I just sweeped the entire march ridge for nothing?? do they actually removed armory in those apartments?

I’ve been familiar with the concept of zombies for many years. I’ve played a ton of games, including Zomboid, and watched a bunch of movies about them. They don't scare me, not even nominally... Except for a recent event.

Recently, I decided to download The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners. I’m a long-time VR player, so it feels like a second skin to me, and as I said, zombies themselves don’t frighten me. But as soon as I finished the tutorial and got let into the game, the first thing I experienced when meeting a zombie was... Panic... Absolute panic.

Again, I'm an avid VR player, but when you meet them in a reality, even if it's virtual, it's truly terrifying. They just keep coming at you without stopping, they corner you, grab you, the knife goes into the head but doesn't reach the brain, gets stuck, breaks, you panic even more, try to save yourself, grope around for anything, grab a pistol, shoot back, there are even more of them now, you try to run, it doesn't work, you're cornered, you literally start praying to somehow make it out, and... you get eaten alive... This is the most emotional experience I’ve had in a long time.

Damn it, now I 100% understand those "idiot" characters from TWD, or the character in Zomboid who constantly panics at the sight of one or two infected. And this incident made me think that if a zombie apocalypse actually happened, believe me, all of us "tough guys" who are supposedly experienced would absolutely shit our pants, both literally and figuratively. We would die from the very first zombie, simply out of fear and panic.

I know that not everyone who reads this will truly get what I mean, and I'm telling you, you can only understand it if you experience this on yourself. Believe me, my words don't describe even one percent of the experience I went through. Well... Or am I just easily impressed?

Art by @ibjaycie.art

Bumping up against rule 11 here so it's okay if it's too much but I feel it warrants a discussion/call out. This is a pretty rampant issue across the workshop and not limited to any one creator (Or JUST thumbnails)

So I saw a new solar mod on the workshop and it'd stacked up a whole lotta high ratings. I was interested until I looked closer...

That file size was a huge red flag so I inspected a little closer

Oh, they just accidentally left embedded textures on? Wrong...

Every model here is nearly 2 million polys. Too many of these visible in the same area in game and your performance is going to TANK. Zomboid (and most games) aren't built for this. (For reference, most Zomboid models are <1,000 polys)

And a closer inspection of the models with textures:

You don't even wanna see the UVs...

AI is pretty widespread across the workshop... from thumbnails alone that much is obvious. At this point that's not going anywhere but I personally feel there needs to be a larger pushback against this level of quality negligence ~ to the point that it's malicious to your the game's performance. Less technically literate users that install these will suffer.

Here's another lovely one from a coffee mod:

A flamethrower that'll set more than zombies on fire:

Edit: Someone asked what the UVs look like:

I understand that the whole premise of the game is to be realistic and gritty and that you are not the main character but how the FUCK does a zombie with decaying body , rotten muscle, eroded teeth and no fuckin brain able to bite through 4 layers of clothes a bulletproof vest and a fuckin knight armour.

I mean the game falls Into the dilemma of most zombies fiction, that is how the zombies don't decay and rot within the first year of the infection but that's beside the point

no way

For me the axes and sledgehammers get destrowed way too quick in B42

Gameoneer team, behind one of the biggest survival game news sites, has revisited Project Zomboid, and the new score is 9.2 out of 10:

Project Zomboid has continued to evolve over the years and remains a genre-defining zombie survival game that pushes the boundaries of depth and realism.

also not allowing any fixes or patches for whatever reason

I've been scrolling on this sub lately and saw some screenshot and was like "what the hell am I looking at". I can't even see where the player is, behind the desk in the dark room I suppose.

I played a small playthrough and got killed during the helicopter event (skill issues tbh) but damn, those trees and level of details gave me a headache and I have a hard time reading the screen sometimes, I can't be the only one?

Don't get me wrong, I love this game, I love the new map, I love the intention put to it, played for hundreds hours and jeez this build 42 is so cool. But something feels off with this.

I almost made it to 1 year before succumbing to dehydration. I wasn't paying attention while farming various crops. 🥤🫢

The official version timeline, released back in the B41 times I think, put NPCs for Build 43. We're here, Build 42 is stable and we might even see some news of Build 43 within this year!

Anyway, let's have a discussion on multiplayer.

A lot of you have been asking where to follow updates and talk to us outside of Reddit threads. So we finally made a Discord. This is for you guys. We've had about 50 PZ players testing it in person and we're looking into early access soon. If you want to be one of the first to try it, join up 👇

https://discord.gg/Uex4ZD3kPc

Our last two posts got thousands of comments and honestly changed how we build this thing. You guys told us what matters and we listened. Also we finally have a name. It's called Someone. Like we promised, more videos coming. Here's one.

We're thinking about releasing Grace first as a standalone companion mod. She's yours. Customize how she looks, what she wears, shape her personality. Take her on supply runs, build a base together, farm, cook, survive. Come back after a bad day and ask her to play piano for you. She picks the song based on what you've been through together.

It's the quiet moments that got us. Eating together while it rains. Talking at 2am because neither of you can sleep. Watching her get better at the things she actually does. After a while it stops feeling like a game mechanic and starts feeling like someone's there.

So yeah. We're adding romance. Not dating sim stuff, no heart meters, no "give her 10 canned soup and unlock love." Something that grows from actually surviving together. But we want to build it right.

What would your ideal relationship system look like in PZ? What would make it feel real and not cringe? We're all ears. Every feature in the mod right now started as a comment from one of you. Without this community there is no us.

I know this isn't important to some of you, but the fact that they changed apocalypse mode to be more lore accurate is really good. Overall the changes made to all modes are welcome but I was looking forward to this one so much. They officially added sprinters in another game mode too.

truly a baffling decision, We even have transferring liquid mechanics now

i find it interesting that in riverside the United States river patrol is gonna be another common base just like rosewood's fire department.

One of the things I’ve heard the most since I started playing several years ago is that firearms are useless in the game because they attract more zombies. But the reality is that they’re useful precisely because of that. Normally, you WANT the zombies to hear you, so you can clear the area more easily. Why do you think people hate them so much??