it’s quite simple. Since exposure = infection ==> zombification, it’s a matter of deciding who “realistically” could have avoided exposure. From here you can diversify to your heart’s desire 
But there is no realistic diversification, ANYBODY could have not been exposed and infected.
It’s all literately a matter of chance lol.
But it seems you guys are working under the impression that I want to litter the streets with corpses.
That’s not the case; I don’t plan on increasing their spawn rates or make them more prevalent, but rather just add variety and flavor to the present.
Some of these corpse piles may be less then 6 hours old old. Then they couldn’t have risen… yet…
Problem is, they don’t raise. Ever. So it still doesn’t make sense. Really, even if you’re going “Just figure out what corpses wouldn’t be drinking the water”, the drug dealers are still there and I doubt they’re going to live entirely off sports drinks and cocaine. So there’s still a weird thing going on there.
Maybe there could be a way where they raise after a random amount of time. Maybe they’re people who got less of a dose then usual. So you can expect to find a lot of good corpses to loot at the start, but when you check them out a few weeks later you’re going to just find a lot of zombies. Could be a nice way of making things interesting as time goes on, if you made them become special zombies or something similar.
[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]
that’s where i disagree. Within game’s constraints, everybody was infected. I kinda expected my char’s body to reanimate when playing again in the same world :).
Fniff has a point or two there also.
What i’m trying to say is that i’m cool with diversifying the types of corpses, but not to the point where i have to imagine improbable exceptions for them. Like policemen, survivors, paramedics, civilians. On the other hand, Special forces army - in my book this is believable. They were sent from elsewhere and died here. Army CRBN again, check. National Guard, meh.
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.
If my ideas for bodies fall into the realm of “not canon” for the reasons you just stated, then the bodies already in game aren’t canon lol.
For the record the goo doesnt kill you, in fact in some respects its a good thing. It lets you mutate. 
[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.
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.
And if somebody had already destroyed their corpse, why didn’t they loot them?
[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
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.
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.
Or just wild animals and mutants killed them, then ate enough of them that there just wasn’t anything left.
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?
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.
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=“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.
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? 
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?