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This would be either another game mode (like CTF, or Rabbit Hunt) or maybe a plugin instead.

Game play is as follows:

The objective is to be the last surviving human.

At the start of the match, everybody except one (randomly selected, or the winner from the last match) starts on the humans team. The single remaining player starts on the zombies team.

Zombies can NOT shoot, but are all equipped with steamroller flags. Also, zombies are slightly slower than humans.
Humans can drive and shoot normally.

When a zombie is killed, they simply respawn back in the 'dedicated 'zombie respawn place'.

When a human is killed by a zombie, they are 'infected' and switched to the zombies team. So as each human gets infected, it becomes harder and harder to escape the zombies until just one human is left. That human is the winner!

Two more things, the zombies could also be stealthed, making the game a bit harder, and people joining the server mid-match would be zombies.

Thats it!
I am a novice c/c++ programmer, so I would be willing to contribute to this, but I have no idea where to start. Any help would be appreciated.

This sounds like a fun idea that would be achievable by a plugin there'd just be one thing you'd have to change.

You can not adjust the _tankSpeed on a per player basis, however, you could set it low to start with then humans have High Speed which allows them to go faster, or, 'normal speed' while zombies are going slower.

I really think this would be an awesome idea and I've started work on this plugin. I'll post the source here as I make progress and maybe we can get some others to help

Great! That's a good idea for the different speeds. For now i will be researching making plugins.

Oh, a few unimportant things:
I think zombies should be the green team (green seems fitting to zombies),
And humans should probably be red.

Yes.

The plugin I have mostly started switches the teams in game (it even switches the colors on the scoreboard too!)

Should be done with in the next few days then we can put up a test and take input from others.

If you want to help out, hop onto irc.freenode.net channel #bzextreme and we could talk about it

-apple

Allright, so when ever you can post a source that will be great!

Yeah its mostly done except for a few bugs, but I was thinking........

Maybe the starting with one zombie isn't the best idea. I was doing some testing with a few other players and it was very hard for the zombie to get one kill, but after the zombie team got to a reasonable size, they took over the humans no problem.

One suggestion was to make the zombies have more powers so they could kill the humans faster and it would be more fair. However, once the teams get to be like 3 humans on 7 zombies, the humans die off very quickly.

A suggestion that came from that was that the zombie team started off with more then one player, based on how many people were in the given game. However, then that would seem unfair to some people if they got chosen to be a zombie often they wouldn't get to compete for the win.

After thinking about this for awhile, I came up with a modification to your original idea that I think would make a great addition to this. Because the plugin automatically switches the team colors (thanks Murielle!) this modification would be practical and make the gameplay more fair.

The radar, tank speed, and shot settings would still be offset between the two teams, but theres two big differences. First off the zombie team and human team start with the same numbers. The other big change is that the killing is different. If you get killed by a zombie, you become a zombie. If you get killed by a human, you become a human.

In this mode of gameplay there is no 'one winner' but rather, one 'team' wins. If the zombies sucesfully kill all the humans, they win. If the humans kill all the zombies, they win. Players can switch back and forth multiple times, too. If you become a zombie and get killed by a human, then your back on the human team.

Still an idea thats forming in my head. Let me know what you think and if this would be practical.

-apple

I dont think they ever worked out all the bugs.. http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f ... bie#p80938

Mrapple:

Yes, i think you are right, it will be hard for the first zombie, maybe you could have a ratio of 10:3 (humans:zombies) at the start, or have a map that is good for sneaking up on people (hide and seek hills? Or add fog?).

To fix the problem of someone always being a zombie and never getting the chance to win, You could always have the highest scoring players be the next zombies.
OR
Randomly select the next zombies. Random selection would almost garrantee not being chosen over and over again.

And about zombies turning back to humans, I think that defeats the idea of humans vs zombies. I don't think ive ever heard of the undead coming back to life. You could branch this plugin into two and have both hvsz and something like "bacteria wars" (not saying this is what it should be called, idk what to call it).


Thanks for all you've done,
Ukuleleguy

Maybe the zombies get "cured" whenever a human shoots them?

That's how the plugin currently operates. It's an endless battle between two teams until one team gains all the players.

There's still a bunch of bugs to work out, but overall the plugin actually works pretty well!

Currently in beta testing. I'll put up a test server soon. Let me know what you think.

Source code, readme, lgpl, and sample map file are attached.

Thanks to trepan for the BZDB code and murielle for the team switching code.

NOTE: This will not compile on windows due the fact it uses functions outside the API.

UPDATE: Beta v. 0.2

Lots of bug fixes and nicer code

Test server @ bzextreme.com:5154

Let me know what you think

Thanks for posting a source!

Updated.... again! Right now we're sitting at version 0.3.2

Source attached. Most bugs have been worked out, however, it is still hard for the plugin to process when multiple people join at the same time.

Any suggestions on fixing this would be great.

I am getting reports of the Zombie team always winning now on the currently hosted version, regardless of whether humans or zombies win. May just require a small fix, but thought I would let you know.

Thanks, fixed and updated.

Just wanted to let everyone else know I'm working on a scoreboard. I'm thinking the team you start on is your "home" team.

If your original team wins, you get a point (Not a scoreboard point, but a "virtual" point announced by the server).

Maybe it will even keep records and every time you join your score will keep growing!

UPDATE!!!! We are now at version b0.4 - After hours of endless testing, are we finally bug free?

No more of those endless "Server Error: Adding player when player already exists" and the dreaded empty player slots.

If you find any bugs, let me know

Source attached.

P.S. One last shout-out to Murielle for the team switching code, trepan for the individual set-var code, and Ukulele Guy for the idea. Without them we wouldn't be anywhere

This game mode is HIGHLY addicting. Play at your own peril!

Can bots play this? if so, please allow them on the server. It's almost impossible to start playing. Unless there are three players u can do nothing and idle kick threatening you. It's not easy too have two people on the server and three is just a fantasy.

You may consider adding a feature to the plug-in that makes the game default to normal when there are not enough players. Then gives them a countdown to when a zombie game starts when there is enough.

JeffM wrote:You may consider adding a feature to the plug-in that makes the game default to normal when there are not enough players. Then gives them a countdown to when a zombie game starts when there is enough.

I was actually considering this. Rogues could just move around and shoot until the countdown begins. Not sure if I really want that thought because it takes away from the point of the plugin itself.

Yrogirg wrote:Can bots play this? if so, please allow them on the server. It's almost impossible to start playing. Unless there are three players u can do nothing and idle kick threatening you. It's not easy too have two people on the server and three is just a fantasy.

No. Last time I checked the plugin fails at placing them on teams because they are not all normal players. (I'm not sure why this happens, but its probably best just to say no bots for now)

joevano wrote:This game mode is HIGHLY addicting. Play at your own peril!

Agreed! I've had to pull myself away from it multiple times to actually get some work done

I tend to get scared when I play this game mode.

On the current map zombies tend to always win. It should be more open, just like the first version (well, the first version I've played). Maybe if humans use more team play, gather together and defend, it will even up teams. But as for now zombies are the winners.

Actally from what I've heard it's mostly even.

It kind of depends on the skill level of each team. Sometimes more skilled players get on the zombie team a few times in a row and set the zombies on a winning streak. I've been on the server a few times where the humans have won a few in a row too.

Right now, the settings are even for the most part. I still have that bug where it says the zombies win at the end, though ;(

Hopefully I'll get around to finishing up the scoring and bug fixing sometime this week.

mrapple wrote:Hopefully I'll get around to finishing up the scoring and bug fixing sometime this week.

More like a month or two

Finally got around to finishing this.

Right now, we're sitting at version b0.6 -- skipped b0.5 release because it was way to buggy and just didn't work.

One of the improvements in b0.6 are "bonus points" (credit goes to trepan for the bonus point code from his capbonus plugin).

When you get 3 kills in a row, you get 3 bonus points. 5 kills, 5 bonus points. 10 kills, 10 bonus points.

If you end someone's "streak", you get 5 bonus points.

This is a good start, but I still need some more ideas.

Maybe last survivor? Last kill? First kill? The more ideas the merrier!

Hope for some good input Source is attached.

PLEASE read the README for info, special thanks, and licensing. Thank you.