After playing a few Zombie maps, I began to see various things from each of them that I liked and things that I didn't like. The majority of them were entirely too easy or extremely annoying, however many people enjoyed them (My Theory: they liked the subject matter so they enjoyed it no matter how horrible or easy it was). After digging through maps trying to find one that finally was amazing and replayable, I came up with nothing that truly kept my attention. Which brings me to this post...

Current Ideas:
Setup
- Randomize
- Start Locations
- Weapon Locations
- Item Locations
- Starting Zombies Location
- Randomize Zombie Players

Systems
- Different Zombies
-Armor Values Different Every Game
- A + Select Target Attack
- Makes Game more difficult
- Add NEVER ATTACK anywhere to not move if a target is missed (if possible?)

- Inventory
- Drop Ship
- Variable Item Size [Slots]
- Infection
- 60 Seconds after bitten, must apply Antivirus
- Additional damage taken lowers Gauge
- Night/Day
- Toggle Blindness (If Possible)

Weapons
Primary
- Knife [1] (Use in Inventory) - Viable Primary Weapon Choice. Also Good Secondary Weapon at all times.
- .22 Rifle (Ghost) [1]
- M4 (Marine) [2] (Single and Burst Fire - No aiming for Burst Fire, but 3x bullet use)
Explosives
- Grenade (Scarab) [1]
- Mine (Spider Mine) [1]
Skills
- Berserk [10 SP] - Temporarily unally zombies and go on a quickfiring berserk for 10 seconds.

Enemies
- Zombie (Zealot)
- Canine (Zergling)

Post has been edited 10 time(s), last time on Jan 8 2009, 12:42 am by PridefulOne.

I don't believe you have played many zombie games on SC then. There is a hand full of good / excellent zombie maps on SC. If I'm on later, I'll meet you in Op Sen, because I believe I have seen you there, I'll show you some of these maps im talking about.

Weapon:
Flamethrower- Firebat

I have only played a few zombie maps that I truly enjoyed; Brain Bread, and Half Dead (I think that's what it's called). Anyways, I don't think that a game has to be a zombie game to be enjoyed as one, but what I'm getting at is that you could have a cheat / secret located somewhere in the map that activates 'zombie mode', changing all of the civilians in the city to zealots that attack you and roam around. I kinda got the idea from Grand Theft Auto cheats, but whatever .

What you're describing seems to be an arena-esque game with zombie elements. You could probably set up a pre-game menu for players to select their preferences (city size, weapon options, etc.) and that could help with replay. Everything from then on is randomized.

The basic essentials to a good "zombie" map in my opinion can been found on the following link:
http://www.staredit.net/topic/5769/unread/#special

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 7 2009, 3:24 am by T-Virus.

Hmm I just woke up after removing my wisdom teeth and actually was going to put the Night/Day effect, and add how I plan on making Zealots be more than just "omg the same zombie", different players with different armor values . I've never seen a map use this before, and I'm not really sure why not. I plan on using that concept in my RPG map actually, but this map may replace that.

Also, I plan on using an ammunition setting to make things harder, and I agree with your melee thing that's why I'm going to have it as a weapon that can be used at any time. You CAN unload a weapon to knife a zombie near you (about 1/2 a square away from you), but you have to risk being hit. You could just keep spamming this, but I'm going to incorporate a .5 second cooldown to use it.

As for the storyline, I think I'm going to try to keep it simple. Storyline CAN make a game fun, but it gets annoying during the third play through because you find yourself revisiting/doing the same quests all the time. However, I think I'll incorperate some types of special characters (randomly spawned) that you can help to receive items to aid in your survival.

There is always the possibility of a <SKIP> as far as introductions go.
and you could also have a second skip feature to skip all cinimatic scenes.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 7 2009, 3:17 am by T-Virus.

True, however I don't see a point in wasting time if people hosting the map a second time are just going to skip the storyline for everyone else . However, perhaps a short introduction to explain how the item system works would be useful so new players wouldn't have any questions.

Also: List Updated

Just make sure theres a skip function on it. I would highly suggest a tutorial, allowing players a brief guide on how to play. Make sure you include how to hotkey, i believe the public of battle.net is still ignorant.

Terrain is important too. Like, a map can have great triggers but can drive you crazy depending on ramp placement, pathing, etc...

True, but that's with every map lol. Any ideas for zombie maps particularly?

Hmm... The only problem with that is realistically the zombies would just turn into walking fireballs of death, which would make you worse off than before. lol

Is the kind of zombie map you are talking about the ones where you control one man, and fight through heaps of ombies in a city etc. etc, sorta like RE RPG?(incidentally RE RPG is pimps if you play it a couple of times)

Exactly . However, I want to make one that's completely randomized after choosing a few settings such as Goal and Difficulty (1-4). Which I'll actually post more in a bit on that one. I'm actually slightly inspired by how RE4's random health system worked.