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Author Topic: state of decay/project zomboid on Steam (are these ready to buy?)  (Read 2434 times)

guessingo

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I asked some questions abut these games on the steam forums, but there are alot of fanboys. Has anyone played these? I am skeptical of alpha/beta games. I know I can't buy Zomboid on Steam yet, but its where I found it (I can get it on desura). Both are relatively cheap, so I take that in consideration.

State of Decay: XBOX game porting to PC. Still have to use xbox controllers. Ok with this, since I prefer an xbox controller. Several people posted that this game is loaded with bugs that basically for a restart. Its most unique feature is that the simulation runs even when offline. the bugs are disturbing since this is a finished product and a port. so if its buggy, it will stay buggy for the PC. I don't mind some graphical glitches here and there I saw pointed to, but if i have to start over just because I did missions in the wrong order, not sure I want to bother.

Project Zomboid: Beta game. most beta games have beter organized changelogs. The website for this focused on 'pretty', so its hard to see when they made changes and what they have done. I think this is important, because I am buying a game that is not yet finished so I want to make sure they are adding features (go see how disgruntled beta participants are with Towns). When I asked about this the fanboys pointed to 'steam integration' and 'translations' (to other languages) and key features. Why would I care about this? I care about content. Supposedly the NPCs are disabled since they don't work right. It has a mod engine. Its hard to tell how good it is. Some engines let people do more stuff than others.

are these games at a state worth buying?
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Ivefan

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Re: state of decay/project zomboid on Steam (are these ready to buy?)
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2013, 10:12:11 am »

Zomboid can be fun for the interested and i did enjoy the time i've played, but at times i felt that it would be better played after some more development.
The mechanics is in there for surviving alone in a zombie town but that is also all that is in it so you'll have to set your own goals.
I do not know the current price so i guess it depends on how thick your wallet is if you should buy it or not and i would say that the value you get for your money is still higher than a bunch of AAA titles but in the current state of the game development, that might not mean much.
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nenjin

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Re: state of decay/project zomboid on Steam (are these ready to buy?)
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2013, 10:13:06 am »

PZ is worth the buy, although that depends on what price point you're comfortable with.

Been following it since the beginning. They've done a lot of work and the game has come a long way in the last ~2 years. Right now they're focusing on their push into wider markets, since they've been doing everything up to this point off their own webspace and eventually Desura. That said, judging dev effort based on the moment you chose to start paying attention to the game isn't exactly fair. Although I agree that their front page is a trainwreck and isn't conducive to figuring out what's been done. I can definitely say the game has been getting meaningful updates. (Not exactly sure what the plan is for the next year+.) The game is functionally complete according to what they intended to make when they started.

SoD.....I'd wait personally. PC controls can only make it better, and I'm not yet convinced the game has the legs for long-term play.
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Wiles

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Re: state of decay/project zomboid on Steam (are these ready to buy?)
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2013, 11:07:24 am »

I put 20 hours into state of decay and I definitely enjoyed my time with it. I've read the keyboard + mouse controls are a work in progress, but I never tried them, I just used my logitech controller. After I finished the campaign at the 20 hour mark I could have gone back and continued playing with my group of survivors but I felt that at that point the game would have gotten repetitive and I would lose interest before too long. I thought it would be better to wait for the incoming sandbox DLC before I started up again.

If you have a controller that you are comfortable with I'd definitely recommend it. Even in its early access state I encountered very few bugs during my playthrough and none of them were show stopping. The bugs I encountered were generally minor and didn't effect my enjoyment of the game. If you don't have a controller it might be worthwhile waiting until they have that aspect of the port finished. My biggest complaint about the game is the difficulty - it was challenging at times but generally it was a bit easy. Don't get me wrong though, the game was tough enough to keep me entertained, I just felt it could have been turned up a notch. I'm pretty mediocre when it comes to gaming ability, so I could understand how someone who is very good at games could find the title "too easy". I'm not sure if that particular aspect will change much, but I have read that the upcoming sandbox DLC  will have increasingly difficult stages.

Overall I'd say it was probably the best zombie game that focused on survival that I have ever played. To be fair though I haven't played many as most zombie games focus on the action.  I felt I got my money's worth, but if you are on the fence it might be worthwhile to wait until it is finished or goes on sale.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2013, 11:10:45 am by Wiles »
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CognitiveDissonance

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Re: state of decay/project zomboid on Steam (are these ready to buy?)
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2013, 11:52:58 am »

I put 20 hours into state of decay and I definitely enjoyed my time with it. I've read the keyboard + mouse controls are a work in progress, but I never tried them, I just used my logitech controller. After I finished the campaign at the 20 hour mark I could have gone back and continued playing with my group of survivors but I felt that at that point the game would have gotten repetitive and I would lose interest before too long. I thought it would be better to wait for the incoming sandbox DLC before I started up again.

If you have a controller that you are comfortable with I'd definitely recommend it. Even in its early access state I encountered very few bugs during my playthrough and none of them were show stopping. The bugs I encountered were generally minor and didn't effect my enjoyment of the game. If you don't have a controller it might be worthwhile waiting until they have that aspect of the port finished. My biggest complaint about the game is the difficulty - it was challenging at times but generally it was a bit easy. Don't get me wrong though, the game was tough enough to keep me entertained, I just felt it could have been turned up a notch. I'm pretty mediocre when it comes to gaming ability, so I could understand how someone who is very good at games could find the title "too easy". I'm not sure if that particular aspect will change much, but I have read that the upcoming sandbox DLC  will have increasingly difficult stages.

Overall I'd say it was probably the best zombie game that focused on survival that I have ever played. To be fair though I haven't played many as most zombie games focus on the action.  I felt I got my money's worth, but if you are on the fence it might be worthwhile to wait until it is finished or goes on sale.

Just to add to this - I've played SoD on Xbox following Revocane's LP, and had a blast. I consider myself quite excellent at video games, and the game is in fact somewhat easy... but it actually was not a detriment at all. It is a game that takes its time, and I actually found it quite immersive and relaxing. Also, I've been following the developer (Undead Labs) and they are an outstanding bunch of devs. I trust them to make this game even better as times goes.
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Zangi

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Re: state of decay/project zomboid on Steam (are these ready to buy?)
« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2013, 12:07:09 pm »

State of Decay is playable from start to finish. 
Controller is recommended, I use PS3/Motionjoy.  Keyboard+Mouse is possible, but not optimized/clear.  Do not be like a quarter of the vocal population and use KB+M expecting it to be 'good' and then start complaining about it when it isn't... before UndeadLabs even starts to work on the KB+M.

As for bugs, I've personally encountered some, but some of those may be holdovers from the XBox version.
There is the story, but it is not really what I'm interested in.  And the tutorial, which you gotta go through each and every time you start a new game...  Of course, I'm already waiting for the Sandbox DLC so I won't have to suffer the tutorial anymore.  (And so I won't burn myself out.)

Modding technically won't be officially supported in the form of no modding tools, which sucks, but people are already working on modding the game. 
(I guess so XBox players won't get butthurt over it... >.>)
EDIT: And Microsoft is their publisher too... so that may say something...
« Last Edit: October 09, 2013, 08:55:04 am by Zangi »
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