That honestly may be a more realistic way for us to contribute, however it lacks the dialogue. I mean this could be resolved by simple RPing with strict rules for staying in character for dialogue purposes, but it would still require a good amount of leg-work and polish to make actual logic chains for NPCs.
The reason why I suggested something like basic coding and logic chains, was because it would allow us to script out multiple scenarios and goals based on an NPCs surroundings. If our actions and responses were simply recorded for data, that means a lot of NPCs would simply act as scavengers and survivors.
The only way I could imagine something like that working is if we're given specific goals at the beginning of each "cycle". Especially for families. Maybe someone is blind and therefore would rely heavily on "family-members" to guide them around. Or as you said, have certain jobs. But instead of it being until death, it would be to accomplished in chains at a time over and over.
For example, we all start day 1 and perform the same general tasks under numerous conditions over and over. Maybe with or without different kinds of zombies, environmental settings, loot rarity, wound level ect. This way they could have a decent map of what a human being would realistically do under each condition. The hardest part being dialogue as it may be relatively delayed since we of course would have to type it out after something happens.
But that would work great especially for job based NPCs such as firefighters, cops, construction workers ect. This way without zombies, it may be more of a sim game with a relatively living and breathing world. The only problem would be the time frame. It would take months or years for even multiple servers to act out multiple scenarios for logic chain purposes. Especially as there is no defining end to the game other than death.
Which brings me back to scripting. It's a lot easier to use tags and labels to give an npc a general idea for what they'd need to do under certain conditions than it would be to act it out. For example, instead of acting out running from zombies or a burning house, we could instead label it as a condition and then put in multiple outputs. For example, if a firefighter was put in a burning house with zombies and maybe other NPCs, especially family members; we could write multiple outputs and tag/label different goals. Such as labeling the zombies as a Immediate threat and the fire as lingering. You could use those labels to give a priority based system to NPCs and then give them multiple ways to go about it. All without having to act it out.
Now imagine a few hundred writers/scripters working on the same guidelines as that. Some may make the npc fight the fire/zombies for a heroic death while telling the family to flee. While other writers may script the fireman to prioritize living and maybe making an escape for the family so they all could flee a certain distance from the house or zombies.
Basically, if we make logic chains as I suggested, it would mean millions of possibilities for NPCs. Especially in the later game as most npc goals would be the same. Roughly a safe house, food, water, and fighting the occasional zombies. Hell, we could even script a change of goals in the event of family deaths or fire situations. For example, maybe a family would opt to sacrifice another member if there's no other options left for their survival.
I know it's a big leap for a community to do, but I do feel with proper guidelines it's possible. All they'd have to do is set the labels and give us a basic tools to plug in the inputs and outputs to multiple scenarios.