21 replies to this topic

[warbrand2]

http://fairview.dead...eadfrontier.com

I found this wile looking for a zombie mmo. It is epic.

[Ranma]

People still play that game?

[warbrand2]

every time i get on the player count thing says around 2000 players are on.

[Ranma]

Yea, it's the Runescape of zombie games; no thanks.

[ScrooLewse]

I really think that there needs to be an officially produced Zombie MMORPG. I've been creating one in my head for the last few months. The concept is similar to a lot of zombie survival mods like TF2's Zombie Fortress, G-Mod's Zombie Survival, and HL2:DM's Zombie Mod. Every 24 hours 5% of the population in the game is marked as zombies that respawn, the other 95% will turn when they are killed. It would have an upgrade system for humans in which they could make their later selves stronger and an evolution system for zombies in which you will have a chance to spawn as a stronger zombie.

[Quenquent]

ScrooLewse, on 14 February 2011 - 06:47 PM, said:

I really think that there needs to be an officially produced Zombie MMORPG. I've been creating one in my head for the last few months. The concept is similar to a lot of zombie survival mods like TF2's Zombie Fortress, G-Mod's Zombie Survival, and HL2:DM's Zombie Mod. Every 24 hours 5% of the population in the game is marked as zombies that respawn, the other 95% will turn when they are killed. It would have an upgrade system for humans in which they could make their later selves stronger and an evolution system for zombies in which you will have a chance to spawn as a stronger zombie.

I thinked to something similar, but different by the same way. Whit your tactic, we must play everydays and everytimes.....
What I think :

Only 1 server, the player spawn with a few players (friends or not, he can choose) and try to survive against zombies. They can meet other survivors, powerful zombies, and create some "survivors cities", guild, war and some other things, like a REAL zombie apocalypse. After, players can choose a class like military (scout, soldier, leader...), civilian (cops, fireman, doctor....) and more. If you disconnect, your avatar (the character with who you play) will automaticly follown your group. If the entire group disconnect, the avatars will barricade and hide in a house, waiting for you. If a player meet an avatar, the last one will follown the player depending of the avatar who got the most "leadership point" in his group : if the avatar got more learship than the player, we will not follown him. If you die, you can respawn when you want. You can respawn as a kind of super zombie if you want.

[ScrooLewse]

Well, that works too.

BUT, you are wrong on having to play all-day every day. With an MMORPG, the more you play, the faster you level, that is just an all-around truth. But you don't have to play all day, every day. When I say you get upgrades for the next day I mean the next day that you decide to play. And you can quit any time you want as long as you aren't currently fighting with zombies. And there are places more zombie-friendly than others. If you choose, you can spawn somewhere where you will experience some serious action, but it will be harder to quit and not become a zombie. Then there is are places where zombies do not have as strong a hold on the world, where you can casually fight zombies, then retreat behind the lines of human garrison and quit at your leisure.

Saying less than 20 health was just a suggestion. In truth there will need to be some sort of algorithm to figure-out when they can quit and not zombify.

[Quenquent]

ScrooLewse, on 15 February 2011 - 02:53 PM, said:

Well, that works too.

BUT, you are wrong on having to play all-day every day. With an MMORPG, the more you play, the faster you level, that is just an all-around truth. But you don't have to play all day, every day. When I say you get upgrades for the next day I mean the next day that you decide to play. And you can quit any time you want as long as you aren't currently fighting with zombies. And there are places more zombie-friendly than others. If you choose, you can spawn somewhere where you will experience some serious action, but it will be harder to quit and not become a zombie. Then there is are places where zombies do not have as strong a hold on the world, where you can casually fight zombies, then retreat behind the lines of human garrison and quit at your leisure.

Saying less than 20 health was just a suggestion. In truth there will need to be some sort of algorithm to figure-out when they can quit and not zombify.

Ok for every day, I'm wrong, but for everytime I'm right. I love playing zombie games and I disconnect only when a round finish. In your idea, the "round" end after a very long time ! And if a day end when every humans die, what happens if a humans doesn't connect or leave the server when he is the last ? And if I connect again in the middle of a zombie horde ? You got a good idea, but very hard to implent and to make it really fun.

[ScrooLewse]

Quenquent, on 16 February 2011 - 08:31 AM, said:

Ok for every day, I'm wrong, but for everytime I'm right. I love playing zombie games and I disconnect only when a round finish. In your idea, the "round" end after a very long time ! And if a day end when every humans die, what happens if a humans doesn't connect or leave the server when he is the last ? And if I connect again in the middle of a zombie horde ? You got a good idea, but very hard to implent and to make it really fun.

That is why most games take so long to conceptualize.

It would take VERY careful balancing to make sure that IF the zombies take-over the world, they take it over around the last few hours of the day. The thing is that we will have to rely on variables turning-out around the same way every time. If they don't there will be a weird day with zombies wandering-around for the last few hours. That means that there will be complex mechanisms going-on behind the scenes in which will be needed to make sure that the variables turn-out the same every day.

About reconnects...
This is where it gets tricky. You are completely right about everything. There will always be a chance that you play in the morning, then join again at night with some mutant freak clipped in your pelvis.

I think that means that there needs to be a map on which you can spawn. It will display exactly what locations in the zombie-infested world have been overrun, which ones are in conflict, and which ones are still human-controlled. You will then be spawned in a location that is relatively safe.

Then there is the trick of making sure the people who have zombified have a fresh supply of human. As the day progresses, people will be joining and people will be quitting all the time. That means that some people who haven't been killed yet will be playing later in the evening for zombies to chase. Towards the end of the day, even with every precaution and countermeasure there will be a shortage of humans, so zombies will need to be respawned close to the humans, and in locations where they will be vulnerable.

Anyway, this is going to be ridiculously complicated like any MMORPG. But there would be enormous effort to keep all the intricacies behind the scenes and not in front of the players.

[Quenquent]

You're right, it's very complicated, maybe too complicated. This is why I think my idea is "better" : you play when you want without problems. The harder it's to make an A.I. who play with player depending of their skills...maybe a level system...

[ScrooLewse]

Quenquent, on 17 February 2011 - 08:01 AM, said:

You're right, it's very complicated, maybe too complicated. This is why I think my idea is "better" : you play when you want without problems. The harder it's to make an A.I. who play with player depending of their skills...maybe a level system...

I've had some time to think this-over, and looking at your system, I think our ideas can be put together. My intention from the very beginning was for the game, to within 24 hours, stage an entire zombie apocalypse from the first Outbreak to last remains of human civilization. And in that, make it different every time. For example, maybe on Monday the city of New York , Paris becomes a survivor stronghold, and Tokyo only has a few pockets of resistance left. On Tuesday, the humans in new York form a strange boundary across the middle of the city on which they to hold-out, Paris is absolutely steamrolled, and Tokyo effectively pushes the zombies out of the city and holds the outskirts. Then Wednesday all three cities are devoured around the last few hours. Of course, we would use a fictional country so that when civilization crumbles, we can have people make pilgrimages to settlements that have managed to survive

Reconnects definitely pose a problem. Thank you for pointing-out the flaw in my plan. It would take some serious work to patch that-up. I think if each settlement had plenty of spawn points, then selected the ones that were the most hospitable (sufficient human activity, or at least a minimum presence of the undead) then allow you to choose which spawn you wish to use.
Bands of survivors, the equivalent of clans, could be formed for safety in numbers. Member of a certain clan have the choice to spawn in the vicinity of their clan instead of a pre-approved safe area to fight their way to their group. Take a risk with the undead for the reward of being with your friends, (or your "hardcore" gamer clan).

It would take months of very careful calibration to get it right, but what multiplayer game doesn't? Especially an MMORPG of such a radical nature.

[Quenquent]

I like your ideas, too bad I don't know how to make a video game ^^. But we must put this somewhere in our heads.

[ScrooLewse]

Quenquent, on 19 February 2011 - 09:23 AM, said:

I like your ideas, too bad I don't know how to make a video game ^^. But we must put this somewhere in our heads.

It IS really fun to have someone to think with, too.

Definitely. I've had this baby locked-up in my brain for months.

[Instant Loser]

I played Urban Dead a while back, and this sounds like it could be fun. Urban dead deals with reconnects by having every player alive and killable even when they're not playing, making strongholds for "sleeping" necessary. Logging out for a week makes you disappear.

Perhaps something between what's described above and Urban Dead's login strategy could work. I think that the game length should be about a week, ending on midnight Sunday or Monday, whichever has more people (I don't know). This allows people to actually see the progression, since people aren't going to play 24 hours straight. Also, it becomes the most intense when the most people are playing (as long as playing zombie is fun, otherwise Wednesday could be the best.) People spawn the first time they log in after a reset. They stay alive (and asleep, or perhaps deliberately-stupid -AI -controlled) for the rest of the week. When people log in for the first time in a week, they're randomly started as human or zombie with the chance of zombie linearly scaled from 5% at the beginning to 100% near the end.

Sorry I'm late, I didn't read this thread because it's not its own topic.

[Quenquent]

About the disconnecting, I sugested something similar before :

Quote

If you disconnect, your avatar (the character with who you play) will automaticly follown your group. If the entire group disconnect, the avatars will barricade and hide in a house, waiting for you. If a player meet an avatar, the last one will follown the player depending of the avatar who got the most "leadership point" in his group : if the avatar got more learship than the player, we will not follown him.

But I don't understand why you want to see players being the zombies : we can have A.I. zombies and some more powerful zombies played by the players like in L4D. And if we want, these A.I. zombies can follown the zombie player to prepare an huge horde against the survivors.

[ScrooLewse]

Having players start-out of "special zombies" would make Dead Day feel too much like a Left 4 Dead MMORPG. Which it is not. At least most of the zombies should be human controlled. You would start as a normal undead "shambler" then upgrade yourself to either a "runner", a "bulk" or a "shade"

Runners can briefly sprint, bulks do double the damage of shamblers, and shades can spawn closer to the survivors. After that the upgrade tree branches upward through at least 40 different zombies with constant additions.

Either that or you can upgrade certain abilities like WOW, LOTR, or Borderlands. But I was hoping to save that for the humans and give zombies a unique upgrade system.

[Quenquent]

ScrooLewse, on 23 February 2011 - 02:26 PM, said:

Having players start-out of "special zombies" would make Dead Day feel too much like a Left 4 Dead MMORPG. Which it is not. At least most of the zombies should be human controlled. You would start as a normal undead "shambler" then upgrade yourself to either a "runner", a "bulk" or a "shade"

Runners can briefly sprint, bulks do double the damage of shamblers, and shades can spawn closer to the survivors. After that the upgrade tree branches upward through at least 40 different zombies with constant additions.

Either that or you can upgrade certain abilities like WOW, LOTR, or Borderlands. But I was hoping to save that for the humans and give zombies a unique upgrade system.

Exepted the experience system as we can see in most of every MMORPG, everything else you say here look like a classic zombie FPS but with a biger size.
I seriously think we need A.I. zombies because we are 6 billions on Earth, so 1 000 survivors must face a giant army of zombies everydays. If we only have players as zombies, the Humans doesn't think they face the biggest zombie apocalypse ever but only a small infection which they can easely stop. I suggested to have both because it's also fun to play as zombie.

[ScrooLewse]

Quenquent, on 24 February 2011 - 10:21 AM, said:

Exepted the experience system as we can see in most of every MMORPG, everything else you say here look like a classic zombie FPS but with a biger size.
I seriously think we need A.I. zombies because we are 6 billions on Earth, so 1 000 survivors must face a giant army of zombies everydays. If we only have players as zombies, the Humans doesn't think they face the biggest zombie apocalypse ever but only a small infection which they can easely stop. I suggested to have both because it's also fun to play as zombie.

My concept is that while there are only a few zombies, there will inevitably be one survivor who makes a stupid mistake and gets his brains eaten. He then joins the undead ranks and makes them that much stronger. A few minutes later, some other noob makes a mistake and gets killed. Then a pro lets his ego get the best of him and is now forced to rely on his extensive zombie profile. Soon enough there is a sizable undead horde clustering around a clan's anti-zombie fotress and overwhelms them. Now an organized zombie hive is terrorizing the city and it falls like it was nothing. Now we have a city of the dead with bands of survivors fleeing everywhere. Zombies follow them to other cities that were holding-out before. And our pro from earlier uses an infiltration class zombie to get a few petty kills inside the enemy's defenses. Now there is an undead presence in the new city. Eventually it falls and people flee from that city with a pack of zombies hot on their trail. About half way through the cycle the zombies outnumber the humans and it only gets worse from there.

Since the zombies respawn, it is like there are more zombies than there really are.

[Quenquent]

ScrooLewse, on 24 February 2011 - 06:58 PM, said:

My concept is that while there are only a few zombies, there will inevitably be one survivor who makes a stupid mistake and gets his brains eaten. He then joins the undead ranks and makes them that much stronger. A few minutes later, some other noob makes a mistake and gets killed.

Yes, but this happens only during the first times, when you "don't know the existence of the zombie apocalypse". It's the beauty of video games : you gain experience.

I forget that the zombies can respawn....but I still think a "contamination" game it's not a good MMORPG but an extended FPS. I'm sure we need A.I. zombies.

[ScrooLewse]

Quenquent, on 27 February 2011 - 12:22 PM, said:

Yes, but this happens only during the first times, when you "don't know the existence of the zombie apocalypse". It's the beauty of video games : you gain experience.

I forget that the zombies can respawn....but I still think a "contamination" game it's not a good MMORPG but an extended FPS. I'm sure we need A.I. zombies.

You see, when I try to think-up games, I find bad ideas, the kind that most people wouldn't even touch, and try to make them good ideas. That way my ideas are so unique that no one has anything to compare them to and they stand-out as seemingly better than everything else.