We have been in debate all week over our concept and i have brought these things up with my employees, i only have 4 programmers right now so once we get past concept ill be ramping up hiring to at least 3 artist, 1 animator and a really competent writer. Let me know what you guys think.
[member="Viona Thorleif"] The idea of zombie animals has been talked about a lot and it may make it somewhat on some species. If everything can turn zombie humanity really has 0 shot so it will probably be only dogs, cats , maybe crocomagator and snakes. Though a swarm of infected rats would be deadly.
[member="Isamu Baelor"] There will be dedicated community building.
[member="Ultimatum"] Voodoo zombies don't really appeal to the masses, though infected types do mostly do to the hyper rage and speed. We are going to explain the virus somewhat. At the very least explain why the bacteria and insects don't touch the corpses.
@Vulpesen It will be very sandboxy, there will be other groups of survivors, some very hostile and some you can trade with. I.E Vulpese group has luck finding medicine but is starving. Turkey Liberation Army has tons of food little medicine... you can get the drift.
[member="Selena Halcyon"] To the meat and bones always from you, of course that is what i like from you.
Guns and ammo will probably start out fairly common, not common enough to be able to horde like your in fort knox but common enough to find more then a few. Ammo will become excedingly rare though, to the point your lucky to find one bullet. Crafting will use spent shell casings but anyone who knows anything about reloading shells is that those cases are only good for so many times, if they are brass, if they are steel worthless. But an empty gun is still at least a club or a spear with a bayonet.
There will be two play styles mostly supported, large scale base making where you try to hold no matter what ( which will be hard there are billions of zombies in the world after all, and sooner or later a horde of epic proportions will come by) and desposable bases ( which are essentially bare bones and just enough to hold out long enough to GTFO).
Noise will attract zombies from all over, off map and in map. That fire fight with raiders is going to have consequences regardless if you win or not. AK-47 with a suppressor is still louder then ever living hell and a .50 with one might as well not even be suppressed. But the fact is fighting raiders with guns is safer then trying to with melee weapons because thsoe raiders live on hit and run so they dont care to attract attention to an area, because only way they coming back is if a new group moves in and clears it out.
Like Xcom Death will be permanent...ish ( cause your dead will rise as flesh hungry zombies who know where your base is). We have decided to go off Walking dead principles though, that everyone is already infected so a bite isn't the means of infection, but a decaying corpses mouth is pretty damn dirty so yeah your probably going to die unless you pump a ton of resources into that survivor ( Wounds will vary from broken bones, meaningless scratches, Deep bites and so forth. Not every hit will be a severe wound to kill, but a lot will be instantly crippling. Armor will mitigate it only in the fact a hit to the armor might not go through. It will not make you harder to hit like a PnP game, it just deflects damage. A flak vest won't protect your neck or arms, or anywhere but your chest and stomach.) which you may as a commander have to decide if the resources spent are worth it. I mean a rookie it might be best to to go a head and euthinize ( We are requiring a bullet of course, no melee executions that is just cruel) why the guy who also knows how to jury rig the generator and keep it running with duct tape and bailing wire is probably worth the chance.
The Xcom style is how we are going and a turn timer will be going on, there will be no scatter your character may only be able to see one Zed of a group and you will have to make a quick decision on what to do. Until you move closer you won't know if its a solo, multi or a horde ( Or a special infected if we decide to add them). We have also decided to allow stealth kills if you have a survivor who can move quietly behind a Zed. But again just because you see 1...
Mission structures will revolve around raiding resources and finding survivors. All the survivors minus what you start with will be found while exploring for resources. Some you find will be hostile, some already in a group, some looking to just survive so it will be your decision how to proceed once you meet them. Once a building has been completely searched it is going to be permanently empty of supplies ( you can miss some, so its smart to send someone really good at finding shit with you.) now options for empty buildings will be fortifying to make a forward base with supplies and storage and stuff. But its going to be resource heavy.
Bases, Certain buildings can be turned into bases and those are larger type buildings like Police stations that can be fortified. There will also be vehicles that can be scavenged and added as mobile bases for when you have to beat a hasty retreat. The bigger and better your convoy the more supplies you can keep. ( During a base evac you will only get a chance to pick a bit of stuff to grab and go, this is because if a million zeds were knocking on your door you wouldnt sort through every round etc). We are thinking a one minute phase to load as much stuff onto your team as you evacuate, your evacees will start in random spots and will be moving to either fight the horde or retreat its your descretion. But a convoy adds random things from your stash to the pool of taken stuff if you have to GTFO.
Advantages to a permament/semi-permanent base over nomadic... FARMing, morale etc. As food and stuff runs out survivors will weaken as they starve. Your best fighter that runs around with two sledge hammers like an angry titan of death cant do nothing when hes barely able to move from crushing hunger.
Water... Ohh yes you better treat your water. Disease, and sickness play a role so medicine is important. That rain puddle may supply you 30water bottles but if you don't have anything to treat it the risk of sickness are there.
Survivors: Survivors will be randomly generated, with random back grounds. You may get find an ex-harvard phyisics profressor out there who was also a Force Recon Marine, who grew up working on diesel engines on his farm ( I know a guy like that actually) who can actually serve as a formidable soldier over a scientisty guy, dual as an engineer fixing crap who is your best fighter and you have to decide if risking him on a mission is worth the risk. And you may find a Cop who is a literla 90 pound weakling who is half worthless over anything but gardening and only became a cop because his dad was chief of police. Every survivor will have something they are good at and i don't plan on to many pure stereotypes. But they will be randomly generator so each time will be different.
Survivors will level up in a ways, HP will be generated when that survivor is made and they will only gain experience for what they are doing. A roguish character who spends a lot of time scouting will get experience for sneaking when sneaking etc. Instead of leveling in the traditional sense where someone automatically becomes better at something because you decided to spend points in a skill he didn't have. Skills that character doesn't have can only be learned but putting him to help someone with them and its time consuming and will take extra resources. But sometimes teaching that 90 pound gardener how to also change a fuse is a good idea.
Survivors will also have natural traits and flaws that will affect their character, a short sighted guy wont be a great sniper regardless. But a guy with natural steady hands might. As well their own personalities, they will interact and they will break down. Your awesome fighter watches his commrades get ripped to pieces odds are hes going to just loose it and just slump in a corner, maybe never recover. And some survivors will be spies etc, so its all on you.
We decided on Random events happening also, like a new horde coming in, natural disasters and stuff. The game world will always be evolving and we havnt decided if it will end or not or just be progressive.
We havn't hammered down a number of survivors but we are thinking on allowing you to create your leader character then assigning 2 or 3 at game start. But it'll be between 10 and 50, and the game will allow you to really decide how you want to lead and what you want. Every survivor you find doesn't have to get recruited, and not all will die if you don't some may found their own friendly faction etc.
I like the idea of persistent worlds, it adds a flavor to it. Odds are we are going to go with a city the size of New York, so you will never explore all of it at least not anytime soon. A sky scraper will tape a long time to search through and clear.
The katana will exist but a random person using it without the proper trainign will receive a penalty. Certain weapons are going to require characters with know how to use properly. Anyone can hack with a machete but the actually finesse slice of a katana takes practice. It will take time for characters to get good with guns, it will take time for characters to get strong enough to swing a sledge like in the movies ( considerable time). It will just plain and simply not be easy, few survivors will be properly trained in fire arms, fewer who know how to properly zero a rifle etc. As your character spend time doign they will get the hang of it though, it wont be fast like ohh i hit level to where to spend my points it will be oh i shot my rifle fifty times and i think i am getting the hang of it if i just dont jerk the trigger im more accurate.
Hordes will exist and random events, fire fights and noise can attract them. The game will be unpredictable, there will be hordes miles away that may work their way towards you.
The only cure is a bullet..
Maybe , maybe we can do multiple cities and in betweens but who would go into a city if they had miles of small towns with non-ginormous hordes. Of course i could keep resources scarce outside of cities and force it, but building your big base in the country and only doing a few safe houses in the city could be a good idea actually. I will bring this up at my noon meeting and see what my cats think about this.
