What is the plan?
[p]The team is current in pre-production to migrate ZPS to the TF2SDK update-branch. This will bring lots of game features and improvements to the game that will benefit both the dev team and the community as a whole in the long term. Everything discussed below should be considered as a working in progress and subjected to change, scrapped, or even delayed during the porting process due to development reasons.[/p][p][/p]The 'TF2 SDK' update includes the following:
- [p]64-bit Support - Moving from 32bit to 64bit architecture allows the game to utilize your system resources more efficiently than just 4GB of RAM. This should result in smoother gameplay, fewer game crashes, and potentially higher frame rates on modern hardware.[/p][/*]
- [p]Networking Optimizations - There is a lot of prediction fixes included in this update, resulting in less hit registration errors and a better game-feel. This will be a longer process to fine tune it so we will require your feedback in the forums.[/p][/*]
- [p]Steam Networking (Peer-to-Peer) - Players will have the ability to host their own local server and play with their friends or anyone without needing to join a community server or install a Dedicated Server just for the occasion. This is soon to be tested if can be implemented into ZPS.[/p][/*]
- [p]Miscellaneous - There are a bunch of other important backported changes, engine related bug fixes and very minor miscs from the 'TF2 SDK' update that will all be properly included in a future patch and documented, stay tuned for it![/p][/*]
What else is in the 'to-do' list?
- [p]Barricade System Enhancements - To be frankly, I wish to improve our barricade system overall to be more user-friendly and less chaotic without breaking any updated custom maps. We'll be discussing more in another announcement or through Steam forums.[/p][/*]
- [p]Police Station Rework - This reworked version, created by the community-member Sethen, has unfairly been "on-hold" for years. The plan is to bring back up and ship an objective version specifically for this map, rather than replacing the original Survival Police Station. Players will be able to playtest in advance and provide feedback before it goes public.[/p][p][/p][carousel][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/7745c90db6161157924482a1accedaa33157b465.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/f42d86e0b7f83b96fbabbc317c965104bbfa181e.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/4ba0b7702cba0cc6aab42067dcd793de153b7945.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/759c68e27de7ff363c2211b013785b955718fe41.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/221b025507152252fc028d74a4f48c2846f85b49.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/f127390f4b0d2111eb187bc8af6e390a3550bf2e.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/5eede5242c7407c58d8b0049209b8f4923063d5c.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/f71fcd192468a3b08769de5ffdde5f0548a5e924.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/7f74f4b2540293ab434f005defb12853f40bffcd.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/25e04a1b1ba2e18e39c64df4425ba0b425100599.jpg"][/img][/carousel][p][/p][/*]
- [p]Updated Scoreboard - I want to add specific changes to our scoreboard and the round end panel that could result in a better understanding of your game. One is to rework our 'score point system' according to player feedback. Concepts and further discussion will happen in a near future.[/p][/*]
- [p]UI/UX Improvements - There are few issues with the game UI/UX that we've been struggling to fix them over the past years (one of them related to higher resolutions). Perhaps during this port, we may finally be able to solve lots of those VGUI problems once and for all. Time will tell![/p][/*]
- [p]Special Gamemodes - Over the past years, the community has come up with a vast variety of custom gamemodes (PvP, PGM, The Hidden, Combine vs Humans etc) that have been well received and played many times to this day. According to the latest survey, new official gamemodes aren't a high priority, but hope to see additions at some point. I can not promise anything at the current time but to continue pushing improvements to Angelscript for the custom ones.[/p][/*]
Contributor Projects
New Animations
[p]This project aims to improve ZPS player's character models and viewmodels animations, making them high-quality up-to-dated standards with fluid movements, which will also save time and effort for the animators and any modder who wishes to create custom assets for ZPS. [/p][p]The team behind this project are: TexasSteve, HardyNerdy and Silent. They will be required to create a completely new skeleton rig that will be used in all player models for consistency. Steve already shared a work-in-progress on some weapons which you can check out in the video below:[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id9lteYPgss"][/dynamiclink][/p]New Weapons
[p]New rig also means the possibility of new guns. Our first brand-new weapon soon to be added into the ZPS arsenal is a Lever Action Rifle - a Winchester 94. Created by the talented Alvaro Vidal. This rifle will be very powerful at long-range, use a .357 magnum ammo type, have low clip capacity, and a slightly longer reload time than a Revolver but better firerate. All brainstorming for now. More news will be shared in the future detailing when it will be released and what's next. Images below![/p][p][/p][carousel autoadvance="true"][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/365a72c8f77c2875812e10e7bcf999045492f913.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/b4238ac8828958da2f4d40aa70fcba5f9750e7c9.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/2bd6cd000fa6d11defeb5894eb0e11ed719882a9.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/67e329e4e810d105614ec3c47938d6f2e2e22496.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/4d8332cf4b99dfceb12fcbee76a0414ab9313026.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/22bdc4a1ba24614a9b1173b88994cb2c4ec65f20.jpg"][/img][/carousel][p][/p]Characters Overhaul
[p]Once the team have the new model rigging completed, Mage will resume his 'characters overhaul' project and rework the rest of the characters models with better quality and performance in-game. He plans to totally recreate the models from the ground up for both teams, together with concept arts being made by the 2D artist LucaBuca2000. Here is a preview of the new upcoming Carrier design:[/p][p][/p][carousel][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/faab78f7df7139b4ea2b06d1df86bcddd024f84f.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/ff7f5238268ae60c93210948d36736e38f9be3f4.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/e4fe3ac1f2a419acee1d219d015c1ad53313a8ec.jpg"][/img][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/562405/418f34946a8b47ca04d1352e8c616851e2f08350.jpg"][/img][/carousel][p][/p][p]You can follow mage's new Carrier development progress up close in his WIP Gamebanana page here.[/p][p] [/p]Zombie Panic! Sequel/Source 2
[p]Our official FAQ and the ZPS sequel threads have some detailed information about this topic. To recap:[/p]- [p]Source 2 port of ZPS is out of the question. We have NO plans to port ZPS to the new engine without breaking all of our custom content and fully rewriting the source code again. Not worth it.[/p][/*]
- [p]There isn't any fresh news about Monochrome's Zombie Panic sequel in UE4. However, JonnyBoy did say he has plans to move the project to other game-engine platforms where it runs on a heavily modified version of Source 2. There isn't much to discuss right now besides that.[/p][/*]
