More realistic generation

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Houses and shops:
Broken windows and rags in the smashed glass to suggest looting and people escaping their houses in the first days. Or zombies smashing their ways out after turning.
Boarded up windows and smashed windows or doors with zombies trapped inside. Some houses could have been fortified, but the zombies got in.
Drawn curtains, open windows, where people hid or tried to escape.
Half eaten meals on tables.
Burned food in ovens
Burned downs ruins from ovens left on or a cigarette being dropped.
Fortified buildings. Buildings with locked doors an stockpile of stuff and a dead human. Fortified building either have no food or no meds. To show how this human died.

General scenery:
Blood trails: Paths of blood leading to human corpses from windows or just stopping at some point.
More corpses: Surely not everyone turned. I mean come on. Maybe its just corpses with ripped gear on them. Torn backpacks. Damaged weapons. Ripped clothes and nothing really good.
More berries clustered together: Since when do fruit bushes only produce one fruit… ever. I mean they could re grow as well.
Mushroom clusters: One mushroom. Growing alone in a forest. Since when does that ever happen?
Poisonous mushrooms: So what you’re telling me is I could walk out into the forest. Pick up the first mushroom or toadstool I saw. Eat it and be fine? Okay.
Long/ growing grass. Who trims the lawns in the apocalypse?
Car crashes: Most of the cars in towns seem to have stopped just in time not to crash. Why not have metal wrecks surrounded by smashed glass and bits of metal maybe some damaged wheels. Ooh and pools of gasoline on the ground.
Cars through walls: I mean I’d probably crash into a wall if I was driving and I saw a zombie. Or I’d leap out of my car and it would crash into a wall.
Already dead Z’s: Nobody managed to kill any of these guys? Jeez whats with all the military stuff if they just stood there and watched?

Other Building generation:
Firestation: I want a fire truck. With and activatable siren.
Police cars: Sirens FTW

Extra Biomes:
Fungaloid Forest: An entire forest taken over by the fungus
Fungal Towns: Buildings turned to fungal beds with a giant 3 by 3 fungal spire in the middle.
Natural Battle grounds: Fungaloid/Triffid/Giant bug bodies. At least 2 species. Triffids and Fungaloids dont get on.
Fungal Triffid groves: Mushroom wins this round, trees.
Triffid Forests: Groves the size of forests
Triffid Towns: Overgrown buildings, grass everywhere. Evil Tree beasts and a giant 3 by 3 heart at the very centre of it all.

Creature Generation:
Zombie Animals. If it affects dogs it affects squirrels. Hoards upon hoards of Zombie squirrels. And all the other animals too. Zombie animals are static. The normal animals just keep spawning.

Weather:
Snow: Stuff that settles and changes the landscape. Some doors cant be opened in snow. Craftable snowballs. Can you imagine pelting snowballs at a zombie? Ive never survived until winter so Idk if thats in there.

That is all

2

Remember, this is only a week after the apocalypse. I know at my house (hardly by any conscious stockpiling), we have at least a month’s worth of food for two people, though admittedly most of it is frozen. I think it would be pretty cool to have hordes of zombies inside the occasional house surrounding the refrigerator and eating the rotting meat.

Here are a few more related to increased realism and general variety as well.

Dead bodies with a firearm but no ammo, surrounded by shell casings of the corresponding caliber and dead Z’s.

Houses with gardens, chain-link fences, wrought iron fences and gates in cities (plenty in Chicago, I know that much)

“Prepper” houses. Basically LMOE shelters, except houses. Guns, ammo, canned food up the wazoo, gas masks, etc. These days a lot of people are stocking up on things like grain in bulk as well - 50 pound bags of rice and such.

Rice, to go with the above. Behaves like a liquid, requires water, a pot, and of course rice to be cooked. Perhaps could be combined with cooked meat to make some kind of meal?

More functional cars. I think it’s a bit silly and artificial that 80% of all the cars in the game somehow have no tires, no anything, or no engine. To balance this, perhaps keys should become a thing. Many cars would not have them and would thus need to be hotwired in order to run. Furthermore, many would also have dead batteries or, as there are plenty of now, no fuel.

Honestly, completely destroyed “car frames” are not gonna be lining the streets a week after anything short of a nuke at close range. They might have broken windows and windshields, dents, general damage, dead bodies or perhaps trapped zombies inside (a large plot point in the book World War Z), etc. Many would have been in crashes, but this should be modeled properly. Cars through houses and other buildings as mentioned above is also a nice touch.

Oh, and the three things that will probably be the most deadly after a week of the apocalypse are going to be the lack of water, zombies, and other people. And something tells me there are going to be a lot more bodies.

3

I love the ideas, these would make the world much less cookie cutter looking. The overgrown grass would be a nice touch, and I would have never thought of rags being stuck in broken windows. Maybe we should leave torn bits or rags in windows if we get cut.

One thing is I always imagined that the strawberry or mushroom were really like a handful or cluster. Maybe a name change would be all that would be needed, or just add an s. You pick a strawberrys. Okay maybe not just add an s.

4

dont fungaloids sometimes already spread to towns from their spire?

5
dont fungaloids sometimes already spread to towns from their spire?

Indeed they do, but wouldn’t it be cool if an entire town was consumed by the fungus

6

[quote=“Samscale1, post:5, topic:2398”]

dont fungaloids sometimes already spread to towns from their spire?

Indeed they do, but wouldn’t it be cool if an entire town was consumed by the fungus[/quote]

Fungus coated houses? A major source of water, if cleaned properly

7

[quote=“AerialK7, post:6, topic:2398”][quote=“Samscale1, post:5, topic:2398”]

dont fungaloids sometimes already spread to towns from their spire?

Indeed they do, but wouldn’t it be cool if an entire town was consumed by the fungus[/quote]

Fungus coated houses? A major source of water, if cleaned properly[/quote]

And a major source of disease if not. Along with that with that you’d basically have a 9 square spire in the centre of a town. And loads and loads of buildings covered in fungus

8

I could just imagine the whole floor being covered in fungus, then suddenly like 20 fungaloids come up outta nowhere and kill you. Never to retrieve your loot again

9

I just have visions of a survivor with a gas mask and layers of protective clothing walking through a fungus-covered town with a flame thrower, just burning it down building by building.

Rad.

Anyway, definitely some good ideas. I’d love to see more atmospheric detail. Houses look ransacked but there’s little indication as to why. There should be more corpses, more signs of violence and distress and panic.

10
Houses look ransacked but there's little indication as to why. There should be more corpses, more signs of violence and distress and panic.

Thats what I was thinking. Theres no blood anywhere. At least not until you start swinging or shooting. You’d think there’d be trails where people tried to crawl away or random limbs that have been torn off. Or the corpses in game at the moment all appear to have spontaneously died. Theres no blood. No zombies or other animals around. No worm tunnels, what killed them?

11

Speaking about military corpses.
What is up with them , i just found few dead soldiers and it seems they had no idea what a gun means , seriously , one of the corpses had a rifle on it and there was another completely NAKED guy with ammo.

As much as that sounds like a perfect reason for them to die (naked slaves carrying the ammo for you) , there should be less randomness in military corpses.

12

So you find a guy naked.
You.
Player.
Dude, why you should be (in rpg term) alone here ? You’r god or what ?
Just think like an other dude pick item but not all because he won’t want it/ need it/ backpack full.

13

[quote=“Oragepoilu, post:12, topic:2398”]So you find a guy naked.
You.
Player.
Dude, why you should be (in rpg term) alone here ? You’r god or what ?
Just think like an other dude pick item but not all because he won’t want it/ need it/ backpack full.[/quote]

Because under the default settings…the player IS the only one around. If NPCs were active, that’d be a different story (and I’d expect to find evidence of the missing gear, if not the gear itself, on or around the NPC). Magical looting-faeries don’t exist; if you want to make an argument for critters eating food, that’s internally plausible.

14

[quote=“woflsipder, post:11, topic:2398”]Speaking about military corpses.
What is up with them , i just found few dead soldiers and it seems they had no idea what a gun means , seriously , one of the corpses had a rifle on it and there was another completely NAKED guy with ammo.

As much as that sounds like a perfect reason for them to die (naked slaves carrying the ammo for you) , there should be less randomness in military corpses.[/quote]
Yeah, there is no reason other than being UN “peacekeepers” that would rationalize these guys not carrying weapons.

15

[quote=“Morrigi, post:14, topic:2398”][quote=“woflsipder, post:11, topic:2398”]Speaking about military corpses.
What is up with them , i just found few dead soldiers and it seems they had no idea what a gun means , seriously , one of the corpses had a rifle on it and there was another completely NAKED guy with ammo.

As much as that sounds like a perfect reason for them to die (naked slaves carrying the ammo for you) , there should be less randomness in military corpses.[/quote]
Yeah, there is no reason other than being UN “peacekeepers” that would rationalize these guys not carrying weapons.[/quote]

Cant tell if that’s a mean political joke or just the first idea that came to mind. I like to think of them as soldiers being woken in the middle of the night in order to fight.

16

[quote=“Otaku, post:15, topic:2398”][quote=“Morrigi, post:14, topic:2398”][quote=“woflsipder, post:11, topic:2398”]Speaking about military corpses.
What is up with them , i just found few dead soldiers and it seems they had no idea what a gun means , seriously , one of the corpses had a rifle on it and there was another completely NAKED guy with ammo.

As much as that sounds like a perfect reason for them to die (naked slaves carrying the ammo for you) , there should be less randomness in military corpses.[/quote]
Yeah, there is no reason other than being UN “peacekeepers” that would rationalize these guys not carrying weapons.[/quote]

Cant tell if that’s a mean political joke or just the first idea that came to mind. I like to think of them as soldiers being woken in the middle of the night in order to fight.[/quote]

Uh, yeah. Troops under UN authority have all sorts of rules/engagement, but last I knew they’re armed and well-equipped. I was thinking the soldier-corpses had been surrounded&pounded in the days before game start, so are stragglers, depleted their ammo, etc.

(That, and IIRC the troops seen are probably National Guard as the active-duty forces were focusing on the situation over in the Pacific. So not particularly well-equipped to begin with.)

17

I definitely like the idea of better corpses. I keep finding guys totally naked with ID cards and nothing else. Dog tags would be a nice little touch. And then the ability to make graves. Its be nice to dig a pit. drop the corpse in re fill it and lay the dog tags on top. Maybe the soldier corpses could have some shells around them and depleted/broken guns. And then some injured zombies and some dead zombies laying around them too. Like maybe you could find a jammed gun with a few shots left and a load of shells on the floor.

Or perhaps there are wolves around the scoundrel corpses and malfunctioning man hacks and dead zombies around the scientists

Also Graffiti would be nice just something on walls and stuff. Maybe painted Live inside signs. or just ominous messages. That could taunt the player or be mildly humorous. (E.g: Life is just a game(Referring to Cataclysm as a game). At the end of existence our world may shift(referring to generating a new word). As you die someone is born(Referring to the fact that you re spawn in your old world where your new character previously didn’t exist).)

18

[quote=“KA101, post:13, topic:2398”][quote=“Oragepoilu, post:12, topic:2398”]So you find a guy naked.
You.
Player.
Dude, why you should be (in rpg term) alone here ? You’r god or what ?
Just think like an other dude pick item but not all because he won’t want it/ need it/ backpack full.[/quote]

Because under the default settings…the player IS the only one around. If NPCs were active, that’d be a different story (and I’d expect to find evidence of the missing gear, if not the gear itself, on or around the NPC). Magical looting-faeries don’t exist; if you want to make an argument for critters eating food, that’s internally plausible.[/quote]

Oh, so i must go to one conclusion : you didn’t read my post.
I’ll quote my self :

(in rpg term)
Now i will to try to explain for the start, but don't be offensed, please. It's the game. So basicaly, won't be realistic. but it aim to include npc. the fact is it's off by defaut is only because npc didn't get many feature really needed atm, and don't work as intended (they tend to kill you instead to help most of the time, and a bunch of other stupid things like this). But in this game, everything is building around the survival of the player and try to reproduce what you could see if it would really happen, so it include the fact that human (npc) exists. Yeah by the way dead corpses are dead npc too, just dead. It make more realistic because find only alive npc would mean it's not something like [end of the world with Z everywhere]. It aim to make this more realistic. So, if we go further here, what they should got : at last a basic equipment. So an armor, a gun, ammo, a bit of drink/food and enought clothe to be able to carry that, yeah.

Then for npc alive - because they are alive, they must got some stuff from somewhere. (i do not talk only about the first npc you see in shelter, but the random one)
they could get stuff from everywhere : in building (that’s mainly wouldn’t be able to find what you need to survive each time, because someone could have pickup the item before). They could also scavenge corpse like you can.

So now, to really answer (and repeat my last post btw) even if you don’t want to use npc (because it’s not set on by defaut ? but it’s here, no ? just too much bug, and as i remember, in some build, they were ON by defaut) the game aim to use it and build the world like they are here because it would be stupid to take time to tweak the world to aim a reality whitch isn’t the goal. Waste of time.

And if ncp would be here it won’t be strange to find naked guys. that’s mainly what you always left after you pick up the item of the corpses and npc are like the player - ppl trying to survive, so basicaly doing the same. Pick up item, left corpse.

if a corpse got not ammo, maybe he have use them all before he die. No weapon : would be broken, stealed, left oven when running, picked up after death… there is a lot of reason that would make sense ! And more random fact like this make the game more random, like most rogue-like.
Want to get less random in such a game like this, won’t make it more realistic, nor being more funny. Just pointless.

19
a corpse got not ammo, maybe he have use them all before he die. No weapon : would be broken, stealed, left oven when running, picked up after death... there is a lot of reason that would make sense ! And more random fact like this make the game more random, like most rogue-like. Want to get less random in such a game like this, won't make it more realistic, nor being more funny. Just pointless.
Soooo What you're saying is finding corpses with more sensible items on them wouldn't be realistic? At least most random roguelikes follow some logic. I mean in a lot of rogue likes you never find a naked dead guy because reasons. And if you dont have NPCs turned on then where would all of the stuff go? I get what you're saying, but that would only make sense when they are turned on. Also in terms of guns and stuff. Where are all the shells from the gun he fired? Nobody would pick all of those up. Who drops a gun when running? There is a certain randomness to the game, I agree, but naked guys with ammo? Corpses should at least have some realism to them.
20

I understand , the soldiers might have died at the beginning of the apocalypse and get looted by random survivors , but i would like them to at least have the reason of death clearly visible (giant worms/zeds/crazy cannibal NPCs) or else it’s direct opposite of fun when the game goes like "Have a piece of military copses!"
player:"oh thank you dear lord rng … hey wait , where’s the guns?"
the game:“ahhh… hmmm… random imagined NPCs looted them and took everything except the ammo , grenades , C4 and food , but also stripped naked most of the guys for reasons.”