Sky High

[nasKo]

Sky High

So… hmm, where were we?

 

Okay so, recent weeks have seen two mega-merges into our trunk internal testing build.

 

The first was latest from our MP team, to top up the central development branch with their latest from their ongoing server work to flag up any unexpected issues and to get a few gameplay systems back online in MP.

 

The second was the guts of the long-awaited crafting revamp from Turbo, which means that the functionality for all our primary crafting stations is now in – and it’s a matter of banging heads together and integrating everything we’ve had stacked up for it.

 

To this end we’re pleased to announce that we’ve hired yet another stalwart individual from the modding community to aid us in this quest.

We were thinking about the different modders who could give our crafting team a little extra grunt, we have so many amazing ones after all, but the offerings of Soul Filcher stood out as being produce of exactly the sort of brain we needed.

We’re really happy to have Soul officially on the team, and while his initial introductory task has been some tidy-up work and minor improvements on our many and varied different traits he should be diving into the new crafting stations with the others in the weeks ahead. 

 

SKY HIGH

The engine upgrade is now in a phase of finding all the edge case issues where something doesn’t render correctly due to the new caching rendering method.

 

Alongside this, very excitingly, the map team are working on larger buildings and basements to be slotted into the game map.

EP tested out the first building to use the increased floor limits, a literal 32 floor skyscraper which looks super impressive to see in-game. This, as yet unnamed, skyscraper also allowed us to get a fun new animation into the mix as well…

PLEASE NOTE: Impact with pavement is WIP. There’ll be far more crunchy SFX, far less blending issues with the character standing back up, and also more blood obviously. Screaming too.

 

 

Elsewhere we are making the most of the improvements to how sprites are cached and handled. This now allows, for example, sprites to be combined with overlays into a single cached texture.

 

With this we can create nicer, and more accurate, highlighting and borders when they are selected and moused over. As seen here:

 

 

Increasingly with the engine upgrade it’s become ever more clear that with it we’ll be able to polish up more oddities and visual quirks of Zomboid in the long term.

 

If you’re interested, this is made evident by the testing tools that we’ve added to Zomboid’s debug menus that put the new tile depth system through its paces.

 

 

In this video you will see a large debug 3d cylinder that can be moved around to test how it interacts with the map environment.

This now interacts with walls and other objects as if they were bona fide 3D geometry within the iso scene, which was impossible up till now. Previously it would have inserted itself in its entirety between tiles laid on top of each other.

 

This will allow us to increasingly have a more believably 3D looking world despite using 2D tiles, getting rid of a lot of unsightly glitches and potentially opening up other gameplay avenues in the further future.

 

To be clear, this vid shows the sort of stuff that we’re now able to finally nix – although whether that will happen prior to 42 going unstable or later on is still an open question.

 

Oh and here’s another player/zed falling vid as we love it so much…

 

 

OH, RATS

We’ve shown rats in blogs before, but previously they didn’t have many rules or conditions attached.

 

Now, as we close out what has internally been dubbed as ‘rat week’ we can say that rats will procedurally spawn as the world is explored – and they will also appear in special randomized ‘rat stories’. They can randomly spawn with trash, trash containers, and corpses.

 

 

As the days of the apocalypse tick by we will slowly approach the “Maximum Rat Index” –  which is currently two months on default non-Sandbox settings – which is the point at which rats will have the highest chance of spawning and a higher chance of appearing in greater numbers.

 

In buildings with rat problems we will also be working with the sound team over at Formosa to make sure we have fun stuff like noises for rats in ceilings, rats in the walls, rats gnawing on flesh, rats scuttling over different floor surfaces etc.

 

We’ll keep a lid on the majority of our special randomized rat stories, but expect some gross supplies and destroyed loot. That said, are you familiar with the concept of a rat king crown? Google it if not!

Oh, and would you like something to wash down with that bleach?

 

MAP LATEST

Lots of fun stuff going into the map expansion, not least the 32 level skyscrapers we have going into Louisville.

 

Our plan is to have a few of these pepper the urban landscape, where appropriate, for 42 – and then to come back for more fully-fledged urban replanning later down the line.

 

If you take in all the new basements required for the new build, and the new swathes of land to the west of Muld that are being finalized, there’s a lot of ground to cover for the map team – even if so much of it already in the can. We want everything to be good quality, and don’t want any aspects rushed.

 

With that in mind, let’s have another more detailed look at Xeonyx’s ‘scraper showcased in the first video. What a beaut!

Elsewhere, what better place to explore in an update where lighting and lightsources are going to be far more than an issue – than Ayrton’s spooky abandoned orphanage in a forest?

 

All the cool kids will want to hang out there, we’re sure.

 

Finally, for a map expansion we need signs for homes and businesses. So expect all sorts of new fun stuff, alongside adverts and map-reveal flyers for them on the radio and in peoples’ homes.

 

 

IT’S A GAS, GAS, GAS

Alongside other new clothing, bags, holsters, and functional gear in 42, we’re also adding fully featured military webbing and SCBA gear.

The webbing provides two hotbar slots that can be used to attach walkie talkies, special new angle headed clip-on flashlights, and appropriate knives. The SCBA gear, meanwhile, provides one. Military webbing also serves as a wearable container that is superior to wearing fanny packs.

Some of this coolness can be seen in the following video – alongside the shemagh scarves that will allow British fans of a certain age cosplay as Simon Reeve.

 

 

As seen in the next video, SCBA gear is also functional in that, when it has an attached tank with oxygen remaining and is turned on, it will protect the wearer from inhaled atmospheric hazards. This also applies to the Hazmat suits.

 

 

We have also made Gasmasks functional, although they require filters that are drained by exposure to airborne contaminants, and have added Halfmask Respirators that use different filters that are consumed at a faster rate.

 

Some other, appropriate, masks will now also provide mild protection from corpse sickness. However, your character will remove and replace their mask when eating, drinking, smoking, taking pills, and such.

 

Engineer characters, and characters that learn the recipes, can also craft improvised gasmask filters, as well as recharge gasmask and respirator filters. All of these new items spawn in appropriate locations, vehicles, and on appropriate zombies.

4K REVOLUTION

One of the primary complaints we get about PZ, and a rightful one, is our lack of support for higher resolution monitors.

 

There have always been workarounds, but they haven’t been effective enough -and on a 4K screen the resolution makes our UI look to be a size that only a furrow-browed ant could use.

 

Well come 42 unstable (hopefully – it’s a big task) our local hero Fox will have climbed Resize Mountain – and up-rezzed our entire UI to make it far more amenable to those lucky folks with super-snazzy monitors. So good news for many, we hope.

 

HOLSTERS

In 42 not only are we adding visible holsters, in multiple colours, but also special shoulder and ankle holsters.

 

Shoulder holsters will conceal the holster and handgun when garments like jackets are worn over them, and also can store two pistol magazines as a container. Ankle holsters can only hold the m36 Revolver currently, and the holster and firearm will be concealed by long pants, skirts or dresses.

 

You’ll be able to find them on both existing, and new, zombie costume types – and we strongly suggest seeking out a plainclothes police detective zombie. (Might be tricky though).

 

 

OTHER STUFF

• Following the successful integration of the effort and body noises from real actor people in a real recording studio into the game we’ve decided to get a load more done (three new men, three new ladies) so we get a range of different-sounding people – which in turn will make for more interesting character creation, and for more variety when players stand and fight around each other in MP.

 

• For the longest time, since forever in fact, alcoholic intake hasn’t had enough impact on the player – outside of some fun stuff when drink-driving. We haven’t gone as far as implementing a whole new animation set, but as a fun little side project you might find a few extra complications next time you’re utterly shit-faced.

 

FINALLY

A MASSIVE thanks to everyone who bought a Steadfast Spiffo from Makeship!

 

We sold 2000 more plushies than the first run of Spiffos due to your amazing charitable instincts – and we raised over 73,000 US dollars for Cancer Council Queensland in memory of our friend Vicki Ann Woods!

 

Thank you so much for helping us with this, and we hope you enjoy your Steadfast Spiffo when he arrives on your doorstep later this year.

We’ll see you back here next month (details on the temporarily monthly Thursdoids here) for more cool stuff. Thanks again all x

A changelist of all our pre-release and post-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. Experienced games industry gameplay coder and want to join Team Awesome? Jobs page here

[CKyHC]

will rats be able to bite your feet? or is it just decoration?

[Casual_Survivor]

I'm so excited for this update! Keep up the good work!

[KeWiS]

Can't wait for this update! Keep up the good work guys!

[knightshousegames]

That shemagh looks sweet, I hope you can get them in more colors than just olive drab. Like Blue perhaps.

 

Some of us like fashion that isn't tacticool

 

Doesn't the Alice Rig have a holster as well? Shouldn't that be an additional slot besides those two chest slots?

[Blake81]

Since you guys are planning on adding more cool abandoned places, you might wanna look up the "Waverly Hills Sanatorium".

 

 

It's one of Louisville's "Most Haunted Locations", and one that happens to conveniently be located between Valley Station and Louisville. So you could easily place it on that forested area that;s between the burnt towns, on either side of the fence.

 

 

This could make for another large landmark for you guys to do something fun with the tall buildings.

[vek]

It will be necessary to carry out deratization! Molotov cocktail must have!

[Nazarito22]

Why don't you make a separate public branch for 42 like you did for 41? You are wasting your time. During the time that has already passed, you would have had a lot of testers in the form of devoted fans who would study up and down everything new that you added to the game.

Are you afraid that you won't make money from new content? Anyone who wants to will buy the game, and whoever doesn’t want to will not buy it and will play a pirate game. I will buy this game if there is normal lighting and perfect optimization. And for testing the mod map, even a pirate version is enough for me.

But why waste time when you have an army of fans who will find all the bugs, etc. in a matter of days?!

I hope my grandchildren will play version 42.

P.S. The only good thing is that you are finally hiring modders. It is thanks to them that there is still interest in the game. If it weren't for the modders, the game would have died a long time ago.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Nazarito22

[puppers]

18 minutes ago, Nazarito22 said:

Why don't you make a separate public branch for 42 like you did for 41? You are wasting your time. During the time that has already passed, you would have had a lot of testers in the form of devoted fans who would study up and down everything new that you added to the game.

Are you afraid that you won't make money from new content? Anyone who wants to will buy the game, and whoever doesn’t want to will not buy it and will play a pirate game. I will buy this game if there is normal lighting and perfect optimization. And for testing the mod map, even a pirate version is enough for me.

But why waste time when you have an army of fans who will find all the bugs, etc. in a matter of days?!

I hope my grandchildren will play version 42.

P.S. The only good thing is that you are finally hiring modders. It is thanks to them that there is still interest in the game. If it weren't for the modders, the game would have died a long time ago.

 

Wasting whos time? Nobody is holding a biscuit to us making us wait around for the game to update I have no problem waiting for build 42, from all the blog updates its exciting, and it gives me more time to focus on other hobbies or games I have neglected. 

 

They tried that with build 41 and the community asked for bigger updates instead of intermittent ones because it was causing issues for people who have community ran servers, mods, or workshop creators. Some bugs can take much longer than a few days to squash, I don't know if you were around when they had the issues with I think linux crashes? but that took a while even with the help from the community. 

 

 

[EnigmaGrey]

4 hours ago, Nazarito22 said:

Why don't you make a separate public branch for 42 like you did for 41? 

 

The short answer is that it’s not far enough along for that or it would be out.

The long answer,  in addition to what Puppers said, is iwbums only had around 10-100 players at any time despite how popular game was during 41. It’s not as impactful as you’re making out and we have groups of both volunteer and paid testers pulled from the community, anyway. Until it’s reasonably complete, passes through their hands, and satisfies all involved parties, there’s nothing to release.
 

This is also the same process that we used for b41.

[Tails]

So far this has been a good dev blog cant wait to play build 42.

[Crab]

Just want to throw out a suggestion here regarding the holsters. I saw that the video only listed them as having one equip slot, but can these be given the same left/right flexibility that vanilla 1-handed weapons and holsters already benefit from?

[glupek25]

The best game about zombies!

[Nazarito22]

On 9/24/2023 at 2:03 AM, EnigmaGrey said:

 

The short answer is that it’s not far enough along for that or it would be out.

The long answer,  in addition to what Puppers said, is iwbums only had around 10-100 players at any time despite how popular game was during 41. It’s not as impactful as you’re making out and we have groups of both volunteer and paid testers pulled from the community, anyway. Until it’s reasonably complete, passes through their hands, and satisfies all involved parties, there’s nothing to release.
 

This is also the same process that we used for b41.

Thanks for the detailed answer. Now it has become much clearer.

[Nilth]

I don't know why (must be love), but there's no game in my steam library or wishlist that I desire to play more than PZ

That's why I hope it won't be much more till the next release 

[Trinkster96]

Nice work guys! Build 42 its gonna be huge.  The question that remains is: How long does will take to release? Build 41 was launched almost two years ago. 

As the days goes by, i think i will never see the build 43 lol.

[Wolf_22]

Hard to believe how awesome this game is turning out to be. I can't even imagine how fun it'll be once NPCs finally get in it, but just this newest effort for high-rise buildings and basements / lower-levels, is insane. I can't wait to see this. I just hope a way will exist to acquire a rocket launcher with a sniper scope. Ha.

[IsaacA12]

I don't know about 4K, I'm fine with Full HD. Still the best game.

Edited September 30, 2023 by IsaacA12

[Dori]

Makes me wonder.. possible hills/mountains to come?

[Glooey]

Looking forward to B42! Don't listen to the haters, take your time!

[James_Renkov]

I saw that rats will be added and other animals and I wonder if pets like House cats, barn cats, and certain dog breeds will be added? I'd say dogs could help with everything and would travel with the player but house/barn cats if added will basically roam your base area to cull mice/rats? and if house pets are added will there be like dog/cat doors that way you don't have to open the door for them