User:Daren Elaine

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Welcome to my page, yeah, I know, it's just a bit plain at the moment. Unfortunately, I have the wiki-coding skills of your average wombat. I'm somewhat new to this whole wiki thing, please bear with me, I apologize for any misunderstandings or failings on my part.

That said, if you're here, you want to learn about me. All right, here's some character information and personal opinions. For my character, I'm going to avoid linking to his page. I hope you don't mind, but I really would prefer not to be hunted or punished in-game simply because someone on the wiki doesn't like me. Griefers have done more pointless things, after all.

First thing about me, I am an RPer, and in a sense, everyone who plays Urban Dead is, my character is not me, though my only existing character is much in line with my personality. Many people's first characters are.

Character: Daren Elaine (Name was randomly generated and I thought it was kind of cool)

General RP Personality: Daren is in general, a 'good guy'. He's compassionate, willing to sacrifice his own comfort/well-being for the consideration of others. He's even-tempered, with a fairly good sense of humor when the situation call for it, though he is down-to-earth most of the time. He uses his combat skills to defend others. He's a natural leader, confident and strong, though he will defer to those with more experience in the role of leading others. He's smart, he doesn't act on impulse and he thinks things through. He's not the kind of person who doesn't realize that zeds get back up after you shoot them, he doesn't waste spectacular amounts of ammunition clearing the streets, or charging into a zed horde and mindlessly blowing off rounds. Every squeeze of the trigger has a goal in mind, be it self-defense (or defense of another), securing a building, slowing a pursuer, or playing decoy for a horde that he's trying to distract. Daren in general does not 'stand and fight', he shoots and moves. This is not to say that he doesn't think there is a time to stand and fight, mall sieges HAVE been effective in the past, and he wouldn't abandon a siege if he had committed himself to it. However, guerrilla warfare, or 'Shoot and Scoot' is his combat standard.

Backstory: (Under construction if you haven't guessed.) A newer member of the military, having been in for a little under a year, he had been abandoned in Malton, and had been on his own ever since a zed attack left him separated from his squad in Hollomstown. Daren has no particular place in Malton he calls his own, mostly moving from one location to another trying to figure out what is going on.

A little more about me....

Well, some people happen to have some opinions that they like to share with the public, so I guess I'll let everyone know how I feel on a variety of matters that come up. Below are going to follow a series of issues and arguments and I will voice my opinions on.

Urban Dead Sucks

Then why the hell are you playing it?

You suck

And yet you waste your time talking with me.....

Okay, I'll be a bit more serious for all of you people now.

Survivors are too powerful

Hmm, no, actually I wouldn't say so. First of all, Kevan's made it clear that survivors are SUPPOSED to be stronger than zombies. Especially when you think about it, in any horror film featuring zombies, who has the upside? One survivor, or one zombie? Generally, it's the guy/girl with the gun and the capacity to use it. Survivors, realistically have a certain advantage over zeds....then again, realistically there aren't any zombies, but that's beside the point. Weaponry, training, adaptability, and if all that fails, speed, gives survivors a reasonable advantage over zombies. Think about it, in reality, you would be able to shoot off several rounds before a walking cadaver got even close enough to hit you. However, the point is not if survivors are more powerful than zombies, but are they TOO powerful?

Well, let's start by listing the pros and cons to survivors here.

Pros:

1: They can inflict far more damage than a zombie can per AP.

2: They can move from building to building without exposing themselves.

3: They can build barricades and move (more or less) freely through them.

4: The AP balance of the barricades is easily in the survivor's favor

5: They have better methods of communication.

6: They can move faster than zombies.

7: They generally can get experience, and hence level up, faster than zombies.

Cons:

1: They almost ALWAYS have to sleep inside a building.

2: They have to spend AP collecting weapons and ammunition in order to get to the higher damage ranges.

3: Survivor melee weapons when maxed out are inferior to zombie attacks when maxed out, ESPECIALLY if you include Tangling Grasp in the equation.

4: A dead survivor has a significantly more difficult time returning to their former state than a dead zombie.

5: Survivors almost always have to keep moving around the horde, or be swept up in it.

6: Survivors must worry much more about staying alive than zombies do.

7: Survivors have to worry about PKers. (Yeah, technically zeds have to worry about ZKers, but really, you stand up, brush yourself off, and get over it. With the advent of Ankle Grab, and it being almost as high in importance as Free Running, you stand up for 1 AP and you're good.

8: Survivors have to spend AP installing, maintaining, and replacing equipment such as generators and radio transceivers.

Well, perhaps it is difficult to see from the Pro's and Con's if they are too powerful or not, so let's put it simply. A zombie dies, it stands up, virtually no real damage. In fact, if he was low health, it's an advantage. A survivor has to get up, shamble over to the nearest revive point, swaying while 'Mrh'ing, then wait while praying that there aren't any rotters clogging the RP and hoping that none of the zeds kill them or wandering newbies who don't understand the concept of RPs. And if they died with an infection, it gets even more interesting if they don't have a FAK on hand. THEN they have to go and pray they can find a VSB or below building before they run out and AP out on the streets.

Zombies, quite frankly don't have to worry about shelter or really even dying. In fact, zombies have really only one concern, killing survivors. You see, without the RP factor of this game, and the things these players and zombies can come up with, it would really be a piece of crap, because once you've gotten to the highest level you have effectively 'won' the game. Survivor play is infinitely more complicated than zombie play but is rewarded as such with higher combat abilities.

Again, I still have not proven that survivors either are or are not too powerful, so let's go to one of the central focuses of the game. Mall sieges.

Who has the advantage in a mall siege? I've heard both sides, and in fact, there is some truth to both. It is true that in the beginning of a mall siege, the survivors have an advantage because of a factor I call 'stored AP'. Most survivors who are expecting a siege come prepared, loaded down with enough ammo to mow down a small forest. As well it should be, in my opinion. Survivors, at first, can easily eliminate any break-ins and re-cade, but then what? What happens when the ammo runs out? Well, you have to spend AP searching for it. But that is that much less AP usable to dump zombies and rebuild the cades. Of course, there is also the tasks of reviving fallen defenders, refueling generators, searching for fuel cans and needles, and of course it is pretty much essential for any mall siege to hold a nearby Necrotech building to provide needles. What do zombies have to do in a siege? It's fairly straightforward. The survivors need an attribute called tenacity. Zombies need patience. Find the least-populated corner, and claw at that until the cades fall, then get as many zombies inside as possible. Once it's open, and there are 20 or so zombies inside, any survivors left are more or less done, unless the survivors significantly outnumber the zombies, at which point they MIGHT be able to drive destroy zed claw-hold and recade. Anyways, back to zeds, their other objective is of course, wiping out Necrotech buildings, and keeping them wiped out. But in order to do that last part, all they have to do is let 10 or so zeds sleep in there and they'll just keep standing up as they die. And of course, with death-culting here nowadays, generator destruction is a problem, as well as internal de-cading and PKing of important survivor leaders. Zeds also have attrition on their side. They die, they stand back up, no harm, but plenty of foul. (Okay....that was weird to say) Finally, one last thing to say. A stupid zombie is much less dangerous to the cause as a stupid survivor. A stupid survivor will rush out into the horde, guns a-blazin, and all they succeed at is healing the enemy. What is the worst a stupid zombie going to do, gnaw on another zombies arm? Intelligent survivors are a difficult force to face, it only takes one idiot to ruin the entire siege for them though.

So it can easily be said that zombie forces of any decent size have the upper hand in mall sieges, and quite an upper hand at that. Quite frankly, unless they get bored, they CAN'T lose. They have to choose to forfeit. They CAN NOT LOSE. They can only surrender.

So, are survivors TOO powerful? No. In fact, I'm on the side of they are a little bit underpowered. Of course, survivors are supposed to have certain disadvantages, that is the point of a zombie apocalypse game, but they are also supposed to have certain advantages on their side. The borderline impossibility DOES add a certain challenge to the game, along with adding a great sweetness to survivor victories.

Just a little bit more about mall sieges

To build on the point above, I want to make something clear. I did not say that you should not attempt to hold the malls. You can NOT defeat the zombies. End of discussion, it is not possible. But it is possible to defeat the people behind them. If you frustrate them to the point that they try to pull out their hair, tear out their scalp, and they end up dying of blood loss, I suppose that's a victory, but that's not quite what I was going for. I was saying, zombie players can get bored. After weeks of fruitless sieging, many ferals will abandon it. Zed groups are usually more tenacious, because they are more disciplined (As being in a group will do) but they too can finally decide that it is NOT worth it.

One of the reasons you might want to hold a mall, even though there are plenty of them around, is symbolism, and RP purposes. Example, take the current Ridleybank Crusade. If you don't know about it, the RRF (Ridleybank Resistance Front, in case you're new and didn't know), one of the biggest and most feared zed groups in the game went out to deal with all the life running around in Malton, and when they left Ridleybank, they left their doors wide open, and survivors got in, barricaded it, and restored the suburb. Well, the RRF was not happy about that, and decided that they would take it back now. Here is a perfect example. The RRF are staging in Stanbury Village, and all that stand between them and a march on Ridleybank, is Nichols Mall. If the RRF can be stopped there, they cannot retake Ridleybank. To see the RRF ousted from their home, and Ridleybank, what was once one of the most dangerous suburbs in the game, turned to green, would be a victory in symbolism. The RRF is dedicated to keeping Ridleybank a 'Red Zone'. If they fail that, then they have been beaten. Even if they come back later, they must admit to that defeat. Ridleybank is a symbol of zombie success. What a victory it will be if it can be turned instead into a symbol of survivor resistance and tenacity, if even only for a while!

This works both ways. For example, Caiger Mall was a symbol of survivor victory, and Shacknews was dead-set on crushing that symbol, which they did. The Seige of Blackmore and the Battle of Bear Pit were also symbols. Do note, the Siege of Blackmore was a literal loss, but it was a symbolic victory. The fact that someone had stuck around Ridleybank for so long and laid siege to the RRF's own Necrotech building was a symbol, even though the RRF was ultimately victorious in the end. Why was it not a symbolic victory for zeds though? Well, to a slight degree it was, it reinforced the notion that Ridleybank would forever remain a zed territory, but that belief was shaken with how long it took to drive the survivors out of Blackmore. But the reason it really wasn't much of a symbolic victory, despite being a tactical victory, was because, as everyone knows, in any siege, zombies have a massive upper hand over the survivors, especially on their home turf. Also, they only recaptured blackmore, there was no mall, they had to run and resupply at a mall, not the building they were holding. So, the fact that survivors were able to hold out against not only the RRF, but THREE OTHER ZOMBIE GROUPS for so long, was unusual, and hence, a symbolic victory.

Goes to show that most of this game is pretty much fighting over symbols. Can't wait for the day that some random tower becomes a sight of symbolic victory. Hey, if you're reading this and feel inspired, go ahead and try to make it happen. =) Tell the Channel 4 News Team, bet they'd join you in it too. They're bold (or perhaps crazy) enough to try it.

And yet we move on to talking further about symbols

Symbols are the basis of the game, though few realize it. While it is impossible for one side to 'win' the game, it is, strangely enough, possible for one side to be 'winning'. Some think, in order for one side to win, all zombies must be dead (A stupid notion, they just stand up) or all survivors must be dead. (Theoretically possible, but not a functional idea in reality, they'll just make new survivor accounts even if it somehow miraculously came to that end) This, however, is not the case. What makes and breaks the game, what determines who is 'winning' and who is 'losing', is its symbols.

Caiger Mall, the Siege of Blackmore, The Battle of Bear Pit, Ridleybank, the Mall Tours, these and MANY more are symbols of victory for one side or another. And that is indeed what the game is fought over. Some things are symbols in of themselves. Zombies themselves are a symbol, they can never truly die, they are a symbol of an unkillable, yet not unbeatable, enemy. Any mall is a symbol, mostly because large amounts of survivors gather there, they are symbols of survivors willing to fight. Many hospitals and revive points are considered symbols of mercy and compassion and are targeted by people who hate things like that (Though more often they are targeted for tactical reasons). A 'green' suburb and a 'red' suburb are both symbols, of safety and fear, respectively.

However, let's compile a list of the major zombie and survivor symbols, shall we?

Survivor symbols

1: Green Suburbs. Green suburbs are a large symbol,a sign of safety for survivors, and a show of resistance toward zombies. The thing about green zones, is that wandering ferals are not going to change it. In order to effectively eliminate a green suburb, it will take a coordinated, conscious, zombie effort. Green zones don't change to yellow, orange, or red on their own.

2: Malls. Malls require an effort by zombies to crack, and they are often the sites of last stands and tenacious defense. Several malls throughout the game are veritable super-fortresses. Malls also require a coordinated zombie effort to destroy. Never in the history of the game has a mall been defeated by unorganized ferals.

3: Forts. Not quite so much as malls, but a Fort represents a bastion, a place to congregate for safety. They too, require an effort to crack, and they too are often the sites of lasts stand and tenacious defense. Unfortunately, it's almost always just 'last stands', since to my knowledge, no survivor group has ever won a fort siege. They're also seemingly reminiscent of rocket launchers, sniper rifles, assault rifles, and other things that make the trenchcoaters babble incoherently.....well, more incoherently than they already are, that is.

4: TRP's in general. Police stations, hospitals, ect. These too are often considered (Many times falsely) to be symbols of safety. In a green suburb, there's probably no where safer. In a red suburb, it's like sleeping in the zombie cookie jar.

5: Necrotech Buildings. Do I even actually have to say it? These are the survivor's ultimate hope. Survivors NEED these buildings to....well, survive. Blackmore is a particularly famous Necrotech symbol, due to the Battle of Blackmore and the actions of the B3. (B3 = My own stupid little nickname for the Blackmore Bastard Brigade) Syringes are critical to Mall Sieges, everyone knows that, as such, they are often a 'determining factor' symbol. Whoever holds the Necrotech building, wins the siege. Not always the case, but it more often than not, is.

6: Powered Buildings. Any powered building is an awful lot of symbols. In a red suburb, it can be a light in the dark, if you want to be poetic about it. It can also be something akin to a dinner bell. To survivors it is a symbol of security. You'd have to be confident in your ability to hold the building before you powered it, right? Keep in mind though that flipping the lights on can be alot like prodding the hornet's nest with a stick......actually, it's probably more like bleeding in a tank full of sharks. Generally though, any powered building elicits feelings of security from survivors, and feelings of snacktime from zombies.

7: Survivors in red zones. Trust me, nothing will make a horde of zombies angrier than traipsing across their land blatantly consuming oxygen. There are several different reasons a survivor might be in a red zone. The first is that they were stuck there when the horde struck, and managed to evade death. Another are people who moved into the zones after they were red. Either for thrill-seeking, or perhaps to scout if it is still a red zone or if it could be retaken. The third one is something that will seriously put a hitch in the zombies git-alongs. (Don't ask where the hell THAT saying came from) They might be taking the fight to the zombies on their home turf. I'll go into more detail on that one later.

8: Large buildings. Not really quite sure why they are, the best thing I can think of is that they might be like malls or some sort of headquarters building. I know they are, but I'm afraid I just can't put into words WHY. Feel free to head over to my talk page if you ever get an idea.

9: Churches. These are often seen as 'saving grace' kinds of places. If a church is functioning, it's likely inhabited by your local revival group. Of course, zombies will head to nearby areas if they wish to be revived. Of course, then they draw the attention of zombies that don't like the fuzzy 'saving grace' feelings, or just don't like watching survivors get revived.

10: Cemeteries. These were likely viewed with suspicion at first, and possibly still are. It's a zombie apocalypse, it wasn't exactly going to become the local party hangout, after all. But thanks to the Sacred Ground Policy, they're often viewed as safe havens for zombies who wish to be revived.

Well, that's just about all the symbols I can think of. Several groups such as the Channel 4 News Team and the DEM are also survivor symbols in of themselves, but I'm not going to go there at the moment. I'm longwinded enough as is. Now, onto the next list.

Zombie Symbols

---Still under construction, although if you even care, you're probably paying WAY too much attention to this page

Love your page Daren

Nice start to your page :) Be careful - you're pro-survivor and think I make sense, so a goon will probably claim you're a sock puppet of me. They've made the accusation with a couple of other people already. --Tselita 15:52, 13 June 2008 (BST)

Thanks, I appreciate it. Still needs a lot of work though. And it doesn't matter, if you weren't there, I'm sure some goon is going to find some other reason to insult and flame me once I arrive on the scene. So really, you're not negatively affecting me in any real way. =)--Daren Elaine 01:40, 24 June 2008 (BST)

I think the new thing they're doing now is just calling anyone who agrees with me, or disagrees with their actions re: me, a homosexual hate word. Glad to see you're not shaken by that :) Seriously though, I really do like the page. Yours and Blakes are both awesome. And again, feel free to run any sort of suggestions you want past me and I'll give my 2 cents if you want :) BTW, I think I accidentally put this stuff in the wrong section, it probably should have gone in the Discussion page. My apologies. --Tselita 01:44, 24 June 2008 (BST)

It's an unfinished page anyways, so don't worry about it, I'll probably move it once I'm finished......that is, one I stop procrastinating and decide to actually do something worthwhile......--Daren Elaine 18:35, 24 June 2008 (BST)