I'm DLing/Installing now, since there seems to be interest.
This is the thread for it.
Zombie Panic!
Troy's initial report:
Ok... Zombie Panic! game.
First, take the counterstrike model, maps, two teams, fight until noone is left style.
Now we make some changes.
The round begins, and you can choose to be one of a few "Zombies", 200 health, melee attack only, plus he has a feedometer that replenishes his health and makes him move faster. One is a carrier, that is a little differently colored, has a little more health, and can turn survivors into zombies even if he wings them. (10% chance, plus you make weird noises, and other survivors can shoot you)
Round starts, 75% survivors, 25% Zombies.
Survivors start with pistols and a random melee weapon, like a frying pan, or an Axe.
There are 3-4 different kinds of pistols, 2 different types of automatic weapons, mp5/ak47, and a few different types of shotguns. These are scattered, EVERYWHERE, in random places, all over maps.
I got an AK47 last night and was the king of my survivor group!
Anyway, the best way to play is that the survivors split into small groups and go collect weapons and find good rooms to blockade themselves in.
Zombies can just go find people and eat faces, best before the survivor groups start finding shotguns and AKs.
Whenever a Survivor goes down, he respawns as a Zombie, and the 25/75 percentage count gets swayed towards the Zombies.
Everytime the survivors kill a Zombie, a little counter which starts at 10/20/30 starts ticking down. When it reaches Zero, no more zombies spawn.
I played for a while, and had fun.
I snagged a very large shotgun at some point, and me and another dude held off the Zombie horde on the stair well until he ran out of ammo(There is never enough, but the game makes it so that survivors can drop ammo to each other, always more ammo than weapons) and a Zombie came up behind me and bit my head off!
I had fun, mostly it seemed to be very disogranized, and I didn't get many games where the Survirors won, until I got to a Clan server, and all the survivors with clan tags holed up in one room, and only went out to go get more ammo.
It was fun, I'll play it when I get home tonight!
The atmosphere is very creepy, and cool.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
I've got it downloaded and will jump in next time I see any one of us playing it.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
More thoughts from last night.
First... the counter for Zombie starts as equal to the number of players in the game. So 20 people play, and the counter is at 20. that means that the starting 2-3 Zombies can die 20 times and will respawn up till then. When the Zombies take down a Survivor and he respawns as a Zombie, it doesn't count towards that 20.
Most people choose to be Survivors, but there is usually one person who wants to be Whitey(Super Zombie), and volunteers, (for Survivor F1 for Zombie F2).
Two things:
1)Infection
and
2) Movement
1) Infection is cool. I was playing last night and had me a big shotgun and an AK, and was moving like a pig (more on that in 2). It was early in the round, mostly Survivors. Come around a corner and up Pops Whitey. Whitey is the scariest Zombie you can run into. He moves faster, hits harder, and has more health than any other zombie. I hit him in the face with a shotgun round, twice. He keeps coming. FUCK! Switched over to the AK, but the shotgun rounds only threw him back so far, and he's on top of me. He gets two swings in before I empty the clip into his head.
Then I notice that there is a weird flashing thing next to my health bar! I'm infected! Cool, I thought it was instant, but it's not, it takes about a minute for it to go into effect.
I run to find a barricade room with a few guys hanging out inside. I then throw some random ammo on the ground and slink on over to the corner.... RAWRRR, I turn into a zombie and kill two of them before they realize...
It was pretty cool
2)Movement
Movement speeds seem to be:
Human with one weapon
Whitey
Zombies
Humans with multiple weapons
Each time you pick up a weapon, you slow down. Two pistols isn't too bad. But if you are thinking that your going to be Rambo, You are going to be swarmed.
One time I was holding the Stronghold on top of the roof with an AK, and a Sawed Off. I was hanging out in the back, with a ton of ammo. The Zombies waited to get in position, and then all charged the ladder together. About 10 of them swarm on to the roof.
I shoot mostly with the AK, taking shots at heads while the guys in front attack with pistols and some with crowbars. Whitey comes about in them middle of the group , and the line breaks. Here come the Zombies!! The guy in front of me drops a grenade and jumps off the roof. He yells GRENADE.. RUN!! Oh yeah, I was playing on a FF server.
Grenades are like 1-2 a map, and super rare, so I didn't know what to expect. The Zombies charge and I run out of AK ammo, out comes the shotgun. The Grenade goes off, it blows about 3 Zombies off the roof, I was impressed. Explosion wasn't huge, probably realistic. I have two heavy weapons and a pistol on me at this point, and I can't run off the roof very quickly.
I charge whitey with the Shotgun!! He eats me. Fun.
Edited By Troy on 1223472770
First... the counter for Zombie starts as equal to the number of players in the game. So 20 people play, and the counter is at 20. that means that the starting 2-3 Zombies can die 20 times and will respawn up till then. When the Zombies take down a Survivor and he respawns as a Zombie, it doesn't count towards that 20.
Most people choose to be Survivors, but there is usually one person who wants to be Whitey(Super Zombie), and volunteers, (for Survivor F1 for Zombie F2).
Two things:
1)Infection
and
2) Movement
1) Infection is cool. I was playing last night and had me a big shotgun and an AK, and was moving like a pig (more on that in 2). It was early in the round, mostly Survivors. Come around a corner and up Pops Whitey. Whitey is the scariest Zombie you can run into. He moves faster, hits harder, and has more health than any other zombie. I hit him in the face with a shotgun round, twice. He keeps coming. FUCK! Switched over to the AK, but the shotgun rounds only threw him back so far, and he's on top of me. He gets two swings in before I empty the clip into his head.
Then I notice that there is a weird flashing thing next to my health bar! I'm infected! Cool, I thought it was instant, but it's not, it takes about a minute for it to go into effect.
I run to find a barricade room with a few guys hanging out inside. I then throw some random ammo on the ground and slink on over to the corner.... RAWRRR, I turn into a zombie and kill two of them before they realize...
It was pretty cool
2)Movement
Movement speeds seem to be:
Human with one weapon
Whitey
Zombies
Humans with multiple weapons
Each time you pick up a weapon, you slow down. Two pistols isn't too bad. But if you are thinking that your going to be Rambo, You are going to be swarmed.
One time I was holding the Stronghold on top of the roof with an AK, and a Sawed Off. I was hanging out in the back, with a ton of ammo. The Zombies waited to get in position, and then all charged the ladder together. About 10 of them swarm on to the roof.
I shoot mostly with the AK, taking shots at heads while the guys in front attack with pistols and some with crowbars. Whitey comes about in them middle of the group , and the line breaks. Here come the Zombies!! The guy in front of me drops a grenade and jumps off the roof. He yells GRENADE.. RUN!! Oh yeah, I was playing on a FF server.
Grenades are like 1-2 a map, and super rare, so I didn't know what to expect. The Zombies charge and I run out of AK ammo, out comes the shotgun. The Grenade goes off, it blows about 3 Zombies off the roof, I was impressed. Explosion wasn't huge, probably realistic. I have two heavy weapons and a pistol on me at this point, and I can't run off the roof very quickly.
I charge whitey with the Shotgun!! He eats me. Fun.
Edited By Troy on 1223472770
Troy, I saw you online last night, but when I wanted to jump into the game your server was full. I plan to join you in game at some point before the end of the weekend.
Are there any other tips you can throw on us? Keep in mind that the moment I set foot (and everyone else here who might try it) in game it'll be my first.
Are there any other tips you can throw on us? Keep in mind that the moment I set foot (and everyone else here who might try it) in game it'll be my first.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
Don't worry too much about being a GOOD survivor in your first few rounds. It will take a while to get a feel for where weapons are (usually hidden in rooms), how hard it is to take down a Zombie(HARD) and what not.
For the FPS newbies, aim for the chest, and shoot and back peddle! For the more experts, go for the head shots, which do 2x the damage.
You will get as good a feel for the game being a Zombie, so don't worry about getting eaten.
Whenever you see other people jumping through a window that looks way too high, and you can't seem to figure out WTF is going on. Remember that you should be crouch jumping, A LOT. Don't ask me why, but you can get over and into windows and other terrain easier when you both jump and hit the crouch button at the same time.
Early in the round, I usually drop everything but my pistol, and run and find another gun. Don't hang around scrounging for weapons too long, and try to stick to other survivors. If the two of you are together, and you have both a shotgun and two pistols or even a machine gun. Split up the ammo and weapons, it's much better to have both of you shooting than you being slow him practically unarmed.
Trying to think of any more...
As a Zombie, you may think sometimes that the Survivors are cheating, that they have moved all the furtniture in a room against all the doors, and it's going to be impossible to beat them....
Every now and then, this is true. But it takes ONE experienced guy to get the Zombies to stand at the doorway, waste all the ammo of the survivors inside, and then coordinate a full on rush, and even the best barricade will fall and the survivors will be scattered.
Edited By Troy on 1223560176
For the FPS newbies, aim for the chest, and shoot and back peddle! For the more experts, go for the head shots, which do 2x the damage.
You will get as good a feel for the game being a Zombie, so don't worry about getting eaten.
Whenever you see other people jumping through a window that looks way too high, and you can't seem to figure out WTF is going on. Remember that you should be crouch jumping, A LOT. Don't ask me why, but you can get over and into windows and other terrain easier when you both jump and hit the crouch button at the same time.
Early in the round, I usually drop everything but my pistol, and run and find another gun. Don't hang around scrounging for weapons too long, and try to stick to other survivors. If the two of you are together, and you have both a shotgun and two pistols or even a machine gun. Split up the ammo and weapons, it's much better to have both of you shooting than you being slow him practically unarmed.
Trying to think of any more...
As a Zombie, you may think sometimes that the Survivors are cheating, that they have moved all the furtniture in a room against all the doors, and it's going to be impossible to beat them....
Every now and then, this is true. But it takes ONE experienced guy to get the Zombies to stand at the doorway, waste all the ammo of the survivors inside, and then coordinate a full on rush, and even the best barricade will fall and the survivors will be scattered.
Edited By Troy on 1223560176
Survivors can hit the P button to Panic.
Panic isn't anything special as far as abilites, but your character says something like "Fuck this shit, I'm out of here"
What results is that you instantly drop everything except what is in your hands, speeding you up to the of 1 weapon held movement. Best used when the Zombies break through the barricade and you jump down through the whole in the floor and take off.
Edited By Troy on 1223561375
Panic isn't anything special as far as abilites, but your character says something like "Fuck this shit, I'm out of here"
What results is that you instantly drop everything except what is in your hands, speeding you up to the of 1 weapon held movement. Best used when the Zombies break through the barricade and you jump down through the whole in the floor and take off.
Edited By Troy on 1223561375
I've tried it a few times.
One map had objectives. The good guys had to perform tasks and then try to escape. That one wasn't too bad. It seemed to have a point.
The other two maps had no objectives other than to survive. So, the humans would pile crap in front of a door and kill zombies as they tried to enter. That got old cause you couldn't get in there. No way of pulling the stuff out of your way either. So, you had to wait for them to run out of ammo. Made for a long game. The other map was HUGE. All kinds of halls, rooms, levels. It was massive. So, once you had it down to just a couple of humans, they would hide somewhere and it took forever to find them. 3 out of 4 rounds, that server started me as a zombie. Which made for 3 loooonnnng games of hunting down the hiding humans on the HUGE map.
Over all, I'm not overly impressed. I'm not sure what I'd change to make it all better. But, it was pretty bland and getting rather boring in my opinion.
I'm not giving up on it yet. I'd like to see a good map first. If I've already played the good maps, well, then, this game is suck. Any good servers yet?
One map had objectives. The good guys had to perform tasks and then try to escape. That one wasn't too bad. It seemed to have a point.
The other two maps had no objectives other than to survive. So, the humans would pile crap in front of a door and kill zombies as they tried to enter. That got old cause you couldn't get in there. No way of pulling the stuff out of your way either. So, you had to wait for them to run out of ammo. Made for a long game. The other map was HUGE. All kinds of halls, rooms, levels. It was massive. So, once you had it down to just a couple of humans, they would hide somewhere and it took forever to find them. 3 out of 4 rounds, that server started me as a zombie. Which made for 3 loooonnnng games of hunting down the hiding humans on the HUGE map.
Over all, I'm not overly impressed. I'm not sure what I'd change to make it all better. But, it was pretty bland and getting rather boring in my opinion.
I'm not giving up on it yet. I'd like to see a good map first. If I've already played the good maps, well, then, this game is suck. Any good servers yet?
Funny thought about this game.
As the round is starting, and you can choose to be a survivor or Zombie, if you are very late because you were AFK, slow to load, or just joined the server, you are penalized if you get on the survivor team at the last minute.
The game gives you a crappy 7 shot pistol and a keyboard.
Yes, that means until you find a better weapon, you better hope that your 7 shots and a keyboard to the face is enough to drop a Zombie (it's not).
As the round is starting, and you can choose to be a survivor or Zombie, if you are very late because you were AFK, slow to load, or just joined the server, you are penalized if you get on the survivor team at the last minute.
The game gives you a crappy 7 shot pistol and a keyboard.
Yes, that means until you find a better weapon, you better hope that your 7 shots and a keyboard to the face is enough to drop a Zombie (it's not).
3 out of 4 rounds yesterday, I ran out to be a survivor. It auto switched me back to the zombies. Two of the rounds, I was whitey. I changed servers cause I was tired of being a zombie.
One good thing about the game though. . . I'm always on the winning team. I'm fighting with the survivors trying to live at first. Then, when I die, I'm a zombie. So far, the zombies always win. So, my team has yet to lose a round.
One good thing about the game though. . . I'm always on the winning team. I'm fighting with the survivors trying to live at first. Then, when I die, I'm a zombie. So far, the zombies always win. So, my team has yet to lose a round.
So far, I think Zombie Panic is a lot of fun, but very simple despite there being a decent sized learning curve.
Gordon and I were discussing this yesterday. The game just isn't intuitive, but once you figure out what's going on, it is easy to play. However, as Cake has pointed out, it's hard to win as a survivor.
I think it is a great effort at making a multiplayer zombie game, but at the same time doesn't succeed in solving any of the problems that zombie mythology presents in designing a good game around them.
I love that different melee weapons cause different levels of damage (or at least, that's how it seems to work). A keyboard should not hit for as much as a sledgehammer.
My only criticism is that the zombies are overpowered and the humans have little chance of defending against them. Of the games I've played the zombies win 98% of the time.
The zombies are too fast and have too many hit points for the game to actually be fair. Considering their speed, health, and power with the size of the maps and how it's pretty impossible to truly fortify any spot it makes it pretty tough for the survivors, and that doesn't even take into account the respawning of zombies and the "turning" of humans. Nor does it take into account the zombies' additional advantages in being able to listen in to the humans and see how many are left.
I think better maps could get around some of those issues, but there are other solutions. For example, Left4Dead is going to have lots of AI zombies to fill in the horde, which I think is a great idea.
Still, Zombie Panic is a great diversion. I've enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it'll capture my attention the way TF2 has...
Gordon and I were discussing this yesterday. The game just isn't intuitive, but once you figure out what's going on, it is easy to play. However, as Cake has pointed out, it's hard to win as a survivor.
I think it is a great effort at making a multiplayer zombie game, but at the same time doesn't succeed in solving any of the problems that zombie mythology presents in designing a good game around them.
I love that different melee weapons cause different levels of damage (or at least, that's how it seems to work). A keyboard should not hit for as much as a sledgehammer.
My only criticism is that the zombies are overpowered and the humans have little chance of defending against them. Of the games I've played the zombies win 98% of the time.
The zombies are too fast and have too many hit points for the game to actually be fair. Considering their speed, health, and power with the size of the maps and how it's pretty impossible to truly fortify any spot it makes it pretty tough for the survivors, and that doesn't even take into account the respawning of zombies and the "turning" of humans. Nor does it take into account the zombies' additional advantages in being able to listen in to the humans and see how many are left.
I think better maps could get around some of those issues, but there are other solutions. For example, Left4Dead is going to have lots of AI zombies to fill in the horde, which I think is a great idea.
Still, Zombie Panic is a great diversion. I've enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it'll capture my attention the way TF2 has...
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell