Game Updates and Direction

[yoNkz 3]

First, I'll say you guys are doing a good job with the game.  It has a solid foundation but I think you guys are making some poor decisions.  

 

Updates too big - your trying to fix too many things at once and when you create a new problem, it gets complicated to fix.  I get the pressure people put on you when an update isn't release on release day but releasing a buggy game is worst than having us wait.  Plus, if they want to play it so bad, they can play it in the testing mode.  The game is now unplayable, it takes forever to connect to a server, everyone's always getting session time outs and then you have to wait forever because of the whole server logging timer.

 

That's actually the next thing I wanted to talk about.  I like the idea to stop people from looting every server but the game is so buggy that between game crashes (last patch) and sessions lost (this patch), we're constantly stuck waiting 5 mins - penalized when it's the games fault.  What's the reason behind waiting 30 seconds to respawn after you die anyways?  I think that logging times should be removed for the time being.  You should also consider only having one after 2-3 server hops if the player was only on for a few minutes.  Most of the time I'm logging servers to play with friends anyways.  Gearing up was always fairly quick to do.

 

Your spending too much time on useless features like cooking food, clothes getting wet (seriously who cares.. it's always raining in this game now) and now broken arms.  What's the point in adding broken arm feature if I can still reload, use and axe, etc.  I get that your trying to make this game as real as possible but stop being so picky on specifics.  

 

That being said, I really don't understand the random server noises.  I think those need to be removed from the game because it's annoying and contradicts the whole realism vibe your going for.   It also wouldn't hurt if you increased footstep sounds.  If you think about it, eating and walking are quite comparable (depending on walking surfaces and type of food) so why should I hear someone eat/drink 25 yards away and only hear them walking 7-10 feet away.

 

Key things you should be working on rather than adding new features are:

 

1. Zombies being able to run through walls and attack through floors.

2. Roof ledges not stopping players from falling off roofs.

3. Badly damaged canned food going ruined after opened with can opener (has happened to me several times).

4. Setting up tents/campsites.  (not a priority but rather see that than other useless features)

Edited March 20, 2014 by yoNkz

[gerbilschooler 229]

By this post alone you have undoubtedly bumped the Beta release up by six months! And that's being conservative!

[Naike 28]

Amen! I was shocked to see that the update was 1GB and took me a good while to download (crappy internet). You have my beans.

[mgc 92]

Stable branch not stable enough, got it.

 

""spending too much time on useless features""

People with different skill sets are working on different things. Do you expect them not to do stuff that is scheduled to be done eventually because the rest haven't finished coding the core features yet?

[yoNkz 3]

GafMast

 

They've been consistently updating the game on a monthly basis and doing a decent job so I don't know where your getting this 6 months.  Smaller updates could allow them to update weekly.  I'm simply suggesting they do make sure something works before releasing it.  Yes... this is alpha.  That doesn't mean they should release something that's not working as it should.

 

MGC:  

 

I realize that what I may think is useless, another may think is important but the main thing here is to fix the main problems of the game before tackling new things.  That doesn't mean having everyone work on the same thing.  It simply means putting more effort in one area while others develop new features of the game. Oh and come on dude... no ones skill set it limited to adding different types of food or as specific as that.  These people are game developers that went to good schools and have been taught much more than that. 

[mgc 92]

fix the main problems of the game before tackling new things.  That doesn't mean having everyone work on the same thing.  It simply means putting more effort in one area while others develop new features of the game. Oh and come on dude... no ones skill set it limited to adding different types of food or as specific as that.  These people are game developers that went to good schools and have been taught much more than that. 

The "fluff" that is being added should not take usable manpower away from fixing the main problems, agreed.

I trust it doesn't.

[Dolle 2]

The reason the update was so big was because there were bugs that were blocking it from being released to stable, should they just stop adding content while waiting for the small patch to be released? it doesn't work that way. They have to merge often and they can't release small patches every week. It's obvious you don't read what the devs are saying on this matter as it has been answered. 

You have different teams working on different things, most of the new stuff is made by the artists, they cant fix the clipping through wall issues, can they?