GMOD Keeping ZS Alive

[Maruchan]

As Reaper once put it, ZS always dies because new players dont want to be z's. I feel that our ZS server, which I always try to populate, has a lot of untapped potential yet to be uncovered. Therefore, I have a few ideas that could keep ZS populated:

1. Allow new players a grace period: new players will have the one-time option to take a 3-5 round grace period where they will be exempted from being volunteered as Z.

2. Add regular tips in chat: ex. "Don't want to be volunteered? Get as far away from zombie spawns as you can!"

3. Host regularly scheduled ZE events: Our playercount tends to grow whenever someone changes the map to a ZE map, this could help boost our playercount.

4. Host server-fill events: This tends to help our other divisions a ton!

 

[Para]

YoungRiku

 

[JoeMo]

I brought up that we need to figure out a way to help new players with the steep learning curve their first few times joining. Personally I've only played ZS for about a week now, and I feel like I've been a zombie at start more often than not because I don't know the spawns. If that grace period can be a thing, it might be pretty useful. The only map I know exactly where to go to stay human is mall, simply because on server launch that was the only map working. Being a zombie with no idea how the game works, and getting continuously destroyed by the regulars as humans can easily make a person leave.

 

[CelDamage]

The initial zombie team is always something that concerned me as well. When the initial team is all new players, they tend to struggle and feel powerless. I am planning on creating a FAQ thread to help new players understand the basic functions of the game better, and I also though about adding more text notifications in game. The new player grace period is an interesting idea, but I am afraid it may complicate things too much.

As for events, we do plan on having them soon once the fearshop is implemented, since most of the prizes will be distributed through that shop.

 

[TAKA]

Maruchan Thanks for this suggestion! This is being looked into futher.

 

[YoungRiku]

Hello, Maruchan

Firstly I want to thank you and many other players from different divisions of the eGO community on populating and caring for our server it really means alot

But to address your concerns, I agree there is a major gap between the experienced and the new players which makes sense. But we have a few things to lessen it.

Fearshop/Workshops:
With the use of the fearshop we plan on holding events that will increase the knowledge of the new players and incentives will be not only getting better but also cool items from the fearshop they can receive once the event is complete. Events I have in mind are things like cading workshops to teach new players how to properly cade, zombie workshops which will teach them how to become terrifying zombies as well on how to utilize the different zombie classes, and when to go which zombie boss depending on the situation. Because the main issue with a game like zombie survival is the skill gap. You really get better by experience and wanting to get better.

Grace Period:
Im not sure if I am understanding this right but it sounds like you want new players to be exempt from getting picked as a zombie for a limited amount of time? If my assumption is correct then this serves as a two-edged sword. Lets think about it for a second, if we get new players exempt that leaves the experienced players to go zombie and from my experience if you have all the zombies on the Z team as experienced players they not only end the games super quickly, but the humans they kill will still leave because they were killed. So fixing an issue like this is easier said then done. I feel like the main issue right now is our wave system is broken but we are currently trying to fix it. Right now humans are spawning in even during wave 3 which does not make sense. Humans should not be spawning in after wave 1 for a reason. The reason being anyone else that comes in after wave 1 is automatically zombies to help the zombie team out. But right now its not the case.

Another misconception i want to clear up is this whole "zombies getting REKT wave 1 and leaving" I hate to break it to you guys but that is how wave 1 should be like. The game gets progressively harder for the humans as the waves progresses. Wave 1 is considered the easiest wave for the humans, but the hardest wave for the zombies that is just how the game is. As the wave progress it gets easier for the zombies (I swear) and once we have these workshops I will be able to explain things alot better than in this thread. Also it wouldn't make sense if zombies could just kill humans during the first 5 mins of the game because then there would be no game, which is why i dont like this grace period idea.

I feel like the main issue with people being zombie is that they do not know what they are doing. So if we teach them how to play they will be alot more comfortable going zombie. But simply just exempting them from learning how to play zombie is a bad call. Zombie gameplay is different but it can also be fun. I tend to go zombie on purpose alot because it is fun lol.

Tips/tricks:
I like the idea of having the server spit out some useful tips for human and zombie gameplay at times on the server. My old zombie survival server did that as well, so that should not be hard to implement.

Population Concerns:
I agreee, usually if mall does not get the pop going. Then ZE does the job which is why i started forcing it to ZE if im on. Especially since we now have ze minecaft, and jurassic park now. Those ZE maps are known to filll up servers quick lol. As well as getting our regulars and staff members to populate when they can. It will come to a point though where the server will self populate to ensure that happening we need to make sure players are having a good time so they can come back to the server. Which I have seen already starting to happen so im happy about that.

But I hope you found this information useful, things are being worked on and i thank you for your feedback. We will try to make it a fun experience for both new and returning players without shifting the balance of the game as best as we can.

 

[TAKA]

~Closed