Project Zomboid set back by burglary

Zombie apocalypse survival simulator Project Zomboid has suffered a "major set-back" after the theft of computers containing the game's code and data--which hadn't been backed up recently.

15

Zombie apocalypse survival simulator Project Zomboid has suffered a "major set-back" after the flat where two of the small team work was burgled, with their computers being stolen. Stored on those computers was the game's code and data--which hadn't been backed up recently.

This setback will "severely delay" the next update.

"Project Zomboid was regularly backed up from machine to machine, but rarely--sadly and infuriatingly--externally," developer The Indie Stone explained in an official statement.

Zomboid is funded by the ever-popular pre-order alpha model, as famously used by Minecraft, giving instant access to an alpha build with updates delivered as they're finished.

"For the record, we did have online backup, not all the code / assets are lost, just the stuff we'd been doing for this update. We got behind with the backups because we felt so pressured to get the work finished," Indie Stone's Andy Hodgetts clarified on Twitter.

Indie Stone vows that Project Zomboid "will come back stronger."

Chris Simpson, one of the pair burgled, has apologised after lashing out at abuse-spewing Internet gobhawks whose criticized the devs in the wake of the loss. After this, he's sworn to step back and avoid Twitter, forums, and other places which often house over-entitled prigs.

"No one put 'must have thick skin' (or 'must make nightly off-site backups,' for that matter) in my game programmer job description. People assume I 'should have thicker skin' but there you go, I don't," Simpson wrote. "I got into this because I love making games and none of those skills relate in the slightest to being able to withstand torrents of abuse, and despite the support and the attention it's made me scared to open my e-mails."

You can buy Project Zomboid for $7.99, if you fancy getting into the alpha now, or give the outdated pre-alpha tech demo a go first.

Filed Under
From The Chatty
  • reply
    October 17, 2011 9:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Project Zomboid set back by burglary.

    Zombie apocalypse survival simulator Project Zomboid has suffered a "major set-back" after the theft of computers containing the game's code and data--which hadn't been backed up recently.

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 9:16 AM

      oh damn

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 9:32 AM

      Aw fuck :(

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 9:34 AM

      Heard about this over the weekend. It's a pretty terrible blow to a developer to lose that much progress. I'm sympathetic, but at the same time I just can't believe they didn't have remote code hosting of some kind. It's so easy and cheap to set up repository hosting using any SCM tool...

      • reply
        October 17, 2011 9:36 AM

        Even Linux and SVN running on old desktop hardware probably would've saved them.

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 9:43 AM

      Just tried the outdated tech demo. This thing might be good. Maybe a blessing in disguise?

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 9:56 AM

      Like most Xcom inspired indie games, it will never see the light of day.

      • reply
        October 17, 2011 10:21 AM

        Xenonauts is looking pretty good, though.

        • reply
          October 17, 2011 10:21 AM

          Also UFO Extraterrestrials came out and was great. So I think your point is invalid unless you can prove me wrong?

          • reply
            October 17, 2011 3:12 PM

            Ugh zuff, UFO: Extraterrestrials isn't great. It's barely even good. :(

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 10:23 AM

      I back up like a mofo. I don't understand people that don't.

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 10:55 AM

      What is a gobhawk, Alice? And what is a prig? I don't understand the Shack anymore.

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 11:00 AM

      I wonder if more people decided to buy it due to this news. Maybe, they never heard about it and wanted to try it or just felt sorry for the guys. I would really be interested to hear what the aftermath is or will be (besides the drunken rants that immediately ensued).

      Alice?! Can you make this happen?

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 11:05 AM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        October 17, 2011 11:06 AM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          October 17, 2011 11:21 AM

          Backing up isn't source control. Source control isn't backup.

        • reply
          October 17, 2011 11:43 AM

          There's no reason to assume they aren't using source control. They might be using source control locally and only backing up their repository to the other notebook. The definite failure is not having a backup on a remote machine.

          • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
            reply
            October 17, 2011 2:22 PM

            If you're using source control it's pretty dumb not to just make it remote so everything is backed up already.

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 11:31 AM

      Getting their computers sucks, sure, but I just don't understand how they don't have automatic offsite backups in 2011. Crashplan, Dropbox, Carbonite, I mean come on. Cheap as hell and once you install it you don't have to do anything.

      • reply
        October 17, 2011 2:53 PM

        Some have put forward the theory that this theft is little more than an attempt to explain away increased delays in the project. I'm not sure if I'd go that far, but I will go so far as to say this:

        If you take money for your work, you are a professional.

        If you are working as a professional programmer and you don't have an off-site backup system (automated or otherwise), you are inept, and a moron.

        I am not currently working as a programmer, but when I was I was backing up to physical media (CD at the time) on a daily basis, and each friday I would take that days backup home with me. In the event of a catastrophic event (fire, flood, etc) at most I would lose a week's work. Which was acceptable for me and my employers.

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 2:08 PM

      thats gotta suck, I do feel for these guys. Sure they should have backed up off site, but come on seriously, isnt backup one of those things we IT people tell other people to do in reality :)

    • Zek legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      October 17, 2011 2:22 PM

      http://projectzomboid.com/blog/index.php/2011/10/i-miss-the-days-when-we-didnt-take-a-hammer-to-bed/

      They're saying now it's not as bad as they thought, but still sucks a lot.

      • reply
        October 17, 2011 3:09 PM

        Didn't seem that bad to begin with yeah they hadn't backed up their update work but as long as they had the previous version they could get back to it. They didn't need to run around on twitter and reddit freaking out.

    • reply
      October 17, 2011 7:42 PM

      anyone not doing off-site backups is a moron.. sorry to be harsh but shit happens in life, theft, fire, flood, meteroites, you have to have off-site backups if you care anything about your data

Hello, Meet Lola