User talk:Kevan/Archive2

About Urbandead

As all of his two edits were in 2005, and he (Or your sockpuppet) hasn't done anything. I'm actually here to ask if you would consider opening up his burecractic position to the sysops. What do you think? --User:Axe27/Sig 05:06, 24 October 2007 (BST)

It's the root account, Kamden. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 13:33, 24 October 2007 (BST)

Whats up with Radios?

Is there any point to the new "stealth update" that gives transmitters and radios access to the 25.90 - 25.99 MHz band? Because apparently anybody who tries broadcasting on that band gets a message saying they are "for outside military use" or some such.  Swiers 22:00, 27 August 2007 (BST)

There's a small point to it, but I thought I'd leave it for people to discover themselves, rather than announcing it in detail. I'm surprised that nobody's found it yet, really. --Kevan 10:09, 28 August 2007 (BST)

Meh, Seb, it's not interesting to ask for the answer that easy. i'd better enjoy finding out myself and i have some ideas now... --~~~~_T^''' 10:17, 28 August 2007 (BST)

Well, at least I know now there IS a point. The info I had seen was conflicting, and it seemed it may have been a feature that was only partly implemented, or improperly described. I'm also happy for the puzzle if I know it has a solution.  Swiers 16:40, 28 August 2007 (BST)

My intuition says, what is the only outside military interaction so far? *cough*drops*cough* ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 18:00, 28 August 2007 (BST)

Oh there is a point, a very nice one. Thank you Kevan for finally implementing a spamless and useful radio function.--Karek^maps?! 22:03, 28 August 2007 (BST)

Actually i also found it. Nice! --~~~~_T^''' 22:16, 28 August 2007 (BST)

So... How is it spamless? The fact that no one can broadcast on the frequency? If so, what's the point of having a radio then? --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 23:39, 28 August 2007 (BST)

Dux, it's really easy to find it... You have a handheld? --~~~~_T^''' 06:32, 29 August 2007 (BST)

I get it now. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 08:53, 29 August 2007 (BST)

I don't get it. One of my characters has 7 handsets, all tuned to different freq's in that band, and I hear not a peep. Which I suppose IS spam free radio.... So, um, is this is a way to "turn off" a radio? Hmm, I suppose that makes sense.
Yes, SEVEN radios- she's a newbie private who searches PDs exclusively. I'm gonna see if there is actually space for 11 radios in my inventory, or if the old "slot" limits will stop me.  Swiers 16:06, 29 August 2007 (BST)

No, it's not just the way to turn off radio. I wrote an article with some more details. Personally i think this will/should change the way Suburbs page is kept --~~~~_T^''' 09:14, 30 August 2007 (BST)

For those who haven't figured it out, the frequency provides news for random suburbs and buildings.--Alan06:57, 8 September 2007 (EST)

Fantastic. The messages barely "feel" computer-generated. But they must be, for the fact that Kevan probably does not sit 24/7 in front of a screen watching suburb statuses and typing messages limits the alternatives.-- [ ρsych°Lychεε ] ^☼ T 13:21, 11 September 2007 (BST)

Cleaning up the archive

Not that it's my business or particularly my concern, but the archive for Kevan's talk page is itself getting rather long. Would you, Kevan, or anyone else on the wiki with authority have a problem with splitting up the archive content according to date/content/whatever so it's not 200+ kb and I don't know how many pages long? Most of the stuff is useless chatter, but a few things are actually interesting, they're just hard to find, sifting through all the crap.--Insomniac By Choice 16:13, 30 August 2007 (BST)

I might split it up into separate pages at some point, but it's not a great priority - a single page of text is sometimes easier to search anyway, if you don't know which date or category something will have ended up in. --Kevan 16:24, 30 August 2007 (BST)

An easy solution to that would be to divide your archive up into chunks, move everything off that page to new archive pages (Archive1,2 and 3 maybe), and then use the original archive as a table of contents, with the headings from each discussion posted there under a link to the archive that contains them. Shouldnt take more than 5-10 minutes to set up. --The Grimch ^Sysop-U! 00:16, 1 September 2007 (BST)

You, uh, don't have to carry a toolbox.--Jorm 04:14, 3 September 2007 (BST)

Civility policy

I do not know if you expected this from me, but I actually seen your calls for a civility policy and acted accordingly: User:Matthewfarenheit/Sandbox/Civility. Please if you want use the talk page for discussion: when finished I'll be posting it on the A/PD page, but I need some input before the text takes a definite shape and you may be the most apropriate person to ask for help. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 07:56, 3 September 2007 (BST)

I like the look of this, Matt. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 08:42, 3 September 2007 (BST)

Thanks, that looks good, I'll leave some proper comments on the talk page when I've had a moment to read it in detail. --Kevan 10:01, 3 September 2007 (BST)

ya, this is just a question to kev and only kev

Just kevan. Anbody else answer i flame heavily then remove comment.

• first, do you have actul characters in the game
• how many
• are they alive or dead
• do you like zombies or humans more?--Darkmagic 18:37, 3 September 2007 (BST)

I run a couple of dozen test characters, some under my own name, some not, and "do you like zombies or humans more" is a very silly and unspecific question. And everyone else; if you want to talk to someone who isn't me, you should do that on their talk page, not mine. --Kevan 10:33, 4 September 2007 (BST)

I know where in malton you are kev ;) I've very recently met you in-game. it was a pleasure to meet you although you were undead. if you're interested, I can brainrot revive you if you break into the (censored) building again and then we can have a nice private little interview :) what do you think? :) The man 18:56, 20 September 2007 (BST)

I think if he needs to become a human, he will, without any help. ;) --KiT 22:54, 20 September 2007 (BST)

A Question Concerning Multiple Characters

I have managed to entangle myself in something of a heated discussion (User talk:Poju and Talk:Zerging) concerning a) multiple characters b) what should be put on the wiki. I read the Game FAQ and have a question. When the text says completely separate existences within the game, does this mean that characters controlled by one player should not collaborate on a meta-level? Does using information gained by one character to aid another constitute breaking the rules, if the characters do not come into direct contact (standing in the same square at the same time) with each other? Can a player run several characters who are working to further a common goal, as long as the characters do not come into direct contact (standing in the same square at the same time) with each other?--Poju 11:20, 4 September 2007 (BST)

Generally separate groups, separate suburbs, separate lives. Anything else is considered zerging by most groups and deeply discouraged. You will most likely take search and combat penalties if your characters interact with each other or they do actions (ie attacking and healing) in the same suburb. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 12:16, 4 September 2007 (BST)

Thank you. I know that many players and groups interpret the rules the way you described. I would still like some clarification from the person, who wrote the rules.--Poju 12:37, 4 September 2007 (BST)

I would have thought the stated rules were clear enough. If they are not, then it might be time for a re-write. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 12:59, 4 September 2007 (BST)

And you are not alone in thinking that. We'll see if he replies..--Poju 13:29, 4 September 2007 (BST)

Well the DEM and Extinction in particular don't believe the rule is stated clearly enough, or at least if what they do falls under the rule, so does the New Malton Colossus and Barhah.com core groups. So yeah, something clear and specifically spelled out would be nice, if only to allow everyone to shut up both here on the wiki and the metaforums.--Insomniac By Choice 16:55, 4 September 2007 (BST)

At barhah.com, at least, we believe the rule is clear enough. We also think that the DEM has too broad of an interpretation, and that Extinction are cheating scum.--Jorm 17:00, 4 September 2007 (BST)

I understand that, but you share lots of membership and are on the same side of things. The RRF doesn't allow one member in the DoHS and another abroad, but it does allow one in the RRF and another in the CRF. If a case could be made that the CRF is just a group of RRF sentinels based around Caiger, that would also fall under any alt policy discussion. I don't agree that it's the same thing as having a single group utilize multiple characters for fighting on different fronts (or else everyone in LUE would have three zombies and we wouldn't have had trouble at Marven and Pole while the rest were at Treweeke and Tynte), but you admit it's a place where a distinction has to be made.--Insomniac By Choice 17:09, 4 September 2007 (BST)

Well, I don't know that I'd call the CRF a bunch of RRF sentinels - more like "a loose confederation of zombies who really aren't very effectual" and it actually isn't made up of many RRF anyways, as near as I can tell. I don't have any CRF alts and I'd prefer not to have any of my crew have CRF alts (though I won't order it) - I think it's a bit too shady. It is, wrt RRF/CRF, about the same degree of shady as the DEM has (1 per group, keep them very far away) - that is, an interpretation that is too broad. I think you're also overestimating the CRF's strength/power: they aren't even on the stats page.--Jorm 17:17, 4 September 2007 (BST)

They're on the stats page with 20 people and average level 32, extremely high for a zombie group, but that doesn't really matter. It's the principle, which is what we're looking to Kevan for clarification on. I'm not really trying to get into yet another debate about it here, although it might be worthwhile for both sides to make their case if there's any ambiguity after we get "the proclamation from on high".--Insomniac By Choice 17:24, 4 September 2007 (BST)

Many times the CRF question arises and many times I shoot it down. The CRF is an alt group. Yes, I said it. It is where you put your zombie alt to chill instead of retire it. It is not coordinated. It is not organized. It is not part of the RRF. Yes, just under half of our members have their main in the RRF. But the CRF is also made of survivor's who have a zombie alt and other zombies who put their alt there. It's a feral group. You stick your zombie in the CRF and he wanders around Caiger Mall, just following the groans. That's why the CRF was made. For people who want a zombie character without having to worry about attack times and strikes. The CRF has no leadership. I'm the leader because I created the group. But I've never organized a strike, organized the group, or done anything. Up until this week I didn't even have access to our private forum. Right now we have nothing going on because our good friends at LUE wiped out all of the NW, making out feeding spots empty. The CRF have worked with only 3 Groups, and I use the word "worked" liberally". Eastonwood Ferals, Shacknews, and LUE. That's it. And all that we did was follow their groans. So please, for the love of god, don't consider CRF to be a zerg group for the RRF. We have 20 members, 4 of which post on the forum, and only 8-9 of them being RRF with their main. --Sonny Corleone ^{RRF DORIS CRF pr0n} 17:37, 4 September 2007 (BST)

C'mon guys. You're clogging up Kevan's talk page. Take it somewhere else. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 22:05, 4 September 2007 (BST)

Well the question is directed at him and can be answered authoritatively only by him. Clogging up his talk page, maybe, but he could help us from clogging up his game, wiki, and numerous forums with our wide ranging argument on the subject of multi accounts.--Insomniac By Choice 02:03, 5 September 2007 (BST)

Kevan: Just for purposes of showing how Extinction came to allow multiple alts, please refer to this old page. Extinction now only allow one alt per player, but act under a DEM-style Extinction Alliance which allows 1-alt-per-group. Coordination between groups extends only to fighting in separate areas and following the Salt the Land Policy (which basically just identifies Necrotech Buildings as primary targets for zombies). 'arm. 00:27, 6 September 2007 (BST)

User check

Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you had access to anything more substancial than the checkuser tool to check and decide once and for all if User:Akule is the same as User:Amazing (Checkuser doesnt store information back far enough to determine this). Thier positions on subjects are the same, the tone of their posting is the same, They attacked the same users rather "violently" insofar as violence is possible on a wiki (In the case of Akule, by assaulting myself, a person who has, as far as i know, never interacted with him in that name before, as well as Hagnat, both of us were big opponents of Amazing.). Everything about Akule screams Amazing alt, but id like to be sure before i drop the hammer on him. --The Grimch ^U! 07:11, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Oh, and guys, please dont perform your traditional bitchy dogpile, even if Akule responds. Lets keep the spam to a minimum here. This is an administrative manner. --The Grimch ^U! 07:11, 8 September 2007 (BST)

E-Mail might have been a better avenue for sensitive enquiries like this. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 07:29, 8 September 2007 (BST)

I already publicly accused him of being Amazing. I dont see how it contains anything that hasnt already been said elsewhere. --The Grimch ^U! 07:53, 8 September 2007 (BST)

He sure smells like Amazing. All the way down to his weird "Nexus War hate" templates. --Jorm 08:41, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Personaly I don't see much resemblance in the posting styles (but then again I'm not a master at deciphering writing styles). But if check-user isn't going to bring up that it's the same user then I don't think Kevan can realy do much to find out. Do you know a character that Amazing plays? Thats about the only avenue that I think of that Kevan could find out by. - If Jedaz = 08:45, 8 September 2007 (BST) then pi = 2 + 1

Nexus war hate? I want one. Oh, and Akule was around during the Amazing saga, he is just a troll. Different people. One last thing: Amazing may be stupid, but he is not stupid enough to be using the same IP in game and with his sock puppet in the wiki. Don't waste your time, Grim.--Thari ^{TжFedCom is BFI!} 09:27, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Sorry, Akule's IP address is quite different from the range that Amazing was using at the time of his ban. --Kevan 11:30, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Thanks. I guess we just got unlucky, and had a person whos personality is twinned with Amazing drop by. --The Grimch ^U! 12:46, 8 September 2007 (BST)

In Akule's Defense (or Why The Grimch Should Not Be a Sysop)

discussion on this topic was moved to UDWiki:Open Discussion/Akule vs. The Grimch. There is too many people involved in this discussion, and Kevan (the owner of this talk page) is the less involved on it. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 04:37, 10 September 2007 (BST)

Character creation abuse

Hello. It seems there's no limitations for creating characters, so this action can be generally abused. I'm not talking about zerging, i.e. creating multible characters to help each other, but just a character creation spree. Here's a case i'm talking about: Characters from 999988 to 1000001 are mostly (and i think all) the same person created in desire to get an id 1000000. 14 characters created in 10 minutes. i believe there should be some limitation for the number of characters created from ip per period of time... --~~~~ [Talk] 08:42, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Why do you care? How is this in any way abusive? --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 10:56, 8 September 2007 (BST)

If you're talking to someone who isn't me, please use their talk page rather than mine, Bob. --Kevan 11:07, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Will do. Sorry. =S --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 11:13, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Yes, this certainly wouldn't hurt, and there is the minor zerg abuse of continually creating characters until you get one in the area you want. I'll chalk it up on the list. --Kevan 11:07, 8 September 2007 (BST)

PKer for Jesus, Muahuahua PKer, and Ganked by a PKer belong to me. I don't know who the Braaaaam guy is who created the other 11 characters. I'm sure it's easy enough to tell it wasn't me though. I'll probably actually use these characters, although certainly not as a team in any zerging situation. I did admittedly rob the count there at the one million point. --Guilty *promises to be a good PKer in the future* --Headless gunner ^W! 16:35, 8 September 2007 (BST)

*Sigh* The millionth urbandead account, and such a lousy name for it. :\ I'd better keep the cake in the refrigerator until we reach the second millionth. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 19:23, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Is the wiki commerical?

Hello, a question has come up in the discussion of the wiki's copyright policy that could use some closure. Is the wiki commercial and does using stuff here count as commercial use? Thanks for your time. - Vantar 06:57, 9 September 2007 (BST)

Also do you still support UDWiki:Copyrights and the statements in email that were posted here? A lot of discussion could be streamlined if you could take a few minutes and talk about your feelings it, since it directly concerns you and the website. Thanks! --Akule ^{School's in session.} 01:59, 14 September 2007 (BST)

Radio Logging

i am trying to setup a website to log radio channels .. at the moment i copy and paste the radio from the map page is there an easier way to do this  ? thanks --Dans34 15:55, 12 September 2007 (BST)

Hi Kevan! I do this very thing for M'ville & Penny Heights, my kung fu is not that strong, so yeah that's what you got to do...copy & paste--Dr Mycroft Chris 02:01, 20 July 2008 (BST)

Free Speech policy

I just thought you would like to know that i have responded to your comment on the policy. --The Grimch ^U! 10:58, 13 September 2007 (BST)

And again. Thanks for your contributions. --The Grimch ^U! 12:08, 13 September 2007 (BST)

Wiki stability?

Hello, on the chance you wern't aware, fairly often recently the wiki has been unavailable for a few hours at a time due to "too many database connections". It's often been during the evenings (after 22:00 EDT, usually lasting until the next morning). Take care.. --Pgunn 17:05, 13 September 2007 (BST)

I'm sure Kevan is well aware of this. However, I think that general maintenance happens during this time (for me it's between 5pm-5:35pm +10GMT). It always happens at the same time on the dot, so I don't think it's an error or lack of bandwidth. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 21:14, 13 September 2007 (BST)

It has been dubbed the wikitrain. It always goes down around 3am EST. Chooo chooo--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 17:29, 14 September 2007 (BST)

Well, that explains a lot. I am on mountain time, so every evening when I am finishing up the wiki goes plop. (right when everything is in preview and not saved).--Airborne88^T|ZC|MI|E! 08:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

So just where the heck *is* Malton, anyway?

I realize, Kevan, that you'd prefer to keep it somewhat vague...But at some point, it would be nice to know: Just where is Malton supposed to be, anyway? (Could you reveal which side of the Atlantic it's on?) For roleplaying, at least, it'd be nice to know. --Penta 16:06, 18 September 2007 (BST)

Please check this page: Malton --The Grimch ^{U! E!} 16:10, 18 September 2007 (BST)

Hamas

Here's something a friend saw today: White Hamas said "لا علامات ، الذي هو حق الله والاسلام وال" (3 hours and 17 minutes ago) http://urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=1003960

I thought you'd want to see it. Maybe ban the user. I couldn't find a translator to see what that's about, but it sounds fishy. --Abi79 ^AB 16:14, 18 September 2007 (BST)

User:Zombie_slay3r says that he got that through a translator and got: Line 1 - No signs, which is the right of God and Islam, and the; Line 2 - Guide me true, so I can kill infidels who do not believe in God --Abi79 ^AB 16:31, 18 September 2007 (BST)

moved the rest of the discussion to Abi79 talk page. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 20:41, 19 September 2007 (BST)

So, how do we pronounce that?

I'm bored tonight. So, I'm wondering. Kevan, how do you pronounce your name? As Kevin, or some other way? --Penta 00:52, 20 September 2007 (BST)

What a stupid question. A simple google search shows this pronunciation: 'ke-vuhn'. Possibly not correct, but could easily satisfy the 'bored' mind. 'arm. 02:10, 20 September 2007 (BST)

Ban evasion

We have a user who got herself permabanned because she didnt like to play by the rules and kept circumventing her bans with sock puppets. Problem is that she keeps signing up new socks to evade her bans. I was wondering if theres some way to get rid of her completely.

Her vandal data entry: Izumi Orimoto

Sorry to bother you with this, but we have just nailed her 21st sock. Its getting a little old. --The Grimch ^{U! E!} 05:28, 1 October 2007 (BST)

you may be interested in this quote of hers

"Here's how it
is: I am going to continue to edit the wiki for as long as I am playing
the game."

so deleting her charicters in game may stop her. but of course that is your choice.--'BP^Tmz 05:35, 1 October 2007 (BST)

I think the count was 30 bans total, including a year and perm, and she wont give up, the account "I won't leave" shows that, so, ya, we need to finnaly cut her off, before the wiki becomes a split for people thinkign we should give the sock puppet mistriss a new chance and those who know what there doing.--Darkmagic 03:01, 5 October 2007 (BST)

We do really need something done. I just banned her 36th alt a few minutes ago. Is there any way to blanket ban all proxies from the wiki? --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 02:08, 15 October 2007 (BST)

You can always do what Conndraka did and block a whole bunch of proxies. Just google up a list and start blocking from there. As far as I know a proxy will look exactly the same as a legitimate user, so unless you have a black list it's imposible to blanket ban all proxies. - If Jedaz = 02:39, 15 October 2007 (BST) then pi = 2 + 1

Just Conndraka, eh? *mutters* --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 05:19, 15 October 2007 (BST)

the multiple alts of my brother

my brother, during his course, considered leaving his character for others ,and right now, there about 5-10 suburbs apart from another, mostly likly all dead, and because of this i can only go to specefic areas without the game thinking i'm a zerger, is it possible for you to delete accounts, because in my group, the revolution, i will eventuly need to travel and i can't do much of that if i don't know where said alts are? I won't mention them until i know if you would do this, i don't need them and i fear zerging counter measures if i accidenly get near one. which would really remove a fun part of my internet time, plus then what little support i do have will drop to zip here.--Darkmagic 02:58, 5 October 2007 (BST)

Well, if they are no longer being played, I would think you will be fine. Especially if they are idled out already.--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 03:02, 5 October 2007 (BST)

Andf i'f im not? losing my lvl 40 character isn't something i'd like to do, i can't start over.--Darkmagic 03:05, 5 October 2007 (BST)

Yeah, y'can. It doesn't take that much work in the long run to build a character, and the anti-zerging countermeasures are (from what I've seen) limited to percentages and some action blocking. Just let those characters of your brother idle out, and nothing will happen to your characters. Come now, AS has been playing this thing since the beginning. Torec _{T-CC/CS/CS/CS} 03:37, 5 October 2007 (BST)

This one was a year and over. Scientists suck at getting there combat--Darkmagic 12:50, 5 October 2007 (BST)

I just piled up my idle corpses in the Far North West Corner- the boundary of all that is holy...--The-Not-So-Late Stuartbman The Third ^{MBE OBE} 19:48, 6 October 2007 (BST)

Passwords

Hey, i have a question for you, when is the 'change password' option on settings going to be up and running again? Thanks --Acoustic Pie 21:01, 11 September 2007 (BST)

(This is from a while ago and i accidentally left it at the top, thus i think nobody saw it).

Just wondering if anyone could tell me anything on the situation, it's coming up to 2 months since i originally asked and i was just wondering if it is going to come out from maintenance, when and what as. Thank you...again. Acoustic Pie 21:20, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I asked a similar question a while back and he gave me a response, go check it out.--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 21:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Acoustic Pie 21:51, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

zombie-zerging

I know you're not going to do anything about it, but the least you could do is read this page, thank you. The man 09:04, 18 October 2007 (BST)

As I say in the FAQ, I don't investigate specific he-said-she-said cases, but the tendency is noted, and a lot of zombie alts have been auto banned recently. --Kevan 10:51, 18 October 2007 (BST)

Thank you, I would also like to emphasize on the point that he may be using proxys for each alt and that may be why your anti-zerging measures have not picked him up yet. Upon googling proxy, i came across this rather annoying list of available proxies In addition, I found this which it turns out is not only a very convenient method for bypassing the zerg laws, but also Izumi's method of constantly bypassing the IP ban on the wiki.The man 18:24, 18 October 2007 (BST)

Images

I was trying to find a answer to my question, but I couldn't find any answers on the wiki, so I am asking you about the following matter: Why all images must be uploaded on this server to be seen. I found on this page the following:

Remember, hosted images depend on the server they're hosted on being available. This can be a problem, as was the case when this page was first created. Take note that as of January 2007 Kevan has deactivated this option and the only images that can still be shown are the ones uploaded on the wiki.

I am wondering, why did you deactivate this option?--  Savant  Chit-Chat  21:18, 19 October 2007 (BST)

Porn and other malicious spammers, more than likely.  Nalikill  ^{TALK  E!  W!  M!  USAI}  19:15, 20 October 2007 (BST)

White Robes

here you told that white robes where implemented, however there are none found neither in cathedrals nor in puppet museums, and that are only places where robes used to be. Did they appear in some cetrain hidden place or did not at all due to some bug? --~~~~ [talk] 13:58, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, found something - zombies can wear them as starting item. So there's no way to wear them as survivor and/or once you already have some clothes on?.. --~~~~ [talk] 21:40, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

They were supposed to appear in cathedrals, but didn't - it was just a bug. It's fixed now. --Kevan 22:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Quick question

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Tommy_Gun did this really happen? The man 09:10, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course it really happened! What, Red Rum tell a fib? Never! --WanYao 09:41, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not the sarcastic type so I can't tell whether you're being serious or not. :S The man 15:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The gun is a lie. --Kevan 15:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

As is the cake. Sorry for any mix-ups, Kevan, we're just upto some light mischief. --Karloth Vois ^RR 00:00, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to trouble you but....

This guy seems to be trying to set a new record for alt abuse in the Pennville area;

http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=378961 http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=375486 http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=357201 http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=367162 http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=357185

Friendly warnings (posting in game guidelines about zerging) have not worked. Not-so-friendly warnings (ie shooting down the alts) have not worked....and the effect these alts are having on the game (especially as the user seems to be able to skip the IP block)is really screwing with the area. Can you assist? Thanks Moyes^{T RPM} 09:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

please read http://www.urbandead.com/faq.html#report The man 15:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

My mistake. Cheers The man Moyes^{T RPM} 09:09, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

New wiki extensions

Would it be possible to add ParserFunctions extension to the wiki to allow basic dynamic parsing without resorting into excessive and redundant templating to duplicate the functions in the extension? Installing the extension doesn't seem to be difficult at all and should be 10 minute effort at most. Another good addition would be LoopFunctions but it is not as helpful as ParserFunctions are. (re: Wiki Question) --Tumu 17:50, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Or possibly a general wiki update, I think parsers are in one of the releases between 1.9 and the current(1.11 I think).--Karek^maps?! 17:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I would love to see this as well, for people familiar with the wiki editing system this adds useful functionality and nicer code. --Fox0ne 22:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

It's no problem to install it - my only concerns about installing Parser Functions are whether it'll significantly affect server load (for a wiki with this much traffic and talk and templated signatures), and the exciting new avenues of vandalism that it would open up.

I really don't know enough about the latest version of the extension to make a call on it, though, so if people want to have an arguments for-and-against discussion about it, I'll follow it and take a look. --Kevan 11:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Obvious vandalism cases are handled quite fast by the sysops, so I would not worry unless sysops take a big step backwards. I have no figures to give about effects on server load, but I'd believe every extension adds slight overhead to page parsing. As for the server load coming from actual use of the extensions, most pages have no use for programming constructs thus don't contribute to load. Only in special or complex pages these extensions would reduce the amount of work and count of needed templates and template calls. Of course amount of use might change over time but do we have to worry about it yet? --Tumu 20:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The only pages that would be using them are complicated ones like this {{User:Karek/ProjDev/Timedepcolor}} or anything that would use an {{Template:If}}/{{Template:Switch}} or the like . It does, however, allow for simpler automated functions like proper footnotes and such.--Karek^maps?! 20:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I was digging through your talk page archive a little while ago for something else on the wiki and saw this, are there still plans to install those? I know Checkuser is already in, this discussion is about the Parser Functions one, but I don't know about the other two.--Karek^maps?! 19:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

UserNameBlacklist is mostly redundant, as I wrote a custom username filter a year or two back, to stop people signing up with annoyingly long or weird-character usernames. SpecialUserScore sounds possibly too hacky to be worth the trouble; the todo list for it includes "make into a proper extension", and it needs some database alterations for "large" wikis, of which is this definitely one. --Kevan 14:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Some time has passed since the request and no serious negatives have been brought up. Do we have a go for testing or should they be postponed to a better time in future (like done with other sw/hw upgrades)? --Tumu 14:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Can I get a link to the for-and-against discussion of this? Or wasn't there any? --Kevan 14:19, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, this is it. :) I suppose we could do a voting of sorts in the Wiki Questions section, if necessary.. --Tumu 20:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Nearly four months later, I've opened the discussion here: UDWiki:Open Discussion/ParserFunctions extension. --Morgan Blair 06:23, 17 May 2008 (BST)

Military Field Manual

I promised myself ages ago that when my Tips in books suggestion hit Reviewed, I would create a page full of tips that should be in the book. That page is located here. It's not much, but it'll do. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 20:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the Snow

Nice job on the snow tracks!  Swiers 18:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I second that opinion! The flavor is awesome. --Private Mark 07:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Now we need some clever extension coder to whip something up that actually shows the tracks as pictures on the mini map...  Swiers 20:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm not that clever, but I went ahead and did it anyhow. Sort of - it showd the footprinats, but in a seprate table from the map. ShowFootprints  Swiers 21:46, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Real Gamer

It has passed too long.

How long will you ignore this?

I have put this petition, many months ago, and you are still ignoring it. Many people will call me an Emo, or a crybaby, I don't care. But still, I'm going to say this in you face.

How much longer can you ignore it?

How much longer can you make it without caring? Yes, maybe, the best way to stop everything is to ignore that idiot's broadcast by clicking the ignore button, but everytime I set one on ignore, a second appears. I have over 50 signatures on the petition, and you still haven't react. I don't know, what kind of a game is this, when it's owner can not stop a idiotical moron, that surely has IQ lower than 5. If you really think that RG is a "somewhat" detail to UD, You are wrong. If we were in zombie infested Malton, he would be alredy dead. Permanently. Beacuse bastards get their medicine, But just not in UD, of course. And, one more thing. How can you stand listening to him saying "This is my game"? If I am not making a mistake, YOU have made this game. YOU have developed this game. And still, YOU haven't done anything good, even wrote something on the petition for players to notice that you have read that. People are starting to get really annoyed by that. And, do not blame them for listening to that. I think it is your fault. Just, yours.

So, in the conclusion, Do we have listen to another 250 spam messages for you to react?

--  Savant  Chit-Chat  12:41, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello. There were some subtle changes to radio broadcasting a couple of months ago, which cut down on his outbursts for a while; it wasn't announced because it would have been counter-productive to tell Real Gamer and everyone else that the system had changed and there were new countermeasures to investigate and work around. I don't know if that's considered enough for the extremely vague "just do something" that the petition demands, but I am aware that open radio channels can be easily spammed by throwaway accounts, and that it'd be great to magically filter out the annoying ones. I just haven't picked a clean solution that wouldn't also frustrate innocent level-one players who wanted to send out random announcements and distress calls.

Feel free to close the petition and put the dutiful spam archive up for deletion. If you want to put an actual constructive solution forward to Suggestions, I'd be interested to see it. --Kevan 18:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no need for me to post in Suggestions. Some players have alredy posted a few ideas that have been transfered to Peer Reviewed. Most of them include an new skill that can indetify the person who uses the radio (transmits messages). Possibly, using the combination of this suggestion, and the alredy existing ignore button, players can instantly recognize spammers, and set the to ignore. There are, I think 2 suggestions like these in peer reviewed.

Oh, I'm really sorry I ended up so rude, but I am also suprised that you stayed polite. Thanks dude.--  Savant  Chit-Chat  13:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Being able to identify and ignore broadcasters would have absolutely no effect on spam from throwaway level one accounts, which is the real issue here. I'm not seeing any other peer-reviewed suggestions of relevance. --Kevan 13:21, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

There isn't much you can do. I had the same problem with this cat on Nexus War; he even went so far as to create fake myspace pages. He's a bored nerd. I ended up banning his IP range, but he still gets around it from time to time.--Jorm 18:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

his ears must have been burning http://iwrecords.urbandead.info/12-20-07_1900hrs_PUBLIC/IN_90-79_click_jesus_mar_fea-e18-a0c.html --THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 20:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

How about making it so that potential radio broadcasts get sent through a filter that determines if they are likely to be spam or not, depending on things like use of 25% or more caps, multiple special characters, a low ratio of characters used in words that can be found in a dictionary, etc. Most broadcasts would have a 100% chance of success (as per current) but really spamy looking ones would have a chance of failing to actually get sent out; the broadcasting character would THINK they had sent it out, but in reality, it doesn't ever show up on any body else's screen. Hey, sometimes people (especially when exited and ranting drunkenly) just forget to key the mike, and never notice the difference...  Swiers 00:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Mmm. Allow only a chosen few to hear and the rest ignored but only on the frequencies of your choice? ex. you can hear everyone on 28.63, but you only allow person A, B and Q on 28.44? --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 00:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

This is close to ideas developing here --~~~~ [talk] 07:49, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

How about just ignore everyone not on your contacts list? --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 10:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

How do you mean? Currently, somebody has to be on your contact list for you to be ABLE to ignore them, as it is a setting for contacts (rather like the colors). If you mean as a global option, it would rather defeat the "real life" purpose of radios and speech if you never heard anything from people you don't already "know".  Swiers 21:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I mean make it a global option. People can still hear everyone, or just the people on their contacts list. I know it sounds crappy, but the way I see it, it's the only way to use radios without being bothered by spammers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dux Ducis (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

Most people avoid spam by not listening to 28.01. I'm not really sure that many people would choose to filter out spammers from their dedicated channels, at the cost of silencing potential allies, recruits and distress callers. And this suggestion would generate more spam for the people who were choosing not to filter it, simply because any group could pick a random frequency, filter out the strangers and use it as their oblivious personal frequency. --Kevan 14:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

How about banning his IP(s) from using the radio? I'm sure that could do for now--  Savant  Chit-Chat  08:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

There are more that 16 zergers. they need to be stoped. And it's impossible that still no one has still mixed up a idea? If there isn't any idea, please Kevan, BAN him until someone else comes upon a good idea.--  Savant  Chit-Chat  14:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Banning would maybe slow him down for ten minutes. Banning the characters would obviously just see them replaced by fresh level-one alts in search of a transmitter, and blocking the IP addresses he's known to have used would just see him switching to a new address. --Kevan 14:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe an option to only listen to people with the broadcast skill? Or maybe have an option to ignore broadcasts from people less than level 1, or who've used less than 200 AP, or something? Of course, that would mean ignoring every non-spammer newb just to block a few people. Ack, I dunno. --Ms.Panes 15:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you come on any idea? IDK, I still think banning his IP should prove good until someone comes on another idea.--  Savant  Chit-Chat  16:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Instead of banning his IP, maybe have it where it *looks* like using the radio works, but anything from his IP isn't heard by anyone else (except his alts, so that he doesn't catch on to the illusion). That way he won't know that he can't use the radio. --Ms.Panes 16:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I've already tried caving the trolls, with partial success, but it comes down to the same issue of a spammer being able to adopt new IP addresses, and there being no way to predict them in advance. "Only listen to people with the broadcast skill" is what the frequencies below 28.01 are for, really. --Kevan 19:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm wondering if I should post a suggestion that people can only change the radio signal if they have Radio Operation (at least that would stop Real Gamerz from making alts so quickly - he'd have to make 100 XP first to buy the skill. And when that one gets killed and becomes a zombie, he loses the ability to change it back to 28.01 unless someone's dumb enough to revive him. --Tselita 19:54, 8 April 2008 (BST)

As I say, banning his current IP would slow him down for maybe ten minutes. --Kevan 19:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

For --  Savant  Chit-Chat  16:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick heads-up to say most people couldn't care less about this issue. Don't worry about all the above complaining nonsense. Cheers for a great game! --Karloth Vois ^RR 19:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The above statement is true. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 20:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I concur with the above statements. If this was real life; he'd be a bloody loon anyway. We'd hunt down and kill him, some time or another. Thanks for a great game. ----Ash  ^{|  T  |  яя  |} 22:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey, about the Real GAYmer issue (what many people call him now), I think a decent solution would be to add a hidden logger to watch all broadcasts for a little while that are made in all caps or have loads of annoying symbols, log the IP addresses, separate the ones made by RG, assess the one that’s likely to be his home address, find out who the ISP is, and then contact the ISP about him, giving them links to all the evidence of his abuse. They’ll likely ban him. Not only would that remove him from this game completely, but it’d stop him from spamming all the others.

Another possibility would be to have some viruses in the system waiting for him, try to catch him online during his rants, find his current IP, then momentarily activate a rigged code, so that the next obnoxious broadcast from that IP address attempted would grab the viruses and send those back to RG’s computer. If you use some real nasty ones, you can knock out his computer. And by making sure that only an “obnoxious” broadcast from the offending IP would grab the viruses to send back, you wouldn’t have to worry about what IP he’s using, because even with proxies, since nobody else is likely making those obnoxious broadcasts at that moment, they’re unlikely to trigger the virus-grabbing code themselves, even if they are using the same proxy. So this should be a very safe and effective way to take him out. What do you think? --Kolechovski 01:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Or, you could implement the 'I Don't Care' counter measures, ignore Real Gamer and realize that nobody really cares about you guys and your 'Partition'. To be honest, I'd keep doing it if I was him; he's getting a shead load of attention.

Maybe if you just ignored him he'd go away, [Psychology], you know? The simple fact is, Urban Dead is meant to be Role Played, although I'm sure you already knew that you seem to ignore the fact that the blabbering idiot comes with the package.

I'll illiterate myself in the TL;DR version. Nobody cares, ignore him or cry some more, etc.

Just a quick edit; the above post is the most stupidest thing I've ever read in my whole entire life.----Ash  ^{|  T  |  яя  |} 20:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I've already implemented "I don't care" countermeasures, as have many, other than those who read his blocks of text for laughs. He's basically ignored by most these days. Still, it was an idea that I just wanted to present to Kevan to do whatever he felt with it, even though it was likely not to be used, and it would remove a major asshole from the Internet. Nothing has to be done, it's just that nobody would mind. I really don't care how stupid you think it is, nor does it even matter. Personal flaming doesn't solve anything. You just become another one of him.--Kolechovski 21:42, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Why shut him down? His pathetic antics crack me up! --BoboTalkClown 02:01, 10 July 2008 (BST)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas Kevan, and a Happy New Year!!!!!!!!111111--Private Mark 21:06, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Just passing by to read the Real Gamer thingy and noticed this header. It makes it a lot easy to say merry xmas and happy new year :) --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 16:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Happy Festivus--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 16:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions

Thanks, and happy 2008! I hope I'm not oversaturating the page with suggestions, please let me know if I ever do. My background isn't in computer programming so the chance to contribute to the development of a game like this, even rarely, is exciting. I really have to commend you for how in touch you are with your player base. A good suggestion is less common now than a year or two ago, only because you've fixed or improved everything obvious. A lot of what is proposed now isn't "we need X" but "X would be nice if you don't have anything better to do." --Jon Pyre 17:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Templated Sigs

How much server load do they cause? Would you be happier if they were not used? Just curious, as there was some brief discussion over keeping templated sigs was a good idea. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 06:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

even if you got rid of templated sigs, people would just take whatever they had that was templated and put it in their signature settings.--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 19:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Making a template call puts a greater strain on the server than simply displaying what's there. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 19:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any idea off-hand about how much server load they add, by themselves; I can't imagine it's that significant, though. --Kevan 19:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Snoodles the Panda

This player has been causing a big uproar in the community, as he is providing nothing else to the game except text raping people. You can see what he's done to my character via this iWitness Screenshot. Is there any way to police this kind of behavior without having to resort to "oh well, he raped me, now I put him on my ignore list." What about the later "victims"? I know several other players who have been affected by this. I just thought I'd bring this to your attention.--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 19:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

FANNY/Ignore List--'BP^Tmz 19:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

IP hits vs AP use (again)

A recent discussion regarding a suggestion that might result in some actions that cost more than 1 AP tangentially touched on this issue.
Its my personal experience that, with the "You have [2-9] actions remaining" warining showing (the one you get when running low on IP hits) you can perform a revive (which costs 10AP) and the counter goes down by 1.
To me, this makes perfect sense, as a revive consumes no more server resources than any other single click action. Also, having a revive consume 10 IP hits means you could initiate a revive when you had 50AP but only 11 IP hits remaining (and hence no warning showing) and suddenly find yourself stuck outside, despite having 40 AP left after performing the revive. That clearly would not be a good thing.
However, this ONLY makes sense if it applies to ALL actions evenly. ?rise and zombie movement without lurching gait would be especially notable cases. If AP expenditure does equal IP hits for most actions, a zombie without ankle grab could log in, see they have 50AP (not knowing they have only 15 or fewer IP hits left) and stand up from a headshot only to find themselves unable to play the game, with no warning what-so-ever. This would be very unfair, given it is demonstrated to NOT be the case for revives. In fact, the simple issue of it costing 2 IP hits to move as a low level zombie may be part of what makes them unpopular; you get to spend more time playing the game for free if you do not ever play a low level zombie.
   -Could you perhaps clarify what the mechanics of IP hit vs AP use are, and why? Thank you.  Swiers 17:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

It would also be nice to see something about this in the FAQ, as it comes up frequently on Talk:Suggestions.--Karek^maps?! 18:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

The manufacture of needles is the only exception, originally introduced to stop everyone running a cheap 3-hits-per-day stockpiling alt. --Kevan 10:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I guess that's fair enough; its not like you'd be in unexpected danger if you manufactured a syringe and found yourself unable to play any more that day. No locked out zombie stand-ups or revivers = a good thing. Thanks! I've edited the IP hit page to clarify this, and put this conversation on its discussions page.  Swiers 16:13, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Although I understand the reasons for having an IP use like that in effect to stop mass stockpilers, I’d recommend at least adding text that syringe manufacture uses 20 AP and IP hits, so there are no surprises. The players likely to be affected by such things would be those who aren’t cheating (the cheaters surely must know about the IP hit thingy by now, right?), and getting stuck inside an NT can be a bigger issue than you think (especially in hot suburbs). Since displaying the IP hit rule wouldn’t hurt (the cheaters can’t stop it anyhow), would you be willing to add that there (and to any other actions that might cost extra IP hits in the future)? I know you try to have things so that the bad guys get caught usually without the problem of “false positives”, so this change would help bring this method to a bit more balance.--Kolechovski 01:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Using Protection.

Are you going to copyright http://www.urbandead.com/ for 2008, or are you bored with it?--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, better hurry. Only got what, 61 years before the 2007 © expires?  Swiers 22:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Why not? Otherwise in 2069 I'm swiping it!--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 22:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Death-of-author copyright expiration is certainly going to get very confusing, when the zombie apocalypse comes. --Kevan 23:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

How do you copyright something? I'm sorry if I sound dumb but I simply have no idea how you make stuff like films, songs, and websites copyright The man 00:31, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

You should ask Akule--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 01:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, Akule knows a lot about this stuff, and he's not as busy as Kev.-- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 01:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Long story short; if you create something, its you hold the copyright. IE, you control who has the right to make copies. But if somebody tries to violate your copyright, its pretty much up to you to do something about it, by proving in court they are doing so without proper permission (explicit or "fair use"). Slapping the © notice on something more or less just means you are documenting its creation for such purposes, and intending to not permit free public copy, and to enforce that restriction.  Swiers 04:11, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

please don't mix up copyright and right of property. copyright is only right to be the author, it cannot be taken away or sold or anything, but it also doesn't give you any more rights than to knock on chest and brag "i made it". The right of property however is the thing that contains everything about rights to use, to copy, to modify, etc. Placing © symbol doesn't protect your rights of property alltogether, but does ensure copyright. But if you include some license, for example GNU GPL, you may say you've taken care of the property rights. --~~~~ [talk] 07:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Crats

We only have two bureaucrats on this wiki. As a result, we have a situation where one crat always beats the other to the punch on promotions (Always Boxy) where both should really weigh their opinions before taking action. There are two solutions here. the first would be for you to weigh in on it. The second solution would be for there to be a third crat position implimented, so all three can confer on such issues, and no crat can force the other out. Since this is rather urgent, it would be preferable for you to just fire up a new crat election rather than go through the 2 week 3 day process of getting a policy done, then the additional two weeks of waiting for a new crat to be elected. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 11:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I follow your argument - why would a third bureaucrat make any difference, if any one of them can still beat the other two to the punch? --Kevan 11:37, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I think he means that if one bureaucrat jumps the gun, and the other two disagree, they are able to override. --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 11:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, instead of first come gets to make the call, its a majority decision in which all have a say. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 11:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

What rule would make it a majority decision? I'm only seeing "Once the two weeks are up, the Bureaucrat will review the community discussion and make a decision based upon it", and whichever way we're interpreting that ("the Bureaucrats" or "any Bureaucrat"), I don't see how a disagreement between two bureaucrats would resolve any differently to a disagreement between three. --Kevan 11:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, quite naturally, that would need to be changed as well. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 11:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to propose that change through proper channels. If you want a system to demote bureaucrats you feel are being obstructive and shouldn't have been given the role in the first place, you're welcome to propose a policy for that as well. --Kevan 12:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

If I have any doubt about the other 'crats opinion (ie they say against) I would discuss it with them. Have I even promoted anyone that the other crat hasn't vouched for already? -- boxy ^{talk • i} 11:42 16 January 2008 (BST)

Do you disagree with the need for checks and balances? --Cyberbob ^{DORIS CGR U!} 11:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Theres a difference. If both crats vouch for someone, but the majority says against, your argument would allow you to go ahead and promote anyway. The other crat may decie to go with the communities decision. We couldnt even misconduct you because its made clear in the guidelines its not a vote. Believe me, this is not a shot at you, but rather a desire to see all the crats being useful, instead of one really fast one, and another backup one that doesnt get a word in edgeways. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 11:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, take it to policy discussion if you've got something to change. That's what everyone else does. Seeing you say this is "urgent", I must assume you're referring to the Karek bid, which is another one I don't really look forward to ruling on, and was planning on discussing with Vantar, even though both of us vouched -- boxy ^{talk • i} 11:52 16 January 2008 (BST)

Urgent insomuch as "should be done ASAP". It would not get done by the time the karek bid came to pass, which is, IIRC in two days, though it would be real nice if kevan threw in his two cents on that one as well. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 12:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd vote on promotion bids, if I wanted my two cents to be counted. --Kevan 12:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Aww :( --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 12:36, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

About inactive alts...

Two quick questions for the almighty god of Malton: 1. If the alts are inactive, can I move my character into their suburb without any combat/search consequences? 2.Would it be possible to give some kind of warning when search odds are affected, in case it is an innocent mistake?

Thank you for your time, TerminalFailure —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TerminalFailure (talk • contribs) 08:00, 17 January 2008.

You could ask almost anyone those questions:

1. When one is completly inactive then the other is not affected (I know this, I have had alts walk directly over inactive ones).
2. According to what I have seen stated, he won't give out this information as it would aid cheaters in testing the boundries.

- Whitehouse ^T 22:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

On Strike 2008

Kevan, I have a question for you. First of all, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but on the Statistics Page there seems to be a new balance of human vs. zombies at 65% vs. 35% respectively. There are also various discussions going on in the Talk:Suggestions part of the wiki about how to get this new balance back to the ideal 50/50. Although the wiki can only represent a small number of the people who actually play the game, the general consensus is that zombies are having to do an innordinate amount of work to stay dead and kill survivors, while survivors put in the smallest amount of effort to make a co-ordinated resistance against them. There has also been talk of another On Strike, and in my opinion I feel that it will only be a matter of time before another one is organised. So I was just curious as to what your opinion is on the current percentage balance of the two groups and if you are planning to do anything to resolve it in the near future to stop any chance of another strike from happening. I can appreciate that Urban Dead may not be your number one priority at the moment if you have things going on in the 'real world', but I (and many others) think that something ought to be done to make the game more 'zombie friendly'. Thank you for your time. Acoustic Pie 13:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I'm aware of the stats page; it's not an entirely useful yardstick, though, and it's somewhat arbitrary to call a 50/50 balance "ideal" - it's a nice sign that both sides are in equal demand, but doesn't translate very cleanly to how much fun the game is for the average player on each side, or how much the game is feeling like a true zombie apocalypse. I'm considering running an in-game survey of players at some point, to find out which side each character is genuinely "playing as" (if any), how happy they are with the game, what they're currently trying to achieve, what they'd most like to see added to the game next, and so on. --Kevan 17:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, well that's a fair judgement to make. I believe that an ingame survey would provide accurate results of what is needed in the game. That should give you a good idea about where to go next. But if I may suggest something, that if you do decide to go ahead with said survey, that you advise people wishing to put their ideas into motion, to join the Urban Dead wiki. However bearing in mind the sheer amount of results that people would put forward on the survey, I'd suggest staggering out the survey over a period of a few months. Still, I'm sure you'll have thought about this already. Thank you for your opinion and good luck with your endeavours in the future. Acoustic Pie 22:24, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

In game! Wow, that sounds complicated. I'm only hear to scotch the rumours that it was my idea to start another strike. It wasn't.--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Heres some maths to get a general idea of how the games going.

Humans + 2*Revivifying bodies = True Human

Zombies + Corpses - Revivifying bodies = True Zombie

You add the revivifying bodies to humans because they are already humans, and you add a second dose of them because they are the next days revivifying bodies. You add the corpses to the zombies, because most are already zombies, and then you subtract the revivifying bodies you have already added to the humans from that total. Of course, this assumes that the game is in a stable equilibrium, so its not entirely accurate, but its better than just looking at the numbers and saying that this is good because of these stats.

Then there is the fact that you have the zombie total rounded up and the human total rounded down. Its been pointed out at least twice, one especially amusing example in your own archive where the sides were tied, and we had 101% in malton.

Finally, the stats do not reflect the amount of work the sides put into making the number happen. Zombies work pretty damned hard to make the number what it is, and humans do fuck all. Playing as a Pker with brain rot, my worst enemy is almost certainly bad luck. Brain rot Pker is pretty much the ultimate expression of hard mode in this game, and im having no trouble at all.

Believe it or not, im actually advising against a strike. If zombies should do anything, its stop metagaming and let your jaw race the zombie population to the floor. The problem with your game is competing levels of metagame make it hard for you to get an accurate picture of game balance, and a silver bullet for pure based on skills and abilities balance would result in a wave of death across the whole game that would make the devil himself green with envy, as the zombie metagame skills are drastically more advanced than survivor ones, and humans are, to be blunt, not used to working at all to survive. They genuinely expect, with no small justification i might add, that if they go to sleep in a building they will wake up alive the next day. It doesnt much matter what building they log off in to do it either. They could print off a map of the city and throw a dart at it to determine a place to bed down and almost certainly survive. Zombies, on the other hand, must corwd into IRC channels at specific preset times that need to be kept secret from humans, and then all log on at the same time, attack the barricades, lose about a quarter of their ap in the process, and then, if they are lucky, achieve a 1:1 human kill to zombie ratio. Forgot to mention. If even one human is online inside the target at the time, he can hold the zombies out indefinately on his own, ruining the entire attack (Which is why the times and targets need to be kept secret). None of your changes have ever appeared to consider the metagame aspect to the game, and thats why we are in this hideous mess, and have been for the last two years. Now, i did actually outline a rather nifty plan on the suggestions talk page a few days back regarding how to fix this ghastly mess. Specifically, empowering feral zombies so they can be effective without hordes to break down the feral clouds following zombie hordes, waiting a week or two, maybe a monmth, then a measured and gradual nerf to barricades over a period of a few months to give humans a chance to adjust to having to work a little to survive. and bring both sides to a comparable level of metagame efficiency. As it stands, a mild metagame response from humans results in a Caiger 1/2, santlerville, or as we are seeing now, a pitneybank. The problem is that those zombies do not realise they have already lost, and will likely grind at that mall for another month before they finally give up, pretty much on the precepice of burnout, if not already there at the time. And thanks, rosslessness, for that edit conflict. It really makes me feel warm inside. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 18:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I am a frustrated zombie as well who came here after a wiki search to see if there were another strike in the offing. But my $.02 - i understand the hesitation to buff zombies too much in a permanent (read 'public') way; a review of the history of the zombie/survivor ratio shows it swings back and forth pretty much independent of game changes - the real problem IMHO, and too complex for a band aid, is that occasionally you get a large organized influx of zombie players, like LUE, Shacknews, Something Awful, etc. which swing the balance for a while by their numerical weight and organization. Their effect would be devastating if the game balance typically favored zombies. The hard portion of this issue is that ultimately the zombie game is pretty boring and these groups fade over time once they've 'been here, done that' (even RRF is not the same people it once was) - this seems to take 1-2 months; at which time things gradually drift back to human/survivor dominance which the game dynamic seems to naturally favor. So having said all this, i think some hidden & reversible zombie buffs (like a syringe find -% and a barricade hit rate +%) right about now would make a lot of players happy & upset few. when/if another mega horde invades these buffs could be softened. --Lardass 19:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The new update is sure to even the playing field. As I pro-survivor my first feelings were rage at such a massive nerf. There WILL be many survivors whining about this. On second thought though, it makes the game harder and seriously shifts the old survivor "Cade, Heal, Dump, Kill" strategy. It will be interesting to see how the rest of The Battle of Pitneybank goes. I personally think we're going to see another "Red Blanket" similar to when the ruin feature was first introduced. But as always, survivors will adapt to face this new threat. --Blanemcc 22:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

An interesting update. I can already see changes outside the MacMillan Hotel. There were 39 zombies outside last I checked, and now there's 39 inside. I'd like to see how Pitneybank turns out. Anyways, good update! --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 22:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Why is there always a strike every freakin' year? Seriously! Out of the nearly 3 years I've been here, I've seen an in-game strike every year. Why is that? --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 22:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The second strike was like this one, pretty much one user shooting his mouth off when there really isn't a strike. There has not been a strike since On Strike and will not be a strike until the zombie groups decide to strike, which as of current they haven't.--Karek^maps?! 23:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Kevan, the game has been out of balance ever since survivors got organized with the whole revive thing. The only way to correct this is to reduce the ease it is to revive people so that the balance between deaths and revives may balance back to the way it used to be when the game first started. To do that I would recommend removing the ability to search for syringes and allow syringes to be manufactured in non-powered NTs. That will fix everything and will make getting a revive as difficult as it used to be in early days of the game. Also, Karek, you're a f**king idiot. The man 18:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

There's a reason we have the suggestions page, you know... --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 18:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to steal my idea and make a suggestion based on it if you want. I don't have time for these kind of things anymore. The man 20:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Then quit complaining?--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 21:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hockey Stick

There has been some dispute over what type of hockey stick the Hockey Stick actually is, specifically some people believe is to be a field hockey stick and others an ice hockey stick, I was wondering if you could provide some clarification on that issue.--Karek^maps?! 10:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

No, no clarification, it's just a hockey stick. Players are free to adopt their own interpretation. --Kevan 17:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I like to think of it as a tonsil hockey stick.--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 23:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

About the zerging countermeasures...

...are you sure they're working? My survivor alt's in Shearbank and I saw 7 characters by the name of Mighty Thor. Here's the IDs: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7. #3's ID is missing, I know. I forgot to get #3's ID. Anyway...I have only been in Shearbank for about a week, but I do believe Mighty Thor has been in the area a lot longer then a week. So I'm just wondering...Why hasn't the ban hammer fallen on these 7 Mighty Thors? --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 16:11, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Proxies. --Akule ^{School's in session.} 18:31, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Although I use proxies sometimes myself (legitimately, due to other players on campus using up the IP hits every once in a while), and am therefore against blocking them completely, I also recommend adding something to the zerging countermeasures to identify patterns of IP switches. This would be harder to enact against those on dialup, as they usually never get the same IPs when logging on and off, so it would take far more advanced detection measures to stop them. Proxy abusers likely have the same proxies being abused over and over. This should equal a pattern of IP addresses. Perhaps if certain collections of them are being consistently found in the same area as a bunch of alts, the system might watch those alts more closely. If the pattern continues (which likely will if there’s true zerging), then it can ban all the offending alts involved. Your thoughts on this countermeasure’s effectiveness?--Kolechovski 01:12, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

And the above method most likely includes setting some 'leet pickup virus that'll send back viruses to the offenders PC'. (Just read his entry, seriously)

As for Zerging Countermeasures, I believe that the only type of counter measure is the 0% hit ratio. I've never really tried anything out, but from what I've heard any characters from the same IP have a 0% chance to hit anything in the same square as them (I.E 2 or more Zergers attempting to kill someone = 0% hit ratio) and then a reduced hit ratio in the immediate surrounding area. ----Ash  ^{|  T  |  яя  |} 21:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you play Urbandead Kevan?

Kevin, do you play Urban Dead, the awesome game you created? Because, you seem so busy making updates and other games and looking at the wiki that I soemtiems wonder if you plan Urban Dead? --The Gecko PKer 16:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes he does. He runs a few test characters, but the only one I know is Bub, his zombie alt. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 16:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

well its not his alt, its more or less his main character. Also, its beginning to gain alot of publicity for the first time ever seeing as he is leading the second big bash. The man 18:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it's just his best known character. And it's not the first time Bub has gotten publicity, Bub's been known about for a while now.--Karek^maps?! 18:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Very true. If I remember correctly, he was also in Mall Tour '07. And was the zed that ransacked one of the quadrants in Stickling Mall... --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 18:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Bub's completely feral, he just happened to follow the groans to Giddings. He doesn't consider himself part of the Bash, and has wandered away from the mall now. I run a few survivors across the city, but they don't have my name on them, to avoid attracting any special in-game treatment, good or bad. And I have a small band of test characters who try not to get in anyone's way. --Kevan 18:20, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

RE: New Updates

Speaking as a highly active survivor, zombie, and PKer, I would like to say that

I ♥ them.

That is all. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 01:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I also play all sides, and i second the 'I ♥ them'--Skyvia 01:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

For some reason, the "heart" character is showing up as a long "pipe" character in my browser's font. Which I thought was funny, now that survivors are talking about using the pipe barricade as a barricade starter. By the way, the best part of this update has been everybody talking about pipes and my juvenile sense of humor. Pipe!

So yes, I | these changes too. --Sexy Rexy Grossman 03:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Speaking as a (mostly) survivor, non PKer oriented player, thanks for adding a bit more exitement to the game!--Seventythree^Talk 14:25, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

One thing I've already noticed is that us zombies don't need to all smash into the mall within the same 30 seconds to get in. That makes the pace of the game a lot more relaxed on our side, and I expect eventually on the survivor side. Among other things, that makes server lag a lot less annoying. Way to kill multiple (survivors|zombies) with one (bite|shell)!  Swiers 16:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that as well. The server lag seems to have halved since this last update. -- Cheeseman ^W!RandomTalk 14:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

The increase in server responsiveness is actually from some unrelated optimisation work. --Kevan 14:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

:D Either way, I didn't imagine it. So its good with me. -- Cheeseman ^W!RandomTalk 23:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't saying there was less lag, just that the existence of lag is less annoying; with no pressure to co-ordinate entry into a very short time-frame, lag becomes a minor annoyance, not a game-altering problem. I think the ability to sit back and work at your own pace and still accomplish something in a siege makes for a much funner game. But obviously I'm also happy to hear about the optimizations!  Swiers 20:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Linking Headers

I was wondering if there was a way to link to specific headers on the News pages like there are on the FAQ pages?--Karek^maps?! 04:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Complex game design stuff/questions

Kevan-Hi. I know you have lots to go through, but I’m wondering if you could take a look at a few things and weigh in on how hard they’d be to implement in the game programming-wise, should they ever end up as peer reviewed, so we know whether or not to look into such things.

The first issue is one discussed on the talk pages regarding inventory sorting. Under my beliefs, couldn’t the current system be turned over to a new array-type system? Now this isn’t all of the items, but here’s a sample of the new thing I was thinking of, one that would likely be faster and more efficient than the current system of displaying each item individually and in the order of being found. The discussion can be found here:

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php?title=Talk:Suggestions&oldid=992298#Sort_the_damn_inventory.21

Here’s a sample of what I’m suggesting.

Let’s say you have 15 FAKs, 5 Pistols, with 1, 2, 4, 3, and 3 bullets respectively, 3 Pistol Clips, a Crowbar, an Axe, 3 Shotguns, with 2, 1, and 2 shells respectively, and 3 Shotgun Shells.

If found in whatever random order, you’d have this:

FAK, FAK, Pistol (1), Pistol Clip, Pistol (2), Pistol (4), FAK, Pistol Clip, Pistol (3), FAK, Crowbar, FAK, FAK, FAK, Shotgun Shell, FAK, FAK, Shotgun Shell, Axe, FAK, Shotgun (2), FAK, Shotgun (1), Shotgun Shell, FAK, Pistol (3), Shotgun (2), FAK, FAK, FAK

In array form, not showing the values for any other items in this example, would be like:

FAKs-15 Pistols-5 Pistol Clips-3 Crowbars-1 Axes-1 Shotguns-3 Shotgun Shells-3

Pistol Ammo-12334000… Shotgun Ammo-122000…

I forget how many items are in the game, but you could have a list of all those, 2 spaces wide, with the item reference first, followed by how many are held. There can be another array for Pistol/Shotgun Ammo, in sorted order. IIRC, Pistols have 4% encumbrance, and Shotguns have 6%. That means up to 25 Pistols or 17 Shotguns can be held. Maybe have the Pistol array be 26 spaces wide and the Shotguns 18 spaces wide to accommodate sorting for when a new one is found or reloaded.

I’m thinking that by using arrays, the system would have a much easier time handling the use/finding of items (simply increment the value in the correct field), cut down server load, cut down bandwidth, and have a very nice, clean inventory list. This should be more effective all over than the current system right?

As for the current system, I understand the game would need some down-time while it converts all the old inventory tables over to the new ones, but couldn’t some simple warning text about maintenance to begin on X date at X time in a few weeks from whenever be enough to warn people of the downtime? I don’t think it would be that big a deal for the game to only be down a little while while it undergoes such a huge improvement, both beneficial to all survivors and the whole system, right?

What are your views on this? Do you see it as doable? Why or why not?

Also, I added a suggestion about adding a monorail line that would take a good bit of time and effort to implement, should it be peer accepted. If it would be accepted by the community, what are your views on how difficult it would be to put into place? That suggestion can be found here:

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Talk:Suggestions#Walking_the_rails

Thanks for your time. I hope I didn’t waste too much of it, heh. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kolechovski (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

Changing the internal data structure is entirely unrelated to bandwidth and inventory display, which could be rewritten without changing the underlying data. And everything is doable in one way or another, if it's interesting enough; suggestion discussion doesn't need my input about implementation. --Kevan 18:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

A rather Random Question

Hi. I have a bit of a query about what caused you (Bub) to head up to Giddings for the Mall Siege there. An ally of our group sent a message to one of the other commanders containing this. It basically details the events from the 10th of January through to the fall of the Mall. According to what it says, one of our members, Daeyron, said to the group of zombies outside that the Bash needed help up at Giddings in an attempt to move them on and protect the building they were trying to keep safe. From what we know, Bub was then spotted at the Morrish Building the next day by someone from Barhah.com. Then not long after this the update came and the Mall fell. Cutting to the chase, I'm just wondering whether it was Daeyron's speech that caused you to head up to Giddings and from there work on the update for cades. :) Just as its kind of intriguing and promises to be a rather healthy debate on our forums, I fancied coming over here and finding out from you. -- Cheeseman ^W!RandomTalk 14:53, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Afraid I don't remember. It might have been a radio broadcast, or just talking offline to a friend who was up there. --Kevan 12:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Dear Kevan

I don't usually pray for divine intervention, but... giddings is full of obvious zergs like 10min meatshield, eatmefirst, giddings meatshield and so on. Not one profile I've clicked on yet has been over level one. It's getting difficult to enjoy the ruins with all these cheats around. Oh please mighty Kevan, divine intervention would help mah zambah bask in the eternal ruins of giddings once more.

Amen. Lord Rutherford 03:05, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello. Please read the FAQ. --Kevan 12:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Great Game

Hello, my name is MikhailA amd I would just like to say that you've got a great game here. I've been playing for 6 months every single day. I just also like to say one thing...could you add cigarettes. I mean with this new zombie update and other ones againest survivors, my character could use a smoke. Other than that, I like to reiterate that you've got a great game here and I believe its going to last quite awhile.--MikhailA 02:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but cigarettes are already in the peer reviewed suggestions. --Kevan 12:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know. I was just wondering if they could get implemented soon. I guess it doesn't really matter. Anyway, great game.--MikhailA 00:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

(He's a suck-up, don't listen!) --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 00:09, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Zombies

Kevan, Urbandead is a great game but there's a problem. The game is unbalanced for Zombies. Maxed out Zombie has bite. 30% Chance of hitting and it infects it's prey. Over half the humans in Urbandead are carrying FAKs around. So, Infection is a bite useless. Humans have shotguns, 8 damage min, 10 damage max. Ammo is extreamly easy to find, in two action points, one shotgun shell. Also, the shotgun can have a 65% chance of hitting. You should give Zombies an advantage. --The Gecko PKer 15:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually that's 40% to hit with tangling grasp, and infection is useful because it is an AP sink, taking several survivor AP to find an FAK and another to administer it, taking a minimum of 3 AP, and that is in the absolute most ideal circumstances: in a mall, with shopping, bargain hunting, and diagnosis, which they need to know that someone has been bitten, or they themselves need to be the one that has been bitten. Plus, zombies have the second-highest weapon hit rate in the game, claws are at 60% with tangling grasp, and it has an advantage over firearms because there is no need to waste AP searching for ammo, and they aren't limited by how much ammo they are carrying.

Also, death hits survivors a lot harder than it hits zombies, because while zombies can just stand up for 1-6 AP, survivors need to spend AP standing, shamble over to a revive point, wait a day or more to be revived, then stand up again and move back to where they were. Zombies have a huge inherent advantage in siege combat, because while survivors need to be constantly on alert, with a few people online every second, zombies can wait and attack with all their forces at the same time, meaning for each break-in, zombies will most likely outnumber survivors, negating any individual combat advantage a survivor might have. Plus, with the new update, break-ins are even harder to control, making siege combat hugely impractical for survivors, so that there only advantage is in smaller safehouses against small groups of zombies. Those are most of the advantages I could think of off the top of my head.--Corndoghero^T-S-Z 22:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey Gecko PKer, I see where you are coming from, but to see where the balance lies all you need to do is check the survivor's record on winning sieges since the new changes came into effect. It is no longer possible for survivors to defend a mall, or other resource building from a horde of equal, or even lesser size. This is because once the barricades are breached, it becomes an extremely difficult task to rebuild them until ALL the zombies inside are killed and dumped. During this time, it is all too easy for previously killed zombies to simply stand back up and wander back in.

Now a group of 10-15 zombies can successfully lay siege to a building full of people twice that number. If being able to crush your opponent when you are outnumbered 2:1 isnt an advantage, I dont know what is!. The new changes have made zombies powerful indeed. Cheers!--Dr Doom86 07:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Or the survivors not killed in the initial break in can just run a few blocks away, where the zombies will never find them. If being able to move and hide in dozens of places the enemy has no access to isn't an advantage, I dont know what is! But I agree; zombies are now quite powerful in a straight up static seige. So don't give the opportunity to make one!  Swiers 03:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

April Fool's

I have an idea for something you could do on April Fool's Day like you normally do. Of course, since I'd prefer this idea to be a secret to the others (so as not to spoil the surprise), I don't want to make it into a normal Suggestion. Is there a way I could contact you privately, such as via email? --Specialist290 ♠♥♣♦ 23:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

kevan at kevan dot org. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 05:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Rev. --Specialist290 ♠♥♣♦ 00:00, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Facebook

I just saw that Urban Dead widget thing you made, and I've got to say. I'm impressed. I can now show my friends who don't use an Instant Messenger thing my UD characters, and maybe convince them to join. Bravo, Kevan. Bravo! --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 19:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC) Although...I am wondering, will you be turning that widget into one where you can sign on to UD via Facebook in the future or something? --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 20:05, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Questions about zombie anti-barricades

Hi. I’d like to ask some questions regarding the zombies’ ability to stop all barricading once inside a building. Although zombies direly needed beefing up to stop the survivor snowballing and stupidity, and you had implemented the changes just after I had typed up a suggestion to have zombies stand in the doorways and attempt to block barricades, I feel the current update is overpowered and unrealistic. Far worse, it undoes several aspects of the game. I’ll go into the details…

First, zombies shouldn’t be really able to stop ALL barricading if they’re just swaying around by the door (or it should cost AP as an auto-move to directly block a cade action, and we all know that’d never happen for obvious reasons). By standing by the door, they should be able to block MOST cade actions naturally, due to their position. However, they can’t cover all angles, so maybe 1/10 cade attempts make it past them on average? Besides, they are not standing right in the doorway since you can still close the doors behind them, so you know they can’t stop everything from all angles.

In addition, lead pipes used as a loose cade level aren’t dragged along the floor like all other cade materials. Instead, a person who has a lead pipe right on them, who can get through the doors okay, even closing them behind them, somehow has their lead pipes stopped from being shoved between the door handles!? This makes no sense whatsoever. You can fit through the door, you can move around the zombie, closing the doors, but an item on you that gets around the zombie as you move suddenly is stopped from simply being inserted between the door handles. The only way a zombie could ever do this is by specifically moving around to stop you entirely (and that would cost AP).

I had started a suggestion about at least letting lead pipes be used while zeds are present, and that suggestion is still ongoing at this time (I can’t view the latest version, as I am typing this offline), but I had noticed that the community’s views (those who called it SPAM anyhow) seem unfairly skewed and not even reading or properly assessing the suggestion (and I can see from others’ replies that they noticed as well), so I am discussing this here, where it’s not subject to bias. This is not a balance issue as some claim. A lead pipe can only provide a single cade level, so survivors are still pressured to dispatch the zed quickly. It would also preserve the reward for coordination among zeds, as those who strike together don’t have to waste a few turns to knock a lone cade loose as they might have to all spread out, coming in over a day’s time. The game shouldn’t force people to metagame, but those that do should still at least have an advantage for doing so.

Now to look at aspects of the game this update counters. In the current form, a zombie that enters a place now has a free ransack of it. The main benefit of ransack stops cading behind the zombie, forcing survivors to dispatch it (or however many are holding the building) first, before they can reuse the building. With the latest update in its current form, zombies don’t need to buy ransack, as they now stop cades completely on their own. There is absolutely no difference between ransack and a zombie entering a normal building, except that they don’t have to actually kill anyone (instead the people there become snacks with leftover AP). This dwarfs ransack/ruin entirely, and alone is quite severe.

In addition, lead pipes had become a bit more defined among the “stash” of “useless” melee weapons when it gained the ability to be used as a first cade level. Pipes can’t be used on ruins anyhow, so the only advantage is a newbie using them to block a building currently under siege and buy a slight chance for those inside. Now with the update, that change has been eliminated, because now pipes can’t be used at all. Okay, technically, if a newbie is online just as the cades come down, they can jam a pipe in at that moment, but let’s be serious-how often will that happen? It’s unusual for anyone to be lucky enough to just witness and react in time to a siege-about-to-happen, but now for it to be a newbie without Construction? It’s going to be about as rare as crate drops, so the lead pipes go back to being junk again. That’s especially a shame, because with it being the only item that should be capable of cading doors 100% of the time, it would have actually gained use among survivors during sieges and defined itself completely, which is what a few of the melee weapons still seem to need.

As said before (I think I said it), zombies have been needing that update to stop the simple cading behind them that was common and force survivors to actually start playing, and the update is mostly on the right track, but it’s too overpowered in its current form and renders a couple sections of the game completely useless. In addition, while zombies are usually powerful as hoards, this now simply encourages zombies to spread out, putting a couple into each and every building, and then eating everybody slowly over time. One of the arguments was that since you had implemented it, suggesting anything that counters the update in any way was apparently SPAM, with the apparent reasoning that if you had wanted it done otherwise, you’d have done it differently. What I’m asking is, did you have a decent chance to test this update out completely before implementing? Are you okay with it undoing some of the other changes to the game? And is it futile to ever suggest anything that in any way modifies any of your implementations?

I know that was a lengthy read. I’m sorry, and I don’t know if you read all of that, but when there are problems, I usually explain them in detail to show exactly where the flaws are at and what solutions are available. If zombies weren't supposed to block things entirely, then there may be a bug. Oh, and you can read the suggestion at the following link if you care:

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Suggestion:20080206_Allow_pipe-cading_when_zombies_are_present

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kolechovski (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

Zombies are not supposed to block barricading entirely; if you're observing this repeatedly, please report it as a bug. --Kevan 09:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Well it seems to be working okay now, and I see others can do it, too. Unless it happens again, I won't bother posting anything on Bugs. The problem I had was it wouldn't let me do it, and it didn't cost any AP, no matter how many times I tried to pipe the doors, so I concluded that it wasn't allowed. Anyhow, it seems to work okay, now, so you can delete that massive wall of text. Sorry about that. New question, though, why didn't my signs on this and the post below work? It says they were unsigned...but I remember signing both of them after previewing.--Kolechovski 02:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Questions about the bug reports page

With the page having its design changed a bit, I noticed that none of the previous reports have been moved. Is there anyone in charge of looking over the bug reports page, moving reports to their proper sections once dealt with? For example, now that there is a section for reporting grammar errors, a number of reports can be moved to that page (though I don’t know how to do so). Also, I see a number of reports with no replies. Are those ever looked into by anyone? Just curious…I know you visit it and deal with certain issues, but I don’t know if anyone goes through all those or not. BTW, is there a way to add certain subjects to the frequently reported list? Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kolechovski (talk • contribs) at an unknown time.

So far as I'm aware, nobody is particularly in charge of the bug reports page. Its instructions do say that "Once bugs are confirmed by Kevan or enough others, move them to Known Bugs", and I'm assuming that any random passer-by is welcome to do that. --Kevan 09:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Kolechovski, this question should have rather been asked on corresponding talk page than here. Anyway, earlier V2Blast was proccessing the page and for some time i was doing it (and will get to it again eventually), however there's no and never will be anyone "responsible" for it, bearing in mind the concept of wiki. Hope that answers your question --~~~~ [talk] 18:32, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

the dead of Dunell Hills

Okay explain how this happens:

Yesterday the dead of Dunell Hills numbered about high 600's. Today, at about 1300 hours, it was at 727 members with an average level of 5. Then, at 1935 hours, it was at 839 members with the average level of 5. There also appear to be two other goups listed on the stats page that are:

The dead of Dunnel Hills 25 3 86 And this one: The Dead of Dunnell Hills 14 1 15

Are you monitoring this situation and if this gets way out of hand, how will you control it? I mean this group is growing larger by the minute. While I was posting this they went up by 22 members!

See for yourself:

the dead of Dunell Hills 861 5 4348

If you have any info on this, please share it with me. I've been monitoring this situation regularly and hope this gets solved soon.--MikhailA 00:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

answered on his talk page. Conndraka^{mod TDHPD CFT} 00:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd actually like to hear from Kevan and his view on the situation, not from the person who created the page.--MikhailA 01:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll tell you now, Kevan would probably say the exact same thing.-- dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 01:57, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a legit group who could easily muster such a number. Would you please do your homework before bothering me with crap like this? The last thing I need is faggots like you wasting my time. --Keven 03:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The man has spoken, can you guys get over it now?

"(diff) (hist) . . User talk:Kevan‎; 23:43 . . (+259) . . Keven (Talk | contribs) (→the dead of Dunell Hills - )"

Nice try. --Zombie in Pajamas 03:52, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of impersonating trolls, this is a legit group from Something Awful, who is more than capable of fielding such a group. Frankly, I don't see how this is any different from LUE, or any other sudden, large uprising of lowbie zeds. --Druuuuu ^OcTRR 04:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Monroeville

Is it going to have its own player database or is it going to be sharing Malton's username database? I only ask because when I tried to sign up with the username I used for the first time 'round, it said the name was already taken. --Amanu Jaku 09:30, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

It's the same database, for various good reasons. --Kevan 09:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Just wondering (I understand if you want to leave it to "surprise") - is this just going to be a duplicate of Malton, but with different names? I'm trying to get my bearings based on the mall I've just found, but with nothing else on the wiki currently it's a little difficult to even know where to begin. Additionally, any chance you can verify the rumors that buildings won't be cade-able above loosely? (I've seen this in a few places, but I'm assuming it's just folks mistaking the fact that nobody will have construction yet.) Thanks! Sheana ^{T / TMZ} 10:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Some questions if you have time Kevan:

1. Do Monroeville IP hits count towards the Malton limit or does it have a separate IP hit limit?
2. Is Monroeville operating under a time limit? Will registration eventually be closed and the survivors left to perish?
3. Is this a one off thing for the release of the film, or and experiment to the viability of other cities?

Cheers -- Iscariot 12:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I will take the liberty to answer one of them. Yes, the IP hit count is the same for Malton and Monroeville. At least, that's how it worked for me.

Please see Kevan's comment here for your third one. -- John Rubin^{T! ZG} 16:21, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Will Monreoville characters be playable if you decide NOT to keep that map? I'm wondering because of the potential for people donating money for unlimited IP hits on those characters- it would suck to loose the character, right? Also, it looks like you can create a new NT lab assistant in Monroeville. Heh. I think I'll wait a couple weeks and then do that, and see how fast I can level by the (sure to be numerous) zombies...  Swiers 19:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

The future of Monroeville is uncertain; at the very least, though, donated-for characters would get their donation flags shifted onto other characters in Malton, if Monroeville was shut down. I will be trying to sort out separate IP banks for the two cities, though, when I've got some development time. --Kevan 20:00, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hello! first, I want to thank you because this game is wonderful! (better with firefox extentions). Have just a silly question: when a survivor have killed a zombie, did this zombies die forever, or he can stand up? If they can stand up, there will be more zombies than survivors in 3 weeks!! (Excuse me if my post is too useless). Un "bonjour" de la part de la France ;). Cheers --Zyll ^GIFD 22:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Will Monroeville have its own stats page? It'd be fascinating to watch how fast the inevitable human slaughter would be. It seems it's currently sharing with Malton's stats.html at the moment, judging from the sudden leap in survivor population. --Aeon17x 23:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Zombies stand up as normal- I've done it. The rules are the same (afaik) except there is no source of syringes (as yet). You are right that there will be many dead survivors, but for those to be zombies, people need to play them as zombies, instead of just creating a new survivor character. I doubt that will happen.
However, what likely WILL hapen is that people who play as zombies will get to buy most of the zombie skills (if they manage to level fast enough) but most survivors will die before they grab more than a half dozen survivor skills. Individually, zombies may prove "stronger" than survivors due to game mechanics, but the total numbers on both sides will depend on player choice.  Swiers 23:16, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I see that you've now removed the Monroeville stats from the Malton stats page - is there any chance that you could make a separate Monroeville stats page, or provide a link to one if you've made it already. Thanks! --xensyria^T 15:08, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Monroeville Suggestion

I suppose these could go through the normal suggestions page? Anyhow, here's a quick one; instead of showing "A zombie" in action reports show the zombie's name. Part of what makes Romero's movies fun is that there are "character zombies". The "A zombie" thing really doesn't protect zombie anonymity (its a lint to the profile anyhow) and without the chance for revives, anonymity seems more irrelevant, and even counter-productive to the horrific effect seeing a dead friend who will never live again would have.  Swiers 23:24, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking something like this, although when in a square with zombies, the name of the one in the top of the stack would show inside the grey box. This would mean single zombies would still be seen as zombies but not as humans. Alternatively you could make the name but only part of it. Like my character in Monroeville is Steven Elson, but instead of showing it, you could have it as St..n Els.n, or show the name of the zombie, but no link to it. However if a zombie speaks or attacks/kills you/someone it would still show up as St..n Els.n and a link to the profile. Acoustic Pie 19:49, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Another Monroeville Header

hey there Kevan... great work on the new map, so far i am enjoying it a lot more than Malton... not only because everything is new in here, but because we get more ways to play the game... with open fields and larger (and different shaped) malls. This makes most places seem a lot more unique than in Malton. Great work, and thank you. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 18:03, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Likewise. Different challenges. Also good as a future testing area for the more controversial suggestions. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:37, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I echo hagnat's sentiments especially. It's like UD has had a refreshing face lift, especially as death is now permanent. I hope that you consider keeping this game running longer than the 'Diary of the Dead' film stays at the cinemas! Thanks for all your work on this. Moyes^{T RPM} 11:44, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

book

Hey Kevan I would like to write a book about Urban Dead(fictional) and i need your permission to do so I think it would be a good attention getter and some publicity for Urban Dead. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stuart Athay (talk • contribs) 02:39, 29 February 2008.

The spelling and punctuation of that sentence aren't very compelling, but if you've got some previously published work that I can look at, drop me an email. --Kevan 10:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I already tried that 3 weeks ago so i got advice to post someting here and if you can give me an email adress ill send you the first and second chapters (which i have already written)and ya i know the punctuations bad but it's just hastily written message.(i tend not to use good punctuation or spelling in hastily written messages.) i'm also going to get 4 or 5 maybe even more people to spell check and thats not including myself--Stu 06:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

so can i write the book?--Stu 08:10, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

My email address is on my website. --Kevan 08:59, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Code Stuffs

I was wondering if you knew of a way to view what Span classes are available without just trial and error.--Karek^maps?! 01:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Not entirely sure what you mean by span classes, in this context. There are plenty listed in the default CSS file, if that's what you're talking about. --Kevan 09:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks to contain what I wanted.--Karek^maps?! 09:36, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

hey... i just had this crazy idea... could you call the urbandead game css in the urbandead wiki ? This way we wouldn't have to use templates to standarize building colors in location pages and could simply call a div class="foo" in them :D Would save us the time to re-create your classes as templates, and would save some server bandwidth --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 14:59, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention it would make things like the Monroeville Maps people are working on Plausible, you'd finally be able to fit it all on the page/template without breaking it.--Karek^maps?! 22:58, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

There are all sorts of things in the game CSS ("body", for a start) that would ruin the wiki. --Kevan 10:54, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I think they just meant including them in style codes, like say table.Club so that we could set <table class="club"> instead of making the background, font, etc. code like is currently done. Would something like that also cause problems? I'd think the class names could be completely arbitrary if the problem is them conflicting with each other.--Karek^maps?! 14:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there is a really easy way to do that. Split the css in two or more files. Have a locations.css, a game.css, site.css, wiki.css and so on. Then all it would take is to call the location.css in both the game and wiki and yer' done. Re-usability of code in a blink :D --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 14:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You can't call CSS in a wiki.--Karek^maps?! 02:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Club Conn

Whether it was by choice, accident, or random fluke... Thank You. This has made my day. Conndraka^{mod TDHPD CFT} 16:54, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Meh. that's not fair. I too want a building named after myself... --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 03:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hagnat Present!--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 04:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Yay \õ/ --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 11:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Pretty much everyone has a building these days, duke has one and rumour has it theres a Club Finis in Monroeville. It sucks being obscure.--xoxo 11:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

This is all just coincidence. None of the buildings in Monroeville are intentionally named after players. --Kevan 12:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

There are buildings, however, named after some sites, i.e. the Filmstalker Building [377,36]... --~~~~ [talk] 00:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

you are no fun kevan... we know that, we are just playing :P --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 12:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

at least he can create a zombie mmorpg...how many of them have you made haggy?--xoxo 12:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

the Duke Hotel, the Swears Museum, the Grimley Motel... Oh, hagnat, don't cry: Haggie Square --~~~~ [talk] 15:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Even my characters have roads named after them. All i need to find is a rosslessness road. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:31, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there a "Short Road" or "Nome", "Gnome" or something similar anywhere? "Target Way?" --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Krazy Road? Cheesy Way? Maybe? :( -- Cheese 23:41, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Cheesman Bank. Ok, enough spamming KD's page. since now, post to my talk page for such "requests" --~~~~ [talk] 00:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Yay! :D Wyke Hills!! My alt lives near there. -- Cheese 00:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

My name is all over the place. There's a PD, hospital, crescent etc.. --Violent-kun 23:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Would there be anything to do with corn, corndogs, or perhaps heroism?--Corndoghero^T-S-Z 02:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I dunno, but if there was i'm pretty sure it'd be here.--xoxo 05:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I found the Corn building in South Monroeville, but I have no clue how to get a page for it--Corndoghero^T-S-Z 15:38, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well maybe not food, but there is a hint of England in here. The mains ones which I have noticed are in West Monroeville and South Monroeville. Mainly; Derbyshire Avenue School, The Derbyshire Motel, The Manchester Building, Bradford Cinema. There are most likely more, however all of these have one thing in common. They are pretty much all in and around Yorkshire, which 'leeds' me to believe that Monreville is infact based in England, quite possibly bringing Malton, into England. I shall continue searching however at the moment this tends to me my strongest lead into some of the building's names. To all those who believe I am onto something here, then please see if you can find some more! Also, there is a reference to London in places in Malton, i.e. London Park and London Drive. Possible evidence for Malton being based in England? That is for you to investigate and figure out for yourselves! Kevan, do you have anything to say about this, or is it completely random? Acoustic Pie 20:45, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I've also found, Lancaster Park, the Lancaster Monument (both in SMV, Buxton Lane (West Monroeville and South Monroeville), the Matlock Building (Central Monroeville, Ashfield Alley Railway Station (Malton), the Mansfield Bar, Mansfield Place, Mansfield Library and Mansfield Towers (First 3 in Central Monroeville, last one in South Monroeville). Also; the Sherwood Building, Sherwood Place, Sherwood Auto Repair, the Sherwood Museum (all in Central Monroeville). At my current rate I could probably continue for the rest of the night and find many more. All of these places are in fact in England, with the vast Majority of it being in Monroeville somewhere. So Kevan, random or not? As to me, with so many buildings, I don't see how it can be. Acoustic Pie 20:58, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

As stated on the front page, Monroeville is in Pennsylvania. The street and building names were sourced at random from lists of American surnames. --Kevan 10:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I see, well in that case a lot of Americans have a lot of very British surnames! Still, either way it's nice to see a bit of England in and around Monroeville, reminds me very much of home! Acoustic Pie 11:09, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Monroeville Idleness

Do monroeville characters idle out in the same way as those in Malton, I dont want all these tasty street treats to dissapear overnight?.

Oh and please dont bring necrotechs over here, otherwise, whats the difference between this and Malotn, (apart from fields and stuff obviously.)--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 18:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they idle out under the same rules. --Kevan 10:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!--Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 16:47, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Search Engine

I've got a minor problem with the search engine add on from this wiki (which works very well - thanks!). Basically, the name is too long. In Firefox, whenever you're on a wiki page, Firefox indicates that you can install a the site's search engine add on - saying 'Add "The Urban Dead Wiki (English)"'.

If you do this, then it installs the addon, which then works perfectly, but calls it "The Urban Dead Wiki (Eng" And continues to indicate that you can 'Add "The Urban Dead Wiki (English)"', presumably because the name can only contain a fixed number of characters maximum (on Firefox at least).

I believe that this is the default name for it from a standard wiki installation for a wiki named "The Urban Dead Wiki" with English as the language, but after that I'm afraid that I don't know how to alter it. As far as the name goes now, as there's only one UDWiki in one language (so far, that I'm aware of...) I'd recommend changing the search engine's name to just "The Urban Dead Wiki" and so remove this minor annoyance, by making the name small enough to fit into Firefox's search engines if this is possible.

Either way, please let me know if this is something that you can fix or not - I don't mind trying to look up exactly what it is that you'd have to change if you want. Thanks! --xensyria^T 15:33, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea where it's getting this from; it's possibly building it up from a few strange sources. If it's fixable through MediaWiki configuration, let me know. --Kevan 10:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Monroeville stats?

Any chance of getting a second stats page for Monroeville? It would be fun to see how things are progressing there.  Swiers 08:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure monroe stats are grouped in with Malton ones on the page. a few days after the opening of monroe active players were up to 50k, before slowly working its way back to equilibrum (about 35k)--xoxo 09:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Characters in Monroeville (population 13331) are not included anywhere in this stats page. - this was added on 29th February, 18:00 --~~~~ [talk] 09:13, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

oh ok...wonder what got it up then, probably SA forumers who played for like 2 days, got bored and left.--xoxo 09:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean my monroeville group Monroeville Many won't turn up on the group listing? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 21:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems to, because otherwise the Monroeville Resistance Front would be on the stats page. I have more than 10 of them in my contacts list.  Swiers 01:30, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Monroeville stats were automatically grouped with Malton for a few days, before I stripped them out of the queries. 35,000 + 15,000 = 50,000. --Kevan 10:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I was leaving it out for the purposes of dramatic tension, but might bring it in over the next few days. --Kevan 10:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If they are the same stats as given for malton, I don't think they will spoil dramatic tension. There are much more important factors to the play experience (number of ruined / barricaded / powered buildings) than the raw character numbers, although the character level breakdown will be... interesting.  Swiers 15:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

ooo yeah i'd love to get a look at the level breakdown! do it kev!--xoxo 00:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Opening doors from inside

Just today, Gregarious Instigator posted a suggestion in the suggestions system. It concerns giving both survivors and zombies (with Memories of Life) the ability to open doors from the inside.

Suggestion:20080305_Opening_Doors_From_the_Inside

It had 21 keeps and 1 kill, however it was closed prematurely since it was deemed to be a dupe of this suggestion in Peer-Reviewed.

I know it's all up to you to determine what goes into the game and what does not, and that Peer-Reviewed does not guarantee implementation into the game. However, this suggestion has been around for more than two years now and it's almost always unanimously approved, so I believe this is one of those suggestions the community really wants implemented as soon as possible. --Aeon17x 23:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to discuss game balance or the future of the game, try a discussion forum.

Q. Can I send you some ideas?

A. All players are welcome to suggest alterations and additions that they think would improve the game - we can't guarantee that they'll be implemented, but anything submitted to the Suggestions page of the Urban Dead Wiki will certainly be passed on and read, if it passes peer review. --Kevan

No mate, not the place for this. If Kevan responded it'd set the precedent for everyone who thought things like clown cars would be good for the game to come and post here. Also, this is a game, not a democracy, popular support doesn't factor into it. If it did we could be having zombie nukes passing with the numbers behind doDH. -- Iscariot 20:43, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Personal question

I'm not asking for details on this question, but what would you do if you find the survivour percentage in malton to be at 10% one day? Flamethrowers perhaps? :P The man 20:32, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

From what I know, Kevan might give survivors a little boast, but even without the boast, the survivors will still manage to find a way to get back up to 50%...If I remember correctly, the lowest the survivors had ever been was around 20%. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 20:38, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

the lowest i think i've seen it at is 72:28 during extinction times...--xoxo 06:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

when was that? The man 00:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Last year like July, but i think i've probably exaggerated. Anyway, i like lots of teh zombahs. more killin', ya dig?--xoxo 03:57, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it was 40% it went no lower than that in july. The man 21:16, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Malton flavor in Monroeville

You are at Squier Boulevard.

At the junction of two streets, a large billboard advertises Caiger Mall.

You shouldn't have copied so much from Malton... --~~~~ [talk] 22:08, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh smashed. Nice, Duke.--Nick 06:53, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Seems more like an in-joke. I like (and if it's not? Give the guy a break...)! --Karloth Vois ^RR 21:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Naming

Quick question: How'd you name the places in Malton? Did you use a random generator or sat there and came up with 10,000 names?--MikhailA 02:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Taken from here:

• As stated on the front page, Monroeville is in Pennsylvania. The street and building names were sourced at random from lists of American surnames. --Kevan 10:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I would presume Malton is the same...but maybe not.--xoxo 11:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

?rise and ?dump

A common debate should be dealt with officially, especially since I am considering suggestions on the matter. Is ?rise (and ?dump) valid tactics, or are they abuse? I feel they are not valid, as they bypass game mechanics and are performed in the address field rather than the game. Besides, you’ve cured the zombies using guns, leaving Malton borders, and buying Brain Rot, all URL actions, so that further makes me believe URL actions are not intended. Still, as arguments will only continue, I feel I should get your view on the matter to settle this mess once and for all, and to know whether the issue should be dealt with in the bugs or suggestions sections. Thanks.--Kolechovski 16:53, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, zombie barricade build blocking makes both ?rise and ?dump pretty irrelevant. In the cases where people would most want to use them, the barricades are generally very low and hard to build. That being the case, its fairly easy for zombies to stand up and walk back in if dumped, maybe after a small bit of cade bashing. ?Rise is a pain to use if your goal is to stay inside, and so zombies just don't bother now that its no big help. Speed dumping offers little benefit when zombies don't use ?rise.  Swiers 20:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Even if they are redundant now, a good bit is riding on whether or not Kevan feels thiese as LEGITIMATE tactics, regardless of the extent of use anymore. This may affect future things, so that's why I am asking.--Kolechovski 20:55, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Search odds change?

Hey, i'm justing wondering if you've implemented an increase in the chance of finding syringes in powered NTs? no solid data of course but out of 4 people i've spoken to about it 3 had exceptional results and one had slightly above average results. Also, anyone with a full 50ap near a powered NT as a survivor want to test this out?--xoxo 07:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

It's widely accepted as true, even if it's hearsay, that K. tweaks the search odds to help keep the game balance... And, I seem to been having excellent success in powered hospitals lately, so you're not alone in wondering... But I think if he told us every time he tweaked the search odds, that'd be giving some an unfair advantage, no? --WanYao 07:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Well personally i think we should all know all the little changes, maybe excluding new items/clothes. But yeah i just wanted to point this out and this seemed like a fair enough place. And if he replies giving details, then all the better!--xoxo 07:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Not that I have any evidence to back this up but it seems that Search odds seem to automatically increase or decrease as the percentage difference of Zombies to Survivors change. Example..I have recently found four syringes in a ruined NT building, while I have had problems finding that many in a powered and repaired NT building when the percentages were the other way. Possible coincidence? yea but If I had written as much code as Kev had written, I'd sure figure out a fair way for it to change automatically so it was less work for me to do. Conndraka^{mod TDHPD CFT} 20:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The plot thickens...--Nick 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I hope this is true. Making zombies more dangerous relieves the tedium they encounter in tearing down the same 'cades over and over during one siege; making searches more effective similarly lifts survivor tedium of repeated searching. In combination, they could make for a more dynamic game.
I haven't personally noticed a search buff, but then my survivors stocked up on syringes a week ago, and have been using existing stocks since then. They still have nearly 20 left, each. The only guys I have searching currently are looking for guns and FAKS in the malls (which seem about the same, anecdotally) and museum pieces (which did seem amazingly easy to find). Perhaps there was a buff to NON MALL searches? That seems a good idea, given that the "strategic gurus" are advising folks to move away from mall-centered play. Again, I hope that is the case- a buff that does NOT help malls would make for a more dynamic game.  Swiers 17:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Church of Kevan

Just pointing you to this, in case you didn't seen it already :) --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 12:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I reckon Kev's a bit of a recent changes stalker, he knows whats goin' on.--xoxo 12:34, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

This is heresy against Pluto--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 20:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I am not worthy! --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 23:35, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Unbanning a User

Sorry to bug you, but I think that the final decision over this would come down to you. Anything you'd like to add to the topic at hand? -- Cheese 19:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

We have a Sysop team to deal with this. This is exactly the kind of thing they are meant to deal with.--Thekooks 22:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

zomg! actual work for the sysops! how will they cope?--xoxo 23:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Too bad the team is split on the subject. Some members want him unbanned, others want him to stay banned. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 23:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi I am the user know as Brandon Jackson, President of Umbrella Corporation and I have not checked into my account for over 48hrs and the I.P. still hasn't reset? I have two alts in the game and am wondering if I was banned for having more than one account in the same suburb? I also payed $5 which should have got rid of the I.P. limitation on my main character. I still have the recite for it so obviously its been payed for and has been over 2 months but I have not had that luxury. Please help.--Jackson 22:23, 20 May 2008 (BST)

I'm not 100% but i'd say if you got banned it wouldn't look exactly like your IP hits had ran out. More then likely the problem is someone else is playing UD from your IP address. Unless you're saying only one character is getting the IP warning which would be rather unusual.--xoxo 08:00, 21 May 2008 (BST)

He has more than one alt in a suburb, just looks like the zerg measures got him banned :) --Skyvia 18:04, 21 May 2008 (BST)

That's not necessarily enough to get an alt banned. Accidentally having two alts close to each other happens a lot, and it doesn't result in a ban -- or even a penalty. Having them interact in some way, however, will trigger the anti-zerg measures. --WanYao 18:28, 21 May 2008 (BST)

Returning-from-idle/out of IP hit mechanics

Due to my infrequent logins, my alts often idle out after the 5-day thingy. In addition, because I play on campus, I usually have to use proxies to play the game since my campus's IP hits are often depleted when I get on. Lately, the proxies have had their IP hits exhausted as well, so when I login with an alt I expect to come out of hiding and start moving, only to find that I can't go anywhere. So now, I'm wondering if I just woke up in zombie territory and am frantically searching for a proxy that still has IP hits left. This can take quite a while, and I don't always succeed in finding one. What I'd like to ask is, do my alts come out of hiding (possibly in ruined buildings or some other danger) and get stuck there? In this situation, when exactly is an idled-out alt no longer idled-out? I'd like to know whether or not I need to react to such messes fast. Thanks. (BTW, yeah, I know people are simply going to recommend donating, and I eventually plan to do so, but I just don't have the $$$ for it right now, and won't for a little while.)--Kolechovski 15:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Monroeville Lockdown

Did Headshot always kill? Or has it only been since the announcement? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:00, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Just since the announcement I believe, could be wrong. Another question for Kevan, will my dead headshotted zombie trigger the zerging flag if my other character gets too close? I can neither move my dead zombie away nor idle out. So do I need to avoid that area forever from now on? --DonTickles 17:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I thought I'd taken a headshot in Monroeville last week and stood up from it. Just wondering, as I was, quite evidently, killed before the update. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This is something which the members of my group Monroeville Many are rather annoyed at. I was killed over 10 hours before the updates were put in yet still I cannot stand! To be frank this is rather unfair as our group had strike teams so we don't needlessly stand up prior to the strike time. Hence myself and many others are wondering what is going to happen? I doubt that moving many people to Malton is a good idea because quite frankly there seems to be enough zombies there as it is! Also, as a member of my group put it "Is Infection incurable then? If not, then this is pure zombie HATE!! If infection is now fatal, then not so bad." Thus I put this question forward to you. Thank you. Acoustic Pie 22:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Awesome update. Awesome. 90 minutes till I can check on my level 14 (please let him be ok) zed. The pressure is on! We REALLY need a stats page at this point! Seriously! Kev? --Not Invented Here 22:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh quit your whining, all of you. Survivors will no longer be survivors if killed, and zombies get perma-death if Headshoted. It seems perfectly balanced to me, and this is coming from a neutral player. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 01:44, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks like you don't understand. We're complaining because we got a headshot before the updates but still can't stand up. --Violent-kun 08:44, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

This was an oversight. You should all be clear to stand up now. --Kevan 09:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I love you Kevan. my 2 zeds can stand up now.--Violent-kun 09:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

More Monreoville Chatter

About your updates of characters not being able to go idle...I had made 2 characters in Monroeville. A Random New Yorker and Hershey Park. However, I have forgotten the password to A Random New Yorker, and left him to go idle before the updates. Now, with these updates, does this mean he's no longer idled, and wherever I last left him (assuming that he's a dead body right now...), I must avoid that area at all costs to not trip the zerg flags? --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 02:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the bit about the idling and zerg-flag thing is confusing...Kevan, help! And please answer the question I had asked above (or merge it or whatever). Thanks.--Kolechovski 18:09, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think kevan ever talks about how the zerg measures work (for good reason) but I don't think you'd have to worry, since the old characters are not being actively used I doubt that there will be a problem with them. To be safe it might be a good idea to avoid the area if you remember where it is, but i wouldn't worry overly about it if you don't. I know in Malton my feral zombies occasionally drifted too close to my survivors (as they just follow groans - i don't pay particular attention to where they are) and I have idled characters all over the place (no idea where most of them are) so any number of times I could have tripped the zerg flag. But since i don't actively have them acting in concert it either clears or at never actually trips. Again, since there is no good description of the zerg measures (and shouldn't be) i can't be certain, but after nearly 3 years at this game I'm pretty certain you have to actually [i]try[/i]to trip those measures--Lardass 20:19, 30 March 2008 (BST)

The only thing I remember last about ARNY was that I last left him in a hospital. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 23:03, 2 April 2008 (BST)

know of any open source grid php games?

Hey I was wondering if you knew of any open source templates of php grid-based games. I was thinking about creating my own game just for fun kinda like UD or NW or HR (but a different theme) in that it has AP and is browser-based and grid-based but I dont really want to build EVERYTHING from the ground up. I mean Im just looking for something that allows one to create an account and move around. Thanks! Need info 02:55, 31 March 2008 (BST)

Well, I once played this one that was based on UD, but was set in a prison during a riot. Pretty interesting, but then I stopped playing it, as I'm not really into muhmorpeggers, with the exception of Urban Dead, because, let's face it, zombies rule. About the game, I think I found it off of wikipedia's UD entry, but I'm not sure. » JS talk contribs » 03:05, 31 March 2008 (BST)

TOR

Recent happenings on the wiki, I should probably bring this to your attention as it has to do with proxy usage both in and outside of the game(normally I wouldn't bother you with something like this). There has been some discussion on abuse of the TOR proxies, amusingly with a user currently banned for doing it himself, including some specific allegations of a group using them_{(it should be noted the user does not like that group, his vandalism was directed at them)}. Anyway I bring it here because there are some lists of IPs of these known open proxies that may be worth looking into as they filter to standard ISP type things for most standard searching tools. A list of some of them has been provided by Proxy.org along with a list maintained by Wikipedia. These may be worth taking some time to block them from use ingame.--Karek^maps?! 00:48, 2 April 2008 (BST)

It's no use blocking proxy sites because anyone who has a dynamic IP can change their IP by reconnecting the router. --Violent-kun 15:39, 5 April 2008 (BST)

Monroeville FAQ

Thanks for that. I had a strike to sort, otherwise I might have been less diplomatic ;) -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 23:58, 4 April 2008 (BST)

Some ideas

AJAX Version/Server?

I have a teacher/mentor (I guess you could call him) I mentioned this to him, He said something about an AJAX version.

Then there's this: [1]

Also, Malton Media, Basically TV, Broadcasting stations, TVs give you descriptions of what's on it, etc. A Telegraph? And Quicktime for real Radio.. Or just some background music..

CCTV Cameras?

Power systems, Stations..

Sewers..

A snowy region/server, Skiis, Snow Boards, Ski Poles, Lifts, Jackets, etc.

Kind of a stupid idea, but, Vehicles? Added. Bikes, Found in PDs, Auto repair, etc. No fuel, Breakable, repairable. Van, Car, Truck, SUV, SWAT Van, Armoured Bank Truck, Taxi. Found in streets occasionally, Needs fuel, needs to be fixed, Breakable, Like mobile buidling in some cases, not all provide good protection, New mainanancre skill? Derbis can block the road, It can be cleared, In front of Ruined/Ransacked buidlings.

Moar hatz.

Lantern, Flashlight, Batteries, Candle, Increases search odd when on..

A harpoon.

Construction worker class, Construction skill, Tools?

Another Zombie class, maybe.. Zombies are too powerful already >.>

Laptops, PDAs? (Function TBA)

EMT Class?

A Pathfinder class, Scout plus a knife and close combat/Hand to hand?

A radioman (>.>) with Radios? Transmitter?

-Constructive criticism pl0x. [/Rant]

--Dr Cory Bjornson 03:07, 7 April 2008 (BST)

there is a suggestions page for this sort of shit <_< --Skyvia 03:22, 7 April 2008 (BST)

Read the FAQ already, sheesh... We have a Suggestions page. Try it... --WanYao 03:24, 7 April 2008 (BST)

Too lazy >.> --Dr Cory Bjornson 04:14, 7 April 2008 (BST)

Lazy people don't get any special dispensation or priority feedback. Please read the FAQ and use the Suggestions page. --Kevan 23:51, 7 April 2008 (BST)

Bad Faith Edits and Harassment

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/User_talk:Boxy
Discussion Above ^

Some of Images in Question can be seen here... http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Talk:The_Dead#NEEDS_MORE_IMAGES

I would appreciate it if you'd weigh in as everyone seems to not care that all of my images are being modified and uploaded to make a mockery of me... Using my images and my face... They are trying to get a rise out of me so I leave the wiki and the game and it shouldn't be allowed... Regardless of whether it is against a 'rule in the books' of the wiki... Please do something man... --Marty Banks (aka. Mundane) <DHPD> 23:33, 15 April 2008 (BST)

Why should he have to waste his time dealing with this? --Karloth Vois ^RR 00:07, 16 April 2008 (BST)

Karloth, you need a link to your user page somewhere in your sig. Marty, if you want to take this to A/VB, or A/A where it can be deleted, that'd be great. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 02:07, 16 April 2008 (BST)

Wiki bug?

Just a few seconds ago, I've gotten some database error thing about a possible bug in the system when I clicked save on my last edit. Maybe you should check it out. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 00:46, 19 April 2008 (BST)

Dear Diary

Now that the Diary event is over, is there some log you could provide as to what all the possible video clips were, what the flavor text looked like while you were shooting them, etc.? And when Monroeville ends, if the players vanish, will there still be some way to view the diaries made after the event (in other words, will they be immortalized)? Why exactly was the diary competition only for the UK? Since Monroeville is in the USA, and many players are from the USA, I'm curious as to why the US (and maybe even all countries) couldn't be included in the competition.

I'm also curious at this time, Kevan. Do you have a solid plan for Monroeville, a fluid plan, or are you just waiting and taking it one step at a time? I'm just curious what our fate will be...

Have a nice day : ) --Kolechovski 05:18, 23 April 2008 (BST)

Sorry to interrupt, but some questions here are quite obvious. First, full list of clips is here: Diary, Kevan helped out with the last one (not found clip) already. Second - competition is UK only because prizes are provided by UK company that doesn't send them overseas. p.s. Kevan, looks like you have to kick Beatwax one more time :/ --~~~~ [talk] 07:58, 23 April 2008 (BST)

Question about Peer Review to Implementation

Just wanted to know, there are a couple of suggestions in Peer Review which I was wondering about whether they'd be implemented... mainly the barracade notification of VSB++ to HB. It's apparently from mid 2007, and I made a recent suggestion which turned out to be a partial dupe of it though it also got a lot of keeps and almost no kills.
My question is: "Is there any sort of timeframe after which it can be assumed that a suggestion will definitely not be implemented in an update after it passes peer review?"
ie, does Kevan look at suggestions from 2006 or 2007 and maybe in 2008 say to himself, "Now is the time to implement this."?
Thank you.

Sorry if I'm posting it here instead of elsewhere, but wasn't sure where else to post about this. Talk:Discussion didn't seem appropriate to ask there (where would I ask in it after all?) and I didn't know if there's a particular sysop I should ask since they don't actually have the power to update or know how Kevan's mind works. :) --Tselita 17:43, 25 April 2008 (BST)

I'm pretty sure he implements what he wants, when it wants. I would be surprised if be flicks through suggestions from '06 looking for ideas however i'm fairly sure if he was deciding exactly how to implement something inspiration would be drawn from past suggestions. If you really what something introduced just track him down and hound him ingame!--xoxo 08:59, 26 April 2008 (BST)

Oh :) Don't feel like hounding him. Probably not a good way to get on a person's good side :) Just wanted to see what the 'cutoff period' is beyond when past peer reviewed ideas are basically rejected. Also wondering how often updates happen - I haven't been playing -that- long so it's seemed like irregular updates to me --Tselita 09:25, 26 April 2008 (BST)

You wanna have a flick through here and here. They are getting less frequent, i think kevan's getting busy, maybe he's finally got a real job ;) --xoxo 09:40, 26 April 2008 (BST)

Okay, thanks J3D! --Tselita 15:29, 26 April 2008 (BST)

Thankyou

For making this possible.--Nallan (Talk) 13:12, 29 April 2008 (BST)

"Real" Zombie Count

Kevan - thanks for a great game. One thing I've been wondering is - at any given time, of the (currently) 15k or so zombies, how many are standing on a revive point? Of course, you might not want to release that statistic, but I've been very curious. A simple approximation would be the number of zombies on cemeteries. I think it'd be interesting to see how many zombies are actually doing zombie things. #31 - TastyNougat ^TMG 18:33, 29 April 2008 (BST)

Just as a side note, for others reading, counting revivifying bodies, survivors outnumber zombies - I'm curious to see how the cemeteries thing (an external tool counts about 1000) adds to that balance. #31 - TastyNougat ^TMG 18:59, 29 April 2008 (BST)

You can get a good approximation of the zombie numbers by looking at this map. Applying a mask that blocked out revive points (cemeteries) would not to to difficult; there's already a version that block out any open areas, and another that blocks out any buildings. Also, its odd to see that (in the above calculation) you add reviving bodies to survivors, but do NOT add dead bodies to zombies. Most of the dead, non-reviving bodies are zombies who have been killed and are waiting to stand up.  Swiers 19:21, 29 April 2008 (BST)

Good point - would it be possible to get a count of "fresh" corpses (those that were survivors before they died?) #31 - TastyNougat ^TMG 22:53, 29 April 2008 (BST)

MediaWiki:Welcomecreation

I was randomly browsing the Special Pages and found a prefix index. I fancied checking out what the MediaWiki pages were and I found this MediaWiki:Welcomecreation. Does it actually come up on account creation, and if not, is there a way to make it come up? -- Cheese 00:31, 16 May 2008 (BST)

It's supposed to come up automatically... I think Jedaz may have checked it out at the time we created it (either here or over on another games wiki he is/was involved with). Also, there seemed to be quite a few new character pages appearing after it's creation in the User:Username/Character Name format, indicating they'd linked from it directly (instead of changing "Character Name" to their character's name) -- boxy ^{talk • i} 07:56 16 May 2008 (BST)

That could be from WelcomeNewbie, it's got the same first section, including that bit about character pages. -- Cheese 08:43, 16 May 2008 (BST)

No, it's link is User:Username/Your Character's Name, while the new misplaced pages started appearing at User:Username/Character Name -- boxy ^{talk • i} 14:59 16 May 2008 (BST)

So it does. :P Would it be a fair idea to stick the entire WelcomeNewbie Template onto the page? -- Cheese 15:17, 16 May 2008 (BST)

No, the welcome newbie template is designed to be referred back to (hence it being added to the permanent talk page). The welcomecreation message is a one off message and so has only the absolute bare basics -- boxy ^{talk • i} 16:08 16 May 2008 (BST)

Okie dokie. Shame more newbies don't actually read it. :P -- Cheese 00:48, 17 May 2008 (BST)

I read it when I got it --Tselita 17:44, 24 May 2008 (BST)

Monroeville Population Question

I was wondering how many characters in total had been made for the city, since new account creation is closed. I'd like to add a population sign to the Monroeville page so people could get an idea of what the maximum population was overall. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 17:01, 24 May 2008 (BST)

This information is available on the Stats page. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 18:28, 24 May 2008 (BST)

That's the current population. I am talking about the total population overall. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 18:29, 24 May 2008 (BST)

23,232, says the database. --Kevan 19:53, 24 May 2008 (BST)

Thanks. I've made a little sign for the Monroeville page. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 23:27, 27 May 2008 (BST)

Fresh blood

Afternoon K.

• Monroeville will be reopening its borders for a short while during June. Any survivors and zombies that make it as far as the end of May will have the fact noted in their profile.

What do you mean by make it?

Do you mean started as a survivor/still a survivor (I worked that out myself) Started as a zombie/not headshot?

If this is the case do we need to be standing to merit this note? its just i've been shot today, and dont really want to stand and picked off by a hunter with a day or so to go.

Also can we have a breadown of stats for monroeville when you reopen the gates? Im not asking for a page like with Malton, just the breakdown at that particular moment?

Finally will the recent update be transferred over? Because i fear the zeds are going to have a harder time this time round and need all the help they can get . Most buildings caded, malls full of survivors both highly skilled and armed. Poor guys. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 15:15, 28 May 2008 (BST)

And I was just on the verge of proposing my mall join a mass suicide pact, and form a new horde... --Morgan Blair 17:45, 28 May 2008 (BST)

There'll probably be a badge for being a breathing survivor, a badge for being a standing zombie, and a badge for being a non-headshot corpse. I'll just give them out at an unannounced time, so that the lurking zombies don't all stand up at ten seconds to midnight.

The recent updates have already been echoed to Monroeville. --Kevan 17:52, 28 May 2008 (BST)

Cool. Looks Im going to have to bite the bullet (hopefully not actually) and stand up. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 17:58, 28 May 2008 (BST)

How long will the city be open for? Also, to clarify: what will the opening of the city entail? --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 20:47, 28 May 2008 (BST)

Update: 28th of May

So, musing on the new dark buildings and I wish to have something clarified, if you could. The 50% attack nerf applies to both breathers and zombies, am I correct? Thanks for your time. --The Hierophant 21:49, 28 May 2008 (BST)

Also regarding the May 28th update: The game news doesn't say what the updates are. I was rather confused when I saw "# Game News: Significant game changes have been implemented since your last move. Read Game News (17 hours and 59 minutes ago)" today but the latest update listed was from March. Did eventually find out on the wiki, though. --Ms.Panes 11:56, 29 May 2008 (BST)

I'm guessing you were viewing a cached page. --Midianian|T|T:S|C:RCS| 12:06, 29 May 2008 (BST)

Your browser was tricking you, a reload button is usefull to hit --~~~~ [talk] 12:59, 29 May 2008 (BST)

It might make the game more interesting if the 50% attack nerf only affected humans, or zombies without any of the "scent" skills. I wonder what kind of game Kevan is playing at? Specifically if he wanted a 50-50 zombie-human ratio, or if he wanted players (both humans and zeds) to have a herd mentality (and get into epic fights), or if he wanted players to be running around scavanging the post-apocalyptic city.
I'm just belly-aching over the fact that I have to bring a generator and fuel can into a long-ruined building (which by the new rules, would also be long-dark) to get light for my work. If I had the time, I'd clean up my Torches Suggestion and submit that... that... which Suggestions section would I submit that to next? Pakopako 15:13, 29 May 2008 (BST)

Escape from Monroeville?

I just can't take it anymore...Kevan, we need to know...does Griswold Avenue (and maybe other areas) have holes in the quarantine zone that we can escape from (maybe by searching for a hole long enough?)? You'll notice that it lacks the quarantine edge text there. Many of us have been wondering about this. You may not want to spoil it, so I understand if you don't answer this, but if we do find an escape there, what will happen to our alts? Thanks.--Kolechovski 20:03, 29 May 2008 (BST)

People have been known to escape before, only to be eaten by langoliers--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 23:04, 29 May 2008 (BST)

Another Glitch

So you cant repair dark buildings even with a fueled generator inside? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 09:31, 30 May 2008 (BST)

You can now. I've just posted a fix, after someone filed it as a bug. --Kevan 09:32, 30 May 2008 (BST)

Yep. I get the point. Im bad. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 13:04, 30 May 2008 (BST)

Monroeville question

I noticed that Monroeville isn't under quarantine anymore. I don't know if it's possible to leave and go to Malton, but if that's possible then I do want to. However, I'm not done playing in Monroeville, I'm still having fun. If the lack of quarantine is only temporary, will staying in Monroeville mean I'll permanatly lose the opportunity to leave (if it's possible...)? --Jasonjason 17:57, 31 May 2008 (BST)

Here's another one, I was wondering if the IP's are still used for both cities or has that been separated?--Karek^maps?! 23:46, 1 June 2008 (BST)

Question

Is this you? I just want to be sure. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:42, 4 June 2008 (BST)

No, it's not me. --Kevan 18:45, 4 June 2008 (BST)

Didn't think so, thanks! --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 18:46, 4 June 2008 (BST)

Hi

As your reopening Monroeville, I thought Id throw peoples thoughts on it to you all in one place.

UDWiki:Open Discussion/Monroeville How Was It For You? Hope its of use. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 20:27, 9 June 2008 (BST)

Thanks, yes, it was useful to have a lot of feedback in one place, and good to see some constructive criticism. --Kevan 20:07, 13 June 2008 (BST)

Tangling Grasp in the Dark?

Could you explain what the actual implemented effects of Tangling Grasp are in the dark once the zombie has a "grip" on the target? Since these bonuses do not show up on the attack list, it is a bit hard to determine. Is it:

1. The entire attack rate is cut in half? EG, 60% with maxed claws and Grasp / 2 = 30%
2. The zombie gets +10% to the modifed rate? EG, 25% maxed claws + 10% for grasp = 35%
3. The zombie gets normal attack ability when they have a grasp? EG, 60% with maxed claws and Grasp, no modifier for dark due to Grasp.
4. Something else?

 Swiers 23:00, 9 June 2008 (BST)

You've pretty much got there from the spadework, by the look of it; yes, it's +10% to the modified rate. --Kevan 20:07, 13 June 2008 (BST)

Bummer. It was a lot more fun when I thought I was getting the full rate after establishing a grip; very suspenseful wondering if I would maintain my grip. Would it be hard to update it to work that way?  Swiers 21:41, 13 June 2008 (BST)

No, it's trivial. And it's already on the list of possible tweaks. --Kevan 22:14, 13 June 2008 (BST)

Thanks

Know you're a busy man with everyone trying to gnaw on your ear. But I just wanted to thank you for helping devive me in Stanbury Village today. You have no idea how uncomfortable it was breathing after being dead so long. -- Murray Jay Suskind 02:09, 17 June 2008 (BST)

Kev, i went through a lot of trouble preparing your special meal. I Hope you enjoyed the feast. -- Zimon _{The Kilt Store} 15:45, 18 June 2008 (GMT)

About griefing on the radio

Can there be any action done on players who intentionally grief others through the radio?

There has been a user who's been repeatedly insulting us over the past few days (and even last year), generally talking a lot of trash against our horde. We don't usually mind since we take it all in stride, but now he has extended his attacks to other zombie groups. Here's an example taken just over an hour ago:

   * 26.17 MHz: "LUE and RRF people are a bunch of NOOBS! They use PKers and" (43 minutes ago)
   * 26.17 MHz: "GKers just to destroy their target safehouses. They even" (42 minutes ago)
   * 26.17 MHz: "attack cades from the inside! Lord Moloch is gay! NOOBS!" (42 minutes ago)
   * 26.17 MHz: "And oh, Bangvang, YOU ARE SO DAMN GAY YOU CAN'T KILL ME!" (40 minutes ago)

I believe his actions is incredibly disruptive now it's ruining how other players enjoy the game to a considerable extent.

Our group can provide more radio transcripts from him, as well as other evidence that shows his ingame trolling. I just want to know if there is any way to moderate his behavior, that's all. --Aeon17x 12:22, 17 June 2008 (BST)

add the offending player to your contacts and select the 'ignore contact' option.--xoxo 12:38, 17 June 2008 (BST)

Jesus Christ. When will people learn to grow a fucking skin? --brb, church ^{DORIS CGR U!} 12:50, 17 June 2008 (BST)

Oh, we tolerate him as is. The more vigilante of us, they already do retalitate in verbal terms. To those who don't want any more drama from that guy, J3D's suggestion to just ignore him also works in a limited way.

However, this doesn't change the fact that he's being increasingly disruptive to the UD community. Not everyone will find out about his profile to ignore him, thus they will be subjected to this drivel day in and day out pretty much anywhere LUE goes to, as he follows us every step of the way. Hate speech even if it's not aimed at you is still hate speech, and it drains enjoyment from the game.

That's why I'm initiating this call for justice. The admin here have done an excellent job of moderating people in the wiki. Can't we have the same treatment from within the game itself? --Aeon17x 13:10, 17 June 2008 (BST)

how on earth would you propose the implementation of that? And also the wiki is totally seperate from the game. The people with moderate the wiki (excluding Kevan) have no authority regarding the game. Yeah i agree with you but seriously, retune your radio and deal with it. No one reads that shit anyway.--xoxo 13:12, 17 June 2008 (BST)

There is no "moderation" of the wiki as you put it. I could go and call someone something even as offensive as a "fucking nigger" and not be banned for it. "Call for justice"? Who the fuck do you think you are? --brb, church ^{DORIS CGR U!} 13:37, 17 June 2008 (BST)

shut the fuck up cyberbob you are a fucking nigger.--xoxo 14:00, 17 June 2008 (BST)

zomg i rooly wish i culd hav u baned rigt now but i cant :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( --brb, church ^{DORIS CGR U!} 14:02, 17 June 2008 (BST)

huh seeing those transmissions wernt even from me, i dont think youĺl be getting anywhere with your petition.Making fake transmissions up, shows how disreputable and weak SOME Luesers are. how disappointing Aeon. --Weekendwarrior 15:34, 17 June 2008 (BST)

How sad, you can't even take responsibility for your own actions, and instead blame others. Everyone knows that's you, weekend, just admit it. Hell, even if they weren't from you and you're actually being honest for once, you sure as hell have been a big enough douche in other areas. Take some responsibility for it already. - Brona 22:52, 17 June 2008 (BST)

well i didnt , i only, flame when im flamed--Weekendwarrior 00:33, 18 June 2008 (BST)

Um, lol? --brb, church ^{DORIS CGR U!} 08:48, 18 June 2008 (BST)

One solution I experimented witj is a GM script that removes an radio broadcast that has the word "noob" (or the plural, or any h4x0r variations) in it. It would block half the lines shown above. These twas tend to be very prdictable in what they say, and its easy to add more terms to the filter. I'd probably add "gay" and "##" to block 90% of r3a1lY GaYmaN's braodcasts :P  Swiers 20:41, 17 June 2008 (BST)

We mainly dislike him because he posts our attack plans and we have to go through the trouble of making up false ones for disinformation purposes. Well, I mainly dislike him for that. As a zombie, I don't listen to the radio.--Insomniac By Choice 00:48, 18 June 2008 (BST)

well i didnt , i only, flame when im flamed--Weekendwarrior 00:33, 18 June 2008 (BST)

Actually, you very well did and called Brona 'your a bighead'. --Aeon17x 04:20, 26 June 2008 (BST)

Monroeville Stats.

On the stats page where you record monroeville population, the total has dropped by 2000 in the last day. Are you recording it in a different way, or is it just the reintroduction of idling? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 17:11, 18 June 2008 (BST)

Some of both - it was previous all inhabitants with a non-zero HP, it's now all non-idle inhabitants. --Kevan 17:31, 18 June 2008 (BST)

And now? The total and those who are active survivors is it? NO value for standing zeds? :-( --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:47, 24 June 2008 (BST)

Sorry, that meant to say "active", not "alive". It's both survivors and zombies. --Kevan 20:14, 24 June 2008 (BST)

Thanks for updating the stats page. the building i just broke into has 4% of all standing survivors in monroeville inside. Joy. But why standing survivors? MV has no non standing survivors does it? Or are you planning something crafty? --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 19:34, 8 July 2008 (BST)

Revive Imbalance

I was doing some maths and i thought you might actually give a shit: User:Grim s/Rants/Revival Imbalance

I tried to present it as objectively as possible. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 22:07, 21 June 2008 (BST)

Now, don't be fooled by those numbers, Grim forgot to take some factors into account. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 02:10, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Which have several major flaws of their own (not examining the mallrats to see if they have exp to buy one or both skills, Claiming powered mall has ~35% instead of 50%,. etc) and takes the examination out of the system of revival and begins to simulate the game instead, incompletely. I am considering what is, for all essential purposes, a closed system which takes a snapshot of that process, not everything around it. If you are going to hop out of a then you need to nail the whole game, and we just dont have the numbers to do that. And even if you did want to consider everything around it, lets just do a little stats page harvesting: Hmm hmm hmm... 1293 organised zombies in the game, or at least flagged as such. Those are the only ones to which the numbers i used (and i am assuming maximum efficiency, in fact the majority of hordeling are in fact zombies that follow under the flag of the horde), my stats would only apply to the strike team zombies, who are at the peak of coordination, a number which would number only about 2-4 hundred or so all up. The rest get considerably worse numbers which i have yet to quantify, and the ferals get epically bad numbers that i expect to be between two or three times worse in total. The only valid concern there is rebuilding the cades after the attack, which i shall now Add. I trust Midianian enough to use his numbers. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 06:40, 22 June 2008 (BST)

1. You better back that 50% FAK search rate up with some evidence.
2. Seeing someone with over 100 XP stocked is quite rare, and it's even rarer to see over 200 XP. And out of those, I'm sure not everyone would use that XP on zombie skills. You also have to remember that Ankle Grab is a subskill of Lurching Gait. Buying Lurching Gait would have saved them 3 AP. Buying Ankle Grab would have saved them 9AP (even if they did have enough XP, you still have to stand up the first time with full cost before you can buy it). There were only 11 people in the mall (7%), who had Lurching Gait but not Ankle Grab. Out of that you take the fraction of people who could afford it (I'd estimate that to be less than 10%), and out of that you take the fraction of people willing to spend that XP.
3. Healing belongs to the snapshot just as much as revival and getting to safety. The least you could do is take into account the AP needed to apply the FAKs, while ignoring searching and moving to the searching location. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 13:50, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Actually, why don't we continue this discussion just here or there so we don't have to post everything twice. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 14:01, 22 June 2008 (BST)

To point 1, i just performed 17 searches in a powered mall drugstore. The exact FAK find pattern was: Hit Hit miss hit miss hit hit hit hit miss miss hit hit miss hit miss hit. Which is 11 FAK's in 17 searches. While i know this is hardly fully representative, its pretty clear evidence that the find rate is closer to 50% than to your 35%. Why? Because a base building find rate is 20%, always has been. Powering the building buffs that to 25%, and the mall rat skills kick it up to 50% in a mall. A drugstore has exactly one item: The FAK.

To point 2: That doesnt mean it doesnt happen. I have seen quite a few people myself who had that much banked. I myself did until i was killed. You should have checked for that and allowed for it in your calculations.

To point 3: Healing is neither essential, nor is it something that needs to happen immediately. It can be done with the negligable surrounding waste ap with no effect on the actual balance of the incident, so i elected to ignore it as healing is often done with background ap, ap that is used in the background by bored people who arent fighting zombies.

Furthermore, Revenant pointed out to me that you borked your cade percentages. First, theres only 1 level of loose, and to get to EHB + 2 (as in my example) requires 2 cadings after the reaching of EHB (Which is done at the VHB rate). Im going to have to rework the numbers to account for that second error (Ive done with the first). --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 14:24, 22 June 2008 (BST)

1. Not my fault the source information I used is wrong. Same as with your syringe percentage.
2. Did another foray into Bale Mall. This time it had a total of 151 inhabitants. Out of those, 15 could have bought Lurching Gait, and 13 could have bought Ankle Grab. Converted to percentages, that's 9.9% and 8.6%. Applied to the 11 dead characters, that's 1.09 and 0.94 characters. That means they would have saved 3.3 (3) AP from buying Lurching Gait, and 8.5 (9) AP from buying Ankle Grab. However, the purchase is by no means guaranteed. Especially on lower levels I'd much rather buy skills that help you get more XP, than skills that speed up revivification. Also, there are survivor equivalents of barhah fundamentalists. For example, one character had over 35 thousand XP and no zombie skills. As a rough estimate, I'd say only about half of those able to buy those skills would do so, putting the AP saved at 6. It's more than thought it would be, but it's not much.
3. I think you're limiting the scope too much and that skews the results. "Background AP" is not an infinite supply from where you can draw any amount at will. Perhaps I should do a calculation of how much "background AP" is needed for full recovery.

Yes, the amount of barricade levels needed to get to EHB+2 was incorrect, and I'm sorry for that slip up. Working at 3 in the morning tends to do that. --Midianian^{|T|T:S|C:RCS|} 17:08, 22 June 2008 (BST)

I wrote mine at 5-7am (It took that long to do). Its important to note that looking at the dangermap there are 60 suburbs marked either as safe, or moderate (Which generally means about the same thing), and this is a pretty bad time for the city as things go. Assuming an even spread of people this means about 60% of survivor ap is essentially utilised under next to no threat from zombies. This pretty much allows me to justify not including healing AP or restocking on ammunition and other trivialities. If they run, its being absorbed into the background ap use that those suburbs undergo, or, more often, the background ap use by the surrounding buildings in the same suburb that were not a part of the confrontation or revive chain (Which is considered a de facto part of the battle). May not seem fair, but with the revised estimates, even tossing in FAK's would leave the zombies far far short of the human totals. Also, as i have repeatedly stated, this example is for the absolute peak of zombie efficiency. If you want to join me in creating a feral action point expense database, id welcome your help. (Basically logging the AP you spent doing different tasks as a zombie and the total of kills scored). As for your experience in the mall, im glad that you were suprised, but i think you are unfairly cutting the bottom off the scale. Not only are such quantities of EXP usually saved for the exclusive purpose of purchasing those skills upon death, but many players are, in fact, opportunists who will buy whatever suits them best at the time. Ankle grab is one of those skills that is extraordinarily valuable for humans, and cutting down the number by half is quite a harsh cut that cant really be justified. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 17:26, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Another way for the revive imbalance to fix itself would be to have more zombies learning brain rot. If only it was a toggled skill... --Aeon17x 07:12, 22 June 2008 (BST)

That would have no effect as the zombies being revived in the examples provided are mrh cows. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 07:14, 22 June 2008 (BST)

You mean the rotter zombies would not even try to interfere in the revive queues? --Aeon17x 07:22, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Nice to see some math done, but trying to be objective and include all factors only means more factors to be left behind. Just a small example, the assumption 15 for human reviving zombies. In neither of sections about humans it isn't included that when the reviver gets to the point specimens might be all scanned with a rotter on top, so basically he cannot even get to a valueable target and leaves without any action. That's burned/wasted AP and there are more cases in which it happens than discribed both for humans and zombies. The impact of such loosings is quite high and screws up all results. In any way the most reliable way to really analyze the imbalancement would be some server-side logging / calculation --~~~~ [talk] 12:13, 22 June 2008 (BST)

It really boils down simply to this. Revives are easier now than ever before and are now twice as common as befor 10 AP revives were added, their twice as easy to do as back in 2005 during On Strike and the first Caiger siege, the rate of failed revives has been decreased by updates like the DNA Extractor ones that make it idiotically simple to make every revive count so much that they are almost non-existent. It is easier now than it ever has been to revive zombies, it's easier now than it ever has been for survivors to hold territory, it's easier now than it ever has been for survivor to retake territory, and it's harder now than it's been in a long long time for zombies to kill survivors or level, revives have gotten countless buffs to make them absurdly easy because of responses to, what seems, people trying to play the hard part of the game(Shacknews, LUE, the Dead) and it's reached a level of absurdity that it's now at a place where without one of this absurdly large coordinated flare up groups actively throwing the stats zombies can not compete.--Karek^maps?! 14:36, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Actually the repair update makes it harder now for survivors to regain lost territory. Buildings costing 9ap to repair means regaining long lost suburbs requires large scale coordination or zero zombie population in that suburb.--xoxo 14:49, 22 June 2008 (BST)

Only if you're going into Ridleybank or Eastonwood.--Karek^maps?! 15:03, 22 June 2008 (BST)

I have no data to back this up (although i don't think anyone does yet) but it seems to be that the ap costs rise pretty quickly, 4ap to repair in just a few days. I'd like to hear what it caps at and how quickly it rises actually.--xoxo 08:29, 23 June 2008 (BST)

1 AP a day isn't quick.--Karek^maps?! 14:23, 23 June 2008 (BST)

Most I've spent, personally, is 6 AP. Far SW corner of New Arkham. It seems to be 1 AP a day. But ... we need HARD FACTS ... which means you's should get off your bums and join that Eastonwood op I was trying to set up ;P. Or, Kevan could be so kind as to give us at least the upper limit for this effect.... but if he's mum, well, TO EASTONWOOD! --WanYao 15:25, 23 June 2008 (BST)

I recently spent 20AP to repair a Dark building. I probably should have left it alone just to see if it got even higher. Doesn't include the AP I spent to find, install, and fuel the generator. --Tselita 17:42, 23 June 2008 (BST)

Congratulations on spending all that ap on a very important building. -- LABIA on the INTERNET ^{Dunell Hills Corpseman} #24 - |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ^TMG 00:34, 24 June 2008 (BST)

It was an important Free Running avenue between a hospital and a safehouse which had quite a few wounded players, so I spent the AP - it's called altruism. That way newer players who wanted to get FAKs and go back and forth would be able to without risking injury falling or wasting extra AP. I didn't need the AP for anything else and if my character gets killed I can spend my XP to get the rest of the skills I don't have. I guess you feel it would be better to just leave buildings ruined. --Tselita 01:01, 24 June 2008 (BST)

Both of you grow up. You're both as bad as each other. Stop spamming other people's talk pages with your pointless arguments. If you're wanting to moan at each other. Go to arbies. Seriously. This is getting old. -- Cheese 01:07, 24 June 2008 (BST)

I've been Checking a Zombie Occupied NT in Molebank... It appearers to have topped out at 27 AP to repair. Conndraka^{mod TTBA CFT} 22:22, 23 June 2008 (BST)

So 27 AP so far is the highest we've seen? And it's not going any higher? Conn, if you can get some screenies of this and confirm it, it needs to go on the wiki, methinks. Also... Is it really 1 AP a day, or some other weird algorithm? Anyhoo... perhaps we should take this somewhere else... --WanYao 07:08, 24 June 2008 (BST)

No Wan, under this revive imbalance header is the most appropriate place for this discussion and where interested users will most easily be able to find it. Now what's this you're saying about eastonwood? Justin's getting a tad bored of Henny Penny.--xoxo 08:25, 24 June 2008 (BST)

Please take further discussion to User talk:Grim s/Rants/Revival Imbalance. Thanks. --Kevan 10:02, 24 June 2008 (BST)

Shall we take this as an official stance of indifference to the issue being raised then, as appears to be customary? --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 10:19, 24 June 2008 (BST)

It's an official stance of not wanting to have his talk page spammed by whining shits, as appears to be customary. --brb, church ^{DORIS CGR U!} 10:25, 24 June 2008 (BST)

Why am i not suprised to see you there spit polishing his butt cheeks? Providing a mathematical argument is not equal to whining, though such a distinction appears to be well above your cavemanesque intellectual limitations. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 10:32, 24 June 2008 (BST)

dammit grim y u gotta hert me so :((((((((((((((( --brb, church ^{DORIS CGR U!} 10:33, 24 June 2008 (BST)

No, it's just a request to move the discussion to a more appropriate page. --Kevan 10:30, 24 June 2008 (BST)

That discussion moved to my page more than a day ago. The ruin discussion is seperate, and not something that belongs on the page to which you linked. --The Grimch ^{U! E! WAT!} 10:34, 24 June 2008 (BST)

So, uh, create one where it does? --brb, church ^{DORIS CGR U!} 10:36, 24 June 2008 (BST)

That'd be Game News talk. We have an iwitness for 16ap repair but others say they've seen higher. to eastonwood i say!--xoxo 11:04, 24 June 2008 (BST)

My 50k

Dear kevan thank you for UD. Today, after 2 1/2 years, I made my 50.000th Experience point. And I belive I'm the first to do so. Sadly I have kinda given up hope that they will have any use, but perhaps you can at least pad my head and say: "good boy". "Experiment211"

my two cent on XP: Even if it sound funny in the context, I always liked that UD has an quite easy to reach maxLevel, therefore not forcing players to hunt for xp but allowing them to follow their own goals. I think it would have been a better choice to reward survivors for surviving than for killing, but it's easy to say that now. I don't think you're planing to implement a bag of new skills, but I would love to see some form of *use* for the xp that many long time players have accumulated. Perhaps to have effect on the Group statistics.

Since I have already started I would love to see more ways to interact with malton for long time players. Many UD players are long time veterans and it gets kinda repetitive.

I would love to see possibilities for change on diffrent levels. Decay was good start in my opinion. In having effekt over a long time. Also the darkness in buildings is good in making malton feel more diverse and allow new tactics.

Since We all celebrated the 3rd anniversary a few days ago I'd like also to say a word about the crates.

I don't like the fact that it allows only survivors to celebrate properly. Of course I can smash it but it's only worth 10Xp and I need about 3-4ap to do so. That's not celebrating! That is hard work! The survivor gets something like around 50+ Pistol bullets, as far as I know.

To finish with a rant and probably risk getting my pad on the head. I think this is sometimes symptomatical for UD. It seems in some cases it's expexted for zombies that it is enough reward to grief the survivors. Which is not! A fortiori if they aren't realy affected by your attempt to grief them.--Experiment211 23:56, 5 July 2008 (BST)

close Monroeville

Hello! Please just close Monroeville now and let's us have fun. We're ready for the hunt!:P--Zyll ^GIFD 21:09, 7 July 2008 (BST)

Trenchcoater. --Papa Moloch 22:19, 7 July 2008 (BST)

My zed just cracked open the door on a building with 58 survivors inside. Leave it another week. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 22:22, 7 July 2008 (BST)

Indeed. Another week will give the Gardeners more time to beat our pruning shears into spears. --Sir Bob Fortune ^RR 22:34, 7 July 2008 (BST)

Or as the front page says "Monroeville will be open until mid July, after which point the quarantine will be restored and new signups disabled. Characters in the city have also reverted to a five-day idle." And its mid july today (ish) so anytime soon. --Rosslessness^{Want a Location Image?} 20:27, 15 July 2008 (BST)

Forgive the direct plea, but as we move into august "mid-july" or "4 weeks" has well passed... even if you started counting from the 30th; any update on the future of Monroeville would be appreciated by the handful of survivors left there.--Lardass 00:21, 1 August 2008 (BST)

It'll be closing in a week or so - I'll make a formal news announcement once I've got the donation-transfer code in place (for people who donated for their Monroeville characters and want to shift the flag to somebody in Malton). --Kevan 17:34, 1 August 2008 (BST)

So on that donation-transfer code, do we have to pay before you close monroeville to transfer our account to malton or do we pay after you make the announcement because I'd love to have my account moved to Malton to continue living.--Big Ben 22:28, 1 August 2008 (BST)

About your zombie simulation...

About your 2.3 version zombie infection simulation- How do you run it? I have no idea. It seems really cool, but I can't for the life of me figur out how to run it! --BoboTalkClown 02:03, 10 July 2008 (BST)

It is a java applet, you need to make sure that you have the correct java pluglins for your browser. --KOOKY 18:35, 14 July 2008 (BST)

Headshot not returning means doom for us all

I am Federationtrooper, Kevan Mville is facing its last battles as zeds continue to kill the last of survivors. If we dont get headshot back we will all die, its are only hope to put one last fight agaisnt the zombie race. If you wont give back headshot then will you send sotmhing like airships to rescue us? --Federationtrooper

Jesus fucking Christ. You are aware that this is a game, yes? That it's a game that was only ever intended to be temporary? Kevan has presented his end game: Zombie apocalypse. Play for the challenge of staying alive for as long as you can. --Papa Moloch 20:14, 18 August 2008 (BST)

Sure, it's a game, kind of like heads I win, tails you lose is a game. The zeds always whine about game balance, even going so far as to go "on strike". Yet when the game is demonstrably out of balance as the 4-1 zed to survivor ratio shows, their position is "It's just a game." Typical zed hypocrisy. Barhah to you too.

While you are right to argue that it's Kevan's game and he gets to make up the rules, I and others invested time playing it in hopes that there would be a chance to win. Presumably, our looking at the ads helped fund it, so we have some right to comment and complain. If there's no chance to win, then there's no reason to play. I know that almost all of the high level survivors I played with thought it was much more fun and much more challenging than Malton. In fact, many people, myself included, let their Malton characters go idle and have said they won't go back.

I agree. My Malton characters idled out when the quarantine was lifted. I missed the first opportunity to Monroeville and have continued with this game because, in my opinion, its a better game. But when I entered, I believed that the quarantine would be reinstated as was promised, and so the survivors had a chance. Now the rules have changed. I understand that Kevin wants to end the game, but he should have been clearer about that when he reopened the quarantine. A lot of survivors are feeling let down. They have played well but with the belief that they had a chance, expecting the quarantine to be back since July. I think its quite understandable that they are disappointed and feel cheated or deceived. This sucks.--Larry 01:25, 19 August 2008 (BST)

You do realize that it was the headshot permakill thing that killed the game in the first place right? If he had never done that Monroeville wouldn't be shutting down now and would be considered a massive failure by a very very large part of the community. It killed the fun for anyone who actually wanted a challenge, which is what Monroeville originally was No-revive Malton.--Karek^maps?! 01:33, 19 August 2008 (BST)

Karek- What I like about Monroeville is that there is no revive and there are significant consequences for your actions. The survivors appreciate that. Those that remain play a very careful game where they are rabbits and zombies are wolves. For the rabbits its a game of hide, deception, avoidance and refuge. Fine, but that's not the game that most survivors signed up. New players entered this game with the expectation that eventually they would get a chance to take back the city, to hunt zombies, even if only a few survived. Now that's changed too. As for consequences for zombies? A headshot means you lose a few AP at most. So its a pretty shallow, one sided game. It would be better if the sides were even and both sides were hunting each other. Regardless, I think it would be better if Kevin returned the game to permanent quarantine based on what was expected when quarantine was lifted. --Larry 01:55, 19 August 2008 (BST)

No, actually, they didn't. When perma-headshot was added it was with the expectation that the city was never going to be reopened. It made most people idle out and quit. When it reopened and it was gone many zombie players stood up and many players unidled and/or made new characters. The problem with perma-headshot was it isn't even close to balanced, survivors can get 6 headshots a day or more, they don't have to deal with barricades, they can free run away, they store AP, etc., perma-headshot isn't giving both sides a chance to win it's giving survivors the victory even if they are outnumbered 10:1, and most people realized that when he did it. The few zombie players that stuck around ended up horribly frustrated, most of the survivor groups I know ended up pking and killing headshoters because it was ruining the game they signed up for, there was no challenge.--Karek^maps?! 02:00, 19 August 2008 (BST)

And now? There is no chance. You have survivors who quit because they don't see a point to this anymore and are horribly frustrated. Now we have a city where most of the players I see are low levels and many of the zombies have scent trail, so the survivors get hunted down and wiped out. There are resource buildings so long destroyed that they can't be repaired effectively and besides most of the survivors don't live long enough to get construction. Simple problem- survivors have always been at risk of getting killed, but now zombies can't. its just a matter of time before all the survivors are killed. So now? No balance at all. The only way for survivors to "win" is if zombies get bored of looking for them and quit. I think it safe to say that if you ask most players (survivors or zombies), they'd say that they were expecting permanent head shot to return when the quarantine came down. And that's the problem - Players expected one thing, and got another. --Larry 02:53, 19 August 2008 (BST)

Turning on headshot now would in no way unbalance the game. Last I looked there were about 230 humans (a number that will never increase, and has been dropping at about 5/hr since signups were turned off) against 1800 zeds, plus who knows how many idled-out zeds and dead bodies that could stand up at any point. By tomorrow the odds will probably be 10-to-1 against survivors. Even with perma-headshot, those humans are probably still doomed, but at least they'd have a *sliver* of a chance. And for zombies it would add some risk to a game which I imagine has gotten exceedingly stale and monotonous. The zombies can't really even claim the respect of victory here - they're basically just playing a game with god mode turned on. CoopVancer 03:15, 19 August 2008 (BST)

Letting it die out while allowing survivors a chance to learn something from the experience that could be put to use in malton is the best that can be hoped for. Turning on headshot again makes that impossible. Ignoring all of that, sure it would unbalance it, survivors can hide, they have ~10,000 squares to do it in. Do you know how much AP it takes to explore ~10,000 squares(minimum of 2 per square)? Add in barricades, decoys, FAKs, headshot, and darkness. No, survivors have a massive AP advantage here and it gets bigger the less of them there are. Run and hide, run and hide, run and hide and stop complaining, the less people there are the better your chances.--Karek^maps?! 04:46, 19 August 2008 (BST)

What's so hard to understand Karek? We (one of several grps of high lvls still standing in MV) have already done that for the past two months, run hide run hide. It's not that hard, just takes a lot of work and we're damn good at it now. We haven't had a single breach in, let alone a single zed scratch us. Can we keep doing this? Yes. Is it fun? Not anymore. How long do you want to keep doing it for? A month? A year? Ha. We're not really frustrated about HS not coming back, but as for there being no more "game" for survivors. It's a chore. We're trying to come up with something.--Calem 08:06, 19 August 2008 (BST)

2AP per square? Whoop de doo. There are 2000 zeds. That means in theory they could cover the 10,000 squares five times a day. Now I know that's not how it works, but the fact is any place you go you have a fair chance of being discovered that day. So you have to cade, which means repairing, which drains your AP, while the repaired building draws zeds like flies to shit. FAKs and headshots are drains on survivor AP, since there TRP's get checked so frequently. You want tedious, try searching a ruined building. In the end it will be a war of attrition to see who gets bored first. Wow, talk about an innovation in game design!--Babe's Ghost 17:21, 19 August 2008 (BST)

And your solution is stop people from playing the game at all? You can do better than that, and if you can't then you should probably leave. The game's not about winning, never has been, it's about getting along, it's about community, it's about working together, and it's about making your own fun not removing everyone else's.--Karek^maps?! 08:15, 19 August 2008 (BST)

:But players understand that they can be permanently killed when they join the game. The game is about surviving, not cooperating or community. Whether you survive through cooperation or by playing individuality is the player's choice that you pay a price for. That's why monroeville is better- like real life there are consequences which could include being killed off permanently by mistakes, being foolish or bad luck. But now players can't survive and zombies can't die. That's no balance. I can understand zombie players don't want to be killed off. Why can't you understand that for good survivors being killed by a zombie is the same result. No headshot means that there is no hope for survivors, no challenge for zombies. --Larry 16:31, 19 August 2008 (BST)

Personally, I would gladly pay $5 or even $10 for a character license to play in a big perma-death world like Monroeville. Charging would support the server, would let you re-roll a new character after one died, and would cut down on the zerging that's been going on by both sides. As a benny, speaking by both sides could be AP free, which would really enhance the immersiveness of the game. Even if the overall numbers were lower that would make it more interesting and post-apocalyptic.

My group and I could stay alive indefinitely. That much we've made clear. But I don't really see the point of spending all my AP running every day. But you sure as hell aren't getting my brains. I'd jump out of a window first. Because you haven't won. I just got sick of beating you. --Babe's Ghost 22:11, 18 August 2008 (BST)

TL;DR: BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW! --Papa Moloch 00:21, 19 August 2008 (BST)

"You haven't won. I just got sick of beating you". Thanks for making me laugh most heartily, good sir Ghost. --Bob Fortune ^RR 00:27, 19 August 2008 (BST)

Nice to see you putting your debating skills to use Moloch. Proof that you have no argument.--Babe's Ghost 01:07, 19 August 2008 (BST)\

If you really could live indefinitely... then now is the chance to prove it, be one of the last people standing. Right now all we're seeing from you is a failure to face the challenge given to you by the game creator, and that deserves no argument. --Aeon17x 14:33, 19 August 2008 (BST)

"Failure to face the challenge" Sort of like when the zeds went on strike? Over a couple measly XP no less. Face it, zeds whine when there's a perceived imbalance, but when everything is tilted their way (currently almost 10:1) they're afraid of failure. I guess that's why you play a zed huh? Because you didn't want to risk losing? The fact zeds only support changes that favor them speaks volumes. --Babe's Ghost 17:21, 19 August 2008 (BST)

As Aeon. There's no need for a counter argument to what you're coming out with, because you're saying nothing of value. Monroeville was only ever going to be temporary, so either it was going to be a 'win' for one side or just an arbitrary shutdown of the city. Essentially you're whining about a game that was not meant to last not lasting and the fact that 'your' side wasn't chosen to 'win'. Indeed, the fact that you're menstruating over 'victory' shows you up as a colossal trenchcoater. Personally I couldn't give a crap about Monroeville and haven't played there in a couple of months, but the zombie side was similarly screwed to death in the gap between the cinematic and DVD release (months long), creating a survivor win. Now Kevan has reversed it and the zombies get their time on top, only this one is the final round for Monroeville. Ultimately, I just find the whining about it amusing, especially when idiots like you cite the zombie strike (which was a result of an imbalance in a lasting game that even Kevan recognised). The game can still be fun but, like Urban Dead in general, making it so is largely in the hands of the player. --Papa Moloch 20:40, 19 August 2008 (BST)

"Idiots" like me use arguments not personal insults. I'm glad that you agree that the game is not balanced. I'm surprised that doesn't bother you. Personally, I grew out of winning through cheat codes long ago. For me a certain victory is worthless victory, just like a bet without risk isn't a bet, it's a con. This game has no risks for zeds, just the same old same old. The fact that the game is meant to be temporary doesn't mean it should be rigged. Or maybe you'd like it better that way? Maybe Kevan should eliminate barricades, give zeds x-ray vision and a survivor finding radar. Heck, why not nerf all survivor weapons and give zeds unlimited AP? That sounds like a lot of fun. Why don't you put it on the suggestion page? --Babe's Ghost 20:42, 20 August 2008 (BST)

Whats going on here? Is Kevan shutting down malton? (at least I think thats what the original city was called, its been too long since I played) The man 13:57, 19 August 2008 (BST)

The Man, sheeesh, you don't play UD why are you here? Anyway, Baby Ghost... Monroeville is a side game. With a pre-planned finite shelf life. It was basically a marketing project and a little experiment for some people to have fun with. Now... it's coming to an end. There's really nothing more that needs to be said, you had your time playing there, now it's over. Period. And the exchanging of insults... well... take it to Brainstock or something, where they eat that kinda stuff for breakfast, lunch, dinner AND tea... In the meantime, this discussion is just spamming Kevan's talk page, and does not belong here. --WanYao 21:40, 20 August 2008 (BST)

Thanks Wany, I thought this page was where you asked Kevan questions and discussed game policy. I didn't realize only zeds are allowed to have opinions. Anyway the games not over until they find us or Kevan shuts down the server. My money's on the later.--Babe's Ghost 00:00, 21 August 2008 (BST)

Talking about fun and interest to play and initiative to keep playing... I'ld like to share my opinion too. I enjoyed the video diaries contest much more than any "killing" of species "x" while being species "y" (that's what a game is about for you, people?). I didn't enjoy headshot=permakill phase except the killing out idle survivors bloodnights and radio chatter along that (hey, i kept my own farm of idlees to stab daily!). After quarantine was lifted i enjoyed travelling around. After a zombie ate me i didn't got frustrated, but enjoyed being part of the horde to crack up human fortresses instead. Now i enjoy shambling in ruins looking for food. With darkness and very sparse zombie presense feeding groan isn't of much use and humans can basically get away mostly with a scratch and in lucky case infection. I would still enjoy if headshot = perma would be brought back along with faks not curing infection. Funny enough, i don't really care, the game is not a mmorpg, that you waste 8 hours per day for and demand satisfaction, and never was. I know though, that masses care, so Kevan should definitely add a MacGuffin. Tweaking skills effects is not a MacGuffin. --~~~~ [talk] 18:31, 19 August 2008 (BST)

I liked the diaries too, and that was what Monroeville was for: a giant Easter Egg chase. The perma-death was probably a gimmick made to limit Egg hunters or possibly a test to see what game-enhancements would fly. It would have worked well if players didn't abandon dead characters (PK'd, Eaten, or Idled). Since hindsight is 20/20, a permanent infection would have added a lot more spice to the heavy pro-survivor/PKer crowd. It would emphasize the Doctor skills more and put Hospitals as stronger survivor hubs. Bystander 22:38, 20 August 2008 (BST)