Makeshift solution for motivated time travellers

[Bowi]

Continuing the discussion from Generation Zero (2021) Oversaturated Mediocrity:

@gzbugs

And, as far as I’m concerned: Is there any possibility to make use of the Steam Beta functionality to offer (at least for PC users) a choice of several game builds to download and play? Maybe ask around which versions of the game are requested and offer them as an opt-in choice? Some might have noticed I’m playing the April 2020 version as I kept a backup of it, but it precludes getting the Halloween rewards etc, and one borked file would be the end of it… I’d personally love to go back to v. 1.0 just for sh*ts and giggles, and I think it’d be of interest for others too.

@JoJo_the_memedealer

I second that, seems like a reasonable compromise for those who aren’t a big fan of its current direction and wouldn’t have an impact on the audience the game has shifted to.

In case you want to download older GZ builds, here are the Steam Manifests. It’s not very detailed (and might has some mistakes) because I only bought the game last week.

You need to prove that you bought the game to download those files using DepotDownloader. Depot ID is 704271. AppID is 704270.

ManifestID	Description
3631723860058315816	current (May 2021)
4435360168112689425	Farmlands revamping + bug fixing (February 2021)
2143698668752660901	Revamping (December 2020)
3259785596341947018	Reaper Rival + revamping (November 2020)
3335764524470265270	FNIX Rising + toned down difficulty (June 2020)
3451379420993415644	Tweaks and Bug fixes (April 2020)
6956380329861453146	Anniversary Update + Hotfix: map revamp, New Difficultt, Crafting, etc. (March 2020)
1888533704292891567	? (25 February 2020) (Generation Zero® - February Update - Patch Notes - Steam News)
4908732400933839020	January 2020 Update + Hotfix (balancing and fixes)
7983053929427382796	Alpine Unrest + Hotfix (Free: Apocalypse Class Machines and New Weaponry) (November 2019)
668655440985869230	Rivals Update (Rivals, Experimental Weapons…) (October 2019)
1379809832468964460	September 2019 Update: Challenges
2275814383059165542	August 2019 Update (with 2 Hotfixes): Storage Boxes, etc. (August 2010) (Generation Zero® - August Update Now Live - Steam News)
2231261890808866491	June 2019 Update + Hotfix: Bikes (June 2019) (Generation Zero® - June Update Now Live - Steam News)
4119634721009804258	May 2019 Update: Photo Mode (Generation Zero® - May Update Now Live - Steam News)
8355129340910593452	April Update 2019 + Hotfix (Generation Zero® - April Game Update Now Live - Steam News)
4015436565875201114	Launch Day + Hotfix (27 March 2019)
5204573709285814253	Launch Day: 26 March 2019 – 17:46:23 UTC
4335821894153459493	Launch Day: 26 March 2019 – 08:54:55 UTC

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You’ll need to launch the current version of the game first; then switch Steam to “Offline Mode”; close it; then copy-pasting some folders; then you should be ready to reload. I never tried doing that with a game which has DLCs though…

[Burgerplayer]

tried this a while back, didn’t work.

[lolex500]

While I would like to go back to an older version of the game, this is not the way to do it. This is third party software that might break the ToS or EULA. Much better would be if the devs just put it up on steam.

[Burgerplayer]

they’re not gonna do that sadly, would be cool if they did though

[Bowi]

I would definitely prefer to see more developers adopting the BETAS feature on Steam.

[Burgerplayer]

agreed, would be really cool. kinda like the old minecraft versions.

[gzbugs]

I did this some time ago with other games - the ‘problem’ about this solution is that it is neither guaranteed to work in the future, nor is it allowing for multiplayer, co-op gameplay or participation in events. It is a valid option (although of dubious legality) for those willing to tinker.

I had a poll for adding a beta option a while back, but it didn’t seem to get follow-up comments so I shelved it for the time being…