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| '''Zerging''' refers to the use of multiple characters, or "alts," in a coordinated manner by a single player.
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| '''Zerging''' is a form of cheating and violates the single, solitary "rule" that Urban Dead's designer (Kevan Davis) has stipulated: ''that your characters must "lead completely separate existences within the game - your characters should not collaborate, nor share (or stand outside) the same building"''[http://urbandead.com/faq.html#mult].
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| Urban Dead has built-in anti-zerging counter-measures, the triggering of which can result in characters being automatically penalised or even deleted/disabled.
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| Some players also maintain lists of known and suspected zergers and often punish them in-game.
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| While the term "zerging" is often used by Urban Dead players to describe all forms of multiple [[character]] abuse ("[[multi abuse]]"), it technically refers to the use of two or more alts in close proxoimity and in a cooperative manner. Typical zerging activities include: creating multiple zombie alts to attack barricades at the same time; creating surivor alts to attack, revive and/or heal in conjuction; using one alt to "scout ahead" and gather useful intelligence for another alt to act upon. All of these actions violate the rule of leading ''completely seperate existences within the game.''
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| The article on [[multi abuse]] discusses in detail how the two terms -- "zerging" vs. "multi-abuse" -- are used, and how they are often differentiated from each other.
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| == Zerging Problems in Urban Dead ==
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| '''Combat Mobs''' - A pack of [[character]]s that coordinate attacks approach the effect of a 100% one-shot kill. Before the countermeasures, [[zerging]] players would create armies of [[Firefighter]]s or [[Zombie]]s in a particular [[suburb]] and use them to attack a [[Safehouse]]. The [[character]]s used in the [[zerging]] were often abandoned afterwards.
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| '''Sentinels''' - A player places a [[character]] in a given [[building]], and leaves them there. They log in every so often, thereby preventing the [[character]] from [[Inactive|going inactive]], and allowing them to check the status of the [[building]]. (Whether it's been broken into, whether it's been [[barricades|rebarricaded]], and so on.) Upon seeing a change in the [[building]]'s status, the player then knows the optimal place to move their combat mob so as to maintain whatever status they desire for that [[building]]/[[suburb]]. [[Ransack]] allows a lone [[zombie]] sentinel to prevent [[survivors]] [[barricades|barricading]] a [[Ransack|ransacked]] [[building]] until it is killed. Although hard to prevent, this is still against the clearly worded [http://www.urbandead.com/faq.html#mult game rules] which state that [[character]]s must ''lead completely separate existences within the game - your characters should not collaborate''. Sharing information between [[character]]s (especially where that is the main purpose of the [[alt]]) is collaboration.
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| == Implemented Anti-Zerging Countermeasures ==
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| [[Image:Zerg.jpg|200px|right]]
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| '''Random Start Location''' - It was initially possible to pick your starting [[suburb]], to be near your friends - this option was removed quite early on.
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| '''No Intra-Player Cooperation''' - The [http://www.urbandead.com/faq.html FAQ] states that [[character]]s found to be cooperating "in a suspicious fashion" will be automatically penalised or banned by the system. [[Character]]s from the same IP in close proximity (details deliberately not released) suffer penalties in combat, in using [[First aid kits]], and in [[Search Odds|search percentages]].
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| '''[[Hit Limit|IP Limit]]''' - The [[Hit Limit|IP limit]] prevents a single machine from initiating zerg activity. The technical implementation is to allow no more than 160 hits from a single IP address per day.
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| ==Unofficial Anti-Zerging Countermeasures ==
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| [http://zombies.dementiastudios.org/boards/index.php Resensitized] runs its own [http://zombies.dementiastudios.org/boards/index.php?topic=12.0 Zerg Liste] which relies on screenshots of similarly named [[character]]s suspiciously close to one another or admissions of [[zerging]] (it happens more than you think) to keep track of and systematically eliminate the [[Cheating|cheaters]] of [[Malton]]. The larger PK lists ([http://zombies.dementiastudios.org/boards/index.php?topic=2.0 Resensitized] and [http://ud-malton.info/Rogues_Gallery Rogue's Gallery]) don't count bounty claims against players on the [http://zombies.dementiastudios.org/boards/index.php?topic=12.0 Zerg Liste] as [[Player Killing|PK]]s for their purposes, so Zerg Hunters (such as [[ZHU]]) are relatively safe except for the zergers who constantly try to hunt them down in retaliation.
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| ==Seems like Zerging==
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| A number of [[groups]], mainly [[Player Killer|PKers]], deliberately choose very similar names in order to give the impression of one person doing all the actions, even though it is a group of players, each controlling a different [[character]]. A couple of examples are the [[Pathetic Bill]] and [[SillyLillyPilly]] [[groups]].
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| == Usage Notes ==
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| The name ''[[Wikipedia:Zerg|Zerg]]'' comes from ''[[Wikipedia:StarCraft|StarCraft]]'', where the [[Wikipedia:Zerg|Zerg]] are one of three playable races. The weakest [[Wikipedia:Zerg|Zerg]], the ''zergling'', is fast and cheap to produce and therefore very well suited for mass rush attacks in the early game. Its analogy in [[Urban Dead]] is a newly created level-one [[character]]. ''[[Wikipedia:StarCraft|StarCraft]]'' players also use zerglings as decoys and cannon fodder in the mid-late game.
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| ==Related Articles==
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| # [[Multi abuse]]
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| # [[Anti Cheater Alliance]]
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| # [[Anti-Zerg Measure]]
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| [[Category:Glossary]]
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