a (hopefully) new zombie mod idea

[KensaiMarine]

I had an idea for a HL2 mod that I have been thinking about for some time; please tell me if there is a mod out there like this already in development.

Basically, I was thinking about making a zombie mod that is realistic (I know those two words sound strange in the same sentence). It would be a coop mod, where human players fight against hordes of zombies that are AI controlled, and it would make good use of Source engine physics.

Gameplay would revolve around building and defending a chosen safehouse from a zombie siege. The round would begin with players choosing a character class (normal things like police officer, paramedic, firefighter, construction worker, each having its own abilities and weapon options). Anyone can use a weapon, but one's training with that weapon affects their accuracy, for example a police officer would be much more likely to get headshots with a handgun than a construction worker would. Also, one needs to consider sound when choosing their weapons: using an assault rifle would attract loads more zombies to the survivor's location, as opposed to a crossbow.

The map would consist of a huge sandbox-style section of city, and there would be a timer for how long the survivors have to pick a location to fortify. They would need to go from building to building and search for supplies to carry back to their agreed-upon safehouse, and prepare for a zombie siege by barricading doors and placing traps. They win if they can survive the attack for a certain amount of time (which can be chosen in the beginning in the form of "difficulty level").

I have a few other ideas, but I won't try to list them all now.

Would this be something that people (besides me) might enjoy? At the moment I have zero modding experience whatsoever, but I can learn quickly. Can someone here tell me what would be needed to create this kind of mod and point me in the right direction? Are there certain programs I should get and tutorials I should look at?

 

[Crispy]

Have you ever seen Zombie Master mod for Half-Life 2?

It is basically the same concept, but it doesn't have the classes affecting weapon effectiveness like in your concept.

The other difference is that the zombies are controlled by a person, meaning they have less chance of getting stuck, less chance of having really predictable pathfinding, and they don't all spawn from exactly the same locations when the map starts. This helps mix things up a lot.

I think classes has the potential to make ZM a bit more interesting (people having to scavenge and swap ammo types and weapons amongst themselves to give their team the best chance of survival). This could work particularly well if the classes were chosen at random, meaning you'd have an equal chance of wielding the shotgun as the crossbow, and if the weapons and ammo were spawned in random configurations (but using the same spawn locations). It might not be to everyone's tastes to do this to ZM, though, as it would add complexity to a simple concept, which may not be what the average ZM player craves in a mod.

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Anyway, to answer your question, the concept does exist although it's not totally identical. It's probably similar enough that a Zombie Master server-side mod could handle most of the changes you proposed, instead of having to make a whole mod.

 

[KensaiMarine]

Actually I have played ZM and it is probably the closest thing to what I am thinking of, but there are some major differences. Like I said, (and yes it sounds weird) my zombie mod would be focused on more realistic gameplay, and would thus be much slower paced (and more complicated) than ZM. Also, while I enjoyed the interesting game mechanic of having player controlled zombies, that probably would not work well with my idea as it wouldn't be much fun for the player controlling the zombies, seeing as it is just a mindless horde trying to enter the survivors' fort through all possible entrances (also only one type of zombie, the shambling standard kind).

Perhaps the biggest difference between my idea and ZM is the map size. ZM (at least when I played it awhile back) had small-medium sized maps that had survivors accomplishing small scale objectives (and some primitive fort-building). My mod would have absolutely gigantic maps with a sandbox style of play, very similar to STALKER actually if you have played that game.

So, any idea on where I can go to learn how to make this mod? Also, would this be fun? I know it is a bit weird to have a more slow paced and challenging experience; if a player died early on, they would likely have to be a spectator for 30-60 minutes, but that just makes one value their lives more.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

The whole point of ZM is the RTS part, by the way.

-Angry Lawyer

 

[Narvi]

Heard about Left 4 Dead? It doesn't have siege gameplay, but it sounds similar to what you want.

 

[Crispy]

Perhaps the biggest difference between my idea and ZM is the map size. ZM (at least when I played it awhile back) had small-medium sized maps that had survivors accomplishing small scale objectives (and some primitive fort-building). My mod would have absolutely gigantic maps with a sandbox style of play, very similar to STALKER actually if you have played that game.

You'd need to use an engine capable of rendering large landscapes well, like the Far Cry or Stalker engines. If you didn't mind having fairly low-detail models and textures, you could use the HL2 engine and build everything on a much smaller scale.

So, any idea on where I can go to learn how to make this mod? Also, would this be fun? I know it is a bit weird to have a more slow paced and challenging experience; if a player died early on, they would likely have to be a spectator for 30-60 minutes, but that just makes one value their lives more.

No player, absolutely none will enjoy waiting for 30-60 minutes in spectator mode to watch an average game on a pub server. The only time you can get people to spend that amount of time to watch a game without taking part in it is when people watch a high-skill competitive match for a good-to-great mod or game on HLTV. And the only way that can happen is if the mod is successful enough on a general level to have enough players for a competitive community to exist.

The short response to that, is that the 30-60 minute respawn time is a total mistake.

 

[Zunni]

People complain about waiting 5 minutes for a Zombie Master round to end. 30-40 minutes in what's supposed to be an interactive envrionment ensures that the server will just have the remaining alive players to start the next round.

 

[KensaiMarine]

Good point, I thought you guys might say that. I just realized I thought of a solution to the respawn problem a little while back: When a player dies, they respawn in say 1 minute some distance away from the other survivors. They then have to make their way, potentially un- or lightly armed, through swarms of zombies to get back to the rest of the group. This would reduce the respawn time, yet make dying still highly unfavorable.

Also I think you guys are missing the point of this mod. It is supposed to be slow-paced and RPG-like in nature, where the rounds last for a long time and you care a lot about your character and want to stay alive, not to mention capitalize on the HL2 physics engine for building fortifications. Perhaps this is too ambitious and pieces need to be taken out, for example I could scrap the whole barricade-building bit and expand more on the RPG element.

You bring up a good point about the HL2 engine not being designed for gigantic maps; is there a way around this without making the graphics look horrible? Perhaps some kind of cleverness can be done like reducing effects/textures on distant objects. The main reason I want to make this mod with HL2 is because of its modability; I would make it for Stalker, but I heard the SDK was extremely limited (correct me if I am wrong).

Oh yeah, I have also seen the trailers for Left 4 Dead, and like I have said twice before, my emphasis here is on realism. I couldn't imagine the loudness of your weapon having any effect in Left 4 Dead

 

[Crispy]

You can use LODs (level of detail models), so lower detail models/textures get swapped in the further away from the player they are, but to make this look seamless you'd need to have the models fairly similar in shape and colourations. You can only alter a model so much in an LOD otherwise the effect is broken and it becomes very obvious where the changes are taking place.

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Your compromise for the spawning is a much better idea. Basically this slows the team's progress and forces them to wait or go back for the straggling player, or use up some of their limited supply of explosives, or otherwise.

 

[Hellrider]

Sounds like a really nice mod.