About the recent 42 Blog, Wasn't 42 the NPC Update?

[FailureToReport]

I got into PZ about a year ago and spent a month playing it on a server with a ton of people, it was fun but one of the things we all really wished we could get to work on MP server was the NPC humans/communities mod.

However it seemed like there was some light down the tunnel as the developers were talking about adding in NPC Survivors to the official game after the next two major updates (at that time I thought 42 was the one it was due to be in)

I basically shelved PZ and figured I'd enjoy the game more if I just waited for the new addition versus playing the current game and being fatigued of it by the time NPCs came out, so as a result of this I wasn't reading every blog anymore, but I'd see the numbered blog posts in steam and get more hyped as it got closed to 42 since I was under the assumption that was when NPCs were coming.

Did this content get pushed further back or did I misread the update number which NPCs were supposed to be coming? I just finished reading about the livestock update which I thought was supposed to be before 42 / NPC Survivors?

[The cursed Jäger]

NPC survivors are planned for 43 if I am right. Animal NPCs are planned for 42. NPCs are being added in batches, not all at once.

EnigmaGrey eredeti hozzászólása:

Build 41 only wrapped up 2-3 months ago. Work on other stuff continued in the background, but we couldn't move on fully until MP was reasonably sound. Issues with the SteamAPI ended up making that take about 4 months longer than expected (hence why there's now an optional direct connection to bypass Steam).

As is, we're got quiet a bit done for 42, as we've discussed in the blogs. So while I expect it'll be a while, that backlog of stuff coming out with 42 should make up for the wait, just as build 41 did for its lengthy development. (Though the wait certainly won't be similar).

But as to NPCs (build 43), I'd not hazard a guess. The way these things tend to go is you spend months grinding something and then one day it suddenly feels "good enough" for both devs and testers then you roll with it. You can't really schedule that beyond a rough sketch.

[Rodrigo]

I really hope when NPC's start to come we get notes, diaries of their last moments or general notes telling whats going on on particular places, perhaps secrets, locations, or just knowing a bit of their lives before they became zombies, if they became zombies at all that is.

[shadowlessclick]

No, it was plan even back then, NPCs starting in 43 and development continuing on the feature through 47:
https://projectzomboid.com/blog/content/uploads/2022/01/image-5-1024x585.png

This is from the January 2022 post:
https://projectzomboid.com/blog/news/2022/01/2022-and-beyond/

[Brother Nagoor Babu]

Is there a release date or something to be expected around date x?

[Cian Lovecraft]

I genuinely do not understand how NPCs aren't on the top of their priority list. For many people, it's the most desired functionality.

[Retro]

Cian Lovecraft eredeti hozzászólása:

I genuinely do not understand how NPCs aren't on the top of their priority list. For many people, it's the most desired functionality.

It IS a priority. They have different teams working on different areas, NPC's being one of them.
They said months ago how this would go down.

[Chilli Dog Dave]

NPC's were always going to be after the rework patch.
animals were origionally going to be AFTER NPC's but after me and another guy explained how horrifically bad of a move that would be for folks fun some animals were being added before/during NPC's and then improved+add more after NPC's.

the reason 0 animals before NPC's would have been bad is there would have been no source of food outside of either farming or world spawns or worse... the players stocks, so would have ended up where NPC's would have kept focusing looting the player after the world spawns dry up as not every group will be about farming so without things to hunt they would exclusively bully the player(s) for food which would have made NPC's feel awful

[Ahab]

I know it can be attributed to people not reading the posts close enough, but this is like the 4th time I've seen someone confused thinking 42 was going to be full release of NPCs.