isakron

Yeah, that would be cool. Also it would be realistic (I think?) if all sounds were turned down to near zero for a couple of seconds if you shot with the rifle or shotgun in a very small room.

Hey, It could make the game play more immersive if the screen/ground got shadowed by moving clouds during rainy days. I'm thinking sort of like how the fog-of-war looks, but of course not as dark and a lot softer. Another thing: when the new animations set in, is it possible to have the character cast a somewhat realistic shadow? Probably not, but I was thinking a shadow that stretches out due to the sun's position on clear and sunny evenings. I now realize that it could be hard to get that right when the character is walking or standing next to, say, a wall (because the shadow should respond to and deform on surfaces). By the way, I absolutely love this game, especially after the heightened difficulty on survival, and interesting story on the tv's and radio! Thanks! / The shadow proclamation

Cool, thanks! I'm very sorry, I missed that post. It's a fast moving thread! I've got the impression that zombies will be beefed up and tweaked more. This update is only the first step in that direction. It should be less safe to stay inside without barricaded windows and doors, and maybe sometimes the zombies loses track of you too easy.

I guess I haven't played the game in the same way as Merrin and maybe Florin before. I had a safe house in the North farm a couple of builds ago but never ran the whole way. I mostly walk and sneak, with occasional sprints. I did allot of running in a local multiplayer game a month back and got Sprinting to level 3 if I remember correctly (could have been 2). Thing is, the game didn't feel as immersive when I could run for all eternity. No challenge, and the map felt smaller. Before this I had looked at the trip between Muldraugh and West point as a great trek that should be planned in great detail with at least one sleep over to be safe: it was nowhere near that. I haven't played 30.8 that long yet, but don't you guys feel the tension building when you're character is exhausted and a long way from your safe house? I mean, the new system will probably be tweaked several times in the next weeks or months, but I think the basic idea is the right one. What do you guys think was thrilling or good about the previous 10 second stop-watch exhaustion system? I really want to know; maybe I missed or just where ignorant of the positive side of that system.

I have survived for 5 in-game days in 30.8, and I have to say: great update! I like how it requires more strategic thinking now. I'm constantly on alert mode when I loot. Last night I decided to take down a group of about 5-7 zombies who stood outside a house I wanted to loot. I did it without getting exhausted, but I had to move a block as I hacked them down, and when the last was dispatched I heard a moan from behind. 10 to 15 conveyed on me from two directions. I knocked down two of them and ran. NOW I got severely exhausted. I was very nearly killed several times the next fifteen minutes (real time), but did manage to escape to my safe house without being followed the last bit. Problem is i've now got a horde one block from the safe house. The new exhaustion model makes the game scarier and more fun, for me at least. I know that I can take out one group of zombies (if I don't fuck it up), but if I stumble into another (as is very likely) I soon get weakened. Hunter becomes prey. It's great fun push-your-luck resource management, and it will surely marry really well with the coming update to the sneaking system.

EnigmaGrey: No. I see now how my rambling post could be taken like that! I like proper zombies. Night of the living dead etc. I just couldn't find the words to express what I meant, and it became the somewhat awkward "proper but special." I blame it on the fact that english isn't my first language and I was tired. What I meant was what Strang wrote, but with the addition that zombies who moan or hiss louder should be heard at a longer distance. As my post indicate I thought their moans already attracted nearby zombies (I mean the moans/screams you hear when a zombie is hunting you). It sure seems like the hunting zombies tend to pick up straying ones along the way? So, my suggestion is (more clearly put) that I would like to see the strength/volume of the zombie moans affect how many zombies they attract, to a great length. This, of course, can only be applied to the louder and more agitated hisses and moans of zombies on the hunt (who are hunting a character). I noisy agitated zombie could realistically attract zombies several blocks away! Problem is, this could easily be too hard on the player if it happens every time one of the noisier zombies comes running. Thats why I proposed that, unbeknown to the player, only a select few of them would actually cut thru and be heard in a larger area (like maybe 1 in 50 noisy agitated zombies). be210, I'm totally with you in that proper zombies should react to someone banging a door. I also think they should react when they hear a shout or a scream or a sneeze from a human being. I don't think they should know the difference between a living person's agitated voice and a zombies agitated voice. Like Ohbal said, it would be extremely cool if every sound a zombie made affected others who could hear it. Everything would be cause and effect, ripple effects. But I guess it would break the game balance, and it would certainly break some computers (I think).

Yes! Cool!

Hello! I've got a suggestion that could get players even more on their toes when meeting zombies. What if one in fifty or a hundred of them had a scream or hiss that attracted zombies further away. Most of the zombies within the cell or even further would begin to move in the direction of the scream, if only temporary. These special zombies would only make "the call" when they saw or heard a player character, just like normal zombies. The call wouldn't sound special or distinct to the player aside from the fact that the caller-type zombies always use one of the higher pitched screams some of the normal zombies already use. It would lead to panic every time a player hears one of the higher pitched screams, even if it seldom is a real caller.

Ow! No! And that applies to player-built walls? In that case I really do hope they get better at breaking down doors and barricaded windows..

Even if that would be the case realistically (which I doubt with wooden walls), I think it's boring that they cannot.

Yes, that sounds great as long as you don't have to attend crops every waking hour. I didn't know it was feeling arcadey, as in fast and simple right now, because I haven't tried farming. What I was afraid of when people talked about realism (and this could all be in my head now. I should probably read the thread again!), was that the difficulty of the late game was to be ramped up by requiring more attention and time spent on attending the crops instead of making the real physical threat (the zombies) destroy your farm. I'm all for the Harder to survive in any way possible, including making farming harder. But not when harder only equals more time spent baby sitting crops, to use the wording of Moose65. I like starvation to be a real threat too, and I think that the increased threat from zombies will make it so. Right now I can survive without farming (in single player) for quite a while. I can scavenge methodically from the safety of my house with no real danger of having a horde break-in when I'm out. If the physical threat of the all-destroying horde gets implemented again I have to divide my time between guarding the perimeter, scavenging for tools and food, rebuilding my walls and other safety systems, and tending crops. As it feels right now, I don't have to divide my time. But I realize what you're saying and can't help but agree. If farming is that simple it should require something more; maybe time. As you guys said it would be really cool if you didn't get much crops even after a long time, but had some way of extending their life with jars (which you first would have to find). I'm really looking forward to the increased difficulty. Hope it comes soon!

The approach to make the game as realistic as possible is admirable, and it does often add more than mere flavor. It's cool if the players get the feeling that they would (sort of) have a chance in a real life apocalyptic situation if they were doing the same things as in the game, and vice versa: Once you are comfortable with the controls and UI you get to use real logic and survival skills to survive, without having to deal as much with weird game logics. But we know that we play a game and we should accept some decrease of realism if it makes the game play more fun, right? So what Im saying is that the ability to plant crops to survive is fun, and it should be hard to get it right sometimes, but I don't want to play a farming-simulator 70% of the game time because the more thrilling aspects of game play have died down after the first in-game month. Im not saying that’s how the game is now (I wouldn’t know because I haven’t tried farming), but some talk in this thread about how to make farming more realistic doesn't really float my boat. For me, the fun Endgame lies in constant or near constant threat; in the: "We’re safe for now” *wiping sweat from brow* as opposed to: ”We’re safe for all eternity” *planting some potatoes* The reason for all the realism must be to make game play fun.

Yes. They could be better at destroying walls. I just wrote something about that in that other thread (operation fix late game). Does anybody know how they break them? Is it damage caused with every hammering fist, or is it a percentile chance every x seconds based on how many zombies there are?

Yes! Or rather, they should succumb much faster when several zombies are knocking. Think about the original Night of the Living Dead. They barricaded that house quite well, and it could probably hold against one zombie for a while, but three, or god forbid eight? Not so much. I don't know if there is an easy way of implementing this programming-wise, but what if the zombies "breakWallFactor" increased exponentially with each additional zombie. Unrealistic? Maybe. Exponentially might be to much, but I think it would serve both the gameplay and the realism well to increase the amount of "damage" to the wall quite much with each zombie. My guess is that, right now in the game, every zombie just cause their own separate damage against the wall/door/window every few seconds. If that's true the game doesn't take the zombies combined weight into account! By movie logic zombies can mow down just about everything when they come in heavy numbers!

Thing is, I have only survived little more than one month. That's mostly because I couldn't come up with a reason to continue. My safe house was fully barricaded and I'd built a wall enclosing a space from one side of the house. The game, who had been a blast to play up to this point, became boring the moment I realized that I don't need to build better defenses or safe guard the perimeter to survive. I didn't farm because the house was full of canned food. And even if I had to farm, that's not really exiting enough to keep me on my toes, right? So for me it all comes down to how the zombies behave. I want to be kept on my toes. I want to really –truly– appreciate relative safety because I know it won't last forever. And that last part is the key I think. We want to be able to build cool forts and all that, but what is the point if they doesn't get tested at some point? All the other stuff the game models, like fatigue, depression, famine, is of course interesting and necessary to get the wanted realism and additional challenges. I just want to say, I play this game a lot and love it! It can be very challenging in a good way, especially in the first few days or weeks!

Build 28 seems super cool!

Hello, I just wanted to say thanks Rathlord! I couldn't get my server to work on os x (map tiles not loading, and weird zombies who disappeared then came back in another place like some quantum teleport thingy) but this script made it smooth. I just downloaded the script to "Downloads", and executed with that code in the terminal. cd ~/Downloads chmod +x OSX_Server_Script.sh ./OSX_Server_Script.shI have a couple of questions: 1. Firstly, where are the new server (projectzomboid.app) located? I have old copies everywhere from previous attempts, so Im not sure. 2. Is it okay to start the server with the script every time, or does it always reinstall the files when I do that? 3. How do I install a version 28 server when it comes out? I guess I just download it on steam and run the script again?

Sounds lika a great system, but i'm worried the impact is to small if you only get a 1 sec window to hit someone before they can hammer you in the face. The traitorous player could mitigate it just by taking a few steps from you before turning safety off (at least if you only got a melee weapon).