Flesh should obscure our vision

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

You see the horde closing in on you and the automobile you parked in the middle of the wilderness. You believed you would finally be safe to sleep, but they followed. Shell after shell you unload into the endless tide of undead, before they finally swarm you and you are overtak- Oh hey! Is that a gun store on the other side of the field? Oh man a turkey! You don’t see those everyday! The view sure is great from he- OH DEAR GOD MY FLEEeeEeEEeEESH!

TL;DR thick groups of zombies and other large mobs should obscure our vision so we can’t see past them. Maybe completely obscure our view once more than 2 zombies are in the way.

2

Mm I’d tend to disagree. They’re only as tall as the PC, so even if it’s a thousand-body horde you’d be able to see anything taller than 7’ on the other side of them. Meanwhile it’s limited to the relatively light density of 1zed/m[sup]2[/sup], so you’d need a lot of ranks to truly obscure everything behind them.

3

That kind of reasoning is why we keep telling people the m^2 thing is only a rough guide, assume they’re packed so tightly together they’d suffocate (if they had to breathe).
I mean, what possible reason would zombies have for politely keeping their distance from each other?.. oh hey…
I just had an idea…
[me=Kevin Granade]strokes his goatee and ponders…[/me]

4

*Superninjakiwi Ponders as well

5

So my idea is to basically allow zombies (and some other monsters) to crowd together several to a square. There’s really nothing keeping that from happening other than making it clear what’s happening, but that should be doable.

Surrounded by 8 zombies? pfff, try 32 attacking you at once.
heh
hahaha
huahahahaha
muahahahahahahaha!

6

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:5, topic:6190”]So my idea is to basically allow zombies (and some other monsters) to crowd together several to a square. There’s really nothing keeping that from happening other than making it clear what’s happening, but that should be doable.

Surrounded by 8 zombies? pfff, try 32 attacking you at once.
heh
hahaha
huahahahaha
muahahahahahahaha![/quote]

Excepting things like windows I hope. You evil bastard.

:stuck_out_tongue:

7

Wishlist: explosives send gore flying exponentially proportional to number of Zs packed together.

8

What about if 2 or more creatures are next to it starts to obscure vision? THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME. I think it’s a good and realistic idea.

9

[quote=“Rutilant, post:6, topic:6190”][quote=“Kevin Granade, post:5, topic:6190”]So my idea is to basically allow zombies (and some other monsters) to crowd together several to a square. There’s really nothing keeping that from happening other than making it clear what’s happening, but that should be doable.

Surrounded by 8 zombies? pfff, try 32 attacking you at once.
heh
hahaha
huahahahaha
muahahahahahahaha![/quote]

Excepting things like windows I hope. You evil bastard.

:P[/quote]
Sure, only two or three could squeeze into a window frame :wink:
(kidding, just one to a window frame probably, though I do still plan on making the ones in back push the ones in front through the window, like this:

..|..
ZZ|..
ZZZ@.
ZZ|..
..|..

Er… labelled with numbers so I can name them…

..|..
12|..
345@.
67|..
..|..

7 shoves 5 through the window.

..|..
12|5.
34'@.
67|..
..|..

2 climbs into the window, 1 moves forward, etc

..|..
.1|5.
342@.
67|..
..|..
..|..
.1|5.
34'@.
67|2.
..|..
..|..
.1|5.
.34@.
67|2.
..|..
..|..
.1|%.
.34@.
67|2.
..|..
..|..
.1|4.
..3@.
67|2.
..|..

Shoves wouldn’t happen every turn, but when they do they can seriously compromise bottlenecks.
This would still be safe:

..|.. ZZ|6. ZZZ@. ZZ|{. ..|{.
Because they wouldn’t have a clear square to be shoved onto.

10

I like this idea a lot. Seems like it’d go really nicely in a ridiculous Near-Infinite Weak Zombie Horde mod/world option. And, well, because of the way the map system works, wouldn’t this also obscure your vision of the city? Not sure honestly.

But it seems like a better way to do wanderspawns/hordes that don’t just seem like walking zombie-spawning pylons.

11

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:9, topic:6190”]Sure, only two or three could squeeze into a window frame :wink:
(kidding, just one to a window frame probably, though I do still plan on making the ones in back push the ones in front through the window, like this:

..|..
ZZ|..
ZZZ@.
ZZ|..
..|..

Er… labelled with numbers so I can name them…

..|..
12|..
345@.
67|..
..|..

7 shoves 5 through the window.

..|..
12|5.
34'@.
67|..
..|..

2 climbs into the window, 1 moves forward, etc

..|..
.1|5.
342@.
67|..
..|..
..|..
.1|5.
34'@.
67|2.
..|..
..|..
.1|5.
.34@.
67|2.
..|..
..|..
.1|%.
.34@.
67|2.
..|..
..|..
.1|4.
..3@.
67|2.
..|..

Shoves wouldn’t happen every turn, but when they do they can seriously compromise bottlenecks.
This would still be safe:

..|.. ZZ|6. ZZZ@. ZZ|{. ..|{.
Because they wouldn’t have a clear square to be shoved onto.[/quote]
Just so long as a reasonably big weapon damages every zombie in the tile, I’m keen for it. Makes me have to think about options for holding the line.
ALSO, would this mean that with enough zombies, they could fill up a pit and more could walk over unimpeded?

12

Good idea, they already fill up with corpses, but that’d be awesome.

13

…World War Z.

That is all.

14

:l

Kevin my patented starting fighting style will now be ruined.

15

Isn’t there also a fair bit of code that depends on the assumption that there’s only one zombie per square (z_at_square() [or whatever it’s called] comes to mind)? If you aren’t careful you could end up with the player doing things like attacking every zombie in a square simultaneously, or shooting and somehow having their bullet pass through all 8 zombies (or alternatively having hulks being invincible as long as there is a normal zed in the same square as them). Also any idea how to address still maintaining information display when you’ve got something like a hulk, a jabberwocky, a spitter, a boomer, and 3 normal zeds all in the same square?

16

[quote=“GrizzlyAdamz, post:13, topic:6190”]…World War Z.

That is all.[/quote]

The movie, not the book.

The book is good.

17

Isn’t there also a fair bit of code that depends on the assumption that there’s only one zombie per square (z_at_square() [or whatever it’s called] comes to mind)? If you aren’t careful you could end up with the player doing things like attacking every zombie in a square simultaneously, or shooting and somehow having their bullet pass through all 8 zombies (or alternatively having hulks being invincible as long as there is a normal zed in the same square as them).[/quote]
he he
That’s why from the game engine point of view there will only be one zombie in the square, a special “many zombies” monster that knows how to apply damage to its members.

Targeting could be tricky, that will definitely bear more thought.

To get the special cases out of the way, huge stuff like hulks or jabberwocks wouldn’t share squares. Otherwise, I’m on the fence about using the symbol of the ‘most dangerous’ monster in the square with highlighting to let you know there are more, or using a special ‘many zombies’ symbol. Obviously if you examine the square we can just list the monsters.

18

How would it be created? Could zombies coalesce into one & vice versa or would it spawn in whole like everything else, (like some sort of ablative zombie which deals less damage as it disintegrates)?

19

They would be created simply by zombies walking onto the same square, and likewise they would disassemble simply by having their members walk off.

20

Cant we have the dwarf fortress animation in which it first shows the first monster, then a “/” and then the second monster. Repeated infinitely?

I think it handles the visual aspect nicely.