What would the Zombie Apocalypse look like to you?

[HungryZombie]

I see some people posting about how the lack of zombies in the open world kills the feeling of the Zombie Apocalypse for them. I'm of the opposite mind, thinking that the world should feel dead and empty.

 

For me that feeling of lonely desperation, standing on dark empty streets with the wind howling really engages my mind and it's that ambiance that makes me love this game.

 

I've been a comics/horror/sci-fi fan my whole life. Looking at zombie movies and shows you are almost always presented with vast empty areas the protagonists travel though. Then suddenly while turning a corner or walking past some wrecked cars you are hit with zombies. Look at Walking Dead episode 1. Rick enters Atlanta and the streets are empty, he turns the corner and bam, zombies. He's surprised and almost overrun. Rick did not have to fight zombies though every street.

 

At the start of the crisis I concede the protagonists usually have to fight though a ♥♥♥♥ storm to get to safety. This is because the situation is new and humans tend to gather in large communities which makes lots of threats to face as they become zombified. Later on though the populated areas are shown as emptying out. Zombies as shown on the screen tend to herd up and play follow the leader. This is in fact why most cities are empty years later. All the zombies heard or saw something and moved on and the rest of the zombies followed them out.

 

This is why there are huge hordes roaming the countryside. The game simulates this as horde night, or at least it's how I see horde night and why I feel this game simulates how I think the Zombie Apocalypse would play out.

[Scyris]

Out in the wilderness there should be few zombies as people usually aren't out there. However in the cities there should be a large amount of zombies milling about outside. If it could be done i'd have it be a evolving situation, at first there is very few in the wilderness so its generally safe, cities are dangerious, but as your game days go on, the slowly move out of the cities into the wilderness as zombies tend to wander a lot. In the end cities will be mostly empty and the wilderness will be filled with zombies. Only real ones in cities would be the sleepers that got trapped and died in their own house.

 

The sleepers in houses make sense, because zombies can't open doors. yes I know they can break blocks in this game but lets bypass/ignore that for now. In general zombie lore they can't even really get thru a wooden door unless they pile a ton of weight behind it and pretty much cause it to rip off its hinges from the bodyweight.

 

I've never been a fan of zombies digging, or being smart, then again i've not been a huge fan of zombies being able to punch thru steel or stone walls and be perfectly fine either. The onyl zombie that should be digging IMO is the dogs, as it makes sense. A zombie trying to dig up the ground should rip their hands off, I mean its rotten flesh, its going to get stripped away pretty fast digging thru even dirt bare handed.

[Morloc]

 

There is a chance to preserve

a nucleus of human specimens.

It would be quite easy.

At the bottom

of some of our deeper mine shafts.

The [zombies] wouldn't penetrate

a mine thousands of feet deep.

In a matter of weeks, improvements

in dwelling space could be provided.

- How long would we stay there?

- Let's see now...

I would think possibly 100 years.

Could people stay down there

for 100 years?

It would not

be difficult, mein Fuhrer...

...Mr. President. Nuclear reactors

could provide power indefinitely.

Greenhouses could grow plants.

Animals could be bred

and slaughtered.

A quick survey would have to be made

of available mine sites.

I'd guess there would be space for

several hundred thousand people.

I'd hate to have to decide

who stays up and who goes down.

That could easily be accomplished

with a computer.

It could be set to accept factors of

youth, health, sexual fertility, -

- intelligence and a cross-section

of necessary skills.

It'd be vital that top government

and military men be included, -

- to impart the required principles

of leadership and tradition.

They'd breed prodigiously,

with so little else to do.

With a ratio of

ten females to each male -

- they could achieve current gross

national product within 20 years.

Wouldn't this nucleus of survivors

be so grief-stricken -

- that they'd envy the dead

and not want to go on living?

No, sir... Excuse me.

When they enter the mine,

everyone will still be alive.

There'll be no shocking memories,

just a feeling of nostalgia.

And a spirit of bold curiosity

for the adventure ahead.

Doctor...

You mentioned a ratio

of ten women to each man.

Would we abandon

monogamous sexual relationships?

As far as men were concerned?

Regrettably, the sacrifice must

be made for the future of our race.

Since each man will be required

to do prodigious service...

...the woman must be selected

for their sexual characteristics, -

- which will have to be

of a highly stimulating nature.

- What an astonishingly good idea.

- Thank you, sir.

We ought to look at this

from a military point of view.

Supposing the Russkies...

- In 100 years they could take over.

- I agree, Mr. President.

They might even try

to take over our mine shaft spaces.

It'd be naive of us to imagine that

this would change Soviet policy.

We must be increasingly alert

to prevent them taking over.

If they breed more prodigiously than

we do, they'd have superior numbers!

Mr. President,

we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!

 

 

 

 

-Dr. Morloc

[HungryZombie]

I've never been a fan of zombies digging, or being smart, then again i've not been a huge fan of zombies being able to punch thru steel or stone walls and be perfectly fine either. The onyl zombie that should be digging IMO is the dogs, as it makes sense. A zombie trying to dig up the ground should rip their hands off, I mean its rotten flesh, its going to get stripped away pretty fast digging thru even dirt bare handed.

 

I agree. I turn down AI block damage to compensate for this. You still have to deal with the threat, the zombies will get though eventually but it gives me a little time to enjoy the "oh crap" moment and muster a defense.

 

The digging was an annoyance to me when they first introduced it. Now I just adapted and it's not a big problem for me. The only thing I would not do is hide underground on horde night. But for screamers and wandering hordes and such I've found underground is not much of a problem at all.

[Xtrakicking]

Am I the only one who hasn't seen less zombies in the wild at all? I actually get harrassed more ofter now.

 

I do agree that some towns should have more zombies. Back in the days, the insta-spawning mechanic of the city made it impossible to be calm and alone for even just a second. The hordes just kept coming, and it was thrilling to say the least.

[HungryZombie]

Am I the only one who hasn't seen less zombies in the wild at all? I actually get harrassed more ofter now.

 

I do agree that some towns should have more zombies. Back in the days, the insta-spawning mechanic of the city made it impossible to be calm and alone for even just a second. The hordes just kept coming, and it was thrilling to say the least.

 

No I agree, I'm pestered by zombies constantly running from one edge of town to the other when I'm picking up from my supply chests.

 

EDIT: I misread the comment I replied too. Oops! Edits in bold.

[AtomicUs5000]

Am I the only one who hasn't seen less zombies in the wild at all? I actually get harrassed more ofter now.

 

No, you're not the only one. Clearing any decent-sized POI draws in several from the outside for me. Night time seems to trigger fresh spawns in your area... and I know that for sure never happened before. In the past, clearing the area around your base meant you rarely had any visitors (minus screamers, of course). Now every night, a few (mostly feral) come sniffing around.

 

The wandering hordes, though smaller than they were in A16, seem to always find me when I'm in a POI as well. I don't mind at all, but in early game I often have to make a stash chest inside a POI now as opposed to doing it out in the street... just so I can get away and come back later for the goods.

 

What I have noticed is that if you are walking/riding there seems to be these moments where you don't see anything spawn in. Others times, plenty. I enjoy the peace and quiet sometimes. However, it's probably on purpose. If there were constant zombies, you would never let your defenses down. It's a lot of fun when zombies come out of nowhere when you practically forgot about them.

 

Anyway, yeah, I think the towns and cities should have more activity and I would expect that in a zombie apoc.... but madmole has already mentioned beefing up activity in cities using the random event system they are working on. They reduced the number of sleepers, which I think is a good thing. However, in a zombie apoc I would expect that there would be some places that trapped massive amounts of zombies, and the game lacks this. Some examples of where I might see this would be a movie theater, a grocery store, and of course the hospital.

[HungryZombie]

Anyway, yeah, I think the towns and cities should have more activity and I would expect that in a zombie apoc.... but madmole has already mentioned beefing up activity in cities using the random event system they are working on. They reduced the number of sleepers, which I think is a good thing. However, in a zombie apoc I would expect that there would be some places that trapped massive amounts of zombies, and the game lacks this. Some examples of where I might see this would be a movie theater, a grocery store, and of course the hospital.

 

That would be great if they can do it.

[Jysen]

Personally, I'm still extremely partial to a more traditional/classic zombie apocalypse.

 

Slow (with a semi quicker stumble), dumb (but attracted to noise/smell), but when in numbers, extremely dangerous.

 

There's just something awesome visually when I see one or two shambling through a field. Likewise, there's also those moments where in a city, there should be a much greater threat. Not nonstop, but the numbers should feel overwhelming.

 

One of my most favorite moments still to this day was with a friend. We were running back to base through a forest biome, and as darkness began to engulf us, fog rolled in. We were being chased, and when I turned around, it captured the sense of horror perfectly. The fog had a soft hue due to the moonlight, and within the fog you could see silhouettes of zombies.

 

Immersion breaking is how they stuffed them into cabinets and false ceilings. As if those that died are smart enough to set up ambushes... Of course the Olympic Jumping is also something I find ridiculous. In reality, it's half assed lazy mechanics.

 

While I agree that coming to an area that's run down, with nothing around has its own appeal as well. The whole Last Man on Earth feeling. But that sensation is completely going away when they decide to add in NPC's and Bandits. Im going to bet that the entire game will take a huge hit when that finally arrives as it pulls you away from an actual isolated apocalypse atmosphere.

 

But don't get me wrong, those that prefer the infected mentality, 28 Days Later/WWZ I feel should have their fun as well. At the end of the day, it is a game, not a simulation. Which is why I can accept the special versions of zombies, but personally could do without and never blink an eye.

 

I'm just hoping they find a way to allow everyone to have the options to alter game play to how they want. Running, no running. Digging or no digging, etc. If they can accomplish this, then I'd be happy since we all could play how we actually prefer, making this game even more amazing.

[Ornias]

There is a chance to preserve

a nucleus of human specimens.

It would be quite easy.

At the bottom

of some of our deeper mine shafts.

The [zombies] wouldn't penetrate

a mine thousands of feet deep.

In a matter of weeks, improvements

in dwelling space could be provided.

- How long would we stay there?

- Let's see now...

I would think possibly 100 years.

Could people stay down there

for 100 years?

It would not

be difficult, mein Fuhrer...

...Mr. President. Nuclear reactors

could provide power indefinitely.

Greenhouses could grow plants.

Animals could be bred

and slaughtered.

A quick survey would have to be made

of available mine sites.

I'd guess there would be space for

several hundred thousand people.

I'd hate to have to decide

who stays up and who goes down.

That could easily be accomplished

with a computer.

It could be set to accept factors of

youth, health, sexual fertility, -

- intelligence and a cross-section

of necessary skills.

It'd be vital that top government

and military men be included, -

- to impart the required principles

of leadership and tradition.

They'd breed prodigiously,

with so little else to do.

With a ratio of

ten females to each male -

- they could achieve current gross

national product within 20 years.

Wouldn't this nucleus of survivors

be so grief-stricken -

- that they'd envy the dead

and not want to go on living?

No, sir... Excuse me.

When they enter the mine,

everyone will still be alive.

There'll be no shocking memories,

just a feeling of nostalgia.

And a spirit of bold curiosity

for the adventure ahead.

Doctor...

You mentioned a ratio

of ten women to each man.

Would we abandon

monogamous sexual relationships?

As far as men were concerned?

Regrettably, the sacrifice must

be made for the future of our race.

Since each man will be required

to do prodigious service...

...the woman must be selected

for their sexual characteristics, -

- which will have to be

of a highly stimulating nature.

- What an astonishingly good idea.

- Thank you, sir.

We ought to look at this

from a military point of view.

Supposing the Russkies...

- In 100 years they could take over.

- I agree, Mr. President.

They might even try

to take over our mine shaft spaces.

It'd be naive of us to imagine that

this would change Soviet policy.

We must be increasingly alert

to prevent them taking over.

If they breed more prodigiously than

we do, they'd have superior numbers!

Mr. President,

we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!

 

 

 

 

-Dr. Morloc

 

Got to love some Dr. Strangelove.

[OzHawkeye]

Personally, I'm still extremely partial to a more traditional/classic zombie apocalypse.

 

Slow (with a semi quicker stumble), dumb (but attracted to noise/smell), but when in numbers, extremely dangerous.

 

Pretty much my view, but alas, the game engine just isn't up to rendering thousands of city-zombies.

[Sydious]

*mic drop*

[Jysen]

Pretty much my view, but alas, the game engine just isn't up to rendering thousands of city-zombies.

 

True, but I don't need to physically see them all. The most important thing would be the tension of being able to draw in a massive horde that's bigger in a city would add the suspense. Especially if you're not attempting to sneak around.

 

It doesn't need to be so overwhelming every time that firing a gun would result in a death storm of zombies, but when you get those moments where you frantically have to flee, that's when the game will shine.

 

Now if only they would stop destroying the crafting element that I've been reading...

[bobrpggamer]

The first few episodes of The Walking Dead in the city when Rick has no idea what the situation and then turns and sees hundreds of zombies down every street corner in Atalanta. Now that would be amazing to see but there is no way to have that much calculation in large cites as said, but would be freaky getting cornered by 100 or more dead coming in all directions and that's the real zombie scare for me.

 

A feeling of "how am I going to possibly survive this" when there is no place to run and all streets have them closing in on you, then you have to get desperate to survive and look for a building to go into and then they are clawing at the windows and you run up the stairs and they manage to break through the glass, you think "oh this is it" and as you are climbing the stairs you know you will be trapped and you have no more floors to go up, so you bust through a door onto the roof trying to hold them back at the door, at which point you get overrun and you need to either jump down from the building somehow or jump to another building or you die and wake up on your bedroll, yeah I guess the thrill is kind of gone when you just wake up on your bedroll.

 

Zombie apocalypse can never be truly until you feel the true fear in that situation of which a game can never produce. Those who know The Walking Dead and the first few episodes where Rick, dumbly (Dumb Ass) stumbles into town and gets overwhelmed with the numbers of the dead and with the realization that they are actually going to rip him to pieces and have him for lunch. That pretty much sums up what the true horror of the situation would be, no, VR will never offer that either unfortunately.

 

The good news is its just a horror movie or game, so you can still go out for Starbucks tomorrow and go out to dinner with your friends, maybe watch some Netflix or read a book before bed, maybe buy that 50" LED TV you have been looking at, yeah that sounds better to me than surviving a zombie apocalypse.

[OzHawkeye]

True, but I don't need to physically see them all. The most important thing would be the tension of being able to draw in a massive horde that's bigger in a city would add the suspense. Especially if you're not attempting to sneak around.

 

It doesn't need to be so overwhelming every time that firing a gun would result in a death storm of zombies, but when you get those moments where you frantically have to flee, that's when the game will shine.

 

Now if only they would stop destroying the crafting element that I've been reading...

 

I'd like to be able to turn a corner in a city and see a couple of hundred Zeek heading my way. Thousands is an exaggeration I guess, but, let's say at least 100. I still don't think though, that's currently achievable unfortunately.

[Aldranon]

I think the player "Missed" the initial Apocalypse that might have appeared less supernatural and more like a modified Rabies outbreak or WW3.

 

If you look closely, you can see there was a revival after a nuclear war or the first spread of the zombie virus.

Surviver camps, MadMax style encampments. But now they are deserted. Army bases that took a year to build.

 

NOW, that there is no reason to hide, as humanity is almost finished, the forces behind the Second apocalypse are being more visible.

[hotpoon]

Pretty much my view, but alas, the game engine just isn't up to rendering thousands of city-zombies.

 

Thousands would be nice, but even the amount we had in A15 would suffice. That ran well. Is the new Unity worse at crowd rendering than the previous version that A15 was built on?

[Scyris]

Thousands would be nice, but even the amount we had in A15 would suffice. That ran well. Is the new Unity worse at crowd rendering than the previous version that A15 was built on?

 

I think the problem is more peoples pc's are getting to old and people are trying to play a evolving game on 4+ year old potatoes that have no business trying to run a game like this in todays state of the game on such old hardware. I play darkness falls a mod that has triple the spawn rate of vanilla outdoors, many new poi's and such, it uses muchmore memory, but I still can get 60 fps stable in it usually, even with its triple+ the spawn rate of vanilla a17. My pc is not even that good either, i5-7500 3.42 ghz quad core, and a geofrce 1070, and 24 gb of ram. I have textures on full/max, and i reduce stuff to off liek bloom, sun shafts etc, as I hate those effects, even if I had a top end pc i'd still shut them off.

[Damocles]

No more taxes! To bring up a positive note.

[ZombieSurvivor]

I'd like to be able to turn a corner in a city and see a couple of hundred Zeek heading my way. Thousands is an exaggeration I guess, but, let's say at least 100. I still don't think though, that's currently achievable unfortunately.

 

I had 400+ zombies on my screen earlier while testing something...granted at about 150 my frames started to dip but not that bad. 200 and up my frames started dropping hard. By 400 i was at about 10fps. A18 can handle a lot more zombies than before thats for sure which is why I really do not understand why they nerfed the amount of roaming zombies in the wild.

[HungryZombie]

The first few episodes of The Walking Dead in the city when Rick has no idea what the situation and then turns and sees hundreds of zombies down every street corner in Atalanta. Now that would be amazing to see but there is no way to have that much calculation in large cites as said, but would be freaky getting cornered by 100 or more dead coming in all directions and that's the real zombie scare for me.

 

A feeling of "how am I going to possibly survive this" when there is no place to run and all streets have them closing in on you, then you have to get desperate to survive and look for a building to go into and then they are clawing at the windows and you run up the stairs and they manage to break through the glass, you think "oh this is it" and as you are climbing the stairs you know you will be trapped and you have no more floors to go up, so you bust through a door onto the roof trying to hold them back at the door, at which point you get overrun and you need to either jump down from the building somehow or jump to another building or you die and wake up on your bedroll, yeah I guess the thrill is kind of gone when you just wake up on your bedroll.

 

Zombie apocalypse can never be truly until you feel the true fear in that situation of which a game can never produce. Those who know The Walking Dead and the first few episodes where Rick, dumbly (Dumb Ass) stumbles into town and gets overwhelmed with the numbers of the dead and with the realization that they are actually going to rip him to pieces and have him for lunch. That pretty much sums up what the true horror of the situation would be, no, VR will never offer that either unfortunately.

 

The good news is its just a horror movie or game, so you can still go out for Starbucks tomorrow and go out to dinner with your friends, maybe watch some Netflix or read a book before bed, maybe buy that 50" LED TV you have been looking at, yeah that sounds better to me than surviving a zombie apocalypse.

 

Well said. I kind of get that feeling on horde nights. I don't think gameplay wise you can have that feeling 24/7 or you'd not have much time for anything else. You can even turn up the frequency of the horde nights to every night if you want.

[bobrpggamer]

Yeah it is great to have the option to do that thanks to the devs for being able to play your own way and I don't want to come off as saying the game is not exiting or challenging, its just that I re-watched The Walking Dead in the last month trying to get ready for season 10 and those first few episodes near Atalanta was my favorite with the one with Rick riding into town on a horse being my personal favorite.

 

Some of the talk I heard about static terrain would be less of a load on the CPU leaving the possibility of more zombies in cites but even so everything is destructible adding calculations on every block everywhere - not necessarily a cache of setting on each block but if blocks are destroyed or damaged the physics of the blocks being altered along with the AI of boatloads of zombies would be a good stress test benchmark

just add boatloads of zombies running after you. I do not know haw many people were brave enough to topple the crane in the big city, I did for kicks and it turned into a slide show on a high end PC so it will be hard to have the amount of zombies you want in the cities. I ride through town now on a vehicle and the FPS are really bad on A17.4, so I would image A18 at it current state must have terrible FPS in cities.

 

Maybe a setting for amount of zombies on screen at once could be in the options in the future. Like max zombies on screen at once 16, 32, 64, 128, 512 or something. Then again catering to people that have the latest hardware and leaving the guys with mid-range systems still kind of pissed off that they need to upgrade their PCs to play the game like the rich guys. I remember Crytek when they had a preview of Crysis in Maximum PC stating, "Crysis is being made for computer hardware not available now" Not word for word but that was a strange way to promote a new game.

 

Then again the "its just Alpha, wait for a gold release in 2025" comes to mind. It was release early access in 2013 which was 6 years ago so if its half way there in 6 years it will be 2025. I am not complaining and I love the game so don't get me wrong there.

 

I need to use Spoilers to stop my obsession of walls of text and to hide things that are not relevant to the topic that I happen to add quite often:

 

Here is a benchmark of Crysis compared to Quake 3 I did for kicks in like 2016 or something

I guess I am a PC gamer have been for most of my life and I do not like consoles very much. I get up and instead of watching TV for news or whatever I wake up and look at my 60" plasma hooked up to my PC which is my TV for the most part so I kind of live with my PC being my only entertainment and is why I spend so much time typing walls of text every morning instead of watching what the POTUS is up to. Which is also why I will be the last one to know if there is a zombie apocalypse or an alien invasion. It does not help much that I do not have any friends around either so I usually find a good forum to talk about things and in so bugging you guys with walls of text. I do not have a Twitter or Facebook account and I do not even use my smartphone.