Making a Dead World Feel Lived In

[thomaspierson]

Zombies are not people, I think we all agree on that. But what are they? Well, they’re a hazard, like a dilapidated building or a piece of thin ground covering a washed out cavern. But they also serve to obfuscate a very serious problem within the game; the lack of life.

I’m not talking about NPCs, I’m talking about any proof that the world of Navezgane was ever an actual place.

Some of this is purely graphical and will likely be addressed at a later date, but a lot of it has to do with the lack of two artifacts of the bygone age: City Buses and Trains.

On a micro scale, buses are part of the very lifeblood of the city itself. Every person on a bus has a story, good or bad, boring or fascinating. They live their lives, at least a part of them, in the public eye with others and they become fixtures.

On a macro scale, buses are essential to the running of the city. They reduce pollution and traffic congestion (not so’s you’d notice in most cities, but they do) as well as proving affordable transportation for the citizenry.

There are no buses and no bus stops in 7 Days and it makes the world feel false and robs it of some very real emotional impact. There is nothing more depressing than a deserted bus stop, except perhaps for train tracks.

Like buses, trains are part of the basic planning of any populated area. More importantly, trains are a symbol of the engine of civilization. A single light rail train can carry several bus loads of people. A single freight train car can carry two or three tractor trailer’s worth of cargo. Trains represent the infrastructure and industry of a civilization and if the world has died, they would be a constant reminder of a time when things made sense and the world was sane.

To that point there are other things that could be added to give the world a sense of being lived in. Tricycles on the lawns of houses. Teddy bears. A cup of tea sitting on a table in an abandoned house. All of these little things would add something, but on a larger level, it’s the buses and the trains I seem to be missing the most; a large proof that the world was once alive but is not so much now.

 

[Khulkhuum]

First problem i see with this is the amount of new objects that would need to be added to the game in order for it to really feel as if people were living there. Don't get me wrong, i would love to have a bajillion new items in the game, where when you search any cupboards there's a lot of kitchen objects (different knives, spoons, bowls, pots, etc.), clothes, regular tools (screwdrivers, pliers, batteries), games, books or simple day to day items that were left behind.

I see how Project Zomboid has a lot of these items, though on the other hand many are simply not important or not useful. Recently started playing the game and it really feels as people lived in that world. On the other hand, i am not able to gather everything and store in a safehouse (or not yet advanced to do such a thing). It is different to what 7DTD show, a practically empty world, devoid of life, with just a few scattered items here and there, as if someone already looted most of it in a hurry. If i want, i would be able to gather everything no matter what POI someone would bestow before me, even dismantle furniture and appliances.

Second problem i see is the amount of randomisation. Sure, you can add bus stops, train stations, airports (THAT would be cool to loot), but you have to fit it into not only planned maps like Navezgane (and any other future maps that will be created), but also RWG maps, which i think poses the real challenge. Of course, it is possible to do such things, but surely it requires time for RWG and planned maps look good.

This year we're planning to go to Beta, so i don't know if among so many features still in the works we'll see something like that, unless TFP will do some big cleanup and allow adding many new items to the mix.

 

[apostrophe]

You have certainly played Fallout 3 onwards. Bethesda (and Obsidian for FNV) do a great job at blowing life at the apocalypse through precise item placement (a skeleton in a bathtub surrounded with siringes; a little skeleton under the bed with a teddy bear nearby etc).

But like above has said, this minutiae would be amazingly hard to implement here, plus adding a ton of new items would also add clutter to manage only to be individually scrapped for resources.

Fallout 76, like 7DTD, is a game without NPCs (except for the occasional vendor), but signs of life can be found here and there, carefully planted by the developers, but the game, as I've read in reviews, makes you feel awful lonely most of the time, as the map is huge and finding players can be rare. That's the compromise in throwing NPCs, dialogues, character arcs and such out of the window.

I think NPCs are on the roadmap of the devs. Maybe then Navezgane will have more liveness to it.

 

[Khulkhuum]

You have certainly played Fallout 3 onwards. Bethesda (and Obsidian for FNV) do a great job at blowing life at the apocalypse through precise item placement (a skeleton in a bathtub surrounded with siringes; a little skeleton under the bed with a teddy bear nearby etc).
But like above has said, this minutiae would be amazingly hard to implement here, plus adding a ton of new items would also add clutter to manage only to be individually scrapped for resources.

Fallout 76, like 7DTD, is a game without NPCs (except for the occasional vendor), but signs of life can be found here and there, carefully planted by the developers, but the game, as I've read in reviews, makes you feel awful lonely most of the time, as the map is huge and finding players can be rare. That's the compromise in throwing NPCs, dialogues, character arcs and such out of the window.

I think NPCs are on the roadmap of the devs. Maybe then Navezgane will have more liveness to it.

I think there are many ways to show that the game is lively. Having NPCs is one idea, having a lot of items placed is another. Having good stories told through some means is even another resolution (last moments of other survivors, tales of fighting Zs, diaries of people before the apocalypes, etc.).

It would best if all of the above were implemented, but any of the above require time and planning to make it really interesting.

 

[apostrophe]

Yes, I forgot about diaries, be them written or recorded. These could be implemented in Navezgane, with the proper storywriting attitude and spare man-hours.

Hey the devs could make ask here for suggestions for them, or a contest of the best written/recorded diary entries.

Something else: one thing youtuber MrBTongue asks when thinking of a well-realized game world is "what do they eat?" (

). I know farms and the like have crops nearby, but what about small towns, do they also have distinguishable suppliers?, and if so where are these loaded?, and so and so. This sort of logistics is very interesting to notice while rampaging through town.

 

[Khulkhuum]

Some of your concerns can be cured with abundance of new items. This would need a lot of creativity to manage everything and put things in proper places, but also make up new POIs that would combine things together.

Stories would be great to see, although i don't know if 7DTD has the framework to do this. Surely you can have items with some descriptions, but that gives the problem of MANY "books" and "diaries" with records of past life. At some point it would be too many to comprehend, unless there would be a new framework for books to have assigned random "story" from a list - and this requires time to implement.

I agree that community could think up some very good stories that the devs could use.

 

[apostrophe]

Stories would be great to see, although i don't know if 7DTD has the framework to do this. Surely you can have items with some descriptions, but that gives the problem of MANY "books" and "diaries" with records of past life. At some point it would be too many to comprehend, unless there would be a new framework for books to have assigned random "story" from a list - and this requires time to implement.

hmm, if the diary/note/letter wouldn't be a pickupable item, but only usable, it wouldn't be a fuss in the inventory. The text would jump onto the screen, a la Skyrim.

Now, I think if these stories referenced places in Navezgane - I'm purposefully ignoring RWG - they could be connected to create a web of meaningful narratives.

Say, in trader Rekt's kitchen you find a crumpled letter in the trash bin, full of typos, written to someone in Gravestown (biggest town in the county). It is directed to his sweetheart, a bartender woman in a bar he met inbetween supply runs, who probably died a long time ago when the bombs dropped. Then in Gravestown, in the said bar, you'd find her diary, in which would contain a line or two about the grizzly, harsh man he met someday.

You know, this sort of thing.