A word, if you will indulge me

[Vi-El]

There are a lot of things on my mind when it comes to what Im going to write now. So if you can, please indulge me for a few moments of your time. If you dont want to, thats fine but I am neither here to fight or to make up with people I had a problem with. I simply want to state whats on my mind and leave it there.

So what is it then? Idk yet as Im writing this.

Maybe its Nostalgia

I have been with this game for now roughly 9 years. I cant exactly say by how many days of the last year but roughly 9 fits it best. I have seen a lot of change happen in the past. Changes that made the game better, harder, easier, worse, more interesting, less interesting, focused, unfocused. Changes that felt like someone sat down to think about it and then changes where I dont even know if anyone used their brain for it.

There were changes made to the old game where mere adjustments were required. Instead a lot of the stuff that made the game unique and genuinely interesting were… stripped away. More and more until none of it was left anymore.

Maybe its nostalgia but I dont think its just that. Obviously things change from one Alpha to the next and if the Devs believe this is for the better then who am I to argue against it? I dont know their vision. Just wish others on the forum would understand that they dont know the devs vision either. It just happens that a lot of people on here often claim they do because one dev said once “Well I think this is a good idea” even tho we have a trackrecord of good ideas being continuously stripped.

Maybe I just moved on, on the inside without knowing

Its possible I suppose that I just moved on. On the inside and just didnt notice it until now. Ever since I received my ADHD medication I ended up realizing a lot of things, maybe this is just one of the many few things that I finally end up noticing to be just wrong with my life. Who knows. But what I do know is that whenever I look at 7D2D I dont look at it with joy but with a bag of mixed feelings.

Which almost all tend to be bad rather than good. I came out of A20 and I felt genuinely mad. I felt like TFP didnt give a ♥♥♥♥. Every alpha since A16 the game continously got worse and worse (in my opinion, yours may differ) and slowly but surely I came to the point where I was just done. They introduced and stripped. Introduced and stripped. Introduced and stripped. They made the game interesting and in the next moment they took it away again. And after a while it just feels… tiring. Tiring to try and talk, argue, discuss and critique to keep something in the game you think would genuinely benefit it when the company behind it doesnt seem to actually care.

So who knows. Maybe I just moved on in silence without knowing.

Maybe I just got bored

I mean is it that odd to think about it? I played for 1000 hours. Others pour 4000 into the game and are still not done. I am sure I even understand why. Its because they just like I received satisfaction from the game they loved. Its a good relationship to have. But when you invest time into the game and dont receive it? When the game doesnt give you what satisfaction you need to keep on playing?

Well I guess you just stop. You get bored. Cause the game doesnt deliver what you came to expect from it. I am not talking about anything special mind you. I enjoyed the experimental thus far. I decided to take a break this current patch cause I had played for 3 days in a row actively participating on the forums to discuss and report bugs I found. So I needed to have a bit of time off and just talk instead.

But having done so made me go through several conversations which just made me remember more and more of the things I started to genuinely dislike about the game. Its like the hype threw rose tinted glasses on my head and showed me all the pretty lights in the sky while it was pitch black and cloudy instead.

Maybe I just dont care anymore

Maybe the game got so bad for me that I stopped caring about it in a meaningful way. Maybe it drifted out of my life and I just grew too old to be able to care about it as much as I have before. And yet still feel like I should try. I invested so much time into this game, surely that must mean something. Sunk Cost Fallacy am I right?

I mean surely I cant just have grown out of it. Surely its more than that. It must be someone elses fault. Am I so out of touch with the game? No. Its the Children who are wrong. That little Simpsons reference aside. Who knows. Maybe I am. Maybe I am just… too old to care about it anymore.

No. Its none of the above or rather...

As I was writing this I went to write all the above mainly to look at the situation myself. I do this alot, its a way to look at my own thoughts and write them out to review them in turn. Maybe what I think is just dumb and I should rethink it. Some rants of mine have turned to dust when I have done so in the past so surely it would work with genuine frustrations or irritations just as much. Maybe it can reveal how I actually feel and in turn make this entire post into nothing but an eventually forgotten memory.

But as you can likely imagine, that doesnt seem to be the case or you wouldnt be reading this. So what is my problem? Well I suppose it is a mix of kinda everything of the above. Maybe not the age part, I am still as passionate about gaming and worldbuilding as I was way back when. In fact I started to write my own world proper, done art and started being thoroughly creative Person myself. And in that journey, on top of finally being medicated for my ADHD I guess I just came to the realization that this is where my Journey with 7D2D will end.

I spent the last 9 years investing my time into 7D2D and TFP. I realized that the time Im spending with it is more and more simply filled with genuine frustration. In the game, in the forums, in the videos I watch. Not because the game wont change to my whims but because TFP seems to be hellbent on making the game worse and worse with ever iteration. Not as a whole, as I said I enjoyed A21. Only to realize that…

Nothing really changed

The game looks better. It doesnt feel better. The game seems more indepth. It isnt. The game feels fresh and new due to the changes. Until you realize that 95% of them are old changes brought back just slightly altered and some minor balance adjustments.

The Zombies still behave the same way. The Dungeons still feel the same scripted way cause you have mandatory triggers even for ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pure stealth runs that are as high up in the stealth ranking as they can be to become practically invisible before Skyrim Guards despite standing directly infront of them. And yet somehow the Zombies still can tell that you entered the room because you went through one specific doorway but somehow firing a gun doesnt trigger anyone in that room. Oh wait I know why, its cause they literally arent spawned in yet.

From Survival feeling like a joke and now a gamified mechanic that needs constant tedious checking on ressources that lead to no buildup of you ever becoming properly sustainable without abusing and exploiting said new mechanics to the game becoming generally speaking Piss Easy as soon as you crack one type of Tier 2 gun.

And the worst is, I came to realizing a lot of the faults this game had through my experience with other games.

I just dont get it, Early Access simply isnt an excuse

And neither is the word “Alpha”. Cyberpunk which granted isnt a Sandbox survival game took 5 years to be released as a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Then another 3 to become somewhat acceptable. Look onward now and what do you see? A game people can play and have fun with, me included. I enjoyed the game and played every single mission from start to finish in one go. It was well written, well paced and had interesting character that I connected with. And now? Now I cant wait for the DLC.

There is also a better example. No Mans Sky. Another Disaster on release. 3-4 years of development, released to be severely undercooked. And the team has spent ever since without expecting a single dime to improve the 1.0 from there on out. The NoMansSky that released in 2016 and the NoMansSky we have now is not even comparable. Well that is unless you look at a certain something. Hello Games is an Indie Studio. An indie studio with a game that was far more ambitious than 7D2D will ever be. They ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up and they owned up. They listened when they had to. And when things started to get better their fans loved them for it.

You wanna know an even better example? Project Zomboid. Which is quite literally 7D2D but from a different point of view but the people behind it actually seem to give a crap about the game they are creating for the players that play it. Wanna know when the development of Project Zomboid started? 10 years ago and no, they are also still in development. And they are also adding new features and overhaul. Wanna know the difference between them and 7D2D? They actually think about the changes and how they affect gameplay, even hiring modders that already did their job better than they ever could. And somehow, for some unimaginable reason, their community isnt a toxic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess. Instead their community appreciates every update and change and if they dont they write about it respectfully and respectfully disagree.

And what do fans of 7D2D get? A 10 year long Alpha, no signs of any release date soon or soon-ish and the worst of all: No actual insight or knowledge that the Devs are listening to anything they say. And what I find worse is that the mods on the forums defend them as if their life depends on it, using any type of weird mental gymnastics that they can manage to conjure up. Like I said way above, TFP wants to create the game they want to create and I cannot and will not speak against a change they think is best for the game unless it doesnt make logical sense. I have done so in the past over and over. And I will…

Not do so anymore in the future.

Im making the conscious decision and will move away from the game and TFP as a company. I gave you enough publicity. I bought enough friends the game only to regret it now. I made enough friends interested in the game by streaming it a few times even. I finally realize where I stand. And that is not wanting to be any longer in what genuinely feels like an abusive relationship. We are your customers, yet you treat us as if we are nothing.

No, worse. You let us be ridiculed, ♥♥♥♥ on, gaslit and so on by your very own staff. When you have to demand to be taken serious, that is a bad thing and not a good thing.

You may not be Blizzard. You may not be EA. But you also arent Hello Games or any other company that seems to actually care about the people that bought and financed their game.

We spent 10 years waiting. And I am tired waiting another 10 days for any update that doesnt do anything to make the game actually better and more interesting as a result. This game is stuck in development hell just going back and forth through purgatory. And the sooner any of you realize this, the better for your own hopes and dreams when it comes to this game you care so much about.

Dont come in here recommending mods

Mods are nothing but a bandaid on a problem that exists but that doesnt fix the problem. You dont put a bandaid on an open and deep cut. You disinfect the wound, pull out what caused it if its still in there and then put a bandage around it, possibly check it every day to make sure its actually still ok and not enflamed or worse.

The fact that a modding community for this game exists that does their job for them only makes the problem worse as TFP doesnt need to give a ♥♥♥♥ about their base game as much since people are going to just "fix" what they dont like with mods. Who does that remind me of again? Oh right, Bethesda.

Thank you for nothing TFP

And thank you for wasting my time, thinking something is gonna change by showing me the one thing thats actually good about the new Alpha. The buildings. The people working on those are the only people who genuinely deserve any praise for their work. Because they seemed to actually give a ♥♥♥♥ about what they create.

Im not mad. Im just disappointed. And more importantly. Im done giving a ♥♥♥♥ since you dont give one either. The only thing I feel genuinly emotional about is the fact that it took me 9 whole years to realize where I stand. And I mean REALIZE.

PS: I doubt this post will be here for long so enjoy it while it lasts. If the space limit doesnt ♥♥♥♥ me over I will be uploading it as a review. If not, oh well. You can do whatever you want with it. I am beyond giving a crap anymore.

[lilnugget76]

been 10 years still love the game for what it is!!! i miss the blunderbuss....

[unknownjedi112]

This is spot on. Part of my complaint isn't the changes, it's the fact that everything is changed. At this point even if I like the changes, chances are next update tfp will completely change it. They won't finish the game, they won't make actual new content. Bandits were promised from the kickstarter we don't have them yet but i am sure glad they added in the sleep dog animation.

[Darren]

Thank you for this, i enjoy reading your posts here. Its a hate-love for me with 7D ( i dont know if this Phrase make sense in English). It gave me so much (even RL) and took it away again - at this point - in this state this is no longer enjoyable for my wife and a really good and special era stops for us, i dont know how long. This is dissapointing and not the first Game. I Try to stop bad changes in a silly hope it would bring back the joy, but i should have learned that i cant stop this. But i'm not tired to try. Bad Changes are bad changes after all and not worth defending them.
This game is/was just different. It gave me and surley other a special feeling playing it, it was (and is still in some points) immersive and this was/is really fun. it was the details that made it so special now disappearing more and more.

its not changes themself - its the direction. If theres a way to stop the direction of this game or the devs took then i'll try everytime. Worse is fighting against that people, that are fighting people for their opinion. opionions are different and thats okay but everyone should share his own without being attacked for it. I call this feedback on this changes and they should be as loud as they can whether they are particularly good or bad. We will see where this journey will end, or will ever end mh? (I mean, 10 years alpha round about, right?)

- A Wannbe-Cowboy born in this imaginated World.

[frostyglen]

I still love the game, but its definitely changed. I first bought it on the playstation. Jump scare when i walked down the street on day 1, and lightning literally struck right next to me. Liked it enough to spend another $25 for the PC version.
It was...not scary, but it was enough that in the early days ( alpha 15? 16? ), I'd literally die because I was too timid to venture out to find water, lol.

Now...after 2000 hrs, I play because I need to figuratively kill ♥♥♥♥.

It's changed, but so have I. $50 bucks for two platforms. 2000 hrs. I'm happy, and I'll play or I won't. I hope their vision in the end matches mine but I'll still go away happy

[frostyglen]

First couple weeks after buying this I literally huddled in that stupid starter home you spawned next to :)...and loved every minute of it.

[onanonehand8]

I've bought this game several times, because my ADHD allows me to either misplace or simply not write my password somewhere. So eventually I need to log in and can't, So new game, new account. So it goes.

I started with Alpha 1. And to me, it should have been called 7 days to quit. I didn't like the game, scratch that, I hated it. So a few years went by and my son in law suggested we make a 4 person server to play together. I think that was alpha 10. Anyway been playing on and off since then.

I always get bored, and leave the game, sometimes for a year. But I always come back and find the game fun again.