Zombie's Coop Server

[WillRobinson]

Hi All, long time player of Unreal way back to the clan days. A number of us are wondering what happened to the Zombie's Coop server that went down a few months back. I tried emailing Zombie but to no avail, not sure if he's active anymore. I heard he turned his server over to Hellkeeper but HK says he's not hosting it.

Does anyone here know who is/was hosting the server? A few of us would like to see it back up and are willing to help if need be but we don't know who to contact. Any help would be appreciated.

[Hyper]

I dropped Zombie a mail a week ago but did not get a reply. Zombie always has been keen on his* privacy and I know nothing more than a nickname and an e-mail address. In the past, I found it easy to get in contact with him as I have been heavy user and beta tester of his software.

*I'm assuming gender here with lack of any knowledge.

[Smirftsch]

indeed you are not the first trying to find out, but unfortunately I had no luck either and I am having no other information as well.

[niels]

Shame I once and now revisit the game and really liked the sever. With the lethal thingy a and stuff.
It's strange a person disappears most players come back to check the community.
But he or her vanished.

[joeydonbaker]

Try Tom's Coop ORIGINAL/RTNP. Made it as similar as I could to Zombie's. It has lethal tentacle/cows/nalis. Unfortunately the server side mod they used (aside from JCoopZ and DZMapM) was proprietary and they never released it. You'd think a die hard that's been around this long wouldn't just vanish like that. Maybe the COVID got them. Unfortunately they may have taken it with them to the grave.

[joeydonbaker]

Does anyone here know who is/was hosting the server? A few of us would like to see it back up and are willing to help if need be but we don't know who to contact. Any help would be appreciated.

This is all public info:

RecentServer=(ServerPort=7778,ServerName="Zombie's DeadZone <COop>",ServerIP="73.9.7.221")

73.9.7.221 is Comcast Cable in Arlington Heights, IL. Reverse DNS says c-73-9-7-221.hsd1.il.comcast.net

They probably ran the server off their home cable internet.

The IP responds to ping but that doesn't really mean anything. If you portscan it, no ports are open.

[Hyper]

Does anyone here know who is/was hosting the server? A few of us would like to see it back up and are willing to help if need be but we don't know who to contact. Any help would be appreciated.

This is all public info:

RecentServer=(ServerPort=7778,ServerName="Zombie's DeadZone <COop>",ServerIP="73.9.7.221")

73.9.7.221 is Comcast Cable in Arlington Heights, IL. Reverse DNS says c-73-9-7-221.hsd1.il.comcast.net

They probably ran the server off their home cable internet.

The IP responds to ping but that doesn't really mean anything. If you portscan it, no ports are open.

Some ISPs use DHCP for dynamic IPs. So the fact that the IP responds to a ping now does not have to mean that Zombie's connection is online. Maybe the IP has gone to a different subscriber.

[Oblivion[CW]]

Last I heard the server kept crapping out due to old age and it finally gave up. I don't think he wanted to bother putting it back up due to low player counts.

[x21]

It appears I might have some of the stuff that was used there. Lethal Cow and Nali are there. The everlasting stuff seems to be there too.

[WillRobinson]

Zombie's is Back!!! He has it as Zombie's Memorial Server!! Maybe we'll get some coop players back!

[Robaxlin]

Yeah it looks like the server has been restored by Thomas but don't hold your breath that it will bring in new players. Unreal is a nearly dead game no matter how good a server is it doesn't change that fact.


I also wonder if Zombie would have approved of someone else hosting a server using his name and email details etc without his permission?

[Hyper]

It's nice to see Zombie's server back. But as far as I know it's indeed a remake by Tom and not by Zombie. Which is still nice to see as it is better than no server. Zombie's coop always was very popular.

[Robaxlin]

Yeah it's not exactly the same as Zombie's server in it's gameplay


From what I can tell tom has just copied the gameplay from his own server and put it under Zombie's name though there may be minor differences between the two I am overlooking.


But if it has even a small chance of bringing some players back I welcome it.

[Blu3Haz3]

Zombies coop did have some minor differences if I recall correctly...

Zombies:

• Sliths only dropped pupae

• Warlords only dropped Gasbags and those Gasbags would always drop Mantas

• Skaarj Officers (including ones with guns) did not drop anything

• Mercenaries could drop either Pupae or Mantas

• Skaarj Warriors could drop pupae but never Mantas (I think)

• ASMD alt fire did not work on Titans

• Damage Amp and Jump Boots did not drain in the hud

• Shield Belt and Power Shield had more effect combos iirc

• Giant Mantas when killed would drop regular mantas

• Nali could be Lethal or regular, Lethal Nali never dropped anything while Regular Nali always dropped Nali Jrs, Pupae or Mantas

• Large Gasbag would drop Gasbags, the Gasbags would drop Mantas

• Regular Gasbags dropped Mantas

I guess the Titans and Giant Gasbags were the only ones capable of dropping more pregnant mobs, the Queen would just drop Pupae. There were some other less relevant details I guess, I should mention that the original server did not give you all Ammo and all Inventory by default, it required X Amount of people to join first and then the next map would spawn in the inventory, I think it was three players minimum? And then the server would spawn the weapons and items in a row somewhere for you to pick up. I still have no idea how he managed to do that with code other than to go level by level and set it up with coordinates using a hotkey or something. Also, the server would get harder the more players would join.

[Robaxlin]

Ah yes I remember those configurations Zombie had at his server when it was up running.



Don't forget he also had monster kill requirement enabled, the end of the map was only enabled when a certain number of monsters were killed (I think 50% or something)


I think he was also running the original maps and RTNP if I remember correctly.

In the last few years of his server I think most the players were from south america as I think it had something to do with that region getting the game for the first time.

I believe Zombie had a english/spanish chat translator as a result as well.

It's a shame he took the server offline but I think it was due to his PC being really old and it was failing, Pentium 3 CPU I believe and I guess he just didn't want to continue hosting it after that.

[Blu3Haz3]

I'm not sure about the Skaarj Warriors dropping anything anymore actually, I don't think they did but maybe someone else knows. It might have been based on the amount of players in the server.

And yeah he used to run regular coop during weekdays and on weekends he did RTNP maps.

[Robaxlin]

He also had a package on his server called "DZ Items" that contained stuff like the lethal nalis, tentacles and everlasting items plus shieldbelts.


Zeke cache ripped it from his server many years ago I remember without Zombie's approval.

He then made it only work with his private server side mutator after that.


I think Zombie was a master at coding as was shown in his server.


It's such a shame he vanished without a trace and doesn't respond to emails anymore but I guess he wanted to move on from Unreal.

Still there are great memories that people have of the server and their time played there.

[TigerTheGreat]

He also had a package on his server called "DZ Items" that contained stuff like the lethal nalis, tentacles and everlasting items plus shieldbelts.


Zeke cache ripped it from his server many years ago I remember without Zombie's approval.

He then made it only work with his private server side mutator after that.


I think Zombie was a master at coding as was shown in his server.


It's such a shame he vanished without a trace and doesn't respond to emails anymore but I guess he wanted to move on from Unreal.

Still there are great memories that people have of the server and their time played there.

Is this DZ Items currently available anywhere? Does anyone have it?

[Robaxlin]

https://web.archive.org/web/20130722210 ... ZItems.rar


You can download DZ Items from here






We can thank the internet archive for keeping a link to it after all this time....


This is Zeke's original cache rip of it...

[joeydonbaker]

I also wonder if Zombie would have approved of someone else hosting a server using his name and email details etc without his permission?

I tried emailing Zombie several times and received no reply, after two years.

It was initially but I changed it after a few days, thinking that probably wouldn't be right.
I put "Revived for the Unreal community" in the title and "memorial server" in the MOTD.
There are other servers out there that are "revived" so I didn't think it would be a problem.

There have only been 30 unique players join it.

[joeydonbaker]

Zombies coop did have some minor differences if I recall correctly...

Zombies:

• Sliths only dropped pupae

• Warlords only dropped Gasbags and those Gasbags would always drop Mantas

• Skaarj Officers (including ones with guns) did not drop anything

• Mercenaries could drop either Pupae or Mantas

• Skaarj Warriors could drop pupae but never Mantas (I think)

• ASMD alt fire did not work on Titans

• Damage Amp and Jump Boots did not drain in the hud

• Shield Belt and Power Shield had more effect combos iirc

• Giant Mantas when killed would drop regular mantas

• Nali could be Lethal or regular, Lethal Nali never dropped anything while Regular Nali always dropped Nali Jrs, Pupae or Mantas

• Large Gasbag would drop Gasbags, the Gasbags would drop Mantas

• Regular Gasbags dropped Mantas

I guess the Titans and Giant Gasbags were the only ones capable of dropping more pregnant mobs, the Queen would just drop Pupae. There were some other less relevant details I guess, I should mention that the original server did not give you all Ammo and all Inventory by default, it required X Amount of people to join first and then the next map would spawn in the inventory, I think it was three players minimum? And then the server would spawn the weapons and items in a row somewhere for you to pick up. I still have no idea how he managed to do that with code other than to go level by level and set it up with coordinates using a hotkey or something. Also, the server would get harder the more players would join.

What's on there was going off of memory. It may not be identical but the spirit of it I think was preserved. It's easy enough to change AttributePawn in DZMapM.

You never see more than 1 or 2 players on so that's why you get all guns and ammo (5200), otherwise everyone would be running around with a DP and just quit.

I also couldn't figure out how to add the neat little piles of inventory items at spawn, but it doesn't matter because there's never more than 1 or 2 players on at a time.

[joeydonbaker]

Ah yes I remember those configurations Zombie had at his server when it was up running.



Don't forget he also had monster kill requirement enabled, the end of the map was only enabled when a certain number of monsters were killed (I think 50% or something)


I think he was also running the original maps and RTNP if I remember correctly.

In the last few years of his server I think most the players were from south america as I think it had something to do with that region getting the game for the first time.

I believe Zombie had a english/spanish chat translator as a result as well.

It's a shame he took the server offline but I think it was due to his PC being really old and it was failing, Pentium 3 CPU I believe and I guess he just didn't want to continue hosting it after that.

Thought about enabling MonsterKillRequirement but with the number of players (1 or 2) you wouldn't have much of a chance to continue through the map cycle so it's disabled.

The THS maps are in the map cycle. It goes Vortex2 => QueenEnd followed by DuskFallsTHS =>THSCredits, then back to Vortex2.

[joeydonbaker]

https://web.archive.org/web/20130722210 ... ZItems.rar


You can download DZ Items from here






We can thank the internet archive for keeping a link to it after all this time....


This is Zeke's original cache rip of it...

The one you linked is what I'm using.

I have the latest DZItems.u pulled from cache (9/21/20) when Zombie's server was online if anyone wants it.
But it has a server size mutator dependency and you can't summon items out of it.

[Robaxlin]

I'm beginning to think Zombie might not care at this point if someone has setup a tribute server in Unreal.


He hasn't been active on the OldUnreal forums since 2017.


It's the same reason I posted a link to DZ items, I know when it was originally cache ripped he didn't want it released but again I don't think he would care at this point now.



I understand why you don't want to keep the server the exact same as Zombie's because of reduced player count it makes sense to accommodate it for a smaller player base.


At least you tried to contact Zombie, Others have done the same and gotten no response as well......



It's a shame we can't get a hold of his private server side mutator for DZ items, I'm afraid that's just lost to time now.....


But as you said the spirit of Zombie's is alive and well again and that's what matters most.

[Robaxlin]

If anyone is interested for historical purposes a livestream of Zombie's server was recorded over 4 years ago







I said I'd post it so that people can remember what the server was like when it was online.