Dear Players, This is the first announcement ever for this brand new game-mode in Infestation: The New Z. We are very excited to release this game-mode for you guys. After a lot of testing we are finally getting to a point where we are able to start sharing stuff with our community. First of all we would like to announce that we are doing a patch tomorrow morning. This patch will not only contain the survival beta testing enable but will also be a huge game update for the rest of the game. We have worked on a lot and fixed a lot of stuff so this patch looks very promising. Patch notes will be release later, keep an eye out in this forum section for them: http://forums.fredaikis.com/index.php?/forum/15-patch-notes-game-updates/ Now, let's jump into the main part of this announcement: The Survival Beta testing. [h1]What is survival?[/h1] Survival is a brand new game-mode in Infestation: The New Z that's entirely based on the old Infestation game-play. A big part of the Infestation: The New Z players came from the original game Infestation: Survivor Stories and came to New Z with the expectations it would be similar to the old game. We all know NewZ is not like Infestation and a lot has changed. One big change is the rarity of loot. Some people like this, some people don't. After developing NewZ for almost 2 years now we have always wanted to bring back that old Infestation feeling by having a game where loot is rare and has value and a game that is generally more aimed to survival. Wiping wasn't an option due our past so our only chances in ever making a game like this was by having it inside NewZ as a separate game-mode: Survival. Basically survival will be an independent game-mode in Infestation: The New Z that's aimed to being like the old Infestation with survival aspects (like crafting) added. [h1]The key points:[/h1] [list] [*]Separate game-mode meaning all statistics are separated from the other game-modes: open world & battle royale. [*]An independent new global inventory. No global inventory access everywhere but ONLY in safe-zones marked around the map. Players will be able to access their global inventory after reviving their character. [*]Original independent Infestation Colorado V2 map. Of course there will be changes done by us but we will follow the main legacy version of Colorado V2 originally created for Infestation. [*]No early revival. Since there's no currency for this game mode yet early revival won't be possible. Revive timers will be 10 minutes, premium revive timers will be half of that: 5 minutes. [*]No game dollars. There won't be a currency yet but at some point we will most likely introduce a currency. [*]Original XP from zombies and super zombies. Premium will have double XP. Normal XP from zombies will be 5 XP per zombie and from super zombies you will get 250 XP. [*]No private servers will be available on release. We will most likely introduce private servers at a later state. [*]There will be lockers but they will only be loot-able and they will be extremely rare. Lockers will be disabled at start. [*]Original zombie spawns. Super zombies will spawn in the same locations as they did in Infestation. Normal zombies also spawn in their original places like in Infestation. Zombies will only give players possible items and XP since game dollars are disabled and there's no other currency. [*]Clans and groups are disabled. We might introduce this at a later state but for the first release this will both be disabled. The main reason clans and groups are disabled is because we do not want the bigger groups to have an advantage over the solo players. Players are still allowed to group up however they like but without any tags. It will be hard to know who is your friend and who not. We think this will be a lot of fun! [*]5 new dedicated characters for this game-mode only. [*]Independent skill-tree. Epic skills from NewZ have been removed. We are planning to rework the entire skill-tree at a later state. (Add more skills and change the way the skill-tree works) [*]Car spawners are completely removed / disabled. Cars will be enabled but they will only spawn randomly around the map (like in Infestation). Players will not be able to pick up cars. Cars will use gasoline. Gasoline is find-able in-game. [*]Hunger and thirst will be present and will be a big part of the game-play. [*]Bleeding and infection has been added back. To recover from bleeding a player has to use a bandage. To recover from infection a player has to use a vaccine. Those items will be find-able in-game. [/list] [h1]Updated / Added by the NewZ development team:[/h1] [list] [*]Zombie AI has been updated and reworked by us. Zombies are generally smarter and stronger. After testing this turned out to be way more fun and zombies are a bit more of a challenge now. [*]Zombies have a lower detection radius when they're not facing you. This will allow players to for example sneak up behind zombies and not get detected until the zombie turns around and actually sees the player. Then the zombie will aggro. [*]More screaming and sprinting zombies to make them a bit more of a challenge. [*]Random airdrops are enabled just like how they are in open world but they will spawn own dedicated items like sniper ammo, high grade guns and other valuable loot. Random airdrops are random and rare. [*]Bus system is present but only in safe-zones. Travelling using the bus system is free. You can only travel from safe-zone to safe-zone. [/list] [h1]Still in development:[/h1] [list] [*]Crafting & that further into base building. Crafting is ALMOST finished, but it will be released in later updates. [*]Loot balancing (overall). This will be finished during beta based on test player's experience and feedback. Balancing of loot is practically already done at this moment. [*]Re-balancing of items. Since the game uses one database for the item statistics and survival will have the same statistics on for example weapons like how they are in open world we will have to change some statistics. This will be done based on feedback and experience. [/list] [h1]Who can play the beta of survival?[/h1] First of all we would like to make clear that only a certain group of players will be able to beta test survival. Only players with the following account types will have survival beta enabled in their game: [list] [*]Veteran [*]Streamer [*]Legendary [*]Lifetime Premium [*]Deluxe [*]Extreme [*]Moderator [/list] We are making the beta testing available for only these type of accounts and not for everyone because we want to give something back to the 'more than average player'. Don't worry. We are planning to release survival officially and fully very soon after the beta release. [h1]How will the beta survival work?[/h1] Beta period will be over around Wednesday, June 28. During this period some players (see mentioned above) will be able to play this new game mode already. This game mode is not just finished yet, that's why it's called beta. After this period the beta servers will most likely close. Depending on how the testing goes we will release the official survival. We are aiming to release survival officially on June 30, Friday. Players that play during beta will be wiped meaning that on official release everyone will start from 0 - equally. [h1]Why is there a beta survival?[/h1] The main reason we are pre-releasing survival is to make sure that on official release the game-mode is perfect and how we want it. With the beta we are giving our community the chance to help finishing up this new game mode. We will take their feedback and see if everything is how we intent things to be. The biggest reason for this beta is to make sure that there's not any mistakes in for example the rarity of loot. We don't want to find those things out after we fully officially release. Survival will be enabled in tomorrow morning's patch. Stay tuned on our Twitter and Facebook to see when exactly that is. Patch notes will release soon! Best Regards, // Infestation: The New Z - Staff Team