Barricading
An example of a barricaded house
Barricading is the practice of blocking doors, windows, and other potential points of entry. Introduced in build 009, it is a unique feature in The Dead Linger that allows players to use objects from the environment to reinforce a building and potentially create safe zones. Zombies can damage barricades, and the strength of a barricade depends on the material used.
Barricading is free form, meaning objects can be attached to any suitable surface rather than "clicking" into predetermined hardpoints. Because of this, players have a lot of freedom in building barricades. It's possible to make very strong and efficient designs or to build inefficient and weak designs. Players will eventually be able to use virtually anything they find to create barricades; for now this is limited to various lengths of 2x4, plywood sheets and paintings.
Boards that are nailed up to cover doors and windows will have to be destroyed by survivors and zombies before they can progress past them. Improperly positioned boards will not stop zombies. The effectiveness of a barricade is based on the positioning of the boards by the survivor. A message will also appear in the chat box if the Player tries to open a door that is blocked by something, such as a nailed up board.
Mechanics
Barricading
To nail a wooden object to another stationary object, equip a hammer and grab the piece of wood. (Default: Middle mouse button or C) Position the board against a stationary object, and then press attack to nail the boards into place. (Default: Left mouse button) This process takes 1 second. This system currently does not require nails. Holding down on the secondary attack key (default: Right mouse button) while holding an object will rotate the object.
Using the secondary attack (default: Right mouse button) on a nailed board will pry that board off. This takes around 2 seconds.
Posts
You can drive wooden 2x4s into the ground as posts. You can do this by equipping the Sledgehammer and grabbing a 2×4 or similar type of wood. Position the object vertically by rotating it by holding down on the secondary attack key (Default: Right mouse button) and hold it there, touching the ground. Then pound the object into the ground by using your attack (default: Left mouse button) This action can only be done on terrain, such as grass or dirt.
Crafting
This article is about confirmed but unreleased content. Please check the changelog to see when this content will be released.
The crafting system can be used to create new items or to upgrade existing ones. A wide variety of items are used in crafting, and in keeping with that a wide variety of items can be produced: a Molotov cocktail can be placed in a bear trap to make it incendiary; a pill bottle, duct tape, battery, and scrap can be combined into a zombie distraction grenade. It has been suggested that players should be able to craft complex machines or make repairs to existing ones, such as building an electricity generator.
See also
World Generation
World generation is a feature of The Dead Linger which creates unique maps for players. It is procedural, meaning the world is created according to mathematical algorithms rather than being completely designed by hand. Because only parts of the world in which a player is in have been generated, and for the sake of gameplay only parts around the player need to be loaded into memory, the game can have large and detailed maps without taking up too much hardware resources.
World
Every procedurally generated world in The Dead Linger is 18 x 18 kilometers in size. After Build 16 the world will be made up of regions which in turn are made up of zones. Regions are groups of thematically similar zones that allow the world generator to create more realistic looking maps. Zones are regions of the map that are about 700x700 meters in size. Zones currently randomly generate areas that contain trees, houses, roads, farms and other map details. In the future to allow for more realistic and interesting map design zones will be designed using the Watertower scene creation tool.[1]
Seeds
Each unique map has an associated random number seed. This code represents the way the map generates zone placement, building placemnet, road placement etc. Players can share the seed to other players who will get a nearly identical map. This is faster and more convenient than copying the actual map file. Loot spawns and other certain items are purposefully not included in the seed, and so are unique even to maps with the same seed.[1]
World refresh
The size of the world requires the game to "re-origin" the center of the world in relation to the player. When this occurs the world refreshes by dropping in fog to hide object popping and slows the game down for 20 - 60 seconds. The player can keep playing the game and an DOVRAC symbol in the bottom right corner indicates the world refresh is occurring. The eventual plan is to make this process almost seamless.[1]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 TDL Team. Development Roadmap 11 November, 2014.
Multiplayer
In multiplayer mode, players connect to servers over a Local Area Network (LAN) or on the Internet (through Sandswept's Legion network). Multiplayer characters are persistent across servers, though characters used in LAN games can not be used to play on Legion. While information such as the world map and player locations are saved server-side, attributes and items are a part of the Legion network.
LAN vs. Legion
Legion characters are used when playing over the Internet. These characters are stored on Sandswept Studios' own servers, and players must log into make use of them. Obtaining items and trading are more useful on Legion servers, as characters can not simply be hacked for more items. As of April 2012, players are planned to only have one online character and profile. More character slots might be added later on.
LAN characters can be used to play with servers set up on a Local Area Network and Virtual Private Network (Hamachi ). (Currently, there is no information about using an Open Network). Unlike Legion characters, their information is stored on the players' PC and there is no limit to how many characters that can be stored. However, these characters can not be used to play on Legion servers, and due to being stored locally are susceptible to being hacked by players to gain better items or attributes.
Modes
There are two multiplayer modes available, Survival and PvP. Survival servers focus on players staying alive despite the zombie outbreak. Players can kill each other if they wish, but this is not the main goal of the mode. On a Survival server, players who want to work together can form parties, and they may specifically declare other parties to be their enemies. On a PvP (player versus player) server, the main objective is to kill other players. To facilitate this, PvP servers feature a much smaller map than Survival servers. PvP servers can be set to work with teams, where each player must join one of several warring teams upon joining the server, or be every player for themselves. As of May 2012, the exact size of the map and the rules for the player vs. player mode are yet to be defined, but discussion is ongoing.[1]