Tell me your first ZPS experience

[Tabajara]

It was a long time ago, where I used to have a crappy and cheap PC back in 2008. I've bought 'The Orange Box' so I could play some new games from this company called "Valve" where I used to play a lot CS 1.5 with friends in a LAN house.

So then, I start playing all Half-Life 2 games, even the first Portal game in the same year, got pretty scared by that HL universe, confused while playing that crazy puzzle game too. After finishing both series, I start looking around on my Steam Library, to check if I could find out more free games to play or whatever, because I was bored. And then I just found: "Zombie Panic! Source Dedicated Server" - got attracted by the name "zombies", so I installed.

Man, it was scary. That creepy background menu with that horror music playing, I couldn't resist by playing that. If I remember correctly, I was playing in old Cinema version as Euguene all the time. I couldn't find any other weapons, just pistol. People were just talking nicely thought the mic and such. Got chased by a horde of zombies in my back on the basement (I didn't know they spawn there hahaha)

That time I also met: my first Steam friend that is current my best friend since 2009; other Brazilian friends and servers to play on; started my own small dedicated server for closest friends only, just to have a little fun around; and it's from that time where I started mapping my own 'house' in Hammer. That time I met crackbone too, didn't talk to him, I were just listening to him. It was fun and funny!

So, tell me yours!

[HLRaven]

i was watching videos and i found this one called the best zombie killer where it shows stev and crackbone. and back then i was the 1000 viewer. (its true. i mean it) i saw the game and i was like it looks cool! i tried to install it but it needed hl2. after 9 mouths i got hl2 and the game. i had fun.

[KissHUN *;--;*]

i started whit the firs public release in 2007 december.... i cant remember any unique experience It was a long time ago, okay i remember the zombies not die one headshot and you need to pump 3 mag shot in one zombie.

[visions]

To be honest, I started way back in 2012, under another account that I recently lost becuse of hijacking.

Anyway, I was very young back then and them zombies spooked me the ♥♥♥♥ out everytime.

I actually remember a special christmas event where if you played in an SL server with this event enabled you would get points, with these points you could get a lot of games just for you.

It was in 2014 if I'm correct.

I have nothing interesting to say about my experience, really.

[SkoSallad]

Don't remember when i started playing exactly. But sometime around when i got this account 3 years back.
I remember finding zps through an ad somewhere and thought it looked cool.

First experience tho? "Wth is going on". But it was never boring, i remember joining different servers with a friend and sang the worst songs we could on deathrun maps, aquatica n harvest and some other random old maps. Miss those days.

[76561198089096318]

Hmm...
Can't remember the time when and how I started, but all I remember is swarming thousands of cabins or lakes/churches on "no-steam" russian servers.
(I think, I played no-steam because I wanted to stay away from it, lol. I was fool.
Or ZP:S! needed hl2 to start, which I don't have still.)

Atmosphere. Meh. I wasn't for it. Of course music theme was spooky. But.
I was playing because it was ridiculously fun and no-skill-needed. Follow your fellow.
Find the flesh. Remember the position. Kill or die. Repeat.
It was time when I hardly was newby in aiming, but in ZP:S!
you didn't need one as zed in that time.

Barricade, search for ammo to find none (0 experience is always something), try to run away. Die without stamina.

Or the funnier alternative:
Rush. Galore. Simple thinking. Smarta$$ tactics and memory. Animal urge to kill.
Pretty much that was my passion as zombie.

The agression between zombies and humans.
The tension of ammo to heads.
This time - zombie someone breaks it. Breaks the door. Breaks the line.
They come. They are here. You're at danger.

Hardly I did understood what was the objective, but I already understood one simple thing this game kept simple:
Losing is fun when you're not for a win.

I was playing for fun. Now I hardly find any at all.


P.S.S. Anyone who knows about what I'm talking.
If someone remembers when that spooky background "yt killed eugene" was in-game, I could remember when I started playing this game.

Originally posted by Rakeem:

...for sure it was that old background back in 2009-2010 with whitey killing a human if I'm not mistaken.

[Cpt.Haxray]

Was something involving church and thinking it was actually good. Not much else.

[Tabajara]

Originally posted by Haus The Plague Doctor:

i was watching videos and i found this one called the best zombie killer where it shows stev and crackbone. and back then i was the 1000 viewer. (its true. i mean it) i saw the game and i was like it looks cool! i tried to install it but it needed hl2. after 9 mouths i got hl2 and the game. i had fun.

Crackbone was the badass man in those days. I remember I couldn't play ZPS right cuz I needed a new video card. My PC was always restarting itself hahaha

Originally posted by Kiss(HUN)*--*:

i started whit the firs public release in 2007 december.... i cant remember any unique experience It was a long time ago, okay i remember the zombies not die one headshot and you need to pump 3 mag shot in one zombie. :risenghul:

You're a real veteran player! It's a honor!

Originally posted by !nfusOH™:

Anyway, I was very young back then and them zombies spooked me the ♥♥♥♥ out everytime.

I actually remember a special christmas event where if you played in an SL server with this event enabled you would get points, with these points you could get a lot of games just for you.

I'm always getting scared by those zombies after all these years hehehe

[Tabajara]

Originally posted by »SoD« DaKriz:

Don't remember when i started playing exactly. But sometime around when i got this account 3 years back.
I remember finding zps through an ad somewhere and thought it looked cool.

First experience tho? "Wth is going on". But it was never boring, i remember joining different servers with a friend and sang the worst songs we could on deathrun maps, aquatica n harvest and some other random old maps. Miss those days.

My first reaction was almost like that. "What the hell is going on?! Somebody help me!"
Indeed! ZPS sometimes can be boring after playing many times. But I never stop playing this game. Always coming back for more funny moments.

Originally posted by SS_Class_Jerk:

Atmosphere. Meh. I wasn't for it. Of course music theme was spooky. But.
I was playing because it was ridiculously fun and no-skill-needed. Follow your fellow.
Find the flesh. Remember the position. Kill or die. Repeat.
It was time when I hardly was newby in aiming, but in ZP:S!
you didn't need one as zed in that time.

Barricade, search for ammo to find none (0 experience is always something), try to run away. Die without stamina.

I have 0 exp with barricading as well! I was just running and grouping up with my friends to stay alive as fast as I could. I was horrible with aiming. Never touched a magnum in years becuase I couldn't do a single well done headshot.

Originally posted by SS_Class_Jerk:

Or the funnier alternative:
Rush. Galore. Simple thinking. Smarta$$ tactics and memory. Animal urge to kill.
Pretty much that was my passion as zombie.

The agression between zombies and humans.
The tension of ammo to heads.
This time - zombie someone breaks it. Breaks the door. Breaks the line.
They come. They are here. You're at danger.

Hardly I did understood what was the objective, but I already understood one simple thing this game kept simple:
Losing is fun when you're not for a win.

I was playing for fun. Now I hardly find any at all.

Agree on the funnier alternatives: ZPS is always funny, simple, sometimes you rush in or hold up. Zombies might come from anywhere you go. That's the spooky part/touch of this game, depending the map you're playing on.

Originally posted by Cpt.Haxray:

Was something involving church and thinking it was actually good. Not much else.

We all played in one of those maps after many plays and attempts to learn how to play. I used to love lake maps besides Churchs.

[Dio]

First time I played ZPS...hmm...hard to remember, by I know for sure it was that old background back in 2009-2010 with whitey killing a human if I'm not mistaken. Was the best horror background I ever saw till then. And the music theme at start was so spooky!

Then I just having fun on DiG harvest server.

Good times.

[KaempeLaeske]

No real clue about what my first experience was like, and I don't wanna start making things up.

My first few hundred hours were spent on Mr. Green ZPS, back in 2009, I believe. Game was fun, easy to pick up but also a blast of a challenge when it came to mastering its mechanics. Not much have changed in that regard, but I do miss just being a random player away from all the community drama and server hassle. Sadly, Vanilla servers and experienced players aren't as common these days - hopefully we can change this with 3.0!

[Vermillion]

Ahhh... Tab, that's a good question!

So back in 2012 (ik so late ;-;), one of my old friends introduced me to ZP:S. I remember playing in DiG servers, and I hated it so much because I kept dying as a zombie (which was the only team I was interested in playing back then), the playerbase back in DiG days were full of pros. So I quit for a year and came back to it and started playing as the survivor more often. I don't know what it was, maybe it was zpo_harvest, maybe it was the communities, but ever since December of 2013, I've been hooked to the game.

Bam, nearly 5,000 hours out of no where.... (WHAAAAAAT?!!?) XD

[peacekeeper]

I can't even remember what made me install the game back in 2010 but I had lots of fun afterwards

[Reborn]

I belive my first time in ZPS was in late 2009 / early 2010 when I didn‘t have a Steam account yet and pirated every game I could back then. ZPS was also the first game where I came up with my Steam name, since in ZPS becoming a zombie after dying as a survivor is a sort of “rebirth“, and respawning as a zombie is also being reborn so you will always come back as a freakin‘ B-movie monster that can‘t be killed so easily.

I downloaded a large anthology of HL2/Source games which included ZPS 2.0 with that old background people mentioned already. I didn‘t have a decent PC, only a crappy 2006 laptop where I played GTASA and SAMP with 15 fps on it. So the only option to play ZPS was to play it on sister‘s computer when she wasn‘t at home. I had to enjoy every second I had before she gets back home. lol

About the game.. Well, as every no-steam player I used to play on no-steam servers. My first time was on one russian server “787-HARDMOD“, which was very popular at the time it was online. People played a bunch of Cabin and Redqueen in there. In addition to that imagine Cabin/Redqueen/Church Siege with infinitive Zombie Stamina (constant berserk included), Unlimited respawning ammo and stronger barricades not affected by physics before the 2.1 or 2.2 updates. Despite being extremely unbalanced at the times this combination was kicka$$ fun to me. Later I found a great server called “ByFly“, where I got introduced to vanilla ZPS, but with exception for 50% infection with no cure (I thought that it‘s hardcore enough to stay), and still as whacky maps as on “Hardmod“, but with a little better map selection including good zpo maps (Hardmod had only survival maps). Besides the nice semi-vanilla gameplay ByFly had a very friendly community for a russian server (actually it was a belorussian server, but who cares if there is still a bunch of russians/ukranians anyway?). This was also the server where I found my first friends on Steam (while I was still just a generic no-steam boy).

About the no-steam times I experienced. I think everyone remember how much pain it was to update the freakin‘ no-steam client and seeing that annoying “server uses different class tables“ message if your game isn‘t up to date. Downloading the patches provided by russian servers was such a bullphuckery. The reason is if you install said patch the browser will show nothing but only that russian server where you downloaded the said patch. Sure you still can join other servers by direct console connect, bit still it was a little annoying (“Hardmod“ and “Igronet“ servers owners did that patches thing all the time in order to get more players).

One time I got sick of this no-steam bull$h!ttery and finally in 2012 registered on Steam and got my first non-crappy PC. I instantly went to the ZPS store page and redownloaded it (and TF2 since it was free anyway).

As the time passed the ByFly server was shut down and all guys I know went to other games like L4D2, CS, DOTA2 and other stuff that was popular back then. I had no place to go, but get back to other servers like DiG Harvest 24/7 (which still was online I think), “Kamikadze ZPS“ (which was later sold to other owner and became a “GOP-STOP“).

The rest of this boring biography-junk is what nobody wants to read because it‘s already too much.

That‘s it.

[76561198089096318]

Originally posted by Reborn:

About the no-steam times I experienced. I think everyone remember how much pain it was to update the freakin‘ no-steam client and seeing that annoying “server uses different class tables“ message if your game isn‘t up to date. Downloading the patches provided by russian servers was such a bullphuckery. The reason is if you install said patch the browser will show nothing but only that russian server where you downloaded the said patch. Sure you still can join other servers by direct console connect, bit still it was a little annoying (“Hardmod“ and “Igronet“ servers owners did that patches thing all the time in order to get more players).

Hahah, do you remember the old winchester bug? Where if you shoot both at once, you get fockd? :D

Also, this game needs to be simple and simply rich (i.e. new stuff) to be successful for more 10 years to go.

[Reborn]

Originally posted by SS_Class_Jerk:

Hahah, do you remember the old winchester bug? Where if you shoot both at once, you get fockd? :D

Also, this game needs to be simple and simply rich (i.e. new stuff) to be successful for more 10 years to go.

I only remember reload bug and that winchester didn‘t have a “single shell“ reload animation and used “two shells“ one. Also there was a funny bug that allowed you to use altfire when the round was over, so you were able to blow yourself up and other folks nearby with an IED/grenade when everybody is frozen including you. Also in the same case people were able to doublefire with winchester without any noise and zombies were able to keep pushing stuff.