CRAFTING CONSOLIDATION
At this point the main element of the Build 42 update that’s been holding stuff back has been the substantial crafting overhaul that’s been underway.
When we set out with B42 our main ambition has been to fill out the crafting potential of the game to vastly expand the end game by providing players the ability to build a community and replace a lot of the items that currently require looting to obtain to give players the ability to run servers and game worlds indefinitely without needing to respawn loot.
We’ve made good progress towards this end but the more time has gone on we’ve realized that aiming to achieve these goals are holding back Build 42’s entrance to an Unstable beta release. While it’s definitely achievable, and will be realized in time, stubbornly holding things back until we get there it only going to delay people getting a hold on all the other cool stuff in the Build that they’ve been waiting for.
As such we’ve decided it would be a better approach to polish up what we have, and continue the process of bug fixing and polishing the build to the point it would be able to go into the Unstable branch. Then for us to fill out the gaps in the crafting overhaul during Unstable, or perhaps with some smaller releases while Build 43 is under full development.
Though we haven’t worked out exactly what will be in the first iteration, there’ll still be a lot of new crafting for people to sink their teeth into, from stuff like the blacksmithing, pottery, woodworking, food preservation, extra fluid and workstation mechanics, new crafting system and much more. Certain crafting tech trees we’d hoped to be in the initial 42 Unstable release will be pushed back though, to avoid any more unnecessary delays.
People would much rather see the build out and get to play with all it has to offer, rather than be upset about the things never made it into the first Unstable release as originally planned. In the meantime, while there’s a ton to play with, initially the crafting overhaul may not quite live up to the potential we set out for until we fill it out later down the line.
We’ve only made the decision this week, while active development of the other major features has been rolling on. As such the build is still very unstable, unbalanced and buggy: it’ll definitely take some time to focus on fixing and polishing it up to a releasable state, and to fill in any gaps we feel we need to make the build feel whole.
As such the Unstable build is not imminent, but with this readjustment of our plans the pile of stuff that needs to be done before release has gotten a lot shorter. How quickly we’ll get the build shipshape remains to be seen, it will take some time to settle, but we’ll likely have a much better picture by the next time the blog rolls around.
MULD GLOW-UP
As you already know the map is getting a significant lick of paint – with new towns, bigger buildings in cities and underground locations.
With all the improvement, and the new tiles going toward this improvement, then our existing towns were starting to look a little threadbare. Until now, of course.
As you can see, Ayrton has been heading back into our familiar locations and giving them all a fresh lick of paint. The difference is quite marked, and we’re hopeful that you’ll all enjoy what we’ve done with the place once 42 goes Unstable.
LIGHTING GLOW-UP
42’s lighting system is a big improvement from 41’s, with enclosed rooms without light sources actually appearing dark and general light propagation being a lot more realistic.
Something we have recently improved on, in this area, however are the individual lights within each room: on lamps, signs, crafting stations, electrical appliances and such.
Here what we’re doing is adding a sprite as an overlay on top of light sources to give them a ”on” status. After tinkering with 42’s new light parameters we have been able to produce more consistent colour temperatures across our various different light sources types whether coloured, shaded, halogen or otherwise – all while still providing for more radical scenarios like coloured light bulbs.
To demonstrate, here are some example of interior lighting which show how objects that light up (lamps, neon signs, etc) can affect a scene, and how we have blended it with a standard room’s spread of light.
PAPERS PLEASE
Work continues with unconid and werlias in providing assets built with PZ models and 3D items to help us expand on our lore and your immersion into the Knox Event.
The focus is currently on newspapers, but will expand out into flyers once the numbers of back-dated editions you’d reasonably expect to be found on a particular date in 1993 have been fleshed out. So here’s one of our recent examples.
Swiftly followed by the sort of place you’d most likely find one of the most recent (and final) daily editions…
As another part of us bedding down in the lore, meanwhile, we are also making sure that characters in broadcasts, flyers and newspapers who have an evident place of work (or place of demise) have their zombified forms spawn at the relevant location on the map.
This is something of a side project for a few of our coders, but will hopefully pay dividends for when players are exploring new locations and getting to know the locals.
While in this area we are also improving the way in which the world generates loot and zed encounters that mesh better with the overall timeline. Bandit zeds and survivalist zeds, and their safehouses, when first encountered will give a far better indication of the current world state and the number of days since society breakdown.
MP TEAM UPDATE
Over in the MP department, the team have been concocting a few things to make the lives of players and server operators a little easier. To whit:
- The ability for servers to have customisable login and server connection screens, with an image of the server’s own choosing and an additional smaller server icon.
- Improved anti-cheat settings. These could formerly prove problematic but now they have been improved/tightened, and through Server Options you can turn each one on and off individually, and also configure actions when cheats are detected – whether its banning, kicking, logging or ignoring.
- Added an interface for viewing the capabilities of different roles like Admin, Moderator, and User. This interface also allows you to add custom roles, and from that customize the user capabilities for these new roles.
- A new ‘War Manager’ feature intended to help server admins govern conflict between rival groups on the map. Everything about this is customisable, especially timers and countdowns, but essentially during a waged (and accepted) war then safehouse protection is turned off for all parties involved. This comes after a war has been declared and has been accepted, with refused declarations steadily taking away (admin-defined) points that will ultimately leave you unprotected if you stave off war declarations for too long.
This is all clearly on top of many, many other smaller and wide-ranging improvements.
FUN LOOTIN’
Finally, small details we know, but the Art Department have also been pumping out more items to give a little more personality to the zeds you slay – and to the homes they once lived in.
This month’s target has been novelty key-rings and interesting bags/containers. All relatively simple for us to mix into your looting, but hopefully with some payoff as you find interesting items in each home you pillage, and each pocket you rifle through.
This month’s non-buried corpses in the cemetery from Fritz. 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, and the PZ Mailing List that can send you update notifications once builds get released. We also live on Twitter right here! Our Discord is open for chat and hijinks too. Experienced games industry gameplay coder and want to join Team Awesome? Jobs page here
