Joy, Drama, Humor, Horror, Blood, Guts And Gunfire
AUTHOR: Phinney
For seven years, I headed up game design at ArenaNet, working with a family of friends to create the Guild Wars games. I am tremendously proud of the work we did together and of the world that millions of players have lived in and enjoyed.
Still, when the opportunity came to join Jeff at Undead Labs, I didn’t hesitate. I knew I could do so safely. Guild Wars 2 is well in hand. Eric Flannum has been at the helm as lead designer for more than a year now, taking the concepts we developed at the start of the project and bringing them to life. He and I are long-time friends and partners-in-crime, working together on Warcraft II, Diablo, Starcraft, Sacrifice, and every Guild Wars release to date. I have complete confidence in the game that he and the team will make.
I am ready for a new challenge, and this is the perfect opportunity to do something groundbreaking and amazing. Console zombie-survival MMO. If your heart doesn’t race a little at the possibilities, check to make sure you’ve got a pulse at all.
Let’s start with a game that has the kind of shotgun-blast, chainsaw-to-the-head, makeshift-flamethrower, plow-through-twenty-zombies-with-a-pickup-truck gameplay that a zombie game deserves. And let’s elevate it to something more. This isn’t the story of surviving for half an hour. It isn’t about making it from one end of a map to the other. It’s about players coming together as a community and rebuilding civilization after total societal collapse.
Where will you establish your home? How many people can you rescue? Can you find sources of food and water and ammo? Most of all, how will you hold off the zombie hordes? When you’re wading in and hacking up zombies, when you’re luring a zombie horde to a booby-trapped gas station, when you’re raiding a sporting goods store for more bullets, it’s for a reason. This isn’t a canned, theme-park MMO. It’s a world to be reconquered and rebuilt. A world that actually evolves based on player actions. A world where you care about everything that’s happening because it actually matters. A world full of zombies and those who stand against them.
We’re just getting started here at Undead Labs. We still have a long way to go to deliver on our goals, but already a vision is crystallizing for a game not bound by out-dated, boilerplate MMO conventions and instead focused on all the joy, drama, humor, horror, blood, guts and gunfire that make you love zombies.
Phinney
[PS: If you just can't get enough Phinney and want to know more about him, be sure to check out Jeff's introduction.]
Honestly, I can’t believe this. Three weeks ago I left a post on a favorite web comic forum of mine and created a thread about the lack of a TRUE zombie MMO and what should be in it, from scavenging mechanics, to end game goals, to reanimation, etc… now I realize that this may be a reality. Please let us, the public, know how we can contribute.
I know that others have asked this question but will this zombie mmo magic word right there (MMO) will be in fps,or big world view,or or third person view really hope it`s not birds eye view because that will automatically have less gamers playing this game. i am just saying remember what I say is just good feed back for you guys I mean really take it as a good thing. just looking to help here!
I bring this up again because i am not familiar with mmo`s and you guys say this is going to be a console game so is pc considered console i am so confused with what you guys mean when you say it`s a console game but really sounds like it`s going to be on the pc. some one in the comments below tell me straight.
any way again I just wonder in what view the game will be in if you would ask me as a zombie playing zombie watching person who loves to kill or even be a zombie I would say it would be best in a third person view you guys.
Honestly,birds eye worlds eye map views all of these kind of view are completely pointless for being a zombie game. because players would rather in my experience like to see zombies up close and personal not from the sky where you can control everything with the mouce cause that`s what i am afraid of cause that`s what a mmo sounds like to me so in closing third person or fps just sayin….
jesse i think when they say consol they mean consol’s by that i mean the ps3/360. and i hope the guys here open up something like a thread that alows us to input or ideas to them and they take ideas that would seem like there going for and they would credit that person for the input. i hope this game will be a realistic zombie mmo (headshots kill humens and zombies in 1 headshot no matter what leval or what gun 1 hs= death) and you will have blockoffs but offcourse you can allways find ways around or you can drive your truck in through them or beat them down with a sludge hammer lol, and when you get gas for your vehical you would have to either go to a zombie infested gas station(that might not even have gas) or you can syphe gas from cars on a highway.
so make an update post asking fans to put in what they think would be cool in a zombie mmo, then if you guys think it can work then give the fan some credit and work out how you will put it in the game. this whole msg is just a suggestion. so comeon were a family here we all gotta chip in 
and offcourse you can weld things on your vehical to make it extra protected/deadly…. maybe im going in way over my head but i have a wish list that me and a buddy made, describeing what we wanna see in the game, everything from accessable buildings to, weapons, to diffrent locations (not just the city but nearby towns or even a farm) we also have a list of classes we would like to see and we even got their starting items/clothing/perks listed for each class. and even starting locations (cop would start in police station, firefighter would start in burning building or fire dept) but the possibilitys for this game is unlimited! please undead labs let us help you, you cant make up every idea yourself, your gonna need some help from the fans
greates game ever ^^
I cannot wait for this game to come out, or even when we can get concept art or a trailer. I’d love to see all that this game has to offer, and what it can become. It could open a door to new types of online play.
One thing that I’m surprised hasn’t been implemented yet is a forum board for news updates, suggestions by members, and general chitchat. If that could be implemented, I believe the fanbase could be drastically increased and the general popularity of the game could be judged by the number of members on the forum.
I agree with T-King-667 on having a spot where you share your ideas and I like most of his ideas. For me I would like you to be able to be a cop,swat and army. The place I would go to survive would be walmart because its huge and there is food and everything you need to survive maybe no guns but tons of melee weapons. remember these are just my ideas I am not telling you to do this it just would be cool. I think that if you want everyone to not be able to leave the town the airport should be destroyed because of a giant jumble jet crashed into it and all roads are blocked by abandoned roadblocks with tanks or swat vehicles or whatever. Well I hope to get more news soon bye
Please, please, please, just put in at least 1 trap where you can rickroll zombies to death.
are you going to introduce anyone else?
Absolutely. Very soon.
okay cool
This is amazing really everything i want as a gamer and developer. im goin to college next semester and getting my bachelors degree. any reccomendations? what would I need to get a job at Undead Labs (as a designer).
Cody, five years ago, I might have told you to save your money. I hadn’t seen any signs of schools doing a decent job of teaching game design. In recent years, I’ve seen some decent designers come out of Digipen, Full Sail, and the Guildhall at SMU. There’s a lot of theory to learn and a lot of organization and communication skills to develop, but more than anything else, the key to growing as a game designer is hands-on game development. I know that all of those programs give you a chance to do that.
(Disclaimers: I can’t speak firsthand to the quality of education acquired at these places, and I don’t have a strong basis for comparing them to other schools offering degrees in game design. The only thing I can tell you is that those three schools will not necessarily prevent you from being a decent game designer or from finding work as a game designer.)
I’d also recommend trying to get some temp work in QA while you’re in school, both to get a better perspective on commercial game development and to start to establish contacts within the industry.
Oh, and thanks for all the words of support, everyone. This first month has been very hectic but also very productive and very fun. Now that we’ve started to get our feet under us a bit more, we are expecting to be a little more active on the blog.
Obviously we won’t be able to talk about the game in too much detail for a while, but we’ll share what we can and just generally try to keep you apprised of how things are going at the Lab. (And, who knows, there may be hints about gameplay in some of the other posts.)