The clothes make the zombie!

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Was thinking that each article of clothing could have certain flags attached, with point values (either 1 or 2, probably), that determine a zombies pre-cataclysm status…

Things like bikini tops, corsets, purses, dresses, skirts and the like would be tagged Woman with a power of 1 (power of 2 would be reserved for specialized, more suggestive pieces, like cleats/football gear, gimp suits, chef hat, clown shoes, etc)

Tshirt, jeans, sneakers and generic clothes would just have a Civilian tag.

Blazer, dress shoes, tuxedo, top hat, and polo shirts would have well-dressed tags…

Toolbelt, utility vest, steeltoed boots, and safety glasses would have Worker or Handyman tags…

Fur hat, hunting cap and hiking boots could have Hunter tags…

Basically, with all these tags applied (to clothes and weapons and items as well) zombies could be assigned flavor professions based on their carried items. If the numbers didn’t stack up enough to give them a specialized name they could at least be labeled “male zombie”, “female zombie”, or just “civilian zombie”. Of course lots of items would have multiple tags (a hoodie would be unisex, and hippie, and civilian, and punk, and student. Army pants would have survivalist, military, and punk. Hockey mask would have sportsman, looter, and murderer tags)… Just noticed we don’t have suitcase/briefcases :stuck_out_tongue: Guitar cases…

It’d be a lot of tagging work, but once done we’d have zombie clowns and zombie hippies and zombie murderers and zombie soldiers and zombie hikers and zombie travelers and zombie chefs and elderly zombies and cosplay zombies and kinky zombies and zombie professors (he’d have a blazer, a skill book, a tobacco pipe, and reading glasses) and naked zombies (they’d have… nothing!)…

I guess a much easier way to do it would just be to assign one in ten zombies a profession out of the ones we can already pick from :expressionless:

EDIT: had to come back because I just thought that high defensive/offensive loadouts could lead to names too (armored/durable zombie, dangerous/survivor zombie, etc)

Anyway, thought I’d throw it out there :slight_smile:

2

Not to rain on the parade but wouldn’t it just be simpler to have the traditional “Zombie” enemy assigned a profession in the same manner NPCs and players are?

3

Biggest hurdle with the OP’s idea so far is that Zombies don’t acutally spawn with their items; that’s determined once they die. You could easily check for it yourself by save scumming and killing the same Zombie over and over.

4

I saw, “Things like bikini tops, corsets…with a power of 1, (power of two would be reserved for more suggestive pieces, like cleats/football gear”… Football gear “more suggestive” than bikini or corset 0_o? Whatever floats your boat I guess… (then reread it and understood)

It’s a good idea, but I think it’d be a lot easier to assign a “profession” to each zombie and assign items from that list and get a similar effect.

Regarding items that are spawned when you kill the zombie, I’d like to transition to a system where the items spawn with the zombie and are persistent, and even visible when they’re still up and moving around, which would make this even more fun.

5

And then I encountered a Lost Submissive zombie, and could not unsee its horror.

6

I think it will be important to always allow items that are “off type” the chance of appearing though. Finding someone fully kitted out in a fast food server outfit, but discover they were also carrying, say, a Katana, makes for interesting depth as you wonder how this fast food guy got his hands on such a weapon - was he at home when the world ended and didn’t have time to change, but grabbed his treasured katana of it’s stand as he ran out of the house, hurriedly attaching it to his waist?

Basically, make it feel like many of the zombies have been trying to survive before they were killed.

7

[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:6, topic:3388”]I think it will be important to always allow items that are “off type” the chance of appearing though. Finding someone fully kitted out in a fast food server outfit, but discover they were also carrying, say, a Katana, makes for interesting depth as you wonder how this fast food guy got his hands on such a weapon - was he at home when the world ended and didn’t have time to change, but grabbed his treasured katana of it’s stand as he ran out of the house, hurriedly attaching it to his waste?

Basically, make it feel like many of the zombies have been trying to survive before they were killed.[/quote]

Waste.

[size=24pt]WASTE[/size]

8

That’s a good point, we could split gear selection into “pre” cataclysm and “post cataclysm”, possibly with post replacing parts of the ensemble instead of adding to them, no need to keep waisted items around.