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 Website / Demo | Steam | Desura | $15 / £10 Early Access Project Zomboid is a "realistic" zombie survival game. Still in alpha, development is ongoing and stable releases come out every few months. Unstable releases are faster but are often, as might be expected, unstable. The developers operate on a variant of Valve time -- only releasing something when it's ready, no ETAs. Completion of version is aimed for 2015. Latest Update (Version history) Stable build : Build 29, includes new sound effects, the new scavenge skill, and more! Unstable Build : Build 30 : includes Erosion mod intergration, splitscreen via xbox controller support, major health rework, and others. If you encounter a bug in the unstable build, you can (and should!) report it on the official tracker. If you're running stable, try the unstable build, it may be already fixed.  So, how do I play?If playing your first game, make sure you read through the info popups, they contain all the useful information that will eventually be contained within a proper tutorial Starting at the beginning, choose the survival option on the main menu and pick your spawn point. You have a choice between West Point and Muldraugh, two towns on the same map, representing two starting difficulties. West Point is a much tougher start in a smaller area, tightly packed with zombies, while Muldraugh is more spread out, zombies being easier to avoid. Once you've chosen your spawn, you have to create a character. You can pick gender, appearance and then class, for an extra positive trait, and then balance the positive and negative traits how you like. You can start a game as long as your overall balance tally is equal to or above zero, and some people have made challenges out of only picking negative traits. You have a main experience bar and a secondary experience bar for each skill. When your main bar fills up, you gain one skill-point, which can then be used to level up one skill you have filled the experience box for. SplatterCat explains it much better here. Once you've filled the box for that level, you can only level a skill up further once you've put a point into it, at which point the next level unlocks. Farming, Cooking, Fishing and Carpentry all require you to achieve a certain skill-level before you can do certain things, and this is where skill books come in. Skill books, once fully read, enable you to level up skills faster. The current books are Carpentry, Cooking, Farming and Fishing, and there is a different book for each skill level: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert and Master. You can't read books that're above your current skill level, your character will simply look confused and whine uncomprehendingly. Skill books take a long time to read but the bonus is often worth it, being around 3x, 5x and 8x+ rate gain for experience in that skill, and it's a good way to kill time at night when your character isn't tired, or in multiplayer where sleeping/tiredness is currently disabled. If you stop reading a book halfway, the game will remember how far you got and compensate for it next time, so don't worry about quitting a book in the middle! As a downside, reading does cause your character to become bored. You can cure this by reading unnamed books, magazines and newspapers, as well as "reading" journals, crafted from an empty notebook and a pen or pencil. You can often find books in house bookshelves, and there's a big bookstore in West Point. There's also a bookstore in the minimall, if you don't want to leave Muldraugh, but it's quite a hike to get there.  Inventory Management, the UI and YouOnce you've rolled a character and entered the game, the first thing you may notice is all the windows covering the screen. These are the tutorial popup, your inventory, the inventory of things nearby (containers you are close to will appear here) and your character sheet. You can move them around at will, and pin them to force them to remain open. Inventory windows that aren't pinned will open up automatically as you mouse over them. Most crafting, cooking or equipping actions are done by right clicking on items. You can drag a box around or shift click and drag to move multiple items between containers. There's no secondary character inventory for equipped items, your inventory window contains everything you pick up, as well as equipped and worn items, but you can see what you have equipped in your primary and secondary slots (Main and offhand) which will often be a weapon and a bag, or a two handed weapon. Inventory management is a huge part of this game and it's recommended to pick up an extra bag as soon as possible.  Carpentry[ Wiki ] Carpentry requires you to have a hammer in your primary slot, it also generally requires planks and nails. A hammer, a box of nails and a couple of planks are a good start for carpentry. Once you've equipped your hammer, you can right click on the world and click "build" to find out what you can make and the carpentry levels needed, you can also right click on windows or doors to barricade them. Placing and removing barricades is a good way to level up a low carpentry skill. An axe is also good to have, it can be used as a main weapon, and also to chop down trees and break down doors. When chopping down trees, make sure you can actually hear the "chop, chop, chop" sound, the hitbox on them is a little awkward. A saw is also a must, if not immediately, to saw the logs you get from trees into planks. Planks and wood are very heavy, so it's not recommended to get into carpentry until you've picked a permanent base!  Cooking [ Wiki (under revision) ] The new cooking system allows for more dynamic meals and makes cooking much easier. When you put food in an oven to cook, it now has a timer-bar on mouseover, allowing you to tell when it's done cooking and avoid burning. Cooking works much the same way as carpentry, if you have the correct ingredients in your inventory and the correct tools (a roasting tin, a cooking pot, a bowl kettle or kitchen knife, depending) you can right click and craft food, which can then be eaten raw or cooked. Eating certain raw foods will cause your character to become sick, so always check the labels before you eat! The basic rule is, anything not in a tin or packet will go off eventually, so eat your fresh food before the dry stuff! The power will go out eventually and you may well be left with a fridge full of rotting food. Don't worry about referring to the wiki, the game is basically impossible without it and there's not much in the way of spoilers (yet!)  Fishing and Farming.[ Wiki ] To farm you must equip a trowel, (not a shovel, they're just weapons) this will enable the “dig” option when you right click on the world. You use the dig option to make seed plots, which you can then right click on to plant seeds that you've found in houses. Plants will have a ton of problems over the course of their lives, such as diseases, dehydration and failure to thrive, but if you manage to nurture them well enough, they will provide you with fresh food. Fishing is in unstable now. You can build a fishing rod out of a wooden stick, some twine (or fishing twine), a hook made of nails or paperclip and a knife to craft them. Or you can find them, or set and leave a net for hours. You can fish from the big river behind West Point, this is a good source of food during all seasons, including winter, when your crops won't grow. Useful hotkeys M - Music toggle C - Character Sheet F - equip/toggle state on flashlight Ctrl - Sneak & power up weapon blows Shift - Run F1 - Toggle survival guide Q - Shout R - Reload Y - Multiplayer global chat and P - Multiplayer safety If you press esc, then you can access the options screen and reassign keys.  Common Issues / FAQQ: Can I still murder my wife? A: The Kate and Baldspot Tutorial/Story was removed from the game several versions ago, but will be back as soon as the master&NPC AI is ready. They’ve a particularly complex one under creation. Q: Have they added NPCs yet? A: Yes, but they were removed due to a slight stupidity problem. They'll be back soon (ValveTime). Q: I keep dying, can I loot my body? A: Yup. Just rejoin your existing world. You can loot your corpse if you go down fighting, but if you succumb to infection, your walking corpse will disappear, even if you lock it in. It's a good idea to clear Drop your stuff before you die! Q: Multiplayer doesn't work! A: Ask in thread! There are several reasons this might be the case. I'll throw words at this as issues come in. Also, check out the multiplayer FAQ Q: I've been bitten and am pretty sure I'm gonna die, can I kill and loot my zombie? A: Maybe, it depends how you die. You can loot your corpse if you go down fighting, but if you succumb to infection, your walking corpse will disappear, even if you lock it in. Drop your stuff before you die! Q: Is there a map? A: Yep. http://pzmap.crash-override.net/Map! Q: What exactly has changed since 2011? A:  Q: I'm having 'X' tech support problem, what do I do? A: Read the tech FAQ here Q: I've been bitten, what do I do! Am I gonna die? A: You have 96% of dying from zombification. Scratches result in a 25% chance. You can rip sheets or clothing into bandages, apply them to the wound. Eat quite a lot, but if you start getting pains and quesyness, it’s likely you’ve been infected. Drop your extraneous loot and go down fighting! Q: They keep noticing me, why? A: Your various actions do make noise! Running, shutting windows, coughing, reading magazines late at night, shooting your guns, these all cause noises, which the zombies can hear! Try slowing down, walking instead of running, most zombies only move at walking speed anyway. If you're playing with the sound off, pay close attention to your surroundings, many houses have alarms!  ModsThe game has good mod support, but quite a few of the older mods haven't been updated to use the new modding system yet. There's no steam workshop support as of yet, but it is planned for the future. Some stand-out mods include: Drip irrigation : Adds an irrigation system for farming. Lockpicking : Adds a lockpicking system to doors and a new starting profession of burglar. Bedford Falls v2 : A whole new map! More mods can be found on the PZ modding forums. Useful LinksBuy the game! Map Project Previous thread Project Zomboid Website The Indie Stone Forums The iwbums branch, this is how to access the unstable version. LPs and Twitchers The Wiki. Know me, love me. Main PZ Twitter account And finally, watch a hostage taking (with Dean Hall) go wrong; devs in multiplayer. Well, go wrong for the takers, at least. This thread is a collaboration between Nettle (I write gud) and Kirrus, who does most of the PZ sysadmin. All of the images from TIS are hosted with knowledge, not hotlinked. I will be updating this thread and making it more coherent as we go along, it's a work in progress!ma Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Dec 6, 2014 |
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Apr 26, 2014 17:26
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I endorse this  (also, holding in case I need to add something whilst Nettle is away.)
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Apr 26, 2014 17:36
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It's disappointing that this game still has some of the oddest controls and UI I've ever experienced. Being in a tiny bedroom with a zombie on the floor with a transparent dresser interposed over it is not a fun experience.
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Apr 26, 2014 18:38
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Yeah, I don't even click things to look inside them anymore, I just do it all through the world-inventory window. The most annoying thing is the fences that go invisible when you get close, I've had that kill me at least once... Hopefully this poo poo will get sorted out eventually.
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Apr 26, 2014 19:13
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I basically can't get further than three houses if I don't start with a 2H blunt weapon. I just end up getting scratched -> sick -> fever -> death even if I bandage and eat and rest all day right after it happening. Any pro tips I am missing??
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Apr 27, 2014 15:04
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Mr. Pool posted:I basically can't get further than three houses if I don't start with a 2H blunt weapon. I just end up getting scratched -> sick -> fever -> death even if I bandage and eat and rest all day right after it happening. Any pro tips I am missing?? Never be too proud to abandon the house you're looting and run like hell. Check the inside of a house through the windows before attempting to enter it. Move slowly, check your surroundings. Close doors behind you, close the curtains of rooms you're searching. Shove zombies back to give you an extra couple of seconds to run. Fighting zed should generally be a last resort - your default behavior when encountering zombies in the early game should be 'flee for your life'.
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Apr 27, 2014 15:35
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I also tend to leave doors open of houses I've looted too. Not only do I know where I've already been but I can duck through the house to help lose chasing zombies.
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Apr 27, 2014 16:06
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I am pretty surprised this game doesn't get much attention even after the release of MP compares to other zombie survival game. My favorite moment is when you open a bathroom door and a bunch of zombies come spilling out and trap you in close quarter. Always makes for a tense encounter.
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Apr 27, 2014 16:15
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Mister Bates posted:Never be too proud to abandon the house you're looting and run like hell. Check the inside of a house through the windows before attempting to enter it. Move slowly, check your surroundings. Close doors behind you, close the curtains of rooms you're searching. Shove zombies back to give you an extra couple of seconds to run. Fighting zed should generally be a last resort - your default behavior when encountering zombies in the early game should be 'flee for your life'. Hold right click as you are moving around and you are in sneak mode, and also ready to smack a zombie if they surprise you.
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Apr 27, 2014 17:03
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Mister Bates posted:Never be too proud to abandon the house you're looting and run like hell. Check the inside of a house through the windows before attempting to enter it. Move slowly, check your surroundings. Close doors behind you, close the curtains of rooms you're searching. Shove zombies back to give you an extra couple of seconds to run. Fighting zed should generally be a last resort - your default behavior when encountering zombies in the early game should be 'flee for your life'. I guess I don't understand how other players are clearing out hordes and getting away without any of their bites being infected. Is it just luck? Or are there some medical items I'm missing? Actually now that I think about it I may not have really seen this before as I used to always take stout & lucky, whereas now I just do "strong" trait. Hmmm maybe lucky/resilient are more important than I thought...
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Apr 27, 2014 17:31
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Wasn't this the game where the developer got people to pay him a bunch of money and then fabricated a story about his 'laptop being stolen' to excuse the fact that he stopped working on the game for a while, before starting again at a glacially slow place?
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Apr 27, 2014 18:16
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Yes, Indie Stone is the developer that got their laptops stolen and if memory serves the team didn't handle it too well in the PR department. But let's not just go straight to the accusation that they made it all up? (I may be wrong, but a quick Google didn't yield anything  )
pedro0930 fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Apr 27, 2014 |
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Apr 27, 2014 18:36
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pedro0930 posted:Yes, Indie Stone is the developer that got their laptops stolen and if memory serves the team didn't handle it too well in the PR department. But let's not just go straight to the accusation that they made it all up? (I may be wrong, but a quick Google didn't yield anything Either they had no copies of their data backed up at all while working on a product that they had already encouraged people to pay for, or they attempted to rip off their customers. They're either profoundly incompetent or profoundly unethical.
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Apr 27, 2014 19:46
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Tolth posted:Wasn't this the game where the developer got people to pay him a bunch of money and then fabricated a story about his 'laptop being stolen' to excuse the fact that he stopped working on the game for a while, before starting again at a glacially slow place? Sounds like you may conflated part of this with some other incident; They had their apartment broken into and their laptops stolen, (the secondary laptop having the main backup), but they had a digital backup from a couple months prior to the incident. The update schedule has always been glacially slow. edit: There was a twitter meltdown by the main dev when people started accusing him of faking it and/or insulting him for not having a better backup system (which he really should have had, but still dude just had all his poo poo stolen ease up goddam). The Chad Jihad fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Apr 27, 2014 |
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Apr 27, 2014 19:53
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Tolth posted:Either they had no copies of their data backed up at all while working on a product that they had already encouraged people to pay for, or they attempted to rip off their customers. They're either profoundly incompetent or profoundly unethical.
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Apr 27, 2014 19:59
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Off-site backups are always A Good Thing, but to be clear there were half a dozen fully qualified backups of the code base. Even if 5 of these laptops had crashed it would've been a mild annoyance. It is only when all 6 disappeared at once that it was an issue. The developer was still an rear end in a top hat on twitter and quite frankly this game's snail pace development still makes liking it like being in an abusive relationship, but the explanations for that situation aren't as unforgivable as it might first seem.
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Apr 27, 2014 20:32
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Mr. Pool posted:I guess I don't understand how other players are clearing out hordes and getting away without any of their bites being infected. Is it just luck? Or are there some medical items I'm missing? Hold down ctrl and stand in place a moment before hitting, it "charges up" and seems to do more damage than just swinging suddenly. Avoid fights you can't win, run if you have to run, zombies only move at around walking speed, even when charging and you can pretty much always outpace them.
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Apr 27, 2014 20:54
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Mr. Pool posted:I guess I don't understand how other players are clearing out hordes and getting away without any of their bites being infected. Is it just luck? Or are there some medical items I'm missing? The key really is to never get bitten. It isn't like Left 4 Dead or Dead Rising in that sense. Bites are 90% fatal, so really on a bite you should consider yourself dead already. Scratches you have a better chance at, but there's still like a 20% chance of fatality. Medical items for zombie bites are like closing the door after the horse has bolted.
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Apr 27, 2014 21:20
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Tolth posted:Either they had no copies of their data backed up at all while working on a product that they had already encouraged people to pay for, or they attempted to rip off their customers. They're either profoundly incompetent or profoundly unethical. Well, it didn't take long for the laptop debacle to turn up. The devs covered it in an ama a while ago -- quote:We made big big mistakes, that much is clear, in the weeks preceding the burglary, and even more mistakes in our handling it afterward. However we've made great effort to learn from those mistakes and transformed pretty much every aspect of how we develop the game and interact with the community. The dev answering is the one who ranted on twitter whilst drunk, and whom is still suffering from the after-effects. Regarding glacial updates, stable updates are pretty slow, but unstable builds tend to come out at least once a month, and they're getting faster. For a long time, they only had one primary coder, that's now up to three, plus a dedicated scripter and an awesome writer. For an example of what they're doing, check out the changelog of the current unstable build, 26. 25 was only released last month.
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Apr 27, 2014 21:23
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I remember playing this game since day 1 of the VERY early alpha, holy moly, it changed so much.
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Apr 28, 2014 07:11
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Been encountering a really annoying bug lately, where shotguns won't reload without restarting the game. You get 3-6 shells and that's it, you can't even turn it around and hit something with it...
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May 2, 2014 10:47
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Does the lucky perk affect loot? When I tried it the first zombie I killed dropped a fire axe.
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May 2, 2014 13:20
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Jose Mengelez posted:Does the lucky perk affect loot? When I tried it the first zombie I killed dropped a fire axe. Yup, it affects all loot, both that you can find on zombies, and in any type of container
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May 2, 2014 23:59
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I got a few of my friends to buy it to play MP and had some great fun so far. Last game I accidentally set fire to our safe house, which proceed to burn all our stowed supply and a couple people down. That said, after a couple hours the game just become kind of tedious as there isn't much to do beside trolling each other. Are we due for another content update soon?
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May 12, 2014 15:55
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Updated the OP a little, build 26 (Multiplayer!) is now Stable and out on Steam and Desura. The iwbums branch is gone. Been having fun with this on multiplayer, but it quickly becomes "Inventory Simulator: Build more Crates" rather than a zombie game.
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May 19, 2014 14:33
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pedro0930 posted:I got a few of my friends to buy it to play MP and had some great fun so far. Last game I accidentally set fire to our safe house, which proceed to burn all our stowed supply and a couple people down. That said, after a couple hours the game just become kind of tedious as there isn't much to do beside trolling each other. Are we due for another content update soon? The next build will increase the map size. This is kinda a known thing, and will get far more interesting once the AI is back in, but it's taking some time due to complexity. One thing to do is to try and make it interesting for yourselves, set challenges, or try the challenges. Electricity/water shut off is actually dangerous, especially on the bigger MP servers
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May 22, 2014 14:11
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kirrus posted:The next build will increase the map size. This is kinda a known thing, and will get far more interesting once the AI is back in, but it's taking some time due to complexity. One thing to do is to try and make it interesting for yourselves, set challenges, or try the challenges. Electricity/water shut off is actually dangerous, especially on the bigger MP servers I just picked up this game on steam sale, and I imagine a few others did. It's great so far, amazingly similar to a game I started myself but never got around to finishing (and I'm sure there's a thousand unfinished games out there just like it). They really do seem to have a lot of great ideas and good systems worked out.
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Jun 26, 2014 03:12
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Nettle Soup posted:Been having fun with this on multiplayer, but it quickly becomes "Inventory Simulator: Build more Crates" rather than a zombie game. Yeah this seems to be the case for me as well. They really need to add like, special items at certain locations and bosses and stuff.
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Jun 26, 2014 15:13
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The game does seem to need something to deal with the endgame a player ends up at. Eventually you got some walls up, you got a garden going and it's a farm sim.
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Jun 26, 2014 15:27
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Wee Tinkle Wand posted:The game does seem to need something to deal with the endgame a player ends up at. Eventually you got some walls up, you got a garden going and it's a farm sim. I still think they need to put in a 'win' state, where after a certain amount of time and info gathering you can escape off a map edge into a military quarantine zone or something.
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Jun 26, 2014 15:47
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I would expect NPCs to add another huge dimension to the game, and that's potentially coming fairly soon.
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Jun 26, 2014 15:51
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I remember this years ago, was going fine and than they posted up that there was a robbery and all their computers where stolen/damaged, and such shelved the game
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Jun 26, 2014 16:49
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Fintilgin posted:I still think they need to put in a 'win' state, where after a certain amount of time and info gathering you can escape off a map edge into a military quarantine zone or something. That would violate the spirit of the game I feel, but it would be nice if you could mark certain things as explicitly yours, and then after you've marked a shopping list of things, the game just recognizes that you could probably survive forever and allows you to 'win'. The entire point of the game is supposed to be how you die, but I feel like it focuses too much on people getting bit or dying in action. You can totally survive forever by properly hardening a safehouse and setting up a large food and water surplus. But that just means you die holed up in a dark fortress, eating cabbage and potatoes and drinking rainwater until something more mundane than zombies gets you.
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Jun 26, 2014 17:12
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They never shelved it? They just took a while to get back up to speed. Also, there's been a new update out recently, I'll update the OP to reflect this later.
Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 26, 2014 17:12
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Coolguye posted:That would violate the spirit of the game I feel, but it would be nice if you could mark certain things as explicitly yours, and then after you've marked a shopping list of things, the game just recognizes that you could probably survive forever and allows you to 'win'. Or they could add in much more serious threats, like roving biker gangs or something that will wreck your poo poo if you stay in the same place too long.
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Jun 26, 2014 17:14
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Coolguye posted:That would violate the spirit of the game I feel, but it would be nice if you could mark certain things as explicitly yours, and then after you've marked a shopping list of things, the game just recognizes that you could probably survive forever and allows you to 'win'. It could probably work out if there was a background score system that generated wandering hordes of increasing severity. It would even be able to scale back if you have to abandon your fortress if you don't keep up with the arms race of zombie defenses. That would work well with their existing narrative.
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Jun 26, 2014 17:15
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The plan is to increase the ways you'll die. They're also building an AI that will actively try and make the game interesting for you when it thinks you're starting to get into a groove. Nice safehouse? Horde outside your door. Or maybe the military shooting at anything that moves. The game is (and will be) designed to kill you. It's more to be about how long you live, and how you die, not if you die.
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Jun 27, 2014 15:10
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I hope they either remove farming or make it less micromanegement based.
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Jun 27, 2014 16:17
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I like how all these settings involving a sudden apocalypse involve loving farming. Like that's the most logical thing to resort to. gently caress raiding department stores, hand me that hoe.
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Jun 27, 2014 16:34
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Met posted:I hope they either remove farming or make it less micromanegement based. My hope is that you can have NPCs handle the bullshit like this.
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Jun 27, 2014 17:25
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