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Zombie Hunt v1.46

Zombie Hunt
Brought to you by: Wark
Discord: https://discord.gg/pq5xEJYVPk

A necromancer causes the dead to stir.
The people seek hunters to face the encroaching darkness.
Will you rise to the cause?
There will be many challenges and choices. Allies and enemies.
To be a tyrant or a hero, the decision is yours.



Summary

Strategies

Development Info

Changelog

Credits

Screenshots


Introduction:
Zombie Hunt is an RPG survival co-op game with some PvP elements.
Pick a hero specially geared towards a certain role and work together to eliminate the Necromancer's threat.
If you get taken out, you have the option to become a zombie yourself . . . at a cost.

Estimated playtime: 30 minutes - 2 hours

Features include but are not limited to:

  • Single player OR co-op play.
  • Crafting system with over 50 items to combine for greater effect
  • Multiple ways to develop your characters
  • "QWER - FT" hotkeys for skills
  • "Help" menu and "-help" command for a tutorial with gameplay hints
  • Backpack system
  • Morality system based on reputation with the Townsfolk
  • In-game hero changing
  • Fast travel options
  • Interacting with almost any object in the game
  • Fishing, hunting, mining, logging, digging, crafting and cooking
_______________________________________________________________

Victory:
- Defeat the Necromancer and his Graveyard as a Hunter.
- Defeat all Hunters as a zombie.

Tips:
- Each hero is either a specialist in something or a round-all character. Try them all out and see what you like, or what works well in a team setting!
- During the night, wherever the dead walk from is a good indicator of where the Necromancer is hiding.
- Scout out the Necromancer's graveyard in the day by talking to villagers.
Your character choice not only determines your skills, but also your damage and armor types.

Attack Types:
- Normal attacks do really well against Medium armor.
- Piercing attacks shoot down Unarmored or Small armor types.
- Magic attacks excel against Large armor.
- Siege attacks are strong against Fortified or Unarmored opponents.
- Hero damage is round-all and has no bonuses, but does less damage against Fortified units.
- Chaos damage does full damage to all armor types (including Divine), and extra damage to Hero armor.

_______________________________________________________________

Things to be implemented:
Talent System: 0%
Traveling Merchant: 0%
"Necro-Player" mode: 0%

Map "Secrets": 20%
Additional Hunter and Zombie heroes: 40% (Frost Mage / Beguiler, Warden, Dreadguard)

Deadline for next update:
July 2023

_______________________________________________________________

Map Release: August 24, 2022 (version 1.03)
  • Version 1.46: Added Mage hero, buffed the Spy, buffed Warlock slightly.
  • Version 1.43: Changed Sniper to Engineer and changed spells for the theme, improved Mountain Giant, added the Rocket Boyz, modified loot tables, buffed Inquisitor, nerfed Dragon attack range, added more item recipes for boss loot, fixed a bunch of bugs, improved recipe text further.
  • Version 1.33: Added light on the shredder. Cavaliers and Steam Tanks can mow down trees now. Added a "-repick" and "-find" command. Added the Mountain Giant hero. Adjusted hard mode to add more experience and gold at the start.
  • Version 1.31: more bug fixes, tooltip cleanup, and added hard mode.
  • Version 1.30: Nerfed Bone Dragon hero passive, buffed most Hunter's single-target spells, buffed Cavalier hero's cooldowns and damage, added another hidden boss, made large-boss loot better, split AI into 2 teams to reduce jank, fixed problem with special zombies not spawning with higher player counts, fixed various other bugs, clarified objectives further.
  • Version 1.26: Refined the help menu and added mini tutorials for each hero. Lengthened the day/night cycle. Clarified item and crafting descriptions. Added Poison Stompers. Steam Tank can now use items. Tweaked AI some more.
  • Version 1.24: Added "Apocalypse" game mode. Made objectives more clear. Adjusted zombie difficulty scaling. Changed length of day/night cycle. Adjusted zombie AI. Added backpack system. Added crafting system. Added Dragon hero.
_______________________________________________________________

The custom models and icons in this map are not my own.
A special thanks to the following people for making some awesome models and icons, or otherwise helping me in the making of this map:

- Special Thanks -
monkeyboy15, for testing my map
TC_Firestar, for the shoulderpads
DasBiest, for putting up with me

- Coding Help -
Paladon, for the jump system
Bribe, for item cleanup
Skapp, for some trigger tips

- Models and Icons-
Avatars Lord - health bar
genin32 - tent icon
Xifos - blue generator icon
EviL_BuddhA - scroll item
General Frank - potion items
HerrDave - food items
Hantoo - fire pit
Blizzard Entertainment - for the icons
tillinghast - explosive sheep
_______________________________________________________________

Previews:
See below for samples of gameplay, terrain, and features!

_______________________________________________________________
Previews
Contents

Zombie Hunt v1.46 (Map)

Reviews
deepstrasz
It's a neat concept generally but I think the undead occupy most of your time and don't really let you do much else than fight them constantly. I think they should have reduced numbers during the day and/or become weaker then. They pretty quickly...
Level 13
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
769
Right now they are exactly the same, and through testing I'll keep them about the same. I posted both versions on request for a few friends since they don't have Reforged and want to try it through GameRanger.

Been testing the AI out a bunch in multiplayer, and will have another update for it out today or tomorrow to tweak things.
Seems to slow down in intensity at a certain point. Can't have that happening.
 
Level 6
Joined
Feb 25, 2010
Messages
105
gonna try this out, sounds promising, battle net here we go!
Edit: first try, half of the players, some friends of mine, freezed and crashed after a few minutes (2-5) of playing, they have really good PC's but it's still really demanding on map start, idk what's causing it but so far we couldn't play it

Edit 2: it was the reforged graphics, lowering the shadows and lights solves it.

Or changing it to classic as you said below, thanks you!
 
Last edited:
Level 13
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
769
@GONZALORD were you all playing with Reforged graphics? There's a lot of functions running at the start with weather effects and randomly generated terrain which takes a toll on the CPU. I know it works with no problems in Classic mode.
In fact, I highly recommend running it with classic graphics since the map assets are designed around that.
 
Level 6
Joined
Feb 25, 2010
Messages
105
@GONZALORD were you all playing with Reforged graphics? There's a lot of functions running at the start with weather effects and randomly generated terrain which takes a toll on the CPU. I know it works with no problems in Classic mode.
In fact, I highly recommend running it with classic graphics since the map assets are designed around that.
Yes we were, that was it, we all lowered our video settings (light and shadows) and the half group that crashed were able to play normally afterwards, setting it to classic also helps. thanks you!


Some of the mechanics like the jobs the shovel reminded us to werewolf Transylvania, WE LIKE IT.

-B
ut. when there's too many zombies, they tend to collectively freeze when attack moving, getting their A-move orders laggy, i've seen that happen on other maps too when there's too many enemies trying to A-Move, they all freeze from time to time while chasing targets, but it only happend on 220+ zombies.


-Also there's very little free time at the start of the game for doing RPG / Exploration / job stuff, or to get the hang of the basics, most people just standed and scratched their heads thinking about what to do, where to go, etc, until they got a horde of zombies and a vampire that perma sleeped one of them to death.

This, is because there's little to no time from the game starting and zombies rushing in, it would be a nice touch to have a grace period before the zombies come and wreak havoc, and making it a more gradual waves kind of aproach, it would be cool so new players and starting ones get to explore at least a couple minutes before it becomes impossible due to needing to help constantly to wall off a road vs the zombies, and they get to know and read before it comes too chaotic, giving them a few starting instructions like "you should do THIS, if you want to start earning gold or THIS" in a quick tip or starting guide in-game would be awesome too, since only 1 player knew how to play, but he had no time to explain on chat before zombies came.

Regarding the above, a sequence of smaller waves that get stronger and a bit bigger with time would make it for a more wholesome experience in our general opinion if that helps you at all to tune the map for a better experience.

As a final note, very good map design and Good Work!. We liked it, But would love to see updates improving the experience, it would be a superb 5+/5
 

deepstrasz

Map Reviewer
Level 68
Joined
Jun 4, 2009
Messages
18,706
It's a neat concept generally but I think the undead occupy most of your time and don't really let you do much else than fight them constantly. I think they should have reduced numbers during the day and/or become weaker then. They pretty quickly eliminate neutral allied settlements.

Approved.


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Level 13
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
769
@deepstrasz it took a while, but I finally got motivated to push an update. The initial release was more a rush to have it finished, and I agree the pacing's off with the waves of zombies.
This version addresses that issue, along with completing the game and adding game modes.

I still feel the day/night cycle could use some adjusting, but otherwise the new systems added and AI adjustments make it feel more complete.
Can I get a second opinion?
 
Level 11
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
129
I've played a single player game where I gave up and a multiplayer game where we won. Both times were quite fun. I can clearly see the Northrend Bound influence in the game, with items, reputation, professions, and the crafting. The towns and terrain were well designed and full of NPCs that I found interesting. There were also a lot of points of interest on the map and the neutral bosses were a cool touch. I love how the cities die and the world feels like it changes as the game progresses.

I have a handful of simple suggestions that I think would make the player experience better if changed.
  • The biggest one is that you need to have more than one computer for the zombies. The pathing on the zombies fails after there are more than 100 zombies on the map making the enemies get stuck and fail to move effectively. Zombies getting stuck just trying to get to towns. Please make it so there's like 3 players for the zombies :)
  • After reading the quest log for advice, I still had very little idea on how to get started actually doing the craft. For example, with crafting, I did not find the 'craft' ability on the back pack until much later. I expected there to be some tool like the finish rod, but failed to find it and gave up. Maybe increase the detail on how to get started. Like what shop sells the tools, good locations to start, etc.
  • The night time darkness is oppressive. When I hosted it multiplayer, 2 players left immediately siting the darkness being too irritating. I know this is by design, but it's so heavy that I think it goes beyond being a fun mechanic.
  • It wasn't clear to me what needed to die to lose a town. I didn't witness the death of a town in person, but I wasn't sure what I was exactly defending.
  • Add some items or some mechanic to help hunting the necromancer. In single player, I could not figure out where he was for the life of me. Like maybe if you go and interact with a graveyard at night it spawns enemies, but also pings the necromancer's current location? Eventually I gave up because it had been too long in single player.
A couple more suggestions, that are not simple, but are more creative and could hopefully add more to it.
  • Quests given by NPCs would be really fun and make the world feel more interactable. An example of what I mean is the mortar team in the middle asks you to go grab a cannon from the north western Dwarven town and bring it back, so that he can build a cannon tower in the middle town. These quests could give players special items or reinforce the defenses of the towns.
  • The game feels like it hasn't decided if it's a difficult survival or an RPG game. Players don't have enough time to really explore or craft at the start if they want to experience the RPG part of the map, but at the same time if your more of a survival player, the crafting system feels more distracting than critical to your survival. Maybe a little more relaxed start where players feel the 'RPG' aspects of crafting and exploring (and maybe questing :D ) at the start and reduce the economic gains from killing enemies. Overall try to get the RPG aspects and the survival aspect to feel a little more cohesive.
  • Final thought, having different weapons and armor available in different places across the map would encourage players to explore and travel around more. And maybe even have some special unique items that can only be crafted by 1 person in game with some artifact :)
I think this game is a good time and I can't wait to see where you go with it.

Edit: I just noticed I played on 1.20 :O not the newest 1.23
 
Level 13
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
769
Quite sad that it is no longer works in patch 1.31 and below.
Yes, sorry Fleck. Splitting it between v1.27 and post v1.31 was starting to become a pain since I had to update 1 map, then proceed to write everything down and do it again in an older version of World Edit. At this point, it was getting tedious and eating up too much sleep.
  • After reading the quest log for advice, I still had very little idea on how to get started actually doing the craft.
  • It wasn't clear to me what needed to die to lose a town. I didn't witness the death of a town in person, but I wasn't sure what I was exactly defending.
  • Add some items or some mechanic to help hunting the necromancer.
I plan to improve the tutorial and help menu with the next update. That's the primary focus. As for hunting the necromancer, there is a bunch of things in the game for that, but I agree it requires inside knowledge: like the Sniper's flare, the Builder's Arcane tower, mercenaries placed at graveyards to keep watch, goblin labs, and rumors from villagers. All those are perfect for scouting out where the necromancer will be, but isn't explicitly mentioned.
  • The game feels like it hasn't decided if it's a difficult survival or an RPG game. Players don't have enough time to really explore or craft at the start ...

I've been bouncing back and forth between extending the day/night cycle to be longer and having the game start in the morning. I still haven't found a good balance of having a game that drags too long between nights, and gives enough breathing room. At least now there's a pace to the day/night cycle. Needs more testing
 
Level 13
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
769
@Halithor , I took your suggestions to heart along with feedback from the random test games I hosted.
The longer day/night cycle should make it feel more paced out.
Downtime during the day to explore/prepare, with more time to fight the necromancer at the night.

The help menu, item build-up descriptions and a mini-tutorial info dump was added to each unique hero. All color-highlights for key points.
"Help" now covers tips for scouting, as well as adding light to some of the map reveal abilities (not from the Goblin Lab, though, doesn't spawn light dummy units for some reason...)
 
Level 11
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
129
Glad to see the two zombie players :D

I actually have 16 monster players in my Monster Defense map because I have like 300 monsters on the map per human player late game lol. I wish they would increase this limit since it's clearly just some arbitrary number set forever ago.
 
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