Recently, a member posted a thread in the General section of the Zombie Panic Forum, saying he was done playing ZP:S. To him, it’s not the same game he once knew from 1.5.
Ofcourse, it’s easy to say: it’s just you. But when there is critisism, there is always a reason for it.
1.6
A first indicator is the 1.6 patch. This patch had a focus on Objective maps and released four of them: Biotec, Tanker, Harvest and Keretti. So, what is different about these maps, compared to the oldschool maps such as Silence, Haunted and Cinema, beside the fact that their objective maps.
Atmosphere
Lets have a look at Tanker. First thing to notice is that this boat is in nice, gentle water. To tell the truth, we might as well all be in the caribbean. Which seems odd to me, since we are in a zombie game. Why not have bad weather, high waves splashin on the deck and a lot of darkness?
Most probable is that, most of what I just suggested is too hard to make. Nonetheless, the atmosphere should be a lot darker. Grim, I should probably say.
Also when we go down below into the boat, it is all very light. The only real thing that makes it hard (but not so much scary) is the fact that it has a lot of narrow halls. But this part can easily be made a lot scarier. Put in a destroyable generator so that, when the zombies destroy this, the lights fall out. It’s an easy and simple, small change, but it can already make the map more fun.
Biotec
We could pretty much say the same thing about Biotec. We got lots of clean, sterile halls. And tons and tons of offices (red corridor and big hall) and beside that, also cubicles. But it’s all way too light (except for the few room in the red corrider, and THOSE actually CAN be used to ambush).
This company should be a mad, dark and scary place, full of operationrooms, blood and other weird things. Show the players that this is the place where the zombies came from!
I could pretty much say the same things about Keretti.
2.0
With 2.0 we got two more new maps (I’ll leave ZPA out of the discussion, that has been made clan competitive after all). Shreddingfield and Club Zombo. So, why aren’t these maps popular?
The race
Lets have a look at Shreddingfield. First off, the humans are suited up with all the weapons and ammo they want, right from the start. This throws away a lot of the fun and scaryness we know from older maps, where you actually have to find your stuff.
It’s a supermarket after all, so why not throw in some weapons in it? Add an ammunation close to the supermarket for the rest of the weapons, but don’t just give the humans all the stuff they need right away.
But beside that, there’s another reason which kills the scary part. Ofcourse, the map is too light, but beside that there’s another problem. And that is the zombie spawning. Basicly, the zombies spawn where the humans are at that very moment. Which differs from a map like Subway, which gives you the freedom to go wherever you want.
The major upside to this is that you can set up an ambush somehere, way before there is actually a human there. While, in Shreddingfield, you pretty much spawn in the humans face.
Just look at the square and the last part of the map. The only thing the zombies do from that moment is run into the humans. Making em use up their ammo so they can eventually be killed. Nothing scary about that. It’s just becoming a race. You got to be as fast as possible to be able to survive.
Welcome to the Club
Then Club Zombo. The biggest problem this map faces is the fact that it’s too small. It’s pretty much impossible to set up a whole lot of ambushes. The humans get their stuff within 30 seconds and then move to either the DJ Room or one of the Balcony’s (and sometimes they go outside). From that moment, it’s simply running into the humans, trying to get them out of there.
The map just lacks ‘movement’. Mostly because there is just ONE dancefloor. Implementing more dancefloors, which could be connected through small, dark halls, would create more movement and also more places to be ambushed.
Ambushing is very hard, as I already mentioned. Another reason for this is the fact that there is only ONE zombie spawn: the roof. Either you can jump down, right on the dancefloor (people will see you right away), or you can jump off the roof by walking to the outside place. After that you can go back into the Club and try to get close to a human. But even then, the map is so open that you will be seen from miles away.
The only thing that makes this map slightly hard is the fact that you can:
A. Not run away easily.
and
B. There isn’t that much weapons and ammo.
The old maps
But that’s not just it. It seems that even the oldschool maps have lost some of their scaryness. So how did that happen?
The main reason for this is the fact that every player developed its own ‘standard routes’ in every single one of these maps (Policestation, Cinema, Asylum, Nightmare). We all know by now where our favourite weapons are and where we can find most of the ammo for it.
Because of that, most of us are suited up with the stuff they need within 30 seconds. Which gives the zombies less than 30 seconds to take down a human before he has a rifle/shotgun/magnum.
After these 30 seconds, there isn’t much left to do for the human. So what is it your gonna do when there’s not much left to do? Yes, you go HUNT.
And with that, instead that the human is the hunted, he turns into the hunter. After all, you want to put your weapons and ammo to good use and score a lot of points.
But as soon as you BECOME the hunter, it’s not scary anymore is it?
No longer do you have to run around, searching for ammo or a decent weapon.
Another option
But there is still one map that remains hard and actually gains popularity lately in ZP:S: zps_town. This map is still hard and rather scary because it has all these random spawns: you spawn on a random spot, so do your teammates, so do the zombies, the weapons and the ammo. Making it hard to get your hands on some stuff.
And in this map, the humans are still (most of the time) the hunted, instead of the hunter.
Changing the zps maps we have right now, giving those random spawns too, could break the developed patern players built up in time. No longer can they take their normal route, being sure they’ll get something.
Conclusion
With all that said, I think I can say that a combination of atmosphere and too much knowledge of the maps are paying a high toll for the scary part of ZP:S.
However, making maps darker again, or making spawns random on other maps as well could change this around.
