Chillin farmer zombies

[FireSeeker]

So I've been playing this gem on and off for quite some time now. I absolutely adore it, I think more games should at least try to achieve such depth. But sadly, I've got one issue, thats persistant in every new release, even in pre-steam versions.
Where are NPCs? Why are there so many zombies in rural areas? I get it that towns are swarming with them. But why are they just chillin in empty fields, or in the middle of a road leading nowhere? In my recent play I settled in a rural farm area. There are only about 2-3 houses in vicinity, with 1-2 beds. I could understand a couple of zombies around, the family members and neighbours. But there are multiple groups of about 10-20 zombies just chillin here and there. I can't even get from one distant house to another peacfully. I feel like the only viable way is to craft gazillion spears and spear my way through them. I get that the game would be too easy without that many zeds but still... I'd rather want to see wild animals, maybe even rabid ones leaving forests, or hordes of zombies roaming around. Bunch of chilling in the fields hippie zeds out of nowhere is just not right imho.

[Magma Dragoon]

I also don't like this. There seems to be no distinction between urban, suburban and rural population density.

[Puppers]

Originally posted by Raven:

So I've been playing this gem on and off for quite some time now. I absolutely adore it, I think more games should at least try to achieve such depth. But sadly, I've got one issue, thats persistant in every new release, even in pre-steam versions.
Where are NPCs? Why are there so many zombies in rural areas? I get it that towns are swarming with them. But why are they just chillin in empty fields, or in the middle of a road leading nowhere? In my recent play I settled in a rural farm area. There are only about 2-3 houses in vicinity, with 1-2 beds. I could understand a couple of zombies around, the family members and neighbours. But there are multiple groups of about 10-20 zombies just chillin here and there. I can't even get from one distant house to another peacfully. I feel like the only viable way is to craft gazillion spears and spear my way through them. I get that the game would be too easy without that many zeds but still... I'd rather want to see wild animals, maybe even rabid ones leaving forests, or hordes of zombies roaming around. Bunch of chilling in the fields hippie zeds out of nowhere is just not right imho.

Turn on uniform in sandbox settings. I did that once........

[Telfram]

Not uniform all the places, go to the hospital outside Louisville and honk the horn of the car you defiantly need, and watch the horde swarm out.

[The early worm deserves the bird]

I mean in a story setting the zombies are attracted to noise of any kind. It's not impossible to believe that they are zombies that came in from different areas or people that used to work in those farms. People that don't live there. Farms need lots of help.

It could be zombies wandering in from nearby towns following the sounds of cars or animals. For a very long time in human history we didn't know the life cycle of eels. As a lone survivor in a new apocalypse we probably don't know much about zombie migration patterns. It's a matter of suspending disbelief

[WarMage]

OP, mechanically speaking you need to understand the cell concept in Project Zomboid and how Zombies are distributed. Since every cell is a square, it doesn't perfectly fit the cities design so yes farmland and forest sometimes have very high density because they're in the same cell as a part of the city downtown where the zombies concentration is to it's highest. Also, a cell is pretty huge.

Watch this video to understand cells :
Zombie Migration Explained | Project Zomboid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hglrA6FrxOw&list=WL&index=21&t=245s

Lore wise, one could say that because the infection was particularly brutal, it destroyed the cities and survivor running away lured zombies around in the country. I still don't think it completely justify the current state of affairs but it helps. It would be "even better" if they made zombies a bit more sparse outside of cities with some odd groups sporadically scattered around.