delayed Zombie spawn

[Andx667 7]

hello forum,

after playing another episode of the walking dead an idea came to my mind id like to share. i know DayZ isnt the walking dead, but still i think we can use this a source of inspiration. I already did a quick search through the forums, but i couldnt find any thread that covers the same idea.

thats the current situation:

right now zombies spawn once a player gets within 200meters of a building. This leads to the fact that players always know there is someone if they are too far away to spawn zombies. Also this makes player that sneak (or run) into a town aware of what they have to deal with if shit goes real.

my suggestion:

if a player enters a certain radius around a building (lets keep the 200 meters for now, can be changed if needed) a timer starts. The minimum timer length should be at 20 seconds, the maxium at ten minutes. the distribution of the actual timer lengths should be a in a way that the timer lengths at the beginning (20, 30 40 seconds) should be picked more othen than the later ones. after the timer reaches zero the zombies in that area spawn.

intended impact on the game:

a player sneaking in a town, could think he is quite safe cause there are no zombies. but suddenly he notices there a bulk of zombies in front of the only entrance to his building. the 2nd impact is, that a player cant for sure know there is nobody in the town if there are no zombies in the town. that way it adds a bit of uncertainty, which feels a bit more realistic.

Note 1:

the mentioned numbers can always be changed, its a concept im suggesting here.

Note 2:

this could work well together with different loot spawn that need a bit longer than the current run-pick-run, aswell with other zombie spawn suggestions like a more distributed spawn.

thanks for reading, id really like to know what you think about this and how it maybe could be improved.

Andx

[Very Ape 748]

I understand the point of this suggestion, and it's a good one, considering the zombies in the mod aren't challenging enough.

However, I would simply make zombies really fucking scary. Monsters that will hunt and kill you, smelling the air for your scent if you get too close, etc. That way players could continue to plan their approach into a city, which they see is swarming with zombies, but there would be actual consequences to being spotted, such as: death, or an intense fight (lost if you're without a group), or a very difficult escape. In each case, blood must be shed.

Your suggestion is a great way to make zombies a bit more unpredictable, and I like that. But there are other things we could do to make them less predictable, without the awkward moments the timer would produce (ex: a zombie spawning directly in front of you, materializing out of thin air.)

Edited December 12, 2012 by Very Ape

[logan23 118]

The problem you will get with your idea is that, your character will be walking around the town and a Zed will spawn 5 feet in front of you = What The?!

[Andx667 7]

I understand the point of this suggestion, and it's a good one, considering the zombies in the mod aren't challenging enough.

However, I would simply make zombies really fucking scary. Monsters that will hunt and kill you, smelling the air for your scent if you get too close, etc. That way players could continue to plan their approach into a city, which they see is swarming with zombies, but there would be actual consequences to being spotted, such as: death, or an intense fight (lost if you're without a group), or a very difficult escape. In each case, blood must be shed.

Your suggestion is a great way to make zombies a bit more unpredictable, and I like that. But there are other things we could do to make them less predictable, without the awkward moments the timer would produce (ex: a zombie spawning directly in front of you, materializing out of thin air.)

this suggestion can be combined with harder zombies. i would prefer slower zombies, but atleast the second hit would kill you.

The problem you will get with your idea is that, your character will be walking around the town and a Zed will spawn 5 feet in front of you = What The?!

i see your point. im sure there is a way to check where a player is, and let zombies spawn atleast 10m away. maybe behind the next building, not directly in front. possible spawns could also be behind a can of trash or behind a wall. so the zombie has to walk a bit to get to the player. but yeah this is the probably biggest problem about the suggestion.

[Failbait 60]

I like where you're going but not how you got there.

I think the solution is to make the zombies spawn from a lot further away, somewhere around the view distance.

Hardware limitations not withstanding, of course