Monthly Archives: November 2014

Alpha 10.1 hotfix is out! 11.25.14

Hey Survivalists,
Alpha 10.1 hotfix is out! Here’s the skinny.

Official Alpha 10.1 Release Notes

Added

  • Added nails to junk loot
  • Added green and blue tanktops
  • Added all colored tank tops to loot lists
  • Added red denim pants, brown denim pants, and plant fiber plants
  • Added recipe for plant fiber pants

Changed

  • Fixed vegetable stew recipe
  • Changed Burning can now be debuffed by drinking any water or juice
  • Changed coffee is always drinkable for an energy buff, but now offers negative hydration of -1
  • Changed torches can no longer be stacked and cannot be placed on a wall by themselves. To place one on a wall, first place a “Torch Holder” on the wall, then right click the torch holder with a torch to upgrade the empty torch holder to one that has a lit torch in it. Punch the lit torch to make the torch holder drop the torch. Torches degrade now when used as a weapon
  • Changed removed recipe to make the item “coal torch”. The same recipe now makes a regular torch
  • Changed updated to latest EAC SDK, should fix problems for some users using the launcher on Windows
  • Changed renamed cloth and leather pants to cloth leg armor and leather leg armor
  • Changed renamed cloth shirt to cloth chest armor, and leather jacket to cloth chest armor

Fixed

  • Fixed ammo crate recipe
  • Fixed poured concrete never dried
  • Fixed reenabled “saveworld” console command
  • Fixed “Err” exception spamming the console and corrupting save games
  • Fixed loading XMLs when clients connect
  • Fixed server browser not showing details for peer2peer entries
  • Fixed server browser name filter would add newline on enter
  • Fixed server browser showing non-feral servers as feral
  • Fixed exception System.InvalidCastException: Cannot cast from source type to destination type
  • Fixed zombies not attacking client players unless they are close to player running server
  • Fixed antibiotics don’t expire (neither did an entire class of buffs)
  • Fixed you should be able to drink coffee even if you are full (negative thirst)
  • Fixed missing SteamAPI leads to exceptions instead of proper ingame error message
  • Fixed buffs can kill people with friendly fire, like light someone on fire with a torch who is your friend.
  • Fixed startdedicated.bat makes sure the steam_appid.txt contains the clients AppID
  • Fixed alt tabbing would cause UI artifacts on player model
  • Fixed pressing random many times would cause the textures to start offsetting
  • Fixed joining game through steam was skipping player profile check
  • Fixed planted trees go invisible after growing
  • Fixed the Iron armor and scrap armor sets now have their materials and textures working

Known Issues

  • Changing screen resolution/fullscreen causes weird character texture rendering. Changing clothes of any kind will fix the problem
  • New Fire debuff icon looks blank
  • 4 new pants have blank icons and need english translations
  • 2 new tank tops have icons and need english translations
  • Some clients may experience connection problems while playing which can result in the world chunks not drawing and zombies not moving. This can be fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting
  • When loading a previous saved game Weapons can sometimes load rotated incorrectly. This can be fixed by switching hold items
  • Impact sounds for chainsaws/augers still use bullet impact sounds which is why they are too loud which will be fixed in the next build

Alpha 10 Apocalypse Release is out! 11.22.14

Goededag Survivalists,
Alpha 10 code name “The Apocalypse Release” is out and it’s one of our biggest releases to date. The feature rich Apocalypse update includes: our new character creation system with face/body morphing and visible clothing, our new zombie horde world heat map system, a new wellness system which tracks eating habits and disease, a new model based destructible/upgradable door system, an enhanced buff system with criticals, hunger, thirst and lighting zombies on fire, a brand new sexier easier to use server browser, a new random gen township system for dynamic small towns in every biome, Linux client and dedicated server support, offline mode support, a world destruction art pass, over a dozen new locations including gun stores with signs, concrete upgradable fort building, farming overhaul and a multitude of fixes, requested changes

Folks this is the largest content drop to date as Fred Sanford used to say “it’s the big one.” This update has some big framework changes so starting a new game is a must. Please don’t try to salvage your old saved game. And for those of you that experience any problems please use your steam client to delete local files and reinstall the game. Note: EAC will be disabled for 24 hours.

Now for a complete list of Alpha 10 release notes read on you big dummy!

Official Alpha 10 Release Notes

Added

  • Added a brand new Character Creation System complete with custom face, body morphing and fully visible clothing and armor on your character. With it you can make customize your character and make him or her look like you’d like. Future versions will include custom skin, eye color and hair style choices. Also included in this build are a shit ton of new lootable or craftable clothing including: Kevlar helmets, swat helmets, bandanas, goggles, sun glasses, denim jacket, pants, worn boots and tank tops. You can also remove, make a favorite outfit and put it back on quickly using the -, star and + buttons below the new character mirror in the inventory menu as well as rotating around your character in the mirror. Profile Creation has been added to the game options menu where you can create your custom charters as well as zoom in and pan around them.
  • Added a new zombie horde world heat map system that tracks how much noise and smells have added up in a zone. Over time the zone will cool down, but if it heats up too fast spider zombies will come and investigate the area. If they find something and start screeching a horde will soon follow. Campfires, forges, smells and dead animal gore also contribute to the heat maps intensity.
  • Added a new Wellness System that can go up and down based upon your eating habits, disease and death. Your wellness influences your stamina and health cap and can go from 0 to 200 over boosting these caps. Note: 100 is your base starting wellness. If you live well you’ll benefit from it with more stamina and health potential. If you live poorly you’ll suffer with less stamina and health. You can check this stat in your character screen. Remember that dying is bad so you have to play the game a little more cautious. It is possible to live well for several days and raise your wellness level quite high and reap the benefits of boosted stamina and health.
  • Added a new model based destructible/upgradable door system provides elegant door animations, multistage destruction and upgrades to all player built and intact world doors. Now you know when a door is going to break open with physical model changes, particle effects and impact sounds. Also replaced all world doors with new model ones
  • Added our enhanced buff system which controls the new debuff hunger and thirst states with multiple stages. Dehydration will kill you faster than starving and both lower your wellness. Also the broken leg system has been reworked to a more intuitive healing system with a splint icon. The new system allows buffs to affect other buffs, buffs to affect zombies and animals and even apply critical and timed damage. With it clubs have a chance to do criticals on heads, arrows cause bleed out on other players and animals and torches can light zombies on fire. Zombies are immune to bleeding, sickness, and disease.
  • Added a brand new server browser with a completely overhauled GUI. The new browser spools pages of servers better and has a large row of top buttons providing options to sort servers by Standard, Modded, Peer to Peer, Friends, History/Favorites, LAN and more. The main left panel has a sub header with icons for easily digesting server information and sort by many categories including ping. The browser also includes a new vertical server stats page on the right with a custom server message, and server address link
  • Added a township system that creates small towns in random gen can appear in every biome type with a greater probability than cities but less probable than rural locations along roads. They are smaller than cities but can have between 2-8 blocks with each block having anywhere from 4 to 8 buildings.
  • Added Linux 32 bit client and the Linux dedicated server 32 bit only. Future versions will include 64 bit.
  • Added Steam offline mode support. now you can play Survival SP or Survival MP by yourself or continue your client hosted games offline
  • Added a post apocalypse world destruction art pass. Every structure has been upgraded with boarded windows, cracked windows, broken windows, partially broken doors, locked doors, old blinds and more.
  • Added new random gen locations with custom signs including Shotgun Messiah’s gun stores and Pass-n-Gas gas stations as well as several new wasteland city buildings, rubble piles, parking lots, 4 farm shed variants and 4 vacant junk filled lot variants to the world
  • Added new concrete fort building path. You start with a rebar frame and place it. Then you upgrade that with wood planks which places the concrete forms. Then you take a bucket of concrete mix and pour it on the wood form and when it dries the wood pops off and you have hard reinforced concrete. Also added a new broken concrete texture
  • Added new better ladder physics so players can stay on ladders easier and fight from ladders
  • Added 5 new craftable containers that are labeled with symbols for player crafted storage to keep your items organized including guns, ammo, supplies, food and explosives
  • Added new search by ingredient that shows uses of an item
  • Added mouse over ingredient name tooltip to crafting tarp
  • Major efforts put into server performance which should support more players in multiplayer than before. Optimized mesh building of chunks so that this should take less CPU power
  • Added new improved wood hit set for using wooden weapons to hit zombies and objects in the world of varying material types
  • Added scrap armor recipes
  • Added bio-fuel. It is made from animal fat in the beaker
  • Added pigs, stags drop animal fat and animal fat to fat zombie loot
  • Added new nail gun to loot which can be used to upgrade forts really fast or used as a weapon requires new nail ammo which can be found in loot or forged
  • Added recipe for concrete mix
  • Added new recipe for gravel using small stones. Note the old two recipes are still there as well
  • Added a baby cotton plant that grows into the existing cotton plant
  • Added lead and tungsten trophies to the loot
  • Added reinforced concrete ramps
  • Added a texture quality option to Options->Video to allow to down sample textures to half and quarter resolution. This will lead to memory and speed improvements on lower end hardware
  • Added tallow made from animal fat in a cooking pot
  • Added Animal Stealth and sneak damage (must be crouched and they must be unaware). NOTE: animals do not affect player stealth state
  • Added new hard to get loot stash in each apartment building which include a munitions crate and Shotgun Messiah crate
  • Added animal gore block which spawns after looting an animal or after an animal dies. These contribute to the horde heat map
  • Added vegetable stew
  • Added mold time to forge
  • Added shipping crates which must be broken to expose a lootable interior crate
  • Added new shotgun messiah loot containers
  • Added spawnDeadChance to biome spawning to allow the simulation of ambient ecosystem heat and the potential to spawn scout hordes not directly due to player interaction
  • Added both good and bad wellness attributes to all foods
  • Added goldenrod seed recipe
  • Added slight animated wobble to campfire and forge lights to create natural bouncing shadow effect, as a followup to the disabled flicker that caused headaches previously
  • Added MacDyvers guide to scrap metal crafting which unlocks scrap iron armor recipes
  • Added new craftable Wooden Hatch Doors which can be placed to fill a ladder hole. Note the top ladder block must be placed first
  • Added zoom function to sniper rifle scope part for a makeshift telescope
  • Added: Hard coded backpack for the player, this will always be on the player. Note: future version will include crafting backpacks
  • Added gravel to mining and added stability to coal and potassium nitrate
  • Added to Navezgane the new small gun store in the snow biome and the large gun store to the wasteland biome

Changed

  • Changed Overhauled clubs. They use more stamina now and have a slower animation but do more damage. Barbed and spiked clubs have a chance to do bleeding damage
  • Changed farming with a complete overhaul. The hoe now raises dirt and makes the dirt it raises fertile (along with a new fertile dirt texture) and the ground adjacent to it gets flattened out and it clears out the grass and turns it to regular dirt. So you can make these nice pretty looking farm fields now and its easy to tell where to plant as well. Seeds will project where the plant will be planted when you focus on a spot. Also crops won’t break if walked on any more and grass doesn’t grow under your crops or on the dirt adjacent to it that was hoed. If you want to grow grass just place a dirt block. Also we added goldenrod farming
  • Changed Bone breaking. Now there are two stages. A sprain or break. Both can be splinted. Splints are still applied like before but when you splint your leg it replaces the broken leg icon with a splint icon. When the leg heals the splint icon is removed. If you fall while splinted the splint will break off and a new one will be needed
  • Changed removed planks block and many other old blocks that used its textures
  • Changed replaced old wood planks with new plank counterparts
  • Changed updated fertile farm ground texture
  • Changed farming grass no longer will grow on hoed earth. Crops will not grow on placed dirt only on hoed dirt. Grass grows on placed dirt blocks. The hoe turns dirt into fertile farm ground now
  • Changed icon for lead trophy
  • Changed removed deprecated material metal_no_distortion
  • Changed wasteland cars are easier to mine for resources
  • Changed updated white brick and decayed brick textures
  • Changed updated adobe peach and white textures and clay roof texture
  • Changed all sidewalks to be cracked with a new sidewalk texture
  • Changed corn crops to new growing concept
  • Changed Antibiotics and grain alcohol cook twice as fast
  • Changed gas cans are now made from grain alcohol and bio fuel
  • Changed: Reduced the health of pigs to match stags
  • Changed cloth and plant fiber torches now require animal fat
  • Changed yucca juice now takes 4 yucca
  • Changed removed recipes for concrete blocks replaced by new upgradable concrete forms
  • Changed dirt to grow grass in at a random time interval
  • Changed you can’t eat or drink if you are full or not thirsty
  • Changed If you eat or drink excess food or water increases your meter more than 100% (but it still shows as 100%). (i.e. this means food/water can be over saturated)
  • Changed lowered airdrop medicine quantities a bit
  • Changed moving in water slows you down
  • Changed now plants continue growing, even if no player is around
  • Changed Forge and Campfire now operate if no player is nearby
  • Changed Creative menu can now also be enabled per client with the “cm” / “creativemenu” command
  • Changed almost all prefabs to use a new Terrain Filler block. This allows these prefabs with allow topsoil decorations true flag to fit into nearly all biomes for better locational variety
  • Changed fuel values and weight values of many objects
  • Changed resource rocks no longer drop coal or potassium nitrate powder
  • Changed fire should debuff if in water
  • Changed hay bales can now be picked up and negate all fall damage
  • Changed Air Drop from hours to Days and changed the  Default to Every 3 Days and change the options to Disabled, 1 Day, 3 Days, 7 Days
  • Changed in game option main categories to Stock, Modded and Multiplayer reorganizing the options under these 3 new fields and reordered the options under them to better match our new server browser structure.
  • Changed removed Difficulty Presets,  Damage Given and Damage received and rolled them into one new category called Difficulty with 6 levels 1. Scavenger, 2. Adventurer, 3. Nomad, 4. Warrior, 5. Survivalist and 6. Insane
  • Changed updated particle system on wall torch, campfire and forge
  • Changed updated shader on sniper rifle
  • Changed increase zombie dogs pain-hit pause to make dogs better
  • Changed increased chance for rare books to appear
  • Changed random gen spawning to limit the largest buildings in the cities with the new MaxPerHub function. F.E you should only see one movie theater or 1 of the same large apartment building
  • Changed updated English.txt with all new in-game items, blocks and clothing
  • Changed optimized resource boulders to use less draw calls
  • Changed recipes learned from books will now show on the tooltip above the toolbelt
  • Changed improved locker loot, added clothes and football helmets
  • Changed disabled BB Colors on server names and chat window
  • Changed lowered volume of frig, chainsaw and auger
  • Changed: Zombies respawn immediately in wasteland. 4 days in other biomes. Animals respawn every 5 days

Fixed

  • Fixed bug in spawn algorithm that led zombies spawn in player’s view cone
  • Fixed prefabs and roads overlapping sometimes causing an asphalt block with air density
  • Fixed Terrain decoration flag on small trees in burnt forest
  • Fixed dysentery so it advances and lasts forever until cured
  • Fixed Goldenrod doesn’t break when you walk on it
  • Fixed wrong popup “Player was kicked by server” if a player was kicked and disconnected from another server after being kicked
  • Fixed with Unity 4.5.4: game window always on top
  • Fixed with Unity 4.5.4: Mac full screen sometimes shows texture garbage
  • Fixed flickering between up/downgrades of block entities
  • Fixed not being able to eat food that increases hydration when full. Food is discarded in this case but hydration is consumed
  • Fixed improperly rotated cabinets in the apartments
  • Fix airdrop crates showing smoke if they are in unloaded chunks
  • Fixed culling distance on wall torch, campfire and forge
  • Fixed scope aim location on sniper rifle, added muzzle origin
  • Fixed Dropped items like grass should not clip into terrain any more
  • Fixed dupe bug that allowed you to copy your inventory on exiting the game with Alt-F4 or killing the game process
  • Fixed game speed exploit when moving from single player to a multiplayer server
  • Fixed zombie pain-hit pause
  • Fixed weight of scrap lead so that single trophies can be scrapped
  • Fixed bug that ambient sound volume was also controlled by music volume slider
  • Fixed joining a password protected server through steam://connect/ links or the friend list while the game is not running
  • Fixed console commands issuing exceptions will not spawn in the server log any more
  • Fixed (Mac/Linux only): problem that some float values were read wrong on non-english locales
  • Fixed nullref in buffs
  • Fixed password for a door or chest was using a header font
  • Fixed replaying a saved game you can reread the books again
  • Fixed ambient loops to not use 3d position
  • Fixed repair wrench should not be allowed to upgrade concrete

ServerConfig.xml and Dedicated Servers

  • Added Linux Dedicated Server Support
  • Changed in game options to Standard, Modded and Multiplayer reorganizing the options under these 3 new fields. Changing Modded options or XML files will make a server sort into the modded server list
  • Added config options: ServerDescription, ServerWebsiteURL
  • Removed serverconfig options PlayerDamageGiven and PlayerDamageReceived. Those are integrated with the GameDifficulty (0 = 200% given, 50% received, 1 = 150% / 75%, 2 = 100% / 100%, 3 = 75% / 150%, 4 = 50% / 200%, 5 = 25% / 250%)
  • Removed horde mode and death match parameters (DayCount, FragLimit, MatchLength, RebuildMap)  from serverconfig.xml
  • Renamed VACEnabled to EACEnabled
  • For servers to show up in the new “standard” category in the server browser the following settings have to be at their default values: DayNightLength = 40, DropOnDeath = 0, DropOnQuit = 1, CraftTimer = 1, LootTimer = 1, EnemySenseMemory = 60, EnemySpawnMode = 3, NightPercentage = 20 – 50, BlockDurabilityModifier = 100, LootRespawnDays = 7, LootAbundance = 100, AirDropFrequency = 72, BuildCreate = false. Also the XML files in Data/Config/ may not be modified
  • Changed default port to 26900. If this port is used and the server set to public it will be found in the local LAN in the LAN tab of the server browser

Tools and Modding

  • Folks we’re not really officially supporting modding yet but we’re working on some of the proper framework to do so. That said here are some things that have been done or are in the works.
  • Changed Xml configuration files reside now in Data/Config for modding
  • Because we changed our Block IDS dramatically for organizational and performance benefits we have asked Hal 9000 to create a prefab conversion utility which thankfully he agreed. The Utility converts your previously built user prefabs to our new block IDs so you can use them with Alpha 10. More info and download here: http://www.vendocode.com/SDTD/SDTD.asmx/GetPrefabConverter
  • Hal 9000 is also working with us on an official Xml Editor which will help folk’s mod the game. It can be downloaded here: http://www.vendocode.com/SDTD/SDTD.asmx/GetXMLEditor

Known Issues

  • Some clients may experience connection problems while playing which can result in the world chunks not drawing and zombies not moving. This can be fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting
  • When loading a previous saved game Weapons can sometimes load rotated incorrectly. This can be fixed by switching hold items
  • Impact sounds for chainsaws/augers still use bullet impact sounds which is why they are too loud which will be fixed in the next build
  • The Iron armor and scrap armor sets are missing their materials and appear to be chrome. This will be fixed in the next patch

Playing Old Versions
We’re also making the last stable Alpha 9 build and older builds available to re download so here’s how you do it.
1. Open your steam client.
2. Click on Games/View Games Library
3. Right click ‘7 Days to Die’ and select properties
4. From the new popup dialogue box select the ‘BETAS’ Tab
5. Under ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into’ – select ‘Alpha 9.3 Stable’
6. The game will then update and download Alpha 9.3
7. Switching back to the latest version is as easy as repeating steps 1-4 and on step 5 choose the option ‘None – Opt out of all Beta Programs’ and you’ll revert to the latest version

Alpha 10 Status & Key Giveaway 11.04.14

Buenas Noches Survivalists,
I know, I know it’s about damn time somebody besides Madmole gave up some information on the status of Alpha 10 and I’m here to remedy that. But before I do I want to point you to the Steam key giveaway our good friends over at Purepings are running. So check it out now funk soul brother.

Purepings Giveaway!

And for those of you who want to know what the ‘F” is up with Alpha 10, see a few new screenshots and get the dirt on why Alpha 10 is taking so long then read on Chaka Khan:

Alpha 10 Status

So alpha 10 has been in development since like 1972 right? And those lazy Fun Pimps probably ate too much Halloween candy and are still sleeping off a Sugar Coma. Or maybe they’ve been climbing Mount Everest. Or they could be in Hawaii on a photo-shoot with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit girls. We’ll I’m here to set your mind at ease.

The truth is since mid-September we’ve all been chained to our desks with porta potties for chairs and a nearby mini fridge of red bulls just withnin reach feverously working on our greatest masterpiece to date. Folks this is real game development and the product of blood sweat, tears and the passion of our team which I’m very proud of. Ok enough Pimp babbling here goes.

The truth is we’re getting really close to releasing A10 and if all goes well we could get the build out as early as November 15th. There are many things I’m leaving out of this but here are some of the major things you can expect barring some show stopping bugs kicking our ass.

Character Customization
Originally we set out to do just base framework for new characters with a new clothing system. But instead we will be including a character profile creation system. With it you will be able to choose your, sex, skin color, hair color, and morph the face and body to your desire to make the character look like you want. The system will allow us to expand it easily with more hair styles, starting clothing and more. Here’s a sneak peak!

New Character System Face and Body Morphing

New Character System Face and Body Morphing

New Wellness System
We’ve added a new Wellness System that can go up and down based upon your eating habits, disease and death. You wellness influences your stamina and health cap and can go from -100 to +100. If you live well you’ll benefit from it with more stamina and health potential. If you live poorly you’ll suffer with less stamina and health.

Improved Buff System
Hunger and Thirst have been reworked and added into our improved Buff system. The system also allows buffs to affect other buffs and buffs can even affect zombies like using a torch to light zombies on fire. Also the broken leg system has been reworked to a more intuitive healing system with a splint icon.

New Zombie Horde System
We developed a new heat map system that tracks how much noise and smells have added up in a zone. Over time the zone will cool down, but if it heats up too fast spider zombies will come and investigate the area. If they find something and start screeching a horde will soon follow. Campfires, forges and dead animal gore also contribute to the heat maps intensity.

New Door System
Our new model door system provides elegant door animations, multistage destruction and upgrades to all player built and intact world doors. Now you know when a door is going to break open with physical model changes, particle effects and impact sounds.

World Destruction Pass
Every structure in the game has been upgraded with boarded windows, cracked windows, broken windows, partially broken doors, locked doors, old blinds and more. The apocalypse just got a ot grittier and a whole lot harder to loot.

Major Optimizations
Major efforts have gone into server performance which should support more players in multiplayer than before. We’ve also given clients the ability to run the game at full, half and quarter resolutions which helps folks with lower end video cards run the game.

Brand new Server Browser
We’ve added a  new slicker than snot server browser with a completely overhauled GUI. The new browser spools pages of servers better and has a large row of top buttons providing Stock, Modified, Peer to Peer, Friends. History, Lan and more. The Browser includes a new vertical server stats page with a custom server message and sub header with icon for easily digesting server information. Here’s an early mockup.

New Server Browser early  mockup

New Server Browser early mockup

Linux Client and Dedi
Yes finally we’re getting dangerously close with the Linux client and dedi barring one show stopper the guys are working on it as we speak.

 

Well that’s all for now folks. For a regular feeding of the latest 7 Days to Die development news check out Madmole’s Dev blog!

Madmole’s Dev Blog

And for those of you not in the know please drop by our forums and participate in the ongoing design discussions on how we’re going to make this the best damn zombie game out there!

7 Days to Die Forums

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