Jump to content

Birds, Rats and Refuse


Strider

Recommended Posts

Hey,

 

I was considering how it takes a long time/never for the zombies to find your warehouse and when they do it's never in sufficient number to cause problems. To this end I wanted to suggest some other tools that might be useful to the developers in bring down the wrath of god upon your little avatar.

 

Birds, rats and refuse

 

1. Birds could rest and/or nest on the building in which you live. They could be startled by you causing them to utter an 'alarm call' as most birds do. This is quite loud and could carry quite far.

2. I'm not really going to touch on rats very much as judging from the search it's been discussed at length. I've not read all of the posts I just want to add that they could be used to lure Z's to your safe house because of the rubbish you've left lying around

3. Even in the apocalypse you're still going to have rubbish. There will be cooked food which will go uneaten and incorrectly stored will lead to rats.

 

  • Is it somewhat realistic?

I don't feel this is in anyway outside of the standard lore or realms of believability.

  • Does it fit with the spirit of PZ?

I think so yeah.

  • Would it make the game too easy?

I'm hoping it does the opposite.

  • Would it require rewriting the entire game (like changing the camera view, for instance)

I don't believe so but I'm no coder so I wouldn't like to say.

  • Would it add enough to the gameplay that it would be worth taking the time to add?

At the moment, I can survive indefinitely with little trouble. I think the key here is to make the characters death inevitable again. I think this might help that.

  • Would it be found in Muldraugh, Kentucky common enough to be added?

Yep.

  • For zombies: Does it fit at least somewhat into Romero/Brooks zombie lore (the basis for 'proper' zombies)?

Yes, I think it does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i really don't know how much it applies to Romero lore, but according to the Zombie Survival Guide, every living beeing avoids Zombies (it says, you should always have an open ear for your surroundings...if it gets dead quiet even in the woods, zombies are near). So having birds nest on your warehouse or rats running around in a city full of zombies would be a little unrealistic according to the survival guide.

 

Disclaimer: as always, im referring to the survival guide, because it's pretty much the only "scientific and documentary" source about Romero like zombies

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting. I'm using a combination of the old Romero movies, the TWD series (TV not comic) and what I've read of ZSG.

 

It's interesting though. For hunting it'd mean you would have to travel quite far, potentially.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting. I'm using a combination of the old Romero movies, the TWD series (TV not comic) and what I've read of ZSG.

It's interesting though. For hunting it'd mean you would have to travel quite far, potentially.

I think so aswell. I guess you'd have to leave the City and travel deep into the woods to meet some animals. On the other hand, deep in the woods should be your desired place in the zombocalypse in the first place. Hundreds of animals can't be that wrong ;D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Interesting. I'm using a combination of the old Romero movies, the TWD series (TV not comic) and what I've read of ZSG.

It's interesting though. For hunting it'd mean you would have to travel quite far, potentially.

I think so aswell. I guess you'd have to leave the City and travel deep into the woods to meet some animals. On the other hand, deep in the woods should be your desired place in the zombocalypse in the first place. Hundreds of animals can't be that wrong ;D

 

 

At the moment, yeah. However when NPC's come back they'll be where the fun are regardless of whether you play as bandit or hero. Personally I'd love to setup a safehouse on the outskirts, somewhere with availability to town and the wilderness for food.

 

I could then make forays into town to find NPC's and bring them back to my safehouse so they can cook the deer I just shot :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting. I'm using a combination of the old Romero movies, the TWD series (TV not comic) and what I've read of ZSG.

It's interesting though. For hunting it'd mean you would have to travel quite far, potentially.

I think so aswell. I guess you'd have to leave the City and travel deep into the woods to meet some animals. On the other hand, deep in the woods should be your desired place in the zombocalypse in the first place. Hundreds of animals can't be that wrong ;D

At the moment, yeah. However when NPC's come back they'll be where the fun are regardless of whether you play as bandit or hero. Personally I'd love to setup a safehouse on the outskirts, somewhere with availability to town and the wilderness for food.

I could then make forays into town to find NPC's and bring them back to my safehouse so they can cook the deer I just shot :)

Where you like to establish your safehouse is your Part but in both cases you may have drawbacks in some manner. If you are deep in the woods, you may have animals around to Hunt and many berries to gather but need to Plan more time to get into the city to scavenge. If you life in the city you have much to scavenge but nothing or not much to Hunt and gather and need to Plan more time for gathering and hunting plus more risk because of more zombies in the urban region. Anyhow...I wouldn't like too See a deer grassing right next to a zombie. Since it would feel wrong and like said, every living avoids zombies

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't get why animals would avoid zombies in the lore... Zombies cannot infect animals and zombies have no interest in eating animals... They probably stink but only humans would have to learn to associate that smell with fear and danger. Other animals over time would learn to associate that smell with safety. <- This is just a logical deduction and is not based on any lore at all.

 

Don't forget that Brooks zombies are not Romero zombies!! They are just based on Romero zombies and he wrote a well thought out book with many original ideas and many original lore elements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah rats and birds already avoid humans, just because they avoid zombies would not be a reason to not include them. Just make their AI act naturally. And just because one book says no it should not be dismissed. This is after all not "The Max Brooks Zombie Survival Game". It is a game of its own and I would love to see birds and all manner of animal and the interaction of zombies with them.

 

It certainly would be more unrealistic to have every animal vanish from the world. Even if they avoid zombies with a passion, they will still be present in the world after all. I cannot see how having less is more beneficial to the game.

 

So having birds nest on your warehouse or rats running around in a city full of zombies would be a little unrealistic according to the survival guide.

 

I mean think about it, you as player have to avoid and survive. The same will go for every animal under the sun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't get why animals would avoid zombies in the lore... Zombies cannot infect animals and zombies have no interest in eating animals... They probably stink but only humans would have to learn to associate that smell with fear and danger. Other animals over time would learn to associate that smell with safety. <- This is just a logical deduction and is not based on any lore at all.

 

Don't forget that Brooks zombies are not Romero zombies!! They are just based on Romero zombies and he wrote a well thought out book with many original ideas and many original lore elements.

 

First, let's clarify what I personally mean by animals. I mean wildlife that you can hunt. As an example, let's start with something pretty generic, pigs or wild boar.

 

A lot of wild creatures are quite skittish and would become fearful or aggressive if a human approached. A pig/boar has no concept of what a zombie is so it would treat it like any other threat and act exactly the same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rats would boom after power goes out and with more food spoiling. That might make it a good idea to make things harder later in the game. While rats wouldn't affect zombies (Except that zombies might go after rats they see, causing migrations) they could 'loot' food items and replace them with disease causing rat poop (or even replacing food items with dead rats). How irritating it would be to go looking for that stash of chips and dried ramen to find one dead rat and a handful of rat poo!

 

Keeping your place free of rats would be a pretty important survival test - making bite proof containers with Advanced Carpentry and killing/trapping the little buggers would keep the game interesting when zombie threats seem less. You could fortify all you want, but rats - they'll just move right in. Of course, if you're completely out of food - you could take your chances eating the rats. So, life, lemons, lemonade kind of situation. Only with more disease.

 

I could even picture the rats being a pain to people's farms.

 

On the subject of that, I think that birds - if implemented - should be more of a threat to crops rather than noiseboxes, with players given several different options with varying levels of effectiveness to keep the winged pests out. Keeping pests out of farms could be the difference between life and death in late game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rats would boom after power goes out and with more food spoiling. That might make it a good idea to make things harder later in the game. While rats wouldn't affect zombies (Except that zombies might go after rats they see, causing migrations) they could 'loot' food items and replace them with disease causing rat poop (or even replacing food items with dead rats). How irritating it would be to go looking for that stash of chips and dried ramen to find one dead rat and a handful of rat poo!

 

Keeping your place free of rats would be a pretty important survival test - making bite proof containers with Advanced Carpentry and killing/trapping the little buggers would keep the game interesting when zombie threats seem less. You could fortify all you want, but rats - they'll just move right in. Of course, if you're completely out of food - you could take your chances eating the rats. So, life, lemons, lemonade kind of situation. Only with more disease.

 

I could even picture the rats being a pain to people's farms.

 

On the subject of that, I think that birds - if implemented - should be more of a threat to crops rather than noiseboxes, with players given several different options with varying levels of effectiveness to keep the winged pests out. Keeping pests out of farms could be the difference between life and death in late game.

 

I like all the ideas here. I'd not considered birds in a farming context but that's exactly right. I like what you have to say about rats too. They'd boom shortly after but then there would be a mass starvation due to a lack of refuse being created.

 

I wonder what sort of behaviour that would cause. I think the rats (we already) find in cupboards are an indication from devs that this will be a problem in the future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why would a surge in spoilt food cause a surge in rat population? Do they not eat unspoilt food too? :P

I haven't really read much zombie lore or books myself but I do think that the part about the birds attracting zombies with the noise they would make makes sense. It would add a lot of atmosphere and more difficulty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why would a surge in spoilt food cause a surge in rat population? Do they not eat unspoilt food too? :P

<snip>

 

Yeah that's fair. I wouldn't have thought that refuse being in bins would be easier to get to than general domestic food in cupboards but I'm not sure if that's entirely the case. For a rat it should be just as easy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never said that this is Max Brook's Zombie survival game. Like said i only referred to the survival guide because it's pretty much the only "scientific and documentary" source about Romero like zombies. 

 

I wasn't saying anything against Animals either, just saying that they (according to the ZSG) would avoid Zombies. Why? Because Zombies eat the living (in the ZSG...every living beeing). I'm only talking of eating and killing not about infecting animals (since that is a confirmed no anyways). Even if "zombies killing animals" would be a confirmed no too, pretty much in any lore, movie, book or whatever, animals react agressive or fearfull to zombies...maybe because of the "aura of death", or because animals sense desease or just because they hate dead raising magic. So not just because the ZSG says so, but because it sounds legit too, i think it would feel more realistic to see animals avoiding zombies (and with avoiding i don't mean, beeing nonexistent) than to see them grassing right next to them. so that if you want to hunt, you'd have to travel deep in the woods were zombie density is really low.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...