After last week’s blow-out on Creative Mode, the improvement of map height limits in preparation for Louisville, the inclusion of subterranean locations and the internal testing of General Arcade’s co-op build and EasyPickins’ snazzy and more efficient lighting rewrite… the general gist of this Mondoid is that we’re getting on with all of the above.

With that said, here are a few extra nuggets.

⦁ We intend to open up an IWBUMS public beta containing EP’s lighting upgrade and, quite possibly, the ‘easier to get going with co-op’ stuff too. They’re the sort of things that’ll require testing out on a wide variety of machines. Watch the forums and our Twitter for news on that one. (When Creative arrives, meanwhile, it’ll be in the form of a separate beta channel that’ll operate in much the same fashion as the way we first introduced MP to the community.)

⦁ RJ’s food system revamp continues, and it feels like most of the code elements are in place – and now just need balance so that long term survivalists will feel its impact and respond accordingly, while shorter-term players live/die/repeat without having to worry too much. If you want to provide statistical feedback then the playable build can be discovered here. [We also have sliced ham now, look it’s true.]



⦁ Turbo’s work on taking the work that formerly was done by Microsoft Excel and packaging a Radio/TV/Survivor Broadcast editing suite and timeline into WordZed continues before its release to our modders and community translators. It currently looks like this. There’s also been some map work done so that hi-fis are found in a fair few houses, so radio transmission content is far easier to come across without the need for inventory/carried radios and walkie-talkie systems.

⦁ A fair few members of the team are now brainstorming ways to improve on our current Inventory UI, which is perfectly fine in terms of workability – but certainly could be a little slicker and easily comprehensive. The results of this won’t be in-game before we’ve talked, experimented loads and found something we’re 100% happy with, but it’s worth mentioning that it’s very much something that’s under the microscope.


This week’s featured image by Butters. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki  should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! The BOIT salutes you!

 
After last week’s blow-out on Creative Mode, the improvement of map height limits in preparation for Louisville, the inclusion of subterranean locations and the internal testing of General Arcade’s co-op build and EasyPickins’ snazzy and more efficient lighting rewrite… the general gist of this Mondoid is that we’re getting on with all of the above.

With that said, here are a few extra nuggets.

⦁ We intend to open up an IWBUMS public beta containing EP’s lighting upgrade and, quite possibly, the ‘easier to get going with co-op’ stuff too. They’re the sort of things that’ll require testing out on a wide variety of machines. Watch the forums and our Twitter for news on that one. (When Creative arrives, meanwhile, it’ll be in the form of a separate beta channel that’ll operate in much the same fashion as the way we first introduced MP to the community.)

⦁ RJ’s food system revamp continues, and it feels like most of the code elements are in place – and now just need balance so that long term survivalists will feel its impact and respond accordingly, while shorter-term players live/die/repeat without having to worry too much. If you want to provide statistical feedback then the playable build can be discovered here. [We also have sliced ham now, look it’s true.]



⦁ Turbo’s work on taking the work that formerly was done by Microsoft Excel and packaging a Radio/TV/Survivor Broadcast editing suite and timeline into WordZed continues before its release to our modders and community translators. It currently looks like this. There’s also been some map work done so that hi-fis are found in a fair few houses, so radio transmission content is far easier to come across without the need for inventory/carried radios and walkie-talkie systems.

⦁ A fair few members of the team are now brainstorming ways to improve on our current Inventory UI, which is perfectly fine in terms of workability – but certainly could be a little slicker and easily comprehensive. The results of this won’t be in-game before we’ve talked, experimented loads and found something we’re 100% happy with, but it’s worth mentioning that it’s very much something that’s under the microscope.


This week’s featured image by Butters. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki  should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! The BOIT salutes you!

 
 

A Mondoid update from deep inside the guts of the next build as we all bash away on our various different coalfaces. So let’s get going…
 
As those who’ve ventured to the Mall will attest to, occasionally the current lighting system takes too long to catch up with the player’s line of sight. What with the future map expansion into the city of Louisville, and its range of larger buildings, this is clearly something we need to get on top of.
 
EasyPickins has been working on improving and reintegrating a new line-of-sight and lighting system underneath the hood of the PZ-mobile – in the next build this will now be written in C++ and will be a lot faster. He’s also changed the way room lighting is handled by the game to speed things up, by having internal spaces more uniformly lit with the same light bleeding from its edges. It should look much the same as it used to, but run a lot faster.
 
Another positive impact from this will be that lighting updates are no longer interrupted whenever a ‘map chunk’ is loaded. We’re hoping that this will help players with slower computers who’ve been forced to turn lighting quality down by ‘Help, I’m running into black fog!’ issues. This is all now in internal testing and we’ll let you know how it goes.
 
We’ve also just started a closed test of the new online co-op system worked on by General Arcade – that allows personal server creation with far less of a headache. There are still a few issues to resolve with the magic hocus pocus uPNP system to make it play nice and reconfigure the right router if more than one is on the network – or indeed a PC on that network that’s stubbornly deciding it wants to pretend to be one.
 
It’s already really really exciting to see how players will be able to simply launch multiplayer games straight out of the box as it were though. It’s too early to say when it will first reach IWBUMs public testing but, as with everything going on at the moment, when it’s done we’ll likely organize either a .5 build or a Full Build around it. It all depends on what else is good to go at that stage.
 
The rudiments of RJ’s food, cooking and physiology revamp are still in playable and experimental form (found here!) for the community to take through its paces and report back their stats and findings. RJ has now hit his fifth build, and now features freezer compartments on in-game fridges.
 
We’re hoping that the introduction of frozen food will add to the usefulness of those noisy generators in the late-game, as well as being a decent way of storing perishables. Alongside this there’s nutition balance, new recipes and (unrelated and minor, but still cool) the ability to clear up blood stains with a mop. If you want to join in our playable survival survey then please dive in.
Creative Mode is our upcoming playable map building and MP project mode, and it’s in the works both to fuel a community explosion in content and as a means to an end when building the suburbs of our own Louisville map.
What we haven’t really mentioned, however, are the side-benefits that coding this system has brought to the game. Namely, that it lets us fix a few long standing issues and limitations with the tile engine. And so…
 

Cut aways

This one is particularly exciting to Mash, who made all those buildings, the Mall and all those other exciting survival locations – only to see them sliced and diced 99% of the time because the cutaway segments are wholesale across the entire screen.
 
When you run in front of buildings, say in West Point, buildings cut off and you generally never really see more than one storey high. In a perfect world only the building you’re stood inside and that obstruct your view should slice away, leaving the surrounding town more aesthetically pleasing. This, then is also a large part of the Creative mission, and becomes a lot more important when you consider the following…
 

Improval of map height limits

The primary reason for the current (very limiting) 8-storey height map is that it’s pretty hefty in terms of memory: we have to be reserved with the maximum height as ‘one size fits all’. If a tower block has to be 8 high then so does the rest of the entire game, including all the bits above the fields and forests. All that space ‘reserved’ and swallowing up bits of memory and processing time.
This will change however, since changes made for Creative will ultimately allow for each chunk of the map to define its own extents. Therefore a tower block chunk will have its own upper limit without cruelly condemning the middle of a forest to be the same height. While it’s not yet clear how far this could or should be pushed, it’s safe to say we’d be able to consider more than 8 height buildings. This, again, is vital to the foundations of our Louisville city map.
[IMPORTANT NOTE: Discussions need to be had with EasyP about his newfangled C++ light system and how that would be impacted by this system, so it’s not certain this will make it into the first release.]
 

Oh and going underground…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ02OnOSx1E&feature=youtu.be
 
This week’s featured image by Merino. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki  should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! The CBOIT has also been very much enjoying submissions to the PZ Community General Creativity thread recently, and wanted to nudge your attention there too. Laters!

 
 

A Mondoid update from deep inside the guts of the next build as we all bash away on our various different coalfaces. So let’s get going…
 
As those who’ve ventured to the Mall will attest to, occasionally the current lighting system takes too long to catch up with the player’s line of sight. What with the future map expansion into the city of Louisville, and its range of larger buildings, this is clearly something we need to get on top of.
 
EasyPickins has been working on improving and reintegrating a new line-of-sight and lighting system underneath the hood of the PZ-mobile – in the next build this will now be written in C++ and will be a lot faster. He’s also changed the way room lighting is handled by the game to speed things up, by having internal spaces more uniformly lit with the same light bleeding from its edges. It should look much the same as it used to, but run a lot faster.
 
Another positive impact from this will be that lighting updates are no longer interrupted whenever a ‘map chunk’ is loaded. We’re hoping that this will help players with slower computers who’ve been forced to turn lighting quality down by ‘Help, I’m running into black fog!’ issues. This is all now in internal testing and we’ll let you know how it goes.
 
We’ve also just started a closed test of the new online co-op system worked on by General Arcade – that allows personal server creation with far less of a headache. There are still a few issues to resolve with the magic hocus pocus uPNP system to make it play nice and reconfigure the right router if more than one is on the network – or indeed a PC on that network that’s stubbornly deciding it wants to pretend to be one.
 
It’s already really really exciting to see how players will be able to simply launch multiplayer games straight out of the box as it were though. It’s too early to say when it will first reach IWBUMs public testing but, as with everything going on at the moment, when it’s done we’ll likely organize either a .5 build or a Full Build around it. It all depends on what else is good to go at that stage.
 
The rudiments of RJ’s food, cooking and physiology revamp are still in playable and experimental form (found here!) for the community to take through its paces and report back their stats and findings. RJ has now hit his fifth build, and now features freezer compartments on in-game fridges.
 
We’re hoping that the introduction of frozen food will add to the usefulness of those noisy generators in the late-game, as well as being a decent way of storing perishables. Alongside this there’s nutition balance, new recipes and (unrelated and minor, but still cool) the ability to clear up blood stains with a mop. If you want to join in our playable survival survey then please dive in.
Creative Mode is our upcoming playable map building and MP project mode, and it’s in the works both to fuel a community explosion in content and as a means to an end when building the suburbs of our own Louisville map.
What we haven’t really mentioned, however, are the side-benefits that coding this system has brought to the game. Namely, that it lets us fix a few long standing issues and limitations with the tile engine. And so…
 

Cut aways

This one is particularly exciting to Mash, who made all those buildings, the Mall and all those other exciting survival locations – only to see them sliced and diced 99% of the time because the cutaway segments are wholesale across the entire screen.
 
When you run in front of buildings, say in West Point, buildings cut off and you generally never really see more than one storey high. In a perfect world only the building you’re stood inside and that obstruct your view should slice away, leaving the surrounding town more aesthetically pleasing. This, then is also a large part of the Creative mission, and becomes a lot more important when you consider the following…
 

Improval of map height limits

The primary reason for the current (very limiting) 8-storey height map is that it’s pretty hefty in terms of memory: we have to be reserved with the maximum height as ‘one size fits all’. If a tower block has to be 8 high then so does the rest of the entire game, including all the bits above the fields and forests. All that space ‘reserved’ and swallowing up bits of memory and processing time.
This will change however, since changes made for Creative will ultimately allow for each chunk of the map to define its own extents. Therefore a tower block chunk will have its own upper limit without cruelly condemning the middle of a forest to be the same height. While it’s not yet clear how far this could or should be pushed, it’s safe to say we’d be able to consider more than 8 height buildings. This, again, is vital to the foundations of our Louisville city map.
[IMPORTANT NOTE: Discussions need to be had with EasyP about his newfangled C++ light system and how that would be impacted by this system, so it’s not certain this will make it into the first release.]
 

Oh and going underground…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ02OnOSx1E&feature=youtu.be
 
This week’s featured image by Merino. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki  should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! The CBOIT has also been very much enjoying submissions to the PZ Community General Creativity thread recently, and wanted to nudge your attention there too. Laters!

 
Quite a lot of ‘under the hood’ stuff going on this week at Zomboid Towers, including the exciting integration of Mash’s Secret Art Mission with the foundations of the next build and the current iteration of Creative Mode. This is now being cleaned and tidied for its future reveal, but had us all in a tizzy and no mistake. Elsewhere, meanwhile, in Zedland the following have seen occurrences:
 

It’s important that we get the work we’re doing with hunger, nutrition impact during extended survival, new traits and foodstuffs right – so as of right now we’ve released a ‘Food Tracker’ test build containing early versions of the new systems. In fact, a new version of this has been released for testing only this afternoon – featuring new recipes, balance and traits.

The primary purpose of this playable build is to let us statistically trace your exertion and your intake during typical Zomboid lifespans. The Food Tracker build comes with a constantly updated debug file that saves information from your playthrough that’s useful for us in the creation of the overall system. We’re also going to use this space for some experimentation, for example limiting the sheer amount of stuff you can shovel down your throat when your stomach is full etc.

You can learn how to access this beta branch of the game in this thread, where you can report your findings and post your debug files. We’d like to thank everyone currently taking part (especially Ohbal, Moose65 and Vanorfeadial) for their diligence and enthusiasm!


Over to Holland where TurboTuTone has been back under the bonnet of his WordZed utility in preparation for its release to modders and community translators.

“WordZed was originally a light editor, with the biggest chunk of editing being done within an Excel file. However, what with translations and the necessity of keeping track of changes in the huge PZ broadcast files I’m updating it so all radio/TV data can be built up from scratch and has similar editing capabilities to Excel.”



“After this rehaul it will be easy for the community to create their own broadcasts and stations through radiodata mods that supplement/tweak the existing ones, along with lua mod support for the radio stuff in an upcoming version. Another key factor within it, meanwhile, is translation management. The radio data has thousands of lines that may change which could potentially vary from changes within the line itself to lines changing position within the structure – and all this needs to be tracked.”

“As such WordZed will now generate translation files which translators can fill in, and should later changes be made to the overall radio/TV data then it’ll generate smaller files that only flag what the translators need to see and work on. Our community translators will also be pleased to hear that translated files can come from multiple authors, and then merged more a final version. It’s like a radio/TV translation version control.”

“All a bit involved and techie I know, but a necessary step as we move the whole system towards gameplay-impacted broadcasts and to get creative juices flowing within the budding apocalyptic writers in the modding community.”


Messrs Connall and Kirrus would like it known that the Indie Stone forums and Bug Tracker will be updated with spangly new versions over the next few weeks. As such the Bug Tracker will be set to Read Only on Thursday in preparation for its new form, so if you spot stuff disappearing/reappearing you’ll know why. Our thanks to the guys for all their hard work.
 

This week’s featured image by Бомге over on Steam. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! Happy Lunar New Year to all those celebrating!

 
Quite a lot of ‘under the hood’ stuff going on this week at Zomboid Towers, including the exciting integration of Mash’s Secret Art Mission with the foundations of the next build and the current iteration of Creative Mode. This is now being cleaned and tidied for its future reveal, but had us all in a tizzy and no mistake. Elsewhere, meanwhile, in Zedland the following have seen occurrences:
 

It’s important that we get the work we’re doing with hunger, nutrition impact during extended survival, new traits and foodstuffs right – so as of right now we’ve released a ‘Food Tracker’ test build containing early versions of the new systems. In fact, a new version of this has been released for testing only this afternoon – featuring new recipes, balance and traits.

The primary purpose of this playable build is to let us statistically trace your exertion and your intake during typical Zomboid lifespans. The Food Tracker build comes with a constantly updated debug file that saves information from your playthrough that’s useful for us in the creation of the overall system. We’re also going to use this space for some experimentation, for example limiting the sheer amount of stuff you can shovel down your throat when your stomach is full etc.

You can learn how to access this beta branch of the game in this thread, where you can report your findings and post your debug files. We’d like to thank everyone currently taking part (especially Ohbal, Moose65 and Vanorfeadial) for their diligence and enthusiasm!


Over to Holland where TurboTuTone has been back under the bonnet of his WordZed utility in preparation for its release to modders and community translators.

“WordZed was originally a light editor, with the biggest chunk of editing being done within an Excel file. However, what with translations and the necessity of keeping track of changes in the huge PZ broadcast files I’m updating it so all radio/TV data can be built up from scratch and has similar editing capabilities to Excel.”



“After this rehaul it will be easy for the community to create their own broadcasts and stations through radiodata mods that supplement/tweak the existing ones, along with lua mod support for the radio stuff in an upcoming version. Another key factor within it, meanwhile, is translation management. The radio data has thousands of lines that may change which could potentially vary from changes within the line itself to lines changing position within the structure – and all this needs to be tracked.”

“As such WordZed will now generate translation files which translators can fill in, and should later changes be made to the overall radio/TV data then it’ll generate smaller files that only flag what the translators need to see and work on. Our community translators will also be pleased to hear that translated files can come from multiple authors, and then merged more a final version. It’s like a radio/TV translation version control.”

“All a bit involved and techie I know, but a necessary step as we move the whole system towards gameplay-impacted broadcasts and to get creative juices flowing within the budding apocalyptic writers in the modding community.”


Messrs Connall and Kirrus would like it known that the Indie Stone forums and Bug Tracker will be updated with spangly new versions over the next few weeks. As such the Bug Tracker will be set to Read Only on Thursday in preparation for its new form, so if you spot stuff disappearing/reappearing you’ll know why. Our thanks to the guys for all their hard work.
 

This week’s featured image by Бомге over on Steam. The Block of Italicised Text would like to point earnestly in the general direction of the PZ Wiki should you feel like editing or amending something, and the PZ Mailing List that can send blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! Happy Lunar New Year to all those celebrating!

 
Short, sharp Mondoid this week as everyone cracks on with their own features for upcoming builds. There may well be further minor updates to Build 33, but attention is now primarily directed towards what comes next, Creative Mode and all the other stuff in the pipeline.

Turbo, for example,  is currently updating our internal WordZed tool to be more like its Excel foundations and so that it keeps track of changes to individual lines – this will mean that Radio/TV modding and community translations will be far, far easier to get into the game. EasyPickins, meanwhile, is starting to integrate the final fruits of resident Artist Mash’s Secret Mission. More upon which at a later date.


RJ has finished his research and is now coding the new nutrition system into the mainframe. Once he has something in and working it’ll then be released in a separate beta branch on Steam as we’ll need to track hardcore player activity to see how it all impacts on the late game and we can collate general feedback.

Something that’s important to underline with all this is that, although underneath the bonnet the game will be keeping track of nutritional intake, we do not intend to get all micro-managey on you.
The intention of this system to start to introduce a fear of starving in the late-game, and somewhat to reward players with varied food stocks and cooking habits with emotional and minor physical bonuses over time. It’ll be available as a Sandbox option, but will be tied to the game’s more hardcore modes like Survival.

The game will keep track of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins – but you’ll only come across real problems if you’re living on poor quality food or a limited variety. Say, for example, you’re getting by through eating 2-3 things at your farm – perhaps you’d now consider going fishing, trapping etc.

Calories will also be important though, simply because characters in PZ are so active. I’m working towards making the current food system more realistic, and it’s my job to make it feel natural and common sense, but at the same time if you want to keep track of exactly what’s going on then it’ll be visible via the Nutritionist trait or Fitness Instructor profession.

This is all going in alongside rebalanced hunger reductions, new foods, new food crafting recipes and indications of whether your character is growing fat or skinny – so you’re nudged to change your diet in plenty of time without you poring over packaging labels. Characters with big weight gains will eventually run more slowly and get exhausted more quickly, while skinnier characters will also get tired out – and have less strength to fight off the zeds.


We’ve fed back to the guys at General Arcade who are now feverishly attacking remaining bugs in the new easy access server creation and player-invite co-op niceties. Once they’ve tackled the gremlins in the system and made a final delivery we’ll need to make a few UI tweaks, and then the usual pattern of internal testing and a likely IWBUMS will ensue.


This week’s featured image by /u/CJ_The_Zero of Reddit fame. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! Toodles!

 
Short, sharp Mondoid this week as everyone cracks on with their own features for upcoming builds. There may well be further minor updates to Build 33, but attention is now primarily directed towards what comes next, Creative Mode and all the other stuff in the pipeline.

Turbo, for example,  is currently updating our internal WordZed tool to be more like its Excel foundations and so that it keeps track of changes to individual lines – this will mean that Radio/TV modding and community translations will be far, far easier to get into the game. EasyPickins, meanwhile, is starting to integrate the final fruits of resident Artist Mash’s Secret Mission. More upon which at a later date.


RJ has finished his research and is now coding the new nutrition system into the mainframe. Once he has something in and working it’ll then be released in a separate beta branch on Steam as we’ll need to track hardcore player activity to see how it all impacts on the late game and we can collate general feedback.

Something that’s important to underline with all this is that, although underneath the bonnet the game will be keeping track of nutritional intake, we do not intend to get all micro-managey on you.
The intention of this system to start to introduce a fear of starving in the late-game, and somewhat to reward players with varied food stocks and cooking habits with emotional and minor physical bonuses over time. It’ll be available as a Sandbox option, but will be tied to the game’s more hardcore modes like Survival.

The game will keep track of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins – but you’ll only come across real problems if you’re living on poor quality food or a limited variety. Say, for example, you’re getting by through eating 2-3 things at your farm – perhaps you’d now consider going fishing, trapping etc.

Calories will also be important though, simply because characters in PZ are so active. I’m working towards making the current food system more realistic, and it’s my job to make it feel natural and common sense, but at the same time if you want to keep track of exactly what’s going on then it’ll be visible via the Nutritionist trait or Fitness Instructor profession.

This is all going in alongside rebalanced hunger reductions, new foods, new food crafting recipes and indications of whether your character is growing fat or skinny – so you’re nudged to change your diet in plenty of time without you poring over packaging labels. Characters with big weight gains will eventually run more slowly and get exhausted more quickly, while skinnier characters will also get tired out – and have less strength to fight off the zeds.


We’ve fed back to the guys at General Arcade who are now feverishly attacking remaining bugs in the new easy access server creation and player-invite co-op niceties. Once they’ve tackled the gremlins in the system and made a final delivery we’ll need to make a few UI tweaks, and then the usual pattern of internal testing and a likely IWBUMS will ensue.


This week’s featured image by /u/CJ_The_Zero of Reddit fame. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter here! Toodles!

 
Happy Mondoid everyone. Let’s dive in…


We recently pushed the fixes and niceness of Builds 33.15, 33.16, 33.17, 33.18 and the 33.19 mini-fix out of the hands of our public testers and into the mitts of the player-base at large. Amidst a lot of other stuff there’s tweaks like the contents of bags left on the ground appearing in your loot window, sound fixes, zed visibility through glass doors, translations and a major fix of a bug that means that bleeding to death will be a lot more of an issue for injured surviviors from now on.

Going into IWBUMS public testing now, meanwhile, is 33.20 – a bundle of further EP and RJ work. This predominantly covers community translation work and some UI and tooltip word polish, but also adds the ability for players to dig with their bare hands (despite risks of hand damage) if they are desperate to start farming and don’t have the necessary equipment. Given a fair wind this will likely be pushed into Build 33’s final form towards the end of the week.


Time for an update from our gallant friends Serge and Gennadii, who are currently on a quest to make the Project Zomboid MP experience a more pleasant one to set out upon while we beaver away at the main game’s systems. So, over to Gennadii!
“Hello! I’m here to tell you what we’ve been working on for the last two months! It’s already quite impressive just how many people are running PZ servers, with many of them launching servers from their PCs for their friends. And, in short, we’re here to make those peoples’ lives a bit easier! We’ve just submitted our first test build to TIS, so we’re not final just yet, but this is what we’ve covering. Apologies if it gets technical!”

“First of all: UPnP support. We want people to forget about port forwarding for PZ server on your router: instead just make sure UPnP is enabled and watch the magic happen. Secondly, we’ve changed map downloading implementation from Java sockets API to native Raknet API, this will make downloading more robust and also eliminate one extra open port. (You can thank me later!)”

“The most important feature, however, is co-op play. This feature aims to get you playing PZ online with friends right from the game UI without messing with config files and console. We want it to be perfect for short playing sessions with friends. We’ve still got testing and tweaking to go, but all-in-all it’s looking really good!”
“I also want to add in a word about Project Zomboid itself.” [Mondoid writer’s note: Gennadii has not been paid to say this, and we only include it as he says nice things about you, the reader, too :P] “We’ve worked on dozens of indie projects it’s always great to find Zomboid’s code base very solid to work with. Contributors know what they are doing and they don’t afraid to refactor the code, which helps maintain the code in a good shape.”

“BUT! What’s more important is the community. Some Early Access games suffer from a toxic environment and, of course, that does reflect on a game itself. Since we began on PZ, however, we were amazed at how friendly the Project Zomboid community is. It’s just another reason why General Arcade is very happy to work on Project Zomboid for all its survivors.”


Now over to France for the latest on RJ’s plans for a full nutrition system to lie beneath your frantic chip over-eating survival habits.

“As you may know I’m working on the nutrition system, so what does it involve? Alongside my coding I’m doing a lot of research on how it all works, and how best to balance the system.”

“Right now I’m dealing with variables like Carbohydrates, Proteins, Lipids and Calories, although just how much will be directly shown to the player remains to be seen. The plan is, however, that if you only ever eat junk food (chips, soda, candy…) then you could start lacking protein or be taking in too many carbohydrates. Likewise it’ll cause issues if you’re only ever eating one or two varieties of fruit and vegetables from your garden.”

“Clearly none of this will kill you, but could add some bad effects for your character if you regularly survive for extended periods. Less endurance, loss of strength, getting more and more tired even after a good night of sleep… that sort of thing. We’re currently debating how all this will be conveyed to the player, but my own thought is that in real life it’s hard to tell if you’re lacking in something – so if you find yourself getting tired faster than usual then you should think about nutrition and maaaybe it’s time to go fishing or trapping to get some extra protein.”

“I’d also like to tie in the player’s mood a bit more tightly to the system – so endlessly eating the same stuff depresses you, and as with the rest of the game that impacts on timed actions. Likewise there’ll most likely be a Nutritionist profession. More on both in a later Mondoid perhaps!”
 


This week’s featured image by erm… ‘Dildo~Baggins’ over on Steam. Crikey, that’s a bit NSFW for a Mondoid. Apologies if that made anyone faint or made any bow-ties start spinning. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. Oh, and we live in Twitter here! Speaking of…

 
Happy Mondoid everyone. Let’s dive in…


We recently pushed the fixes and niceness of Builds 33.15, 33.16, 33.17, 33.18 and the 33.19 mini-fix out of the hands of our public testers and into the mitts of the player-base at large. Amidst a lot of other stuff there’s tweaks like the contents of bags left on the ground appearing in your loot window, sound fixes, zed visibility through glass doors, translations and a major fix of a bug that means that bleeding to death will be a lot more of an issue for injured surviviors from now on.

Going into IWBUMS public testing now, meanwhile, is 33.20 – a bundle of further EP and RJ work. This predominantly covers community translation work and some UI and tooltip word polish, but also adds the ability for players to dig with their bare hands (despite risks of hand damage) if they are desperate to start farming and don’t have the necessary equipment. Given a fair wind this will likely be pushed into Build 33’s final form towards the end of the week.


Time for an update from our gallant friends Serge and Gennadii, who are currently on a quest to make the Project Zomboid MP experience a more pleasant one to set out upon while we beaver away at the main game’s systems. So, over to Gennadii!
“Hello! I’m here to tell you what we’ve been working on for the last two months! It’s already quite impressive just how many people are running PZ servers, with many of them launching servers from their PCs for their friends. And, in short, we’re here to make those peoples’ lives a bit easier! We’ve just submitted our first test build to TIS, so we’re not final just yet, but this is what we’ve covering. Apologies if it gets technical!”

“First of all: UPnP support. We want people to forget about port forwarding for PZ server on your router: instead just make sure UPnP is enabled and watch the magic happen. Secondly, we’ve changed map downloading implementation from Java sockets API to native Raknet API, this will make downloading more robust and also eliminate one extra open port. (You can thank me later!)”

“The most important feature, however, is co-op play. This feature aims to get you playing PZ online with friends right from the game UI without messing with config files and console. We want it to be perfect for short playing sessions with friends. We’ve still got testing and tweaking to go, but all-in-all it’s looking really good!”
“I also want to add in a word about Project Zomboid itself.” [Mondoid writer’s note: Gennadii has not been paid to say this, and we only include it as he says nice things about you, the reader, too :P] “We’ve worked on dozens of indie projects it’s always great to find Zomboid’s code base very solid to work with. Contributors know what they are doing and they don’t afraid to refactor the code, which helps maintain the code in a good shape.”

“BUT! What’s more important is the community. Some Early Access games suffer from a toxic environment and, of course, that does reflect on a game itself. Since we began on PZ, however, we were amazed at how friendly the Project Zomboid community is. It’s just another reason why General Arcade is very happy to work on Project Zomboid for all its survivors.”


Now over to France for the latest on RJ’s plans for a full nutrition system to lie beneath your frantic chip over-eating survival habits.

“As you may know I’m working on the nutrition system, so what does it involve? Alongside my coding I’m doing a lot of research on how it all works, and how best to balance the system.”

“Right now I’m dealing with variables like Carbohydrates, Proteins, Lipids and Calories, although just how much will be directly shown to the player remains to be seen. The plan is, however, that if you only ever eat junk food (chips, soda, candy…) then you could start lacking protein or be taking in too many carbohydrates. Likewise it’ll cause issues if you’re only ever eating one or two varieties of fruit and vegetables from your garden.”

“Clearly none of this will kill you, but could add some bad effects for your character if you regularly survive for extended periods. Less endurance, loss of strength, getting more and more tired even after a good night of sleep… that sort of thing. We’re currently debating how all this will be conveyed to the player, but my own thought is that in real life it’s hard to tell if you’re lacking in something – so if you find yourself getting tired faster than usual then you should think about nutrition and maaaybe it’s time to go fishing or trapping to get some extra protein.”

“I’d also like to tie in the player’s mood a bit more tightly to the system – so endlessly eating the same stuff depresses you, and as with the rest of the game that impacts on timed actions. Likewise there’ll most likely be a Nutritionist profession. More on both in a later Mondoid perhaps!”
 


This week’s featured image by erm… ‘Dildo~Baggins’ over on Steam. Crikey, that’s a bit NSFW for a Mondoid. Apologies if that made anyone faint or made any bow-ties start spinning. 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 blogs like this and patch notes direct to your mailbox. Oh, and we live in Twitter here! Speaking of…