Simply put, I'd like to see zombies changed from random mass spawns to a more structured system. Right now, the spawning system is just too...rapid and annoying at times. Perhaps change it so that the zombie horde could move in patterns to make the game more like Dawn of the Dead of something, where zombies wander the streets until they locate people to attack.

Benefits:

Would provide for a more horror movie scenario. While the game is fun, it seems crappy that when you finally clear an area, fifteen seconds later it is filled with the walking dead again. Make it so that all zombies start in set areas (say a huge abandoned building in the map, or a corpse pile) and move around in patterns until they discover players, which they begin to mob.

Also, since this would probably limit the amount of zombies on the map, an easy and story driven fix could be put in. When the objective calls for a certain amount of zombies to be killed, cause the objective to trigger a special mass spawn point until it is finished. For example, the marines tell you to stem the flow of walking dead to a certain area, or perhaps to clear out a section to allow troop movement.

Perhaps not a great suggestion, but it would definately make the game better, at least in my opinion.

The zombies are set to respawn when the previous zombies have died. There's a max ammount of zombies allowed on a map at a given time to prevent lag, and when some undead die new ones replace.
A periodic system, say zombies spawn only each ten or twenty secs could be an improvement.

That works too. My suggestion still stands, but spacing out the spawns more would help a lot too.

you kidding? when servers get 8-12 people on, there are not enough zombies! specially in small ones like slaywatch

dunno, I kinda like the spawning in the middle of nowhere, theres nothing like quite running around in a deserted area knowing that a zombie could spawn behind me any second and grab me

at the end of the day though, it pretty much boils down to where the level designer places the spawns

Maybe you could use what I like to call Hive AI, basically it works like an RTS with multiple zombies being control by one AI. Every spawn point has its own AI that can only send zombies to attack people in a set location, and have a set amount of zombies at its disposal which can be adjusted by the number of player or by triggers. This could significantly increase the enemy count. But I have to admit that I dont know how well it would actually work.

sorry i expressed myself wrongly, i meant, dont reduce time between spawns

This post has been edited by Luciel on March 09, 2006 12:03 pm

Ah, I'm sorry if I sounded insulting in my response, but I had thought you meant something different.

I can see your point in Slaywatch, and that is especially valid. Perhaps in maps like Slaywatch, any situation where you are defending a central location, the current spawn system could be kept. But spacing out the spawns in "mission" maps would be more realistic, as it would mean hunting down the zombies, and actually clearing them out.

Again, not trying to be forceful or insulting. I wish I could help you guys on the project, and perhaps even work on the stuff I've suggested myself. Brainbread has got to be one of the best survival horror mods for any FPS I've ever played.

You can just set one of the spawns off that has about 5-10 max live zombies, and have one that is already on, with about 1-3 max zombies, set them to a multi_manager, and when a certian trigger has been acheived, the first one shuts off, and then the second one starts up... It's quite simple if you have had previous experience in Hammer and used Multi_manager.

i dont like how ur just watching one spot and the zombie apears its just stupid like at least make em come out of the ground or something