Project Zomboid developers talk about improving books and new machines

Over the past two weeks, a lot of work has been done on the technical side of the four main pillars of 42 builds – we described them in past weeks, now we will run away along them.

At the moment, the main code for a deep remake of craft systems is brought into a state in which the team responsible for multiplayer will become easier to implement its achievements. At the same time, the team engaged in optimization/lighting/height continues to correct various mistakes, including problems with conflict and how the isometry system processes 32 potential floors.

As for the updating of the multiplayer, the work on transferring manipulations with players inventory continues (construction, recipes, etc. D.) from the client to the server, as well as an improvement in the implementation (currently almost completely ready) new fishing mini-games and systems. Pets are at the stage of correcting errors, while special attention is paid to their search for paths and shoots.

While all this continues, other team members are working on improving the quality of the game on a smaller scale, so let’s now consider some of their developments.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

One way to give the cities more individuality is to add more written literature that can be scored and read-whether it is a fully readable item for a game of a game or just a book with an interesting name (unreadable) found in some house. This will help to deepen your understanding of the past life of a person who lived in this house (and whom you just killed because he became a zombie).

A number of newspapers will be presented in the assembly 42, each of which has three or four last issues that can be taken and read in a separate “written content interface”. They will contain news articles on the initial preparation for the Knox Event incident, articles about everyday life, and even several grains of information about what is actually happening.

It will also include publications of smaller scale: for example, brochures of “city news” for small settlements that cannot be called a full -fledged newspaper.

In addition, the team had a wonderful person named Stewart, who took all tiny signs-vyotypes on the maps and converted them into more suitable forms for use both in the game and in reality. Their first use in the game is Local Business leaflets, which can also be read through the same user “written content interface”.

Obviously, there are not so many of them, but their role in the gameplay is to note interesting locations (and sources of potentially useful loot) on the intra -game map.

If you find a leaflet with an advertisement for membership, say, in the West Maple suburban club and open it on the player’s map, this will give an occasion to leave the city for new players and go research. Or, for example, the announcement of work for the logging of McCoy and the corresponding opening of the map of the card can mark a suitable place where you can potentially get an ax.

There are a lot of things on the PZ map, and the developers wanted to find a way to send people to some of them.

LITERATURE

The developers also really want us to feel interest in the dead people whose houses we are ate, and perhaps even saddened by their death. For these purposes, they add much more different icons for books, comics and magazines that those people read, and to the photographs that they carefully kept in houses.

There is a hope that when the tags of these 1,500 new literary objects will unite with a random generator of random stories, cute small stories about the people who lived here until recently – and possibly, which we had just killed and left to rot at our heads, will be formed in our heads kitchen floor.

Perhaps these people read Laura’s book Paloma “Long -term treatment of diseases”, which tells about the home medicine cabinet.

Perhaps their love for military history is connected with weapons, or maybe players will be pleased to know that the zombies in the garden read tresh thrillers.

In the same way, finding photographs, which are simply called “photos” in the closet, will not bring you much benefit, but instead viewing “photos of a smiling family” or “Photos of a wedding car approaching the church”, as the developers hope, will serve as an atmosphere and add Emotions to players. There are about five hundred such photos, and they already give some amazing (doomed) shade to ordinary lutania.

There are also six new television channels, a new radio station and 75 new video cassettes ready for implementing the game (all of them are written by Pat_bren, who is also an architect of all of the above with the Blair Algol coder), so we can safely say that 42 builds will significantly expand the possibilities of narrative in Game.

Some other changes associated with the above:

• Books, magazines and comics, which now have individual names, will also remain constant. Instead of leaving after reading, there will be a recovery period, which determines how much time it should pass before re -reading can again remove boredom/stress and t.D.
• In connection with the revision of literary objects, the mechanics of the “illiterate” Perku was revised. Illiterate characters cannot read literature, but in some cases, such as comics, catalogs, photographs and “some magazines”, they can enjoy viewing pictures of a literary subject, instead of reading it. In 42 builds, illiterate characters will also not be able to read or write notes generated by the player using sheets of paper or notebooks, write notes on the maps (although they can still apply symbols on them), read the text on the announced elements of the map or understand information about the nutritional value of packaged food.
• The need for reading light was implemented. If the character is not enough light and does not have an active light source, he will not be able to read (or “see”, if illiterate) literature, will not be able to read the information about food on packaged food and will not be able to open the card.

Van

Part of the above was ensuring that the right newspapers and brochures appear in the corresponding cities, and therefore the developers have created a new system of municipal areas, which exactly reports to gaming systems, in which area there is each place in the game.

For this, some new vehicles belonging to local enterprises that appear only in their hometown and the associated region are also used.

As a rule, the developers did not talk about this function, but in many builds there are “professional” cars on the map owned by carpenters, locksmiths and electricians – they all * leave * tools in their car at night.

However, the developers never noted something else – for players looking for certain objects, cars are mobile chests with treasures. Therefore, Martin has created many new vehicles for different enterprises, in order to hint more heavily at what lutus can be found inside.

There are cars for various utilities, national and local enterprises – many of them appear only in one city, and some are unique in that only one copy of this car appears in the world.

Developers know that PZ players like to assemble vehicles, especially in the multiplayer, so this should revive the hunting for collectors of vehicles. This regional system and a system of unique vehicles are configured so that they can easily use models.

Sighs, wheezing, puffing

Permanent readers know that recently the developer team had their own sound recording session in a studio with microphones, actors and everything else.

There were several tasks that had to be fulfilled – the main of them was to get the notes of the surviving man and the surviving woman who puffed, grunts, received injuries, climbed things, sneezed, coughing and even shouted “hey”!”.

The first fruits of this can be heard below, and the developers believe that new sounds will add a lot to our common game experience as soon as they get into build 42.

(Please note: work in the process. Volume and balance levels are initial and will change, also some notes sound better than others, and the developers have not yet chosen the best.)