CritterZ

[little wind]

https://projectzomboid.com/blog/news/2023/03/critterz/

[vestal haven]

first

do i get a prize 🙂

We see people thinking it’s about to land in comments sometimes, so if you see that too then please direct them here. Thanks everyone.``` take your time! Quality always comes first!

[fluid ether]

NooooOoooooooooo

[vestal haven]

he looks like he is sleeping

[sacred notch]

Are tent interiors an objective in the future? Allowing for some basic customization like sleeping bags, coolers, heaters, etc.

[strong kraken]

see yall next year

[north lion]

What's the compass for? Seems a little redundant with a fixed camera view

[mossy hornet]

I think its to help those who suck at discretion in pz

[mossy hornet]

That would be so cool

[fluid ether]

Maybe it’s like legend of zelda where it tells you where all the treasure is

[mossy hornet]

XD

[tacit isle]

I guess it'll make multiplayer easier since it'll be easy to see which direction you're going

[agile herald]

noice

nice new food items names starting to be more specific.

[sick sail]

I can see it now... "mixed bag" opens like a bag of candy to find assorted chip bags. Bag-ception

[rose tree]

yeah that was my thought too – maybe if it had some kinda coordinate functionality? if that wasn't gonna just be added to a future GPS item of some sort...

[sick sail]

part of it is so everyone knows what you mean when you say a direction, currently some folk are confused on if north is "up" or "top right"

[agile herald]

if compass become adds as a HUD icon.

[fleet mural]

I bet june, july!

[eager geyser]

I really thought the b42 was coming soonish

now it seems like possibly august-october range

[fluid ether]

Probably not even then f

They need to test it in unstable first

So it could be next year before a true release

[charred patio]

Well, nobody had any doubts about that. We're more concerned about Unstable branch, though.

[agile herald]

just need some mushrooms and berries to have specific species names to have better catergory.

[zealous rain]

Add magic mushrooms to the game

Also mentioned was new sounds for the emergency radio so will the emergency broadcast have voice acting?

[arctic mirage]

Hopefully, I rlly love the lore and stuff they add on the radio so hopefully some more of that

[charred patio]

Maybe it'll have a robotic speech-to-text

[vocal hawk]

QoL bits and bobs like climbing onto/over stationary cars ever likely to happen? All these new features look bloody awesome, but Id love to see some of the most basic stuff improved upon. The game's primary bit of art even has a dude standing on a car

[vocal hawk]

This. Some consider north to be directly up towards the map top corner, while some consider it to be the top right edge. This just puts everyone on the same page

That said, this couldve been achieved simply by slapping a compass rose on the map

[charred patio]

I feel like a 3D object interaction like that is gonna need huge amount of work. I wouldn't mind vehicles being the focus of a huge update in the future, like crawling under cars, and actually seeing the interior and engine.

But either way, we should probably get the ability to manually crawl on countertops and tables before we do other 3D objects.

[vocal hawk]

Good point that probably ought to come first. The new depth model system might help with all that i guess. I wonder if it might even allow for pushing furniture somehow. To be able to stand next to a bookcase and push it one tile at a time, almost like old school resident evil, would be insane. Come home and block the door quickly and easily with the furniture strategically placed next to it

[agile herald]

climbing over counters would be nice to have so that we wont feel cornered anymore.

[vocal hawk]

Just remembered I also wanted to pose the question of safehouse vertical limits. Allowing hosts to specify how many floors "Safezones" cover would be a nice server setting. I cant seem to find any information that specifies the vertical limit, but i know for sure a safezone currently encompasses at least two stories

[novel rain]

I don't remember where i got this from but it is pretty much cemented in my mind that top-right is north and top-left is west

[vocal hawk]

It makes sense considering when you make the map flat, that's the top edge. Some of us must just be wanting to keep things squared in our minds

[keen plaza]

Really excited to see how they'll do this tbh

[safe inlet]

excuse my lateness easy way to remedy that is to make the map 2d tbh. i dont use it personally (2d map) but many do

[silver saddle]

I hope they add an option to disable the grunts and whatnot of the player coz that can get a little annoying

Also as the game states at the start "this is how you died" the character represents us as users. Adding voice lines feels more like controlling a vessel that is not associated with the player. Defeating the whole "what would you do in a zombie apocalypse".
It would be a cool addition overall tho

[charred patio]

And that's why we need a compass.

[charred patio]

Maybe someone will mod the game to let you make your own grunts?

[silver saddle]

lmaoo I'd like to see that happen

[sick sail]

2D? You mean cardinal mode or whatever?

[safe inlet]

yknow, making the map flat or '2d' vs 2.5d iso

[sick sail]

Ye, that's a big part that causes confusion.

Since up on a map is usually north, so we know top right is true north. Yet, many folk don't know how to read a map

[safe inlet]

ye

[sick sail]

Also there's no compass rose on any of the maps for whatever reason

[exotic igloo]

Will they ever get a new engine

Project zomboid may need it

[turbid totem]

probably not

engine swaps are hard and they already reworked what they wanted to rework, besides, project zomboid works fine as is.

[zealous rain]

Port pz to source engine

[fluid ether]

you would have to literally rebuild the game so yeah not happening

[vocal hawk]

Yeah in way too deep for that at this point. Best we can hope for is better interactions with the 3d elements of the game. A way of forcing the wall cutaway effect on demand would be really nice. If a tile is visible to your character but occluded to the player, you press a key and those tiles will be unobscured. Sometimes you just wanna see behind that building, but even if its inside your FoV you still have to get close enough to the actual building before the walls disappear so you can tell if there are any zeds back there

[charred patio]

That'd be pretty smart

[vocal hawk]

In the meantime it occured to me that itd be even better for it to happen automatically whenever you drag the RMB aim cursor into an occluded area that should actually be visible to your dude. 😅

Perhaps once you have triggered it even stays revealed for a short time too, even if you stop aiming (apologies for the essays)

[vestal haven]

What engine does PZ use anyway?

[late creek]

LWJGL

it's.. not much of a game engine, really

pretty much everything in zomboid is coded entirely from scratch

[jade flare]

Damnn I didn't actually know that , makes it even more impressive than it already is. I think we overlook the damn good work that's been done in favour of complaining about future updates.

[vestal haven]

Bless you?

[zinc prawn]

looking good

[vestal haven]

Thx, I try to wear my best for thorsdoids

[zinc prawn]

ofc

[whole wolf]

it's a custom engine.

What mat mentioned is just a library (light weight java game library)

[vestal haven]

Project zomboid Java Edition?!?!

When is Bedrock coming out for consoles 👀

😛

[harsh blade]

We live in a blessed timeline where the devs are working hard and making awesome progress on one of the best (if not THE best) survival games ever made

These devblogs always make my day

[limber cradle]

[tropic drift]

fOr B42's RoTaTabLe CaMerA PoV

[north lion]

Rotatable camera: ||when sleepy your screen gets randomly mirrored horizontally or vertically ||

[tropic drift]

with the new lighting engine, it'd be cool to see some shadows. like when the sun sets you can see it casting shadows behind buildings and trees.
i'm sure it can be done, we've seen it done with 2d games such as RimWorld

and maybe even when standing on a tile with a shadow you get colder since you're in the shade. it'd be useful in the summer

[sick sail]

Everything can theoretically be done, It just depends on how much work it'll take to make it happen. Can't deny it'd bring hella life to pz tho

[vestal haven]

Life finds a way

[agile herald]

[charred patio]

[zealous rain]

Add the fourth dimension

[subtle raft]

Add neutron stars

[vestal haven]

Add a social life

[tropic drift]

Add back the children my wife took from me

[vestal haven]

Add someone to be my wife

[lavish dagger]

Add neil degrassi tyson in pz

[zinc prawn]

Add more sheep pls

[silver saddle]

add the marijanw for stress reduction

[radiant slate]

Add an even bigger Spiffo with an encumbrance of 10

[gentle heart]

Add muhammed ali

[arctic mirage]

Add uranium

[cinder harness]

Add everyone who asked

[charred patio]

You can already find them as NPCs in the current build.

[strong kraken]

Hi

[ruby slate]

Will firearms be expanded upon in b42?

[charred patio]

What do you want them to expand upon? More guns, more balancing, or something a bit more than that?

Like gun crafting?

[fluid ether]

Ammo crafting would be nice

[charred patio]

Gunsmithing Crafting Tree?

Gunsmith Apocalypse Profession?

[turbid totem]

they said a while ago that firearms would be expanded upon, but no further elaboration

and no mention of it being for build 42

[fluid ether]

Gotta do everything myself these days smh

[charred patio]

They did say that they wanted to make the gunplay more skill-based.

@turbid totem

[turbid totem]

yes

[subtle raft]

Bullet crafting as an exclusive occupation/trait would go hard

Or something to be learned with 1 trillion books and skills required

For high quality bullets at least

[fluid ether]

Yeah no thanks to exclusive occupation traits I don’t care for that

Make it learnable

I think having high metal crafting should be required and the creation of gunpowder should be high though to balance it out

[fleet mural]

To be honest to create only a bullet mold require an eternity ,they should make we can find the mold and learn how to use them with a furnace like twd comic

[strong kraken]

Why don't you make a separate test branch for build 42 like you did with 41? Yes, of course with errors for the beginning maybe, etc. , but why the development was closed and you are making the game inside the team without updates to the new test branch?

[charred patio]

They're planning on an unstable release. It's supposedly not in a playable state at the moment.

[strong kraken]

Because they are selfish and want to keep b42 all to themselves, while we stay here sucking our fingers :v

Jokes aside, I agree. An example is the Vein project, in addition to part of the development being done live, any fly they add to the game is released in a separate, test version.

They have a huge team of testers (us) who could work for them for free.

[strong kraken]

Lol....somebody have chance going to ban. I am joking

[strong kraken]

me too, clearly haha

if something sounded wrong it was the language barrier

[strong kraken]

Exactly.

For example, I don't make a map for money or fame. I like the open world itself and how everything is implemented. And I just get high when I walk down my street in the game. I think that other people are the same enthusiasts who make mods for no reason. They love the creative process itself.

Yes I am not publishing map mod too 😄

[strong kraken]

I am about you 🤣🤣😄

[strong kraken]

Nooooooooooooo 😢 Please make possibility for killing only adult animals

[fluid ether]

Imagine when they add dogs and you have to kill a puppy to eat

[strong kraken]

I think adding the killing of baby animals is inappropriate as well as adding to the game zombies-kids. Don't need this. There must be limits.

[vocal hawk]

Tell that to rl agriculture lol. You may not say that when your dude is starving and little lamb annabelle is the only option left. Id be pretty pissed about not having that option if it was my only option. Dont strip the options outta pz cause of fuckin snowflake bullshit. Its a game and that is a perfect moral quandry for an apocalypse scenario

[strong kraken]

This is not the only remaining option. You just want to kill more and more. Poor lambs.

If you start the game, you will have a carload of canned food, and you will have enough of them until the first harvest.

But you just want to sit and shred poor baby lambs who have not even had time to really grow up, because you are too lazy to raise your ass and do farming, fishing, traps, go to the city for provisions and, in the end, picking berries.

Yes, I am for morality, ethics and red lines. If they are not adhered to, the game will die or turn into shit. Everything has a limit. If you don't like it - develop your own mod and kill as much as you like. But I am against it. It's my position.

[vocal hawk]

Your saying there is a 0% chance of this situation occuring? That i could play for eternity and never find myself with no food nearby? Gotta say, i cant take your word for that. Ever experienced winter in game with ridiculously rare loot? Sounds like you play on easy settings. You are entitled to your position, but what would kill the game is if everyone else was forced to "adhere to" your position, which is what you are asking for 😅 you do you
P.S if you die cause you didnt eat her she will die to zeds without you around anyway

[vocal hawk]

Thats where the moral choice comes in, you can't just take that out mate cause then its not a simulator. You are free to spare the lamb and starve but If i have to eat annabelle to survive i will. But ill do it with tears streaming down my face. Which is RP gold. Love how you just assume immediately that i wanna go around killing every fledgling creature i see lol, honestly. Aint no red lines in the apocalypse but the ones you set yourself mate. I think you want stardew or farmville lol

[arctic mirage]

I can’t tell if this is a real argument or just a joke

But rip little lamb Annabelle

[sand topaz]

Regardless mods will make both a reality you can eat little Annabelle or not, mods reign supreme

[vocal hawk]

100%. Nothing wrong with there being a vanilla sandbox setting for it either: "disallow pre-mature slaughter" boolean. Just dont take the option away. This game is all about options

[sand topaz]

Agreed more options the better

[vocal hawk]

Petition to offically dub the baby lamb icon: "Annabelle" the PZ Morality Mascot

Cant even fucking do reacts in here lmao. Oh well

[vocal hawk]

Answer: Annabelle 😈

[vocal hawk]

New topic: So most meta events or "stories" are designed to simulate other survivors going about their business in the world, right? What would be dope as heck (at least for worlds with low loot spawns) would be a Survivor run radio station that reports on these events. They let you know where these things happen as they happen, allowing you to track down loot and know where zeds may be migrating to due to noise. Gets its own random frequency like the emergency broadcast. Seems fair since we cant see for shit, nor tell where sounds are coming from

[charred patio]

Zombies only migrate locally.

[vocal hawk]

As in only in "active" chunks right?

Im sure i read that stories/events pull even inactive zeds, but it could indeed be wrong

[novel rain]

Devs definetely said that meta stories will affect zed migration in past thursdoids

[vocal hawk]

Nice, now we just need a way to track em down

[novel rain]

Any sort of indication that there's other survivors would be very welcome before we have NPCs, singleplayer feels way too "i am legend" right now. Existing radio broadcast don't really help that much.

[vocal hawk]

Nailed it. In a way i like that you never actually encounter living souls, but definitely wish their presence was more.. apparent? than it currently is. Idk if that makes sense

[novel rain]

(To clarify it wouldn't be a "real" migration, more like a system that despawns a certain amount of zeds from one area and adds them to the grid where the meta event happened, like a heli crash or a survivor shooting his way out and dying in a process e.t.c
At least that's what i remember from past blogs, could be wrong.)

[vocal hawk]

Mm i see. Would look like the same potata to the player in the end, so why the heck not

I guess when your players are so short sighted and the map is so big you can get away with that sort of thing easier 🤣

[novel rain]

Could cause problems in multiplayer, if players are spaced out at exact distances, it could prevent meta events from occurring i guess.

[vocal hawk]

True, i guess theres no reason they cant just spawn em outta thin air though. Survivor stories dont usually come with incredulous amounts of zeds. Cant see it being balance shifting, though ya never know

[novel rain]

On the topic of the map though, i'm really hyped we're getting a huge addition to the map, almost 1/2 of what we have now, including a city, fort knox and an overhaul of existing areas with more detail.

[vocal hawk]

Is that like, a literal expansion to the map, or filling existing empty space?

[novel rain]

This, i'm wrong, it's actually twice the size of the current map 🙂

[vocal hawk]

Jesus ever-loving christ..

[novel rain]

Fort Knox and LV will be crazy with release of NPCs

[vocal hawk]

And here's me thinkin the maps too big already 👀

The close ups of some of the new areas do look awesome though

[novel rain]

Honestly i wish devs would change their minds about the river, added swimming and worked on the other side of the river part of the map, even if it lacked big towns.
It's not like the river is a real map border, since you can just construct the floating wooden pathways over it.
I know it's been cemented into the mentality, same as a cure for the infection, but a man can dream.

[turbid totem]

if i recall correctly, they are going to build on the other side of the river

[agile herald]

more rural areas to expand will make things more execllent.

[old phoenix]

Release npc

[finite heath]

Nel

[finite heath]

Wait wait, is the other side of the river been discarded as a possible expansion of the map?

[charred patio]

Didn't they mention that they plan to implement the other side of the river at some point?

And what's the rush? Why would anyone want to go to Indiana?

[low spruce]

a lot of kentuckians go up there for better fireworks

not that thats very relevant to pz 😂

[zealous rain]

Just make all of the United States

[finite heath]

I wouldn't mind setting off some fireworks at a zed crowd

[low spruce]

yea thatd be pretty cool

might work as good distraction too, things like firecrackers and mortars as throwables. that system though needs improvements and idk how theyd do an animation for a big firework explosion. such an animation would be nice for other explosives too.

[strong kraken]

The things i would do for a 1:1 map of the USA with a dynamic weather system and full terrain and all that. Have someone spawn in Maine, another in Montana, someone in Louisiana and all meet up in like California or something

Where is this week thursdoid

[arctic mirage]

It comes every Thursday every 2 weeks, so it’ll come this coming Thursday

[agile herald]

Thursdoid is on March 16 which is the same day the spring steam sales happen

[strong kraken]

Any eta on b42?

[arctic mirage]

Devs haven’t released anything about it, but many people are guessing anywhere from June this year to February next year for an unstable release

[agile herald]

we dont know yet but watching out for the dev blog posts.

[vestal haven]

im thinking unstable next winter at most

[charred patio]

I'm thinking Fall of this year

At max

And I'm getting a feeling that it'll come out on Unstable this July at the earliest.

[agile herald]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8nfYMuBzuE if spiffos restraunts had this advertisment.

[strong kraken]

HAHAHAHAHA omg my childhood right here

[nimble egret]

this is pretty dark even by gtas standards

[silver saddle]

it was a different rockstar