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I've been playing PZ for a while now and I was thinking if NPCs and NPC groups will be added soon there could be a way for these groups to communicate with each other, that thing could be a CB radio. It's not that rare, lots of trucks have them and other public buildings like police departments and fire departments. You couldn't craft it but maybe you'd need to fix it up with spare parts(with the electrician profession/skill/whatever if that gets added) and from time to time you'd need to fix it up again and maintain it to work, while you have electricity it could simply run from that, but after that you'd need batteries or generators or something. If you ask me it would add a great amount to the gameplay, like: -you'd get random radio chatter from time to time(from the army or from other survivors) -if you have other friendly survivor groups out there you could hook up tradings or just ask them to help you out with something -of course other friendly survivors would ask you to help them out for supplies or for reputation or whatever -from time to time people could ask you to let them in to your group, maybe because they're chased by a horde or by bandits, now you could chose if you'd tell them where's your safehouse just for them to lead the zeds to your open gates\angering the bandits for helping their victims or just leave them to their fates(this gives additional causes from your groupmates to get angry with you) -or you could get the same call that some survivors would like to join you, same you could let them in or leave them to fend for themselves. If you let them in you're risking that they're just bandits who wanted an easy way into your safehouse and now you're there for the murdering, or they'd just open your gates for their bandit buddies at night, of course they can be just normal survivors looking for a place to get by -if we'd take this to another level, there could be walkie-talkies to make calls to your safehouse or just to ask around for survivor groups if your not a part of one if they'd take you in(still another thing wich is pretty easy to find, there are lots of child toys and you could just as well find these at hunting ethusiasts or police officers and so on) And on top of that all I don't think it would be all that hard to put it into the game(not that I know anything about programming) but basically you're just having a conversation with a box.=D I probably forgot the half of the things I wanted to write but anyways let me know what you think of this idea.

With the NPC survivor system coming out, I'm curious what kind of thought has been given to how any groups formed will be handling supplies among themselves. I've been reading a bit in the forums and the blog on how NPC interactions will work, so I don't want to get in to that too terribly much here, but have been chafing a bit during my sandbox mode of play in ways that I think could be a real headache if one was dealing with a community of folks. For example: I've been working on walling off a section of a neighborhood block to start a fortress of sorts large enough for a small group of folks to live, farm, and otherwise survive in. At its most straightforward, the player and NPCs could just move in to the existing houses, storing their own supplies where they live, and that's that. However, when it comes to maintaining supplies more generally, that doesn't sound particularly efficient. Light eaters, for example, could really stretch their food supply while big eaters would run out relatively quickly. As any group requires some give and take, it would seem reasonable that a general pool of supplies would be established to manage the differences in what's retained in individual houses. Weapons will follow a similar concerns whereas some folks are going to want differing amounts of personal weapons and ammunition to defend themselves and their families, but at the same time it makes sense to establish a community pool to draw on in emergencies. Along similar lines, building supplies would not be particularly efficient distributed across multiples houses within the community. Rather than having to collect a handful of planks, nails, door knobs, hinges, etc, from each house(some of whom may not even need or use them in the first place), it seems reasonable to establish a centralized location for these supplies where raw materials are dropped off autonomously and which is automatically the first point supplies are drawn from for community building projects. With all of that in mind, such a depot needs to be efficient and easy to both manage and interact with. Understand, I'm all for realism in a game like this. I appreciate that an important part of the game is time management and both distributed resources and efficient storage are not trivial components to the suspense and mood of the game. That said, I also appreciate that time management for the player character should not lead to tedium for the player. For example: I established an interim base in one of the big warehouses and have spent an exorbitant amount of time emptying crates, moving the items to other crates, destroying the original crates, building new crates, then moving the supplies into the new crates to organize types of supplies into general areas for future use. It's tedious both for me the player, and the character(they're constantly getting board despite me putting them to work smashing crates all day). Moreover, each crate's storage limit(while perhaps realistic) means I have to have a large number of crates(less than the warehouse originally had, but still quite a lot) to hold everything, making remembering where everything is later a real pain. I'd suggest a system whereby a room, or pile of crates, could be designated a cache or depot. This could be represented by a graphic(maybe that changes according to how many items are stored there) of the pile of crates. You don't have the ability to interact with the individual crates anymore(or the room just fills up with them), as it is treated as a single storage object with either have an unlimited storage limit, or at least a limit that is very high. Time management could be handled by assigning a timer to how long it takes to pull something out as a factor of how many items are stored there modified by how many different types of items. If it's a cache containing 200+ items ranging from matches, to food, to wooden planks, the "access time" to pull out one plank could well be quite high. However, if it contains 200+ planks alone, pulling out one plank would be pretty quick as you wouldn't need to sort through everything else(pulling the matches and 30 cans of food off the pile of planks) to get that one plank. With the addition of wheel-barrows or the like to get supplies from the cache to work sites, community building and management would be a lot less tedious. When NPCs come into play, they could be made aware of any caches that have been established in their area and set to interact with them autonomously as determined by their personalities and traits. Standard actions would be to drop extra supplies off in accordance with what kind of cache it is, but other interactions could include stealing from it(to the detriment of the community), organizing it(reducing access times), guarding it(reducing theft), distributing supplies to work sites(allowing workers to keep working and not waste time fetching), or cataloging them(leading to one or more survivors being a record keeper or being able to tell others where remote caches are and what they contain for later supply runs).

(For when NPC's + other players are added) This is a long term idea but I posted it anyway, so I asked if NPC's would hide being bitten from you if they are (the answer was yes), this is great if you find out their bitten, and if there was a way to cuff them or tie them up so if they do survive the bite that I hear there's a 2% chance, they can stay alive, and obviously if they don't, their tied up. I like the idea of keeping them tied up until you know if they survived the bite as such. This wouldn't just be for this one common scenario but say if you get NPC's hostage and want information, you could take them captive. This may be a small feature but personally I like little cool features like this, it makes the game what it is. They could be used for so much more as well, post below to create more cool scenarios or, ways they can be used in the game below.

When npcs are added back into the game, they will make safe houses and groups through the meta system. Now, I was thinking maybe that they could make safe houses according to what person they are. Like police officers hold up in the police station or bikers all inside of a bar. Even better would be if said npcs, according to who they are, would spawn in certain places, like construction workers at a construction site or yard. Leave your input below.

Hey Guys, So I'm excited for the inclusion of NPC's and I've been thinking about groups of NPC's and some things about them, if one of the developers could answer or hint towards anything that'd be great Also I'd like to hear others' thoughts on things like this. 1. Will group leaders be different in any way? As in can an NPC leader be a bit of a psycho and try to steal from and kill other groups whilst an NPC leader of a different group may be an honest person who tries to build a life for people? If so, what happens if the player or another NPC disobeys them? 2. Can group leaders (including the player) create 'rules' for the group? Perhaps the leader wants no weapons on the inside of the compound, and if anyone is caught with a weapon they will be punished (again depends on the leader's attitude, slap on the wrist or execution?) 3. What is the extent of NPC 'settlements'? Will they only be able to take over and fortify buildings or will they be able to seal off streets or even construct a fort the way a player can? I can imagine this would be extremely difficult to develop, but it would be really cool if it was possible. 4. If I were to sneak into an NPC settlement and assassinate the leader, what would happen with the group? Will they 'elect' a new leader? 5. Will we see some crazy lone-wolf NPC's that are badasses but also insane? That would be interesting to see. Anyway, that's all, just hoping for some information on this stuff. Thanks, -GodWaffle

I think there are already NPCs at the current version, It's just that there are loads of zombies that would kill a them since they may be VERY little in number. Thing is, if you put maybe around 20 NPCs as default to mauldraght, they'll either get lost because of the map being toooooooo big and the fact that maybe they're still too dumb into reacting properly when facing the horde. I mean, when I was just playing, in survival, I heard the sound effects of knives punched into a zombie that I didn't even made, and at the first places of me playing the current version, I passed by a survivor's body that had TONS of loot. I don't really know that there are NPCs at the current version, lets try to hear it from others (admins)

When NPCs are added back into the game it would be good to have different levels of pre-set relationships. There would be 4 traits for you to pick from. These would be: Jerk +4, Most survivors around your spawnpoint (and some places away from where you spawn) will dislike you. They are reluctant to join and have a higher chance of betraying you unless you prove yourself. New In Town +2, Only very few survivors will know you and will have a low relationship status with them Standard (Active if no other relationship traits are picked), Only some survivors around your spawnpoint (and some places away from where you spawn) will know you, the relationship status is randomised Well Known -6, Most survivors around your spawnpoint (and some places away from where you spawn) will like you. They are more likely to join and less likely to betray you (unless you be a dick to them)

After reading the future plans for NPCs I had an idea for a way to manage the players faction as a whole more easily without it breaking the immersion. A notice board that could be crafted or found then moved to the players safe house. Alone the board would contain a map (or maybe one could be added when found) and on that map the location of the players safe house.Not only that but the player could post orders for his faction on the board to manage the group as a whole more efficiently than talking to them one by one and when those NPC's return they could post notes on the map detailing anything they might have found on their excursion for example other faction safe houses or zombie hordes not only that but the player could use this to plan construction say the player has someone in their party who has a high carpentry skill they could in theory plan out an upgrade then leave the instructions for it on the noticeboard then designate an area of forest to be cleared or a building to be salvaged for wood how much should be collected and how many people should go to gather it. the board could be an excellent way of managing the meta game in a lore friendly and immersive way not only that but the player could also check the notice boards of other factions when raiding to gather information from them. The actual board itself when interacted with would appear in the middle of the skin and fill most of it and the player would left click posts on the board to read them and right click to bring up the usual drop down menu with possible interractions (for example posting orders) as a final addition to my little idea it could be made so that the players can equip themselves and their survivors with clipboards, paper and pens/pencils to gather more detailed information. if you read all this thank you for your time and I hope you like the idea

Hey guys, first post here - might be a long one. I don't know the situation with NPC traits fully, of course, but I've heard a lot about how NPCs will interact with the player and other NPCs differently, depending on their traits and personalities. An example of this would be an NPC who is angry would be more aggressive, and more likely to be hostile to anything that moves. However, I think that there should be different levels of personality traits. Not everybody who can be described as an angry person, or a quiet person, will be as angry or quiet as every other person who can be described in these ways. Having a tiered system of personalities would probably be quite useful. Using 'Angry' as an example once more, I suggest having several different levels of anger. Angry I - Reasonably quick to anger. Prone to getting sightly angry and frustrated when things don't work out. Angry II - A fairly short temper. More likely to act rashly through anger. Angry III - A short fuse. Potential to make situations spiral out of control and descend into violence, when this person is involved. Angry IV - Constantly looking to put a brick in somebody's face. Very rarely in a calm. peaceful mood, and often very aggressive. A time bomb just waiting to explode, given the smallest opportunity. That is simply an example, and there will be many, many other personality traits. Some won't have as many tiers (Most I'd think would be four). An example here could be 'Optimistic', where an NPC, if they have the trait, could either be 'Always trying to find a silver lining if possible', or 'Always rejecting bad news. Nothing is wrong here.' Some traits would also work well together, whilst others conflict. Having something like "Shy III" would probably compliment a trait such as "Pacifist II" (Again, just random examples).With something like this, it'd be possible to build a consistent, logical character - but of course, one trait doesn't necessarily mean another trait is definitely present, or ruled out. Having a gradient system also allows another possibility, and over the course of an NPC's lifetime, it would be possible for traits to change within their tiers, or disappear completely. It'd be a very subtle change over a long time, rather than one day waking up with no anger whatsoever. If an NPC had the "Shy IV" trait, but had managed to join a group of survivors, it is very likely that they'd become more comfortable around people, and less shy. This would allow their "Shy" trait to fall down to a level III after a logical amount of 'human' interaction. Heck, it might also allow certain NPCs to have certain effects on the traits of others. For example, our friend with what is now the "Shy III" trait might be booted up to a "Shy IV" trait in the presence of NPCs who he/she had never met, or the trait may fall to a level II in the presence of well-known friends, or that special someone. This more dynamic trait system could be used to expand NPC interactions indefinitely. Your team leader is often a good man. He treats you and your group well. He's level-headed, and never makes an uninformed, sudden choice. But there is this one man... One man who really angers him. In the presence of certain individuals, trait levels move around, allowing NPCs to have many, many more possible thought processes. Traits in these cases will be temporary, to an extent. Your team leader might be angrier than usual after meeting this certain individual, but eventually he will return to normal. A similar idea to this is that events would also impact trait levels. A small team of survivors leaves the main group in search of food, only for all but one of the team to be trapped and killed by a horde. The last remaining NPC would have seen the deaths, or at the very least heard their desperate, hoarse screams. He returns to the main group, empty-handed and alone. For a while, he's lost the Optimism I trait, and gained the Pessimism I trait. He's lost Outgoing II, and had replaced it with Shy I. Some traits will return to normal over time. Others, such as Optimism, may never return, but Pessimism may still go. Of course, if a positive event occurs, such as finding a huge stash of food, then everybody in the group may change their traits, at least temporarily. Things like vanquishing a rival gang, killing every last one of them and burning their safehouse down to make sure may cheer a few people up, and dampen down others. Events will have different effects on the traits of NPCs, depending on what their 'original' traits are, or rather, the traits they had when the event occurs. This, in turn would allow a series of unfortunate events to send an NPC down a spiral of depression and sadness, as each event adds another reason for these tiers to increase. At the moment, in the current build there are different levels of anger, or nervousness, or boredom, etc, but these are more temporary 'feelings', rather than traits that define the entire NPC over a lifetime. I feel as though a personality gradient system would really, really help make things more dynamic, and allow NPCs to adapt and evolve, personality-wise, to the twists and turns in their lives in a logical and subtle way. Thanks for reading, sorry if it's too long. XD

I would like it that when NPC's are implemented, and when you can communicate with them (form a group with NPC's) you have an option to play on as one of the NPC's if your character was to get infected and die. It would extend the game time and would give the option to make it more about how long your group could survive. It could have some nice gameplay mechanics I.E after your character has died due to infection I think it would be fun to play as one of the NPC's and watch your previous character come back as a zombie. I hope this hasnt been suggested/ makes sense? Also a seperate button to climb through windows would make things a lot easier as often trying to escape a horde not clicking in the right place on the window can kill you.