What is the Knox event?

[Ash//Fox]

I know this might require a bit of speculation but I'm curious because I want to match my loot settings to potential lore. If the apocalypse is more sudden then surely ammo, food, and gas filled cars should be easier to find right? Or vice versa if there was a panic state we've missed out on.

So when you spawn in early July, pretty much the entire neighborhood has been zombified, we know that the zombie illness is fluid spread but it's not in the water supply because you never need to purify your tap water. It's not airborne so we can't think of it like that. Is it like the zombie pandemic raged and our character sat in his house waiting for things to blow over until food stocks ran low? The news make it seem like a very localized thing that not many people know the true nature of. While my character gunned down 30 people for a few cans of ravioli the president is assuring everyone that nobody has been killed. Anyone have any theories on how the zombie pandemic spread and how freshly stocked shelves should be? How many people panicked and drove out of town to government checkpoints taking their freshly fueled cars with them versus how many people even had the chance?

[RayRay Jackson]

The news makes it seem localized, but if you read the transcripts of radio and TV shows (not life and living) it paints a much more grim and clear picture. Someone has a writeup of the speculated timeline, how it spread outside of Knox county, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm HOPING the devs make a lot of the lore more vivid when NPC's launch.

Having both set/scripted live events with NPCs and randomized NPC events will add another very complex and satisfying layer to the game. I think it will also help them to better tell the story, because a lot of writing has already been done in the form of the radio, TV, and book text. I think the lead writer worked on several other big story scripts before PZ as well.

[Omnipresent Oatmeal]

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

It's not airborne so we can't think of it like that.

Unless I've read everything wrong, this is false.
The virus is is spread by two different things: air and bodily fluids (saliva and blood, primarily).
Your character is one of the very few that happen to be immune to the airborne spread of the virus. The TV news reports indicate that there are unverified rumors of people like that existing.

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

The news make it seem like a very localized thing

One of the news reports quite literally says that Knox Event Infection symptoms have been reported overseas in London and Mogadishu.

[Telfram]

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

I know this might require a bit of speculation but I'm curious because I want to match my loot settings to potential lore. If the apocalypse is more sudden then surely ammo, food, and gas filled cars should be easier to find right? Or vice versa if there was a panic state we've missed out on.

Get to the roadblock outside the louiseville city limits, and in the army encampment there seems to be an abundance of ammo and med supplies. Also cars in the refugee camps yet no hordes of zeds.

[Ash//Fox]

Originally posted by Omnipresent Oatmeal:

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

It's not airborne so we can't think of it like that.

Unless I've read everything wrong, this is false.
The virus is is spread by two different things: air and bodily fluids (saliva and blood, primarily).
Your character is one of the very few that happen to be immune to the airborne spread of the virus. The TV news reports indicate that there are unverified rumors of people like that existing.

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

The news make it seem like a very localized thing

One of the news reports quite literally says that Knox Event Infection symptoms have been reported overseas in London and Mogadishu.

Over time it says that, but the early reports make it seem localized

[Magenta Genghis]

Originally posted by Ash//Fox:

I know this might require a bit of speculation but I'm curious because I want to match my loot settings to potential lore. If the apocalypse is more sudden then surely ammo, food, and gas filled cars should be easier to find right? Or vice versa if there was a panic state we've missed out on.

So when you spawn in early July, pretty much the entire neighborhood has been zombified, we know that the zombie illness is fluid spread but it's not in the water supply because you never need to purify your tap water. It's not airborne so we can't think of it like that. Is it like the zombie pandemic raged and our character sat in his house waiting for things to blow over until food stocks ran low? The news make it seem like a very localized thing that not many people know the true nature of. While my character gunned down 30 people for a few cans of ravioli the president is assuring everyone that nobody has been killed. Anyone have any theories on how the zombie pandemic spread and how freshly stocked shelves should be? How many people panicked and drove out of town to government checkpoints taking their freshly fueled cars with them versus how many people even had the chance?

There is a default setting called Initial Infection. There is also one for 6 months later it's all how you wanna play the game honestly.

[Szproto the fish |]

The main action takes around 7-9 days after first infenction if I remember corectly, and yes main character is a guy that sitted in his house thorugh it as goverment ordered. Thats why you already see zombies on the street. At start it seems like localized event, and army wants people to beliveve it, up until around day 7 news about disease being airborne and striking people behind closed zone. At day 14 last broadcasts infrom about cases in europe and africa

[Jucamais]

Originally posted by Jackson:

The news makes it seem localized, but if you read the transcripts of radio and TV shows (not life and living) it paints a much more grim and clear picture. Someone has a writeup of the speculated timeline, how it spread outside of Knox county, and a bunch of other stuff. I'm HOPING the devs make a lot of the lore more vivid when NPC's launch.

Having both set/scripted live events with NPCs and randomized NPC events will add another very complex and satisfying layer to the game. I think it will also help them to better tell the story, because a lot of writing has already been done in the form of the radio, TV, and book text. I think the lead writer worked on several other big story scripts before PZ as well.

"When NPCs lauch" lmao lmao lmao

[way2co0l_2003]

Yeah ultimately the bigger question is how do you want to play. I play with personalized loot settings as well. Some could argue it makes the game easier for me in some ways and they may be right. I also play with insane zombie numbers so those extras are useful and I feel they're more realistic considering the circumstances in the world. But it's definitely much easier than playing with ultra rare for everything. If you'll get bored with it being easy and one of those people that just wants the diehard survival experience, ultra rare will be better for you. If you enjoy the fighting more and want to do base building and all that and don't want to be unrealistically handicapped then alter the settings yourself.

To answer the question more directly, the event is rather sudden for the main infected areas but that doesn't mean everyone died all at the same time. Many never got a chance, but many did and they either hunkered down and barricaded or ran for the exits taking what they could quickly. Most people get it from an airborne source though some (the MC) are immune to that strand though not the active strand from bites (unless settings set otherwise). I don't think it's unrealistic to have lots of food and stuff around though it does diminish the challenge of looking after those needs when it's all readily available.

[CaptainBinky]

I will just add here, rather vaguely, that the information available within the game is not necessarily accurate. There is some amount of speculation and assumption - this is, after all, a novel event in the game world without any direct parallel. And goodness knows we've all had experience recently on how easily misinformation can spread. We will strive to put in enough details over the course of development that I'm sure someone will piece together a completely accurate timeline of events, causes, and consequences, but that will (I hope) take some work to figure out.

[way2co0l_2003]

Originally posted by CaptainBinky:

I will just add here, rather vaguely, that the information available within the game is not necessarily accurate. There is some amount of speculation and assumption - this is, after all, a novel event in the game world without any direct parallel. And goodness knows we've all had experience recently on how easily misinformation can spread. We will strive to put in enough details over the course of development that I'm sure someone will piece together a completely accurate timeline of events, but that will (I hope) take some work to figure out.

Yeah that's fair. Currently the airborne nature carries more water than the alternatives just as a progression of events but it's speculation. The part that isn't pure speculation in regard to the OP's question is how the area within the Knox Event's boundaries respond to it so they can set their settings more realistically to them. Did people have time to pack all their weapons, foodstuffs, medicines and such into their car and try to drive out the moment it all hit the fan or did it catch the majority of those caught within by surprise preventing them from taking all of it with them.

[Death]

Yeah, you can't really trust most of the things you hear in game. A lot of it contradicts each other. I feel like the point is that nobody knows how it actually started and every bit of the lore is speculative at best. Kind of like Romero's Living Dead series.

[Ash//Fox]

Originally posted by CaptainBinky:

I will just add here, rather vaguely, that the information available within the game is not necessarily accurate. There is some amount of speculation and assumption - this is, after all, a novel event in the game world without any direct parallel. And goodness knows we've all had experience recently on how easily misinformation can spread. We will strive to put in enough details over the course of development that I'm sure someone will piece together a completely accurate timeline of events, causes, and consequences, but that will (I hope) take some work to figure out.

I guess can we at least ask if there's some kind of internal lore guide the dev team is working off?

[Andy Mil]

I saw on TV
it seem the country will be quarantine but eventually failed and spread everywhere and before it all happen, news trying to quiet about zombie so some would be dead before knowing what going on

so I think it fit extra more resources because people would both escape and fight off as much as they can so they should stock up and also many stuff left over cuz they were suprised by zombie

I think it gonna be like dev said
eventually the NPC will be here and they probably know what going on

[way2co0l_2003]

Well once the NPCs arrive, I'll feel less guilty turning loot spawn settings up knowing I'm going to be competing with them for resources. I'll be able to get the realistic starting resources I'm after without getting too easy a time from lack of scarcity.

[Quineloe]

This is the timeline that fits the TV broadcasts very well

https://pzwiki.net/wiki/Knox_Event

in short, three days ago the military deployed a full blockade around knox county. They may have done so in response to an already ongoing outbreak. The people inside the exclusion zone learn of this from TV / Radio. They grab all their guns and ammo, get into their car and contribute to the massive pileup on the highways.

Theoretically some of the events play out on our map, such as on day 5 the blockade gets overrun at Louisville and thousands of zombies turn the city into an undead metropolis, but it is not expected for the player character to get there by that time.