The time for the zombie infestation in Rust has come to an abrupt end. The quickly-growing alpha-staged survival game follows up on a promise to rid its world of zombies. It’s compensating for the tragic loss of brain-eaters by adding bears and wolves though. “You hate them. We know. They’re just plugging a gap for now. All will be revvvealed.” state the developers, who assure players that these pesky inhabitants are only here to stay for a short while.
The white wolf is also leaving Rust, while the general AI of animals has been revised. Hunting game will be a lot more difficult, as animals will now react to gunshot, will react to players backpedaling, and hostile wildlife will retreat if a direct path to the player cannot be found. There are several other changes in the latest update, from new material models to minor and major bug fixes. Here’s Rust’s full change-log:
Wildlife Was Improved
- no longer exploitable by walking backwards
- fears hostile wildlife
- reacts to gunshots
- hostile wildlife retreats if it cannot find a path to you
- wildlife should not jump up and switch to random angles anymore
- removed white wolf
Resource Objects Were Improved
- added new models for wood & stone resources
- wood & stone resources change model to indicate their quantity
- added another stone resource – contains mostly stone
Other Changes
- fixed bugs with the level (such as rocks intersecting buildings)
- the ‘oil tank’ area has been modified with cover
- workbenches make you craft faster when standing next to them
- added new player animations
- improved melee attack animations
- added locked backpacks and lockpicks test ( off by default )
- when you die your backpack is locked for everyone else but you for a time
- someone else can use a lockpick tool to bypass this time
- lockpick tools are a default blueprint
- you can’t use lockpicks on doors
- the amount of time the backpack is locked for is per-server and can be set with the command player.backpackLockTime seconds
- can be turned off by setting player.backpackLockTime to 0
- footstep sounds will never play the same sound as the one previously played
- grass textures have been improved
Known Issues
- there are a small number of areas with what seems like invisible walls
- there are one or two rocks without collision
- there used to be about 200 wolves in one area of the map, we fixed it, though.
Overall, the game development seems to be progressing fine. Sales are growing and content is flowing. However, some major issues still remain, out of which perhaps the most important and annoying is an excessive amount of server lag, which makes melee combat in Rust a gamble and a pain. The removal of the zombies was received with mixed views, many players citing that animals become dull and boring after awhile. However, developers Facepunch Studios have made it fairly clear that Rust will never be a zombie game, and they have clearly specified that they would be getting rid of the walking dead as soon as possible. In any case, Zombies are gone, and bears are here, annoying as they may be, but they are not here to stay. So what will come next? We’re eager to see the direction Rust will be taking. What are your feelings about the changes to Rust?