Request to focus on Z levels and NPC overhaul for next few releases

[youtoo]

I am humbly making this request… we have alot of content. We have a ton of places to explore, we have alot to craft. There are 2 things we have talked about for a long time, but not gotten.

1. z levels
2. NPC overhaul.

How about for the next few releases, the developers focus almost exclusively on these 2 things? if not just 1 of them. These are hard to do. I think the game is far enough along AND we now have the mod manager that we can put off new content in exchange for this overhaul. I think modders can dump lots of new content on us. I also understand that this will be buggy and take a while to do, so you can add it with an option. This is a FREE game and people will get over the bugs. I think the only way to get these is to concentrate on this and not work on other things.

Are other people ok, with having a huge reduction in new content in order for the core developers to work on this? There is a ton of stuff to do in the game, plus with more jsons and the mod manager modders can add lots more to do. These changes are alot of work and its even harder to do part time. So I am requesting that the core developers almost exclusively focus on this at the expense of other projects. I don’t think they will be able to add them if they don’t cut out other development.

I think this could take the rest of the year to do, but with the mod manager, I think we are ok with that. We will get lots of new stuff anyway.

[Zaweri_Runewright]

We will probably get new content, considering how many people can learn JSON.

[John_Candlebury]

Hey its this thread again!

[Mrnocamera]

Hey its this thread again!

Sound of writing
That’s another added to the list.
Makes about… Four or five?

[FunsizeNinja123]

Yeah…

[i2amroy]

[ol][li] Most developers do this because we want to, not because we are getting paid to do so or we have to do so.[/li]
[li] Not all developers are that great at coding the actual game. (I personally would rank most early stages of Z-level creation over the top of my head, and I know there are others out there who would feel the same).[/li]
[li] People like to do things that are fun. Going through the code and changing every single time the map is referenced to a 3D map type is not exactly something I would qualify as ‘fun’, though there are definitely others who might. Now that’s not to say that I won’t do things that aren’t fun, but I’m not going to embark on a months-long project of just doing stuff like that; I’ll burn out and then just stop helping C:DDA altogether first.[/li]
[li] Due to the fast pace of C:DDA’s development PR’s will start conflicting pretty quickly, triply so with something of this magnitude. Every time a PR conflicts, it increases the work you need to do; so a PR that works on z-levels or NPC’s will need to be finished as fast as possible to minimize conflicts.[/li]
[li]Most of the main "dev"s do very little actually coding on the game themselves. Kevin, for example, pretty much only merges things, and KA101 is in a very similar position IIRC. It’s gotten better as more devs have been given merge power (thus freeing up more time) but it’s still enough that much less PR’ing goes on from the main devs then you would think.[/li]
[li] Glyphgryph is currently working on a bounty system for z-level stuff right now, which will provide monetary rewards for finishing specific tasks (we already have a thread discussing the specific tasks over in the developers board). Once that is finished it should provide more focus for those tasks.[/li][/ol]

In short we can’t control people. People will do what they want, and most don’t find the idea of working on extremely big rewrites entertaining enough to prevent themselves from burning out. We are working on setting up a system which should provide money rewards and incentivize progress towards things like that, but for now we are doing all we can. We’ve already laid the base of most NPC fixes in the creature class, for example, so progress is there, but it’s not going to happen overnight and it’s largely at the whims of many devs, most of them not core ones.

[KA101]

What i2amroy said.

Landing PRs isn’t trivial, and time spent on that is time not spent on: helping people transform into post-humans, providing the building blocks for your Great Underground Empire, enabling you to fulfill your destiny as a Mycus Gardener, fixing bugs, proofreading content, or actually playing the bloody game.

I’m only gonna land Kevin’s three tonight, and then hopefully finish up MUTCAT_SLIME.

Those are all things I can (theoretically) do. Adding aboveground/interlevel-interactive z-level support, not so much. Full NPC coding isn’t much clearer from my perspective.

(And just merging PRs all the time does get kinda tiresome.)

[Binky]

If merging pull requests and the like is a problem (and I can well imagine it is as there are loads and it takes time/possibility of breaking stuff) I’d think the best solution would be to put a soft content lock on until some progress is made. We have tons of content - certainly more than is needed at the moment - and the game could really do with polish and advancement instead of a continuing stream of content which is just more of the same stuff.

I remember the rebuttal to this was that ‘then non-coding people couldn’t contribute and would lose interest’ but I really don’t think that’s a particularly sensible way to look at it - I know people all want their name on it and to help out, but surely there needs to be a point where it becomes ‘for the good of the game’. People could still create content and save it for later, but it’d free up the devs to work on more stuff and get what we have into something awesome, instead of just sorting through endless requests.

edit: by soft content lock I mean make some goals and tell the community to work towards them. If you said ‘we need more work on triffids’ then only triffid based commits would get pulled for the time being. I imagine this would really encourage people as well.

[Fniff]

Getting the whole community to make z-levels is unlikely at best. This is because working on z-levels, by all accounts, is mind-numbingly boring. As for the devs, same situation. I respect our developers and what they have done, but not all of them would be suited towards coding z-levels. Of those who would be, I don’t think anyone truly wants to because it is horribly boring.

We need someone to say “I am going to do z-levels!” then do it rather then having us as a group agree that yes, we need to do z-levels. Glyph’s bounty system might do this, but we’ll have to find out.

[lootpack]

Why would zed levels be so much work? I’d just update their stats on first sighting, based on the player stats and skills in some way. So zeds are effectively created as blank slates and their stats get filled in when you first spot them.

NPC and factions, sure thats going to be more work than that.

[Binky]

[quote=“Fniff, post:9, topic:5349”]Getting the whole community to make z-levels is unlikely at best. This is because working on z-levels, by all accounts, is mind-numbingly boring. As for the devs, same situation. I respect our developers and what they have done, but not all of them would be suited towards coding z-levels. Of those who would be, I don’t think anyone truly wants to because it is horribly boring.

We need someone to say “I am going to do z-levels!” then do it rather then having us as a group agree that yes, we need to do z-levels. Glyph’s bounty system might do this, but we’ll have to find out.[/quote]

Oh I definitely agree for Z-levels and other hard coding stuff we need a singular/small group of devs that are willing to do it (or a bounty system) but some of the main problems outlined by i2amroy was that merging lots of pull requests and keeping up with added content whilst trying to do more hard coding tasks was difficult. Therefore I suggested that content addition have a soft cap until things progress.

In the past when I’ve suggested this it’s been met by the rebuttal of ‘too many people would lose interest if they couldn’t add content’ - I think that’s a bad way to look at things, but if that’s still the case then directing the content/smaller additions to places where we need it would seem like a good way to make some directed progress.

[Zaweri_Runewright]

[quote=“lootpack, post:10, topic:5349”]Why would zed levels be so much work? I’d just update their stats on first sighting, based on the player stats and skills in some way. So zeds are effectively created as blank slates and their stats get filled in when you first spot them.

NPC and factions, sure thats going to be more work than that.[/quote]
Facepalm

[EkarusRyndren]

[quote=“lootpack, post:10, topic:5349”]Why would zed levels be so much work? I’d just update their stats on first sighting, based on the player stats and skills in some way. So zeds are effectively created as blank slates and their stats get filled in when you first spot them.

NPC and factions, sure thats going to be more work than that.[/quote]

…not zed levels… z levels, as in the z axis, up and down, to put it simply.

[lootpack]

lol good luck with that then

I’d be happier with a little more competitive play than a 3D sandbox

[TheGrifter]

I still think the best option is to make NPCs more similar to monsters.

Sure, it’d simplify everything down to what people might call a far too simplified vision of humanity, but what is humanity, really?

Just make everyone parrots.

[John_Candlebury]

[quote=“TheGrifter, post:15, topic:5349”]I still think the best option is to make NPCs more similar to monsters.

Sure, it’d simplify everything down to what people might call a far too simplified vision of humanity, but what is humanity, really?

Just make everyone parrots.[/quote]

No. Just, no.

[Belteshazzar]

I still think the best option is to make NPCs more similar to monsters.

I’d be happier with a little more competitive play than a 3D sandbox

More challenging monster AI and behaviors tie into both of these concepts you know, right?

Part of the reason it’s a good idea to get these two issues out of the way is because they are fundamental both the ‘options’ available to monsters (for instance, there’s no such thing as proper flying right now, or actually jumping or wall crawling monsters because those abilities are currently just hacky ways of ignoring floor tiles) as well as NPCs AND monsters actually utilizing those options is a useful manner (consider pack based flanking for wolves and certain mutants, ambush zones being set up by giant spiders, ect.)

Improved NPC AI would be easily applicable to improved monster AI.

Imagine, if AI were simply capable of using vehicles…

Utilizing that improvement alone you could make an AI entity called ’ massive brain’ and make it spawn in a ‘vehicle’ made of flesh, bone, and horrible, pulsing alien organs.

add Z-levels and you have a true titan striding through your town knocking over buildings and soaking up infinite bullets from your pathetic 9mm skrubgun and…
boom
Oh shit! it’s coming through the wall, IT FOUND A GAP IN THE MINES! IT’S HANDS ARE MADE OF FRACTAL TEETH CHAINSAWS AND THE HEAD IS A CYBERNETIC FLAMING EYE! UNPACK THE LAW! PRESS F FUCKA, PRESS F! BITCH THIS AIN’T A CUTSCENE PRESS F! STOP MANAGING INVENTORY! STOP INSPECTING THAT LIGHTER YOU DON’T GOT TIME SMOKE A BOWL! PRESS F!

[jimboblordofeskimos]

Id rather see NPCs that dont crash my game than z levels tbh. I dont even need them to be doing anything new, just get them to the point where they dont destroy the universe half the time and they could really change the game up.

[Mrnocamera]

Someone needs to make a joke mission given by a NPC.

They’ve become a Eldrich Horror in human form, and you have to escort them to a portal before they destroy the universe. A.K.A Crash your game.

[jimboblordofeskimos]

[quote=“Mrnocamera, post:19, topic:5349”]Someone needs to make a joke mission given by a NPC.

They’ve become a Eldrich Horror in human form, and you have to escort them to a portal before they destroy the universe. A.K.A Crash your game.[/quote]

As a reward they give you 100 activated mininukes. That are on fire.