Project Zomboid

[Threash]

All of my games end in a "Ok I'm dead, I'm going to take down as many of you fuckers as i possibly can" moment of glory too.  Last one i was backed into a corner with a spiked baseball bat.

[Malakili]

More info about the big incoming patch.  My guess is that it will likely finally be ready this week.  Sadly, no Steam integration for this patch, but its their priority for their next one.


New Features:

Here is what to expect:

1) Craftable doors. Smashed doors have a chance of dropping hinges and door knobs.
2) Open doors now block vision/collide at their new angle.
3) Professions and traits – initial character customization.
4) Cooking food. Fully functional ovens.
5) Food now goes bad. Refrigerators slow down the process. Eat consumables first!
6) Chance of illness if eating spoilt or uncooked food.
7) Bored and depressed moodles. Read books or magazines or go for a stroll outside to relieve boredom (more later). Eating cooked meals also reduces boredom / depression.
8 ) Curtains. Block view into building without needing barricades. Sheets can be used to make makeshift curtains.
9) Various bug/crash fixes. Notably no more fire crashes.
10) Burglar alarm on a couple of random buildings on the map.
11) Barricading and crafting etc now takes time to complete. Alterable by different traits.
12) A few more foods and cooking apparatus / crafting recipes.
13)  Customizable characters. Most of the legwork for the NPC update already done due to this.
14) Sandbox mode / Adventures of Kate and Baldspot
15) Moddable items, moddable crafting recipes, moddable item distribution, moddable maps, moddable costumes / characters.
16) Rain gets you wet. Colds. Get a cold, coughing and sneezing draws zombie attention. Tissues will mute the sound you make.
17)  Wearable clothing.
18) Jukebox – at moment with some old PAWS tunes. Convert your music to OGG to play tunes in-game. Will add walkman to later update.

Full post: http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/07/whats-been-going-on/

[Mrbloodworth]

Any word on the maps? I hope they won't be static.

[Malakili]

Any word on the maps? I hope they won't be static.

There hasn't been any definitive word.  I get the impression the size is going to be pretty staggering and that the tech demo map was just sort of thrown together so I don't know if randomization is going to matter a ton.  There will definitely be (and already is to some extent) randomization in terms of item  and zombie spawns, but I don't know either way on the maps yet.

Its really still so early that I think multiplayer stuff also hasn't been given an enormous amount of thought, so I wouldn't expect to see that for a while yet.

[Surlyboi]

18) Jukebox – at moment with some old PAWS tunes. Convert your music to OGG to play tunes in-game. Will add walkman to later update.

OGG? Really? I love this game and it's getting better all the time, but that's just going full neckbeard.

[Malakili]

18) Jukebox – at moment with some old PAWS tunes. Convert your music to OGG to play tunes in-game. Will add walkman to later update.

OGG? Really? I love this game and it's getting better all the time, but that's just going full neckbeard.

Yea, kinda silly, but its still a neat feature in principle.

[Surlyboi]

Totally. I love the feature. It's the execution that leaves a bit to be desired.

[Sky]

PLEASE NOTE – DUE TO PIRACY ISSUES, AT THIS TIME THE PAID ALPHA IS NOT AVAILABLE. DO NOT BUY UNLESS YOU’RE OKAY WITH WAITING UNTIL THIS IS RESOLVED.

I want to hear some cunt bitching about how much DRM sucks right about now. 

[Malakili]

PLEASE NOTE – DUE TO PIRACY ISSUES, AT THIS TIME THE PAID ALPHA IS NOT AVAILABLE. DO NOT BUY UNLESS YOU’RE OKAY WITH WAITING UNTIL THIS IS RESOLVED.

I want to hear some cunt bitching about how much DRM sucks right about now. 

Luckily this should be resolved shortly due to their deal with www.desura.com, and then it'll also be available on Steam (you won't buy it on Steam, but it will be hosted on Steam, at least before release).  Desura will be coming first, then Steam.  Luckily, if you buy it on Desura when they release it there for 5 pounds, then you can get a key that unlocks it on Steam later when it comes out there, so its really win win in the end.

As soon as it goes back up, I'll be picking it up, and  I'll be sure to post my impressions/experience with the paid version for you guys.  I'm not sure what the state of the free tech demo version will be after that, I imagine it will stay up buy I haven't heard anything confirmed.

[Malakili]

Three part series showcasing some early modding.  The very beginning is the same as the tutorial, and then quickly branches out to the new stuff, so you can skip the first 5 minutes or so if you've already played it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFN9qACp1nA&feature=related

I think that the fact that we've seen some really impressive additions even though the mapping/modding tools have only been out 2 weeks is a really good sign for the long term.

[Malakili]

Long post from the Indie Stone re: the update.  Waiting waiting waiting patiently.

So this is another update on what’s going on.

We’re not sure what to say on it to be honest, but a lot of people have been clamouring for information on how the update is coming along.

There’s no extra features added beyond what was in the previous update post, as was said in that post we’ve stopped adding features now the external stuff has come through, and it’s just been a case of catching up with the moved goalposts of the added features. There have been various other issues that have delayed the team but they are of a more personal nature and are exempt from our usual complete transparency on what is happening.

However we’ve been progressing on all of this stuff and it’s in a stage of ‘almost done’ness that will hopefully not last too long. Again we’re refraining from giving any dates, and stress again this was a one off nightmare update that had so much baggage attached to it, and early adopters will know generally we have frequent smaller updates, it just wasn’t really possible for this one. Unfortunately the majority of purchasers came after the majority of these updates were released, and as such have only seen the ‘dark side’. We look forward to showing them what life was like in PZ-ville before all this happened.

The lack of posts updating you on how things are going are generally because… well, all we could say is this, which is pretty much 100% saying the same thing we said last time, except that we are now closer to having it out than we were when we posted this same information last time.

Okay, actually. We can address one of the comments from our previous post here:

This game is very good but sadly the developers, their PR and way handling the community is very bad. You never explained us correctly why the update takes ages. Your only reaction was pointing out how poor you are and how bad the community is to you.

First off I’d like to point out we refered to a ‘very vocal minority’ ruining the forums FOR our community. We’ve never claimed anything but our community being wonderful.

So these are the reasons for the delay, in black and white. Looking back on previous posts, we’ve literally mentioned all of them previous to now, but here they are in one place in a more detailed manner. We hope this makes people feel more informed as to what’s going on at the moment.

The update is taking ages because of the following reasons:

1) Due to us supporting Linux, it required us to have our own version separate from the kind offers of Desura and Steam. As much as it’d have made our lives easier, frankly, to rely on them 100%, it wouldn’t be fair to our Linux customers to abandon support for them, so it took some considerable time to write a new authentication system that would allow us to distribute the game via FilePlanet, make it reasonably robust, and also not rely on the cloud system that was exploited before. – Summary: We were delayed due to trying to be fair to Linux users.

2) Desura, as it stood at the time, did not allow for us to get hold of people’s email address. Therefore people who bought from Desura would only ever have been able to play the game through Desura, and would not have gained any benefits, present or future, that would come with being in our user database, including but not limited to ultimately getting a Steam redeem code. Since Desura would be the only mechanism for the vast number of people who only have access to PayPal as a payment mechanism, and Desura were kind enough to develop a system that allowed for the user to request their details be passed onto us, this was well worth doing. – Summary: We were delayed due to trying to be fair to PayPal/Desura users.

3) Due to the aforementioned two delays, expectations risen, and we did spend a lot of time where we could have just sat back and waited. Instead we continually rose the bar of what would appear in the update. Also the pressure for the paid version to ‘ship’ with enough above the demo version to be worthwhile and worth the money is not to be understated. And since we had all this time we continued adding and adding to make sure that the delay would be worth the wait. Of note is the modding capabilities. The amount of work in this feature is immense in itself, and while it’s frustrating that there’s been this massive delay, this modding functionality would likely not have existed for a year or two were it not for this delay. The amount of content available to players not too long after this update ships should vastly outweigh the amount of content that would be available if we’d never had these delays and had kept up with the frequent updates. Understand this update, the first ‘paid’ version since the demo was released, will have nigh on 100% modding capability and opens up the possibilities for complete story modes to be created by the community. We weighed all this up and decided for the time it would take to implement it, the gain for the community would be immense, so we implemented it. – Summary: The update is delayed because we decided a longer delay was less upsetting than a delay and disappointingly small update, and this additional functionality would be much better for the game and community in the long term.

Of course now the Desura stuff is sorted (Steam is still ongoing, but that’s primarily because it needs a lot more time from us than we have at the moment, so it’s Steam waiting on us, not the other way around) we have to finish off all the stuff that we committed to for this update. True we could have abandoned all the half finished things and left them for a subsequent update, but truth be told the delay had already been substantial, and having a few curtains and being able to select a few character traits didn’t seem enough to offer for the time and would likely have received a lot of criticism in itself, and we genuinely feel that the potential for the user created content would give you far more far sooner and is worth the additional wait. So we could choose between a long delay and a disappointing update, or a longer delay and a content rich update. We’d already lost a lot of points for the delay as it stood, and by finishing off the modding stuff in particular we’d be offering a great deal to the community in terms of potential hours of gameplay it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Again, the offer of a refund is still there, should anyone want it.

Also re: ‘pointing out how poor we are’. We did that back when we were poor, in March, on our personal blogs, before and on the day we announced the game. Never since then have we said we’re poor. Not once. People have assumed we’ve been struggling, despite us being quite open about our sales figures when asked. We’d not have the cheek to claim we’re poor when we’ve sold 16,000 copies of the game. There were hairy moments when Google/PayPal were being funny about our money but they were resolved.

We’re not poor, we just have a crap-load of work to do, and while we apologize for not spending time on the blog reporting daily that we’re working on the update, we’re spending that time working on the update.

Let us not forget that we’ve in the past received criticism for blogging too much when we should be working on the update.

Oh and that brings us nicely to:

4) Given the amount of sales, we’ve had a shit ton of business stuff to deal with. Legal stuff that has to be dealt with that takes up a massive amount of our time (specifically 50% of the coding team’s time). Accountants, lawyers, the Tax Man, the VAT Man. This is all stuff that’s of massive importance to deal with, has all needed dealing with fairly rapidly due to the sudden influx of purchases, and as frustrating as it is to deal with, we’d be fools to let it slide as it could cost us everything. This is before accounting for the hundreds and hundreds of emails we get daily.

Thanks for your patience and apologies for the ongoing delay.

Love,

The Indie Stone

[Sky]

It's cute that they support Linux but not OSX.

[Mrbloodworth]

You need to talk to OSX about its java support guy.

[Malakili]

It's cute that they support Linux but not OSX.

They do support OSX actually, its just a bit wonky to get it working in the tech demo from what I have read on their forums.  There are some threads which explain how to coax it into working, but I honestly don't even know if that was this tech demo those threads are talking about or the previous paid version before it got taken down. Their intention is to have it support windows, osx and linux.

[Mrbloodworth]

AFAIK, OSX and or apple is depreciating java support. Its not even going to be in future versions of the OS.

[Malakili]

AFAIK, OSX and or apple is depreciating java support. Its not even going to be in future versions of the OS.

Ah well, I guess it'll work for as long as it can than. 

[Ghambit]

This game is quite literally isometric real-time "Die2Nite."  Samwise??  Did you code this thing?

oh...  Long in-game interview with lead dev.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ab3CVQGJq0

I'm kinda nervous, I apologize.  I'm English and I'm quite drunk.

[Ghambit]

Test Release is out (again):
http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/08/early-test-release-out/

[Malakili]

Bought this today.  It is 8 bucks on Desura.  I think its 5 euros if you live on the other side of the pond.  I've already gotten this much entertainment worth out of the old free demo so a no brainer for me, but I've only just gotten to load it up once for a quick look, will report more when I get the chance. 

First 5 minutes notes:

They've added sandbox mode and story mode.  I only tried sandbox mode.  Basically it just drops you into the middle of the zombie apocalypse and says "go." I was able to give myself a profession that gave me some bonuses to various activities.  Doesn't seem real fleshed out yet, but the system is in place, which is the important part. I was able to change a few thhings like my face, and what cloths I was wearing.  You now have a paper doll in game, so you can find and change cloths.  I imagine this also opens up the door to armor (found Kevlar?) but that is speculation.  I also didn't recognize my spawn point, so it seems the map has been expanded for this version.

Also, the free version is still available for those that want to try the game for free, but it is missing all the new stuff from the last 2 months of work they did.  Still, it is the version that got me hooked, and gives a pretty good idea of what this is all about.

[Ghambit]

It's a bit confusing sifting through the differences between the two versions.  Can you expound?
Also, the game is built around MP, so where the heck is it?  Timeframe?

[Malakili]

It's a bit confusing sifting through the differences between the two versions.  Can you expound?
Also, the game is built around MP, so where the heck is it?  Timeframe?

Story mode basically is more traditional RPG - some quests and such, Sandbox mode just drops you into the world with no direction.  There will be some character development and such I guess.  If you played the tech demo, think of up until the house fire/burglar as story mode. I'm not really interested in the story mode, but I guess the mini story they did for the last alpha version was so wildly popular they decided to make it into a distinct mode. 

Multiplayer has no ETA, I would expect single player until further notice.  The good news is the game is pretty damn fun in single player, though for obvious reasons I am also looking forward to multi.

[Malakili]

I can stream this if there is anyone interested in seeing the new version.  I might have some time later tonight, or this weekend.  Let me know if there is any interested.  It isn't the most exciting game to watch, but it'd give you an idae of what its like if you are curious.

LOL: So - random NPCs.  I wandered into some house, saw two dead zombies on the floor, thought that was interesting.  Walked into the kitchen and was prompted killed by a bat to the head by an NPC survivor.  Laughed.

[Vaiti]

Andddddddd she's dead Jim.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/project-zomboid-burglary-statement/

tl;dr, months of code and assests stolen, no backups, one dev flipped out saying the project was no dead dead dead, then deleted his twitter account this morning

[Malakili]

Hmm, this is unfortunate.  We'll see what happens.  

Edit: http://www.theindiestone.com/lemmy/index.php/2011/10/16/final-post-and-apology/

Basically, project not dead, but set back a long ways. 

[Vaiti]

[Malakili]

Yes, Lemmy lost his shit after it happened, got drunk, and posted a lot of stuff to twitter, the blog post is from after that though.  Still, the bad part is they lost over a month of work, which means its going to be a long time before we see any update again.  Its shitty, but I can certainly understand how he felt, so whatever.  There are a lot of pepole on the forums and on reddit going nuts over what he said on Twitter, but then again, thats just what people on the internet do.

[Xanthippe]

Poor Lemmy.  I want to give him a hug.

I want to hug him and pet him and squeeze him and call him George.

[Vaiti]

Really, the shit they were saying to him was just vile. That twitter picture there was at least before he got to drinking. He was getting so much flak from people, once the drinks sit in he went into a pity spiral, that everyone else then proceeded to make fun of. I still think this might basically spell the end for them, unless they get a large cash infusion. They need to replace the laptops, which doesn't seem like a big thing, but it's a big enough thing for a small 4 man team, they've lost months of work, both in code and in game assets like sound and art. There is a reason Lemmy hit the bottle as hard as he did. He knows how bad this is for them. It's just very unfortunate.

[Ghambit]

This is why I'm moving pretty much every IP-related thing I have to "the cloud."  I don't even like working offline anymore.
But hey, maybe this will create a backlash of support for the game and it'll release even better then it was originally designed to.

[Malakili]

This is why I'm moving pretty much every IP-related thing I have to "the cloud."  I don't even like working offline anymore.
But hey, maybe this will create a backlash of support for the game and it'll release even better then it was originally designed to.

Yeah, they really *should* have had this stuff backed up somewhere else, but I guess hindsight doesn't really help the situation any.  The game has a solid following, and it has the advantage of offering something that pretty much no one else is making, so I don't think the fan base is going to flee if they are set back a couple months.  My money is already paid anyway though, and I know a lot of people who paid are angry about this, but if anything I'm just sad/disappointed.  If in the end the game does fold, well, you take that risk when you buy something in alpha.

[Ghambit]

These days it's not even about being simply "backed up."  It's about working in a constantly served online environment.
When jo-shmo can work on something with his wife 1000 miles away, on a free app that's served for free... there's really no excuse for situations like this for projects worth millions of dollars potentially.

Also, wow.  Did they not figure out how to at least auto-ftp a file every 5 mins?   
I kinda dont get this situation.  How can one code such a great game and not basically tie his show at the same time?

[Vaiti]

You're seriously being overly harsh.

They worked on laptops, from a two flats, with a 4 man team.

[Ghambit]

Like I told you, I sympathize.  Sad situation.  But there's no reason we cant learn from it; nothing harsh about that.

edit:  also, working on laptops from some flats with 4 people is irrelevant.  I'm working by myself on a fuckin netbook in the middle of nowhere on a goddamned boat hooked up to a power antenna and intermittent 3g.  What''s your point?  If I have something important I'm working on it's autoupdated every few minutes and served remotely.

[Ironwood]

No, I don't have much sympathy.  In this day and age, that's really, really, really clownshoes stupid.

A shame though.

[Threash]

It's a month of work, not a year, not the whole thing, they are not at square one.  It would be sad if they didn't recover from this, the worst case scenario should be being a month behind.