Developing Suggestions

NOTICE

The Suggestions system has been closed indefinitely and Developing Suggestions is no longer functions as a part of the suggestions process. However, you are welcome to use this page for general discussion on suggestions.

Shortcut:
DS

Developing Suggestions

This section is for general discussion of suggestions for the game Urban Dead.

It also includes the capacity to pitch suggestions for conversation and feedback.

Further Discussion

• Discussion concerning this page takes place here.
• Discussion concerning the suggestions system in general, including policies about it, takes place here.

Resources

• The Frequently Suggested List
• Suggestions Dos and Do Nots

How To Make a Discussion

Adding a New Discussion

To add a general discussion topic, please add a Tier 3 Header (===Example===) below, with your idea or proposal.

Adding a New Suggestion

• To add a new suggestion proposal, copy the code in the box below.
• Click here to begin editing. This is the same as clicking the [edit] link to the right of the Suggestions header.

• Paste the copied text above the other suggestions, right under the heading.
• Substitute the text in RED CAPITALS with the details of your suggestion.
• The process is illustrated in this image.

{{subst:DevelopingSuggestion
|time=~~~~
|name=SUGGESTION NAME
|type=TYPE HERE
|scope=SCOPE HERE
|description=DESCRIPTION HERE
}}

• Name - Give the suggestion a short but descriptive name.
• Type is the nature of the suggestion, such as a new class, skill change, balance change.
• Scope is who or what the suggestion affects. Typically survivors or zombies (or both), but occasionally Malton, the game interface or something else.
• Description should be a full explanation of your suggestion. Include information like flavor text, search odds, hit percentages, etc, as appropriate. Unless you are as yet unsure of the exact details behind the suggestion, try not to leave out anything important. Check your spelling and grammar.

Cycling Suggestions

• Suggestions with no new discussion in the past month may be cycled without notice.

Please add new discussions and suggestions to the top of the list

---

Suggestions

Please put suggestion for suggestion here

Ammo Selection

Timestamp: Bental 04:49, 8 May 2011 (BST)

Type: Improvement

Scope: Survivors

Description: How many times have you, as a survivor, gone to blast away at a zombie, finished, and realized that when you want to reload, but for fear of wasting bullets, you can't because all of your pistols are half empty/full. Is there a way Urban Dead could automatically select the Pistol with the lowest ammo to use first? This wouldn't really give the survivors an advantage, but it would certainly make things easier as far as ammo conservation goes. It wouldn't matter for a shotgun, obviously as they only reload one shell at a time anyway.

Discussion (Ammo Selection)

That's how it works already.--

| T | BALLS! | 04:56 8 May 2011(UTC)

Is it? I always thought it worked from the 1st pistol in your inventory and didn't matter how much ammo was in each. --Honestmistake 11:35, 8 May 2011 (BST)

---

Combinable Items

Timestamp: 18:02, 4 May 2011 (GMT)

Type: New Skill

Scope: Survivors

Description: Survivors with this skill being a civilian skill will be able in a powerded building probley a factory as it makes most sense to be there should be able to combine items i would love to see if they added cloths and lighters to be able to put the 2 together and make a molotov coctail , the survivors are outnumbered and need to have ways of making things that can help them more. I just think it would be awesome to combine items i see other people post stuff about molotov cocktails but it could be any item really, what do you lot think.

Discussion (Combinable Items)

I like how the above author did not even bother to read about a page farther down and see an almost identical suggestion. -- LABIA on the INTERNET ^{Dunell Hills Corpseman} #24 - |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ^TMG 12:06, 6 May 2011 (BST)

---

More Talking

Timestamp:  Swiers 16:56, 4 May 2011 (BST)

Type: improvement

Scope: everybody

Description: instead of a flat 1 AP cost to say something, talking would only consume an AP a certain percentage of the time (say, 25%), randomly determined each time you talked. This would encourage role play use of talking, while still discouraging people from talking much in tense tactical situations, since they can't be sure it won't consume AP they need for other things.

Discussion (More Talking)

Makes sense because in relaxed situations, you realistically are more free to talk.  Swiers 16:57, 4 May 2011 (BST)

I like reducing the cost of speaking, while still attaching a cost to it to prevent flooding. What about gestureing or broadcasting? And what about spraypainting or defiling graffiti? -- Spiderzed█ 18:10, 4 May 2011 (BST)

The other modes all reach more people or persist longer than speech and, IMO, would defy the point of this suggestion. It should definitely cover both zambah- an harman-gab, though. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 04:36, 5 May 2011 (BST)

Abzaragrah - zambah zbaagh !z zbaagh!  Swiers 04:25, 6 May 2011 (BST)

So, speaking (both zombie and survivor) and gestureing would be what is affected by that? Me like. Particularly since I see the issues with cheaper graffiti/defiling/broadcasting Rev mentions. -- Spiderzed█ 13:11, 6 May 2011 (BST)

I hadn't considered gesturing, but yeah, why not- its basically a form of speech. IMO survivors should be able to gesture too- probably the only reason they can't is it would be largely redundant with (non-zambargh) speech.  Swiers 19:47, 6 May 2011 (BST)

I all for more talking. You could do something such if there's a zombie present inside the building or in the square with you that forces it to take 1 ap per speech but I'd hate to over complicate the simplicity..       03:00, 5 May 2011 (BST)

Yeah, by keeping it to a simple random number you avoid introducing a new database call (which would be needed to detect the presence of a zombie in the location with the speaker). I'm guessing grabbing a random number is faster and easier to code, although I suppose speech processing already requires checking if the speaker is alive, prone, or walking dead.  Swiers 19:47, 6 May 2011 (BST)

I reckon it could be done without an extra database call: it'll already have to check to see if there are any zombies when it loads the page so it can just check the variable whenever someone talks.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 22:39, 6 May 2011 (BST)

Don't discriminate zombies. There are few enough survivors to talk to zombies as it is. Even if it just trenchie trash talk like "SUCK MAH SHOTGUN FUCKING ZED", it is more fun to hear than 20 "RandomTrenchie117 shot you with a pistol for 4 damage... and again... and again..." messages. -- Spiderzed█ 23:06, 6 May 2011 (BST)

I'm not: I thought the point up for debate was the practicality of making it only cost AP to talk when zombies are around and was saying that it wouldn't cause any additional server load. Am I misunderstanding?--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 23:17, 6 May 2011 (BST)

“	December 21, 2005: With nearly a thousand in attendance, Whetcombe is so crowded that it is hard to do anything. Stanstock organizers ask participants to spread out to soundstages and refreshment stands in adjoining streets. To reduce server load, Kevan limits conversation broadcasts to the fifty nearest.	”
—Stanstock

I'm wondering if the fact that speech was already limited for server load purposes gives this suggestion really any chance of a future. Speaking is good but seems unlikely.--Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 20:03, 6 May 2011 (BST)

Of course, that was end of 2005 in the heyday of UD. With today's player numbers and the overproportionally growing server load for speech actions (the more people there are in the same place, the more people load the speaker speech), things might be different. -- Spiderzed█ 20:35, 6 May 2011 (BST)

You'd think thered be a way to streamline speech and make it have nearly no server load.. Make it so to have free speech you gata be with less than 20 people under the guise of having to "yell" over everyone if there's too many people around :P       02:35, 7 May 2011 (BST)

Not entirely. The way it works is that: Every time someone loads a page the game will query the database to retrieve any speech that's happened at your location since last time you logged in, obviously with larger queries causing more server load. This happens every time someone takes an action so the load is effectively multiplied by the number of people active. So, if there are 1000s of people active in a location and they're all using their AP to talk then the server is having to make thousands of large database queries to retrieve text and likely also having to make thousands of queries to store new speech in the database (possibly 1000s of queries per line of speech).

The only way to solve it is to limit the number of queries that can be made by (as Kevan did) by methods such as limit the amount of characters who the message is sent to (thus limiting queries). So, yeah, limiting 0AP speech based on the number of people present would be a reasonable solution.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 10:26, 7 May 2011 (BST)

---

Urban Dead Mobile Friendly

Timestamp: Redguy 21:29, 3 May 2011 (BST)

Type: Improvement

Scope: Game Interface

Description: I made a prototype of a mobile html/css/js for the game. You can test it out here: Urban Dead Mobile. Use your smartphone browser or make the desktop browser window smaller on the x-axis to see the mobile version. This is just an idea and should be fairly easy for Kevan to implement if everybody likes ;)

Discussion (Urban Dead Mobile Friendly)

Wooo. Make it so! ~ _{22:00, 3 May 2011 (UTC)}
noice --    bitch  22:31, 3 May 2011 (utc)
I like it. Although my phone (Iphone 3G) doesn't display ruins/lit buildings or the full building name correctly. If I remember right, I'd test it but all my accounts are Ap'd and my phones browser has frozen up.. Just something to make sure works in case you had a droid or other smart phone.       03:19, 4 May 2011 (BST)
@Mazu: If you check out the game at urbandead.com on your iPhone you should get the same display bugs as in my prototype. I did not change the click behavior of the map or it's look in the css. Kevan uses input buttons to display buildings, I thought about changing the buttons to link elements that submit the form but I think that is something for Kevan to decide (I changed as little as possible). You should also consider that if this get's through the suggestions, Kevan is the person to make the final fixes and push it into development ;) --Redguy 11:16, 4 May 2011 (BST)

True, If/when Kevan makes an app for it or something all the display bugs would be fixed. I was just bringing it to your attention if you/kevan didn't know.       12:13, 4 May 2011 (BST)

You could just use Opera Minimobile web browser. It does some of the processing server side and compresses the data before sending it to your phone (faster loading and less data plan use.)-- LABIA on the INTERNET ^{Dunell Hills Corpseman} #24 - |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ^TMG 13:29, 4 May 2011 (BST)

---

Lighter/ Molotov cocktail

Timestamp: --Peter Mason 21:49, 1 May 2011 (BST)

Type: New Weapon

Scope: survivor

Description: Okay, there should be a new item. There should be a lighter that you can use to set a gasoline soaked zombie on fire. It should have a base accuracy of 10% and not be able to be raised. Then you should also be able to use the lighter to make a molotov cocktail out of the wine and beer. It should have a base accuracy of 10% and be able to be raised to 25% with hand to hand combat. It should do (3)? damage to all zombies in the square. It could also do "damage" to the building that could be fixed maybe by construction or you migh just have to fix it like a bloodstain. If you miss with the cocktail you lose the bottle. I know this has been suggested as a light source but it wouldn't be used for that.--Peter Mason 21:34, 1 May 2011 (BST)

Discussion (Lighter/ Molotov cocktail)

-fixed the formatting for you there. You can already set zombies on fire using a flaregun/ oil can combo, have you tried that? Also, my pee burns hotter than wine or beer. --Karloth Vois ^¯\(°_o)/¯ 16:20, 2 May 2011 (BST)

You should get that checked out, Karl. I've been there, and it's bad news. As for the suggestion, I think the base accuracy should be 100%. 150% if the zombie is a member of The Dead. --Paddy Dignam^{IS DEAD} 18:37, 2 May 2011 (BST)

Area attacks with no set limit are a very bad idea as anyone who has seen a big seige can probably imagine. Even with limits such suggestions are very unpopular.... --Honestmistake 22:43, 2 May 2011 (BST)

Wine and beer are not inflammable. If you doubt me, try it. A Molotov cocktail consists of petrol in a bottle with a rag for a wick. That aside, area affect attacks have been suggested previously and never implemented. ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 23:04, 2 May 2011 (BST)

You should actually use petrol (gas) mixed with liquid detergent for a better sticky formula (there are many variations) and tampons can work better than a rag. -- LABIA on the INTERNET ^{Dunell Hills Corpseman} #24 - |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ^TMG 13:34, 4 May 2011 (BST)

The More You Know!™ ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 16:45, 4 May 2011 (BST)

Lighters are on the Frequently Suggested List and Molotov cocktails have been suggested many, many, many, many times before (and should also be on the Frequently Suggested List). Molotov cocktails were already accepted through peer review (suggestions) back in November of 2005. They haven't been added to the game for over five years, and will likely never be added to the game. Currently, the combination of attacking a target with a Fuel Can douses the victim with gasoline, and then the victim can be set on fire with a Flare Gun. Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 21:05, 3 May 2011

---

Suggestions up for voting

The following are suggestions that were developed here but have since gone to voting. The discussions that were taking place here have been moved to the pages linked below.

No suggestions from here are currently up for voting.