Electric Jesus

I came up with a gameplay mechanic idea recently, which I will soon be developing into a full-on map concept. Anyway I think it would allow a map to be almost infinitely dynamic and semi-customizable. I call it "Shadow-side" but whatever. Anyway imagine a map divided into 24 sections, and each section has a small shadow-side generator. Activating one will cause that area (which most likely has a 10 meter radius) to transition to its shadow counterpart. Basically imagine the Twilight realm / Silent realms from the Zelda series aesthetically. Each area that is changed to its shadowside variant has a completely different layout / features. You can activate up to 8 of these, effectively transforming one third of the map at a time. The best part is that it can be any of the 24 in any combination, and if you want you can turn one off and activate another. With this you could have an absurd number of combinations, which would allow for a lot of versatility, especially playing with 4 people when everyone can be holding down a different semi-customized area. So functionally similar to my Temporal Displacement mechanic concept, but more structured, larger scale, and with more dramatic layout changes, and aesthetically the transformed areas would look like this rather than futuristic:

Ok, so I think I've got somewhat of an idea, but I need to know: what is the general concensus on the ages of the O4 in origins and elsewhere? I assumed in origins they were like in their 20s, but I'm not sure about them when they're older. But I agree ~55 years old seems too old.

I remember when the Origins cutscene was released, it occurred to me (and others) that Richtofen might actually be another version of himself, jumping into his body from the past. That's why he looks at his hands confused trying to figure out where he is, then he remembers what happens in that moment and glances up at the robot that he knew was coming from before. Then he goes through the steps of everything he needs to accomplish as if he is reminding himself or refreshing his memory. How could this be possible though? I think that as we see in the Maxis ending, Richtofen gets his power restricted so that he is only capable of possessing one entity at a time. That's his punishment from Maxis. Then Let's say he figures out how to possess entities from a different period in time, but still just one. Who does he choose to possess? The one most likely to let him reach agartha, his past self from Origins. Remember that Origins Richtofen has mostly benign quotes compared to the psychotic Richtofen we know. I honestly think that if this is correct, he is just faking. He even yells out occasionally "You will not stop me from reaching Agartha!" that seems really out of character for origins Richtofen right? considering he frequently says "Agartha is a myth" and states that he has no intentions of helping Sam. Honestly to me it seems like it's possible that the Richtofen from origins is somebody else, potentially himself from later on. How is this relevant to his face being scratched out? I really doubt Richtofen would ever PLAN on getting his past self killed, unless that somehow led to him being more powerful in Agartha. Alternately it could just be Maxis, aware of Richtofen trying to change the past, scratching out his face signifying that he wants him dead. But as we know, the Omnipotent beings can't really look at more than one frame of time. That's why Sam was so lonely for decades as the ruler. But maybe Maxis and Richtofen found a way in buried. I got the impression that those two were stronger than sam anyway.

It might not be sunset lighting. It could just be artificial lighting or even fire. Just a thought.

You can see some MotD afterlife drawings on the far left of the 1st pic Tac posted, as well as potentially Weasel's handwriting down at the bottom. The afterlife symbols are on the same page as a human skull spine profile diagram. Interesting. The bottle caps up top are resting on the almost completely obscured Moon loading screen Advertisement page.

Aaaaand 25 posts in a thread in one hour. RIP off season.

I'd like to point out that in that image you can see the red text at the top center that is mostly cut off. That's part of the word "Confidential" and an image of the panel on the front of the MPD is seen on the same document. I don't believe that document has been seen before, but it looks American. Just thought I'd point that out, because if it means anything it could have big story implications.

London that's 6:45 PM. East Coast USA that's 1:45 PM.

I guarantee you this is how it goes down. "Yes we at Treyarch have a very unique relationship with our fanbase. We have consistent correspondence but keep them guessing with cryptic information." *stares directly into camera* "PARIS IS THE KEY." ... "And we regularly look for constructive criticism from our fans..."

Hmm the way you worded that gave me an Idea. Reverter It's a grenade like an hour glass and it blows up with a blast the size of the moon astronaut exploding. However it doesn't actually hurt them or knock them over. It actually just makes them go backward in time for 10 seconds. So if they were running toward you, then they would run backward away from you for 10 seconds, buying you time like a monkey bomb. Basically anything the zombies did within the 10 seconds before detonation, they do again in reverse order backwards. I guess you'd get 2 of them.

Oh yeah I guess you're referring to the Nano grenade thing? My only problem with this idea is either the power or the duration should be toned back a bit. I mean Gersch Devices last about 7 seconds. 20 is almost 3x that. Still as a concept I think it's awesome.

Our "unique creative dialogue" with Treyarch is the equivalent of Vonderhaar dangling a piece of meat over a pit of starving dogs just out of reach. But I'll give them credit for putting it so eloquently. All joking aside I'm pretty hyped. My body is ready.

As of now, Element 115 does not exist in the Exo Zombies universe. So what causes the zombies to be zombified? The most likely answer is the more modern "disease" zombie rather than one that is truly killed then reanimated. Obviously if this is the case, it would be a result of the Atlas corporation's development of the biological weapon Manticore. This is specifically a type of virus that has a similar effect to Nova 6 on human bodies. However, there are many signs around the map that have words like "mutation" on them. This most likely refers to an unstable strain of Manticore, which presents itself with distinctly different symptoms rather than near instant death. Think of it this way. A virus invades a cell, turns it on itself, turns it into an infected cell, then that goes on to infect other cells. Once it conquers the organism, it does the same thing, but on a larger scale. It conquers the organism, turns it into an infected, (otherwise known as zombie,) then uses it to infect other humans. This the virus is able to spread, as is in their nature. Anyway let's get on to the actual physical capabilities of the Exo Zombies. Zombies in this mode are not capable of surviving without their heads, which saves me a lot of work honestly. There is no higher power involved in their actions. No angsty little girl playing with toys. Anyway there's no need to go over all the specific senses. However I'd like to talk about two of them. One thing to note is that, like in Treyarch zombies, they don't try to bite you, or eat you, or infect you. They just try to kill you. The exception to this is the special "Infected" zombies. My theory is that the zombies are simply designed to attack, thereby spreading the virus. However the disease is only contagious for a certain amount of time. So most of the zombies have been zombified for quite some time, and still possess the tendency to attack, without actually being able to infect. Alternately the contagious zombies are just newly infected. Remember that all Atlas employees are immune to Manticore. However this is a mutated strain, from which nobody is safe. We can assume that the decontamination process is the same as what had already been developed for the original strain of manticore. However as we know, Manticore was specifically designed to only affect people lacking the pre-determined genotypes. This is how they were able to protect Atlas employees without actually immunizing them. However the mutated strain lacks this genotype recognition. Basically what this means is just that (like the original strain) manual decontamination is possible, although it was never necessary pre-mutation. The zombies that utilize Exo suits simply do so in exactly the same way that normal humans do. It is synchronized to their bodies' motions, so whatever movements they make to reach you (all of which are to reach you actually) are just magnified by the exos. They don't consciously use them; it's just an extension of their animalistic attempts to kill you. Notice how they don't exactly have mad jukes yolo swag 420. They just mostly try to reach you in a more efficient manner. I will update with special zombies and dogs soon.

ERROR:file_missing (yes it literally says this on your HUD) This is a grenade that has a complicated looking appearance with loads of parts sticking off. However, you can't really tell what it looks like, because its texture is just that black and purple checkered missing texture pattern. When you throw it, it makes a dial-up internet sound effect and causes a blast of Matrix-y green binary to flood out, as well as random pop-up windows with error messages. Additionally random flashing images appear like when teleporting on Kino, such as a brief glimpse into a Treyarch office room, like you're looking back out through the game. This draws the zombies in like a gersch device, and then a big red X icon appears, and a mouse click sound effect plays, and the "window" closes, making all the zombies within its range disappear into a blip like the kind you'd see on old TVs when they turn off. This lasts about 7 to 8 seconds (slightly longer than Monkeys) but you only get 2 of them. Random static and white noise plays while the "crash" is happening, and it is comprised of random electronic noises mixed with panicked Treyarch developers' voices.

I've always been on the fence about pro perks, just as a concept. I'm just not sure if it could work without being OP. But these ideas are all pretty cool and most of them seem balanced. The only ones I don't really like are the 4 weapon slots, and the double duration monkeys with upgraded PhD. Apart from that they are pretty awesome as ideas, though just in general I'm still not positive how I feel on the pro perks thing. Also what's in a name? It really doesn't matter which game it's for. The concepts themselves are what matter.

Yessir, I will just change it to bold white if that's ok.

I think it would actually make sense if there was a page between Moon and Nuketown, showing what happened to the O4 (which would chronologically take place at that time. That idea is consistent with the weird page inconsistency in the comic. But that's might just be wishful thinking.

CONVERGENCE Ok, I posted a gameplay mechanic idea a while ago, and I was really proud of it so I figured it deserved its own fully developed map concept. Also despite not having posted many, map concepts are what brought me here and are one of my favorite things to write up (alongside Wonder Weapon concepts.) I might start doing them frequently like my homies @Stop mocking me0 and@Black Hand Smith. but I digress. If you haven't read the thread on the Mechanic I am referring to, I suggest you do so before reading this. Timeline Shifts Anyway onto the actual map. I'm basing this somewhat off of the example I used in that thread. I'm going to color code a little later. BOLD means Richtofen, and ORANGE meens Maxis. Let me know if this is too obnoxious or hard on the eyes. Convergence "Lost in the heart of a desolate wasteland, an abandoned group 935 facility lies untouched for decades. The once lush landscape and heart of development are now barren and filled with the silence of death. Had different events come to pass, could it have had a chance at life?" -Level Description. If you read the thread I linked above you'll know that there are two "versions" of the map that can be switched back and forth along the lines of the Shangri-La eclipse mode. Upon spawning in, the player finds them self in the Maxis timeline in the facility's entrance hall. In this timeline the color scheme is muted and has lots of greys and oranges, and your range of view is somewhat restricted by the amount of sand and dust in the air. It is harder to see at a distance (but nowhere near on the level of Call of the Dead or TranZit fog.) The interior is somewhat dark, but it is day outside, and several holes in the walls / ceiling have beams of sunlight shining through the sand to illuminate the area. The level of darkness is purely aesthetic and doesn't actually hinder visibility. In this Maxis timeline, all of the wall weapons are a mix of weapons from either the world war 2 or cold war era. They are left there from when the facility was active. The mystery box also only contains weapons from the past eras. (I'm not going to go into specific detail about room layouts, just the features of the map. Where you buy debris to progress or the location of a staircase matter very little relative to what is actually contained in the map.) This Maxis timeline contains the power switch, and most of the perks, including Juggernog. The perks Double Tap 2 and Vulture Aid are accessible but cannot be used because they are half buried in sand. Pack a Punch is also accessible but buried in sand and unusable as well. There is a room containing the Temporal displacement device, accessible only a few rooms after the power switch room. Activating it triggers the transition to the Richtofen timeline. This is an alternate version of the same location, as it would be if Richtofen was in control, with only a few layout differences. Visually visibility is much improved, and the color scheme is generally more vibrant. Despite still being somewhat dark, there are actual working electrical light sources, which give it high contrast rather than the dull monochromatic feeling of the Maxis timeline. There is now water flowing through a certain area, no trace of sand, and short grass in a few outdoorsy areas. Instead of the dead silence of the Maxis timeline there is a constant whirring / hum / chugging of the now operating machines. In this timeline, the perks that were accessible in the Maxis timeline are no longer available, with the exception of Quick Revive. The two aforementioned perks and Pack a punch are no longer covered in sand and can be used. The wall weapons in this timeline are 2025 weapons, as well as the mystery box. Each wall weapon is in the same location as one from the Maxis timeline, and is the 2025 equivalent of its past counterpart. However they are generally of slightly better to make up for them taking longer to access. Like the M14 might be replaced with the proper MK14 from BO2, with a larger magazine size, or the olympia replaced with the Remington. If you read the original thread you'll know that this map incorporates temporal displacement spheres, which are portable items that shift all items within a certain short range to their alternate timeline condition. This can only be obtained in the Richtofen timeline by completing a series of events along the lines of acquiring a staff in Origins. You need to assemble all of the 3 parts of the sphere on a pedestal, then return to the Maxis timeline. Return to the (now empty) pedestal and kill 20 zombies within range of it, and it absorbs their souls. Once it's charged up, the orb will synchronize to both timelines, and the orb will appear and a radius around the pedestal will swap to the Richtofen state. Now you've got the timeshift sphere in the Maxis timeline and can take it back with you to the Richtofen timeline. (The sphere is "optional" in the sense that you don't "need" it to do anything, but it makes a lot of things easier. It is "optional" in the same way that building the plane is optional, or buying the first door in the spawn on any map is optional.) Ok now that you have a gist of the map and core features, I'll move onto some specific features. Note that the Maxis side is supposed to embody a dull, slow, dead feeling compared to the active, sporadic behavior of the Richtofen side, which mirrors their personalities. This is further shown through the weapons, bosses, and features exclusive to each zone. Even aesthetically each side is supposed to personify the respective ruler. BOSSES There are two bosses, each specific to a timeline. However, each only ever appears in the timeline that the player is NOT in. If you are in the Richtofen timeline when the Maxis boss appears, it will look like an orange cloud like the Pentagon Thief when he is invisible. It can still attack you, but you can't damage it unless you are in its timeline. So hurry up and swap over, or chuck a timeshift stone at it! The Maxis enemy itself is slow and strong, taking a long time to reach you. However you REALLY don't want it to reach you, because it grabs you and teleports you dealing critical damage like the astronaut, but when it does this it corrupts your character's temporal position, causing random blackness to appear in some parts of your vision, certain objects visually flashing in and out of existence, or even a few seconds of black screen. The thing itself looks like a tall, broad humanoid figure made of sand. It has glowing orange eyes and constantly has sand pouring off of it, almost denoting an hourglass. The Richtofen timeline boss is weaker but much much faster. It has a blue electrical effect visible when you are in the Maxis timeline. When you actually face it, it flies toward you crazy fast, and simply passes through you. This causes a similar effect to the Maxis variant, hurting you a small almost negligible amount, but making you have crazy temporal hallucinations. They are much more intense but for a shorter duration. It will cause random visual effects like the random images seen when teleporting on Kino. Visually the creature is similar to "Him" from TranZit but with an actual human body, except for lightning coming from the hands and feet. Only one will ever appear at a time. WONDER WEAPONS Apart from the standard Raygun and Monkeys (each available in both mystery boxes) there are 3 originals. There is one new special grenade, called the PLuCK. It looks like a smaller, grenade-sized version of the timeshift sphere. This was an attempt at making the timeshift stone more portable, but it failed horribly, causing it to send anyone in the radius to a void between timelines. Throwing it causes a radius around it to become outlined (like the timeshift stone) pulling in zombies like a gersch device. Then after about 7 seconds, the entire interior of the affected sphere of space turns pitch black. Like it literally looks like a hole in your screen. Then it gradually fades back to color, and all the zombies that were in its affected area are gone. This can only be obtained in the Richtofen Timeline Mystery Box. There is another Richtofen exclusive wonder weapon. This is also only obtainable by taking parts from the Maxis timeline to a workbench in the Richtofen timeline. This is made easier through clever use of the timeshift sphere. However you don't just pick the parts up; you have to complete a small task to get each one. Once you assemble it, you have to kill 20 zombies within its range to power it up before picking it up. When you finally do pick it up, you get the Revitalizer. It has a sleek black appearance with blue electrical pattern moving around on it, like one of those plasma lamps. Its shape is comparable to that of the MP40 but with the magazine being smaller and inserted from the top, flush with the top of the gun. Upon firing, there is a second or two pause where you hear a high pitched electronic whine, denoting the sound of a defibrillator. It then rapid fires balls of electricity in a burst of 10, and this burst cannot be interrupted, so if you want to fire, you HAVE TO fire 10. Those 10 shots are fired in less than 2 seconds though. You can't move your feet while firing, but you can turn. So you will be immobilized for a total of about 2 seconds whenever you pull the trigger. Each shot is always an insta-kill. It has a 30 round magazine and has 60 shots in reserve. There is a Maxis exclusive wonder weapon as well, obtained in the same way, but with the timelines swapped obviously. It is known as the Desolator. This weapon is huge, resembling an RPD, but without the belt of bullets. It has perforated metal grating along the side with orange glow coming from the inside. It has a 1 shot magazine and 15 reserve. Pulling the trigger will make an electronic whine like the Richtofen variant, except much deeper, and longer lasting. After about 4 seconds a massive thick orange continuous laser shoots out for about 5 seconds. Any zombie hit has no visible effect on their body, but the light of their eyes simply flickers and goes out and they stumble to the ground from their own momentum. This can insta-kill a full train on any round. Upgraded these each do typical things. More ammo, faster "warm up" time before each shot, etc. WALL WEAPONS Maxis Timeline: M14 Olympia M1 Carbine Double Barrel Shotgun M16 MPL Type 100 STG-44 Trench Gun BAR Bowie Knife Richtofen Timeline: MK14 Remington 870 MCS SVU M1216 AN-94 MSMC Skorpion Type 25 KSG LSAT GalvaKnuckles EASTER EGGS I might update this with an actual Main Easter Egg, but for now I just want to go over what I'd expect the outcome to be. Upon completion the Timeshift Mechanism gets overloaded and causes the two timelines to Converge. Now you can no longer swap the timeline over, as the timelines have combined. All the features that were previously exclusive to one timeline are now available together in this new neutral timeline. This isn't a utopian timeline though; all the newly combined features overlap and flicker like the MotD perk machines, because they are all out of place. However this is still beneficial, because there is now one Mystery box with all weapons in it, and all perks are accessible, and the bosses are never invisible. I will most definitely add to this later. This hardly a complete idea. But complete enough to post? Sure.

Well also remember there is another thing that we took away from Ascension, which was the Casimir mechanism. We didn't literally take it with us but Richtofen used his knowledge of it to power up the golden rod on Moon. That didn't not happen, or how else would he have known how to do it? I admit something is fishy about Ascension but I think it definitely all happened, one way or another.

For me I played Nacht like once or twice, thought it seemed kinda cool, but wasn't really good at it and didn't bother. The first CoD I played religiously was MW2. to this day I can say "enemy UAV online" in a perfect impression. Anyway I didn't buy BO immediately, but when I saw zombies was in it, I was like "let's give this a try." I looked up a couple gameplay videos (Syndicate my boi) and then went to play with friends. Even though it was only my like 3rd time playing, I was the best of all of my friends, just because I learned from observation, like Neo in the matrix. At that point call of the dead was already out, so I went home and bought the game and 2 dlcs immediately. From then on the hype was real. I didn't findout about CoDz until a few months before BO2's release, and my first thread that I read was Shangri-La Mars. (I had a strong grasp of the story before then.) Gameplay wise I was "a natural," getting really good in a surprisingly short amount of time. I was really stoked for BO2 because that was the first milestone after I joined here, so it was like a dam of ideas breaking in my mind. I wasn't disappointed in any BO2 map, so I don't know what y'all are on about, my friends and I always had a good time on TranZit. Now that Black Ops 3 (or whatever it's called) hype is swelling up, so are my pants proportionately.

I kinda like the akimbo Idea, but I don't like it doubling reserve ammo capacity. That's a little OP. That was going to be a perk in the past (Candolier) but they scrapped it, presumably because it's over powered. I would prefer for it to be less expensive (still pretty expensive though) but not affect reserve ammo. Then it would just go back to the double tap paradox. Run out of ammo twice as fast, but as long as you don't miss you still kill just as efficiently and twice as fast. In terms of price, I'd say maybe it should vary from weapon to weapon. Maybe you go up to a wall gun and get the option to double-tap X / square / f to duplicate, and it costs 5 times the price of the original gun. So like dual M14s would only be 2500 and not that great, but like dual MP40s would be 5000, or dual stakeouts would be 7500. but 4750 seems cheap for box weapons, so maybe box weapons could be a flat 8-10k. 25k+ for a single purchase just seems obnoxious.

There are some things that require team coordination that I like. "NO DONT TELEPORT YET I'M ALMOST TO THE STAGE!" Ah good times. But I always say Zombies is in away a kind of sandbox-y game. You can't win, and there are just a handful of core mechanics thrown at you, and you just do whatever you want from there. Creating some optional objectives is fun and adds to what the player feels compelled to accomplish. But if it feels mandatory it just takes the player out of control. I don't mind them, but it seems like they are de-evolving. It used to be "link these teleporters and you get PaP." (For example.) But now we go to moon, and Shang, and MotD, and the same old mechanic is harder to acquire. I don't mind new objective-y stuff though and rather enjoy it. A team coordinated staff upgrade adventure is awesome. But that's because the result is a cool new awesome thing. It goes back to what I was saying about PaP being taken for granted. One of the reasons I think we need a second one is that over time it has gotfen harder to acquire but hasn't been more beneficial to compensate. And the reason why easter eggs are losing their spark is because they are so in your face. Every map you join has Maxis or Richtofen saying "alright bitches quit your gigglin' RIGHT NOW, we got stuff to do." It is all too "on rails," which as I said defeats the purpose of the game, which is to kill zombies however the hell you want. On TranZit Maxis actually dictates steps to you somewhat. Sure Gersch whispers to you at the beginning of Ascension, but it's mysterious and 2spoopy4me. Like I said, treyarch took a step, hoping it would be in the right direction. That was good for experimenting and seeing what the community wants, spawning discussions exactly like this one. I think maybe a tentative half step back would be perfect.