Today's game is Project Zomboid. The new public build of Build 42 fixed my controller problems, and i've been basically thirsting for Zomboid these last few months. So getting to play it again is like finding an oasis. I got my friends on too (this is why it's a 4:3 Crop, to hide their personal info the game shows), and we made camp at the motel where we made our first ever base back when it was just Jerry and Cable.
To celebrate the return to the public branch we're playing Jerry and Cable, who is by far my favorite "OC"s me and my best friend have made, if you can really call them that.
They changed some of the presets around i believe, because when we spawned in i was struggling to find myself a car that had gas and a key, meanwhile like every god forsaken rare item is spawning for me. I found sledge hammers, guns, even a can opener which i always struggle with. We're on builder too which is what makes it especially confusing. I did manage to find a car and a Jerry Can to fill it with gas though so it's not all a failure. It definitely made me feel more successful.
One of my favorite things about the new update is the animals. I found some chickens that were abandoned, and bless Jerry's cruel heart but he found something he could actually love. I built them a coop. I read up on everything i need to keep them fed and happy, so that should keep them alive.
One of our friends wants to eat them, but i convinced him to let me take care of them because that will give us eggs which will keep us alive and fed far longer.
Anyways, i'm glad to have this back in a state i can play. I missed it and i love all the new Build 42 Stuff they added. I'll probably see if i can get some friends on again tomorrow to play some more because i missed this.
I liked this game well enough, but it's clearly made to play with other people, and I have no friends who would be interested in playing. The only friends who even game anymore are a couple who play among us almost exclusively.
PZ build 42 would have been perfect for my friend group of 10 years ago.
I couldn't disagree more, I love the game and think it's first and foremost a solo experience. I have around 500 hours in, and about 400 are exclusively solo, in various games since build 38. It's in single player where the truth of the apocalypse hits you, the dread of being alone against the world knowing you will fail but not knowing how and when... Even the sleep mechanic is exclusive to single player and drastically changes how you can approach the game, sticking closer to the gritty realism themes. Multiplayer, even in really harsh settings, often ends up with a somewhat trivialised survival, and sort of a devaluation of defeat. Unless you want to play it hardcore and reset if anyone dies (which can be understandably upsetting to some), you'll just respawn a character, get your stuff back, and you'll only have lost some xp and time which your mates can help you power through, instead of a entire "life" you really cared about.
Don't get me wrong, multiplayer can be heaps of fun, but I truly don't think it's the core of the game, and I'd really encourage you to try your hand at some solo play if you can be convinced :)
It's actually not, it's only disabled by default. The speed up will only take affect the moment every single player is sleeping, so it's not something you'd want in a massive public server with 73 players online, but for a small group of friends it works fine. Highly recommended, unless you like sitting around for 30 IRL minutes reading in the dark every night. Speaking of, one thing that IS exclusive to singleplayer is unfortunately the fast forward button, so reading really sucks and I always turn up skill gain speeds in MP.
It's true that I took a bit of a shortcut in my previous statement, I shouldn't have been so absolute.
And as a sidenote, I believe that I read somewhere that the intent of having sleep not activated by default in MP was also somewhat of a counter to not having timeskip, allowing players to "use" all of their available time (though as you said, you're still just waiting so I'm not entirely convinced by the argument)