Jatta Pake

I really like this variant idea.
 
Re-animator - A corpse that "re-animates" after an extended period of time.Game-play issue addressed: Punishes players who do not remove and burn corpses. This would also address spawn issues when an area has been "cleared" of zombies but has been left unattended for some time.

I really like this variant idea.
 
Re-animator - A corpse that "re-animates" after an extended period of time.Game-play issue addressed: Punishes players who do not remove and burn corpses. This would also address spawn issues when an area has been "cleared" of zombies but has been left unattended for some time.

Thanks for keeping us going Footmuffin!

Reminds me of some of the features in Dwarf Fortress.
 
It would be cool if instead of baking more tracking tags directly into the game, the system was opened up to allow mods to track any type of tag defined by the mod. This would expand the potential application to ... drumroll ... other mods.

I guess "edge of map" is incorrect. I meant the edge of the streamed cell or whatever the current mechanism is for spawning shit.
 
I don't think water quality should be irrelevant. Death form dehydration is a danger. And drinking bad water is a bad idea. Ideas behind the three kinds of water:
 
Fresh - Good stuff.
Stagnant - Poor quality but won't kill you. Small chance of making you sick. Probably need to resort to it from time to time.
Foul - Poison. Will kill you. Don't drink.
 
Degrading water quality over time will make the game harder as time goes on.

Late Game
 
I've said this before, but increasing the difficulty across the board can disproportionately make the Early Game harder but have no affect on the Late Game.* I think the Water and Power cut off provides the best model for Operation Killing You. As the game progresses, new difficulties should be introduced.
 
Winter - No crops grow. Foraging food severally reduced. Risk of exposure/hypothermia when outside. Violent Weather - Storms could damage player made structures requiring repairs. Storms could destroy crops. Disease - The pollution from zombie corpses littering the area could increase the chances of getting sick. Sick characters could pass along illnesses. Feral Dogs - Wild dog packs should spawn from the edges of the maps. Other Animals - As nature started reclaiming man's cities, wild animal populations would explode. Bears, boars, cougars would present dangers to survivors. Mental Health - Extended periods of mental health moodles (Anxiety, Boredom, Depression, Starving, Dehydration) should build up over time. Characters should start acquiring permanent stress related mental health disorders. Water - Re-work water so there are different types: Fresh, Stagnant, and Foul. Water should go bad over time. NPC Enemies - Less friendly NPCs should spawn as time goes on. Groups of NPC enemies should spawn at the edges of the map. NPC Allies - Conflicts within player survivor groups should arise over time. Safety should breed complacency and social drama. Love triangles. Personality conflicts. Fights over leadership. Accidents - Using any skill should have a small chance of critical failure if the character is doing the skill in dangerous situations (panicked, depressed, angry, starving, dehydrated, intoxicated, drenched, freezing, too hot, sick). Anything from small cuts to sprained ankles to head injuries. Fires - Natural spontaneous combustion happens when exothermic internal reactions cause thermal runaway leading to ignition. Bacterial fermentation (rot) would be happening in all abandoned human structures especially those open to the elements from broken doors and windows. And as lightening rods fell apart, lightening would cause more structure fires. Pests - Infestations would destroy crops and food stores. Introduce these new dangers as time goes on and the Late Game will get progressively more difficult.
 
* Your character is weaker in the Early Game than the Late Game. In the Late Game, you have more survival items and skills to cope with the challenges of the game. You also probably have less zombies. Making everything more difficult in the Early Game may result in characters not getting to the Late Game but it still leaves a "Survival Filter" that a character can pass through to reach a safer Late Game existence. Consequently, the game environment needs to become more difficult as time goes on. Survival should be a race between the character and the environment.

I really like this variant idea.
 
Re-animator - A corpse that "re-animates" after an extended period of time.Game-play issue addressed: Punishes players who do not remove and burn corpses. This would also address spawn issues when an area has been "cleared" of zombies but has been left unattended for some time.

Late Game
 
I've said this before, but increasing the difficulty across the board can disproportionately make the Early Game harder but have no affect on the Late Game.* I think the Water and Power cut off provides the best model for Operation Killing You. As the game progresses, new difficulties should be introduced.
 
Winter - No crops grow. Foraging food severally reduced. Risk of exposure/hypothermia when outside. Violent Weather - Storms could damage player made structures requiring repairs. Storms could destroy crops. Disease - The pollution from zombie corpses littering the area could increase the chances of getting sick. Sick characters could pass along illnesses. Feral Dogs - Wild dog packs should spawn from the edges of the maps. Other Animals - As nature started reclaiming man's cities, wild animal populations would explode. Bears, boars, cougars would present dangers to survivors. Mental Health - Extended periods of mental health moodles (Anxiety, Boredom, Depression, Starving, Dehydration) should build up over time. Characters should start acquiring permanent stress related mental health disorders. Water - Re-work water so there are different types: Fresh, Stagnant, and Foul. Water should go bad over time. NPC Enemies - Less friendly NPCs should spawn as time goes on. Groups of NPC enemies should spawn at the edges of the map. NPC Allies - Conflicts within player survivor groups should arise over time. Safety should breed complacency and social drama. Love triangles. Personality conflicts. Fights over leadership. Accidents - Using any skill should have a small chance of critical failure if the character is doing the skill in dangerous situations (panicked, depressed, angry, starving, dehydrated, intoxicated, drenched, freezing, too hot, sick). Anything from small cuts to sprained ankles to head injuries. Fires - Natural spontaneous combustion happens when exothermic internal reactions cause thermal runaway leading to ignition. Bacterial fermentation (rot) would be happening in all abandoned human structures especially those open to the elements from broken doors and windows. And as lightening rods fell apart, lightening would cause more structure fires. Pests - Infestations would destroy crops and food stores. Introduce these new dangers as time goes on and the Late Game will get progressively more difficult.
 
* Your character is weaker in the Early Game than the Late Game. In the Late Game, you have more survival items and skills to cope with the challenges of the game. You also probably have less zombies. Making everything more difficult in the Early Game may result in characters not getting to the Late Game but it still leaves a "Survival Filter" that a character can pass through to reach a safer Late Game existence. Consequently, the game environment needs to become more difficult as time goes on. Survival should be a race between the character and the environment.

I find this fascinating as I don't play PvP multiplayer. I imagine poisoned food comes into play too. Locked doors and crates will also obviously further transform PvP multiplayer.
 
This might seem counter-intuitive, but I think enhanced communication might also further strengthen base security. If you can post a sign saying "Beware! This safehouse belongs to the Night Raiders. It is filled with traps, and if you attempt to break in we will hunt you down. Also, we leave nothing of value inside. Otherwise, leave us a message in the front door crate for all communications."
 
I think your safe house faces three types of potential intruders. One is the random opportunist who wants to steal some easy loot. The second is a known enemy. The third is the random grief player who wants to just be a dick and ruin someone's safe house for lulz.
 
You can ward off number 1 if you can communicate that you are a dangerous target. The reward just isn't worth the risk to the random opportunist.
 
But the nature of PvP is that number 2 is part of the fun. You want to match wits against an enemy. So you don't want safe houses to be impenetrable. A clever and determined enemy should be able to succeed and vice versa. Otherwise, why play PvP?
 
Number 3 is the biggest problem. How do you allow 2 but prevent 3? Aside from white list servers, I think the only answer is to continue to develop traps and counter measures which require an ever increasing commitment from the players to develop. Jack's defenses above utilize unpolished aspects of the game, but the theory behind it is good. You will have less grief players if they have to "grind up" skills just to be a threat. This suggests that overpowered game play tactics, like starting a safe house fire, should require more commitment (skills, items) than the counter measure (fire retardant wall coating).
 
Insta-death is a good balance mechanism in PZ. Give an advantage to defense over offense, and grief play should decrease. But determined enemies will engage in the arms race.

first off...everyone chooses what they want their character to be. just because someone wants to have a farmer based character that does NOT make it a PoS character.
 
second...it is not wasted points if that is what they chose to spend them on. in truth, every successful  server group is going to NEED 1 or 2 farmers to keep them fed and keep the crops healthy
 
third...as we still don't know exactly what kind of characters we will be able to build, beyond Lemmys examples, who is to say that a farmer will require all kinds of serious negative or missing positive traits?
 
fourth...next time you want to post something like that, remember the Be Lovely Law

In order to prevent Chris's comments from being absolutely buried yet again, this thread is now locked.
Other threads along the same vein will also be locked, with a request to check out the detailed explanation here, on page 3.

UPDATE
 
Dear all.
 
I have recently been too busy to wade through the POIs on the PZ Map myself.
This is why I have written a POI Manager website. This is a small-ish site that all newly submitted POIs will go to.
Everyone can vote on POIs (upvote or downvote) to help bring them to or prevent them from appearing on the maps. You have 5 votes per day, so use them wisely.
 
To help foster a productive experience for everyone, I have also implemented a Slashdot-like Meta-Vote system. Every week you get up to 5 Meta-Votes where you can vote on whether you agree or disagree with someone elses vote. You will not see who cast that vote, though.
If you agree with the vote, all future votes of that user will be worth more. If you disagree, they will be worth less.
Please don't make me implement a meta-meta-vote system.
 
The final word on whether a POI appears or not will still be with me or one of the - yet to be appointed - moderators.
 
 
I hope you agree with me that this is a good idea. If not, I'd still like to hear why.
 
 
Enjoy!

Well, for the sake of accuracy, I think the OP was talking about the need to pick up carpentry to get water: 
 
And since it has been already cleared up that
 
1. We'll probably get other water collection methods 
2. You have several ways to not suck at carpentry without picking the carpenter profession
 
I think we can all chill out and wait for tomorrow's Mondoid to get crazy about the next feature preview   

I appreciate that Suomiboi thanks, but even if a minority they still can be loud and still soak up a ton of our time repeatedly explaining the same thing.
To wrap this up I've attempted to make the best possible Carpenter build I could that had a shot at long term survival skillwise that, god willing, will explain my point. Note I've cleared out the profession points just to illustrate what they are like as vanilla free professions:

So what do we have here? We have a character who will never really get the hang of fishing, trapping, foraging, will never likely shoot straight, is thin skinned and crap at guarding and thus has a huge risk of getting scratched or bitten, who will likely never be good at sneaking around zombies, and who will likely never be able to adequately fix an axe. As such he likes to jog so has a shot at getting away from zombies, as well as some experience in fights to be able to handle combat, and enjoys gardening because otherwise he's unlikely to ever manage to live off farming.
On top of this he needs to drink twice as much as anyone else (god bless those out of the gate water collection barrels eh? Had to give him lucky because if he doesn't get all the bits required to make a rain collection barrel he's going to run into problems. He also takes much longer to read skill books, can carry less than most people and can't hear zombies approaching properly.
Surely you see that 'picking carpenter' isn't some 'all win' choice? Let's compare that to another build... say an 'all rounder' burglar....

Tried to pick similar negative traits to keep things as equal as possible. So you only start with one point in carpentry, but in the long term look at quite how much more the burglar has going for him.
It's no harder for this burglar character to create water collection barrels as it is any of the professions in build 30 (for that matter, with another couple of negative traits the burglar could start with 3 carpentry TOO). Sure the carpenter is going to get there a lot quicker, but as of these two builds, all professions at an equal cost, surely you can see that a carpenter is going to have a hard time in other vital skills.
Remember, level 0 in any of these slots mean the character will have a REALLY bad time trying to level them up, even with books. AND that those level 0 skills are now a great deal less effective. Attacking a zombie with an axe with level 0 blade will take about 3-4 x the work to kill a zombie than in build 30. Level 1 in 31 is as it is at level 0 now.
On top of this, even if people still kept picking carpenter, we could make it cost 4, 6, 8, hell 10 points to pick carpenter, meaning they had to pick another 2-3 negative traits to compensate. Though we won't need to do this. Carpenter has it bad enough as it is.
So explain, having read this, why everyone who plays this game is just going to pick carpenter from now on?
PS: All hail hunting, handy, strong, rough and tumble construction worker and his mighty zombie bane hammer.

The carpenter is a putz at the moment and we need to address that.

Again. There are about 6 ways to get carpentry points on start and only three of them are professions and only one of those is the carpenter. Considering the amount of traits and professions we hope to have by 1.0, I wouldn't be surprised if there were 5-6 professions with carpentry points at some point.
A character with the hunter trait will start off with 1 point in carpentry to aid from their experience in building traps. With this trait it is identical to how the carpentry XP works now in build 30.
People who pick the carpenter will be in for a sharp shock when they discover they suck at combat and everything else apart from carpentry. Carpenter, farmer and fisherman are currently three of the worst professions to choose in solo since they offer points in only one skill. When we say we need to balance it further before release, we actually will likely have to BUFF the carpenter to make it a viable choice since the game has been rebalanced around the new trait/profession system making level 0 a lot worse in all skills, not just carpentry, and requiring professions or traits to be picked to make skills major skills and allow them to start at a competent level and level up at a decent speed.
If carpenter ever turns out to be too powerful, we can just up the point cost of that profession and require more negative traits to be taken to allow for it. At some point 'everyone picking carpenter' would cease to be an issue if, taken to silly extremes, you had to pick 20 points worth of bad traits to use it. That's the whole point of balancing. We have the metrics to make any profession or trait more or less desirable or more or less expensive, and by adjusting these over time we can make no one profession better than any other profession, so I fail to see how anyone thinks this is some big problem, I really do, especially considering the massive improvement over the current shitty profession/trait choices. As I said before, if we released as is NO ONE (apart from maybe their first game) would pick carpenter as a profession, as they would unlikely survive a week.
Level 0 means you just inherently SUCK at that skill. Level 1 is the old level 0. A carpenter with level 0 in blade and blunt will have a tremendously hard time, so will need to pick hobbies or other traits to make them viable, and pay the cost of bad traits to compensate.
The construction worker is a much more viable choice giving you a point in carpentry as well as 3 in blunt. A construction worker who enjoys hunting in his spare time and is handy will start with 3 carpentry, but also have trapping, aiming and a really strong blunt skill. An inconspicuous, dexterous, packrat, handy burglar character who used to be a gymnast at school will be a master at sneaking and will be a master at looting houses quickly, as well as being able to level up carpentry as people do now. People in single player looking at Carpenter as being some OP master profession are seriously in for a shock. I imagine carpenter will be profession used by one member of a group in MP, who will likely have to rely on their friends to defend them and loot. Same goes for once NPCs go in.
The whole point is none of you have played it, and are judging it completely incorrectly based on very limited information. And when everyone who HAS actually PLAYED it comes and says you're wrong, you won't seem to accept it.
It doesn't exactly encourage us to be forthcoming with any other features we work on or testing in future, if we're going to have to spend a ton of time defending them on the forums against people who are totally making wrong assumptions based on little information, and don't seem to take our or others who have played it's assurances with any weight or credibility.
Tired of going round in circles and saying the same thing again and again.

I find this fascinating as I don't play PvP multiplayer. I imagine poisoned food comes into play too. Locked doors and crates will also obviously further transform PvP multiplayer.
 
This might seem counter-intuitive, but I think enhanced communication might also further strengthen base security. If you can post a sign saying "Beware! This safehouse belongs to the Night Raiders. It is filled with traps, and if you attempt to break in we will hunt you down. Also, we leave nothing of value inside. Otherwise, leave us a message in the front door crate for all communications."
 
I think your safe house faces three types of potential intruders. One is the random opportunist who wants to steal some easy loot. The second is a known enemy. The third is the random grief player who wants to just be a dick and ruin someone's safe house for lulz.
 
You can ward off number 1 if you can communicate that you are a dangerous target. The reward just isn't worth the risk to the random opportunist.
 
But the nature of PvP is that number 2 is part of the fun. You want to match wits against an enemy. So you don't want safe houses to be impenetrable. A clever and determined enemy should be able to succeed and vice versa. Otherwise, why play PvP?
 
Number 3 is the biggest problem. How do you allow 2 but prevent 3? Aside from white list servers, I think the only answer is to continue to develop traps and counter measures which require an ever increasing commitment from the players to develop. Jack's defenses above utilize unpolished aspects of the game, but the theory behind it is good. You will have less grief players if they have to "grind up" skills just to be a threat. This suggests that overpowered game play tactics, like starting a safe house fire, should require more commitment (skills, items) than the counter measure (fire retardant wall coating).
 
Insta-death is a good balance mechanism in PZ. Give an advantage to defense over offense, and grief play should decrease. But determined enemies will engage in the arms race.

If the surface area covered by your buckets was the same as the surface area covered by roof or tarp, then yes you would collect same amount. However, I suspect a roof/tarp funnel to container would reduce collected water surface area and temperature, thus reducing loss due to evaporation.
Buckets would be more labor intensive for collecting the water as tarps and roofs would use gravitational energy to put the water were you want it, rather than lugging buckets around after a rain.
Leaving the water standing and open to the elements would also be more problematic with a bunch of buckets covering your yard. Dirt, insects, bird shit would all collect quickly.
Not sure that I understand the nature of the disagreement. Could you use a ton of buckets? Yes. Would you want to if better alternatives were available? No.

If the surface area covered by your buckets was the same as the surface area covered by roof or tarp, then yes you would collect same amount. However, I suspect a roof/tarp funnel to container would reduce collected water surface area and temperature, thus reducing loss due to evaporation.
Buckets would be more labor intensive for collecting the water as tarps and roofs would use gravitational energy to put the water were you want it, rather than lugging buckets around after a rain.
Leaving the water standing and open to the elements would also be more problematic with a bunch of buckets covering your yard. Dirt, insects, bird shit would all collect quickly.
Not sure that I understand the nature of the disagreement. Could you use a ton of buckets? Yes. Would you want to if better alternatives were available? No.

honestly .. this doesn't even have to generate a story that makes a huge amount of logical sense either ...
just the fact that it created some sort of story based vaguely on what you did would be incredibly awesome
 
if there are already player action tags you could use it would significantly reduce the workload
a lot of the work is going to be creative, writing the "story snippets" that the code would piece together
some of these tags have to already exist ... the game keeps track of how many zombies you killed and how many hours you lived
but it doesn't track that you always remembered to put that stuffed Spiffo in your main inventory before going to bed
or that you were attacked while cooking the last of your food and burned it ... and the house ... and went 3 days without food afterwards
that kind of stuff would be awesome

If the surface area covered by your buckets was the same as the surface area covered by roof or tarp, then yes you would collect same amount. However, I suspect a roof/tarp funnel to container would reduce collected water surface area and temperature, thus reducing loss due to evaporation.
Buckets would be more labor intensive for collecting the water as tarps and roofs would use gravitational energy to put the water were you want it, rather than lugging buckets around after a rain.
Leaving the water standing and open to the elements would also be more problematic with a bunch of buckets covering your yard. Dirt, insects, bird shit would all collect quickly.
Not sure that I understand the nature of the disagreement. Could you use a ton of buckets? Yes. Would you want to if better alternatives were available? No.

I am adamantly against any sort of random injury when using tools! Injuries should be avoidable by being careful and calculated with one's actions, just like in RL.
 
I would, however, like to see injuries with tools based on reckless actions by the player. For instance: working while exhausted, drunk, or stressed, working in the rain, working at night without light, carrying heavy loads up and down stairs in the rain or at night without light, etc. Or if you ever try to climb a sheet rope overburdened. If you tried sprinting while over burdened you should have a chance for a broken ankle or injured back. While cooking if you take a burning item out of the oven, you should get burned unless you equip a dish towel (as an oven mitt). Injuries like these would be realistic and immersive.
 
Getting randomly injured for no reason would piss me off beyond believe and I would probably rage quit the game.
 
By being careful and only working when you are in safe conditions and in the right state of mind, you should be able to avoid injuries. Especially since we are only using hand tools.

I thought of a few things about water.
 
Water Changes:
Add potable water to the game. Similar to food, water can be "Fresh", "Stagnant", and "Foul". Wells and houses provide "Fresh" water (until the faucets run out). Found water bottles provide "Fresh" water. Barrels, buckets, other makeshift collection devices could collect rain water. But they wouldn't collect much! Rain water would start "Fresh" but become "Stagnant" after a day or two. "Stagnant" water will not kill you but has a small chance of making you sick. "Stagnant" water can be made "Fresh" by:Adding Bleach Adding Iodine Adding Water Purification Tablets Boiling Putting water in Makeshift Filtration System (limited uses before breaking) or Advanced Filtration System (no breakage) "Stagnant" water slowly turns to "Foul" water over an extended time. "Foul" water is diseased and unsafe for drinking. Drinking "Foul" water will make you extremely sick. Drinking too much will kill you. "Foul" and "Stagnant" water can be used to water crops. "Foul" water can be made "Fresh" by:Putting water in Advanced Filtration System (does not break down) Plumbing Skill Level 2 allows the construction of Makeshift Filtration System Plumbing Skill Level 3 allows the construction of Advanced Filtration System I'd allow the collection of water from rivers, streams, and ponds but the water should be "Stagnant".
 
Killing You In The Late Game
After about eight months into the game, all well water and faucet water collected would be "Stagnant". After about eight months into the game, all water collected from rivers, streams, and ponds would be "Foul". (You've got zombies floating around in there). Plumbing Skill Crafting
Makeshift Water Filtration System Advanced Water Filtration System Crop Irrigation System Large Rain Barrels Rain Collection System (needed to maximize rain collection in Large Rain Barrels) Couplers (Needed to link Rain Barrels to other Rain Barrels, a Rain Collection System and an Advanced Filtration System) Dig Well (Level 5 Plumbing) Well Pump (Level 5 Plumbing) Latrine (reduces the effects of Miasma) Plumbing would definitely be a valued skill. Hobbyists could grind up the skill by purifying water until they can make a Makeshift Filtration System. But for a sustainable settlement, a group of survivors would want a professional plumber on the team to build the Advanced Filtration System.
 
PvP:
Wells could be poisoned (ancient military tactic) that turns all the water collected from them to "Foul". A sustainable settlement that can make "Fresh" water would be a powerful group in the late game. It would also be a big target for raiders and attackers.  
 
Sources: 
http://www.ehow.com/how_7516745_purify-non-potable-water.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Rainwater-Collection-System

Having water stagnate would also give a useful purpose to bleach

Enigma is spot on. A water barrel, bucket, or other container wouldn't collect much water. You need a water collection method. Personally, I'm a fan of making a Plumber skill the pre-eminent domain for water survival. My idea detailed here.
 
Rain collection devices like roofs, tarps, etc. don't collect potable water. You can tilt your head up in rain and drink safely, but not enough to stave off dehydration. Same with clean containers like buckets and barrels. But you can't drink water that has flowed over a roof unless you like getting diseases from bird shit. True water sustainability requires purification of non-potable water. Or a clean source like a spring or well. But it's a moot point unless we get different kinds of water.
 
Plumbers understand water pressure, piping, and mechanical pumps. Carpenters make shit out of wood. There is some overlap, but long term water sustainability requires plumbing knowledge, not Carpentry.

Enigma is spot on. A water barrel, bucket, or other container wouldn't collect much water. You need a water collection method. Personally, I'm a fan of making a Plumber skill the pre-eminent domain for water survival. My idea detailed here.
 
Rain collection devices like roofs, tarps, etc. don't collect potable water. You can tilt your head up in rain and drink safely, but not enough to stave off dehydration. Same with clean containers like buckets and barrels. But you can't drink water that has flowed over a roof unless you like getting diseases from bird shit. True water sustainability requires purification of non-potable water. Or a clean source like a spring or well. But it's a moot point unless we get different kinds of water.
 
Plumbers understand water pressure, piping, and mechanical pumps. Carpenters make shit out of wood. There is some overlap, but long term water sustainability requires plumbing knowledge, not Carpentry.