Bullet_Magnate

I like the idea. Maybe higher skill could mean a lower chance of bladed weapons becoming stuck.

You're correct -- the official primary reference cited by the devs is Max Brooks's World War Z (the book, not the movie). If I recall correctly, the WWZ book zombies are very much Romero-ish, however -- so saying the lore is based on Romero is not wrong. (Fun fact: Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks of Young Frankenstein and Spaceballs fame.)

A small thing, but suddenly jumped out at me ... just about every house and business in the U.S. usually has a few rolls of paper towels lying around. That was true in the 90s too. Maybe something to consider adding ...

EDIT: Checked, and apparently this has changed (in a recent update maybe?). Sheets of paper are down to 0.05 ENC. So, this issue appears to have been addressed already. Thanks devs! ============================================================= Currently an individual sheet of paper has an encumbrance value of 0.1, which seems odd ... Understand there may be some game balance concerns maybe, but it just seems a bit silly.

The game uses text indicators in item names to show certain statuses, such as whether food is cooked or frozen. For example, a steak just removed from a freezer appears in inventory as: Steak (Uncooked Frozen) After being cooked, the text indicators change, and it appears as: Steak (Fresh Cooked) It would be convenient if similar indicators could also show the amount of the food item remaining. For example, if I was to eat one-quarter of the steak, it could change to: Steak (Three-Fourths, Fresh Cooked) Eating another quarter of it would change it to: Steak (Half, Fresh Cooked) And so on. Currently, there isn't really a clear, obvious indicator of how much of a food item is left. Some consumables (like beverages) have meters / bars that show how much remains, but solid foods don't.

It'd be a nice feature to be able to make the Name and Category of each item an editable text field. I've got a mod that allows this for item names. Not sure if it'd be readily doable for Category, as I imagine this might affect game functions (like area-specific loot lists, etc.). Maybe there could be an item category that the game uses, and another that is the "display category" -- i.e., the one the player sees, and by which items are sorted in the inventory window. This would make it a lot easier for players to tweak organization of items in inventory / storage.

I'd like to be able to do things like paint a big "X" (and other symbols) on the front of buildings (to quickly show that they've been cleared, contain items I need to come back for, etc.). This is particularly important for me because I don't use the main in-game map function (no one carries a giant county map with them 24/7) -- so I can only annotate maps I find in-game. Often I don't have a map for the area I'm clearing. There are mods that allow this to be done with the paint cans and brushes you find in-game. However, paint cans are too heavy when operating primarily on foot. The perfect solution would be cans of spray paint (which could have other applications also, I imagine).

Absolutely agree ^^^

Currently it's assumed that all survivors know how to drive a car. Obviously in reality this isn't true in all cases. My understanding is that the devs are developing professions intended for late game, when the "civilized" professions no long make sense -- e.g., "herder" or "blacksmith" instead of "burger flipper" or "electrician." Having a "non-driver" trait when these professions start to become available will make even more sense, as useable cars will only become more rare. This could be implemented in the form of more difficult / erratic steering, "Sunday Driver" style hesitance to accelerate, the possibility of accidentally stalling the engine, inability to perform even the most basic maintenance functions (like changing tires, filling the gas tank, etc.).

LOOKIN' GOOOOOOOOOD

This all looks GREAT. I admittedly have a bit of a tendency to carp about small stuff, but overall this looks fantastic. One of the things I'm definitely grateful for this year is all the dedicated folks at TIS. ; ) Can't wait to see what's coming next.

Minor thing, but it would be kinda nice if it was possible to paint over windows as a means of permanently covering them.

My thought was that, rather than having the view zoom out further, your whole POV would just shift / move further in the direction that you were "zooming" toward, while keeping line of sight / fog of war based on your actual position. That should make it so that monitor resolution is irrelevant. : )

It would be very cool if players could find binoculars that would allow them to zoom their vision much further, at the price of a much narrower field of vision while in use. Weapon scopes could function much the same way.

Having looked them over, I have only one thing to say to the devs ... SHANK YOU VERY MUCH! ; ) Edit: Seriously, though, it all looks great, and some of these are especially nice from a realism perspective (fireplace poker and tire iron).

With regard to the basements, there's probably a bit of an opportunity here to further enhance realism by including something that's noticeably absent right now -- utility and HVAC infrastructure (like furnaces, hot water heaters, etc.). That would be a nice touch, and realistic given that many homes and other structures have these utility areas in their basements.

This all sounds awesome, but there is one thing I am *really* hoping ... The layout of the example basement shown in the video is very strange, in that it "sticks off" from the side of the main / above-ground house. So far as I know, in modern homes, basements generally have the exact same footprint as the above-ground house (or at least, the footprint is very similar, and the basement almost never extends out from under the main / ground floor of the house). I sincerely hope this is the default plan for basements, i.e., that they would generally be limited to the borders of the house. Otherwise they're going to feel very weird and immersion-breaking. Beyond that, in most multi-level houses, the basement stairs are typically located underneath the stairs going to the upper floor(s). This makes sense, as the space under the stairs going up is otherwise more or less wasted (which is pretty much the case with below-staircase areas in the current build). Not sure how feasible it is, but it would be really cool if the stairs down to basements in multi-level homes could generally be set up this way ...

Definitely agree this should be part of the standard sandbox options. In the mean time, however, there is a mod called Random Zombies that does basically exactly what you're saying. It's great, and I never play without it now. I also use another mod, Random Rally Settings, that causes random fluctuation in how the zombies group up and move together. These two mods together inject a nice level of unpredictability.

I actually think this would add somewhat to the immersion of the game, since it does seem odd when a character has a bright red "queasy" moodle, but is walking around like it's no big deal. Makes sense to me that a character in that condition would at least occasionally vomit (and probably be slowed / vulnerable while doing so).

Seconded. If it's good enough for those bitey bastards, it's good enough for us ...

I like the idea, but the only question I have is whether such things were common (or were available at all) in the early 90s when the game takes place. I'm honestly not sure.

I don't *think* so ... I think pretty much everything in the game has models showing the object as viewed from at least four angles. So, for example, if there was a refrigerator in view and you were looking straight at the front of it, switching view by 90 degrees would have you looking at it from the side; and rotating another 90 degrees would have you looking at the back of it. I'm not envisioning smooth rotation; more of a quick "fade out and fade back in" looking at the scene from another direction. You may be right that it would still be resource intensive (flipping everything in view by 90 degrees), but it at least seems more feasible than 3d modeling the entire world. EDIT: Added some quick diagrams below to roughly illustrate what the 90 degree incremental rotation I'm talking about would look like.

Sheesh, for a minute I thought you were referring to IRL experiences ... "I nearly bled out from a gushing neck wound once, and it was a near thing, but using a whole box of band-aids, I SURVIVED ..." XD Edit: I've had characters bleed out, or come close, a few times. It's always a high-stress moment for me when I see the Health icon pinging back and forth when it's too dangerous for me to stop and check wounds. A neck laceration can bleed you out right quick, and if you don't have bandages ready to go it can get dicey fast.

I hear you, but that risk is already easily mitigated by either (1) checking out the area before initiating combat, or (2) doing a quick 360 turn periodically. And, in most cases, the reduced speed backing up doesn't appreciably increase the risk, especially if you periodically break contact and withdraw. I don't necessarily disagree with you -- but maybe the factors you point out indicate that this should be available as a sandbox option rather than part of the vanilla game.

Not a huge thing, but it's happened enough to get my attention. When scouting / looting a building, I always make it a point to unlock all exterior doors (in case I need to hide inside sometime later). When you right click on a door, even if it's on the other side of the room, you can immediately tell whether it's locked (that is, if the context menu offers the "lock door" option, you know the door is already unlocked). Just seems a touch unrealistic, since you wouldn't be able to tell visually if an unfamiliar door was locked, especially from any distance.