ZombVR News

Greetings and happy new year to all Zombie fans!

It's been awhile since the last post here. Apologies for this. We've been hard at work on the game though nonetheless.

There are a bunch of updates that will be listed below however there is a large one thats been applied that should be mentioned here.

Engine Update
The multiplayer for VR has been quite a challenge, hence the lack of updates in the last couple of weeks. With the dedicated testing help of Manticora here from the forums, we've finally overcome the biggest hurdle. Which is replicating hands and overall movement across the network for other users. It's not perfect.... but it works! You can wave at your friend in VR space real-time... coool!! and kinda creepy.

Anyway, despite the engine having a lot of great aspects, it still is surprisingly weak at supporting VR natively for any somewhat large projects. We decided that we'd try upgrading to the latest version of the engine as we were quite a bit behind. While there are a few new things now supported natively in VR, like Oculus touch, we've found that there was still quite a bit lacking.

Nonetheless we decided to upgrade the engine now to get all the latest engine fixes that aren't VR specific and future proof the game. Especially since the game will be online. This allows future updates to be applied easily going forward. We've spent a lot of time "fixing" things the later version of the engine didn't like. We also had to reapply all the custom code to make the VR specific features we want to use work correctly. There are some lighting and rendering features specific to VR we'd like to optimize at some point. For now some of the levels might look a bit different due to the light rendering of the new engine version.

The update has been completed! The next update you download will be large! Close to a gig to replace the old engine version of the game.

Multi-Player
COOP MP is not quite ready yet but its SUPER close! Movement was the biggest hurdle and thats now resolved. We've been actively testing online for the last few weeks and a bit. Look for updates on that this month. Versus will follow VERY shortly after COOP. So far this is working well with Vive, but not as well with Oculus. Working out the kinks of that. But the MP Coop is now working! Once the interface is done for match making, that update will be out and you can play online together.

Versus will follow shortly after coop is working with a few new maps. After Versus and Coop are officially released, some polish and some touchups on things like the tutorial will be applied. The game can then safely leave EA!

Thanks to all for the support so far and the understanding. We're a small team. Just one really(with help here and there from the community)... and it's been an awesome challenge keeping this game going. It was a large undertaking but it was worth it. It's tough making a game of this caliber while trying to maintain the social aspects like updates here, future planning while holding a standard day job as well. Most of you have been awesome with the feedback and the understanding and I appreciate that immensely. There have been fewer posts here but work has been done daily on the game. Testing VR is extremely tough with one rig! (and frustrating)

Thanks again!

Here are the changes in this update:

ZombVR_b2_2_1_1

1. Old zombies updated--- Textures are now better than the placeholder zombies that weren't so pleasant on the eyes
   
2. Player meshes --- Players now have meshes(avatars) in order to prepare for MP.You can not see your own mesh but its there. Hopefully eventually we can add some personal customization to these. Other MP players can see your whole body though and its animated, walking, running and crouching. Yes... headshots are implemented and so is dying animations!
   
3. Code optimizations for performance (too many to list here)
   
4. Arms! - You now have arms. This is also more for multiplayer so that people can see your animated body, head and legs but also can see your arms in addition to where you move your hands in real time. You CAN see your own arms in the game. MP and SP mode. If you don't like this you can hide them in the menu options.
   
5. Reloading and Auto reload bugs - There were some bugs with reloading and auto reloading that tripped up the animations on the guns at time or caused reloads to stop working. This as been resolved
   
6. More blood... - There is now more blood when you shoot the undead. Also more effects around headshots to make them that much more satisfying... and they are!
   
7. Difficulty settings updated!! - Difficulty settings now change the dynamics of the SP gameplay significantly. The harder two difficulties bring on tougher and faster enemies per round (in Lone Survivor). Also time between rounds and between enemy spawns decreases making you have to work and react faster. The first two difficulties are the same in terms of enemy mods, but the time between spawns and rounds differ.
   
8. New "HUD" placement - The health and armor indicator on the left wrist is now on the back of your left hand. The Zombie count and round indicator is now on the back of your right hand. It's much easier and clearer to read. The ammo indicators now only show up when a gun is equipped and it's on the back of the gun for easy viewin'
   
9. Ongoing General game balancing - Purchase prices, enemy tweaks etc..
   

Other notable items:

• New ZombVR beta branch - You can enable beta in the game and get the MPBeta build we have been testing with. To try the MP you can go follow the "secret spot" instructions in the previous update for now. This build is updated daily, sometimes more than once per day. We also have a habit of breaking things or getting hilarious results testing things (like mile long arms). So feel free to opt in and follow along with us as we test. We'll post some updates more focused on the MP testing so if you happen to be online and want to jump into a game with us to test.. look for that. There will be a more formal announcement for testing MP when the match making interface is done. For now its join first avail match when clicked.
  
• "The Hallway" Onslaught map is still coming... (you can see a preview of it (here) which will introduce a flashlight which is always fun. It's been put on hold in favor of MP but we're making our way back to it soon!
  
• If you haven't already, be sure to try the sniper defense modes! They're super fun. Stop the Zombies from breaching your stronghold (the white skull). There are two maps for this mode...the CrayZMart and the Manor. Both of which will be available in Coop mode.
  

As a reminder, there were some nice updates from last time

1. New Option - Auto reload
   
2. New Option - Swap reload and flip blade buttons
   
3. New Option - Melee weapons stay in hand without having to hold the trigger
   
4. New Option - Run in bursts
   

See updates to this patch [url=http://steamcommunity.com/app/523940/discussions/0/143388511227838627/?tscn=1485394014[]here

Greetings and happy new year to all Zombie fans!

It's been awhile since the last post here. Apologies for this. We've been hard at work on the game though nonetheless.

There are a bunch of updates that will be listed below however there is a large one thats been applied that should be mentioned here.

Engine Update
The multiplayer for VR has been quite a challenge, hence the lack of updates in the last couple of weeks. With the dedicated testing help of Manticora here from the forums, we've finally overcome the biggest hurdle. Which is replicating hands and overall movement across the network for other users. It's not perfect.... but it works! You can wave at your friend in VR space real-time... coool!! and kinda creepy.

Anyway, despite the engine having a lot of great aspects, it still is surprisingly weak at supporting VR natively for any somewhat large projects. We decided that we'd try upgrading to the latest version of the engine as we were quite a bit behind. While there are a few new things now supported natively in VR, like Oculus touch, we've found that there was still quite a bit lacking.

Nonetheless we decided to upgrade the engine now to get all the latest engine fixes that aren't VR specific and future proof the game. Especially since the game will be online. This allows future updates to be applied easily going forward. We've spent a lot of time "fixing" things the later version of the engine didn't like. We also had to reapply all the custom code to make the VR specific features we want to use work correctly. There are some lighting and rendering features specific to VR we'd like to optimize at some point. For now some of the levels might look a bit different due to the light rendering of the new engine version.

The update has been completed! The next update you download will be large! Close to a gig to replace the old engine version of the game.

Multi-Player
COOP MP is not quite ready yet but its SUPER close! Movement was the biggest hurdle and thats now resolved. We've been actively testing online for the last few weeks and a bit. Look for updates on that this month. Versus will follow VERY shortly after COOP. So far this is working well with Vive, but not as well with Oculus. Working out the kinks of that. But the MP Coop is now working! Once the interface is done for match making, that update will be out and you can play online together.

Versus will follow shortly after coop is working with a few new maps. After Versus and Coop are officially released, some polish and some touchups on things like the tutorial will be applied. The game can then safely leave EA!

Thanks to all for the support so far and the understanding. We're a small team. Just one really(with help here and there from the community)... and it's been an awesome challenge keeping this game going. It was a large undertaking but it was worth it. It's tough making a game of this caliber while trying to maintain the social aspects like updates here, future planning while holding a standard day job as well. Most of you have been awesome with the feedback and the understanding and I appreciate that immensely. There have been fewer posts here but work has been done daily on the game. Testing VR is extremely tough with one rig! (and frustrating)

Thanks again!

Here are the changes in this update:

ZombVR_b2_2_1_1

1. Old zombies updated--- Textures are now better than the placeholder zombies that weren't so pleasant on the eyes
   
2. Player meshes --- Players now have meshes(avatars) in order to prepare for MP.You can not see your own mesh but its there. Hopefully eventually we can add some personal customization to these. Other MP players can see your whole body though and its animated, walking, running and crouching. Yes... headshots are implemented and so is dying animations!
   
3. Code optimizations for performance (too many to list here)
   
4. Arms! - You now have arms. This is also more for multiplayer so that people can see your animated body, head and legs but also can see your arms in addition to where you move your hands in real time. You CAN see your own arms in the game. MP and SP mode. If you don't like this you can hide them in the menu options.
   
5. Reloading and Auto reload bugs - There were some bugs with reloading and auto reloading that tripped up the animations on the guns at time or caused reloads to stop working. This as been resolved
   
6. More blood... - There is now more blood when you shoot the undead. Also more effects around headshots to make them that much more satisfying... and they are!
   
7. Difficulty settings updated!! - Difficulty settings now change the dynamics of the SP gameplay significantly. The harder two difficulties bring on tougher and faster enemies per round (in Lone Survivor). Also time between rounds and between enemy spawns decreases making you have to work and react faster. The first two difficulties are the same in terms of enemy mods, but the time between spawns and rounds differ.
   
8. New "HUD" placement - The health and armor indicator on the left wrist is now on the back of your left hand. The Zombie count and round indicator is now on the back of your right hand. It's much easier and clearer to read. The ammo indicators now only show up when a gun is equipped and it's on the back of the gun for easy viewin'
   
9. Ongoing General game balancing - Purchase prices, enemy tweaks etc..
   

Other notable items:

• New ZombVR beta branch - You can enable beta in the game and get the MPBeta build we have been testing with. To try the MP you can go follow the "secret spot" instructions in the previous update for now. This build is updated daily, sometimes more than once per day. We also have a habit of breaking things or getting hilarious results testing things (like mile long arms). So feel free to opt in and follow along with us as we test. We'll post some updates more focused on the MP testing so if you happen to be online and want to jump into a game with us to test.. look for that. There will be a more formal announcement for testing MP when the match making interface is done. For now its join first avail match when clicked.
  
• "The Hallway" Onslaught map is still coming... (you can see a preview of it (here) which will introduce a flashlight which is always fun. It's been put on hold in favor of MP but we're making our way back to it soon!
  
• If you haven't already, be sure to try the sniper defense modes! They're super fun. Stop the Zombies from breaching your stronghold (the white skull). There are two maps for this mode...the CrayZMart and the Manor. Both of which will be available in Coop mode.
  

As a reminder, there were some nice updates from last time

1. New Option - Auto reload
   
2. New Option - Swap reload and flip blade buttons
   
3. New Option - Melee weapons stay in hand without having to hold the trigger
   
4. New Option - Run in bursts
   

See updates to this patch [url=http://steamcommunity.com/app/523940/discussions/0/143388511227838627/?tscn=1485394014[]here

We've been making excellent progress on the Co-op and MP framework as of late. We're still waiting on our extra headsets (though we have the controllers) to test local multiplayer. Since we've had some dedicated players in here helping us along the way, we're going to put a fresh build out soon that will have some MP features enabled.

It may... well, it will be BUGGY as hell since it's impossible to test with a single headset, but this way you can all help if you feel like it. This will dramatically speed up fixes and get this game out of EA and have it fully functional much faster.

We can't give an exact date for this release yet, but we're talking in the next couple of days or so. This doesn't mean it will work then...(but it might).. anyway. To not confuse those that have the game but DON'T check the updates here, we aren't enabling the Multiplayer button by default.

Look for version ZombVR_b2_2_0_0 in the top right. That or higher and you can press this secret spot to unlock the Multiplayer button. It won't light up when you do it so just click the secret spot, then click Multi-Player!

Coop in Survivor and Sniper Defense mode will be the first available.
While we're confident that multiple people can join a LAN game at this point. How you will look to each other will be ridiculous and also we haven't been able to test the public MP so this is where you come in.

1. Click Secret Spot
2. Click Multiplayer
3. Choose Coop mode
4. Choose Survivor or Sniper Defense
5. Wait for others to join the lobby
6. Vote on the map you want and Ready Up



Just remember, it will be SUPER buggy! So please keep in mind you are helping to alpha test these features. If you're discouraged by bugs and don't enjoy the "building" process, please enjoy the SP modes until this is more fleshed out!

Oculus users please report any issues in the discussions! We personally haven't been able to test the Oculus controls as we're expecting our headset for Oculus on Monday! From the remote testers we got feedback that the reload button is too sensitive and where its placed is difficult to avoid accidentally hitting. Please use the swap reload button option or auto reload if you have this problem.

Thanks! Hope to see some of you in ZombVR soon!

We've been making excellent progress on the Co-op and MP framework as of late. We're still waiting on our extra headsets (though we have the controllers) to test local multiplayer. Since we've had some dedicated players in here helping us along the way, we're going to put a fresh build out soon that will have some MP features enabled.

It may... well, it will be BUGGY as hell since it's impossible to test with a single headset, but this way you can all help if you feel like it. This will dramatically speed up fixes and get this game out of EA and have it fully functional much faster.

We can't give an exact date for this release yet, but we're talking in the next couple of days or so. This doesn't mean it will work then...(but it might).. anyway. To not confuse those that have the game but DON'T check the updates here, we aren't enabling the Multiplayer button by default.

Look for version ZombVR_b2_2_0_0 in the top right. That or higher and you can press this secret spot to unlock the Multiplayer button. It won't light up when you do it so just click the secret spot, then click Multi-Player!

Coop in Survivor and Sniper Defense mode will be the first available.
While we're confident that multiple people can join a LAN game at this point. How you will look to each other will be ridiculous and also we haven't been able to test the public MP so this is where you come in.

1. Click Secret Spot
2. Click Multiplayer
3. Choose Coop mode
4. Choose Survivor or Sniper Defense
5. Wait for others to join the lobby
6. Vote on the map you want and Ready Up



Just remember, it will be SUPER buggy! So please keep in mind you are helping to alpha test these features. If you're discouraged by bugs and don't enjoy the "building" process, please enjoy the SP modes until this is more fleshed out!

Oculus users please report any issues in the discussions! We personally haven't been able to test the Oculus controls as we're expecting our headset for Oculus on Monday! From the remote testers we got feedback that the reload button is too sensitive and where its placed is difficult to avoid accidentally hitting. Please use the swap reload button option or auto reload if you have this problem.

Thanks! Hope to see some of you in ZombVR soon!

We're pleased to announce that Oculus Touch is now supported by ZombVR!

A Note from the creators:
We've been a bit less active here lately. As you all know we have full time day jobs and sometimes those keep us working upwards of 15+ hours a day. Anyone in the IT realm knows how that goes. There are ups and downs and it's been really busy for us lately. But we're back. Hopefully this brings some more of the ZombVR survivors out of hiding to post their thoughts and feelings.

We'd like to hear from you all! Don't be shy please. Onto the goods....

The Updates
Unfortunately we're still waiting to receive the headsets to properly test it locally here but we've had a few volunteers that have assisted us in getting the controls ported over. It's been tough as the volunteers are on the other side of the country but we've made progress.

Check the controls link HERE for the a list of VIVE and OCULUS controls for ZombVR. There will be some refining of this once we get our headsets to test in real time, but at this point the controls work wonderfully on Touch and VIVE!

Additionally, check out these visual representations of the controls for both the HTC Vive and the Oculus Touch!



HTC Vive Controls



Oculus Touch Controls

Please note: The tutorial will still need to be updated in game for the Oculus Touch. At the moment the tutorial only pertains to those with the HTC Vive!

What's next?
Cross-compatibility and MP testing is set to begin Mid Dec, however without the additional headsets we can't test this very efficiently, so we'll develop toward it but the date may be delayed. We'll be able to release some early MP functionality publicly shortly after we can test ourselves. We'll start by offering COOP in the current maps and are developing the MP maps in the meantime.

Until Multi-Player?:
Look for the new Onslaught map (the Hallway) coming in the next week. As well as the updates below and ongoing bugfixes, improvements. Oh and Bee has promised to create some cooler looking Zombies to get rid of the remaining low res ones still plaguing the outbreak!

List of changes out now:
ZombVR_b2_1_4_4

• New Feature--Oculus Touch support is now LIVE! (only menu button is not supported natively in the engine yet, but will be soon. Work around is to Press X and A at same time)
  
• New Feature--Controls for both the HTC Vive and the Oculus Touch can be viewed in-game in the options menu!
  
• New Option--Added option to allow right trackpad/joystick for LOOKING/TURNING (look/turn left, right - for those too lazy to stand up to play VR and would like to sit down ːsteammockingː )
  
• New Option--Added option to SWAP the RELOAD and the FLIP BLADE buttons. Some were having issues during tight fights, or in fits of panic they were squeezing the grips and wasting their bullets. If you have this issue, swap the buttons so the reload is a top button and the holstering is the grips. Oculus Touch players may want to enable this as the TOUCH grip buttons are tough to aboid pressing by accident and have little resistance
  
• New Option--Added option where you can set whether or not melee weapons stay in your hands when picked up without having to hold the trigger. It's a less realistic feel but it may be nicer for those that want long term melee combat. Keep in mind, with this enabled you will have to drop melee weapons using the drop controls (like currently done with guns)
  
• New Option--Added an AUTO RELOAD option. If you don't feel like the realism of interactive reloading but still wanna shoot some zombies, the guns will reload automatically if you enable this. It's also good if you're new to ZombVR, to get used to the other controls. This will only be available in SP modes.
  
• Bug Fix--Fixed Zombies spawning into stuck "break" area outside in the Watercooler map
  
• Bug Fix--Fixed issue in watercooler where music is lost once the Office is entered from the Parking lot
  

As always, report bugs or suggestions here. We listen!