Horror Zombie Roleplay (WIP Topic)

[IkeTheGeneric]

So this is just a sneak peek of the early build for a project I've been working on, and this topic will eventually become a general development topic for all the intents and purposes.

The gist of it is that I want to make an atmospheric horror sever. By "atmospheric", I mean that a lot of the thrill comes from subtlety, environment magic and sound design. My thinking is that there really hasn't been enough servers in blockland that relied more on subtle design choices to give the player a different experience. I hope to make it also a sort of survival / roleplay mix where you can either form groups with other players or play more like a bandit-y player, maybe throw in some citybuilding stuff too down the line, but not delving too deep into the rabbit hole that is RPG mechanics. The point of this server will be partly to experiment with the idea of a horror server in blockland, while giving the players something to do other than be on a rollercoaster of spooky thrills. The other big point is that I want to get some experience designing some sort of horror game, even if it is a smaller project.

So yeah, the two main points with this topic right now is I want to gather some thoughts and feedback on what you think would help add to the server, or you could contribute some buildings and props if you wanna get a head-start on making your group HQ or a gang base 'n whatnot.

Right now, I'm nearly done with the planning process, and once I gather together my scattered thoughts, I'll post a pretty broad lore of the server, what kind of things to expect and maybe a kind of character sheet if I really want to get organized.

I hope to make the spooky horrors more subtle and harder to notice, stuff that should dawn on the player over time instead of being shown up front. A server's players aren't idiots, so giving them the proper details to work with and enough time to drop small hints and nudges, they could figure things out on their own.


The problem is trying to make zombies threatening. If players can dispatch a couple hundred zombies with a lead pipe then they're really not perceived as a threat. If ten zombies can take down an entire group of people easily, and with the threat of losing guns which will be a finite amount around the map, it might force players to be more cautious around zombies.

The idea is that no matter what, everyone is going to die and be a zombie at some point. The theme I want to beat into the survivor's heads is that survival is ultimately a futile effort and they're pretty much doomed from the get-go. As time progresses, resources will be spread thin and people will be going slowly insane as the disrepair of the world around them wears on their psyche. For added depth, I'll be letting the main survivor group be entirely run by non-admins, that way the leader(s) have no clue how events are going to unfold and it allows for mistakes to be made. Makes for better roleplay that way :v

I also had an idea of what I could do to keep players occupied since standing around in your survivor camp gets boring if there's really not much to do. A real survival camp in a zombie apocalypse would require constant maintenance, so I could set it up so there would always be a barricade to repair, or a pipe leaking, or even sometimes a fire possibly. If the survivors neglect the issues that pop up, their camp safety number would go down, and if it gets too low, then stuff like barricades breaking or generators going out could happen.

edit: Oh yeah and the setting for the server will be the scifi-ish late 70s. Expect stuff to be wacky right off the bat.

Here's a quick rundown on what your character should know:

Location
The location is in the town called Rorickson Hill, Alberta Canada. A small town near Fort McMurray. The community isn't very tight-knit and a lot of people live scattered around the countryside rather than in town. Here's some info on the town in it's current state:

+ Most of the power is cut off
+ Running water has been cut off
+ Emergency services aren't available
+ Internet connection is gone
+ Major highways are shut down


The Virus
What is mostly known about the virus is simply summed up in these points:
+ Mostly everyone is infected, they just haven't died and turned.
+ Sometimes those who get bitten don't turn. It isn't determined why.
+ The virus attacks your brain cells. Some people have brain damage.
+ The virus can be cured, the brain damage cannot be.
+ It's estimated that 41.8% of the population has died, and roughly 88% of the survivng population is infected.
+ The virus is believed to have originated from dairy products.
+ Some people are immune to the virus, but a corrolation has not been  discovered.


Setting
The server begins in October 15th, 1977. It's been a slow, quiet year up until the outbreak.


Character Sheet:
This is all the information required for your character. This will be stored for later use.

First Name:
Last Name:
Age: (>14)
love: (M/F)
Skin color:
Height: (Average height is around 5'8")
Background: (What job/career your character had)
Bloodtype:
Avatar: (An image of your avatar. The server will be using hatmod.)
Is Infected: (Y/N)
Miscellaneous: (For any additional info, not required)

[Ad Bot]

[Lego lad]

is this the zombie server you were telling me about some time ago when i asked you to host your slate city zombies again

[IkeTheGeneric]

is this the zombie server you were telling me about some time ago when i asked you to host your slate city zombies again

yep!

[Swat 3]

i am co-waifu

[DerpDerp]

The zombies look very cool! No pun intended

[(minecraft)]

I wanna test

[Kniaz]

Looks like a good start, but where's the spooky horrors?
I think most people are desensitised to zombies nowadays.

[IkeTheGeneric]

Looks like a good start, but where's the spooky horrors?

I hope to make the spooky horrors more subtle and harder to notice, stuff that should dawn on the player over time instead of being shown up front. A server's players aren't idiots, so giving them the proper details to work with and enough time to drop small hints and nudges, they could figure things out on their own.

I think most people are desensitised to zombies nowadays.

The problem is trying to make zombies threatening. If players can dispatch a couple hundred zombies with a lead pipe then they're really not perceived as a threat. If ten zombies can take down an entire group of people easily, and with the threat of losing guns which will be a finite amount around the map, it might force players to be more cautious around zombies.

The idea is that no matter what, everyone is going to die and be a zombie at some point. The theme I want to beat into the survivor's heads is that survival is ultimately a futile effort and they're pretty much doomed from the get-go. As time progresses, resources will be spread thin and people will be going slowly insane as the disrepair of the world around them wears on their psyche. For added depth, I'll be letting the main survivor group be entirely run by non-admins, that way the leader(s) have no clue how events are going to unfold and it allows for mistakes to be made. Makes for better roleplay that way :v

I also had an idea of what I could do to keep players occupied since standing around in your survivor camp gets boring if there's really not much to do. A real survival camp in a zombie apocalypse would require constant maintenance, so I could set it up so there would always be a barricade to repair, or a pipe leaking, or even sometimes a fire possibly. If the survivors neglect the issues that pop up, their camp safety number would go down, and if it gets too low, then stuff like barricades breaking or generators going out could happen.

edit: Oh yeah and the setting for the server will be the scifi-ish late 70s. Expect stuff to be wacky right off the bat.

[AutoBahn]

Sounds like a really neat idea.
I'm looking forward to this!

[IkeTheGeneric]

Woo here's an update!

Here's a quick rundown on what your character should know:

Location
The location is in the town called Rorickson Hill, Alberta Canada. A small town near Fort McMurray. The community isn't very tight-knit and a lot of people live scattered around the countryside rather than in town. Here's some info on the town in it's current state:

+ Most of the power is cut off
+ Running water has been cut off
+ Emergency services aren't available
+ Internet connection is gone
+ Major highways are shut down


The Virus
What is mostly known about the virus is simply summed up in these points:
+ Mostly everyone is infected, they just haven't died and turned.
+ Sometimes those who get bitten don't turn. It isn't determined why.
+ The virus attacks your brain cells. Some people have brain damage.
+ The virus can be cured, the brain damage cannot be.
+ It's estimated that 41.8% of the population has died, and roughly 88% of the survivng population is infected.
+ The virus is believed to have originated from dairy products.
+ Some people are immune to the virus, but a corrolation has not been  discovered.


Setting
The server begins in October 15th, 1977. It's been a slow, quiet year up until the outbreak.


Character Sheet:
This is all the information required for your character. This will be stored for later use.

First Name:
Last Name:
Age: (>14)
love: (M/F)
Skin color:
Height: (Average height is around 5'8")
Background: (What job/career your character had)
Bloodtype:
Avatar: (An image of your avatar. The server will be using hatmod.)
Is Infected: (Y/N)
Miscellaneous: (For any additional info, not required)

[Swat 3]

To clarify the 14 years or older rule, you need to understand that 14 years old is usually when people are actually able to take care of themselves and properly be able to handle killing people who are trying to kill them (zombies and bandits). You have to recognize that if you are 9 years old you aren't going to be running around alone being a bad ass. Ike and I recall that both Bluzone and Winterbite had those cases where kids and children are always made out to be special or have some very good qualities. We hardly see any people being able to realistically roleplay as an average 11 year old.

I am going to vouch for exceptions for this rule if I trust that you won't forget it up. Besides, I doubt anyone would want a child as their primary character.

Also, might I add, children and pre-teens are more susceptible to the virus. Most children in infected areas would have either turned or have had major brain damage (rendering them brain dead) because their brains are smaller and more under developed than people who are in the onslaught of puberty or those who have finished. Also, their immune systems usually suck balls and would be crushed by this virus that multiplies a little bit faster than influenza [meta].

[IkeTheGeneric]

To add to the above post, dependent characters become more of a target than anything. Children who are viewed as useless might be executed by whoever is chosen to lead the group, since the admins won't have any say in it.

I trust that you people will make the right decision when the time comes.

[Obliviongate20]

a few problems i had with winterbite was wandering around for ages to not see a single person and walking around in a horrendously laggy area because of the bots, which would also just kind of float around making them threatening only because they'd just be half across the area hitting you and be practically impossible to attack

please tell me you've tried having like 10 ~ 20 zombies in a close area and made a way to check your area and see other areas

[IkeTheGeneric]

please tell me you've tried having like 10 ~ 20 zombies in a close area and made a way to check your area and see other areas

I'm going to keep up with the segmented maps for the sake of lower end computers, and it would make it so zombies won't spawn in areas without any players for players sakes

But no, there will usually never be a large amount of zombies in one area unless there's an event going on.

[EnjoyedBen2002]

A tip on making zombies threatening is to make a "rage" system, if a zombie spots a player, it will lumber towards it, but if it gets shot, it will start barreling towards it. also make the zombies have 1.5-3 times as much health as blockheads, and make zombies infect players when they kill.