A zombie-themed MMO titled Exanimus by a company called Rotten Corpse Productions. I’m a huge sucker for everything zombie so that one has certainly grabbed my attention. The game is supposedly in pre-production. The term “pre-production”, translated from Bullshit to English, basically means that there are a bunch of guys tossing around ideas. I’m not sure if there is any point to setting up a website promoting a game at that stage of developement. It makes the whole thing look a bit suspect, to be honest. Anyway, here’s the interesting blurb from the website:
Exanimus is an online massively multiplayer game created in a world where the dead live and roam the earth eating the flesh of the living. While most of the world is dead, there are small pockets of survivors that exist in barricaded cities across the globe. Players of Exanimus will have the option of playing as a living survivor or as one of the dead roaming the earth. Exanimus will allow players to experience a MMO based in a horror genre by creating a dark and visually “intense” environment. Exanimus is expected to be rated “Mature” and not intended for anyone under the age of 18.
Dark and intense? Mature content? Pockets of survivors in barricaded cities? Sounds too good to be true. It probably is. There is one big showstopper right here: players can play as zombies. That won’t fly. What a horrible, horrible idea. This idea is so completely retarded that it will guarantee failure. Zombies are supposed to be brainless, single-minded creatures. You can maul them, you can shoot them, you can stab them, it doesn’t fucking matter, they’ll just keep coming at you. That’s what makes them scary. Zombies acting with the intellectual abilities of human players are not scary, they’re lame as hell.
If I were to develope a zombie-themed MMO, it would probably look something like this:
- Set in the near future. No medieval fantasy crap with zombie armies raised from the dead by an_evil_warlock_01. I want a gritty, depressing post-apocalyptic world with guns and derelict cities and rigged cars. No magic, no mystery crap. George R. Romero and Mad Max all the way.
- No loot in the traditional sense. Raiding the Superzombie for a Desert Eagle + 5? No, thanks. Loot is whatever the players can scavenge and salvage from the remains of civilization. The crafting system would be all about fixing stuff and improvising equipment.
- The basic theme would be survival. All player activity would be directed towards that goal, that means no going out to randomly kill zombies for phat lewts and exp. I envision dynamic mission-based gameplay centered around the idea of dealing with ressource scarcity. The need to survive should be the only reason to leave the save sanctuary of your barricaded settlement.
- No traditional character classes. The classical tank, CC, DPS roles wouldn’t make much sense here. All characters would be able to take care of themselves in basic combat. Characters would specialize and interdepend in important secondary abilities.
- No levels. Character developement would be horizontal rather than vertical. Zombie-infested L.A. won’t suddenly become significantly less dangerous just because the player spent a couple of hours EXPing.
- No combat healing. The healing mini-game has always sucked and without magic it doesn’t make any sense to begin with.
- No PvP. The remnants of humanity battling each other for Honor Points or some shit wouldn’t make much sense. I’d rather have the players cooperate to survive in a hostile world. PvP would distract from the “us vs them” theme. There would be roving bands of human bandits but not to the point at which PvP would become feasible in the context of the game world.
- Harsh penalty upon death. Harsher than anything that has ever been done before. Death must be something players truly dread or there would be no sense of danger, no atmosphere of threat, which is much more important in a post-apocalyptic zombie setting than in traditional high fantasy. A WoW style death penalty just wouldn’t be scary enough. If you want the game world to be a scary place then there must be something to be scared of.
- Player-run settlements. The game would encourage players to spread out and start their own settlements. Building, securing and developing it would be a major part of the game. Trade between settlements would be neccessary in order to acquire the ressources needed to maintain it. Running supplies and goods between settlements would be dangerous and rewarded appropriately.
- A dynamic element to the game world. As players spread out and establish settlements, the zombie population in certain areas would be diminished.
Ok, I’m rambling and full of shit but I believe such a game could have the potential to break the mold of item-driven DIKU-MUD rip-offs without degenerating into a shitty UO-style sandbox for knitting and baking pansies. I’d love to see something new, something different. Zombie MMOs, Cyberpunk, WW3 post-apocalyptic stuff, Steampunk… whatever. I’m sick of Elves and Dwarves, I’m sick of conventional game mechanics. I am sick of catass raids and items as the carrot that motivates players. I am sick of sandboxes that are devoid of content and direction. I am basically sick of everything that has ever been made into a MMORPG because I’ve done it all ad nauseam. Give me something new.