Okay, so now you're here I might mention something which might spoil 7 Days To Die for you, a newbie player.

Right, so here are my various Alpha 16 (on Linux) findings so far:

Needed to do the -force-glcore launch option to fix the purple water problem.

Playing as a long term player of the Alpha 15 game, I quite like the re-balancing of various things, but it is definitely harder. If I hadn't played all the previous hours, I'd have found it very punishing as a new player. Hell, I'm finding it punishing as an experienced player.

You clear out a building of sleepers, loot the place, make it into your base (drop sleeping bag inside), and live there for a few days. Then you find a better place to have a base, so you pack up some of your kit, take it to the new base. Return to the old base, next morning, and BAM it is full of sleepers again. This suggests to me that every visit to a building in the new Alpha 16 and it gets repopulated with sleepers. I mean, it's okay, but verges on unrealistic for me.

Out and about - In the first few game-days of play, I'm seeing dogs, wolves, vultures, and bears. As well as lots more of the regular zombies. As an experienced player, I am used to scanning around, listening for zombies, but this is a lot more populated with zombies than it used to be. And wolves, dogs, bears, vultures can easily be lethal. In my Alpha 15 play-through, I don't think I faced a dog until about 3 game-weeks into the game. And then, it was a single one, and I got killed. Now, I'm wandering around A16, very early in the game, with low spec skills and equipment, seeing dogs and wolves in the distance and high-tailing it in the other direction.

I got to the edge of a town in A16 play, approx game-day 4, and after sniffing around 2 buildings. Unmistakable dog barks very close by. Decide I'm going to quit my search for items, because I don't want to become this dog's dinner. The problem with dogs, wolves and bears (and probably some other new zombies/enemies) - They are fast. As you're running away, they can keep up with you. Often, dogs chase you down in packs, so you have to face more than one in combat.

In combat, the dynamic is very much along the lines of - you don't want to get hit *at all*. You can get infected by a hit (and die of infection, later) and if you haven't got suitable pills, then you've got a big problem. Then, the hit might start you bleeding to death unless you have a bandage ready (and can use it while being chased or fighting). Very hard to craft a bandage and apply it with 3 dogs at your heels. Finally the other big reason why you don't want any hits at all - Because those hits stun you (yes, nice and realistic) - and you can be in the situation that you get hit once, stunned, and then again and again and dead.

In my A15 play-through, I didn't know anything about what to craft, how to craft, what I need to do first, all those type of questions. Not to mention thinking about where to put a base, how to build one effectively, etc. This time round if I was a new player, it would be very hard to cope with the hazards and try to pick up all the stuff at the same time.

Also, another little detail - The game has this built-in cheat mechanic. The cheat is - Dig down very deep, and during the night when the zombies go feral and sense you and go running towards your hiding place - If you're deep underground, then you're okay. They can't get to you. I'm trying to avoid doing this, as I consider it cheating. When I'm playing I am specifically thinking about how to build and defend a base *above ground*.

Various people complain about the zombies' unrealistic ability to bash constantly at the walls of buildings, and slowly knock them down without taking any damage for doing so. It is pretty unrealistic, but it does give you something to try to counter. Literally, if you build a tower, out of reach of zombies, and feral night comes along... They turn up and break through the base of the tower and the whole tower comes down. Unrealistic, but also leads to strategic ideas of how you handle it.

Unlike "rcrit" playing A16, I found the FIRST 7 day feral night was verging on extreme. I had about 17 zombies attack my base, running around. There were dogs and wolves in the group. I ran out of arrows (had about 90 of them). Spider-zombie came as well and climbed up the building wall. This was the FIRST Feral Night, not the TENTH one. As an experienced player, I did survive the night, but then I did apply all my experience from 200+ hours of play on A15. Also, I managed to avoid having the base decimated in the attack too (by taking out the zombies before they got the chance to do it. Can't say I'm looking forward to the second Feral night (game-day 14 evening). Joking... probably get 10 policemen attacking (hard zombies!).

I'm happy with the game - but Alpha 16 reminds me of FTL - the Normal setting is proper Hard. Beginner players might be tempted to modify the default settings, to make their game easier.

Finishing off with this: In A16, I have died about 6 times so far (playing about 10 hours). A couple of times, I was being deliberately risk-taking for kicks. And, since I was so early in the game, I just decided to restart (a brand new map). But the last 8 game-days of play I've been killed once, and needed to go off hunting for my backpack.