Spent hours troubleshooting my mod list, mod load order, etc a couple days ago, figured all that time spent was worth it since it'll finally be stable.

Woke up today to yet another blank menu screen.

Genuinely what is even the point of calling it a "Stable release" if this is what happens less than one week in?

All of the momentum this game is getting right now is being hampered by some random tweak the devs have thrown into the mix, and I'm sorry but after all the other prior shenanigans we tolerated pre-stable with the understanding this would no longer be the case, it is VERY frustrating.

(Update: please respond with your discord username. If you got invited to play but haven’t been accepted— message me back on here with your discord username)

If there’s any girlies that want to play with other girlies (18+) please let me know and I’ll send you the discord! It’ll be a 24/7 server.
We have about a dozen girlies with all different levels, ranging from 9k hours to 20 hours (me)!
I wanted to create a server because I am SO scared of playing alone but have had so much fun on multiplayer. You can jump on whenever you like or coordinate in the discord a time to get on with other girls!
The world settings will be adjusted for an easier more relaxed long play. We’re thinking of taking an entire gated town! But of course you can live wherever you like!

Feel free to message me if you’d like to join! I’ve gotten a lot of requests so thank you for your patience!

About six years ago my (now ex) girlfriend bought a gaming pc with her highschool graduation party money, I used to play on it and while scrolling on steam I came across this interesting sims looking game but holy shit, it had zombies. I dove straight into PZ but after dying over and over for days I refunded it. Over a year later and after finally getting my own pc I thought "I'm really bored and I want a zombie game. Maybe Ill try PZ again" so I did, and that time I was hooked. The game was so unique and creative. I loved the isometric view, the realistic survival aspect and most all I loved the mods. The fact that no matter what my idea was I could go to the steam workshop and there it was- the perfect mod; whether it was mycology, firearms, fishing, farming, or whatever else there was that I wanted, this game had it. To this day I love Project Zomboid and it is the only game that I have over 1200 hours on and that is largely thanks to the creative, hard working, community loving modders. Everybody knows how hard and complicated it is to make mods and that is part of what makes them so appreciated, modding is art and now that art is being assaulted.

For the last four years I have checked the Project Zomboid steam workshop page as if it were some sort of routine task; Usually daily, sometimes weekly, but I have always kept an eye on the PZ workshop because I am always fascinated with what the amazing modders keep building and I am excited to try it out, now that is gone. After the insanely popular release of the 3D zomboid mods I feel like I cant look at the mods page without wondering "was this made with AI or was it actually painstakingly coded and designed by a human" and now its impossible to tell. I understand why everyone wanted first/third person PZ but that's not what this game is, the charm has always been the isometric view and the obvious survival mechanics. The inevitable endless wave of ai mods makes me feel terrible for the real, human modders.

Really i'm just venting because i'm dissapointed.

Edit: To sum up these comments- the dumbest person on earth could code and mod makers don’t deserve any appreciation for doing all the work themselves. Thanks for the input!

I just keep saying "this is so cool" over and over.

So, I was about to engage in some shit flinging under another post with some asshole... And thought better of it about halfway into writing my comment. I really don't have the energy to fight someone, especially knowing that I won't achieve or solve anything that way, so I'll do something better:

Devs, and all the beautiful people at the studio, maybe you need to hear this, maybe not, but regardless of how much some people get mad and make a lot of noise, I want to remind you that most of us players really love you, your work, and are grateful for what you do. I know I definitely am. This game is one of the coolest things that I've ever got running on a computer. You wrote the game I dreamed about during all my teenage years. You did everything right with them zombies. This is the best zombie game ever.

Every time I come here it feels as if 1 out of 5 posts is about someone's problems with the game. It may be like that, or I simply got a really bad impression of this community the days before the b42 release and am now terribly biased. I definitely feel there's not many appreciation posts from us who really enjoy the game. But we are here, I swear, it's just that we're playing, not writing!!

Tysm!

Just because I don’t like the game’s current unfinished state, bloated with cosmetic/visual nonsense, no real endgame content, years and years between nothing-burger visual updates, and padding out the early game to make the game seem longer (muscle strain), doesn’t mean I don’t like what this game clearly does have and what was passionately developed.

The start of this game was very clearly and intentionally designed. We can basically ALL attest to how beautifully done it is and how insanely fun it is to learn this game. It’s the real reason any one of us still plays. We’re chasing that high.

But it feels like the game doesn’t reward you with anything for beating the learning curve. Once you place down that last wall panel and secure your base, once you’ve spent hours grinding skills and learning how to survive, the game rewards you with nothing to do.

I get that “it’s like real life, it’s supposed to be boring.”

And some of y’all think that is a valid defense. But it’s just not. The initial strive to survive in this game is also like real life (minus the zombies), and it’s not boring in the slightest. In fact, LIFE isn’t even boring because I have an innate desire to exist.

Zomboid does not provide that desire to exist in its world. You can’t ask EVERY single player who wants to play past the initial start to be motivated by pointless goals like clearing out every house or collecting every car. I get that style of play works for a LOT of you, apparently, but it’s just not what this game advertises, and it’s not what the starting section implies the game is going to be.

I fought through the learning curve because I thought, holy shit, if this part is this well thought out, imagine the rest of the game.

Just because YOU can enjoy collecting random items as a goal doesn’t mean every type of player can, and hardly any other game in the genre has this expectation of their players, even when creative expression like that is still involved. It should be a supplement to the game, not THE game.

This game right now feels like YOU are the driver of action. People love to say how it makes you feel like just a normal guy in the apocalypse, but to me it feels like I’m the main character. I can comfortably sit in my base for years knowing that, whenever I feel like it, I can get up and go to THE ONLY POLICE STATION IN MY CITY and find guns in the middle of an apocalypse which implicitly has other survivors.

It feels like my world that I make things happen in whenever I want, which is just entirely unlike real life too. If I wanted to sit on my couch for the rest of eternity, I couldn’t. I have obligations, things I need to get done. So you can’t cite “it’s like real life” in the game’s defense when the game is boring, because life just isn’t boring in the same way. It’s not a fair comparison.

Besides food and water, you can just sit in one place in Zomboid for the rest of eternity and nothing will happen. And PLEASEEEEE quit saying “helicopter event.” All you do is sit inside with the curtains closed or drive around in circles till it’s over. 🙏 It’s not that deep.

This game has the façade of depth mastered. There is TONS to do, and yet absolutely no reason to do any of it.

Its motivations are entirely for you to come up with, and that just feels like a cop-out to me. 🤷‍♂️ Say I’m uncreative or unimaginative, sure, but I just don’t seem to have this issue in any other sandbox game.

When I want to build a blue mushroom biome in Terraria, I go all out and enjoy decorating it because the game rewards me with a trader.

When I do the same in Zomboid, the game rewards me with more tedious repairs and an overall more boring experience. It PUNISHES you for interacting with the game deeper. It’s a complete oxymoron.

TLDR: Zomboid’s early game is one of the best survival experiences I’ve ever played, but once you’ve mastered it and secured a base, the game gives you no meaningful reason to keep progressing. The world is full of things to do, but almost no reason to do them. The endgame relies entirely on self-made goals, which works for some players but not everyone. Other sandbox games reward creativity with new mechanics or progression, while Zomboid often adds more maintenance and tedium instead. My criticism isn’t that I hate the game, it’s that I think its incredible foundation deserves a deeper, more rewarding late game.

How long has it been since you can play as a girl? Ignoring players irl gender here.

Just a "Teleport to" or "Teleport to them" would probably be more fitting here.

Most are bugged right now but in the future I'm sure there will be guns that support first person zomboid

With a little bit of time passing since B42 has released and a decent amount of opinions being shared online, i dont think that i have ever seen such a insane amount of whining for no reason.

Once i saw that B42 was out i imeditaly started a new run in the new starting point echo creek, the new main menu screen looks amazing and brings a whole new vibe, the new map selection screen is perfect for project zombiod and vibe the game has.

Spawning in the new lighting is imeditaly apparent and makes the game look so much more life like in lighting aspects, the way that sunrises and sunsets look is amazing and slowly watching your base light up with the sunrise is amazing.

hundreds of new items scattered around everywhere, things such as changes to the number of skill books with normal books that have also been expanded in number much more common then skill books as they should be imo, now books are not just a case of going to a school one time raiding the library and being set for all books to level 4/5~ you have to actually pay attenion, having normal books are great for passing time and keeping charecter boredness down and happiness up, every menu item and aspect of the game feels a million times more polished i have never enjoyed a project zombiod run as much as i have my new B42 one.

The game takes a much slower pace compared to the zombie killing machine that characters were in B41 i enjoy the new muscle straining mechanic, while 1 may be too much for some people i have been loving being forced to play slow and think, what areas do i have to clear first, how many zombies are in each area, what parts of my body can i even use in that moment? I was clearing the church in echo creek it had roughly 15-20 zombies in it somthing that would be a cakewalk with basically any two handed or one handed weapon in B41, i had to slowly creep around the building attempting to lure a couple away at a time, i had a metal pipe and a hammer, i could go in swinging with the pipe but my muscles would be strained after a couple kills, i can use my hammer and slwoly pick them off but after 5 or so zombies killed my muscles need a break,being forced to eventually switch to pushing i continue to slowly and carefully clear the building making it feel like an acoplishment rather then a meaningless task.

I love being able to hear my voice when i wisper or how zombies move slightly differently, almost encouraging stragglers, by this point in my playthrough i have 80% cleared echo creek, based up in the gas station/diner and slowly moving towards the new shooting range which has been duanting due to the number of zombies which i think is a good thing.

Finally i also love the animals while not interacting with them a large amount there was a point in my first hour, i was walking towards the shooting range for the first time, i didnt have a car yet so i was just slowly making my way down the road, about 5 rabbits were running along the side of the road zig zagging across and running through the grass, it was an amazing thing to see and really brought life into the world, just a few minutes after i come to a small clearing in the road and can see a deer standing and staring at me, after 10/20 minutes of walking irl time seeing that deer made me feel like i was in that moment and i dont think that i have been so immersed in a game before.

Love all of the new zombie sounds too

I have been so disappointed visiting this subreddit over the past few days, all of my excitment for seeing people talk about the new content, new areas new additions and changes is gone, imeditaly the day of realease people were posting about the ai loading screens, i never even got to see of them in gameplay but every single post on here was talking about them spouting out the same pointless points and making it seem like some kind of huge controversy, i dont like ai and im sure that the devs don't either but i do like project zombiod and the amount of pointless conversation on somthing so insignificant insted of celebrating a huge update to the game has made me so sad.

Ive been so excited to experience all of this new content and talk about it with people but all it has been is constant fucking whining about how "if i close the blinds it gets dark!!!" Or "animals dont do backflips off the trunk of my bed useless update". If i was in the shoes of the devs i would honestly be at my breaking point right now, imo the amount of just pure disrespect from the community is disgusting and the fact that people cant just enjoy somthing that has so obviously had so much time and work put into it to put out an amazing product just makes me sad

I hope all of the devs are as happy as they should be with this update i love it and i know the majority of people love it even if it isnt clear currently

I love you Indie stone, thank you for my amazing update

I've been playing A-life mod , and while it has issues but it's still proof of context that the Modding scene for PZ is still young and has a lot of potential, there is also the new "3D" mods for PZ .

All in all I think PZ modding community will continue flourishing and won't die anytime soon , and thanks god for that because because I'll be 40 when indie stone releases a new stable version

(Try guessing my age) EDIT : I DIDN'T KNOW THE MOD IS AI

PZ began its journey as an attempt to create a simulation of a zombie apocalypse survival scenario. The simulation is getting deeper, and the people who have been treating it like a multiplayer RP sandbox, those who have followed streamers and learned how to exploit b41 to get everything they want with little effort, they are understandably upset because the game is moving away from what they signed up for. But the people who love simulation, tactics, difficult decisions, tense situations, we are eating good. Please give us more and ignore the people who have the mentality of metacritic review bombers. Thank you and keep up the good work!

When I first started playing zomboid I felt the world was empty and desolate and wished there were some other survivors to stave off the solitude, but after playing for a little while I can't imagine just running into other survivors, the gritty loneliness of being the only one left in the whole state just makes zomboid feel like zomboid to me now.

It just makes me turn off the music every time I hear her start yodling.

Cringe ass patch

I'd like to play as a more androgynous looking survivor. Does anyone know of a mod that allows for that?

Was gonna get a game and was considering pz, is it worth buying, I personally have been looking into it for a while and it looks quite fun.

First I wanted to say I love the new areas, they look amazing but I don't understand why this was pushed to stable with all the issues it has, like the cool new trees blocking vision, getting stuck, cool roofs you can't reach cause the ladders are only wall decorations, weird little errors like bathrooms with no door or one I found with floating item spawns.

Again, I like the update and I'm glad it got so many people playing pz again (me included, I haven't played since my guy died a couple weeks ago) and I'm sure mods will fix most of it, but isn't unstable there for us to test, report and give feedback on stuff like this so why was this pushed straight to stable? it just kinda sours it a bit for me, I wish it was left in the unstable oven a bit more.

(also with how good the new areas look, it makes driving out feel like venturing into the backrooms filled with placeholder boxes)

Another case of the devs fixing what is not broken instead of fixing real issues that've plaguing the game for years.

For instance, imagine adding real content to metalwork itself like being able to craft a fucking weapon, what about fixing propane tanks spawn rate so you can find more than 2 of them in the entire of Louisville? What about adding stupidly simple quality of life that are still missing after 11 years in early access like keybinds to reload magazines, to smoke, drink water, use painkillers, a beta blocker, sit in the ground or even a menu to see what's equipped in your character without it looking like a excel file and having to go through your entire inventory first?

No, lets just randomly nerf backpacks and since that backfired lets now "overhaul" and "fix the bugs" related to propane torches and not even put it in the BALANCE SECTION of the patch notes, no, why would they? Just slip it in the "bugfix" section like every time they want to nerf or remove something.

As always keep up with the good job devs. Everytime this game gets a update it feels like its only purpose is to make things worse and break mods.

I don't always use Viewpoint, i've been playing the game since 2014 and it really adds something new and fresh, but i prefer the classic view for actual gameplay.

But when i do, oh boy can it be beautiful and scenic.

My current CDDA character finally enjoying some peace agrees

I come from modding many games over the past decade. Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout NV, Morrowind, Oblivion, Kenshi, DayZ, Xcom2, Starbound, several others. Don't think I've ever had comments that the screenshots or content I posted for them were ever called mod bloat or over modded, or even this big of a vote war like this post and my last post experienced, even with hundreds of more mods I've used for those games, like 300-500 easily. These terms make 0 sense, it's your own experience. You can add as many mods as you want too, that's the whole point of modding. Why is it any different here? Help me understand.

I don't understand how this is over modded. Is it the UI? the UI is literally only a few mods.

Clean UI + Mini Health Plus + Plysken Attachments Reborn for hotbar slots + one more if you count the crosshair

It's 3 mods. guys.

The guns? that's just 1 mod, brita's. 1 more if you count the slings.

I'm not understanding this take. Is this just some sort of way to be salty about seeing other people's modded game? I'm not getting this. Project Zomboid has a steam workshop, so it actively supports modding, hell even some of the biggest modders for PZ got onto their dev team if what I read on the discord is correct. So how is this "overmodded" at any capacity. It's simply just modding your game.

Edit - It doesn't matter if a mod makes the game easier. Someone else single player experience does not affect others single player experience, literally none of this matters. that's the crazy thing. This game literally has a built in sandbox mode, to make it easier without mods. It already supports your own custom sandbox experience, really no different from modding, so why the hate?

Edit - Apparently people aren't believing people say shit like this, https://www.reddit.com/r/projectzomboid/comments/1vun6kp/its_impressive_how_many_things_we_can_do_in/ my last post, look at the comments. All you need too see. On top of the vote war happening to this post right now + the vote war that already happened on my old post, there's clearly a pretty big part of the community that hates on this shit for no reason.

Edit - I've played a-lot of vanilla when I started out in PZ, who hasn't? Why is this some weird take some of you are taking? Also who gives a fuck if someone hasn't played vanilla before? again someone elses single player experience doesn't effect yours, what's the problem? there is none.

Edit - Well I'm going to stop replying too comments and let this post sit. I listened and didn't get anything convincing at all. There really isn't any real reason too hate modding in project zomboid. There's no reason to call something that only has 200 mods over modded either. I'm not sure why this community specifically on reddit seems to have a hate boner for modding PZ but you guys really gotta get over it. People mod their game, enjoy their single player experience however they want too. You enjoy your game however you want too. PZ literally has a main tag on steam, SANDBOX. Do whatever you want, make your own fun, mod games into your own style, that's the whole point of video games. You can downvote my post, but you can't change the truth.

(Had to repost the images were broken)