Dead Frontier Development Blog

Double EXP Begins

2012-01-28T02:59:00.001-08:00

The Double EXP event has begun, and will continue until 10pm EST tonight! Gentlemen, start your grinding :)

http://www.deadfrontier.com

Double EXP this Saturday

2012-01-26T08:43:00.000-08:00

Double EXP this Saturday!
I'm just writing to let you know that we'll be holding a double EXP event this Saturday. Players will receive 2x EXP in all forms (from Missions, OAs and normal kills) on Saturday the 28th of January, between 6am EST and 10pm EST. So, if you've got a character that needs some levelling up, this would be the perfect time to do it!

http://www.deadfrontier.com

Dislocated Shoulder + Surgery

2012-01-19T03:40:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I dislocated my right shoulder. Many of you will know that this has happened to me several times before. At this stage I've dislocated my left shoulder once, and my right shoulder three times.

Normally dislocating a shoulder is something that only happens to me when doing something fairly manly (such as rock climbing, firing a bow or doing an assault course). However this time was different... I did it by yawning. I'm really not joking.

Apparently my right shoulder is so loose, and so badly damaged from my previous injuries that simply raising my right arm above my head and stretching/yawning, is enough to dislocate it. Unfortunately, dislocating a shoulder whilst yawning is just as painful, and just as damaging as doing it through some kind of sport.

It's been about a week since I did it, and I'm now recovered enough to use the computer (although it still hurts a bit). The bad news is that I'm definitely going to need surgery to repair the damage if I ever want to return to a semi-active lifestyle. I'm expecting to have the operation in early February. Once it's done it'll probably 2 months before I'll be able to use the arm again.

Once those two months have passed, I'm also seriously considering having the same operation on the left arm. Whilst i'ts only been fully dislocated once before, it does partially dislocate every now and then (pops out for a second then goes back in by itself). Therefore, I will almost certainly need the operation at some point in the future, and I think I would rather get it all out of the way at once than live with the fear of future dislocations for several more years (probably sounds cheesy, but I'm sure anyone who's the done the same would agree with me that dislocating a shoulder is one of the most painful things that can happen to your body).

As I'm sure you can imagine all of this is going to hinder my progress on DF somewhat. I will still be doing stuff during my recovery period, but it's not going to be anything spectacular unfortunately.

I know this isn't the update many of you were hoping for, and I won't be surprised if some of you are annoyed. But anyway, I suppose posting this is far better than keeping quiet.

Xmas Exp

2011-12-23T10:30:00.000-08:00

Seeing as it's Christmas we're also going to give everyone an extra +50% EXP until Boxing Day. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas Dead Frontier!

2011-12-23T10:06:00.001-08:00

The Dead Frontier staff and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We hope you enjoyed playing Dead Frontier this year as much as we enjoyed developing it. 2012 promises to be an exciting new year with many awesome new features coming to the zombie infested streets of Fairview. Stay tuned for updates!

Also, we'd like to remind everyone that the Corpse Grinder will only be available until the end of December, so if you were planning on grabbing one now is the time to do so.

Check it out in the Credit Shop:

http://bit.ly/frN5dD

Best Wishes From,
Neil (AdminPwn) and all the Staff at Dead Frontier

Stat Boosters

2011-12-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

We've just added Stat Boosters to Dead Frontier. These shots will grant your character either +35% damage, +35% run/walk speed, or +50% EXP for a full 24 hours. You can even take one of each to get all 3 bonuses at the same time!

Check them out in the Credit Shop:
http://bit.ly/tWsQQa

Corpse Grinder

2011-11-30T07:13:00.001-08:00

To celebrate Christmas 2011 I've just released a new Limited Edition chainsaw. The Corpse Grinder is the most powerful chainsaw in the game, and will only be available until December 31st so get it while you still can!

Check it out in the Credit Shop:

http://bit.ly/frN5dD

New baby on the way

2011-11-30T03:02:00.000-08:00

Just a quick heads up. My 2nd son is due to be born any day now, so it's quite unlikely that I'm going to make any significant progress on DF over the next 4 weeks or so (if it's anything like last time, I won't be sleeping *at all* in December).

Awesome zombie cake

2011-11-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

Not really anything to do with development, but figured I'd mention this since it's zombie related. Today was my 25th birthday, and my wife surprised me with an utterly epic zombie cake. Here are some pics:

Okay, now that I've shown the world what it looks like, it's time to eat it. Om nom nom...

P.S Yes my wife calls me Boo Boo.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T01:56:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Halloween today, we're giving everyone double their normal EXP for the next 24 hours. Enjoy!

In other news as I'm sure most of you already know, Dead Frontier now:

Has some cool music by Brodie Bowie in the Inner City.

Has weather cycles, including rain, fog, daylight and moonlight.

Has been updated to from Unity 2.6 to Unity 3.4, this should make the game much prettier whilst also giving better performance for the majority of people. It also means when Unity 3.5 arrives, we'll be able to upgrade right away. Unity 3.5 should give us yet another major performance boost for any computer with more than one processor core (that means basically any computer made in the last 4 years).

Has non-browser caching. This essentially means that you'll only have to reload the game client when a new update comes out (approx, 1-2 times per month). This will be a big improvement for people with slower connections.

Memory usage of the game has been reduced from around 1GB to just 400-500mb, which will help those with older systems.

Unfortunately I didn't finish getting those 40 new missions implemented due to being sidetracked with the above things. However I will now be adding those very soon.

Corpse Carapace and Corpse Mask

2011-10-15T09:47:00.001-07:00

To celebrate Halloween 2011 we've just released some cool limited edition equipment: the Corpse Carapace and Corpse Mask. They are only available until November 10th so get them while you can!

Check them out in the Credit Shop:
http://bit.ly/frN5dD

Let the grinding commence!

2011-10-04T11:08:00.001-07:00

It has begun. Everyone will receive triple EXP for the next 8 hours. Enjoy!

Triple EXP Tuesday!

2011-10-03T16:34:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow evening (Tuesday 4th October 2011) from 2pm EST until 10pm EST all characters will receive 3x their normal EXP. This includes normal exp from zombies, boss exp, mission rewards and OA bonuses :)

Why am I doing this? Well we really want to see how well our servers can handle an abnormally large number of players. We want to get literally as many people online as humanly possible during that time, so we can find any weaknesses. This will mean that in the future a large spike in player numbers will be less likely to cause problems for our servers, which will make the game far more enjoyable for everyone.

So, make sure you're online tomorrow between 2pm and 10pm EST! And if you have any friends who have a DF account, be sure to tell them about this mini-event :)

Times around the world:
11am until 7pm PST (West Coast USA)
12pm until 8pm MDT (Central USA)
1pm until 9pm CDT (Central USA)
2pm until 10pm EST (East Coast USA)
7pm until 3am GMT (UK)
8pm until 4am GMT+1 (Western Europe)
10pm until 6am GMT+3 (Russia)
5am until 1pm AEST (Wednesday 5th) (Australia)

Quick update

2011-09-23T03:53:00.001-07:00

Just thought I'd let you guys know where I'm up to at this stage:

Right now I'm putting the finishing touches to the next batch of 40+ missions and they should be released before the end of the month. I'm also working on bug fixes, optimizations and smaller improvements to the game/site. In addition I'm going to be adding some music and day/night/weather cycles to inner city in a couple of weeks.

I expect to begin serious work on interiors/barricading in late October or early November.

Not all that exciting, but I thought I'd mention that I've commissioned a new 3D rendered cinematic intro, which I expect to be ready sometime in December.

Some of you were wondering why the beta warning was removed from the login page. I'm not trying to say that the game is finished, because it definitely isn't. I just don't want new players to feel scared that they're going to lose their account at some point, or that they're going to encounter tons of bugs, because that isn't the case. The game is actually very stable at this point.

Missions

2011-08-24T04:28:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to say that missions have now been released for all players. Enjoy!

Blog Changes

2011-08-19T01:11:00.001-07:00

I've decided I'm no longer going to post a daily list of what I've been doing/working on. I recently explained that I had been sick for two days and that prompted certain people to post negative comments, implying that I should in fact be working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, and that being sick in apparently unacceptable.

I've worked incredibly hard these last couple of months, and my 'reward' for it is yet more abuse and negative comments. It's clear that even if I was working 22 hours a day, 365 days a year a good proportion of you would still be unhappy. I should of known, because that's exactly how it's worked since I first started making this game.

Here is one thing I'd like to note. If you're not happy with the game as it stands, then please, PLEASE, don't spend money on it. You aren't 'pre-ordering' a feature that I'm going to create in the future. In addition, spending money on DF does not make you my boss. When you buy credits or a GM, you are paying for those things as they exist in the current game at this time, nothing else.

I'm going to continue working on missions, fixing bugs and adding new ones until the end of this month. Then in September I'm going to work on fixing the other major long-term flaws with the game such as lag, mutiplayer sync, high memory usage etc and convert the project from Unity 2.6 to 3.4 whilst implementing non-browser caching for faster loading times.

After that I'm not making any promises. I'll probably work on interiors and barricading, but I'm not going to post an ETA. It'll be done when it's done.

Week starting 15th Aug 2011

2011-08-15T04:54:00.000-07:00

Monday:
Missions
Yet more bug fixes

Tuesday:
Bug fixes

Wednesday:
Not feeling too great so took today off.

Thursday:
Same as Wednesday, though starting to a feel a little better. Should be able to get some more missions done tomorrow.

Week Starting 8th of August

2011-08-09T00:54:00.001-07:00

Monday
Weekend break

Tuesday
Missions

Expecting to have enough done for GMs to play by sometime this evening.

Tuesday Evening
Missions

Just a few minutes away now. Thought I should mention that the final artwork is not yet ready, so you will see a lot of ugly placeholder stuff. That of course will be sorted as soon as the final artwork is done. I'd also like to note that we literally only have 6 missions at the moment, 2 at Nastya's, 2 at Fort, 1 at Precinct and 1 at Dogg's. Of course many more will be added in the next few weeks. Due to the small number of missions you'll only be able to do one per day for the time being.

Wednesday
Mission bug fixes and improvements

Some people are complaining about bugs, difficulty/balance and some issues with seeing your briefing etc. Rest assured I'll be addressing all of these problems. Remember that this is a brand new feature and is likely to have these kind of teething issues for the next couple of weeks or so.

Thursday
Missions

Friday
Went on an assault course activity day with Ian (Xaelath). Managed to dislocate my right arm again. Went to a hospital where instead of slowly manipulating the arm back into the correct position (like they did the last two times), the doctor decided to violently force it into place as quickly as he possibly could. It didn't work, and the end result was the worst pain I've felt in my life (despite being on 10mg of morphine), and judging by how my arm feels today they did some extra damage in the process. In the end I had to be sedated for them to get it back in. I'll make sure not to go to that hostpial again.

Luckily I can still use it enough to continue adding missions.

Saturday
Missions
Bug fixes

Sunday
Missions
Bug fixes

Week starting 1st August 2011

2011-08-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

Monday:
Missions

Tuesday:
Missions

On Friday I'll be going away with Nastya for a long weekend. I was originally planning to release missions for GMs before then. Even though I think that's still possible, it would be pretty risky. I wouldn't have time to thoroughly test everything so there could be a lot of serious bugs. Normally that's not a big issue because I'm around to fix problems as soon as they occur. But being away will make this impossible (Nastya will kill me if I spent our weekend working!). So I've decided it'll be better to wait until I'm back. The ETA is now sometime Tuesday (or possibly Wednesday) next week.

Wednesday:
Missions

Thursday:
Missions

Friday+Saturday+Sunday:
Weekend break

Week Starting 25th of July 2011

2011-07-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

Monday:
Missions

Tuesday:
Missions

Wednesday:
Random bug fixes
More anti-cheat stuff

Thursday:
Woke up today to find my hard disk had died. Luckily I have everything backed up online, but it's still going to delay me a bit. Have to wait until tomorrow for a new disk to be delivered, and once that's in it's going to take a while to download all 51GB of data back on to it. There are still some bits a pieces for missions I can get done while I'm waiting however.

Friday:
New hard disk eventually arrived (was supposed to be before 9am but didn't get here until 3pm). Since then I've been fighting with the stupid online backup service's data restore process. Got the first 10GB of data, only for the software crash. After restarting the restore it went right back to the beginning >.< I'm now attempting another restore method. At this rate I probably won't have all my necessary files until the end of tomorrow. Unfortunately all of this is beginning to cut a serious hole in my schedule as there isn't much else I can do until my files have been restored. So looks like there is going to be a delay on the missions being released.

Saturday:
Managed to get my most important DF files downloaded overnight so was actually able to get quite a lot of mission stuff done today after all. Aiming to have something ready for GM's in the next few days.

Sunday:
Missions

Week starting 18th July 2011

2011-07-21T04:32:00.001-07:00

Monday:
Missions

Tuesday:
Bug fixes
Took Nastya to see last Harry Potter film

Wednesday:
Was with Nastya in hospital most of the day. Not going to go into detail but was all fine in the end.

Thursday:
Tweaked exp again
Bug fixes
Missions

Friday:
Missions

Saturday:
Missions

Sunday:
Missions
Took Matty to the park

Week Starting 11th July 2011

2011-07-11T09:35:00.000-07:00

Monday:
More bug fixes for anti-cheat

Tuesday:
Mission artwork specifications
Started mission programming

Just in case anyone is interested, here is a rough mock up of what the mission/event briefing screen might look like:

Wednesday
Mission system

Thursday
Mission system

Some of you asked about an ETA for the missions. I expect to have the core system finished sometime around the 25th of this month. Although, we wouldn't have any proper missions created, so I'd expect another week after that before we would have enough for things to be playable. So GMs should have access to some missions at the start of next month, and everyone else will get them a couple of weeks after that.

Friday
Mission system

Saturday
Mission system

Sunday
I'm spending today making some changes to the game.

- Made it impossible for other people to see your credits and inventory contents. This was a response to complaints about privacy.

- Raised the exp required for levels 30+. The sudden surge in the number of level 200 characters was a wake up call that the exp rate had gotten a bit too high. Once missions are released it'll be possible to gain even more, so something had to be done to stop the game getting too easy.

- Level 200s now have permanent access to the Dusk shop. This a response to complaints that anyone with a lot of real life commitments would never be able to dedicate an entire week to winning entry into the Dusk shop, and therefore would never be able to have the best equipment in the game. So instead it's now possible to eventually get the Dusk gear by levelling less frequently over a greater period of time.

Week Starting 4th July

2011-07-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

Monday:
Anti-cheat continued

Tuesday:
Anti-cheat continued

Wednesday:
Anti-cheat finished =)

Thursday:
PvP kill logging
Bug fixes for Anti-Cheat

Friday:
Dentist appointment
Weight training
Bug fixes for Anti-Cheat

Saturday:
Bug fixes for Anti-Cheat
Mission system planning

Sunday:
Bug fixes for Anti-Cheat
Took son out for the rest of the day

Week starting 27th June 2011

2011-06-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

Monday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued
- Went to little brother's family b-day party (yes two parties)

Tuesday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued *yawn*

Wednesday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued

Looks like anti-cheat is going to take a few days more than expected. So, might not be able to start on missions until around the 4th of July. (I said "start on missions" but actually I'm not doing it from scratch - I already did about half of the code for it earlier in the year)

Thursday:
- Took Nastya out for the day
- Weight training

Friday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued

Saturday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued

Sunday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued

Week starting 20th June

2011-06-23T03:59:00.001-07:00

I've decided to note when I've spent a significant amount of time during a day not working on DF (2 hours or more). It's not much good saying "I worked on X" today, if it was only 20 minutes and the rest of the day was spent watching TV. So going to be adding some personal stuff in there too.

Monday:
- Finalized contracts with UltimatePay
- Planned anti-cheat overhaul

Tuesday:
- Started work on the anti-cheat overhaul

Wednesday:
- Added new payment system to replace BMTMicro (UltimatePay)

Thursday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued
- Went to little brother's sports day

Friday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued
- Weight training

Saturday:
- Anti-cheat overhaul continued

Sunday:
- Chaperoned little brother's birthday party

New weapons

2011-05-17T06:25:00.000-07:00

We've just released a whole new bunch of epic weaponry. These powerful weapons can either be bought in the Credit Shop or looted in the end zone. In addition there are several new Dusk weapons available for those who win the weekly Top PK or Top Survivor competition. Go check them out at http://www.deadfrontier.com

It's Easter =)

2011-04-11T01:13:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Easter 2011 I've released a new set of limited edition items - Easter Eggs. Each egg contains one random piece of equipment, which is guaranteed to be worth substantially more than the cost of the gift itself. There are two types, standard and elite which are now available from the Credit Shop.

This amazing deal will finish on the 1st of May 2011, so hurry up and get them while you still can!

2011-03-09T05:09:00.000-08:00

New zombies and boss loots are out!

Please note that they are probably unbalanced and there may be some bugs. Of course I'll fix these problems up over the next few days.

Enjoy!

2011-03-05T07:17:00.001-08:00

Yes, it's been way more than the 'few days' I originally quoted. Sorry about that everyone. The update is coming soon. Part of the reason for the hold up is that instead of just adding a couple of new enemies I've decided to add them *all*, along with all their special abilities.

Aiming for mid next week now. Please don't kill me.

2011-02-24T03:06:00.001-08:00

Okay, it looks like I'm going to be unable to get the non-browser caching finished so soon after all. I'm having a lot of problems with it. Going to add a couple of new enemies instead.

2011-02-21T06:32:00.000-08:00

In a day or two I'll be releasing an update containing the following things:

- Boss loots
- Tons of bug/glitch fixes (think I got them all this time :P)
- Non-browser caching

That last one means that once you complete the loading screen once, you won't see it again unless an update happens (which from now on will probably be roughly once every month) or you decide to manually clear your Unity cache. This should make the game a lot more enjoyable for those will slower connections.

New enemies will follow shortly after that.

Recent updates

2011-01-10T02:21:00.000-08:00

There has been quite a few updates to the game in the last week or so.

The first of which is the Arena. Accessible from every outpost is now a PvP Arena where you can fight without needing to worry about maintenance costs for your character. When you die or leave the arena, you health and armour are restored back to full. You also don't lose any cash or exp when you die, and death in the Arena does not count for winning the Top Survivor award. The idea of this is to allow people to PvP for fun. You still get PvP points in the Arena, but only 1/4 what you'd get from fighting in the Inner City.

The other major update is to the Credit shop. Prices have been significantly reduced across the board. In addition, I have also removed the Gau-19. It may come back at a later date, but for now it is 100% unavailable for purchase.

Gold Memberships have had their benefits boosted significantly. They now only need 5 seconds to revive after death, and gain double exp (rather than the previous +25%). They also have even higher looting chances than before.

And finally, assault rifles and heavy machine guns have had their damage boosted slightly. Excluding the GAU, I felt they were underpowered when you considered the ammo costs. Hopefully this should balance things out more.

2010-12-24T06:12:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Eat tons of food and get very drunk (if you're old enough of course). That's an order! =D

2010-12-19T05:04:00.001-08:00

It's starting to get close to Christmas/New Year now and honestly I don't think I'm likely to be able to get anything else significant done until the new year. I still haven't done any Christmas shopping yet and I've got a ton of various family and friends to visit over the next couple of weeks. So it's going to be really hard to fit much work in.

Though, I will at least try and fix some more bugs, and hopefully reduce the lag/framerate slowdown issues to a more manageable level.

P.S If you didn't already know OAs have been released.

2010-12-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

Just writing to let you know that I'm still working on the new event system. Obviously it's taking a little while more than I originally planned, but shouldn't be too much longer now. If I can I'll try to at least release the OAs tomorrow evening.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-04T12:59:00.001-08:00

To celebrate Christmas 2010 I've released a new set of limited edition items - Christmas Gifts. Each gift contains one random piece of equipment, which is guaranteed to be worth substantially more than the cost of the gift itself. There are two types, standard and elite which are now available from the Credit Shop.

This amazing deal will finish on the 1st of January 2011, so hurry up and get them while you still can!

2010-12-01T08:42:00.000-08:00

As most of you have probably already noticed, there has been a pretty significant change to the looting system. Instead of every car, body and misc object being lootable, it is now only possible to loot a handful of these objects per screen. Each object which can be looted will now be highlighted in yellow, and have a question mark appear over it. The trade off for there being less items, is that the chance of finding something is now a lot higher. Infact you'll probably find that the vast majority of highlighted loot spots have something.

The idea of this new system is to make looting more fun and rewarding. Previously you would only find something about 10% of the time when searching. In my opinion this made the game play very frustrating. In addition, the previous system gave players little reason to explore the areas as there was plenty to loot in the streets. The new system should fix/improve most of these problems.

A few other changes:
- New grenade explosion. Not only does the new one look better, but it also causes less client side 'lag'.

- Rounding errors when calculating the damage which armour takes when hit with a low damage bullet (like a single shotgun pellet) has been fixed.

- Layout of the city tweaked. You'll find more urban areas now.

- All the various forms of the exp loss bug have now been fixed.

- A bunch of other minor bugs fixes.

Slight change of plan

2010-11-22T03:03:00.001-08:00

In my last post I stated that I would be finishing outpost attacks and lootable bosses very soon. However, in the last couple of days I've noticed that the implementation of these two systems has a lot of cross-over, since they will both essentially be global events that happen at set times and places. After a bit of thinking I came to the conclusion that it would be better to combine both things into the same system, and expand the design further.

A lot of people have mentioned that one the major things lacking in DF is a proper storyline. I had always planned to make some kind of story-based missions in the future, but it was something I was going to put off until "all the other crap is done". Now, with the way that the other systems are shaping up, I've come the realization that putting a decent story into the game wouldn't be so hard. At least not on a coding level anyway.

So, my new plan is to take what I have with lootable bosses and OAs, and combine them into a single events system. I'll then make it so each event can have it's win conditions, rewards and area 'effects' heavily customized. Finally I'll set things up so each event can be given a proper plot.

Once complete we'll have a mix of random daily events (like OAs, and boss spawns) combined with hand designed, plot driven, mission style events. Hopefully it will give Dead Frontier more goals and purpose, whilst also making the game world come to life. I want to make Fairview feel like a real place.

The hardest part in all of this will be the actual writing for the plot. At the moment I'm leaning towards the possibility of taking submissions from the DF community, but I'm not totally decided at this stage. The other option is that I convince Ian (Xaelath) to do it, since he did such an awesome job with the Outbreak mini-games.

Of course expanding the design will mean more time, but not too much more. As I mentioned before, some of the work is already done so I'm thinking it'll be ready in 2 weeks. Please don't lynch me if I'm wrong though.

Bunch of updates

2010-11-19T05:09:00.001-08:00

Unfortunately my house move took up far more time than I expected. The biggest problem was that it took forever for the internet company to setup a connection in the new house. I was travelling back to the old house to get some stuff done, but it's a good 2 hours journey in each direction so was hard to do it often enough (especially since I can't drive and had to rely on other people for lifts). The new connection finally came up on the 10th of this month and since then I've managed to get a fair bit done.

Recently I've been working on:
OAs
Boss loots
New enemies
PvP improvements

I'm aiming to at least have OAs and boss loots complete by the end of next week, and the rest in the week after that.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering why I've chosen to do these things first (rather than interiors and barricading for example) it's because I feel these are the updates that will provide the biggest "bang for your buck" in terms of time. IE, they will add a lot to the game and won't take me a very long time to implement.

2010-09-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

It seems like I've managed to fix just about all of the major bugs with 3D now. There may be a few little glitches here and there that need sorting at some stage, but for the moment the game seems pretty stable. The instance following system is now working so you can pretty much guarantee to meet up with your up with your friend(s) in multiplayer by hitting F2 and typing in their name.

Since everything is now stable enough, over the next couple of weeks I'm going to focus my attention on redesigning the website and doing some promotion of the new 3D game.
In addition, my wife and I will be moving house sometime this month which is probably going to take another week out of my timetable all said and done.

So in conclusion, don't expect any major updates to the actual 3D game until sometime towards in the end of October. When I do start on it again I'll be working on boss loots and getting all other special enemies added first. Then it'll be on to interiors and barricading.

2010-09-20T15:34:00.000-07:00

3D is now out for everyone to play (yes I was on time). There are still a lot of bugs and multiplayer is pretty slow. All of this will be fixed over the next few days. Please be patient!

2010-09-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a massive uphill struggle, but I've finally got the multiplayer system for DF3D finished (both co-op and PvP). Chances are there are still a few minor bugs and glitches to iron out, and I also need to spend a day or two improving the security measures of the new system. But other than that it's pretty much ready to go. It's taken me literally 5 times longer than I anticipated, but I think it's been more than worth it. The quality of multiplayer is about 100x better than you get in 2D Dead Frontier.

I was originally planning to release the 3D inner city to everyone as soon as multiplayer was ready (ie in a day or two). However I've decided that the game is as it stands is a little too empty to be released as a realistic replacement for 2D. There are still a lot of features missing that whilst not strictly essential, are going to make the game very hard and impractical to play in any meaningful way (for example, huge city + no personal outposts just isn't going to be playable). In addition to this we only have basic zombie enemies programmed, which means the experience is going to be a little on the bland side.

So, my new plan is to simply skip this demo release and instead focus my attention on getting the game to a more enjoyable state. Yes this will mean another delay, but probably not as long as you're imagining. I believe I can have a decent version of the game launched on or slightly after the 20th of this month. And just to clarify that will be for everyone.

P.S And no, Duke Nukem Forever is definitely not going to beat DF3D to release!

Bugs galore

2010-08-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say yes I'm still alive and I'm still working on Dead Frontier 3D. I did indeed come home from Russia early, but unfortunately the next demo is still not ready, and probably won't be for at least a week.

Getting multiplayer working properly has been a massive task, one far larger than I imagined at first and is the main source of the problems. It seems like every time I get one bug fixed, three more pop out of the woodwork. However, I am still making progress and hopefully it shouldn't be too much longer.

I'm not going to post an updated timetable for features as I can't guarantee that I'll actually be able to keep to them. As you should all know by now, my estimation skills suck.

Thanks for your patience!

2010-07-21T04:28:00.000-07:00

My wife, son and I were planning to go and visit family in Russia for a month on the 20th of July. My aim was to continue to work on Dead Frontier 3D on my laptop while we were there. Unfortunately now that I've arrived in Russia I've discovered the software I need to work on DF3D isn't working properly on my laptop. This will make getting anything done while I'm here practically impossible.

In light of this I've changed my holiday plans. My wife and son will stay in Russia for a month, but I'm going to come home early after 1 week so I can get the next demo ready. Of course, this will still mean a delay of about a week. Sorry guys.

2010-07-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

The small update I mentioned in my last post has just been made live. Sorry for the delay.

As a reminder, it now has:

- Improved HUD
- Mini map
- Big map
- Graphic quality and sound settings
- Instructions screen
- Several other bug fixes

2010-07-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

Just so you guys know, here is the planned schedule for the 3D upgrade over next few weeks/months:

1. Release small update to existing GM demo, adding a map, quality settings and a few other improvements. (ETA: 2-3 days)

2. Release 3rd 3D demo for both GMs and non-GMs. This demo will definitely include multiplayer co-op. It may include PvP and more/better enemies. It will also include some form of faster transportation around the city to make up for the lack of barricading. (ETA: late July)

3. Release 4th 3D demo for all players. This build will have everything except for missions, interior locations and barricading. This will mark the stage where 3D becomes the primary play mode. 2D classic will remain an option. (ETA: early September)

4. Release the final 3D client to all players. A few weeks after this build is deemed stable (practically bug free), classic will be removed as an option. (ETA: October)

5. Dead Frontier finally leaves Beta (ETA: January 1st 2011)

I had hoped to do #2 much sooner in the month, but I've encountered some problems while adding multiplayer which is pushing the schedule back. Please accept my apologies for the delay.

2010-06-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

Just made an update to the 3D demo. Should fix all of the bugs that have been reported over the last few days plus some other minor tweaks and upgrades.

2010-05-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, I'm gonna have to delay the GM release by another day. So will now be on Wednesday the 2nd of June.

2010-05-27T13:15:00.001-07:00

I'm aiming to release the GM demo on the 1st of June. Though, unfortunately I haven't been able to get multiplayer done yet, so it'll be single player for now.

Assuming there are no unforseen problems, there will be another demo available in early July (which will be available to both GMs and non-GMs). This one will have full multiplayer, all enemies & bosses, PvP and OAs.

2010-05-02T05:34:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to say yes, I'm still alive, and I am still making very good progress on the 3D client. My aim is to have a basic version of the game available for GMs by the end of this month.

Notes:

The menus and HUD will probably look ugly and unpolished. Some options may be missing.

There might be multiplayer, but it will be co-op only

There won't be OAs, missions or barricading

You won't be able to go inside any buildings

You will be able to play with your avatar, use your weapons and loot items

It will only have basic zombies to kill, no advanced mutations or bosses

2010-03-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd show a few screen shots showing the exterior areas of DF3D:

March Progress Report

2010-03-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, we recently released Dead Frontier: Outbreak 2 (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/530338). Unfortunately finishing this game took a lot longer than I expected and ultimately prevented me from making serious progress on DF 3D over the past few weeks.

Whilst DF: Outbreak has generated a lot of new players I've decided that I will not be working on a 3rd part until after DF 3D is finished as I don't want the project pushed back any further.

Taking all of this into account I've revised my schedule as follows:

March:

Exterior Scene Generation

April:

Player Handling

Basic Enemies

*two week holiday in russia*

May:
Server Communication

Advanced Enemies

*demo 2*

June:
Multiplayer
HUD
Menus

July:

Interior Scene Generation

Barricading

OAs

Missions

*final release*

We're now looking at final release towards the end of July. I'm sure this will be bit of a disappointment for some of you, but looking back at my previous schedule it was never going to be realistic due to the other tasks I had to work on at the start of the year. Fingers crossed, I shouldn't have anything else to take me away from DF 3D for the next 6 months, so things shouldn't get pushed back any further.

I'll leave you with some pictures of the enemy models:

2010-02-25T08:56:00.001-08:00

I've now completed the first demo for Gold Members. It can be found here

Please bare in mind that this is merely a very rough example of the final gameplay.

Progress Report

2010-02-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

That last few weeks have been pretty hectic for me. To cut a long story short in order to minimize Dead Frontier's tax bill we've had to spend a significant amount of time reforming it's legal structure which has eaten up a lot of mine and Ian's time.

Despite this I have still managed to make some progress on the 3D client, but not as much as I had originally planned. Here is the current project status:

January:

- General Runtime Security [done]

- Anti Speed Hack [done]

- Server Communication Security [done]

- Secure Local Save System [done]

- Basic movement, lighting and camera with placeholders [done]

February:

- Basic Server Communication [done]

- Variable Loading Backend [done]

- Item Finding Backend

- Barricading Backend

- Missions Backend

- Finalized camera, lighting and physics [done]

- First demo release to GMs [done]

March:

- Player Weapon System

- Player Avatars

- Player Animations

- Player AI

April:

- Interior scene generation

- Exterior scene generation

- OAs

May:

- Basic Enemies

- Full Combat

- Special Enemies and Bosses

- Full Spawning System

- SP Release - GM Only

June:

- Basic CO-OP Multiplayer

- Auto-Instancing

- Friend and Party System

- PvP

- Full Release

July:

- Bug Fixes

- Tutorial/Ad Game

So as you can see so far this month I've only managed to complete about half the planned work. Also I'm going to spend the remaining few days of February finishing the second part of our text-based mini series, Dead Frontier: Outbreak. This will effectively put me about 2 weeks behind schedule .

Luckily I built a lot of leeway into my plan for things like Enemies and Players. I've given myself an entire month each for those, but if I stay focused I can probably do them in about half the time. This will then give me the time to come back and finished those pieces of back end programming.

P.S The artists (BlackBow) have been making great progress and it looks like they are going to be finish well ahead of their own deadline. If only I could work as fast a them!

Latest Enemy Concepts

2010-02-02T06:54:00.001-08:00

3D Client Progress Report

2010-02-02T05:58:00.000-08:00

First of all I'd like to welcome everybody to my new blog. I'll be using this to keep everyone up to date with the development of the new 3D client and other upcoming updates.

So far the new 3D client has been in development for about a month and I have to admit that we have very little to show at this stage. This is mainly because I've decided to work primarily on the tougher, non visual issues such as security and server communication first. My reasons for doing this are two-fold:

For a game developer motivation can be an issue from time to time. Generally when a project is started motivation is high and progress is quick and easy. As time goes on it's harder to stay motivated and whilst you put in the same number of hours it's hard to stay 100% focused. One way to help mitigate this is to save the most 'fun' elements of the game design until last. Therefore doing the 'boring' things first (like server communication and security) should in theory optimize the overall speed of development.
Our 3D artists haven't had enough time to create the artwork yet. Whilst we can use place-holders, it's far easier to work with the finished product as it allows artwork specific tweaks to be done on the fly rather than later on in the project. Therefore it makes sense to stall development of the visual aspects of the game until we have something solid to work with.

As it stands, here is my current plan and progress for the development of the 3D client:

January:

- General Runtime Security [done]

- Anti Speed Hack [done]

- Server Communication Security [done]

- Secure Local Save System [done]

- Basic movement, lighting and camera with placeholders [done]

Febuary:

- Basic Server Communication

- Variable Loading Backend

- Item Finding Backend

- Barricading Backend

- Missions Backend

- Finalized camera, lighting and physics

- First demo release to GMs

March:

- Player Weapon System

- Player Avatars

- Player Animations

- Player AI

April:

- Interior scene generation

- Exterior scene generation

- OAs

May:

- Basic Enemies

- Full Combat

- Special Enemies and Bosses

- Full Spawning System

- SP Release - GM Only

June:

- Basic CO-OP Multiplayer

- Auto-Instancing

- Friend and Party System

- PvP

- Full Release

July:

- Bug Fixes

- Tutorial/Ad Game

Whilst I'm on schedule so far there is every possibility of delays further down the line. For example in March I'll need to restructure the business and get our tax affairs in order which could take a good week by itself. I also want to release DF: Outbreak 2 at some point this month which may take a couple of days out of my time.

That's all for now. I'll post more news at it comes.