit. You are an absolute legend. Never stop. Please

 

This week’s stick-up from DdBrey. A changelist of all our pre-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. 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 you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too!

[Irken Empire]

One question, can you add white mushrooms/common mushrooms/champignons whatever you wanna call them in stores and fridges? We've got lots of new foods, and exotic ones like meat dumplings, sushi etc. but there are no champignons, It'd be nice to have acces to non poisonous mushrooms without foraging for them in the early game.

Also about power pylons please give them a buzzing noise, I don't think it would matter how loud they are, power pylons are in rural/forest areas so they would only attract closer-ish zombies and make mini hordes under it, would be a cool sight in the fields/open grounds, also it's a sign that society as we know it is still somewhat alive, till it isn't a month later when power goes off and world gets owergrown. The game Into the dead 2 has some levels where you've got objectives to run under power pylons which gives you these end of the world creepy vibes as the world is still somewhat alive with reanimated corpses shambling throughout the forest trying to get you and through the game lore telling you that this whole "end times"  thing isn't only happening in the US but globaly.

Edited February 17, 2022 by The Nine Tailed Fox

[Octo]

Holy Cow indeed - all of this sounds absolutely amazing!
I can feel some Rimworld vibes from profession and community ideas.
Also is it possible that we will see some small animals in the future, like rats, rabbits and maybe cats?

[gabriel rodrigues brandao]

question we will have dogs  in build 42 or without domestic 
animals only cows horses sheeps etc

like will we have cats and dogs in build 42
or only in 43??
 

[Axiomatic]

Holy cow indeed. The vastness of scope this update hints at is tremendous and really exciting.

[HerioJohnX]

For the "Skill learning" mechanics, I always picture our character will be able to teach other character with sitting and chatting.
Also, skill progress will lost a bit after character didn't perform that skill related action for a while (They forget!) 

Also, what I know about version 42 is also include trait balancing, any chance you guys will discuss that in the future thursdoid?

I always think anxiety / depression should have a serious affect on our character (Even lead to death!). 

[Hyraga]

Sounds like excellent news to me! Congratulations to the new members of the team!

Regarding the changes, the addition of animals will give the game a lot more life, at least until the NPC update comes to life. It does not matter if they are simple codes that wander around, at least the addition will be appreciated and it will give security that it will improve in the future.
 

Regarding the experience modifiers in jobs/actions of professions not related to it, I think it is excellent that with this you give a more consistent use to the multiplayer experience, and that each one dedicates themself to a certain profession to better exploit teamwork... but I only ask that you do not forget those of us who play the game individually. That it does not become unfair, or even impossible to survive because of a character who after 3 months of survival still does not know how to create a wooden box because in his past life he was a policeman.
 

Although I am not the one to tell you what to do with your work, much less the right one to give advice, I would still like to leave you my humble opinion of what addition would be highly appreciated by all players, and that is the basis of the game: The Zombies.
I think that a good addition in the future would be the integration of some modifications in the main and only enemy of the game and the one that the whole game revolves around.
It could be, for example, that there is a very small percentage, but I mean very small (so that the player never gets used to it) of "dumb zombies" (zombies without a voice, I don't know if the translation "dumb" is correct, it sounds silly to me) of whom you can only notice that they approach you by the sounds of their footsteps, and not by the typical zombie moan.

There are certain well-known mods that you may already be aware of that add classes of zombies that have abilities. Although some of these mods break with the realism of the game, perhaps it could be adapted, for example, zombies with protections which have much more resistance than the normal zombie; or maybe also "plagued" zombies that could start spawning after several weeks in the game and that thanks to their decomposition can make us sick if they damage us with a laceration or a scratch (even if they haven't infected us with the main virus). Obviously, this can be configured in the Sandbox options for those who don't want some of these changes.

 

Anyway, I created the account especially to comment on all this and to thank all of you for continuing little by little with the project. You have a very nice little piece of game monster on your hands, with a ton of potential (if you watched the YouTube channels or the Steam reviews, you'll more than likely know about the good reviews your game has). You just need to polish it well, and like all good things, go easy and don't rush. It is preferable to test everything well and that there are no bugs that ruin the player's experience (Bugs will always be there, every game has them, but the important thing is that there are no bugs that ruin the player's experience).
 

Anyway, I apologize if my text sounds a lot like Google translate, because it is. I can read English without problems, but I have a hard time writing it.

[Axezombie]

About the fishing mini-game, it's cool but players won't be able to fast forward during this mini-game, right? So they will fish with a spear then fast forward and skip entirely this mini-game. If you want to avoid that you better make a mini-game for spear fishing too

[nasKo]

18 hours ago, gabriel rodrigues brandao said:

question we will have dogs  in build 42 or without domestic 
animals only cows horses sheeps etc

like will we have cats and dogs in build 42
or only in 43??
 

42 is reserved to the simple kind.

More complex neutral and other not so neutral animals will come after 42.

 

 

  

2 hours ago, Axezombie said:

About the fishing mini-game, it's cool but players won't be able to fast forward during this mini-game, right?

Yep, that's pretty much the point

[gayonne]

Firstly, thank you so much for coming up with all these new ideas on crafting, animals, fishing, professions and B42 in general. And a BIG welcome to your new team members and especially Aiteron who has written so many good mods that I'm using in almost all my playthroughs!

 

Regarding the animals, once the hunting mechanism is worked out, would it be possible for the players to harvest not just the skin as crafting materials but also things like meat for food and even bones/antlers for weapons (or for making broth) or heads for trophies? Also, would players be able to capture/tame animals and start a farm to obtain fresh milk or eggs from them, and with those ingredients make cheese or butter or other dairy produce?  Animals truly open up a whole new dimension to the game and I just can't wait to see them soon! Keep up the great work, PZ team!!

[Axezombie]

2 hours ago, nasKo said:

About the fishing mini-game, it's cool but players won't be able to fast forward during this mini-game, right?

Yep, that's pretty much the point

It was a rhetorical question, I mean that players will prefer to fish with spears then because you can fast forward, btw fishing with spears should be really hard, maybe that's what you intent to do to balance it.

[Gilzar]

I like MOST of what I saw in this update, but one thing worries me greatly with the planned skill rework. You talked about how team work will be needed, but that some alteration will be in place for solo game players... but PLEASE INDY STONE! Don't forget about the small servers. I play on a local server with only 2-3 people max, literally just me and a friend or two. If the multiplayer version of the skill system is balanced around player numbers so communities require extensive teamwork (and hence population), and then still have to trade with other communities, it will absolutely DESTROY our ability to play the game. Seeing as our community is the only one in existence. And only has 2-3 people.

 

This of course might solve itself once NPC's are in, if they can take the place of those other communities/players, but until then, it could be a serious issue that I didn't see mentioned in the update.

 

(I wanted to create an account to login with, but apparently yahoo.ca is not a 'real' enough email address. Guest for life!)

[WhiskeyTangoFoxX]

13 hours ago, Gilzar said:

I like MOST of what I saw in this update, but one thing worries me greatly with the planned skill rework. You talked about how team work will be needed, but that some alteration will be in place for solo game players... but PLEASE INDY STONE! Don't forget about the small servers. I play on a local server with only 2-3 people max, literally just me and a friend or two. If the multiplayer version of the skill system is balanced around player numbers so communities require extensive teamwork (and hence population), and then still have to trade with other communities, it will absolutely DESTROY our ability to play the game. Seeing as our community is the only one in existence. And only has 2-3 people.

 

This of course might solve itself once NPC's are in, if they can take the place of those other communities/players, but until then, it could be a serious issue that I didn't see mentioned in the update.

 

(I wanted to create an account to login with, but apparently yahoo.ca is not a 'real' enough email address. Guest for life!)

 

From the post itself, these things can be balanced for singleplayer, which also means they can be balanced for small groups. PZ is a super configurable game so I doubt that they're going to suddenly stop there.

[Plopaplopa]

I have the same (little) concerns about solo / little servers gameplay but I trust the team to make it right. Mostly, just had a big smile reading this article. A huge smile though. 

 

Off topic but I noticed there's no goodies for PZ. I respect that, but I would love to buy a Spiffo stuffed toy for example. Could be a cool way to support your work.

[Brigette The Red]

Will you ever address any PVP concerns in this game at all? PVP right now doesn't work. Stunlock is all the rage. Walls are way too squishy. Sky-stairs can bypass any defense. We can't lock doors or gates. Raiding someone's base is way too easy.

 

There's a lot of us who wants a full PVP game, where there's no safehouses or any sort of anti-risk features. We want 100% risk, like a "real" zombie apocalypse, where you can lose everything, any people are just as much a threat as zombies.

 

My hopes feign for every update, as there has been zero word on anything.

[traindoc]

3 hours ago, Brigette The Red said:

Will you ever address any PVP concerns in this game at all? PVP right now doesn't work. Stunlock is all the rage. Walls are way too squishy. Sky-stairs can bypass any defense. We can't lock doors or gates. Raiding someone's base is way too easy.

 

There's a lot of us who wants a full PVP game, where there's no safehouses or any sort of anti-risk features. We want 100% risk, like a "real" zombie apocalypse, where you can lose everything, any people are just as much a threat as zombies.

 

My hopes feign for every update, as there has been zero word on anything.

Mods exist man, us you can disable safehouses in Sandbox settings. That's up to your server operators. This game isn't dayz and shouldn't be treated as such.

[CKyHC]

will there be horses?
maybe horseback riding? 

[rod]

Waiting a "the last of us" erosion system

[Collin21809]

It would be cool you they added like a RV that you can walk inside and store stuff, and sleep in, and drive it. 

[OffitMan]

On 2/21/2022 at 3:08 AM, Brigette The Red said:

My hopes feign for every update

 

So dramatic. Woe is me. 😄

 

Keep up the good work TIS. 

[Gurluas]

Wow, everything so far sounds absolutely amazing! Build 42 will truly be epic if you can do all that. I was sad when Blacksmithing was canned, it's good to see we're getting a proper full tech tree! I am 100% on board with it, go for it! :3

 

I also hope and kindly request that build 43 has tameable foxes. :3

[Isabellah]

I like it, I like the fishing game. And the sounds, those are super good

[pap22]

will we be able to raise pigs and use their meat ?

I'm also very excited about the dairy products that we will be making

[Dr. Berry]

I just love this.

[Dr. Berry]

On 2/22/2022 at 7:10 AM, rod said:

Waiting a "the last of us" erosion system

Would be interesting, but i'd like something more like The Walking Dead