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.


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Forsaken Fortress Comes to Watchsurvival

Greetings survivalists! I'm proud to announce a new guy on the survival block,  Forsaken Fortress! I recently learned of this wonderful game and I just had to add it to Watchsurvival.  This game sounds like a wonderful mix of different genres.  It is one of those games after learning about it, it makes you wonder why a game like this has never been released before.  This game combines survival, base building, strategy, role playing, tower defense and more.  I'm going to stop there and let some videos do some talking for me.





Excited yet?  You would have to be crazy if you wasn't.   This game originally started the funding on Kickstarter.  You can view Photon Productions kickstarter page here   http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1317934609/forsaken-fortress

Kickstarter funding was a huge success!  You can still also help support them and get in on the action early by donating via PayPal.  View the Official website for all the information here.  http://www.forsakenfortress.com/

You can also check out more information and help support them by voting them up on steam greenlight to make sure they get a steam release for their game as well.  http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=111946899

That's about all the info I can currently give you at the moment for this awesome game.  More videos can be found on the website links I already shared.   As more information and more updates get released for the game expect to see them listed here on watchsurvival!  I'll be sure to try and keep everyone updated on this hopefully very successful game.    Cheers Everyone!  Happy Surviving!


Project Zomboid Update 1/28/2013

The Indiestone released another Monday blog for us to sink our teeth into.  This one involves a lot of storyline information about the kate and bob story and how it will evolve to a fully functioning tutorial. We also get hints that RC3 update is about to start on it's finishing touches and that's great news meaning it shouldn't be a heck of a lot longer until the new update is finally in everyone's hands.  The Link to the official blog can be found below or you may read the copy and paste notes here.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2013/01/the-continuing-adventures-of/

--copy and paste--


Welcome back peoples for this weeks Monday update blog!
Things are still quiet on the video department due to development going on at the moment, we don’t want to show the new meta-game system until it’ll be completely sexy to behold and feel it’s not quite there yet. After everyone’s excitement at the promise of the meta-game we don’t want people to be underwhelmed by flaky looking AI.
It’s a rather quiet week in terms of updates, us all beavering away at very similar things to last week, with Lemmy still working on getting the NPC’s real behaviours completed and fixing various issues with the game map (no more see through / walk through walls littered around the new map!) and Romain continuing on his quest to rejig the skills system.
Meanwhile Mash has been continuing her awesome work on the RC3 world map:
…and in other news Binky is currently working on a zombie animation that any zombie fan will be happy to see! We’ll leave this to people’s imagination in the meantime, but you’ll likely get a glimpse of it very soon!
PZ Stories
We haven’t really covered what’s happening with PZ Stories in this run of Mondoid blog updates, so we thought it worthwhile looping everyone in with our plans. We’ll do our best to avoid spoilers, but there may well be a few nods and winks in what follows  – so beware!
RC3 will arrive with the familiar Kate and Baldspot tutorial, albeit transposed to the new map – as previously mentioned Kate and Bob Smith will now reside in a notably more spiffy residence. (Please note the surround is still WIP)

It’s after RC3 arrives that Will and RingoD will finally be able to integrate the last sections of the Till Death Do Us Part episode – which maps out  Baldspot’s amateur efforts to prevent Kate’s wounds from worsening, and indeed begins the healing process through the introduction of a new character. This character, as envisioned by the remarkable concept artist Remy, to be precise: (Spoilers!)
Every PZ Story will end in the opportunity for sandbox play, with new tasks and missions for our characters opening up when you load up fresh stories that are further through our apocalyptic timeline. As we hit a more regular stream of updates we’ll be introducing fresh stories for Kate and Baldspot and various characters that they’ll meet on their travels -  making sure that every element of the game is covered in a ‘tutorial’ fashion by the time we release over Steam.
As such PZ story #2 will introduce two new characters and teach the player the survival techniques that Romain has coded into RC3, like camping and farming. PZ Story #3 will then see a return to K&B, with their journey over the new map (bloodily) crossing over with the climax of the previous episode. Here’s an image from that mission, again from the remarkable talent box that is Remy.
That’s our narrative roadmap post-RC3 then, and everything from story #1 is written and primed for integration. Beyond that we’ve got a bit of internal debate going on as to how all this should make use of the metagame and the overall Muldraugh timeline if the player decides to hold out somewhere non-story designated for a long period of time (or, indeed, if it should at all) but hopefully you can see our general inclinations.
Kate and Baldspot will go on a long journey over the map (to an as yet undisclosed location) and the stories we tell will cover the people they meet and the places they’ll go on their travels – sometimes from their perspective, and sometimes through the perspective of others. Will is hoping for a zombie road movie vibe (though you could also  read that as ‘a zombie The Road movie vibe’, and is awaiting RC3 alongside RingoD with baited breath (as are we all) so we can establish  narrative content flow and have all the necessary smarts of the NPC followers integrated.
—–
To conclude this week, as well as working on these systems that need to be completed before RC3, mainly the meta-game, we’re now also working now toward plugging up all the main exposed circuit boards and loose wires from development of this update, a whole bunch of small but significant things that technically make the game unplayable for whatever reason and are prohibiting any real testing to take place, that were kinda left aside for the more pressing fundamental changes or additions in the game.
As soon as we do that, we can put the game into closed testing as we finish off the meta-game, either finish off the skill system or unplug it till post RC3, and start bug fixing toward a release of Zomboid – finally! But until then we’re quiet behind our keyboards bashing away until it happens and will do our best to make the wait as short as we can. Love you all!


Monday, January 28, 2013

Dayz Stand alone development blog update!

A new developers blog has came out recently from Dayz.  This update has me really excited for the stand alone game as more and more information is released. We also get to see some new shiny screenshots! This game is looking really good and I really enjoyed hearing information about customizing our character and being able to change out different types of clothing.  It appears from the blog that this game is going to be insanely realistic when it comes to survival aspects of living with the living dead.  The Link can be found below to the development blog post with the new screenshots or you may read the copy and paste version here on watchsurvival.

http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/post/41444643504/this-is-the-first-update-when-i-have-sat-down-and

--copy and paste--

This is the first update when I have sat down and thought “where do I start?” There has been so much going on with the development this month that it is hard to fit it all in a post here. Through the month we have steadily moved from working on our architectural changes, through to preparing for our first public test. The risks and gambles we took last year, are now beginning to pay serious dividends for us.
I’ll be covering the following in this update:
  • Lighting and material improvements
  • Volumetric Cloud system
  • New Server Architecture
  • Clothing/Inventory status
  • Closed Test Status
  • Art/World updates
  • Customizing your character
  • Customizing your weapon
Lighting and material improvements
One of our Lead Artists, Mario Kurty, has been working with some of the ArmA3 artists to ensure that DayZ Standalone has the best visuals possible. The result is pretty striking when combined with some of the other improvements we have made in the engine. These improvements make the world really come to life, improving the visuals overall. A comparison screenshot is included and demonstrates the effect of this.
Volumetric Cloud system
This has now been fully configured for use within DayZ, used to great effect in Bohemia’s previous product Take on Helicopters (and coming in ArmA3 also). There are several pictures of this included in the screenshots for this blog update. Running around the world taking pictures, it was hard to resist really. It adds a real sense of realism when compared with the previous result.
New Server Architecture
Our lead programmer, Ondřej Španěl, continues his work on redeveloping our server architecture. Contrary to some who say DayZ will be releasing with no anti-hack mechanisms, one of the key things we are doing with development is entirely redeveloping how the engine works. I can’t stress enough just how fundamental this change is. DayZ’s game servers will function like servers in other MMO style games, that is the server will control the behavior and the sending of updates. No longer will your machine receive all the updates allowing their analysis by various cheats.
We are exploring spawning all zombies and loot at the start of server initialization, again a huge departure from the previous mechanism. This solves many design and technical issues with the spawning and respawning of equipment, such as being able to metagame by telling whether players are in a village by seeing zombie’s have spawned.
Clothing/Inventory status
This has now been completed to a basic level, you can put on and drop various items of clothing. These items can have diseases on them, and they have durability and other attributes. We need to make some models that represent the clothes when they are on the ground (currently they look as they are when on the ground!) Once this is done, we will be releasing some video outlining what it looks like to change your clothes.
Closed Test Status
We have begun our internal closed testing (yes!) and have been working with Valve to ensure our new server browser system is working (we utilize Steam for this purpose rather than Gamespy as for ArmA2). The Server/Client architecture needs to be fully implemented before we will begin our public testing.
We have not initiated our closed test that includes external people yet (such as streamers).
Art/World updates
A huge quantity of changes are flowing into the world. New areas, a mass of new objects (such as wrecked vehicles, buses, etc…) that are all designed with DayZ in mind - such as having good areas for loot to spawn. It is really impossible to list all the changes here, from bug fixing to redesigning of buildings such as the general store, and onto entirely new buildings and areas. One of our texture artists has been going through existing work and making them look more damaged and used.
Customizing your Character
The design has now really ramped up. This is really the entire focus of our efforts for the next few months, prior to starting on vehicle customization and finally on base building at the end of the year. The obvious starting point for us is to allow players to select the gender and race of their character. Beyond this, allowing ways for your character to become your own are key for us; from getting tattoo’s to finding unique clothing items, trying to deal with your own health aliments, etc…
This is an area of very active development, we’re exploring all sorts of ways to make your character change in the world as you play. When you first create your character, the options will be simple. As you go along in the world, your character will change as a result of their interactions with the environment and the decisions you make, through items such as clothing choices.
Social aspects are extremely important to us, and we’ve taken a number of idea’s and participated in the discussions on reddit and the forums about what we can do in this area. Expect more on these area’s in the next tumblr update. We want to support the organic development and operation of groups within the game, through the development of their own symbology in game (tattoo’s, markings on the world, on weapons, etc…). We feel that these redeveloped social experiences told through the game will be a compelling part of the standalone.
Customizing your weapon
Weapon attachments are a great bi-product of our entire redesign of every aspect of the inventory system. Nothing is available to show on this yet, currently the only attachment we have fully configured in the game is the magazine. You must load the magazine with ammunition and then it is considered an attachment to the weapon. The quantity and condition of your magazines will be particularly important in the standalone. Look after them!
When is it releasing?
We don’t know. We’re going to take our time. I feel fantastic about the situation, more than ever I feel like we’re doing something really interesting with this development. Now is not the time to rush things, but we do need to ensure our pace is kept up. Our development blog and getting players in and testing as soon as possible will be key in ensuring we succeed in making this a great game.
Concluding words
At no point in development, have I been as excited as I am right now. The risks we took with the direction have paid off. The engine and approach of the game is now entirely DayZ’s own, it is striking out into it’s own territory as a project. This is very exciting for all the team.
I do need to caution though, it is a bad idea to overhype the project. We know that there are many challenges that we will face from deciding to effectively write a new engine tailored to DayZ. But we are now entirely confident, that this decision will prove to have been the best decision we could make. Now we will be able to make the game that we’ve all always wanted.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Don't Starve Update Progress!

Good morning survival fans! Don't starve has released a preview trailer for their next update of the game. All I can say is just "WOW" this update is going to be awesome.  There's just to much to comment about regarding this update so I'm just going to let the trailer do the talking.  Simply awesome. Klei Entertainment is really raising the bar after this update.  I can't wait to play it.   The Link to the official forum post is below so you can tell them how awesome they are and discuss the trailer with other fellow fans.

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?8008-Don-t-Starve-Update-Trailer-Progress!


Friday, January 25, 2013

Minecraft snapshot 13w04a released

Minecraft has released their weekly snapshot. This one includes bug fixes from the other snapshots as well as fixing some functionality of the dispensers.  The link to the official post is below or you can check out the copy and paste here.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/733-snapshot-13w04a-available-for-testing/

--copy and paste--

This week's Snapshot is ready for testing!  Are you ready for the goodness?  Check it out:

Snapshot Features:
_________________________________



  • Added a fancy new Scoreboard system
  • Added some new functionality to dispensers
  • Taught dispensers and droppers about the 3rd dimension
  • Scared mobs away from the dangerous minecart tracks
  • Former bugs listed below, have now been fixed:
    • Achievements lost after update
    • Flowing water still drags the player while flying.
    • Piston extended and retracted at the same time
    • Chest glitch that lets them appear as if they are opened while they are not.
    • Doors texture wrong
    • Particle Effects are messed up again...
    • Breeding cows can consume more than one wheat
    • Variable redstone strength causing strange update behavior
    • Hopper doesn't accept items from second slot when container has different items in first slot
    • Redstone signals shortened by devices that output a shorter signal
    • Iron door stays powered when retrieving the redstone block
    • Changing the Texturepack ingame renders strange
    • Boats and minecarts should not be dropped in Creative
    • Using Pick Block on Minecart with TNT or Hopper gives you just a Minecart
    • Monostable Circuits only work in a North/South Configuration
    • Armor enchantments (besides Thorns) have no effect on mobs
    • If a minecart with hopper falls into the void, the game will crash
    • Hopper minecart behave like they are on powered Activator rail if they never touched one.
    • Wrong death message of renamed mobs spawned by dispensers
    • Minecart with hopper is not placed on rail

Download Links:
_________________________________


Client Download:  Click here

Server Download:  Click here

As always, be sure to report any and all bugs found at the official Minecraft bug tracker!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Crawle (Survival Indie game) releases 0.5.5 update.

Just noticed that the Indie survival game Crawle has recently released a big update for everyone. This update includes better rivers and better multiplayer fixes and a few performance increases as well. This game is looking pretty good so far and seems to be getting better little by little.  The information for the update can be found at the link below or you can check out the copy and paste patch notes here on watch survival.

http://sleepystudios.com/showthread.php?tid=672

--copy and paste--

Crawle 0.5.5 has been released! There were 2 main focuses this patch: fixing up multiplayer and improving the tutorial functionality. I'd also like to mention that we will be starting on 0.6.0 soon. 0.6.0 will be a massive content patch and therefore it may take a while to get out, but don't worry, we'll continue to post updates on a regular basis!

Changelog:
---------------
0.5.4 --> 0.5.5
---------------

# ADDITIONS
- Rivers!
- Re-added PVP back into multiplayer.
- Servers can now have MOTDs. It can be changed with /motd newmotd.
- Servers can now kill players with /kill playername.
- Servers can now display item IDs & names with /showitems.
- Servers can now give players items with /give playername itemid.
- Added swimming!
- Added a new tips system.

# CHANGES
- Removed generated stumps.
- Removed the loss of hunger at midnight.
- Improved the equipment window slightly.
- Banned IPs will now be saved in an .ini in /data/.
- Removed the serverside /restart command.
- Energy loss is now a bit slower.
- Changed 'rock' to 'sharp rock'.
- Energy regen is now a bit faster.
- Removed the old tutorials system.
- Removed tutorial worlds.

# FIXES
- Significantly improved the rendering engine.
- Fixed the serverside warp command.
- Fixed not being able to type after running in multiplayer.
- Fixed village generation in multiplayer.
- Fixed the world saving when the server started up.
- Fixed the server's day night cycle being too fast.
- Fixed the overflow error when drinking at full thirst.
- Fixed holes spawning in water.
- Fixed holes spawning in trees.
- Fixed being able to pickup baskets with items in them.
- Fixed baskets not giving back items.
- Fixed bark taking not being sent in multiplayer.
- Fixed not seeing other players' basket items.
- Fixed durability not sending properly in multiplayer.
- Fixed banning & unbanning in multiplayer.
- The client will now try reload with no hardware acceleration. (Possible automation error fix).
- Fixed various overflow errors.
- Fixed right-clicking on world mode options.

Highlights:

Rivers are now generated in place of water. They're a lot rarer so it'll be a bit more difficult to top up your thirst bar now. We've also (finally) added swimming.

[Image: BYpxi.png]

Tutorial worlds and the large tutorials have been merged into a new Tips system. These Tips will appear based on several conditions (however a few basic ones will pop up at the start), you can choose whether or not to enable them with each new world.

[Image: 2Yeyz.png]

Finally, we've made a ton of multiplayer improvements. Hopefully it should be a lot more stabler now and the additional functionality should be useful. As always you can report bugs here.

IMPORTANT!

This update introduces a new updater. After updating go to your Crawle folder and open "Patcher.exe". From then on you can play as normal (from a shortcut or whatever you usually launch Crawle from). The Patcher just needs to be "installed" first for future updates.

The server will also be need to be run as admin!

--end copy and paste--

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Don't Starve Spoiled Rotten Update released

Don't Starve has released their newest update for everyone to play.  They have done a lot for the game during this update increasing game play time and adding new features which seem to be based around a lot of fan requests.  All said it looks like a very large and nice update for fans.  I'm looking forward to playing it soon.  The Link to the official post is below as well as a link to the forums post for discussion.  Copy and Paste of the notes is also below.

Blog post
http://www.dontstarvegame.com/article/update-spoiled-rotten

Forum link for discussion.
http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?7223-Spoiled-Rotten-%28Jan-15-Update%29

--copy and paste--


Release notes:
  • Food spoils over long periods of time. Stale and Spoiled foods are less beneficial. Rotten food is practically inedible, but can be used as fuel or fertilizer.
  • Health and hunger values have been re-tuned across the board. Characters have a larger hunger buffer now.
  • Crock pot foods are stackable.
  • You can build a fridge to mitigate spoilage.
  • New unlockable character: WX78, a robot who can eat spoiled food with no penalties, and who hates all living things.
  • Steam cloud can be disabled (details here)
  • Camera controls for streamers/youtubers: CTRL+P will freeze the camera in place. CTRL+H will hide the hud
  • Smallbirds grow up to become angsty Teenbirds. Teenbirds grow up to be Tallbirds and leave the player.
  • The mysterious Otto Von Chesterfield can be found in some swamps. (You will need a regen to find him)
  • Beefalo travel in proper herds now. Herds regenerate off-screen (currently with adults)
  • Beefalo herds become agitated when they go into heat, and will chase away the player if they are not wearing a beefalo hat.
  • Beefalo sometimes drop a beefalo horn, which can be used to move beefalos around.
  • The spiderhat is no longer craftable - you just wear the queen's head directly. It also can't be used to steal spiders from an existing queen.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Project Zomboid Monday Update 1/21/2013 (on a tuesday, oops)

Hey everyone!  Project Zomboid released a new update for us yesterday.  Sorry I did not post it Monday but real life got in the way a little bit.  This update was pretty cool.  We get to see some information on how skills and traits are going to work in the newer version of the game.  We also get to read about the music and get an interview with the music man of Project Zomboid.  It was a really good read.  The details can be seen below at the link or you can read the copy and paste version.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2013/01/return-of-the-zach-omg/

--copy and paste--


It’s Monday. It’s Project Zomboid. It’s your Mondoid development update – this week featuring a cosy fireside chat with our returning symphonic genius the lovely, lovely Zach Beever.
This week’s primary focus has been on NPC safehouse AI and events. Having the NPC metagame is all well and good, but if you can only view it in-game as resting survivors staring blankly at brick walls then it’s not much fun. Lemmy’s task, then, has been to encourage NPCs to take up activities like sitting on sofas, lying in beds and wandering from room to room whenever they’re are restless. On top of that there’s also NPC activities like standing guard at windows (looking for zombies or other NPCs approaching) or patrolling the safehouse for those poor uninfected people to contend with.
All this already exists in the meta-game, but this week’s challenge has been implementing the AI activity that’ll actually occur when you’re there to witness it – making the characters’ locations consistent with the meta-game whenever you approach an occupied building. Of course, though, with all this fresh safehouse hustle and bustle comes the need for a fresh assault on building-based animations – the safe delivery of which has been entrusted to Binky.
Pray bear witness, then, to a bald and near-naked man doing some mimes. From left to right, our hero survivor is: a) TERRIFYINGLY sat in a chair b) RIP-ROARINGLY climbing up a rope and c) DRAMATICALLY climbing out of a window.

Romain meanwhile is currently planning out a redesign of the skill system – perhaps for RC3, or perhaps for updates beyond. The one that is currently in the game is rather bolted on, and mixes physical things with intellectual things that really need to be represented differently. In the now trait-crazy world of Zomboid we’ll have physical stuff like how strong or sneaky you are represented by traits (that’ll also affect people’s opinions of you). A character may start out as strong, but spend months lazing about in the safehouse, losing the strong trait, and perhaps gaining an overweight trait. We feel this is a much more natural system for the game’s direction.
Skills will be anything genuinely skill-like: the knowledge and practical skill required for carpentry, farming, firing a handgun will be changed to leverage the importance of books and NPCs in levelling up. While it’ll still be possible to level up through repetition this, as in real life, will take too long to be practical. Each skill level, then, will now be labelled at different points between Beginner and Master – and for each skill level there will be a book that’ll give a character a substantial bonus to the speed they learn that level. Likewise, an NPC that’s very friendly toward you may be willing to teach you, again providing a substantial bonus to the speed you level up.
This, in turn, will make professions much more important and difficult choices. After the levelling up speed has been rebalanced, generally, if you start off as level 0 in a skill you shouldn’t expect to rely on ever becoming a master of it. Instead the way to go will be in relying on NPCs who spent their pre-apocalypse years honing their skills. Every skill will have a profession that starts with a large degree of experience with it (but never the top level) and professions will therefore massively influence the play-style of any bout of survival you go through.
That’s the primary development work covered, then, but we also want to turn the spotlight on some of our beloved contributors in our Monday blog coverage – so step forward lovely, lovely Zach Beever. His amazing music was sadly cut out of later RC builds (just one of the development casualties that we discussed last week that prompted a great deal of the recent rebuilding work) but he’ll be back with a vengeance once RC3 hits…

Hey Zach! What kind of crazy schemes have you been up to since we last spoke?
I’ve been focusing on music now more than ever! Piano and composition are two incredibly important areas of my life. I spend a huge part of my day practicing and writing. I had a fantastic opportunity last summer to study in Prague with an amazing composer. While my focus on that trip was my contemporary compositions, everything I learned helped me improve as a musician, and I think that improvement is definitely shown in the latest Project Zomboid tracks.
So your last batch of music was sadly disabled halfway through the RC2 builds. If people didn’t hear them, what did they miss out on? Was it very different to what people will knew from the 0.1.5 release?
The last set of tracks was a diverse group, covering all types of different moods. There were as many ambient pieces in it as there were dramatic, tense tracks. I also started to experiment with different instrumentation. In fact, one of my favourites from the set, Fight or Flight, has a rain stick in it.
Besides the obvious differences from previous sets, such as the quality of mixing, I feel that the individual tracks of the last set have more direction to them as well. It may not seem important, but I feel it makes a difference.
Sample
You’ve been back at your keyboard for fresh tunes for RC3 as well. What’s been your focus for your more recent contributions? How much have you recorded?
The biggest suggestion from the team has been to include recurring motifs in different tracks. It’s something I wanted to do for a while, and it’s in this iteration of tracks that I’ve finally been able to make it work. Aside from that, I’m trying to fill out the soundtrack, balancing the dramatic moments with the ordinary ones and vice versa. As far as new music goes, I’ve completed two new tracks so far. The lower output is a result of the extra attention to detail.
Have you been experimenting with any new influences, tempos or sounds?
Yes! As well as finding new ways to use the orchestra, I’ve been experimenting with electronic and flamenco music. That’s not to say you’ll be hearing a guitar ensemble or dance synths in the next update, but I’ve kept those genres in mind during the writing process.
Sample
So how many tracks will that all add up to? What timings will the overall PZ soundtrack run to?
I can’t say for certain, but it will be anywhere from 30 to 40 tracks. (For those interested, the current count is 25.) For timing, the in-game soundtrack will be over an hour of music.
Where would you like to take PZ music in future?
Keeping in line with recurring motifs, I’d like to make sure the final product is cohesive. Someone should be able to play the game, hear two tracks and then be able to recognize all other tracks as Project Zomboid – no matter where they hear them. I also intend to put in the time to revisit older tracks and improve their sound quality: paying more attention to mixing, the balance of the instruments and other such things.
Finally, the album! I’ve begun work on extending the main tracks (all the non-ambient ones). It’s kind of a musical face lift. The soundtrack is going to stay a soundtrack, you don’t have to worry about obscure classical references breaking through, but the standalone, extended versions are a lot more musically interesting.
I know not everyone likes a soundtrack that’s different, though, and I want those who like the original tracks to be able to listen to high quality versions of them – not just the small .ogg files they are now. I’m not sure how all this music will be organized, but I know it will be released. I can’t really promise a date, but I’ll work to the best of my abilities – this year will be extremely busy for me. In the meantime, keep enjoying Project Zomboid!
Cheers lovely Zach! *heart image*
So that’s about it for this Monday, although we’ll likely reappear sooner than usual for a rundown on what RC3 will bring in terms of modding and the modding tools EasyPickins has created for us. More casual PZ-ers might find it a little dry, thus us not talking about it on a Monday, but it’s nevertheless of vital importance to the game’s future – and we want to make sure everyone has the skinny on it. So stay tuned for later in the week for a bonus blog. Cheers all!

Saturday, January 19, 2013

State of Decay New Q&A followup 1/18/2013

Good afternoon survivalists. State of Decay has released a new question and answers followup for us recently that answers more questions about the game that the community has posted. It's got some very good info so I thought my readers would enjoy it.  The link to the official post can be found below or you can read the copy and paste version.

http://undeadlabs.com/forums/showthread.php?6672-Q-amp-A-Day-By-Day-Followup-1-18-2013

--copy and paste--

Survivors

Q: screenamesuck: If some of your survivors leave due to low morale or whatever, are they gone for good or can you convince them to come back later (assuming they live that long)?


A: If they leave your community, it is possible to win back their trust, but it will be very, very difficult.

After a survivor runs off or goes missing, you may get an opportunity to find them and bring them home. If that opportunity appears, you’d best take advantage. Their odds of survival drop the longer they’re on their own.

Q: Creed: Can you tell a survivor to leave your group?

A: Yes, but only if you have a really good reason, such as a bad attitude or a persistent cough. In such cases, you’ll see you have an opportunity to have a talk with the survivor and one option will be to tell them to leave. They may or may not accept your suggestion. Either way community morale will likely drop if you expel or attempt to expel someone.

Q:Jedi Spartac227, DwarfBanew: Will we be able to come across the people in the "handbook"?

A: The Church of the Ascension is a location in the game. You’ll have to go there and see for yourself.

Q: Creed: Can we save survivors and take them to other groups? I would like to save anyone I can, but I can't feed/protect everyone.

A: You can save people when they’re in danger without also inviting them into your community.

Q: JPMurdock11: What are the basic abilities that all survivors come with? For example, do all survivors have the ability to climb a fence?

A: A fuller answer to your question will appear in the upcoming skills article. The short version is that everyone has basic gun skills, basic self-defense, enough Wit to come in out of the rain, and the ability to run faster than a zombie. And, to your specific question, yes, everyone has enough athletic ability to hop a fence.

Q: JPMurdock11: Do survivors have fears? Like, if someone is afraid of heights, he'll move slower or make more noise when up on high areas?

A: Nothing as elaborate as that... yet. But some characters definitely have weaknesses which may affect how you use them. For example, someone who is Squeamish improves their hand-to-hand combat skills slower than normal. And someone with a Bum Knee has trouble resting while crouched.

Q: Creed: Will there be survivor relationships? For example, if two characters are brothers and one dies, the other will be very upset/want to kill himself. Could two characters want to become partners?

A: Not in the sense you’re talking about. In the storyline, there are relationships between characters (you noticed how some of them have the same last name, I’m sure), and the story we tell goes into their emotional reactions to danger and loss.

Q: MAJOR WARPATH: Will the survivors attack others? I know there are no human enemies but will there be survivor on survivor violence, or will they just run away from the group? Maybe steal something, or sabotage stuff in your home base.

A: If things get ugly in your community, the results can be very serious. Remember, State of Decay works in two phases: There’s how you deal with the challenges of the day when you are playing, and there’s also the offline simulation that results from your choices.

As a matter of principle, we try to give you a warning about brewing situations with potentially fatal consequences. So you may hear about minor scuffles between community members while you are playing, but it’s in the offline events where they’re more likely to seriously injure or even kill each other (accidentally or otherwise). Theft can happen as well. In fact, in most cases when survivors abandon your community, they take a little something with them.

Q: Vanilla: Does the primary character you play as take a leadership role right at the start or does he have to earn that role?

A: There isn’t much of a formal command structure in most of the survivor groups, so you’ll have an opportunity to shape community actions from an early point. As mentioned in the article, we abstract this as a kind of currency that we label “Daily Influence.” You start each day with an amount of Influence determined by your Fame. You gain Influence whenever you accomplish anything, and any time you want to direct the community to do something or any time you want to take extra supplies, you’re spending Influence. You can’t really stockpile Influence (except by gaining more Fame), so you may as well use it.

Q: Jesse: Are there any social actions with your survivors, beyond missions or calling them to pick up supplies?

A: Yes. If you’re a character who has strengths in Leadership, there are emotes you can trigger that have effects such as rallying and inspiring other members in your party.

Q: Xazbot: Will we be able to influence the morale of others group members by having some kind of conversation, where we could influence them to change their "state" or "levels in said state" by answering them in a specific way?

A: Doing positive things for your community always has the chance of turning someone’s attitude around, but one of the tools you’ll have for affecting someone’s Attitude directly is having a “friendly conversation” with them.

This doesn’t involve conversation trees. Instead, you’ll invite the individual in question to go for a walk with you and will talk through the issues in between zed encounters. There are a few ways for that play out. There’s no guarantee you’ll turn someone’s attitude around, but you do get to say fun things like: “You gotta figure out a way to deal with that shit. Take it out on the zeds, not the rest of us.... Or you're going to answer to me.”

Q: Robert: If a member dies will we have the ability to bury or burn their body, or will it just eventually disappear like regular zombies?

A: Typically, the zeds don’t leave you a whole corpse to bury. You will have an opportunity to collect their belongings though.

Q: laijka: Am I wrong in thinking that Influence is personal? So it would make sense to keep your scavenger types high on Influence so that the others are more willing to come help them carry all that phat loot?

A: Influence is shared among all your playable survivors. This is for two reasons: First, it’s just to remove hassle for you. We don’t want you jumping back and forth between people just to figure out who should spend Influence telling the community to set up some Generators. Second, it’s because all of your playable survivors are, by definition, friends. In fact, that’s how it works. In order for someone to be playable, you need to befriend them. After that, everyone else views you as a social group and judges you that way.

 Survivor Groups

Q: midniteryu: Can influence buy things from other survivor groups, or do you have to use cases of ammunition?

A: Besides cases of ammo? You can bum a molotov or something like that off of another survivor group with Influence if you’re on good terms. It’ll usually cost more Influence than at home, though, and just how much depends on how much they Trust you.

Q: Vanilla: Can you abandon one group of survivors for another?

A: No, it’s your community for better or for worse. On the plus side, it reflects all of your choices.

Q: Guest: Can the other survivor groups grow in numbers? And can my community aid theirs and vice-versa?

A: Yes and yes... Though many of them tend to dwindle in numbers over time rather than the reverse.

Q: Guest: Are the hordes attracted to the other survivor groups? If yes, can I aid them in their defense?


A: Yes.

 Bases/Facilities

Q: screenamesuck: When you decide to leave one home for another I know you have to leave it for good, but will you have to rebuild everything you've already built all over again. If so, will it take just as long to build it a second time?

(and related

Q: Morgan: Can you disassemble bases? It'd seem like a waste if you're moving from one base to another to expand, and then have to leave behind perfectly good facilities that you can disassemble for spare parts or something.

A: Your people will do their best to maintain the things they’ve created. This may mean transferring full facilities or may just mean collecting resources.

Q: Mackenzie: You mention putting barbed wire around the exterior of your base as a method of slowing the invading Zeds down and giving you more time to react. Will this be a feature we can use in State of Decay?

A: Yes. Everything in the journal is something that happens in the game. In the case of the barbed wire, it’s done automatically as a part of moving into a new home. A watchtower, on the other hand, is something you’d choose to build.

Q: Dalendos: This game is based on real time. Does it take a long time to build the different facilities?

A: A quick clarification: The game is not exactly real time. For instance, when you are logged in our day/night cycle is two hours long. There is such a thing as too much realism, and we would hate for people who can only play at night to never see the Trumbull Valley sun.

What the game does have is persistent time, time that continues to pass when you are offline (though not at the same rate as when you’re actively playing).

I edited your question, but the example you’d used was the watchtower. It takes an hour (real time) to build a watchtower. However there are methods of decreasing your build times. As we keep repeating, survivors are your biggest asset. If you have a community member with, say, a construction skill, this would speed up the process. Making friends with certain groups of other survivors can also provide ways to accelerate construction.

Q: KlayerBear: If the place you’re staying at ends up being overrun, can you and other survivors run and find a new place? Or will they just stay and fight? Or scatter and run in all directions?

A: Packing up and leaving your home base won’t be a light decision to make. First of all, you have to have another location scouted out to move to. Then you need to make sure you have the people and resources to maintain it. Once that’s done, you still need to have enough support from your community to make the big move.

In regards to fight or flight, this varies situationally per character. A coward might leave your community after the first zombie horde tries to break through the defenses. But the same coward might stay through thick or thin if you’ve managed to gain their friendship and trust.

Q: Ramon: Do you need a health/Medical station to heal survivors? Or just medkits?

A: What’s the saying? Time heals all wounds? There’s no instant med-kit healing. You can carry around Painkillers and use them to restore your Vitality on the fly. That’ll keep you from collapsing, but real damage that you take (which appears as a decrease in your max Vitality) requires recovery time. People can also get serious Injuries that take them out of commission, preventing them from contributing to the community in any meaningful way while they recover.

What’s more, with serious wounds or injuries, there’s a chance that that instead of recuperating, someone will take a turn for the worse. This is where a well-stocked Infirmary, along with someone with Medical training (veterinarians count, by the way) comes into play. The better your medical facilities, the better the odds (and speed) of recovery.

 Resources

Q: Creed: How will the food/water resource be used? Is the food in a stockpile that feeds everyone until it runs out?

A: The food is in a general stockpile that people hit up as needed. If you have a Storage Room, you’ll find there’s a little less random pilfering. You can also cook Big Meals or -- if you have someone who really knows how to cook -- a Feast. These provide temporary statistical bonuses.

Q: Creed: If I don't find enough food, can I choose who to feed first In a situation where I have 30 survivors and only 10 meals? Can you ration food out to the survivors you want to keep and let the lazy people go hungry?

A: No, the survivors have minds of their own and would still feed themselves if you told them not to eat. On the plus side, if you’re really low on food, people won’t simply starve, either. They’ll take it upon themselves to go look for food. (Which may open them to extra risk if they’re doing it out of desperation, but it’s better than starving.)

Q: Jesse: Will NPCs act on their own to gather supplies while you're offline [if supplies begin to run low]?

A: Yes. While you are offline, they community will continue to try to function and maintain its current state.

Remember that time does not pass offline at the same rate as it does while you are online, and in the case of prolonged absence, will all but stop. If you have to take an extended break from the game for any reason, you will NOT come back to find a picked clean world.

Q: Dalendos: How are the food supplies counted (Kg per person, or some other unit of measurement)?

A: Daily Rations. So one unit is enough food to feed one person for one day. We wanted to keep it simple.

Zombies

Q: WarPig, sebofthedead: We know that survivors do not becomes zombies if they get bitten. But if you die from a zombie attack, will you turn?

A: You’ll probably get torn apart and eaten instead. (But see the next question.)

Q: Robert, MAJOR WARPATH: If a member of your community commits suicide, will that person turn into a zombie (assuming their suicide method left their head intact)? What if they die in a fight with no head trauma? Could that possibly start a outbreak in you base?

A: Violent deaths tend not to be the issue, since the zombies will rip apart the corpse and eat it if given half a chance.

On the other hand, the threat of someone succumbing in their sleep (while you are offline), reanimating, and taking out half the population is one of the core concerns of every survivor group. If someone in your community becomes gravely ill or injured, you’ll have a real decision to make.

Q: Mackenzie, Zombiepreacher: If you see a horde heading towards your home/base, can you tell your group to stay quiet until the horde passes by?

A: Your survivors will generally follow the lead of whichever survivor you happen to be driving. So if you don’t shoot, they won’t shoot. You can tell individual survivors to stay quiet and sneak along when you’re out and about. As for a specific, community-wide “be quiet” command, the answer is no.

Q: Gawkyhades: I have seen in the game plays on how zombies jog towards you when they either hear you or see you. But, does this also work when you are inside of a building? Do zombies continue to jog when they enter the building, or do they immediately stop and begin to walk?

A: Each zombie type has two speeds. The faster speed is the one they use when you have attracted their attention. They slow down when they’ve lost you.

Misc.

Q: screenamesuck: Seeing how we need to keep up with places we've scavenged, can you guys make a printable map, or an online interactive map you can customize?

A: You’ll automatically note where you’ve been and what you’ve found on the map in game. We haven’t discussed the future possibility of a fully interactive map.

Q: laijka: Do good things and people will think good of you. Makes sense. But what if I want to be a douche? I'd assume people will think less of me but what will the consequences be of that? Not as many survivors wanting to join and neighbours being less willing to trade with me I take as a given, but what of the community I'm already in?

A: Depends on the people in it. Some won’t want to be a part a community like that. Most are just interested in survival and won’t care what your reputation is.

Q: Survivor11: I wanted to know if there will be a lot of cussing in this. I'd like to play this amazing zombie game without cringing every time someone drops the f-bomb.

A: There is cussing. How much depends on the character. Some of the people you’ll find in the game swear quite a bit. Others don’t swear at all.

As you probably figured out, you’ll want to avoid Sam Hoffman if you don’t care for f-bombs.

Q: Jesse: Will there be survivor random events or random world events? (I.e. Survivor Random Event: Suicide, disease etc.)

A: Yes, but not entirely random. Everything that happens in State of Decay is a result of your previous choices and actions (or inaction). Survivors won’t commit suicide without dropping into a depression first, but a lot of things that happen, like an accidental shooting at home, do have some randomness to them. Our rule of thumb is to never do anything with fatal consequences without giving you fair warning.

In terms of world events, the situation out there does change independent of your actions. How you adapt to it is up to you.

Q: Jesse: Can you create booby traps?

A: Yes. But bear in mind that you can't make anything that isn't on the predefined list of items. You can manufacture landmines and set up a chain of landmines, for example. You’ll probably enjoy finding creative ways to use the different objects in new, undocumented ways.

Q: [Multiple] I have a question about playing as a lone wolf.

A: We weren’t able to support going fully lone wolf, but you could try to get through the game with as small a community as possible and work with other communities as little as possible. You won’t be able to avoid having a Home, or someone communicating with you over the radio, and for a chunk of the game, you will have a few companions you can’t shake.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Minecraft 13w03a snapshot ready for testing

Minecraft released a new snapshot today that's ready for testing.  This snapshot makes zombies and skeletons harder which is cool I think. Also fixed several recent bugs.  The Link to the snapshot can be found below from the link or the copy and paste.  

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/727-13w03a-ready-for-testing/

--copy and paste--

It's time for this week's Snapshot, and we are edging ever closer to the highly anticipated Redstone Update! So, what lies in store for this week's test client?


Changelog
  • Made Zombies & Skeletons stronger, scaled to difficulty
  • Added a new Dropper block
  • Added a Minecart with Hopper item
  • Added some new chat options (In multiplayer menu)
  • At least 19 bugs squished

________________


Snapshot Client: Download
Snapshot Server: Download

Don't forget, if you come across any bugs, be sure to report them at the official Minecraft bug tracker, so they can be ironed out before release! Also, if you are a texture pack artist, don't forget that blocks and items will no longer load their artwork from one big sheet of sprites. Instead, they’ll have individual files for each image they’re using. The benefit from this is that it will be easier for Mojang to support custom blocks and items in the future. It will also allow Mojang to mix and match block artwork resolutions, and make sure that you get graphics for blocks that your current texture pack isn't updated for.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The Dead Linger Build 006 Happy New Fear

Hello everyone!  The Dead Linger has released a new build for us to try out! This one is pretty darn awesome as it completely revamps the world generation, fixes a ton more bugs and adds gameplay features like climbing ladders and such. You can watch the Vlog below to see some of the details and use the link also below to check out all the patch notes!  Linger on!



http://www.thedeadlinger.com/archives/1463

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Don't Starve Spoiled Rotten Update Preview and trailer!

The Don't Starve developers are at it again! This update is looking really cool so far and is a much larger update than the last.  Watching the trailer and viewing the community link shows you all kinds of cool new features.  The Links below might help or you can check the copy and paste here on watchsurvival.

Trailer
http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?7174-Don-t-Starve-Update-Trailer-Spoiled-Rotten

Update Features
http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?7223-Spoiled-Rotten-%28Jan-15-Update%29


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SPOILED ROTTEN

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Release notes:






  • Food spoils over long periods of time. Stale and Spoiled foods are less beneficial. Rotten food is practically inedible, but can be used as fuel or fertilizer.
  • Health and hunger values have been re-tuned across the board. Characters have a larger hunger buffer now.
  • Crock pot foods are stackable.
  • You can build a fridge to mitigate spoilage.
  • New unlockable character: WX78, a robot who can eat spoiled food with no penalties, and who hates all living things.
  • Steam cloud can be disabled (details below)
  • Camera controls for streamers/youtubers: CTRL+P will freeze the camera in place. CTRL+H will hide the
  • hud.
  • Smallbirds grow up to become angsty Teenbirds. Teenbirds grow up to be Tallbirds and leave the player.
  • The mysterious Otto Von Chesterfield can be found in some swamps, and is befriendable. (You will need a regen to find him)
  • Beefalo travel in proper herds now. Herds regenerate off-screen (currently with adults)
  • Beefalo herds become agitated when they go into heat, and will chase away the player if they are not wearing a beefalo hat.
  • Beefalo sometimes drop a beefalo horn, which can be used to move beefalos around.
  • The spiderhat is no longer craftable - you just wear the queen's head directly. It also can't be used to steal spiders from an existing queen.







Disabling steam cloud:


Some people have reported problems with steam cloud. We have added a workaround that will cause the game to save its files in your documents directory instead. To activate this mode,
add the following two lines to your C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dont_starve\settings. ini file:


[STEAM]
DISABLECLOUD = true


Monday, January 14, 2013

Monday Project Zomboid status update. 1/14/2013

Another Monday, another status update from Project Zomboid!! A great status update at that. More exciting new features that I can't wait to try out.  RC3 just keeps looking better and better! The new crafting and features about being able to sit in chairs and and how everything upgrades along with your skills. The whole thing is just wonderful!!  I really enjoyed this update! The link to the official blog post can be found below or you can read the copy and paste notes here. Also Note the part about multiplayer being officially confirmed!

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2013/01/the-state-of-the-zomboid-nation-and-carpentry/


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Hello everybody! It’s Monday blog time once again, and this week we’re going to look at the new construction system Romain has been working on, as well as some information on where we are going beyond RC3 and how we’re planning on plugging up a few of the cracks in the development and release process.
Firstly a little team update: Andy and Mash continue their urban development project in Muldraugh, expanding the core fully developed inner-town to 4 cells, as well as providing some interesting areas to discover in the outskirts of town to reward those explorer types out there. RingoD continues on his mission to scriptify the mountain of dialogue that Will has written, and Chris continues to integrate these into the meta-game. Clue: What would you do if you discovered a spot of blood on a fellow survivor’s arm?
Carpentry
Romain’s new carpentry system integrates building fortresses into the new UI system, as well as fixes some of the fundamental issues with the old system and expands it with some tasty extras. We’ll let his video do the talking.



The most fundamental change is that now the player’s carpentry skill vastly affects the quality of what is built. Level 0 walls are full of gaps, not only making them weak, but meaning zombies are more likely to attempt to walk through them. Even top level wall construction will not be completely zombie proof, balancing the safety player built fortresses provide and avoiding situations where the player is completely safe from zombies. And who knows, perhaps sky bridges will be a little more dangerous too.
Also, new item types are now constructable, such as tables and chairs (NPCs and players alike will be able to sit in the next build, to provide more natural behaviours when ‘waiting around in safehouse’ than standing there looking at a wall for 12 hours straight. This will factor into gameplay more heavily in future, with players sitting down to read a book or listen to the radio. It’s uncertain whether these will make it into RC3 however.
And of course, with new features such as plaster and paint, it allows you to decorate your safehouse so you’re no longer looking at wooden planks the whole time!

It’s vital to point out at this point, that all Romain’s work is running concurrently to the crucial work that’s actually holding RC3 back. Since a lot of that work would be much too difficult to share between two coders working remotely in separate countries, it is specifically picked to play to Romain’s strengths in game system design, to be modular and exciting improvements and features that do not impact the areas of the game under heavy restructuring, and in no way is impacting the release date of RC3.
It’s a way of making RC3 as feature rich as possible during this delay, but any incompleted features could be easily taken out and completed in a post-RC3 version should we complete the necessary work in the meantime. We do not want anyone to misunderstand this as wanton feature creep pushing the release back or taking development time off work that’s required for the release.
Now for some more updates on what is going on, as well as our future plans, all of which have been addressed at great length on the forums in the past month or so, but we wanted to reiterate on the blog here for those who do not delve into the forums.
Multiplayer Plans
We’ve finally gone and done it, and are publicly committing to starting development on multiplayer as soon as RC3 is out the door. Yes, it’s official.
That all said, the work involved in getting multiplayer working is by no means trivial, especially considering we’re committed to single player and will not allow multiplayer development to deprive the single player experience of the time and attention it deserves. Don’t expect it any time soon, but be comforted in the knowledge that it’s very much on its way. You can read more on what’s involved here, and if you like, have a look at this speculative thread where Lemmy gets all overexcited about what multiplayer could bring to Zomboid in the far future.
Development / Release Process Changes
This is of huge importance, and although we’ve mentioned it in previous blogs it seems the implications have not been as clear as they might be.
Once RC3 finally ships, we’ll be radically changing the development process to take advantage of two concurrent versions of the game. A development project where all development of Zomboid will be undertaken, and a release project that all completed additions and fixes are merged into after they are completed. While this will add a non-trivial amount of extra work for everything we do, it will mean we can commit to releasing weekly snapshots of the game. ‘Yes, we’ve heard all this before’, I’m sure you’re all saying.
Well it’s true. Since in the past delays have been in a large part caused by large-scale changes breaking the development build of the game, rendering it unplayable until the work is completed, now since we maintain two versions of the game and only transfer completed work across to the second, it means that second build will always remain completely functional and ready for release. From map additions, extra NPC meta-game scenes, to critical bug fixes, there will never be a circumstance where we need to wait on a release until things are fixed or completed, so delays will be at worst a case of days, and not the frankly ridiculous delays you lovely people have had to endure.
Bugs can be fixed and released in the next snapshot, regardless of how disruptive any current development work may be. We should have done this much earlier, and that’s entirely our fault. However, unfortunately this system cannot come into action until RC3 is out the door. It does mean we can say the following, and mean it sincerely with solid plans to back it up:
After this release, we can promise, you will never, ever, ever have to put up with months of waiting for a new version of the game ever again.
More info here.
So When is RC3 Coming?
Sadly, the above in no way helps with the wait for the current build. The fact of the matter is, the old cell system, where 300×300 maps were loaded in in entirety, as well as the windows version of the game requiring using the 32bit version of Java at the time, meant in some cases even people with 2gb machines were unable to play the game properly because of out of memory crashes when changing cells. This needed to be sorted. And the changes and consequences were massive and far-reaching.
The streaming system that went in, and as well as improving the immersion of the world dramatically, means the memory used by the game is now much lower. Unfortunately this fundamentally broke the NPC and zombies completely, since they could not function only knowing about the area of the world around the player. The need to fix this gave birth to the meta-game, which was designed to give the world back its solidity and persistence despite the limited load distance.
After last week’s blog, hopefully everyone’s in agreement that the meta-game may turn out to be one of the best things we ever added to the game. It has come at a cost though, and that is the delay in this version. Nothing can be released until all of this has been dealt with, as until it’s all dealt with there isn’t really a game to release. Of course, if we’d implemented the new release system prior to this, the delay may not have had to be so severe, but hindsight is 20/20.
As well as this, and in some respects more importantly, we have been gutting out the tangled roots of the game’s source code. The fact of the matter is that with the horrible events of late 2011, the fog of depression and the panicked rush to get back on track and get enough features in there to justify the wait people had had, and the aggressive efforts to optimize the game to run on lower spec computers, all took its toll on the stability of the game. It had gotten bad to the point that fixing one thing led to breaking 5 others.
We released test build after test build, all broken in some unique way, and this had begun to take its toll on the reputation of the game. Instead of positive comments about pillows and hordes spilling in to rip people limb from limb, comments instead focused on the bugginess of the builds and this was damaging the prospects of Zomboid surviving in the long term.
Especially after getting Greenlit, it became clear we need to get back on track, fundamentally fix all the big gaping issues with the game. Despite the many extra features the 0.2.0 builds had, they had lost something fundamental that 0.1.5d had that led to a lot of the positive attention we received in the first place, and the feedback around the internet reflected this.
We understand people are frustrated at the delays, and many feel let down that the game no longer feels an alpha-funded title where the community get to test versions and feel involved with the development process. This is not permanent. Hopefully our planned development changes detailed above show we are committed to fixing this, and know the wait people have had is not acceptable.
This last delay is for the best of reasons though, and we’re steadfast in our belief it’s not only the best thing for the game’s long term future, but necessary to avoid Zomboid’s reputation going down the toilet as a buggy mess. Especially with Steam on the horizon, Zomboid has to grow up and become a solid, polished game, with no gaping holes signposted with ‘stuff will go here’ and big ugly cracks signposted with ‘mind the gap’. We need to stop using the word ‘alpha’ as a crutch and provide a polished and fun game, but also one that can be updated frequently and safely without introducing additional problems. Recent history has shown the perils of releasing too early, and we want to get this right.
The release will be as soon as humanly possible, and we want it out as much as, if not more than, everyone else. But of paramount importance is that RC3 will not surface until we know it to be the best version of Project Zomboid to date, in terms of fun, atmosphere, polish and stability. Especially with the delays we’ve had, releasing anything less would not only be letting people down, but damaging Zomboid’s name irreparably. Once that release hits, we’ll have a stable foundation to build from, and a new release system that allows us to build on it with no significant delays, and the ability to address bugs quickly.
We will announce when RC3 goes into closed small scale testing (to weed out the biggest issues) and it will likely remain in testing for a couple of weeks. For those who are frustrated at the lack of an ETAs can use this as an indicator. It’s apparent that the worst part of not knowing when it’ll be is the assumption it might be tomorrow, or the day after. We’ll make sure everyone is informed when the game goes into testing, which means you can be secure in the knowledge that it’s not in the next couple of weeks until that happens. Apologies we cannot be more specific than that, but there are way too many factors that would throw any ETA guess out the window, so it’s better not to offer one we’ll likely miss and frustrate our community any further.
In short though, we love and live for our community and our game, and want this next version out more than anything in the world. Everything we do, or don’t, has been carefully considered to give Zomboid the best shot possible of being all we hope it will be. Thanks for your patience, and we promise we’ll never need to ask this again once we finally deliver RC3. But until then, we hope people understand our reasons.

Minecraft Snapshot 13w02b

Minecraft released another snapshot for us. This one is mainly bug fixes for the last snapshot they released.  So if your playing on the snapshot your definitely  going to want this one as well.  The Link to the official post can be found below or you can read the copy and paste notes.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/722-13w02b-snapshot-ready-for-testing/


---copy and paste---

Yesterday's Snapshot has a host of patches and fixes, so if you're helping to test out the newest Snapshots, be sure to get this latest version right away!

Changelog

  • The stitcher should now make sure to create textures that have sizes in powers of two (fixes all-white textures)
  • Trapped Chests can now transmit signal downward through one block. This does not apply horizontally (through walls)
  • When powered, the hopper can't receive items
  • Fixed Trapped chests only transmit redstone signal via redstone dust
  • Fixed Crash at 13w02a Startup [Failed to start game]
  • Fixed Hopper item looks odd when dropped
  • Fixed Texture of the furnace and the dispenser in the inventory are not showing the blocks "face"
  • Fixed Biome's grass color does not get applied to the sides of the grass block in 13w02a
  • Fixed Looking at certain items crashes the game
  • Fixed the tnt minecart is missing the ssss sound once triggered
  • Fixed Minecart with TNT fails to return correct items when removed by player
  • Fixed Ghast fireball / Fireball texture
  • Fixed White textures everywhere!
  • Fixed stitched_terrain.png and stitched_items.png on desktop
  • Fixed Cauldrons have no bottom texture inside
  • Fixed TNT Minecarts cannot be dispense from a dispenser onto rails
  • Fixed TNT Minecarts Disappear on Reload
  • Fixed [Regression] Brewing Stand does not show water bottles/potions in world.
  • Fixed Dupe planks
  • Fixed Hopper still duplicating items

Downloads

Client Download:  Click here

Server Download:  Click here

Posted Image

Saturday, January 12, 2013

State of Decay Survival Guide

State of Decay recently released a cool read for us. It is done in the format of a survivor writing a story or journal about survival in a zombie filled world.  It also explains State of Decay features and ideas while your reading it.  It is a really cool read I enjoyed quite a lot. The Link to the Journal/Survival Guide can be found below. 

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/01/news/the-survival-handbook-day-by-day/#more-5710

Friday, January 11, 2013

Zafehouse Diaries patch 1.1.7 and hotfix

Zafehouse has released a new patch for us. Patch 1.1.7  This patch updates some of the game's photos as well as updating survivor portraits and adding a new dilemma called the believers which sounds pretty cool.  The crossbow has also been added along with several bugfixes.  The official post can be found below or you can read the full patch notes and additional hotfix patch and the notes for that on the second link from their forums.

http://www.zafehouse.com/2013/01/patch-v1-1-7-released/

http://forums.screwflystudios.com/index.php/topic,277.0.html this is the forum post that includes the full patch notes as well as an additional download which is a hotfix patch for 1.1.7

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Project Zomboid Bug Squishing Guide RC2.5

I've decided to write up a small guide on setting up Project Zomboid with RC2.5 to be as bug free and as playable as possible. I'm doing this because I know a lot of people out there are really looking forward to the next update as well as getting anxious to play the game with all the new features.

 Indiestone is hard at work on the next update which is adding a completely revamped world. A ton of new features, a new interface plus way to many other things to list. Basically they are completely reworking the game from the ground up to make it as fun and as smooth as they possibly can.  This is taking a lot of time but it is very much going to be worth it. Until then though, in order for us fellow PZ fans to get their fix and have fun with the game we currently have a few options.

 First option is playing the latest stable version of the game which is 1.5d. This version is really smooth and stable but it is missing so many fun and exciting features that the newer versions of the game have.  The second option is playing RC2.5 which was the last test release update of the game. This version has the new animation system and the better graphics and the larger city and a few other great features but sadly has lot of stability and bug issues that crop up.  After quite some time and a lot of forum reading later. The fellow PZ modding community and a few other fans have figured out work arounds and bug fixes of their own to make RC2.5 quite a lot more stable and a lot less buggy and generally the most fun version of the game to date to play while we wait for the very awesome rework update.   Following this small guide will show you how to setup the newest version with the most features while squishing a lot of the bugs that make RC2.5 unplayable for most.  Anyways on to the guide.

Project Zomboid Bug Squishing Guide Rc2.5 (For windows systems)

First Obviously is to buy the game here  http://www.desura.com/games/project-zomboid 
The 7.99 Project Zomboid Alpha Version is fine. The 49.99 version is for people that wish to help further support the development of PZ.  Both Versions will give you the same game.

Second, once you officially own the game follow the below link and download the latest test release of the game.

http://theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=9404
Download RC2.5 for windows and install it. This is going to be the main game we use to play and the base of everything else we are going to fix.  Also make sure your java is the correct version needed to play the game. We need to make sure RC2.5 is installed and working first before we can go about fixing the bugs in it to make it as stable as we can.

It is also common knowledge from the community that starting the game with the EXE file also casues issues and problems for quite a few people.   Delete the Shortcut that was created when you installed the game and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Project Zomboid (or just program files without the (x86) part for those without 64bit Operating systems) and locate Project Zomboid.bat  The icon should show little gears on it and it should be very small in size and it should say windows batch file under the type section.   Right click that file and make it a shortcut on your desktop. This is what you should use to start the game up and to play it.  Double click that now and start it up and make sure the game starts and works correctly (also if you just purchased the game you will need to enter your Desura key in at this time which can be found on your dersura account)

  If your having trouble starting RC2.5 or other minor issues follow this link http://theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=7376 and see if any of those common issues and fixes help.

Ok so we got RC2.5 installed now and we have the shortcut on desktop to start it from the Bat file instead of the exe.  That's a great start.  Now we need to go about adding bug fixes to this version of the game to make it playable and stable enough to enjoy.  

There is currently an issue with the handguns and reloading in the RC2.5 version of the game. We will fix this issue first.

Go to http://theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=8991 and download RC2.0 (the Rar version NOT the EXE.  The rar version says Windows Batch  in front of it. We are not going to play this version we are simply taking the working files we need out of it to fix RC2.5.

We need two files out of this version of project zomboid to fix the handgun issues that are in RC2.5 What we need are stormysReload.lua and LuaJavaInvoker.class

  Unrar the rar file and navigate to the folder C:\Users\Zargo\Downloads\pz_020r_rc2\Project Zomboid\media\lua   (obviously replace Zargo with your own PC's user name and also replace downloads if you downloaded and extracted it to a different location.) and grab stormysReload.lua and just drag it to your desktop for now temporarily.  We will come back to it in a second.

 Now navigate to C:\Users\Zargo\Downloads\pz_020r_rc2\Project Zomboid\se\krka\kahlua\integration\expose (obviously again replace Zargo with your pc's username and replace downloads if you downloaded and extracted to a different location) and look for the file LuaJavaInvoker.class  grab that file and drag it also to your desktop like you did with the previous file.

Now that we have both the files needed to fix handguns we are ready to place them where they belong to get handguns working in the version we are going to play.   Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Project Zomboid\media\lua and drag and drop stormysReload.lua from your desktop into this folder.  If it is the correct location it will ask you if you wish to replace the file with the other one. Say yes to replace it.

Now navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Project Zomboid\se\krka\kahlua\integration\expose
 and Drag and drop the file LuaJavaInvoker.class from your desktop into this folder.  If it is the correct location it will ask you if you want to replace the current file. Say yes to this to replace it.

There we go Handguns are now fixed in the game and will work and reload properly when we play it. You may now delete the RC2.0 stuff that you downloaded and unrar'd because we no longer need it.

We are almost done here.  Thankfully the Wonderful modding community of Project Zomboid has made the rest of the bug fixes rather easy for the rest of us.   I like to give credit where credit is due and would like to thank



Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Dayz Where is Standalone release? Rocket Updates us.

I'm on a posting spree today!! Bwahaha.  I just noticed Rocket has released some more information about the goings on for Dayz Stand-alone and I thought everyone who follows watchsurvival would be interested in it.  It seems they are really dedicated to make sure Dayz Stand-alone is more then just a mod for the arma 3 engine.  They are going to take their time with it.  The official blog post (along with some cool screenshots) can be found at the link below or you may read the copy and paste here on watchsurvival.

http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/post/39933141266/where-is-the-standalone-release-i-suppose-i

--copy and paste---
 
I suppose I should start with the question everyone wants to know… where is DayZ Standalone? Obviously, it’s not here. At Eurogamer I said that DayZ had to be out before the end of the year and that’s come and gone. I still stand by that comment, to achieve what we had originally wanted, we did have to be out by the end of the year - and we’ve failed to achieve that.
Put simply, DayZ Standalone isn’t here because we had the chance to go from making a game that was just the mod improved slightly, packaged simply, and sold - to actually redeveloping the engine and making the game the way we all dreamed it could be. This blew any initial plans we had dictated to pieces.
The plan going forward
The plan from here is straightforward. We will be releasing a closed test imminently, during which approximately 500-1000 people will assist in ensuring our architecture is correctly functioning. This closed test will be focused purely on architecture, not the game design. Once we have confirmed fixes for issues arising from the closed test, we will then reschedule an internal date for our public release.
What has been done?
One of the most profound and major architectural changes has had its initial implementation completed, this is the overhaul of the inventory system. In fact, the inventory and item management system was completely removed and rewritten from the ground by Jirka, one of the original engine programmers. The work that has been completed on this groundbreaking, and it going to fundamentally change the DayZ experience.
You scavenge for items now, as individual parts, picking up pieces rather than piles, looking for cans on shelves or under beds. The new system opens the door for durability of items, disease tracking (cholera lingering on clothes a player wears…), batteries, addon components, and much more. If you shoot a player in the head to take his night vision, you will damage the night vision. The changes to this inventory system are huge.
An additional area of change has been to make the inventory system more intuitive  along with a key focus on providing visceral feedback on your progress through what inventory you have. The use of drag-and-drop, 3D models rather than 2D pictures, and being able to add items/clothing to your character in 3D in the inventory screen - have all come out of months of design work and research. I’m extremely pleased with the results of Jirka and Hladas, two of the programmers who have been working on implementing the design ideas. I believe the changes to this inventory system will fundamentally change the nature of the DayZ experience.
We are not at the point where we can release meaningful videos or screenshots of the system, but we have now confirmed the base architecture is working in game. Likely, the first that will come out about the inventory system will be during the closed test when people are actually using it.
UI Changes
ArmA community legend kju has been part of the DayZ development for some time, and is now one of your key development members. He has been working with our CEO (Marek) and me to develop the DayZ UI. We have been greatly inspired by Minecraft to make the UI simple and effective, rather than flashy and complex. All our art and code efforts are going into the game, the UI is being designed to be straightforward and functional just like in Minecraft.
Art Progress
A huge amount of work is being completed on art. I’m including some more additional pictures taken from around Chernarus. We have some massive plans now that all interiors have been completed, as rather than moving them on to other projects we are now giving them exciting new things to create.
One of the new artists on the team is a texture artist, and has been working on revising the textures for our new building interiors so they look more post-apocalyptic. Some of these changes can be seen in the work-in-progress pictures I have included.
Map Progress
The lead architect of the revised (and original) Chernarus map, Ivan Buchta, is still imprisoned in Greece on charges of espionage - and is a great loss to the team. Luckily, through letters, Ivan is able to provide some input and insight into the development of the map. Regardless, the continued imprisonment of him and Martin Pezlar has a significant impact on our ability to redevelop Chernarus.