Syntaxpiggum

I would like the option in the main game too, because even without it there is nothing stopping you from joining a group and being like "well dur I guess I'm of ultimatus magnus now". xP

Oh I see where the problem now, and I have an idea to offset it. Random personalities. Randomise their traits, without the player have the specifically pick one. That way, they can get a rough idea of what the person likes and dislikes but not being stuck with them (after all, in real life, you choose who your friends are). Let's say that, with the current traits system, you can only have about half of them at any one time (since some are mutually exclusive) but I'm oversimplifying it. Regardless, you can only have about 17 traits for any character. That's anywhere from 289 to 827,240,260,000,000,000,000 (I know that's an extraordinarily large margin of error, but I can't be bothered doing actual maths right now - however, it's much much closer to the former than the latter) possible combinations. Save the Undisputed God King of Stats and Traits™ trait picking for Sandbox mode, and have the random button for the main game (;

So we should nerf AI's, even when they are still in the game and surviving as they usually would in other groups? People are still going to be making groups, and hunting, and fishing, and farming, and still making trips from the base to the town to loot supplies, and still fight and still defend Why should the player be exempt from all that fun?

@kaijn You mean, aside from the already mentioned planned nuke-endgame? It's not as game breaking as you make it out to be. I've already said this as well, but AI players will never be as smart and dynamic as human ones. I like to live dangerously. (; That being said, disagreeing with a suggestion doesn't make you immune to any replies I might have. I'm more than accepting of the fact that people will disagree with a suggestion, they should just be ready for a refutation. c:

Just a quick thing: Have you actually played multiplayer in with a group? Yes, everyone has their assigned roles, many of our roles rely on people actually going back into the world to risk their life. 4 out of 5 times - we don't have enough food to sustain 5 people (even with farms, traps), we don't have enough rain barrels to sustain 5 people, we don't have enough weapons and solely rely on running from place to place, avoiding confrontation. You're painting surviving in a group as much easier than it actually is. It isn't. It's hard work, and 4 out of 5 times, it doesn't work at all. That isn't even mentioning what happens when one of us get's caught in a corner in a locked room, surrounded by zombies pounding on every wall. Or when we get lost from each other. Not that anything like that would happen to an NPC, but they can probably still be cornered and eaten while out, looking for rarer-than-gold garbage bags. But it's not like people are just going to go "Yep, let's start with 16 AI survivors :D" - tho I'd imagine that would be fun and chaotic. I can see how this would fit well within the main game, because most of the time you're not going to start with 16 people. You're going to start with 1 - 4, for logics sake. xP

Because they are nerfing the endgame? You still have to feed them, and water them, and keep them from obsessively killing each other when you inevitably run out of food or there is a dispute over who gets to read the last magazine? Besides, the game can already be made piss easy in the sandbox options. What's the most infective way of playing? Making sure power never goes off and water never goes out, and making the zombies all dumbdumbs that barely have to capability to stand during a gentle breeze. What stops people from doing that? hint: nothing. People don't do it because a) they wouldn't take the game seriously and b) there's no challenge There's nothing to lose when you can start with AI. Nothing at all. Starting with 16 perfect human AI's is, sure, seen as 'optimal' (let's just pretend for a moment they are impervious to the endgame nerf), but who's going to do it? another hint: it's the same problem as the other hint

Well actually, there would be no reason to nerf it. People play the game to survive - if people find it easier and more comfortable to survive in a group, why should we stop them? If people want it harder, they still can have no starting AI. The idea of starting with NPC's that you can optionally customise their appearance and your brief history might make the players who are in it to play visionarily/romantically (as opposed to mathematically) feel more involved. Plus, the gameplay mechanics of moving from group to group, each one's demise more gruesome than the last, actually has a lot of replay value despite an otherwise limited start. It'd be on the level of those other games where you stand with a colleague near a water cooler and tell your stories of surviving with 8 somewhat depressingly abstinent playboy models. The idea is that, eventually, like everyone else, they will die if the slightest thing goes wrong (as always), and then you move on to the next group and do it all over again. Or go slightly deranged and live in as a hermit in the middle of the woods for the rest of your life. And yeah, sure, there is more firepower involved when you have a small group, but that's just one element of the survival picture. A small group would need more food, more water, attract more attention, etc. It's not solely an overpowering factor. Especially with head-shot deaths coming in the future. A lone wolf stalker could tactically quickly eliminate members of a group at opportune times adding to chaos and confusion of the group.

I like the thinking, as there definitely should be something to indicate the feelings of a loss of a person you were close too - not just for people you start with, but for people you've grown accustomed too as well.

Well now. It's another day for me, and I had an idea I would like to share. I would like to say this: If anyone mentions that NPC's aren't released yet - yes, I know this, I know this and I know this already. This is for when they eventually are released. (; What if, at the beginning of the game/character creation screen, we could choose if we wanted to start with other survivors we could customise to our hearts extent (using the current character creation options) Perhaps then, you could choose what kind of relationship you have with that person (work colleague, family, married, friends, etc) that strengthens how well you get along with that person... like a bolster in relations that makes it harder to piss them off, or if they like you in a survival group. This sounds like it could be fun, right? Like a kate and baldspot kinda thing? Leave your thoughts, extensions, questions, etc. c:

I once played a flashgame where when you started, the survivors would just literally drop dead at the zombie hoards. As time went on, they hardened up. I would link it, but... you get the point. If a online java game could do it in a few lines of code, I'm sure PZDevs could do it in a few lines as well! (albeit, slightly longer) Similar to Dead Rising where the dead clearly out number the living during the first sequence, and everyone is running for cover. It literally lasts 5 seconds, but it could add a whole new element of "oh shit get inside or get eaten". it's not showing us how it starts though. It's literally one wave of survivors that drop dead like flies, except they're not technically dead. It doesn't give away much as to the lore, the few survivors versus the overwhelmingly 'mobstrous' zombie hordes similar to, sorry for saying it again, dead rising intro sequences.

There are a small amount of zombie games that simulate beginning of the infection (Prototype comes to mind, and the only game that does) when I'm sure this is what everyone wants... I think... I'm not sure. Basically, why couldn't the NPC population be jacked up to about 50% (versus zombies) and have that decline quickly to normal levels, so that the world is already under chaos and you slowly see the thinning out of survivors over a few ingame days. Similar to the beginning of Dead Rising, where you run through a horde of zombies with survivors dying all around you. What do you think?