The new HvZ SOURCE is here

[MaxTemkin]

It is our pleasure to welcome you to the brand new HvZ SOURCE. We've worked really hard for a very long time to make this and provide it to you for free.

As you can see, we've given SOURCE a much-needed facelift, and we've also added a number of features. Over the next few months, we'll be adding some super exciting stuff, like ways for HvZ SOURCE to talk to your Facebook profile and go mobile with you when you play.

Our core belief is that Humans vs. Zombies should always be free to play, and we've built this software without charging anyone to use it. All we ask in return is that you be respectful to your fellow players, and have a great time. Oh and maybe buy an HvZ t-shirt.

With love,

- Chris, Brad, Ben, Max, Trevor, Joe, & Justin

What does everyone think?

[solmssteinke]

iLike it >: D

[ugadawg]

Fantastic! Any updates for those of us who donated to get the plus accounts?

[MaxTemkin]

We haven't rolled out Plus accounts yet but they're coming in an update and our Kickstarter backers will receive them.

[skullface1818]

Don't have to ask me twice: -signs up-

If you make a + version of the site id sign up for that too.

[ZombieMonii]

Just finished running my first ever HvZ game on the old Source site- the new site looks amazing! Looking forward to using it next year.

[AWFS Bear]

I like it actually. I don't know how to use it at all though and dont' see easy navigating things, but I might be overlooking stuff right now. but yea if I can do a plus I will surely join it

[Mzzkc]

So the visual representation of the game progression is stream-based instead of table-based now?

Is there an easy way to easily check/search for a player's status?

Or is the issue here that you can only see so much of games that you haven't joined, and there's a huge system right beneath the surface that I can't see until I join up and start playing?

[Sklover]

So the visual representation of the game progression is stream-based instead of table-based now?

Is there an easy way to easily check/search for a player's status?

Or is the issue here that you can only see so much of games that you haven't joined, and there's a huge system right beneath the surface that I can't see until I join up and start playing?

There is both a stream based view and a similar table based view.  After joining the game, you have access to the players page.  Here you can view all players and filter by player state (like before).

[Ricter]

Make uploading an icon when creating an account optional, or have a radio button saying "Use Default".  It's silly to lock someone out until they can find an image to upload.

[Mzzkc]

There is both a stream based view and a similar table based view.  After joining the game, you have access to the players page.  Here you can view all players and filter by player state (like before).

Ah, I figured it was something like that. Any chance of making features like that viewable by non-players? I always liked checking out how other people's games were going in other schools and searching to see if they were dead or not.

Beyond that everything looks really slick, and the stream is definitely a nice addition.

Ditto what Ricter said. I had filled out the "What sent you here?" box with a good bit of detail, but had neglected to put in a picture (since I assumed that would be optional, as that's what you'd expect of most sign-up processes like this), so all that was lost and I didn't have the time or the desire to write it up again.

[MaxTemkin]

Make uploading an icon when creating an account optional, or have a radio button saying "Use Default".  It's silly to lock someone out until they can find an image to upload.

Sorry for the late reply to this!

Our goal is to make HvZ SOURCE give players the best possible game of Humans vs. Zombies, and we think the best game experience is when everyone can see a picture of everyone else. Humans vs. Zombies isn't an anonymous internet game - it's a real life game that you play with real people who have faces.

We may give moderators an option in the future to allow players in without avatars. But for now, we think this will give players the best game experience.

[MaxTemkin]

Ah, I figured it was something like that. Any chance of making features like that viewable by non-players? I always liked checking out how other people's games were going in other schools and searching to see if they were dead or not.

We're planning to give moderators control over who can see their game. It's not an urgent feature, but we will get to it ASAP.

Ditto what Ricter said. I had filled out the "What sent you here?" box with a good bit of detail, but had neglected to put in a picture (since I assumed that would be optional, as that's what you'd expect of most sign-up processes like this), so all that was lost and I didn't have the time or the desire to write it up again.

I apologize for losing your form data - that is really disrespectful to your time, and we will fix that bug so it doesn't happen again.

[Sgt Biscuit]

On the subject about player pictures, I definitely agree with working on getting everyone to add a picture of themselves so that player identification is easier. The biggest issue we had with it was, when tabling at our student center, we had a computer out for students to sign up on. Obviously we didn't have pictures of the students that chose to sign up so we just had to use an arbitrary placeholder picture. This probably isn't a priority for you guys, but having the option to postpone posting a photo for X hours or something along those lines would be great.

The other biggest issue we had, aside from the entire skin of the site changing halfway through our game when the site was officially released, was in reporting kills. Kill reporting was done in military time, something that our players failed to account for quite a lot. This resulted in a lot of people starving before they should have meaning us mods had to go in and modify the times on a case-by-case basis. Giving the mods a switch to modify kill reporting from 24 to 12 hr time and the other way around would come in really handy.

Aside from that, looks great so far. I'm looking forward to where the software will go from here!

[torukmakto4]

Regarding the avatars, from my experience in monitoring 3 games here so far on our KVZ host, that facility already exists - and very few players actually use a mugshot, etc. of themselves as their avatar. More common are animations, movie framecaps, zombie art, LOLcats, trollfaces and other hilarious nonsense. That, and squad avatars. It's an established culture and I don't see it changing any time soon, so player identification? Not so much. Forcing players to upload avatars would just get you MORE LOLcats, animated zombie kills, images of Rambo, zombie humor and guns. Personally, I would just use my Jake Sully avatar from here, that is unless my squad had an issue avatar that time.

And I definitely think that forcing players to have an avatar is not a good idea and would only result in headaches. Here, we do not allow players to register independently; their KVZ accounts are created using a mod's machine and their official ID issued at a rules meeting. This is a requirement of our situation with admin and police. Indeed, the avatar deal would result in lots of generic images being uploaded by the mods - unless they got on board and took ID photos which is labor intensive and slow.