Zombie Panic! (HL2 Mod) Catch All

Figured in the interest of organization, and since this will be on Stan's 2.0, it might be a good idea to start up this thread. If you're looking to download the game you can find it here:

Link no longer points to a working download page see one post below for third party sites until steam begins distributing it. (make sure you get the HL2 version and not HL1 :smile:)

The installation process will likely be changing once they add the mod to steam so stay tuned for that one.

Wow I didn't even notice that. Sorry folks! Well thats a shame, but I guess only a minor annoyance. Hopefully they get the steam distribution online soon.

I removed the useless link I posted eariler.

Steam version is on its way soon.

I have not had the pleasure of trying any of the ZP objective maps, but that seems to be the way to go for this game. If possible stay clear of custom-map servers. Many of the maps were not well designed and end up with a horrible camp-tastic team of survivors against zombies that have no way to reach them.

It'd be cool if you could kill yourself (for points!) if you knew you were infected.

I recommend for starters a map called "ward", it's an enclosed map, really creepy and claustrophobic, even as a zombie you'll be afraid. Last night I was playing here and was going up some stairs, from a corner a survivor bumped into me and started to scream into the microphone in pure genuine fear, I couldn't stop laughing for about 2 minutes after that

feeank wrote:

I recommend for starters a map called "ward", it's an enclosed map, really creepy and claustrophobic, even as a zombie you'll be afraid. Last night I was playing here and was going up some stairs, from a corner a survivor bumped into me and started to scream into the microphone in pure genuine fear, I couldn't stop laughing for about 2 minutes after that

Is it a player made map or a pre packaged one?

Not really sure, Crashed, it did'nt look amateurish and I don't recall any glitch or obvius exploit in it. People were complaining about not finding much ammo, but other than that it was very solid.

Actually, a lot of custom maps I've tried are really well done. The only one that had an obvious camping point was the one with the trailer, someone can hide under there and kill zombies with impunity. Until they run out of ammo. The trick to that is the horde rushes. Get em all together and rush en masse. They'll have to reload, and that's when they get munched.

I actually have a lot of fun playing as a zombie, too. I usually score 4-5 kills a round on pubs. Usually over half of the survivors fall to my claws. (Though, one round I was the Carrier, and ripped the survivors apart by myself. That was epic.)

Kannon wrote:

Actually, a lot of custom maps I've tried are really well done. The only one that had an obvious camping point was the one with the trailer, someone can hide under there and kill zombies with impunity. Until they run out of ammo. The trick to that is the horde rushes. Get em all together and rush en masse. They'll have to reload, and that's when they get munched.

I actually have a lot of fun playing as a zombie, too. I usually score 4-5 kills a round on pubs. Usually over half of the survivors fall to my claws. (Though, one round I was the Carrier, and ripped the survivors apart by myself. That was epic.)

When you go in for an attack are you using the left click (faster swipes) or the right click (slower but stronger swipe)? I ask because when I play I get wasted so fast as a zombie and I can't seem to kill the humans despite beating on them. Any tips?

Install from source seems to be up and running

I use the faster attack. Also, make sure you rush to close range, especially from the front. The main thing, is go for the people with smaller guns. The people with the big guns will run out of ammo in due time, and they're best taken down with a coordinated horde.

Well, I'm up for some zombie fest if anyone wants to join me, I'll be on for around 2 hours starting now

OK. I love this. I was numero uno zombie on the server me and Tear were playing on tonight. Great stuff listening to the survivors getting rattled. And increasing our numbers from 3 to legion gives a sense of accomplishment, even if ephemeral. Anyways good fun.

Very fun game. I noticed the destructible stairs thing (on Zombies Ate Your Neighbors). But that's good sense for the survivors, and the zombies can deal with it: You can either work together to jump on each other to get up (maybe not in 1.3) or bounce furniture over to climb up.

Biggest annoyance I've had so far: Zombies can get stuck in each other somehow so that none of them can move. That probably also goes away when same-team collision goes away.

I think that While same team collision should go, walking through another player should slow you by say fifty percent-ish.

well, paint me pissed. It seems the ZP version that you get from the mod site is different (as in there are currently in my game list two ZP items, the one from the site and the one from steam) I tried to join a friend who was logging in and the server told me my game wasn't compatible with the server. Furthermore, It seems the version I have downloaded doesn't have a "delete local content" option in it. I'll have to re-download the whole thing (and most probably everyone here who has this not compatible version) in order to play with the sure to come avid crowd that's gonna populate the servers now following steam's hosting of the mod

It's just bad timing Feeank. The reason the developers took the download links off their site was to avoid this type of confusion, if you had decided to try ZP a few days later there wouldn't be a problem. If you want to delete the content, you have to go into your SourceMods folder under whatever directory you installed Steam under, and delete the Zombie Panic folder. I believe you have to install the Steam version from scratch, there is no upgrade patch. I think this is because the new version interacts with Steam in a fundamentally different way, with auto-updating and the functionality of a game bought from the Steam store.

hey Tann, yeah, game did an update of sorts, it donwloaded from 60% upwards but I still have 2 ZP items on the gamelist, so now i'm not sure if I can delete anything at all, but well, at least it seems to be running fine, which is good.

I deleted my "old" ZP folder, and everything seems fine. But I deleted it before the new one was fully downloaded, so... *shrug* I think the 60% was either the SDK or base Source files that are shared.

Good news: You can use -nowindow -noborder and windowed mode to get full-screen windowed mode on this. (Not on Hidden, though. :()

Download the mod from Steam

Also, here is my primer again:

Zombie Panic Primer
=============

Most of the controls are Source-engine standard, here are the unusual ones:

Flashlight/Zombie Vision - F
Sprint/Lunge - Shift
Holster - H
use/Pickup - E
Inventory - 1-5
Drop Weapon - G
Drop Ammo - T
Change Ammo Drop Type - V
Change Ammo Drop Amount - B

Starting a Game
-----------------
At the beginning of each round, players can pick to be a survivor or zombie. There will only be a few zombies at the start, and the first person to be one is the Carrier, a super-zombie. A handy shortcut is F1 for survivor and F2 for zombie. If there aren't enough zombie volunteers, players will be picked randomly from the survivor side. One other thing to keep in mind is that people who wait to pick to be a survivor will be punished with worse starting weapons. This is to stop players from waiting until after someone volunteers to be a zombie, so they won't have to worry about being picked randomly.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the scoreboard is different depending what team you are on. A zombie player can see what team every player is on, so they know how many survivors and zombies there are. Survivors cannot see what team other players are on, so they cannot determine team numbers easily.

Teams
-------
Survivors will start off with a Glock (or the worse PPK if they join late), and a lower-tier melee weapon. Many maps start off with breakable barricades and windows that can be broken with the melee weapon. Survivors also have a flashlight with unlimited battery life, switched on/off with F. Survivors don't respawn, and any death will turn them into a zombie.

There are two types of zombies, the Carrier and regular zombies. There will only be one Carrier in an entire round, and the zombie team starts out with him. The Carrier moves faster, has more health, and has a chance to infect survivors (more on that later). Zombies have more health than survivors, and regenerate health over time; but move more slowly. Zombies only have one attack, clawing. They also have "Zombie Vision" toggled on/off with F. Survivors that are moving around or hiding in one spot start to glow red in zombie vision, making it easier to pick them out in the dark. Infected survivors will glow green in zombie vision.

Movement
-----------
Survivors have the advantage in speed, moving faster than a zombie. However, the more items a survivor is carrying, the slower he will move. Survivors also have a stamina bar. Running depleates stamina, and survivors will move slower as their stamina goes down. Standing still restores stamina, and walking will restore stamina as well, though slowly. Survivors can also Panic, with P, which drops everything they are carrying, except the one item in the player's hands, and give a temporary speed boost. It is good for escaping a tight spot, but will leave you very vulnerable.

Zombies move slower than survivors, but do not have to worry about stamina. They also have a "Hunger Bar" which allows them to lunge. A zombie that lunges, with shift, will get a speed boost for a few steps. However, this reduces their Hunger Bar, which can only be replenished by attacking survivors. Once the Hunger Bar is depleted, zombies can no longer lunge.

Weapons
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Zombie Panic has a number of weapons survivors can use, most being either guns or melee weapons. Weapons and ammo will be spread across the map semi-randomly each round, making the start of a round usually a rush to secure weapons. Nearly everything on the map will be more powerful than what you start with as a survivor. Melee weapons have a number of factors, such as damage, speed, knockback, and reach; which gives them unique advantages. Most of the differences are obvious, machetes do more damage than keyboards, shovels have longer reach than frying pans. Guns likewise have various factors, such as clip size, spread, damage, and reload time to consider. The one other type of weapon is the grenade, which is self-explanatory. It is also important to realize that headshots do more damage to zombies.

Items
------
There a few helpful items in Zombie Panic which are not weapons. There is ammo, health items, and armor. There are four types of ammo in the game: pistol, magnum, rifle, and shotgun. Survivors will usually have to pick up ammo at the beginning to share with other survivors with the appropriate weapons. There are bulletproof vests, which will give the survivor who picks it up 50 armor, which will block zombie attacks until it is depleted. There are also pill bottles and medkits, which will heal 25 or 45 health respectively, though these are extremely rare. It is important to consider that ammunition slows down survivors. On many maps, ammunition and weapons will respawn after a time, though this is extremely long, and most rounds don't make it to this point.

Barricading
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One strategy survivors can try is barricading themselves. There are a number of movable objects in Zombie Panic, which can be used to block off passages. While it is difficult to completely block a hallway or entrance, even slowing zombies down is a great help. It is important to know that the alternate unarmed attack, right-click by default, will move objects much further. Survivors will first have to holster any weapons they are holding, using H. Zombies can also hit objects with the same force using right-click, so barricades will not hold forever.

Infection
---------
The Carrier has a random chance on each hit of infecting the survivor he is attacking, the default is 10%. An infected survivor will immediately turn green in zombie vision, and if he survives the Carrier's attack, will eventually turn into a zombie on the spot. At first, the survivor has no way of knowing he has been infected, though after a short while signs will manifest. The survivor's vision will dim for a moment, a sound will play, and the survivor's health icon (a health cross) will turn into a splat. After this point, other survivors can kill you (even if friendly fire is off) and will get a point for it. However, if the survivors keeps the infection a secret, he will suddenly turn into a zombie after another short while.

Map Types
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There are two main types of maps in Zombie Panic, regular and objective. Regular maps start off with a pool of zombie lives, depleted by one each time a zombie is killed and replenished by one each time a survivor is killed. Survivors win if they diminish the zombie life pool to 0 and kill all remaining zombies. Zombies win if they kill all survivors. Objective maps will present a number of objectives to the survivors, which they must then complete in sequence. The zombies will have infinite lives in these scenarios, and must kill all survivors.

Go into your Steam directory, into SteamApps. You can delete the Zombie Panic folder that is in the SourceMods directory, the Steam download version is put into your [Username] directory, the same directory as any other Source games you have on Steam.

Tried Zombie Panic last night... can't say I cared for it. Playing as a zombie is pretty boring - you're slow and have one melee attack. If zombies were, say, able to climb walls and move quickly (think Aliens vs Marines) I'd enjoy it much more.

You only move 80% slower, which is less of a drop than from medic to heavy in TF2. You can also rush better, and you're far stronger. Dunno, play as the Carrier a few times, and I'm sure you'll grow into the liking of zombies.

Stats is crazy! Zombies are fun as hell!

The maps in ZP can be very large and confusing, and knowing the map is hugely important. That can lead to a lot of "Er. Okay, where are they? What am I doing here?" feeling the first few times you play a given map.

Fortunately, my experience has also been that repeated play teaches you the maps pretty well pretty quickly. If the humans use a "stick together" strategy while moving around, and the zombies try to keep moving all the time (except when they hear humans coming down the way and want to lurk somewhere dark and jump out at them), it works out pretty well.

Important points to note about the difference between objective (zpo) and survivor (zps) modes, from the zombie side: On zpo modes, it's a good idea for zombies to play very aggressively, especially when there are very few zombies. Particularly the Carrier: if he's the only zombie out there, he really needs to be hitting people as much as possible in order to have a chance to at least infect them, and increase the ranks of the zombies. Zombies spawn quickly and have no spawn limit in this mode, so they just need to go at it. Once there are a few more zombies, slowing down in order to coordinate attacks is good. It's easy to be too defensive, because while you're a zombie, it's hard to realize how hard it is for the survivors to spot you.

On survivor maps, the zombies should play a lot more conservatively. Survivor maps do tend to have more limited amounts of ammunition spawns, in my experience. Smart humans will travel in packs and be very well armed. You want to attack when they get separated or when you attack from hiding and have a good chance of taking somebody out and getting away clean, or at least taking out one human before you go down. Jumping down on people tends to be especially fruitful. (Humans... always thinking two-dimensionally...) When the human forces are overwhelming or when they've barricaded themselves deeply into a defensive position, remember that zombies regenerate over time. Take turns with the other zombies drawing fire so that nobody gets so low on health that they die. That way you can deplete the survivors' limited ammunition without depleting the zombie team's respawn limit.

there's a *brain* driving zombie, we no dumb

If you're having trouble getting "in the groove" with zombies, try using your voice talk button and saying a few things like "Rnnnh. Braaaains", "Graaaagh", or "Nnnnnngh". The other zombies will usually join in, leading to a greater sense of camaraderie.

I had a blast last night with Zombie panic. I can see it being a lot of fun with a full group. Especially the objective maps. We have 4 IPs to play with on the new server, but for now I will be leaving ZP at the 72.249.124.27 address. I am going to change the pw to match Stan's Lounge TF2 so be sure to note that when you login from now on.

So I guess the question is, do we want to make a regular event out of Zombie Panic (at least for the near future, I can see it dropping off dramatically when people get their zombie kicks from Left 4 Dead instead)? A Zombie Panic Night on some day of the week or other?

The very last game tonight when it started winding down was awesome. I wasn't too keen on some of the objective maps. Playing as a survivor or playing as the white zombie is good, regular zombie is crap.

That seems like a reasonable idea Tannhauser. Maybe Sundays, just like tonight?