Hello everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate.
UNSTABLE PLANS
So what does the Unstable release currently look like, and what will happen during the beta once it’s out there?
Well, the scores on the doors are currently this:
As many have assumed, we are currently working on getting Unstable out before Christmas.
We feel like we will be in a good place for this, but clearly the closer we get – the shorter the window for any necessary patching before the Christmas season.
If we need to, we will choose to delay – but right now the enjoyment we’re seeing from our testers certainly would seem to suggest that the build will be in a good enough state for wider consumption. (And if it were to slip, at this point in time it’s hard to imagine it slipping far into the New Year.)
If anything were to happen to change our minds, you would be the first to know.
INTERNAL BETA TEST IMPRESSIONS
We’ve had around 30 people on the internal beta giving feedback now, and overall the response has been very positive. Which, as we mentioned last time, has been a relief.
With the feedback too has come a clear spotlight on what we need to be polishing, both now while we finalise the build – and what we will be turning our attention to during the Unstable update process.
Testers have certainly seemed to enjoy the way the game feels now – with it playing more smoothly, and the world feeling more ‘alive’.
They universally have responded well to the new lighting, new map additions, new lore, animals, optimization, underground areas, dynamic music, player vocals, corpse dragging, farming and many other of all the manifold things that are in 42.
Our changes to the flow of PZ – with our rebalanced zed spawns, combat building up muscle strain and fresh focus on the player having to sneak by crowds – have also been welcomed.
This said, this is certainly a change likely to cause some debate in the community (it does switch things up quite a lot) but we would much rather balance things within the mainframe once we have something playable out in the wild.
It makes the game a little slower, more tactical and zombies more of a threat – especially now you also have the darkness to contend with. Those who prefer to go a little more Action Jackson might disagree, however, so we’ll see how it all shakes out once everyone gets their hands on it. (And, of course, sandbox will always be available to modify, or disable, aspects that folk don’t like.)
Given that rural and some residential areas have less zeds (though we are still balancing this and pumping a few more in) there’s also a vague feeling that the overall game might be a little easier for experienced players now but, again, we will tighten this up once we have more universal feedback from the playerbase at large.
People really seem to enjoy the animals too – both when running them over, and caring for them. Having deer and rabbits wander along their paths through woodland also gives the world a lot of life, but in terms of the actual hunting gameplay itself there’s a feeling that there’s much room for improvement. As such, this will be a focus during the Unstable process.
Currently deer migrate over the map along paths preordained at the game’s start, and they leave poop and broken twigs that those with the tracking skill can follow – which testers seem to have found cool and atmospheric.
The rudiments are fun enough, but to get more of a Call of the Wild feeling we’re going to have to give the deer, their deaths, and the tracking much more focus during Unstable as the animal husbandry side of animals is what has received more than the lion’s share of attention during dev.
Fishing, meanwhile, has gone down well – but from feedback we’ve already got a few ideas on how to improve it during Unstable also.
OTHER ITEMS
A massive part of the final push for 42 Unstable has been from the crafting team, whose work has – up until this point in time – has generally been kept in a separate room from the closed beta testers while we keep feedback internal.
Much of this work has been to do with improving the various different UIs we were using, which weren’t intuitive enough and didn’t share enough key architecture between them to keep things consistent.
Although this will see some added refinement by the time you get your hands on it, this is the current iteration of the ‘crafting on a flat surface’ UI.
While it could also do with more direct information on what’s in each building recipe (unclear currently if this will make it into Unstable) we are also very happy with how crisp and clear our new Build UI is.
The Build UI overall is intended to remove much of PZ’s reliance on right mouse click – and can also be used to build items such as campfires. In time, perhaps during Unstable, we will also be considering making the movables system a part of this – to cut down on general screen clutter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foOnx80CAt8
In terms of animals, one pain point testers have outlined is the need to manually draw a ‘zone’ for your livestock should you want to move them – farmsteads come with these created on the map, but it’s not immediately obvious to new players.
As such, Prof has come up with a way for each animal to automatically create its own zone to feed, drink and breed within – but in the interests of getting the build out we’ve decided to bump the full integration of this to later during the Unstable process.
This approach is still fairly experimental, we can’t 100% confirm it will get in, but we are optimistic given what we have from it so far.
As such, this is what a PZ sheep’s brain would see, if it were reading the Matrix.
As a part of general animal improvements, meanwhile, we’ve also added a radial menu to help you with care for your livestock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98-GxPR0_V0
Something that our initial testers also requested was improved stealth/sneak. The change in zed spawning means that points of interest, and points of good lootage, are now doused in zombies more than ever before.
Given the addition of darkened nights, it felt like it was now time to tie zombie awareness a lot tighter to their surroundings: taking in light levels, cars and fences obscuring their view, and the weather. So yes, this also means that zeds will finally have their senses dulled on a foggy day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptl0LjW2eWA
Finally while, as mentioned above, not as full-on Call of the Wild as we want it to be come the full release of Build 42 – here’s a quick video of some Wild Turkey slaughter to help our American friends celebrate Thanksgiving.
(There’s Wild Turkeys in Unstable too, we forgot to add that to the infographic above).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZeQBNM-y4o
A full round-up of everything confirmed for Build 42 can be found here. A changelist of all our pre-release and post-release patches since the 41 beta began can be found here. The Block of Italicised Text would like to direct your attention to the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something. We also live on Twitter/X right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. If you fancy you can sign up to receive PZ blogs in your emails right here.
