Official Answers From JonnyTruant Senior Producer To Member Questions

[The doctor is in]

well hope that the following answers some of the questions that many have been having...

Official Answers From JonnyTruant Senior Producer To Member Questions

http://forums.infestationmmo.com/index.php?/topic/49039-answers-to-the-ama/

Part I

JonnyTruant

Senior Producer
Developer
174 posts

Posted Today, 02:10 PM

Hello all - earlier this week we opened this thread to allow you to ask us anything:

http://forums.infestationmmo.com/index.php?/topic/46615-weekly-ama-to-dev-team/

And we answered!

Find the answers below.

Also, here's the information on the new Colorado:

http://forums.infestationmmo.com/index.php?/topic/48757-dev-diary-726-introducing-terrain-v3-tech-and-updated-colorado-map/page-6#entry654304

What is infestation going to be? A zombie survival game with minor PVP, or a PVP game with a zombie backdrop

Infestation has been a fascinating social experiment for us. If you think of it as a traditional game – which is really what it is – it’s a game built by a small team on a small budget. So when you compare it let say to State of Decay – Infestation is clearly less polished and not as smooth playing as a GAME. Yet if you think about it as a social playground, as a living, breathing world – then Infestation is very unique – it actually managed to create just the right simulation of the real world – we’ve created a gameworld where death is a really BIG deal. Something no game has done before. Through mechanics, some of which “old school” players or media will call “evil”, as well as through creating a really open environment, we’ve created a world that really simulates what may happen to society in case of a large scale destruction event. We’ve created a real post-apocalyptic society.

A world where most of the people are losing their humanity just to survive a little bit longer. Even things like cheating are not a tool to get on top of leaderboards like it is in other games. We didn’t want that, but it became a tool for some players to make a clear decision to break rules and laws just to survive more. We’ve got a HUGE trading economy – including “shadow” trading that goes on outside the game – with people making thousands of dollars per month by trading guns and items outside game. We estimate that overall size of this trade is worth several hundred thousand dollars per month in real world USD.

Unfortunately so far we’re lacking proper tools in the world to make players want to cooperate more – and this will be our goal for upcoming months. We want to give you more tools to COOPERATE, to BUILD and to change the world around you. We really hope that this will shift focus from PVP aspect of the game and more toward environment interactions and player’s interactions.

When will we get Strongholds? How they will function? Will we get free server hosting that comes with Legendary accounts?

Strongholds will be released when they are read - basically we don’t want to release them until we are happy with them. We have been doing a lot of iterations on them to make sure that gameplay will be interesting.



As to how they will function: pretty much the same way as any other server, except that they will have additional features, like building your own bases, collecting resources, etc. They will be smaller maps, with no zombies, specially designed to be more like construction lots. We’ll give you tools to gather resources and use those to build your own safe zones, home bases, etc.



Yes, Legendary accounts will be receiving free server hosting as promised.





When will we get vehicles? How will vehicles function? Bikes instead of vehicles.

The challenge is not in adding vehicle support to the engine – we’ve had this for a long time now. But the real challenge is making sure that adding vehicles to the game will be cheat proof and won’t create situations where cheaters will be exploit the fact that some of the calculations/logic for vehicles must be done on the client for performance reasons. I.e. – like with aiming done on client ( which allows existence of aimbots ), we want to be sure that we only do non critical parts of the vehicles logic done on client. This takes time, which is why we’re not ready to tell you that vehicles will be added to the game just yet.





Support tickets are currently taking roughly 60 days around 2 months to be looked at and the wait time is growing longer and longer. What do you plan on doing about that? How long does it normally take for a support ticket to be assigned and answered?

When you submit tickets to the support team, they’re assigned to a specific category. Depending on a category, we have different turnaround times. For high Priority tickets we’re usually responding within 24-48 hours, Medium priority tickets get response time between 2 days to 7 days, and low priority tickets may take a very long time to get response.



To give you an idea of the current “waiting list” for tickets – here’s breakdown of all of our unanswered tickets in the system :



High Priority: 67

Med Priority: 700

Low Priority: 5100



As you can see, most of our outstanding tickets fall into the ‘low priority’ category.





Will we be getting an additional layer of anti-hack?

We are constantly working with FairFight and PunkBuster on improving detection rate, and at the same time making sure that we will not have any false positives. It is an ongoing process and it will only be improving over time. At this time, we don’t have plans to add additional anti-hack software, but FairFight and PunkBuster always add additional detection and prevention layers to their software.





What is the highest priority at Hammerpoint?

Believe it or not its making Infestation a better game J. As far as development, it’s working on cheaters, releasing new maps and adding Stronghold mode.



Why can't items in the marketplace cost both types of currency?

What is your end goal for the GC shop?

Why is the marketplace so extremely overpriced, yet we pay for the game?

Have you ever thought about getting rid of the microtransaction system?

Sergey what happened to 90% of the Marketplace being cosmetic and 99% of the community not using it?

Our goal for Marketplace is to make it so players who want to concentrate on certain type of gameplay or activities, will be able to spend some money and “fast forward” to the point where they can enjoy game activities they like. This is the end goal for GC shop. And we’re working non stop to make sure that prices in GC shop will be right, and that items availability won’t affect overall balance of the game.



We feel that ability for players to choose how they want to play game is super important, and this is why we’ve added GC shop in a first place.



As of today only around 6-7% of the active players are buying GC to make purchases in Marketplace.





Will we ever be able to sell items?

We do not plan this functionality, but at same time we’re discussing options that will allow more streamlined trading between players, including possibility of allowing sale of the items in exchange for in game currency and GC.



We recognize that trading as a hugely popular and important social mechanic of the Infestation, and we’re dedicating good portion of our design resources to make sure that players will get proper tools to explore this mechanic even more.





When will there be another map?

There are two maps in the works right now. First we have an updated Colorado we recreated and heavily modified using our new terrain tech. You can read about it here: http://forums.infest...d-colorado-map/

We’re planning to release new the Colorado map this summer - before the end of August 2013 J.

Second map we’re working on is California inspired map. This is a huge map roughly 21.5 by 21.5 kilometers in size. Given its size, it requires lots of art and design work, but at the same time it’ll be a major addition to the game. We do not have a release date for this map yet, but we’re hoping that we’ll be able to release it this year.





Will there be improvements to zombie AI?

Yes, we are currently working on improving zombie AI. We are planning on adding different behavior to different zombies, but we will provide more information once it is tested and ready to be released.



Are you considering adding PVE servers?

Unfortunately as it turned out properly done PVE in a PVP game is not an easy task to achieve J. Right now we’re working on zombie AI improvements, to make sure that “new zombies” will pose much greater threat and achieving this will open gates for us to explore pure PVE gameplay.





Can we get bound to character items?

No we do not plan this at this time.



How much has this game made in profits and how much goes back into the game?

For obvious reasons we can’t really disclose any financials – neither our board of Directors, nor our shareholders or lawyers will permit us to do that. But all I can say is this – a very significant part of our revenues goes toward operating game – paying for servers, security, buying bandwidth, dealing with DDOS attacks, fighting cheaters and people who create cheats, etc, etc. Unfortunately due to some recent attacks, this percentage is higher than we want it to be and is draining resources from the development. We try to put most of the money back to the development, so it’s sucks when we have to spend a considerable chunk of dough on a things that arent adding gameplay value.





Will legendary players get anything special, like testing new features?

Short answer is yes. While we’re not ready to announce some of the upcoming perks to Legendary players, we really love you guys for your support and we’ll continue to seek new ways to add value for you.



Veteran servers, or servers that require certain amounts of play time to access (24, 48 hours)

That is something that we can definitely add. Expect this to be added fairly soon.



How much time do you invest on this game on a daily basis in hours?

Daily we spend, as a team, over 110 man hours on the game. This number often goes up as many of us play the game on our free time, or hanging out on the forums or in streams .



Can we expect a rework of heal/hunger or a focus on the survival aspect of the game ?

Let just say that at the moment we’re not satisfied with medical mechanics, as well as resource system in a game. We have several designs in the works, that will allow items to degrade over time with heavy use, yet that allow you to gather resources and use them to repair those items. We’re working on a design for much more robust healing system, that will concentrate on a individual medical conditions, instead of generic “health bar”. Unfortunately as of today we do not have solid date for availability of those new features to the public.





What are premium servers?

Premium servers will be available to our premium subscribers. Premium servers will have some additional perks not available on other servers, for example, better loot.



Will we get public test servers? When?

Yes, you will. We are planning on releasing new map through public test server firstly, and we expect that to happen soon.



When will the game have Oculus Rift support?

We still awaiting our Rift kits, so we didn’t played with it yet, but short answer is if it won’t take much time to implement, yes there’s a big chance that in a future game will support it.



Why did you make the game $3?

Steam guys came to us and offered Infestation to be part of the summer sale. We agreed and agreed to suggested discounts.



Are you guys hiring more mods?

YES! In fact we’re going to hire a couple guys shortly in house, and we’re looking to add more mods from the game community.





When will new melee weapons, guns and chainsaws be available?

We are planning on polishing a lot of animations for the new melee and chainsaw soon. I would say we should start seeing polished versions of those in a month.



What do you think about people saying streamers are favored over normal players?

We wish there was an easier way to spend more time with each and every single player in the game, but streaming gives us a much easier access to many players at once. We actually don’t favor them over any players.



Will you be increasing the weight on the backpacks?

It’s already been done



Do you plan on implementing more private server mod commands?

We’re discussing new options for private servers that will allow greater level of customizations than available right now, as well as temporary moderation option and ability for server owners and mods to kick players from inside the game.



Will you add RPG concepts, such as NPCs you need to support by bringing supplies, map customization, missions?

We do not have plans for NPCs right now, but at same time we’re working on redesigning Missions system (our initial design that we so advertised year ago basically failed test of reality – we found so many loopholes that lead to game breaking exploits, so we have to put old design on ice and start over again, trying to create compelling mission system ).



Will the flare gun be able to kill zombies or light them on fire?

Flare gun was never designed to kill, it is primary use is to light up area in the darkness or to distract zombies\players.



What are Hammerpoints plans for expanding the team?

We’re constantly looking for a few good guys and girls to join our team. If you know some seasoned game devs – let us know.



Will we ever get Hardcore mode back, with Hardcore only servers?

Most likely no. We’ve found that only few players are using this more – less than 1% of our players, and except deletion of the character this mode is not that different from Normal Mode. We’ve realized that most of our players are hardcore players, and NORMAL mode is actually what most of them is okay with.



Will there ever be a trade window implemented?

Yes, and we are currently working on it!



Are you guys planning on doing anything special for the one year anniversary?

Yes, we’re thinking about few things, but let it be a surprise for you.

[The doctor is in]

Part II

When are you going to change the loot so you can find anything anywhere?

It’s already been done as of July 25th, 2013



Put the ambient noises back in with an option to toggle them on/off

We’re reworking all background sounds right now, so we’ll see how it’ll go with release of the new Colorado map.



Will we ever have different weather in game?

This is definitely on our To Do List, but we don’t have an actual date just yet. There is a lot of other art related tasks that must be handled right now.



Have you guys ever considered putting this game on XBLA and PSN

Not at the moment, but we’re talking about possibility of the game developed for new consoles – PS4 and Xbox One in a future.



Are you ever planning on finishing the talent tree?

There’s one branch that is not doing anything right now – Repair Branch. And it’ll be activated as soon as we’ll be satisfied with our degradation, repair and crafting mode. Unfortunately there are no solid dates when it’ll be coming to the game yet.



Why is there no adrenaline shot in the game? (replenish stamina)

Good question. We’ll probably should add one J



Will we be able to create attachments for our weapons (or any sort of crafting) in the future?

We’ve been discussing crafting for a quite some time now. It still not anywhere close to what we want it to be design wise, so we do not have this in actual production, but just to give you an idea of what we like – check the crafting system in Last of Us. We think it’s really good, intuitive and easy to use concept, that needs to be adapted to ability to craft and create way more items using way more individual resources.



Will you ever remove item boxes for just normal gun spawns?

We don’t have plans to do that.



Are there any plans to increase all loot as 80% of the players indicated they want?

It’s been increased already J



Is anything being done to address the crashing problems associated with PB?

Please submit a ticket to PB to make sure they are aware of that, as well as to our support, make sure to include r3dlog.txt with your ticket.





What are the top 5 most purchased items in the marketplace?

Over last month top 5 GC items are :

Character Revive

Bandages DX

NVG Goggles helmet

Custom Guerilla armored vest

Military backpack



Over last month top 5 Game Dollars items are :

Granola Bar

Forward Grip attachment

Medium Backpack

Instant Oatmeal

STANAG 30 ammo





Will we ever see a bandit safe zone?

We do not have plans for that as of right now.



We were told a long while back that we would get a ingame method of getting GC. Is that still coming? Why don't you give a daily GC bonus like War Inc?

We’re discussing right now how we can add something like this that will allow actively playing players to get some sort of GC rewards for in game actions. Once those plans will be finalized we’ll let you know.



Will we get FPS only servers?

Most likely answer is No.



Why don't we do daily 1MB updates to combat hackers?

Because it won’t help J. Why 1MB? Why not 5? Why not 100kb? How will the update itself help us fighting cheaters?



Why is it that when there’s a big ban wave your game goes on sale

We don’t think those are connected things.



When will you fix the framerate issues?

We’re working on optimizing engine non stop. One of the recent developments was the creation of the new terrain engine that will be faster that it was before…. Okay guys, lets get straight to the point J. Recent drop for FPS was from the fact that to improve users experience we’ve changed what we think is LOW graphics settings. One of the major things that have dramatically affected performance on extremely low end hardware was that now you can’t turn off shadows rendering . This caused a significant framerate drop for really low end computers. And it was a low single digits percentage of our users who’ve been affected by that. We’re working right now on significant improvement for shadow generation code performance, so this should help a bit J.



Will we be able to ever dual wield, as it shows in the trailer?

I don’t think we ever showed this in any of our videos, but answering to your question – no you won’t be able to do that. One of the reasons is that in order to do that, we’ll have to create essentially double content for a guns – right now FPS guns models are not detailed on a right side and if we do that this will cause even more frame rate issues for low end players. Other than that we don’t feel it’ll add gameplay value that will justify basically relocation of the artists resources to do this task.



Will you be adding new skins to the current characters and different skins for weapons?

This is also on our list for future updates.



Can you implement character name change for GC?

We can, but this would be against basic design principle of the game. The only way other people know about you is by your name, by changing your name, you would become a totally different player to other players and we are afraid that will be used abusively.



Would you consider making the Sniper spawns rarer?

They’re pretty rare as we’re writing this, but we also going to implement new spawn mechanics for a new Colorado and California maps that will allow us to control weapons distributions with much better precision.



Can we add some sort of mini map in the survivor menu so we know where are characters are (or died last)?

That is something that was requested numerous times and we are currently looking into a way to integrate it nicely into current UI.



Is the buggy shown in the California screenshots going to be drivable?

This is our plan for not so distant future



Will there be hang gliders in Cali?

No.



Can there be an option to toggle friendly fire in groups?

No.



Will there ever be fast travel between safe zones?

Most likely No. There’s no reason to do that except for promoting farming and outside game trading, selling items.



Is it possible to get some unarmed push back skills like a kick or something?

We’re actually exploring options for bare fists combat. As of right now there’re no solid schedule or plans to add this to the game in near future, but once again – yes this is something that is on our radar right now.



How many safe zones will there be in CA?

We do not know yet.



Will we ever be able to close/open doors?

We do not have solid plans for that right now



I'd like to know if there are plans for in game events with new zombies or quests?

Currently we don’t have such plans, but we might re-consider this later.



Can you please FIX the LAWMAN and Above? (Lawman Civilian kills are -15) just unfair.

The original idea was to make sure that lawman will not be killing lawful players, but we will revisit that idea, as it might be too strict in this specific case.



Will we be able to customize in greater detail in the future?

We don’t have plans for that right now, but it was requested previously, so it is something that is on our TODO list.



What are your plans for the current reputation system? (Lawmen, Bandits, Civilians, each with their own unique perks? Specific safe zones for each? Higher status means more advantages?)

We don’t have any specific plans right now.



What are your plans on fixing helmets and character hair interference?

We have a solution how to fix this, but currently there are more important tasks.



Are you ever going to consider increasing crouch speed by 50% and prone movement by 25%? The prone animation isn't synchronized with the movement. Also, the crouching is as slow as proning.

We will look into this.



When will the favorites and recent tabs on the server browser work?

We will look into this and will try to fix ASAP.



Will we be getting a friends system so we can join on friends?

Yes, but we don’t have a specific time right now to say when it will be released.



Will you be adding animations/delay to stop these ridiculous medication macros?

We will investigate this issue in more detail.



Are you guys going to fix combatlogging?

Yes, we are looking for possible solutions to this problem.



Will we ever be able to spawn where we like instead of being moved to a safe point to die?

You should not spawn at a safe point where there were kills in the area. We will test this internally and see if we can reproduce this issue and hopefully fix it.



Are the LMGs and other rare guns like Night Stalker and P90-s ever gonna spawn again? Could we know aprox how long it will take for us to enjoy a bigger variety of weapons ?

We’re constantly evaluating which weapons and items are good for a game balance and which are not. As we go we’ll be changing available inventory to balance out game. And here’s more direct answer – maybe J, we don’t know yet.



Will the stem cell currency ever be implemented

We’re changing it to be part of the resource gathering and extraction system



Is anything being done to address items falling through the ground on hillsides when dropped?

We will look into this issue.



Can you make climbable ladders?

We do not have plans for that right now. We may revisit this in a future, but it’s not something that is on our to do list for coming months.



Will there ever be wildlife like deer or elk that can be hunted?

This is something we are discussing



Are you guys happy with the current state of the game? What would you like to see implemented in the near future?

As you can you see based on our answers – we’re not exactly happy with the game as is. We think that we’ve been able to achieve much in a short period of time, and continuing support from players and interest in the game, just proves that. Yet – we have many problems, small and large that needs to be solved and we have tons of plans that we’d like ideally to implement. We hope that our players will continue to provide us with support, play game, and yes spend some money in GC shop so we can continue to work on the game in years to come.

[datCookie]

This IS a joke, right?


When has ANYTHING these guys said been accurate?

My inside source proves that this is all utter BS.


This is exactly what they did on the old forums and at the start of these ones. Create one massively long thread answering supposed important questions, babble on for a while and ultimately get no where.

You will not see ANY of what they are adding in the next few months. Why? Because they've done that multiple times since the release of the game.


It's an utter joke and a disgrace to the gaming industry that these guys have been allowed to do what they've done, and are continuing to do it.

[EncryptedVolt]

Originally posted by datCookie:

It's an utter joke and a disgrace to the gaming industry that these guys have been allowed to do what they've done, and are continuing to do it.

The gaming industry itself is just a sad joke anymore.

[ChiGoku]

so.. the california map was suppose to be released almost 2 months ago, and from the pictures posted what.. 2-3weeks ago it looks like they JUST started to create that map??

He STILL ignored the question about During sergay's interview he claimed that the market place will be pure cosmetic stuff, and totally dodged it.

But I agree, the last 2 times the forums got hacked, each new ver. of said forum had 1 big long ass list of Q and A, with the same blah blah blah story to satisfy ppl, the games been out almost a year, they don't have anything to show for it to be honest. in March before forums got hacked Sergay mentioned oh we'll have test servers out shorty ( to calm ppl down) same thing with russian of, Oh yeah we'll have new zombie animations soon, and there was a page probably 40+ long of what ppl would like to see for the animations. thats been what?? 4 months now.

Now.. they claim to have a small team size, 30 roughly, and they are promising all that.. working on this, working on that, oh no worries, we are doing that too, oh and yeah we are already fixing that... With all their claims to be work in progress + their team size, they honestly can't be doing ALL those things all at once, its just more blah blah blah to keep ppl HAPPY, nothing more

[Kidd]

Originally posted by ChiGoku:

so.. the california map was suppose to be released almost 2 months ago, and from the pictures posted what.. 2-3weeks ago it looks like they JUST started to create that map??

He STILL ignored the question about During sergay's interview he claimed that the market place will be pure cosmetic stuff, and totally dodged it.

But I agree, the last 2 times the forums got hacked, each new ver. of said forum had 1 big long ass list of Q and A, with the same blah blah blah story to satisfy ppl, the games been out almost a year, they don't have anything to show for it to be honest. in March before forums got hacked Sergay mentioned oh we'll have test servers out shorty ( to calm ppl down) same thing with russian of, Oh yeah we'll have new zombie animations soon, and there was a page probably 40+ long of what ppl would like to see for the animations. thats been what?? 4 months now.

Now.. they claim to have a small team size, 30 roughly, and they are promising all that.. working on this, working on that, oh no worries, we are doing that too, oh and yeah we are already fixing that... With all their claims to be work in progress + their team size, they honestly can't be doing ALL those things all at once, its just more blah blah blah to keep ppl HAPPY, nothing more

I have been waiting for California and now they are talking about Colorado v.2 and though it does look really good there is no telling when it will come out. They are going to use a new engine so maybe some other things will be comming as well like automobiles as they said they current engine can't handle autos.

I still enjoy the game and like gathering stuff and hording it in my vault. I would really like to see one of these new maps playable soon but until then I am going to just try to survive in the game that is.

I still say it is a great game for less than $4USD and still pretty good for $15USD though it does have some bugs but they seem to be fixing some things for sure in the game so far. I hope they fix the sounds the most but not the gun sounds those are awesome.

[datCookie]

Originally posted by zenmonk9003:

I have been waiting for California and now they are talking about Colorado v.2 and though it does look really good there is no telling when it will come out. They are going to use a new engine so maybe some other things will be comming as well like automobiles as they said they current engine can't handle autos.

I still enjoy the game and like gathering stuff and hording it in my vault. I would really like to see one of these new maps playable soon but until then I am going to just try to survive in the game that is.

I still say it is a great game for less than $4USD and still pretty good for $15USD though it does have some bugs but they seem to be fixing some things for sure in the game so far. I hope they fix the sounds the most but not the gun sounds those are awesome.

I'd like to point out that the engine they are using CAN support vehicles. Why? Because War Inc had vehicles and they are using the same engine.

So why haven't they put vehicles in yet? It's a question they have dodged since the beginning of time and they will continue to do so until the game is dead.

[Kidd]

Originally posted by datCookie:

Originally posted by zenmonk9003:

I have been waiting for California and now they are talking about Colorado v.2 and though it does look really good there is no telling when it will come out. They are going to use a new engine so maybe some other things will be comming as well like automobiles as they said they current engine can't handle autos.

I still enjoy the game and like gathering stuff and hording it in my vault. I would really like to see one of these new maps playable soon but until then I am going to just try to survive in the game that is.

I still say it is a great game for less than $4USD and still pretty good for $15USD though it does have some bugs but they seem to be fixing some things for sure in the game so far. I hope they fix the sounds the most but not the gun sounds those are awesome.

I'd like to point out that the engine they are using CAN support vehicles. Why? Because War Inc had vehicles and they are using the same engine.

So why haven't they put vehicles in yet? It's a question they have dodged since the beginning of time and they will continue to do so until the game is dead.

That may be true but I have never played War, Inc. I did read that it was something to do with the zombies though. I'm not defending only stateing what I read on the official forums. I don't care much though because I like the game and enjoy playing it.

[The doctor is in]

from all the posts ive read i honestly think they like less than a dozen employees working on this thing. and that includes kwek and sergey

the rest are 3rd party tech support, contractors, it, etc. and people that sergey is involved with, but not coding or doing any of the assets that we see.

[Rockets]

Where is the refund info?