A question about lore and how knox county kentucky became the location of the game

[Moô]

I'm actually from laurel county right the to northwest of Knox County and wiki says the company publishing this game is British/Canadian, and I'm very curious as to why this specific place is said be where the game takes place. If you google "project zomboid location" this comes up "Knox County is an area in southeastern Kentucky, USA where Project Zomboid is set. It takes place within the towns of Muldraugh, West Point, Valley Station, Dixie, Rosewood, March Ridge, Riverside and surrounding countryside as well as the upcoming Louisville, Fort Knox and Brandenburg." All of these places are in Kentucky, however, none of these cities or places are actually in south eastern Kentucky or even close to knox county. Id like to see a Barbourville Kentucky (city in Knox County KY) and London Kentucky (my hometown), but don't get me wrong I bet Louisville will be crazy to explore! I'm more interested in how the company got the idea for these places for the game in the first place, so thank you all who can shed some light on this!

[Moô]

correction, Wiki says the company.....

[Paranoia]

probably has entirely to do with fort knox and trying to fit nearby locations into the explorable world.

[Vaileasys]

This is something I've had a bit of trouble with getting right on the wiki. To my knowledge, prior to the release on Steam, the game was set in Knox County, and for some reason Muldraugh, as could be learnt from listening to the radio broadcast.

However, since the map was completely remade, it was loosely based on the satellite image of Muldraugh, along the border of Meade and Hardin counties. Followed by the addition of West Point. Ever since, the lore has changed somewhat, such as no longer mentioning "Knox County" and is instead referred to as "Knox Country" - a fictional name given since it's so close to Fort Knox.

As for the reason for basing it around Muldraugh. Muldraugh is unique since it is the only town/city that is placed on only one side of a hwy, in I believe the whole of the U.S., maybe? It is also placed between the massive city of Louiseville and Fort Knox, giving a lot of potential for some interesting features. Furthermore, it has the Ohio river just to the North, which acts as a natural border for the game, also giving some lore opportunities, such as blowing up the bridges to stop the spread of disease.


As for the wiki and whether it's "Knox County" or "Knox Country", it hasn't been made clear by the devs. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the real world Knox County though. So that part you quoted should be updated on the wiki.

[Moô]

Ahhhh i never noticed it said knox country i see! thank you lol this actually irks me a little less now. Does anyone know if any of the devs are from KY because Im also wondering why they chose Ky in the first place.

[Maveldriid]

Actually it would seem that when you start a new game under "you have on day", it straight up says "You are back in knox county" so back the original question of why, why there are no cities from around knox county in the game but it specifies knox county.

[Maveldriid]

All the locations are real places, the real knox county seams to be scrapped for the fictional knox country as they clearly started to chose places more north/northwest. So it would seem there is no method to the madness and it was all just a mistake, so clearly the game doesn't take place in knox county so google just needs to get it right. Why kentucky is my real question now.

[Death]

Originally posted by Maveldriid:

All the locations are real places, the real knox county seams to be scrapped for the fictional knox country as they clearly started to chose places more north/northwest. So it would seem there is no method to the madness and it was all just a mistake, so clearly the game doesn't take place in knox county so google just needs to get it right. Why kentucky is my real question now.

I am quite sure it's supposed to Knox County. The "Knox Country" is probably a typo. But it seems to me that whenever a dev has mentioned it they have used Knox County.

Edit: I could be wrong though. Maybe we can get Nasko or someone else to clear it up for us.

[Moô]

Who is nasko? a dev?

[nasKo]

The name Knox County was what the map was called in its very early stages. We have stopped calling it that and dropped the name fairly early on after realizing our mistake but the name stuck with people, still calling it Knox County to this day. Maybe also because it has still remained in the Wiki, which is what people find via Google.
Knox County by now would basically mean the small old map, that our tech demo was set in.

As for the game world after that, Knox Country is what we referred it to after realising that the real Knox County isn't near the location we were going for, but it's not mentioned very often except in one or two radio/tv broadcasts, I think.

It was mainly Muldraugh that we were after, for a couple of reasons.
Return of the Living Dead was set in Louisville, which is nearby, and then there's the fact that Muldraugh is basically surrounded by the military, including the iconic Fort Knox.
Plus, even though it's a fairly small town, it also had a nice variety of areas right around it with farms, industrial areas, other smaller towns, a bigger city or two, woods and so on.

[Death]

Originally posted by nasKo:

The name Knox County was what the map was called in its very early stages. We have stopped calling it that and dropped the name fairly early on after realizing our mistake but the name stuck with people, still calling it Knox County to this day. Maybe also because it has still remained in the Wiki, which is what people find via Google.
Knox County by now would basically mean the small old map, that our tech demo was set in.

As for the game world after that, Knox Country is what we referred it to after realising that the real Knox County isn't near the location we were going for, but it's not mentioned very often except in one or two radio/tv broadcasts, I think.

It was mainly Muldraugh that we were after, for a couple of reasons.
Return of the Living Dead was set in Louisville, which is nearby, and then there's the fact that Muldraugh is basically surrounded by the military, including the iconic Fort Knox.
Plus, even though it's a fairly small town, it also had a nice variety of areas right around it with farms, industrial areas, other smaller towns, a bigger city or two, woods and so on.

Interesting. Thanks for the info. I never actually noticed when it changed.

[Moô]

Ok I see thank you for the response, why did you choose Kentucky for the setting of the game?

[nasKo]

Originally posted by maveldriid:

Ok I see thank you for the response, why did you choose Kentucky for the setting of the game?

Because Muldraugh is in Kentucky :P

It wasn't a matter of looking for something in Kentucky, it was that Muldraugh was a good fit for the reasons mentioned in my post above. It just happened to be in Kentucky, so we're looking to build other aspects of the game around that (map, climate and weather, wildlife, soundtrack).