Romero Zombie vs Rage Infected

[hawkidoki 56]

I prefer, by far, rage zombies from 28 days later. I will always remember my first day in DayZ, that was like :

"OMG, he going to catch me up! HES GOING TO CATCH ME UP !! nooooooo". Actually they never "catch us up", but I would like zombies hit us will running to add some fear, but don't let them being 2x faster than human runner. Just the same speed as humans would be great & that will give us a chance!

Let them break our bones is they are 3 or 4 while running!!!

[amudkipz 46]

There is no better feeling than shooting off a Lee-enfield in apartments at elektro, and then living to tell the tale. I had maybe 5000 blood left.

[Soldier of Failure 14]

I agree with the thought that zombies should be slower, but still move at a pace of a "jog" so you can outrun them, but they are not so slow that they are no threats.

[jetao2008@hotmail.com 175]

I would prefer slower zombies as well, maybe stronger to balance things out.

I can't stand super fast zombies that run in zig-zagg trying to avoid bullets.

Zombies walking in large packs, killing you with a few hits, along with some new "stamina" alike feature that prevents us from running in full-speed forever, THAT would be awesome!

Edited July 11, 2012 by Fenrig

[unworldly3 2]

I would love to see Romero zombies implemented into the game. A slow shambling hard to kill horde, it would be easy to escape from if you were far away but you would need to get dangerously close to get the loot you need to survive, if you screw up and get detected you would be dead or just barely alive after your encounter with the horde. Maybe slow zombies wouldn't work well in our current home of Chernarus but if I recall correctly in an interview somewhere Rocket had stated that it was easy to put DayZ on any of the maps, so maybe someone could create a giant urban sprawl and we could test out slow zombies on that. If the slow zombies have any potential it's time to test them now while we're still in alpha.

[ted.onxboxlive@hotmail.co.uk 0]

I as well would love to see slower zombies, maybe with a larger health pool so the headshot does become even more essential.

[drewmaw 56]

I would love to see Romero zombies implemented into the game. A slow shambling hard to kill horde, it would be easy to escape from if you were far away but you would need to get dangerously close to get the loot you need to survive, if you screw up and get detected you would be dead or just barely alive after your encounter with the horde. Maybe slow zombies wouldn't work well in our current home of Chernarus but if I recall correctly in an interview somewhere Rocket had stated that it was easy to put DayZ on any of the maps, so maybe someone could create a giant urban sprawl and we could test out slow zombies on that. If the slow zombies have any potential it's time to test them now while we're still in alpha.

Interesting idea. I have the BITools, I could figure out how to throw a map together for testing. However, I'd be surprised if a map with highly urban environment doesn't already exist in the armaholic database.

[goodoleboy78@hotmail.com 1]

George A. Romero/The Walking Dead zombies hands down. Head shots only, ammo harder to get.

[LumberBack 43]

Simply running away would become a foolproof zombie survival technique? How would that ever create a compelling experience for anyone? As soon as you're out of ammo or things look to be going south you can just trot off into the sunset no worries no questions asked. Meet up with your friends for a picnic later, maybe?

And no, something this fundamental to the game design cannot possibly be left to a server option. You're basically asking them to design two different games with different animations, AI, behavior routines, path finding, spawn mechanics, etc. That's a huge and unnecessary burden on the designers.

newsflash you can run away from zombies as it is now... what i and i think the others want, is some more "realistic" moving zombies, not the cartoon flavored ones we have at the moment... get some feeling into the whole zombie stuff, not just laugh at how funny the move...

[athrins 39]

Pretty sure Rocket never changed his mind about the infected being living people. What I heard during his presentation was that he repeatedly insists on calling them infected to convince himself they are not zombies. Likely because it's easy to get drawn into the trend of calling them zombies, even when they per definition are not.

I understand his desire to keep the simulation scientifically plausible and not mixing it up with fantasy. I don't want him to lose this vision. I am very happy to finally have found a developer who thinks somewhat like I do and I don't want yet another dev making compromises for the sake of short-term popularity.

Even less so if it takes time and effort away from their current plans just to re-make an established fundamental design.

[DemonGroover 8836]

If you listen to what Rocket says - he wants to implement a Zombie/Infected life cycle at some stage.

Newer/recently infected or just fed zombies will be fast and older zombies or those that havent fed for a while will be slower.

In this game with the vast open spaces available shambling zombies would be no threat at all, unless there were thousands of them. I agree that super human Usain Bolt-esque zombies are sometimes annoying but they pose much more of a threat.

I am sure one day we will have a vast variety of slow/fast, weak/strong zombies to run from.

[EO 42]

My feeling is that the Infected should be of a shambling,walking variety. If we go on the premise that they were humans who have become 'infected' by a virus, surely this would make them feel a little 'under the weather'. We, in real life are usually laid low if we develop a viral infection. If you feel like shit the last thing you'd want to do is chase somebody down, even if you did want to eat there brains!

[jovial 17]

Oh yes, a discussion older than time itself. If server performance were not an issue, I'd personally like to see both zombie types - the large meandering Romero Hordes generally conglomerating around cities, with Rage Zombies striking out into the woods and outlying towns, hunting players. That will give you something to be afraid of in the woods other than bear traps.

This. Perhaps in the future stand alone game, immense hordes would be technicaly possible, making urban raids a enterprise requiring a group.

[Waingro (DayZ) 0]

Not to be a stick in the mud, but in 28 Days/Week Later those weren't zombies. The people didn't die, then come back to life. They just became infected. Dawn of the Dead remake would be a more accurate portrayal of fast zombies.

[Alex__2 11]

I love the fast zombies more then slow zombies because slow zombies are to easy,If you are killed by a slow zombie you should just be ashamed of yourself and for the record rocket calls the zombies in DayZ infected not zombies!

[servicestud 4]

I prefer, by far, rage zombies from 28 days later. I will always remember my first day in DayZ, that was like :

"OMG, he going to catch me up! HES GOING TO CATCH ME UP !! nooooooo". Actually they never "catch us up", but I would like zombies hit us will running to add some fear, but don't let them being 2x faster than human runner. Just the same speed as humans would be great & that will give us a chance!

Let them break our bones is they are 3 or 4 while running!!!

Quoted for great and unequivocal truth!

[colinm3585@gmail.com 2]

If it was my call (and possible) I'd have slower zombies, with some fast ones mixed in. Fast ones run slightly slower than you. Slow ones run about at 50% of your speed. Only about 1 in 25 zombies would be fast though, the majority would be slow.

Then throw in the ACE stamina system. Which also makes you have to be careful about what gear you're carrying on your person. That way you can run away from Zombies, but you can only run so far before they can catch up to you, since they just keep shuffling towards you forever. Eventually you have to kill them, but you can lead them to areas that will give you a better chance to not get noticed by other zombies or players. So zombies are still dangerous, but not to the point where you have to slowcrawl through cities to get a can of beans and a coke.

And while we're at it, throw in claymore mines to protect camps better, allowing people to have a small camp set up, so they can drop gear and slip in and out of towns for supplies if they needed to quickly. What would be really nice is if it was possible to set up an alert system where if someone sets off a mine, it sends you an e-mail or text to alert you if you're not in game so you can get on to protect your gear.

Is it possible in this game? Probably not. Arma 3, maybe, but I have no idea what that game will be capable of now. I know that these things are possible to be put into a game, but not sure if it can be put into this game.

I think that would be pretty cool though. Add a sense of realism, and still have danger involved and keep zombies as a threat.

[-CARNIFEX- 8]

A mix of zombie types would be great, IMO. It would be cool to experiment with the ratio of slow vs. fast zeds, which would probably necessitate higher overall numbers of them. Some of the recent (most recent?) changelogs noted that the performance enhancements might make room for more zeds, so whether or not that was tongue in cheek, I hope that we see something like this:

Given the current system of zed aggro, having a majority be of the Romero variety could equate to a slow, inevitable horde shifting in your direction if you enter a town sans stealth. A few standouts, "rage infected" or whatever you want to call them, that can separate from the pack and give chase would lend "Oh shit!" moments to the slow sense of impending doom that hordes of shamblers offer. The randomness/uncertainty would be a great addition, IMO - just one more thing to keep in mind as you try to survive...that next zed might take notice but be ponderous, or they could snarl and immediately run at you. Plus, it would be kind of cool to walk up on a town and, instead of zombies immediately launching at you, to see the whole mass start to take notice of you, slowly turn, and start making their way ever so slowly towards you...en masse. You might as well start a timer for how long you have to get a couple of choice pieces of loot before you (attempt to) run for your life...

tl;dr A mix of both Romero/infected zombie types would spice up the game/potentiate awesomeness.

[jukaga 271]

A mix of zombie types would be great, IMO. It would be cool to experiment with the ratio of slow vs. fast zeds, which would probably necessitate higher overall numbers of them. Some of the recent (most recent?) changelogs noted that the performance enhancements might make room for more zeds, so whether or not that was tongue in cheek, I hope that we see something like this:

Given the current system of zed aggro, having a majority be of the Romero variety could equate to a slow, inevitable horde shifting in your direction if you enter a town sans stealth. A few standouts, "rage infected" or whatever you want to call them, that can separate from the pack and give chase would lend "Oh shit!" moments to the slow sense of impending doom that hordes of shamblers offer. The randomness/uncertainty would be a great addition, IMO - just one more thing to keep in mind as you try to survive...that next zed might take notice but be ponderous, or they could snarl and immediately run at you. Plus, it would be kind of cool to walk up on a town and, instead of zombies immediately launching at you, to see the whole mass start to take notice of you, slowly turn, and start making their way ever so slowly towards you...en masse. You might as well start a timer for how long you have to get a couple of choice pieces of loot before you (attempt to) run for your life...

tl;dr A mix of both Romero/infected zombie types would spice up the game/potentiate awesomeness.

Great compromise idea. You get the immediate terror of a runner in your face and the creeping dread of that horde of 100 shamblers making it's way to you across a city, getting bigger every minute as new shamblers join the parade. Think World War Z rules of zombies reacting to the 'spotted food' moan that the zombies that noticed you make. Soon, you have 3 or 4 huge packs converging on your location from different directions. Oh, and you're under fire from a bandit sniper.

That scenario beats the pants off the predictable screeching infected beelining straight for you.

[drewmaw 56]

Great compromise idea. You get the immediate terror of a runner in your face and the creeping dread of that horde of 100 shamblers making it's way to you across a city, getting bigger every minute as new shamblers join the parade. Think World War Z rules of zombies reacting to the 'spotted food' moan that the zombies that noticed you make. Soon, you have 3 or 4 huge packs converging on your location from different directions. Oh, and you're under fire from a bandit sniper.

That scenario beats the pants off the predictable screeching infected beelining straight for you.

Yes, I can see a mixture mixing things up. I can't wait to see how more condensed suburban areas contribute to the decision.

[Cavan 0]

I feel like there needs to be a good balance in game. Cities should have mostly or exclusively slow zombies, you're at high risk from players anyway and any shot right now comes almost down to having the zombies surround the building you're in and slowly shamble in from every entrance, anyway.

1. Give them limited ability to climb the building or find alternate entrances like windows so it doesn't come down to shooting through one or two murder zones.

2. Give slower zombies the ability to grab and slow down players, making them an easier target for everything else on the server.

3. Give walker zombies a much higher chance of infecting players.

Further out in small elite groups the faster zombies should lead and identify targets calling in walkers over larger distances. I don't think there should be more than 2 or 3 in any one area, 2 or 3 current zombies is enough that a single mistake or missed shot can harm you, and firing at all gives away your location massively, have them run at 100% player sprint speed with no or less speed loss due to stamina. Fast zombies play the role of leading/scouting/alerting as well as distracting from the main horde. Fast zombies should also be more alert while slow zombies should be very inattentive.

Also the occasional mob of walkers lead by a runner would be nice.

Edited July 12, 2012 by Cavan

[SGTFledge 43]

Great compromise idea. You get the immediate terror of a runner in your face and the creeping dread of that horde of 100 shamblers making it's way to you across a city, getting bigger every minute as new shamblers join the parade. Think World War Z rules of zombies reacting to the 'spotted food' moan that the zombies that noticed you make. Soon, you have 3 or 4 huge packs converging on your location from different directions. Oh, and you're under fire from a bandit sniper.

That scenario beats the pants off the predictable screeching infected beelining straight for you.

Also, add in the thought of roaming hordes. WWZ, you had hordes moving in vast swatches across continents towards the area where the dinner bell was rung. Imagine your local neighborhood bandits getting swamped in NWA by a Stary horde after taking you and your mates down with a bunch of high powered, very loud weapons.

Strongpoints such as firehouses and churches would become good areas to try and restrain the "runners", but you gotta grab the loot, kill the runners, and get out quick, because when the horde catches up...

Game over, man. Game over.

Of course, engine and graphics limitations make this a pipe dream...for now...

[Powell (DayZ) 734]

Romero all the fucking way baby...

too bad that won't happen

[daedrick 90]

Infected people over slow unthreatening zombies. Even if the virus was airborn, nobody would fall to slow zombies.

The problem is not the fast or slow zombie itself, its how badly they behave and that have nothing to do with fast or slow zombies, it only have to do with arma 2 engine and its limitation, also, they are FAR from polished.

[Rossanator 0]

The people who post about this topic presumably want it to reach Rocket, yet at the same time they have clearly made no effort to see if he's discussed it at all.

I'm not saying I wouldn't like the idea, but it's irrelevant so long as the engine can't handle the things necessary to make slow zombies work. He's said it on forums and he's said it in interviews and most recently during his 30 minute Q&A session at rezzed. If you had slow zombies then even a smallish town like Bor would need 100+ zombies in the area to challenge a single player. The arma engine could not handle have several thousand zombies in a full server. You'd have to limit servers to 10 players, if not possibly less. Rocket's not interested in that.

As for the different tiers of zombies based on how long they're been turned and whether they've eaten a player and so on, he's said it's something he wants to do but he doesn't know if he can make it work yet.