Project Zomboid Scenarios

[TheUltiM8Guy]

People who played No More Room in Hell might be more familiar with what I'm about to propose to be added to project zomboid.

 

Project Zomboid Scenarios would be a seperate gamemode in the game. It would be a CO-OP survival where a group of players would have to do some objectives to reach the end, and I know that the devs won't add ending different than death but this is a seperate gamemode, right?

 

An example of such scenario? As an example the Crossroads Mall Scenario. Players would start inside crossroads mall with a main objective to escape to the van that is parked outside. The players would have to find weapons, fight through hordes of zomboids and complete sub-objectives (for example: activating a generator so that the door could be opened; or closing gas valves to stop the fire from blocking the way) to reach the end. Some of them might get scratched, lacerated, bitten or die during that scenario.

 

Another example could be a scenario that would be similar to the "House in the Woods" challange (or, for NMRiH players, NMS_Northway). This scenario would revolve around defending an objective, let it be fire station in Rosewood, McCoy log next to Muldraugh, etc. The players could use anything they find to barricade the objective and defend themselves from a wave of zombies that is approaching. After completing a specified amount of such 'zomboid waves' there would be a cutscene with the players being extracted and roll credits :).

 

People (especially Devs) might ask: But why would this be added to PZ? Go play NMRiH instead! And they would be right, to some extent, but I would love to see 'scenario gamemode' in PZ as it would add more replayability to the game. I know that some people are struggling to survive a week in game but some people might get bored with their 6 month charaters doing push-ups for 100 day straight. This would make the game more replayable for people who are getting bored with the 'main game' (so for those people who struggle to survive a week and die often, this would also make a positive change). 

 

This gamemode would require a little overhaul on 'main game' but much of the stuff would stay the same.

 

Some people might say: So what? Character creator stays the same? Everyone will be playing using lumberjacks then and this gammode will be more repetetive that the main game! And well they would be right, but that's where the overhaul comes in. Let's that there is this team of four lumberjacks. They are in the mall and need to power up the generator to open the gate to access outside area. But they don't know how to operate generators, they have to find the magazine inside the mall. They try to look for it, but they get tired and die. Next time those same people play, one of them decides to be an electrician instead of lumberjack. They struggle with the zombies a little more, but the electrician turns on a generator and they are able to proceed further. Success ya!. And something similar could be done with an engineer who would (for example of course) complete repair tasks 100% faster. I know it would still be hard to apply overhaul to professions such as fisherman or farmer, but you see that there is a field to manauver, right?

 

In conclusion, I think that adding scenarios gamemode would enrich the game, reduce boredom/repetiteveness and such addition would be 100% possible to make and to make it enjoyable and playable. And, dear devs, if you see this and decide not to add this gamemode to main game, then maybe try to give such an option to the modders? I think that they would come up with something great!

 

Thank you!

[Axezombie]

It would be nice and I could see this in game, after all what you're asking for is kinda the challenges mode we already have (more advanced though)  but in CO-OP.

It reminds me of something I did few years ago, creating a scenario with a shared save file which was edited to contain a main quest, secondary quests (thanks to notes left by survivors you could find on the map), with lore, some interesting places to go, some secrets to discover... For example the initial objective was to repair your car, I manually put some items on the map to change your tire and get a new battery in the buildings in the area.

But nobody cared about it, yet I still think it would be awesome and a lot of people would love to create those scenarios since many players create stories for their characters and like to share them, it's just that how I did it wasn't the right way, nobody would want to download some files from a stranger obviously... we would need a tool to make those scenarios and make them available on Steam like downloading a custom map.

[TheUltiM8Guy]

2 minutes ago, Axezombie said:

 

But nobody cared about it, yet I still think it would be awesome and a lot of people would love to create those scenarios since many players create stories for their characters and like to share them, it's just that how I did it wasn't the right way, nobody would want to download some files from a stranger obviously... we would need a tool to make those scenarios and make them available on Steam like downloading a custom map.

Man, it sucks noone cared ; ( . Hopefully devs will notice this post and react somehow. I don't know high are the chances for that to happen tho, but it's worth a try : ) .

[getstoopid]

Theoretically some kind of story would be awesome, the problem I have with something like that is that it often feels too railroaded. However I'd like to see many small stories you can come across and decide to follow or not. Like notes where you get a hint where some person or group may have gone. 

[TheUltiM8Guy]

On 5/31/2023 at 8:49 PM, getstoopid said:

Theoretically some kind of story would be awesome, the problem I have with something like that is that it often feels too railroaded. However I'd like to see many small stories you can come across and decide to follow or not. Like notes where you get a hint where some person or group may have gone. 

I don't think you understood me. The concept I present here would be a compeletly seperate gammode, not part of the main game.

 

The stories you talk about are already in a base game in a form of annotated maps.

[getstoopid]

Oh I really misunderstood you.. you talk about something like the kate&baldspot thing - yep that would be cool!

[Axezombie]

8 hours ago, getstoopid said:

Oh I really misunderstood you.. you talk about something like the kate&baldspot thing - yep that would be cool!

This is planned, after NPCs devs should work on a campaign mode which is focused on Kate and Bob