Game News
This is an archive of all major changes to the game in its history,
chiefly those which would leave players at a significant disadvantage if
they weren't aware of the change in game behaviour. Minor changes are not
listed.
28th March 2008
- Monroeville is now locked down in full quarantine - no new
characters can be created there, characters will no longer idle out,
all idle characters have been reactivated, and zombies in the city can
now be killed permanently by removing the head or destroying the
brain using the "Headshot" skill.
25th March 2008
- The quarantine is tightening around Monroeville. From Friday
the
28th, new account creation will be disabled for Monroeville, the city's
inhabitants will no longer idle out after five days, and they'll be left
to
fend for themselves. If you want to get in before the border closes,
create a Monroeville character now.
- The game's main city of Malton will be unaffected, and will
continue to operate as usual.
25th February 2008
- To celebrate the launch of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, we've
opened a temporary second map in the city of Monroeville. Create
a new character there and you can loot a video camera to edit together your own
video diary of the zombie apocalypse, with Romero box-set prizes available for UK players.
23rd January 2008
- The dead are learning the priorities of besieged survivors,
and are keeping near the doorways once inside a safehouse. While zombies
are inside a building, they will lurchingly attempt to block anyone
dragging barricade materials to its entrance, with variable success.
- Survivors should watch their step when free running across the icy
rubble of the city - falling from a ruined building now carries
a risk of injury.
- In the thin, cold air, the drifting miasma of rot and decay grows
sharper and clearer. Zombies taking the deep breath of scent death
are now given a visual representation of the surrounding city.
10th December 2007
- Another winter in the quarantine zone, and survivors are marking
the turning of the year by hooking festive lights up to their
safehouse generators, dragging freshly-cut fir trees through the
empty streets, and looting the forgotten costume caches of shopping
malls.
- This year it's cold enough to snow, and it's beginning to
settle. Walking outside will leave trails of footprints that last
until
the snow covers them - be careful about leading any unwanted visitors
back to your well-hidden safehouse.
31st October 2007
- Another day of freak weather conditions, today, as thick fog
blankets the city. Stay inside, ignore any thumping on your safehouse
doors, and please do not feed the zombies, even if they're wearing
plastic masks.
24th August 2007
- 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.
14th August 2007
- Survivors skilled in construction are now able to use salvaged
toolboxes
to repair damaged generators and radio transmitters.
- Some of the more territorial zombies have taken to ruining
buildings;
ransacking a building to such a thorough extent that the damage is visible
from
the street. Ruined buildings can only be repaired by survivors with
construction
experience and a toolbox.
- In an attempt to reclaim the derelict forts, survivors have cleared
the pathways
inside the fort perimeters, and can now drag bodies from any part
of a base
to outside its gatehouse.
31st May 2007
- Some survivors are going out of their way to salvage clothing
from the
shops and buildings of the city, either as uniforms, souvenirs of specific
locations,
or simple fashion statements. Clothes may become tattered and bloodstained
over
time, but you can always just loot some fresh, clean ones. (Use the
"settings" page
to change your clothing. Flak jackets still work as before, and will be
folded into
the new system later.)
- The undead can brush the dust off to reveal what they were wearing at
the time
of their death, but can only do this once.
- With barricades now such a familiar sight across the city,
survivors
(and zombies with memories of life) are finding them easier to pull down
from the inside, and anybody inside a building will now notice when others
are
responsible for fully destroying or starting to rebuild its
barricades. Ransacking buildings and refuelling generators will now also
be
noticed by inhabitants of the building.
20th April 2007
- Players can now edit more details in their profiles, as well being able to
configure some gameplay settings - it's now possible to automatically
ignore items you don't want to search for, and to filter feeding groans, radio
broadcasts and flare sightings, according to personal preference.
8th April 2007
- Some deranged survivor cult or other has hidden 250 chocolate
eggs around the empty buildings of the city. Eating or smashing them
will get your name on the Egg
Hunt Leaderboard.
6th March 2007
- Survivors have begun looting the city's museums of treasures
and ornaments,
to improve the ruined decor of their safehouses. At least until zombies
break in and
ransack everything.
- These and other heavy or unwieldy items now take up more space in
players'
inventories, and the total level of encumbrance is now shown. Being
at an encumbrance
level of 100% or greater means, as before, that you cannot pick up further
items.
- Installing equipment in a building is now noticed by nearby
characters.
2nd February 2007
- Hammering on the barricades of the derelict suburbs, the dead are
learning from
their experiences, and filling with a slow anger - zombies now gain
experience points
for tearing down barricade levels, for ransacking empty buildings, and for
destroying
machinery that survivors have set up.
19th January 2007
- As winter drags on and the dead adapt further to the urban terrain,
their sense of
smell sharpens. Zombies are now able to distinguish infected survivors
from the uninfected using
Scent Blood, and can use Scent Death to locate nearby
members of their own group.
- The dead are beginning to notice when a scientist jabs a needle into
one of their
horde, and survivors are paying more attention to the final coughs of a
zombie infection.
Dropping from infection or revivification will now be
visible to other
players, in the same way as a standard death.
- A cold wind sweeps the streets, and post-quarantine newspapers
now offer
some advice and propaganda to new players, rather than long-forgotten
local news.
(News from 2005 and 2006 has been archived.)