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FORUM TEST RELEASE: Project Zomboid - Version 2.9.9.15


RobertJohnson

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The "this is a game" argument is a bit... uninformed.

 

Games must balance a lot of different factors in order to be entertaining (assuming entertainment is your goal). Game mechanics have to be fun, sure--and I think the current breaking and entering mechanic is more or less fun (I think it'll be more fun with crowdbars, maybe ropes to climb in open upper story windows, the ability to search the front steps for a "spare key" that many Americans hide in case they lock themselves out of their home, and so on).

 

So mechanics-wise, the argument that "it's a game" is right. The fact that there aren't keys everywhere and the fact that most doors are locked is fairly entertaining.

 

However, mechanics are not the only thing in a game. There's also immersion, provided by stories (emergent or scripted) and aesthetics. Everything about the game--the distribution of items, the presence of junk items, the complex injury damage model, the slow decay of the zombies from fast runners to slow shamblers--is designed to create the feeling of "realness". Of course we know it's not real, but on some level we allow ourselves to enter into this universe. Every time something happens that jars us out of our immersion, we're pulled out of the game and made unhappy.

 

For some people, this break of immersion happens when something animates poorly--so The Indie Stone work very hard to make sure every action is animated, and animated well. Sometimes, immersion breaks when a mechanic doesn't work realistically--like the 'sheet rope instakill' bug. Sometimes, immersion breaks when the story doesn't work realistically.

 

In this case, we sit here scratching our heads thinking "Why would every door on this gigantic house be locked? And who even HAS a lock on their shed, much less actually locks it?", what we understand of reality splits from what we understand of the game story. Immersion is lost, and we get bored or disinterested in the game.

 

For me, my big immersion breaker is that it's impossible to find hammers anywhere. I frequently just spawn a character, run from house to house and shed to shed and shop to shop and warehouse to warehouse, trying to find a single goddamn hammer. When I fail, I get bored and frustrated and just put Zomboid down for the next several days.

 

This ends up being a problem both in the mechanics (the part of the game I want to explore, carpentry, is impossible to reach), and the story (every house, apartment, and place of business I've ever been in has 2-3 hammers tucked somewhere in it, for fixing things, prying things up or hanging up pictures--why can't I find a single one in this goddamn game?)

 

Anyway. Don't criticize someone for coming onto these forums and saying that something is detracting from their enjoyment of the game with the argument 'it's a game, it's supposed to be wonky'. Because no, no it's not; games are allowed to be SLIGHTLY wonky (for instance, nobody complains that Zomboid's trees aren't realistically tall, because it'd obscure vision of the game itself if they were) so long as that wonkiness doesn't interfere with the aesthetics, story, or mechanics of the game. And it's the goal of a game designer to make sure that this never happens.

 

If a single player says "How come all of these doors are locked? There aren't that many locked IRL" than something needs to be done to fix it. The fix isn't necessarily unlock all the doors: the fix might just be DISTRACT from that problem, maybe by providing alternate means of entry (crowbar + door = unlocked door) that make the player completely forget that most doors are locked.

Or maybe the problem will fix itself when NPCs get put back into the game; when we're seeing living people running around or building forts every day, we'll never again say "Oh, all these doors are locked but the buildings are empty" because we'll instead be saying "Maybe this is someone's fort... or maybe someone's in there looting and doesn't want to be disturbed..." because both of those things might be true.

 

"It's a game, therefore your complaint is invalid" is just an invalid response though.

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The "this is a game" argument is a bit... uninformed.

 

Games must balance a lot of different factors in order to be entertaining (assuming entertainment is your goal). Game mechanics have to be fun, sure--and I think the current breaking and entering mechanic is more or less fun (I think it'll be more fun with crowdbars, maybe ropes to climb in open upper story windows, the ability to search the front steps for a "spare key" that many Americans hide in case they lock themselves out of their home, and so on).

 

So mechanics-wise, the argument that "it's a game" is right. The fact that there aren't keys everywhere and the fact that most doors are locked is fairly entertaining.

 

However, mechanics are not the only thing in a game. There's also immersion, provided by stories (emergent or scripted) and aesthetics. Everything about the game--the distribution of items, the presence of junk items, the complex injury damage model, the slow decay of the zombies from fast runners to slow shamblers--is designed to create the feeling of "realness". Of course we know it's not real, but on some level we allow ourselves to enter into this universe. Every time something happens that jars us out of our immersion, we're pulled out of the game and made unhappy.

 

For some people, this break of immersion happens when something animates poorly--so The Indie Stone work very hard to make sure every action is animated, and animated well. Sometimes, immersion breaks when a mechanic doesn't work realistically--like the 'sheet rope instakill' bug. Sometimes, immersion breaks when the story doesn't work realistically.

 

In this case, we sit here scratching our heads thinking "Why would every door on this gigantic house be locked? And who even HAS a lock on their shed, much less actually locks it?", what we understand of reality splits from what we understand of the game story. Immersion is lost, and we get bored or disinterested in the game.

 

For me, my big immersion breaker is that it's impossible to find hammers anywhere. I frequently just spawn a character, run from house to house and shed to shed and shop to shop and warehouse to warehouse, trying to find a single goddamn hammer. When I fail, I get bored and frustrated and just put Zomboid down for the next several days.

 

This ends up being a problem both in the mechanics (the part of the game I want to explore, carpentry, is impossible to reach), and the story (every house, apartment, and place of business I've ever been in has 2-3 hammers tucked somewhere in it, for fixing things, prying things up or hanging up pictures--why can't I find a single one in this goddamn game?)

 

Anyway. Don't criticize someone for coming onto these forums and saying that something is detracting from their enjoyment of the game with the argument 'it's a game, it's supposed to be wonky'. Because no, no it's not; games are allowed to be SLIGHTLY wonky (for instance, nobody complains that Zomboid's trees aren't realistically tall, because it'd obscure vision of the game itself if they were) so long as that wonkiness doesn't interfere with the aesthetics, story, or mechanics of the game. And it's the goal of a game designer to make sure that this never happens.

 

If a single player says "How come all of these doors are locked? There aren't that many locked IRL" than something needs to be done to fix it. The fix isn't necessarily unlock all the doors: the fix might just be DISTRACT from that problem, maybe by providing alternate means of entry (crowbar + door = unlocked door) that make the player completely forget that most doors are locked.

Or maybe the problem will fix itself when NPCs get put back into the game; when we're seeing living people running around or building forts every day, we'll never again say "Oh, all these doors are locked but the buildings are empty" because we'll instead be saying "Maybe this is someone's fort... or maybe someone's in there looting and doesn't want to be disturbed..." because both of those things might be true.

 

"It's a game, therefore your complaint is invalid" is just an invalid response though.

It's a game.

One's concept of reality and, therefore, what breaks the illusion of reality, is subjective.

Though, I do agree: there needs to be a few more hammers distributed, and a few other balancing issues need to be toyed with.

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You guys have any plans for basements being implemented?

They do.

One day.

 

I don't remember hearing about this, but I hope it's true. It would open up so many new possibilities/situations.

 

In a basement; zombies coming down the sole flight of stairs. Your only way of escape is one of those tiny half size windows aaand you get stuck.

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You guys have any plans for basements being implemented?

They do.

One day.

 

I don't remember hearing about this, but I hope it's true. It would open up so many new possibilities/situations.

 

In a basement; zombies coming down the sole flight of stairs. Your only way of escape is one of those tiny half size windows aaand you get stuck.

 

Quick browse through the old forum seems to indicate this is actually sewers -- but one subterranean den will surely lead to the other, praise the Lemmy.

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Doors are supposed to be locked. Use windows.

I don't see why empty houses should be locked.  I'm talking completely empty - no zombies.  How the hell does that house get a locked door?

 

PS. Is fire back in yet? I haven't played extensively; got turned off by the incredulous amount of locked doors, got frustrated and quit.  

 

 

Go to the Mods section.

 

Grab the lockpicking mod.

 

Everyone goes home happy.

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Man, please reduce the zombie numbers a little. Its very, very hard now (I only play in survival mode).  it makes the game less interesting. :cry:
And i have a question: how i cook the egg? I experiment put on a stove and "turn on", but the egg never heats. (tophat)

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Man, please reduce the zombie numbers a little. Its very, very hard now (I only play in survival mode).  it makes the game less interesting. :cry:

And i have a question: how i cook the egg? I experiment put on a stove and "turn on", but the egg never heats. (tophat)

 

Yeah. Its pretty hard now. Even luring them with gunshots ain't easy no more because of these zombie wanderers. Every now in then they keep coming and knocking the door.

 

I think you don't cook the egg. It acts only as ingredient to soup. Otherwise eating it will make you sick.

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This is my second attempt at this version. I've survived for 12 days, 13 hours. I have lvl 2 blunt, lvl 1 carpentry, lightfooted, sneaking.

 

Zombies just smashed the window to my safe house, and I had to run out to fight them. It got so dark that I couldn't see, so I managed to run away. I'm now standing alone in the middle of the field at 22:00. I'm gonna have to stay awake til in gets light again... there doesn't seem to be any zombies around me... but I can't see even if there were....

 

This is gonna be a long night, and then I have to go back and clear out my safehouse...

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The game is very very hard now. Not sure if is intended but is def a totally new challenge now.   

 

1 Question: To anybody that managed to survive long enough (i got to about 25 days).  Does the game have seasons?? Do you see leaves falling from trees in autumn?  Is there snow in winter??

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No seasons as of yet I don't think. I'll let you know for sure though once I've survived a few months.

 

I managed to kill the zombies arond my safe house, then I used a hammer to knock down a tree, then sawed some logs, and barricaded up my smashed windows... I think the water just shut off. I'm good for water and food for quite some time, but it won't hurt to scavenge some more... I'm gonna knock down a few more trees and put up some stronger barricades on the windows.

 

Are sheet ropes up in this version? I tried putting some up, but I couldn't figure out how.

 

Edit: I realized I needed a nail. It seems to be working! Bravo!

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There is season, every temperature, rain chance, cloud, sun etc. are based on real Muldraugh weather from 2011, then I random it a little :)

So the winter is colder, the zombies will walk a bit slowly, but yet you won't see any changes in the map, it'll require a lot of textures change to do that, but it's planned :)

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I agree that something is up with the number of zombies.

 

I remember reading in the old forums how the zombie migration worked. It was something like this  You shoot a gun in square b7 the the zombies in a6, a7,a8, b6,b7,b8,c6,c7,c8 hear the shot and move to the location. if you haven't explored  c8 the zombies came from there . But when you then discover c8 all zombies re spawn in that area and also stay in b7 so it doubles the amount of zombies. What could be happening is when a roaming zombie stumble upon a window and breaks it setting off the alarm it draws zombies from area you have not discovered. Thus making a ton of zombies off screen appear and making the numbers Jump hugely.

 

I could be way off base here but it seem s to be logical.

 

It could also be the way that streaming was changed. with the reuse gridsquare storing a zombie then when reloading the square it puts a zombie back even if the zombie that was there had move on due to a event.

 

I dont know to be honest im just shooting from the hip. Im not sure how zombie spawning works but something has changed. i have encountered  more 100+ zombie hordes in my game play then ever before by a large order of magnitude. Ive had a 2 year survival that didnt have as many zombies around as the 1st day of this new build.

 

 

I have not encountered any bugs other then the huge zombie spawns. So great build :) really enjoying the large amount of new stuff. and the flexibility of having my base anywhere now thanks to water collection.

 

Edit: forgot to say that the amount of xp you get from harvesting crops is huge 3 levels off harvesting 4 potato plants is a touch much :)

Edited by Shivster
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I hate downloading the last version a day ago and then i have the newer one at the next hour :mad:

 

Then do what I do, download the one that works best at the time to see new stuff, then wait for Desura release.. I'm using my tethered phone (if they catch me they can shut my account off).

 

Why are you mad that they are working hard and updating and fixing stuff and posting it for you :(.

Edited by kinyoshi
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So.... Any more news on the last 2 issues with the new implementations. Kill count & Zeds running on the spot.... I rarely look at the kill count anyways & its playable even with the Zeds running on the spot.... It is distracting though. The 1st time I saw 1 I got closer to investigate & nearly got bit by his 2 mates :o

 

We really should start putting some of these up:-

 

dcc40df3d288d3699573b1ddca5777b6-d6ileli

 

(Sorry, I had to move the file.... Wasn't comfortable with my work being on Photobucket)

 

Seriously though I'm still seeing a lot of them in larger groups & occasionally "stuck" on objects.... Although the issue can be re-created using the time-lapse trick I was talking about yesterday, at its core, its likely to be that Zeds are getting stuck in their animation when "wandering" & interrupted without being prompted to do anything else.... Weather that's from time-lapsing while the player is asleep or pathing issues in the case of the larger groups & when "stuck" on objects

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It got so dark that I couldn't see, so I managed to run away. I'm now standing alone in the middle of the field at 22:00. I'm gonna have to stay awake til in gets light again... there doesn't seem to be any zombies around me... but I can't see even if there were....

 

This is gonna be a long night, and then I have to go back and clear out my safehouse...

 

I agree, its too dark now, hard to find a light switch. Flashlights arent a big help, since you must waste a precious equipment slot for them. Maybe, you could leave them turned on in the inventory?

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I'm living out on the field to the east of the large warehouse in a shack I built. I have enough berries to last me a month (I can love off of one berry a day thanks to being a Light Eater) and two rain barrels. The only problem is there's some zombies moving in on me. I've lasted 10 days and I've so far kept them at bay, but it's only so long until the meta-game rains hell on my compound.

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Perhaps the high zombie count is due to some settings not saving? I have noticed that whenever I play through a game, save it, then load it back up, everything seems to have gone back to default values. Maybe I am wrong but I do know that the custom sight option certainly gets reset since they see me a lot easier if I have set it to poor, load it back up after playing for a while, and then get seen from a much further distance away. Loving the updates so far so thanks for the awesome work, TIS!

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RobertJohnson already stated that he has fixed the faulty zombie counter, but that it didn't make it into this version. It will surely be included in 2.9.9.16.

IIRC it happened because the game included zombies that were already dead or something similar.

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