glenmack

I love PZ and the idea of emergent storytelling from intrinsic game play. What have you learned from creating the meta-verse events, and do you think this could be applied to other types of games? I'm mainly thinking "god" games, Sim City, Black and White, but is there scope for this kind of storytelling in FPS as well?

Actually, I'm pretty sure you just need a specified amount of water on you. 5 units? Something like 3 bottles worth? I don't remember the exact amount, but it is significant. It does not have to be in the bucket, but a bucket full of water will work.

And what will they add to the game? Will they bring happiness (raised mood - less likely for depression)? Will they help grow food and kill zombies? Will they do stupid things like shoot a gun when there is a horde nearby and only a couple of zombies that are a real threat? Will they panic and run or panic and stand still and get eaten? Will they follow orders? They are more mouths to feed. If you choose to group with NPCs will they help your survivability or will they just eat all the food and you all starve? I could see cooking becoming even more useful. Will there be more recipes like a pot of soup that create four servings instead of just one? I think you will need more. How big of a group could be sustainable? Will they join you or do you join them? Part of me is reluctant to start another game because I don't want to make great progress only to have NPCs added and then I will feel obligated to start again from the beginning. I am also cautiously optimistic about NPCs although it worries me a little that they were in the game and now they are not. I think they will add to the game but only time will tell. They will be realistic so just think of basic human psychology. Some will be very useful, others a deathtrap. In a mondoid from like 10 months ago if I'm correct, they said they will try to make the NPC's and the Metagame make sandbox mode feel like a full story. They'd be far away from that point, but they do already have some interesting things. I know that they said you could get betrayed in the way that in scavenging runs, one of your group members could kill you or wound you so bad youd be so slow and get killed by the horde, and then later back at base say that the zombies got you and that he tried to help you. I thought sandbox lets you change how many survivors you want? Like zombie distribution. Sorry, I dont really get this. Correct me if Im wrong. Sandbox will presumably allow you to change the amount of NPC's but this poll is about a survival game, Survival is the basic game, the "quickplay" if you will and is the measurement by which we would all compare our games.

If you build it, (baseball pitch or safe house) They will come.

I like zombles, zomzoms, zed, zich and brainmunchers.

I never noticed they were different until I saw this thread, now I'm going to have to keep an eye out for them so I know enigmagrey's sense of humour, *slides fez forwards and walks off to other topics*

I've got to say I'm surprised at how divided the vote is, I thought it would be 50+ by a massive margin, but it's a lot closer between that and a slightly smaller number of survivors, I think it may be hard for the devs to keep everyone happy on this one (provided 48 votes are representative of the community as a whole.)

Here's what I've gleaned from Tales from the Metaverse... Roaming on their own and waiting for discovery - There will be survivors, and groups of survivors that you can meet up with. NPC's can all form small groups, disband, murder each other, have leaders, conspiracies the whole shabang. It would seem they will have to "survive" in the metaverse, meaning they will have to go out on missions for supplies, this may result in them getting killed. I don't think the developers would think that anyone is prepared for the apocalypse in any way. From what I read, I think everyone has a simulated chance to die. So in short I don't think anyone has the luxury of "waiting" to be discovered, at least, not for long. Timer/Event The way the metaverse is described events have a distinct affect on gameplay, but the way I read the developer blogs it doesn't seem like they would use it as a flag to spawn anything but more zombles. Attitudes and Morality The NPC's will have a list of traits in exactly the same way your character can, and people with opposing traits will naturally dislike each other, yes, there will be an opinion system and every decision you make does impact on the game world, not only that, you can LIE about having done/not done whatever it is.

As I understand it, there's not going to be a "win" scenario and I guess they'll either have to code in natural death, or a continuous difficulty increase, and, personally, that's what I would like to see, leader-board measured in (at most) years, not decades.

So I ran around a bit and died, but I got some good screenies, looks like a really interesting place, will be a hassle to clear of zeds, there were probably about 80-100 in there, well spaced, but if you had a horde or they increase zombie numbers around POI, it could become quite difficult to secure, anyway, the highlights! Main office Rail Bunker There are a few trailers and the odd shed but nothing of specific interest, plus lots of flat clear land for farming, or building, or making a football pitch once the fence is complete! Like Fj45 said, it would take some work to patch up, my only concern would be acquiring wood.

Picked this up running around on a random playthrough this evening, sorry, no co-ordintaes. It regards the rail yard, specifically the two train sheds, not having any rear walls Version: Build 21. These train sheds have no back walls, can be walked through on all floors (3 floors) and this is the case in both of the train sheds I found while running around before I got horded. I ran through these on a second play through and can confirm it is repeatable. Screenshots -

Everybody's Golf

I finally started a game where I made a bee-line straight for the Rail Yard, The first building I went into - Do I need to report it or is the area still a WIP? Not just a texture bug as I first thought either, zombie ran straight at me and nearly took me out while I smiled at it from the "safety" of inside the shed. On a happier note, the Rail Yard looks awesome and the 2 story office building with a pre-built roof terrace ready for gardening, has become my 2nd choice go to area for when 2nd floor building bugs are fixed!

You can't stay alive... That's the whole point of the game. THIS IS HOW YOU DIED. Humanity is over, Humans are and should be a "finite resource" like ammo, or guns, or cars. However, there is always the possibility of being the last one to die

Not just a high price... Huge, for the sake of balance, you'd want to have to have at least 3 and maybe 4 of the worst traits which are +6 so I'd say survivalist would need to be at least -18 if not more... And if you did, Amazon would sue you. lol, sorry. I know what you mean. Back on topic. Ahem. Overall, I think it's a bad idea I'm not saying it's unrealistic, or implausible that "Survivalists" would survive, it's kind of in their nature, but I feel it can be left to modders as I would put this trait as "not an average Joe" and I think the choices you have in the vanilla game should reflect an average person who isn't specifically advantaged towards surviving a zombie apocalypse.

Currently whenever you see a "live" zombie it will disappear when not in range of your perceptions, regardless of what it is crawler/walker meaning you can easily identify a crawler (if you have time) by not looking at it. If it is a "dead" it will stay on screen, if it is a crawler it will disappear. There are two solutions to this; My preferred solution; make stationary crawlers always visible. The rationalisation; We can always see the "dead" zombies, We can put this down to episodic memory, I know corpse A is there because that's where I left it, So we assume a stationary crawler is a "dead" zombie and becomes part of our episodic memory. Which would give the added bonus of "Wasn't there a corpse somewhere around here last time?" Moments, when they've moved... Alternate (perhaps easier programming-wise); make corpses you can't see invisible. The rationalisation; If you can't see it, you don't know it's not moving... While my preferred option is partly due to "gamey" reasons, I actually like being able to see the corpses from far away, it helps me reference my location better, I feel it's the better and more Project Zomboidy approach, mixing gameplay with scares and an element of realism.

hmmm i hadnt thought of that wish i could change my vote lol i think ur right the mortality rate would be high I believe there's a button just underneath the poll to "delete my vote" then you can re-cast it!

I was very new to the game when NPC's were in and it wasn't long before they were out, so I'll pass on judging how they were, but from what I've read about the meta game, there's a history being played out off screen, but I don't think it extends to other towns and "new" NPC's. As a point of discussion though, here are some issues I would have with newly generated NPC's if that is the case, a,) Most importantly... I want to be worried there's no-one left. The thing about no new NPC's or a limited amount of them... The best thing about PZ, infact, is the uncertainty. I want to be scared I'm alone. b,) They would HAVE to be bringing supplies, ok maybe one or two just make it to town with nothing left, I would understand, but if everyone arrived with nothing it would stretch credulity, so what's to stop me murdering new peeps, wait for the next NPC and shoot him too. Rinse and repeat. c,) Population cap? There would have to be one, unless you wanted PZ to turn into a Civilization game.

My forum avatar has a fez now! And a bow tie! And a mop... I kind of want a mop as a weapon in the game now, no damage, just knocks zombies down.

As I understand it, the meta game will kill off characters as part of building a history, e.g. Jo's wife is dead because Jack abandoned her to save himself. I think it would go against the spirit of PZ to make them invulnerable till you meet them.

Human bodies are difficult to burn. I know, I was an archaeologist and I've been in enough charnal pits. We're talking zombie corpses. Dessicated human corpses will actually burn themselves down to the bone pretty much, and with the right environment, the bone that's left can be easily smashed up by hand.

Well, they are cool!

There would be irony if I disagreed with everything he said, level restricted farming practice isn't that bad an idea! If he's completely trolling I'm afraid he's actually hit on something that might be useful. That's probably why I read it as ironically phrased rather than just ironic.

Even the zombie corpse powered generator??? I did read the two stickied threads on suggestions that have been made/are confirmed (though in my excitement I skipped the how to write the thread one, sorry) but as they are witten they are (deliberately?) quite vague, and I can't see anything about turning portable lighting into fixed lighting. Thanks for the welcome and I will try to avoid your wrath, lord. I hate my self for punning that.

Should REALLY read this before posting Whoops, I was concentrating so hard on the suggestions, I missed the art of a good title, maybe I should have gone with Zombie Corpse Burning Generator, it seemed too wacky at the time...