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How are they going to make sure we die late-game?


f3rret

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I've gotten to the point in a few games where I've been pretty well fortified in my safehouse. Once you get water barrels and some gardens going, you're pretty well set. I know there's been talk of an AI Director, but what kinds of things could they do to keep things difficult and deadly? Here are a few ideas off the top of my head

 

- Rats eating or spoiling food stores

- Herds of zombies passing by the safehouse

- Thunderstorms or windstorms damaging fencing or buildings

- Damaged buildings could have a leaky roof, letting water inside

- Other causes of fire, like lightning, electrical surge, zombie knocking over a BBQ or lantern

 

You don't want to take control away from the player, but you do want to make things more difficult as time goes on.

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When zombies migration is finished and polished + THE GOVERNOR™, you can be assured you'll have some dead corpses visiting your garden and banging at your door !

Don't forget NPC and interactions with other groups or survivors, fights for limited ressources or areas, will be a pretty dangerous situation. It's easy to survive right now, as you're the only living soul with a huge amount of possible supplies, but I can assure you it will be way harder once what's already planned is implemented.
Plus the incoming health & injuries overhaul with infections, sickness etc...
Plus the seasons incoming, with tough winters and hard farming.
Plus the fighting zombies will get its overhaul too, it will become way harder.
Plus some other stuff I forgot.


I like the damages caused by natural causes like storms tho. But just give it some time, they know how they'll have to make it harder already :)

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When zombies migration is finished and polished + THE GOVERNOR™, you can be assured you'll have some dead corpses visiting your garden and banging at your door !

Don't forget NPC and interactions with other groups or survivors, fights for limited ressources or areas, will be a pretty dangerous situation. It's easy to survive right now, as you're the only living soul with a huge amount of possible supplies, but I can assure you it will be way harder once what's already planned is implemented.

Plus the incoming health & injuries overhaul with infections, sickness etc...

Plus the seasons incoming, with tough winters and hard farming.

Plus the fighting zombies will get its overhaul too, it will become way harder.

Plus some other stuff I forgot.

I like the damages caused by natural causes like storms tho. But just give it some time, they know how they'll have to make it harder already :)

And for those reasons, I think being light and always moving will have more advantages. As of now, it can't go on forever, but with NPCs, you could loot them. Or if morals still matter, you could travel, while also staying at NPC communities for a few days at a time. Maybe even get some sort of trade or trade route goin'!

 

But then the thought hits me. Will there be NPC communities? (This is to everybody, but if you can answer this deprav, it'd be much appreciated.

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And for those reasons, I think being light and always moving will have more advantages. As of now, it can't go on forever, but with NPCs, you could loot them. Or if morals still matter, you could travel, while also staying at NPC communities for a few days at a time. Maybe even get some sort of trade or trade route goin'!

 

 

But then the thought hits me. Will there be NPC communities? (This is to everybody, but if you can answer this deprav, it'd be much appreciated.

 

I can't be 100% sure of what I'm about to say since I'm not in the game making process but -from what I recall reading- Yes there will be NPC communities and groups ! And I also remember that you'll be able to take part in those groups, just as a member executing the NPC leader's orders if you can get yourself accepted, or you could try to step up as their a new leader, or just stick along for a few days and leave them, or depending on your choices you could be banned from their group, or killed  etc...

Each NPC will have their own character, more or less compatible with the way you play, which gives a HUGE amount of possibilities.

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And for those reasons, I think being light and always moving will have more advantages. As of now, it can't go on forever, but with NPCs, you could loot them. Or if morals still matter, you could travel, while also staying at NPC communities for a few days at a time. Maybe even get some sort of trade or trade route goin'!

 

 

But then the thought hits me. Will there be NPC communities? (This is to everybody, but if you can answer this deprav, it'd be much appreciated.

 

I can't be 100% sure of what I'm about to say since I'm not in the game making process but -from what I recall reading- Yes there will be NPC communities and groups ! And I also remember that you'll be able to take part in those groups, just as a member executing the NPC leader's orders if you can get yourself accepted, or you could try to step up as their a new leader, or just stick along for a few days and leave them, or depending on your choices you could be banned from their group, or killed  etc...

Each NPC will have their own character, more or less compatible with the way you play, which gives a HUGE amount of possibilities.

 

Thanks for the help! I'd personally love just working as a member, maybe even harvest blueberries.(get my reference?)

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deprav, thanks for that list! I haven't been in the community all that long so I hadn't seen some of those things mentioned.

 

As for harakka, nasKo, and EnigmaGrey, your posts were less than helpful. Then I looked at your titles and figured that each of you are in a position to know more about upcoming features of the game than the rest of us, so maybe you CAN'T say anything in here... Feel free to PM me to tell me about all the cool ways we're going to die in future versions, thanks. :)

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Thanks for the help! I'd personally love just working as a member, maybe even harvest blueberries.(get my reference?)

 

You're welcome ! But I'm afraid I didn't get the blueberries reference :D

 

Does this explain?

 

 

 

 

 

Ha ! I haven't been that far yet, I'm starting the ep 5 of the season 1 ;D

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I really don't think they should 'make sure' we die at any point regardless of how much time has passed.

 

Throughout history people have survived conditions nearly as bad as it might be during a zombie apocalypse.  Lack of social organization (IE anarchy)?  Check.  Roving bands of marauders willing to take everything you have and kill for fun?  Check.  Bad year for growing crops?  Check.  Heck, Western Europe had all that in spades during the dark ages. 

 

Granted, while many a modern person would have to learn some skills that have vanished over time in the majority of society due to specialization (such as farming, hunting, etc) modern people also have several huge advantages over their ancestors.  For one, a modern person immediately post-apocalypse will have access to a large store of food and supplies left behind by their newly zombified neighbors.  Second, and not to be disregarded, is that while a modern person might not know how to do a thing (such as 'how to turn an animal pelt into something I can wear'), they at least know that such a thing can be done; this gives them the confidence to search for some source of detailed instructions, or possibly even to simply attempt the task by trial-and-error.

 

To all of the various ways and means a person can die, we have added one (admittedly significant) thing:  Zombies.  So...to be honest, if a player can figure out a reasonable way to avoid 'death by zombie' then every other challenge that might be presented should also be presented with an in-game solution...which means that it is possible someone could survive indefinitely.  It's even possible that communities could form and grow.  So in the end it all comes down to whether or not Zombies are so fearsome that 'death by zombie' is inevitable; and if you're playing with 'canon' zombies, then that just isn't going to be the case.

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I really don't think they should 'make sure' we die at any point regardless of how much time has passed.

 

Throughout history people have survived conditions nearly as bad as it might be during a zombie apocalypse.  Lack of social organization (IE anarchy)?  Check.  Roving bands of marauders willing to take everything you have and kill for fun?  Check.  Bad year for growing crops?  Check.  Heck, Western Europe had all that in spades during the dark ages. 

 

Granted, while many a modern person would have to learn some skills that have vanished over time in the majority of society due to specialization (such as farming, hunting, etc) modern people also have several huge advantages over their ancestors.  For one, a modern person immediately post-apocalypse will have access to a large store of food and supplies left behind by their newly zombified neighbors.  Second, and not to be disregarded, is that while a modern person might not know how to do a thing (such as 'how to turn an animal pelt into something I can wear'), they at least know that such a thing can be done; this gives them the confidence to search for some source of detailed instructions, or possibly even to simply attempt the task by trial-and-error.

 

To all of the various ways and means a person can die, we have added one (admittedly significant) thing:  Zombies.  So...to be honest, if a player can figure out a reasonable way to avoid 'death by zombie' then every other challenge that might be presented should also be presented with an in-game solution...which means that it is possible someone could survive indefinitely.  It's even possible that communities could form and grow.  So in the end it all comes down to whether or not Zombies are so fearsome that 'death by zombie' is inevitable; and if you're playing with 'canon' zombies, then that just isn't going to be the case.

 

Well, if they're opening the game with "This is how you die", then they need to make us die. Either that or change the intro text to "This is how you lived until a ripe old age on nothing but rainwater and broccoli."

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Honestly I don't think they need to change anything.  Chances are that you WILL die.  Most people do.  As predictions go it's almost entirely accurate, and there is no need for it to be absolutely accurate.

 

 At a certain point there is nothing realistic they can do to make sure that you die since it's an undisputed fact that all of human history so far demonstrates we can survive every condition that exists on the planet.  The only 'unrealistic' element that exists so far is the presence of zombies, so if it is possible to survive them then it is possible to survive period.

 

Outside of that the only thing they can do is introduce some new unrealistic element, which probably wouldn't be conducive to fun gameplay.

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Definitely need more man vs. nature. I think contemporary zombie stories tend to gloss over the challenges of nature in the apocalypse to focus on man vs. zombies.

Pests can destroy food stores and spread disease. Predator populations will explode with the absence of humans (assuming zombies ignore them). Weather would be a problem. You would also have widespread disasters as environmental controls failed - dams break, nuclear reactors meltdown, toxic chemicals leak, fires rage.

The biggest killer would probably be bacterial infections as medical supplies and resources get used up. Cutting your hand with a saw isn't currently a danger in game but could be life threatening in a real Apocolypse where you are constantly doing hard labor.

Lastly there has been some recent debate about the overall hardiness of First World people. Some suggest our modern civilization has resulted in the evolution of humans more dependent on modernity over the generations. In this theory natural selection has favored the creation of rigidly socialized humans over hardier but less socialized humans. For instance, imprisoned people supposedly have fewer reproductive opportunities.

Even setting aside the disturbing race implications of this idea, I don't buy into it but I think the dystopian Apocolypse provides a great storytelling avenue for exploring these ideas.

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