Undead

3.6 out of 5. *singular applause*

Chapter Three: Clairvoyance Kasady rolled with discomfort in her sleeping bag as noise - voices - echoed around her like white noise, faint and soft, but vivid enough to make anyone restless. She rolled over one more time, lying on her back. As her consciousness kicked in, the noises came to an abrupt halt, Kasady slowly cracked open her eyes, her vision blurred; "Wh- what the?" What appeared to be Kasady's journal floated above her, drifting in place, pages slowly flipped as the journal slowly spun in place as though it were suspended in space. Confused and groggy, immediately switched to shocked; "Hell?!" *gasp* Kasady quickly sat up, the journal falling hard next to her simultaneously. Kasady stared at the journal, disturbed by what she thought she saw, her heart pounded, then slowed. Kasady rubbed her eyes with frustration as she let out a long defeated sigh; "What have we gotten ourselves into?" she muttered. She sat feeling heavy and fatigued, but sleep was no use. She slowly began to stand up, grabbed her boots, pack of smokes, then walked out of the tent. A bright single glow of a lantern caught her eye that hung over a cement doorway of an old bunker. Intrigued, Kasady quietly walked over to check it out. The clumping sound of her boots echoed within the tight spaces of the cement wall, the bunker was empty, full of nothing but the crew's supplies and what was likely the room she first regained consciousness in, she thought. She mindlessly browsed around, looking for anything new or unusual, everything seemed normal. Sitting down to a dusty old wooden table that appeared to be the only thing left behind, Kasady lit up a cigarette. An old coin caught her eye, staring at it as she let out a cloud of smoke and a sigh; she began to focus on the coin, squinting even, watching it intensely as though waiting for it to move - nothing. The noises began to feel faint, this time consciously, Kasady could hear the single flame from the lantern hum and crackle as though it were a roaring fire, the trees sounded like a hurricane versus a small and sidle wind, still she focused only on the coin. It remained still, then suddenly began to skid in millimeters; "Can't sleep?" *gasp* Everything stopped abruptly, returning to near silence; "Whoa easy ma'am, I'd rather not be kicked into the wall again. Or worse this time..." Kasady sighed, "Sorry Dan, I didn't hear you." "Well if I didn't know better I'd almost say you looked as though you were sleeping with your eyes open just then" Kasady smirked with baggy eyes and a loopy blink; "heh, I don't even remember the last time I actually slept." "I hear ya ma'am. Mind if I join you?" "Have a seat, Corporal"

I think that's just a sign you play too much zombies. (I'm guilty too though, suddenly everything relates to Mass Effect...)

If anything, we could entertain medals for those who had a certain amount of brains in the past, but im with Slade still on the whole "What about people who've made their contributions since brains were removed and now? Any arificially fluxuated brains just feels cheated. I'd rather have 0 brains indefinitely, than 900 more than I have now.

Brains should have never had any impact on the kind of "recognition" you should have anyways. If you posted enough good stuff to be recognized, people will remember you. Hell, still to this day I hear people kinda go off about how awesome things were, and 9/10 times I've seen Alpha's name come up, and he's rarely here anymore. Everyone is definitely remembered. As of right now, Slade has 52 brains where you have 20. I don't look or judge your posts any different than his because I enjoy what you both contribute. Brains may be well deserved, but it certainly doesn't alter my perspective how how much they have done or should be recognized because of them. I do it because they've done stuff to be remembered. Either way, I think it would just be a lot easier left alone. I can already tell if we are to entertain this too long, a lot of folks will go on unhappy. We're all content with the way things are now.

Yeah, and even still you just throw them back on your shoulder, Alpha. a bit naive if you ask me.

Continued... (I don't know sir, she hasn't regained consciousness in nearly-) (She's not dead, corporal. She'll make it...) (But her vital signs are-) (She'll make it.) (I hope you're right, Lieutenant... What was that stuff exactly? You said she just "blacked out"?) (Wait, I think she's coming out of it;) (Rhoads, can you hear me? Rhoads!) ... *GASP!* Kasady violently sat up, her eyes wide, almost struck with the look of shock. She swung swiftly, knocking Corporal Dan Reynolds, the crew's medic against the wall; "Gah!" James, quickly grabbed Kasady's arms, restraining her till she calmed down. "Kasady! It's alright, it's me!" Kasady paused, lessening her grip slowly. James released his grip shortly thereafter, "Wh-what happened? Where are we?" Kasady hesitated, the room still spinning slightly. "We're not sure exactly. We booked it after a German patrol approached that dig site" James began, "We've set up camp deep within the forest, you've been out cold for almost three days" Kasady looked appalled as she blankly stared at James; "Three days?" James nodded. "You should take it easy, Kasady. I have no idea what happened to you. We need to be sure you're ready and able." Dan suggested. "I'm fine." "Do what the doc says, Rhoads. You weren't yourself back there. Like you weren't even there." James patted Kasady's shoulder as he began to stand, Kasady held her head in pain as she let out a silent sigh of discontent. "Get some rest, I'll check up on ya in the morning"

What's the word on some new medals and the retired staff?

Heh, that makes two of us. It's for the best though. If there's one thing I'd actually support in where content matters most right now, it's the posts in which brains are given to. And the suspense is killing me, Grill. Tell us nao!

Someone give that man a medal. (no really)

I talked to Werf via Skype and we agreed that "Future Zombies" has become littered with more ideas/wants than threads based on what we could expect for well, future zombies. I say future zombies should at least have some subforum specifically for posting original ideas we'd like to see in future maps.

I don't see the need, honestly. Everyone is content just having the option to give/recieve brains again, might as well just keep going with the fresh start we were given. Besides, in a way, I'd feel any returned fluxuation of brains would feel cheated to those who've recently joined.

Given Face Behind the Avatar we technically started this week, but really has gone on all month, that would get my nomination. Boom brought the community together in a really cool way I think, we all saw each other in a new way for the better to open ourselves up.

How about discussing this? http://www.callofdutyzombies.com/forum/index.php/topic/159222-year-end-codz-awards-idea/

Well there's truly a man who's back from the dead. Welcome back good sir.

Saw Jay do it, now it's my turn: 1. The Story So Far - Just where do we go from here?: As I've mentioned many times before, I liked Zombies better when the developing storyline was a lot more cryptic and full of mystery and the only objective seemed to be to find what was truly going on. Between WaW and the first Black Ops, Zombies was more about dark experiments based off real Nazi history and myths, and all the locations had purpose or meaning, they were all connected in some way or another. To me, the storyline should have ended with Samantha, as to me, that always felt like the biggest goal. In Blops, every map kept pointing more and more towards Samantha. I remember the chills I got from the dialog the first time I played Ascension, and seeing her shadow over Moon. Now, everything seemed to take a 180 degree, and everything got even more complicated. I can't say I have even the slightest grasp on the most up-to-date "accurate" storyline since Blops 2, but frankly I don't really care to anymore. To me, it's like the devs are just pulling anything out of their ass to prolong this whole thing. I just like everything to come together this next season, bring back some of those elements that originally brought us closer to zombies in regards to story and hopefully, resurrect my interest in the story itself again. 2. Scare Factor: Most folks would probably name off Der Riese or some more recent maps as their favorite, and while I'm right there on board with Der Riese, I've always had a soft spot for Verruckt. Why? Scare factor. That place gave me the creeps. Still does, playing alone with my headset, I find myself jumping more often when caught off guard and those distant shrieks and cries sound just eerie with those badboys on, even more so. And that jump scare on Mob of the Dead? Classic. While I wouldn't exactly go for jump scares as much, it was a nice little EE. I'd like to have occasions where the map plays tricks in my head, perhaps have figures that catch the corner of your eye, only to disappear once you make eye contact, Zombies that burst out of literally no where at you, more screams, etc. I like the feeling of actually being in peril sometimes, rather than just "alright let's slaughter zombies, bitches!" ya know? Zombies a whole different ball game when you're riding solo. Perhaps they could even have these factors more so, when playing solo in the very least. 3. Interactive Environments: When I first realzed you could ride a bus around town in TranZit, I was stoked and hoped for more interactive things like such, honestly. But I started thinking about ways to take that even further. While it may be EA/Battlefield territory, I'd like to see some maps where things can be done randomly to the environment to change up the gameplay a bit. People always have these stratigies for reaching really high rounds, (which, I definitely salute those who make the time to do so) but ultimately, once you've got the proper set up and the right perks, it's basically just a bunch of looping the zombies around of sorts until you get bored. I'd personally like to take my chances even more so by having maps where depending on what the zombies do, and what YOU do to the map, can alter some of these favorite spots around the map. Whether that be for your benefit, or a disadvantage will depend on just what that occasion may be. I can't really explain this in practice, but you can do the imagining on that behalf. On the other half of the coin, I'd like them to play more with the situational hazards regarding things like Weather and lighting. I like how in Call of the Dead, foggy blizzards would come and go, making it difficult to really see what's coming in front of you very far or navigating box and PaP locations at times. Perhaps take it a step further, have some maps that start off dry, then it eventually rains, flooding some areas over time, making them either unavailable or slowing down your ability to reach various areas for example (Hard Rain on L4D 2, anyone?). Then with lighting, I was thought it would be cool to have map(s) that require flashlights. I just imagine being able to go through some tunnel or building, and the only light available is your flashlight, sporadic flickering lights and any windows. Other than that, all you're gonna see is the glow of the zombies eyes, making combat interesting till you get that power on or something. I'll update this with more ideas as they come to me. Thanks for reading!

It's just another possiblity to spice things up and add some risk taking to your strategy. Of course, this would all be optional. You wouldn't HAVE to mix perks if you didn't want to. Save up your dough, buy a few perks, spend some more dough to mix them and hope for a good combo. Or, just play it save with perks you know what they do. Personally, I feel zombies would be more interesting if zombies was more than just "gear up and run loops"

No, they wouldn't lose money. Think about it, if they released a standalone game or mega DLC pack with all the zombies maps to date for about 20 bucks, would you get it? You already bought the map packs thus far, so you'd be buying them for a second time, a third for some of them. So basically you just gave them more money for the samething you already bought from them to have them all in one convienent location. If they we really worried about losing money (lol yeah okay...), they could simply do what they did with the Resurrection pack, and make a separate DLC at the end of the year just for the zombies maps. So, an additional 15 bucks later, you have 4 new maps from the latest CoD available for this standalone game. Not including if you decided to buy the map packs as well throughout the current CoD year.

lol now you're just over complicating it. They don't need to make up some new perk for every single combination. The abilities gained from these hybrid perks could just be random abilies chosen from existing perks. And again, this is all just ideas and hypothetical examples. And there's loads of possiblities here with it. You could have some combinations just cancel each other out, and you wasted your money buying and mixing them for nothing, you could discover that maybe say... Jug + Quick Revive + Electric Cherry = PHD and it's not even in the map, you could discover that some combinations just make it harder on yourself, etc. They don't have to be "new" perks. And I know what your saying about a buttload of data, but perhaps several combinations have the same effect to save on creating a million combo possiblities. They could easily pull this off. The short and sweet example? Mortal Kombat Cheat Code combinations. Or to quote Forrest Gump; "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get"

I don't see why they wouldn't, honestly. Perhaps I'm the minority here on this, but I'd say it's fairly simple. Hell in a way, they already have. iOS Zombies anyone? Activision tries to scavenger up every dollar possible. I'm not saying let's make a full fledged zombie game with different content and all from what's available in the CoD games, I'm saying have some "Mini game" that's basically everything zombies, all in one location as an XBL arcade game or separate DLC bundle. As the playlist grows in further CoD titles for zombies, the content for that would surely grow afterwords too. There's plenty of people on here alone that admit to purchasing DLC just for Zombies. Why not appeal to the zombies community?

I think you're misinterpreting this idea. I know what you're saying about mixing and the four slots, that's why I countered it with mix perks really counting as "one" perk that takes up several slots, depending on the amount of perks mixed. Therefore, you're still technically using the maximum of four perk slots. So instead; Mix Jug + Quick Revive would instead = 2 slots, 1 perk. And, it would be interesting to have this effects vary, with the risk of having "bad" effects too. More fun, I'd say. Thinking about this more, the closest example I could say of this working in theory would be that whole "green gas" thing that happens in BO II zombies, where doing something triggers these "perma-perk effects" some of these effects are completely random; this Mixed Perk to make a mystery perk could work very much the same, just with more control. You create some kind of "mystery perk" with unknown effect at your own risk. Furthermore, you could mix it up a bit. Mix two perks and you still have two slots for regular perks to back up the effects of this new mystery perk batch. Or, go all in and make one massive mega mystery perk by mixing 4 perks, into one "mega perk" This one mega perk, would take up all four slots. And depending on the order, and perk choice, will vary the effects of this perk.