Hey all, it’s that day of the week once more…


RJ seems to have ironed out the majority of headline bugs in the current open IWBUMS betaof the first Build 35 features. Gameplay feedback would still be much appreciated though. You can find details on how to join here. In the past week we’ve had 35.7 and 35.8 that (among a bunch of other things) makes wall frames easier to click on, allows construction materials to be removed from your backpack during barricading and ties room size into the panic felt by claustrophobic traits. There’s also a new MP server option ‘FastForwardMultiplier’ that defines how much time accelerates when all players are sleeping.

We’ll see how work in the anims branch goes in the next week or so in terms of whether we release 35’s sleeping/nutrition/building/metal content to the wider PZ audience before an immediate new animations IWBUMS test, or integrate it with the snazzy new combat/clothing and whatnot.

In the mean-time however, as mentioned last week, RJ is coding in some tutorial-style information windows and also working with Writer Will to make sure new players get all the info they need to know about PZ’s ever-expanding roster of backpack contents. He’s also going to be doing some exploratory work into how to finesse our current house alarm system.



Unfortunately we’re still having problems getting the female models to behave. It’s a really odd problem and we’ve tried numerous things to get them to work properly in-game. We’re not sure if it may be something strange going on with the .X file exporter we’re using, but we have lit the beacons and are getting everyone together in the same office this week so we can have a better coordinated look under the hood to try and figure it out.

Work on the rest of the animation build is going well, though obviously the female bug hunting has taken up a lot of time we’ve still made progress in getting the rest of the build sorted. This is why we don’t do ETAs, as stuff like this always seems to glee in popping out of the woodwork as you approach the day you expect to release stuff.

Here’s a few images of ladies getting up to mischief without last week’s nightmare fuel. [The lady’s face will benefit from the different lighting in-game and isometric-ness btw, and we can probably play around with her textures too.]









Mash’s work continues on the new residential area south of Muldraugh. Also back for a quick spell on mapping is EasyPickins, who has created a ‘tree noise generator’ to make the wilderness more random/realistic and less clumpy. Here’s a ‘before’ shot, and here’s one from ‘after’ – although these are only pines, and don’t show the new big trees either.





This will impact on 90% of our current map cells on the overall PZ map – everything that hasn’t been manually updated basically. It will make all future groundwork for new areas a lot less troublesome for Binky.



Just a quick note to say that we’ll be showing Project Zomboid at Insomnia in Birmingham between the 26th and 29th of August on a stand with a few of our indie chums. We’re not sure how many of the team will be along what with all the work we have on, but if you’re around then there’ll be someone there to pop over and say hello to.

This week’s featured image by Slothy J of the vast Steam conglomerate. 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 right here! Byeees.

 

Hey all, it’s that day of the week once more…


RJ seems to have ironed out the majority of headline bugs in the current open IWBUMS betaof the first Build 35 features. Gameplay feedback would still be much appreciated though. You can find details on how to join here. In the past week we’ve had 35.7 and 35.8 that (among a bunch of other things) makes wall frames easier to click on, allows construction materials to be removed from your backpack during barricading and ties room size into the panic felt by claustrophobic traits. There’s also a new MP server option ‘FastForwardMultiplier’ that defines how much time accelerates when all players are sleeping.

We’ll see how work in the anims branch goes in the next week or so in terms of whether we release 35’s sleeping/nutrition/building/metal content to the wider PZ audience before an immediate new animations IWBUMS test, or integrate it with the snazzy new combat/clothing and whatnot.

In the mean-time however, as mentioned last week, RJ is coding in some tutorial-style information windows and also working with Writer Will to make sure new players get all the info they need to know about PZ’s ever-expanding roster of backpack contents. He’s also going to be doing some exploratory work into how to finesse our current house alarm system.



Unfortunately we’re still having problems getting the female models to behave. It’s a really odd problem and we’ve tried numerous things to get them to work properly in-game. We’re not sure if it may be something strange going on with the .X file exporter we’re using, but we have lit the beacons and are getting everyone together in the same office this week so we can have a better coordinated look under the hood to try and figure it out.

Work on the rest of the animation build is going well, though obviously the female bug hunting has taken up a lot of time we’ve still made progress in getting the rest of the build sorted. This is why we don’t do ETAs, as stuff like this always seems to glee in popping out of the woodwork as you approach the day you expect to release stuff.

Here’s a few images of ladies getting up to mischief without last week’s nightmare fuel. [The lady’s face will benefit from the different lighting in-game and isometric-ness btw, and we can probably play around with her textures too.]









Mash’s work continues on the new residential area south of Muldraugh. Also back for a quick spell on mapping is EasyPickins, who has created a ‘tree noise generator’ to make the wilderness more random/realistic and less clumpy. Here’s a ‘before’ shot, and here’s one from ‘after’ – although these are only pines, and don’t show the new big trees either.





This will impact on 90% of our current map cells on the overall PZ map – everything that hasn’t been manually updated basically. It will make all future groundwork for new areas a lot less troublesome for Binky.



Just a quick note to say that we’ll be showing Project Zomboid at Insomnia in Birmingham between the 26th and 29th of August on a stand with a few of our indie chums. We’re not sure how many of the team will be along what with all the work we have on, but if you’re around then there’ll be someone there to pop over and say hello to.

This week’s featured image by Slothy J of the vast Steam conglomerate. 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 right here! Byeees.

Hey all, let’s get down to Mondoidin’


The public IWBUMS beta test for the first Build 35 features remains going, with RJ pushingversions 35.4 to 35.6 over the past week. We’ve forced the nutrition system to ‘on’ and also upped the rate of sleep disturbances for extra feedback, in amongst the fixes and smoothening. There are also new skill books, metalwork recipes, sounds and an experimental link-up between carrying a watch and the UI digital clock.

RJ will still be adding to the build and balancing away (the various different wall strengths need some attention) but will also be turning his attention, alongside Writer Will, to add a Rimworld-style ‘Show info’ option (as suggested in this forum thread) for useful in-game objects so that new and existing players can be sure they’re aware of all relevant actions open to them, and the dangers associated.



Progress has been good on the animation system front, but super-irritatingly the lady survivors and lady zed meshes and clothing that were exported and deposited in the central development strongbox have snagged an issue – and will likely need a re-export to ensure they don’t look like nightmare fuel.

This isn’t a blocker to getting it all sorted, we’ll still be working on other necessary parts of the anims system, but it’ll likely be a massive ballache for poor old Martin the Animator to go through it all manually re-exporting it all. Sorry Martin, but your pain is for a greater good. :’(



Mash continues with her work on the new residential area that’ll be found to the South of Muldraugh. When pressured for something visual to entice survivors she proffered this image of a local community centre, where you can see the upper floor of a library with study rooms, a gym, kiddie area and whatnot.





Turbo is ticking stuff off his entertainment/boredom system ‘to do’ list and has decided to use the opportunity to bring in a long-term computer-y side project into the game alongside the videotapes, books and CDs you’ll use to entertain yourself in long-term lonesome situations. He’s also got community translations running through the radio/TV system, which will be available as selectable toggles in the options UI alongside credits to the relevant translation teams.



Thanks all, we should have a more exciting blog for y’all next week. Have a good one.

This week’s featured image by Akhil of House Gabe. 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 right here! Thx all.

Hey all, let’s get down to Mondoidin’


The public IWBUMS beta test for the first Build 35 features remains going, with RJ pushingversions 35.4 to 35.6 over the past week. We’ve forced the nutrition system to ‘on’ and also upped the rate of sleep disturbances for extra feedback, in amongst the fixes and smoothening. There are also new skill books, metalwork recipes, sounds and an experimental link-up between carrying a watch and the UI digital clock.

RJ will still be adding to the build and balancing away (the various different wall strengths need some attention) but will also be turning his attention, alongside Writer Will, to add a Rimworld-style ‘Show info’ option (as suggested in this forum thread) for useful in-game objects so that new and existing players can be sure they’re aware of all relevant actions open to them, and the dangers associated.



Progress has been good on the animation system front, but super-irritatingly the lady survivors and lady zed meshes and clothing that were exported and deposited in the central development strongbox have snagged an issue – and will likely need a re-export to ensure they don’t look like nightmare fuel.

This isn’t a blocker to getting it all sorted, we’ll still be working on other necessary parts of the anims system, but it’ll likely be a massive ballache for poor old Martin the Animator to go through it all manually re-exporting it all. Sorry Martin, but your pain is for a greater good. :’(



Mash continues with her work on the new residential area that’ll be found to the South of Muldraugh. When pressured for something visual to entice survivors she proffered this image of a local community centre, where you can see the upper floor of a library with study rooms, a gym, kiddie area and whatnot.





Turbo is ticking stuff off his entertainment/boredom system ‘to do’ list and has decided to use the opportunity to bring in a long-term computer-y side project into the game alongside the videotapes, books and CDs you’ll use to entertain yourself in long-term lonesome situations. He’s also got community translations running through the radio/TV system, which will be available as selectable toggles in the options UI alongside credits to the relevant translation teams.



Thanks all, we should have a more exciting blog for y’all next week. Have a good one.

This week’s featured image by Akhil of House Gabe. 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 right here! Thx all.

Something of an intermediary Mondoid this week, while RJ cranks out Build 35 features and fixes – while the wires of the new animation, clothing, model and combat systems we’ve developed are hooked up to the PZ mainframe.


The public IWBUMS test of some of Build 35’s features (reworked building, metal defences, big trees, nutrition, revamped sleeping system, night events etc) is ongoing and people seem to be liking it. We’ve now run through 35.1, 35.2 and 35.3 and recent changes include new skill books, clearer recipes, new sounds, object deconstruction balance, welding rods, sleep/pain balance and a bunch of other bug fixes.

We need especially need feedback on how the sleeping system and welding change/improve the feel of the gameplay, so if you’re taking the IWBUMS build for a spin then please deposit your thoughts in this thread. The bug tracker, meanwhile, lives here.



As discussed last week, all the relevant tech and anims are now in our dev branch – and what’s going on behind the scenes is tying all together.

The ladies have been finished by Binky and have been passed over to Animator Martin to do the final stage of integrating the women, getting the clothing sized appropriately for them, making sure all the anims work okay with them etc. Here’s a WIP lady model vid, with a quick image for good measure. (Martin’s only received the female stuff today, so it’s all fairly rough at the present time.)



Meanwhile, Lemmy been working on the remainder of integrating the anims and clothing into the gameplay, making sure opening/climbing through windows works, getting the weapon models integrated with the inventory etc, and is currently working on getting the clothing items working with the inventory system. There’s still more to do but we’re getting there.


We haven’t expanded the PZ map in a while, and with Louisville still a ways off we’re currently building a new residential area to the south for Build 35. We’ll leave the specifics as a surprise, but it’ll add an engaging new option to the usual WP/Muld spawn decision. While we’re back in the map, too, we’ll look at additions such as a body of water for Muld so ardent fishermen and fisherladies (for example) get more choice in their play area.

Till next week gang! Cheers for reading!

This week’s featured image by Большой Ник in Steamland. 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 directly to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Okay thanks bye!

Something of an intermediary Mondoid this week, while RJ cranks out Build 35 features and fixes – while the wires of the new animation, clothing, model and combat systems we’ve developed are hooked up to the PZ mainframe.


The public IWBUMS test of some of Build 35’s features (reworked building, metal defences, big trees, nutrition, revamped sleeping system, night events etc) is ongoing and people seem to be liking it. We’ve now run through 35.1, 35.2 and 35.3 and recent changes include new skill books, clearer recipes, new sounds, object deconstruction balance, welding rods, sleep/pain balance and a bunch of other bug fixes.

We need especially need feedback on how the sleeping system and welding change/improve the feel of the gameplay, so if you’re taking the IWBUMS build for a spin then please deposit your thoughts in this thread. The bug tracker, meanwhile, lives here.



As discussed last week, all the relevant tech and anims are now in our dev branch – and what’s going on behind the scenes is tying all together.

The ladies have been finished by Binky and have been passed over to Animator Martin to do the final stage of integrating the women, getting the clothing sized appropriately for them, making sure all the anims work okay with them etc. Here’s a WIP lady model vid, with a quick image for good measure. (Martin’s only received the female stuff today, so it’s all fairly rough at the present time.)



Meanwhile, Lemmy been working on the remainder of integrating the anims and clothing into the gameplay, making sure opening/climbing through windows works, getting the weapon models integrated with the inventory etc, and is currently working on getting the clothing items working with the inventory system. There’s still more to do but we’re getting there.


We haven’t expanded the PZ map in a while, and with Louisville still a ways off we’re currently building a new residential area to the south for Build 35. We’ll leave the specifics as a surprise, but it’ll add an engaging new option to the usual WP/Muld spawn decision. While we’re back in the map, too, we’ll look at additions such as a body of water for Muld so ardent fishermen and fisherladies (for example) get more choice in their play area.

Till next week gang! Cheers for reading!

This week’s featured image by Большой Ник in Steamland. 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 directly to your mailbox. We also live on Twitter right here! Okay thanks bye!

Build 35 IWBUMs has begun! To the uninitiated, the ‘I Will Back Up My Save’ is the PZ beta branch and details on how to access it can be found here.

You can also find a changelist here with the main additions to the build.

Whilst we’ve got some really cool stuff to release in today’s IWBUMs; the new welding system, multi-stage wall construction, dismantling furniture and other world tiles for materials, a new sleeping system, and realistic big trees in the wilderness being the headliners — this is not the complete feature set planned for build 35. Instead of holding it back until everything was in, we wanted to get some new stuff out there for people to play with, as we’re mindful that it’s been a while since our last build–however there is still plenty more to come, which will drop into the build in the subsequent bug fix builds, before it is promoted to the main branch and released to all.

The main big feature that will drop into the IWBUMs further along the way is obviously the animation and clothing overhaul, and while there are still a few things to finish off, we’ll likely hold back the IWBUMs until that is ready to drop into it. As such you should expect this particular IWBUMs to go on for some time, as the animation system will likely yield a whole bunch of bugs and compatibility issues that need to be resolved once it lands, and it will also likely play havoc with the game balance, which is something we certainly need our community to help us fix up.

Pretty much all the tech and anims are now in the game and we’re getting really close, but as mentioned above, there are still a few things that need to be completed before we could possibly release it in IWBUMs. Notable things are:

• Females – We’re still in the process of running the ladies through the same model and texture revamp that allowed for the new clothing and overlay system you’ve seen in previous Mondoids. They are close but not quite done yet. Right now it’s a bit of a sausage fest and that will not do.
• Dead bodies – at the moment, the dead bodies of zombies seen in previous videos are actually still 3D models lying stationary on the ground with collision disabled. Anyone who’s played PZ will know quite how many bodies can accumulate, and that this is not a great long-term situation for zombie carcasses and frame rates playing nice together. We will need to adapt the current build 34 system (effectively taking a photo snap of the 3D dead body and using that texture in future to represent the body from that point on), however due to the optimizations and improvements made and changes in the method of isometric drawing of 3D models there are a few hurdles we have to overcome to get this working with the animation build.
• We need to make sure the entire game is playable with the new anims – Some things like climbing through windows, climbing over high fences, and a few other things need fixing up since they were broken by the bag system, model, and texture revamp. They won’t take long to fix, but we need to do a pass over the game and make sure there are no others that have cropped up that escaped our notice, and that all interactions the player can do work properly with the new animation system.
• Balancing of the new combat, along with tying a few things into the existing zomboid damage and weapon / player stats system, tying the new sprint animations into sprint speed and a few other things of this ilk. A chunk of this may be something we can do during IWBUMs however, we’ll see how it goes but we want to make sure the first version plays okay.

The above tasks each shouldn’t take too long when taken in isolation, but still it’s not advisable anyone start pinning hopes on ‘tomorrow’ or ‘friday’, as issues could arise in the interim that delay a few days here and there, and it’s never certain what the future holds when trying to tie everything together into a complete system–especially when they are so fundamental and game-changing as the new animation system, with so many cogs from many people all need to work in unison. As usual, our ‘when it’s done’ philosophy reigns supreme, but rest assured we obviously want it out there ASAP, and are close enough to the finishing line to feel confident about it dropping into this IWBUMs.

Until the animation stuff drops in, we’re also going to refrain from producing and showing videos of the animation build, because there comes a point in the final stages of development where working toward getting a cool video out there for Mondoid detracts from work required to get the system finished off and releasable, and we’ve reached that point now where we need to just knuckle down and get the remaining stuff fixed and out there, a lot of it not very exciting but very necessary. Hopefully, there won’t be many Mondoids between now and then anyway, likely one, but it’s too early to know for sure either way.


To those that may be frustrated about certain specific features not getting talked about, we’ve got a very detailed plan underway behind the scenes that we simply don’t want to talk about too much until the build that lays the foundation for what comes next (the animation build) is out there in player’s hands. We’ve learned a lesson about talking about stuff too early in the past and feel very strongly that the best time to open up about them is when the animation stuff is out there and ticked off. Regardless we’ve been making a lot of internal plans how to approach all this stuff and feel it a good idea to gingerly point at them even though we’re not ready to start talking freely about the specifics.

Once this build has finally been released to everyone, we will be a lot more forthcoming with our future schedule that will see pretty much all the so far promised yet unreleased features begin to drop into subsequent builds. We have a 5 step road-map that will hopefully cover 5 consecutive builds all containing very exciting stuff (yes, this includes THAT feature too), and have had plenty of work being carried out on numerous of the big features going on in the background, that we’re holding close to our chests until the right time to start talking about it.

Each step of the 5 stage road-map, of which the animation build is the first fundamental stage, provides big and meaningful features while simultaneously laying the foundation for the next stage. Also each stage crucially allows us to release–in pieces that are easier to manage, test, bug fix, and polish–the huge pile of stuff we’ve been constructing in the shadows behind the scenes for a long time, yet have had some trouble connecting all the wires and circuit boards together into a working and releasable whole.

That’s as forthcoming we’re comfortable with right now, as we don’t want any hype trains leaving the station too long before their departure time–but to those who have been frustrated by the radio silence on certain things mentioned on our store page’s ‘planned features’, we want you know that we do have some very specific tracks laid out, and we’re really excited to start seeing this stuff fall into place.


In other news, we had an update from the awesome peoples at General Arcade the other day, letting us know that the first big step in the development of Zomboid Voice over IP system has been completed. They have managed to transmit voice communication over the zomboid server connection, with a good latency and quality reported. At the moment they are being transmitted to the server and mixed together into a single stream to be broadcast back, so going forward the work will be to allow for independent streams back and forth between clients, as well as work on further improving the voice quality, and ultimately in tying the voice communication into player proximity.

We’re super excited for the VOIP features, that will not only ease the requirement of coming to a complete stand-still amidst a horde of bitey undead to frantically type ‘HELP ME’, but we hope will also usher in a new age of online role-playing servers and open up more scope for multiplayer encounters.

This week’s featured image by Gilga Mesch out in the provinces of Gabenland. 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 right here! Okay thanks bye!

Build 35 IWBUMs has begun! To the uninitiated, the ‘I Will Back Up My Save’ is the PZ beta branch and details on how to access it can be found here.

You can also find a changelist here with the main additions to the build.

Whilst we’ve got some really cool stuff to release in today’s IWBUMs; the new welding system, multi-stage wall construction, dismantling furniture and other world tiles for materials, a new sleeping system, and realistic big trees in the wilderness being the headliners — this is not the complete feature set planned for build 35. Instead of holding it back until everything was in, we wanted to get some new stuff out there for people to play with, as we’re mindful that it’s been a while since our last build–however there is still plenty more to come, which will drop into the build in the subsequent bug fix builds, before it is promoted to the main branch and released to all.

The main big feature that will drop into the IWBUMs further along the way is obviously the animation and clothing overhaul, and while there are still a few things to finish off, we’ll likely hold back the IWBUMs until that is ready to drop into it. As such you should expect this particular IWBUMs to go on for some time, as the animation system will likely yield a whole bunch of bugs and compatibility issues that need to be resolved once it lands, and it will also likely play havoc with the game balance, which is something we certainly need our community to help us fix up.

Pretty much all the tech and anims are now in the game and we’re getting really close, but as mentioned above, there are still a few things that need to be completed before we could possibly release it in IWBUMs. Notable things are:

• Females – We’re still in the process of running the ladies through the same model and texture revamp that allowed for the new clothing and overlay system you’ve seen in previous Mondoids. They are close but not quite done yet. Right now it’s a bit of a sausage fest and that will not do.
• Dead bodies – at the moment, the dead bodies of zombies seen in previous videos are actually still 3D models lying stationary on the ground with collision disabled. Anyone who’s played PZ will know quite how many bodies can accumulate, and that this is not a great long-term situation for zombie carcasses and frame rates playing nice together. We will need to adapt the current build 34 system (effectively taking a photo snap of the 3D dead body and using that texture in future to represent the body from that point on), however due to the optimizations and improvements made and changes in the method of isometric drawing of 3D models there are a few hurdles we have to overcome to get this working with the animation build.
• We need to make sure the entire game is playable with the new anims – Some things like climbing through windows, climbing over high fences, and a few other things need fixing up since they were broken by the bag system, model, and texture revamp. They won’t take long to fix, but we need to do a pass over the game and make sure there are no others that have cropped up that escaped our notice, and that all interactions the player can do work properly with the new animation system.
• Balancing of the new combat, along with tying a few things into the existing zomboid damage and weapon / player stats system, tying the new sprint animations into sprint speed and a few other things of this ilk. A chunk of this may be something we can do during IWBUMs however, we’ll see how it goes but we want to make sure the first version plays okay.

The above tasks each shouldn’t take too long when taken in isolation, but still it’s not advisable anyone start pinning hopes on ‘tomorrow’ or ‘friday’, as issues could arise in the interim that delay a few days here and there, and it’s never certain what the future holds when trying to tie everything together into a complete system–especially when they are so fundamental and game-changing as the new animation system, with so many cogs from many people all need to work in unison. As usual, our ‘when it’s done’ philosophy reigns supreme, but rest assured we obviously want it out there ASAP, and are close enough to the finishing line to feel confident about it dropping into this IWBUMs.

Until the animation stuff drops in, we’re also going to refrain from producing and showing videos of the animation build, because there comes a point in the final stages of development where working toward getting a cool video out there for Mondoid detracts from work required to get the system finished off and releasable, and we’ve reached that point now where we need to just knuckle down and get the remaining stuff fixed and out there, a lot of it not very exciting but very necessary. Hopefully, there won’t be many Mondoids between now and then anyway, likely one, but it’s too early to know for sure either way.


To those that may be frustrated about certain specific features not getting talked about, we’ve got a very detailed plan underway behind the scenes that we simply don’t want to talk about too much until the build that lays the foundation for what comes next (the animation build) is out there in player’s hands. We’ve learned a lesson about talking about stuff too early in the past and feel very strongly that the best time to open up about them is when the animation stuff is out there and ticked off. Regardless we’ve been making a lot of internal plans how to approach all this stuff and feel it a good idea to gingerly point at them even though we’re not ready to start talking freely about the specifics.

Once this build has finally been released to everyone, we will be a lot more forthcoming with our future schedule that will see pretty much all the so far promised yet unreleased features begin to drop into subsequent builds. We have a 5 step road-map that will hopefully cover 5 consecutive builds all containing very exciting stuff (yes, this includes THAT feature too), and have had plenty of work being carried out on numerous of the big features going on in the background, that we’re holding close to our chests until the right time to start talking about it.

Each step of the 5 stage road-map, of which the animation build is the first fundamental stage, provides big and meaningful features while simultaneously laying the foundation for the next stage. Also each stage crucially allows us to release–in pieces that are easier to manage, test, bug fix, and polish–the huge pile of stuff we’ve been constructing in the shadows behind the scenes for a long time, yet have had some trouble connecting all the wires and circuit boards together into a working and releasable whole.

That’s as forthcoming we’re comfortable with right now, as we don’t want any hype trains leaving the station too long before their departure time–but to those who have been frustrated by the radio silence on certain things mentioned on our store page’s ‘planned features’, we want you know that we do have some very specific tracks laid out, and we’re really excited to start seeing this stuff fall into place.


In other news, we had an update from the awesome peoples at General Arcade the other day, letting us know that the first big step in the development of Zomboid Voice over IP system has been completed. They have managed to transmit voice communication over the zomboid server connection, with a good latency and quality reported. At the moment they are being transmitted to the server and mixed together into a single stream to be broadcast back, so going forward the work will be to allow for independent streams back and forth between clients, as well as work on further improving the voice quality, and ultimately in tying the voice communication into player proximity.

We’re super excited for the VOIP features, that will not only ease the requirement of coming to a complete stand-still amidst a horde of bitey undead to frantically type ‘HELP ME’, but we hope will also usher in a new age of online role-playing servers and open up more scope for multiplayer encounters.

This week’s featured image by Gilga Mesch out in the provinces of Gabenland. 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 right here! Okay thanks bye!

Hey Mondoideers! (Yes, that’s Mondoid, not Monoid!)

One big factor we’re wanting to nail with the clothing update is variety and customization. With the new overlay system it allows us to do some funky stuff to vastly increase the variety in clothing with little cost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPqcrgFxrR8

Bear in mind that the logos shown are temporary and just present for a lowly art challenged programmer to test the system, and we’ll likely be getting less Spiffo / TIS / Romain-centric logos in the final version. Also some of the colours picked by the system are a little clashy at the moment as the system hasn’t had colour-complementary fashion sense programmed into its synapses.

With just a few templates at present that will no doubt expand before release, we can already composite them together in different combinations to allow for a multitude of designs and patterns for t-shirts, tracksuits, coats or any other item of clothing. Along with decal logos and the like, of which one thing we’d love to do is allow these textures to be transmitted to servers in multiplayer games, allowing players to take their own clothing designs with their characters to add some extra identity (and also give people some unique things to pick up off their dead corpses, as well as making their zombie selves more instantly identifiable in the event of them turning). However it’s unlikely that this feature would make it into the initial version since we already have plenty on our plate getting the new animation system and clothing update ready for launch.

Meanwhile, RJ has been finishing off the welding system within the metalworking overhaul, although the smelting aspect of the metalworking build is still getting a lot of discussion and it’s not clear if this particular aspect will make it into the next version, as the system is constantly under debate and scrutiny from the team to make sure we avoid the game becoming too unrealistic and ‘Minecrafty’–which was something a lot of our community were concerned about previously, and this is a concern we take seriously.

In addition to the welding, RJ has been working on new sleeping events and balances detailed in previous Mondoids, and it is now sat in closed testing alongside Tim and Mash’s awesome new jumbo trees and numerous other fixes and balances. Nutrition has also been changed a bit, specifically balancing to have a more linear progression of the weight gain/loss instead of steps depending on your weight trait (obese, skinny etc) which should help balance out the system to the point that it could be activated for Survival mode. We’re getting feedback from a few testers and fixing any of the more serious issues that crop up before it could potentially see the wider world outside in IWBUMs.

Once released to IWBUMs it will likely remain in there for a while until animation update is ready to join the features already there, or if it feels stable soon after we’ll push it out to everyone and start a new IWBUMs for the anims. Whichever comes first.

Elsewhere in Zomboidland, Turbo is working on a catch all system for handling multimedia recordings for stuff like hi-fis, videos, arcades, tape recorders and possibly computers. This will be able to tie into the overhaul he’s currently doing to the entertainment and boredom systems in the game, as well as giving us a lot of options to extend the lore in the game, and plenty of fun opportunities for players in multiplayer to leave or transmit looped recordings for others to find. This is something we hope to integrate into the VOIP system when that lands, but of course lots of consideration will be needed into how the data from this will be managed and how much of a strain this could pose to servers, so we’ll need to see where we stand on that when the time comes.

This week’s featured image by Легенда on that there Steam.
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 right here! Okay thanks bye!

Hey Mondoideers! (Yes, that’s Mondoid, not Monoid!)

One big factor we’re wanting to nail with the clothing update is variety and customization. With the new overlay system it allows us to do some funky stuff to vastly increase the variety in clothing with little cost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPqcrgFxrR8

Bear in mind that the logos shown are temporary and just present for a lowly art challenged programmer to test the system, and we’ll likely be getting less Spiffo / TIS / Romain-centric logos in the final version. Also some of the colours picked by the system are a little clashy at the moment as the system hasn’t had colour-complementary fashion sense programmed into its synapses.

With just a few templates at present that will no doubt expand before release, we can already composite them together in different combinations to allow for a multitude of designs and patterns for t-shirts, tracksuits, coats or any other item of clothing. Along with decal logos and the like, of which one thing we’d love to do is allow these textures to be transmitted to servers in multiplayer games, allowing players to take their own clothing designs with their characters to add some extra identity (and also give people some unique things to pick up off their dead corpses, as well as making their zombie selves more instantly identifiable in the event of them turning). However it’s unlikely that this feature would make it into the initial version since we already have plenty on our plate getting the new animation system and clothing update ready for launch.

Meanwhile, RJ has been finishing off the welding system within the metalworking overhaul, although the smelting aspect of the metalworking build is still getting a lot of discussion and it’s not clear if this particular aspect will make it into the next version, as the system is constantly under debate and scrutiny from the team to make sure we avoid the game becoming too unrealistic and ‘Minecrafty’–which was something a lot of our community were concerned about previously, and this is a concern we take seriously.

In addition to the welding, RJ has been working on new sleeping events and balances detailed in previous Mondoids, and it is now sat in closed testing alongside Tim and Mash’s awesome new jumbo trees and numerous other fixes and balances. Nutrition has also been changed a bit, specifically balancing to have a more linear progression of the weight gain/loss instead of steps depending on your weight trait (obese, skinny etc) which should help balance out the system to the point that it could be activated for Survival mode. We’re getting feedback from a few testers and fixing any of the more serious issues that crop up before it could potentially see the wider world outside in IWBUMs.

Once released to IWBUMs it will likely remain in there for a while until animation update is ready to join the features already there, or if it feels stable soon after we’ll push it out to everyone and start a new IWBUMs for the anims. Whichever comes first.

Elsewhere in Zomboidland, Turbo is working on a catch all system for handling multimedia recordings for stuff like hi-fis, videos, arcades, tape recorders and possibly computers. This will be able to tie into the overhaul he’s currently doing to the entertainment and boredom systems in the game, as well as giving us a lot of options to extend the lore in the game, and plenty of fun opportunities for players in multiplayer to leave or transmit looped recordings for others to find. This is something we hope to integrate into the VOIP system when that lands, but of course lots of consideration will be needed into how the data from this will be managed and how much of a strain this could pose to servers, so we’ll need to see where we stand on that when the time comes.

This week’s featured image by Легенда on that there Steam.
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 right here! Okay thanks bye!