User:Boxy/Suggestions/Miss Contacts

This is a difficult suggestion to explain, but I'll give it a go sometime in the future, if no one else gets it up in the mean-time.

(The current content will probably be moved to the talk page once I start working on it.)

Familiar Zeds vs. Non Familiar Zeds

Timestamp:	Poodle of doom 05:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Type:	Improvement to game mechanics.
Scope:	Everyone who ever wished to differentiate between a zed they don't know, and a zed who is their fallen commarade. See below for details.
Description:	I think that it would be wonderous to be able to differentiate between a zed that you are familar with, and one you aren't familar with. As it stands right now, the game will say "You reconize [insert name here]". However, if you were going to attack some of the zeds in that spot, you have no clue who your shooting at. If there is a zed that you reconize, you have the option of targeting them directly. However, the oppistite is not true. This is what my suggestion pertains to. I believe that it would be helpful to be able to chose not to shoot a certain zed. Instead of firing randomly, and finding out later, you shot someone in your group, or your best bud, I think that a game improvement is needed here. One that allows you to differentiate between zeds, and be capable of targeting unfamilar zeds, rather then zeds at random.

Keep Votes
For Votes here
Kill Votes
Against Votes here
Spam/Dupe Votes
Spam/Dupe Votes here

Removed as you can already choose to attack a specific zombie if they are in your contacts list. This was a dupe of existing game mechanics.--Gage 05:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think the mechanic he was addressing was that you can't choose not to attack a specific zombie when you attack a random zombie. He was saying, for example, that when you attack a group of zombies, the specific zombies that you recognize should be excluded so that you don't accidentally hit a zombified teammate.--J Muller 05:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Aye, he wasn't suggesting the familiar Zombie function, he was suggesting an "Unfamiliar Zombie" function, for use in such situations as "I have three known pker's in this stack of zombies, 7 people I do not know, four syringes, and want to actively avoid sticking the guys I do not want to revive." --Gene Splicer 11:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC) I'm honestly considering reporting Gage for vandalism on this one. Does "Mod duping" even exist?--Gene Splicer 11:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Contact him on his talk page first, he's a reasonable guy, he'll put it back if you can convince him that he's made a mistake. It wasn't done in bad faith -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 11:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyone mind if I put this back up? --Gene Splicer 12:16, 19 January 2007 (UTC) Holy crap, did I screw up the formatting of active suggestions a few minutes ago. NOBODY LOOK IT NEVER HAPPENED --Gene Splicer 13:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't even see any discussion on this one, and had to go to the history to read the original post. This was NOT something currently in the game, so I think we should re-insert the suggestion. However, not being a mod, any edit I did would make the syggestion under my stamp, not the OP's, so I don;t want to cause confusion. For now you can see (but not vote on) the original suggestion here: http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php?title=Suggestions&oldid=527551#Familiar_Zeds_vs._Non_Familiar_Zeds --Swiers 14:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised at Gage's reaction, but I think the best thing for poodle to do is to re-write his suggestion to make it a bit clearer, and re-submit it in a day or two. If Gage was confused about what he was trying to convey, then a lot of others would be too, upping the Spam and Dupe votes. I'd vote for it, there are ways around it, but they are tedious, and AP hungry, and sometimes don't even work (like when all the zombies are already scanned, you can only access the one on top to ID him/her) -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 10:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, this is a first... I actually agree with Gage on this one. I think the existing game function is already close enough to what you want to do that it doesn't need to be changed. For instance, if someone is your "best bud" and you don't want to shoot them, why weren't they in your contacts list already? --Uncle Bill 21:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be missing the point to Uncy Bill. Let me put it another way. Let's say you're a zombie who enjoys messing with revive point queues by killing off Mrh Cows before they can get a revive. You go to the revive point, and one of your fellow group members is there (another zombie of course), he's on your contact list (that's why you can see him there), but you have absolutely no way to attack the pile without taking a chance on attacking your mate. You can select him to specifically attack, but you can't choose to avoid attacking him. Maybe you do disagree with suggestion, you can vote kill/spam, that's your right, but it's not a reason to remove it from the suggestions page, it is not a dupe of an existing part of the game -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 07:21, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Say what? Since when do Rotters attack other zombies at revive points? The point of rotters clogging revive points is because they can't easily be avoided just by using DNA extractors and syringes. If they REALLY wanted to keep people there from being revived they would attack the revivers (easier and worth more XP).--Pesatyel 08:02, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say they were Rotters, or that it was a particularly efficient use of AP or gaining XP. It is only an example of someone wanting to attack a mob of zombies without hitting someone they have on their contact list where there is absolutely no method in the game at the moment to prevent it -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 08:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so what you actually want to do is to be able to pick a zombie out of the hoard and be able to attack them. What if zombie attacks to people on your contact list were visible to you? That would let you single out the attacker without nerfing zombie anonymity too much. --Uncle Bill 13:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

No, we want to have the option to attack anyone but those on the contact list -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 07:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

You can attack a zombie you know. You can attack the top zombie in the stack (aka A Zombie). But you cannot attack "A Zombie I Do Not Recognise". That is, if you know ZergerBob1, 2 and 7 are in the stack, and you wish to do some reviving, but REALLY do not want to waste your syringes on the Zergers in the stack, your only options are to a) kill all the PKerBobs, b) move to a different stack, or c) possibly revive someone you want to keep dead. This would add the option d) target "An Unfamiliar Zombie", or "Ok time to inject some poor unfortunate... Hey, wait, I know that guy. That guy's a dick! Screw this, I'm injecting some other random person". And I'm sure as hell voting for this when it goes up --Gene Splicer 09:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the problem. Don't zombies on your contact list ALREADY stand out? If you target "a zombie" does that mean the people on your contact list are hit also, even though the contact list causes a distinction?--Pesatyel 09:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they are. If you shoot a stack of zombies and a contact is on the top, he gets shot/revived/whatever --Gene Splicer 09:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That seems odd. Can anyone else confirm this? --Uncle Bill 06:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I can 100% garauntee that this occurs if your contact is the only zombie in the stack, and am 99% certain it's the same if it's a multi-sombie stack --Gene Splicer 09:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's the way it works -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 11:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... buggy. In that case, I'll vote yes. It just seems like the way things should work anyway. Since you can choose to attack zombies you recognize or a random one, no sense having the one you recognize show up twice. Another question, if you see "a zombie kill joe_survivor" and the zombie is in your contact list, do you see the zombie's name or "a zombie" if they're in your contacts list? --Uncle Bill 21:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

It shows up as "a zombie killed joe survivor", but the "a zombie" link part is colourised to whatever you've set for that contact -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 23:10, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

"A Zombie" and "An Unfamiliar Zombie" should be seperate options. Otherwise, if you have a zombie you particularly dislike on your contact list, but are in too much of a hurry to scroll down the list to their name (i.e. mall breach) that zombie becomes effectively immune to your attacks. There are situations where "Hit/revive/heal/scan a zombie not on my list" is useful, situations where "hit/revive/heal/scan that specific zombie" is useful, and situations where "Hit/revive/heal/scan any damn zombie" is useful, so all of the above should be available --Gene Splicer 13:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

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