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Overview[]

Main article: Dead Frontier
Logonew

Dead Frontier takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, infested with zombies. It focuses on a city named Fairview, where the game takes place. Players can only travel around the city by foot, since vehicles are all broken beyond repair, and the streets are cluttered with debris, crates and vehicles that have broken down. Further away from the outpost that the player starts at, the zombies that are encountered are much tougher, and appear in larger numbers.

Players are shown on the screen in the outpost as customizable avatars, limited only by the weapon proficiencies, stats of the player, the class of the player, and most importantly, by what they can afford to buy, or whether they can find the item by looting. Players can interact with each other via the forums, the CB Radio, or by chatting in multiplayer rooms.

Much of the game revolves around the Inner City, where players can loot items, gain experience by killing zombies, and so on.

Dead Frontier is currently in Beta, with many features still missing.

Sound[]

Dead Frontier has sound in both the Inner City and within Outposts. The gameplay sound can be activated or deactivated in the 2D version through the main menu (before entering the game itself), or through the in-game menu in the 3D version (by pressing ESC).

There are a few sounds that can be heard while in an Outpost, such as the sound of trudging footsteps when the player moves from an area to another by clicking certain links. Sounds can also be heard when the player hires a chef, engineer or a doctor, producing the respective sound of that task. Munching noises can be heard when the player consumes food items, and strangely, if players consume a beverage such as Beer, Milk or Red Wine, munching noises will still be generated, most likely due to drinking sounds being overlooked.

In the 2D version there are different background soundtracks for different zombie zones, and this is useful for knowing in which zone the player is in. However, additional music can be heard in either versions by clicking the music link below the game window (as the picture depicts).

Chat&music

Chat and Music links are below the game's window

Moaning in the background is also commonly heard, and usually heralds the presence of at least one zombie. When a lot of moaning has been heard, it means that the aggro is getting higher.

In the 2D version, deep into the city, loud cawing sounds are heard, alerting the player to the presence of crows. In the 3D version, there are distinct moans and growls for zombies and mutants, whether a bone may have a lower pitched growl, a tendril may have a higher pitched one. The titan has the lowest pitched growl sound ever recorded until these days. Its presence in certain areas can be detected alone through these audible particular growls.

Graphics[]

In the Inner City, players can choose to adjust the quality setting. From medium quality, players are given limited sight range in the direction that the cursor is pointing, with respect to the position of the player’s character, and a film grain effect is made, trying to create a 'horror film' image. It is recommended to play in low quality, since the film grain is removed, and lag is also less likely to happen.

Players may find that increasing the gamma settings of the computer would help greatly in making the surroundings easier to see.

Lag in the Inner City is presently a large problem, with player synchronization being imperfect. For example, a player may not see a zombie in the exact spot that another player sees. The Administrator has plans to help reduce or even remove lag from the game, but he has not disclosed how exactly he would do it. Playing in Single Player mode will also reduce lag, but players will not have the company of other players.

The Dead Frontier 3D 3rd demo (with multiplayer, greatly improved sync, PvP, Instance Traveling system and very high resolution graphics) was released on September 20, 2010.

Player classes[]

Main article: Category:Character Details

There are quite a few classes that players can choose from. None of them are jacks of all trades as they can only specialize in one area. For example, a Chef may cook food items, but he cannot do other things such as to grow crops or heal others. This encourages players to work together – a Farmer could grow crops, and pass them to a Chef to cook the food and increase its nutritional value. Doctors and Scientists would also work well in this sense – Scientists can create medication, and Doctors can administer it to increase the effectiveness of medication.

There are also miscellaneous professions, such as Firemen, Police Officers, Teachers, Students, and so on. They do not have unique abilities such as to produce items, but they have increased experience gain or increased stats.

Looting[]

Main article: Looting Survivors are very dependent on looting basic necessities and other supplies from the Inner City. Food itemsmedicationarmour, weapons and ammunition are some of the things that players can find. There are numerous objects that a player can search for items, such as corpses, wreckages of vehicles, the interiors of buildings and so on. Deeper parts of the Inner City generally have better loot in terms of quantity and quality, but players are faced with tougher zombies and many more of them.

Players can hold “E” to search an object for items, and this takes about 3 seconds before the game notifies the player whether anything was found or not, to simulate the time taken to search something. It is possible to move while searching an object, but firing or swinging a weapon will cause the player to stop searching. When an item is found, the player can make a choice whether or not to take the item and players are set to AFK and are invulnerable to nearby zombies, which are not paused.

Sometimes, looting in a less deep and more manageable place can bring about better rewards rather than simply going as deep as possible and trying to grab as much loot as the player can. In deep areas, it is very tough to survive without proper weapons, and looting is very difficult, since zombies are constantly chasing after the player, leaving the player with very little time to search an object before the zombie catches up.

In the 3D version only the objects that the survivor suspects that contain something of interest are able to be scavenged. Those objects have normally a distinct pattern (yellow colored sometimes) and have an interrogation mark over them. By holding the "E" or "F" keys over these objects a "Searching" text appears meaning the survivor is scavenging for items hidden within that object (see pictures at left).

Users with problems in their Internet connection may need more time to search the object, unless they choose to play in the Single Player mode. Sometimes, moving away from an object and searching it again seems to solve the searches' lag issue.

Aggro[]

Main article: Aggro
Aggro

Aggro is used to describe the aggression of zombies to a player, or a group of players. Increased aggro would lead to a larger number of zombies, and it also increases the speed at which they move.

It is caused by the usage of loud weapons, such as shotguns, chainsaws, and many other types of guns. Melee weaponry generates the least aggro, with the exception of chainsaws.

Aggro is generally undesired when the player wishes to loot, since the presence of many zombies leads to increased difficulty in looting. However, when a player wishes to gain as much experience as possible, aggro would be beneficial as there would be more zombies around for the player to kill. Some rooms in Multiplayer are named “Aggro”, which shows that the players in there are trying to rake up aggro, for faster leveling. Within 3D, the person who creates the most aggro will get the most attention from zombies, but this does not mean 3-4 zombies may not attack someone who has done nothing to cause aggro.

Interaction[]

All zombies in the Inner City are aggressive, regardless of the level of the player. They also have a rather high amount of hitpoints, with respect to the weapons that players can use. It takes many hits to bring down even the weakest of the zombies, using weapons that are issued to beginners such the Pen Knife or Beta Tomcat. Fortunately, most zombies currently do not have ranged attacks, and those that do have them do not appear near the beginner outpost.

Mobility of players is an important aspect of combat in Dead Frontier. It is best to keep a distance away from zombies if ranged weapons are available to the player. If the player has melee weapons, he should not simply charge into a zombie. Instead, hitting a zombie, and retreating some distance while the character pulls back for another swing, and then moving forth to hit zombies again, should be the right way of attacking a zombie with melee. Chainsaw users can charge into a zombie and ram it but ONLY if they have a very high critical rate such as 100 or higher. If the critical hit stat is 100 or above, the percentage of hits that are critical hits is 80%. With the high amount of hits per second of a chainsaw, plus high critical hits, the chainsaw can successfully "move" a zombie in a desired direction using knockback. The grinder currently has the best damage of all chainsaws but even it cannot stop a Longarm or Fat Red Zombie if your critical rate is not high enough.

Dead Frontier also offers Player versus Player (PvP) combat, where players can simply kill each other, but only in certain multiplayer rooms that players can set up. Apart from competing for the Top Player Killer award, which grants access to the Elite Shop, there are no other rewards for engaging in PvP combat.

Community[]

Most player to player interaction takes place in the forums, where players can read and post in topics. In the outpost, there is a marketplace available, where players can buy or sell items and services, such as cooking, medical or repairing.

There is also a CB Radio, which is basically a chat room for players. The CB Radio is found at the bottom left of the Outpost and Inventory screen and at the bottom of the Inner City screen.

There is an area called “Records”, where players can see the top players, based on amount of wealth, the top player killers, the top survivors, and so on. This is to keep the players competitive, especially for the top player killer and survivor awards. Those two awards grant the winners of the awards access to the Elite Shop for a week.

Membership[]

Main article: Gold Membership

Players may subscribe for Gold Membership and receive numerous benefits, which are as follows:

  • 100% extra experience gain
  • 200 free Credits every month
  • Discounts in the Credit Shop
  • Access to the exclusive Gold Member forums
  • Priority technical support
  • The probability of finding items while looting is increased
  • Looted items generally have higher market value
  • New Features are allowed to be tested before their official release
  • Player's forum title may be customized
  • Death timer is reduced greatly
  • Gold Member ad at the bottom of the page is removed.

The current rates are US$7.95 per month, US$39.95 for 6 months or US$72.95 for 12 months. All money earned is used to support the servers and the game.

Players can also choose to simply purchase credits for a one-time fee; credits are used to redeem items from the Credit Shop or simply for sale to other players for in-game money. They may be bought via PayPal or SMS, although the rates of purchase via SMS are more costly. Generally, better discounts are given for purchases of larger amounts of Credits.

Rules[]

There are a number of rules in place for player conduct, such as rules against offensive language, scamming, and bug abuse. Majority of the rules apply to the forums or CB Radio, and all the rules are enforced by moderators. Players may also report other players who break the rules.

Players are strictly required to follow these rules for fair gameplay, protection of players, and to promote a friendly environment for new survivors. Violating these rules can invite disciplinary action which can range from suspensions to bans or even a permaban.

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