UDWiki:Projects/The History Of Monroeville

Introduction

A shocking truth

Monroeville is over. Let's all face it.

So. Let's chronicle its history, from crazy surprise opening, to dull ruined husk.

Formatting thoughts

If we start by just throwing up random experiences and the like, hopefully we can create an account of a year in the life of our brave second city. But anyway. We've got a talk page. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 22:11, 1 May 2009 (BST)

History

The Birth Of Monroeville

On the 25 February 2008, Urban Dead's Second City was opened.

As Kevan wrote:

To celebrate the launch of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, we've opened a temporary second map in the city of Monroeville. Create a new character there and you can loot a video camera to edit together your own video diary of the zombie apocalypse, with Romero box-set prizes available for UK players.

Even before the official announcement players were signing up, having apparently discovered the sign in page through the use of Google.

This first day was suitably manic. With no mapping available, no groups formed and the revelation that there was no NecroTech confusion was the way forward.

Amongst other issues discovered on this first day were the abilities of video cameras, and the fact that once searched all Fire Departments and Police Departments contained their own radio transmitters.

Early Rumour and Chaos

Over the first few days confusion continued to reign. Giant suburbs, in some cases 4 times the size of Malton's made finding other players very difficult. The seemingly helpful names of suburbs (West Monroeville, etc.), turned out to be misleading as neither a North or East Monroeville were present.

Within a few weeks over 60 separate survivor groups were created.

A number of new building types were discovered. Large farm complexes were spread throughout the countryside, and some buildings were larger than anything previously seen in Malton. The largest of these was Monroeville Mall.

Video Cameras and the skills race

With the realisation that death was permanent, many survivors chose to stay indoors, punch-FAK-ing their friends till they were able to barricade buildings. They were trying to do so at haste, as the newly risen zombies of Monroeville were also in a race; to gain Memories of Life before the survivors barricaded their safehouses.

The zombies were at first at an advantage, as the huge influx of new members meant that there was an abundance of street candy, for the new zombies to kill and gain much-needed experience, however, once the survivors became more organized, many zombies turned on their undead brethren, severely slowing their rate of progress.

Whilst this was happening, those survivors with a large amount of bravado (read: stupidity) flocked to Malls, to gain a video camera to compete in the competition.

The question of zombies

Amongst all this survivor activity, zombies were hard to find. Many players realised that if they wanted crossover skills they had to start as a survivor. In addition to this the large number of survivors for every zombie meant that in the early days most zombies on the streets were shot every day. Feral hording was impossible because no standing zombies could be spotted.

Organised zombie behaviour was also impeded by the lack of lurching gait and the lack of any mapping.

Several of the larger Malton zombie groups created new hordes in Monroeville. The Cornfed Undead (Feral Undead), the Monroeville Resistance Front (RRF) and Walk The Earth (Second Big Bash) all created sizable hordes.

Independent of these traditional groups, Monroeville also spawned its own independent horde, the Monroeville Many (no relation to the historical group The Many). These "Big 4" zombie groups dwarfed the several smaller hordes within Monroeville.

It should also be noted that some survivor groups in Malton created zombie groups in Monroeville. These include Pitmans Minions, made up from a number of Fortress members.

Malls and Perma-Headshot

After the large hordes of zombies (and survivor groups alike) found their bearings, they gravitated towards the Malls as if these were taken by either side, it would be a great advantage over the other side.

Once mapping was available, the "Big 4" decided to head towards Monroeville Mall, the biggest building seen in the game to date. And so came about The Fall of Monroeville Mall. With the premise of perma-death, the mall fell within a matter of days, with survivors running for their life.

The hordes continued to go about ruining the malls with great success until Kevan updated on the 28th of March, bringing about Perma-Headshot, whereby a survivor with the Headshot skill could permanently kill a zombie.