WALKING ZOMBIES

[rocket 16567]

Can someone name me an apex predator that walks when it could run?

[Blaise 1]

A hurt apex predator? (well, it would limp)

[Skippy (DayZ) 9]

If these are 28 Days Later zombies, than it makes sense for them to run, however if these are just the normal zombies, it doesn't make sense. The body starts to tighten up upon death, stopping the limbs from moving as freely, if at all.

My idea is perhaps three types of zombies.

The monkey zombies we have now.

The running zombies we have now.

And then walking zombies, which would make up most of the zombies.

Say in a group of 100 zombies, 60 would be walkers, 25 would be money, and 15 would be runners. What say ye?

[rocket 16567]

A hurt apex predator? (well' date=' it would limp)

[/quote']

And an apex predator with no lungs cannot breath breath, an apex predator with no eye's can't see. That's a straw man argument. I'm asking which apex predators will walk to their meal.

Humans are an apex predator.

Injured infected will crawl, very slowly. Non-injured will chase you until you are their meal.

They are not dead.

[Skippy (DayZ) 9]

They are not dead.

So these are the 28 Days Later 'zombies' then?

[aLmAnZo (DayZ) 21]

Can someone name me an apex predator that walks when it could run?

If so Rocket, you'd need to explain what kind of disease this is. If it is the "walking dead", we are talking about walking corpses. Walking corpses don't have full functionality, due to the minimal state of operation the body is in. It depends a bit on what kind of lore the game is buildt around. Dead bodies are in decay, that's how simple it is.

If this is somekind of other disease, zombies too needs to survive somehow. In other words eat, drink, dispose of waste, even mate and reproduse. That means that they die if they don't get their hands on food.

It's also an ethical question. If they are not dead, they might be treated, and if they might be treated they must be constrained. It's a very difficult area of both ethics and medicine, and thus should be well thought out.

Traditionally, zombies are dead people, where the brain constain a very small amount of operation. In most lore, we are talking about the primitive brainstem. It varies whether or not the zombie actually gain any energy from eating humans, but instead its the virus who is simply using the body as a host to spread from. In addition, adds a cocktail of other organisms to slow down the decay prosess. Most zombie lore have zombies decaying, and in the end dissolving given enough time. The only use of the body is as an agent to spread the disease. Traditionally, zombies don't die, they deanimate.

If that is the case, the body is in no condition to run, due to lack of oxygen in musles and cardiac systems.

So, do your zombies in your mod function like human beings, so that they need to eat, sleep and drink, and inn adition, breathe and thus are alive, or are they reanimated corpses, without those needs?

You can't have it both ways, if the intention is to create something remotly realistic.

For me, this is simply a practical question. ARMA II can't handle the amount of traditional zombies needed to create the required amount of threat or danger. Them runing is simply a work around for the engine. I can accept such and explaination, but I don't accept an explaination where dead things are able to run. It doesn't make sense without some kind of explaination at least.

The point is, if they are not dead, they are pretty easy to handle. Lack of clothing, food and shelter will eventually kill them all out of either starvation, freezing to death or disease. Simply barring yourself somewhere with enough resources to substain your own life for a few months or so, and the apocolypse would have died on it's own.

They most certainly look dead though.

[rocket 16567]

It's an alpha, an early one at that :)

My brother is a Virologist, he's New Zealand's main researcher for Influenza Vaccines. He helped me develop the setting and the infection.

None of this is outlined in the current implementation, and it won't become part of this until Beta at the earliest which is at least months away.

Frankly, I don't really care what anyone else's definitions are or what movie has done what. My hope is to do something new here, and that extends to the story and the setting. Much of which you will have to find out for yourselves in the world. There is very little that will be told to you when it finally gets finished.

[Nate (DayZ) 7]

Lets face it, If "Walkers" (Hehe) were to only be able to walk, This mod would be a WALK in the park...

See what I did there? Made a funny.

[joeyslucky22 638]

Very well put aLmAnZo and couldn't agree more.

[aLmAnZo (DayZ) 21]

Very well put aLmAnZo and couldn't agree more.

Thanks. I am somewhat of a zombie geek, so I feel it's important to get things right.

My favorite author is Max Brooks, awesome books.

[oktyabr 53]

Ok, they are NOT dead.

Just to keep in the spirit of this thread though I would still be interested in the following changes:

A variety of zombies: The blind "screamer" defined on an earlier page is +1! Your typical runner, as we have now, being desperate for food. Easily killed (as current) but with a modified endurance so they can't just run forever (players shouldn't be able to either, for that matter). The walker: this one is either recently infected or recently fed. He's not as fast or as determined as the runner but can take more damage. Maybe also much quieter ;)

"Zombies" outside of towns, maybe spawning on the dry edges of the map and moving coastward, looking for more food. A ton of good reasons for this but I suspect if we haven't already seen at least a test of such things then maybe it's not possible?

Tweak the zombie loot. Military zombies (and police) should have a chance of having weapons found on them even if they don't use them. Zed around hospitals should have a chance of meds, zed elsewhere a more random selection of typical items. Lower the chance of loot spawns in buildings to offset (most loot spawned would be picked up early on anyway).

Increase awareness: I'd love to see zombies more reactive to gunshots and targets moving in/with lights (flares, chemsticks, flashlights, etc.) A zombie with a clean line of sight in daylight should become "active" at a greater distance than the same situation at night. Maybe even to direct chat if they are close enough.

[bjorn (DayZ) 1]

I would think walking zombies would be waaay to easy' date=' and the only way to make them on par is to add more. Which would make more lag.

The only thing I would change about the running zombies is their zig zag sprints. I almost never shoot one sprinting at me until he hits me at least once, cause he just shoots right out of my sight and hits me first.

[/quote']

A mix, mostly walkers, or "joggers", with some runners and a small number of sprinters.

That and aggro range - there should be a distance at which most zombies give up, otherwise you end up with a train across the island.

---

Increase awareness: I'd love to see zombies more reactive to gunshots and targets moving in/with lights (flares, chemsticks, flashlights, etc.) A zombie with a clean line of sight in daylight should become "active" at a greater distance than the same situation at night. Maybe even to direct chat if they are close enough.

I would enjoy more abilities to taunt / gather their attention. Smoke, flares and bottles are a good start but what about firecrackers, even stones, meat (goat meat and what not)

This leading to traps, as mentioned in another thread. But not just IEDs.

Bear traps, rope traps, etc.

[Jaleno 4]

Could not agree less :/ Zombies in their fast form result in a much more fairer city experience. When you come face to face with a bandit or another player, sometimes they will not shoot each other in fear that a horde will come barreling down on them. I would even like zombies to move more quickly in houses to reiterate that.

[The Killing Joke 43]

My only complaint about zombies is their confusing nature. I see them run, this way and that way, giving everybody a challenging target, yes, but zombies don't really DO THAT. They certainly don't start running, stop, look around, look back and start running in a zig zag pattern. They are hungry, and want to feed. They should, for whatever reason, beeline to you once you've been spotted.

I also agree that when they're inside a building, they should have similar mechanics. Slow them down by throwing obstacles in their path, or make them confused by stairs. Don't force them to walk, if they're hungry!

Stop the senseless and unfair zombie predjudice now!

:)

TKJ

[iceblink 0]

I like the idea of having a mix of zombies instead of ALL of them being running ones which can leg it faster than players for variety. The 'Walkers' could simply be the ones closest to the spawn point and in less populated areas to help ease new players who have little firepower. The 'Runners' are the default ones, 'Military' ones are the ones which spawn in military bases and less often in city areas, and more dangerous due to still wearing their body armour and such.

[Ub3rS0ldat 0]

Yes, walking zombies are better.

Solution- head shots only for kills. Make the zombies more sensitive to noise and light.

[Riemer 23]

Remember that this is a poor post-soviet slav state, if you look at most of the villiages they only have a few buildings, farms are small, people are not that closely-packed excluding the coastal cities of Elektrozavodsk, Chernogorsk, and Berezino. Aside from those three places and Zelenogorsk there wouldn't be massive hordes that can overrun you at every turn, but faster, more independant zombies that are used to hunting and blitzing the small, isolated villiages and small towns that are the mainstay of civilization in Chernarus. What I think the zombies would do is employ some sort of pack-mentality, traveling in groups of five or six, and upon spotting their prey would promptly dash to it from all sides, suprising and overwhelming their opponent. The current pathfinding makes zombies zigzag a lot when chasing players and in my opinion this should not be changed, as it would be a sort of defense mechanism to avoid being good targets, as on approach they are quite difficult to shoot. What I suggest is keeping this pathfinding, at least for these mini-hordes, and having them travel in small groups up to a half a dozen, searching on roads from city-to-city looking for players.

[Arnoldio 2]

Agree. More "en mase" zombie groups, not necesarrily walking, that would be easy, but running (matched to players running speed but slower than sprint) towards you like a wall of zombie death.

Runners and jumpers must stay ofcourse, but now its only runners... meh.

[hexik 1]

I'm fine with just runners, but when its even the slightest bit laggy and they zig-zag and teleport and do all sorts of erratic movements is where the problem comes in. Walking zombies would fix this, and I think a mix between walking + running would give zombies a bigger threat and provide more tactics and strategy

[Reale 5]

I dont mind if the zombies ran at the same speed as the player but I would like to be able to out run them (short term and I would like to be able to lose them if they lost line of sight for enough time) long term the player should lose breath and slow running speed (where a zombie wouldnt) player speed could also be dependent on blood/water/food levels too... i.e blood loss and hunger means the player is slower whereas someone with "full" blood and green food/water could sprint faster

I also like the idea of shots to the head only kills and being able to cripple zombies by shooting them in the legs.

but even with the state the mod is in now, i am having a blast.

[Kophka 109]

All I ask is for the zig zag running and teleporting to be gone. Fast zombies are scary and fun, but we are playing a game over the internet, getting killed by latency isn't fun for anyone.

The mix of runners, monkeys, and crawlers isn't too bad right now, though we could probably use some more of the monkeys. :)

[Jester. 6]

@Rocket

If they don't feel pain, they wouldn't feel their legs breaking, or anything to that effect. Meaning they would HAVE to shamble to walk. Their bodies wouldn't allow them to run. It'd be like QWOP.

[tso 5]

I don't think the speed of the zombies is so much an issue as detection by zombies.

I had a zombie infested town i literally had to crawl the whole way through to pickup some starting supplies.

I've tried the same trick in other places and at times I'll be crawling 5 yards out from a house and a zombie comes screaming and running out straight at me. As well as a full sprint seems to pull zombies from a slightly over sized range I believe but that is just my opinion.

In my experience I've been low on blood with no ammo and managed to sneak into a barn with zombies already in it. arm my self. shoot the zombies and continue on with my survival no problem. It was a satisfying stroke of luck to find an accessible weapon and some careful thinking to continue my survival where I was previously losing hope.

This game I find is not a run and gun survival.

The way the zombies work I think help enforce that.

It encourages tactics where you lack numbers.

Risk where depending on how well you scouted the area. There may be great reward or great loss of ammunition or health.

As for some of the zombies teleporting.

I'd attribute a good deal of that to the alpha's optimization and server lag.

I've had team mates appear to continue running past me into hordes or to their death only to re-appear next to me perfectly fine asking wth am I talking about them dieing?

Anyway. The speed of zombies is quite shocking but I think it's manageable and just needs time for developers to tweak it. If anything dealing with zombies at the same time all players I meet tend to shoot at me I find to be overwhelming problem.

[VLPR 1]

You would need to have horde of hundreds of regular walkers, to make them threatening.

Good compromise imo would be to make zombies stop running and start walking after your distance between them is 100m or something and lose aggro all together when the distance is 400m or something.

[Ref! 0]

I don't see a problem keeping fast zombies, but the L4D zigzag (isn't that where the AI is from btw?) is pretty frustrating. If one sees you, you usually can't hit him until he is right next to you.

What i'd like to see is a mix. Some walk relatively slow, some have a jogging speed, and maybe some run about as fast as you.

However, the zigzag AI is the only thing I really dislike in the mod as usually the (non existant) mentality of a zombie is to get you as fast as possible, not outmanouver you or dodge bullets.