How TranZit was supposed to be

[anonymous]

Quote

“Goodbye, wife number nine! I do not think I will be able to top that one! She died when I blew up the Earth! Fun times… I will miss her.” - Nikolai

*BOOM* and the Earth wad gone. Blown up. The ultimate cliffhanger to end Black Ops I Zombies. "What's next?" the fans thought. "Yeah, what's next?" the developers might have thought too...

 

After 2 years, in 2012, we were given TranZit and the rest of Black Ops II, and whenever you like it or not, you have to admit that there is something odd with it. Something not right. I don't know what exactly, but the entire thing of BO2. Take the main menu for example: Green Run has several maps, names and game modes, while all the others have only 1, or sometimes 2 game modes. "Borough", Turned and Grief in Buried, was added last-minute. Or take Die Rise: You have the whole Earth, see "Great Leap Forward" somewhere on the map, zoom in and you'll see the word "skyscraper", select it and you'll see the name "Die Rise", and then, eventually, you enter the game lobby. It just feels odd. It's like every DLC was supposed to be like Green Run, with many selectable maps and game modes. Or perhaps Green Run should have been the main item in Zombies Mode, with all DLC's surrounding it as nice little side-maps, what Downloadable Content actually should be. BO2 Zombies feels weird. Maybe even out of place sometimes. There must be something behind it, shouldn't it?

 

Yes there it. Recently, in a interview of YT folks with Blundell (yes...again. Treyarch why don't you give an interview on our forums for one time?), Blundell has explained quite some stuff about the early development of BO2: The development of TranZit. And it actually makes pretty some sense.

 

So Earth was blown up. Lava, dust and zombies everywhere: A perfect apocalyptic setting. Treyarch could just have continued with the story of Ultimis, and create what Zombies always was: Building barriers, kill zombies, turn on the power, reach the Pack a Punch and do the Easter Egg. Basically the same formula World at War to Black Ops III have. Treyarch can go on forever with this. But the developing team of Black Ops II, which were already with few people (around 30, if I remember correctly), led by the one and only Jimmy Zielinski, thought outside the box. They wanted to do something new. Something revolutionary.

 

Since WaW, Zombies Mode has grew from a bonus mode to something almost equal to Multiplayer Mode. At the end of BO1, the Zombies Mode fans had grew to a height like never before. Therefore, the developers tried to make Zombies Mode more than 1 map and 4 DLC maps. Like Multiplayer has, Zombies Mode could have different game modes. And the developers were actually working on all these different game modes! "Survival" mode would be casual zombie killing, like in WaW and BO1, comparable to the "Team Deathmatch" of Multiplayer. But instead of "Gun game", "Domination", "Capture the flag" and "Sticks and Stones", BO2 Zombie Mode wanted to provide the game modes "Race", "Grief", "Meat", "Turned", "Returned", "No Man's Land" and possibly even more. A ranking-system. Buildables. Maybe the developers even had thought of a "Create a Class" system, similar to that what BO3 Zombies has. All these gamemodes take place in the post-apocaliptic wastelands, playing as some survivors. It might be because of that that all the current smaller maps have basically no backstory: It should go about the gamemode, not the story. Just a bunch of random survivors who "play" these gamemodes, trying to stay alive in the Apokalypse. It should become absolutely ambitious.

Spoiler

A concept of the gamemode "Meat" that was leaked five years ago. Meat is the only of the many removed game modes of which we know more than only the name.

Let's take the game more "Meat" for example. The game starts with two teams, separated from each other by some kind of fence. The whole game is about, how surprising, a piece of meat. The players of one team have to throw the meat via several barriers within the fence to the other site of the map, to the other team. The site where the meat lays is the site that will be attacked by zombies. So the players of the other team have to pick up the meat and throw it as quick as possible to the other side, before the zombies kill their team. It's some kind of volleyball, and the tactic is to throw the meat to harder accisable places (like on the upper floor of the bar in town). Pretty neat game mode, ja?

 

But there was even one gamemode/map that had a bus driving you through several of the maps of the other gamemodes. This was TranZit: The canon/story map of Green Run. In this map all the smaller maps appeared parts of one big US-military scientific station, the real existing Hanford Site. The map originally had a day/night cycle (the mysterious beams and lazers are most likely a remnant of that). A second bus and bus route. And dang, this map even reintroduced a beloved character of the previous Zombie maps: Doctor Richthofen!

 

But TranZit was not the map it all should be about. It might become the biggest map and the only map continuing the story, Green Run (and BO2 as a whole) should be about the diversity of abilities. All the gamemodes and mini games is what it all is about. It's about the whole. You could maybe even compare it with Zombies in Spaceland: It's not only about surviving and the Easter egg. It is about all those neat mini games, the rollercoaster and arcade for example, too. 

 

All in all sounds very ambitious, but things changed. Having a team of 30 people thinking, developing, drawing, animating, programming and creating this in lesser than 2 years turned out to be impossible. It was not achievable. Zielinski kept faith in his project for too long, and refused to give it up for too long. At the time he saw the inconvenient truth and admitted that his vision of BO2 was impossible, it was already too late. There was no time anymore, Black Ops II would be released soon. The developers had to throw away all the stuff that was half done and not entirely done yet, and the map TranZit had some significant changes too. Only a survival bus depot, town and farm, and a grief town and farm had survived it, together with the modified TranZit. Green Run had shrunken like it was hit by a 31-79 JGb215, in both size as capabilities.

 

The game was released, and many players found TranZit a glitchy and empty map. They felt like something was missing and TranZit was condemned to the "worst zombie map ever". Die Rise, Mob of the Dead, Buried and Origins followed, like normal survival maps as we know it. Black Ops III followed, with normal maps as we know it. The casual Zombies-formula. Green Run could have been the flipping point, the map that changed zombie mode enormous. If the developers had succeed, Zombies would have look alot different today. It might look very similar to Multiplayer. Better or worse than Zombies is like today, I leave that to you.....

 

 

[RadZakpak]

I love this analysis. While I think Jimmy Zielinski should have just stuck with TranZit and improved upon it on its own, I admire his ambition. The idea of multiple game modes is something I could see being explored in the future if they ever did a zombies-based game. There's a lot they could do there. It could have the main survival map as per usual and a remake/side map as DLC. There could be a zombies campaign, maybe following Victis between Die Rise and Buried or just a completely new set of people separate from the main story, kind of like Nightmares but designed specifically for zombies. Multiplayer could have maps based on the campaign missions and zombies maps of the past, with all the usual game modes, killstreaks, and create-a-class. Then they can add bonus games like Grief, Turned, Meat, and any more they desire. I think it is doable with the team they have now, I'm just curious how the general audience would react to a zombies-centric game since many are so focused on gritty and realistic again.

[ZombiesAteMyPizza!]

You make some very good points that a lot of people have probably never thought about :) I think I said before that I don't see Jason doing an interview for CoDZ because, let's face it, this forum is DEAD compared to what it used to be. If he did an interview for a forum it'd probably be the zombies Reddit I'd imagine.

[anonymous]

2 hours ago, ZombiesAteMyPizza! said:

You make some very good points that a lot of people have probably never thought about :) I think I said before that I don't see Jason doing an interview for CoDZ because, let's face it, this forum is DEAD compared to what it used to be. If he did an interview for a forum it'd probably be the zombies Reddit I'd imagine.

Compared with what is used to be in the good old days, yes. But still not dead. There are lots of people still visiting the forums, and although the posts might dry up a bit (which is not even not entirely true: There are multiple posts posted every day), that's only normal: We are currently living in an InterGame-ium. A period between two Treyarch games, and honestly, I'm pretty hyped for the upcoming WWIIZ and its story, so that might end this period (if more people feel the same about it as me). The forum is still visited by many devoted and lesser devoted, members and guests, people! Sure, compared with the past activity, it might seem a bit little, but the forums are alive and well. And remember: Without downs there exist no peaks. Without winter exists no summer.

 

About reddit, heh (*insert annoyed face*),  they don't earn it to be chosen by Blundell to have an interview. They are with a huge number, that for sure, but most of them are more like kids. After all, it was THIS forum, together with a few others, that created the story. I only wonder if Blundell or one of the developers see comments/posts like this.

[ZombiesAteMyPizza!]

4 hours ago, anonymous said:

Compared with what is used to be in the good old days, yes. But still not dead. There are lots of people still visiting the forums, and although the posts might dry up a bit (which is not even not entirely true: There are multiple posts posted every day), that's only normal: We are currently living in an InterGame-ium. A period between two Treyarch games, and honestly, I'm pretty hyped for the upcoming WWIIZ and its story, so that might end this period (if more people feel the same about it as me). The forum is still visited by many devoted and lesser devoted, members and guests, people! Sure, compared with the past activity, it might seem a bit little, but the forums are alive and well. And remember: Without downs there exist no peaks. Without winter exists no summer.

 

About reddit, heh (*insert annoyed face*),  they don't earn it to be chosen by Blundell to have an interview. They are with a huge number, that for sure, but most of them are more like kids. After all, it was THIS forum, together with a few others, that created the story. I only wonder if Blundell or one of the developers see comments/posts like this.

 

That's pretty much what I was on about lol, only a handful of posts per day = dead. Even when Black Ops III was in season it wasn't much better, whereas the YouTube and Reddit communities are booming since DLC 5 was announced. Not that I'm bigging up the Reddit Zombies forum, which I see as a cancer to the community XD

[Slade]

I don't care what anybody says, throwing an EMP in the bus when it's in the middle of the lava and hearing the people inside freak out is still one of the best moments in Zombies ever!

[Lenne]

3 hours ago, Slade said:

I don't care what anybody says, throwing an EMP in the bus when it's in the middle of the lava and hearing the people inside freak out is still one of the best moments in Zombies ever!

 

You are my favourite troll on earth. <3

 

I never got the hate for Tranzit. I personally thought BO II lacked something in general, but not the map itself.

People just got overhyped like they usually do, but Tranzit kicked something off, @anonymous, every map in BO II feels like a different game mode, to me at least. So I can't quite agree with your last couple of sentences.

 

Other than that I enjoyed your post. So +1 to you. <3

 

[anonymous]

10 hours ago, Slade said:

I don't care what anybody says, throwing an EMP in the bus when it's in the middle of the lava and hearing the people inside freak out is still one of the best moments in Zombies ever!

It will become even more fun when at some point, the other people lose their patience and exit to bus, trying to find a way through the mysterious fog, and than hear a sound similar to a squeezing swine.

 

Glad to hear that, @Lenne!