[QUESTION] What would keep you playing a Zombie map?

Im in need of a few ideas and would like to know.

1) What keeps you playing a zombie survival map
2) How to make it fun for all (in your opinion)

Thanks!:thup:

1) I don't play that kind of stuff much anymore, but my favorite of the sort was NOTD: Aftermath

2) Make zombie dogs for speed, flaming zombies for eye-candy, a giant abomination for boss rounds, and necromancers for necromancing.

great variations of unit art, not the same zombies all the time; flaming zombies, small, large, plauge zombies, black zombies, maybe other undead, zombies with orb attachments, etc

Well... I played Left 4 Dead for like six days straight when I got it first. So maybe if you just make something like that and have some form of addicting stimulant constantly added into me (nicotine or something similar), I feel it would be a good game.

This is great stuff guys, Keep it coming please n thank you!

i never really liked zombie maps too much because i thought the zombies were kinda bland, they never seemed to have any spells besides like frenzy and poison, not even the bosses, maybe something more creative can be done

also dont bother with save/load codes please

Well, i dont think zombies are sopposed to have spells other than something based on poison xD

and i already have a save/load code for ranks. but again its optional if you want to save or not, this just gives people something to do as well and build upon. it can get very competitive and fun

Multiple classes.

Demo Man
Medic
Scout
Engineer
Solider
Heavy
Pyro
Sniper
Spy

Yeah, all that good... Wait, I lust listed all the TF2 classes.

Lots of zombies roaming around, and is easy to slaughter them. Otherwise they would be stuck while moving.Big fat boss example like Abomination, but....its unoriginal.

Realistic environment, you can affect your environment and your environment affects you.
For example, you can't fire through a wall, but if you fire through a window, melees can't reach you and rangeds have a chance to miss. You can enforce a locked door, but then it'll never be locked again, letting zombies in.

Variety of zombies, make them special and don't spam one zombie. A poison spitter there, an agile ghoul here, a bulky zombie there. Also make them evolve slowly. It's always fun to start with a really basic zombie swarm but it soon gets complicated.

Make the bosses smart and really "custom". I don't wanna see a giant abomination with warstomp and disease cloud. I want to see an original boss, and once again, a variety of bosses. One can be a ghost that back stabs you, the other can be a fat ass who can literally crush a wall, bash you big time —by bash I mean when the wall explodes and you're near it, not the Bash ability— and let zombies in your base, and another can be a slightly stronger zombie who can greatly enhance the efficiency of other zombies. Make sure at least one of the zombies is invulnerable to damage and there's a special way to rid of him . I always loved that kind of boss.

Give it a nice atmosphere. It has to be scary, perhaps a little hard to understand. Only tell the players the basic instructions, and let them figure the rest out. A nice UI, a dark omnilight as daynight model, a bit of fog, that's pretty much all you'll need to create a shadowy ambiance. Also, make zombie SWARMS. Can we agree that's the point of zombies? Cheap to make, but half rotten and thus not exactly a good fighter? Most zombies should be easy to kill, but since they're so many, one will always replace it —though it's nice to have some kind of hard-to-kill, "tank" zombie.

Oh, one last thing. Don't make zombies automatically head for the players. Just make the zombies roam around the city. Of course you can add some "Call for help" system, where if a zombie spots enemies, zombies within... say... 2000 range come to it. And it's also possible a zombie can smell blood, much like Bloodseeker in dota, where he gains vision of injured enemies.

1. Make original and theme-fitting terrain. This is the main thing that will keep people playing zombie maps as most of them are the same except for this.

2. Include Multiple Classes including:
Medic
Sniper
General Infantry
Flame Thrower
Heavy Weapons

and many more

3. Keep surprises coming. Don't just have thigs like basic zombies with posoin and frenzy (No clue what frenzy is by the way). After a certain amount of time, spawn something new and completely original. E.g: after 5 minutes, start spawning zombies that home in on you when you are below 75% hp or charge straight at you with incredible speed, or even intelligent zombies that have somehow learned how to use weapons, mines ect.

4. Have something original to Your game. SWAT Aftermath has Radiation fragments and umbrella squads, In afterlife, you start of with crappy pistols and you have 2 minutes to explore the map and find some decent weapons and enough ammo for them to survive the round. What will your game have that is different from all others.

5. Around half-way through the game, have a big surprise. Not just a boss, a mega boss or something that the players have not seen before, E.G: an earthquake happens and creates a lot of dead ends and cracks in the terrain.

6. Have strategetic Techtreeing, the players can't have every level of every ability. If this is in your game, players are likely to play more than once, even if it is just to find out what the best ability combo is.

7. Have Global skillsets that all Player Heroes have. Abilities in this include a weak heal, sprint and other abilities that anyone should be able to do.

8. Have a reason to win the game, It gives you a new character or unlocks a new area.

9. Create an Item, unit or something like that that the spawns randomly on the map that the players have a 1 in 100 chance of finding that will give a big advantage. SWAT has its android parts, Afterlife has the secret lab key.

Other than that, Beta test it and ask people ho it could be improved.
Hope that helped

Well I haven't played a WC Map in forever but I did remember some things I disliked about Zombie Maps.

1) Make Objectives and quests inside the Map so that I am not just randomly killing zombies off of the street. Especially ones where we have to cross the map, or do something dangerous.

2) Don't make the Map impossible to play. Yes its fun to play a challenging game but most Zombie Games no one ever wins, because the zombies just over-well them and really whats the fun in a game you can't even hope to accomplish something?

3) Make sure the Map uses Team Work, so that one experience player can't just run off on his own and does what he likes and leaves the other players left to die.

Awsome stuff guys keep it up please

Make it so that everytime you play, units would be different. If this was already suggested then my bad, I didn't read above posts

the engine aka Source engine ^^

The best part is playing a unique class that's important to the team.
An upgrade system is good too, for example a medic could put points into dispelling poisons, or reducing damage taken, or healing others and getting skills depending on their upgrade level (Example: Level 1 healing gives a small bonus to your healing, level 2 gives a medium bonus, etc until you get to level 5 and you an AoE heal or something).

And don't make all the characters the same. I think there's a few medic models around, and snipers, etc. Effortless games get boring fast.


Ooh and if you're doing a rank system have the player's rank beside their name:

Private Noob: lol how do i play dis game
Sergeant Ringleader: Omg.

More would be appreciated This is great stuff!

Make some zombies really dangerous but very slow and hard to kill it gives that "you have to run away-feeling i often get when playing games like resident evil xD

well for me it would be

1. Fast paced gameplay, not like on some maps where u have to scout around the whole map to find items and build a fort before u can figth them ;/
2. challenging and diffrent types zombies, that require diffrent classes of units to defeat. like for example one zombie type has heavy armor and takes 300% dmg from type X while another type has ligth and will only take 40% from same type attack. making teamwork essential. Giving the zombies diffrent traits would also be good like one can be slow moving and have huge dmg and hp, while another one is fast but low hped and low dmged, u can also mix in spells to make them more unique like in left 4 dead theres a zombie that can hold u from distance and disable u(smoker) and a zombie that blows up and deals dmg to the people around him when he dies.
3. Rather have hard levels and make them start early than having 300 easy levels before 300 moderate and 300 challenging. if u die and u know u have to waste ur time doing the 600 levels before the fun part starts its a biiiiiiiiiiig party popper
4. Try to make it unique ;D