KickStarter Dead State: Reanimated

I also enjoyed Warm Bodies an embarrassing amount (moreso than Dead State, to be honest).

 

Mmm that looks like the friendly chick flick excuse to watch with the gf

 

I said that a while back. Guys here are too much of turn-based drones to understand.

Instead, this conversation devolves into "zombies are a shit, overused enemy *waaaa*" or "everyone would know what to do in a zombie situation because 90% of the population are geniuses and genetic freaks."

A real-time game would've been a lot better.

 

Exactly, it's impossible to create tension and the right environment for a zombie survival rpg if the combat is slow, turn based and with a low number of enemies.

 

I think it would have been interesting if they'd gone with the original plan of AI controls for CNPCs, with the player only controlling his one character. Obviously it would have meant even more sitting around, but personally I wouldn't mind that. It sure would have made things a lot more scary and uncertain, with a lot more CNPC deaths as fits the genre.

Legion

 

I've got 218 fucking hours on this game. Never beat it. Got an itch to jump in again now and seems I'll be starting a new playthrough because I can't recall if I went with 'hardcore mode' the last time or not.:S Any way of quickly figuring that out? Whether your current game has 'hardcore mode' turned on or not?

Ah, fuck it. I'll just start all over again. And FAIL again!=( Got to day 51 the last time, think that was the furthest I ever got.

EDIT:

Ah, yay for kkkodeks rekkords.

 

The game needs better turn-based combat, not real-time with pederasts.

I would double the range of missile weapons, significantly increase the range of sound travel (extended combat with guns should bring every single zombie on a whole map - the maps aren't that big), add kneeling and prone positions, add cover and obscuration factors like smoke, add weapon and armor degradation and breakage. I would add Silent Storm style destructible environments. I would add more types of critters to fight - wolves, bears, wild boars, at least. Add hunting for food. Add attacks on the shelter that actually require the player to fight instead of simple notifications. Add the ability to take prisoners. More shelter upgrades. More original sci-fi elements beyond the currently popular zombie infection thing.

I like Dead State. It could be even better though.

 

Combat needs to be faster, that means higher damage on both ends, it needs to be lethal even with the best armor.
It also needs to happen much less often. Exploration and skillchecks should be what the game is about, fighting zombies or even other humans should happen rarely and generally mean a loss of resources unless theres a purpose behind it.

 

Ah, the famous carnivorous wild boar packs of central Texas.

 

That is the sad part, a little more time for development, a well done DLC or a Director Cut would have done wonders for this game but now we will never know
Perhaps the game could be modded or something; the game is fine as it is and still fun but it just screams for more development time and maybe a proper sequel

 

Good idea.

 

There's like a billion real-time overhead zombie fests. And they all suck.

Why? Because it's only natural as the new-shiz zombies can't actually do anything. They are no faster than humans, no stronger than humans, and they're way way dumber, to the point where they can't even organize. They have no natural weapons, and they can't use tools. So, what can they do? Run at you and bite you with a non-carnivorous jaw? Yay, so great! And spread some disease if they get a hit.

Now, if you're going up against zombies and you're dumb enough not to wear even leather or wooden armor and not to use tools and organization (you know, the advantages of humans), then yes, rabid rats humans are a threat. But as a people, we actually learned how to deal with rabies long, long ago.

Which is why all the poplar zombie games are actually "zombie" games not zombie games, and the real enemies are never zombies at all, but some sort of special zombie morph monster thing. That, preferably mixed with limited camera (such as first person) to attack your peripheral vision.

 

The 28 days or the War Z zombies would make a great zombie game or even the evolved resident evil zombie varieties

 

I do like how making noise in Dead State causes more zombies to spawn and run toward the source. That's pretty good, but I would ramp it up by adding a random chance to attract big packs. One or two at a time isn't much threat unless you don't notice them. If you got 10-15 suddenly spawning at an exit grid, it would be a lot more intense.

There are wild boars in Texas and they're quite large and dangerous. FWIW.

http://texaswildhoghunting.com/

 

That's a hell of a Gothic 3 vibe men.

 

Spawns through that noise mechanic depend on the area you are in. Try shooting your way in or out of one of the other shelters. Fun times. Can't remember if it scales though or if there are just those 2 cases, spawns in those 3 shelter areas and spawns for other areas.

 

Thats why i said rtwp. Zombies are threatening through their masses, pressing against the survivors, forcing them to backtrack because they cant shoot them down fast enough. They win if survivors lose oversight and start making mistakes out of time pressure. Turnbased combat neglects all that, because there will never be time pressure, and keeping oversight is a very easy thing to do. Turnbased combat is not chaotic enough to fit the zombie theme.

And just because there have been some bad real time zombie games doesnt mean it cannot be done the right way.

 

Again, zombies are not meant to be a threat in this game. Zombies are a decoration.

 

As I said before when talking about zombies in movies and tv shows, only way to make zombies any kind of a threat is to make humans show even less intelligence then the brain dead zombies. The 28 days, War Z or Walking Dead are the best modern examples of this.

Its pretty obvious from the start that the biggest threats are not zombies but different gangs, survivor groups and ex military units, not to mention conflicts between people under your command. This is done intentionally because Dead State is a game about survival but not from zombies but humanity itself.

 

If zombies aren't a threat then how did they turn the world into an apocalypse?

 

And that's why I said - right at the start - there's already like a billion real-time overhead zombie fests. Because it really does matter when there are that many, and not a one is any good. But even more than that, when they are not any good for the exact same reasons people are complaining about Dead State for. Just load up any of those rt zombie games and see how dull they all are. But look at why. Why are they all so boring when you are shooting zombies?

Because even in numbers and real-time, zombies are nothing. They're things which get murder/rape/hoboed in large numbers. Like rats (which they resemble in everything but size, including being gross and smelly).

This is all because, in the big picture, zombies are an existential threat, not a physical one. They are a psychological fear made manifest. And thus it is only insofar as they remain a fear and not a physical entity that they hold any kind of a threat. It is the fear of all of your friends and loved ones suddenly turning into zombies (and eventually you too!) that is the threat of zombies, and not the zombies themselves. And because that is the case, the only proper venue for the new-shiz zombie stories is storybook "games".

 

Another thing...when you enter an area, nothing moves. As long as you don't disturb them, the zombies don't wander around. The looters and survivalists and rogue soldiers don't move around, or patrol, or anything. It's kind of sad. I'd like to see more critters wandering around combined with an increased emphasis on sneaking. It makes sense to have some form of stealth be part of the game since noise is already a part of it.

Just adding the risk of bumping into a wandering enemy would add some tension. It would be better than, "Okay, the looters are over in that area, so as long as I stay away from that area I can take whatever I want without a fight."

 

I didn't know about this (thanks for the link) so I checked it out ... apparently they are only dangerous when wounded and cornered, i.e. they don't roam around attacking people. (This is according to your source.) My 2 minutes of research indicates that the only people who get killed by boars are daredevil hunters who try to sneak up on them with a knife.

Turn-based combat against herbivores that try to run away from you doesn't sound like thrilling gameplay, and some sort of hunting minigame would be really inappropriate for this context. I guess you could make them crazy T-virus boars or something equally silly ... but again, that misses the whole point of revisiting the classic Romero-style apocalypse story. Even fighting bears and wolves would be pretty dumb. They could have just done the fast zombies, strong zombies, flying zombies bullshit if they wanted to vary enemy types, but they didn't - for a reason. Same reason you don't see James Bond fighting rabid bats even though he spends a lot of time in Jamaica.

 

Governments ran out of people to tax and made world war.

 

As I said in the post only by turning humans into retards can zombies be a threat. There is no logic in zombies defeating a modern army.