Two new areas have been added to the Project Zomboid map in the latest IWBUMS public beta build 35.20f. They are called Rosewood and March Ridge, and are a first for PZ in that we’re straying slightly away from a fictional version of the real world map so we can get in a few more interesting and engaging places for you to loot and survive in. If you want to get involved with the public beta then please go here. We always like people to explore our new areas rather than just dump a load of screenshots on you and ruin any feeling of exploration, so we have made this spoiler thread for community discoveries. The primary areas with new content can be found in the directions shown by these very professional looking arrows, but there are other small areas on the existing map that have been updated too.
If you spot anything that looks like a map bug, then, as ever please report in the mapping section of the TIS Bug Tracker. We will be adding extra visual detail to these areas and fixing the issues you find as the Build 35 IWBUMS beta continues. Good luck out there!

OTHER STUFF

• We invited a bunch of MP community host people into a test of the latest VOIP build yesterday and the results were great, and as such we anticipate merging this into the current IWBUMS public beta this week. Voice quality is significantly improved, the build is way more stable, the system seems easy to use and the only issues that really came up were those of finetuning, in-game audibility distance and minor bugs. As such it makes sense to cast the net wider into the IWBUMS beta testers for its final tweaks while cherries are placed atop its audio cake. (If you want to check out how it’s currently shaping up then Mark.exe’s stream can be found here, though please note there are period when his streaming software causes issues – this was at Mark’s end rather than a problem with the build.)

• Animation work continues with the hook system we described last week – transplanting the existing governance over zombie and character ‘action states’ at any given frame of animation (‘Biting!’, ‘Bitten!’ etc) into the system. This is tying together all the underlying gameplay dynamics of the old sprites into the bright new animated dawn – alongside standardising the code format we’ve written for all the new combat, weapons, outfits, backpacks and big-name features the animations will bring with them.

• Also landing this week on a separate branch for community translation teams to check out, and also liable to be merged with the main IWBUMS channel pretty quickly if everything is in its right place, is Turbo’s work on translated Radio/TV content and mod support for the now released WordZed. This will allow players to add to existing broadcast content, as well as create their own for reasons of roleplay and roleplay servers.

• We should also mention that in IWBUMS Build 32.20F are the many and varied MP Admin improvements we discussed last week. Admin panel polish, the ability to draw out ‘Non PVP Zones’, a new Safehouse UI and various other upgrades to make running PZ servers more tolerable have all been added. Our thanks to the various server hosts who helped us with guidance and bug testing in this mission.