Ranger: Specializes in speed and long range combat. Grenadier: Specialist in grenades and general explosive devices. G.I.: General Infantry, the name says it all. This is just a more powerful version of the soldier.
Sniper: Elite long range specialist. Sapper: Expert in explosives and land mines. RPG Trooper: Elite ranged explosives expert. Commando: Elite light infantry or special forces unit. A typical Rambo, expert at all ranged weaponry and military tactics.
What we are currently working on:
Blank101 - Lighting
JPillz - City Graphics
wisnoskij - Skills
** Note: These ideas are preliminary. We cannot guaranty that everything said here will make it into the final product.
One of the main branches of the class tree is the Militia branch. They are very proficient using weaponry and best at providing normal ranged damage to their enemies. Do to spending all they time learning ranged weapon skills they do not have many special skills in their arsenal.
What we are currently working on:
Blank101 - Lighting
JPillz - City Graphics
wisnoskij - Skills
** Note: These ideas are preliminary. We cannot guaranty that everything said here will make it into the final product.
The 4 branches off of the main Citizen class are again: Student, Mechanic, Criminal, and Militia. Below I will try to explain more about them.
Student
The student is the intellectual of the group. it is the main “spell caster” branch, and makes up for its lack in weapon skill with its intelligence.
Mechanic
The mechanic is the builder and repairer branch. Players in the mechanic branch will be able to build barricades, and repair/create devices.
Militia
This is the main ranged damage dealing branch. All if its subclasses are proficient in one or more of the ranged weapons.
Criminal
This branch focuses primarily on close quarters combat and stealth. It contains such notables as the assassin and Hit Man.
What we are currently working on:
Blank101: Site Work
JPillz: City Graphics
wisnoskij: Skills
** Note: These ideas are preliminary. We cannot guaranty that everything said here will make it into the final product.
As Jpillz mentioned in his last developer blog, we plan on using a hierarchical class structure in Zed. This is a change on the strict 5 class system from Blank101s previous post. We want to ease the player into Zed, and the class tree allows players to start playing without first having to pick through any settings.
All players would start out as a Citizen, and as they level up and gain class points they would be be able to use them to expand into other subclasses.
The tree is made up of 5 tiers and 4 main branches. 5 tiers meaning it will take 4 class points to get to the outer leaves of the tree. The 4 main branches are Student, Mechanic, Criminal, and Militia.
What we are currently working on:
Blank101 - AI
JPillz - City Graphics
wisnoskij - Skills
** Note: These ideas are preliminary. We cannot guaranty that everything said here will make it into the final product.
Hello Pawn community, I am the new admin and developer on Zed. I am primarily in charge of the overall design of the game (skills, classes, enemies, everything really). I will be taking over the day to day posting in this dev blog with Blank101 and JPillz dropping in whenever they have something to add.
What this means to you is more posts. I will be updating you on our progress far more often. So check back regularly. Additionally, some of our ideas are becoming more fully realized and are in a form that we can now tell you about them, without the fear that they will undergo rapid changes.
Also to let you know what we are working on currently, even tho it is in too primitive a form to really go into detail about here, I plan on including a sentence or two explaining what each of us is currently working on.
What we are currently working on:
Blank101: Path finding.
JPillz: Interior house design.
wisnoskij: Skills.
For this week's blog I'm going to go over the weapon types that will be available in Zed. Basically all weapons are split into 2 major groups - melee and ranged. Inside both major groupings is a list of categories that each weapon can fall under. Those categories are:
Most of the categories are pretty self explanatory, but I'll go over the list just to give you all an idea of what kind of things to expect.
Sidearms - Holstered for quick access. (Ex) P99, P220, USP, Glock, Colt Python, Desert Eagle.
SMGs - Combining automatic fire of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol. (Ex) Mac-11, Uzi, MP5, Wather MP, UMP, Spectre M4, P90.
Shotguns - Useful in close quarters combat situations. (Ex) Mossberg 590, Benelli M3101, SPAS, Remington 1100, Double Barrel, SAIGA, USAS-12.
Sniper Rifles - Long range rifles. (Ex) Mosin-Nagant, M25, Dragunov.
Assault Rifles - Rifles capable of both semi-automatic and automatic fire. (Ex) Famas, Steyr Aug, L85A1, G36, M16, FN Scar, M4 Carbine, AK47.
LMGs - Although still capable of being carried, these weapons are very heavy. (Ex) Bren, Ameli, M249.
HMGs - These weapons must be mounted first before being fired. (Ex) M2 Browning, M61 Vulcan.
Explosive - Any weapons that contain an area of effect in damage. (Ex) Grenade, M32, XM306.
One Handed Blades - Any small melee weapon with a blade. (Ex) Knife.
Two Handed Blades - Melee bladed weapons that require two hands. (Ex) Axe.
Blunt Objects - Melee weapons that are blunt. (Ex) Board, Baseball Bat, Fists, Golf Club, Chair.
Mechanical - Melee weapons with a motor. (Ex) Chainsaw.
This is not an exhaustive list. Just some things we are thinking about.
I also wanted to address the issue of JPillz's picture being "too bright and cheery". We are going to be adjusting the lighting to get the right mood for the final product. To give you a slightly more realistic view of what the game might look like, I've made a quick flash file which is a little more atmospheric.
Here it is:
Please note you will need to view this in the developer blog to see the flash file (or you could just open the file directly).
Well that's it for this week. Be sure to check back next Friday for another update!
Hey All! Sorry this is a bit late, I had a pretty busy weekend.
So to excite all you viewers, I will divulge a bit about the still-in-concept class tree. Yes, a TREE of classes. We thought it would be a really cool idea where everyone starts as just a normal Joe, a citizen of sorts. With playing and leveling up, the choices of who you are get WIDER, not more narrow.
Our colleague/partner Wisnoskij has cracked off a really intense class tree, that includes almost all the cool professions out there. Suffice to say I recoiled in awe(some). For example-- if you like the guns, you will get more successful gun-running techniques by taking a stroll down the Militia class base; but if you want to change gears a bit, you could also start being a scientist, and from there one could suit their tastes to become whatever they want, be it an Assassin/Engineer, to a Guerrilla/Computer Scientist/whatever you have enough levels for. (P.S. all those classes are actually in the works of concepts and design).
It is a bit of a tricky system and may be daunting at first, but the idea is that the more you play, the more you will be able to learn/"manipulate" the class tree to get exactly what you want.
And as an added bonus to being a bit late on the whole postage of this entry, I have included a prelim about what the houses are going to look like(still a bit rough). The reason it will be a bit time consuming (as mentioned before) is because all the blood and grime that give it the haunting feel is hand-drawn, and not just blood "stamps" copy and pasted . This hopefully will give a more authentic feel.
And before I close, as another added tidbit, that some of the houses included in the game will our actual houses in real life (to save time in designing actual floor plans).
Not really much to report this week. JPillz is still working on getting some initial city drawings done. I myself have just been working on optimizing the game engine to make the game run smoother. So I'll just go into detail about some of the types of zombies you can encounter in Zed.
The most common type of zombie you will encounter is the Regular zombie. Low health and slow movement speed make these guys easy targets. Regular zombies arn't really all that interesting, so lets get into some of the more specialized zombie classes.
Another type of zombie you will encounter is the Beserker zombie. These guys still have relatively low health, but are very fast and can close the gap between themselves and your character quite quickly. Once next to you, these zombies pack a punch. Be sure to take these ones out as soon as possible.
Of course in every zombie game there are always bigger, stronger zombies you will have to deal with. Zed's Behemoth zombie is just what the name suggests. Lots of health and damage make this zombie tough to deal with. You will need to work with your entire team to take out a Behemoth.
Next up is the Spitter zombie. Again as the name suggests this zombie can spit a corrosive acid from range. So don't feel too safe behind your barricades. :P Spitter zombies have fairly average health and speed.
One of the more interesting classes is the Carrier zombie. This zombie is basically an infectious sack ready to burst. It is very quick too so it can get to its target quickly. Once it gets close enough it will blow itself up - spraying all adjacent humans with the infection. Humans will have to work with their doctors afterwords to get rid of the disease.
Another zombie class you can encounter in Zed is the Shrieker class. Named for its special shrieking ability. This zombie will basically roll out the welcome mat for all nearby zombies. As soon as you hear it's distinctive scream you will need to hunt down and kill the Shrieker or you will find yourself surrounded by lots of zombies looking to eat your flesh.
Finally there is the Queen zombie. This zombie is comparable in size to the Behemoth, but she plays a very different roll. The Queen can mutate Regular infected into special zombies (Beserker, Behemoth, Spitter, Carrier, Shrieker). You will need a full team in order to take down the Queen.
Now that you know what's out there, you should have all the tools necessary to stay alive. Happy hunting! :)
So as of right now, I do not own the miracle of the internet. As such, I am writing to you from Blank101's computer.
News, News, let's see if there is any news for the week. I have been having a really busy week and all free time has been devoted to building a city. It is not as quick as I previously thought. Trying to fit in all the detail (blood and guts ;) ) is turning out to be quite time consuming. Maybe the next time I write, I will be able to show you screens what the maps would look like.
Another big task I am working on is making the characters, another task that will be very in depth. Since the players will need to reload, shoot. walk, and use every melee weapon possible, we need to account for EVERYTHING.
So yea, it's gonna be big.
Blank101 and I had a chat recently to hash out the game-play system and we modified for the most part (I am not sure what you have heard, so this may not even be a "change"). As elaboration to Blank's figurative situation last post, we are going towards total squad action. From anywhere of 5 to 10 people, you will need heavy squad tactics to do better than random lone wolf tactics; because an entire city alone is quite daunting...
Or so the plan is anyways.
I am not sure what you gather from Blank101's mention of classes, but a large part of being customizable and unique is our plan of advanced skill trees. Even sub-class specializations will be added for a massively diverse selection of builds and abilities. Should be pretty cool.
But basically the design process is being looooong and tedious. So I don't have much news for you guys in that regard. 2 weeks on my next post though I SHOULD have something to show you loyal viewers.
Well welcome to the third installment of the Zed developer blog. Let me start off by saying how nice it is to see everyone as excited about Zed as we are. Development is still progressing, but it will still be a little bit before we have any pictures to show. So let me give you some more details.
As JPillz said in his previous post, Zed will support multiple floors. Now I want to be clear and tell you this is not the same as Pawn Tactic's "levels" system. Zed's flooring system is far more intuative and allows for a greater degree of map variety. Expect to see four to five story buildings. Just to paint a picture - imagine you and your buddies holding out at the top of a clock tower as zombies pour in from the base. You have barricaded the stair cases and have automated sentry turrets set up to hold off the incoming horde. Your resident soldier watching from atop the roof with a sniper rifle while you continue to burn your last few rounds of ammunition. All you need to do is hold out for another minute. This is the type of game we are going for. It's a bigger project, but we have come a long way since Pawn and Pawn Tactics.
Since we have decided to include you guys so early in the development process, it has really given us a chance to hear what you want the game to be like. We have been reading your threads and we've even used a few ideas already. :) I want to throw out a special mention and say thanks to Knux57 and his Mega Suggestion Thread. Keep up the suggestions and ideas everyone. Even though we don't always respond, we do read them!
Now for a little about the types of classes available. For this we have decided to go for quality as opposed to quantity. There will only be 5 base classes. That being said, we plan on making these classes highly customizable in stats, skills and items. It is our goal to make everyone's character unique in one way or another. Here are the base classes we have come up with:
Soldier - An all-around class which is proficient in most aspects.
Doctor - Specializes in healing. You will need a Doctor in your squad if you want to survive.
Engineer - Specializes in building stuff. Be that turrets or barricades.
Demolitions - As the name suggests the demolitions class is good at blowing zombies up. ;)
Thief - The Thief class can be thought of as similar to the Recon class from PT.
** Note: I want to remind everyone again that these ideas are preliminary. Although we will be keeping you up to date with our thought processes, we cannot promise that everything said here will make it into the final product.
Well that's all for this edition of the Zed developer blog. Be sure to come back next week for some more sneak peeks. :P
