Dead Body Overhaul

[Fniff]

[quote=“Ferodaktyl, post:26, topic:4692”][quote=“Clayton, post:22, topic:4692”]But there is no realistic diversification, ANYBODY could have not been exposed and infected.

It’s all literately a matter of chance lol.[/quote]
So it’s very good to have more, but let’s try to make them believable.

Another solution to add anything would be to make the corpses already pulped, burned or otherwise destroyed beyond resurrection.[/quote]
I think your latter solution is better then not diversifying, because there is still a massive elephant in the room about why drug dealers are still there. If they didn’t get infected, why not have dead police officers and national guards? Drug dealers would be even less aware of the situation (And thus know to avoid the water) then them. Really, I think having the corpses be pulped would make sense and allow for some diversity.

[ClaytonRISING]

I don’t know, I think having them pulped or destroyed makes it loose all the majesty for me, personally.

Like, instead of finding a couple dead soldiers you’ll find a mass of organs, skin, shredded clothing and blood…with an assault rifle beside it lol.

[ClaytonRISING]

And if somebody had already destroyed their corpse, why didn’t they loot them?

[Ferodaktyl]

[quote=“Clayton, post:30, topic:4692”]I don’t know, I think having them pulped or destroyed makes it loose all the majesty for me, personally.

Like, instead of finding a couple dead soldiers you’ll find a mass of organs, skin, shredded clothing and blood…with an assault rifle beside it lol.[/quote]

i truly admire the fact that your vision of the game is consistent and even more the fact that you admit my ideas would conflict with your interpretation of the game.
someone said that a compromise is something equally distasteful to all parties involved. So let’s work to reach an agreement

[Dominae]

I always saw the drug dealer corpses as anti-cannon myself, too. From the lore, 99% of everyone is infected and dead. Those corpses don’t fit unless the game had a way to reanimate them and they were “freshly” dead.

Scientists are fine … they could have been hold up in the lab, or from “outside the area”, or just very fresh corpses. Military to a degree I can see … again … outside the area maybe / fresh corpses. Though … I’d assume they’d get goo on them sooner or later from a wandering zombie or something, and get up too.

And if somebody had already destroyed their corpse, why didn’t they loot them?

It’d have to be more like … zombies ate the living hell outa’ them and didn’t leave enough to reanimate (tho not sure how often that happens).

… or the rare … dead body with loaded gun in hand and self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

[Fniff]

Or just wild animals and mutants killed them, then ate enough of them that there just wasn’t anything left.

[Nopkar]

So at this point we can say that there are ‘Non-canon’ instances of corpses in the game at present, e.g., drug dealers

now how far are we going to go in flavoring the non-canon corpses?

I love this idea. I like how the game has a goo that makes the zombies work but at the same time it makes the game feel like the world is kind of vacant. I feel like I’m literally alone. This isn’t a bad thing but I feel like I’m not supposed to be alive, not that I’m lucky just that I’m a glich…I don’t feel right being alive when almost everything else is already turned

I’d like to have bodies of other survivors that failed, other corpses…something that makes the cities and town and building feel ‘alive’…this would make me feel like I SURVIVED, that I earned my life and that now I have to FIGHT for it.

I like canon, obviously. I still play the game…but maybe non-canon options? something along the lines of

*Varied corpses (this is non-canon)

*Frequency of corpse spawns (Default 1, on. 0 = off (no corpses, pure canon? extreme canon?) 2-10 = more and more and more?

[Uneron]

So to recap:
To revive after death someone must (while still alive):

[ul][li]get infected with the goo[/li]
[li]the goo must reach critical mass before death occurs[/li][/ul]

I don’t think its unreasonable to assume lots of people died before they reached that critical goo mass or that a lot of people simply don’t use tap water for drinking (speaking for myself I only ever drink bottled water).

The reason drug dealers corpses stick out so much is because they are literally the only third party (not scientists or soldiers which are both involved) we find bodies of. Once a little more diversity is in place (which the OP suggests) they will no longer seem out of place.

[Ferodaktyl]

you can safely scratch the second point. (just read the official canon)
then again you assume that only by drinking water is the infection spread.

[Uneron]

[quote=“Ferodaktyl, post:37, topic:4692”]you can safely scratch the second point. (just read the official canon)
then again you assume that only by drinking water is the infection spread.[/quote]
that the process requires a critical amount of XE-037 within the body, not as a percent but as pure weight. Around half a pound seems to be enough to insure a post-mortem takeover

Got that from the Official Cannon (http://smf.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?topic=4160.msg60100#msg60100)

Unless the critical amount is present at time of death no revival will take place.

To your second point: It seems to me that tap water was the major source, while there are others (zombie bite) they can be avoided. I simply argue that its not unlikely that at least a small fraction of the general population died during or after the cataclysm without having been infected.

Edit: Or as the case may be not infected enough.

[Ferodaktyl]

In larger animals, expiration seems to serve only to raise the cap on XE-037 within the body - expiration quickly leads to the XE-037 breaking down many of the now inactive bits of it's host until it makes up almost 4% of bodymass by weight. At some point towards the end of this process, the host organism revives in the manner we are all, by now, familiar with, seemingly under the full control of the substance.

;)

it’s kinda pointless, but for the sake of arguing, do you wash your teeth with bottled water also?

[Uneron]

Haha, yeah I agree its sorta pointless I could argue that heat might kill it (the tea) just like the high fluoride concentrations in the tooth paste, but lets no go there.

Instead I would like to argue that the proposed change would improve the game experience. Making things less predictable and more varied. In the end its a game and when it comes down to it, lore can easily be altered to allow more fun game mechanics.

Even if we don’t alter the lore, do you really think the average player will notice that some of the corpses outside might not fit in the whole theme?

[Ferodaktyl]

The devil is in the details, as they say. And IMO the mark of a good game is the attention given to the details.
Look at the situation now : you find scientists bodies, you also find a scientist zombie. You find a crashed helicopter, a zombie soldier is not far. Nice touches that add to game. You find a bear inside your closed house, or a cougar in your truck… well, we all know bears are gods in DDA
And besides, all it takes is enough imagination to fit some other types of corpses in the existing lore. Or at least i hope so. Otherwise we (i mean they, the devs) cold add pokemons in, because

In the end its a game and when it comes down to it, lore can easily be altered to allow more fun game mechanics.

[Uneron]

Hmm, catching a Zombear and letting it fight for you against other zombies: PLEASE

But really, just a tiny science note would be enough to explain all those bodies. Perhaps something like: “We had a possible leak. An obscure internet forum had detailed plans how to avoid contaminated tap water. The site got shutdown and the subject incarnated, but not before it got a few hundred views. Not sure if actual leak or just plain paranoia of some lunatic. In any case, some will likely try to avoid infection.”

Just an idea, but you get the concept: its not difficult to explain this sort of thing.

Now with that established, lets think on how to work pokemon into it.

[Nopkar]

Is this still a thing? If not adopted for the main release as an option maybe a modder could pick it up? I just feel the tone of the game could be changed quite a bit by using corpses a bit more liberally

The scene is set with your survivor breaking through a window in the back of the house. As he climbs through the window his eyes begin to adjust and a gruesome scene greets him from the shadows.

The floors and walls are stained with blood. The remains of a man and a woman are strewn about the far side of the room, torn apart by a mob of hands and teeth. From behind the bed a small, frail hand juts out…your survivor cringes to think what transpired here.

[ClaytonRISING]

It’s still a thing, but I’ve been working on it for my own personal use so far.

It seems like it wouldn’t be very accepted in the main game lol.

I’d offer to release it as a mod, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to make the commitment of keeping it updated and what not.

[deadmerits]

Clayton, if you were to upload a modded version with nothing different but the corpse varieties, I would download and play it.

I know I said some corpses could be less then 6 hours old. That being said, the drug dealer corpses never seemed anti-cannon to me. I always thought they lived longer then average(like the player character has) by being more prepared for violence (guns and attitude) and living long enough for me to find their bodies without rezzing.

So there has been added zombies scientist with scientist corpses (at least it really seems that way), and a zombies soldier with military corpses, a rezzed (obviously drug dealer) zombie with the group of zombie corpses could prove to help this assimilation along.

[Sanarr]

I think that Clayton’s idea is good and add some more flavor to game. Lore-wise, people might not attained critical mass of goo, somehow (bottled/ boiled water etc.). For example - family that tried to escape in their car sure had drank bottled water before being killed by some… thing. Anyway, maybe it would be a good idea to consult with Kevin Granade or someone who is “in charge” of making decisions about development and lore ? And smooth any sharp edges via discussion.

[fishy1234555]

Maybe instead of just dead bodies they could be like car accident vitims, civilian plane crash, gunshot while looting, suicide, decapitated/mutilated zombles. I still like the ‘drug deal gone wrong’ and scientist and all that stuff too, but it needs some work.

[Belteshazzar]

I’ve always had a running headcanon that excessive immune response (perhaps the result of military-grade vaccinations) and drug use could retard the goo for long enough to simply succumb to death without it’s regenerative properties kicking in.

Then again, some corpses should simply be very sneaky/lazy zombies trying to lure in prey.