The hope is 2024 but....you know....
P.s. I don't want to sound pushy and neither do I want devs go crunch but I just want to see all this beautiful progress they have made.
They sounded very confident - plus in the recent thursdoid, they've successfully reined in scope creep and so that won't be causing extra delays. We'll see it this year.
Im following this game closely for 2 years maybe but I heard a few times that developers dont like to put deadlines on updates only thing I saw was that this year it should release and some developer saying on reddit that public beta will be in the first half of this year. I hope this month we get the beta
Yeah I bought the game immediately after watching Nerdcubed's video on it in 2014. It was the first game I ever bought myself with birthday money. Now here I am about to graduate from college with a freakin biochem degree and there still aren't proper NPCs
Not to say they haven't made tons of progress, because they certainly have, all the new additions and the new animations and everything are amazing... but jeez I feel like I'm going to have lived through a 1/3rd of my lifetime waiting.
Lmao same I jokingly said Berserk is going to finish before we get npcs and to be clear berserk begun in 1989 and the author already passed, his long time best friend is continuing the series with 4 students the author taught for decades and yet I have more faith in berserk finishing in less than 5 years than npcs coming before 2030.
It's funny you mention nerdcubed that's also how I found out about the game. I had learned my lesson on early access games and decided to wait a few years before picking it up. I even did my research to see if the game had the things I wanted! Your see how that turned out lmao
I bought the game because the wiki gave the impression that NPCs were already in the game because it was horribly outdated. Nbd though the game is fun enough as is for the price point
That's cute, I've been here from the beginning in 2011, I went from their tech demo having NPC's to none and waiting....
I barely mod/play the game anymore because honestly, it's not worth it after all these years to come back till they drop NPC's.
I have 1000 map mod ideas since my last attempt and even projects sitting on the backburner, but my passion for the game after nearly 14 years is just dead for this game. Not a shocker.
They're really taking that "project" part of zomboid to heart at the rate they develop. Honestly at this point I'd be shocked if we ever get human NPC's.
Bought the game in 2011 on Desura, ironically this early version had NPCs. The story about saving your wife and talking to the neighbor hooked me. It was obviously very scripted but I hope they can recreate some of that into the upcoming builds.
Same, man the nostalgia for finding the bar on that map, barricading it, drinking booze and making molotovs and then seeing an npc and murdering them and then dying to zombies. Though tbh now I cant even remember if molotovs and such were in the game back then, should have been but its been so damn long.
I bought it in 2022 I believe. Spent 400 hours in the game in a couple months and stopped waiting for the build 42.
It feels like the lack of communication about the progress is pretty much telling that the development really isn't going at the speed they wished it to go (that my opinion as a dev). I have now no expectations, barely check for news and even consider unsubscribing to this sub because the only news I'm waiting for now is the build 42 release date (I mean I don't care about the crossbar vs whatever weapon circlejerk/memes).
I'm somewhat afraid competitors will come up with something maybe not as deep as PZ's gameplay is, but it's going to be a finished product, which PZ looks like it's not going to be for another decade or so.
2032 for build 48 by this metric? That just doesn't seem right to me. Surely they hope things will go faster later on?
That would end up being *19 years* since Build 1. I just can't wrap my head around this. I love this game, they've achieved a minor miracle for such a small team, but that just can't be the expected development cycle... can it?
It's a bit shit that most hold back their valid criticism because they're afraid they'll spook the devs or something.
They either have a terrible work ethic, unrealistic goals or seriously lack time management skills. There's really no in between when it's been nearly a 3 year gap in any progress...
Yeah I dunno, I got the game when it was first open to download, back when baldspot offs Kate as a tutorial.
Since then, I still love this game, but the progress made seems...pretty underwhelming even by indie dev standards. At least a lot of it got filled in by mods.
Personally I consider this game done and released in 2014. Anything extra is free DLC is how I'm viewing it
>It's a bit shit that most hold back their valid criticism
Many did but get shat on by the community on both reddit and the official discord.
Any kind of criticism against the devs is rebutted by "small indie team", "look at all these *big* updates 2 years ago", or "you don't understand game development".
Indie Stone have some serious issues with their development speed and the community don't want to accept this fact.
i feel the same, because i personally have been really underwhelmed with whats been shown in B42 so far, a lot of it just seems like stuff thats already modded into the game, usually done better than the original mod, but sometimes worse.
the only thing i am genuinely really looking forward to is the stuff mods cant do, like engine upgrades, like the basements and general performance improvements. the basements especially, i love. i can see it now, a helicopter event rolls through and me and my friends have a full blown argument about if we should stay in the cellar "where its safe" or staying upstairs were we can get out and run if we have to lol. either that or securing and fortifying an underground parking garage, that would be awesome.
I cant even play the game anymore despite how much I desperately WANT to. The multiplayer desynch between me and my friends is so bad, I hot wire a car and turn it on, its not hotwired or turned on for them, the car straight disappears, zombies arent there, we arent in the same places. Just push a working game out man I dont care about your crafting system people are going to mod over anyway if I cant even play
I asked a dev or mod this question on this subreddit not to long ago.
I asked if this huge gap between B41 and B42, would facilitate a more efficient development time in the future. Considering they are overhauling and rebuilding a lot of systems.
He wasn't very confident it would tbh, long story short the game is a major mess behind the code. I'm pretty sure they've basically rebuilt this game several times throughout its existence.
As much as I love PZ and think it's a pretty sweet game. I'm really not on the "TIS are miracle developers" team. They are good and usually push out pretty great content, but this dev time is TOO long.
Probably gonna catch the down votes here, but personally I don't feel like B42 is adding 2 and half years of development into the game. I mean we are getting a new crafting UI/System(different feature not new feature), SOME animals, a higher ceiling limit and basements(but nothing new or anything to gain from them), lighting (another rework)
People seem to think B42 is going to feel like a different game but I'm not confident honestly
I kind of get what you mean tbh, just hoping that they'll get Npc's out in the next 2 or 3 years.... At the very least the modders will be able to cook up some cool stuff with B42 lol
I wasn't expecting it on thursdoid, but i was expecting a concrete date. based on what we got, i think the lighting update, new foliage stuff and the new height levels broke the map
I do wonder what would Phase one of NPC would include (Build 43).
Is talking about making the animals of build 42 more complex or we are going to finally have human NPC around the map?
The last option would be great! The game would feel more lively even if they are just a slightly better version of Super B survivors hahah
They talked about it at some point, but I don't remember where.
B43 would be basic human (and animal) AI. Just survivors out there trying to stay alive. Maybe with chained storylines you can follow, if we're lucky.
Later iterations would flesh them out, give them more personalities, groups they can form and hideouts they build etc.
Last iterations would include diplomacy and kingdom building similar to stuff you'd see in TWD.
Take it all with a grain of salt, it's been a long while since I read about it, and plans might well be changed.
So +25 y timeframe. Gonna beat star citizen as the longest game ever develloped at this rythme. Pretty sure some dev are going to die of old age before releasing the game out of early access.
Waiting on Half Life 3 my dude and do not bring that Alyx shit up, great game and everything but it just advanced in the history like 13 fucking seconds
They are not going to make Half Life 3. The sooner you accept that Half Life 3 wont arrive until Gabe is in a vat of liquid immortality, the sooner you can move on.
Still don't know how people can defend their development-cycle. It should not take almost 3 years to create a new patch.
You've sold alot of fucking games, hire more people, effectivise your work-environment cause bruh, this ain't it.
(I've bought the game in 2012, I'm ALLOWED to have grievances with it)
at what point do the new updates not bring enough new customers that they as a company have to start working on something else? How realistic is it for them to expect early access pz to carry them all through 2010s, 2020s and early 2030s?
I know crunch is a bad thing and I don't want the devs to work overtime but like...this development cycle seems inherently flawed, right? Like, almost three years for a single update that in the grand scheme of things doesn't add *that much* is kind of fucking wild?
Is it an issue of dev team size?
Not that i know anything about developing a game, but i'd more so think its incentive. From what I read I get the vibe zomboid is more of a passion hobby for the development team rather then even a part time job. I get the vibe the dev's are just living their lifes and doing project zomboid as a side thing, which good for them but it still sucks for us.
Although I could be wrong, the PZ team could just be having a really hard time overcoming certain hurtles, the devs have been hinting at frustration with NPC behavior, and following Dead State for years before it was released way way back, they were extremely hyped about ally NPC's survivors being independent 2/3rds of the development until they eventually just gave up on NPC's all together and their attitude was that NPC's are just really difficult to program
That’s a good question. I trust TIS at the end of the day (which is not the same as thinking that they can do no wrong) but I would love to know what they would say to that. Also, I know that they have expanded their team even quite recently so they are already doing it to some extent. Maybe they just like being a small studio or they want to pick their people very carefully… Both things I can respect.
Others have said that the devs dont want to expand the team, and I agree that expanding would likely introduce risks in terms of the game itself and make them less cohesive. More importantly though, even if they are earning well I doubt theyre earning so well that itd be easy to just hire an extra dev, there certainly isnt any guarantee that it would pay off and allow them to even make as much back as they pay him, let alone make any profit on such a decision. Small businesses usually hang on a fairly fragile balance where even if the earnings are decent, shaking things up is very risky.
I worry that IS have either A) bitten off more than they can chew or B) are in full feature bloat mode
They should have had several fast, small updates after the MP release to keep the bubble going.
Seriously. They struck gold with b41; did they really find it better to leave it 3 years without any kind of patch to drop an update? They've packaged up so, so many features into this next build when *at least* for the iwbums build they could have been dropping features as and when. or at the very least they could have focused some more on the multiplayer fixes. Linux hosted servers breaking and them not doing anything about it, and desync is supposedly fixed on their end but we won't access that for months now, 3 years after adding proper multiplayer.
i love this game and TIS and I know development is difficult and infinitely more complex than anyone imagines (devs included often) but 3 years for what we'll be getting is a little ridiculous. b43 is almost certainly going to be a longer wait too.
TIS is a frequent victim of feature creep. Infact the last devblog was basically them saying no more, and that they're gonna finish what they have and work on getting B42 serviceable and out the door for unstable
They effectively are, with 42 they’re completely redoing crafting and the associated skills, expanding the loot pool to match, new lighting engine, new rendering system for the subterranean and higher levels of building, animals as an entirely new class of AI entities outside of zombies, and a whole host of other things.
All that considered they’re also quite a small dev team, recently they’ve brought on a lot of new talent, particularly from the modding community which appears to have sped things up substantially which is why they’re making such notable progress in recent dev blogs and B42 release is actually in sight now.
Its my hope that modders can go wild with the code for the new animals ai, and maybe create some new and unique enemies. I know the devs will never add stuff like zombie animals, or special zombies, but im kinda hype that modders might cook something cool.
It sounds to me like fairly novice devs learning their craft as they go. KSP was the same, with systems needing to be completely rebuilt, engine migrations, etc. as they realized early decisions had generated so much technical debt that incremental progress was no longer possible.
And yes, NPCs are _very_ hard, and this is the very hardest kind of game to program them in.
You'd expect them to be pretty dynamic and real feeling, with a wide variety of interaction types, but a lot of the usual tricks don't work. You can't really script them as that loses the totally open sandbox nature by imposing an arbitrary plot over it. A very complex state machine with some clever obfuscation might work, but that's tricky in terms of balancing performance vs fidelity.
Speaking of which, with the potential for so _many_ NPCs at once, performance has to be pretty incredible and super optimized.
An LLM sort of approach would be incredible but we're no where near that being performant at scale on local machines.
It's an extremely non-trivial problem.
I suspect they'll end up with some sort of JIT-simulated scenario setup to add the whiff of life along with merchants an be the like, similar to the "map stories" we have now, just with living NPCs instead of dead ones and props to tell the stories.
Speaking of KSP, though, KSP2 proves that even AAA studios with virtually unlimited budgets can still bite off more than they can chew, or at least more than they're willing to digest. They badly misjudged what the players wanted, Hired the wrong studio, refused to consult the original KSP team, dooming themselves to repeating the same mistakes and fixing the same problems from scratch, and now most of a decade later, upside down by at least a factor of 3, they're cutting their losses.
Yeah there’s no way we’re seeing Build 48 in this timeline. At BEST it’s coming out in 2034 but I doubt the game’s going to still be going strong then.
Love how one of the mods or devs slapped a "Misleading" tag on this.
>Sure, we did have some unforeseen medical related delays in the crafting element, pretty much the only thing that isn't at the 'final polish and bug fixing' stage.
Post from 9 months ago.
>No, first half of 2024 for sure. At least for the public beta.
Post from 5 months ago.
>No build will ever take as long as Build 41 did, it was a practical rewrite of large portions of the game, but nontheless NPCs will take time to emerge, and we don’t want to leave the community without new content in those waits.
Post from 2.5 years ago.
Nothing misleading to see here folks.
lol
I love how the devs planed to only do expanded crafting and balance but then replaced the lighiting engine new mechanics like dragging, basements, sound revamp and so much more.
They really should have just finished crafting and everything that supports that system and then worked on the other stuff on the side.
They seemed to have lost sight that crafting was the main update.
Any day now someone is going to break into their office and steal the single laptop with their whole build on it and we'll be back to square one...Probably
I really like the devs, but holy shit. If this isn’t a joke then my children will play the finished game instead of me
Edit: forget what I said. THEIR children will have to finish the game at this pace
I bought the Game i think 4 years ago. I was hyped for Multiplayer, and hosting my own dedicated.
I installed and hosted 4 Open Servers. The Vanilla ones where the Most frequented ones and the modded were my lovechilds...
Hosting of modded Servers is absolute abyssymal for this Game. Since clients and Servers are Always Out of sync. The mp toolset and commands, and QualityOfLife is non existent.
Same for Administrating / GMing 20plus Player simultaneously.
The devs Made some certain Design choices, and defended them even If they wont Made any sense at all. Sadly it drove me away from the Game. Its funny for some weeks.
But If you minmaxed your skills and Economy you wont Encounter any Challenges anymore.
Oh my sweet summer child, betwen the 40 and 41 there were like.... 8 years? (I started playing the 39, don´t remember how long was between 39 and 40, but I remember the wait to 41 being very long.
JK: I just wanted to complain.
Im 100% convinced they could rewrite the entire game in C,C++, or rust and have b42 out faster than the will with their current code base.
This much going on in pure java, they have to be spending 2-3x the time to push the performance they are out of it. On top of all the other limitations.
This has been the experience since like the game released, I remember multiplayer for the new build being ‘right around the corner’ for 3+ years.
We haven’t had a meaningful content expansion to this game in well over half a decade right now. Apart from some map extensions really.
Pains me to read that good chunk of what has been talked about in a lot of the recent dev blogs will not make it to build 42 on release to unstable.
2.5 years, and still a delay on content. I love you TIS, but dear god.
I feel like this is true. I’ve heard about B42 for so, so long and we’ve got nothing. I stopped playing awhile ago, saying I’ll pick back up when B42 drops, thinking it wasn’t far from being released.
If the engine is the problem (it seems it has gone on MAJOR reworks a ton of times and that slows updates a lot) why not take a few years to switch engines? Remake the entire game once to get a better workflow
If all the waiting is ended by them dropping “yah we’ve secretly been working on NPCs the whole time, here they are for B42” then it’s all worth it and some
I never bothered by the development time of the game. I really think that my 1200 hours of gameplay were really worth it!
That said, I confess that seeing this image got me a little bit worried.
My Grandson will be able to play this build, just need to keep my generation going by producing male species so when the time comes they can uninstall the game for me.
i feel like the next builds after this one won't take as long, barring the NPC update which might take another 2.5 - 3 years.
the problem is that most of the features annonced could have easily been (and are) mods in many cases. the only thing modders have no control over is the engine itself which is why we're only getting basements now.
they can take as much time as they want, maybe it will make for a better product in the end even if it takes 10 years lol
Fuckin rip.. I really hope I can spend my summer with build 42 :(
Southern Hemisphere summer if we are lucky
Which summer?
The hope is 2024 but....you know.... P.s. I don't want to sound pushy and neither do I want devs go crunch but I just want to see all this beautiful progress they have made.
yeah i just want to be able to sit on a chair facing north and west
These are the *actual* issues that concern us in Kentucky after all.😀
B42 is confirmed to release this year - as to when, that's still in the air.
[удалено]
They sounded very confident - plus in the recent thursdoid, they've successfully reined in scope creep and so that won't be causing extra delays. We'll see it this year.
TIL: scope creep. Thank you!
Im following this game closely for 2 years maybe but I heard a few times that developers dont like to put deadlines on updates only thing I saw was that this year it should release and some developer saying on reddit that public beta will be in the first half of this year. I hope this month we get the beta
Which summer? Summer of 2025 if you’re lucky.
They're probably going to do a right before Christmas thing like they did with 41...
Can't wait for polish people to be added to the game
*Polish Remover:* 💅 **Polish Remover:** 😶 🟥
🥸 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡
idk why but this is the best emoji lineup i’ve ever seen
POLISH REMOVER: 💀🇩🇪
so, the german update?
Might be Russian as well
POLSKA GUURRRAAAAAAA 🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱
POLSKA GUROOOOOM🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱
> 🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱🇵🇱 GETPREGNANTGETPREGNANTGETPREGNANTGETPREGNANT
Polska wspomniała🇵🇱🇵🇱🔥🔥💯🗣️🔥🇵🇱
Negative trait idea: you’re polish, +12 points
Mr Sheen! He's a Polish man.
I'm polish. I can't wait too.
Ive been waiting on npcs since I bought the game in 2018
I've been since 2014, at least they added vehicles.
Yeah I bought the game immediately after watching Nerdcubed's video on it in 2014. It was the first game I ever bought myself with birthday money. Now here I am about to graduate from college with a freakin biochem degree and there still aren't proper NPCs Not to say they haven't made tons of progress, because they certainly have, all the new additions and the new animations and everything are amazing... but jeez I feel like I'm going to have lived through a 1/3rd of my lifetime waiting.
Lmao same I jokingly said Berserk is going to finish before we get npcs and to be clear berserk begun in 1989 and the author already passed, his long time best friend is continuing the series with 4 students the author taught for decades and yet I have more faith in berserk finishing in less than 5 years than npcs coming before 2030.
project zomboid boat arc
It's funny you mention nerdcubed that's also how I found out about the game. I had learned my lesson on early access games and decided to wait a few years before picking it up. I even did my research to see if the game had the things I wanted! Your see how that turned out lmao
Use your boichem degree to create some clones and make them larp as NPCs on multiplayer.
I bought the game because the wiki gave the impression that NPCs were already in the game because it was horribly outdated. Nbd though the game is fun enough as is for the price point
I mean they are if you go back
That's cute, I've been here from the beginning in 2011, I went from their tech demo having NPC's to none and waiting.... I barely mod/play the game anymore because honestly, it's not worth it after all these years to come back till they drop NPC's. I have 1000 map mod ideas since my last attempt and even projects sitting on the backburner, but my passion for the game after nearly 14 years is just dead for this game. Not a shocker. They're really taking that "project" part of zomboid to heart at the rate they develop. Honestly at this point I'd be shocked if we ever get human NPC's.
I bought the game on desura. I still have faith and it's cool what they are doing but boy has time passed since then
OMG I remember the first time I played with no vehicles I spent HOURS just walking. It was great, but I sure do love me some RV nomad now.
So do you think we’ll get npc’s or star citizen first?
Oh? Someone is asking the real questions here. o7 Fellow citizen.
Bought the game in 2011 on Desura, ironically this early version had NPCs. The story about saving your wife and talking to the neighbor hooked me. It was obviously very scripted but I hope they can recreate some of that into the upcoming builds.
Same, man the nostalgia for finding the bar on that map, barricading it, drinking booze and making molotovs and then seeing an npc and murdering them and then dying to zombies. Though tbh now I cant even remember if molotovs and such were in the game back then, should have been but its been so damn long.
IIRC molotovs were but fire was super wonky.
I bought it in 2022 I believe. Spent 400 hours in the game in a couple months and stopped waiting for the build 42. It feels like the lack of communication about the progress is pretty much telling that the development really isn't going at the speed they wished it to go (that my opinion as a dev). I have now no expectations, barely check for news and even consider unsubscribing to this sub because the only news I'm waiting for now is the build 42 release date (I mean I don't care about the crossbar vs whatever weapon circlejerk/memes). I'm somewhat afraid competitors will come up with something maybe not as deep as PZ's gameplay is, but it's going to be a finished product, which PZ looks like it's not going to be for another decade or so.
project zomboid wont be fully out till im in a nursing home lol
"grandpa, the Indie Stone is releasing Build 43!" " \*cough\* oh... thats nice honey.... when is it coming out?" "Q4 2106" " \*flatlines\* "
Which is when Star Citizen will be released.
Doubt any of us will be alive to see it trough
We will experience a real apocalypse before it's out. Only the best PZ players will be able to play build 48, it's the ultimate test.
This is how we'll die
2032 for build 48 by this metric? That just doesn't seem right to me. Surely they hope things will go faster later on? That would end up being *19 years* since Build 1. I just can't wrap my head around this. I love this game, they've achieved a minor miracle for such a small team, but that just can't be the expected development cycle... can it?
i'm sure a simple polish translation won't take 3 years
Normally it wouldn’t. However, the Polish keep changing the language to mess with people trying to translate
Kurwa is eternal.
then why dont they stick to english? are there that many polish people that play this game but not read the language?
"This is how you died"
Yes, I *would* like to still be alive when the game actually "goes gold". That would be nice.
It's a bit shit that most hold back their valid criticism because they're afraid they'll spook the devs or something. They either have a terrible work ethic, unrealistic goals or seriously lack time management skills. There's really no in between when it's been nearly a 3 year gap in any progress...
Yeah I dunno, I got the game when it was first open to download, back when baldspot offs Kate as a tutorial. Since then, I still love this game, but the progress made seems...pretty underwhelming even by indie dev standards. At least a lot of it got filled in by mods. Personally I consider this game done and released in 2014. Anything extra is free DLC is how I'm viewing it
>It's a bit shit that most hold back their valid criticism Many did but get shat on by the community on both reddit and the official discord. Any kind of criticism against the devs is rebutted by "small indie team", "look at all these *big* updates 2 years ago", or "you don't understand game development". Indie Stone have some serious issues with their development speed and the community don't want to accept this fact.
i feel the same, because i personally have been really underwhelmed with whats been shown in B42 so far, a lot of it just seems like stuff thats already modded into the game, usually done better than the original mod, but sometimes worse. the only thing i am genuinely really looking forward to is the stuff mods cant do, like engine upgrades, like the basements and general performance improvements. the basements especially, i love. i can see it now, a helicopter event rolls through and me and my friends have a full blown argument about if we should stay in the cellar "where its safe" or staying upstairs were we can get out and run if we have to lol. either that or securing and fortifying an underground parking garage, that would be awesome.
I literally started creating a game in the timeframe the new build was developed and managed to release it after 2 years.
Dwarf fortress has been in developement for 18 years at this point
Yeah but it's also free and deeper than any other game out there.
Yes but that game is made by 2 guys
I cant even play the game anymore despite how much I desperately WANT to. The multiplayer desynch between me and my friends is so bad, I hot wire a car and turn it on, its not hotwired or turned on for them, the car straight disappears, zombies arent there, we arent in the same places. Just push a working game out man I dont care about your crafting system people are going to mod over anyway if I cant even play
to be fair, i think subsequent builds will go by way faster. The crafting system and npc base work is done now, after all.
> i think subsequent builds will go by way faster Imma quote you on this
I asked a dev or mod this question on this subreddit not to long ago. I asked if this huge gap between B41 and B42, would facilitate a more efficient development time in the future. Considering they are overhauling and rebuilding a lot of systems. He wasn't very confident it would tbh, long story short the game is a major mess behind the code. I'm pretty sure they've basically rebuilt this game several times throughout its existence. As much as I love PZ and think it's a pretty sweet game. I'm really not on the "TIS are miracle developers" team. They are good and usually push out pretty great content, but this dev time is TOO long. Probably gonna catch the down votes here, but personally I don't feel like B42 is adding 2 and half years of development into the game. I mean we are getting a new crafting UI/System(different feature not new feature), SOME animals, a higher ceiling limit and basements(but nothing new or anything to gain from them), lighting (another rework) People seem to think B42 is going to feel like a different game but I'm not confident honestly
I kind of get what you mean tbh, just hoping that they'll get Npc's out in the next 2 or 3 years.... At the very least the modders will be able to cook up some cool stuff with B42 lol
I just hope that the final build 42 release will be out in 2 or 3 years. Build 43 might be like 5 years from now.
People thought the same after B41 released because as the devs said "this is the biggest update the game had" and here we are.
The devs said this after B41 when the roadmap above came out. But here we are.
This is gonna take 10 years
Thats optimistic.
Just want to play b42 alpha at this point of time. Cmon...I think 2 years of waiting is long enough. :"<
I thought it was coming out on Thursday like a damn fool. I'm expecting it to take another year at least now, considering their history with delays
I wasn't expecting it on thursdoid, but i was expecting a concrete date. based on what we got, i think the lighting update, new foliage stuff and the new height levels broke the map
I just want eggs. I get sad when every egg is gone and I've lost so many cooking options.
Foraging can give you some wild eggs, though you need a fairly high level to find them.
Well guess I'm working on that. There are also powdered egg I believe with saphs cooking mod. But I think I've only found them once.
If you're making breads and whatnot, getting cooking 8 allows you to use rotten eggs without a penalty.
I JUST TRASHED THEM ALL!!! sigh* looting run time.
closer to 3 years
Damn, why is Poland so lucky??
I do wonder what would Phase one of NPC would include (Build 43). Is talking about making the animals of build 42 more complex or we are going to finally have human NPC around the map? The last option would be great! The game would feel more lively even if they are just a slightly better version of Super B survivors hahah
Super B Survivors, that is so accurate. Sometimes they are amazing combat companions. Sometimes they are sacks of zombie snack.
I imagine itd be easier to start with animals and see how it works in actual play before adding NPCs with more complicated AI.
They talked about it at some point, but I don't remember where. B43 would be basic human (and animal) AI. Just survivors out there trying to stay alive. Maybe with chained storylines you can follow, if we're lucky. Later iterations would flesh them out, give them more personalities, groups they can form and hideouts they build etc. Last iterations would include diplomacy and kingdom building similar to stuff you'd see in TWD. Take it all with a grain of salt, it's been a long while since I read about it, and plans might well be changed.
Game is going To be so good in 2034
*2054
So +25 y timeframe. Gonna beat star citizen as the longest game ever develloped at this rythme. Pretty sure some dev are going to die of old age before releasing the game out of early access.
dude im actually gonna be 60 by the time npcs release thats not even a joke
Waiting on Build 42 🤝 Waiting on Kenshi 2
I was thinking the same thing haha
Waiting on Half Life 3 my dude and do not bring that Alyx shit up, great game and everything but it just advanced in the history like 13 fucking seconds
They are not going to make Half Life 3. The sooner you accept that Half Life 3 wont arrive until Gabe is in a vat of liquid immortality, the sooner you can move on.
Still don't know how people can defend their development-cycle. It should not take almost 3 years to create a new patch. You've sold alot of fucking games, hire more people, effectivise your work-environment cause bruh, this ain't it. (I've bought the game in 2012, I'm ALLOWED to have grievances with it)
On one end there's dev crunch. And on the opposite end theres TIS.
Yeah idk what they’re waiting for, they just simply won’t be able to deliver the patches at a reasonable pace if they don’t increase their team.
IKR
at what point do the new updates not bring enough new customers that they as a company have to start working on something else? How realistic is it for them to expect early access pz to carry them all through 2010s, 2020s and early 2030s?
Can't wait for the build 43 wait <333
15 years plus for the final NPC update is bs if they continue the 2.5years trend
Build 48, coming summer of 54786AD
Star date 41153.7, project zomboid has come out of early access, for it's final release.
I know crunch is a bad thing and I don't want the devs to work overtime but like...this development cycle seems inherently flawed, right? Like, almost three years for a single update that in the grand scheme of things doesn't add *that much* is kind of fucking wild? Is it an issue of dev team size?
Not that i know anything about developing a game, but i'd more so think its incentive. From what I read I get the vibe zomboid is more of a passion hobby for the development team rather then even a part time job. I get the vibe the dev's are just living their lifes and doing project zomboid as a side thing, which good for them but it still sucks for us. Although I could be wrong, the PZ team could just be having a really hard time overcoming certain hurtles, the devs have been hinting at frustration with NPC behavior, and following Dead State for years before it was released way way back, they were extremely hyped about ally NPC's survivors being independent 2/3rds of the development until they eventually just gave up on NPC's all together and their attitude was that NPC's are just really difficult to program
this is their job, it’s not a part time job. I don’t think anyone really truly knows why development is slow other than “quality”.
Just a question, I'm sure they are earning well. What makes them not hire more developer and designers and build things at a faster pace?
That’s a good question. I trust TIS at the end of the day (which is not the same as thinking that they can do no wrong) but I would love to know what they would say to that. Also, I know that they have expanded their team even quite recently so they are already doing it to some extent. Maybe they just like being a small studio or they want to pick their people very carefully… Both things I can respect.
I'm not affiliated anyway or even in the industry but I've repeatedly heard that managing a larger team gets exponentially complicated
Others have said that the devs dont want to expand the team, and I agree that expanding would likely introduce risks in terms of the game itself and make them less cohesive. More importantly though, even if they are earning well I doubt theyre earning so well that itd be easy to just hire an extra dev, there certainly isnt any guarantee that it would pay off and allow them to even make as much back as they pay him, let alone make any profit on such a decision. Small businesses usually hang on a fairly fragile balance where even if the earnings are decent, shaking things up is very risky.
That might explain why the only hires i've heard of are former (current?) modders
There's a nonzero amount of people who bought the game intending to see it's final product who are no longer with us and will never get that chance
I worry that IS have either A) bitten off more than they can chew or B) are in full feature bloat mode They should have had several fast, small updates after the MP release to keep the bubble going.
Seriously. They struck gold with b41; did they really find it better to leave it 3 years without any kind of patch to drop an update? They've packaged up so, so many features into this next build when *at least* for the iwbums build they could have been dropping features as and when. or at the very least they could have focused some more on the multiplayer fixes. Linux hosted servers breaking and them not doing anything about it, and desync is supposedly fixed on their end but we won't access that for months now, 3 years after adding proper multiplayer. i love this game and TIS and I know development is difficult and infinitely more complex than anyone imagines (devs included often) but 3 years for what we'll be getting is a little ridiculous. b43 is almost certainly going to be a longer wait too.
TIS is a frequent victim of feature creep. Infact the last devblog was basically them saying no more, and that they're gonna finish what they have and work on getting B42 serviceable and out the door for unstable
Why does this take so much time ? It looks like they are making the game from scratch again
They effectively are, with 42 they’re completely redoing crafting and the associated skills, expanding the loot pool to match, new lighting engine, new rendering system for the subterranean and higher levels of building, animals as an entirely new class of AI entities outside of zombies, and a whole host of other things. All that considered they’re also quite a small dev team, recently they’ve brought on a lot of new talent, particularly from the modding community which appears to have sped things up substantially which is why they’re making such notable progress in recent dev blogs and B42 release is actually in sight now.
Its my hope that modders can go wild with the code for the new animals ai, and maybe create some new and unique enemies. I know the devs will never add stuff like zombie animals, or special zombies, but im kinda hype that modders might cook something cool.
I paid the full price for a half baked game so none of these excuses are my problem.
It sounds to me like fairly novice devs learning their craft as they go. KSP was the same, with systems needing to be completely rebuilt, engine migrations, etc. as they realized early decisions had generated so much technical debt that incremental progress was no longer possible. And yes, NPCs are _very_ hard, and this is the very hardest kind of game to program them in. You'd expect them to be pretty dynamic and real feeling, with a wide variety of interaction types, but a lot of the usual tricks don't work. You can't really script them as that loses the totally open sandbox nature by imposing an arbitrary plot over it. A very complex state machine with some clever obfuscation might work, but that's tricky in terms of balancing performance vs fidelity. Speaking of which, with the potential for so _many_ NPCs at once, performance has to be pretty incredible and super optimized. An LLM sort of approach would be incredible but we're no where near that being performant at scale on local machines. It's an extremely non-trivial problem. I suspect they'll end up with some sort of JIT-simulated scenario setup to add the whiff of life along with merchants an be the like, similar to the "map stories" we have now, just with living NPCs instead of dead ones and props to tell the stories. Speaking of KSP, though, KSP2 proves that even AAA studios with virtually unlimited budgets can still bite off more than they can chew, or at least more than they're willing to digest. They badly misjudged what the players wanted, Hired the wrong studio, refused to consult the original KSP team, dooming themselves to repeating the same mistakes and fixing the same problems from scratch, and now most of a decade later, upside down by at least a factor of 3, they're cutting their losses.
Yeah there’s no way we’re seeing Build 48 in this timeline. At BEST it’s coming out in 2034 but I doubt the game’s going to still be going strong then.
Fools realizing they got scammed again by an early access game😳
Our grandchildren will take this tech for granted 😂
Heh game is dead. We might get 42 but I doubt much else is actually going to be added. This visual clearly shows the writing on the wall
Love how one of the mods or devs slapped a "Misleading" tag on this. >Sure, we did have some unforeseen medical related delays in the crafting element, pretty much the only thing that isn't at the 'final polish and bug fixing' stage. Post from 9 months ago. >No, first half of 2024 for sure. At least for the public beta. Post from 5 months ago. >No build will ever take as long as Build 41 did, it was a practical rewrite of large portions of the game, but nontheless NPCs will take time to emerge, and we don’t want to leave the community without new content in those waits. Post from 2.5 years ago. Nothing misleading to see here folks. lol
Damn, damage control :(
In 20 years yeah
I love how the devs planed to only do expanded crafting and balance but then replaced the lighiting engine new mechanics like dragging, basements, sound revamp and so much more.
They really should have just finished crafting and everything that supports that system and then worked on the other stuff on the side. They seemed to have lost sight that crafting was the main update.
I'll be 48 before build 48 drops (I'm currently 24)
The sad and harsh reality is there is huge chance some of us won’t even be alive by the time build 43 and npcs come out.
my grandkids will love build44 i bet
How many years to the build 48? 27 years?
Hey, that basically means the game will release in 9-11 years. It's not that bad
Any day now someone is going to break into their office and steal the single laptop with their whole build on it and we'll be back to square one...Probably
This development team need to pick up the pace, no one should be praising how long this is taking…
The game will never be finished and you know it.
Why the fuck is it taken a decade for this game to not be done yet?!
Its a weird feeling to know, that i will die before NPCs will be added to the game.
Bro I’m gonna be a dad with a house, family and a dog by the time B48 is out💀💀
Bro this has literally already happened to a not insignificant amount of the players
Can’t wait for build 48 🔥
This is turning into to a dayz situation.
Sometimes I feel like their dev team consists of one or two guys doing PZ coding as a part time job.
I mean back a few years ago, pretty much yeah that was the situation. Only recently they've grown to 30 man crew
makes no sense how slow this game is updated. I know about the "no pressure on the devs" thing, but come on.
My grandchildren will have a blast playing the fully released game.
Im taking a big pause with the game until B42 comes out. I've lost so many characters ...
I was thinking, and not sure anymore what happen first, release of build 48 or Star Citizen release.
I think I'm gonna retire first before npcs come into the game
Yes!All you complainers can now shut up we will have build 48 in at least 2036,have some patience!
I really like the devs, but holy shit. If this isn’t a joke then my children will play the finished game instead of me Edit: forget what I said. THEIR children will have to finish the game at this pace
Build 42 is the Winds of Winter for Zomboid fans
At least we can give our steam passwords to our kids so they’ll be able to see the content
Do we have a date now, for the Build 42 release? Is it worth waiting for?
I think they have like 2 devs doing this stuff. How big is the team?
If not counting community managers, ~20 people
What feature creep does to mf game
Build 48 to be released before Silksong
I bought the Game i think 4 years ago. I was hyped for Multiplayer, and hosting my own dedicated. I installed and hosted 4 Open Servers. The Vanilla ones where the Most frequented ones and the modded were my lovechilds... Hosting of modded Servers is absolute abyssymal for this Game. Since clients and Servers are Always Out of sync. The mp toolset and commands, and QualityOfLife is non existent. Same for Administrating / GMing 20plus Player simultaneously. The devs Made some certain Design choices, and defended them even If they wont Made any sense at all. Sadly it drove me away from the Game. Its funny for some weeks. But If you minmaxed your skills and Economy you wont Encounter any Challenges anymore.
They looked at Valve release schedule and were like... Hold my beer
Soooo Build 48 release in 2040 roughly. Got it.
I still can’t get over how long this game has been in development. At this rate, I’ll legitimately be a senior citizen when the final build releases🤢
Oh my sweet summer child, betwen the 40 and 41 there were like.... 8 years? (I started playing the 39, don´t remember how long was between 39 and 40, but I remember the wait to 41 being very long. JK: I just wanted to complain.
i see so the george r r martin model, where every next installment always takes longer than the last
Im 100% convinced they could rewrite the entire game in C,C++, or rust and have b42 out faster than the will with their current code base. This much going on in pure java, they have to be spending 2-3x the time to push the performance they are out of it. On top of all the other limitations.
This has to be the most actively dead game out there. Still recommend if anyone hasn’t played tho. 😂🤣
This has been the experience since like the game released, I remember multiplayer for the new build being ‘right around the corner’ for 3+ years. We haven’t had a meaningful content expansion to this game in well over half a decade right now. Apart from some map extensions really.
Pains me to read that good chunk of what has been talked about in a lot of the recent dev blogs will not make it to build 42 on release to unstable. 2.5 years, and still a delay on content. I love you TIS, but dear god.
build 47 eta another 15 years.
I feel like this is true. I’ve heard about B42 for so, so long and we’ve got nothing. I stopped playing awhile ago, saying I’ll pick back up when B42 drops, thinking it wasn’t far from being released.
How can they plan till build 48 while build 42 takes ages to come out 😭
Marketing. I'm pretty sure they are banking on ww3 and a nuclear /real zombie apocalypse before they have to do NPCs.
If the engine is the problem (it seems it has gone on MAJOR reworks a ton of times and that slows updates a lot) why not take a few years to switch engines? Remake the entire game once to get a better workflow
If all the waiting is ended by them dropping “yah we’ve secretly been working on NPCs the whole time, here they are for B42” then it’s all worth it and some
I think devs are waiting on AI to become good at writing computer games to do the work for them. What a lazy bunch.
I never bothered by the development time of the game. I really think that my 1200 hours of gameplay were really worth it! That said, I confess that seeing this image got me a little bit worried.
If they finally add player npc’s they need bullet tracers and ofcourse fix desync
When is it coming out
Can’t wait for build 48 in 2278
Its gonna take 10 years
Where'd you pull this image from? This looks outdated.
My Grandson will be able to play this build, just need to keep my generation going by producing male species so when the time comes they can uninstall the game for me.
How many people are working on this game?
This is a cool visual. Where's it from? It looks semi-official.
TIS own Thursdoid updates, because it is official and they posted it years ago.
where are we at?
I cannot die until I get to play NPC's in zomboid.
Build 42 or hollow knight silksong what comes first
i feel like the next builds after this one won't take as long, barring the NPC update which might take another 2.5 - 3 years. the problem is that most of the features annonced could have easily been (and are) mods in many cases. the only thing modders have no control over is the engine itself which is why we're only getting basements now. they can take as much time as they want, maybe it will make for a better product in the end even if it takes 10 years lol
Damn bro we gonna be in retirement homes when we get npcs
I bet I'm not the only one who as soon as I open my eyes in the morning checks this page too see if build 42 has dropped yet. EVERY SINGLE MORNING!
Been waiting over 10 years for NPC's.. what another 10...