Fireside Chat #02: A Home on Wheels, Bound for Tomorrow

To all Zeverland Survivors:

It's been a month since the PT2 ended. How have you been holding up in the real world?

We've noticed some of you scrolling through similar games on Steam looking for a stand-in, and checking in daily with "Another day without playtest". Thank you so much for keeping us in your thoughts.

Since sharing the Roadmap last time, we've spent this past month racking our brains over the design of every module. But the blueprint of this world has never been drawn by us alone — it's all of you, adding to it stroke by stroke.

Today, let's toss another log on the fire and take a look at what we've done for this world over the past month.

Q&A on Development Progress

1. The question everyone keeps asking: when is the next playtest / EA?

@Licketysplit: After the test ended I went through every zombie game out there — none of them scratched the itch. We need a little hope: a date for the next playtest, or EA access.

@ThinningThreat: I'd pay full price right now and keep playing through every update.

@姜恶霸: There's an ancient legend that says a playtest is coming in November.

[Response]:

To be honest, we've been stuck on a dilemma: one more week of testing means one less week of building content. Let everyone play more, or get the game to what it's meant to be sooner? We've now made our choice: we're heading into a long stretch of heads-down development.

We're preparing a whole lot of content, with one single goal: the next time you enter Zeverland, you'll find this apocalyptic world way, way, WAY more fun!

The exact date of our next meetup hasn't been finalized yet. Please keep an eye on our announcements. And once again (and again, and again), thank you all!

1. Details on server structure

@wyyyy: So no official servers at launch? All third-party would be kind of boring.

@睡不醒的樱发发啊: So will self-hosted servers be P2P, servers provided officially, or rented official servers?

@但丁: P2P is terrible... getting four people together whose schedules AND connections are all stable is way too hard.

[Response]:

First, to address the biggest worry: it's not P2P. No need to gather four friends with stable schedules and connections, and no need to study ports and hardware. Whether official or private, every server is hosted on our side — all you have to do is log in.

Official servers will always be there. The big, bustling world welcomes you anytime. If you'd rather explore your own private apocalypse with a few friends, you can open an officially hosted private server.

1. On PVE and PVP

@JesterJoe: PVE games go cold fast once the gameplay loop is played out. Only PVP keeps things fresh.

@BaronGlitch: A PVE game... fine, removed from wishlist.

@猫眼石: Wanting PVP is reasonable; forcing everyone into PVP is insane.

@墩布沾屎如同吕布在世: If there's a PVE server I'm definitely in. Not touching PVP — if it's all about PVP, I'm not playing this game at all.

[Response]:

The PVE vs. PVP debate has been going on for a long time, and we know everyone has their own preference. With the studio's current capacity and bandwidth, we want to polish one experience to its very best before digging a new hole. So our choice is: focus on nailing the PVE experience, and set aside PVP-related content for now. In the next playtest we'll also further improve base protection and offline protection.

What Zeverland has wanted to explore from the very beginning is this question: when the world you know is put on pause, how do you survive? And what kind of story will you write on this land? Not just you, either — when survivors meet one another, how do you rekindle the flame of civilization together?

What we want to build has always been a world where you can put up a house in peace, help and be helped by other players, and drive your RV off to watch the sunset.

1. On vehicles — the "home on wheels"

@Rain: A 10L fuel tank really is too small.

@青丝白发乱三千: Realistically, a regular zombie should die instantly when a big truck rams it. But in this game, one little zombie takes about a minute of grinding back and forth to finish off.

@挂件: Hoping modular RVs are on the table next time.

@炸薯球: Add new furniture that's a miniaturized version of the old ones — like a vehicle-mounted workbench — to solve the problem of RVs only coming as trailers.

[Response]:

Fuel consumption will vary by vehicle type going forward, and collision effects will be adjusted based on speed. We've also optimized trailer vehicles: truck cabs and trailers will be connected by hinge joints, making big rigs feel much better to steer and drive.

And here's a little spoiler on this month's vehicle development progress:

Multi-surface snapping: every face of the vehicle body will support placing objects. Roof, sides, rear — hang whatever you want. Put up a painting you love on the side, or a cute little duck up front.

Container modules: different types of containers to match more visions of the apocalypse. Piece together your own home on wheels like building blocks — arranged neatly, and it won't fall apart on the road.

Some current concept art:

Steam post imageSteam post imageSteam post image

1. On homestead building

@北狼君君君君: Placing furniture still needs manual alignment. Snapping to walls would be great — my OCD is dying on the spot.

@虫虫: Honestly, 3 plots is still too few for me. For those of us who love building, what we're asking for is open free-form building, not modular assembly — modular assembly always ends up looking the same.

[Response]:

This month, we focused on developing three features:

• Fly-cam build mode: while building on your own territory, you can switch to a free god's-eye view — whatever looks off, fix it right there.

• Grid snapping & alignment: furniture and decor line up neatly. Great news for the OCD crowd.

• Batch dismantling: no more clearing clutter one click at a time.

This way you can put your energy into designing your home, instead of constantly wrestling with the mouse.

1. On those troublesome companions

@666: Why does a companion sneaking food walk off with ALL of the same item? He left me hundreds of rotten items. That's not raiding the fridge anymore — that's a kitchen destroyer.

@南有嘉鱼: Sent an NPC out to pick apples, and he came back with an empty backpack — ate them all on the way home.

[Response]:

The companions in the PT2 really did know how to stir up trouble. We've had a serious talk with those troublemakers. They say they truly want to do better and promise to become reliable companions. Jokes aside — both types of issues have been logged, and we'll be adjusting companion behavior logic.

Beyond keeping them out of trouble, companions are also getting new features: you'll be able to name your own companions. Friends in the same shelter will also be able to send companions to help each other out. Your companion can go do chores at a friend's base, and your friend's companion can come over to be your muscle.

We're also designing a few new features we can't reveal just yet. We'll share them bit by bit. Feel free to take a guess in the meantime!

1. On "humans turning into zombies"

First, the worries —

@Hemtaj : I didn't even like survival games. It was "playing as a zombie" in the trailer that pulled me in. Please don't cut it.

@toqqlemyfish: Is the dev team removing the play-as-zombie gameplay?

And other players brought plenty of ideas —

@drac30: It'd be better to remove that countdown and replace it with a meter you keep up by feeding.

@Dunn: Hoping player zombies get expanded — like evolving into special infected such as Tanks, Chargers, Hunters, or Witches.

@InfectedRonin: Make an area you can only enter as a zombie — a heavy vertical gate? Turn into a super-strong zombie and come back to open it!

[Response]:

We are not removing "humans turning into zombies."Quite the opposite — we understand the high hopes everyone has for it. In our vision, turning into a zombie deserves a complete gameplay system of its own, which makes it a heavy piece of work to design and build. So at this stage, we want to stay focused: first make the "survive as a human" gameplay rock-solid, then make the "become a zombie" side truly shine.

All the ideas you've raised — a feeding meter instead of a countdown, special infected evolution, zombie-only areas, the "half-zombie hero" questline — have gone straight into our idea vault. The day this gameplay is finally complete, you might just spot the shadow of your own idea in it.

1. On a livelier apocalypse

@玥看世界: Building defenses with teammates while monsters lay siege every few days — adding that kind of gameplay would be the most satisfying.

@艾丽卡: There have to be story-driven events to break up the boredom — even just a distress call over the radio, or a sudden zombie horde siege.

[Response]:

We agree — an apocalypse where you can live safe and sound is disrespectful to survivors. What we can reveal: horde gameplay is currently in design, and it will be grander and more fun than anything we've shown before. It's still in the design phase and being iterated internally. If you have ideas, we'd love to hear them in the comments!

1. On claimed gas stations

@寒峰: Someone claimed the gas station, so new players' main quest drops spawned right inside the red mist. I never got the respirator before the server closed.

[Response]:

Official servers will be adding a new rule: key locations like gas stations and quest points cannot be claimed as private territory.

The Wishing Well: Ideas in Drift Bottles

@tsukimori (Discord): Hoping for a player trading system... I want to build a craftable truck and drive across the map selling the purified water I make.

@Rain: Something like a vending machine works too — set one at your door and set scrap as the price.

— Trade in the wasteland should be free exchange between players.

@艾丽卡: Different waters should hold different fish. Once one bites you should have to play it, and after landing it you could mount it on a display rack to show off to other players.

— The fishing system is already in the works.

@哦吼: Hoping the next test has some dress-up — outfits or a transmog system.

@姜恶霸: All I want is a maid outfit =-= battle maid.

— Transmog is coming. And we hear the calls for the maid outfit, haha.

@狂润: Any chance of a military base dungeon, where you could find a military-grade main battle tank to drive?

— A military base is indeed under consideration. In fact, more types of large POIs are being designed — take a guess at what they are!

The wishing well is open all year round — your drift bottle might be the next one we pick up.

Community Spotlight: Artisans by the Campfire

Cover base image screenshot courtesy of @哈基粥

@ショーン (Sean) (Hiruma_Akina)

@天海

@天気予報醤

Steam post imageSteam post imageSteam post image

The design ideas you've submitted overlap with so much of what we're already building! We're delighted our imaginations of the zombie apocalypse are so alike.

Final Words

That's all for this entry. There's plenty more feedback and suggestions we'll be sorting through for the next one. If there's anything you want to say, leave us a comment!

We are fully devoted to building what comes next. If you don't mind, please add Zeverland to your wishlist — for us, that support is the greatest motivation to keep moving forward!

Thank you all, and see you next time we feed the fire!

— Quantum Quirks