We hope everyone is having a great Summer full of lots of fun! We're also having so much fun working on the final stages of the build. Unfortunately, we likely won't be able to reach a Summer release due to features that need to be adjusted and tweaked, as well as bugs and issues that need to be ironed out before release. So that means we'll have to release sometime in the Fall, but it should be well worth the wait.

Like our last announcement, we have so much to discuss about our development progress and what we've done the past few months. While our main priority is security and game stability - we're always working toward improving our ability to develop with the addition of new content such as entities, animations, props and textures. As development has gone on, we’ve listened to the ideas and feedback of the community, and taken the time to implement ideas that we’ve agreed with and/or have seen as possible to address without delaying the release. Let's get straight to introducing some of these things to you, shall we?


Zombie Panic! Source will now have Angelscript support in v3.0, it works similar to how NUTscript works for Left 4 Dead 2 or Contagion. Angelscript was added to cut down the entdata for maps that use a lot of entities to make certain math related sequences.

At this moment, Angelscript is only supported for maps, but will have added support for plugins in the near future sometime after v3.0. For those who know C or C++, they will understand the basics of Angelscript. For those who don't, there is an Angelscript documentation to get you started once v3.0 goes live!

There will also be a ZPS API documentation for Angelscript, which will be easy to navigate. This documentation API will be available once v3.0 goes live!




We've been working really hard preparing Linux binaries for v3.0, we need to fix all current crashes and incompatibility issues within our build. We're doing everything we can to make Linux support happen for our Linux users out there, both server and client! We would like to give a special thanks to one of our testers, Shepard62FR, who is assisting our programmer with this huge task!


If you've watched our Twitch development streams in the past, you may already be aware that Ratboy was modeling destructible doors. You can set the HP of the door and they'll have a certain amount of stages to break through. The door will become more broken the more damage you do to it, until it breaks to pieces and falls off the hinge.



Trigger_infect/uninfect

• If the player touches trigger_infect, depending on how much % the trigger is set to (example; some can be set to 10%, or others will be 25% etc), they will get infected. Also if your health is 25 or lower, you have a higher risk of getting infected.
  
• If the player touches trigger_uninfect, their infection will be removed immediately.

Trigger_health

• This trigger will either slowly or quickly heal the player, or set their health to a specific amount. But it cannot go above or beyond their actual max health.

Trigger_barricade

• When this trigger is enabled it will destroy any barricades it comes in contact with.

Trigger_escape

• The trigger_escape works similar to how escaping worked in Contagion. Instead of instantly triggering a Survivor win like how it normally works on objective maps, this trigger will cause the individual player who touched it to escape. Escaping results in the player being switched to the spectator team and receiving additional points for achieving their own victory, their weapons and ammo do not drop to the ground. After 30 seconds, those players can join the zombie team to help finish off the round.
  
  This trigger will work great on certain maps by keeping them from ending abruptly when there's still lots of fun action that could unfold. It will also make it more urgent that the player successfully escape instead of trying to camp and rack up as many kills as they want, since they'll eventually get overrun and killed by the other players who already escaped. (Although that strategy of camping for kills in objective maps can never completely be prevented by us, and it will require moderation of the server if players feel that it's an issue.)

The game instructor is the same one used by Alien Swarm and Left 4 Dead. It can be used to teach new players how to perform actions and abilities, and be used to relay other important information to players.

It will tell players things like how to manage their inventory as survivor, not to damage your teammates, how to Roar and Spot as the Carrier, things like that which will be important for new players to learn, or things that are important to inform the player of.



The game instructor can also display a temporary beacon with text. One of the ways we've implemented this is for when someone requests weapons or ammo, you'll see a beacon display on the player who requested the item with text explaining what they requested.


The backpack was originally intended to serve as a visual indication that a player is carrying an item_deliver (the objective items that you carry in your inventory), for those that don't have their own world model to display. But we're still debating what other uses to implement the backpack for. For v3.0 this will likely remain its only use, but in the future this might change.

This model was developed by our modeler, Darb Dude! As some of you might be able to tell - the selection of this particular looking backpack was inspired from the backpack which was used in the original Zombie Panic! mod for Half-life.




Creating new sexier models, props, textures, and sounds - reworking animations is in one of our future plans both before and after the v3.0 update. Jonnyboy has been working hard to improve as best as he can our survivor animations, especially the reload and idle animations, which you can see in those images below.






The item_deliver now has the option to be set to require two hands to carry it, making the player vulnerable and unable to attack until they drop it. This will make it important for players to be very cautious or have a teammate around when transporting these items. The idea for this was inspired from the two-handed items used in L4D, such as the gas cans and propane tanks.


We're removing the limitations from infection, such as not being able to chat, and not being able to manage your inventory or interact with items. We've decided to remove these limitations because they don't actually prevent griefing/trolling like they were probably intended to do. The player will ultimately find some way to troll or grief if they really want, limiting the players' ability was not the proper way to try to prevent that. It just made it more frustrating to play when you were infected if you actually tried to survive as long as you could. We also feel the limitations didn't offer much in terms of immersion, it was more frustrating than immersive.

When it comes down to trolling or griefing, we'll do what we can from a development perspective to prevent it - but with this issue in particular there was no good solution that worked well. It will be up to the server owners to decide if doing things like hiding or wasting ammo before they turn into a zombie is against their rules or not. It will also be up to their own community to help enforce that rule.

To help limit a players' ability to perform actions which will give them an advantage when they turn into a zombie from infection - we've reduced the known infection time to 10-15 seconds. That means you will only get an indication of your infection 10-15 seconds before you turn. This is to reduce the time the player will have to react to their infection, giving them less time to do something which will sabotage the survivor team and give them an advantage when they transfer to the zombie team.


We've implemented some restrictions to the zombie selection code that selects which players are going to be zombie at the start of the round. We've made it so that a player will no longer be zombie twice in a row, unless they volunteer for it. The less times you've been zombie, the more chance you'll have of being chosen as a starting zombie if there's no volunteers. But also the more you volunteer for zombie, the less chance you'll have of becoming zombie against others volunteers who haven't been zombie as many times.

This is to help prevent people unfairly being chosen as a starting zombie multiple times in a row, when other players haven't been chosen at all. It will also make it more fair for people to have a chance to be a starting zombie if there's a lot of other players volunteering, so that the same few people aren't always getting starting zombie.


While bullets penetrating through teammates is a bit unrealistic, we felt this was a necessary addition for multiple reasons. One issue is that you can have a room full of people like the living room on harvest, where there's not a whole lot of room to shoot past your teammates - and a lot of people end up blocking each others' bullets unintentionally. Then there's griefers who will intentionally stand in your way in an attempt to waste your ammo or get you killed.



So we've implemented bullet penetration through teammates in order to solve these issues. What bullet penetration does is allow bullets to penetrate through teammates, and reduced the damage of bullets which have penetrated through teammates. But we understand that some people might not enjoy this feature, and we've decided to make this an optional cvar that server owners can control.


Bullets will now have drop-off damage, meaning that the further a bullet travels the less damage it will do until its damage is completely negated and reduced to 0. This is intended to keep players from being able to snipe across the map with every firearm. We can properly limit their range, thus helping to balance out the effectiveness of wide open areas.


It is no secret that our team’s priority is to develop the original design of the game. It is undoubtedly the design we cherish and wish to expand upon. However, this doesn't mean that we look at custom content with ill intentions.

We understand that the reality of the new update breaking a lot of custom content is scary but it is by no means intentional. It’s a matter of the two engines being different. Triggers, events, and entities are named differently, updated or just don’t exist anymore so naturally most SourceMod plugins won’t know what’s up or down.

Our team is not going to spend time updating all custom content. We simply don’t have the time. It has always been the community’s responsibility to update their own content. We'll be releasing our Mod Tools completely updated once the v3.0 update rolls out. From there, you'll be able to create your own maps and upload them to the Workshop!


For the past 4 or so months, Janaz Leonheart, owner of Vertigo Gaming, has been working on updating SourceMod so that it is ready when the update launches. He is currently awaiting some finalization of our Linux build to continue his work. He has also been helping us with his extensive knowledge of exploits used to attack other servers, making sure that the build is as secure as possible. Once his work is complete, he has agreed to release it, along with a guide and whatever plugins he may have updated in the testing phase, publicly for the entire community to use.

His work is not part of our development, they are two separate processes. We are merely overseeing his work while we focus on our own.


Twitch Development Streams
When we first started our development streams, we planned to be streaming weekly on Fridays. But due to our schedules, the lack of work suitable for streaming and people willing to stream - we're unable to deliver on that promise. From now on the streams will be as we're able to do them, which we'll inform you of through Tweets and the Channel Feed on our Twitch Page, as well as posting a Steam Event once we're live.

You can always check out the past broadcasts directly on our Twitch page (these VODs only stay up for 2 weeks), or we've started archiving these streams on our YouTube channel.




YouTube Channel
While we don't have much of anything uploaded to our YouTube channel yet. We plan to be uploading our teasers, trailers, and other videos to this channel. We would appreciate it if you'd all help support the channel by going and subscribing to it for future content.

We're very thankful of the huge support everyone has been giving us, it means a lot to us!

-Zombie Panic! Development Team


Follow us on social media at:

We hope everyone is having a great Summer full of lots of fun! We're also having so much fun working on the final stages of the build. Unfortunately, we likely won't be able to reach a Summer release due to features that need to be adjusted and tweaked, as well as bugs and issues that need to be ironed out before release. So that means we'll have to release sometime in the Fall, but it should be well worth the wait.

Like our last announcement, we have so much to discuss about our development progress and what we've done the past few months. While our main priority is security and game stability - we're always working toward improving our ability to develop with the addition of new content such as entities, animations, props and textures. As development has gone on, we’ve listened to the ideas and feedback of the community, and taken the time to implement ideas that we’ve agreed with and/or have seen as possible to address without delaying the release. Let's get straight to introducing some of these things to you, shall we?


Zombie Panic! Source will now have Angelscript support in v3.0, it works similar to how NUTscript works for Left 4 Dead 2 or Contagion. Angelscript was added to cut down the entdata for maps that use a lot of entities to make certain math related sequences.

At this moment, Angelscript is only supported for maps, but will have added support for plugins in the near future sometime after v3.0. For those who know C or C++, they will understand the basics of Angelscript. For those who don't, there is an Angelscript documentation to get you started once v3.0 goes live!

There will also be a ZPS API documentation for Angelscript, which will be easy to navigate. This documentation API will be available once v3.0 goes live!




We've been working really hard preparing Linux binaries for v3.0, we need to fix all current crashes and incompatibility issues within our build. We're doing everything we can to make Linux support happen for our Linux users out there, both server and client! We would like to give a special thanks to one of our testers, Shepard62FR, who is assisting our programmer with this huge task!


If you've watched our Twitch development streams in the past, you may already be aware that Ratboy was modeling destructible doors. You can set the HP of the door and they'll have a certain amount of stages to break through. The door will become more broken the more damage you do to it, until it breaks to pieces and falls off the hinge.



Trigger_infect/uninfect

• If the player touches trigger_infect, depending on how much % the trigger is set to (example; some can be set to 10%, or others will be 25% etc), they will get infected. Also if your health is 25 or lower, you have a higher risk of getting infected.
  
• If the player touches trigger_uninfect, their infection will be removed immediately.

Trigger_health

• This trigger will either slowly or quickly heal the player, or set their health to a specific amount. But it cannot go above or beyond their actual max health.

Trigger_barricade

• When this trigger is enabled it will destroy any barricades it comes in contact with.

Trigger_escape

• The trigger_escape works similar to how escaping worked in Contagion. Instead of instantly triggering a Survivor win like how it normally works on objective maps, this trigger will cause the individual player who touched it to escape. Escaping results in the player being switched to the spectator team and receiving additional points for achieving their own victory, their weapons and ammo do not drop to the ground. After 30 seconds, those players can join the zombie team to help finish off the round.
  
  This trigger will work great on certain maps by keeping them from ending abruptly when there's still lots of fun action that could unfold. It will also make it more urgent that the player successfully escape instead of trying to camp and rack up as many kills as they want, since they'll eventually get overrun and killed by the other players who already escaped. (Although that strategy of camping for kills in objective maps can never completely be prevented by us, and it will require moderation of the server if players feel that it's an issue.)

The game instructor is the same one used by Alien Swarm and Left 4 Dead. It can be used to teach new players how to perform actions and abilities, and be used to relay other important information to players.

It will tell players things like how to manage their inventory as survivor, not to damage your teammates, how to Roar and Spot as the Carrier, things like that which will be important for new players to learn, or things that are important to inform the player of.



The game instructor can also display a temporary beacon with text. One of the ways we've implemented this is for when someone requests weapons or ammo, you'll see a beacon display on the player who requested the item with text explaining what they requested.


The backpack was originally intended to serve as a visual indication that a player is carrying an item_deliver (the objective items that you carry in your inventory), for those that don't have their own world model to display. But we're still debating what other uses to implement the backpack for. For v3.0 this will likely remain its only use, but in the future this might change.

This model was developed by our modeler, Darb Dude! As some of you might be able to tell - the selection of this particular looking backpack was inspired from the backpack which was used in the original Zombie Panic! mod for Half-life.




Creating new sexier models, props, textures, and sounds - reworking animations is in one of our future plans both before and after the v3.0 update. Jonnyboy has been working hard to improve as best as he can our survivor animations, especially the reload and idle animations, which you can see in those images below.






The item_deliver now has the option to be set to require two hands to carry it, making the player vulnerable and unable to attack until they drop it. This will make it important for players to be very cautious or have a teammate around when transporting these items. The idea for this was inspired from the two-handed items used in L4D, such as the gas cans and propane tanks.


We're removing the limitations from infection, such as not being able to chat, and not being able to manage your inventory or interact with items. We've decided to remove these limitations because they don't actually prevent griefing/trolling like they were probably intended to do. The player will ultimately find some way to troll or grief if they really want, limiting the players' ability was not the proper way to try to prevent that. It just made it more frustrating to play when you were infected if you actually tried to survive as long as you could. We also feel the limitations didn't offer much in terms of immersion, it was more frustrating than immersive.

When it comes down to trolling or griefing, we'll do what we can from a development perspective to prevent it - but with this issue in particular there was no good solution that worked well. It will be up to the server owners to decide if doing things like hiding or wasting ammo before they turn into a zombie is against their rules or not. It will also be up to their own community to help enforce that rule.

To help limit a players' ability to perform actions which will give them an advantage when they turn into a zombie from infection - we've reduced the known infection time to 10-15 seconds. That means you will only get an indication of your infection 10-15 seconds before you turn. This is to reduce the time the player will have to react to their infection, giving them less time to do something which will sabotage the survivor team and give them an advantage when they transfer to the zombie team.


We've implemented some restrictions to the zombie selection code that selects which players are going to be zombie at the start of the round. We've made it so that a player will no longer be zombie twice in a row, unless they volunteer for it. The less times you've been zombie, the more chance you'll have of being chosen as a starting zombie if there's no volunteers. But also the more you volunteer for zombie, the less chance you'll have of becoming zombie against others volunteers who haven't been zombie as many times.

This is to help prevent people unfairly being chosen as a starting zombie multiple times in a row, when other players haven't been chosen at all. It will also make it more fair for people to have a chance to be a starting zombie if there's a lot of other players volunteering, so that the same few people aren't always getting starting zombie.


While bullets penetrating through teammates is a bit unrealistic, we felt this was a necessary addition for multiple reasons. One issue is that you can have a room full of people like the living room on harvest, where there's not a whole lot of room to shoot past your teammates - and a lot of people end up blocking each others' bullets unintentionally. Then there's griefers who will intentionally stand in your way in an attempt to waste your ammo or get you killed.



So we've implemented bullet penetration through teammates in order to solve these issues. What bullet penetration does is allow bullets to penetrate through teammates, and reduced the damage of bullets which have penetrated through teammates. But we understand that some people might not enjoy this feature, and we've decided to make this an optional cvar that server owners can control.


Bullets will now have drop-off damage, meaning that the further a bullet travels the less damage it will do until its damage is completely negated and reduced to 0. This is intended to keep players from being able to snipe across the map with every firearm. We can properly limit their range, thus helping to balance out the effectiveness of wide open areas.


It is no secret that our team’s priority is to develop the original design of the game. It is undoubtedly the design we cherish and wish to expand upon. However, this doesn't mean that we look at custom content with ill intentions.

We understand that the reality of the new update breaking a lot of custom content is scary but it is by no means intentional. It’s a matter of the two engines being different. Triggers, events, and entities are named differently, updated or just don’t exist anymore so naturally most SourceMod plugins won’t know what’s up or down.

Our team is not going to spend time updating all custom content. We simply don’t have the time. It has always been the community’s responsibility to update their own content. We'll be releasing our Mod Tools completely updated once the v3.0 update rolls out. From there, you'll be able to create your own maps and upload them to the Workshop!


For the past 4 or so months, Janaz Leonheart, owner of Vertigo Gaming, has been working on updating SourceMod so that it is ready when the update launches. He is currently awaiting some finalization of our Linux build to continue his work. He has also been helping us with his extensive knowledge of exploits used to attack other servers, making sure that the build is as secure as possible. Once his work is complete, he has agreed to release it, along with a guide and whatever plugins he may have updated in the testing phase, publicly for the entire community to use.

His work is not part of our development, they are two separate processes. We are merely overseeing his work while we focus on our own.


Twitch Development Streams
When we first started our development streams, we planned to be streaming weekly on Fridays. But due to our schedules, the lack of work suitable for streaming and people willing to stream - we're unable to deliver on that promise. From now on the streams will be as we're able to do them, which we'll inform you of through Tweets and the Channel Feed on our Twitch Page, as well as posting a Steam Event once we're live.

You can always check out the past broadcasts directly on our Twitch page (these VODs only stay up for 2 weeks), or we've started archiving these streams on our YouTube channel.




YouTube Channel
While we don't have much of anything uploaded to our YouTube channel yet. We plan to be uploading our teasers, trailers, and other videos to this channel. We would appreciate it if you'd all help support the channel by going and subscribing to it for future content.

We're very thankful of the huge support everyone has been giving us, it means a lot to us!

-Zombie Panic! Development Team


Follow us on social media at:

We've managed to fix the start up issues caused by changing depots. Changing the depots caused the new build to not be able to read VPK-files, once again stressing how crucial it is for the update to be released so we can get the game off this broken, old engine!

Our new depots are now sorted and ready for the release of 3.0. We still don't have a release date, but the update is shaping up nicely and will see a release within the scheduled release window. That's all the news about 3.0 for now.

Your game should update automatically and install the fix. If you don't see a pending update, restart Steam.

If you installed the first update but are still getting errors related to "hl2.exe", then note that this has also been fixed and only requires a second update.

Once again, We are sorry for the inconvenience,
Happy Gaming!

- Zombie Panic! Development Team

We've managed to fix the start up issues caused by changing depots. Changing the depots caused the new build to not be able to read VPK-files, once again stressing how crucial it is for the update to be released so we can get the game off this broken, old engine!

Our new depots are now sorted and ready for the release of 3.0. We still don't have a release date, but the update is shaping up nicely and will see a release within the scheduled release window. That's all the news about 3.0 for now.

Your game should update automatically and install the fix. If you don't see a pending update, restart Steam.

If you installed the first update but are still getting errors related to "hl2.exe", then note that this has also been fixed and only requires a second update.

Once again, We are sorry for the inconvenience,
Happy Gaming!

- Zombie Panic! Development Team

We are currently switching the depots for the game, rendering the game largely unplayable because of an unforeseen issue.

We are currently working on solving it. This is on our end, and you do not need to reinstall the game, verify game cache or any of the sort. Steam will automatically update once we fix the issue. This is not the 3.0 release, but it is preparations for it.

Sorry for the inconvenience,
- Zombie Panic! Development Team

We are currently switching the depots for the game, rendering the game largely unplayable because of an unforeseen issue.

We are currently working on solving it. This is on our end, and you do not need to reinstall the game, verify game cache or any of the sort. Steam will automatically update once we fix the issue. This is not the 3.0 release, but it is preparations for it.

Sorry for the inconvenience,
- Zombie Panic! Development Team

The development has been, and still is, an incredibly taxing but also enjoyable experience. Despite our team consisting of people from different cultures, with different ideas, opinions and talents, we all share the same passion for ZPS which allows us to be a very productive team.

We have reached a point in the development where we feel comfortable enough to share the news that you have all been waiting for!


The update has come a long way from its beginnings, and JonnyBoy has put together a small showcase of the builds' progress over the months. The video also shows several new features that we are excited to properly introduce!

It's important to take note of a few things in the video though:

• The features teased in the video are still subject to change, remember that this is the progress of the work over time. Most things have been changed or are still being tweaked in ways.
  
  
• The Workshop for ZPS will not be implemented with the release of v3.0, even though it appears to be a selectable option in the video. However, it will be implemented later once the dedicated server is able to download and update the maps from the Workshop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOiLIKYLg8E

We've added many new features and entities as well as made changes to existing ones for several different reasons. We wanted to give more options and add more variety, make it easier to balance things, and give the level designer more control. Some things were suggested by community members, others were just created out of necessity from common sense or issues and ideas that arose through testing.



Cascaded Shadow Mapping (CSM):

• We've announced this feature before, but CSM is a new and improved shadow system similar to what CS:GO uses. They dynamically draw the shadows, meaning that a moving objects will have its shadow change depending on the angle the lighting is coming from. CSM can be toggled on/off depending on your preference.
  
  One minor issue we've ran into with CSM is that certain shades of light have a very noticeable green tint to them. There doesn't seem to be anything we can do about this, the only solution seems to be using a different shade of color if you don't want the green tint.

New "ZP Options" menu:

• We've created a new options menu where you can find all the adjustable cvars and settings that are exclusive to ZPS. These setting were previously stored under Options - Multiplayer - Advanced, but we decided it would be better to make a new menu which wasn't so hidden.
  
  

Awaiting More Players Mode:

• The first player that joins the round will now be able to walk around and explore the map while waiting for more players. Once another player joins the round, everything will reset and the round will start like normal.
  
  Stats and achievements will not count while the player is waiting, and the score and items will reset once the round has actually begun. If the map uses "logic_rounds OnRoundStart" then this might keep certain objectives from activating, keeping you from exploring the map completely.

Spotting Ability:

• A unique ability that allows only the Carrier to temporarily highlight survivors for the zombie team to see, at the cost of feed-o-meter. This helps relay their position to your zombie minions, so you may all converge on their location. Making it easier to cooperate without the need to communicate.
  
  

Optional Zombie Respawn Delay:

• Implemented to help balance particular sections of levels where the zombies spawn very close to survivors, and/or where zombies have a close quarters advantage. This is only adjustable by the level designer via the logic_player_manager entity. You can specify the zombie respawn delay up to a maximum of 5 seconds.

Ammo Requesting & Sharing:

• When a player uses the "Need Ammo" or "Need Weapon" voice commands, you can share the item directly with them by looking at them and dropping the requested item (when within range). You can only give them one weapon or one box of ammo per request, if they need more they'll have to request more.

HUD Icon for Flashlight:

• This was implemented so that as a survivor you can tell at a glance how much battery is remaining in your flashlight. Giving you the ability to easier manage its remaining power. However, in hardcore mode the battery level of your flashlight is not shown.
  
  

New Zombie Vision Shader:

• The method for which the old zombie vision shader was implemented no longer works on the 2013 engine. So JonnyBoy had to implement a new and improved zombie vision shader.
  
  This zombie vision is a dynamic_light attached to the zombie which when activated lights up the surrounding area for that zombie only. Since it's a dynamic light, it's a lot harder on performance than the previous zombie vision. But we've implemented some control over the range the light extends to help keeps things at an acceptable performance for lower-end PCs. You can set these values under the new ZP Options menu.

Optional Anti-Panic Rush:

• This will make panic unavailable for the specificed duration at the beginning of the round. It is disabled by default, but server owners can choose to enable it via cvar, and specify the max amount of seconds you have to wait before panicking up to a maximum of 5.
  
  The reason for that limit is because on many of the stock maps, you can encounter a zombie within the first 10-15 seconds of the round. In such scenarios this feature would greatly limit the survivors chance of being able to escape an attack.

Updated Glow System:

• This will allow level designers to select which color the item_deliver highlight should have. Now it is no longer restricted to only the white color as it was previously.
  
  

FMOD Sound Engine:

• The old MP3 Music system has been replaced with FMOD. This elimates the lag that can occur when the track changes, which creates a smoother transition between tracks. The main ZPS theme music will now also play during the first few portions of the loading screen, and slowly fade out.
  
  This also gave us the opportunity to implement the logic_music entity. Which gives level designers the ability to override the current music playing, making "stopmp3" obsolete on maps with custom tracks.

New Menu:

• The old Source UI menu has now been replaced with a new design, to make ZPS more professional and modern.
  
  

New Scoreboard:

• The scoreboard has gotten an overhaul on the design because when there was a certain amount of players - The old Source UI would draw beyond the players screen.
  (However, when playing on low resolution you may still encounter this issue. This is due to the Source UI code, and unfortunately we do not have the access to modify it. It is recommended to play on a higher resolution than 800x600.)
  
  We've solved this issue by implementing another colum onto the scoreboard. In the process we've improved the look and design as well.
  
  
  

Updated Unload Animation for Pistols:

• The pistol animations for unloading have been added back. This has also fixed the problem where the holster or draw animation would show the empty version or vise versa, when the weapon wasn't empty in the first place.

Muzzle Smoke:

• Now after discharging enough bullets through a firearm, the muzzle smoke will come out of the barrel in a trail until it dissipates.
  
  

AFK Manager:

• This feature first moves AFK survivors or zombies to the lobby, then kicks them from the server if they proceed to be AFK for too long. However, spectators are exempt from being kicked. The default time limits are 2 minutes before moving players to the Lobby, and 5 minutes before kicking players from the server, with a max time limit of 30 minutes. These values can be adjusted via cvar to fit each server's need.
  
  The server owner can choose to turn this feature off via cvar if they wish. But they do so at their own discretion, because we've used this feature to balance unfair zombie spawn points throughout the maps. With this feature we've been able to place zombie spawn points in better locations, keeping zombies from spawning directly in sight of survivors. Now we no longer need to account for AFK players in the spawn placements. We can instead remove them from play so the round can continue on if they're hindering it, and then remove them from the server so they aren't taking up space or data.

Built-in Admin System:

• This will work similar to SourceMod administration system. You can assign admins to certain groups, you can also specify their immunity, and forcefully set their access to certain abilities such as - reserved slot, basic immunity, kick, ban, ban removal, map change, mute/gag, mute/gag removal, and rcon.
  
  We felt like these abilities were necessary in efficiently managing a server, so we decided to implement them directly into the game.

Simple Bot System:

• This was implemented to allow server owners and level designers to test out plugins, entities and scenarios when in testmode. These bots were only programmed for the simplest of tasks. You can force them to crouch, attack, mimic your actions, or teleport them directly to you. However, for the purpose that we implemented these bots - Their ability to interact with the nav mesh was unnecessary and was removed. It is too heavy on network performance and needs to have a lot of time and effort dedicated to programming and optimizing it properly.
  
  At that point, we would be better off going all the way and implementing fully functional bots, which is an incredibly time consuming task. The bots won’t only have to move around and shoot - They’ll need to be able to clear obstacles, pick up weapons and guns, manage their inventory and stamina, and perform objectives. This is incredibly difficult and time consuming to code, and it simply isn’t worth it for us because there's much more important things for us to be spending our time working on. Perhaps in the future at some point this could be viable, but we have no plans to implement fully functional bots.

SDK Tools for ZPS:

• Includes our own ZPS Hammer, already configured and ready for level designing. You won't need to use Source SDK anymore. There's also many new models and textures that have been added, fixed, and remade.

logic_rounds:

• This entity can check if the round has either started or ended, useful to make sure that only certain entities get triggered when the round actually starts.

logic_player_manager:

• This is used to control the respawn delay for zombies, as well as set the weapons survivors spawn with. You can specify weapons, completely strip weapons, spawn them with only a random melee, or even give them armor.

logic_hardcoretimer:

• Level designers can use this to override the hardcore timer, so it can be adjusted appropriately per map. You can also add or substract time as needed, so you can extend the time when survivors complete an objective for example.

logic_wincounter:

• This will count how many times survivors or zombies have won, and will call the respective outputs when the number is reached. Allowing the level desinger to adjust things according to how a team is performing.

logic_playercounter:

• We've used this entity to help balance maps according to player count. It counts how many players there are and if it reaches the specified amount or higher, it will call the respective outputs.

trigger_playercount:

• Similar to logic_playercounter, this trigger will check how many players there are within it and fire the output if it reaches the specified amount.

logic_music:

• This will override the current music track playing, which makes "stopmp3" obselete on maps with custom tracks.

info_player_carrier:

• This entity will spawn the carrier there if the spawn exists or is valid, else the carrier will spawn at info_player_zombie.

ambient_generic:

• This entity has been updated to support more than just 1 SourceEntityTarget. That way it helps save entdata by only having 1 ambient_generic for multiple sources of output throughout the level.

We expect the update to be ready to release sometime between Summer and Fall of 2017. Since issues can spring up out of seemingly nowhere, we feel a release window allows us more time to fix potential problems and make sure everything works as intended. As opposed to a release date which could very likely be pushed back, to both you and our disappointment.

The final stages of development require large-scale playtests. What remains to be done is to properly test out the new features and maps, as well as old ones, and make sure they all get some needed balance tweaks.


We know that community consists of many talented and dedicated people that we are sure would benefit the development. If you’re interested in playtesting, or want to apply for a position on the development team, you can do so in our new Team Applications sub-forum.

It’s essential that you read and follow the Application Rules & Sample Application Format if you wish for your application to be valid.


We stream every Friday for a few hours starting at 9PM EDT. Come check out our channel if you have any questions about development, want to catch sneakpeeks or just want to hang out and discuss games in general.

You can also go and check out our past broadcasts if there's anything you've missed.



It’s been a while since the MOTY 2016 Nominations where we last addressed the community. Sadly, we didn’t make into the Honorable Mentions. But we did land ourselves a nice 85th place on the Top 100 Mods List. We are truly thankful for the huge, and incredibly dedicated, support that you all continue to show us. It keeps us motivated and dedicated in our work.

See you around,
- Zombie Panic! Development Team

The development has been, and still is, an incredibly taxing but also enjoyable experience. Despite our team consisting of people from different cultures, with different ideas, opinions and talents, we all share the same passion for ZPS which allows us to be a very productive team.

We have reached a point in the development where we feel comfortable enough to share the news that you have all been waiting for!


The update has come a long way from its beginnings, and JonnyBoy has put together a small showcase of the builds' progress over the months. The video also shows several new features that we are excited to properly introduce!

It's important to take note of a few things in the video though:

• The features teased in the video are still subject to change, remember that this is the progress of the work over time. Most things have been changed or are still being tweaked in ways.
  
  
• The Workshop for ZPS will not be implemented with the release of v3.0, even though it appears to be a selectable option in the video. However, it will be implemented later once the dedicated server is able to download and update the maps from the Workshop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOiLIKYLg8E

We've added many new features and entities as well as made changes to existing ones for several different reasons. We wanted to give more options and add more variety, make it easier to balance things, and give the level designer more control. Some things were suggested by community members, others were just created out of necessity from common sense or issues and ideas that arose through testing.



Cascaded Shadow Mapping (CSM):

• We've announced this feature before, but CSM is a new and improved shadow system similar to what CS:GO uses. They dynamically draw the shadows, meaning that a moving objects will have its shadow change depending on the angle the lighting is coming from. CSM can be toggled on/off depending on your preference.
  
  One minor issue we've ran into with CSM is that certain shades of light have a very noticeable green tint to them. There doesn't seem to be anything we can do about this, the only solution seems to be using a different shade of color if you don't want the green tint.

New "ZP Options" menu:

• We've created a new options menu where you can find all the adjustable cvars and settings that are exclusive to ZPS. These setting were previously stored under Options - Multiplayer - Advanced, but we decided it would be better to make a new menu which wasn't so hidden.
  
  

Awaiting More Players Mode:

• The first player that joins the round will now be able to walk around and explore the map while waiting for more players. Once another player joins the round, everything will reset and the round will start like normal.
  
  Stats and achievements will not count while the player is waiting, and the score and items will reset once the round has actually begun. If the map uses "logic_rounds OnRoundStart" then this might keep certain objectives from activating, keeping you from exploring the map completely.

Spotting Ability:

• A unique ability that allows only the Carrier to temporarily highlight survivors for the zombie team to see, at the cost of feed-o-meter. This helps relay their position to your zombie minions, so you may all converge on their location. Making it easier to cooperate without the need to communicate.
  
  

Optional Zombie Respawn Delay:

• Implemented to help balance particular sections of levels where the zombies spawn very close to survivors, and/or where zombies have a close quarters advantage. This is only adjustable by the level designer via the logic_player_manager entity. You can specify the zombie respawn delay up to a maximum of 5 seconds.

Ammo Requesting & Sharing:

• When a player uses the "Need Ammo" or "Need Weapon" voice commands, you can share the item directly with them by looking at them and dropping the requested item (when within range). You can only give them one weapon or one box of ammo per request, if they need more they'll have to request more.

HUD Icon for Flashlight:

• This was implemented so that as a survivor you can tell at a glance how much battery is remaining in your flashlight. Giving you the ability to easier manage its remaining power. However, in hardcore mode the battery level of your flashlight is not shown.
  
  

New Zombie Vision Shader:

• The method for which the old zombie vision shader was implemented no longer works on the 2013 engine. So JonnyBoy had to implement a new and improved zombie vision shader.
  
  This zombie vision is a dynamic_light attached to the zombie which when activated lights up the surrounding area for that zombie only. Since it's a dynamic light, it's a lot harder on performance than the previous zombie vision. But we've implemented some control over the range the light extends to help keeps things at an acceptable performance for lower-end PCs. You can set these values under the new ZP Options menu.

Optional Anti-Panic Rush:

• This will make panic unavailable for the specificed duration at the beginning of the round. It is disabled by default, but server owners can choose to enable it via cvar, and specify the max amount of seconds you have to wait before panicking up to a maximum of 5.
  
  The reason for that limit is because on many of the stock maps, you can encounter a zombie within the first 10-15 seconds of the round. In such scenarios this feature would greatly limit the survivors chance of being able to escape an attack.

Updated Glow System:

• This will allow level designers to select which color the item_deliver highlight should have. Now it is no longer restricted to only the white color as it was previously.
  
  

FMOD Sound Engine:

• The old MP3 Music system has been replaced with FMOD. This elimates the lag that can occur when the track changes, which creates a smoother transition between tracks. The main ZPS theme music will now also play during the first few portions of the loading screen, and slowly fade out.
  
  This also gave us the opportunity to implement the logic_music entity. Which gives level designers the ability to override the current music playing, making "stopmp3" obsolete on maps with custom tracks.

New Menu:

• The old Source UI menu has now been replaced with a new design, to make ZPS more professional and modern.
  
  

New Scoreboard:

• The scoreboard has gotten an overhaul on the design because when there was a certain amount of players - The old Source UI would draw beyond the players screen.
  (However, when playing on low resolution you may still encounter this issue. This is due to the Source UI code, and unfortunately we do not have the access to modify it. It is recommended to play on a higher resolution than 800x600.)
  
  We've solved this issue by implementing another colum onto the scoreboard. In the process we've improved the look and design as well.
  
  
  

Updated Unload Animation for Pistols:

• The pistol animations for unloading have been added back. This has also fixed the problem where the holster or draw animation would show the empty version or vise versa, when the weapon wasn't empty in the first place.

Muzzle Smoke:

• Now after discharging enough bullets through a firearm, the muzzle smoke will come out of the barrel in a trail until it dissipates.
  
  

AFK Manager:

• This feature first moves AFK survivors or zombies to the lobby, then kicks them from the server if they proceed to be AFK for too long. However, spectators are exempt from being kicked. The default time limits are 2 minutes before moving players to the Lobby, and 5 minutes before kicking players from the server, with a max time limit of 30 minutes. These values can be adjusted via cvar to fit each server's need.
  
  The server owner can choose to turn this feature off via cvar if they wish. But they do so at their own discretion, because we've used this feature to balance unfair zombie spawn points throughout the maps. With this feature we've been able to place zombie spawn points in better locations, keeping zombies from spawning directly in sight of survivors. Now we no longer need to account for AFK players in the spawn placements. We can instead remove them from play so the round can continue on if they're hindering it, and then remove them from the server so they aren't taking up space or data.

Built-in Admin System:

• This will work similar to SourceMod administration system. You can assign admins to certain groups, you can also specify their immunity, and forcefully set their access to certain abilities such as - reserved slot, basic immunity, kick, ban, ban removal, map change, mute/gag, mute/gag removal, and rcon.
  
  We felt like these abilities were necessary in efficiently managing a server, so we decided to implement them directly into the game.

Simple Bot System:

• This was implemented to allow server owners and level designers to test out plugins, entities and scenarios when in testmode. These bots were only programmed for the simplest of tasks. You can force them to crouch, attack, mimic your actions, or teleport them directly to you. However, for the purpose that we implemented these bots - Their ability to interact with the nav mesh was unnecessary and was removed. It is too heavy on network performance and needs to have a lot of time and effort dedicated to programming and optimizing it properly.
  
  At that point, we would be better off going all the way and implementing fully functional bots, which is an incredibly time consuming task. The bots won’t only have to move around and shoot - They’ll need to be able to clear obstacles, pick up weapons and guns, manage their inventory and stamina, and perform objectives. This is incredibly difficult and time consuming to code, and it simply isn’t worth it for us because there's much more important things for us to be spending our time working on. Perhaps in the future at some point this could be viable, but we have no plans to implement fully functional bots.

SDK Tools for ZPS:

• Includes our own ZPS Hammer, already configured and ready for level designing. You won't need to use Source SDK anymore. There's also many new models and textures that have been added, fixed, and remade.

logic_rounds:

• This entity can check if the round has either started or ended, useful to make sure that only certain entities get triggered when the round actually starts.

logic_player_manager:

• This is used to control the respawn delay for zombies, as well as set the weapons survivors spawn with. You can specify weapons, completely strip weapons, spawn them with only a random melee, or even give them armor.

logic_hardcoretimer:

• Level designers can use this to override the hardcore timer, so it can be adjusted appropriately per map. You can also add or substract time as needed, so you can extend the time when survivors complete an objective for example.

logic_wincounter:

• This will count how many times survivors or zombies have won, and will call the respective outputs when the number is reached. Allowing the level desinger to adjust things according to how a team is performing.

logic_playercounter:

• We've used this entity to help balance maps according to player count. It counts how many players there are and if it reaches the specified amount or higher, it will call the respective outputs.

trigger_playercount:

• Similar to logic_playercounter, this trigger will check how many players there are within it and fire the output if it reaches the specified amount.

logic_music:

• This will override the current music track playing, which makes "stopmp3" obselete on maps with custom tracks.

info_player_carrier:

• This entity will spawn the carrier there if the spawn exists or is valid, else the carrier will spawn at info_player_zombie.

ambient_generic:

• This entity has been updated to support more than just 1 SourceEntityTarget. That way it helps save entdata by only having 1 ambient_generic for multiple sources of output throughout the level.

We expect the update to be ready to release sometime between Summer and Fall of 2017. Since issues can spring up out of seemingly nowhere, we feel a release window allows us more time to fix potential problems and make sure everything works as intended. As opposed to a release date which could very likely be pushed back, to both you and our disappointment.

The final stages of development require large-scale playtests. What remains to be done is to properly test out the new features and maps, as well as old ones, and make sure they all get some needed balance tweaks.


We know that community consists of many talented and dedicated people that we are sure would benefit the development. If you’re interested in playtesting, or want to apply for a position on the development team, you can do so in our new Team Applications sub-forum.

It’s essential that you read and follow the Application Rules & Sample Application Format if you wish for your application to be valid.


We stream every Friday for a few hours starting at 9PM EDT. Come check out our channel if you have any questions about development, want to catch sneakpeeks or just want to hang out and discuss games in general.

You can also go and check out our past broadcasts if there's anything you've missed.



It’s been a while since the MOTY 2016 Nominations where we last addressed the community. Sadly, we didn’t make into the Honorable Mentions. But we did land ourselves a nice 85th place on the Top 100 Mods List. We are truly thankful for the huge, and incredibly dedicated, support that you all continue to show us. It keeps us motivated and dedicated in our work.

See you around,
- Zombie Panic! Development Team

A huge thanks to all of you who nominated us during Phase 1! Because of your support we were able to make it into the Top 100!

Phase 2 Voting for ModDB's 2016 MOTY began a few days ago. The voting will be open for 7 more days, until December the 21st, and the victor this time will be crowned MOTY! The Players Choice Mod of the Year Released will be announced on the 29th of December.

As mentioned before, voting enters you into a chance to win games from ModDB's #modlove collection if you cast your vote while logged in. So be sure to register an account and login before voting if you'd like a chance to win! If you don't want to register an account, you can still vote for your favorite mods.


Once again we'll need your help with voting ZP!S for ModDB 2016 MOTY! As stated in the previous announcement, due to us winning previous awards we may only be eligible for an honarable mention. Nonetheless, that would still be just as wonderful. We're asking that you please take a moment to cast your vote for us again as well as your other favorite mods, we'd greatly appreciate it.

As another little bonus, we'd like to give you a little more info regarding v3.0 and its progress.



One of the new features we'll be adding with the release of v3.0 is the ability to share weapons and ammo with a specific person who is requesting them via the voice commands.

How it work is the person who needs a weapon or ammo opens up the voice command menu and uses the appropriate voice command to request it.



Then a player can hand them a weapon or ammo by looking directly at the person requesting it and pressing the key to drop ammo or weapons when within range.

This will give the item directly to the person requesting it instead of dropping it on the ground. That way it goes directly to the intended person and nobody can steal it. Or if you're in a location where there's a risk you'll lose the item if you drop it, you can hand it to your teammate instead as long as they request it. If they don't have room you won't give them the weapon or any more ammo and you'll drop it on the ground instead. You can also only give them one item at a time so you can not grief someone by giving them a bunch of weapons or ammo to slow them down.



We were given the source code some months ago by Monochrome Inc. so that we could continue development on ZP!S. It comes as no surprise that the code is quite outdated, and thus a lot of things were broken on the new engine and required fixing.

Now after a month of testing this port and continuously running into an odd server crash that we can't find the cause of as well as some other minor issues, we've decided that it would be best to completely rewrite the source code. This way errors because of outdated code will likely not be an issue anymore, and our programmer will be able to figure out what's causing the crashes or other issues as he makes changes/additions. So at this point it's no longer a port, it's a complete rewrite of the source code from scratch.

Don't panic though! This will not delay the release of v3.0 for very long. In fact some testing can still continue while the code is being rewritten, and we'll be completely back on track in no time.

Unfortunately we still do not have a release date to announce for v3.0, nor even an estimate. We need to put everything through the proper amount of testing before we're ready and can be certain of a release date.








We're going to be removing the ZPA gamemode from the v3.0 release for several different reason. The main reason being that the gamemode is broken on the new engine and will require a lot of time and effort to fix. ZPA is also not very popular or practical so we thought it'd be best if we focused our effort on making sure everything else in ZP!S was functioning properly instead.

We also feel like the gamemode itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense and could be much better developed. We either want to revamp ZPA completely, or possibly replace it with a completely different gamemode that maybe draws some inspiration from what ZPA was.

We're very sorry if this disappoints any of you, but it's for the best. Whatever we decide on doing, it will be much better than before.



Casei Magnus has been sharing his work on upcoming (and experimental) levels and designs. Join us each week to participate in the discussion, give us some feedback, share ideas, mingle with the devs, and have a good time - all to ensure that the new update ends up being what both our development team and community want out of ZP!S v3.0. Maybe even catch a sneak peek of something special every now and then.

We stream every Friday for a few hours starting at 9PM EST, come check out our channel if you're interested. If there's any questions you want to ask us, stop by and we'll be happy to answer them.

You can also go and check out our past broadcasts if there's anything you missed.





We can't thank you enough for the support we've received from all of you! We'll continue working hard and doing our best to provide you the best game possible. Let's keep ZP!S going for many more years!

Happy Holidays,

- Zombie Panic Development Team

A huge thanks to all of you who nominated us during Phase 1! Because of your support we were able to make it into the Top 100!

Phase 2 Voting for ModDB's 2016 MOTY began a few days ago. The voting will be open for 7 more days, until December the 21st, and the victor this time will be crowned MOTY! The Players Choice Mod of the Year Released will be announced on the 29th of December.

As mentioned before, voting enters you into a chance to win games from ModDB's #modlove collection if you cast your vote while logged in. So be sure to register an account and login before voting if you'd like a chance to win! If you don't want to register an account, you can still vote for your favorite mods.


Once again we'll need your help with voting ZP!S for ModDB 2016 MOTY! As stated in the previous announcement, due to us winning previous awards we may only be eligible for an honarable mention. Nonetheless, that would still be just as wonderful. We're asking that you please take a moment to cast your vote for us again as well as your other favorite mods, we'd greatly appreciate it.

As another little bonus, we'd like to give you a little more info regarding v3.0 and its progress.



One of the new features we'll be adding with the release of v3.0 is the ability to share weapons and ammo with a specific person who is requesting them via the voice commands.

How it work is the person who needs a weapon or ammo opens up the voice command menu and uses the appropriate voice command to request it.



Then a player can hand them a weapon or ammo by looking directly at the person requesting it and pressing the key to drop ammo or weapons when within range.

This will give the item directly to the person requesting it instead of dropping it on the ground. That way it goes directly to the intended person and nobody can steal it. Or if you're in a location where there's a risk you'll lose the item if you drop it, you can hand it to your teammate instead as long as they request it. If they don't have room you won't give them the weapon or any more ammo and you'll drop it on the ground instead. You can also only give them one item at a time so you can not grief someone by giving them a bunch of weapons or ammo to slow them down.



We were given the source code some months ago by Monochrome Inc. so that we could continue development on ZP!S. It comes as no surprise that the code is quite outdated, and thus a lot of things were broken on the new engine and required fixing.

Now after a month of testing this port and continuously running into an odd server crash that we can't find the cause of as well as some other minor issues, we've decided that it would be best to completely rewrite the source code. This way errors because of outdated code will likely not be an issue anymore, and our programmer will be able to figure out what's causing the crashes or other issues as he makes changes/additions. So at this point it's no longer a port, it's a complete rewrite of the source code from scratch.

Don't panic though! This will not delay the release of v3.0 for very long. In fact some testing can still continue while the code is being rewritten, and we'll be completely back on track in no time.

Unfortunately we still do not have a release date to announce for v3.0, nor even an estimate. We need to put everything through the proper amount of testing before we're ready and can be certain of a release date.








We're going to be removing the ZPA gamemode from the v3.0 release for several different reason. The main reason being that the gamemode is broken on the new engine and will require a lot of time and effort to fix. ZPA is also not very popular or practical so we thought it'd be best if we focused our effort on making sure everything else in ZP!S was functioning properly instead.

We also feel like the gamemode itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense and could be much better developed. We either want to revamp ZPA completely, or possibly replace it with a completely different gamemode that maybe draws some inspiration from what ZPA was.

We're very sorry if this disappoints any of you, but it's for the best. Whatever we decide on doing, it will be much better than before.



Casei Magnus has been sharing his work on upcoming (and experimental) levels and designs. Join us each week to participate in the discussion, give us some feedback, share ideas, mingle with the devs, and have a good time - all to ensure that the new update ends up being what both our development team and community want out of ZP!S v3.0. Maybe even catch a sneak peek of something special every now and then.

We stream every Friday for a few hours starting at 9PM EST, come check out our channel if you're interested. If there's any questions you want to ask us, stop by and we'll be happy to answer them.

You can also go and check out our past broadcasts if there's anything you missed.





We can't thank you enough for the support we've received from all of you! We'll continue working hard and doing our best to provide you the best game possible. Let's keep ZP!S going for many more years!

Happy Holidays,

- Zombie Panic Development Team