Welcome to Watch Survival

Hello Bloggers and Readers and Survivalists and Gamers! I see you have found your way to Watch Survival. This web space is all about my favorite genre of video games. What you will get on Watch Survival is News and Updates on Current and Up-coming Survival Games.


Thursday, November 29, 2012

watchsurvival news

hello everyone. Just writing a quick update from my phone. I wanted to let everyone know why I have not posted this week.  As I have mentioned before I am moving in real life to a new home. Well the move is finally over and I am in the process of getting my new internet connection for my new home.  This will happen next week sometime so there may be a few days here where there is a lack of posts/news.  I promise to get everything updated once my new home has internet capabilities.  Just wanted to let everyone know that way everyone did not think the blog was dead or something.  Far from it.  watchsurvival is getting more and more followers every week and im going to be doing more videos here very soon and I will also be updating the website with a new layout and smoothing a few more things out.  I also wanted to thank all of you for viewing my site and giving me a like on google and also for clicking on my ads.  This means a lot to me and just wanted to say thanks for the support.  Stayed tuned and stick around. Watchsurvival is going to keep expanding.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Minecraft Modding API updates and Minecon

Just seen this bit of news released today pertaining to Minecraft and the modding api. Once all of this is said and done it will be a ton easier to install mods for Minecraft. This is great news because the modding community for the game is really something and can expand the game by leaps and bounds. The api interview can be found below or you can read the copy and paste.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/680-breaking-news-modding-api-updates/

----copy and paste-----
API Questions:


  • When will the Mod API be released?
The API will be going live with the 1.5, which has a tenative release date of January, 2013.
  • Will mods have the ability to modify text?
Mods can have config files that, when initialized, will be able to dynamically print text in a variety of ways.
  • Will mods like Optifine (which modify the engine directly) be supported?
The API will eliminate the need to write to the engine directly, allowing modifications that affect the game (as any mod will), without altering the game code itself.  Among other things, this will greatly simplify mod installation.
  • Can vanilla block behavior be modified?
Yes.
  • Will there be official community resources (tutorials, forums, etc) for modders?
Yes.
  • How will mods be distributed by modders, and downloaded by players?
Players will be able to download mods from the game client itself.
  • Will the API be able to add new mobs to the game through mods?
Yes.  Additionally, it will be possible to modify animated blocks (water, lava) as well as custom animated blocks.
  • Will the API be like Bukkit (an outside resource)?
No, the API will be integrated into the vanilla game, hopefully bypassing the need for exernal APIs.
  • Will client-only mods be supported by the API?
Not at this time, but as the biggest client-only modifications are already covered (texture packs, splash screen text etc), it didn't seem necessary.
  • Will the API remove the issue of mods being rendered inoperable when the game updates?
It is a target we want to hit for certain, but it won't really have that capability at launch, we don't believe.
  • Will mods need to be re-written from the ground up with the API's release?
While mods will need to be changed to accommodate the API, total overhauls shouldn't be necessary.  Even if a mod requires an overhaul for the API, it would only be a one-time occurrance.
  • Will there be any sort of content filter?
By and large, the community will police its own mods as it does now, but we are working to put a system in place to prevent malicious mods from being distributed.
  • What can be modified in the game using the API?
Everything.
  • Can the phsyics be modded?
Yes.
  • Will the API be on the XBOX or Pocket Edition?
Not by us, but you can ask the developers of each game, respectively.

Minecraft Questions:
  • Will mods like Optfine be added to vanilla?
Something even better.  Overall, the game engine is being simplified, taking most of the load off of the client, and having the server doing the heavy work, greatly improving SMP.
Smoothstone stairs are not planned.
No new mobs are planned.

----end copy and paste-----

Minecon 2012 is currently also going down and giving us a lot of cool stuff to check out about Minecraft. This post is long enough so I'm not going to post all the content but I'll give you the links to some various Minecon parts that seem interesting.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/674-a-walk-through-minecon/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/675-notch-interview/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/676-minecon-day-1-recap/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/678-minecon-day-two-begins/
http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/679-a-day-at-minecon/


Don't Starve Teaser Trailer Update

Hello! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Don't starve has released a teaser trailer for us showing us some new content and new things that are going down with the new update. I found it quite amusing.
 
http://www.dontstarvegame.com/blog/update-teaser-trailer-birds-and-the-bees-and-the-dogs-that-want-to-kill-you/

disscusion about the trailer and what it all means can be found at

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?2214

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Dayz mod Build 1.7.4.4 Rolling Update

Dayz  (mod) has been releasing community updates for people to enjoy to keep people playing while they wait for standalone.  Some of this stuff is really good, a lot of it is simple minor bug fixes but these are the things the make the game so smooth in the first place.  The Link below will take you to the official post by rocket or you can read the patch notes here on my website.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/107617-build-1744-rolling-update/


---copy and paste----
Build Notes:

* [NEW] class Mi17_TK_EP1 Now Unbanned. (Mi17_DZ)
* [NEW] An2_TK_EP1 Now Unbanned.(AN2_DZ)
* [NEW] AH6X Now Unbanned. (AH6X_DZ)
* [NEW] BAF_Offroad_D Now Unbanned.
* [NEW] BAF_Offroad_W Now Added.
* [NEW] Fully Removed Save button from action menu.
* [NEW] New combat mode icon (G17) thanks Alexander.
* [NEW] Gender section screen thanks F0rt.
* [NEW] You can no longer place tents in ponds.
* [NEW] Disabled greeting menu .
* [NEW] Disabled radio messages to be heard and shown in the left lower corner of the screen.
* [NEW] General speed up of the login process.
* [NEW] Street Lights now active in towns.(will be removed in hotfix)
* [NEW] (*.2 Hotfix)Added some Anti-cheat.
* [NEW] (*.3 Hotfix)Added local copy of cert if it cant get one online, version checks.
* [UPDATED] Combat Logging "Fired Near" checks are now limited to 8 metre radius.
* [UPDATED] Combat Logging "Projectile Near" Have now been removed while we look for a less intensive way to track projectiles.
* [UPDATED] Combat Logging is now removed on death.
* [UPDATED] Corrected legs and hands fractures they must be set with actual value.
* [UPDATED] (*.1 Hotfix)Updated hive .dlls to fix a reconnect issue with prepared statements.
* [UPDATED] (*.1 Hotfix)Increased m107 loot chance to 0.02.
* [UPDATED] (*.1 Hotfix)Lowered As50 loot chance to 0.01
* [Fixed] Adding checks for female skin humanity/login.
* [Fixed]   Adding female skin to variables.
* [Fixed]   Fixed Parachute so jumping out of choppers won?t kill you.
* [Fixed]   Event Handle for wrecked choppers this should allow the smoke on wrecks to work all the time.
* [Fixed]   Event Handle for Vehicles this fix's problems with local vehilce damage calls..
* [Fixed]   Remove objects from DB by objectID and objectUID only. (Should fix Deployable problems)
* [Fixed]   Debug menu options are no longer editable.
* [Fixed]   Locked Singleplayer Menu
* [Fixed]   (*.1 Hotfix) Players with high CharacterID weren't dying properly.
* [Fixed]   (*.2 Hotfix) Fixed 2nd Parachute removal issue.
* [REMOVED] Damaged logging to .rpt removed all traces of dmg to a player.
* [REMOVED] An2_1_TK_CIV_EP1 Got removed during testing devs felt it lacked perpose in the game.
* [REMOVED] An2_2_TK_CIV_EP1 Got removed during testing devs felt it lacked perpose in the game.
* [REMOVED] MV22 Got removed during testing devs felt it lacked perpose in the game.
* [REMOVED] S1203_ambulance_EP1 Got replaced during testing to a hmmv class vehicle.
* [REMOVED] BAF_L85A2_RIS_CWS From Loot table.
* [REMOVED] UH60_wreck_EP1.
* [REMOVED] HMMWV_Ambulance_CZ_DES_EP1 Removed due to its heal abilty.
* [REMOVED] Dogs Removed while we rewrite the hud and correct a few other issues. (attak, Getin/out of vehicles)
* [REMOVED] UH60M_MEV_EP1 Removed due to its heal abilty.

The Dead Linger Updates Build 003 and 003a

Well I'm back again with some Dead Linger information for everyone.  I go a couple days without the net and my whole world collapses lol.   Sandswept seems to be chugging the game right along with some great update stuff. 

This first link will take you to their blog showcasing what they have done and the new features and a video, how to update your game and a long list of patch notes.
http://www.thedeadlinger.com/archives/1271

See video here. I also reccomend reading the video comments the developers make some great comments in there.

      

This second link will lead you to 003a hotfix information consisting mainly of server side fixes and changes for the client.

http://www.thedeadlinger.com/archives/1305

Once I pick this game up and a couple of other games on here I am not sure how I am going to find time to play them all! There's so many great zombie survival games out there currently in the making.

Project Zomboid Status Update

Hello everyone! Posting this from a friend's computer as my internet has been out for a few days, I apologize for getting behind! Anyways, I got some awesome Project Zomboid news for everyone. This weeks blogpost was a good one and show us many new things.  We get to see a video about how the farming system works and we also got to see a wonderful new character shot.  This update really will feel like a whole new game compared to the one we have been playing.  The link to the official post is below and I've included a copy and paste as well.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2012/11/of-farming-spectacles-and-meta-shenanigans/

also make sure you check out this link on the forums as well because it is very cool. It explains how the whole meta gaming system works and what the possibilities are for said system. It all sounds very real. Also get a hint at the new world size in there as well. :D  Have a good day everyone.

---copy and paste----

Evening all. Here’s your Monday slice of blog love, but first a spot of housekeeping. The Indie Stone forums are in the process of switching hosts, so some users might experience unpleasant down-time over the next day or so. Don’t worry though, we still love you and are assured that all gremlins will be removed through the inevitable forward march of time.
That’s the boring stuff out of the way. There’s heaps of stuff to talk about this week – and there’ll likely be a few extra videos we were hoping to share today appearing soon too. For the past few days Lemmy and Binky have been fiddling with the way our sprite models are (in their words) ‘enshrunkulated’ – to make sure they’re as crisp as we can muster when RC3 is finally unleashed. Unfortunately they take forever to export and get in the game, meaning we haven’t been able to grab one of the planned videos today.
What we do have however (fanfare) is the first video appearance of Romain’s farming system – which is now a fully operational part of the Zomboid mainframe. Some aspects of it are still WIP, and some text will change, but it looks a little something like this:

                 
Romain explains: “In this video, you see only a few aspects of farming. We’re starting with seven plants, three diseases and all my statistics and calculations are based on the climate of real world Muldraugh, Kentucky. Every plant has a health stat that determines your vegetable and seed harvest – if it’s sunny it’ll grow, but cold weather and over-watering will see it drop. The healthier your plants – the more your farming XP will rise, and then the more bounteous your future plants will be”
Other risks to your crop will be extreme temperatures, sowing seeds at the wrong time of year, idiot zombies trampling your fields or (of course) callous NPCs stealing your freshly grown produce. “I forgot to show off the fertilizer in the video” adds Romain. “And it’s worth bearing in mind that in future we will be introducing gameplay like making compost, foraging wild berries and mushrooms and allowing friendly NPCs to look after your crops in your absence. I’ve also pretty much got tents and campfires integrated with the main game too.”
Possibly the biggest notch we’ve carved into the RC3 bedpost this week, meanwhile, is the integration of nearby NPC behaviour with the statistical metagame that tracks them as they explore the wider map. Alongside map streaming (that made it necessary in the first place) this was one of the biggest jobs that needed doing for the update – and finally lets us tie a lot of the fun stuff we’ve been concocting together. Lemmy describes the system in detail on the forums but we should have a video to show it all off in the not-to-distant future.
Mash and Binky, meanwhile, have continued beavering away on the new maps – with Binks also investing time into mixing things up in terms of zombie and NPC appearances. There’s beards in there, spectacles and different haircuts – meaning that we’ve got more than 300,000 frames of animation floating around now. That decision to stop hand-drawing sprites seems to have been a good one!

There’s other stuff to share, but it’ll all be best explained with accompanying videos. So we’ll be chiming in as and when they happen. Until then, fair Zomboidateers!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Don't Starve Comes to watchsurvival.blogspot.com

I've decided to include another game on my site! A awesome indie game by the name "Don't Starve"
Obviously it is a survival game about staying alive, gathering resources, and a crafting system. The twist this time is the art direction and gameplay perspective.  When I mention survival gameplay most would be thinking something realistic, but Don't Starve has its very own unique charm and art style that looks like something Tim Burton would create.  The Link to their official website/blog is located here.

http://www.dontstarvegame.com/blog/

The game can also be found on steam here.  http://store.steampowered.com/app/219740/ Once I get time to get this game and play it I will be sure to include my thoughts. I've not played this one yet, but I can guarantee you I will soon. Looks very promising.

The state of State of Decay

Hello again! Undead Labs have given us a small update regarding where State of Decay is and where it is going.  Apparently, we don't have to much longer left before we are all able to get our hands on this wonderful zombie survival sandbox.  I can't wait to play it. The information as usual can be found at the link below or read from the copy and paste.

http://undeadlabs.com/2012/11/news/state-of-state-of-decay/#more-5566

-------copy and paste------
We started with a simple idea: simulate the zombie apocalypse. We sketched out our plan for State of Decay in big, bold strokes. We would focus on survival. We’d have meaningful choices. We’d have fast, sweet action. We’d provide the tools to develop unique survival strategies. Above all else, we would have the apocalypse simulator we all dreamed of every time the credits rolled on a great zombie flick.

“Simulator.” That’s a deceptively simple word. The world of State of Decay had to feel real, and as players, we needed to feel we had choices. Not just options, but the choices available to us here in the real world. That meant abandoning the usual game designer tools of scripts and triggers, and instead simulating behaviors and responses. Noise, echos, light, motion, resource depletion, morale, energy — all of those things needed to be modeled, and the inhabitants of the world designed to react and respond to them naturally. It was a daunting challenge, but one we thought was essential to creating a true survival experience.

No focus groups or game-market analysts were involved.No focus groups or game-market analysts were involved. That rarely works, and even when it does, as passionate gamers, we often wish it hadn’t. Great games, like works of art, well designed gadgets, or even a great recipe, come from people who are passionate about not only what they do, but also what they make.

We frequently pushed up against the boundaries of traditional design wisdom. What if death was really…death?Instead, we focused on creating the survival sandbox game we all wanted to play, and that never led us astray. Along the way, we frequently pushed up against the boundaries of traditional game design wisdom. What if death was really…death? Suddenly the zombie threat becomes meaningful. Then you want stealth, distraction, sneaky tactics, and home base fortifications. Fortifications? That implies guard towers, barricades, perimeter defense, and land mines. Land mines? They don’t have those at the sporting goods store, and besides, that store would be looted bare within days of the outbreak, so we’d have learn how to build our own. Looting? Well, looting (or more politely, “scavenging”) is an inevitable part of the apocalypse. But it has to be realistic. A looted store needs to stay looted, and food, ammo, and building materials need to be found in locations that make logical sense.

Back to land mines. Having land mines implies you need to make them, since the apocalypse puts a dent in manufacturing. What would making land mines require? Well, a machine shop, and expertise. Needing good old fashioned know-how brings us to a system of skills and abilities. Being good at something feels good, and being able to save the lives of your friends is good for morale. Ah right, morale. Wouldn’t mental health be an enormous issue, after the apocalypse?

People need a goal, something beyond just surviving another day.One thing that’s good for morale is keeping busy. People would feel better if they could accomplish missions, if there were stories to be told and other survivors to rescue and a goal to shoot for, something beyond just surviving another day. So we brought in the best story teller we knew and got to work.

All the tiny elements filled out the original broad strokes until we had a clear picture of what State of Decay could be. We’re making a game, but we’ve also balanced that with reality. The real world isn’t a shooter, where you just kill everything that moves with effectively unlimited ammo. When a real disaster strikes, you worry about food, health, exhaustion, and morale. In reality, an apocalypse would mean no more factories making weapons and vehicles, and we’d all have to live by the old song: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” And out here, you don’t take stupid chances every other minute because more than anything else, you want to live to fight another day.

We just think that fun doesn’t have to be meaningless.That’s what we’ve built. Oh, we’ve had to make some tough choices along the way to stay within a reasonable development timeframe (believe me, we could add “just one more thing” forever if we let ourselves), and we also had to keep in mind that this is supposed to be a fun game, rather than a strict simulation of reality. We just think that fun doesn’t have to be meaningless or without consequence, and if anything, being deeply engaged is the most fun you can have.

Over the next two months, we’re going to explore the two main pillars holding up State of Decay in articles, images, and videos on this website. Richard Foge is going to take you into the world of the tactical game. Fighting, with weapons or without. With an assault rifle, or up close and personal with a hatchet. How vehicles can be your salvation in the apocalypse, and how they can quickly turn into a metal coffin. Stealth. Reaction time. Distraction and evasion. It’s all important to a game that isn’t just about running and gunning the undead, but instead requires you to think like a survivor. After that, James Phinney is going to dive into strategy and simulation. Base fortification and customization, along with outposts. Resource gathering and stockpiles. Survivor management, and the role morale plays in survival. Planning ahead, and long-term thinking.

Thanks.Yesterday we delivered a massive Content Complete milestone to Microsoft, which means the focus from here is polish, bug fixing, tuning, and balancing. The end of the road is in sight. We’re incredibly excited to get State of Decay into your hands. Thanks for being with us so far.

The Dead Linger Lock and Load

Hello readers! Today I thought I'd post a blog I found on the dead linger's website talking about their guns and ammunition.  This displays a lot of different ammo types for us and let's us also know how deep the dead linger is going to be when it comes to a reloading system and gun types. The post can be found below or you can read the copy and paste.

http://www.thedeadlinger.com/archives/1231


----copy and paste from developer----


Design of the Dead is a series of blog posts from various members of the Sandswept team. This is a way for us to give you some good insight into the thought process and stages as we develop The Dead Linger. Design of the Dead will frequently contain new information about upcoming ideas we plan to implement into the game as well! Everything shown in these design blogs is subject to change in the final version of The Dead Linger.
Hello again survivors and welcome to our second installment in Design of the Dead!
My name is Geoff Keene, otherwise known on the forums and elsewhere as Zag. I’m the design director of Sandswept Studios, and I am mainly responsible for guiding the team in creating a unified look, play, and feel to the zombie apocalypse. As The Dead Linger is essentially my brain-child, everything I do centers around making the game the best experience for you, the end user, and holding together the entire vision of the project. I’m responsible for the majority of gameplay and interface design decisions, from the big to the small, so today I’ll be exploring the design of the Reloading and Ammunition system that you’ll see added to The Dead Linger Alpha in the coming updates.

Please bear in mind this is the plan for development and does not necessarily indicate features currently available in The Dead Linger Alpha at the time of writing. And as always, everything is subject to change. Read on to learn about our plans for Ammunition and Reloading!
Ammunition
Ammunition, like batteries or food, is a resource in the world of The Dead Linger. Ammo is scarce, unique to various weaponry, and required to fire the many firearms you’ll find in the world. You’ll find ammo in many, many varieties. To fire a handgun that requires 9mm rounds, you’ll require 9mm rounds in your inventory. We’ll get on to that in just a moment, but let’s first talk about readability.
Readability
Along with the general appearance and writing on the boxes, we’re color-coding ammunition so it’s easy to spot and easy to identify. For example, the prevailing color of a box of 9mm rounds is teal, and 5.56 rounds are primarily red. We also varied the shapes and size of the boxes to make them identifiable. Here’s a quick visual run through our development process with the ammunition.
Initial concept art

Trying out some color coding

Note the ability to identify each ammo type at a glance

Some more ammo box comparisons

Now that we’ve tackled the issue of readability, you can scavenge for ammo without having to spend a lot of time nit-picking the environment or digging through your inventory to know what you’re picking up.
Magazine System
With The Dead Linger, we’re walking a careful line between realism and fun. We want to bring a truly gritty, intense, and realistic experience, while still keeping the game a game – that is to say – enjoyable, rewarding, and not overwhelming in control schemes or interfaces. It’s a simple concept to visualize, albeit difficult to truly pull off. If realism gets in the way of fun, we throw out the realism and keep the fun. Simple as that. The system for managing and refilling magazines is no exception.
I looked at a few different paths for magazines and reloading. There’s the main three systems used in games, from most common to least common;
  • 1. You have a set pool of ammo. Every time you reload, you have a magical magazine full of rounds, and the extra rounds in the previous magazine are put back into the pool of magical ammo.
  • 2. You have a set pool of ammo, but after reloading a partially-used magazine you will never see those rounds again. By reloading with a magazine that is partially full, it disappears and can never be gained back again.
  • 3. You have a set pool of ammo that fills your many magazines. Magazines, when reloaded, are rotated through.
None of these existing systems really portrayed the sort of realism I wanted, but the third one struck me as realistic enough to build upon. Starting with magazines, every type of gun in The Dead Linger will have a set number of magazines attached to it. For example, a handgun of a certain type might have 5 magazines attached to it. They won’t take up inventory space, and the player will cycle through them as they reload. Here’s a scenario you can picture; the player could use half the rounds on Magazine #1, and swap it out for Magazine #2. The player can keep realoading empty or partially empty magazines, and come back to Magazine #1, which would be put into the weapon half empty.
Refilling Magazines
Refilling magazines is going to be something you don’t do in a hurry – at least not when you can help it. The magazines on your gun might need some topping off, or be entirely empty. Regardless of the reason, at some point you’re going to need to take some quiet time aside and refill them. To refill ammunition, you can either press R (reload) when all of your magazines are completely empty, or you can go into your inventory, right click on the firearm, and press “Refill Ammo.” Either of these actions will begin refilling magazines, and it will take some time. It’s best to do when you’re in a relatively safe place. Reloading can be interrupted at any time by moving, and all progress on the refill that was made will be retained. By our current estimates, a single 30-round magazine should take roughly 30 seconds to fill entirely, but these numbers, as always, are subject to change. We have a perk planned that players can acquire if they choose to reload weapons faster, and that too will affect reloading magazines.

Obviously some weapons do not have magazines. Clip-based weapons (weapons that have an internal magazine or are fed by a stripper-clip) will work the same, but single-load weapons, such as a shotgun, will treat the weapon itself as the single magazine, and the player can top off the reload at any time. (In other words, if you have an 8-round carrying capacity on a shotgun with 6 rounds in it, you can reload at any time fill it back up to 8.)
Pretty simple, right? This gives players some ammunition management without being overwhelming or too complex to quickly pick up. Players will generally spend a bit of time every day (or night), hunkered down in safety, refilling their weapon magazines and preparing for the day to come. Keeping your magazines topped off will mean the difference between life and death, in many scenarios.
Ammo Indicator
This is a fairly big topic amongst everyone. How much HUD is The Dead Linger going to have? We’re aiming for limited HUD, and optional HUD. A prime example of this on-going conflict is that some players don’t want sound or visual cues for health, they want a health bar. While we’re perfectly fine with bars for those types of things, we want to keep guns skillful. In doing so, we’re requiring players to count rounds, or at the very least, be ready to reload when their magazine unexpectedly bottoms out. After using a firearm for a duration of time, there’s no question that players will be able to estimate their rounds quite effectively. To assist with this, on reload of a magazine, we will splash some quick text with the following levels of emptiness;
0% – Empty
1% to 10% – Very Light
11% to 49% – Light
50% to 74% – Medium
75% to 99% – Heavy
100% – Full
Along with the option to turn this off entirely (for the most hardcore players,) one of our planned perks will allow the player to see the exact number of rounds remaining, instead of a vague description. We feel this leaves the door open for players who feel they need an very clear assistant when measuring round count.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick glimpse in to the ammunition and reloading systems planned for The Dead Linger, and you should see these changes coming into the game very soon in one of the upcoming builds. Thanks for reading! Linger on, Survivors.
- Zag

Monday, November 12, 2012

Project Zomboid Monday Status Update

The Monday PZ update has finally arrived. From the sounds of things the RC3 update isn't going to be to long from now.  This update we get to see a few icons and get a cool interview with mash talking about the map and a couple of other things. She really is a great artist! As usual the official blog post can be found below or you can read the copy and paste.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2012/11/sprites-spiffo-and-sea-lions-the-mashpotassium-story/

---copy and paste-----


Hello! It’s just another Muldraugh Monday so here’s your latest dollop of Zomboid related development news, alongside the last of the current run of developer interviews. This time it’s Mash in the limelight – and alongside some serious Sea Lion and Guinea Pig chit-chat we cover the new trait icons, menu art and mappage of the upcoming RC3 build.
The rest of the team have been super-busy too, though. Binky fr’instance, has been working on some of the animations currently missing from the game – a notable one being leaping through windows, or hanging off them. Whether they’ll be part of RC3 remains to be seen – but there are a couple of other new animations ready to be fed into the current build that we should be able to show off very soon. We’ll keep schtum on what they are for now so we can surprise you with the video.
Romain’s farming system has also been receiving a lot of love amidst the design of the new map. As well as his own work topping and tailing the gameplay, Will has been helping with anglification of its descriptions and Mash has helping to extending it out into the natural world around Muldraugh. These icons are an example of her toil.


NPC work, meanwhile, continues apace. Will and RingoD are still conspiring to create in-game dialogue (most recently the words that spill out when you vocally assign a building to be your safehouse in front of your NPC followers). On top of refining the off-screen NPC meta-game and helping Andy integrate animations, Lemmy has done a lot of NPC combat work.
They’ve been fixed up to remove ‘standing still and getting munched’ stupidity, and can now handle crowds of zombies without dying. Now we know that they’re capable in a fight the next job will be to dial back their effectiveness according to their skill and personality trait modifiers. A team of 4, or so, NPCs can now pretty much tear through zombies – which means we can now cruelly make them less effective and balance them nicely. It’s also good to know that when Kate finally becomes mobile in the Tutorial story she’ll be able to hold her own!
Anyway, without further ado… here’s our very own Marina Siu-Chong to fill you in on what else she’s up to in the realm of Zomboid RC3.

So, what are you up to at the moment on PZ?
I’m currently switching between working on new environment tiles and creating trait icons for the NPCs.
The trait icons are being used to quickly summarize traits, so people can remember what a NPC in their party is like with a glance (the icons will update as new information becomes available and experiences happen). As they need to appear next to names, the icons are just 18×18 pixels, which is a challenge for readability… but that challenge is part of what I love about pixelling!
Since you can’t pack in too much information in such a small area, the icons are consequently pretty abstract in some cases. Here are two of them as an example:

You can use a brain to indicate ‘intelligence’ pretty easily, but a concept like ‘resilience’ is tougher. We’ll see how people respond to them, and make changes where necessary.
People have seen a glimpse of the new menu art in the new front-end video. What can you tell people about it? How did you draw it, and why have you created a new one?
While we all liked the atmosphere of the old title screen, it was always intended to be a placeholder. Since we’ve had this long period without an update, I thought it would be a good time to have a new title screen; with the upcoming release being a new beginning, and all that. We wanted a picture that would emphasize the more emotional aspects of PZ, and I went for a quiet moment between Bob and Kate. It was painted digitally in Photoshop.
How do you work the map design with Andy? Do you do different sections?
Andy (aka Binky) creates the landscape and gives me the layout, and I make the buildings, create new tiles if necessary, and add the detail. We generally work on different sections at the same time, but there will be some crossover where I create a lot that he’ll place on his map, and vice versa.
What is the ‘Inappropriately Placed Riding Stable’ that keeps appearing in Dropbox? That always confuses me.

THAT is why I have Andy give me the layout! In one of the maps I was working on, there was a big empty field, so I put a farmhouse-like building there. Then, I thought, “why not have a small barn?” It kind of turned into a stable. Then I put a big fence around it and turned it into a riding farm. Then Andy asked me, “Why is there a riding farm in the middle of a residential area?” And I said: “…” So it’s saved it out as a separate lot for later inclusion now.
Where did Spiffo come from, and why is he the heart of The Indie Stone?
He’s otherwise known as Mr. Spiffo, and he’s from PAWS. The first Indie Stone game. PAWS was a 2D multiplayer battle game in which adorable woodland creatures played tag and threw acorns at each other. It was quite a different game from PZ!

The game was loosely set in the English countryside, so we had animals that were endemic to England, like hedgehogs and red squirrels… but I wanted a Canadian character in there too, so we added a raccoon. Mr. Spiffo (a temporary name that stuck, much like ‘Project Zomboid’) soon became the favourite with his sly looks and attitude, and became wildly overpowered (he could steal items, dig, climb, had a tail spin attack, and in the least biologically realistic feature of all, could use his tail to glide across the screen).
There’s a few references to other games that Lemmy, Binky, and I have worked on together scattered in PZ (some might recognize the character on the cover of the inventory magazine), but Spiffo is the most overt one. When I was creating tiles for a fastfood restaurant chain, I wanted something that could have a cute mascot, and suddenly thought “Spiffo’s”!
Will fell in love with him (I’m not exaggerating, he has said this on several occasions), and he’s become more and more intertwined with our company as a result.
What’s your artistic background? Do you have work online that other people could check out?
While I’ve always been interested in drawing, my official artistic background is relatively new. I went to university for sciences, graduated, and was working somewhat in that field as a scientific art editor, then as a project manager. However, I wasn’t happy with my job, and decided to back to school for art. Yup, I had my mid-life crisis in my twenties!
I had started getting a little interested in game development during my time at university, using AGS. While there I met lots of cool and encouraging people, but it was my buddy Buloght in particular who was the one who inspired my love for pixels and helped me get better at it. Who knew that I would be using it in my job in the future! You can find my art blog and games work here. :)
How are the Guinea Pigs?
Lola’s good, but Hugo continues packing on the grams.
Is there anything else the PZ community needs to know?
I bought a mini sombrero for Hugo in Mexico. A photo of him wearing it will be taken. It will be tweeted. You will follow @mashpotassium and not miss it!

Friday, November 9, 2012

The Dead Linger build 002 hotfix patch

The Dead Linger is moving on to their second patch. This game isn't looking to bad at all. They have released a recent patch for those that have been playing the alpha build. I'll be purchasing this one myself here in the near future once it begins to get ironed out a little more. The Link to all the information can be found below.

http://www.thedeadlinger.com/archives/1161

---copy and paste of the patch notes-----

Patch Notes:

    General Changes
  • TDL.exe and TDLServer_Main.exe now have desktop icons. They may not show if you do not install from scratch. If you already have the game installed and download the auto-patcher, you will still receive the .ico files and can use them by right clicking on your TDL executables, clicking Properties, and then pressing Change Icon. Simply find the icons in your TDL install folder to use them.
  • Escape menu in-game text now reads “ESCAPE MENU” instead of “GAME PAUSED” due to the fact that some players were confused. The game does not currently pause when you are in the escape menu, Solo Mode or Multiplayer.
  • The Printscreen key will now properly create and save a screenshot while the inventory is open, as well as in other menus. Screenshots taken this way are saved to your %appdata%/Sandswept Studios/The Dead Linger folder.
  • Console command “kill” can now be used. This will kill your character and respawn them. This is particularly useful if you are stuck. The console can be accessed by pressing the tilde (~) key.
  • Removed console command “d_playerflip”.
  • Quite a few crashes, both on startup and during play have been fixed.
  • Players should now be able to disconnect from a server and reconnect to a new server without crashing all of the time. (There may still be some issues here.) If you are receiving a crash when trying to join after leaving a server, simply restart TDL.
  • Fixed crash on startup for certain GPUs.
  • Servers should not crash as often.
  • Fixed a bug on slower machines where TDL would crash on startup and/or initial connection to a server.
  • There is now a popup indicating when you have been disconnected from a server.
  • Improved error messages and error logging to help catch bugs and assist players with reporting issues to us in a more clear and concise manner.
  • World Changes
  • Massive update to the world spiral generation. Worlds should now generate and appear much sooner. Players should rarely (or never) encounter holes in terrain or houses that pop in right in front of them. There should also be a noticeable performance increase when loading chunks of the world, both initially, and as you travel through it.
  • Some new weapons can now be found.
  • In-Game Chat Changes
  • Names now appear next to whoever is sending the message.
  • The chat box window is now localized to the bottom of the screen, instead of taking a full third of it.
  • Chat now closes the chatbox after sending a message instead of staying open.
  • You can no longer send a blank message.
  • Overlap bug on some resolutions is now fixed. (Thanks Kadem2!)
  • Join message now appears when player joins.
  • A series of messages now appear as you get hungrier. (Below 30%)
  • Gameplay Changes
  • Unarmed punches now do 75% less damage. We recommend you find a weapon before trying to take out zombies.
  • Reduced zombie health to 80, down from 100.
  • Increased zombie damage to 15, from 6.
  • Lowered kick damage to 5, from 30. Kick is useful for breaking doors and pushing foes away, but is not intended for outright killing.
  • Lowered kicks required to break doors. 3 to 4 kicks will now break a door, down from 7.
  • Couches, fridges, and some other large items can not longer be picked up, but they can still be pushed around by players.
  • Zombies are no longer sliding or ‘skateboarding’ around.
  • There is now a drop area in the inventory to help players understand how to drop items.
  • Many inventory items are now placed diagonally in their space, giving a better representation of how much space they require.
  • Weapons and items should no longer disappear when traveling long distances.
  • Lingerman removed.
  • Known Issues:
  • There are still some annoying issues with inventory items, especially when picking up items when your inventory is full, as well as picking up items in multiplayer. Should be fixed up in the next patch.
  • Most bugs reported that are not mentioned on this list remain unfixed and will be steadily fixed over the next few patches
  • Connecting to a later / earlier build will crash your game. (i.e. if someone is trying to connect to a Build 002 server from a Build 001 client.) If you a trying to connect to an earlier build, a popup should deploy saying “Server refused the connection.”
  • If you can not see servers on the server list, restart TDL fresh and they should appear.
  • Names of players are not correctly removed when they leave a game.
  • There are some issues with picking up items when you first join a multiplayer game. Waiting a minute or so usually fixes this issue.
  • Server names still are very limiting (16 characters, no numbers, no spaces.) We are planning to address this issue in the next patch.
  • There are still some seemingly random crashes that we are steadily tracking down.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Project Zomboid Monday Update

It's another Project Zomboid Monday Status Update.  This one was really nice and provides us with a good sneak peak of the things to come.  So glad to see the rain coming back to PZ. The link to the official blog post is located below along with a copy and paste of the update.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2012/11/how-to-hurt-a-zombie-when-he-down/

----copy and paste ------


Good afternoon, good evening or good night to you, hearty and healthy Muldraugh Survivor! We’re here with a few slices of development news. Huzzah!
There’s still some NPC work to be done, dialogue to be bound into the game and some front-end work that’ll be needed before we can release RC3, but this week we’re really chuffed to be able to show you a video of what’s been worked on over the past few days from the cumulative efforts of Lemmy and Binky. We’ll let the video do the talking – which also showcases some of the new map (still WIP), as well as some of Romain’s fine weather work.
This gameplay vid shows some of the various changes we’ve decided to make to combat and zombie-kind in RC3 so that fighting is more fluid and danger is rebalanced. Here’s a grab-bag of what’s been done:





  • There’s a new downward floor swing/stab and shoot. Your chosen weapons and skills will now combine for a critical hit chance (a solid head shot, essentially) – this will be doubled when a zombie is down on the floor as they won’t be moving and melee attacks can be given some extra gravitational welly.
  • Without a chopping weapon like an axe it’s now very difficult as a starting non-combat character to flat out kill a zombie that’s still on its feet. The focus for survival will be to get them on the floor to deliver some ‘fatal’ blows to the head. Getting one zombie down and gifted with a leaky brain will be relatively easy (though not without risk) but multiple zombies will cause issues.
    These new mechanisms would probably prove frustrating in the current test build, with its massively mobile and unpredictable hordes, but should work absolutely fine in RC3. Zombie populations now make more sense depending on where they’re located – in this video the character is travelling deeper and deeper into town, which is a better area for loot but simultaneously more densely populated with deadheads. As such, with the new combat we’re driving up the danger of looting missions, while keeping lone straggler confrontations as more of an inconvenience – as long as if you’re careful. (And, in case you’re wondering, there will still be occasional Sadistic AI driven migrations to keep you on your toes!)
  • We’ve changed ‘aim’ so that it triggers when you’re holding the left mouse button (we’ve made sure that it won’t detect clicks on the UI, or swing your weapon when opening doors) and it already feels a lot better. It essentially means that you’ll have far better strafe mobility, and that you’ll only needing to worry about the mouse and WASD.
  • If people are still in love with the old ‘hold shift’ routine, however, then they’ll be able to toggle it in the options menu. While we’re on that subject, we’ve also made ‘mouse only’ play possible once again, and it’s now much easier. Clearly, however, implementing strafing when people play with the mouse alone will be a difficult design challenge for us in future – if, indeed, it’s possible at all.
  • Zombies are now far more likely to spread out when they approach you, meaning that they’ll be less of a shuffling death-train and more of an all-encompassing circle of soon-to-be screwed-ness.
  • You can now step over zombies, so if you’ve knocked them onto their back then your chances of escape aren’t quite as slim. Then again, zombies can step over those self-same downed zombies – so they’ve simultaneously become a little more dangerous when they’re in crowds.
  • In earlier versions of the game you could only shove when were holding a weapon. This wasn’t ideal, so now you can shove away with your raw bleeding arms to your heart’s content.
That’s the meat of the Monday update then, but be assured that dialogue, map-work, RingoD’s scripting, tile creation and whatnot are also ongoing. We’ll be back very soon with a chat with the amazing Mash ‘Marina’ Potato to talk Sea-Lion bites, trait icons, inappropriately placed riding stables and sombrero-wearing Guinea Pigs. There’ll also be a Community of the Dead post to reveal the winners of our Halloween costume competition.
Exciting times! We can’t wait for you to (finally) sink your teeth into what we’re working on. Sorry, as ever, for being coy – but as you can see in the video things are really coming together at the moment.
Love you lots x The Indie Stone x


----end copy and paste -----

State of Decay Update

Hello again everyone! I just noticed that Undead Labs have posted a short Halloween video showing off the stealth aspects of State of Decay.   I must admit I am rather impressed by the amount of detail and the sneaking mechanics of the game. This game is going to be great.


Dayz 1.7.3 Rolling Update

Well it seems it may be time to start playing the Dayz Mod again.  This latest update posted by Rocket is looking really good with the amount of bug fixes. As always the official thread can be found at the link below or you can read the copy and paste.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/103658-build-173-rolling-update/

 -----copy and paste from rocket----

Posted 31 October 2012 - 04:44 PM

POPULAR
This is the first community + development team generated update for the DayZ mod. It is the culmination of a huge amount of work by both the community and the development team. The half-done 1.7.3 patch was made available to the community, who included many of their own fixes and updates. While dogs are "in" there are some mechanics missing so they cannot currently be used. Both myself and Matt spent a significant amount of time playing this today, and it was a lot of fun.

Credits

A small summary of those involved in actual development of the patch are as follows (visit https://github.com/R...n/Developers.md for the latest list).  Many others helped with testing and such. Please get involved with the community development project! There is much being done, new features and content. Official support is also being made available to community development team members for some requests, where possible.
  • AJ (Leadz)
  • Alakakala
  • Alby
  • Ander
  • Rocket
  • f0rt (ashfor03)
  • Ayan4m1
  • Facoptere
  • HumbleUk
  • IMF2000
  • Tansien
  • Killzone_kid
  • Stapo
  • Sumrak
  • Pwnoz0r
  • R4Z0R49
  • Rajko
  • TheLaughingMan
  • VRShiva
  • Venthos
How to install

Clients

Use SixUpdater or DayZCommander to install the update.

Servers

Server hosters can get the new Hive files from (link was wrong version... will post shortly!). Only install this if you run a server! You also need the other 1.7.3 files (dayz_code.pbo and dayz.pbo).


Patch notes

Client:

* [NEW]  Tents can no longer be placed on concrete.
* [FIXED]  Building checks for tent placement (No longer place tents in buildings).
* [FIXED]  Tents now are one click place.
* [FIXED]  Fixed function for checking if in buildings.
* [UPDATED]  Vehicle repair menus now all replaced.
* [NEW]  Vehicle menus now list all damaged parts no matter if you have the item or not.
* [NEW]  Vehicle repair menus will now let you know the exact item you need to repair on failed repair attempts.
* [FIXED]  Vehicle Damage is now fully working.
* [FIXED]  Vehicle Killed is now in effect fully destroyed vehicles will now set correct in db.
* [FIXED]  Tents Now add and remove from db.
* [FIXED]  Food can no longer be consumed if the player does not have in inventory.
* [FIXED]  water can no longer be consumed if the player does not have in inventory.
* [UPDATED]  Updated UI control bug.
* [NEW]  Toolbox is now needed for all repairs.
* [NEW]  Alt-f4 is now locked and will only open your status menu.
* [Fixed]  No longer possible to drink/eat/pitch a tent/put on clothes/build sand bags/cat wire/hedgehogs/consume medical supplies/free filled water without consuming the item.
* [FIXED]  No longer possible to create axes out of thin air if you already have one
* [FIXED]  Switching skins no longer repairs pain shakes/broken legs/resets/dupes/screws/resets ammo
* [FIXED]  Duping no longer possible through zombie corpses/etc
* [FIXED]  It should now be impossible for a new players spawns to spawn unconscious.
* [FIXED]  You can no longer cook infinite free meat from camp fires
* [FIXED]  Survivors should no longer pickup a single item at the same time and both receive it.
* [FIXED]  You can no longer generate multiple tents while packing up a deployed tent.
* [FIXED]  You can no longer change clothes/eat/drink/etc. while in a vehicle
* [UPDATED]  ItemWire reduced from 0.06 to 0.01
* [UPDATED]  PartEngine updated from 0.01 to 0.06
* [UPDATED]  Version info is now displayed correct
* [NEW]  New Combat System If you fire a weapon, then you go into combat.  During combat, "ABORT" is disabled. (Need to look at the effects with high player counts)
* [NEW]  Combat 30 sec timer on all combat actions.
* [FIXED]  Zombie death animation is delayed (now it plays instantly)

Server:

* [NEW] HiveEXT.dll now replaced with our new version.
* [NEW] Official Hive login is now hard coded into the .dll
* [NEW] New Hive can now set ingame time to custom, local(local server time), static
* [FIXED]  Object Gear syncs happen based on radius not just on menu.
* [FIXED]  Vehicle Position is now updated with client position.
* [FIXED]  Vehicles save fuel properly