Objectives, Roving Zombies, and "Lonliness" indicator to improve Cooperation

[djkling 5]

OK, so I started playing this and its a great little sandbox with a few problems.

First off, Suvivial is a great objective, but why not make it a real challenge... have some bigger objective in said game. What kind of things? What about the server resets when everyone dies or gets to an objective (such as, getting all living players to the castle, or taking over towns, etc). This would encourage some cooperative play, and maybe reward people based on how many people make it to the objective or end of the servers time. Even more wild could be making a requirement to obtain so many supplies (wood, metal, etc) as a group to complete the objective. Just give people something to do since we all realize that survival now is basically: raid town, don't get eaten, then avoid towns and other players

Second, small roving zombie groups would be a nice addition and covered elsewhere, but I'd like to voice the suport of it

Lastly, aside from my first comment we REALLY need to find some way to encourage cooperation. I think a simple penalty for pK'ing is not the way to go because some people will still grief no matter what. In real life, lonliness is hell on the psychology of people, and in EVERY Zombie flick people are NOT ALONE (mostly SEARCHING for others!). My proposal would be a social meter. It drains down over time to indicate lonliness, and it is refilled SLOWLY when you are around other people. Lower social numbers could decrease run speed, gun accuracy, or make other indicators drain faster. This would be a more accurate depiction of the psychological stressors of an apocalypse. it would also give balance to players who cooperate without a proper penalty for bandits since they could also band together (and a band of bandits is easier to spot, so its a slight handicap). You'd end up with more "tribal warfare" over just deathmatch. And if you make a social penalty for pKing you could further handicap the bandits. Those guys are usually good at what they do so they will have meters falling faster but will get food from their kills. Everyone wins :)