{"id":470,"date":"2008-02-29T16:12:55","date_gmt":"2008-02-29T22:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nerdflood.wordpress.com\/?p=470"},"modified":"2008-02-29T16:12:55","modified_gmt":"2008-02-29T22:12:55","slug":"urban-dead-still-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/urban-dead-still-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Urban Dead &#8211; still fun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/nerdflood.files.wordpress.com\/2008\/02\/urbandead.jpg\" align=\"left\" \/>It&#8217;s been a couple of weeks since I first starting playing the <a href=\"http:\/\/urbandead.com\">HTML-based survival horror game<\/a> with a substantial group from <a href=\"http:\/\/evilavatar.com\">Evil Avatar<\/a>, but I have to admit, I&#8217;m still having fun. By this point with most games I play, I&#8217;ve already sucked all the entertainment value out of it and am ready to ditch it for something else. But not this.<\/p>\n<p>I even logged in a few times over the past couple of days while in Phoenix. I would check the status of the building I was in, check the activity, stock up on <a href=\"http:\/\/wiki.urbandead.com\/index.php\/FAK#First_Aid_Kit\">FAKs<\/a>, and then check out the status of our current squad operations on our private forums. If I had some AP available, I would run around to nearby squad HQs and see if anyone required any healing.<\/p>\n<p>There are two qualities of this game that make it so appealing to me. One, the ability to come and go from the game at any point I choose. Unless our squad has a scheduled operation to accomplish, I am free to do what I want, at my own convenience. I can log in at any hour of the day and assist where needed. Log out, and then come back later and help out some more. It&#8217;s based entirely on my schedule and availability, and for a family gamer such as myself, that kind of passive timetable is not only refreshing, it&#8217;s a necessity.<\/p>\n<p>The other quality is the community at EvAv that has gathered around this game. The EvAv user base is a fairly great community in and of itself, but the community of UD players is absolutely amazing. <b>Torrefaction <\/b>&#8211; the EvAv UD ringleader and instigator &#8211; is a phenomenal operations commander, setting achievable goals and making smart decisions about command structure and group objectives. The ability to corral <i>any <\/i>large group of disparate players into any semblance of order is commendable, but to herd <i>this <\/i>particular group of cats takes some godlike patience and understanding. Torrefaction may not have necessarily <i>built <\/i>the community, but he has definitely given the community a <i>purpose<\/i>. And that&#8217;s what makes playing the game so much fun.<\/p>\n<p>The funny thing about this game is that it was <i>designed <\/i>to be played mostly away from the UD site itself. Sure, you perform your actions on the UD site. But performing actions is largely a result of spending a lot of time planning and coordinating with your teammates on <i>another <\/i>site. That&#8217;s what helps build the community. And it seems as though the logic of the game dictates that you do this in order to be successful.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you haven&#8217;t tried it out yet, I suggest you give Urban Dead a go. But if you&#8217;re going to try it, you should definitely attempt to hook up with a larger group. That&#8217;s the aspect where this game truly shines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a couple of weeks since I first starting playing the HTML-based survival horror game with a substantial group from Evil Avatar, but I have to admit, I&#8217;m still having fun. By this point with most games I play, I&#8217;ve already sucked all the entertainment value out of it and am ready to ditch [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[245],"tags":[277,553,408],"class_list":["post-470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gaming","tag-mmo","tag-urban-dead","tag-zombies","last-post"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}