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Concept for a new RTS
Milquetoast Thug
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Registered User regular
I've posted this elsewhere, but I think it would fit best here, since this is the gaming forum. Thebasic concept is this: a RTS set in a zombie invested world, sorta like Land of the Dead, except non-shitty.
The various factions could range from large colonies of relatively ordinary surviors, to smaller, but more elite military forces, to wackier shit, like necromancers and mad scientists. The latter three are of course, partially to blame for this mess.
The main resources would be Food, Ammo, and... zombies. that's right, zombies are a resources, abilte a somewhat dangerous one. Food and ammo can be harvested from the various abandoned stores/supermarkets/ and gun shops/armories. Food can also be grown by building farm like building, sorta like in warcraft. Food is used primarily for making more units, while ammo is the more specialized resource needed only for advanced units, sorta like vespine gas in Starcraft. Obviously, some factions need more of certain resources than others.
Now, the third resource, zombies, is a bit different. Zombies are just kinda randomly scattered across the map(s), and slowly grow in number from various locations (graveyards, the friendly neighborhood pit to hell, and of course, the chemical plant where bad stuff got spilled.) They will also eventually spawn if certain types of units are killed. Unless the zombies see tasty flesh bound units (i.e, most of the units in the game), they'll just wander around randomly. But regardless of how many players there are in a game, there will almost always be 10 times more zombie than all the other players combined. and this is where the innovation (and fun) begins: the player get to start using the zombies on each other.
See, each faction would have it's own unique way of capturing or "requisitioning" zombies for their own devious purposes. the civilian colonies might just dig pits or have simple net traps, while the military and mad scientist factions would have roving velicles or machines that go out and grab zombies and bring them back to base. The necromancers could probably just grab zombies at their liesure with a specialized hero unit, you know, as long as he keeps them supplied with food (harder than it sounds of course, because if his forces runs out of food... well, zombies are not know for their loyalty.)
Once a faction gets zombies, they can start doing things with them, like doind specialized research that only the prescense of the walking dead can provide. Civilians might get to research, for instance, "Amputation!", which gives them better hitpoints against zombies, and of course, the followup research, "Come get some!", which lets them start strapping power tools to their limbs... meanwhile, the mad scientists can create a soylent green-esque device to turn their extra zombies into ... uh... "food." Other factions might use zombies more directly. The military can fly helicopters over your base, and drop the shamblers right onto your mans, while the necromancers could despoil land, making even more zombies come around. And of course, the mad scientists, could do the worst thing of all: create intelligent zombies.
Of course, while the base objective of the game would be to wipe out the other factions, there could concievably be other modes, where you have to kills a certain number of zombies to win, which creates a dilemma (do you horde zombies to use on other people, or just kill the zeds outright?) as well as "famine" mode, where food contiually depletes, and whoever gets the most (or a set amount) wins.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Feedback would be appreciated.
The various factions could range from large colonies of relatively ordinary surviors, to smaller, but more elite military forces, to wackier shit, like necromancers and mad scientists. The latter three are of course, partially to blame for this mess.
The main resources would be Food, Ammo, and... zombies. that's right, zombies are a resources, abilte a somewhat dangerous one. Food and ammo can be harvested from the various abandoned stores/supermarkets/ and gun shops/armories. Food can also be grown by building farm like building, sorta like in warcraft. Food is used primarily for making more units, while ammo is the more specialized resource needed only for advanced units, sorta like vespine gas in Starcraft. Obviously, some factions need more of certain resources than others.
Now, the third resource, zombies, is a bit different. Zombies are just kinda randomly scattered across the map(s), and slowly grow in number from various locations (graveyards, the friendly neighborhood pit to hell, and of course, the chemical plant where bad stuff got spilled.) They will also eventually spawn if certain types of units are killed. Unless the zombies see tasty flesh bound units (i.e, most of the units in the game), they'll just wander around randomly. But regardless of how many players there are in a game, there will almost always be 10 times more zombie than all the other players combined. and this is where the innovation (and fun) begins: the player get to start using the zombies on each other.
See, each faction would have it's own unique way of capturing or "requisitioning" zombies for their own devious purposes. the civilian colonies might just dig pits or have simple net traps, while the military and mad scientist factions would have roving velicles or machines that go out and grab zombies and bring them back to base. The necromancers could probably just grab zombies at their liesure with a specialized hero unit, you know, as long as he keeps them supplied with food (harder than it sounds of course, because if his forces runs out of food... well, zombies are not know for their loyalty.)
Once a faction gets zombies, they can start doing things with them, like doind specialized research that only the prescense of the walking dead can provide. Civilians might get to research, for instance, "Amputation!", which gives them better hitpoints against zombies, and of course, the followup research, "Come get some!", which lets them start strapping power tools to their limbs... meanwhile, the mad scientists can create a soylent green-esque device to turn their extra zombies into ... uh... "food." Other factions might use zombies more directly. The military can fly helicopters over your base, and drop the shamblers right onto your mans, while the necromancers could despoil land, making even more zombies come around. And of course, the mad scientists, could do the worst thing of all: create intelligent zombies.
Of course, while the base objective of the game would be to wipe out the other factions, there could concievably be other modes, where you have to kills a certain number of zombies to win, which creates a dilemma (do you horde zombies to use on other people, or just kill the zeds outright?) as well as "famine" mode, where food contiually depletes, and whoever gets the most (or a set amount) wins.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Feedback would be appreciated.
Milquetoast Thug on
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I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
He's only tired of all the bad zombie games. There hasn't been many good zombie games or mods and it's depressing. Left 4 Dead and some of the Half-Life 2 mods look okay, but they're not my dream zombie experience. A few friends and I put together a design document awhile ago for just that, but that never went anywhere.
One of my main problems in zombie games, and more specifically, survival horror games, is that the game is usually too lenient on the player. Sure, one zombie should go down with fairly easily if you have a baretta with a full clip, and you should be able to keep the walking dead at bay if you've holed yourself up in a building and reinforced the entrances.
But, what happens when you run out of food?
Humans need to eat and sleep. The eating part of the system would be fairly simple create. And I've come up with a simple, and elegant way to require sleep from a player.
You have a persistant world, and when a player is logged off, they're resting. That means, if you leave your computer, your avatar is left completely vulnerable. So, the longer you go without playing, the more likely it is that your character will be dead when you get back.
So what's the big deal about death? Well, I'd also like to see a basic experience system implemented. Nothing too in depth. You could easily max your level out in just a few hours game time, assuming you're focusing on just that. But if you die, well, that's it. You're dead. Start a new character with basic skills yet again. On top of that, you also have possessions to worry about. Anything you're carrying when you die is up for grabs.
Well, that's the basic concept. Let me know how much you hate it.
Like the scene from tremors where the dude has fortified his house with concrete walls and 9000 rifles, and when the tremors hits he gets on the roof with an elephant rifle and picks them off. Or like the movie 7 days or whatever it was, where the marines were fortifying that random mansion with like land mines in the field.
It would be similar to gameplay elements in say NWN 2, where you had a keep to build up. But from an FPS perspective where most of the game mechanics required a combination of first person skills and stats ala System Shock 2.
It would be a multiplayer sandbox game of sorts and in typical nethack fashion, most games would be very short, but every once in awhile you'd get a game that lasted a real long time. You get the lucky break and your defenses hold long enough to where you can really dig in deep. To the point where you have the proverbial military base and you can do research on captured zombies to learn from them. The game would randomly populate the world with other people who you could save and train as guards / cooks / etc.
And of course, it wouldn't be complete without an alternative gameplay mod where you basically start out with a prebuilt base and a massive cache of guns and you get attacked by wave after wave of continually stronger zombies.
Fixed for accuracy.
While I also have many grand ideas for a Zombie MMO, I want to bring the thread a little back on topic and say that that idea if executed properly sounds like a fucking blast to play.
Also, I work in a mall, so when closing and everyone leaves, all the janitors moving about sound just like Zombies. Its really cool.
Make zombies more than just "lol i have turetz bam bam bam" and this game would be FUN.
That half-life 1 single-player mod (can't remember the name) is still one of my favorite all-time zombie games.
I think they're making a full-retail addon for HL2. I saw some article about it a month or so ago. Gonna be released on steam.
This, I think, is why I'm always left unsatisfied by co-op zombie games -- you just kill the living dead. It gets boring. It's why Resident Evil and Dead Rising are much more satisfying zombie games than online co-op zombie games ever are; there's substance to them, they're not just deathmatch with zombies.
I dunno, Dead Rising has a lot of zombies, man.
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Bongi: I agree. I think, honestly, the funnest part of a zombie uprising would be going everywhere and seeing how the world has changed. Of course, I feel that wacking zombies with a baseball bat would be a close second, but still.
The standard food and ammo buildings are basically like the mines from warcraft, except each would give a different resource. farms, on the other hand, would slowly produce food on their own. some factions are naturally, better at this than others. The thing, though, while everyone would start with some resources nearby, the rest are out in the middle of the map, surronded by the undead. If you want to expand your base, you'll have to clear the area first. Likewise, getting additional resources would be more difficult, since even if you clear an area down to the last zed, more will just wandering later.
The thing I like about this idea, is that it forces you to think heavily about the terrain of the map. Like for instance you might get caught in a situation where you have to decide between attacking the heavily fortified main entrance the enemy's base (not many zombies there, due to all the defenses there) or take the alternate entrance, where more zeds are present? the reason this would be relevant, is because certain units would more effective against certain targets. Like the military faction might have guys with machine guns- very effective against living targets, but relatively ineffective aginst the undead. Like wise, the late-game civlians units armed with shotguns and chainsaws would kick the shit out of the living dead, but would have significant trouble against long range units like snipers and spellcasters.
I do worry that zombie games might become the next World War 2. Though a mixture of the two would be wonderful.
"Call of Duty 4: BRAAAAAAAAAAAINS!"
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Heck, you probably could just make a Warcraft map that does exactly what you want.
sorry, force of habit. but I suggest replacing 'farm' with 'mall', because making a farm takes too long, and likey as not the seeds have been wiped out by the zombie apocalypse.
also, a mall just sounds better.
WHAT...thefuck...You made me sad...
I agree that the zombie genre is about survival, disagree that the zombies are just a backdrop. The zombies represent overwhelming odds and an almost self-defeatist attitude. They are relentless, patient and unphased. There is also no hope for containment. While you could say, exchange them with a similar number of monsters with similar traits, you couldn't replace them with say, 3 vampires, you'd have a completely different survival scenario. Now, I've not played every zombie game, but I'm going to go ahead and say that no zombie game has ever captured this feeling. Most zombie games use zombies as simply a scary monster to tell a story around, a story that usually has a definitive ending that you either do right or wrong. This notion, I think, completely undermines the entire point of the zombie genre in the first place.
In other words, I liked Resident Evil because it was a scary, fun game. I would not say I liked Resident Evil because it was a zombie game. I didn't feel like I was trying to survive in Resident Evil, I felt like I was trying to beat a bad guy. If I was trying to survive, I probably would not be running headlong into their fortress. Not to mention the term zombie barely covers half of what you see in any given RE game.
Since I haven't played Dead Rising, I can't really comment on it. I will say that as I understand it, the game is run on a timer, in that you are sort of 'just visiting' which undermines the whole survival aspect. You know how long you will be around and you just need to complete a bunch of random objectives during that time frame. It's more sandboxish than most, but not as much as I'd like (unless my readings on it have missed something). I think choosing a base and fortifying it is really a major part of almost every zombie movie. The idea to pick a mall, or a school and barricade the windows, lock the doors, and keep them out. People always choosing bad places or not fortifying well enough, or sometimes having really, really good spots (like in 7 days) has always been my fascination with zombie movies. And then theres always that safe/dangerous time table rotation in zombie movies. The safe times where you can build up your defenses and scavange around for food and the dangerous times when the zombies are attacking en mass. Sure, the safe times require some stealth, but they are somewhat of a different minigame. It's like going from Quake4 to Splinter Cell (with an adventuring focus) in the same game.
Just because they're a backdrop doesn't make them unimportant. I agree with you on most of your points, but I think you've misclassified them. They're not monsters. Monsters are about the unnatural, the freakish. Vampires are monsters (in most, not all, settings). Frankenstein's monster was a monster. Werewolves are monsters. In their modern form, zombies are a landscape. At their most involved, they are a kind of hybrid between natural hazard and a setting.
You couldn't exchange them with any number of traditional vampires, really, but you could exchange them for an infestation of alien worms. Or an ice age. Or radioactivity. The themes would change, but ultimately the story could remain the same.
Take that idea and place it next to a city that needs to be raided for vehicles(carry larger loads), material/food/weapons and other things. But each time you restart the map should be randomized so people wouldn't know where the best stuff was immediatly.
Make this an MMO FPS or persitent server with a large max player (I think source can handle 128) with the house and surroundings is the hub and resource gathering is instanced FPS section. New player will spawn in town and need to be rescued or make their way to the house, later there will be more zombies around so finding survivors in town will be a little harder.
When building new fences or wall you would need you builders but also a good amount of people to act as a sheild to hold back attacks. If people are too reckless they will alert all zombies to swarm your place, hope the defenses can hold. The server resets when everyone is dead and the game has a permadeath system that once certain equipement is taken from the hospital it might be possible to save players if they are not too dead.
Think hostage maps from Counterstrike except the terrorist team is zombie AI and the hostages are players. Hell the military team could even be optional, giving more emphasis for the civilian team to work together and get out of there
Someone make this for Source now please. Now I'm thinking cs_office except with zombies and the employees making barricades out of file cabinets and other office furniture HUALGHLUGALUGLAGHLAGH
The zombies are a backdrop because they're essentially only a plot device to set the scenario into motion, and then to bring it to an end when the humans involved get so far up each others' asses that they make a stupid mistake (because let's face it you have to be fairly stupid to be killed by a person that can't move more than 1mph and can be killed by a bump to the head). The meat of any serious (I'm talking Dawn of the Dead/28 Days Later here, not Braindead (although that is a damn awesome film)) zombie flick is the social interactions and the depravity people are driven to when there seems to be no hope of survival. This is exactly what Dead Rising delivers, albeit in an occasionally over the top form.
Look at me, all film studenty.
My favourite theory is that technically, Black Hawk Down is a zombie movie.
28 days later, thats what I kept trying to refer to with 7 days, haha. Love that movie, could not remember the name. So many perfect gaming scenarios in that movie. And from everything I've read, Dead Rising doesn't have any fortification. I mean it's cool to have a game where the zombies have always broken in, but you've skipped my favorite parts of the movies, the part where you say "I could have defended that house better with my eyes closed". At least RE4 had the house scene, but you never got to really setup defense, you were just there for a scripted sequence, albeit a friggen fun one.
Thanks for the information though.
My concern about MMOFPS is I didn't want the games to be in a perpetual world where no one loses. But if you just mean an FPS game that supports a massive number of players, I agree. But I also mentioned that games can and would end very, very fast. You start at a house and you make the wrong mistake and you are dead, game over. Anyone who has played nethack knows how nerve wracking the first few levels can be. Sometimes it isn't even your mistake that kills you, just a luck of the draw. You got cornered, you die. Maybe in a co-op game, it would play like CS, except you could respawn once the core team had saved another person, so you'd basically possess free'd NPCs. In that manner you could have people die quickly, but still have a chance to respawn as other people in the town are rescued. And these people would obviously, be pretty difficult to rescue.
And you mentioned "the house" but I wanted to keep my idea around the principal that your base of operations could be anything. A tree house, a camp site, a mall, a gas station. Based on your structure, you'd have a variable number of fixed upgrades and an unlimited number of dynamic upgrades (as many as you can get resources for). Dynamic being something simple like baricading a wall or door. Fixed being something unique like building an underground fort, research lab, or unique zombie traps.
And yea a world would exist, with certain basic functions. Like power would require a power plant, but you wouldn't need to repair all the powerlines because that would be rediculous. Some simple basics like power, networking, plumbing, food. The type of simcity basics. And your randomly generated town would have things like a power station that you'd have to scout out and liberate to free the required resource. Get power to your base by liberating the power plant, etc. Assuming these resources have been somehow damaged (random).
But basically yea, I think you and I have the same frame of thought and I think it would be a fucking amazing yet extremely difficult game to make. Gah.
I just meant MMO as large number of players per server and server resets when everyone is dead, joining a started game implies spawning in town alone and have to find a way to get rescued or survive to the bases. I like your idea that any building could be used. So if at the start many peole are spawned in the map and 2 forts could actually be built by different group (they could also steal parts from each other) and if one falls they could join forces.
As to making this game it could be made quickly by using a Zombies ate my neibough or original GTA overhead and using sprites would make graphics not be an issue. The netcode and server would be the most interesting. This is making me want to actually start working on this, a survival/coop construction overhead multiplayer game.
An FPS would be ideal, but the problems with graphical limitations would kick in. A top down FPS hybrid would work wonderfully.
Let me explain: The game would utilize a top down perspective for graphical reasons, all the enemies could be sprites while terrain and buildings could be done in 3d (ala GTA 1 and 2), but your view would be limited to what your character would be able to see. Sound good?
Next, randomized maps, totally agree. Either create a completely random system, which might lead to boring designs, or use a mosaic system with premade blocks of the map.
As for resources, simple enough... Resources would only spawn in buildings that are uninhabited. And resources would also be building specific. I.E. You'll find plenty of food in a grocery store, but no ammunition. A gun store would have ammunition, but probably in short supply due to the zombie invasion and all. Generally, the more secure an area is, the more likely it is that they'll have something. This system would encourage scavaging, and discourage holing up.
Also, it'd introduce a balance. Too many people in one group and you'll deplete the surrounding resources enough to have to expensively move base. Too few and you'll not be able to scavenge or defend well enough. Add that to the restriction of only being able to carry so much stuff, and the whole scavenging aspect takes on a really nice desparate turn.
Dead Rising shows you that, as in films, groups of zombies are the problem. They seem easy to take on, run away from, kill, do whatever. But you very, very easily find yourself caught out or overwhelmed. The number of times i've brought up a gun to shoot something, and keep having to check over my shoulder that i'm not about to be mauled. Killing an individual zombie isn't a problem, and isn't the goal of the game. Negotiating around a mall full of zombies, that's the game.
Genius.