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Scenarios, stages, stories and events. A varied suggestion of one goal.


Damien Darkside

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I have mentioned this idea in various threads, but I want to make my own thread since it would be my idea with more thought put into it.

 

My favourite things in video games is the little details, the little lore or environmental bits that bring in a larger picture. The "flavour" as you will, with English spelling. The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series are my current love for this. The games have these little pieces, a note here, a skeleton there, a body placed with an item over there, a Terminal and a few entries perhaps. They as a piece may not be much, but combined with other pieces makes more of a whole story. Two skeletons are over a Psycho and several other skeletons are about, did they all take a hit of Psycho and started killing each other? Is it a raider group tangling with a few survivors? Maybe a terminal shows how this is a drug den with a fight club and everyone died by fighting.

I see an adventurer's corpse with a note on it about a monster in a cave, in front of the cave. I WANT TO NOW GO IN THIS CAVE.

Not to mention the various random encounters.

 

It is those things (among others but this related to the thread) that I stumble upon that bring me into the world again and again. Random bits that can be randomized and that entertain or make stories.

 

Now we have four separate "flavour" systems in Project Zomboid. 

  1. Dead Body Scene - These are bodies that have booze bottles, a locked door and a body with weaponry, bodies covered in bleach bottles etc. Survivors that have died in one way or another.
  2. Meta Events - Gunshots, screams, dogs barking etc. They serve to move hordes.
  3. Annotated maps - Maps with notes on the that lead to various house modifiers, hordes, supplies etc. 
  4. House Modifiers - Houses that are loaded up with food, have construction materials in crates, have been burnt to the ground, or even having a "theme" it seems since I have found places with electronics or farming equipment in cupboards.

 

What would be cool is that these Flavour events eventually merge and evolve to have a system that will use One, Two, Three or all Four of the events to make a unique scenario. For the following suggestions "Annotated Maps" section can be also filled with NOTES, a notepad that also has pre-written notes written on them.


My Two-In-The-Morning ideas have been (apart from only one event playing):

  • (2) The current system we sometimes do get, a map with a note on it and a house that has supplies. However instead of being at spawn, how about in cells that haven't been accessed in a while and THEN getting supplies in when a survivor has a map? Like he traveled to there and boarded it all up since the last time you were there and now it has supplies. It bring players to explore and discover places they have been previously and encourages more risks. (Annotated maps and a house modifier)
  • (3) Hearing a gunshot in the distance, following it or stumbling across a boarded up house, with a survivor in it that has a pistol loaded and dead on the floor that has a suicide note. (Dead body scene, meta event, house modifier)
  • (2) Hearing a distant explosion and coming across a part of a destroyed house. (Meta event, house modifier)
  • (3) Hearing screams, possibly a gunshot as well, and coming across a dead body and a few dead zombies as well. The dead body has a map with a note on it that simply says "This area is clear, possibly make a stronghold here" (Meta event, dead body scene, annotated map)
  • (All) Hearing gunshots and a scream, coming across a dead body with a shotgun and dead zombies, the dead body has a map to his stronghold but has a skull on top of the "house" symbol, going to the partially boarded up and damaged house finds it completely infested but filled with good loot. There is a dead body on the top floor that has a note that simply says. "They will be in soon. Chris was able to get out, I chickened out and locked myself up here.  They surrounded the house. All I hear is the groaning and moaning and groaning and moaning and groaning and moa-" (2 x Dead Body scene, Meta Event, Annotated map, House Modifier) 



     

Tell me your ideas! This was the game is different on every try and these event can spice up your playthrough!

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Great idea, although now it sounds rather difficult to perform :)
Especially like how you talk about Skyrim and Fallout, Bethesda geniuses in the stories and it's a fact!


This will undoubtedly be very interesting and will add a spark to the game for many long hours, although depending of course on how much it is worked out and how many such events will happen. 

However, do not forget that the zomboid is a sandbox and all the same the basis of this game is its mechanics. I mean that even recurring stories should remain interesting and unexpected, to some extent. There must be a desire to try again to find such a story, that is, it must have a large number of different outcomes.

 

Now there is such a feeling that there is no life outside the city, although it seems that the city should not go by a single continuous highway City grows gradually, some houses we should find as hermits far in the forest, and so the map should have a large number of suburban buildings and districts, which is very suitable for your idea!

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