Standalone - Zombie spawns and Zombie Types

[guyver1 70]

1. Zombie spawns

Please do away with the zombies only spawn when players are within x meters.

Its boring, predictable and not 'authentic'

Zombies imho should be 'persistent'. If you come up on a town, building, POI, there should be zombies there ALL the time. Zombies should not be an indication of player presence.

If you 'have' to have zombies linked to player location for game engine efficiency etc, then set the zombie spawn distance to something like 2km.

Its a zombie apocalypse, there should be zombies everywhere, all the time.

I'd also like to see random zombie hordes in forests and out of the way areas to ramp up the risk, fear etc.

2. Zombie types

a. slow movers (low metabolism)

b. fast movers/runner (high metabolism)

how about zombies have some sort of progression.

A zombie kills a player and feasts, this zombie increases in stamina, abilities, gets larger, appearance changes

This allows us to get zombie variants in a similar fashion to L4D (I DO NOT WANT DAYZ TO TURN INTO L4D)

This would give us Zombie with different characteristics, so maybe they could evolve down different paths:

a. better sight

b. better hearing

c. 'spitter' type qualities where they could spit infected blood over a distance

d. strength so you get a 'tank' type zombie that requires coordinated play from multiple survivors to take it down.

At the moment the zombies dont really offer a challenge as they're all the same.

Lets see some variation and in game 'live' evolution.

Imagine looking down on elektro or cherno and watching zombies successfully take down a survivor and then watching through your scope/binoc's and actually seeing the zombies morph and change into a better variant!

Added from reply below:

DachmanX, on 19 January 2013 - 01:54 AM, said:

I would really like to see different zombie types in the SA.

like you sad, some walks and some runs, but also adding the zombies with different characteristics, however, i would like to point out some notes.

1. Zombies that can hear or se better, how would they be represented? how do you tell the apart? A "spitter" you could recognize by it spitting, drooling or something like that, and the tank by its big body type.

I think that zombies should only react to sound at night, and mostly on sight at day.

2. Maybe zombies characteristics should be based on the work they did aswell, for example.

an army zombie should have realy protected gear, makeing it the "tank" zombie while firefighters the "exploding type" with the big oxygentank on the back, shot that and he explode, sending infected bodyparts and blod everywhere. and so on.

Good points which I like.

1. sound at night - superb point. Sound does travel farther at night. I would love to see sound travel farther at night in the game also (does it do that already??)

2.better hearing and seeing zombies - good point. My only thought on this at the moment is that there would be some sort of animation mechanic whereby the zombie would stop in its tracks and do one of two things

Better hearing (enhanced especially at night)

if it hears something it tilts its head and maybe hunches down a bit in concentration and starts to tense up in aggression, as a player trying to sneak around this zombie, its on you to watch this zombie very carefully. If the zombie definitely hears something it turns in that direction to get a visual and starts to give off the audible aggression growl and moans. At this point the player must either stop dead and make no sound or risk the aggro and run.

Better visuals:

Once again the zombie would stop in its tracks and hunch down and look directly at you, the zombies cognitive functions are dulled so the initial processing of information is dulled and slow.

Again, its up to the player to pay attention to a zombie that stops moving, the zombie hunches down and tenses up, if it definitely see's you it moves into agressive mode as the cognitive functions fire and it recognises you and starts to aggro growl and moan preparing to attack. If you, the player stops dead, depending on your distance, it will not recogniser you and the cognitive information wont fire and the zombie will losen up and stand up straight again and shamble off.

Think of zombies like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, Very good with moving objects, but not so good with inanimate, non moving objects (depending on distance and stance)

Requiring the players to actually pay attention to zombies in this manner can also give visual clues as to the presence of other players in the area.

If zombies were persistent or spawned at the 2km mark as i originally stated, your ability to watch zombie behaviour would increase your ability in the big cities to assess player movement in that area.

Edited January 19, 2013 by Guyver1

[N0 R3M0RS3 63]

actually this isn't a bad idea i think that would increase the need for survival and teamwork instead of being killed by hackers. I'm a bandit in this mod so a bandit group is cool to i'm sure this would make DayZ an all around better game even though i like it the way it is.

[guyver1 70]

Being a bandit, you could have the choice, kill the player, or maim the player and watch the zombies feast on his body and morph into better zombies!

[N0 R3M0RS3 63]

i know this but i prefer to kill them myself DMR style. a DMR and a pair of NVG's is all i need. i prefer night hunting.

[Dayz Steve 26]

This done correctly could only enhance the game.

[scoffield77@gmail.com 192]

I really like this idea, idk about zombies eating someone, and that making them faster, stronger, etc. They have to despawn for the server shake and that would reset them. Though if they optimize the game so well that it can have zombies all over the map permanently, then so be it.

But I do like the idea of having slow zombies, and fast zombies together. I would also like to see kid zombies, and a 'mid infected zombie.

I've suggested that on a different thread that was a long time ago. But the idea is that it's a human, that is in between full infection and human state.

They would yell in broken english/russian for help, hide in dark corners and attack everything from zombies to humans..

[tombom 28]

1. Zombie spawns

Please do away with the zombies only spawn when players are within x meters.

Its boring, predictable and not 'authentic'

Zombies imho should be 'persistent'. If you come up on a town, building, POI, there should be zombies there ALL the time. Zombies should not be an indication of player presence.

If you 'have' to have zombies linked to player location for game engine efficiency etc, then set the zombie spawn distance to something like 2km.

Its a zombie apocalypse, there should be zombies everywhere, all the time.

I'd also like to see random zombie hordes in forests and out of the way areas to ramp up the risk, fear etc.

2. Zombie types

a. slow movers (low metabolism)

b. fast movers/runner (high metabolism)

how about zombies have some sort of progression.

A zombie kills a player and feasts, this zombie increases in stamina, abilities, gets larger, appearance changes

This allows us to get zombie variants in a similar fashion to L4D (I DO NOT WANT DAYZ TO TURN INTO L4D)

This would give us Zombie with different characteristics, so maybe they could evolve down different paths:

a. better sight

b. better hearing

c. 'spitter' type qualities where they could spit infected blood over a distance

d. strength so you get a 'tank' type zombie that requires coordinated play from multiple survivors to take it down.

At the moment the zombies dont really offer a challenge as they're all the same.

Lets see some variation and in game 'live' evolution.

Imagine looking down on elektro or cherno and watching zombies successfully take down a survivor and then watching through your scope/binoc's and actually seeing the zombies morph and change into a better variant!

Here's the thing, i love left 4 dead i think it is an amazing game and helped bring life to a genre being held together by resident evil, a game not everyone is into, but Dayz is not left 4 dead. Left 4 dead is a different type of infection, Dayz is a more realistic look on zombies. It combines romero characteristics and 28 days later. Zombies DO NOT EVOLVE. They are dead and the only evolving they do is decomposing more and more. Eventually the threat of zombies would go away because they wouldn't be able to sustain themselves any longer and just fall apart. Enjoy the game and remember a little lesson from The Walking Dead: Fear the living...

[guyver1 70]

Dayz is a more realistic look on zombies.

loss of respect in 5..4...3...2...1.....

[tombom 28]

loss of respect in 5..4...3...2...1.....

What are you the liberal media only quoting random lines to make it look bad? Read the rest fucktard and you would see i said it mixes 28 days later and romero. Second a fresh zombie would most likely be able to run since decomposition hasn't started taking effect. You're and idiot. Besides none of this would even be possible if rigamortis was in effect anyways. Read a book.

[scoffield77@gmail.com 192]

What are you the liberal media only quoting random lines to make it look bad?

lol, I thought that was funny.

But seriously your entire post is wrong. These are not romeo zombies at all, they are living human beings that are sick. Rocket has said multiple times he wants to give them a way to 'evolve' in the since that new zombies will be faster than old ones, etc. etc. etc. Not evolve like, monkey to zombies but change it characteristics and behaviors. They don't decompose, be cause they are not dead.

Also +1 for mother fucking VA Beach!

I don't agree with spitting though, I would like to see airborne virus that the zombies can cause, explained in my airborne virus post.. but they arn't lama's

[tombom 28]

see i can get behind your post it makes sense to me and explains it better. Like i said i love left 4 dead i think its awesome i just cant see major evolutional changes taking place. I would get annoyed if i had a tank chase me six hours because i dont have unlimited rounds and an intuitive weapon system to fight him off with and am without buddy system

[Michaelvoodoo25 3120]

Is it me or do the percentage of your posts you have end up confrontational? and abusive?

Rocket has stated a few times zeds should have a change, faster when they have been fed, slower when they haven't.

I for one would love to see a range of zeds, however not changes from other games, I mean in a different variation and perhaps some women infected

i don't think the engine would allow for persistant zombies, they would need a trigger to save on server resources.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Michaelvoodoo25

[bofs@bredband.net 0]

Deleted

Edited January 1, 2017 by bofs@bredband.net

[guyver1 70]

i don't think the engine would allow for persistant zombies, they would need a trigger to save on server resources.

How do all the other MMO's manage to do this then?

They are moving to a Server/Client engine template and the devs have stated that the zombie code is being drastically reduced and re-written.

I would assume zombies would be like static meshes in other games in the sense that you only need to code for that static mesh in memory once and then there i very little, if any overhead in having multiple copies of that mesh in game.

I remember when UT2k3 first introduced static meshes into the engine where there were no additional overheads for having multiple copies of that mesh in a map as the mesh only needed to be in RAM once for the entire map.

[guyver1 70]

I would really like to see different zombie types in the SA.

like you sad, some walks and some runs, but also adding the zombies with different characteristics, however, i would like to point out some notes.

1. Zombies that can hear or se better, how would they be represented? how do you tell the apart? A "spitter" you could recognize by it spitting, drooling or something like that, and the tank by its big body type.

I think that zombies should only react to sound at night, and mostly on sight at day.

2. Maybe zombies characteristics should be based on the work they did aswell, for example.

an army zombie should have realy protected gear, makeing it the "tank" zombie while firefighters the "exploding type" with the big oxygentank on the back, shot that and he explode, sending infected bodyparts and blod everywhere. and so on.

Good points which I like.

1. sound at night - superb point. Sound does travel farther at night. I would love to see sound travel farther at night in the game also (does it do that already??)

2.better hearing and seeing zombies - good point. My only thought on this at the moment is that there would be some sort of animation mechanic whereby the zombie would stop in its tracks and do one of two things

Better hearing (enhanced especially at night)

if it hears something it tilts its head and maybe hunches down a bit in concentration and starts to tense up in aggression, as a player trying to sneak around this zombie, its on you to watch this zombie very carefully. If the zombie definitely hears something it turns in that direction to get a visual and starts to give off the audible aggression growl and moans. At this point the player must either stop dead and make no sound or risk the aggro and run.

Better visuals:

Once again the zombie would stop in its tracks and hunch down and look directly at you, the zombies cognitive functions are dulled so the initial processing of information is dulled and slow.

Again, its up to the player to pay attention to a zombie that stops moving, the zombie hunches down and tenses up, if it definitely see's you it moves into agressive mode as the cognitive functions fire and it recognises you and starts to aggro growl and moan preparing to attack. If you, the player stops dead, depending on your distance, it will not recogniser you and the cognitive information wont fire and the zombie will losen up and stand up straight again and shamble off.

Think of zombies like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, Very good with moving objects, but not so good with inanimate, non moving objects (depending on distance and stance)

Requiring the players to actually pay attention to zombies in this manner can also give visual clues as to the presence of other players in the area.

If zombies were persistent or spawned at the 2km mark as i originally stated, your ability to watch zombie behaviour would increase your ability in the big cities to assess player movement in that area.