3-ARCH PLS READ! a discussion on the direction of zombies

[DukeOfLuke]

Okay i dont know who else has felt like this lately, but since black ops was released, zombies has taken a direction that i can only describe as lackluster and gimmicky. First of all, i am not saying i dont like Moon or Shangri-La or COTD, but i can say firmly that i do not like them nearly as much as the W@W maps. Why is this? the Easter Eggs are more over-the-top, the guns are insane, there have been new perks and creative bosses, challenging map mechanics, and so on. This is what i have been thinking. Maybe i have lost interest? but that doesnt explain why Der Riese is so fun after three years. This thread is dedicated to answer these questions, and Treyarch i sincerely hope you are reading this.

First and most important factor that is sticking out to me, is the overall lack of aesthetic creepiness and mysteriousness. How is this? The easter eggs are bigger, the bosses are more fearsome, there are different zombie types, etc. But i am sure we all feel less shaken by the new maps than the W@W maps. Honestly the last map to remotely drew me into the setting was Ascension, and this one was a bit weak. So what happened? i think personally that the problem originates of the easter egg being reduced to a single gigantic fetch-quest, along with a few radios and a song. other than that there is about nothing in these maps. In DR, the easter eggs were everywhere, in the sounds, textures, surfaces, walls, characters, etc. Also they were there not for the sake of the story and just the story, but to make the map feel more deep and enriched and creepy. I personally spent months looking for cool little tidbits in the W@W maps, and found plenty. and also the W@W easter eggs allowed room for speculation, and now we are just told what is happening directly by the fetch quest, and then we stop guessing and lose interest. Conclusion: Treyarch, the fetch-quests are cool, but let us come up with crazy ideas, dont just tell us. Fan-fiction is often cooler than that which is made by you guys, sorry. Give us hints, not a full-on event. I loved feeling like a detective in DR.

I will continue by analyzing the probably the most integral yet forsaken part of the map, the starting area. Let us first analyze the change in how it feels to go through early rounds from NDT to Moon. In NDT, you are given time to prepare, the zombies creep in, and you only have to leave after you begin to become overrun. It is like the fun moment of target practice before it descends into chaos. How about Moon? quite the contrary. It first throws the zombies at you at an alarming rate, with a high risk of death before round one. Then on top of that after you make it to the moon for round one, you have to rush to the air mask, and then you have to refrain from grenade use and avoid the freaking boss from round one in a pretty small room, oh and you can easily lose control of your movement. NDT starting rounds are for preparing for the oncoming shitstorm, while in Moon they are frustrating if anything. Same goes for Shangri-La, with its complete lack of space and visibility due to overdone plant growth everywhere. Also in Call of the Dead, Gorge begins pestering you and there is no way to keep the zombies out.

obviously we can see things have gotten out of hand here.

So i am going to tell you what aspects i think make a good starting area. Firstly, there should be no kinds of gimmicks, especially ones that pose a challenge until round 4 at the earliest, or until the character goes to a certain area and does a certain thing (like turn on the power). Next, there should be two weapons, but not like in Blops. In blops we get two unequally shitty weapons at the same price to chose from. In W@W, you could get a bolt-action at round one and probably get enough points for a decent M1A1 by the end of round 1. The M14 sucks, btw, because it takes too long to reload at the rate your clip will be depleted. Also you should be able to keep the zombies out, by watching windows, and 4 of them should be there. The area should lack in choke points and places you can get caught on. Lastly, the area needs to be open but make you feel trapped. In call of the dead, you feel free, but there are choke points everywhere and the zombies are popping out of the ground. In NDU, you feel trapped but you can keep the zombies at a distance easily. this makes makes gameplay bearable and the aesthetics super creepy and disparate, highly important in keeping a map rewarding.

Next i am going to talk about weapons. This one is going to be short. The wall guns in Blops all suck past round 15, and suck upgraded past round 22. Black ops maps pretty much make you rely on the box, which was avoidable in past maps like DR up to round 28 pretty much, especially if you were kiting. we should be able to rely on wall guns for a reasonable amount of time, and there should be more than just a few great weapons from the box. How about a kick-ass smg like the PPSH-41? also why is it that pretty much everything but wonderweapons becomes useless after round 30? even the freaking hk21 upgraded???? this is some BS. i like being able to have more strategies, and that means having more than just the raygun to rely on.

next i will talk about enemies. i prefer that bosses shouldnt come at the same time as zombies unless all they do is hit you a bit, like dogs, and should be only for one round every now and then. No more astronauts or georges. Also, zombies should never be able to sprint like they do in COTD and verruckt.

lastly i will talk about map layout/gimmicks. Firstly i think that the zombies should be hard, not the map. A hard to navigate map feel like you are being cheated when you die cheaply. that out of the way, A map should have open areas with important perks/weapons located in choke points. Locations should be consistent in my opinion as well, except the mystery box after it gets the first teddy bear. Still the box should be in a fairly controllable location, and always start in that same location, but move to tighter places later. DR is really the best when it comes to just layout in my opinion, but Ascension, NDT, Verruckt, and SNN all do this well. The two paths should offer either a good mg or a pump-action. and the blops variants are sub-par and need replacement much too soon. Again, the zombies, not the map, should be tough. The new maps should be vehicles for more new ways to survive, and these should be convenient. next, the maps shouldnt be so large that they have an unbearable ammount of doors to open, causing a drop in funds. COTD is most guilty of this. lastly here is the issue of accessing PaP, which should be a challenge, but not freaking impossible. On should feel secure to do it with plenty of points and a crawler. Kino is too easy though, and the landers are too slow, and S-L is overly complicated, five is requres you to go to seriously unsafe parts of the map every time, and Moon is easy to access, if you can survive NML. COTD is a decent approach, but really the whole 'activate these three things' system is cool with me. I think that the PaP should require all parts of the map open and after it is opened be easily accessible.

In conclusion: Treyarch, i know you have been pandering to what we say we want, be please dont lose sight of the your focus on gameplay and making us feel like we were in a creepy and mysterious land of the undead.

[Electric Jesus]

I agree with almost everything you say here. Good job. I agree with you especially in the subject of map atmosphere and gimmicks.

However, I must disagree a but with your views on weapons. You must first realize that we here on codz are generally good at zombies and can get past round 30. The average player can't however. I know it seems inaccurate because of the number of pros you hear about, but it is nonetheless true.

Secondly, wall guns are good because of the massive numbers of variations to strategies. They are good for everyone based on their game play style. I think that even beyond round 30, running around and buying all of the wall guns in turn and upgrading them and draining them into a horde is EXTREMELY FUN! I mean, I do that all the time. I can now confidently recite every single upgraded gun name from memory, black ops and WAW.

Finally, I have no problem with this but it might be questionable to address treyarch directly from a thread. Like I said I don't know for sure, but you might want to check up on that.

However, the rest of the points you make are excellent and well thought out.

I.O.U. Brains!

[FatedTitan]

I can tell you put a lot of thought into this, so I'll try not to be too critical.

1. The reason why DR is so fun to so many players is because it introduced so many new aspects to zombies. PaP, teleporters, easter eggs, side quests. It was so different and fresh and awesome that most people will always herald it as the best map they've made.

But if you are talking so a person like me, who started zombies with Black Ops and has all the maps on Black Ops, Der Riese and the WaW maps are just okay. I definitely wouldn't put any at my top spot. Why? Because it didn't introduce new things to me. In fact, it took away things for me. So there's your reason. Everything was new to you in WaW. Now it's not. I stand firm in my opinion that if we reverse the order of the Maps and the WaW maps came out when the Black Ops maps came out and vice versa, people would wonder what the devs issue was. Why did they add so little and take out so much. In the end, it's all based on what the map introduced at the time. That's the reason for its popularity.

2. Creepiness is something that does need to be brought back, and from the pictures that we saw at E3(though it was only like two), it looks like they are going to bring it back and make it very scary. I will defend Black Ops maps a bit though. Kino's concept art is very creepy and the map design was probably changed from a 1945 look to the 1960s look due to not getting out for WaW. CotD could be very creepy when the snowstorm was happening. Moon can also be scary when you turn around a zombies in your face.

3. I would like to see more small easter eggs thrown into maps as well, but that doesn't mean I want the giant ones gone. Maybe do a big one that helps lead the story to it's next spot, but throw in little ones that will help explain more of the smaller questions we have, such as information about Sophia and such.

4. I was never a big fan of George or the cosmonaut, but I understand their purpose. It was to stop camping. My issue with this is that I would like to be able to camp sometimes and see just how long I can hold out. I would like to not have any of these types of bosses. If they wanted a George monster, let him come out at a certain round and you have to kill him for the round to end. I will give you my support on this point.

5. Sprinter zombies should NOT be taken out. They are fantastic. I would like to see them implemented more. When you've got a bunch of slow runners coming then you see about three sprinters, it freaks me out. It makes you react quickly. I love CotD because of their sprinters. I say bring them back!

6. Weapons I don't mind as much about. In the end, if you make weapons do work after round 30, we'd have a ton of people around round 50, and that's no fun. At some point, it's got to become less about surviving the outbreak and more about surviving your lack of attention. Because I know most of you know that at one point, it's all about just staying focused.

7. Map layouts could be better sometimes, but other times it's based on player preference. I enjoy some maps that my friends despise.

That's all I have for ya.