Although here was the annual Halloween and Winter Events, they didn't add anything new and only served bring back the previous years content. The last new update was actually the Easter Event.
Truth be told, I've just been way too busy lately with coursework and other projects. It's not that I didn't want to update the game, or that I was abandoning it. But other things took priority. Especially during the Summer and Autumn months where I was hired to work on other people's games.
However now things are stating to get back to normal for a while. There's some free time to work on the game while I'm on break. Here I'll be sharing with you what I'm going to be working on, the state of the game and what's needed before I can start to make actual content updates again.
As you have probably noticed, the game doesn't run that well anymore. It's a mixture between neglect, Roblox updates and sub-optimal coding. The game has also had saving issues for some players which isn't good.
- So first things first we will be working on updating the games code. ALL THE CODE.
- First game update will have primarily the saving system updated, along with all game scripts that rely on this (which is a lot as the entire save structure will be different).
- After that update I will be working on updating the rest of the games code to be cleaner, more efficient and easy to expand upon.
- This will also include updating the weapon system to use my new 6.3 variant.
- These combined updates could take anywhere between: 1-2 months.
At this point the game will be running well enough to have more people playing it, so adverts may run. The game will also be ported over in its current state to the legacy servers as all major changes that happen later on will drastically change how the game plays.
Next is the weapon update phase. Although by this point the game will be using the 6.3 weapon system, that is now actually over 6 months old and I think I can still do way better. So I will be working on a new 7.0 version which will be even more efficient, adaptable, and most importantly handle bullet physics in an optimal way.
For reference PvZ:Battlegrounds uses the 6.0 version which has the new code to enable the easy creation and updating of new weapon types. It can also enable bullet ray tracers.
6.1 could account for MuzzleFlashes and 6.2 allowed for the weapon to fire actual bullet rounds, where the bullet had travel time and would damage the player instead. The 6.2 version was scrapped after not working correctly and slowing the test server down. (It used raycast inefficiently to create the bullets).
The 6.3 version uses BodyVelocity properties to create bullets which isn't ideal, but a nice temporary solution (thanks ShiNumNumi for the code). To sum that up:
- A new 7.0 Weapon system will be created.
- All in-game weapons will be updated to work with the 7.0 Weapon system.
- Weapons will have minor balance changes to make sure they function how they used to when using the old system.
- Estimated time: Two - three weeks.
After that it's time for major game item, weapon and zombie balance changes. Here I'll be going through all the in-game stuff, changing stats, abilities, prices, and even in cases flat out removing certain things.
- Class changes.
- Item changes.
- Armour changes.
- Weapon changes.
- Estimated time: Two - four weeks.
From here it will be time to introduce some new maps, replace any outdated maps (or revamp them) edit any current maps to fit with the new gameplay and redesign the lobby to be easier and more intuitive to use.
- New maps.
- Map updates.
- Map retirements.
- Estimated time: One - three weeks.
The UI is also in need of an update to be more modern and streamlined. As well as making it work with controllers
- Character UI updates.
- Inventory / Shop / Zombie UI updates.
- Item / Ability UI updates.
- Estimated time: One - three weeks.
Finally we can then start to think about introducing new game modes, new Zombie classes, more weapons, character and weapon skins, plus any other important features you guys would want such as map voting and bonus rounds.
Oh and somewhere in there we can throw in fixing and updating the Daily Quest system to work better and be easier to track / complete quests. (Will be done during the save system update).
I think that covers everything. If there's anything else I'll edit this with more information, what this doesn't include is the final polish update which would introduce better animations for the Zombies, custom animations for different weapon types, more sound effects and particles. But that can be talked about at a later date.
When stuff is completed I'll create a new post with a list of in-progress and completed features.
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter to stay up-to-date with any updates, as I'll be posting a lot of videos, pictures and other things to do with the game.
