Fearing Winter

[Strats]

In my personal opinion, I believe that winter should be a period in Zomboid that should strike fear and anxiety into even veteran survivors. After surviving for 6+ months, winter would be the next big hurdle. Here are some of my ideas, but share your own:

1. Snow becomes not just a visual aspect, but a physical one as well. Players and zombies move more slowly in snow. Fire does not spread easily (or at all) on snow tiles. The player moves more quietly in snow, but so do the zeds...

2. Relatively rare snowstorms. Thick heavy snow falls which obscures vision when the player is outside and causes extreme cold. The potential for snow to build up and block doorways and windows.

3. With the new nutrition system, players must either maintain a heat source and/or consume a greater amount of calories in order to stay warm. 

4. Cold becomes much more deadly. If proper clothing/heat breaks are not made, your character does actions more slowly/swings weapon more slowly. Extended periods without heat exposure lead to unhappiness. Overall strength is decreased in the long run. If the player does not stay warm, perhaps health can drop due to hypothermia.

5. Rain collectors freeze over. Better make sure you have enough water stored... 

6. Longer nights and shorter days.

These are what I can come up with so far, but share your own stuff!

Edited August 25, 2016 by Strats
Ideas

[GOGOblin]

3 hours ago, Strats said:

Better make sure you have enough water stored... 

In winter water is beneath your feet and everywhere.

 

Hey, cool down a bit, Muldraugh is not Russia or Alaska, according to this (KY is a nice place)

Quote

Средняя температура января в крупнейшем городе штата, Луисвилле, колеблется от -4°C до 5°C          

Mean January temperature in Luisville is   -4  +5  °C  

 

So no frozen rivers, deadly snowstorms and polar bears. Almost no winter at all 

 

[Strats]

19 hours ago, GOGOblin said:

In winter water is beneath your feet and everywhere.

 

Hey, cool down a bit, Muldraugh is not Russia or Alaska, according to this (KY is a nice place)

 

So no frozen rivers, deadly snowstorms and polar bears. Almost no winter at all 

 

That's a good point. Thanks for sharing that! Any alternative ideas to make the late game harder? 

[Okamikurainya]

What could be interesting is going with WWZ's idea of zombies freezing in the winter. In this case, the zombies become static, just standing there but they'll start to wake up if a player is nearby. I'll bet that if you've played default survival that you'd have killed a lot of zombies by this point and a frozen static zombie amongst corpses would e hard to spot. So while you've gone into that house thinking you're safe, the zombies you passed outside are starting to wake up and they're going to come for you.

[GOGOblin]

4 hours ago, Strats said:

ideas to make the late game harder?

None. I honestly see no difficulties for surviving Z-apoc in rural area, ofc with nowdays gamerules.

When shit hits the fan - first days - it is a f***ing nightmare, because the Z population is maximum (Muldraugh has more dense population than Luisville, according to wiki) and all Zs are fresh and healthy (hmm..) but as time goes by the ammount of Z must be reduced.  Until they get some reason to flee from Luisville, but this means Z must have some sanity.