Vantus

I am definitely on your side about the intelligent zombies (tools, weapons etc) GodWaffle. However, It depends on how far you want to take it. Should zombies even know how to walk? Should they even know how to eat? (ie. Catch Food, Kill Food, Food enters Mouth hole) Should they know how to identify another zombie from a living person? Zombies do, in a sense, retain some motor skills. I think a zombie battering its way (albeit slowly) through an obstacle to get to the thing it desires isn't taking it too far.

"The Unimportant Quest Giver" Wheeeeeeyyy! First I'm all like and then I'm all like

Me too. It's like being the Chosen One in an MMO... full of other Chosen Ones.

Berret-tipping and c*ck measuring aside, lets get back to Project Zomboid. From a practical (and gaming) perspective, I would rather mount a flashlight to a rifle and suffer long-ranged aiming penalties than have to fiddle with my inventory and swap between Gun and Flashlight every other minute to navigate in the dark. If I can mount a flashlight to my gun and use it as a big-ass torch that lets me PROD THE BARREL OF THE RIFLE INTO THE ZOMBIES CHEST AND PULL THE TRIGGER If I need to, then I would be much happier! I'm pretty certain that I, who has never fired a real gun in my life, would still be able to shoot a zombie when the barrel of my gun is tickling his belly button. Unless there's some kind of rocket science to pulling a trigger that I'm not aware of. Besides, we're not "hunting" skittish zombies. We're defending ourselves by any means possible. Stupid ideas or not. It is the apocalypse ladies and gentlemen, not the SAS.

When it comes to Zombies, it's more a case of "they don't feel pain" (or at least don't appear to beyond a groan.) It takes several smacks to the face with a Baseball Bat and a Hammer and even a Fireaxe to knock one over. The Zombies have to be impaired beyond physical ability before they stop "dead". Hitting somebody over the head with the butt of your pistol would be painful and may incapacitate a conscious being but if the other weapons in Zomboid are any reference, then I doubt pistol whipping a Zombie would be effective at all. I'd say a Hammer would have more of a blunt impact force than the butt of a pistol.

Just ignore it.

Really, there's no great need to overcomplicate ranged weaponry. There were good games out there that were spoiled when they popped their heads too far into Army-Land. I have an awful lot to say about guns and their impact on the horror genre, so for the sake of simplicity I will simply say "Less is More". Just my opinion of course, not a demand. Though in saying that, an option in the Server Settings to decide the spawn chance (if any) of Guns & Accessories wouldn't go amiss!

There's also the concept that a long barreled gun would be somewhat difficult to use in close quarters. (Such as tight corridors and small bathrooms and closets etc.) A pistol is light in comparison and occupies very little space making it effective even at melee distance. A bolt-action rifle not so much. Though I wonder. Rifle + Duct Tape/Screws + Kitchen/Hunting Knife = Cheap Bayonet?

Hahah! You crack me up RJ!

Oh! Oh! Oh! When it comes to "Doodling" on a piece of paper, have a small white pad appear with an MS Paint-like interface and let the player actually pixel doodle and draw stick men and zombies and maps with stash locations and stick men being chased by zombies while looking for stash locations! (Only semi-serious hence why I'm not suggesting it in the Suggestion section) I am liking what I'm seeing in the build 28 projection. Keep up the good work guys!

Ahh A fellow Scot! I used to Live in Inverkip, not far from there. My plan would be to hold up in my home for as long as it were safe in order to get an idea of how thing are before heading out to look for my Friends and Family. All without my car. In mass hysteria, people would be as (if not more) dangerous than the zombies. For this same reason, I'd also avoid major cities. (Besides, let's face it, Glasgow city center on a Friday night is already full of zombies roaming the streets! )

Why wasn't Tomb Raider a real time strategy? Why did Borderlands decide to use a Cell Shaded art style? Why is X-com a turn-based Strategy and not a FPS? I think this is as much reasoning or explanation that is required. No barrel-scraping for a list of reasons and definitely no apology needs to be made. Project Zomboid is an Isometric video game, because that's what it is and that's what Indie Stone set out to do. The simple answer really is: "Because that's the game the developers wanted to make." I'm glad too, I've got far too many first person zombie apocalypse games. Project Zomboid, without even trying, offers me a complete escape from the norm.

I see what you are suggesting Sean. I think though, that it would be best if there was only 1 finalized solution to online sleeping as opposed to splitting sleeping into a "PVP Sleeping version" and "Co-Op Sleeping version". The system should be developed in a way that works in both PVP and Co-op environments. Nothing overly inhibiting or arduous but at the same time, allows ample opportunity for both zombies (and other players) to still pose a threat to the player while they sleep.

Shift + Tab. ...Oh hello Steam Overlay! Fancy meeting you here!

Absolutely Jim! Like I said in another post:

Ironically, there is a despawning issue. For example, I found my way to the mall in one of my play-throughs. The mall and car park were absolutely crowded with zombies. I decided "this is going to take a while and it's after midnight (IRL)". So I ran back to the Theatre, saved and quit. When I loaded it up the next day, there were only a few zombies in the car park and the mall was empty. As in, completely empty. I ran around without a care. Even the fabled "death trap" escalators were void of the undead. In your case, when your character died, you were placed back to the main menu. You then would have had to make a new character and load the world up again. This seems to have some weird affects on the "alive" zombie distribution and causes some despawning. I'm with you there man!

There's confusion I think when people mention "Zombie Migration". Zombies that are already local to the player WILL move upon triggers (Helicopters, distant gunfire etc). They only move for a short time and then stop. The direction they move appears to be random. Nobody is disputing that this feature currently works. What I think most people are really referring to is, when the player has cleared a wide area of zombies, no "new" zombies show up. Even after repeated Helicopters, Gunshots and even my own wild gun blasting, I get no new zombies coming to investigate. This is because there are no more zombies close enough to be affected by the triggers (Or if they are, they end up walking in the opposite direction). I'm glad zombies don't "pop up" and respawn in buildings you just visited, but there does not seem to be a repopulating mechanism in place at the moment. Th3or1sts screenshots suggest to me that there were hidden zombies nearby that were triggered by an event. I see corpses in amongst the horde which suggest there was earlier combat there which might have drawn the zombies in after Th3or1st had already left. Or perhaps a house alarm he forgot about. But I don't think those are "new" zombies that have wandered in from town from outside the map.

Like I mentioned previously, I think mini games would get annoying after the initial novelty wears off. With Zomboid-days passing fairly quickly, we would constantly be playing mini games. On top of that there is the technical difficulties that are not being considered. Such as what happens when you are attacked in your sleep or zombies break in. The game would have to suddenly interrupt your mini game (which will leave you with momentary "WTF" syndrome). Project Zomboid will then have to dump your mini game and begin the long load back in to "the real world". Not only would that be incredibly frustrating, you would be long dead by the time you load back in. A black screen or image is just an overlay. Theres more to it than 'is it fun?'. You have to think in the long term. 'Will it be fun after the first 10 sleeps?' Besides Viceroy, I won't stop playing Zomboid because I have to not touch my keys for 1-3 mins. I do that already when reading skill books!

Sell out! Sell out! Sel- erm. Congratulations! Congratulations! Muhaha! Well done Connall. Gotta agree with Jela, I thought you were already a moderator. "If the shoe fits, wear it" As they say.

Alternatively, allow the player to wake themselves (either by moving WSAD or by clicking). This way the player can sleep for as long or as little as they want. However, a minimum of 1 hour must be slept in order to abolish fatigue. Resting for longer will grant a "well rested" bonus that multiplies (like the well fed buff) based on how long the player sleeps. For example, If the player breaks sleep after only 30 in-game minutes, their character won't have benefited because they didn't get enough sleep. This would also mean anyone wishing to Role Play sleeping can do so without being forced to wake up after 1 hour. It will also allow players to be idle during long, uneventful nights without getting the "bored" and "depressed" moodlet.

I hear Zombies are scared of Lego. You sure showed them.

"Hold on, I'll help you!""For god sake, stop swinging at them and just run!""I've got a pistol, let me distract them" Funnily enough, they're always directed at the same person I play with... Hmmmmm. I need new a new survivor friend.

So when will the next patch be ou- AAaaaaaaaaaahhhhh- Gotcha'! I think the Mall is great! I'd like to have seen it have a hardware store of some kind, similar to the one in West Point. Maybe there is and I'm just blind. Also, I hope I'm a bit luckier on my next playthrough. Both in my single player game and my private MP game with my friends, the power has gone out before reaching the mall. So I've yet to see it all lit up. As for the corpse moving, you have no idea how much that's improved our chances at finding a base we like. Half the time when I play with friends we pass up good locations for a base because it's littered with corpses and it puts our OCD noses out of joint. Looking forward to the hotfixes! Keep up the great work everyone.

I definitely like the positivity in the suggestion, as well as the fact you've given examples as opposed to simply shouting "It's broken, Do stuff!". I think the all-round best outcome to tackle the sleep issue is actually just the blank screen. I'll try explain why. Sleeping is an inconvenience. Both in game and in Real Life. Sleeping should be something that requires planning. "I need to make it back before I collapse". "I can't wander too far, I'm getting tired". "I need to get out of here but I'm so tired". Sleeping should, nigh, NEEDS to be worried about.Loss of control over your character should be part of the worry about sleeping. Black silence is intimidating. "What's going on?", "Is somebody sneaking up on me?", "Are Zombies at the window?!", "Crap! I forgot to close the downstairs door!". Being helplessly asleep can be quite tense!No mini-games. Having a mini-game to play every single time your character lays their head down would get incredibly tedious after a while. Although servers can change it, days tend to fly by quickly in Zomboid so sleep will happen often. On top of that, what happens if somebody attacks you in your sleep? The game would have to close down the mini-game rapidly and return you back to the world but by the time the world streams back into view again, it'd be too late.Player traits should play a part in sleep. A "Light Sleeper" trait (Like the Security Guard's "Night Owl") Would allow a player's character to wake up at disturbances easier, such as a zombie at a window or a player opening a door downstairs. It might also reduce the time required for the player to look at a black screen before they wake. Likewise a "Heavy Sleeper" trait would mean players might need to sleep for longer or be easier to sneak up on or even make snoring noises which gives them away or attracts Zombies. I totally agree with the point that players can't be bored while they wait. That's why I liked Indie Stone's original idea that the player needs to wait for about as long as they would in Single Player for day to arrive, but obviously without the fast-forwarding. So it's almost like the player "napped". I am reminded of the old game "The Ship" in that regards. Ultimately, I definitely think sleep should be somewhat of an inconvenience and a concern to the player. How about instead of a "Mini-game dream", the game was able to take 3-4 snapshots over the course of 1 in-game day. Then when the player sleeps, it does a slideshow of those snapshots/screenshots. Kind of like a reflection of the last day. It could serve as a sort of diary of your daily experiences. "Ahhh yeah! I remember fighting those zombies there earlier. That was a close one!" To avoid cache build ups, the "screenshot" log is cleared after waking each time (or disconnecting) and 3-4 new ones are taken during the following in-game day. I could be speaking naively here though, I am not a coder or programmer. Anyway, just an idea. I could go on, but I don't want to TL;DNR any more than I have! _________ *EDIT* Haaaa! Rath covered some of my points while I was writing the novel that was my post.

I'm doing very well at the mall. I'm currently using the Movie Theatre as my base and have cleared out the car park to make it a painless trip back and forth. I've cleared most of the bottom floor of the mall (as far as I know...) using a combination of Pistol, Shotgun and Fireaxe. I feel a little cheap in doing so, but I've found that you can attack zombies through the "fenced" windows at the main entrance, effectively giving yourself a shield. You can still be harmed by crawlers though, so be careful! Tonight I'll be moving upstairs. Wish me luck!