Project Zomboid adds vehicles in a new beta

I do have some concerns on this game.
Digging through steam reviews I came across one that mentioned the community tried to implement cars as a mod last year and were more successful than the devs.
However since I do not actively play this or follow the community I am unsure of the validity of that statement.
Wonder if anyone can confirm one way or another.

Here is the review I am referencing:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030619437/recommended/108600/

I do have some concerns on this game.
Digging through steam reviews I came across one that mentioned the community tried to implement cars as a mod last year and were more successful than the devs.
However since I do not actively play this or follow the community I am unsure of the validity of that statement.
Wonder if anyone can confirm one way or another.

Here is the review I am referencing:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030619437/recommended/108600/

Well, if the devs were ONLY implementing cars, I could see your concern, but they likely have a whole wad of other things also being worked on. It sounds like they are just getting started on cars.

I do have some concerns on this game.
Digging through steam reviews I came across one that mentioned the community tried to implement cars as a mod last year and were more successful than the devs.
However since I do not actively play this or follow the community I am unsure of the validity of that statement.
Wonder if anyone can confirm one way or another.

Here is the review I am referencing:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030619437/recommended/108600/

Well, if the devs were ONLY implementing cars, I could see your concern, but they likely have a whole wad of other things also being worked on. It sounds like they are just getting started on cars.

Fair enough. That is one way of looking at it.
I used to really want to play this a while back but looking at all the negative reviews on steam not sure what to think. Maybe I'm letting them get to me too much.

I do have some concerns on this game.
Digging through steam reviews I came across one that mentioned the community tried to implement cars as a mod last year and were more successful than the devs.
However since I do not actively play this or follow the community I am unsure of the validity of that statement.
Wonder if anyone can confirm one way or another.

Here is the review I am referencing:
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198030619437/recommended/108600/

The car mod was very crude, basically hacking existing features (as mod dev mentions in the interview linked below, his cars are essentially a bags moving around :P). What Project Zomboid devs came with is vastly improved on and seems justified the time it took. It's kinda similar with other features - NPCs were removed the early version of the game, are now being recreated via mod as well (coincidentially by the same author who did the car mod :P) and I got a feeling that what PZ devs will bring will again be very improved over what mod offers.

Generally devs are in good terms with the modding community (game got a workshop support early on after all, and the mod support is being offered in forums, discord and highlights mentioned in weekly reports). The author of the vehicles and survivor mod got interviewed and featured in the main page by them recently, the author of the other major mod, Hydrocraft got an early heads up, (2) before the rest of community knew it, when they introduced a feature that breaks the mod giving the mod author time to adjust to it - they also implemented features that helped the transition and featured the mod in their monoid at that time, to advertise the search for artists - they actually are still adding thing to improve the mod compatibility. Also, at least two of the current developers I know of were a community members/mod creators before they were hired by a The Indie Stone.

The devs are however generally working on the game very slowly and that's the most controversial part. Like I mentioned, the NPCs that were originally in early builds (some files remnants are still in this game), got removed at one point, and after people eagerly waiting them back, developers decided not to discuss them until they are really close to come. That's why insisting on giving any info about NPCs is generally forbidden on forums, as devs won't discuss it. Revamped animations that were showcased over a year ago now (and hinted even earlier) didn't came yet either, to the point they were slowly been compared to "vaporware" the NPCs currently are - although animation update is still widely discussed, unlike the NPCs. Since then, about a half a year or so ago, they partnered with another company, General Arcade to speed up the development, and it seemed working - vehicles along with NPCs were a major step in development (also believed to be another kind of a broken promise), so seeing them in a playable game in the form that was better than people expected (physics, handling and overall feel) was a really good surprise and look forward.

On the other hand, the game grew up to an unimaginable scale compared to what it originally was - having a major engine change, way bigger map that original and another graphic overhaul a year ago. On top of that is really advanced multiplayer on player-hosted servers, but also LAN and local co-op. The review linked also mentions hacking, so it's probably good to know that the previous and upcoming builds focus greatly on cheating protection and giving power to admin to ease the management - giving logs of suspected hacking, supervision tools and more in-game feature to aid detecting and punishing misbehaving players for admins.

Lastly, the developers behind Project Zomboid seems like one of the more honest I've seen recently. They survived so many initial issues, including theft of a laptop with the only copy of the game early on, yet they don't really care for milking money. They don't want to discount the game too much during 6 year old period now, until it get finished, just to make early payers don't feel scammed, recently even rejecting the offer of the community for some other way to support project, stating they have enough money for now.

And as a final note, from my own experience, over the time I observe the game (which will be since it was in Desura 6 years ago :P), even if I don't play actively, I do report a lot of small bugs when I do, such as typos or other minor issues in game files - and I am very pleasantly surprised when they are fixed quickly, so personally I can't say they don't work on improving the game from my own seeing.


Last edited by Faalagorn on 11 May 2017 at 2:17 am UTC

ok . so seems some players may have a bone to pick with the devs at this point.
I've seen a lot of complaints over how long development is taking but if they changed the scope it might make sense.
I wanted to hear from this community since I trust it more than some random steam review.
May pick this up on sale and give it a go and see if I like it.

Yup, basically people are fed up y long waiting times, but I find most other arguments from the review (and other reviews) mention invalid. Purchase now should be based mostly on whether you thing the game at the current state is worth it - if not, wait for a more complete build :) Unless you are dedicated enough to help improve the game and/or want to play with mods filling the gaps with missing features.

Yup, basically people are fed up y long waiting times, but I find most other arguments from the review (and other reviews) mention invalid. Purchase now should be based mostly on whether you thing the game at the current state is worth it - if not, wait for a more complete build :) Unless you are dedicated enough to help improve the game and/or want to play with mods filling the gaps with missing features.

Yup seems fair.
Will hold off.
I got burned by quite a few Early Access titles when early access was new so I have a cynical disposition towards them.