7 Days to Die - and How I'm now Spoiled

[FlowerChild]

The gore blocks do sound cool, although I'd really like to see them in action, and at present zombie attacks on bases aren't really prominent enough to generate a real pile.

The animal carcases I'm not so sure about. Doesn't make that much sense to me given that zombies hunt and kill animals too, meaning there would theoretically be corpses dotting the landscape and no particular reason the ones you kill would attract more mobs.

Also...there are corpses everywhere :)

[FlowerChild]

Omg omg omg...alpha 9 is out. Let the random world goodness commence :)

[Taleric]

Sweet :D the previews of the generation looked so good!

For all those that have not grabbed 7DtD yet:

Spoiler

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Ahoy Survivalists,
Our Massive Alpha 9 update is finally here with a multitude of new additions, improvements and fixes here’s the skinny. The biggest addition is our beautiful new Randomly Generated Worlds A.K.A. Randomz-gane which have full gigantic cities, roads, rivers, lakes, cliffs, mountains, roadside and wilderness locations and feature all biome types.

We’ve also reworked the entire in game GUI with new Art, Truetype fonts and many new features including fog of war, waypoints, friend tracking and recipe search.

If that wasn’t enough we’ve added some major Buff System enhancements including, Broken Legs, Sprained Legs, Dysentery, Drowning, Concussions and First Aid Kits. We’ve also including new rendering enhancements including soft shadows and underwater effects. In addition the player can now craft a full cloth armor set and use scrap iron build and upgrade forts. Folks this update is jammed packed with features!

Official Alpha 9 Release Notes

Added
•Added new game map option ‘Random Gen’ which creates a randomly generated world seed based on the name you give the world. The random world generation includes all biomes, a full random sized central city, random in the wild cities, roads, rivers, lakes and random roadside and wilderness locations. Simply select Random Gen as the Game World and the name you give it will be the seed.
•Added new sexier data driven ‘M’ map that renders based on where the player has visited with ‘Fog of War’ functionality. The new map shows, current position, cursor position, has waypoint functionality, recenter view to player, track friends on compass, mouse wheel scroll to zoom and left click drag to pan.
•Added new biome type wasteland hub with custom spawning definition for random gen cities
•Added overhauled most of the GUI including the new belt, backpack, compass, map, freinds list, character screen, loot container and more as well as new gui functionality and Truetype fonts
•Added many new locations never before seen that appear only in the randomly generated worlds including, city blocks, movie theaters, several apartment buildings, parking garages, parking lots, new destroyed buildings and giant sewer holes.
•Added a Debuff system for sprained, and broken legs that work with a new craftable splint that accelerates the healing time. Legs can also be re-injured more easily while on the mend and the more severe the injury the longer the recovery time.
•Added Dysentery Debuff contracted from drinking river or murky water. Dysentery is cured by drinking goldenrod tea or taking antibiotics.
•Added new stunned concussion debuff which slows the player down for a few seconds and has a chance to happen with zombie hits.
•Added soft shadows to moon and sunlight
•Added Simple drowning Debuff system that detects when the player is underwater and displays the icon. Going above water removes the icon. staying underwater for too long causes drowning pain damage and drowning death
•Added Underwater visual effects, sound effects & leaving water effects with refract & screen particle effects
•Added new tooltip loading screens
•Added craftable Cloth jacket, pants, shoes, hat and gloves
•Added cotton, cotton growing and cloth recipes from cotton
•Added new scrap metal frame, ramp recipes and upgrade path for more fort building options
•Added scrap metal inside corner wedges for scrap metal upgrade path
•Added outside corners for scrap metal forts
•Added recipe for scrap metal inside corner frames
•Added Apartment building, Parking Garage, Movie Theater and new destroyed buildings to Navezgane Gravestown
•Added eat glass for suicide option
•Added empty jars added to inventory when using water, coffee, murky water, yucca juice, and goldenrod tea
•Added recipe for adobe tan made from sand or sandstone and cement
•Added paper to trash loot
•Added cabinet filler pieces and cabinet top plate blocks for counters replacing some of the cabinet loot in the world
•Added green plaster wallpaper full blocks
•Added, blood bags, blood draw kits and first aid kits to the world. First aid kits heal 50 hit points immediately plus an additional 50 over 10 seconds. It is made from a bandage, grain alcohol, and a blood bag. Blood draw kits can be reused to make blood bags.
•Added “gunpowder charge” item & recipe which is made of 9 gunpowder
•Added inside corner wedge and wedged corner for oldwood for attics
•Added seeds to garbage and backpack loot
•Added icons for leg splint, blood bag, blood draw kit, first aid kit, gun powder charge\bottle, cloth hat, cloth pants, cloth jacket, cloth shoes and cloth gloves.
•Added slowed movement speed in sand, water and web for player and entities
•Added weapon parts to loot lists, reduced chance of finding complete weapons
•Added a new water biome sound loop plays on rivers in random gen only
•Added Reduced damage from crawling zombies but gave them a chance give the player a sprained leg
•Added new blocks creme wall with backsplash block, wood floor with drywall ceiling block
•Added city street painted lines
•Added random rotation to loot on roads
•Added Player placed dirt now grows grass
•Added bookcase blocks, textures and recipes to craft them and bookcase loot containers to the world
•Added updated english.txt random gen description and new items
•Added MovementState to hornet controller to stop error msgs
•Added a few pigs to pine forest biome
•Added smell debuff code support and buff note: smell blips still show up on the main map
•Added upgradable inside and outside wood corners useful for building mitered roof corners
•Added scrap Lead to garbage loot
•Added recipes for wooden inside and outside corners

Changed
•Changed removed old minimap compass and replaced with new sleek minimalist compass that shows player sleeping bag position, set waypoints and tracked friends
•Changed Hordes are smaller in general but except every 7th day they are super nasty.
•Changed thinned the total amount of loot containers in all world prefabs and moved the best prefabs to harder to reach areas
•Changed Drinking river water doesn’t damage your health and you get some stamina now just like drinking pure water, but there is a chance of catching the new Dysentery Debuff from drinking it. Dysentery is cured by drinking goldenrod tea or taking antibiotics. If untreated it becomes advanced dysentery which damages stamina and health which is only curable with antibiotics
•Changed credits adding all Kickstarter Backers and made it scroll faster
•Changed cupboards to have 0-1 cans of food instead of 0-2
•Changed increased amount of food you get from canned Lamb and Chicken
•Changed decreased weight of candy tins, hub caps and air filters
•Changed slowed crop growth
•Changed spiked club recipe to require ingots instead of scrap metal
•Changed white flowers are now cotton plants
•Changed lowered zombie player damage to work with the new stun system
•Changed awnings are made from cloth instead of plant fibers
•Changed most all interior house walls are a full block thick improves lighting and enemy pathing
•Changed pipe bombs are now made from gunpowder charge instead of gunpowder
•Changed TNT now uses loads of gunpowder instead of gunpowder
•Changed replaced all plate block and plate block corner thin walls in old houses and ranch houses
•Changed new default spectrum (used in plains and Diersville) with magenta sunset and bluer nights
•Changed craft time of sandbags from 30 seconds to 5 seconds
•Changed all blocks that use the shape of the pine tip are now only 1m height.
•Changed backpacks so you have equal chance of finding the items they contain
•Changed pistol book so it gates pistol part mold crafting instead of pistol crafting.
•Changed removed shotguns from the book so they can be assembled by anyone who has the parts. Molds still require the book to learn how to craft them
•Changed Sandbags can be picked up
•Changed made both mattresses work as player bedrolls when placed
•Changed Fog, Sunlight and Sky in forest
•Changed when placing a regular block on the terrain, the terrain now “snaps” to this block
•Changed Zombies are no longer slowed by forge or campfire light at night, and never run in dark places during the day
•Changed increased chance of clay deposits in earth. Removed chance of getting clay when digging dirt
•Changed increased chainsaw wood damage
•Changed removed flicker from wall mounted torches
•Changed plains terrain grass is a little greener
•Changed resources underground so there are only 3 minerals per layer. There is stone and iron ore in every layer. The third mineral changes every twenty layers down starting with coal, then potassium nitrate, then lead, and finally tungsten.
•Changed radiated terrain texture, added more loot to cupboards
•Changed Added peeling paint and grunge to Diersville houses and white door
•Changed reduced cars in Diersville and gravestown for performance
•Changed the way chunks are build in background threads to optimize them
•Changed scrap metal wall and reinforced scrap metal wall art
•Changed dirt grows into grass, grass grows into tallgrass
•Changed ramp trussing textures to use new scrap metal textures
•Changed redwood cabinets plain on sides and bottom
•Changed removed blob shadows on all entities (zombies, animals, players, etc)
•Changed Biome intensity fading now also over time
•Changed winter biomes have less fog and brighter midday
•Changed dirt to sides of burnt forest blocks and burnt forest dirt on the sides of the wasteland blocks
•Changed tweaked cupboard loot. Added empty cans and coffee beans are now in the seed group
•Changed Reduced decal litter on roads
•Changed increased weight of fishing weights from 1 to 4 ounces
•Changed cars now only have automotive loot
•Changed crafted doors to be unlocked by default
•Changed Serverconfig.xml defaults to zombies normal 3
•Changed: Moved VAC window to the top

Fixed
•Fixed scrap timer not updating when adding more scrap while it’s in progress
•Fixed problem that other players HUD text was flashing
•Fixed elevator to surface bug
•Fixed all backpacks and purses have terrain decoration flag so they don’t clip terrain
•Fixed animals should avoid water > 1m deep unless they are forced in via physics somehow.
•Fixed player should be push out of ground correctly
•Fixed: Gave wasteland scrap metal block terrain decoration flag so it doesn’t float
•Fixed drinking from river not being the same as drinking murky water
•Fixed the VAC warning dialog
•Fixed problem with animated doors on a client and also open/close state of a door can be saved in a prefab
•Fixed regression: god mode wasn’t enabled in Cheat mod
•Fixed bug where Mouse Sensitivity was not adjustable
•Fixed horizon colors flickering a single time when time turns from about 13:50 to 14:10
•Fixed Spinning rabbits and deers
•Fixed the rotation of the preview of a door before placing is now correct
•Fixed loot not spawning the right amount of items
•Fixed severe problem that sometimes the collider for a newly placed block wasn’t generated
•Fixed: Fat Cop Zombie Vomit Projectile disappears before it hits anything
•Fixed old window upgrade path showing wrong model
•Fixed old window upgrade path to include scrap metal reinforced version
•Fixed window01white to require scrap metal to reach the metal reinforced version
•Fixed walking in shallow water plays footsteps from ground below
•Fixed playing “fall into water” sound now only if the fall distance is > 1m
•Fixed hovering over item in campfire and closing causing item names to stay
•Fixed Removed muzzle flash & smoke from crossbow
•Fixed problem that client player in a Coop game was not seen by enemies if far away from the server

ServerConfig.xml
•Renamed GamePref ShowAllPlayersOnMap to ShowFriendPlayerOnMap
•Server config file option “ShowAllPlayersOnMap” has been renamed to “ShowFriendPlayerOnMap”

Known Issues
•32 bit Operating Systems can run out of memory sometimes. We’re still optimizing this.
•Some users have trouble setting the video to higher resolutions like 1920×1080 or 1920×1200 as the list appears to long. The work around is to use your keyboard up and down arrow to reach these.

More News

Achievement Hunters

Be sure to check out the latest Achievement Hunters Video the 4th installment. The word on the street or Reddit is they may make us a regular or semi-regular series. Let’s Play 7 Days to Die Part 4

New Free Tool

Also we are pleased to announce that our friends at http://www.blackboxservers.net have released the 1st Visual Rcon tool (7DTDCC Alpha 0.1) for 7 Days to Die. The Rcon tool enable Server admins to:
•Control and administrate multiple servers live
•Chat with players and add MOTD’s when players join
•Kick Ban/unban players ( select player name and kick/ban )
•Live Navezgane Map – View player location, msg players , kick and ban
•Change Server settings on the fly (without server Restart)
•View and log / search game server console.
•Create server banners for websites and forums using http://www.bbtracker.net
•No need to download any additional software it is all web base interface

One Year Ago Today
Coincidentally today is our 1 year anniversary of getting funded on Kickstarter. Thanks folks for funding us! We all remember “where’s my Key Bro… where’s my Key!” Thank god that’s behind us. And for all of you waiting on tangible goods don’t worry we’re working on getting the T-shirts, Map and Zombie poster designs done and out. We can’t finish them until the world and characters are done so thank you for your patience.

Playing Older Versions
We’re also making the last stable Alpha 8.8 build and older builds available to re download so here’s how you do it.
1. Open your steam client.
2. Click on Games/View Games Library
3. Right click ‘7 Days to Die’ and select properties
4. From the new popup dialogue box select the ‘BETAS’ Tab
5. Under ‘Select the beta you would like to opt into’ – select ‘Alpha 8.8 Stable’
6. The game will then update and download Alpha 8.8
7. Switching back to the latest version is as easy as repeating steps 1-4 and on step 5 choose the option ‘None – Opt out of all Beta Programs’ and you’ll revert to the latest version

[Dralnalak]

... we’ve added some major Buff System enhancements including, Broken Legs, Sprained Legs, Dysentery, Drowning, Concussion ...

(Emphasis mine.)

Now those are are some Better Than Wolves style buffs! ;)


There goes my Friday night. I've been very much looking forward to Alpha 9's random worlds.

[Ethinolicbob]

Omg omg omg...alpha 9 is out

YES YES... and balls.
A mate and I have been working our balls off making a tower in an enormous spiked dry moat. Almost finished
He's gonna flip out when I tell him I wanna try the random gen world

[FlowerChild]

K, got a little play time on it, and it's totally awesome :)

I really love that the minimap is gone. This makes almost as huge a difference as the random terrain and not knowing where everything is. It's much more nerve wracking to not constantly have little radar blips for where the zombies are around you. I'm really hoping it's gone for good and this isn't just a transitional thing due to the random terrain.

I had the good sense to remove the crossbow recipe before starting, but unfortunately forgot to remove the stone axe. Will likely restart in a bit with that gone as it really mucks up the progression when you can use that thing to hack at boulders and when it's a superior weapon to stuff like the bone shiv.

[Ethinolicbob]

I also got a little playtime. Loving the unpredictability of the map.
Still playing it with loot on 25% (I should probably play on defaults again to get a baseline for the current balance) but so far I have not found one working weapon. I have only found a piece of a pistol. That's great news in my books.

Loving the cliffs. A few minutes in I fell off one as I was too busy keeping an eye on surrounding zombies (thank you absence of minimap)

One thing I would have liked to see is the map rotating around with the player and a lack of a compass, at least until the point the player obtains a compass.

I don't remember cotton being in the last version? Not sure how I feel as it was super easy to craft cloth and a bandage. Too easy.

[FlowerChild]

I don't remember cotton being in the last version? Not sure how I feel as it was super easy to craft cloth and a bandage. Too easy.

Cloth was already extremely easy to come by (too easy ;) ), given you could just axe curtains and tents for the stuff. Once you knew that, you always tended to have a surplus.

There's also cloth armor now, but the previous surplus would have been more than sufficient to cover that.

[Ethinolicbob]

Just read through the release notes.
Dysentery is introduced, excellent. We stopped boiling water and ended up drinking from the river because the health damage was so minimal (and painkillers were plenty even on 25%)

Its a shame they didn't fix (or even mention it as known) the "Crafted items disappearing on disconnection bug"
During the building of our defences my mates game crashed while he was crafting around 60 ingots of rebar frames, all gone to the void. It happened 2 more times, however he had already learnt to craft a little at a time because of this.

Cloth was already extremely easy to come by (too easy ;) ), given you could just axe curtains and tents for the stuff.

Really? didn't even think to try to be honest.

I see they added glass jar reusing too... eh... way to make hydration more trivial

[FlowerChild]

I see they added glass jar reusing too... eh... way to make hydration more trivial

It was needed regardless. As much as I'm an advocate of added difficulty in this game, that was the wrong way to go about it. "Real men break their jars after drinking" got old real quick :)

[Ethinolicbob]

I just started a new game on the new map, with default across the board. This is my experience.

Background: I got back into this game right after your vid with Icy, so me and a friend started playing together. We changed the loot to 25%, loot respawn off, and no airdrops (as you recommended.) We also changed zombies to walking all the time and their numbers up to 150%

Before this playthrough I had no idea where you were coming from with the crossbow OP comments. During our play we mostly found no feathers in nests, on occasion 1 or 2 (once even 4) so bolts were a premium.
Neither of us had seen antibiotics or a flask so we were super cautious. Never used the guns because of noise, and only used the crossbow when killing was necessary. We had just enough supplies to get by.
Due to the risk on infection we attempted to keep out of arms length as much as possible, so little to no melee (at least until we got beds and then fear of death was only when we were doing trips.)

We then started our first project where we were digging a dry moat with a spiked bottom. There we hit tons of all the minerals and we could make hunting rifle ammo in spades and could hide from the hordes behind the moat.

This playthrough I went solo and default everything. Spawn in right beside 2 giant fucking bees. Ugh.
First nest yielded 30 feathers! (In my previous playthrough we had never had more than a dozen bolts on us at a time, this time I was rolling in them.)
The first house was easily cleared with just the crossbow. No trouble. Looted 4 mineral oil (never saw oil, was easier to craft guns than repair them.)

I think the setting you proposed are definitely the way to go. 25% shared between 2 people was just enough to get by. A few things that were off with those settings was that deer, rabbit and pig didn't just drop 1 piece of meat and leather each, nests not respawning their loot (or have flying monsters WITH feathers).

It also needs something to cause fear of death. Perhaps some reward for living that is valuable enough to make someone fight to live.

[FlowerChild]

It also needs something to cause fear of death. Perhaps some reward for living that is valuable enough to make someone fight to live.

I find a "no beds" house rule really helps with the above. Sleeping bags and beds are one of the things I'd most love to get rid of at present, because yeah, death has very little consequence at present.

I've yet to die with the random maps, but I suspect not having a respawn point would cause death to hurt significantly.

[Ethinolicbob]

I find a "no beds" house rule really helps with the above

The largest problem I have with that is that I prefer to coop with my buddy. A majority of my enjoyment is obtained whilst we are playing together.
Our common window of playtime is very narrow and any benefit of fear of death with "no beds" is outweighed by reduction in enjoyment of our playtime together.

I noticed an XP bar there last version. Hopefully in the future there is something to be obtained by leveling that is of such value that loss of it on death would be something to best avoid.

But if that is not the case, I have been keeping an eye on it modding community. (especially the 2 who are in the process in naming the deobfuscated code) because there is a whole lot I would love to change :D

[Taleric]

Holy wow butt kicked :P

Do you guys make your own antibiotics, dig tons of dirt for clay and how do your normally safe up for the night? These are my sticking points on the last run the randomness is so good :D

[FlowerChild]

Do you guys make your own antibiotics, dig tons of dirt for clay and how do your normally safe up for the night? These are my sticking points on the last run the randomness is so good :D

Well, I've been walking around with an infection that just progressed to stage 2, so, so far, I've had no antibiotics at all ;)

I've also yet to find clay. That seems to be one of the downsides of my "no stone axe" rule. Hacking at dirt with a stick to get clay to forge the iron to make a shovel...dear Liza...dear Liza...just feels totally off. Dirt is way more durable vs anything other than a shovel than would feel at all natural.

And I've been sticking to my normal attic dwelling ways in my random world.

I spawned in a nasty bit of burnt out wasteland surrounded by cop zombies and dobermans. I immediately booked it amidst barking and belching and managed to find my way into a wooded area. From there, I found a river, which I followed until it intersected a road. Then I followed the road until I saw a cabin a short distance off of it.

Been basically living in the attic of it ever since, going out during the day to explore the road network. Have found a few more buildings and a snow biome so far. Maybe 4 hours of play into it or so.

[Taleric]

And I've been sticking to my normal attic dwelling ways in my random world.

Lol I see, if you find a proper tool the sky will open up and the angels will sing :P

Yeah the clay for the forge is a huge bottleneck. Also I am disappointed you can't shishkabob meat over the fire.

Curse those dogs, if I even think I spot one on the horizon I 180.

[Ethinolicbob]

I think I noticed an alternate recipe for clay. It looked like cornmeal and water?

[FlowerChild]

Also I am disappointed you can't shishkabob meat over the fire.

You can. Just use a stick as your cooking implement (like a pot or grill).

I think I noticed an alternate recipe for clay. It looked like cornmeal and water?

Ah yes! I had forgotten about that! While I normally remove that recipe, I think I'm going to resort to it as hitting dirt with a stick is getting real real old :)

[Taleric]

Sweet! Guess I will have to try more stuff in the cooking GUI. I am happy with the fixing they have done to crafting still a little wonky though.

Though it was strange you would HAVE to have cookware.

[FlowerChild]

This isn't specific to the new release, but having found a desert in my game, I just wanted to say:

Man, do I ever hate how the desert has become the easiest place to find water and wood :P

Seriously...the way you can make yucca juice which is actually better than water with just a jar and the plant, when elsewhere you have to boil water to make it safe to drink, and how you can just pick wood up off the ground where elsewhere you need an axe and to take the time to chop trees, is just outright bizarre. Makes deserts feel like the land of plenty :)

[FlowerChild]

Sweet! Guess I will have to try more stuff in the cooking GUI.

Well, if it's any consolation I wouldn't have known about it either if I hadn't run into it while modifying the recipe files :)

It would never have occurred to me to use a stick as a cooking "vessel". Would probably be a lot more intuitive if you had regular recipes to impale meat with a stick, then cook those.

[Ethinolicbob]

Oh, just re-looked over the changelog. You cannot get clay from dirt, you have to look for clay deposits

[Ethinolicbob]

Seriously...the way you can make yucca juice which is actually better than water with just a jar and the plant

This is where you should not be able to discern (without prior knowledge) what desert plans are what. Accidentally create a jar of peyote and trip balls for the rest of the day.
I'm not even that sure you are not tripping to begin with in this game, I just punched a giant hornet to death and extracted a ready sealed jar of honey from its backside.

You can. Just use a stick as your cooking implement (like a pot or grill).

I really need to look into the cooking. About all I have figured out is to boil meat.

[FlowerChild]

Oh, just re-looked over the changelog. You cannot get clay from dirt, you have to look for clay deposits

I'm not sure that's what the change log entry means:

Changed increased chance of clay deposits in earth. Removed chance of getting clay when digging dirt

What qualifies as earth vs dirt? Are "deposits" visible or just the random drops you get from digging?

I've looked around on the forums and wiki and am still not certain what the above means.

[FlowerChild]

Aha! To answer my own question, yes, they are visible deposits in the earth.

Just looked for an earth ridge to see if I could spot a difference. Turns out you can see light reddish brown areas in the dirt that if you dig up, consistently produce clay :)