Zombie MMORPG in the Works

Warcry has a very short blurb about a just announced Horror-genre Massively Multiplayer game. Titled Exanimus, the game looks to be set in a post-apocalyptic zombie setting. From the piece: "While most of the world is dead, there are small pockets of survivors that exist in barricaded cities across the globe. Players of Exanimus will have the option of playing as a living survivor or as one of the dead roaming the earth. Exanimus will allow players to experience a MMO based in a horror genre by creating a dark and visually "intense" environment. Exanimus is expected to be rated "Mature" and not intended for anyone under the age of 18."

Is it possible to "win"?

[khasim]

Given that the zombies will not breed (except by converting the living), there would be a finite number of them.

Would it be possible to "win" this by killing 6 billion + zombies?

Before you start laughing, remember, we're talking an online game here. It is possible to kill thousands and thousands of "monsters" in other games. Five years into this, will the few remaining living be searching for the few remaining zombies?

No, you'd want that.

[khasim]

I'd guess if things got too out of balance from their storyline, they could tweak the amount of zombie or human NPCs. More undead could always dig up out of the ground, or more humans could show up from outside the game's scope, to keep things even.

If the living are losing badly, that would add to the horror of the game.

If the zombies are losing badly, that would work also as the living would have to go searching for them. And you're most vulnerable when you're searching. Do you risk being killed for the chance to be the one who kills the last zombie?

Re:Urban dead?

[ReverendLoki]

HARMANZ GAN... Er, I mean, exactly what I was thinking. Personally, I'm interested in seeing how they make the Zombie side interesting, and able to keep players. Unlike UD, I imagine that when you log out of this game, your avatar goes as well, not leaving a body for other players to attack. What happens when you have 1000 Survivor players log in, and 5 Zombies?

Even if the sides are even number-wise, part of the horror atmosphere comes from being outnumbered by the shambling undead. It will be interesting to see how they handle balancing these inequities. Perhaps they can hire some of the people behind the Natural Selection HL mod for advice?

Re:Is it possible to "win"?

[Lord_Dweomer]

What I would love.....and what would never happen...is to have "rounds" of the game. You start off the world, and you have a single zombie running around and he converts a few NPCs. Then it spreads....the world would start off very heavy on the human side, but gradually, if things went smoothly, it would convert to zombies only....depending on the organization of things. Of course what you can't account for is griefers who might get converted to zombies and try to prevent them from killing humans, or humans who try to get other humans killed.

After all of one side had been killed off, the game would "reset".

Re:Urban dead?

[Cy Sperling]

I think the key is to make the zombie portion of the game revolve around playing a mob rather than an individual zombie. Leveling up wouldn't give you more health, rather increase the size of the controlled mob. Playing a zombie character shouldn't essentially be like playing a living character who sleeps outside and can't use items.

Re:Urban dead?

[ReverendLoki]

Hmmm.. in other words, the zombie players would be looking at it maybe a bit more like an RTS, controlling armies of units. Or maybe like a deranged version of Pikmin. Interesting...

Re:WTB [Brains]

[Jubetas]

I doubt it would be very hard to have integral trade skills for survivors, i.e.- scavenging, security, various knowledges, etc. Knowing how to run a base that has an electrified fence with a few motion sensors off of a diesel generator you patched together seems like it would be a useful skill. I can only hope that this MMO, which is based on the MMO premise of my dreams, can live up to even a few expectations.

As for zombie skills, that might be a little more difficult, but they could take a little influence from Land of the Dead, where the zombies are able to develop some rudimentary communication. Perhaps you would see WTB [Brains], so that way your zombie could learn how to turn doorknobs or wield melee weapons. I admit that I see very little in the way of actual trade skills for zombies, but I don't really see that as hindering my fun when I'm gnawing people's brains out.

Re:Urban dead?

[Cy Sperling]

Pikman is a great example. The player could have a certain amount of points, relative to their level, that they could spend on their mob. Certain zombie types would have different costs allowing the player to customize the makeup of their mob. High level players would be powerful by having larger and more diverse mobs. The zombies themselves could be relatively easy to kill as individuals, but the emphasis for zombie players is the horde. I think the way they handle player death is really a tough nut to crack. Urban Dead does make dead players become zombies. The Necrotech skillset allows other living players to revive zombies back into living characters. I kind of see this as a bit of a cheat. Though this does lead to the fun concept of dumping the freshly dead outside before they wake up as zombies, people wanting to play as living characters don't behave as flesh hungry zombies- they simply head for the nearest advertised revive point. Player death is very tricky in this context... Perhaps player death would lead to a temporary NPC status where for a short time, the reanimated corpse would run wild. Players could respawn but would teleport back to a hub of some sort- leaving a doppleganger NPC zombie in their place. Either way- to actually recreate the threat of the freshly dead reanimating to attack their companions, they can;t leave the zombie-behavior of the freshly dead purely in the hands of the players. Granted some hardcore roleplayers will stick to the fiction of it, most won't.

Re:Urban dead?

[ReverendLoki]

You know, that could be the start of an interesting mechanic... The zombie player starts with one zombie - will call him the "Zombie Lord", for lack of a better term. He gets knocked down, he gets back up, maybe with a penalty, maybe not. He kills a human, the human player goes back to a spawn point of some sort to start again (again, with or without penalty). Meanwhile, the corpse he leaves behind stands up, and becomes the first minion in the Zombie Lord's horde. He follows the ZL around, attacks his targets, etc. Next corpse left by a human he kills becomes the second minion in his blossoming horde. Now, if a minion gets knocked down, does it get back up? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe only after a period of time, and maybe only for a finite amount of time.

Now if they come out with this game and it uses any of these mechanics, we'll have to point back to this thread and demand royalties...

Re:Is it possible to "win"?

[2008]

Absolutely.

What I really want from an MMO is a kind of massively-multiplayer-co-op-FPS, basically 1000 player co-op Serious Sam, with the squad organisation from BF 2 and with huge GTA-style (but detailed interiors of buildings) freeform levels. Have each round last about a month, starting from spreading out from a beachhead, clearing the streets, rooting enemies out of buildings/rooftops/sewers, defending against counterattacks, then finally taking the city which brings out a final boss. Basically have each enemy that dies stay dead, or be permanantly killable in some other way, e.g. fight your way through a regenerating swarm to kill the egg layer, infected zombies that can convert players, but the infection can be stopped by killing them all. This means you'd actually have an impact on the world, unlike most MMOs. Permanantly destructible scenery would also be very cool, if even more technically difficult.

Make killing the enemies effectively require co-operation, e.g. pilots needing gunners, medics, different weapons more effective against different enemies, directionally-shielded enemies that you need to attack from all sides to beat.

No stat based levelling (i.e. skill based), though rank/respect is good, and medals for killing bosses etc. Preferably no instancing, except for PVP DM levels for those who want them. Respawning and getting back to the fight should take under 30 seconds, apart from in the final phases where finding the last few concealed enemies and triggering the super-boss.

Finally, each reset should bring something different. It doesn't have to be much, a new enemy type, a somewhat different layout, new vehicles.

FPS games do seem to be heading somewhat in this direction, e.g. UT2004's Invasion mode, and Serious Sam 2 have the many-players co-op, Planetside is MMO, but nothing yet has the semi-persistent huge world with enemies that stay dead.

One Concern

[darkmayo]

The problem with having a human controlling a zombie character is they no longer act like zombies. You end up with some big metagaming issues, zombie/human alliances etc.

It will be interesting what these guys have up there sleeves to make sure that doesnt happen.

Oh and if they screw it up it and the game bombs then it will forever taint that genre for a MMORPG. Since I have been waiting for something like this to come around for quite some time, i'd be right pissed.

mmmm zombies.. how I love to hate thee.

Re:Urban dead?

[ultranova]

Though this does lead to the fun concept of dumping the freshly dead outside before they wake up as zombies, people wanting to play as living characters don't behave as flesh hungry zombies- they simply head for the nearest advertised revive point. Player death is very tricky in this context... Perhaps player death would lead to a temporary NPC status where for a short time, the reanimated corpse would run wild. Players could respawn but would teleport back to a hub of some sort- leaving a doppleganger NPC zombie in their place. Either way- to actually recreate the threat of the freshly dead reanimating to attack their companions, they can;t leave the zombie-behavior of the freshly dead purely in the hands of the players.

Simple solution: there's a limited number of lives in the game. In order to have a life, you have to take it from someone who has it. That is, kill a living player and you become one, and he becomes a zombie. Now you just need to have the server control the ratio between living and dead by automatically making some people living and some zombies at the start...

A zombie cannot be permanently killed, but will always raise back up again after a short while. However, a zombie can't earn exp, and will always be "level 1" - if you had levels as human, you lose them when you become a zombie, and regain them when you regain your humanity. Same for items. That way, all the zombies will desperately want to become humans, and because they are so much weaker, pretty much have to attack en masse. Since zombies can't level, the various grinders are sure to fight tooth and nail to become human again.

As a practical matter, you don't immediately become a human when you kill one, it takes five minutes (with a running countdown). That way you have time to escape from the fight - otherwise you'd just be killed as soon as you turned human in the middle of the battle.

Logged-of humans fall unconscious. An unconscious human can obviously be easily killed by any zombie, so better find a safe location. No place is inherently safe (zombies can attack you everywhere), but of course the players can establish player-guarded resting areas in the ruins of abandoned cities (in fact I'd put the entire game into such a city), and of course zombies would consider those their main targets. People will still have to leave them to get exp, to scavenge for resources, and so on.

Oh, and the zombies can see in the dark, while the humans can't. To avoid cheating, a zombie in suitably deep shadow is invisible to the client as well - that is, the server won't send the geometry at all.

Of course all this requires a game engine that can take a lot of people in the same area at the same time. It would also require pretty low lag, since zombies hiding in the dark leads to surprise attacks. Alternatively, you could perhaps determine a "guard location", so that your character shoots as soon as a zombie pops to the guarded area - this would make the game more strategic than reflex test.

Anyway, that's how I'd do it.

Re:ooer...

[Makarakalax]

They settle down until they don't get the phat loot or something, and then it's evens they'll throw some immature hissy fit.