Build 393, Zombies Official! Did it live up to the hype?

First things first, I don't think this is the last of the zombies, so even if it didn't live up to your hype just yet, I'm sure it will do in the future, as even cooler things are added, like dinosaurs.

The command system is really awesome, and the migrants seem far more responsive and useful than before.

The remigration system is a massive boon, and really extends the fun of the game, preventing people from leaving so soon, although it doesn't become too forgiving with the 'remigrate at dawn' - there's no truly instant supply of people in the case of a massive disaster.

Also, chests seem more common in the tunnels, which is pleasant. I like my chests. Just ask Strathos. :3

Overall, the update has been kind, and has fixed a pleasing amount of stuff, and not just in zombies; sure, there are still some awkward problems, but that always happens, and they'll be sorted quickly.

 

I feel bad because as testers we talked about how good it was and you guys got this, I really don't know what happened but what we were playing was fine and most of these bugs we took a lot of time to make sure were fixed, or were things that DID work fine in test build. There are a few things that slipped us cause we never knew they were being changed in any way like red bridges costing 0, but things like fall damage, fast bombs and crazy money, well we messed around on games, so no idea how it happened, but it does suck. We can only hope that through this all of us testers can manage to get together and have some more good testing sessions and look at different things as well as consider them so that they can be fixed by next push out.

I can say that when it gets fixed there are some things that should be noticably better, so can only hope for now a lot of things to get flipped around and fixed.

Many heavily customized servers probably need to recustomize as well, as a few things were changed like what tiles zombies can break and such.

 

Please say that same thing to everyone who 'pre-ordered' Minecraft.

It's an alpha is an excuse that is frankly getting old for the things that are easily avoidable. No one would care if it was an honest mistake or such I believe but it's the overall silliness of how it happens that is the problem isn't it? The fact that it was held back from Friday to test the Release Candidate that didn't have most of these problems to then see released something that has a lot of bugs.

While he may have simply paid for access to the alpha, it's a game that relies heavily on servers, and due to the networking requirements lends towards requiring dedicated servers, these tend to cost money to run so people are indeed paying recurring fees for hosting servers for a game, they aren't asking to 'OMG be out already', they're just asking for the official releases to be more stable before being released.

There really should be 3 levels of the game right now considering how everything works despite being alpha:
1)Versions pushed out to the 'Testing Group' [consider this like nightly releases]
(Testers are people dedicated to testing certain things and catching the bugs that they might miss and making sure no balance is broken)
2)Shortly after pushed to a public 'Test' version [consider this like every damn build]
- These are a mix of release candidates and simply 'builds' good enough to be tested major bugs removed, things that need to be tested in larger bugs are still in
3)Pushed to 'Official' or 'Stable' [this is your current regular client]
- These are stable release candidates that won't make people cringe when they play the game, they might not be flawless but aiming to have one of these out once or twice a month would be nice, basically where you try to catch up all the bugs that were created in that month and make the game playable and fun. (This could always happen weekly depending on how good a job testing has been and how prolific they are that week)

Stable builds don't necessarily have to have anything new, big or exciting, just tweaks and bug removal is more than enough.

In any case just some thoughts, I should stop rambling I'm going to sleep.

 

You are fine with it, it doesn't mean that other people are fine with being lied to and suckered by notch on many turns.
In general prior to Notch and Kickstarter and all of this indie devs were pretty great with making games to be good games.
Post "Shit, we can make money BEFORE WE RELEASE IT?!?!" there have been a few devs who have promised things and then go back on it, since then it is perfectly acceptable to be very cautious when someone promises you things and never delivers for what you paid for.

One could actually take legal action for such a thing, not that one should, when it comes to 'finished projects' without things. It's most likely better in the long run to adopt a service of keeping them happy when you know that some things might not even make it in.
If I hadn't talked with Geti on many occasions and FLAB, and Shad and known how chill they actually are I'd probably see more how people can feel about some of these things, hell even knowing how cool they are some things can be infuriating to degrees y'know ;)

Yes, it's an alpha, and in a typical alpha (millions of years ago when public were never involved in alpha) all your sentiments would be true, but alphas today are basically betas as far as publicity goes, and having that longterm with low stability can be a problem :(