Standalone: Server spawn zombies should not die at all.

[Zalexey 36]

Hi there everyone!

Im new here and English is not my fluent language so sorry for grammatical issues.

Here's one of my ideas how gameplay architecture could change to force a player to survive first and not to run and gun all the time.

I guess that if zombies in SA will be server spawn they should not die easily. With any weapon available (knifes, firearms, melee) player can only "disable" zombie for a while. Sure it will take much more efforts to "disable" zed with a baseball bat than with the AKM. But since zeds are not human beings anymore they cannot die the way people die even of 7.62 caliber bullets. They are already "dead". So after a zombie has been disabled it takes some 2-5 minutes before he wakes up again with the full power regained (god only knows who feed those zeds with their power to walk and fight). And this time should be enough for player to loot the place or/and run off sight.

But lets assume that there is an option to permanently get rid of zed. What if after zombie is disabled we use something similar to "Gut animal" action and call it "Disintegrate body" but instead of fresh meat we will get something like "infected heart, infected liver, infected lung…". Obviously it is vital for player to wear gloves/helmet/scarf as the protection before he disintegrates totally infected body. Sure he will need a knife (or hand saw). And this method will be almost impossible in heavily infected areas like Cherno or Krasnostav until you team up with someone who could back you up from other zombies at least. But lets pretend it will be the only working way to clear area permanently.

At first instance it looks like that this method of treating zombies possibly can ruin the game balance: at some moment zeds can disappear completely even if it should take a lot of ammo/work/time/teamwork to totally clean all the given map. But stop: lets assume that once the player is killed and his body left untouched for a while he (his body) turns into zed state (I remember a few of topics here on this option). Combine it with my suggestion of "hard to get rid of" zombies and you will get some interesting situations: PvP servers will literally generate zombies. If helpless lone wolfs and careless bandits dominate the server it will soon be full of "freshly cooked" zeds right from their previous avatars plus those zeds who just had being disabled all the time and not "erased". Situation will run out of control pretty soon. I don't know will it be a technical issue (server lagging being overload with zombie AI calculation) or a gameplay issue (player is unable to survive because of zombies dominating everywhere around): anyway careless or boring PvP scenario will turn the server unplayable. Players will be forced (maybe by admins :-) to clean the place at least a little bit (and I think its pretty real life scenario). And to survive they have to team up with one another to protect themselves from zombies. Sure this teaming-up can be temporary since after clearing up players will have other businesses to do…

But lets get back to "Disintegrate body" action script. Infected heart, liver… what one should do with all this poisoned and dangerous alvus? Crafting! Say one can drag&drop infected heart on his Makarov bullets. Soak them with infected blood. Other one will drop the liver on his fresh cooked rabbit and… The dumb one will taste it, the mad one will share it with his so called friend… You can pretend the rest. Another one will try to drop an infected lung in a empty can. Ok, he got an can with lung. Say he sits by the fire. And he has an option to boil this can. And now he got a boiled lung. And he sees he can drop it on an epi-pen. And he also can combine it with boiled heart. Is it a remedy? Or a poison? Will it heal or will it kill? Who will test it?

All this means that "erasing" zombies could give benefits to players of any style - bandits, stealth hunters, survivors, so called medics. And Im sure that though the 100% win situation with all zeds are buried and everyone friendly and social technically could be reached with this kind of gameplay architecture it will never happen since every Agent Cooper has his doppelgänger :)

[Very Ape 748]

I like the suggestion, but I think making ammo scarcer and zombies more threatening will assure that nobody can wipe them all out.

[Mos1ey 6301]

They aren't already dead, they're infected with a virus. They're still human and anything that would kill a non-infected human will kill them.

[thequiet 4]

You misunderstood the way Rocket worded it. The servers will handle all zombie spawning, so that you can't look at a town and assume it's empty because there are no zombies spawned yet. When zombies die, they'll be respawned, just like they are in the mod. He just wanted it to be more realistic and easier on the server.

Edited April 1, 2013 by TheQuiet

[Zalexey 36]

You misunderstood the way Rocket worded it. The servers will handle all zombie spawning, so that you can't look at a town and assume it's empty because there are no zombies spawned yet. When zombies die, they'll be respawned, just like they are in the mod. He just wanted it to be more realistic and easier on the server.

Nope. I just tried to alter it. What if all of zombies just spawn once just like vehicles in the mod? But without ability to respawn after being destroyed.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Zalexey

[Zalexey 36]

They aren't already dead, they're infected with a virus. They're still human and anything that would kill a non-infected human will kill them.

Than we should be able to heal them :-) And em bring back to our world!

[ergo46 5]

They aren't already dead, they're infected with a virus. They're still human and anything that would kill a non-infected human will kill them.

The only thing about zombies is that we dont know anything about them.

[Talibambi 119]

The only thing about zombies is that we dont know anything about them.

Cept for the part where the "universe's creator" pretty much said they arnt dead. They are infected.

[liquidcactus 719]

hmm.. ok idea.. I think it should be something touched on but not focused on with too much emphasis..

you should definetly be able to craft some kind of infected item/weapon from a zombie part to bring hurt on others...