[RELEASE: v1.0.1b] Zombie Master 2

[McViolent]

There was never a model created. That was just one of Mechagodzilla's concept art pieces.
*concept*
By the way, Tanner, how seriously are you taking these suggestions? I've collected a bunch of ideas from playing quite a bit of ZM, but I neither want to overwhelm you with suggestions nor take up too much of this thread.

The addition of the Whistler and the Hidden Immolator ability. If you have any ideas, feel free to suggest. Also what was the Preacher concept for?

Also, Steamworks support would be nice (ZM Stat tracking would be brilliant), but Joest is right when he says that Steam abandoned Steamworks support for mods almost entirely. The last Steamworks supported mod that was released was (I think) PVK2, and that was sometime in early-mid 2009 IIRC.

I'll look into it.

[Boler]

I like how my suggestion basically boiled down to attacks about how I play a shitty ZM.

Marphy if you're going to debate, do it on the grounds of civil arguement please, instead of, you know, trying to tell me I suck ass at the game because of the fact I'd rather micro manage multiple zombies than putting all of my eggs into one basket. Not "stare at the spawn menu all day" or whatever cock and bull story you came up with.

It really continues to amaze me just how pissy people get when they aren't able to force feed you their opinion, this is a damn game, why couldn't you just leave it at "I don't agree" instead of turning this into another one of "those" debates. If you have a different opinion, that's fine, but there is absolutly no reason to be a dick about it and quiet frankly that was absolutly uncalled for.

[Firespray]

I like how my suggestion basically boiled down to attacks about how I play a shitty ZM.

Marphy if you're going to debate, do it on the grounds of civil arguement please, instead of, you know, trying to tell me I suck ass at the game because of the fact I'd rather micro manage multiple zombies than putting all of my eggs into one basket. Not "stare at the spawn menu all day" or whatever cock and bull story you came up with.

It really continues to amaze me just how pissy people get when they aren't able to force feed you their opinion, this is a damn game, why couldn't you just leave it at "I don't agree" instead of turning this into another one of "those" debates. If you have a different opinion, that's fine, but there is absolutly no reason to be a dick about it and quiet frankly that was absolutly uncalled for.

Get over it.

[Marphy Black]

The addition of the Whistler and the Hidden Immolator ability.

I was just throwing the Hidden Immolator thing out there for the sake of argument, unless you believe it has potential to work. I haven't put a great deal of thought into it and right now it sounds just like the Hidden Shambler ability substituted with an Immolator in it, something which I know would be unbalanced.

Also what was the Preacher concept for?

I don't believe all of the publicly released concept art pieces all have a definite design idea behind them. For reference, this is all of the ZM concept art I've been able to collect over time:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/wdnwwddn0xy/ZM_Concept_Art.rar

I like how my suggestion basically boiled down to attacks about how I play a shitty ZM.

Did I say that? I don't recall such in the slightest, but if you're so insecure as to bring it up, then maybe you are a bad ZM. Just remember that I didn't introduce that idea; you did.

Anyway, your suggestion is to take a class with a very specific niche that requires a good deal of ZM intervention to succeed and awkwardly adapt him into a walking power-up for the zombies. Could the Immolator fill both roles as an ambush zombie and a mobile buff unit? Technically yes, since you aren't suggesting any loss of his current capabilities, but you're greatly cheapening his current function when you add in a very different and nearly mutually exclusive ability on top of it. Since the Immolator must die for his buff ignition to take effect, it's not really possible for one Immolator to both buff and ambush the survivors in one life. By your own admission, the Immolator costs so much that a ZM wouldn't dare stretch his resources so thin over two of the type. That leaves the ZM with two choices of how to use this zombie.

This is getting redundant, so I'll put it simply: what's the advantage of giving this buff ability to the Immolator? The idea of a separate healing zombie has been around quite literally for years which could easily accommodate your suggestion and there's now a possibility of it actually coming to fruition. Hence, why be so bogglingly averse to this idea and instead wanting to combine it with an existing class? Is it because you wish to make the Immolator a more versatile and multi-purpose class?

[-Mythic-]

I remember someone named Nacon who came around here a while back and made a pretty awesome Hulk concept and model. It wasn't released, but you could find it here: http://www.zombiemaster.org/smf/index.php?topic=9042.0

Maybe you could contact him somehow and see if he's willing to contribute to the mod in any way shape or form. Perhaps he could be a zombie modeler?

[McViolent]

I was just throwing the Hidden Immolator thing out there for the sake of argument, unless you believe it has potential to work. I haven't put a great deal of thought into it and right now it sounds just like the Hidden Shambler ability substituted with an Immolator in it, something which I know would be unbalanced.

I don't believe all of the publicly released concept art pieces all have a definite design idea behind them. For reference, this is all of the ZM concept art I've been able to collect over time: http://www.mediafire.com/file/wdnwwddn0xy/ZM_Concept_Art.rar

Thinking about it now, it may give the ZM too much of an advantage. We'll figure out something.

As for the concept art, how does everyone feel about adding some of these monsters to ZM2? And I have an idea to share with you all:

A factor that determines how much "luck" the ZM gets depending on how well he's doing by checking how many survivors are alive compared to the max amount of players in the set amount of time. For example:

• A minute into a round, the first survivor dies, time of death is recorded.
• 30 Seconds after the first death, another survivor survives. Second time of death minus the first time of death = predicted kill rate ( in seconds ).
• If the ZM doesn't kill another survivor after the predicted kill rate, the predicted kill rate will rise until another survivor is killed and the luck factor will increase. Otherwise, luck will decrease and the predicted kill rate will lower itself.

The factor can be used to determine whether the ZM gets bonuses or extra upgrades.

I remember someone named Nacon who came around here a while back and made a pretty awesome Hulk concept and model. It wasn't released, but you could find it here: http://www.zombiemaster.org/smf/index.php?topic=9042.0

Maybe you could contact him somehow and see if he's willing to contribute to the mod in any way shape or form. Perhaps he could be a zombie modeler?

I'll contact him and see what we can do.

[Bad King Urgrain]

I've created a ZM2 subforum so we can stop posting everything in one huge thread.

[McViolent]

Thanks, BKU.

[niko112112]

I would like to have more zombie types as think I have said before. Whistler and that Mortar zombie would be nice and maybe even have eight zombie type at some point but  they wouldn't be top priority. Add them when more important things are done.
Also I like that "luck factor" idea. It would make games slighly less predictable.
Also Steamworks would be excelent to have but it might be impossible to get if Valve abandonded Mod support.

[Sir. Micky Boy]

But seriously, I can't wait to see how this goes. 

[Couch Radish]

Well I did a bit of research about the whole Steamworks thing. Here's all theFAQ of Steamworks (link: http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/FAQ.php)

1. What should be my first step?

The first step is to send us a demo of your game, along with information about its release date and target price. You can email this information to steamworks@valvesoftware.com. It is also helpful to send us any information about press coverage that your game has received.

2. How far along should my game be before I send you my demo?

Your demo should be far enough along to show us what the final art and gameplay will feel like. We're happy to take a look at games in the alpha or beta stage. Having a few bugs here and there won't impact our decision.

3. How should I get you my demo

The recommended method is to put your demo up on an FTP site and send the login information to steamworks@valvesoftware.com.

4. What if I don't have a demo yet?

We always take a look at a game before we decide whether or not to sell it on Steam, so it's best to wait and contact us when your game is further along.

5. Can I send you a full, finished version of my game instead of a demo?

Yes.

6. Does Steam only accept games from major publishers, or will you take a game from an indie developer?

Your game doesn't have to come from a big name studio, as long as it's fun we'd love to see it.

7. What do you look for when accepting games for Steam?

If your game has been previously released we consider such things as year of release, reviews and review scores, previous sales, and awards. Since Steam is a worldwide platform, we also like to know what languages you support. Please let us know as much as you can in those areas. None of those are hard and fast rules, but they help us get a feel for the game.

8. Can you tell me about your pricing model, charges or splits?

We don't discuss our distribution deals publicly. Once we take a look at your game, we'll get to those details.

9. What if I'm interested in Steamworks?

To get access to the Steamworks SDK, you still need to submit a demo of your game. All of our publicly available information is located here. If you have further questions you can contact steamworks@valvesoftware.com.

10. My game is in early development stages, don't I need to plan for the SDK integration now?

The Steamworks SDK is easy to integrate, so you can wait until your game is further along in the development cycle before worrying about it.

[Bad King Urgrain]

That's not for mods, that's for commercial games (hence the talk of prices).

[Marphy Black]

I have a bunch of ideas, but for the sake of discussion, I'm only to write up one for now. Here goes:

One thing that I feel mappers have trouble with is where to place spawn points for the ZM. In order for the experience to be exciting for the survivors, the spawns must be pretty close to the critical points in the level, such as choke points. However, if a spawn is too close, then you the problem of ZMs spamming that one area and effectively bringing the game to a halt. Although it’s not the best map around, perhaps one of the best examples of this would be the hill in zm_uphill_struggle. I often see a lot of weird hacky methods that try to compensate for this issue, like disabling the Spawn Orb when the survivors hit a particular trigger or keeping the Spawn Orbs timed to only exist for a short duration. These aren't bad thing to do, but it creates a lot of inconsistent mechanics between maps that I’m sure has confused many new ZMs. Hence, in addition to the regular Spawn Orb, I propose the addition of two new types of spawns:

Limited Spawn – Limited Spawn orbs work like regular orbs, but to keep the ZM from overflowing zombies from this one spawn, it uses its own set and independent population limit. The population limit for a Limited Spawn would ideally be set rather low, maybe in the range of 5-10 (up to the mapper's discretion). For example, if the population limit was set to 5, that means the ZM has the choice of simultaneously spawning 5 Shamblers, 1 Hulk and 2 Shamblers, 2 Drifters and 1 Shambler, or whatever other combination of zombies adds up to 5 population cost. At that point, the population cap for that particular Limited Spawn has been reached and the ZM must wait for some of those particular zombies to die off  to clear the used population count. Then the ZM can spawn more zombies (still always up to 5 population count) from that specific spawn. This would allow a mapper to place a spawn very close to a chokepoint without worry that the ZM can endlessly flood the area with an impassable flow of zombies.

To differentiate Limited Spawns from other spawns, I suggest making the Limited Spawn Orb a blue color. When the population limit is hit, it changes to grey to indicate it’s inactive for the moment.

Finite Spawn – Finite Spawn orbs are similarly “limited,” but instead of reaching a population cap, Finite Spawn orbs start at a set population count and counts down until it has depleted, thus exhausting the spawn’s supply and permanently disabling it for the round. The population supply for a Finite Spawn would ideally be somewhere between a Limited Spawn and the server’s max population count, maybe in the range of 20-30 (up to the mapper's discretion). For example, if the population limit was set to 30, that means the ZM can spawn a total of 30 shamblers, 10 Hulks, or etc during the Finite Spawn’s lifetime. This would allow a mapper to place a spawn literally on top of a chokepoint without having to resort to odd hacky ways to balance it (Of course, the mapper might still want to disable the spawn if the survivors walk right under it so the ZM doesn’t just spawn on top of them). The biggest advantage here is that the ZM has complete freedom of what he can spawn, albeit bigger zombies come at a greater cost and exhaust the spawn sooner.

To differentiate Finite Spawns from the spawns, I suggest making the Limited Spawn Orb a green color.

My only concern with these two Spawn Orb types is how to easily communicate the maximum/remaining population count to the ZM. A number in the spawn menu would work, but I think it would be helpful to somehow see this number while looking at orb model itself, i.e. the ZM could see a floating "0/5" figure on a blue orb to indicate that the Limited Spawn can only sustain zombies adding up to a maximum of 5 population count at any one time. Similarly, the ZM could see a floating "30" figure on a green orb to indicate that the Finite Spawn only has 30 population count left.

Ultimately, I believe these two Spawn Orb types could allow mappers much more freedom of where to place spawns and give ZMs more open control of what zombies they’re able to create.

[MoarToast]

That's actually a really clever idea, Marphy. Having some orbs have "ammo" and individual population limits sounds like a good way to stop the age-old ZM strategy of "Spam hulks/banshees until survivors die or resources run out".

[Bad King Urgrain]

I see the point of the limited spawn, but you can't expect a ZM to keep track of which zombies come from where if he wants to have some meaningful control over a given limited spawnpoint. Even with interface support, like showing which zombies come from a spawn after selecting that spawn or something, it's an administrative task that's not fun for the ZM.

The finite spawn doesn't have that problem. Perhaps a recharging spawn could serve the same function as a limited spawn without interface headache, by having a popcost reserve, but slowly recharging it over time (regardless of zombies living/dying).

Having a little graphical meter near the orb would be a way of indicating things, or just having the orb itself deplete (Diablo health/mana style, preferably after making the orbs HUD-based rather than world models).

[Couch Radish]

The spawn thing is a problem. Don't know how we could take care of that.

Meanwhile, what do you think of my whole "voice menu" thing?

[Marphy Black]

Perhaps a recharging spawn could serve the same function as a limited spawn without interface headache, by having a popcost reserve, but slowly recharging it over time (regardless of zombies living/dying).

My intent was to provide a new type of zombie spawn that's always available (in this case, the ZM doesn't have to worry about it either appearing or disappearing during the course of the level) but cannot amass an infinite amount of zombies, hence it's more viable for the mapper to place it fairly close to critical junctions. A recharging spawn would still allow the ZM to amass an army, even if it does take some time to do so. The recharging would prevent it from becoming somewhat of stalemate as the ZM's spawning ability would eventually slow down, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the limited spawn as you could achieve the same result by putting a regular spawn orb at a more distant location, in that case the travel time for the zombies would be the inhibiting factor. With a Limited Spawn working as I described, it could greatly complement regular spawns (as I believe it should, I don't intend it for it to be overly common nor to replace the regular spawns) by giving the ZM a very nearby point for quick yet minimal (hence the low pop count) reinforcements that don't have the possibility of overwhelming the location at any time.

I realize that the inability to distinguish Limited Spawn zombies from others is an issue, but that's why I suggested that mappers should leave the population max for any Limited Spawn to be very low. The number of zombies would be so trivial that it wouldn't matter much in the big picture. If the pop count max was 5, then while you might lose track of 5 Shamblers pretty quickly among the crowd, it would only take a single glance at the Limited Spawn to see what you need to know about their status. If the orb's color is grey, then you immediately know you can't spawn any further zombies from that point and you can move on. If it's red, then you quickly check the number to see how many more zombies you could spawn. The color of that orb and that number are the only two figures you need to see to assess the situation. Whether you can identify the specific zombies that came from there isn't that important, especially if the pop count is very low as I would highly recommend mappers heed.

Of course, this would be a problem if some gormless mapper decided to set the Limited Spawn's pop count much higher and allowed a situation where they could intermingle with zombies from a normal spawn. I would consider this as an irresponsible level design decision that's beyond the control of the developers.

Meanwhile, what do you think of my whole "voice menu" thing?

Personally, I would love a voice menu system, but I see it as more of a fun feature rather than anything lifesaving. However, I would opt for more of a L4D-style voice menu that doesn't create text messages so the chat isn't cluttered with redundant notifications. I realize that this would diminish the system's usefulness, but again, I see it as more of a fun thing.

Anyway, something else to consider is that a voice menu system would require a lot of new voice acting (male and female) if you want it to be as comprehensive as you suggest. I think a more feasible method would be to simply re-purpose the existing HL2 citizen dialogue. Not quite as specific, but there's plenty that could be used in ZM. This is something to think about, at least.

[pohwelly]

How about a torch that lights zombies and after x amount of zombies or y amount of time it burns out becoming useless!

[Couch Radish]

A L4D style one would work too.

But text is good for people everywhere.

[Bad King Urgrain]

If the orb's color is grey, then you immediately know you can't spawn any further zombies from that point and you can move on. If it's red, then you quickly check the number to see how many more zombies you could spawn. The color of that orb and that number are the only two figures you need to see to assess the situation.

Yes, but my problem is not in assessing the situation, it's in doing something about it.

Scenario: limited spawn with pop 5 near a corridor. You're massing a small group of hulks somewhere nearby, so you spawn a hulk from the limited spawn as well and move it to your group. Then something happens that changes the situation, perhaps the survivors waste their molotov. Now you want to try blocking the corridor, so you want to get the max number of shamblers or drifters from that limited spawn. This means that, to free up room, the hulk you spawned there has to die... but which one was it again?

Perhaps some interface support could help, a "select zombies spawned here" kind of button. Whatever the solution, the ZM needs it if he is to switch strategies effectively.