>2000+26>people groan whenever a new zombie survival game is announced>yet there is still no "definitive" zombie survival game that captures the feel of classic zombie movies/shows or the fantasy of "what would you do in a zombie apocalypse"What gives? Zomboid might be that game if it's ever finished but right now it's a very shallow experience.
>>730790530What is a "finished" Project Zomboid to you? The Indie Stone sure as shit don't know.
Zomboid will always be too videogamey to ever feel like some kind of 'authentic experience' to me
?L4D came out in 2008
People groan mostly because they expect disappointment since most zombie games actually suck, and survival games also suck. It's funny because TWD was huge in the 2010s but the only game that's come close to being a true TWD simulator is invisible strain, and it's still severely lacking in the immersive environment aspect. Zomboid is unfortunately stuck with developers that hate their own product so much that they sabotage the modders. Vein won't be there for another 10 years if they don't end up becoming like TiS. HumanitZ is certainly a video game I guess. There's SurrounDead, another generic solo survival zombie game with hardly any NPCs and probably no real plans to add them. Then there's what, state of decay 3? Do we even know what that looks like yet?
>>730790530Turns out, the setting of "zombie appocalypse" is really only a vehicle for character-driven stories so that they can reasonably have modern technology in a SHTF-type situation. Zombies cannot adapt to anything you do, literally less intelligent than animals, and they become a non-threat pretty rapidly if your characters/players aren't retarded. Kind of like how, in zomboid, the only exciting part of the game is at the start before you have a base and stockpiles of food/ammo.
>>730791083>>730791039You can mix it up easily by tweaking the setting. Roaming hordes, special zombies, demon or occult zombie apocalypse. But I agree that sandbox zombie survival games are severely lacking in the "drama" department, something a game like Kenshi can create organically. Check out Invisible Strain though, if a random dev alone can create NPCs that form relationships, remember what you do or happens in the camp and comment about it, a developer with 10x the money and manpower could make NPCs that create le emergent storytelling (again, Kenshi, Dorf Fort etc.)
>>730790991>L4D>zombie survival gameRetardGOD... It's the perfect arcade zombie shooter though
>>730791083>Zombies cannot adapt to anything you doIt's fiction, yes they can. People only think this because they don't want to let go of the retarded idea of le realistic zombies in muh realistic zombie apocalypse. Zomboid already has runners for fucks sake, they can have zeds that either are more intelligent or gain more intelligence and learn over time, mixed in with zeds that get dumber and slower over time, or zeds that are fat as fuck or were roided out pre-infection and can shove you to the ground easier. It's really not hard at all.
>>730791582>a developer with 10x the money and manpower could make NPCs that create le emergent storytellingUsually they become mindbroken when they get that much money and attention
>>730790530zombies were always shit
>>730791823>fiction was always shitBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASED
>>730791996not what i said
>>730792020no i totally agree with you, fiction we don't like is shit while fiction we like is kino
Zombies would be easy to deal with. A fucking dog is more dangerous.
>>730792069Which is why Shaun of the Dead is such a great movie. The government deals with the "zombie apocalypse" in just 1 day.
Everyone just does the same le humans are the real threat shit.
>>730792232No zombie survival sim does that (half of them don't even have NPCs)
>play Zomboid>zombies lock on to you perfectly and don't even stutterUninstalled
always wanted a COD zombie mode with greatly expanded base-building elements.It was such a mistake focusing on meme easter egg shit.
>>7307923427 days to die is a weird one in that regardThe lore reason you start with nothing in the apocalypse as explained by a note in your pocket is that you fucked with some local warlord so he stripped you of everything and left you for dead, but he is literally never mentioned again
>>7307925767dtd doesn't even fuckin have npcs nigga
>>730792161>spreads fast because the population aren't paying attention and are completely unarmed>army pushes it back immediately, once they wake upTrue, most accurate zombie portrayal.And accurate to modern day events, too.
>try zomboid>its literally a game about watching numbers go up so you can run 0.1 second fasterfuck off
That Arma mod that got big a while back
>>730790530Cataclysm DDA is the definitive zombie game or at least it was before the project went full sõi.
>>730790530State of Decay
>Six million L4D clones and """survival""" games>LARPing as a soldier in prototype was the closest we got to ground 0 outbreak gameplayShit sucks
The problem with zombie settings is that the zombies are killable so they're not much of a threat since they're stupid and can't do much other than come at you and bite if they ever get that close. Proper zombies should be unkillable. No matter where you shoot or hit them they won't die. The only way to neutralize them is to turn them into ground meat. Otherwise they will just keep coming at you tirelessly without end.
>>730792597I thought there was a stacked shopkeeper who gave out quests?
>>730790530Because the truth is that such a game would be very boring.Like seriously have you thought about how difficult making something like the house siege scene from NoTLD, it's impossible without you dying or it turning into a shooter.Same thing why so few games do a proper "get bit=infected" mechanic because it just wouldn't be fun and most of the players would just run into a thresher to restart their run.
>>730792597it has traders but they might as well be talking vending machines
>>730792668Hopefully State of Decay 3 is any good. 2 was so fucking bad. 1 was amazing.
>>730792661DayZ standalone tickles my hyper realism autism quite wellFor example simply cooking a piece of raw meat is like a 10 step process which can make you sick if not done right
>>730792737>it's impossible without you dyinglosing is fun
>>730792597>>730792576The warlord is supposed to be the last boss of the game (story mode), it was teased in the early 2010s in their Kickstarter. The game released in 1.0 but it's actually unfinished, if we go by kickstarter promises the game will be finished once they make story mode.
>>730792849Majority of people disagree and I've seen enough people rage against toady for inventing that with rebutes like "playing is fun, dying is anti-playing"But I think the whole dying is fun thing has been severely mishandled and that's the reason by roguelikes.
>>730792720Just climb something or pour olive oil on the ground so they squirm forever.
>>730792957>Majority of peoplelow iq subhumans>playing is funnumber go up is not fun. expand tech tree is not fun. skinner box is not funcomplex and emergent things happening based upon player interaction is fun
>>730793031You are arguing against someone who agrees with you. I'm just saying that you can't make a game for a handful of people unless the budget is also a handful of dollars, be realistic.
>>730792668It has the right idea but it's way too barebones. Your community isn't really "alive", they're just meatbags for you to take control of. Survival mechanics are too simple and rivalries with other communities boil down to shooting them instead of a long running thing like kidnapping their members, taking them hostage, waging biological warfare etc. (all things you see in TWD). Really for me the perfect zombie game would be closer to a mix between PZ and Kenshi.Hopefully State of Decay 3 goes deeper on the community aspect but it's pretty much vaporware.
State of Decay was the best overall feeling game but never got the budget it neededZomboid was the perfect game but the isometric perspective is off-putting and lacks the immersion of a traditional TPS / FPSL4D was probably the best story driven arcadey zombie gameHonorable mention to No More Room in Hell 1
>>730793101>L4D was probably the best story driven arcadey zombie gameno, that's Dying Light L4D is trash.
>>730792735Ah yes, a singular vendor NPC that does nothing but buy and sell trash and give bear ass fetch quests. Exactly what I needed to immerse myself into a zombie apocalypse simulator.
>>730790530There's literally no way to make a survival game a long-term fun challenge. As soon as you find the way to survive, you've beaten the game.You talk about Zomboid. Where's the challenge in that game once you figure out how to fish and raise cattle, and you have tons of canned food and water? There isn't a challenge, the game is over by that point.This is the reason why every zombie story is about humans fighting each other, because once the survivors figure out how to survive long term, the challenge is over.
>>730793407End game or victory conditions.For example, restoring some key infrastructures (running water, repairing a dam, a power plant etc.), creating a sustainable community of X survivors that produces XYZ resources per week, destroying an enemy community of cannibals/rapists/whatever, reclaiming a town by killing every zombie in it... the dev can do whatever they want. Every zombie story is about le humans are le real monsters yet there is no survival sim with actual functioning NPCs, what gives? The problem is that the poster child for the zombie survival genre, Project Zomboid, has devs that refuse to introduce any kind of long term goal because this is how died lmoa. They're also slow as fuck developing their game.Also I think people would be pretty receptive to a non-Romeroesque zombie apocalypse game. Introduce wacky shit like demons, ghosts, special zombies, different types of zombie profiles (the shambler, the runner, the roïded out gymbro etc...). But just don't make a survival games with zombie in it and think this is going to be enough to engage people long term. Even pure sandbox games like Mount & Blade have victory conditions.
>>730793101>isometric perspective is off-putting and lacks the immersion of a traditional TPS / FPSThis isn't what's offputting about zomboid, what's offputting is that the developers are completely retarded in their idea of realism yet insistence on enforcing it. Yes, the average chainsmoking rural kentuckian carried a single lighter with only 5% of the fluid left in it. Yes, the average rural kentuckian had almost no tools in their shed and for some reason decided to horde almost all of the sledgehammers and then proceed to melt them into nothing.
zomboid is peak
>>730794015What the zombies will do to her?
do we have any zombie games that take place during the very first moments of the outbreak?
>>730793691>victory conditionsAnd then it's not a survival game any more, but a game where you just aim to do X to win, and the survival is just a means to that end. Need to create a community? Cool, now you need to procure food for 50 guys instead of just you, which usually means "assign NPC to scavenge/farm work". Need to repair a dam? Cool, you have to assign 50 guys to work on it - and the food production to sustain it all. Depending on the approach, you have something that ranges from Fallout 4's awful settlement system to city management ala Frostpunk, where all you do is manage stuff to keep numbers positive. Meanwhile, you the player focus on getting to the victory condition, not on survival.No, the point is that survival games are about securing basic needs to survive. Anything beyond safety needs becomes a RPG or a visual novel about making friends if done as a simulator, or just another game with a story you go through. And securing basic needs is usually painfully easy.I need to do a nomadic character in Zomboid one of these days, just get a car quick and drive from place to place exploring the map, see if it's any more fun. I usually get bored in 2-3 weeks ingame because it's too easy - except when I tried runners which means getting eaten in 2-3 days kek
>>730790530I will be forever mad about 7 years to beta removing all the cool survival mechanics and turning every building into a funhouse dungeon.I think theres a lot of really cool dungeons they designed but not everyone should be spawning zombies in behind you or in monster closets.
>>730794312Prototype
>>730790530Are there ANY good zombie games?
>>730794385Any good overall mods? I liked the beta from a few years ago a lot better compared to the no fun allowed 1.0 version
I have never played zomboid how does it hold up? It actually looks different from what I saw videos of six years ago.
>>730795017it has a thriving modding community...
I thought Dead Island was a pretty immersive zombie survival experience. The wobbly camera gave me motion sickness though so I had to quit after 6 hours
>>730795180Noice!
Vein has some potential, it takes a lot from zomboid, which I like also but I have a preference for 1st person.
>>730790530>there is still no "definitive" zombie survival gameCataclysm: Dark Days Ahead>Zomboid might be that game Zomboid is (failed) attempt at Rimworlding CDDA.
I will not play cdda just like I will not play dorf or tarkov and instead play rimworld and arc raiders
>>730790530one of the best zombie games I've played is actually the zombie mod for counter strike source some 15-20 years agothe thing with zombie games is that you want tense situations. I can't remember which map I played back in the day, but it was huge and you often found yourself alone. and with little to no sound in so called "liminal" spaces or whatever the fuck it's called, you get a sort of tingle and just want to curl up and try your hardest to hide from the zombieszombie games nowadays are too action-intense, they need to play with the feeling of dread instead of giving you ammo everywhere, safe spots and so on
