User talk:CoopVancer

Surviving Monroeville

Playing a survivor in Monroeville is impossible. Don't waste your time. Go kill yourself and play a zombie; it's tons easier.

The End

What? Still here? You _seriously_ want to play a human in Monroeville? You're friggin' nuts.

Well, okay, read on.

First some rules:

• Be smart, don't light generators
• Don't attack unknown zeds without killing them - they can track you with ["Scent_Death"].
• Keep your mouth shut about other safe spots, plans, etc. - zombies use spies, then post to newsgroups to tell their friends
• Don't talk in front of zombies. They can hear everything you say, and will post it on forums. Talk about another base and the zombies will hit that too.
• Beware of sleeping in VSB buildings
• Don't fire flares! Zombies can see them a LONG way, and they'll come a-runnin'

Remember, as a survivor, you only get one chance: No revives. That means, you have to be REALLY FRIGGIN GOOD to make levels in Monroeville as a survivor. One mistake and ffttth, out comes your entrails.

Die Newbie Die

Just started the game? Well guess what, you're absolutely worthless. You won't be worth anything to anyone (including yourself) until you get construction.

In fact, if you don't follow the rules above, you're worse than worthless: You're a liability.

Firefighters Only

It's "nice" that you can select from several different character classes, but all of them are useless except Firefighter. The reason's simple: You need XP, and the firefighter is the only self-contained character able to generate XP right off the bat. You have an axe and 25% chance to hit with it. Pop out on the street and start hacking away, and watch the XP roll in.

All the other classes need something (faks, ammo) that are impossible to get except from repaired buildings, and good luck finding one of those.

Scouts are handy if you're playing a zombie and want to spy on humans. This is why no one really trusts scouts. Plus like all other non-firefighters it's friggin hard to get XP.

There's only one downside to playing a firefighter...

The Zombies can Track You. Attack them and DIE

Did I mention how easy playing a zombie was? Zombies ZOOM up in level, and with no headshot, they're basically immortal. So if they log in every day or two, wander around aimlessly munching on whatever they want, farting around, they'll climb right up in level, no problem. It's almost BORING how easy unlife is for them. You're like a cat toy to them. And sooner or later they'll get the skill you'll dread the most: Scent Trail.

Scent Trail allows the zed to sense the positions of survivors that have attacked it.

So the trick is, each time you attack a zombie, move at least 10 blocks away. -OR- kill the dang zombie. If the zombie is dead, it can't sense you when it gets back up.

One of the WORST things you can do, though, is to attack a zombie and then go sleep someplace with other people. This allows that zombie to not only follow you, but notice your flat mates and call in his posse to eat you, your little dog, and all your friends too! It's dreadfully uncool. This is why newbies are shunned by higher levels.

How to Hide in Monroeville

One of the pluses of Monroeville is that survivors are so rare, that most zombies have forgotten about them, and spend their days just milling around attacking each other for chump change XP.

So, don't alert them to the fact that any humans are around. Sleep in ruins, don't put up barricades, don't close doors, and for heaven's sake don't attack any zeds. When you move between buildings, don't lallygag around; move fast.

The game system tries to be helpful and spawn new characters in places where they may be safe - thus it'll often drop you off in front of a powered, caded hospital or factory. Well that's just great, except it's exactly where you DON'T want to be. Go ahead and spend 10-20 ap gathering supplies, but save at least 20 to get the hell away from it. These newbie spawn points are often thoroughly patrolled by zeds looking for newbie meat.

There's some different tactics you can use.

• Don't Light Generators!!! This attracts zombies like nothing else.

• Doors. You've the choice of closing doors when you sleep, or leaving them open. Closing them makes you a little safer but alerts the zeds that humans are around. Leaving them open makes you less obvious but low level zeds can peek in and eat you.

• Dark Buildings. Clubs, Banks, and Bars have a nice trait of halving the chance to hit of any one inside when they're not lit by a generator. Only one problem: Zeds have caught onto this, and will regularly check these buildings.

• Stay Mobile. It's often tempting once you've found a reasonably zed-free area to stay put. Finding new hideouts takes work. However, what can happen is a zed spots your hideout (maybe your door is shut, maybe he saw you run by, maybe your door is open and he came in and peeked), but doesn't have enough AP to attack. So he tiptoes off and rests up. Meanwhile, you log in, do your business, and pop back into your regular hidey hole. Now the zed springs (sometimes with a friend or two) and poof, you're out. Instead, move around, don't stay in the same place twice.

• Check in regularly. Sometimes you can find your character mid-munch and move him somewhere less dangerous. You'll probably die anyway, but why make it easy?

• Look for areas with few zombies.

• Don't do anything fancy. You may read about advanced tricks and tips in this wiki or elsewhere, but most are too difficult for newbies to pull off. More likely you'll use up AP and get you and your friends slaughtered.

Construction

Once you get to 100xp, you'll want to pick up construction. You *might* go for hand-to-hand if you want to continue guerrilla warefare for more xp, but then construction will probably be your third skill.

The other thing you're going to need is a Toolbox. If you spot a repaired factory, take the chance and grab one asap. Otherwise you're going to be searching in ruined factories, which takes forever and is a pain in the ass.

Oh, and a note about the length of pipe - It's marginally useful in Monroeville, in that if you're in a barricaded building (which you shouldn't be...) that loses it's cades, you can use the pipe to bring them up to loosely, but that's it. Honestly, if you find yourself in that situation, don't waste the AP; just run. The zombies will brush through a loose barricade like tissue paper. So, pipes aren't really useful enough to have in your inventory.

Anyway, once you get a toolbox, congratulate yourself, and you've finally become useful. But don't run out barricade straifing!

First, barricades attract zeds. It might take them a day or two, but they'll come. If you need to put up a resource building, try putting it up next to another one. It'll attract about the same number of zeds, but they'll have twice as much work. It'll give the survivors in the other building an emergency shelter to move to - right before they escape back to ruined dark buildings.

Second, the game plops newbies down near barricaded buildings. And since you've become useful, newbies are now a liability to you.

Join A Group

Believe it or not, there actually ARE organized groups of high level survivors in monroeville. But they're a quiet bunch - they may be right there shoring up your barricades, healing your injured, etc. and you'll never even notice. You'll be camping in a VSB+2 building, look around at a bunch of 1lvls none of whom have construction, and wonder who the heck put up the barricades??

These guys are good - if they can evade smart immortal bored zombies, they can evade silly newbs just as easy.

The best thing to do is to NOT break the rules. The group members will probably know, and will remember, and won't invite you. If you cross them, you'll be lucky they don't PK you right off the bat.

There's one other thing you ought to get before you seek out a group - Freerunning. Otherwise, you'll likely be shut out of the safety they provide.

Good Luck

Once you make it to level 3, you're ready for the advanced lessons, but those aren't for me to say here. Join a group and learn from them.