Official Thread for ZE Server Ideas

**lin3ar** · Oct 23 2012, 08:25 PM

http://war-lords.net/threads/zombie-escape.3560/

http://war-lords.net/threads/zombie-esca...list.3770/

http://war-lords.net/threads/zombie-escape-server.6721/

http://war-lords.net/threads/u-we-should...rver.6681/

http://war-lords.net/threads/survey-zomb...bers.7041/

As you all know, the idea of a ZE server has been floating around for a while. Currently, perhaps due to inactivity and lack of time on the part of the roots, the idea seems to not have been put to work lately. If enough interest and approval is generated in setting up the ZE server, the roots say they'll begin to work on it. For now, let's archive all ZE idea into this thread so that it remains in full view on the front page of the section.

Here are my suggestions for a ZE server. If anyone else has suggestions, please feel free to post them.

1. RPG Mod

How will this work? The mod will be something along the lines of:

- gaining experience per zombie kill or human infection (zombie kills should have twice or three times the experience rewarded than a human infection due to the difference in difficulty)
- experience gained goes towards a level system, for example, there are 200 levels from 1-200
- each level gained rewards you with a skill point that can be spent on improving attributes such as
* increased health
* increased jump height (might require some delicate tweaking or elimination altogether because of the setup of some maps)
* increased bullet damage
* increased grenade damage
* increased maximum armor

You might be thinking "RPG Mod is too cumbersome for gameplay - it makes things too complicated!" Actually, that slight complexity is actually a good thing for ZM/ZE. I've played and admin'd for a ZM/ZE community long before joining wL and the RPG mod worked perfectly - it ensured that there was incentive to continue playing in order to gain ingame benefits and was a hit with the player base. From my experiences, nonsteam players especially love the RPG Mod and most ZM/ZE servers do not run it. Since we are a both steam/nonsteam community, we could use this to our advantage to gain traffic.

2. Custom human player models

http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7...d90e447e06 (Yes Sako, we haven't forgotten about you)

These are just a few examples of the variety that custom models provide to gameplay. Again, from my experiences in a steam/nonsteam (before it permanently transitioned to nonsteam) community, customs models are always popular with players, especially nonsteam players, as long as download time is manageable. Who wants to just see those plain old models all the time in a mod like ZE? With so many custom models out there, we can rotate in new models every one or two months to keep things fresh and interesting and at the same time not have too many models on at once. Additionally, we can encourage community participation by having people vote suggestions for which models to rotate in and out.

Now, here's where my suggestion takes a radical turn - I propose dividing models into public and private. Public models are open for all players to use while private models are only available for admins and donors.

Before I get flamed to death for proposing that wL accept donations, hear me out. By keeping some of the more "desirable" models exclusive, we encourage people to contribute to the community by being an active member and possibly contributing monetary support. It's a subtle way to expand the membership of wL while keeping gameplay balanced. You'd be surprised at how many people are willing to donate $5 or $10 or more just to use custom models. In fact, I have already proposed giving donor benefits across all wL servers that grants the ability to buy the opposite team's weapons, extra /ab per half, reserved slot, possible automatic teamswitch on command, possibly a custom model (that does not deviate too far from the regular CS:S models), etc. There are certainly ways to implement donor benefits as an incentive for people to get involved and contribute in the community without compromising fairness. Admin applications, as always, will not be reviewed on the basis of donations.

3. More zombie classes/races

The average ZE/ZM servers run around 4 zombie classes, usually the same models across all servers with the same stats. This, as you all know, may become boring after hours and hours of playing. Since we have custom human models with RPG Mod (which also affects zombies), it only makes sense to have more zombie classes/races to choose from, giving players access to a greater variety of zombie models and stats.

By stats, I am referring to health, speed, jump height, knockback resistance, and health regeneration. Each zombie model/class/race should have a different value for those stats as to promote variety and strategic use of certain models on some maps.

Zombie models can possibly be subject to division or public/private ones, though that may not be necessary as most people prefer human models.

Here are some examples of zombie models that we can use aside from the normally used ones:

http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3...d90e447e06

4. Buymenu anytime, anywhere

Before I go on, I suggest that the starting cash every round is $10,000.

Having unlimited ammo on ZE is generally a terrible idea for most maps unless you dramatically scale up zombie health and attributes. As such, humans should have 900 rounds in each gun, but must reload after each clip. However, sometimes, in a map, you may want to switch out guns because another gun might be better, you are bored with your current one, etc. A universal buy menu is the solution, but there's a catch. All guns will cost at least 1.5x as much as their original price. The scaling should be determined by the general usefulness of certain types of guns in ZE. For example, AWP price should remain generally the same due to their general uselessness on ZE while SMGs should be inflated to 2-4x their original price due to the popularity of SMGs in ZE. Armor should also be for sale for twice the original price. An additional option would be to buy extra health as a zombie (for example, +1000 health for $7500)

Also enable the option to buy grenades. Grenades are a critical part in ZE since (assuming we run the Napalm Grenade mod like every ZE/ZM does) they are used to temporarily slow the zombie advance. Because grenades are so useful, make their price prohibitively expensive, such as $5000 for a grenade via the universal buymenu.

Here's where donor benefits come in again. Donors should receive a 33% discount on all items in the buymenu. Assuming donors have to buy up at the beginning of a round, the discount should only amount to the difference of 1 grenade, which should not imbalance gameplay too much, since you also have to take into account players turning into zombies upon spawn.

A bounty system might complement the buymenu nicely, as the buymenu's items are very expensive.

NoBoss · Oct 23 2012, 10:03 PM

Would really love to see a zombie escape server! I would play it alot. Models look nice, think it should be traded with that pistol server no one ever plays in.

i cri everytiem · Oct 23 2012, 10:08 PM

NoBoss, post: 78026, member: 11847 Wrote:Would really love to see a zombie escape server! I would play it alot. Models look nice, think it should be traded with that pistol server no one ever plays in.

Or just get one of the CS:GO ones.. Check here: http://sourcebans.war-lords.net/index.php?p=servers

And then, as I asked Bison in game another day "Pistols = Iceworld DM" or an US server!

NoBoss · Oct 23 2012, 10:49 PM

DK, post: 78027, member: 3039 Wrote:Or just get one of the CS:GO ones.. Check here: http://sourcebans.war-lords.net/index.php?p=servers

And then, as I asked Bison in game another day "Pistols = Iceworld DM" or an US server!

considering not many people play cs:goI dont think it would get populated.. only a few servers on csgo have really been successful

**lin3ar** · Oct 24 2012, 05:15 PM

Update: ZE server is up for ongoing testing.

10/24:
- 45 maps added (a few will need full testing due to lack of feedback from other communities)
- Admin added
- !block added
- Anti-cheat added
- various small gameplay/server tweaks and updates

10/25: (in progress)
- Uploading human and zombie models
- Adjusting zombie classes
------------------------------------------------
ZE server will be going into testing phase later today hopefully.
ZE will remain on CS:S seeing how CS:GO's ZE is not as developed and nowhere near as popular. Additionally, the vast majority of the nonsteam community is on CS:S

Stay tuned for more information to come on the status of the server. While I will be updating this thread with the mods we plan to test and implement, please feel free to post your own suggestions

Double post

Suggestions update on a mod that we plan to test and implement:

5. Powerups

Time to change up gameplay and make things a bit more interesting. Are you the top fragger on the server but feel like your score doesn't really mean anything? Do you feel that your efforts should be rewarded? Well, there's powerups for you. How will powerups work you say?

The tentative setup is to have human kills on zombies be worth 3 kills and zombie infections on humans be worth 1 kill. Each kill, as displayed on the scoreboard, will award you with one "boost point." If you kill yourself (deaths by map environment are not included), your points are reset to 0. If you fail to get a kill past your second consecutive death, you lose 1 point for each following death that you get without a kill. Winning the round as a human awards every human alive 5 points. You can then spend these points on temporary powerups that will last for the duration of the round. Powerups can stack if you have sufficient points to purchase several at the same time. Examples of these powerups include:

- trade a point for $1000
- increase your current health as a human by 2x, 1.5x as a zombie
- increase your current armor by 2x
- increase your bullet damage by 2x (human only)
- increase your knife damage by 10x (human only)
- gain 20% more speed for humans, 10% more speed for zombies
- gain 20% higher jump for humans, 10% more jump for zombies
- gain 20% knockback resistance (zombie only)
- 50% invisibility
- 10 hp regeneration every 3 seconds as human, 200 hp regeneration every 3 seconds as zombie (stacks with innate zombie regeneration)
- place a C4 that can be remotely detonated to damage zombies in a set radius (human only)
- knife hits will result in a one hit kill on zombies? (not sure if this can be coded in) (human only)
- deagle that has only one bullet but will kill any zombie in one hit? (not sure if this can be coded in) (human only)
- carry 2/4/6 grenades at once? (not sure if this can be coded in) (human only)
- immobilize target player for 3s? (not sure if this can be coded in)
- invulnerable to all damage (zombies can still be knockbacked), including zombie infection, for 5 seconds
- gain unlimited ammo (human only)
- bullets explode on impact? (not sure if this can be coded in) (human only)
and more to come pending suggestions and testing.

All powerups and values are not finally determined until further discussion with the roots and testing is done to verify balance. Obviously, the stronger the powerup is, the more points it will require to purchase. The highest end powerups may not be possible to achieve in the duration of one, two, or even three maps if you do not get many kills.

The one potential issue with this mod is the existence of score multipliers in certain maps such as [SIZE=12px]z[/SIZE][SIZE=12px]e_FFVII_mako_reactor, [/SIZE][SIZE=12px]ze_predator_ultimate, and especially [/SIZE][SIZE=12px]ze_LOTR_Minas_Tirith. Tentatively, I say we disable powerups altogether on maps with score multipliers unless Bison finds a way to isolate actual kills from "artificial" kills rewarded from winning a round in those maps.[/SIZE]

Syoudous · Oct 30 2012, 03:56 AM

As a frequent ZE player myself, I'd love to see this happening! I would like to help by joining in tests and throwing suggestions for the server.

**lin3ar** · Oct 30 2012, 03:59 AM

Syoudous, post: 78538, member: 15391 Wrote:As a frequent ZE player myself, I'd love to see this happening! I would like to help by joining in tests and throwing suggestions for the server.

Great! Having someone with experience in ZE who wants to assist with testing would be helpful. Big Grin

mar_heave · Dec 09 2012, 09:57 AM

Well, I have ever played zombie escape in plaguefest, but last year I couldn't enter the server again, so yeah. I'm really waiting for the ze server, so excited to see it.
I'll look through these suggestions and give some red marks on them.

lin3ar, post: 78015, member: 795 Wrote:http://war-lords.net/threads/zombie-escape.3560/
1. RPG Mod

How will this work? The mod will be something along the lines of:

- gaining experience per zombie kill or human infection (zombie kills should have twice or three times the experience rewarded than a human infection due to the difference in difficulty)
- experience gained goes towards a level system, for example, there are 200 levels from 1-200 Nice idea
- each level gained rewards you with a skill point that can be spent on improving attributes such as
* increased health
* increased jump height (might require some delicate tweaking or elimination altogether because of the setup of some maps) Won't go along in most maps, especially at holding points. Zombies can reach more places, as well as humans(then he's uninfectable).
* increased bullet damage Since bosses take damage from number of shots (I assume), this one is ok.
* increased grenade damage If this doesn't interrupt boss damaging system like Bahamuth, ok.
* increased maximum armor

You might be thinking "RPG Mod is too cumbersome for gameplay - it makes things too complicated!" Actually, that slight complexity is actually a good thing for ZM/ZE. I've played and admin'd for a ZM/ZE community long before joining wL and the RPG mod worked perfectly - it ensured that there was incentive to continue playing in order to gain ingame benefits and was a hit with the player base. From my experiences, nonsteam players especially love the RPG Mod and most ZM/ZE servers do not run it. Since we are a both steam/nonsteam community, we could use this to our advantage to gain traffic. Nice essay.

Quote:2. Custom human player models
My personal ideas : Seasonal human models (Like a Leet wearing a Santa hat or so)

Now, here's where my suggestion takes a radical turn - I propose dividing models into public and private. Public models are open for all players to use while private models are only available for admins and donors. Fair enough.

3. More zombie classes/races

The average ZE/ZM servers run around 4 zombie classes, usually the same models across all servers with the same stats. This, as you all know, may become boring after hours and hours of playing. Since we have custom human models with RPG Mod (which also affects zombies), it only makes sense to have more zombie classes/races to choose from, giving players access to a greater variety of zombie models and stats.

By stats, I am referring to health, speed, jump height, knockback resistance, and health regeneration. Each zombie model/class/race should have a different value for those stats as to promote variety and strategic use of certain models on some maps. You might also like to add Hitbox, I'll explain it down there.

Zombie models can possibly be subject to division or public/private ones, though that may not be necessary as most people prefer human models.

Here are some examples of zombie models that we can use aside from the normally used ones:

http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3...d90e447e06
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3...d90e447e06
As long as it's not CSO zombies, fine. But I prefer HL2 zombies as well. (And maybe Black Mesa)

Now, talking about classes, I know that we will have a slow zombie with less knockback, right? But anyway, if you wanna put a fast zombie class, I'm sure it's not the one in our ZM server.

My personal suggestions : the fast zombie is more like in plaguefest, not way too fast. And there's a Half zombie which walks using his arms, his hitbox is more like the half of normal zombie's, if you're unsure ask plaguefest.

Quote:4. Buymenu anytime, anywhere

Before I go on, I suggest that the starting cash every round is $10,000. Pretty fair enough.

Having unlimited ammo on ZE is generally a terrible idea Of course for most maps unless you dramatically scale up zombie health and attributes. As such, humans should have 900 rounds in each gun, but must reload after each clip. However, sometimes, in a map, you may want to switch out guns because another gun might be better, you are bored with your current one, etc. A universal buy menu is the solution, but there's a catch. All guns will cost at least 1.5x as much as their original price. The scaling should be determined by the general usefulness of certain types of guns in ZE. For example, AWP price should remain generally the same due to their general uselessness on ZE while SMGs should be inflated to 2-4x their original price due to the popularity of SMGs in ZE. Great idea. Armor should also be for sale for twice the original price. An additional option would be to buy extra health as a zombie (for example, +1000 health for $7500)

Also enable the option to buy grenades. Grenades are a critical part in ZE since (assuming we run the Napalm Grenade mod like every ZE/ZM does) they are used to temporarily slow the zombie advance. Because grenades are so useful, make their price prohibitively expensive, such as $5000 for a grenade via the universal buymenu. This one is generally a terrible idea. Firstly, learn to save grenades, that's important because they're used to slow enemies down. Second, some bosses like Bahamuth take a lot of damage from grenades, and that's the key of winning. If we can just buy grenades, what would the boss fight, and also teamwork mean?

Here's where donor benefits come in again. Donors should receive a 33% discount on all items in the buymenu. Assuming donors have to buy up at the beginning of a round, the discount should only amount to the difference of 1 grenade, which should not imbalance gameplay too much, since you also have to take into account players turning into zombies upon spawn.

A bounty system might complement the buymenu nicely, as the buymenu's items are very expensive.

lin3ar, post: 78078, member: 795 Wrote:Update: ZE server is up for ongoing testing. Good.

10/24:
- 45 maps added (a few will need full testing due to lack of feedback from other communities)
- Admin added
- !block added
- Anti-cheat added
- various small gameplay/server tweaks and updates

10/25: (in progress)
- Uploading human and zombie models
- Adjusting zombie classes
------------------------------------------------
ZE server will be going into testing phase later today hopefully.
ZE will remain on CS:S seeing how CS:GO's ZE is not as developed and nowhere near as popular. Additionally, the vast majority of the nonsteam community is on CS:S

Stay tuned for more information to come on the status of the server. While I will be updating this thread with the mods we plan to test and implement, please feel free to post your own suggestions

Double post

Suggestions update on a mod that we plan to test and implement:

5. Powerups

Time to change up gameplay and make things a bit more interesting. Are you the top fragger on the server but feel like your score doesn't really mean anything? Do you feel that your efforts should be rewarded? Well, there's powerups for you. How will powerups work you say?

The tentative setup is to have human kills on zombies be worth 3 kills too small I say and zombie infections on humans be worth 1 kill. Each kill, as displayed on the scoreboard, will award you with one "boost point." If you kill yourself (deaths by map environment are not included), your points are reset to 0. If you fail to get a kill past your second consecutive death, you lose 1 point for each following death that you get without a kill. Winning the round as a human awards every human alive 5 points. You can then spend these points on temporary powerups that will last for the duration of the round. Powerups can stack if you have sufficient points to purchase several at the same time. Examples of these powerups include:

- trade a point for $1000 But you can't buy points with a thousand bucks right?
- increase your current health as a human by 2x, 1.5x as a zombie
- increase your current armor by 2x
- increase your bullet damage by 2x (human only) As I said before, as long as it doesn't interrupt boss system and other breakables.
- increase your knife damage by 10x (human only) Chuck Norris!
- gain 20% more speed for humans, 10% more speed for zombies What? No. The human could escape easier, and the same rational thing applies for the zombies.
- gain 20% higher jump for humans, 10% more jump for zombies As I said before, it would open more possibilities.
- gain 20% knockback resistance (zombie only) Pretty fair enough for a high price.
- 50% invisibility Mini-Predator? No.
- 10 hp regeneration every 3 seconds as human, 200 hp regeneration every 3 seconds as zombie (stacks with innate zombie regeneration)
- place a C4 that can be remotely detonated to damage zombies in a set radius (human only) Wow, Overpowered players.
- knife hits will result in a one hit kill on zombies? (not sure if this can be coded in) (human only) Haha, another overpowered Chuck Norris.
- deagle that has only one bullet but will kill any zombie in one hit? (not sure if this can be coded in) (ONE human only)
- carry 2/4/6 grenades at once? (not sure if this can be coded in) (human only) Told ya.
- immobilize target player for 3s? (not sure if this can be coded in) That would suck. The almost-winning survivor would cry.
- invulnerable to all damage (zombies can still be knockbacked), including zombie infection, for 5 seconds Sometimes the infection immune is not a good idea, as sometimes the difference between win and lose is less than 5 secs.
- gain unlimited ammo (human only) Haha. No.
- bullets explode on impact? (not sure if this can be coded in) (human only) It might turn to be a cheap game.
and more to come pending suggestions and testing.

All powerups and values are not finally determined until further discussion with the roots and testing is done to verify balance. Of course. Obviously, the stronger the powerup is, the more points it will require to purchase.It's not always like that. If it's overpowered, no. And please don't make it get points to win.The highest end powerups may not be possible to achieve in the duration of one, two, or even three maps if you do not get many kills. So this powerup thing would encourage players to play more right?

The one potential issue with this mod is the existence of score multipliers in certain maps such as [SIZE=12px]z[/SIZE][SIZE=12px]e_FFVII_mako_reactor, [/SIZE][SIZE=12px]ze_predator_ultimate, and especially [/SIZE][SIZE=12px]ze_LOTR_Minas_Tirith [/SIZE][SIZE=12px]And also Helms Deep[/SIZE][SIZE=12px].Tentatively, I say we disable powerups altogether on maps with score multipliers unless Bison finds a way to isolate actual kills from "artificial" kills rewarded from winning a round in those maps. Might be something like in-game mod, just like the teleporter in mg_bobiii.[/SIZE]

Some of the models we have been testing:

http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1...a77b37d59d
http://s-low.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1...a77b37d59d
Not shown: Witch from Left for Dead
Please don't put silver alien thingy and CSO skins.
For the headcrab I would recommend you the Black Mesa one.

And, if you're looking for great models, I have this community called Mapeadores. I got it from Hannibal's blog. You could search some or make a request. Simple as that.

Specific link : http://mapeadores.com/categorias/modelos-models.33/
Zombie : http://mapeadores.com/foros/monstruos-y-...d-zombies/

Too much assumption IMO. Just say you're sure with them.
And, would you please update the activities again? 's been 1 month since your last report. But anyway thanks a lot.

**lin3ar** · Dec 09 2012, 12:19 PM

It's currently on hold now. I might get back to finishing up the models after finals and during my winter break. The servers are technically playable once the models are done.

mar_heave · Dec 09 2012, 12:27 PM

fair enough. Been waiting since its first planning(september 2011)