Project Zomboid Developer Confirms Closed Testing has began

Hello everyone! Just wanted to post a quick update to let everyone know that Closed Testing for the awesome update for Project Zomboid has been confirmed and is underway.  The Thread can be found below.  This should mean that a public release shouldn't be to far behind.

http://theindiestone.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=12247

Live Hard News Storyline

Survival indie game Live Hard has released a small plot storyline for us today to help flesh out the game Live Hard currently being worked on.   It is a simple yet satisfying begining.

http://www.indiedb.com/games/live-hard

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It's time to tell you a bit more about the plot.

Our hero's name is Ivan. He's a factory worker from Syberia where he worked all his life. One day, while he was watching a TV program about tempting and mysterious far away islands, something ticked in his head! The idea of living on an inhabited island seemed wonderful! Shining sun, deep blue ocean, fresh exotic fruits.. and all of that for free! It sounded like heaven on Earth! And so he realised that his life dream would be to live that way. No job, no responsibilities... only a neverending vacation!
To be continued.

Project Zomboid Monday Status Update RC3 Development Developments

The new monday post for Project Zomboid is up!  Closed testing is apparently starting very soon for the new update! This is wonderful news. We also learn that with Steam's new Early Access section that Zomboid may be heading to Steam more soon then you think!  Read the copy and paste below or click the official post.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2013/03/rc3-development-developments/

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RC3 DEVELOPMENT DEVELOPMENTS

Hello survivor. Let’s talk RC3 plans – as, as hinted last week, we’re going to shake things up a little.
In order to finalise work on NPCs and the NPC metagame we needed to bring the overall game back to working order – integrate the new map, look at balancing, knock out gameplay bugs and essentially get the game up and running before our little survivor chaps could sprint around their apocalyptic playground. As regular Mondoiders will be aware, that’s what our coders have been up to these past few weeks in the build-up to a closed test.
The natural course of development, then, is going to leave us with a build that (with some polish work, launcher fiddling and whatnot) would be fun without NPCs, packed with new features and (in all likelihood) far more stable than the 2.5 releases. Given the ongoing PZ drought, and the fact NPCs die out so soon in RC2.5 they are hardly a factor, it struck us that we’d be pretty daft not to release it after the closed test, and finally give everyone something to play.
This won’t have any effect on the date of the final metagame/NPC delivery (we’d like to underline this – if people want to wait for the full release the overall goalposts aren’t being moved) – but brings the benefits of, in the mean-time, us being able to get the modding community rolling again with the release of EasyPickins’ mod tools and launching our spangly new website sooner than hoped. We’d also be able to get the new build delivery system going – releasing regular bug fixes with the efforts of our two coders combined.

SO WHAT’LL BE IN IT?
A lot. The vast new map (covering pretty much all of Muldraugh, and more besides), the roots of the meta-game system that cover zombies and zombie migration, map streaming, farming, the new skill and trait system, carpentry, female characters, better character customisation, loads of new animations, new shaders, new lighting, sandbox options, the new front-end, the new UI, the backpack system, the modding system and all the bug fixes that 2.5 has been crying out for – for so long. Plus a bunch of stuff we’ve probably forgotten about.
(A clear omission would be the K&B tutorial – so we’d explain the situation and the current NPC status to non-Mondoiders via an on-load screen.)

SO WHAT’S THE CURRENT TEST BUILD STATUS?
We had a blood curdling zombie pathfinding issue that completely rendered zombies unable to work indoors (which we discussed last Mondoid) which was finally resolved last night after seven days of intense zombie/doorframe fury.
That delayed us, but now the things left on the Closed Test (without NPCs) ‘To Do’ list are: fix a memory problem that manifests in 32bit versions of the game, nix some small save bugs, update to the latest map version and make our release builder work with the new version of Java we’ve upgraded to. This work will, one would hope, be completed in the next day or two – after which Closed Testing will begin.
As mentioned previously, however, we’ll let everyone know the second the build is entering testing via our @theindiestone Twitter account.

SO CAN I BE IN THE CLOSED TEST?
Unfortunately the testing group is small and handpicked. You’re also really, genuinely, not going to be missing out on anything. We’re looking for game-breaking, system-crashing and 100% non-fun stuff. We’re very much intent on getting the game to a high quality bar before release in terms of show-stopping bugs, but once we open up the test to the wider Zomboid community the issues that everyone can help us with will be issues that crop up on your particular system, things that happen after lengthy survival times, getting people’s opinions on zombie counts etc.

SO HOW LONG WILL CLOSED TESTING LAST? 
Well, that’s the million dollar question. Another patchy release patently will not do for us or our players, so if the build needs to be kept in the oven till it’s ready – it’s going to be kept in the oven. There are also always unseen dangers in testing when it comes to game performance – this is where demons may lie and will be the danger when it comes to desktop game development. There are many different types of machine out there, and it’s hard to specify until the build has run on a bunch of them.
This said, we now finally have two coders able to bash through bugs, so we anticipate that any undiscovered issues with the game to be pretty fast to sort out. The best policy will probably be to get the game into testing first, see how things go down – and keep you informed via Mondoid blogs, @theindiestone and the forum. We’ll also, clearly, be able to supply a lot more screenshots, videos and whatnot once the process begins.
The same closed testing process will then later repeat once the NPC metagame overlay has been completed. (The work for which, let’s not forget, is already 80% done.)

SO, ALSO, I NOTICED THAT ‘STEAM EARLY ACCESS’ THING
That was the ‘announcement’ we alluded to last week, and we’ve had a preliminary chat with Valve about it all. One reason we’ve been historically cautious about going onto Steam was that there’s a certain level of quality, completeness and polish that’s needed to avoid risking a lot of bad feeling when appearing on the Steam store, as some notable releases of recent times have shown us.
While we would have been careful to make a clear point of PZ’s in-development state, one thing we’ve learnt is that no matter how clearly you label something in text, sometimes people miss this information. That’s all seems to have changed now with Steam Early Access. They are clearly advertised as ‘in-development’ within Steam itself, and therefore we would be a lot more comfortable going in there sooner than we originally planned.
All this said, it’s clearly not our priority – which is fundamentally to our current players and to our builds on Desura. Our entrance to Steam (early access or not) will only be when we’re in the groove of releasing regular updates and fixes, the game is bug-free, NPCs are running around and the meta-game is in place. Above all, we need to ensure our existing audience’s happiness moodle is showing before we go chasing around trying to widen it.
That’s all for now survivors. More as it happens.

Don't Starve Update Preview Doorway to Adventure!

Don't Starve has released a new trailer recently previewing their newest update titled "Doorway to Adventure"  You can see the trailer below as well as a link to the forums where everyone always tries to find the little hidden information they always release with these preview trailers.

The forum topic for discussion can be found here.
http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?10593-Don-t-Starve-Update-Trailer-Doorway-to-Adventure!

Watchsurvival Update News.

Thought I'd post a quick update to let everyone know I've been working on Watchsurvival some.  I've added a Contact page to make it easy for people to contact me should they wish to do that.  I've also added a subscriber gadget for news readers for people who like that kinda thing.  I also added a Labels section so you can sort through posts you wish to see more easy.

 Last but not least I've removed the middle advertisement under the blog posts for those who view the site without Adblock installed.  I was ok with the middle advert at first because most the time it seemed to be a gaming advert and I was ok with that, but today I was browsing my site and updating with Ads enabled to check them out and I seen a dreaded advertisement with a green "DOWNLOAD" button and I said "OH *^# NO"  I can't stand that stuff when I'm browsing the web and I don't want my fellow gamers and survivalists putting up with it either.  While this may make the website revenue go down I could care less. I do this website for the gamers not the income.   I would love for this website to become my full time job but I'm a realist and know it's simply wishful thinking.  I've kept the side advertisement for now and I want to thank all of you who help support the site, but I want you guys/girls/aliens/zombies to know it's all about the gaming and it always will be. 

Zargo

PS. Almost forgot!  I'm also going to be updating the Survival Game List Page here soon with (hopefully) a much better layout and better format that is easier on everyone with a little more information.  I'm still thinking about how I want it and still working out the small details though but that will be happening soon for sure.   Stay safe gamers!

NEOScavenger News Update.

The popular indie survival game NEOscavenger has recently released new update information for everyone.  Check out all the info below.  It includes fixes for the editor and working on encounters.

http://bluebottlegames.com/main/node/1535

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Editor Fixes, and Continuing Encounter Work

Submitted by dcfedor on Thu, 03/21/2013 - 17:01

I rewrote the editor's save routine this morning to work in batches, which allows me to save a larger number of encounter nodes before the process conks out. Once that was in place, I was able to rebuild the encounter structure pictured yesterday, and copy+paste the text for each node back in. By the time lunch rolled around, I was caught up with yesterday's work, plus the remaining portions of the node tree.
After lunch, I decided to switch gears. The writing/node-mapping was starting to get pretty tedious, so I started work on the encounter illustration. I looked at reference materials, collected those that seemed relevant, and started blocking in the image. Most of this early work is a matter of getting the lighting straight, perspective lines, composition, and using flat colors to denote areas of light and shadow.
Then, I'm able to move things around, and play with the composition until it gets to a point where I'm happy enough to commit to shading. As of this evening, that's about where I am. I think I like where the image is going, and most everything is in place, but unshaded.
So tomorrow, I'll look at it with fresh eyes, and see whether it needs any tweaking or not. If all goes well, it's time to start shading and detail work. I'll probably need to add a little ruin and destruction to it, too :)
That's all for today. Have a good one, all!

The Dead Linger 008 update Teaser - No place is safe.

The Dead Linger has released a new teaser trailer for us to watch for their upcoming update. It looks pretty cool. Zombies can now get through windows and infection is able to spread. A Gas station has also been added into the mix of building templates that spawn. Check it out below.

http://www.thedeadlinger.com/archives/1573

Project Zomboid Monday Status update: Window Pains!

The weekly Monday blog for project zomboid has been posted.  We get some cool info in this one. We get to see information about the release of the update.  We get to see new animations for windows and see talk about the context button which is used to interact with the environment.  Pretty cool stuff.  Check out the full info below or read the copy and paste.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2013/03/window-pains/

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Window Pains

 

Roll up, roll up and welcome one and all to one of those conversational blog posts we sometimes do. This week we discuss test build machinations, windows and all manner of control malarky. So hold those horses, as chit-chat commences between Chris ‘Lemmy’ Simpson and Andy ‘Binky’ Hodgetts.
A: HELLO CHRIS
C: Hello Andy
A: So, what are we going to talk about?
C: Hang on, I’ll tip the Mondoid update mail-sack upside down and see what falls out.

Release Plans
A: Oh no! What’s that doing in there?
C: Yep, work continues on getting the game ready for testing. We’re tantalisingly close at this stage, but not quite there. We did, in fact, think that we’d be announcing the closed testing period on this Mondoid – but events conspired against us, mainly some zombie pathfinding building interior issues that made recording the video we’ve linked below so nightmarish. I know we’ve said this time and time again, but if this were Return of the Jedi we’d be at the point at which the Millennium Falcon is preparing to shoot the core of the revamped Death Star – with only the thrilling escape to follow.
We also have some plans on how to reduce the wait a little, which we’ll announce on the day the build goes into closed testing (so keep tabs on our @theindiestone twitter). It’s not what we’d want to do in an ideal world, but we owe it to those who already have the game and are in vital need of some stable build love. We’ll leave it at that for now, as we’ll have a lot firmer stuff to tell you once the build is ready for testing. In short though, we’re not talking super-imminent – but we are saying that we should be getting the update out to people at least a month earlier than we previously anticipated, perhaps even more than that..
A: How annoyingly mysterious. It’s also worth reminding people that the sooner we get the build out, the quicker our intended new development strategies can chime in. Development will be back in front of the curtain, as it were, and the waiting between updates will be far less painful and ice-agey.
C: There is something else brewing that’ll be of note for PZ players, but we’ve got to wait until there’s been a big announcement elsewhere before we can discuss it. So, watch this space I guess. We heard the announcement was today, so we’ll see.

Windows
A: Windows? Is that a question? Ooh, right. Well. In my opinion, one big feature of the 0.2.0 builds was windows finally factoring into the game-play, the player and zombies alike being able to climb through them. Well, we say “climb”, but we really mean “walk through them a bit slower than normal”.
C: You’ve just stolen my line, you sod! I was then going to go on to say that apart from looking a bit naff, this had some worrying effects on the gameplay. Zombies being able to get through windows is great for ramping up the difficulty. But having ten potential escape routes from a building undermined a lot of the most terrifying moments in 0.1.5d where a horde was breaking down the one exit/entry point of the building. Players would instead, generally, just slip quickly out of a window to safety. Zombies at the windows didn’t provide enough additional danger to offset this – and wouldn’t unless we started cheating and spawning additional Z’s at every window.
However, as well as making the experience much more aesthetically pleasing, our new animations also bring back this terror in new ways.
A: Curse you. I should have stolen more from this not at all pre-arranged block of text written not over the weekend. But yes, it’s one of the more exciting things about our new-fangled ‘enshrinkulated 3D models turned into spritey whatsits’ we’re using now. It’s a lot quicker and simpler to add new animations, so we can add anims which add a lot of flavour to the scene and ramp up the drama which we otherwise may not have been able to justify given the time requirements. I’d like you to picture a scene, if you will…
Zombies have broken into your safehouse blocking your exit to the door! You run to the nearest window, your character visibly struggling to lift it open. It’s sticking in the frame and your panic levels are compounding the situation. The zombies stumble closer, almost within grabbing range, you panic and quickly throw yourself at the window smashing it, slashing open your arm in the process, before hoisting yourself onto the windowsill as zombies lunge at your back. You’re in pain but safe, and the arm which will now require bandaging is a small price to pay for avoiding being chewed on by the undead.
C: Yes, Andy. That all sounds very exciting. If only there was a better way to describe that scene for those who have difficulty visualising such things in their head, like HAVING A VIDEO:

C: Yes, I have the goods, I don’t need stupid letters and words to paint a scene! I win. Though I should apologise for the short length of the video. I’ve learnt an important lesson which is ‘Don’t work with children or animals… or zombies.’ That video must have taken literally about 100 takes and I was very close to a murderous rage by the time it was ‘in the can’. The zombies were being right awkward buggers. The amount of times I got to a window and there was a bloody zombie at the other side, or I’d notice a backdoor immediately next to me rendering the daring window smashing escape rather ridiculous. The various glitches and pathfinding issues I need to clamp down on for the closed test build limited the length of the video, sadly.
We should talk a little about some of the new design philosophies that feed into this system, particularly when it comes to the controls of the game. Hang on I think I had a title header lying around somewhere.

Gamifying the Controls
A: Don’t worry Chris, I’ve added it. One thing we’re conscious of when we’re designing is that it’s all too easy to bloat the control scheme. In the initial version of the game we relied on right-click popup menus for everything and, while we’re bringing that back so that the game can be played using just a mouse, we also want keyboard equivalents for these actions. What we don’t want, however, is a bazillion keys – so it’s important to streamline these controls and have context-sensitive actions. Not only will this make gameplay more fun and accessible without sacrificing any of the depth, but it will also lead the way to Steam Big Picture mode and more easily implementable joypad support.
C: Yep, it occurred to me when recording the video showing off your pretty shaders how much of a clart-on it was to equip the flashlight. Of course our game has a ton of inventory items, and it would be ridiculous to have a key for each one. But how do you use a flashlight in EVERY SINGLE GAME EVER MADE WITH A FLASHLIGHT? You press F. Of course you press F.
A: Imagine we implement maps in future. You have a map in your inventory. How will you get the map up? Our bets are on the M key. And so on.
C: Yep. We chatted away and as well as adding more common ‘FPS’ style keybindings that would do sensible oft used things quickly, we came up with the ‘SUPER CONTEXT BUTTON’ idea, which even though I do say so myself I think is bloody brilliant.
A: It’s also worth noting that while ‘F’ will equip a flashlight, that means *anything* which serves as a flashlight, prioritising the most sensible option first. So if your only means of illumination is a candle, that’s what will be equipped on pressing ‘F’. (Not that candles lights are implemented at this time)
C: Yep, Romain is currently working on a weapon selection system which we’ve been somewhat inspired by (ripped off) Half Life, involving categorizing weapons and using say 1 for all swinging weapons, 2 for all stabbing weapons, 3 for all firearms. But yes, let’s talk about the ‘SUPER CONTEXT BUTTON’.

Super Context Button
C: So yeah, basically we have the lovely ‘interact’ button that’s used in pretty much every FPS game ever, and is usually bound to E. Of course, Zomboid has a lot of ways to interact with the environment, so this only takes us so far and the mouse and context menus will always have its place, but for things like opening doors and other common actions you want to do quickly, it’s ideal.
We also came up with a way to get maximum mileage from that one key (read: one day, a joypad button too). Pressing it quickly will do one action, and holding it will do another. In the case of a window, for example, pressing the key will open or close the window. Holding it, will also climb through that window once it’s opened. Every action can still be done using the mouse, and the context menu (no more curtain/window woes!) But it doesn’t stop there as our interact key has another interesting function…
A: Indeed! Let’s remember that video we have all just watched. You ran to the window, pressed ‘E’ to open it but what happened? It wouldn’t open – it was jammed or locked. As a player you’re starting to panic just like the character and so you start frantically hammering the ‘E’ key (which is, as all elevators know, code for, “HURRY UP!”). Zomboid recognises this and promptly activates the “open this blasted window NOW using any means necessary” action. This will trigger smashing the window with a weapon or, if you have no suitable weapon, your own body.
C: Exactly, and even though there are no anims for it yet, you can imagine the same philosophy applied to locked doors (which will be making a return with a vengeance at some point post RC3) and a myriad other things as we further develop the game.. So we’ve basically got three distinct actions possible from a single key and we’re rather excited about how that will make Zomboid play much more immersive and exciting.
A: Well, I’m excited. Is there anything else we’ve forgotten to mention?

Other things
C: Well, this page is nice isn’t it? http://www.rezzed.com/ *cough*
A: Also, we could make people look at how nice this is looking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO7Olguk8ys

Dead State Combat Demo

Dead State has new information! Doublebear have been pretty hush hush about their game mostly. I do try to post information when I can about their awesome turn based survival game Dead State.  I do enjoy the game from what I have seen so far. This video was a nice taste of what the Game has in store for fellow survival zombie fans.

http://youtu.be/iUytozV39zI

Minecraft 1.5 Redstone Update

Minecraft has released a new official update titled the redstone update. A lot of good redstone features are obviously included.   An update to this update is already rolled out into the form of a snapshot as well to help fix a few things.   Most official information can be found below.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/767-15-redstone-update-released/


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The moment we've all been waiting for is finally here - the 1.5 Redstone Update is now live!  Now, I know you want to jump into this massively awesome update head-first, so let's see what was added!

1.5 Features:

• Added Redstone Comparator (used in Redstone logic)
• Added Hopper (collects items and moves them to containers)
• Added Dropper (similar to Dispensers, but always drops the item)
• Added Activator Rail (activates TNT Minecarts)
• Added Daylight Sensor
• Added Trapped Chest
• Added Weighed Pressure Plate
• Added Block of Redstone
• Added Nether Brick (item)
• Added Nether Quartz and ore
• Added Block of Quartz, with half blocks and chiseled variants
• New command: /scoreboard
• New command: /effect
• Containers and mobs can have custom names
• Inventory management has been changed, for example you can drag-place items over slots
• Texture packs now have separate images for each block and item, and can have animations
• Nether Quartz Ore now spawns in the Nether
• Smooth lighting now has three settings (none, minimal, maximum)
• More detailed death messages
• Some hostile mobs now are harder in Hard difficulty
• Many, many, bug fixes - more than you can shake a stick at
• Removed Herobrine

Please note: There is a scheduled 1.5.1 update in the very near future, to iron out some of the few remaining issues with 1.5, and it will be coming soon.  Tomorrow's Snapshot will reveal more of what is to come, so keep an eye out!

You might be wondering where to start, or what sort of indescribably cool thing to create first.  With so many new items, commands, and blocks, it's almost impossible to know where to start first!  I don't have any good advice for that, except to show you something SethBling made with the 1.5 assets in the pre-release:

Rocket golem, or gassy golem - you decide!

The 1.5 release is a big one, and there is so much to do!  What is your favorite part of the update?  Tell us about it!

Don't Starve Update A Little Rain Must Fall

Don't Starve has recently released a new major update.  This update comes to us with a ton of content and a few various bug fixes and changes made to the game.  We get rain and weather effects,  a new adventure mode and new monsters and a bunch of new items.  All around a pretty large update that looks really fun. 


http://www.dontstarvegame.com/blog/update-trailera-little-rain-must-fall

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The latest Don't Starve update is now live and it's one of our largest to date. We hit a few snag today while Steam irons out a few issues. Please make sure to read the two important notes below.
Important Note:
Steam seems to be having some technical difficulties in sending the update to some computers. If you encounter problems, you should be able to fix them by uninstalling Don't Starve and then reinstalling it. You may have to validate files after you do this in order to force the update after that.
This should just be a temporary problem. Valve is usually pretty quick to fix these things!
Second Note:
Settings.ini has moved! If you have made changes to your settings.ini to turn off steam cloud, you will need to move them over to the new location in your mydocuments\klei\donotstarve directory.

Release Note

New features

• Rain comes during the summer to ruin your fires and dampen your spirits. Watch out for lightning strikes!
• Sandbox custom mode sliders are all unlocked. You can make the game really, really hard now.
• Pathfinding works over long distances
• Day length changes throughout seasons
• Modders can bring up an interactive lua console with the ~ key

Adventure mode

• Put in very rough sketches of the actual adventure levels. It’s very rough at this point, and the ‘story’ bits are missing, but the basic structure is in place.
• Added lots of little setpieces using new objects that try to impede your progress.

New monsters

• The Knight
• Merms
• Guardian Pigs

There's also a ton of new items in the world and things to build. Head over to our forum post to see the full release notes.

Project Zomboid Monday Update 50 Shaders of Grey

Project Zomboid Monday Update is here! It was a pretty good read. We get to see information about the lighting system. We get to see how we can change our controls. We also get a little info about rooms and Idle Zombie animations.  Hopefully this update comes soon cause I'm definitely ready to play it. 

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2013/03/50-shaders-of-grey-groan/

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50 Shaders of Grey (Groan)

Hello survivors, Lemmy here!
Once again we have a week where the coders are buckling down getting all the features of the game working in preparation for a closed test of the game (without meta-game). As such we’re getting to the point now where it’s increasingly difficult to show ‘new stuff’, and until we get to finishing the meta-game that’s unlikely to change much. Though there may be little prezzies from Binky, Mash and Romain in the meantime.
So for a while, a big part of Mondoids will be more about what’s working again, what areas we’re getting close to finished in, moreso than what is new, just to give everyone an insight into what’s left to do. We will try and be as thorough as possible to give people plenty and hopefully it’ll be interesting and/or satisfy on some level. There is some new stuff to report too, however. A few highlights from this week include:
Lighting
Since streaming was implemented, as well as the new map and a necessary tileset reorganization when going to the new map, the lighting system was completely kaput and needed redeveloping to fit the new map format. Such was the intense effort to get the meta-game complete, this got put to the side for a long time, though had remained a niggling worry at how it would be implementable without costing a ton of CPU. This was not only losing the gameplay associated with lighting, but meaning despite the awesome new map, videos and screenshots have all been rather less pretty than they should and we could certainly never release with the lighting broken in the game.
Behold!

Finally we have our beloved lighting system back, this time improved to get rid of any glitches (including that infernal flicker effect plaguing the 0.2.0 builds) and improving the ‘fog of war’ effect inside buildings you’ve not been in . A nice addition to this is that now the distance you (and anyone else) is stood from a window, along with the light difference between you and what lies through the window, will stop visibility through, which not only means that running past buildings will often not reveal anything of the interior, but buildings with lights on will be lit up like a Christmas tree. While zombies already take light into consideration in the chance of spotting you, this will further magnify this effect, meaning lights on at night without barricaded windows is potentially very deadly, where wandering out with them off will be more or less safe (noise aside).
Rooms
Again, due to the streaming support, we had to rethink how buildings were defined since it was entirely possible for half a building to exist, sliced down the middle at the edge of the loaded area. This information is doubly important for the meta-game, since buildings way out of the spawn distance need to be in the game for the meta-game to work. Also, this is vital for making lightswitches work by calculating where the bulb should be What was once an automatic (but slow) process on game load, we’ve now had to move this to the map data to be loaded independently of the map.
EasyPickins has done wonderful work on the tools to deal with this for all future buildings made, but this has however meant any of the new map that was created before the tools were developed will need room definitions put into the map manually. This process is underway (and was done to a limited amount for meta-game development) but for looting to be completely working across the entire map this is a slow, rather mind-numbing task (sorry map modders! ). One thing this has made us realize is there’s a lot of flipping buildings!
Super-size me!
One of the most requested things to add was something taken out of 0.2.0 because of a limitation with the new lighting system. Double size mode is back!
It may have a few limitations though. Due to the way the lighting system works, there are potential issues with the high graphics settings on lower end machines using double sizing, as graphics cards will need to support ‘depth buffers’ on the offscreen bitmap that’s used to upscale the graphics. That’s technical jargon that means ‘might bugger up on low end cards trying to do high graphics mode and double size’, though it’s unclear how many low end cards that would have this issue would be capable of high graphics settings anyway. In fact this is a similar reason on 0.1.5d sometime cards struggle with the double size mode and bomb out when it’s clicked, and all solutions we’ve had to this are rather graphic card dependent sadly.
It should be perfectly fine to do low graphics mode with double size on any card that supported it in 0.1.5d at least, and we’ll try and make it as compatible as possible.
Zombies
We now have an idle animation! Hurrah! Zombies without any stimulus will generally just stand around, though there will always be the odd wanderer or ten. This makes the zombies much more authentic feeling. It was RingoD that first noticed (within the team, at least) that in previous versions you never ever came across a group of zombies just idling around, and how odd an omission this was for zombie fiction.
Furthermore, sometimes hordes of zombies will generally be stood around facing the same direction, the direction of the last thing that distracted them. Especially with the new strafing / sneaking mechanics, means stealthing it past a bunch of zombies is now a feasible (in fact very very much recommended) tactic. All it takes is one zombie to spot you, however, as their agitated noises will alert nearby zombies and start bringing more and more toward you. This results in the more natural staggered effect of more and more zombies peeling off a horde as they are alerted.
Done but not implemented yet are anims for zombies turning to spot you, which will hopefully make for even more tension and creepiness when trying to sneak past a massive horde and one’s head starts to turn and oh no!
We’ve also done major rebalancing to the zombie’s default senses, memory etc though this is still WIP and will likely go on until release. Our hope is this will make stealth a much more important to the game.
Shaders
Since an offscreen bitmap support is required for the double-size feature above, and because there is already a backlog of animations to get in, and because Binky was probably getting bleary eyed looking at Bob in his underpants day in day out, Binky has been experimenting in a bit of shaders programming for the high quality settings, meaning he can add saturation effects to let the sun radiantly shine and at nighttime bleach the colour out of the world and blue tint in a much more effective way. Even a bit of dawn and dusk tinting!
The hope is that it will make RC3 much more atmospheric on higher settings, as well as hopefully help us catch more eyes looking for pretty things when we’re sat on a certain store! The potential to expand this in future would open up a lot of opportunities for screen effects to improve the look of the game or give feedback to the player.
Again, we’d like to stress that any additional things like this are not impacting the release date at all and are worked on concurrently to getting the game ready, and are ways to try and maximise the quality and people’s enjoyment of the game for release (and make further amends for its delay ) while vital tasks are completed. We would cut any such extra feature should the other work be completed, or switch back onto vital things as they crop up.
So here is a video showing a bit off one of the map cells, which also shows off the new zombie behaviour / sight, shaders and of course remind us all what a legend Zach Beever is. Please consider everything WIP, particularly that all light sources have not yet been placed so a lot of the map is still pretty damn dark.

                                                                

(Please note the version of the game this is running on doesn’t have some of Romain’s latest work in, as well as some flirtation with the old inventory system at one point after accidentally shutting the new one down.)
Key-bindings
Yep, you can now edit the keys in the options panel! Yippee! Finally you can select any key combination you want, just like in a proper game!

This is stage one of a bigger overhaul that will be happening post RC3 where we plan to add macroable ‘actions’ that can either be dragged onto hotbars or associated with a key on the keyboard. In the meantime though this will hopefully make a lot of people’s lives easier.
That’s all folks!
Also, Darkwood looks pretty sweet!

Minecraft Snapshot 13w10b / 1.5 pre-release expected soon

Minecraft released a new snapshot for us to play around on.  Snapshot 13w10b.   Containing bug fixes and more bug fixes! This post also tells us to expect the pre-release snapshot of 1.5 sometime today most likely as this snapshot and information was released yesterday, Once pre release 1.5 comes out instead of making a new post I'll just update this one.

http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/763-snapshots-galore-13w10b-ready-for-testing/

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 The 1.5 pre-release is expected tomorrow!  In the meantime, help test out the latest round of Snapshot goodness!

Notable changes:

• Dispensers and droppers will now only fire once when they receive a redstone signal. To fire again, the signal must be turned off and on again. (Previously a dispenser would fire whenever it had a signal and a nearby block changed.)
• Redstone and components stay powered after unloading chunks
• Dispenser and Dropper shooting out when updated
• Server crashes if spaces are input on the console
• Night Vision Potions that are edited to last longer create a potentially seizure-inducing flashing sky background.
• Furnace interface occasionally closes when adding fuel, deleting all items in the furnace
• Named Mobs Don't have Named Babies
• Getting into a minecart with a mob in it crashes minecraft
• 2 Hoppers funneling unstackable items into a 3rd Hopper at the same time cause the 3rd Hopper to not funnel items into a container
• Dispensers continually shoot/use certain items like water buckets and flint&steel
• Comparators still giving off power when hopper inventory is empty
• Animals can breed over distances up to almost 8 blocks when only seperated by fences
• Message "THIS TOO" in console
• Full hoppers feeding into full hoppers causes the forward hopper to stall
• Adding items to brewing stand using dropper does not change state of comparator

Zafehouse Diaries Patch 1.1.8 is out.

Zafehouse Diaries has recently released a new patch.  This one includes a little new content and a few bug fixes.  Showering is now included into the game and has to be used to keep your characters healthy.  Rains and Storms are also included.  As well as a new situation called Overwhelmed. Check out the details below.

http://www.zafehouse.com/2013/03/patch-v1-1-8-released/

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Patch v1.1.8 released! 

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Logan

Patch v1.1.8 for Zafehouse: Diaries is now available. This patch improves a number of areas of the game and adds a solid dose of content, including a new dilemma, Overwhelmed, and showering, an idle task.
The custom occupation editor has been expanded on, making it more flexible than ever and we’ve even implemented weather effects to keep things interesting.
The Overwhelmed dilemma has a chance to occur when your group faces staggering odds after breaching a location. You’ll be able to retreat to, hopefully, a safe location or, if you’re feeling lucky, try your hand at more heroic options.
Getting around during a zombie apocalypse is not the cleanest affair, so your survivors will accumulate grime and if left idle, will now occasionally wash themselves. Doing so will provide them with a small morale boost.
We felt the towns of Zafehouse: Diaries were drier than they should be, so now it’ll occasionally rain and storm. As you’d expect, noise doesn’t travel as far under these conditions, so be sure to take advantage of the weather when you can!
Several dilemmas, including the Lynch Mob, Moby Dick and the Girl Scout Family, now feature an assessment of your survivors’ chances if you decide to fight. As a result, it should be easier to make more informed, strategic decisions regarding these encounters.
Finally, for users with high-resolution displays, a scaling option is now included so that game takes up most the screen. It is currently experimental, so if it doesn’t work as expected, let us know so we can tweak it!
The update includes several other tweaks, fixes and improvements, all of which are mentioned in the patch notes on our forums.
Direct purchasers and GamersGate customers, the patch can be downloaded from our support page. For Desura and GOG users, please use the facilities provided by these services to update the game. Note that updates from these distributors may be delayed while the patch is approved.

DayZ Mod 1.7.6 Update and Hotfix

A good sized DayZ Mod update has been dished out recently.  This one had a lot of good stuff in it.  Looking forward to trying Crossbow quivers out. Apparently they decided to go a different route with the can goods and removed them in a hotfix.   Details below

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/125577-dayz-mod-176-update/

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 Changelog:

* [NEW] - Added a 2 minute delay to new zeds spawning once MaxLocal zeds fall's below the acceptable level.

* [NEW] - Added new sfx for chopping wood.

* [NEW] - Started Update for Cherno intro. (map intro)

* [NEW] - Zed attraction, this will draw zeds to loiter closer to players over time.

* [NEW] - BAF_L85A2_RIS_SUSAT - (Heilcrash - HeliCrash_No50s)

* [NEW] - Crossbow Quiver added - 6 arrow mag size.

* [NEW] - WoodenArrow added 6 arrows can be turned into a quiver.

* [NEW] - WoodenArrow can be picked up after use.

* [NEW] - 20% of breaking WoodenArrow when firing it.

* [NEW] - Crowbar now attaches to toolbelt.

* [NEW] - Added Anti teleport script. Reported to server's RPT log

* [NEW] - New models by JoeysLucky22:

- (Soda)  Long's Island Iced Tea (Clayton)

- (Soda)  Dr. Wasteland (Dr. wasteland)

- (Soda)  Mikhail Made Lemonade (-=PA=-Mikhail)

- (Soda)  LVG Root Beer (LVG)

- (Soda)  Mountain Green

- (Soda)  mZLY yZLY (mZLY)

- (Soda)  R4Z0R soda (R4Z0R)

- (Soda)  Smasht (Smasht)

- (Beer)  Rabbitman (Rabbitman)

- (Can) Bad Guy's Ubiquitous Peaches (UbiquitousBadGuy)

- (Can) Chef Boneboy Ravioli (Boneboys)

- (Can) Curgon's Chicken Noodle Soup (Curgon)

- (Can) Demon Groves Green Beans (DemonGroover)

- (Can) FraggleOs (Fraggle)

- (Can) Griff Black Beans (Griff)

- (Can) Herpy Dooves Canned Muffins (DerpyHooves)

- (Can) Orlok Mixed Fruit (orlok)

- (Can) Powell's New England Clam Chowder (Powell)

- (Can) Unlabeled Can

- (Can) Tyler's Kidney Beans

- (Can) Conrad's Whole Kernel Corn

* [NEW] - New models by Elvaron:

- New melee weapon: Machete - (Farm - Hunting)

- New Food: Pack of pistachios

- New Food: Pack of trail mix

- New Food: MRE military rations (Military Loot)

- New junk loot

- Model for Compass instead of green pouch in loot pile

- 2rnd shells for pellet and slugshot shotgun ammunition (no more 8 bullets shown on ground when it's actually 2 bullets)

- New models and textures for FoodBaconRaw and FoodBaconCooked.

- Model and textures for Quiver.

* [UPDATED] - BoltsSteel replaced with WoodenArrows.

* [UPDATED] - BAF_L85A2_RIS_Holo Removed from crash site's added to Military tables

* [UPDATED] - loot weighted array generation fixed.

* [UPDATED] - Updated logout system to check radius of zeds from 50 meters to 35 meters (30 sec count)

* [UPDATED] - Player range on logout to 6 meters. (30 Sec count)

* [UPDATED] - Max Range of targets 120 meters down from 300 meters. (this should help long range agro, This is zeds max target range).

* [UPDATED] - AI behavior updated to try making them zigzag less.

* [UPDATED] - Added push bikes to the zeds pull from vehilce list.

* [UPDATED] - Epeen key moved to Custom Controls - Use action key 20 (No default key needs setting up)

* [UPDATED] - Zeds Targets array modified

* [UPDATED] - Weapon fire sounds divided by 2 (This will help us settle zeds hearing a little more) (107_DZ Zed pull range 450 meters / 2 = 225 meters (capped 120 meters aboue for now))

* [UPDATED] - Max local zeds per client now fixed at 40 zeds, Global at 40 +10 foreach player within 400 meters and total 500 zeds max.

* [UPDATED] - Added some Czech language

* [UPDATED] - Updated zed attraction to dead players from 50 meters to 20 meters.

* [UPDATED] - Players will now drop empty cans after consumption to nearest lootpile or creates new one.

* [UPDATED] - Updated Infection to cough, shake camera and loose blood.

* [UPDATED] - Updated russian string tables.

* [UPDATED] - Backpack Spawns should now see higher grade backpacks more.

* [UPDATED] - Deer stands has it's own loot table (Hunting).

* [UPDATED] - Reduced Zed Running Speed.

* [FIXED] - Zeds talk, lowed to 80 meters down from 200 meters this will stop any zeds targeting for sight/noise outside of this radius

* [FIXED] - CookedBeef StringTables now added.

* [FIXED] - Spanish, French StringTables updated.

* [FIXED] - logout timers updated from sleep 3 to sleep 1 this should now fix long logout timers.

* [FIXED] - Zeds should no longer walk though all objects. (Some objects can still be walked thought)

* [FIXED] - Updated refuel to attract zeds. (3-6 Meters)

* [FIXED] - EH's updated to work with Battleye filters.

* [FIXED] - Ammo counts now fixed on dc.

* [FIXED] - Zeds will no longer magically hit players just because they're within 3 meters. ( Zeds can no longer dmg without running the attack animations. (running into zeds will no longer dmg the player))

* [FIXED] - Fixed some base class's for vehicles reporting issues with crew

* [FIXED] - You can now logout with a broke leg.

* [FIXED] - Temperature icon should not disappear anymore.

* [FIXED] - Humanity should now work increase again.

* [FIXED] - Chemlights and flares now work again.

* [FIXED] - time is now set on startup.

* [FIXED] - Hatchet and crowbar don't require reload anymore.

* [FIXED] - Hatchet and crowbar no longer overwrite each other.

* [FIXED] - Exploit when converting Mags into other mags (Example - DMR to M24 then back)

* [FIXED] - Blood particles not shown for player.

* [FIXED] - Hide body animation not shown for player.

Combat Roll

* [Fixed] - No longer possible to combat roll with broken leg

* [Fixed] - Added 4 sec delay to multiple rolls.

* [Fixed] - No longer possible to combat roll over player created objects (tents, sandbags so on)

* [Fixed] - No longer combat roll in buildings.

* [REMOVED] - Chase combat logging systems removed. (Removed due to ealry warning of agro)

* [REMOVED] - Debriefing window has started to be cleaned up. (blank box on dc)

* [REMOVED] - BearTrap Due to issues with the trap still staying active after removal.

* [REMOVED] - DZ_Patrol_Pack_EP1 Due to us no longer planing to remove backpacks from new spawns.

* [REMOVED] - All chance based systems for sight and sound from zeds they will now only agro if in view or your making noise. Should allow more freedom to move.

DayZ mod Hotfix 1.7.6.1

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/125753-dayz-mod-1761-hotfix/ 

--copy and paste--

Changelog:

* [UPDATED] - Fixed version issues.

* [UPDATED] - Updated Spanish String Tables

* [UPDATED] - Force save updated.

* [REMOVED] - New models by JoeysLucky22:

- (Soda)  Long's Island Iced Tea (Clayton)

- (Soda)  Dr. Wasteland (Dr. wasteland)

- (Soda)  Mikhail Made Lemonade (-=PA=-Mikhail)

- (Soda)  LVG Root Beer (LVG)

- (Soda)  Mountain Green

- (Soda)  mZLY yZLY (mZLY)

- (Soda)  R4Z0R soda (R4Z0R)

- (Soda)  Smasht (Smasht)

- (Beer)  Rabbitman (Rabbitman)

- (Can) Bad Guy's Ubiquitous Peaches (UbiquitousBadGuy)

- (Can) Chef Boneboy Ravioli (Boneboys)

- (Can) Curgon's Chicken Noodle Soup (Curgon)

- (Can) Demon Groves Green Beans (DemonGroover)

- (Can) FraggleOs (Fraggle)

- (Can) Griff Black Beans (Griff)

- (Can) Herpy Dooves Canned Muffins (DerpyHooves)

- (Can) Orlok Mixed Fruit (orlok)

- (Can) Powell's New England Clam Chowder (Powell)

- (Can) Tyler's Kidney Beans

- (Can) Conrad's Whole Kernel Corn

Crawle 0.5.6a

Survival Indie game Crawle released a new update not to long ago. It consists mainly of bug fixes but I thought I would left everyone check it out. 

http://www.indiedb.com/games/crawle

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Crawle 0.5.6a has been released to address a variety of critical issues. It also brings the addition of a very requested option to disable the GUI fading.
 Changelog:
----------------
0.5.6 --> 0.5.6a
----------------
# ADDITIONS
- Added an option to turn the GUI fading on/off.
- 1 point of energy will now be taken every 20 seconds.
# CHANGES
- Movement should now feel a lot faster.
- Added an action message for when you take bark from trees.
- Energy is now drained slightly faster.
- Energy now regenerates slightly slower.
- Increased the range on the bow.
# FIXES
- Fixed spears being able to be used as axes.
- Made significant optimisations to the rendering system.
- Fixed getting black screens/automation errors.
- Fixed eating giving a subscript error in multiplayer.
- Fixed sometimes not being able to open baskets.
- Fixed energy still being drained despite not being able to run.
- Fixed being able to cut down trees with bows.
- Fixed being able to duplicate animal meat/fur.
- Fixed being able to duplicate sharp bones.
- Fixed not being able to turn blind mode off during world creation.
 Major highlights
 This is more of a issue fixing patch however we've added an option to disable the GUI fading for those of you who like to constantly keep up to date with your vitals:

Minecraft Snapshot 13w09A and 13w09B

Minecraft has released a couple of new snapshots for us.  While most of it is bug fixes there's still some pretty decent stuff listed.

13w09A
http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/756-snapshot-13w09a-ready-for-testing/

Features:

• Mobs can now ride stuff that rides other stuff
• Players riding stuff will keep it when logging off (ie, if you’re on a minecart and log off, you will take that minecart with you)
• Animated blocks and items in texture packs now requires the animation definition (previously it was optional)
  
  Fixes:
• Language files have been updated
• Cannot Connect To Own Server While Not Online (LAN) / Playername being E-Mail address when offline
• Comparators causes block updates while idle
• Hopper's name doesn't change in its GUI after renamed in anvil
• Command Block Arguments Length
• Unnecessary delay of "Done" button in the texturepacks menu
• Hopper don't update comparator when receiving item stack
• Mob Spawners failing to "Saving entity NBT"
• EntityAIAvoidEntity Interference
• Scoreboard accepts arguments for @p but if not found it will use a wrong name

 

13w09B

 http://www.minecraftforum.net/news/757-updated-snapshot-13w09b-available-for-testing/

 
Here is an update to yesterday's Snapshot!  Keep an ear to the ground, as the 1.5 pre-release won't be far off now...

Bugfixes Aplenty:

• crowdin.net: Entry entity.WitherBoss.name is missing – German translation is "Withern"
• Self-Powered Redstone Lamp / Breaking a repeater with a piston pointing at a block won't stop the circuit
• Potatoes are not affected by the Fortune enchantment
• Items with NBT data do not stack correctly due to serialization
• Cannot Drop Items in Creative Mode
• texturepacks no longer work
• Rail Duplication glitch
• World crashes after a few seconds
• blocks keep the redstone state when breaking a comparator that powers that block
• Pistons can't destroy comparators
• Crash with 512x texture pack
• Fortune doesn't affect the drop rate of apples and saplings
• "Pick Block" on certain items then switching to survival creates infinite or ghost items
• When removing "Ghost Items" from the inventory, the number may be negative or zero
• /clear with command blocks not working with armor that has been worn with custom damage values.
• Minecraft crashes when a saddled pig you ride dies or when changing between rideable entities
• Pressing Single or Multiplayer Button crashes the game
• Mining Fatigue broken
• Added an /effect command

Don't Starve Update Trailer A Winter's Tale

Just noticed Don't Starve has released a new teaser trailer for their newest update labeled "A Winter's Tale."  This seems to add a good amount of content to things like temperature and seasonal weather. This is looking really good so far and a little creepy on the ending there.  Check it out below.

Discussion for the trailer can be found on their forums.

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/showthread.php?10594-Don-t-Starve-Update-Trailer-A-Winter-s-Tale

Project Zomboid Monday Update Muldraugh Tour!

Hello and well met everyone!  The new Monday status update for Project Zomboid is out. I must say it looks quite nice! This update we get to see more information about the town and get to see a layout of the world we will be trying to survive in.  They also include a video showing us more information about how the new skills and XP system will work which is looking really cool as well.  Check it out below.

http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2013/02/all-aboard-the-muldraugh-tour-bus/


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All Aboard the Muldraugh Tour Bus!

Is everyone settled in? Can you hear me in the back? Fantastic!
Greetings, passengers! I’m MashPotato and today I’ll be your Muldraugh tour guide, giving you the inside scoop of the history, highlights, and gossip of our fair town!
Let’s take a look a look at Muldraugh, shall we?
No, no–not that Muldraugh–THIS Muldraugh:



Since its founding in 2011, Muldraugh has undergone tremendous changes. The first rendition of our town was based on the principle of “cram everything in”, and while this made for an efficient looting commute, actually living in this town was quite befuddling. And some residents had to make do without bedrooms or bathrooms.



So we ripped it all out and rebuilt the town, basing it generally upon the layout of Satellite Muldraugh. You’ll noti– Sir–SIR–please keep your arms inside the bus at all times. There are specific reasons for this. *ahem*
You’ll notice that that the new Muldraugh is already much bigger than the old (the town itself is currently five cells, compared to the previous two cells), and is expanding every day. While the core of Muldraugh nears completion as we speak, the outskirts (400 cells worth) are also being developed with lovely remote locations to visit. Do you remember that “long” trek to the farm? Haha, if you plan on touring a farm on THIS trip, be prepared to walk… and walk…. and walk… seven cells. But on the way, you’ll find plenty of places to camp and picnic!
What’s that? Why are so many of our residents pale and walking strangely? … lack of vitamin D. It’s been a nasty winter.



And what new things can you expect to see in this new Muldraugh? You’ll find your old favourites like Spiffo’s, but also exciting new franchises like Pizza Whirled, places to shop and eat, and a couple of places to spend a comfortable night. Many new tiles have been created to construct these new locations (125 tilesheets are available, compared to the previous 39), and considering what previous residents have made using the old tiles, we can’t wait to see what will come in the future.



But when you’re tired of walking around town, what other things are there to do? How about improving your body, mind, and spirit? I’ll let the lovely Romain explain with this video presentation; may I please direct your attention upward to the TV screen? Ignore the residents banging on the bus sides, they’re just excited to see some tourists.

 http://youtu.be/LLhDPR1WnMc

Well, that ends our tour of fair Muldraugh, I hope you’ll all have fun during your stay. By the way, when you exit the bus, I suggest keeping away from the town center as much as possible. Crowds, and all that. Oh, and wear comfortable shoes. Have a good day!

State of Decay follow up QandA A Matter of Character

State of Decay has released a new blog post recently with a new shiny Q and A for us to read. A lot of questions were answered. Check it out Below or read the copy and paste.

http://undeadlabs.com/forums/showthread.php?8622-Q-amp-A-A-Matter-of-Character-Followup-2-22-2012

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The Survivors

Q: [Multiple]: How random are the characters? Will we ever see two characters that have the same skills and abilities? What about replays, will the survivors be the same?

A: Storyline characters (you start as a character named Marcus Campbell, for example, and quickly meet Thomas Ritter, along with Maya, Ed, Alan, and others) will be the same every time you meet them. They have extensive histories as well.

Many of the other survivors are generated, with their names, appearance, traits, and skills all potentially varying each time you play the game.

Q: Fleshblight: [Is the game designed such that] no two NPCs (all of whom may potentially be recruited and controlled by the player) look or sound the same, or have identical sets of skills and abilities?

A: There is a limit to the amount of art we created. You’ll probably never encounter two Npcs who look exactly the same at the same time, but if enough people die, you may start encountering survivors who bear a “striking resemblance” to those you’ve met before. In these cases their abilities and names will almost certainly be different. (Though there’s some randomness there, so no guarantees. It’s possible for two survivors to be similar in the same way it’s possible to flip a coin and get tails ten times in a row.)

Q: Major Warpath: Is it possible to have a character who is completely useless? Hey, I know a few people like this.

A: Oh, I wouldn’t say anyone is useless, but certainly some provide key skills that others do not and some survivors are more immediately useful than others. With time and effort, anyone can become a good shot, competent at hand to hand fighting, and bright enough to come in out of the rain.

Don’t underestimate the value of that. More than one project has been scuttled by “too many managers, too few workers.”

Q: Screenamesuck, VladimirKenju: Will we be able to see everyone's skills BEFORE we recruit them to the group? Can you talk to them or read a bio, or are you only able to find out their skills after they become one of the "family"?

A: You get a limited glimpse into this and have to make your decisions based on the information you have. When you talk to someone, you’ll be able to see their personality and one major background trait.

Q: [Multiple]: How do you switch between characters? What are the limits on switching between characters? Is there a proximity range for switching between characters? What happens to the one you switch from in general?

A: You can walk up to a Friend and make the switch via conversation, but if you’ve been watching our videos, you know there’s also a journal you use to keep track of everything that’s going on, including keeping track of all your community members. You can also find your Friends in the Journal and switch to them with a press of a button..

There are limitations, though. For example, you can’t switch survivors while you’re in the middle of a mission or in combat, and you can’t switch to someone who’s gone missing.

Q: Bronxsta, Creed: Along with potential SWAT backup, can you also request help from your survivors? Is there a way to get a survivor of your choice to come and kill zombies with you until you sent them home?

A: You can’t call your base and ask for a specific person. You can switch to the survivor you want and run over to the trouble spot. There is no way to switch when you’re in combat, so your best bet is to find a safe place to hide, switch to the survivor you want, and get to the source of the action.

Q: Capt.C.Baker: Let's say I have a 2 star cook named Wendy back at my base. While I'm out scavenging, I come across a 4 star cook named Chris who also has some woodwork under his belt. What options do I have for this situation? Do I have to replace one character for the other? Can I have both? Will the food get cooked quicker or something if I have both?

A: Your survivor best suited to a particular job will be automatically “assigned” to the appropriate facility upon joining your community. Having two of something in your group means you have a backup. Redundancy is good.

 Skills and Abilities

Q: TwilightSparkle: Do you mind telling us how many skills are in the game total right now?

A: Well, if you count “Spike Handling”, it’d be 35. So one fewer than that. (Note: a little more than half of these are not all that useful.)

Q: Kurnster: We know there are 4 basic skills everyone has. From the screenshot shown, can we assume that the number of total skills is limited to six? Likewise, for the traits, I'm assuming a limit of 8 although that would be a lot of traits!

A: The survivors can’t have more than seven skills and six traits, and they probably have fewer. The seventh would be the survivor’s Weapon Specialization. It’s special, so it gets that blue background.

So why six traits and eight slots for displaying traits? We sometimes use this space to display some additional temporary status information.

Q: Workhorse, Bronxsta: Can you give some more examples of Signature Abilities? Can you have more than one?

A: As the article said, each survivor can have four Signature Abilities, but only one of each type. (Offensive, Defensive, Utility, and General.) Here are a few more examples:

* Decapitate (Offensive) -- Hold [LB] and press [X] to launch a slow, focused attack guaranteed to decapitate the target.
* Rage (General) -- Sometimes taking your anger out on something is therapeutic. Every time you kill an enemy, you regain a small amount of Stamina.
* Thievery (General) -- You are the night. Doors are never considered locked for you, and you make no noise when you search. You can also move quickly while sneaking by holding [LB].

So you can have both Decapitate and Rage because they’re in different categories, but you can’t have both Rage and Thievery because they’re both in the General category.

Q: Workhorse: Do wits affect other things, too, or just search speed?

A: There are also a few abilities that you gain automatically from Wits, and some Signature Abilities. The Thievery ability I mentioned above requires 7 stars in Wits.

Q: VladimirKenju, PoolBoy: Can skills like construction or vehicle repair be taught? For example, if I consistently use a character to build alongside an established construction expert, can she eventually get the skill?

A: No, though that would be pretty cool.

Q: Loco Little: Does a maxed out leader character effectively/automatically become the leader of the group (as in other characters start referring to him as leader, some characters like him taking charge while others don't, etc.)

A: There is no formal leader in a survivor community in the sense that you’re using the term, but survivors can temporarily take on a special role within the community based on what they accomplished the day before.

Q: Kurnster: Will all traits and skills have flavour text or info text to explain what they do in more detail of you highlight them in game?

A: Yes, though we don’t spell absolutely everything out. There are a lot of mechanics working behind the scenes, so instead of trying to explain all of them all the time, we try to make sure the consequences of your choices are sensible and to call things out if and when they matter. So someone with a potentially disruptive personality won’t constantly be causing problems at random. We’ll let you know before they start acting up so you know what to pay attention to.

Q:Wake Up Ne0: Is there only one type of attack with a weapon, or are there multiple 'moves' you can gain/unlock as there are in unarmed combat?

A: Increased skill with melee weapons unlocks new moves, yes. Increased skill with a gun gets you reduced recoil, more headshot accuracy at distance, faster reload times, faster jam clearance, and reduced wear and tear on the gun.

Q: Joey: Is sexting actually in the game or was that just a joke?

A: It is indeed an actual skill in the game (as are Sudoku and Reality Show Trivia), but it does nothing in a world where cell towers no longer function.

 Improving

Q: Multiple: How hard is it to raise the skills of a character? How long does it take for a character to max a skill?

A: YMMV, depending on how you play and whether or not you’re good at pulling off some of the feats that give you bonus XP.

Here are a few things you can expect though:

* The overall rate of progress is a lot quicker than it’d be if there wasn’t permadeath and character switching.
* As you might expect the early stars come in more quickly than the later stars.
* You shouldn’t expect to completely max out a skill in a single play session, but you shouldn’t be playing for a long time without making any progress.
* Thinking in terms of trying to “grind” for skills is probably a bad idea. Remember that your ammo is limited and melee weapons get damaged and break. And you’ve got a community to feed and protect. It’s probably more important for you to save those last ten rounds for the next incoming horde than it is to try to go out and shoot zeds in a field for target practice.

Q: Demonslay999, Joey: What is the effect of more skill? Say if a person with level 1 melee skill used a lead pipe on a zombie, would it take multiple swings in order to kill it? As opposed to someone with level 5, would he just insta-smash the head of the zombie in? If I had some superhuman all star survivor, would I be 1 hit KO zombie mashmaster every time?

A: Our goal was to never let the survivor’s stats override player skill. So, yes, your odds of smashing a zombie’s head with your first swing is a little better if you have 5 stars in fighting instead of 1, but your primary advantages are the additional abilities you’ve unlocked and the fact that you have +20 Vitality.

Q: SpcB: How much of an effect does the skill "leadership" have on the amount of influence I gain in a common mission?

A: The bonus is currently +10% at 1 star and +100% at 7 stars of Leadership. The exact numbers and names are still subject to change as we continue to refine playbalance and playability, of course. (One note of clarification: the bonus is for Trust, not Influence. You’ll find that Trust is the more valuable and scarce of the two. That’s why we put the bonus there.)

Q: Madmock: Will unused traits ever lose stars? If I got 2 stars in fighting, but then never fight, will I become "rusty" and downgrade to 1 star?

A: No. We’d talked about doing this for the seventh star, but decided to keep things simple.

Q: G0lgothan: If someone had a Bum Knee, could you get them the equivalent of some physiotherapy through Training and eliminate the negative side effects?

A: No.

Q: [Multiple] Will NPCs level up skills when using them, or do you have to be in direct control of the character for them to improve? What about NPCs who aren’t part of your community, are they just out there in the world getting better at stuff? Can a survivor level up while offline? How exactly do the survivors in the community level up skills if you can't directly control them?

A: Survivors only improve their skills while you are controlling them directly. Their skill levels stay the same while they are running around as NPCs, and they don’t gain XP while you are offline. We discussed having them gain a small amount over time, especially as they carried out actions like supply runs and home defense in the game, but decided to save the progression moments for when you directly use the skills.

(*Note for Facebook/Twitter followers: This was the cause of the one day delay. We were investigating the possibility of getting the gain working as described and making this answer completely different. )

Q: [Multiple]: Can all skills get maxed out to seven, or do you continually improve them? Do characters with less ability “cap out” sooner than seven?

A: All of the skills to which a character has access can be maxed with endless time and focus. It will take the characters with less natural ability significantly more time, time you may prefer to spend on finding food and making landmines.

Also, remember not every character will have access to everything.

Q: Andrewdogg: If a successful headshot streak helps level up gun skill faster, how do wits level faster?

A: Certain activities provide a bonus to Wits. For example, climbing up to a lookout point and surveying the area for infestations and hordes gives you extra Wits XP.

Q: Joey: Will there be a way to safely train your skills, like on dummies?

A: Not exactly. If you build a Dojo and institute “Combat Training”, your community gains a temporary bonus to how fast everyone gets Fighting XP, but you still have to go out and fight actual zombies to improve your skill.

 The Things They Hold

Q: Warpig: What do you mean by starting weapon? Do you mean that is their best weapon that they are good with or when you find them they have that on them?

A: It’s whatever they happened to have on them. That may or may not be related to their existing skill, and if it’s at all related to the survivor’s potential, it was due to random chance.

Q: 2016kellamni: Will the survivors always have starting weapons, or could someone arrive with nothing?

A: Nothing is certainly a possibility. Not everyone is equally prepared for the apocalypse.

Q: Norannyo: If your character is carrying a bag of supplies as we saw in the Distraction trailer, can that character drive a vehicle with the backpack? or can he/she only run back? If he can drive with a backpack, what happens to the backpack when you get inside the vehicle?

A: Your stuff stays with you. As you may have noticed in the video, the backpack doesn’t show when you get into a vehicle. Just assume the survivor tossed it on the seat.

Q: Quinico1: Does increased firearm ability prevent (or reduce, or slow) wear and damage to the weapons themselves?

A: Yes.

 Personalities

Q: Tarman, G0lgothan: Can negative traits be improved? For example, a Selfish Asshole might realise that the way he's going isn't going to work in the current world. Could he bust his ass to become a Team Player (or something). Similarly, could a Coward, with enough combat exposure, become Battle Hardened (or something)?

A: Generally speaking, people don’t change who they are. There are a few situations where personalities can change, but you should not assume that you can smooth all the rough edges off of everyone and eliminate all their drawbacks. (Our reasons for that are gameplay-related as much as anything, but it’s also an attempt at realism; I don’t know how many Selfish Assholes you’ve had to deal with in real life, but I’m pretty certain it’d take a hell of a lot more than a zombie apocalypse to turn around most of the ones I’ve known.)

Q: Tarman, Atreyu113: Does a character with negative personality traits (like Alan Gunderson) need to be at the base/near others to affect community members? Or is whatever any character is feeling anytime, anywhere immediately affect all community members across the map? Could I keep my community happier by assigning a rude person to an outpost?

A: Oh, that’s a fun idea, but no. He can ass things up for the community no matter where he is.

Q: Bronxsta, Lynch74: Can injury and/or poor morale permanently affect a survivor's Personality and Traits? If a survivor has good Leadership and is friendly, and then his friend dies, will his personality and mood degrade accordingly? If a survivor is faced with several of his group getting killed – will that potentially have an everlasting effect on his mental state?

A: There’s a little bit of this, but it’s pretty rare. Attitude changes are much more common (and frequent) than permanent personality changes.

Morale is always a concern. Unattended morale problems lead to mutiny, survivors leaving, and even suicide.

Death certainly affects morale, but if you can get people cheered up, they won’t start having flashbacks or anything. They’ll just get depressed over the next horrible thing to happen.

Q: Zombiepreacher: Will there be relationships stronger than friends? I'm not talking about having babies included in the game, but a lover and number one go-to-guy would be so amazing (seeing how it's a community based game).

A: No, sorry. Friendship is awfully meaningful, though.

Q: 2016kellamni: It says in the examples of fear that some people are resistant to fear does that mean they are going to run out in a blaze of glory or what?

A: It means their attitude won’t tend to switch to a fearful one, which means they won’t be responsible for events like wasting a bunch of ammo firing off in a panic.

 Kicking People Out

Q: Norannyo: How do you tell a survivor he/she is no longer welcome in the group? What happens right after this option is chosen? Does the survivor walk away into the distance, or just disappear completely?

A: First of all, the survivor might tell you hell no, he won’t go. So there’s that. (Use someone with Leadership if you want to be sure he’ll take you seriously.)

If he does leave, he may help himself to supplies, depending on his personality. Then he’ll head for shelter. Possibly another community, possibly on his own. If he’s out alone, you may hear him screaming for help someday.

Q: Jexz: If we kick someone out of our clan, can we later add them back?

A: Yes, if they survive and they’re willing to come back. You’d need to earn trust again to be able to invite them, though.

Q: Joey: Will a family be mad if I kick out a family member? Like if I kick out the autocrat because he’s a dick, will I get resistance?

A: Resistance? Not exactly. You’ll want to pay close attention to everyone’s feelings. Some of your other members may think to themselves, “Hey, if he’ll kick out that guy, I could be next.” Others might be relieved.
 Changing and Evolving

Q: MatchesMalone: I would like to know if you folks have something that keeps track of what skills your community has, and from there determines challenges to throw at you? If so, how does the system make a decision on what mission to generate? Is it an AI or some arbitrary "Duck, Duck, Goose" system?

A: We do try to tune the challenge a bit based on how well you’re doing, but within limits. A core part of this game is letting your actions have real consequences, so the primary driving force behind which missions and situations appear is what you’ve done before.

What determines whether or not there’s a mission to go rescue a missing person from your community? It’d be something like you didn’t help out someone who was calling for help and (luckily) instead of being killed, they went missing. Why are there missions to clear out an area that’s been overrun by zombies? It’s because you’ve let a bunch of places get overrun by zombies. So it’s true that the events are sometimes arbitrary, but often they are determined by your prior actions.

Q: Zombiemarch: You said there can be conflict between the groups/characters and that "counselor characters" can help fix/prevent disputes. How will conflict affect people? If one character is overpowering/angers easily and upsets another, will the upset character not perform certain tasks, run away, ask to leave?

A: All of the above. They might be less willing to cooperate across the board, and their unhappiness will lower morale across the board, sending the whole community into a downward spiral of unhappiness and lack of motivation.

Q: [Multiple]: Can in-game actions transfer to physical traits? For example, Bum Leg is a trait. In addition to being a character you start with, can you get a Bum Leg due to an injury?

A: No, though I’ve been very tempted to add that.

Q: Workhorse: Is there a permanent cough trait where some characters literally can't sneak effectively? [Could a survivor develop such a cough?]

A: No, although there are abilities that make you sneak more effectively. But it is possible to get sick and develop a cough, if not a coughing trait.

 Clarification

Q: Tarman: You said, "Cardio — Rule #1 for survival. If you run out of Stamina, that’s it. Can’t fight, can’t run away. You’re done." If you completely run out of Stamina but have full health, is your character then truly dead (done)? OR Can you sneak into the bushes (or lay low on a roof/water tower/outpost) for a while to compose yourself like you mentioned later in the article?

A: Sorry, we should probably tone down that description a little bit. Being out of Stamina doesn’t have any direct, immediate impact on whether or not you are alive, but you’ll find that without Stamina you are much, much more vulnerable in combat and you’ll have trouble getting away if you decide to flee.

Stamina comes back pretty quickly when you aren’t sprinting or fighting or climbing, but there’s a little more to it than that: If you’ve just used a bunch of stamina and dropped down to zero, to get it back, you just have to take it easy for a little bit or eat a snack. After you’ve run around for a long time, though, you’ll find your Maximum Stamina getting lower and lower. To get that back, you need to actually leave the survivor at home to rest, or use something more extreme like a stimulant.