Talk:Back On Strike

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*Sigh* There is 18k corpses around. Perhaps the number of zombies isnt droping at all, they are just getting killed. There is at least 200 bodies outside the NW block of Ackland Mall, most of them zombies from the Mall Tour. --hagnat 00:23, 29 Jan 2006 (GMT)

zombie numbers have moved from a recorded high of 22195 on Jan 18 to 17887 today (30th). That's a drop of over 4000 in 12 days. --Spacenookie 01:36, 31 Jan 2006 (GMT)

Please, the Zombies have taken almost all the major buildings and you say it's unbalanced? -Rogue 29/01/06

from what I have seen the malls are back in survivor hands relatively quickly. --Spacenookie 01:36, 31 Jan 2006 (GMT)

Is anybody in this group other than the creator of the page? They've obviously got less than ten members if they aren't on the stats page, but if they only have one member, we should delete this. --Spiro 00:25, 31 Jan 2006 (GMT)

This page is for discussion of a new zombie strike. I don't know that anyone is in this group, I am not a member (currently my char is alive), but zombie numbers are dropping by several hundred per day and Mall Tour '06 is in its climax phase. In effect we are going right back to the conditions that made the first strike neccessary. --Spacenookie 01:36, 31 Jan 2006 (GMT)

You made a group page for a group that you knew didn't exist? General consensus seems to be that the zombie numbers have dropped due to revivification-point gluts being cleared, not that zombies are underpowered and being crushed and having a terrible time of things. The original strike was about the gaming experience, not the numbers. If the game can remain fun for both sides, it doesn't matter what the population numbers stabilise to. --Spiro 01:44, 31 Jan 2006 (GMT)

Either people join the strike or they don't. What we want to avoid is people leaving the game because they feel it is permanently broken and there is no way to register their discontent. --Spacenookie 05:22, 31 Jan 2006 (GMT)

You're all welcome to come to the suggestions page and try to propose a way to make the game more fun, instead of complaining about it. How is the game unbalanced? Mall tour has just been going around ruining people. --Zaruthustra 02:02, 31 Jan 2006 (GMT)

There are already over 100 good suggestions listed on the peer-reviewed suggestions page. -- Spacenookie 05:22, 31 Jan 2006 (GMT)

I can either leave the game 'cause I'm bored, or I can hang out here on strike and check in every few days. I don't see any reason why there should be opposition to people joining this group. --Nod 05:40, 1 Feb 2006 (GMT)

You know, chances are that those 300,000 accounts are for the most part alts people got bored of, starting characters used to practice and learn the ropes, or throw-away zerg characters. And what the Hell is Kevan supposed to do about the low zombie numbers? Make a few thousand automated zombie NPCs? That destroys what the game is about. --TheTeeHeeMonster 21:56, 1 Feb 2006 (GMT)

More likely they're people who found the game through Metafilter or the other big referrers and got bored on their first day, maybe even in their first turn, when they realised it was text-based. --Spiro 02:34, 2 Feb 2006 (GMT)

Fixed the language about 300k characters vs. accounts. Undid an ugly defacement. About human/zombie numbers: The game rules and skills create a dynamic system where a certain number of people are human/zombie at any given time. An asymmetric game is indeed much harder to create than a symmetric one where zombies and humans are absolutely equal and everything's 50/50 +/- 20. But think about any zombie movie you've ever seen: Few humans and hordes of zombies, right? That's all I'm sayin'. If you'd like to talk about it some more, hey, that's what I'm here for now. :) Actually, um, why wouldn't 50% zombie NPCs (currently, around 25K) be a great thing for the game? People could still be human/zombie in equal numbers, and it would be a true survival game. --Nod 04:54, 2 Feb 2006 (GMT)

Is this your only "basic balance issue", that there should be a lot more zombies than humans, like in those films with only four or five human protagonists?

The fact that UD zombies stand up rather than dying gives a good atmosphere of endless waves of undead, and now that they've got Feeding Groan, a safehouse of four or five survivors are at risk from a single lone zombie who can call for backup. Zombies don't need to outnumber survivors in raw player numbers to be an interesting threat. It's a shame to see percentages going back down since NecroNet, but I've not noticed the game becoming any less playable as a result. --Spiro 05:25, 2 Feb 2006 (GMT)

The numbers may have gone up because of clogged revive points being cleared. Otherwise those revived zombies would have jumped right out of the first window they saw and the numbers wouldn't have changed. --TheTeeHeeMonster 20:39, 2 Feb 2006 (GMT)

I don't know, there's probably enough lag between being revived and finding a suicide point that they'll show up as a survivor for a while, enough that the hourly stats count will catch a lot of them. Don't know if lying around as a revived corpse counts you as a zombie or survivor, though. --Spiro 01:48, 3 Feb 2006 (GMT)

I think it counts you as a survivor, since when I tried buying a zombie skill between getting poked with the syringe and standing up, I could only buy zombie skills. --TheTeeHeeMonster 01:50, 3 Feb 2006 (GMT)

"The Back On Strike manifesto is roughly this: As long as there are more humans than zombies, this zombie game just plain doesn't make sense." - So let's see if I got it straight... they want more zombies. Until then they won't play as zombies? --Omega2 01:53, 3 Feb 2006 (GMT)

No, they'll "stand around in Whetcombe Park until Urban Dead feels like a zombie game". So presumably play a few survivor alts to check whether the city feels like a zombie game. This does only seem to be Nod, though, who's said he wants thousands of NPC zombies and isn't really making much sense. Wake me up if this group ever gets more than ten members. --Spiro 02:13, 3 Feb 2006 (GMT)

• Yawn* Kevan has been feverishly buffing zeds. If you have any realistic demands, feel free to speak up. "Thousands of zombie NPCs" is not only contrary to the urban dead spirit, but technically infeasible. Unless of course you want to give Kevan a couple hundred dollars for the the new servers you're demanding. --Zaruthustra 17:28, 3 Feb 2006 (GMT)

I heartily applaud the recent zombie buffs and would be pretty happy if we got to a 55% zombie equilibrium. Let's not turn the "Thousands of zombie NPCs" hypothetical I responded to into a straw man for the whole balance issue. (I don't think it would hurt gameplay, though: as we can see plainly, more people want to be human than zombie in a zombie-town scenario.) --Nod 05:50, 5 Feb 2006 (GMT)

I heartily endorse your going idle in UD! I also believe that you should go idle on the wiki and forums, just to teach Kevan a lesson. In fact, just boycott the internet! Bill Gates will submit to your demands as well, and force all Microsoft employees to join UD as automatically-brainrotted zombies. --TheTeeHeeMonster 15:55, 5 Feb 2006 (GMT)

I don't believe that we -want- a solid zombie majority. So long as we're a substantial minority (my preference is in the 40% range, counting Mrh Cows temporarily out of commission), we can operate quite nicely in conquering suburbs and engaging in large-scale offensives that simply wouldn't be possible if we were running in the 60% range and actually having to go door to door to hunt the few remaining targets. The basic balance issues have largely been resolved. Petrosjko 08:18, 9 Feb 2006 (GMT)

If I understand correctly, the goals of Back on Strike are twofold: a) the game needs to be more like a zombie movie; and b) the game needs to be more fun for zombie players. Having just gone through a whole stack of zombie movies on DVD which I borrowed from a friend, it strikes me that these two objective are mutually exclusive. If UD were more like a zombie movie, the zombie character progression would go as follows:

1. Zombie is created, either directly, or by zombification of a survivor.
2. At time of creation, zombie has Infectious Bite, Feeding Groan, and maybe Vigour Mortis or Tangling Grasp (but not both).
3. The zombie will not have the option of purchasing other skills; Lurching Gait and Memories of Life in particular are right out, as these directly contravene the Romerovian non-door-opening mindless shambler archetype.
4. There is no revivification (infection is also incurable); no flak jackets or Body Building for zombies unless you were playing a human who acquired these prior to being zombified.
5. Out-of-game communication is contrary to the spirit of zombie flicks (zombies don't talk), and should therefore be considered cheating; if you can't play a zombie with Feeding Groan as your sole means of communication, you can't play a zombie. In the spirit of compromise, feeding groan could be extended to 10 squares radius instead of 6.
6. Headshots are permanently fatal. Game over, start with a new character.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I fail to see how that would make the game more fun for zombie players. -- Hendrik Casimir 23:39, 17 February 2006 (GMT)

Just here to point something out; due to the new syringe change and a bit of depression on the part of harmanz, as well as several other factors, zombie numbers are steadily rising, and zombie players now form 45% of the characters in the game. If this group is stil "active" and still contains a "small but significant percentage" of the people who left Urban Dead over the years, then come back now and we should easily break the 50% mark.--Guardian of Nekops 02:30, 4 April 2006 (BST)

Surely the goals of this group are now achieved since the ratios are 49% Survivors to 51% Zombies? -- Myo 18:46, 24 April 2006 (BST)

Well, it's not 55% zombies yet, but surely close enough. Thanks for the attention, and consider this case closed until someone cares enough to reopen it. --Tycho44 ^W! 07:50, 27 April 2006 (BST)