They Hunger Q&A

[Evil Avatar]

Gamecloud has posted an interview (http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php?article_id=2018) with Black Widow Games' Neil Manke and Einar Saukas, talking about their upcoming Source engine zombie action game, They Hunger: Lost Souls.

Gamecloud: What will the zombies and other enemies be like in the new game?

Neil Manke: This time the zombies will be much more like real zombies. And since all human corpses can become zombies, there will be a disgusting and revolting array of them to deal with. There are also other creatures that could be described as the living dead.
More like Real Zombies™ ??? Good thing, because I recently read that Pittsburgh Unprepared for Zombie Attack (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41676).

[fitbabits]

"There are also other creatures that could be described as the living dead." Hmmm, I wonder...

I'm really looking forward to this one!

[StoneGut]

I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

I'm assuming it will be budget priced through Steam...

[Ernst_Jager]

I love my zombie games. Wish there were more about just survival.

[KarmaGhost]

As a former Pittsburgh resident, I can attest for it's odd vulnerabilities to zombie attack.

[agentgray]

I enjoyed the "They Hunger" series far much more than the original Half-Life. I am looking forward to this.

[The Iron Weasel]

As a former Pittsburgh resident, I can attest for it's odd vulnerabilities to zombie attack.

Did you have a sign on your door, that says what to do in the event of the zombie apocolypse? Like the fire plan on the door of a hotel room?

[Ernst_Jager]

After reading The Zombie Survival Guide (http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/zombiesurvivalguide/) I have decided that the town I live in (ironicly Pittsburg but without the h) would be a good town in case of a outbreak. The local College is a large dense brick building with limited entry points. We also have lots of gun/pawn shops since it is located in the Midwest.

[The Iron Weasel]

One of my friends decided that the best place for defense against the zombies would be at my old high school. (http://www.pembinatrails.ca/oakpark/)

http://www.pembinatrails.ca/oakpark/images/logo.jpg

[Roc Ingersol]

High schools tend to have more windows than I'd like.
If you're staying 'in town' you'd likely want something structured more like a walmart/target.
Fairly easy to secure, spacious, and stocked with a good supply of the essentials.
(guns/ammo, tools, nonperishable foods, basic hygiene, basic medicine, kitchen, etc)
Schools do have the advantage of not being high up on the list of places worth looting though.

[The Iron Weasel]

High schools tend to have more windows than I'd like.
If you're staying 'in town' you'd likely want something structured more like a walmart/target.
Fairly easy to secure, spacious, and stocked with a good supply of the essentials.
(guns/ammo, tools, nonperishable foods, basic hygiene, basic medicine, kitchen, etc)
Schools do have the advantage of not being high up on the list of places worth looting though.

Ah, but see, this school's windows are mostly on the upper floor, and the ones that are on the ground have metal grating in the windows. And bars on them outside (if I remember correctly, I'd go check but I moved to a shithole province). And there are ones on the top floor in the library that would be ideal for the old sniper rifle.

[TheKeck]

It's all about a shopping mall. These are tried and true methods!

[The Iron Weasel]

It's all about a shopping mall. These are tried and true methods!

I have a vision of you hanging out in a mall freaking everyone out, yelling about the zombie apocolypse.

[PIPBoy3000]

I'd lean towards a military base myself, though if they're smart, gun-toting zombies, you're screwed.

[Roc Ingersol]

Ah, but see, this school's windows are mostly on the upper floor, and the ones that are on the ground have metal grating in the windows. And bars on them outside (if I remember correctly, I'd go check but I moved to a shithole province). And there are ones on the top floor in the library that would be ideal for the old sniper rifle.
I have no idea how a fire marshall would Ok a school like that - but good on ya. Sounds like a keeper.


Malls are overrated. Too many entrances.

Unless you assume zombies just stand there panting on the glass. Only someone looking to make some tired social statement would expect any of us to choke down such a lame conceit.

[Ernst_Jager]

The problem with malls, shopping centers and such is that other survivors will also think of that place. The more people you have in a area during a zombie outbreak the more zombies you will have. Also during a outbreak zombies aren't the only thing you would have to worry about. Tragedy can bring the worst of a person out.

[Roc Ingersol]

I'd lean towards a military base myself, though if they're smart, gun-toting zombies, you're screwed.
I can't imagine a military base would succomb to an alien infestation. They've got the training, the tools, the ideal layouts, and the procedures. maybe if they were a point of origination - but in that case, I doubt you'd want to find refuge inside.

If the average USAF base or national guard armory goes down, random civs ain't got much of a shot.

[The Iron Weasel]

I have no idea how a fire marshall would Ok a school like that - but good on ya. Sounds like a keeper.

I dunno, now that I think about it, that was really unsafe. But its not like there werent easily accessable fire escapes.

[Evil Avatar]

I'll vote for a Prison like in Robert Kirkland's The Walking Dead comic. It is designed to keep people in/out, stocked with enough food to feed a small city for 3 - 4 days, has its own facility-wide generator (and a gas tank larger than a gas station) and has an armory which will contain an average of 40,000 - 100,000 rounds of ammunition and a good 20 to 30 rifles and just as many handguns.

A high custody prison might even have bullet proof vests and riot gear (to help keep from getting bit).

[baz]

I'll vote for a Prison like in Robert Kirkland's The Walking Dead comic. It is designed to keep people in/out, stocked with enough food to feed a small city for 3 - 4 days, has its own facility-wide generator (and a gas tank larger than a gas station) and has an armory which will contain an average of 40,000 - 100,000 rounds of ammunition and a good 20 to 30 rifles and just as many handguns.

A high custody prison might even have bullet proof vests and riot gear (to help keep from getting bit).

Only problem is that it starts full. You'd have to get rid of the residents somehow.

[Steve_Erhardt]

I can't imagine a military base would succomb to an alien infestation. They've got the training, the tools, the ideal layouts, and the procedures. maybe if they were a point of origination - but in that case, I doubt you'd want to find refuge inside.

If the average USAF base or national guard armory goes down, random civs ain't got much of a shot.
I dunno... I've been on... let's see... 7 Air Force bases (that I remember clearly)... aside from hardened buildings here and there to protect planes and ammo dumps, there's nothing about the layouts that even remotely hints of "impregnable fortress". There are checkpoints to keep civilians out of restricted areas, of course, and that works fine as far as that goes. But against even a mildly determined enemy or unflinching zombie horde, that air conditioned little guardpost shack with the lifting wooden barrier ain't gonna stop much of nothing. *shrug*

Maybe the other military branches have more fortress-like setups for their bases, but the typical Air Force base, M'eh. It'll be defended, I'm sure, but layout-wise, there's nothing extraordinary to be concerned about.

[Evil Avatar]

Only problem is that it starts full. You'd have to get rid of the residents somehow.

Since The Walking Dead came out, I've been wondering about that. It seems like on a lower custody level yard, the place would just be crawling with zombies, but what about the high custody yards - those places like in the comic book with bars on all the cells?

What time of day did the guards abandon the prison? During the day when all the inmates are out on the recreation field or in the middle of the night?

If a national emergency happened slowly (Re: Classic Dawn of the Dead), then there is a chance that they would have just locked the entire place down and then walked away and left the inmates to starve to death.

There is a lot of "What if?" in trying to take over a Prison and make it your "base".

I'm not sure about a military base. I've driven past a base near here and while it was pretty well protected (they had big M-60's in sandbag bunkers right on the outside of the walls since this was just a little while after 9/11), overall it didn't look like the place was really set up to keep people out. Most of the base had a single fence around it topped with razor wire - only part of the base had brick walls. That might hold up for a short time, but not against a ton of zombies.

I think the shopping mall is the most "fun" idea, but around here I'm not even sure they lock all the mall doors at night. I know that they open the place up really early, so there is a big chance you could show up at the mall and find it just crawling with zombies. As another poster said, I'm also not sure that "safety glass" would hold up for long. Even in Dawn of the Dead (Classic) they showed zombies using a tire iron to smash in a window.

[amusedtoe]

A new They Hunger is probably one of the few things of this type I'd pay to get off Steam, not even going to pay for DoD Source.

On a zombie defense note my HS was another one of thoseopressive structures designed like a prison. Oh wait it was designed by a guy who designed prisons, I'm not kidding. :p The stair well on the front and back of the building were all glass but otherwise the windows were all a half foot wide by about three tall so you could barely see out of 'em, and there was one a room. Heavy fire doors everywhere, poorly flowing with only one way to get from any one part of the building to another (and it was a three story, three building structure).

[Roc Ingersol]

I dunno... I've been on... let's see... 7 Air Force bases (that I remember clearly)... aside from hardened buildings here and there to protect planes and ammo dumps, there's nothing about the layouts that even remotely hints of "impregnable fortress".
Who said fortress? I'm just saying that if a couple thousand trained, well-armed and well stocked soldiers with solid buildings can't fend off a zombie force, joe schmoe's got no chance in hell.

[Steve_Erhardt]

Who said fortress? I'm just saying that if a couple thousand trained, well-armed and well stocked soldiers with solid buildings can't fend off a zombie force, joe schmoe's got no chance in hell.
*I* said fortress. When you said "ideal layouts" I took that to mean you thought AF bases were designed with a layout and construction method that had a fight for ownership of the property in mind. Fortress like. Did you mean something else?