Quote:
The flow of new players choosing to not be infected would make that overly difficult. People wouldn't be flocking to the infected zones.
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Originally Posted by Steelclaw
Zombie Apocalypse MMO with real-time infestation/spread of disease.
Make it so. |
Well, there would be NPC's still right? Use some magical math thingy to keep the Zombie VS Human/dwarf/hot elf ratio within a happy fun time range.
No NPC Human characters, and when you are zombified you are not identified as being a PC. I don't know why, but it sounds fun like that to me.
Are you going for the no cure angle? Or the no cure unless you get the antidote for teh super evil global weapon company infection?
No cure would be tough to do. People would be re-rolling a lot if they really didn't want to play a zombie, well unless you have to have x amount of bites to be fully infected. Still lots of re-rolls. If the antidote is there then you basically have a timed mission to get what you need before going zombie on everyone. Though I guess you would still need to make x amount of bites = oh crap need mah pillz!
Hmmm, how fun would it be to be the one on your team that got the "zombie bite that no one else saw" thing going on. Near the end of the mission you go all nuts and slaughter you team one-by-one.
What griefing? Eh, get better +Def and body armor next time....and grow a sack Jr.
Yes, yes...I see all types of zombies for leveling...the fast crazed kind, a mastermind type where you control a horde of slow movers, oh animals? Cujo anyone?! (Yeah he wasn't a zombie, but if I were a zombie dog THAT is how I would act..so), you'd have the "smart" zombies that can (badly)wield weapons or ride a lawnmower. (yeah a lawnmower, how bad *** would you be to be a zombie on a mower just, uh, mowing, people down leaving death and blood streaks in your trails? VERY badass)
What? NO, of course my ideas don't end there. PLease leave your CC information with me for further ideas.
The problem is that zombie apocalypse scenarios tend to run their course very quickly once the walking dead reach a certain threshold. In real-time, it takes years to produce a new combat-capable human, and only minutes to hours to turn one into a zombie. It's not sustainable. Also, once the vast majority are zombified, they won't have as much to do. Plus, many people may not be interested in playing zombified characters.
To make things sustainable, you need to have a way for people to respawn their characters as humans. If we posit a sci-fi scenario, we can take a leaf from Eclipse Phase, and have mental backups that can be downloaded into newly constituted human bodies in safe areas. How about this:
The zombie apocalypse has already happened. The bulk of the surviving human population now lives in space, and a strict quarantine is enforced--the few remaining humans on the planet can't leave, and dwell in heavily armed enclaves. They haven't been completely abandoned to their fate, however; the human civilization in exile provides technology and material support. The biggest breakthroughs have been cortical backups and nanofabricators. The former creates and stores a backup copy of a human mind, and can download it into a "blank" body. The latter are essentially replicators--given raw materials, a template, and power, they can build practically anything (including blank bodies).
Given effectively unlimited ammo and massive fortifications, the enclaves are safe zones. Decontamination procedures and other treatments ensure that the zombie infection can't get started inside an enclave (though some early enclaves were lost to such catastrophes). People venture out of the enclaves to scavenge for raw materials (the fabbers can't transmute matter, so if you need rare-earth magnets, you need to fetch rare earths), fuel (the fabbers need power), and other supplies. They also go out on research expeditions, trying to determine the source of the infection and looking for a way to take back the Earth.
The storyline progresses as you level, eventually leading to the development of a counteragent. To be effective, however, the counteragent must be deployed in centers of intense infection. The late game features strike forces and raids into the heart of infected territory to do so; in addition to personal rewards, successful raids convey bonuses to the enclaves of the participants. The counteragent works, but will require many years of repeated raids to wipe out the zombies.
Mechanically, human characters go out on expeditions. If they get infected, a timer starts ticking down. If it runs out, or if they die, before returning to an enclave, they zombify. At this point, they have two options:
1) Play as a zombie until killed. Zombies ambush expeditions and attack enclaves, mostly. In non-PvP regions, there are NPC expeditions and enclaves. NPC enclaves can actually be overwhelmed, but PC enclaves cannot. Zombified characters level as zombies--effectively a second build for the character--and accumulate "grue". When the zombified character is killed, a cortical "sample" is sent back to the enclave. This sample enables the enclave to restore the character to a human body with memories of the fatal expedition (i.e. "no death penalty"). The human character benefits from the accumulated grue; it provides resistance to infection, as experience of zombie existence enables you to better avoid transmission. Grue is persistent; spend enough time as a zombie, and it will be almost impossible for low-level zombies to infect you. (Infectiousness increases with the level of the zombie.) This provides two distinct types of advancement--a powerful, highly skilled character who almost never dies might be acutely vulnerable to infection at high levels, for example.
2) Respawn. Your character awakens in a vat of nanogoo back at the enclave with no memories of the fatal expedition (i.e. as a death penalty, you forfeit all xp and rep gained before dying). The character's corpse rises as a formidable NPC zombie. If you hunt down and destroy your zombified prior body, you regain the lost xp and rep the next time you return to an enclave.
As an additional option for both PvE and PvP, there could be renegade enclaves that fight over certain scarce resources. Renegades could even mount "rescue missions" in exchange for supplies or favors (i.e. renegade missions).
Fun idea. I think a Zombie MMO could be done.
The Way of the Corruptor (Arc ID 49834): Hey villains! Do something for yourself for a change--like twisting the elements to your will. All that's standing in your way are a few secret societies...and Champions of the four elements.
Me and a friend were talking about this, at length, quite a while ago.
Human factions:
The humans would be split into two factions...can't remember the names but let call them Enclave and Marauders.
Enclave have established very well protected settlements and dispatch the PC out to find the goods they need to keep them running (food, fuel etc.) now the Enclaves are a safe haven but they don't have a wide variety of goods, the goods they do have though are better quality than the Marauders (that shotgun you picked up won't do as much damage as one you could buy from a Marauder camp BUT it won't jam on you at random). They have special equipment designed to scan anybody entering the settlements to alert them to possible Infected infiltration.
By contrast the Marauders are more like the roving bike gang from the original Day of the Dead, their settlements continually move around the map (if you've visited one and you're of the Marauder faction the current location of the nearest camp will be marked on your map, if you're Enclave faction, you'll have to stumble across them). They provide the widest range of goods due but lack quality.
So unlike the Enclave where they tend to only have the basic firearms available (Pistol, Shotgun, Rifle), the Marauders also have access to more exotic weapons (Rocket Launcher etc.) but they too suffer from bad quality or limited ammunition you need to buy seperately.
This allows for human vs human PvP and PvE as the Enclave and the Marauders fight over resources.
Alongside the NPC factions are human surviours out in the ruins that will hand out missions but they're randomly generated at won't stay in the same place all the time, meaning you may have to trek quite a distance to hand back in the mission you've just done or in a dangerous area BUT they can reward you with really nice items or give you dog food, the reward system for them would be fairly random.
Human advancement:
Humans work like player characters in the Fallout, they are classless but they have skills they can pick to get better suited into a role (Trog be punched and punch harder!). Want a hard hitting melee fighter, pick the skill which increases your unarmed and melee damage and level your strength and endurance stat etc.
Respawning:
The Enclave have basic cloning vats working, they cost a price to maintain so every time you die it costs you a fee. Equipment however is lost but generally not that expensive to replace (since the Enclave tend to only offer basic equipment anyway).
The Marauders, when defeated you'll respawn at a mobile hospital facility with the 'one of our guys dragged you back here' line. Although it is free you've got to 'work off your debt' for the Doc which works much like the debt system in CoH. Equipment is kept however.
The Infected:
The Infected don't use the standard equipment, obviously. To begin with they're are classeless like humans, for the first five levels or so you gain basic Infected abilities (claw at level 1, Bite at level 2 (can infect human NPCs), Groan at level 3 (alerts Infected in the area to presence of humans and any NPC zombies to attack that target) and so on).
Once you hit a certain threshold mutation paths open up and you choose from the following:
Crawler:
Weak but fast, the glass cannon melee DPS of the Infected faction, can cling and climb any surface, bonuses to attacks from behind or above, generally designed to attack in packs or with other infected.
Brute:
The 'Tank' (hehe pun intended) of the infected faction, hits very slowly but very hard and moves fairly slowly, can soak up a lot of firepower. Can work Solo as long as humans are corner with nowhere to run. Great at smashing down NPC or PC placed Barricades.
Shrieker
Can use their warped voiceboxes to emit shrieks which stun and disorientate humans (causes the screen to go horribly blurry) and can even temporarily incapacitate (loss of balance knocking the humans to the ground), allowing the Shrieker to claw the victim to death or opening up opportunities for other infected pack mates.
Headcase:
The first variation of 'smart' infected which further expands on the Groan ability to slowly control more and more NPC Zombies (at max they can control about 10 zombies). Easy to overwhelm single survivors or to smash down barricades but very vulnerable to AoE effects (like Molotov cocktails or the Rocket launcher).
Imitator:
The second variation of 'smart' infected. These ones use disguises to pass themselves off as Human PCs, these are the jack of all trades and abilities are based around concealing themselves and their weapons.
The Imitator can also mimic the random quest givers to lure in unsuspecting survivours, the ultimate ability down the the Mission NPC mimicry path is for them to even generate the universal 'I have a mission that needs doing' (exclamation mark, whatever it would be) tag above their heads that Human NPCs have.
The ultimate ability of the general mimicry path would be 'more human than human' which means they could even use human equipment they find out in the field.
The only limitation is that they cannot enter Enclave positions due to the high number of guards and the scanning gates, Marauders are a bit more lax but trying to talk to anyone in the encampment would immediately alert them to your presence (even typing in chat since I'd use the old 'one side can't understand the other' WoW thing and have anything a Zombie says appear to a humans as '<charactername> emits a loud groan/hiss/gurgle').
Infected Customisation and progression:
Within each tree are several paths you can focus on (as mentioned above for the Imitator). One for the Brute could focus on harder hitting punches at the expense of some of their tanking ability, the second could be the opposite (more tanking, less damage) and the third would be a happy medium, meaning you're not as good at punching or tanking as those who select that route but you're better at the other part they sacrifice.
Focusing on a tree also enhances that aspect of your outward appearance, Brutes who focus on punching would have their arms grow larger than a freshly started out Brute. As you level you will also become further 'enhanced' by having something about the character suggest that you're a higher level Infected and not to be messed with.
Crawlers: Claws elongate (Crawlers who focus on their melee will end up with really long talons), hands and feet become bigger and webbed, skin slowly becomes scaley until by max level they're this strange clawed human/gecko hybrid.
Brute: General size increase, the higher level you are, the bigger you become. By max level they will be towering mountains of muscle easily standing at about 15ft tall (they start at 8ft, which is 1.5ft above the human height limit) and almost as wide.
Shrieker: Throat and chest enlarge in a distubring kind of way (not muscle mass, just kind of bloated).
Headcase: Head slowly grows while rest of body slowly atrophies.
Imitator: These are unusual in that the higher they level, the more of the human customisation options they unlock, until at max level where they are all unlocked.
That was the basics of the idea we got down.
Great minds think alike, Doc...and so do ours.
Given the parallels, I think the two concepts could be merged. There are some conflicts, of course, the main ones being the differences in respawning and death penalties. It would take some lore work to get your advancement crunch to fit with the alternating play sequence I described, but I think it's possible. Maybe there's a psychic aspect to the zombie plague (which would fit with your Headcase critters), and the zombie collective "remembers" your role? Or maybe you can have multiple zombie builds and have the option to pick one every time you die.
(Maybe Steelclaw should have given the thread a more descriptive name. Ah, well, one bump won't hurt.)
The Way of the Corruptor (Arc ID 49834): Hey villains! Do something for yourself for a change--like twisting the elements to your will. All that's standing in your way are a few secret societies...and Champions of the four elements.
Zombie Apocalypse MMO with real-time infestation/spread of disease.
Make it so.
My mind wanders so often you've probably seen its picture on milk cartons. - Me... the first person version of the third person Steelclaw