PC Alpha 19 Dev Diary

[Xtrakicking]

To support the belief (or misbelief) that they died, science could say that when approaching death (infected person on their death bed) that their heart rate and breathing become so slowed (zombies have super slow pulses) that they are considered dead. Perhaps they do die briefly, but once their will to live and fight vanish, that is when the virus really takes over and duplicates itself at an incredible rate, or the z genes suddenly flip on, and at that point they wake up wanting to eat because most sick people haven't eaten for a while. Eating flesh is what makes them feral has always been my lore but we never had the programming staff to warrant coding it in to see it happen in real time. I always wanted in MP to see zombies become feral if they feed on your buddy.

In my opinion they are alive, but have slow heart rates and don't need oxygen like a normal person because of the slowed heart rate and breathing. Strong and efficient, they barely feel pain or they don't care, the self preservation part is gone.

Wouldn't it be way easier to consider them dead and reserve the bleeding for bandits? Would solve many problems, including them being burnt but still walking, and them breathing underwater, and yadda yadda.

 

[Roland]

Okay, Okay, I can respect the wordsmithing, let's see if I can extrapolate and get on board.

First I think, we have to turn OFF the assumption that "the dead have risen" to become zombies... the creatures we see aren't dead people turned, they are LIVE people who got infected and turned... that takes care of the "whatever killed them" element.  They were never dead in the first place.

So an infected person , aka "zombie", gains his hunger for flesh, gets tougher fingernails, yada yada, then goes to eat a live human.  That live human gets eaten and dies, and we never see that person again (as they do not "turn" and become living again).  Those victims NEVER become "zombies".

BUT, if a zombie passes their infection to another, that victim DOES show the wounds from their initial attack that infected them, and does turn into a zombie, and is therefor still susceptible to damages, like piercing, blunt or slashing, because well, they're still alive.

Yeh I can get on board with this.

Notes found at the Red Mesa facility....

....ciating pain. Subject appears to have lost all nerves and blood flow to the limbs. While existing surface wounds remain as they were when the subject underwent the metamorphosis, internally the extremities have mostly become sinew, bone, and muscle tissue that are each at least 100x denser than their counerparts inside of a normal human. This accounts for the destructive power witnessed in the first subjects brought in before we were able to restrain them.  The trunk of the body still seems to function almost normally with the heart supplying nutrients and oxygen to the organs-- although there is something extremely abnormal with how the brain is interacting with what is left of the circulatory system. At any rate, it appears you could literally cut off a limb and the subject would hardly be phased but a laceration to the head, chest or belly area would cause them to bleed out as with any normal human.

Getting back to the brain, it almost appears as though it has formed a symbiotic relationship with the heart in the circula......

 

[TSBX]

Notes found at the Red Mesa facility....

Uhh...excuse me? Please go on...

 

[unholyjoe]

Uhh...excuse me? Please go on...

no... you have to get into game and search for the tid bits. try not to get infected while there.

 

[Roland]

Wouldn't it be way easier to consider them dead and reserve the bleeding for bandits? Would solve many problems, including them being burnt but still walking, and them breathing underwater, and yadda yadda.

Notes found at the Red Mesa facility.....

.....tremely troubling. I can't condone his actions but I do have to admit it was very revealing. When the subject was forcibly submerged she instinctively held her breath for more than an hour before she successfully tore apart the restraining framework and punched a hole in the side of the tank which caused the water level to recede to the point that her head was above water again. She immediately and noticeably begain breathing and making the distinctive moans and growls we have become accustomed to hearing from them. This seems to go back to how the brain and the heart are linked and proves that in these infected subjects oxygen is not completely necessary for ongoing brain and organ functionality. I will have to repo.....

 

[Trankitas]

And here I found myself, looking at Joel's twitter every 20 minutes to see if there are any new photos of A19

 

[unholyjoe]

thanks joel i couldnt remember where that was.

And here I found myself, looking at Joel's twitter every 20 minutes to see if there are any new photos of A19

shadup... we still trying to figure out how to break your toe so you die in game.

 

[Trankitas]

thanks joel i couldnt remember where that was.

shadup... we still trying to figure out how to break you toe so you die in game.

Instead of making my in-game life impossible, why not creating the new legendary Baseball Bat "Trankitas Toe"

"The toe breaker" Also works.

 

[dcsobral]

nope... originally once a player was infected he/she had 7 days to get a cure or die. back in the day the infection hit you in 3 stages the first slowed you down (much like me now with arthritis) and the 2nd even more and health slowly ticked down and the 3rd being the final nail for your coffin. antibiotic was rare and or took a long time to make (25 minutes). but things have changed since then.

I've played a modded version of infection at one point, in a perma-death game. Infection was not curable, but, for as long as the medicine was working, it would regress. Once the medicine wore off, it would start going up again. So the challenge was ensuring a continuous supply of antibiotics. I got infected on day 4 or 5, if I recall correctly. Stupid zombie raged as I drained my stamina with a power attack, and I couldn't get out of range. Things were dire, but I lucked out on horde night, as a zombie dropped a loot bag with the herbal antibiotics recipe! I died a few minutes later, though. Sometimes I think madmole can peek people's games, and remotely mess up with them.

 

[jorbascrumps]

Eating flesh is what makes them feral has always been my lore but we never had the programming staff to warrant coding it in to see it happen in real time. I always wanted in MP to see zombies become feral if they feed on your buddy.

If this could happen someday, that would be incredible!

 

[dcsobral]

Zombies are dead in every iteration of the zombie genre no matter which you look at they are dead. Regardless which genre. 

The best zombie book series ever written, Black Tide Rising, has zombies as living, infected people.

For proof of how awesome it is, the first thing the protagonist family does when learning of it is stockpiling toilet paper. Later they find out people who were on cruise ships during the outbreak were really screwed up.

Oh, and they also try very hard not to call the infected "zombies", though they eventually give up -- it's an f-ing zombie apocalypse, who cares if they are dead or alive?

EDIT: No, these books were not written in 2020.

 

[Roland]

Please do not discuss console issues or concerns in this thread. I have moved that whole conversation to the console section. If someone brings up the console version here simply report it and we will split it off to a new conversation in the console section. Console players derailing PC development conversation is for Twitter and Facebook...not the A19 development diary.

 

[unholyjoe]

Please do not discuss console issues or concerns in this thread. I have moved that whole conversation to the console section. If someone brings up the console version here simply report it and we will split it off to a new conversation in the console section. Console players derailing PC development conversation is for Twitter and Facebook...not the A19 development diary.

now be careful of the big beach ball flying around.... wear safety goggles.

 

[Trankitas]

Please do not discuss console issues or concerns in this thread. I have moved that whole conversation to the console section. If someone brings up the console version here simply report it and we will split it off to a new conversation in the console section. Console players derailing PC development conversation is for Twitter and Facebook...not the A19 development diary.

My bad, I've been lurking too long and now I don't know how to behave anymore.

 

[unholyjoe]

i mean we do have some zombies who have changed their appearance just for us and nobody is giving them a thumbs up... i like them so much that i almost feel bad killing them. almost but not quite

 

[dcsobral]

Hey I just tested this and can confirm, bleeding kills with barb-wire mod installed do not give XP. (I'll put this in the bug report section)

If you can find it... in fact, if you do, send me a message with the link to it! It disappeared a while ago.

 

[Guppycur]

Eating flesh is what makes them feral has always been my lore but we never had the programming staff to warrant coding it in to see it happen in real time. I always wanted in MP to see zombies become feral if they feed on your buddy.
 

You uh, can actually do that with the current buff system (Tin has done the XML, I'm working on the Unity side)... I know you don't like to talk about mods, but this fits right in... Tin has made it so that once the zombie "tastes blood" (gets a hit), it mutates into a different zombie; new walk type, stronger, etc. 

We're actually experimenting (successfully!) with showing physical changes as well.  Our proof of concept is that it grows horns, but you can have it do whatever.  Get the eye change color, hell have it grow a second head, doesn't matter. 

...all completely doable through the current buff system.  It's pretty friggin' nice.  And yes, although this is a unity video, it does this in game as well.

 

[Trankitas]

5 minutes ago, Guppycur said:

You uh, can actually do that with the current buff system (Tin has done the XML, I'm working on the Unity side)... I know you don't like to talk about mods, but this fits right in... Tin has made it so that once the zombie "tastes blood" (gets a hit), it mutates into a different zombie; new walk type, stronger, etc. 

We're actually experimenting (successfully!) with showing physical changes as well.  Our proof of concept is that it grows horns, but you can have it do whatever.  Get the eye change color, hell have it grow a second head, doesn't matter. 

...all completely doable through the current buff system.  It's pretty friggin' nice.  And yes, although this is a unity video, it does this in game as well.

DId you made that "idle animation"? It's pretty smooth

 

[Adam the Waster]

Eating flesh is what makes them feral has always been my lore but we never had the programming staff to warrant coding it in to see it happen in real time. I always wanted in MP to see zombies become feral if they feed on your buddy.

i always though that was from age, in my mind the feral wight is the End tier for zombies that went feral

say a year a zombie being feral with scars , rads and time they turn into a feral wight. and with others over time depending on who they where they turn into a different zombie.

Lean and athletic = Spider

Fat or obese = Spitter

Young kids = Screamer

super amounts of Rads, time and zombies being feral for awhile = Feral wight

 

[Xtrakicking]

If this could happen someday, that would be incredible!

Indeed! We already have an animation of zombies eating your corpse. It would be cool to find a group of zombies eating a corpse in the middle of a road, or even in POIs, and have them all be feral. Doesn't seem too hard to do.