This article would tie in nicely with one of the other popular threads here, the one about having a huge, realistic game world.

Seems like it'd be pretty easy to do for a zombie game and travel would actually be fun and scary at the same time due to the hordes of zombies all over the place.

i'd say the death penalty would be stopping any of these games from being a survival game to a simple MMO with crap all resources.

I love the idea of a open-ended, skill based survival MMO. As others have mentioned, it would also make sense to introduce the controversial concept of perma-death in such a game. It would ruin the survival experience of the game if players just respawned and rejoined the fight as if they never died. Perma-death doesn't have to be as scary or harsh as starting over from scratch every time yuo die, though. Here's a few ideas that could make the concept work.

• Advancement could be tied both to your account and to your current character. Unlocking certain skills would unlock them at character creation for new characters you create after you die. The first character you create would have a very basic set of skills to advance, and start out with 0 points in all of them. Later, when you are forced to start over after dying, you would get more skills to advance from the start, and a certain amount of skillpoints to distribute based on the total amount of time all your characters have stayed alive. Access to starting equipment could be based on the wealth previous characters have acquired.

Having some characters start out with more skills, and more assets makes perfect sense in the game's setting. A special-ops soldier or a scientist would start out with more useful skills than an errand boy, but from a game progression perspective it makes sense to make everyone start out at zero from the start. You would never be able to recreate a character you've kept alive for months from the character creation screen, but the important thing is that you don't feel all the time you have spent playing is wasted when you die.

• If a player is killed by a zombie, they turn into a zombie. The more powerful the character is when they die, the more powerful the zombie they turn into. Players can play as a zombie until they are killed, but not advance their character further. (makes no sense for a zombie to learn). Eating a lot of brains and staying "alive" long in zombie form, will however advance your account level skill pool. The turning mechanics leads to the intersting choice of killing off players before they turn into zombies. Of course, if they are really your friend, the player behind the zombie would rather commit suicide than go on a rampage among their friends... but you never know. They might be pissed off that you let them die.

Originally posted by Timberwolf0

It ain't survival horror if you don't have permanent death. I don't think most mmo players are ready for that.

Thats true, at the moment with the current generation of gamers (majority anyway) will not accept an mmo that will have perma death.

Saying that, a dev will have to make a move sometime with new generation of gamers coming through wanting new and innovating gaming designs. This wont happen anytime soon of course, but it is bound to happen. Every trend gets outdated, look at music, fashion, the way people talk and act. Same will go with MMOs, this is just the era of simplicity and eventually things will come outdated and the new gen of gamers and or new gen of developers (who might be the gamers now) will take over and create something that is new.

Thats my thought anyway.

Okay just read Zyonne's post (end page 4) and my became pointless. Great ideas in that post, would be how I'd do it. The only problem I would see is human guilds having members as (pet) zombies. But I guess thats common sense, just because you get turned doesn't mean you would all of a sudden start killing your guild members.

Also an addition to Zyonnes ideas I would add would be to have a life time based skill set maybe some kid of stat buff for staying human for longer time periods.

Edit:  guess who stopped reading on page 2, seems everyone has similar ideas, how unoriginal I am.

Originally posted by Zyonne

• If a player is killed by a zombie, they turn into a zombie. The more powerful the character is when they die, the more powerful the zombie they turn into. Players can play as a zombie until they are killed, but not advance their character further. (makes no sense for a zombie to learn). Eating a lot of brains and staying "alive" long in zombie form, will however advance your account level skill pool. The turning mechanics leads to the intersting choice of killing off players before they turn into zombies. Of course, if they are really your friend, the player behind the zombie would rather commit suicide than go on a rampage among their friends... but you never know. They might be pissed off that you let them die.

 

Some very interesting ideas there. Having a skill pool for the account sounds quite good.

You could have a friendship meter that rates all the people you group with. The more you group with someone, the better you function together, but if you go zombie - the more points they are worth if you kill them.

You guys are so predictable so obvious so common lol.

When something is hot and mass like it you genius come up with idea hey lets make a mmo out of it.

Past have learned that even when its HOT and COOL its still far from guarenteed succes.

I realy dont see why a a zombie horror MMO could be succesfull?

Movies have almost no STORY no DEPTH in them same go for LEFT4DEAD its fun, but no deep story or depth.

Terrible idea a survial horror MMO.

I say a vampire/werewolf(Lycan) MMO ala Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines or Underworld movie maybe mix of both, is good material for MMO!

Evasia, you just shot yourself straight in the foot with that post. if you given half credible reasons, might have been prepared to listen to you. for every dozen half baked zombie survival movie, there a good zombie one. Same with vampires/werewolves. From your post we can tell that you want a underworld three type MMO and nothing else. In fact it more then blooming obvious.

However going back to the whole survival MMO, Perma death for your char would have to be a must. (although I think the becoming a zombie frozen at those skills that was mentioned was a good post). There no other way you could get a realistic survival MMO working. no way. (the family idea, which I came up with on page 4, that would be a good idea to train new chars, so you dont completely start off with a noob char)

Another thing I can see from all these comments, is we pretty sick to death of NPCs. So here a little fantasy of mine, and it might come true in the future. People employed to be those NPCs. It a lot more exciting trying to find that NPC, when it could be a breathing person, cos that person could be off. (btw, I know, you would need people to cover all times zones and stuff like that to credibly do it, but, you have the bonus of that if you decide to completely changes quests, it a lot easier to tell your employee, ok we doing a different quest theme.) The thing with this would be the cost. but if you could combine the job with CSR, it might make things a little more fun.

also, yeah, we will most likely end up with a city, where there hundreds of players, and it would take armies of zombies to take down. but hey, that mostly how capital cities started out, they were good central spots to settle down, and easily defendable in times of war.

But the biggest factor I can see here is the size of the thing. You would need maps like fallout 3 times 100000 at the very least.

Great ideas here!

I would like to say a few words about what INSTANCES or PARTIES could look like. Sorry bout my english too, i know it's not perfect...

Imagine some sort of instances-like missions, as retrieving a mechanical part needed to activate a Huge broken metal gate, that would lead to another area of the World. Once a player gets the right to move on a higher level of the map then he could go back and forth without having to do it again.

That would push players to group up with other people to only have the right to move on to higher level places in the game.

Also, I can see these "instances" being an open village, or even a building, where there would be relentless assaults of a multitude of  zombies at one time and where all the spawns would be random based. Unlike most MMO's, to take a break at the middle of an instance would become impossible, decisions would have to be made more spontaneously. Instead of the usual predictable pack of  mob waiting around the corner, hordes of ennemies would target you anytime constantly (we could think of a mix of Left4dead and diablo for its multitude of mobs on screen) so that TIME could also be a factor, as the more time you will spend inside the instance, the less ammos and medical supplies you will have.. Considering this, the main factor would be the lack of ammunitions throughout the entire game. You would be able to carry only a few max ammos and would have to play conscienciously without wasting, so that MELEE becomes a huge part of the gameplay (baseball bats, pipes, axes etc...)

Following what has already been said about player's health It could be a good idea to have both a Health bar and an immunity bar. The first would be the physical damage a player would be able to take (0% means death) and the second would start raising after a first Zombie bite, and keep stacking and raising with time (0% means healthy, 100% would turn the player into a zombie and make him lose control of the character). The more advanced the mutation is, the less physical strength and accuracy the character would have, making any action slower and weaker. The players playing the roles of the Medics would then have to take care of both health and immune bar throughout the instance.

Imagine if it existed vaccins to reverse a mutation, but these would so rare and hard to make that only experienced medics could put a hand on it. That would make them not the heal-bot type anymore, but a mendatory class to play and have around. This could be a way to replace the "Resurection" mechanics.

Originally posted by maplestone

I agree you'd need permadeath for characters in any such game - you lose immersion as soon as you see your fallen comrade back up and healthy again.  Instead I'd structure it that you play an extended family caught up in the world, one member at a time - you play that character until it gets killed or goes insane, then you create a new member of the family who inherits anything in the "sanctuary".

No fixed quests, no fixed settlements.

Encampments have a safety level that rises and falls based on success in "holding back the tide", but with or without any PvP, it's a land constantly in flux where and when you log in, you may find that your sanctuary has been overrun and your fighting your way out.

Spawns are not just creatures but mini-games that spawn: invasion groups radiating out from a wandering boss, resources that can be discovered and recovered, mysterious artifacts that can be collected and researched. 

When you die, your new family member starts out with no skills and train slowly (I was always a fan of nethack).  However, the remains of your former character and their research become things that spawn in the world as the potential rewards of adventures.  The reward for these quests is to speed up the training curve to let them catch up to the previous character's level (so you're slowly advancing the "family skill set" as if the whole family was a single character, but constantly losing and recovering the family artifacts/notes representing the frontier of those skills).

Similarly, there is no safe "bank" ... if a sanctuary is overrun, your lost possessions that you had stashed there become loot to recover in future quests (it's not just sitting there to be picked up, it is saved as a potential reward for adventuring in that area).   Whether or not other players can find some or all of your old loot first is sort of a question of how PvPish you want the world to feel.

Expansions involve old lands being completely overrun with buffed encounters emerging from whatever origin for the game's threat, pushing player sanctuaries off into new maps (so in a way, the longer the game runs, the further the survivors are pushed further from the origin of the catastrophe, with the older zones becoming the higher-end content instead of the new zones - reversing the normal expansion dynamic).

Anyway, that's just my quick armchair design :)

i think a "lives" system works better. You geet a limited number of times to "cheat death" and can earn "life token" finishing tasks and such. This gives some felxability tothe new player who makes a few stupid mistakes without purma killing them. Leavesthe theat of perma death hanging over the head and would reduce "Leroy" syndrome.

"Dune i'm not doing mount killyouhellafast i only have 3 lives left, i need to earn a couple more before risking that death trap"

The idea behind this sandbox mmo is no more leveling/questing.  Sure there will be some aspect of leveling because your skills need to improve some how.  That being said, a lot of these ideas ie. perma-death and many other functions are very workable and respectable.  I believe something like this could have great sucess. Look at SWG before the NGE.

Lets just look at perma-death as the main example.  In most games if you die, you lose everything, well in "Survival MMO" everything is not based on your characters gear but what surrounding characters can craft.  Everyone has the same stats, perhaps based on a "class" (just throwing out some variety) but your items come from crafters like SWG.  Now if you die, you can start with your basic pistol go kill some stuff and then buy a m16 from a vendor, crappy at best then you can proceed to make friends with your crafters who make, special tracer ammo or hollow point ammo.  Keep things realiistic, take certain mechanics from different games and you have yourself a winner.  These are just quick idea's thrown out but I think if you did it correctly

People like survival type movies (etc.) (at least myself) becuase you think to yourself how would I fair.  This is your given oppertunity.

Zombie player class: I think giving people the oppertunity to play the zombie would be fun, but only in small doses.  Otherwise you'll have problems with population.  How many people want to play a zombie all the time, and then you start giving them bonus's like strength and speed, you will either need to give humans the same ability or none at all.  It is easy to balance a game when everyone has the same stats.  Then your issues with pvp become player ability based rather than player with best gear = winner.

0.02$

All games are difficult to develop, you can never please everyone, and its hard to please anyone.

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by vrembrantv 

That sounds great, but we would have to come up with classes of zombies that are not totally trounced by the superior firepower of the normals. Because the whole advantage zombies have over normals is the fact that they have numbers on their side.

It would require some creativity but I would love to come up with Zombie Classes.

Superior firepower would be in limited supply. Guns need ammo.

 

One of my favourite aspects of survival horror is improvising of weapons. Such weapons would be relatively easy to find and make, but fragile and of varying effectiveness. 'Pointed sticks' FTW!

and chainsaws need fuel.

I completely disagree with the OP.

There has yet to be a game in recent history to push city building into an MMO. Even though it's a great concept, it's far from a great idea to start with a Zombie MMO. The way this genre has to start is in an INSTANCED environment. Ironically a Zombie MMO is somewhat of an oxymoron. In a Zombie infested world you need to feel isolated and fighting against overwhelming numbers. In most MMO's today you are 40 people fighting a 1-5 mobs at a time. In a Zombie MMO it would be more like 6 people fighting 1,000 mobs at a time. Therefore you must isolate everyone into instanced groups.

The concept here is this, there are no levels but you train skills and pick up better weapons and armor in higher difficulty instances. Lets be simple here and say there are 100 instances, each more difficult than the last. Each instance is challenging, has it's own "open world" feel map and different hoops and obstacles needed to beat and progress. As the game matures, the developers can add more and more difficult instances and increase the number upwards from 100.

This game would be first person where you equip a Shotgun, Sniper Rifle or Wrench if you wish.

Instance #1

This will be your first tutorial, you are alone in a city infested by zombies. You are here to learn the basic controls on how to move, shoot and anything else you need. Your objective at the end of each instance is to go from point A to point B without dying.

Instance #2

You've finished the tutorial, you know how to play the game and you are immersed. You end up at the checkpoint which turns out to be a small refugee outpost. This ends up being a zone where players can meet. At this point you have achieved your first real "SAFE POINT". Therefore if you die, you come back to this zone. Here you will form a group of 6 to enter you first group based mission. In this mission you will have objectives you can complete to gain extra ammunition and improved weapons. Again this will be aan instance until you reach the next safe point.

Instance #3

Now it will start getting repetitive with the system however each instance will be uniquely different. Between each instance you can log off and stay at the location you achieved, however once you die you go back to the last "SAFE POINT". So if you died in 3 you would have to redo #2 again. The next safe point could be at instance 5 or something along those lines. Simply put: Don't die. You cannot ressurect fallen comrades but you will be using each other to cure zombie infections and you have a time limit to do it, so stay close.

You can think of each instance like a quest. One could be you would have to travel through a tunnel system and push through the zombies on the way to the next checkpoint. Another could be you would have to rescue a small girl out of a building, then the person who asked you to do that would help you over an obstacle onto the next stage.

I don't believe class system would work well here, only an FPS system would do. If you have the weapon, you equip it. Sometimes the weapon might jam/break and you would need to pull out a new one in quick succession. Theres no need for hot keys other than the standard MMO fare. It would be pretty much just a Cooperative FPS with a unique lobby (checkpoint) system. The game world would be much like GTA with ruined buildings and flaming cars.

This certainly wouldn't be a solo game, if you wanted to solo go play one of the 50+ Zombie shooters out there, this would be for cooperative play.

For end game material, I'd say a repetitive last 10 instances where each time you go through the 10 instances they get progressively harder. The goal would be to get to the highest level instance you can.

Why not a...

X-COM (UFO: Enemy Unknown) MMO?

Vikings MMO?

Europe middle-ages MMO?

Cavemen tribes MMO?

Native American MMO?

Master of Orion MMO?

....

I could go on, these are all interesting themes to me. BUT really the most important thing is HOW IT IS DONE, and the game's FUN factor. That alone differentiates great MMORPGs from bad ones.

I could play and enjoy a game which is fun to me, even though the THEME isn't interesting to me AT ALL (for example Star Wars Galaxies (preCU)).

Originally posted by elderotter

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

Originally posted by vrembrantv 

That sounds great, but we would have to come up with classes of zombies that are not totally trounced by the superior firepower of the normals. Because the whole advantage zombies have over normals is the fact that they have numbers on their side.

It would require some creativity but I would love to come up with Zombie Classes.

Superior firepower would be in limited supply. Guns need ammo.

 

One of my favourite aspects of survival horror is improvising of weapons. Such weapons would be relatively easy to find and make, but fragile and of varying effectiveness. 'Pointed sticks' FTW!

and chainsaws need fuel.

Indeed. Fuel would be a MAJOR limitation for various machines and transportation. Think of `The Road Warrior`, but more extreme`- plus there are monsters.

I think leveling should be of minor significance. Only minor improvements to personal stats, but much potential to upgrade skills. Anyone can pull a trigger on a gun, but to load it properly requires a little skill. To maintain it properly requires more skill. To adapt or fix it requires lots of skill.

IF you have perma-death, then you don`t want a lengthy leveling period on reroll. You want a player to think Òh, I died!`, not `Oh, now I have to level up again.` There should not be a great difference in basic abilities between experienced characters and lowbies.`All characters should have SOME value in a fight.

Regardless, when a player dies, let him have a choice of rerolling a human, or playing on as a zombie. When the zombie is destroyed - then reroll as a new Human.

 There was an indie mmo being made which was all about zombie survival, but it got shut down a while back.

I think its a great idea, but as various people have stated a theme park style version would suck.

Sandbox is what its all about; make the players have to simply survive the zombies, ensuring the following:

1. A fresh supply of water

2. A supply of food

3. A way of keeping the zombies away

The entire game should be about this, either players going out and finding the supplies from the world, or the players taking the supplies from other players who already have them (or trading them between themselves).

Do not have ANY quests in the game, just have the basic needs of the players as a constant task, with water supplies and food stocks going mouldy or becoming polluted. 

Concerning levels and classes, dont bother, just have a skil system that allows you to use different equipment as you gain more experience, levelling the playing field for all players and making every player worthwhile, allowing you not to worry about having easy and hard zones.

Players would be able to construct their own buidlings, or more likely convert existing structures for their use, making hospitals (spawn points), kitchens, sleeping quarters (ups the bound player limits), wells and storage areas.  To help them with defence they could build baricades, walls and weapon turrets.   

Starting the game should be done so that the player starts in the only safe places (perhaps military forts) in the game, and then once they know the controls they are kicked out into the wastes to fend for themselves at which point they have to travel to any safe havens that have been built by the playerbase, or try to fend for themselves.  If you die, you respawn at the nearest military base, and your corpse spawns a zombie.  Players should also be able to respawn at player built hospitals if they have visited them.

Clans would be very important, working together to survive and prosper.

Originally posted by FastTx

I completely disagree with the OP.

There has yet to be a game in recent history to push city building into an MMO. Even though it's a great concept, it's far from a great idea to start with a Zombie MMO. The way this genre has to start is in an INSTANCED environment. Ironically a Zombie MMO is somewhat of an oxymoron. In a Zombie infested world you need to feel isolated and fighting against overwhelming numbers. In most MMO's today you are 40 people fighting a 1-5 mobs at a time. In a Zombie MMO it would be more like 6 people fighting 1,000 mobs at a time. Therefore you must isolate everyone into instanced groups.

The concept here is this, there are no levels but you train skills and pick up better weapons and armor in higher difficulty instances. Lets be simple here and say there are 100 instances, each more difficult than the last. Each instance is challenging, has it's own "open world" feel map and different hoops and obstacles needed to beat and progress. As the game matures, the developers can add more and more difficult instances and increase the number upwards from 100.

This game would be first person where you equip a Shotgun, Sniper Rifle or Wrench if you wish.

Instance #1

This will be your first tutorial, you are alone in a city infested by zombies. You are here to learn the basic controls on how to move, shoot and anything else you need. Your objective at the end of each instance is to go from point A to point B without dying.

Instance #2

You've finished the tutorial, you know how to play the game and you are immersed. You end up at the checkpoint which turns out to be a small refugee outpost. This ends up being a zone where players can meet. At this point you have achieved your first real "SAFE POINT". Therefore if you die, you come back to this zone. Here you will form a group of 6 to enter you first group based mission. In this mission you will have objectives you can complete to gain extra ammunition and improved weapons. Again this will be aan instance until you reach the next safe point.

Instance #3

Now it will start getting repetitive with the system however each instance will be uniquely different. Between each instance you can log off and stay at the location you achieved, however once you die you go back to the last "SAFE POINT". So if you died in 3 you would have to redo #2 again. The next safe point could be at instance 5 or something along those lines. Simply put: Don't die. You cannot ressurect fallen comrades but you will be using each other to cure zombie infections and you have a time limit to do it, so stay close.

You can think of each instance like a quest. One could be you would have to travel through a tunnel system and push through the zombies on the way to the next checkpoint. Another could be you would have to rescue a small girl out of a building, then the person who asked you to do that would help you over an obstacle onto the next stage.

I don't believe class system would work well here, only an FPS system would do. If you have the weapon, you equip it. Sometimes the weapon might jam/break and you would need to pull out a new one in quick succession. Theres no need for hot keys other than the standard MMO fare. It would be pretty much just a Cooperative FPS with a unique lobby (checkpoint) system. The game world would be much like GTA with ruined buildings and flaming cars.

This certainly wouldn't be a solo game, if you wanted to solo go play one of the 50+ Zombie shooters out there, this would be for cooperative play.

For end game material, I'd say a repetitive last 10 instances where each time you go through the 10 instances they get progressively harder. The goal would be to get to the highest level instance you can.

ShawdowBane was about city building.

Originally posted by Yellowman26

have it all one server, like eve, but! a place is chosen at random. (I know this will P off some people who like to play with friends) all the major cities in the world, and people scattered around them. Now for the first month or so of the MMO, zombies will be easy. this will give a people to start building some skills and stuff. but then the attacks start gettting bigger.

  Now as you rebuild, you get access to technology like plane or helicopter and can keep them running so you can visit othe cities. now as population get redistributed in these towns, some of these towns will get run over as people leave til there only say one safe area. this is where a helicopter land, and you get given two choices. either try to make more safe spots or visit if any, or raids.

Now the safe spots that are built by players are ruled by players. better not ninja loot people or something cos in a big zombie overrun session, the nearest safe house, the only one you can get to, is player owned. and you ninja looted him last week. so your dead. perma dead.

But hey, you left behind a son or daughter! they have acess to all your own stuff that you may have stored, bad news is, they may only have little skills, or (taking a leaf from eve) if you chose play/train with son/daughter then that person has some skills. that way, if you dont like your char, start training up your next one, and then when it ready, go on a rampage against zombies with the old one.

Be warned though, wouldnt go on a rampage against other people when trying to die, cos last name is always kept that would be the name that gets blocked. so that rampage could cost your son hefty fines or equipment confisicated with safehouses blocked against him, the only area you can go is the helicopter compound, and well, those are crap. but well it law of the jungle out there.

For the playing with friends problem - Maybe there'd be some way to tag an invite with a location. If a friend uses your invite link to sub to the game, they spawn somewhere relative to your base. Maybe not the most realistic convention, but something player-friendly that makes the game a bit more welcoming to new players.

I really like the idea of a family of characters with skills and gear to be passed on to your next character. With perma-death, it would help keep the game from being repetitive.

But how would you build your family? Would they just follow you around unseen? Would you rescue an NPC and have that person become your spouse/child? Maybe there's not biological relation, just clan membership - you join a clan, then when you die, your next character gets an automatic membership in that clan and access to your stuff? With the option to strike out on your own at any time, but you lose any clan-related benefits such as loot storage? 

Characters should remain in some sort of sleeping or resting mode in the gameworld if the player logs out.

Think twice before logging out somewhere in the middle of the street, rather find a very safe and remote spot that provides safety from both other players and zombies for the next 12hrs. Otherwise you may find your character's stuff stolen by other players or you being surrounded by zombies when you log in again the other day.

Originally posted by VoIgore

Characters should remain in some sort of sleeping or resting mode in the gameworld if the player logs out.

Think twice before logging out somewhere in the middle of the street, rather find a very safe and remote spot that provides safety from both other players and zombies for the next 12hrs. Otherwise you may find your character's stuff stolen by other players or you being surrounded by zombies when you log in again the other day.

Excellent idea... add to your concerns: Being used for bait by those alive players who wish to lure the Zombies in.

I don't know much about Fallen Earth but it seems to be moving in the survival horror direction, no?

Wow... sounds amazing... ive been waiting for some1 to try the survival horror MMO! It's something different from all the genres out there. I'm looking forward to this!

 Zombie Classes::

Shambler: Slow and tough. Can take a lot of punishment, and they are immune to critical damage. They would not have a sprint to chase ability like other zombies might.

Runner: Quick and deadly. This zombie makes its mark by not being hit and being able to run down fleeing survivors. They lack the hit points of their Shambler counterparts, but make up for it by being harder to hit. They also dont hit as hard, but would hit more often.

Thinker: This ones not quite brain dead. They have retained some semblance of understanding of how things work. These are the zombies that are going to pick up the sword or gun and use it against you. They wont be able to reload, nor will they be using electricity or cars. But the item use does make them a foe to be reckoned with.

Healer: Something about the virus that changed this zombie made it different. It is able to secrete fluids ( akin to the original virus that changed the humans to zombies), those fluids can be used on other zombies to help repair the damage that has been done to them.

Back Story:

Perhaps the start of this is a terrorist attack on a medical facility. The facility was researching Nano-tech viruses as a way to combat AIDS and Cancers. The terrorists break in ( an unnamed group to be found out later, perhaps they are part of the government that oversees one of the human safe zones, called Bastion.) they steal an unspecified amount of the viral nanites and then weaponize them.  They plan on using the nanites in majo metropolitan areas. To get them to the areas where they will be detonated ( this group does not have access to missles or rockets, the fact that they managed to weaponize the nanites at all is mind blowing) they carry them in back packs on subways or trains or in one case a small airplane. Unbeknownst to the agents carrying the "Viral Bombs", the method used to weaponize the nanites has weakened the containment around them as well as altered them. The containments on these shipments fails at some critical point and people become contaminated.

The subway incident is viewed a a Chemical or biological attack and is handled accordingly but not before people who panic can manage to get out of the train and run into the city. The train incident causes a fight to break out on the train eventually working its way up to the engine, the fight causes the train to go uncontrolled where it flies off a bridge into a water source. Many people are rescued only to return home to contaminate even those who wouldnt be consuming the water that is also now contaminated.

The plane incident is by some accounts the worse. The outbreak on the plane is contained but that means there is a larger amount of nanites to affect the passengers. They begin to turn. The plane crashes into downtown. The resulting explosion aerosoles the nanites.

I think it would be hard to pull off.  MMO's are usually geared towards the many(players) against the few (NPC's/raid bosses/encounters).  So how would You turn that on it's head and give players the feeling of surviving against insurmountable odds? 

It's a neat idea.  Left 4 Dead of course comes to mind even though there is no persistent world.  The more I think about it the more I think it would be too difficult to pull it off properly.  Unless it was heavily instanced and somewhat similar to how Hellgate London was done.  Even though that didn't work out well.

I have always thought that this would be a fun and exciting game...if done right.

For starters, map out a region of, lets say, the US...within this section there are is a city of large size, 2-3 small cities and a dozen or so towns of various size. All of the buildings would need to be accessable and open.

Create a system for weapon creation/modification. If I wanted a bowie knife tied to my machine gun, or a long pole...I want to be able to do it.

Add zombies. (and maybe the zombies begin mutating into other monsterous zombie types, or animals become infected)

Every new player would start in a remote...random area. Maybe somewhere close to a location related to their "former occupation", so a cop would start near a police station, a doctor near a hospital, etc. Now say random because survivors would be randomly dispersed through out the world, no noobie zone start points. Survivor Towns would be dispersed all over...heck maybe even player made only...

Resource Harvesting would mainly be scavenging.

As time goes on...and I am sure it wouldn't actually be too long...those that are bored with killing zombies would turn on other player towns to attempt hostile take overs.

Yup...totally fun.