Five Things That Could Be Done to Revitalize Urban Dead
Urban Dead is a browser-based MMORPG that I've talked about before at Needcoffee. Simplistic as hell it is also fun as hell. Kevan, the creator, has Google AdSense on the site and takes donations and I hope he's been able to make a bit of coin at that.
However, with anything, after months and months of playing this thing and getting all my characters to have as many levels and skills as they could muster…now what?
Well, I've been thinking about what I would do if I had Kevan's God-like abilities in the game, and here's the five things I throw on the table for others to muse over. Note: these may have already been proposed on some UD forum somewhere, but I don't read them. The only time I've ever checked out a UD forum was to try and drum up some kind of organized zombie attacks…so they were always the IC threads and always about as useful as a crowbar as a flossing tool.
Scorched Earth. A city is devastated by a zombie plague and sealed off. What would the government do? Nuke it, most likely. But what if they've actually seen Return of the Living Dead and know better? Introduce a new class of character that's basically military in a haz mat suit. They come in with skills already set up to basically blow anyone and everything to hell. Leave nothing standing. And give them flamethrowers. The result? Humans are suddenly fighting for their lives against a bunch of military types who believe them to be infected whether they are or not.
Ammo Dump. Certainly all those PDs and gun stores should be running out of ammo by now, right? Slowly tweak the success rate down and starve the humans for ammo. Then…the word gets out…for one week, at Fort Perryn, let's say, the military's going to do a huge ammo dump. The success rate in that area will be almost a sure thing. The result? Humans and zombies alike make for the site of the dump to have some mass carnage.
The Virus Mutates. Instead of just adding skills willy nilly…have skills become available depending on how long you've been in game. For example, the zombies gain intelligence and can gain the use of blunt instruments. They can speak normally again. They start to get smart, in other words. Oh hell. Yeah, for those who have been in the longest, give them a reason to stick around.
Destroy the Bodies. We've got fuel cans. Give the humans the ability to dispose of bodies. It wouldn't be easy. You'd dump the body outside. Then use the fuel can on them. Then light them up. A fuel can would be good like a spray can would, eventually it runs out and you need more. As for the zombie that's been smoked, they re-gen somewhere else in the game. A cemetery most likely. This would force zombies to actually do something worthwhile instead of just standing back up again right outside the building under siege. Caiger (yawn), anyone?
Vampires.
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Ya know, I was thinking pretty much the same thing earlier tonight. I have three maxed out characters (two living, one zombie), and they're all carrying a huge XP balance…nothing left to do but wander around and lather, rinse and repeat.
I know Kevan is busy, and I'd settle for a few new skills added to the tree, but you're absolutely right, the game needs "something" at this point to break it up a bit.
Not vampires though.
Well, agreed about vampires to an extent. But when you've tapped everything that a straight-up zombie game can do (which I think we're agreed hasn't happened yet, but will eventually), I'd rather see everything shaken up to an extent of adding SOMETHING like vampires, or another character class, than have it fade away into obscurity. I mean, hell, this is a game even a frustrated no-time-to-game gamer can love, so Something Must Be Done.