KickStarter Dead State Pre-Release Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Elhoim]

Also, I don't like how noise works right now.

Let's say that there is a big group nearby, and I bash a door somewhere close. A zombie will aproach, and ONLY one. Seems like each time I do it I get the same result. Shouldn't bigger numbers aproach?

Yes, it's a bug, we are working on that

 

[Roguey]

I approve of the use of ITZ in a, heh, social justice-friendly game. Probably going to go over a lot of heads.

 

[toro]

I'm under the impression that the game is unfinished and the release date of 4th of December is unrealistic. Am I completely wrong?

 

[tuluse]

I'm under the impression that the game is unfinished and the release date of 4th of December is unrealistic. Am I completely wrong?

Only if you think a game needs to be finished to be released.

 

[SuicideBunny]

it's a game about zombies after the zombie hype has already passed. it needs to be finished or people will tear it apart and it won't sell.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

it's a game about zombies after the zombie hype has already passed. it needs to be finished or people will tear it apart and it won't sell.

But does it let you play the bad guy? Can your band of survivors become the raiders and unexpected sexual relations deliverers? This is very important to my enjoyment of the game.

Also Mitsoda over in http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?76074-Dead-State&p=3660401 says the version currently in early access is a hollow shell compared to 1.0, and why would he lie? He wouldn't, that's why. They just had two completely different versions of the game even though they were uploading updates to the early access version because they're that good. Y'know how Wasteland 2 had a chunk of the world which was linear and terrible for early access and then the second half was buggy and terrible? It's like that, only Inexile doesn't have the manpower of Doublebear so they couldn't deliver on it.

Spoiler

Oh god why did I buy this what the fuck have I done, I kept saying I was glad I didn't Kickstart it and then I picked it up in a fit of Gaben fervor.

 

[Zombra]

But does it let you play the bad guy? Can your band of survivors become the raiders and unexpected sexual relations deliverers? This is very important to my enjoyment of the game.

Yeah, I think that's going to be a big old "too bad" for you.

 

[Lhynn]

Game should be pretty good if they manage to deliver.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

But does it let you play the bad guy? Can your band of survivors become the raiders and unexpected sexual relations deliverers? This is very important to my enjoyment of the game.

Yeah, I think that's going to be a big old "too bad" for you.

Welp. Can live with it but I had higher hopes for a zombie RPG. Off the top of my head the only zambie games that let you be a real asshole (Barring MP shit like Days of Our Lives) are roguelikes like Rogue Survivor and (If for some reason you're playing with the brain-dead NPCs) Cata DDA. You'd think for an RPG they'd be all over that since you could squeeze oodles of C&C out of it, trading additional companions/allies for additional resources, different party members based on if you're a shit or not, etc.

 

[Zombra]

Yeah. I'm sure you'd say the same with a game about an ice cream truck. "Can I poison the ice cream and kill all the kids? Why not?? What a missed opportunity to fulfill my dreams of evil!" Um ... that's not what it's about.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

 

[SuicideBunny]

But does it let you play the bad guy? Can your band of survivors become the raiders and unexpected sexual relations deliverers? This is very important to my enjoyment of the game.

as far as i can tell, actually yes.

when you come across survivors, you can rob/kill them instead of inviting them to your shelter. you get to be a total assholy despot to the other peeps in the shelter, constantly reminding them that it's you who's in charge, you can decide to raid the neutral camp, instead of going away, and i am fairly certain you can slaughter the friendly camp i came across as well. haven't tried it to see if one day you don't wake up because the others are fed up with you, though.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Elhoim
right, i'm gonna list everything, cos i have to go area to area anyways.

Spoiler

nitpicks:
-if lightning and pepper can chew up zombies and looters for breakfast, they should be assignable to the guard duty job
-would be cool if the car had a trunk or horses had saddlebags you could carry additional stuff in
-chainmail is so incredibly easy to make, both the makeshift and the more professional kind, that it requiring a sci lab and a much higher sci skill than antibiotics in the game is an instant suspension of disbelief killer.... should just cost parts, require tools/workshop, and a lot (and i do mean a lot) of time
-scroll bar on the survivor list on job board would be nice, considering how friggin many there are
-unique weapons like hackjob should show up in the uniques tab, imo. scrolling the weapons list to find them is annoying

typos
- after you pick oscar up, the next day he thanks you and one of the responses is "she'll need antibiotics for now on.

bugs:
-chicken required for chicken scoop, but without chicken scoop, chickens get killed for meat when brought to base
-when picking doors with lockpick, your cursor becomes a lockpick, if you move it onto corpses or other stuff afterwards, they are unlootable, and the cursor cannot be changed with the right button (have to target friendly, switch to a different cursor like trade, and all is good again). that is pretty annoying
-when picking doors that aren't close with lockpick in combat, your char will run to the door, unlike any other action which will just say that you are too far
-characters sometimes decide to join the party despite not being part of it or even having other duties. this has been happening since the first week demo. it also happens when you're already at party limit (i had a 5 people +1 wild dog party when attacking coyote hq because the televangelist who happened to fall sick that day and whom i've given the day off showed up for some reason too (this caused the wild dog to spawn on the same tile as my char, though there were no issues walking around, the last character's inventory also didn't update weight properly in the trade window, always showing 0.0 lbs, though it was still limited properly)
-location labels near right map border get cut off
-probably related to the chars joining party randomly: after killing the coyotes in coyote hq, marshall, sweaty dave, a coyote enforcer and a coyote brawler got added to my party on top of my own 4 chars and the wild dog the next day (which was the day regina happened to tell me where the hq that i already cleared is)... running the entire day around with a party of 9... wtf. overwrote the save, though, so only have screenies. the pathfinding issues that group caused made the game stutter a fucking lot until i disabled party following, and it causes a lot of issues with group portraits (sometimes displaying the default brian guy from the 7 days demo with 100/100hp, a red hp bar, and a gray border around the portrait area and db counter, not displaying any other portraits) and a lot of crashes when switching to other party members or opening inventories...
-fiona likes to say stuff like "i'll make you proud <charname!>". the exclamation mark in the bark seems to break the translation to the actual charname.
-sara and mia from pleasant oaks cannot be recruited via asking ben for permission. after asking ben, sara just displays the starting dialogue again
-equipping a consumable item like enrgy drinks, then using it via double instead of single click on a character that is not right next to you will crash the game because it tries to use the item consumed by the first click a second time.

map issues:
- trailer park: (with tornado survivor) the living containers are buried in the earth, instead of just being thrown on the sides
- pleasant library: some issues with floor tile coloring during combat in the small library building
- truck stop: one of the double doors in the bison building doesn't clear properly, the backdoor to the diner is indestructible and unpickable. that's just friggin stupid... just obstruct it with some furniture, like all other doors that are supposed to be impassable.
-old neighborhood: unconnected stairs in both buildings, no looting nodes.
-chunk bros factory: tough looter standing on a blocked door tile where the storage sheds/garages/whatever are.. that door cannot be opened until he is knocked down (which is when he becomes untargetable until the door is opened) or killed because it always says you're too far from all the adjacent tiles
-INDSupplyWarehouse: stairs from lower to upper level of warehouse are connected, but not the other way round. additionally, when you are on the upper level and go to the half-level on the stairs near the entrance, the roof blends in again.
-cabin in the woods: misaligned store interior with store exterior, no looting spots
-lampasas shelter: one of the zombie types is simply named d
-gated community: no loot spots
-isolated gas station: no loot spots, the cash counter in the taco place does not obstruct/people run through it
-COMAirstrip: unfinished map
-INDSupplyWarehouse2: the exit opposite the road is blocked by a locked gate that cannot be picked because the spot it is pickable from is unreachable, making the exit entirely obsolete
-120 rest stop: front double doors to the bison don't clear (one of the farmhouses in the vicinity also doesn't change light to reflect time of day properly, but i forgot which)
-dublin bar: no loot
-serpent street: one of the houses has an impassable tile right in front of the locked front door, for no reason.
-old general store: the backdoor to the building that has a front door blocked by a car does not clear.
-residential block: no enemies, stairs not connected
-old army base: stairs not connected, no loot points, one of the watchtowers has the impassable tile in front of the ladder, not behind it
-COMTheShops: there's a wall that doesn't obstruct in one of the small backrooms in the bargain owl, right next to the double backdoor, the white clothing shop adjoined to tastee ted's family restaurant is missing a chunk of the model from a back corner, so you can look inside from the outside, but not the other way round
-RESCircleOfDeath01: unfinished map, no doors and so on, additionally the house closest to where you enter (and the other one of the same type) does not display combat grid on the inside
-the equestrian stables: it's always day here, even if you visit at night (i think all the farms have that problem)
-upscale shopping plaza: always day
-diamondback hardware:passable wall tile in the office building right next to entry point

also, one of the random maps that triggers near shelter.. one with a fenced road, some car wrecks and a few zombies has a female zombie beyond the fence, and thus unreachable.

Is the writing bad because the characters are whinny, over agressive and douchebags for no reason like Walking Dead?Is interesting conflict of interests on the game or is just YOU SPILLED MY MILK, I GONNA LEAVE over reaction? Are the characters flat, with no personality?

the characters are all pretty samey in their way of talking, and many of the portraits being somewhat similar in terms of key characteristics doesn't help in that regard. the ones that stand out the most do so because they act kinda douchbaggy most of the time and that gives them more personality than the rest. you'd think a melting pot like america would have at least some people talking differently, having accents, quirky speech patterns and so on, especially as close to the border (and full of whackjobs) as texas is.... the second area where it sucks, and this one is very noticeable to me, are player responses. there's always a reasonable response, a somewhat different one, and one to come across as a total asshat just for the sake of being one, which is almost always fucking cringeworthy to me. stuff like the "i helped you, got something to reward me with" line from earlier in the thread, which you can throw at a gay veteran whom you just helped bury his boyfriend. awesome.

Can you raid places with some backstory about them or it's just generic convenience store or generic parking lot? Brian told of the dilemma of you raiding an hospital or not for supplies as it was a really dangerous place with ALOT of zombies, are ultra dangerous areas on the game?

plenty of seemingly generic places, but also some that are pop culture references, some telling these mini stories in the way the zombies and props are arranged in them (even if some of those imply arrangements that make no sense, like the supermarket with a zombie woman surrounded by 3 zombie cops, which would only make sense if turning was instantaneous, which it is not), lots of understandable copypasta buildings with slightly differently arranged insides, survivor camps, both overrun and still standing, main camps for the various hostile factions which are tough but rewarding and so on. stuff might also tie into the background story that you piece together from data, but data does not work as of yet. there are some dangerous areas, like the codex shop where people shoot each other with shotguns, which generates a lot of noise and attracts zombies, overrun military bases which have the squishy normal zombies but also soldier zombies which are tougher than regular ones, at least one area where two factions fight each other and thus also generate noise and attract zombie hordes, rogue military units with top weapons and armor that generate a ton of noise on their own and also take long to take down, thus meaning you'll have to deal with lots of zombies again, and areas where there are a lot of zombies in very close proximity, so you can't just pick them off, then wait for the noise to clear and pick another one.

I feel sad for this game, the concept looks entertaining but, so far, I didn't see any compelling reason to buy it.

it's still a good game and fairly interesting.

edit: new bug, couple new maps

 

[Roguey]

it's a game about zombies after the zombie hype has already passed. it needs to be finished or people will tear it apart and it won't sell.

TBQH I believe that even if it were a Fucking Quality Game, this thing's not selling.

 

[SuicideBunny]

TBQH I believe that even if it were a Fucking Quality Game, this thing's not selling.

possible, but being unfinished will still hurt it more.

 

[PanteraNera]

Damn you Codex! I feared the day I would give up my years long lurking ... now I am lost ... so yeah, this game makes me feel very but-hurt.

It is a shame, I followed the game even before the kickstarter campaign, I don't care to much about zombies but I love post apocalyptic settings ever since I bought Fallout (when it was released).

Dead State looked promising, really, I tried to loved it, but the writing is just ... terrible, I mean that from the same guy from Vampire Bloodlines?! What a shame! Like others stated, you can be either nice or just being an absolute stupid asshole. But yeah as I followed the game, the official forums and the steam forums, they don't seem to listen to feedback which makes me even more but-hurt, yeah I am outing myself of an emotional unstable guy crying over an game. But common, a lot of indies do actually listen to there players and talk to them, discuss with them, try to make the game the best. But whenever someone criticizes, well just look in this thread after the guy who got banned or the deleted posts ... .

It could have been close to my dream game, changing world (at least thats what I read in interviews an the forums), choices and consequences , an interesting story, base management, scavenging, fighting.

Well most of it is in there but ... not in a good way, especially C&C.

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,4891.msg123084.html#msg123084

But yeah one has to realize that games changed ... I have grown up with X-Com Enemy Unknown, Jagged Alliance, Fallout, I put countless hours in these games and enjoyed them, but looks like, there won't be any more games like these ... :-/. And I thought indies might change that, indies like DoubleBear ... .

 

[Lhynn]

Im starting to get sad, i want this game to be good, more than any other game to be released (with the exception of maybe mandate).

Maybe writing gets better after the first days tho, who knows. Its pretty much a staple of these indie games that they get better as the game progresses.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Im starting to get sad, i want this game to be good, more than any other game to be released (with the exception of maybe mandate).

Maybe writing gets better after the first days tho, who knows. Its pretty much a staple of these indie games that they get better as the game progresses.

Erm, but how do you see it? Do you think that Brian was drunk when he wrote the first part of the game, and then he sobered? Or what? Frankly, I'm not even sure if he wrote these dialogues, because barring brain damage I can't imagine why the same guy who wrote Malkavian dialogue in VtM:B, among other things, could produce something as bland, same-y, and clumsy like dialogue in Dead State. Indie games are sometimes improving in the latter parts because the authors learn as they go, so to speak, and also iterate at least some parts. But when we are talking about the writing it isn't always follows this pattern, because a) more often writing in plot-heavy games is being worked on first, and when actual production starts it is rarely changed drastically; b) some indies listen to criticism, some throw a hissy fit and leave forever, but DoubleBear often ignores negative reactions to their game.

 

[Roguey]

It probably helps that writing in Bloodlines was more of a collaborative effort. When your only editors are your wife and the inexperienced, yeah.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I also doubt Brian and Annie have much to with this game at this point.

 

[Jaesun]

I also doubt Brian and Annie have much to with this game at this point.

The two people developing this game.... are suddenly not developing this game?

 

[Burning Bridges]

I don't buy it. I think they have long ago given the project to other people when it was clear that it was becoming a failure.

 

[garren]

The game is still a bit rough around the edges but I don't think it's a failure.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Hopefully.

 

[Burning Bridges]

They must be doing something to further their career and this project is not gonna do it.