Back in Business

I was away (read: distracted) for quite some time, which I primarily blame on the Red Alert 3 Beta. That game is fun! Now that my obsession with it has waned, I am going to get back to work and inch ever so slowly into completing a 100 percent stable Zombie Fortress release.

0.4.4 is going to be a small release. Its mean features will be strengthening the survivors, fixing the auto-balance and implementing loadout restrictions. Loadout restrictions are going to be applied to the Axetinguisher (Pyros can only use the normal Axe), the K.G.B (Heavies will only be able to use normal Fists) and the Sandvich (They can use the sandvitch but not the shotgun). If a person is using a restricted weapon, that will weapon will be removed and the person will be peppered with messages telling them to return to spawn and switch their weapons. I can’t force players to change weapons since that information is decided client side, sadly.

I have decided not to add Arena support to Zombie Fortress simply because it will require me to completely change the gameplay mechanics and it will come with additional baggage. What happens if all the zombies are killed at once? How will I properly do auto-balance? Plus, the fact that Arena maps are basically void of med packs makes it extremely difficult for survivors. The only advantage I will gain from supporting Arena maps is that we gain some new maps to play around with.

Expect a 0.4.4 to come out Monday along with a crappy test server hosted off my own humble computer.