State of Decay Steam PC version is out! Early Access!

Hello survival fans! Just writing a note to let everyone know the PC steam release of State of Decay is out!  Please remember this is the early access version which means there is still updating to do and bugs to fix ect. As of this post the game seems to only work with an xbox controller as PC controls are probably being worked on.  Finally get to play this wonderful game.  I've been waiting for the PC release for a while now.   Read all the information below at the link.

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/09/news/greetings-pc-players-the-steam-release-date-is/

The Steam Early Access Page below

http://store.steampowered.com/app/241540/

State of Decay release date confirmed by IGN June 5th

Hello survival fans. Been a little while since my last update.  Sorry about that.  I wanted to make a quick post here and let everyone know IGN has released a new State of Decay Video confirming that the release date for State of Decay is June 5th! I can't wait to play it.  Check out the video below.

Also don't forget to give a like to Watchsurvival on Facebook so you can stay up to date on what is going on.   https://www.facebook.com/Watchsurvival

Exclusive sneak peak of State of Decay. (livestream recording from twitch)

Hello everyone,  Just wanted to make a quick post about State of Decay.  They recently did a livestream on twitchtv in which they was playing the game for about an hour and talking to the fans.  If you missed the livestream you can still check out the video on twitch.  It's got some pretty good stuff included.  I can't wait to play this game!

http://www.twitch.tv/xboxlivearcade/c/2195294

State of Decay Preview's from various sources.

Undead Labs has posted a small article about reviews they are receiving from various sources. It's sounding really good for this game so far. Too good to be true? I don't know.  Previews are nice and all. but I just can't give them much credit until I'm playing the game myself.  What they are saying sounds awesome indeed though. I'm trying not to be excited for this game, but it's hard.

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/04/news/previews-to-pique-your-interest/#more-5874


Separate links for the previews.


http://4playernetwork.com/blog/2013/04/hands-on-with-state-of-decay/

http://drinkingcoffeecola.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/hands-on-preview-with-state-of-decay.html?m=1

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/16/4-hours-in-state-of-decays-open-world-zombie-nightmare

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2013/04/15/preview-survive-the-zombie-apocalypse-with-friends-in-state-of-decay/

http://raidwarning.com/state-of-decay-preview/

http://www.vgrevolution.com/2013/04/9-things-to-love-in-state-of-decay/

State of Decay Release Date announced and New Trailer.

State of Decay finally gives everyone a release date.  The date is set for June. I can't wait it is going to be awesome.  They also released a new trailer to make sure we stay excited.  Check it out below.

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/04/news/state-of-decay-will-be-in/

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/04/trailers/new-trailer/

State of Decay Pax Info 2013

State of Decay was at Pax and there was a lot of coverage there.  Most of the information has been rounded up for us by the State of Decay team.   Check out all the information below at the State of Decay Official blog or read copy and paste. 

<edit> I also found a 20 minute video that has some good video coverage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UuYoK0ACt4


 http://undeadlabs.com/2013/03/news/pax-east-2013-roundup/#more-5828

--copy and paste--

While most of the team toiled away on the last details and bugs (and if you want to know how those efforts might be related to the release date process, the answer is in our regularly updated FAQ), the intrepid team of Brant, Gronk, and me went to Boston for PAX East. If you were following us on Twitter or Facebook, or hanging out on the forum analyzing every single blurry cell phone picture, then… thank you! If not, read on.
Microsoft’s booth was our home away from home for three days.

As far as we could tell, this was all there was to PAX.

We had a good neighbor – a team from a studio in Copenhagen, Denmark. They’re making a nifty platformer called Max: Curse of the Brotherhood. After three days of seeing the other team’s demo, we became mutual admirers.

State of Decay gear makes everyone happy.

The line to try out State of Decay was never less than an hour long, and all of our players were incredibly understanding and enthusiastic. Your passion for what we’re trying to do has always been the thing that kept us going, but during the PAX marathon, the energy of our players was the ONLY thing keeping us going.
We had to remember that we were representing the whole Undead Labs family back at the office. Fortunately, there was a reminder of the office in the game:

Hey, what’s this?

Mostly we came back to the hotel and collapsed, but one night, we were fortunate enough to meet some future players in the hotel bar. A bar, mind you, that was a mile from the show and not near any public transportation. At 8:30 on a Friday. The attendees were hardcore! Sadly, I didn’t think to take the pic until the very end of the evening after some people had left. I won’t identify the people in the picture (they can out themselves if they want), but I will say it was a real joy to meet some of the people behind very recognizable names.

That is a fun group. I would expect no less.

Overall, it was a fantastic show. When you’re working on a game, you get so you only see the flaws – and you get really nervous wondering if the ideas that seemed so great are going to turn out to be fun. Watching person after person get excited and walk away pumped about State of Decay, well, all I can say is that we are psyched. We can’t wait until all of you can play, give feedback, and post your own images.
Thank you for sticking with us this long. Not much longer, now!

At the end of the show, we were still standing. Barely.

Want to read the coverage that’s come out of the show so far? Here you go, in somewhat random order:
IGN: First impression
IGN: “The Most Awesome Games From PAX”
Kotaku
RelyOnHorror
RelyOnHorror (interview and video)
VGRevolution
Front Towards Gamer
Frontburnr
TrueAchievements
FPSGuru
Den Of Geek
Post It Gamer
Omnicomic
Game Informer
Polygon
4Player
Blast Magazine
OXM

If I missed any (and I know of a half dozen more still in progress!) please drop me a line at sanya at undeadlabs dot com.
Thanks again, and keep your eyes on the FAQ!

State of Decay follow up QandA A Matter of Character

State of Decay has released a new blog post recently with a new shiny Q and A for us to read. A lot of questions were answered. Check it out Below or read the copy and paste.

http://undeadlabs.com/forums/showthread.php?8622-Q-amp-A-A-Matter-of-Character-Followup-2-22-2012

--copy and paste--

The Survivors

Q: [Multiple]: How random are the characters? Will we ever see two characters that have the same skills and abilities? What about replays, will the survivors be the same?

A: Storyline characters (you start as a character named Marcus Campbell, for example, and quickly meet Thomas Ritter, along with Maya, Ed, Alan, and others) will be the same every time you meet them. They have extensive histories as well.

Many of the other survivors are generated, with their names, appearance, traits, and skills all potentially varying each time you play the game.

Q: Fleshblight: [Is the game designed such that] no two NPCs (all of whom may potentially be recruited and controlled by the player) look or sound the same, or have identical sets of skills and abilities?

A: There is a limit to the amount of art we created. You’ll probably never encounter two Npcs who look exactly the same at the same time, but if enough people die, you may start encountering survivors who bear a “striking resemblance” to those you’ve met before. In these cases their abilities and names will almost certainly be different. (Though there’s some randomness there, so no guarantees. It’s possible for two survivors to be similar in the same way it’s possible to flip a coin and get tails ten times in a row.)

Q: Major Warpath: Is it possible to have a character who is completely useless? Hey, I know a few people like this.

A: Oh, I wouldn’t say anyone is useless, but certainly some provide key skills that others do not and some survivors are more immediately useful than others. With time and effort, anyone can become a good shot, competent at hand to hand fighting, and bright enough to come in out of the rain.

Don’t underestimate the value of that. More than one project has been scuttled by “too many managers, too few workers.”

Q: Screenamesuck, VladimirKenju: Will we be able to see everyone's skills BEFORE we recruit them to the group? Can you talk to them or read a bio, or are you only able to find out their skills after they become one of the "family"?

A: You get a limited glimpse into this and have to make your decisions based on the information you have. When you talk to someone, you’ll be able to see their personality and one major background trait.

Q: [Multiple]: How do you switch between characters? What are the limits on switching between characters? Is there a proximity range for switching between characters? What happens to the one you switch from in general?

A: You can walk up to a Friend and make the switch via conversation, but if you’ve been watching our videos, you know there’s also a journal you use to keep track of everything that’s going on, including keeping track of all your community members. You can also find your Friends in the Journal and switch to them with a press of a button..

There are limitations, though. For example, you can’t switch survivors while you’re in the middle of a mission or in combat, and you can’t switch to someone who’s gone missing.

Q: Bronxsta, Creed: Along with potential SWAT backup, can you also request help from your survivors? Is there a way to get a survivor of your choice to come and kill zombies with you until you sent them home?

A: You can’t call your base and ask for a specific person. You can switch to the survivor you want and run over to the trouble spot. There is no way to switch when you’re in combat, so your best bet is to find a safe place to hide, switch to the survivor you want, and get to the source of the action.

Q: Capt.C.Baker: Let's say I have a 2 star cook named Wendy back at my base. While I'm out scavenging, I come across a 4 star cook named Chris who also has some woodwork under his belt. What options do I have for this situation? Do I have to replace one character for the other? Can I have both? Will the food get cooked quicker or something if I have both?

A: Your survivor best suited to a particular job will be automatically “assigned” to the appropriate facility upon joining your community. Having two of something in your group means you have a backup. Redundancy is good.

 Skills and Abilities

Q: TwilightSparkle: Do you mind telling us how many skills are in the game total right now?

A: Well, if you count “Spike Handling”, it’d be 35. So one fewer than that. (Note: a little more than half of these are not all that useful.)

Q: Kurnster: We know there are 4 basic skills everyone has. From the screenshot shown, can we assume that the number of total skills is limited to six? Likewise, for the traits, I'm assuming a limit of 8 although that would be a lot of traits!

A: The survivors can’t have more than seven skills and six traits, and they probably have fewer. The seventh would be the survivor’s Weapon Specialization. It’s special, so it gets that blue background.

So why six traits and eight slots for displaying traits? We sometimes use this space to display some additional temporary status information.

Q: Workhorse, Bronxsta: Can you give some more examples of Signature Abilities? Can you have more than one?

A: As the article said, each survivor can have four Signature Abilities, but only one of each type. (Offensive, Defensive, Utility, and General.) Here are a few more examples:

* Decapitate (Offensive) -- Hold [LB] and press [X] to launch a slow, focused attack guaranteed to decapitate the target.
* Rage (General) -- Sometimes taking your anger out on something is therapeutic. Every time you kill an enemy, you regain a small amount of Stamina.
* Thievery (General) -- You are the night. Doors are never considered locked for you, and you make no noise when you search. You can also move quickly while sneaking by holding [LB].

So you can have both Decapitate and Rage because they’re in different categories, but you can’t have both Rage and Thievery because they’re both in the General category.

Q: Workhorse: Do wits affect other things, too, or just search speed?

A: There are also a few abilities that you gain automatically from Wits, and some Signature Abilities. The Thievery ability I mentioned above requires 7 stars in Wits.

Q: VladimirKenju, PoolBoy: Can skills like construction or vehicle repair be taught? For example, if I consistently use a character to build alongside an established construction expert, can she eventually get the skill?

A: No, though that would be pretty cool.

Q: Loco Little: Does a maxed out leader character effectively/automatically become the leader of the group (as in other characters start referring to him as leader, some characters like him taking charge while others don't, etc.)

A: There is no formal leader in a survivor community in the sense that you’re using the term, but survivors can temporarily take on a special role within the community based on what they accomplished the day before.

Q: Kurnster: Will all traits and skills have flavour text or info text to explain what they do in more detail of you highlight them in game?

A: Yes, though we don’t spell absolutely everything out. There are a lot of mechanics working behind the scenes, so instead of trying to explain all of them all the time, we try to make sure the consequences of your choices are sensible and to call things out if and when they matter. So someone with a potentially disruptive personality won’t constantly be causing problems at random. We’ll let you know before they start acting up so you know what to pay attention to.

Q:Wake Up Ne0: Is there only one type of attack with a weapon, or are there multiple 'moves' you can gain/unlock as there are in unarmed combat?

A: Increased skill with melee weapons unlocks new moves, yes. Increased skill with a gun gets you reduced recoil, more headshot accuracy at distance, faster reload times, faster jam clearance, and reduced wear and tear on the gun.

Q: Joey: Is sexting actually in the game or was that just a joke?

A: It is indeed an actual skill in the game (as are Sudoku and Reality Show Trivia), but it does nothing in a world where cell towers no longer function.

 Improving

Q: Multiple: How hard is it to raise the skills of a character? How long does it take for a character to max a skill?

A: YMMV, depending on how you play and whether or not you’re good at pulling off some of the feats that give you bonus XP.

Here are a few things you can expect though:

* The overall rate of progress is a lot quicker than it’d be if there wasn’t permadeath and character switching.
* As you might expect the early stars come in more quickly than the later stars.
* You shouldn’t expect to completely max out a skill in a single play session, but you shouldn’t be playing for a long time without making any progress.
* Thinking in terms of trying to “grind” for skills is probably a bad idea. Remember that your ammo is limited and melee weapons get damaged and break. And you’ve got a community to feed and protect. It’s probably more important for you to save those last ten rounds for the next incoming horde than it is to try to go out and shoot zeds in a field for target practice.

Q: Demonslay999, Joey: What is the effect of more skill? Say if a person with level 1 melee skill used a lead pipe on a zombie, would it take multiple swings in order to kill it? As opposed to someone with level 5, would he just insta-smash the head of the zombie in? If I had some superhuman all star survivor, would I be 1 hit KO zombie mashmaster every time?

A: Our goal was to never let the survivor’s stats override player skill. So, yes, your odds of smashing a zombie’s head with your first swing is a little better if you have 5 stars in fighting instead of 1, but your primary advantages are the additional abilities you’ve unlocked and the fact that you have +20 Vitality.

Q: SpcB: How much of an effect does the skill "leadership" have on the amount of influence I gain in a common mission?

A: The bonus is currently +10% at 1 star and +100% at 7 stars of Leadership. The exact numbers and names are still subject to change as we continue to refine playbalance and playability, of course. (One note of clarification: the bonus is for Trust, not Influence. You’ll find that Trust is the more valuable and scarce of the two. That’s why we put the bonus there.)

Q: Madmock: Will unused traits ever lose stars? If I got 2 stars in fighting, but then never fight, will I become "rusty" and downgrade to 1 star?

A: No. We’d talked about doing this for the seventh star, but decided to keep things simple.

Q: G0lgothan: If someone had a Bum Knee, could you get them the equivalent of some physiotherapy through Training and eliminate the negative side effects?

A: No.

Q: [Multiple] Will NPCs level up skills when using them, or do you have to be in direct control of the character for them to improve? What about NPCs who aren’t part of your community, are they just out there in the world getting better at stuff? Can a survivor level up while offline? How exactly do the survivors in the community level up skills if you can't directly control them?

A: Survivors only improve their skills while you are controlling them directly. Their skill levels stay the same while they are running around as NPCs, and they don’t gain XP while you are offline. We discussed having them gain a small amount over time, especially as they carried out actions like supply runs and home defense in the game, but decided to save the progression moments for when you directly use the skills.

(*Note for Facebook/Twitter followers: This was the cause of the one day delay. We were investigating the possibility of getting the gain working as described and making this answer completely different. )

Q: [Multiple]: Can all skills get maxed out to seven, or do you continually improve them? Do characters with less ability “cap out” sooner than seven?

A: All of the skills to which a character has access can be maxed with endless time and focus. It will take the characters with less natural ability significantly more time, time you may prefer to spend on finding food and making landmines.

Also, remember not every character will have access to everything.

Q: Andrewdogg: If a successful headshot streak helps level up gun skill faster, how do wits level faster?

A: Certain activities provide a bonus to Wits. For example, climbing up to a lookout point and surveying the area for infestations and hordes gives you extra Wits XP.

Q: Joey: Will there be a way to safely train your skills, like on dummies?

A: Not exactly. If you build a Dojo and institute “Combat Training”, your community gains a temporary bonus to how fast everyone gets Fighting XP, but you still have to go out and fight actual zombies to improve your skill.

 The Things They Hold

Q: Warpig: What do you mean by starting weapon? Do you mean that is their best weapon that they are good with or when you find them they have that on them?

A: It’s whatever they happened to have on them. That may or may not be related to their existing skill, and if it’s at all related to the survivor’s potential, it was due to random chance.

Q: 2016kellamni: Will the survivors always have starting weapons, or could someone arrive with nothing?

A: Nothing is certainly a possibility. Not everyone is equally prepared for the apocalypse.

Q: Norannyo: If your character is carrying a bag of supplies as we saw in the Distraction trailer, can that character drive a vehicle with the backpack? or can he/she only run back? If he can drive with a backpack, what happens to the backpack when you get inside the vehicle?

A: Your stuff stays with you. As you may have noticed in the video, the backpack doesn’t show when you get into a vehicle. Just assume the survivor tossed it on the seat.

Q: Quinico1: Does increased firearm ability prevent (or reduce, or slow) wear and damage to the weapons themselves?

A: Yes.

 Personalities

Q: Tarman, G0lgothan: Can negative traits be improved? For example, a Selfish Asshole might realise that the way he's going isn't going to work in the current world. Could he bust his ass to become a Team Player (or something). Similarly, could a Coward, with enough combat exposure, become Battle Hardened (or something)?

A: Generally speaking, people don’t change who they are. There are a few situations where personalities can change, but you should not assume that you can smooth all the rough edges off of everyone and eliminate all their drawbacks. (Our reasons for that are gameplay-related as much as anything, but it’s also an attempt at realism; I don’t know how many Selfish Assholes you’ve had to deal with in real life, but I’m pretty certain it’d take a hell of a lot more than a zombie apocalypse to turn around most of the ones I’ve known.)

Q: Tarman, Atreyu113: Does a character with negative personality traits (like Alan Gunderson) need to be at the base/near others to affect community members? Or is whatever any character is feeling anytime, anywhere immediately affect all community members across the map? Could I keep my community happier by assigning a rude person to an outpost?

A: Oh, that’s a fun idea, but no. He can ass things up for the community no matter where he is.

Q: Bronxsta, Lynch74: Can injury and/or poor morale permanently affect a survivor's Personality and Traits? If a survivor has good Leadership and is friendly, and then his friend dies, will his personality and mood degrade accordingly? If a survivor is faced with several of his group getting killed – will that potentially have an everlasting effect on his mental state?

A: There’s a little bit of this, but it’s pretty rare. Attitude changes are much more common (and frequent) than permanent personality changes.

Morale is always a concern. Unattended morale problems lead to mutiny, survivors leaving, and even suicide.

Death certainly affects morale, but if you can get people cheered up, they won’t start having flashbacks or anything. They’ll just get depressed over the next horrible thing to happen.

Q: Zombiepreacher: Will there be relationships stronger than friends? I'm not talking about having babies included in the game, but a lover and number one go-to-guy would be so amazing (seeing how it's a community based game).

A: No, sorry. Friendship is awfully meaningful, though.

Q: 2016kellamni: It says in the examples of fear that some people are resistant to fear does that mean they are going to run out in a blaze of glory or what?

A: It means their attitude won’t tend to switch to a fearful one, which means they won’t be responsible for events like wasting a bunch of ammo firing off in a panic.

 Kicking People Out

Q: Norannyo: How do you tell a survivor he/she is no longer welcome in the group? What happens right after this option is chosen? Does the survivor walk away into the distance, or just disappear completely?

A: First of all, the survivor might tell you hell no, he won’t go. So there’s that. (Use someone with Leadership if you want to be sure he’ll take you seriously.)

If he does leave, he may help himself to supplies, depending on his personality. Then he’ll head for shelter. Possibly another community, possibly on his own. If he’s out alone, you may hear him screaming for help someday.

Q: Jexz: If we kick someone out of our clan, can we later add them back?

A: Yes, if they survive and they’re willing to come back. You’d need to earn trust again to be able to invite them, though.

Q: Joey: Will a family be mad if I kick out a family member? Like if I kick out the autocrat because he’s a dick, will I get resistance?

A: Resistance? Not exactly. You’ll want to pay close attention to everyone’s feelings. Some of your other members may think to themselves, “Hey, if he’ll kick out that guy, I could be next.” Others might be relieved.
 Changing and Evolving

Q: MatchesMalone: I would like to know if you folks have something that keeps track of what skills your community has, and from there determines challenges to throw at you? If so, how does the system make a decision on what mission to generate? Is it an AI or some arbitrary "Duck, Duck, Goose" system?

A: We do try to tune the challenge a bit based on how well you’re doing, but within limits. A core part of this game is letting your actions have real consequences, so the primary driving force behind which missions and situations appear is what you’ve done before.

What determines whether or not there’s a mission to go rescue a missing person from your community? It’d be something like you didn’t help out someone who was calling for help and (luckily) instead of being killed, they went missing. Why are there missions to clear out an area that’s been overrun by zombies? It’s because you’ve let a bunch of places get overrun by zombies. So it’s true that the events are sometimes arbitrary, but often they are determined by your prior actions.

Q: Zombiemarch: You said there can be conflict between the groups/characters and that "counselor characters" can help fix/prevent disputes. How will conflict affect people? If one character is overpowering/angers easily and upsets another, will the upset character not perform certain tasks, run away, ask to leave?

A: All of the above. They might be less willing to cooperate across the board, and their unhappiness will lower morale across the board, sending the whole community into a downward spiral of unhappiness and lack of motivation.

Q: [Multiple]: Can in-game actions transfer to physical traits? For example, Bum Leg is a trait. In addition to being a character you start with, can you get a Bum Leg due to an injury?

A: No, though I’ve been very tempted to add that.

Q: Workhorse: Is there a permanent cough trait where some characters literally can't sneak effectively? [Could a survivor develop such a cough?]

A: No, although there are abilities that make you sneak more effectively. But it is possible to get sick and develop a cough, if not a coughing trait.

 Clarification

Q: Tarman: You said, "Cardio — Rule #1 for survival. If you run out of Stamina, that’s it. Can’t fight, can’t run away. You’re done." If you completely run out of Stamina but have full health, is your character then truly dead (done)? OR Can you sneak into the bushes (or lay low on a roof/water tower/outpost) for a while to compose yourself like you mentioned later in the article?

A: Sorry, we should probably tone down that description a little bit. Being out of Stamina doesn’t have any direct, immediate impact on whether or not you are alive, but you’ll find that without Stamina you are much, much more vulnerable in combat and you’ll have trouble getting away if you decide to flee.

Stamina comes back pretty quickly when you aren’t sprinting or fighting or climbing, but there’s a little more to it than that: If you’ve just used a bunch of stamina and dropped down to zero, to get it back, you just have to take it easy for a little bit or eat a snack. After you’ve run around for a long time, though, you’ll find your Maximum Stamina getting lower and lower. To get that back, you need to actually leave the survivor at home to rest, or use something more extreme like a stimulant.

State of Decay In depth look at character and skills.

State of Decay is getting better and better!  They recently released some new information for us regarding characters and their personalities and traits and skills.  This was a pretty good read and helps tell us how cool the character personalities are going to be.  Check it out below.

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/02/news/a-matter-of-character/

---copy and paste---

A good story isn’t about characters as unchanging archetypes. It does explore innate potential and expectations, but it’s also about choices and change (or refusal to change). A good survival story in particular puts its characters to the test, but not just as individuals. A crisis is both a test of the individuals and of the dynamics between them. In designing the character and skill systems for State of Decay, we’ve tried to capture all of these elements.
We’ve talked before about the fact that you don’t get to tailor-make your characters. Instead you encounter a wide variety of survivors with vastly different personalities and skill sets and then you decide who to bring into your group and who to leave out on their own.
So that’s the high level. If you’ve been following State of Decay closely, you’ve heard that before. Today we’re going to going into more depth about exactly how characters and skills work.
Let’s dive right in.

THE BASICS
All survivors share the same four basic skills:

• Cardio — Rule #1 for survival. If you run out of Stamina, that’s it. Can’t fight, can’t run away. You’re done.
• Wits — When the shit hits the fan, you need to think fast. The quicker you can assess a situation, the better chance you have.
• Fighting — Sometimes your best option is a lead pipe to the face. Other times, it’s getting the hell out of the way. Master both if you want to survive.
• Shooting — Used to be shooting was just a hobby. Now it’s a daily requirement.

Every survivor has a rating in these four skills, shown as a number of stars next to the skill name. 1 star is weak. 7 stars is exceptional. Additional stars are gained by successfully using the skill. So destroying zeds in melee combat raises the Fighting skill. Taking them out with firearms raises the Shooting skill. You can improve skills faster by performing particularly skillful feats like a headshot streak.
Each skill provides a specific stat bonus. This bonus gets higher the more stars you have in the skill.

• Cardio — Determines maximum Stamina.
• Wits — Improves search speed.
• Fighting — Determines maximum Vitality.
• Shooting — Reduces recoil when you shoot.
• Leadership — Increases how much trust you gain whenever you gain trust.

In addition to these stat bonuses, most skills provide Abilities as you achieve more stars. Abilities can be active techniques, like Counterattack, which gives you a more powerful attack if you face a zed and dodge its attack first. Counterattack unlocks automatically when you gain your second star in Fighting. Other abilities are more passive, such as Quiet Search, which reduces the noise you make when searching. Quiet Search unlocks automatically when you get your fourth star in Wits.
Looking back at the list above, you’ll notice the last skill, Leadership, isn’t one of the basic four. That’s because not everyone has any skill in Leadership. It’s a Personal Skill that requires some natural talent or specific background. Most of the skills in State of Decay are personal skills, and they’re part of what makes characters unique.

INDIVIDUALITY
To start, every survivor has a unique combination of Traits. These Traits define the survivor on a fundamental level and have a whole range of effects.
The first Trait for every survivor is a Personality. Chatterbox, Selfish Asshole, Coward, Born Leader, Braggart, Autocrat, and Daydreamer are just some of the dozens of personalities you might encounter. Personality plays a big role in how survivors react to success and failure, how they interact with each other, and to any moral choices you make. In the short term, Personality is the least important thing to know about someone, but when trying to make your community work over the long haul, the mix of personalities matters. (We’ll probably need to dig into that in another article.)
Many Traits reflect a survivor’s background, representing job history or hobbies the survivor had in the past. These typically provide free Stars in related skills. For example, any active hobby like Hiking, Cycling or Aikido starts a survivor with two or three stars in Cardio instead of the one star that most survivors have initially. The Aikido trait also provides a free star in Fighting. Similarly, backgrounds that require street smarts or survival skills give a bonus star or two in Wits.
Other Traits reflect natural aptitude or ineptitude and provide a bonus or penalty to how fast a survivor can advance a particular skill. Being “Eagle-Eyed” means improving all Shooting skills faster than normal, while the “Hates Gore” Trait makes some slower to improve in Fighting, and being a “Dim Bulb” means Wits takes a lot more work to raise.
A handful of Traits have unique game effects. Having a “Bum Knee,” for example, means stamina drain while crouched. So a survivor with this trait can hide in bushes just as well as anyone else but can’t use it as a way to recover.
Finally, many Traits provide Personal Skills such as Leadership. Only survivors with the right Traits have access to each Personal Skill (and the stat bonus and abilities it provides). Just as in real life, the skills that the survivors have developed can vary widely in usefulness. Here’s a small sampling:

• Bruiser — Comes from Natural Athlete, Brute, or Strong as an Ox. Provides a whole unique set of combat and exploration abilities. Survivors with this skill are few and far between, but they have the potential to learn unique melee combat techniques, to carry heavier burdens without tiring, and to use larger firearms without sacrificing mobility.
• Construction — Comes from Architect,  Mechanic,  Electrician, or Engineer, among other jobs and hobbies. This skill doesn’t have much effect when out exploring, but having someone with any stars in Construction is essential for building a more advanced Workshop in your home.
• Leadership — Comes from Presence or Born Leader. As mentioned above, each star of Leadership increases the Trust you gain from your actions. In addition, higher Leadership unlocks special effects from your emotes, allowing you to do things like boost the combat effectiveness of the survivors around you by cheering them on.
• Counseling — Comes from People Person, Funeral Director, Stylist, or other jobs and hobbies. This skill has no impact on your combat or exploration abilities, but provides a chance to prevent community conflicts and to raise the spirits of frightened or depressed community members.
• Sexting — Comes from Sleaze or Flirt. Without phone or internet service, this finely honed skill may be doomed to be something of a lost art.
• Sports Trivia — Just as in real life, this is one of the most common skills. Sure, it might not be useful, but did you know that Randy Moss’ vertical leap was once said to be 51″? I did. (True story.)

CUSTOMIZATION
So we’ve talked about the Basic Skills that are common to everyone and about the Traits and Personal Skills that make survivors unique, but that’s just part of the story. You also get to make major choices about how to develop each survivor.
First, you can choose one Weapon Specialization for each of your survivors. This can be a specific category of firearms, such as Shotgun or Pistol, or a class of melee weapon, such as Bludgeoning or Hack and Slash. A Weapon Specialization is an entirely new skill line with a unique stat bonus and a whole set of unique abilities. Before choosing a Weapon Specialization, you need to unlock it by gaining enough stars in the corresponding basic skill: Gun-related specializations unlock at four stars of Shooting. Melee-related specializations unlock at four stars of Fighting. Each survivor can have only one Weapon Specialization, so choose carefully.
Once selected, the weapon specialization can be improved just like any other skill: by using it. So to raise your Shotgun Mastery skill, you have to take zombies out with a shotgun.
In addition to choosing a weapon specialization, you choose a number of Signature Abilities. Our goal in designing these abilities was not merely to provide abilities that make you stronger, but that change the way you approach exploration and combat. There are four different categories of Signature Abilities and each survivor can learn one ability in each category: Offensive, Defensive, Utility and General.
Which abilities are available varies from survivor to survivor, based on their skills. Only a survivor with three stars in Bludgeoning can learn Spinning Backhand, an offensive ability that lets you perform a spinning attack that turns an enemy around, exposing his back to you. Only a survivor with at least one star of Bruiser has the option to learn Push Kick, a utility ability that changes the [Y] button to do a powerful push kick, forcing enemies to stagger back.
The Push Kick, in particular, is an example of an ability that fundamentally changes how you approach a combat. Instead of encountering a group of zeds and trying to take them on as a group or trying to use the environment to separate them, you can use the kick to momentarily remove a few from the fight. You might choose to pair this with offensive abilities that let you kill individuals quickly but leave you vulnerable to groups or to let you focus on using pistols, which are versatile and lightweight but don’t have the physical stopping power of shotguns and revolvers. How you make use of these abilities is up to you.
All told, these choices allow you to take the same survivor and create someone who you’d want to use in very, very different ways. At a minimum, you’ll choose to focus on ranged vs. melee combat, and on fighting vs. avoiding fights, but you’ll also have a lot of specific options like the push kick that can provide interesting tactical choices. At the same time, since not all survivors have the same options, you should find yourself playing very differently as you switch between survivors.

THE SUM OF THESE PARTS
As with every part of State of Decay, we’ve worked to create a system with just the right mix of clarity and depth. We try to not to inundate you with stats and minor bonuses, instead focusing on key skills and abilities that have a big, identifiable impact. To close out, I thought I’d provide a quick look at some of the survivors you’ll likely encounter:

Thomas Ritter
Traits:

• Father Figure — Protects others against Fear. Objects to Selfish actions by the community.
• Carpenter — Provides the Construction skill
• Travel — Wits +1
• Camping — Wits +2, Cardio +1
• Organizer — Provides the Leadership skill

Starting Gun: Revolver: M1917 — 45 caliber — Aging classic from the last days of WWI, a collector favorite.
Starting Weapon: Crowbar — No zombie apocalypse is complete without one.
Thanks to his Construction skill, Thomas provides additional options at the Workshop (if you have one). His mood also improves whenever you upgrade or build a Workshop. He has no special advantages in combat, but he could still choose any Weapon Specialization if he raised his Fighting and/or Shooting skill first.
Thanks to the Leadership skill, the Cheer and Taunt emotes have additional effects for Thomas. Anyone can use the Cheer emote to try to gain Trust with allies and performing the Taunt emote makes enough noise to alert nearby zombies, but when Thomas cheers allies, their combat effectiveness increases for a short while, and when he taunts zombies he can actually draw them away from attacking allies. He’s also better at earning Trust in general and is more effective at resolving problems with community members who have fallen into a bad attitude.

Sam Hoffman

• Iconoclast — Resistant to Fear. Becomes Insensitive when she’s feeling good about herself.
• Service Job — Wits +1
• Eagle-Eyed — Faster Shooting skill improvement
• Great Reflexes — Provides the Acrobatics skill.

Starting Gun: Shotgun: Warden — Shotgun Shells — Low profile, slim but brutal. Affectionately named “Fiona.”
Starting Weapon: Lead Pipe — A simple bludgeoning weapon.
Sam’s personality is a blessing and a curse. When her attitude shifts to Insensitive, there is a danger of her worsening the attitudes of community members who already feel bad. (This can be counteracted by having community members with the Counseling skill.) Physically, though, she’s gifted. She improves the Shooting skill faster than normal, making her a great choice for a gun-related Weapon Specialization. On the other hand, the Acrobatics skill, much like Bruiser, is an uncommon skill that provides a whole slew of unique combat abilities. This may mean you want to focus on melee combat with her.

Alan Gunderson

• Autocrat — Resistant to Fear. Prone to Anger. Becomes Overbearing when he’s feeling good about himself.
• Law Enforcement — Shooting +2
• Loved Range Shooting — Shooting +1
• Eagle-Eyed — Faster Shooting skill improvement

Starting Gun: Rifle: 700 Huntsman  – 7.62 MM —  A classic scoped hunting rifle, versions of which are used by the military.
Starting Weapon: Machete — Good for chopping brush… or necks.
Alan’s personality is almost pure downside. He becomes angry easily and, even when he is feeling good, his Overbearing attitude can piss off other community members. Again, the key to balancing this out is other personalities that counteract this effect or to kick him out of your community. In terms of combat, he has a clear inclination: he’s good at shooting stuff. You won’t find many better than him and that may be reason enough to keep him around.
Here is a visual example for you:

Lucky guy. A funeral director in a town where the dead don’t stay dead.

Those are just a few examples. With dozens of personalities, jobs, hobbies, talents, and personal skills, each character starts out unique, and how they develop from there is up to you. Between choosing equipment, deciding how to invest your time, selecting a weapon specialization, and learning signature techniques, you have the ability to dramatically redefine the survivors, as individuals and as a group. By managing your community, you can cover for their weaknesses and play to their strengths, or you can allow everything to fall apart. You shape their story. Their survival is in your hands.

State of Decay Gives us screenshots and hints at release date.

State of Decay is giving us a small update with a hint of a release date.  These screenshots are apparently from a new trailer for the game they are going to release.  They also link us to a forum that talks about the release of the game and how it should be getting sent to Microsoft soon for evaluation.  I can't wait to play it!

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/02/news/scenes-from-our-next-teaser-video/#more-5747

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It has been a crazy, crazy month here at the Lab. We are very close to a major milestone: Delivering the first complete version of the game to Microsoft for evaluation. Please note that this means nothing in terms of a release date, though. (For a bit more information on that, check out this post on the forum.) Still, it means we’re making progress, and we are psyched!
In order to hit that milestone, we have had to pare back anything that isn’t the actual game. The video teaser we had hoped to share this week didn’t get finished. We’re a small team, and the person who makes the videos is…our producer. Hitting the milestone meant that video footage was something she pulled when nothing else was more important, and that just didn’t happen very often this month.*
While I can’t show you a finished video, Producer Jess did make the time to pull some stills for me to share with you. Click to see the big image.

A watchtower doesn’t have to be fancy.

Lily manning the radio.

A meal prepared by someone with cooking skill? Awesome.

Don’t mess with me, I haven’t had my coffee yet.

I’m going to get a gun from the locker, BRB.

This workbench doesn’t look like much, but it meets our needs for now.

All right, whose turn was it to clean the bunkhouse?

*Also, she had two babies to deliver. One was the game, and the other was an actual baby. I cannot tell you how astounded and grateful I am that she pulled the stills when she did! IRONWOMAN!

You know how Pixar puts the names of all the babies born during the movie’s production into the credits? We’re up to three so far for the team. We’re excited, and proud of the whole Undead family.

State of Decay New Q&A followup 1/18/2013

Good afternoon survivalists. State of Decay has released a new question and answers followup for us recently that answers more questions about the game that the community has posted. It's got some very good info so I thought my readers would enjoy it.  The link to the official post can be found below or you can read the copy and paste version.

http://undeadlabs.com/forums/showthread.php?6672-Q-amp-A-Day-By-Day-Followup-1-18-2013

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Survivors

Q: screenamesuck: If some of your survivors leave due to low morale or whatever, are they gone for good or can you convince them to come back later (assuming they live that long)?

A: If they leave your community, it is possible to win back their trust, but it will be very, very difficult.

After a survivor runs off or goes missing, you may get an opportunity to find them and bring them home. If that opportunity appears, you’d best take advantage. Their odds of survival drop the longer they’re on their own.

Q: Creed: Can you tell a survivor to leave your group?

A: Yes, but only if you have a really good reason, such as a bad attitude or a persistent cough. In such cases, you’ll see you have an opportunity to have a talk with the survivor and one option will be to tell them to leave. They may or may not accept your suggestion. Either way community morale will likely drop if you expel or attempt to expel someone.

Q:Jedi Spartac227, DwarfBanew: Will we be able to come across the people in the "handbook"?

A: The Church of the Ascension is a location in the game. You’ll have to go there and see for yourself.

Q: Creed: Can we save survivors and take them to other groups? I would like to save anyone I can, but I can't feed/protect everyone.

A: You can save people when they’re in danger without also inviting them into your community.

Q: JPMurdock11: What are the basic abilities that all survivors come with? For example, do all survivors have the ability to climb a fence?

A: A fuller answer to your question will appear in the upcoming skills article. The short version is that everyone has basic gun skills, basic self-defense, enough Wit to come in out of the rain, and the ability to run faster than a zombie. And, to your specific question, yes, everyone has enough athletic ability to hop a fence.

Q: JPMurdock11: Do survivors have fears? Like, if someone is afraid of heights, he'll move slower or make more noise when up on high areas?

A: Nothing as elaborate as that... yet. But some characters definitely have weaknesses which may affect how you use them. For example, someone who is Squeamish improves their hand-to-hand combat skills slower than normal. And someone with a Bum Knee has trouble resting while crouched.

Q: Creed: Will there be survivor relationships? For example, if two characters are brothers and one dies, the other will be very upset/want to kill himself. Could two characters want to become partners?

A: Not in the sense you’re talking about. In the storyline, there are relationships between characters (you noticed how some of them have the same last name, I’m sure), and the story we tell goes into their emotional reactions to danger and loss.

Q: MAJOR WARPATH: Will the survivors attack others? I know there are no human enemies but will there be survivor on survivor violence, or will they just run away from the group? Maybe steal something, or sabotage stuff in your home base.

A: If things get ugly in your community, the results can be very serious. Remember, State of Decay works in two phases: There’s how you deal with the challenges of the day when you are playing, and there’s also the offline simulation that results from your choices.

As a matter of principle, we try to give you a warning about brewing situations with potentially fatal consequences. So you may hear about minor scuffles between community members while you are playing, but it’s in the offline events where they’re more likely to seriously injure or even kill each other (accidentally or otherwise). Theft can happen as well. In fact, in most cases when survivors abandon your community, they take a little something with them.

Q: Vanilla: Does the primary character you play as take a leadership role right at the start or does he have to earn that role?

A: There isn’t much of a formal command structure in most of the survivor groups, so you’ll have an opportunity to shape community actions from an early point. As mentioned in the article, we abstract this as a kind of currency that we label “Daily Influence.” You start each day with an amount of Influence determined by your Fame. You gain Influence whenever you accomplish anything, and any time you want to direct the community to do something or any time you want to take extra supplies, you’re spending Influence. You can’t really stockpile Influence (except by gaining more Fame), so you may as well use it.

Q: Jesse: Are there any social actions with your survivors, beyond missions or calling them to pick up supplies?

A: Yes. If you’re a character who has strengths in Leadership, there are emotes you can trigger that have effects such as rallying and inspiring other members in your party.

Q: Xazbot: Will we be able to influence the morale of others group members by having some kind of conversation, where we could influence them to change their "state" or "levels in said state" by answering them in a specific way?

A: Doing positive things for your community always has the chance of turning someone’s attitude around, but one of the tools you’ll have for affecting someone’s Attitude directly is having a “friendly conversation” with them.

This doesn’t involve conversation trees. Instead, you’ll invite the individual in question to go for a walk with you and will talk through the issues in between zed encounters. There are a few ways for that play out. There’s no guarantee you’ll turn someone’s attitude around, but you do get to say fun things like: “You gotta figure out a way to deal with that shit. Take it out on the zeds, not the rest of us.... Or you're going to answer to me.”

Q: Robert: If a member dies will we have the ability to bury or burn their body, or will it just eventually disappear like regular zombies?

A: Typically, the zeds don’t leave you a whole corpse to bury. You will have an opportunity to collect their belongings though.

Q: laijka: Am I wrong in thinking that Influence is personal? So it would make sense to keep your scavenger types high on Influence so that the others are more willing to come help them carry all that phat loot?

A: Influence is shared among all your playable survivors. This is for two reasons: First, it’s just to remove hassle for you. We don’t want you jumping back and forth between people just to figure out who should spend Influence telling the community to set up some Generators. Second, it’s because all of your playable survivors are, by definition, friends. In fact, that’s how it works. In order for someone to be playable, you need to befriend them. After that, everyone else views you as a social group and judges you that way.

 Survivor Groups

Q: midniteryu: Can influence buy things from other survivor groups, or do you have to use cases of ammunition?

A: Besides cases of ammo? You can bum a molotov or something like that off of another survivor group with Influence if you’re on good terms. It’ll usually cost more Influence than at home, though, and just how much depends on how much they Trust you.

Q: Vanilla: Can you abandon one group of survivors for another?

A: No, it’s your community for better or for worse. On the plus side, it reflects all of your choices.

Q: Guest: Can the other survivor groups grow in numbers? And can my community aid theirs and vice-versa?

A: Yes and yes... Though many of them tend to dwindle in numbers over time rather than the reverse.

Q: Guest: Are the hordes attracted to the other survivor groups? If yes, can I aid them in their defense?

A: Yes.

 Bases/Facilities

Q: screenamesuck: When you decide to leave one home for another I know you have to leave it for good, but will you have to rebuild everything you've already built all over again. If so, will it take just as long to build it a second time?

(and related

Q: Morgan: Can you disassemble bases? It'd seem like a waste if you're moving from one base to another to expand, and then have to leave behind perfectly good facilities that you can disassemble for spare parts or something.

A: Your people will do their best to maintain the things they’ve created. This may mean transferring full facilities or may just mean collecting resources.

Q: Mackenzie: You mention putting barbed wire around the exterior of your base as a method of slowing the invading Zeds down and giving you more time to react. Will this be a feature we can use in State of Decay?

A: Yes. Everything in the journal is something that happens in the game. In the case of the barbed wire, it’s done automatically as a part of moving into a new home. A watchtower, on the other hand, is something you’d choose to build.

Q: Dalendos: This game is based on real time. Does it take a long time to build the different facilities?

A: A quick clarification: The game is not exactly real time. For instance, when you are logged in our day/night cycle is two hours long. There is such a thing as too much realism, and we would hate for people who can only play at night to never see the Trumbull Valley sun.

What the game does have is persistent time, time that continues to pass when you are offline (though not at the same rate as when you’re actively playing).

I edited your question, but the example you’d used was the watchtower. It takes an hour (real time) to build a watchtower. However there are methods of decreasing your build times. As we keep repeating, survivors are your biggest asset. If you have a community member with, say, a construction skill, this would speed up the process. Making friends with certain groups of other survivors can also provide ways to accelerate construction.

Q: KlayerBear: If the place you’re staying at ends up being overrun, can you and other survivors run and find a new place? Or will they just stay and fight? Or scatter and run in all directions?

A: Packing up and leaving your home base won’t be a light decision to make. First of all, you have to have another location scouted out to move to. Then you need to make sure you have the people and resources to maintain it. Once that’s done, you still need to have enough support from your community to make the big move.

In regards to fight or flight, this varies situationally per character. A coward might leave your community after the first zombie horde tries to break through the defenses. But the same coward might stay through thick or thin if you’ve managed to gain their friendship and trust.

Q: Ramon: Do you need a health/Medical station to heal survivors? Or just medkits?

A: What’s the saying? Time heals all wounds? There’s no instant med-kit healing. You can carry around Painkillers and use them to restore your Vitality on the fly. That’ll keep you from collapsing, but real damage that you take (which appears as a decrease in your max Vitality) requires recovery time. People can also get serious Injuries that take them out of commission, preventing them from contributing to the community in any meaningful way while they recover.

What’s more, with serious wounds or injuries, there’s a chance that that instead of recuperating, someone will take a turn for the worse. This is where a well-stocked Infirmary, along with someone with Medical training (veterinarians count, by the way) comes into play. The better your medical facilities, the better the odds (and speed) of recovery.

 Resources

Q: Creed: How will the food/water resource be used? Is the food in a stockpile that feeds everyone until it runs out?

A: The food is in a general stockpile that people hit up as needed. If you have a Storage Room, you’ll find there’s a little less random pilfering. You can also cook Big Meals or -- if you have someone who really knows how to cook -- a Feast. These provide temporary statistical bonuses.

Q: Creed: If I don't find enough food, can I choose who to feed first In a situation where I have 30 survivors and only 10 meals? Can you ration food out to the survivors you want to keep and let the lazy people go hungry?

A: No, the survivors have minds of their own and would still feed themselves if you told them not to eat. On the plus side, if you’re really low on food, people won’t simply starve, either. They’ll take it upon themselves to go look for food. (Which may open them to extra risk if they’re doing it out of desperation, but it’s better than starving.)

Q: Jesse: Will NPCs act on their own to gather supplies while you're offline [if supplies begin to run low]?

A: Yes. While you are offline, they community will continue to try to function and maintain its current state.

Remember that time does not pass offline at the same rate as it does while you are online, and in the case of prolonged absence, will all but stop. If you have to take an extended break from the game for any reason, you will NOT come back to find a picked clean world.

Q: Dalendos: How are the food supplies counted (Kg per person, or some other unit of measurement)?

A: Daily Rations. So one unit is enough food to feed one person for one day. We wanted to keep it simple.

Zombies

Q: WarPig, sebofthedead: We know that survivors do not becomes zombies if they get bitten. But if you die from a zombie attack, will you turn?

A: You’ll probably get torn apart and eaten instead. (But see the next question.)

Q: Robert, MAJOR WARPATH: If a member of your community commits suicide, will that person turn into a zombie (assuming their suicide method left their head intact)? What if they die in a fight with no head trauma? Could that possibly start a outbreak in you base?

A: Violent deaths tend not to be the issue, since the zombies will rip apart the corpse and eat it if given half a chance.

On the other hand, the threat of someone succumbing in their sleep (while you are offline), reanimating, and taking out half the population is one of the core concerns of every survivor group. If someone in your community becomes gravely ill or injured, you’ll have a real decision to make.

Q: Mackenzie, Zombiepreacher: If you see a horde heading towards your home/base, can you tell your group to stay quiet until the horde passes by?

A: Your survivors will generally follow the lead of whichever survivor you happen to be driving. So if you don’t shoot, they won’t shoot. You can tell individual survivors to stay quiet and sneak along when you’re out and about. As for a specific, community-wide “be quiet” command, the answer is no.

Q: Gawkyhades: I have seen in the game plays on how zombies jog towards you when they either hear you or see you. But, does this also work when you are inside of a building? Do zombies continue to jog when they enter the building, or do they immediately stop and begin to walk?

A: Each zombie type has two speeds. The faster speed is the one they use when you have attracted their attention. They slow down when they’ve lost you.

Misc.

Q: screenamesuck: Seeing how we need to keep up with places we've scavenged, can you guys make a printable map, or an online interactive map you can customize?

A: You’ll automatically note where you’ve been and what you’ve found on the map in game. We haven’t discussed the future possibility of a fully interactive map.

Q: laijka: Do good things and people will think good of you. Makes sense. But what if I want to be a douche? I'd assume people will think less of me but what will the consequences be of that? Not as many survivors wanting to join and neighbours being less willing to trade with me I take as a given, but what of the community I'm already in?

A: Depends on the people in it. Some won’t want to be a part a community like that. Most are just interested in survival and won’t care what your reputation is.

Q: Survivor11: I wanted to know if there will be a lot of cussing in this. I'd like to play this amazing zombie game without cringing every time someone drops the f-bomb.

A: There is cussing. How much depends on the character. Some of the people you’ll find in the game swear quite a bit. Others don’t swear at all.

As you probably figured out, you’ll want to avoid Sam Hoffman if you don’t care for f-bombs.

Q: Jesse: Will there be survivor random events or random world events? (I.e. Survivor Random Event: Suicide, disease etc.)

A: Yes, but not entirely random. Everything that happens in State of Decay is a result of your previous choices and actions (or inaction). Survivors won’t commit suicide without dropping into a depression first, but a lot of things that happen, like an accidental shooting at home, do have some randomness to them. Our rule of thumb is to never do anything with fatal consequences without giving you fair warning.

In terms of world events, the situation out there does change independent of your actions. How you adapt to it is up to you.

Q: Jesse: Can you create booby traps?

A: Yes. But bear in mind that you can't make anything that isn't on the predefined list of items. You can manufacture landmines and set up a chain of landmines, for example. You’ll probably enjoy finding creative ways to use the different objects in new, undocumented ways.

Q: [Multiple] I have a question about playing as a lone wolf.

A: We weren’t able to support going fully lone wolf, but you could try to get through the game with as small a community as possible and work with other communities as little as possible. You won’t be able to avoid having a Home, or someone communicating with you over the radio, and for a chunk of the game, you will have a few companions you can’t shake.

State of Decay Survival Guide

State of Decay recently released a cool read for us. It is done in the format of a survivor writing a story or journal about survival in a zombie filled world.  It also explains State of Decay features and ideas while your reading it.  It is a really cool read I enjoyed quite a lot. The Link to the Journal/Survival Guide can be found below. 

http://undeadlabs.com/2013/01/news/the-survival-handbook-day-by-day/#more-5710

State of Decay Q&A: Tactics/Buckle Up Followup, 12/18/2012

State of Decay has released an awesome Q&A follow up of their last post that was discussing tactics. This Q&A gives us a ton of useful information that many fellow gamers have been curious about. This game is going to be a wonderful zombie survival game, if not the best zombie survival game. I've posted a Link to the Q&A official post below or you can read my copy and paste version which is really long but sooo worth it so I posted it anyways.

http://undeadlabs.com/forums/showthread.php?4838-Q-amp-A-Tactics-Buckle-Up-Followup-12-18-2012


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SURVIVORS/NPCs

Q: Chrace123: When you send one of your survivors out on a mission, how are you alerted when they get into trouble?

A: Your home base has a communication center, one that is always manned by an NPC. She will get the panicked calls for help and relay the information to “you” (meaning whatever survivor you are playing at the time).

Q: Joey: If I'm about to die or don't have what it takes to get home, may I radio for help? And is there a possibility help may die on the way?

A: If the character you are driving has earned sufficient influence with your community, you will have some resources you can draw on, for inspiration, stamina, medical advice, and more. There are some resources you will have access to in return for earning the trust/support of other NPCs. But you can’t just summon any available survivor to come to your aid when you’re out and running into trouble. Go armed, and take no shame in fleeing.

Q: K-Man: Will all the playable characters be in the world [at the beginning of the game] or will some spawn/appear only if previous characters have died?

A: There are storyline characters already in the world when you log in for the first time. Others, and I’m told the vast majority, appear as you play.

If you manage to kill everyone that happens to be in the world in one miniature apocalypse of your own making (except for whoever you happen to be playing at the time), you may meet an NPC “who knows where to find a survivor” that has hitherto escaped you. But don’t expect to find anywhere near the number of survivors as you might have otherwise found.

Q: Joey: Are there any other characters who can get me items from outside? Ie. guns, survivors, jumbo jets.

A: No jumbo jets. But yeah, there are NPCs who still have connections, as implied by the last answer.

Q: No Good Names Left: Will there be [survivors in different] age groups, like elderly, teens, kids?

A: There are no young children, and the adults are mostly in their prime, though there is some variance.

Q: [Multiple]: Can all the survivors carry the same amount of weight? Are the survivors themselves of different physical type?

A: Survivors can carry different amounts of weight based on their character traits. There is variance in height, weight, and skin tone.

Q: K-Man: Is there a limit to the number of characters that can be in a community (given that I'll be able to feed them all and give them a place to rest)?

A: That’s a pretty big given! You could theoretically rescue every survivor in the game, given the ability to house them and feed them. But that definitely won’t be easy.

Q: (Multiple people) How do we change between characters? Can we switch during combat? Can we switch while we’re actively on a mission? Do we have to be in a safe area?

A: You can switch by talking to them, or you can switch via the Journal menu. You can switch to one of your family members (a survivor in your group that trusts you completely) anytime they are not busy (e.g. on a mission, or actively hiding because they are panicked).

Q: Thornboosh: Will there be other groups of survivors out there, or any non-zombie related enemies, that might be out to get you?

A: You will encounter other small groups of survivors who have banded together. You can either try to convince them to join your community, or do a little trading with them.

For SoD, we’ve made the decision to not have any human survivors actively seeking to do you harm. They might not like you or want to help you, but you don’t need to fear getting shanked in the dark by anyone that isn’t undead.

That is, you don’t need to fear it in the initial launch of State of Decay. I make no promises beyond that point.

Q: WhiteAvatar: [Do the NPCs spawn in a consistent location?] I can imagine the main NPCs with main back stories appearing at similar land marks, but what about the minor randomized npcs? are their locations randomized as well?

A: You’ve got it exactly right. The main storyline characters appear in the same places every time you play through the game, but the semi-random characters appear... semi-randomly.

Note that survivors will group up when they can, especially if they aren’t part of your community. They will also react to their immediate environment. From Phinney, our creative director: “For example, a survivor group that (randomly) settles into a grocery store will have food for trade (in exchange for cases of ammo.. .the universal currency), while one that settles into an industrial supply store might have construction materials to offer as well.”

Q: WhiteAvatar: How many survivors can you bring on a mission?

A: Most missions you run as an individual character. (Survivors have learned that running in groups attracts unwanted attention, and stealth is a priority for them when you’re not doing the driving.) There are some specific circumstances where you can call out a specific survivor to join you, but they’re special (and you’ll recognize them when you get into them).

Q: Swood: Is there some way to instruct the characters around you to do tasks; say, if you were in a scavenging group and also wanted to set up an ambush?

A: SoD does not feature an NPC ordering system, not like that. You can have other survivors come out and scavenge resources in an area you’ve discovered, and they will perform their appointed tasks at your home base. The will also take their cues from you in the field. If you shoot, they’ll feel free to shoot. If you are being stealthy, they’ll be stealthy.

Q: Major Warpath: Will NPCs know how to conserve ammo also or will they just completely Rambo it and waste resources quickly? Will they also be able to use bombs, landmines, grenades, and molotovs? Or are those just items that you use [when you’re playing as a character]?

A: NPCs (in this answer, I use the term to mean a survivor that is not currently being played by you) use guns and weapons, but do not use other items. NPCs are also pretty careful about using guns, mostly because it makes a ton of noise. They’ll look to you to open up the shooting.

Q: Thornboosh: Say your base begins to get attacked and overwhelmed. Is there an evacuate/abandon order you can give for everyone to get the hell out of there and run for their lives? Maybe set up a rendezvous point for your survivors to get to, or a second base to meet at?

A: Just a nit: You won’t be able to have a second official home base. You can have a base (with facilities you can add and upgrade) and you can have as many outposts as your base can support (no facilities besides supply storage). You can change bases if you find one you like better, but you can’t have two.

But the answer to the question you actually asked is no.

 HEALTH/INJURIES

Q: No Good Names Left: Will bones break and if they do, does your character limp?

A: Says Phinney: “Characters who suffer long-term injuries cannot be taken out for missions, but you may see them staggering around your home, looking for somewhere to lie down. (Dude, build an infirmary already!)”

Q: Joey: If I'm low on stamina, is there a way of regeneration? Finding a bed and barricading the room? Energy bars?

A: Yes, and you got the answer on the first try..

Q: Joey: Is there a way to heal myself in combat?

A: There are consumables. They work better if the character in question has some sort of medical skill.

 WEAPONS

Q: [Multiple]: Can jammed/degraded weapons be repaired? How?

A: Yes, assuming you’ve at least built a workbench at your base. A machine shop upgrade would be even better.

Q: Madmock: Will we be able to repair/maintain melee weapon durability at our base, or can we do it on the fly?

A: You’ll need to do repairs at your home base.

But since this is a Q&A about tactics, let me remind you that repairs can be done in a very tactical way. Repairing something takes a proper facility, a survivor with the proper skill to do the job, and time. Time passes in the world when you’re offline.

So play hard when you’re online, bring your busted up weapons back to base, tell your repairman to get to work, and log off. He’ll slave away while you sleep, and when you log back in, you’ll be ready to rock.

Q: Vulpesveritas, Joey: Will we be able to use a gun as a club if we run out of ammo?

A: No. Also, Phinney notes for the record that guns are far, far too valuable to abuse in that way.

Q: Garret: Will there be different types of ammunition?

A: Yes. We’ve tried to be reasonably accurate with guns and ammo types. Some types will be harder to find than others. Brant says, “To be clear, at this time we differentiate by caliber, we don’t have variances within a caliber, like HP, +P, FMJ, JHP or things like that.”

Remember that ammunition is a resource to be managed. You can’t just roll into Walmart and buy cases of the stuff.

Q: Major Warpath: Will guns jam less if you are more experienced?

A: Yes.

Q: Aaron Shift, Major Warpath: Will we be able to clean guns, in order to use them longer?

A: In SoD, cleaning is included in maintenance and repair activities.

Q: Aaron Shift: [It was] stated that we could take multiple zombies out with one shot of an assault rifle. Can we expect zombies to be a 1 to 2 shot kill to the head/ 1 shot kill to the head or chest with a shotgun at close range?

A: Depends on the type of ammunition, and how close the range is.

Q: [Multiple]: Can found objects be used as melee weapons (such as pipes, rocks, etc)?

A: There are hundreds of melee weapons to be found and used in the game world. Some of them are items like pipes, yes, but they’ve been coded as weapons so the game will recognize them. You can’t just pick up any old pipe and have it work, if you see what I mean. It’s a limit of the technology at this time.

Q: Sutt9: Can you put a [suppressor] on every weapon except the shotgun?

A: Over to Brant: “No, revolvers and shotguns are excluded completely, there are a couple rifles that are excluded and probably a pistol as well. These are the high caliber weapons that require specialized machine shops to manufacture. Also, suppressors for the big .50s are about diffusing point sources for sound and dust signatures, not for significantly limiting the dBs.”

Q: Panther: If we're crouching in water, will our guns jam more easily?

A: No, water mainly affects movement. Once you reach a certain depth, you will not be able to fire. It does not affect maintenance/degradation at this time.

 ITEMS

Q: Vulpesveritas: Will there be anything like an airhorn grenade or something that makes a lot of sound to attract zombies to it? Portable radio maybe?

A: Yes. You’re going to enjoy trying different objects out.

Q: Vulpesveritas: Will swiss army knives be available?

A: No.

Q: Bullet Saint: As guns have ammunition and melee weapons have durability, will some food stuffs spoil / have an expiration date of sorts?

A: Phinney again: “First and foremost, all of your resource stockpiles are subject to being used up over time. Construction materials are used to reinforce defenses, fuel is used to run generators (if you go that route), and food, medicine, and ammo all serve as a part of your community's daily needs.

“But food is also a special case. Food spoilage isn't a huge concern initially, but the longer your community survives, the more important it is to start preserving food (via curing, salting, pickling, or refrigeration).

“Don't stress too much about your personal inventory of energy-boosting snacks, though. Those twinkies in your backpack are good for another millennium at least.”

 MISC. GAME

Q: Vulpesveritas: Will there be "one bite and you're dead" or anything of the like, such as a hardcore mode?

A: Not a one-bite mode. In SoD you’d last about ten minutes with that. Just “you’re dead and you’re dead” mode.

Q: Silent Bob: When in stealth mode will there be a silent takedown button?

A: Yes, there are special stealth kills if you manage to sneak up behind a zombie (or two, if you’ve got the right skills) while you are stealthed.

Q: Bullet Saint: Will there be any zombies that are actually in possession of items and/or packs?

A: No, as you would expect in a real zombie apocalypse, none of the zombies are carrying around sweet loots.

Q: White Avatar: It has been said that areas surrounding bases are relatively safer, but do areas generally have specific ratings? Maybe ranked by colour coding from green zones to yellow to red? This has generally got to do with the tactic of sending survivors out on missions: How do we know how safe they are going to be travelling through certain areas. Or is safety indirectly proportional to distance traversed from the main base?

A: There is no color coding, but you can still learn a lot from looking. There is a visible safe zone on the map around bases and outposts, and the radius of that zone depends on many factors. You can see how many safe zones you've established, and gauge whether the path for NPCs on missions is likely to be safe or hostile.

Hordes will be visible on your map if they are within a reasonable visual range, and the surveying skill will also help you spot trouble without first running into it. If you’ve got strong base defenses, you will be able to repel the zombies that are attracted to the light and noise of your activities.

Other than that, you should just assume that the world is unsafe.

Q: White Avatar: If my strategy for one of my playthroughs would be to establish a self sustaining community within my home base (a la grow your own food / distill and purify your own water from a natural water source / scavenge for materials to make your own ammunition) would this be possible in class 3?

A: If you do not trigger any of the main storyline missions, which sometimes will result in world changing events that ratchet up the pressure, you could theoretically play for quite a long time. State of Decay is a sandbox, after all, and there’s no reason a properly built community shouldn’t be stable and self-sustaining. I look forward to seeing how long you last.

Q: Aaron: Since this game is third person, will we be able to toggle between shoulder views? Example: Aiming down left shoulder, then switch to aiming down the right. (JayTWC: I noticed in the distraction video it shifted left to right while the guy was sneaking about, don't know if that has an affect on weapon targeting.)

A: You can flip the shoulder view while using most firearms.

Q: Grand Confidant: It's mentioned that you can miss getting the headpop/lethal kill depending on what kind of melee weapon you're using; does this mean that I have to physically aim my reticule at the zombies head and then swing and a miss would be due to my reticule being too high or low or not on the head, etc.? Or is it more of a 'face the zombie and press the melee button' where then depending on my skill in whatever skills are involved in melee combat would affect the chance/probability of my character getting a headpop?

A: The latter (for melee weapons - as discussed, guns are different). Phinney went into some tantalizing detail for us:
“You don't have to aim melee attacks the way you would aim a gun, but melee is still very much about player skill. There are a variety of techniques your characters can master and tactics you can develop to finish off a zombie quicker. For example, getting behind a zed and shoving it headfirst into a wall would take it out instantly. Facing a zed, dodging its attack, and then counterattacking (if your character knows how to do that and has the right kind of weapon) can knock it down, leaving it vulnerable to a quick finishing move.”

State of Decay Info

Hello everyone, Undead Labs has graced us with some more State of Decay information regarding tactics. A lot of it maybe rehashed from other posts but I found it a good read all the same. I'll post the link to the post below. Not gonna copy and paste this one because it is a long read.

http://undeadlabs.com/2012/12/news/welcome-to-the-end-of-the-world-or-buckle-up-yall-shit-just-got-real/#more-5623