Game Changes - 24th August 2007

[generatorkiller]

* As the dead suburbs are falling further into disrepair, it's no longer possible to free run through the smashed windows and blocked-off shortcuts of ruined buildings - attempting to free run into a ruin will instead drop a survivor onto the street outside. (Free running out of a ruin is unaffected.)
* It's been a long quarantine, and a lot of the city's inhabitants are now missing in action. Members of your contacts list that haven't been seen in Malton for over a month are now flagged as such.
* Unskilled and desperate survivors can now use lengths of pipe to block the doors to a building, as a crude form of barricade.


Awesome. Throws the newbie survivors a bone with the lengths of pipe (so they've at least got some sort of defence), and means it now takes 2 AP instead of 1 to repair a ruined building (one to get inside, one to repair).

Also:

"As the dead suburbs are falling further into disrepair"

Almost like he's referring to us with these updates

[alivenwell]

GK... I know, that's exactly what I thought when I first read it too!!!

We must be doing something right to be on Kevan's radar ;D

[Trent Rott]

I'm excited to see something finally disrupt the human tunnel system that has existed ever since barricades were created. Finally something to drain a little bit of their AP and make them step outside once in a while. Previously, survivors could lead their whole existences without going outside at all.

Witness this wiki report from a naked mole rat, just a few days before Caiger was demolished:

Went outside the SE corner of the mall. No zeds in sight. --Telemelia 5:42, 13 August 2007 EST

It was actual news that someone went outside!

Another interesting result will be vital buildings with only one way in. (I haven't checked the malls, but are there any with only one entry point?)

Ruining this entry point means the only way in is to keep cades at the resource point lowered. Fascinating side effect. Can't wait to see how this all plays out.

[zeug]

Yeh, this might be the big one! Kevan's end game ploy for Urban Dead. The Extinction Zone just got a lock down!

Survivors are going to have to really up their game now, no more barricade strafing a free run, but block by block rebuilding ... move, enter, repair, barricade, move, enter, repair, barricade ... building by building fanning out from their TRP's. They could do it if they were organised enough ... imagine a LUE survivor reconstruction and defence force!

[Donny Waters]

Hmm... Interesting stuff. It does sound like this is a very significant game change.

For one thing, it pretty much immediately puts a stop to the practice of having an indoor revive point located next door to a NT (or anywhere at all really). Since indoor RPs can't be barricaded, it'll be easy to ruin them and prevent revivers from free-running into them from other buildings.

[Trent Rott]

trentrott said:

Another interesting result will be vital buildings with only one way in.

OK, Trent's not always quite right in the head. This won't do anything serious for those buildings, since ruins are still functional as entry points.

All this really does is double the AP necessary to free run through ruins, less so if you don't care what's going on inside from here to there.

Still it does burn AP and it makes barricade strafing a bit more work, which is good because repairing ruins was far too easy before this change. It also makes ruined burbs much less friendly, and will most likely lead to more careless survivors stuck on the street.

[Donny Waters]

Yeah, I guess it really only costs 1 additional AP to move through a ruined building now, as you end up outside it and have to spend an extra AP to enter it. That probably won't be enough to stop indoor revive points and barricade strafing, but it'll definitely be tedious to rebuild a completely ruined area. Anything that forces the survivors to go outside, even if very briefly, has to be good too.

[armareum]

donnywaters said:

For one thing, it pretty much immediately puts a stop to the practice of having an indoor revive point located next door to a NT (or anywhere at all really). Since indoor RPs can't be barricaded, it'll be easy to ruin them and prevent revivers from free-running into them from other buildings.

Not really. The main benefit to an indoor revive point is that the revived survivor is already inside when they stand - they don't have to find an entry point. Ruin just adds a 1 AP to each time a survivor goes to that revive point.