Octopus Overlords

JonathanStrange wrote:I'm watching YouTube videos. Beyond survival, do we have any goals: finding a cure, rescuing survivors, building a rudimentary lathe, reaching safety?

Nope. There is no cure, and no escape. it's just the story of how you died. The makers are a "glass is half empty" kind of people, apparently.

Finally after a long wait another big release. Downloading it now.
http://theindiestone.com/community/view ... 5e66bbf690" target="_blank

Wow BIG improvement on the zombies. 5 second impression is well impressed.
Installer actually works now. I was up and running in 5 minutes. I seriously love what they are doing with this game.

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZsmrUhvVds" target="_blank

I loaded it also. The zombie walking animations do look much better. I've been playing Day Z though, so Zomboid was a pale flame in comparision.

Hmm.... is this game available for purchase right now? Like early buy in?

I might check it out over the 4th if so.

msduncan wrote:Hmm.... is this game available for purchase right now? Like early buy in?

I might check it out over the 4th if so.

Ya it's like Minecraft. You pay once and get the updates as they come. It's obviously a work in progress AND it doesn't get updated anywhere near as fast as Minecraft, but I've gotten my moneys worth out of it.

Citizen wrote:I loaded it also. The zombie walking animations do look much better. I've been playing Day Z though, so Zomboid was a pale flame in comparision.

I've been playing Day Z and it's fun, but they went the running zombie route. It's really annoying when you first spawn and don't have a gun and have to sprint through the f'n woods forever to lose a zombie. I want my slow zombies damn it!

Yeah I hear you, but they refer to them as 'the infected' - I guess 28 Days Later style. I've gotten pretty good at sneaking and in a crouch and doing the slow walk you can get really close before the infected things go aggro. This also helped me a lot in finding a weapon:

http://dayzdb.com/map#2.085.078" target="_blank

Citizen wrote:Yeah I hear you, but they refer to them as 'the infected' - I guess 28 Days Later style. I've gotten pretty good at sneaking and in a crouch and doing the slow walk you can get really close before the infected things go aggro. This also helped me a lot in finding a weapon:

http://dayzdb.com/map#2.085.078" target="_blank

I bring that map up on my Ipad and prop it in front of me. Cheating? I guess, but the game is hard enough already.

Project Zomboid is one of the first Greenlit games on Steam. Sweet.

I'm waiting for the next release. They take FOREVER to get releases out and the last release was pretty borked. Looks like the interface is getting an overhaul in the next release so that should be huge.

Yeah, I stopped playing for now. Between Zomboid and Xenonaughts there is only so much "alpha" I can take.

THIS and Cryptic Comet's games deserve to be Greenlit on Steam. Good for them.

Just got this game...downloaded the 0.2.0 version, but it also had -2.5 or soemthing like that with the version number...

anyways

was playing, and kinda figuring things out. But I noticed...no music.

Also, I got this message up on the screen about needing to rest and meditate...but how do I rest? How do I "meditate"? Also, how do I exit out of the game, and is there a game menu, with options and stuff like that?

Chris

I haven't touched this in a LONG time since the last version they released was pretty buggy. They have a gigantic update coming, but holy hell it's taking forever. They really seem like a fly by the night company with how they are handling updates. You can't release a Alpha version that's broken and then take 2-3 months to make a gigantic update to fix everything. That being said what they are working on looks like it will be awesome. If that ends up being the case all will be forgiven. Assuming they ever release anything.

The guys developing it aren't exactly pros. There was also two occasions of disasters in development. One was a huge piracy issue that cost them money before they plugged the hole, so much for piracy not hurting anyone.

Then someone stole the lead programmer's computer or something along those lines, along with the backup, causing a kind of nervous breakdown from the programmer. But later it turned out they didn't quite lose that much.

Haven't played in a while but thought you rested in a bed but I have only played the version on Desura which is 1.5. The Devs post regular updates there and seem to be working hard to get a stable version out.

Reading their dev. posts kind of terrify me. The new guy who they brought onto the team brought the bright idea to have a development box and a QA box to make creating updates easier. What the f were they doing before? Just a dev. version and the released version?

As a professional QA tester:

Octavious wrote:Reading their dev. posts kind of terrify me. The new guy who they brought onto the team brought the bright idea to have a development box and a QA box to make creating updates easier. What the f were they doing before? Just a dev. version and the released version?

Compiling ... compiling ... built! Okay, it runs... I can load a game ... ship it out!

Chaz wrote:As a professional QA tester:

As someone who has worked for a software company for 10 years I was stunned when I read that part. I mean holy hell you can't test on a box you are developing on. Mayhaps it's just a poorly worded article, but I don't think so.

Octavious wrote:

Chaz wrote:As a professional QA tester:

As someone who has worked for a software company for 10 years I was stunned when I read that part. I mean holy hell you can't test on a box you are developing on. Mayhaps it's just a poorly worded article, but I don't think so.

Your statement assumes they test. You've clearly never worked on software at a company with leadership that doesn't know what SDLC stands for. I've worked at a company that developed it's own credit card processing software that had no QA staff or environment.

Well we develop software for Pharma companies who can get totally bitch slapped by the FDA if we screw up so we don't screw around. We're not a very good company, but even we know the value of testing stuff.

Octavious wrote:We're not a very good company

hm hmm

When I started at my current job, I was forming the QA department. They had a test environment, but hadn't had any testers or testing process for three and a half years. After a year and a half, it's still like pulling teeth to convince engineers that even if their release doesn't go through a formal test process, they need to at LEAST confirm that it works on all the major browsers. It's also been tough to convince them that having it fixed on your port doesn't mean anything until it's pushed to the QA environment. I will not regress a bug by logging into your port, or even the development environment. Grr...

Vorret wrote:

Octavious wrote:We're not a very good company

hm hmm

Well we have piss poor management of clients and treatment of employees. Our software is honestly pretty darn good bug wise.

The game's probably worth the $7 they ask as-is, easily - but is it worth the $50 they allow as a limit? Given the development so far, do you think they'll ever hit their stretch goals of long-term events like military incursion and managing NPC sanity?

For some reason, my brain has latched onto this game and I expect I'll own it tonight. The question, then, becomes my level of support. I really like the concept and what I've seen, but it also seems somewhat an amateur endeavor and it shows in their process - meaning, to me, that it may never really take off as expected...

Unless they get picked up by a company that knows how to manage the team I don't see it ever blowing up to anything much bigger then it is. It's a bunch of developers with no real project manager from what I can tell. That's never a good thing. I DO think they will get a nice working version that will be worth 15-20 bucks easy though.

Am I wrong, or was the last version released in freaking JULY?!

Citizen wrote:Am I wrong, or was the last version released in freaking JULY?!

Correct and it was broken.

On the plus side, I've been reading their developer posts, and they're basically saying that R3 will fix tons of bugs and include a lot of cool stuff... but it looks like they've been saying that for a while now. I fear for the day they release it, since they've said that NPC's will begin consuming resources that you would otherwise take - food, drink, medicines - meaning a real fight for survival.

The bug that really annoys me is how your pain levels never go down without painkillers. You could be in perfect health, but in agony and unable to sleep.

My storyline trial in 1.5d was kind of dull. My sandbox trials with the latest release were interesting. I get that the theme of the game is "This is how you died" but it seems like they're intentionally stacking the odds against you psychologically, even if you're a super-success at killing the undead and scavenging resources. I got to a point where I could kill zombies hand to hand with a knife pretty easily and could outrun a mob by zig-zagging around a few buildings and then sneaking away - but I cannot beat my character's boredom; no amount of reading books or magazines seems to bring it down. One would think that the instant you step outside your house and onto a zombie-infested road, you'd stop being bored pretty quick. One would be wrong.

*Edit: The PZWiki is helpful on these topics - to avoid boredom, you mostly need to be active outside or talk to NPC's (I spend a lot of time inside, lurking and searching). Apparently having NPC's reject you as a team mate is what makes you angry, and I got sick from who-knows-what, probably carrots since I cook all the meats I encounter.

I'm sure I probably got someone's hopes up by bumping this. Just want to mention that I'm sorry if I got anyone to buy this. It's now been over 6 months since they have released anything and while they do post updates every Monday it's pretty obvious that they have no idea what they are doing. Guess I'll check it again in 6 months.

Octavious wrote:I'm sure I probably got someone's hopes up by bumping this.

You did, you bastard!

I check their site every couple of weeks to see if they're gone beyond 2.5. When that's the number I see on their download thread, I step away. I don't even check comments or updates. I figure if it dies, someone will tell us here and I can stop checking.

For what I paid I don't feel robbed. I had a good time and had fun with it. I'd love for it to be more complete, though. I now have a small collection of incomplete Indie titles that I'm not sure will ever be done. I'm fine with that.

I generally never follow Indie games and after this I'll probably stick to waiting until they are officially released. I just really love the idea they have, but it seems that now they want to cram the entire world into the game and I could see it being another year before they release anything. Blech

Bummer. I thought it was gonna be a good-news bump too.

I also am not upset I paid into this, as I really would like to see this game fleshed out.
Someday....
This kinda zombie game needs to exist.

You tricked me too, into buying and hoping this was an update. I think I paid $7, so don't sweat it. A great concept, but sadly it's being run by meatheads.

Paingod wrote:

Octavious wrote:I'm sure I probably got someone's hopes up by bumping this.

You did, you bastard!

+1

No hard feelings. I count it along with all my ridiculous kickstarter purchases. I think I have only gotten 3 of my rewards and Zombicide is the only one that really paid off for me... and that in a fairly small way compared to the cost.

FYI this entered closed testing a week or so ago. They are claiming that there could be a release in a couple of weeks. They refuse to give any solid dates though. They really have no idea how to manage a project, but maybe the game will still end up being fun. If they release another buggy mess they are pretty much toast so I guess this is why they won't give dates. It's been pretty much a year since their last release.

I thought me paying for the game several months back inlcuded being able to play test....I guess rc3.0 is an internal internal build?

I feel awful for bringing this to everyone's attention... I did not mean to share the pain. ><

Citizen wrote:I thought me paying for the game several months back inlcuded being able to play test....I guess rc3.0 is an internal internal build?

They are testing it internally and then will release it to everyone else. They claim that having everyone test it would just cause more problems and slow them down. Doesn't get much slower then a year to do a patch to something that totally broke everything.