Okay, so once monsters become more moddable, or NPCs are more feasible, how about a mode where you’re just a guy, high on crystal meth, fighting off normal people? Instead of zombies, people. Instead of cop zombies, people. Of course, they’d basically be dumb cannon fodder, atleast generic “Human”. Cops could always have guns and be able to shoot you.
Oh, sure, since it’s the zombie apocalypse, there’s no morale quirks or reasons not to break into people’s house. But with but just a few superficial changes, this could be the burglary and murder roguelike the game. But perhaps I’m depraved and there’s no audience for that sort of thing, but it’d be a fun kind of compromise between Liberal Crime Squad and that hoax Serial Killer roguelike.
That sounds like exactly the sort of thing that destroys the entire point of the game. We’re trying to develop mechanics and ideas that focus on survival in a hostile and weird world. Your proposal would make it about being a dick in a world that would really just rather have you stop. I mean, the shell of the game would WORK for it, but it wouldn’t be the same thing. And half the fun is exploring science labs filled with zombie test subjects, or clearing out a prison to turn into your Walking Dead homage fortress. Murdering NPCs isn’t really ‘fun’, it’s just what we do to ensure they don’t crash the game.
I could certainly see someone making a mod like that once the capability is in (you could do it yourself if you wanted), but I highly doubt that the devs will be adding a “zombieless mode” for our zombie apocalypse any time soon.
I keep picturing some sort of dystopian methed out 80s/90s version of the future. More cop bots, less zombies, more of a social order. You could have an actual money system and rob people for it, pawn shops would become useful… I keep picturing a game with Cataclysm’s over world and consumables and such, and Liberal Crime Squad’s battle against the man. Just sort of breaking and entering, shooting up police stations, robbing houses for equipment to sell to pawn stores for crack money.
I like the idea, but maybe not just killing people? Have it so that you are the only living thing there anymore and you’re just trying to survive? Or add NPC settlements to this for a sort of rebuilding environment?
After the dead no longer walk, what do you have left?
Horrible mutated beasties, hungry animals(or not so hungry, now that they have zombie corpses to gnaw upon? They might not like the taste of tainted meat). Robotic enemies, eldritch horrors, SPIDERS. Enemies are in no short order even if you remove the Z.
It could be interesting and fun, something like The Road. Or boring depending on how it’s done, but I really dislike the idea of the player being a meth addled jerk mowing down human mobiles…
Hey, depending on how you view your play style, if you take the schizophrenic trait, how do you know you aren’t?
Ever play Hotline Miami? Sort of like that. Oh, sure. You give people a zombie to shoot, they shoot it. But you rename that zombie and change the stats behind the scenes a bit… then it’s suddenly controversial somehow.
I think zombies are a cop out to a lot of people’s unsolved aggression issues. They want a faceless enemy to shoot. Bring them face to face with the people these zombies were, and suddenly there’s a moral obligation not to break into their house. But hunger and thirst still would effect you. We’ve got banks to rob, stores to buy from, houses to break into to rob, but we don’t have the NPC reliability to do it, so it’s a pipe dream. But, a nice thought atleast.
A weird idea hit me, why not make a STALKER mod for Cataclysm? Abolish the skill system, the firearms are already there, add more guns. Once NPCs don’t break things, they already have quests and go about their business, so why not AROOJIOBROW it up?
I suppose it’d be a simple enough mod to do, once NPCs work and all.
I’d think to make it more interesting, like a post-apocalyptic society where the zombies and goo are defeated but everything is in ruins and chaos. More like a Fallout setting or something. If you just want to run people over with a car and shoot cops in a regular modern setting there are more then enough games like that already.
