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.)