Outbreak Survival: [Frosty Winter Event]

The Frosty Winter Event marked the game's second large update. Taking a lot of time to create, meant that the Halloween Event and map lasted until this update was completed.

The Frosty Winter Event included a new Winter Castle map, and like the previous event had Winter themed coloured Zombies.

The Winter Castle map had a few distinct locations. The main Castle, which had a few town buildings you could enter, the Ducky Cove which is home to the Ducky Pirate vessel, and Builder Town; a collection of buildings where people used to create toys for Christmas, along with a factory that was located at the back of the map.

Presents also rained from the sky at various times during the game, and like the Halloween Event; some granted more of the Presents currency than others, while one gave out an item for free.

Two new Zombies were also added to the event. 

The Decay Zombie, that would explode much in the same way as the Kamikaze Zombie however upon touching a Survivor it would quickly lose HP allowing it to detonate sooner. It had higher hitpoints as well, being at 300 HP, 14 Speed and 60 explosion damage. It was unlocked at 5:30 in-game round time.










The other Zombie was the Leaper Zombie. This fast Zombie had low gravity, which made it similar to the Gravity Zombie. Except that it was a crawling type Zombie and was less durable but faster.








A new game mechanic was added to the Winter Event map: Barricades. These pieces of wood stopped anyone from getting through. Zombies could damage the planks by touching them once and waiting for them to fall down (usually between 10-20 seconds depending on the location), once destroyed there would be a 30-60 second cooldown before the planks could be rebuilt again. Rebuilding them required the user to click on a Hammer that was located beside each barricade entrance.

Like the previous updates this one attracted a spike in players up to 4 servers. But still didn't manage to re-create the success of the Mystery Update event.

Outbreak Survival: [Halloween Event]

The Halloween Event included many changes. The largest of which included a new map.

This large map had many locations to travel to, the main areas were split up into the various corners of the map. 

The Pumpkin Castle area, which contained two warring Pumpkin factions.

The Witches Tower; home to the Halloween witch, this spooky tower was just as strange inside as out.

The abandoned graveyard, where a secret teleporter resided that allowed players to travel to the many defence locations in the game.

And finally the Harvest Building; a large wooden structure which had many secret areas and easily defendable places.

Pumpkins also rained from the sky at set times, players could collect them to earn the Pumpkin currency which could then be spent in the shop for event exclusive items. Special pumpkins also granted badges which would unlock unique event items.

A secret badge was also present on the map that also unlocked a special item.

All the Zombies had a Halloween re-skin in this update as well.

Outbreak Survival: [Rise of the Xolbor Invasion]

The Xolbor Invasion was the first update to the game that included a pre-launch event.

For this update, players were met with a mysterious character that communicated with them via the game's Fan Group. Riddles and puzzles were frequently posted leading up to the event.

On the 10/06/2012, the Xolbors invaded the Outbreak Survival Fan Group, led by BaronVonXolbor the Xolbors want nothing more than to destroy the world. But they are in no hurry, and don't mind a little fun on the side. On the same day, a puzzle was posted to the group shout. This code: 9-12-12 2-5 2-1-3-11 could be decoded by players to attempt to figure out his evil plans.

The first person to discover the meaning was a user by the name: Hayate101. It translated to: "I'll be back 10/8/2012" (date was in American format due to most of the player-base being from that country).

After that point, Xolbor enemies were added to the game which would chase Survivors down and deal damage to them upon contact. Xolbors could only be damaged using special items that you could buy with Pumpkins. 

The map was also destroyed, meaning lots of the frequently used camping spots become unusable. Simultaneously new areas were created, and a small part of the Halloween Realm was added to the edge of the map. Players could travel over to the small island and take advantage of the Pumpkin Castle for defence.

After a week of the pre-launch event; it was finally time for the main update to be revealed...

Outbreak Survival: [Zombie Fest updates]

For a quite a while the game remained on the front page during July and early August of 2012. However the servers started to lose players, which prompted the need for another update. As a result another string of updates were created, dubbed Outbreak Survival [Zombie Fest] which had a total of three major patches (called part 1, part 2 and part 3). And eventually a final patch released much later called [Zombie Fest Reborn]

However despite all of this the game didn't ever hold enough players to reach anywhere near the front page again. Which it was then decided to start working on a version 2.0 update for the game, which would be a complete overhaul adding many new features, items, classes and polish.

Leading up to the update, demolition signs were seen next to the yellow Storage Room and near the trees by the road, along with dynamite and a wrecking ball crane, which gave hints to the eventual destruction and removal of the building.

Each part of the updates will be listed briefly below:

Outbreak Survival: [Zombie Fest Part 1]:

6 New weapon sets were announced, those included the Agent, Zombies, Heavy, Sniper, Noob Warrior and Ninja sets. These sets could be shown in the new gallery pictures. Due to the old saving system being unreliable and re-saving your items every time you leave the game (resulting in a whole inventory of duplicate items). 

Items were to be then saved with badges, since badges get saved to the players profile they will never lose the bought items unless they delete the badge. A new shop was created that was more organised, had multiple pages and held short descriptions of the item's stats. The first items to be created in badge form were the basic and support tools.

The map had a a few major and minor changes to it. The first being that the yellow Storage Room was removed and replaced with a tall office building, this building contained many floors and rooms. The first floor had the same layout as the Storage Room, however instead of having ladders there were now stairs leading to the top floor, the ground floor was also wider.

One of the games many new galler icons, this one shows the office building with plenty of Breaker Zombies surrounding the entrance.

The Noob, Lightning and Bloat Zombies were added to the game. 

The Noob Zombie was a fast, weak and annoying version of the regular Zombie, the way its joints were welded allowed its joints to sway from left to right as it moved. It was mostly used for scouting or distraction purposes.

The Lightning Zombie was originally planned to have lightning themed abilities, although I didn't have the scripting capabilities at the time to alter the game code to support Zombie tools. 

The Bloat Zombie was a more powerful slow version of the Kami Zombie, when it died it's explosion would knock off most of a survivors health.

Outbreak Survival: [Zombie Fest Part 2]:

Due to many glitches that could be performed with the Ghostwalker sword, it was subsequently removed from the game, the assault, heavy and elite items were also added in badge form along with the Weapon Set / VIP T-Shirts. The Agent, Noob Warrior and Zombie sets were released for sale.

The Shield, Bullet, Noob brute and Breaker Zombies were added to the game. 

The Shield Zombie was a special Zombie that had high hit points and a silver shield attached to it although it was very slow. At this stage in the games life, the shield didn't actually block any attacks (most players though it did and purposefully walked sideways in an attempt to block bullets). It was just there for aesthetic purposes.







The Bullet Zombie was a faster version of the Fast Zombie, although it's health was significantly lower. This class allowed players to jump straight into the action shortly after being killed. This class could be hard to hit due to it being able to dodge attacks. Players with slow internet connections also had trouble dealing with this class







Back in 2012, Roblox had a few exploiter issues which a few players also decided to use on Outbreak Survival. To combat these players, a class was setup that could potentially 1 hit KO exploiters. That class was the Breaker Zombie, with a moderate sized health pool and extremely slow speed, this class could completely destroy anyone it touched.

This class opened up new strategies that players had to overcome, it was no longer viable to stay in cramped locations unless you had the fire power to deal with the Breaker Zombie. This made camping less popular and roaming more prevalent. Although Breaker traps were often used where two players would try to sandwich in a survivor, by coming at them from multiple sides. Usually resulting in players being killed by the Breaker Zombie.

Like the Noob Zombie, the Noob Brute was added for it's silliness. It wasn't a viable class, but it had similar stats to the Brute Zombie although like the Noob Zombie it's damage was very low. It shared the same wonky walking animations as well.

Outbreak Survival: [Zombie Fest Part 3]:

The new Lake Zone was added onto the map, which increased the size of the map drastically. The Lake Zone included a new lake house, a large lake in the centre of the zone and a bridge which takes you over a segment of the lake. A community made model was also added next to the lake house, which had two floors and an invisible truss part that took you to the roof. (Gravity Zombies could however easily jump up there). The Heavy set was also put on pre order.

A video of the lake zone being built can be seen here:

The rest of the weapon sets aside from the Heavy set were added to the game.

A new class called the Gravity Zombie was added to the game.

The first iteration of the Gravity Zombie was perhaps the most terrifying. It had a reasonable amount of health, was unlocked in the mid-game, was fast (slightly slower than the Fast Zombie) and could jump incredibly high. It also dealt a good amount of damage.

Combining these things made the class a nightmare to deal with, let alone having to face multiple of them. The class being a crawling type didn't help much either.

One of the first changes that happened to this class was to reduce it's speed to be slower than a survivor and reduce its damage to a more reasonable level. This left the class in a better state, although it wasn't used nearly as much anymore. With a few experienced players even finding it underpowered.

Outbreak Survival: [Zombie Fest Reborn]:

This update occurred late September, many weeks after the initial reborn updates. This update included a new Zone within the Lake Zone. This new Zone was called the Caves, a new cave entrance was placed behind the lake house, and a large building made up of multiple floors and contained a vast array of secretes lied within. 

These secrets took players to many parts of the Caves and one secret teleported you into the lake so you could escape. The /load feature was finally removed, so players had to completely change over their old items and use the new badge saving system.

The Heavy Weapon set was released a week after the update.

Overall each of these updates didn't bring more than a couple of servers full of people back to the game. Which gave the need to start planning and building a 2.0 version, which would have more up to date features that Roblox had to offer as well as being a more stable and fun game to play as a whole. With all these new Zones and the fact that the old game engine wasn't that efficient many players found themselves unable to play the game without suffering from lag.

Outbreak Survival! [Mystery Update Day 3, 4, 5 and 6]

Outbreak Survival! [Mystery Update Day 3, 4, 5 and 6]

On the 3rd day the Wizard Weapon set was released. However it wasn't until a later update that it was put on sale.

On the 4th day, the Space Marauder weapon set was revealed. Same as above, it wasn't put on sale until later.

On the 5th day, a new Zombie was revealed. It was the Ice Zombie, which at the time its stats were:700 HP, 14 Walkspeed, and 22 Damage per touch.

Finally on the 6th day, The last image was revealed...

It was the Striker Zombie, a new Zombie class that was unlocked at 3:30 and was an extremely fast, high damage dealing Zombie. It's purpose was to chase down runners in the last minutes of the game. It had very low health however, this was to make it easy to deal with on its own and in groups.

The two weapon sets that weren't on sale were then put on sale.

Once all the days were revealed the thumbnail was replaced with this one, to show all the unlocked classes / sets.

And that was it for the Mystery Update event, it is still the most popular content update to date, and was responsible for shooting the game up to the front page for just over a week.

Outbreak Survival! [Mystery Update Day 2]

Outbreak Survival! [Mystery Update Day 2]

Day 2 announced the release of the Sergeant Shooter Person weapon set.

This new VIP gave the player a modified Assault Rifle, called "Sergeant's Rifle". It had twice the ammo capacity as the shop bought weapon and also dealt 18 more damage per shot, while also being more accurate. It also gave you the "Sergeant's Pistol" which was generally not used for the Rifle outclassed it in all situations. Much later on the pistol was removed from the game.

The Wizard Tower. Probably one of the biggest additions to the event, was a new building for Humans to survive in, it had multiple levels as well as teleports, timed doors and also secrets.

This is what the Tower looked like when you first entered it. There were 3 bookshelves stacked in such a way that allowed players to climb them, this "staircase" made a small ledge accessible by players.

This location provided moderate - low defence a group of survivors usually wouldn't last the entire round standing here, due to Kami Zombies or later Bloats attacking them. (Bloat Zombies weren't added in any of the Mystery update events, however when they were this location was still there). A single player would just die very quickly to a few Bullet Zombies, Fast Zombies or even one or two regular Zombies.



A better look at the bookshelves. The middle bookshelf also allowed players to hide in it, but this wasn't helpful, due to Zombies being able to see player's health bar. It was also suggested at some point that it should be converted to a secret cellar. This idea was considered but was never created.

The Wizard Tower featured lots of wedge ramps as a way to climb to the top, as opposed to Truss pieces, or a staircase. This method was chosen because 1.) A staircase uses more bricks than one wedge brick. 2.) Brute Zombies could not climb truss, which caused quite a few problems. 3.) It looked aesthetically pleasing.

A small ledge was present here, Windforce owners could push lots of Zombies away trying to get to them. However this ledge offered no protection, Fast Zombies and Bullet Zombies could quickly run across and damage you. The ledge was also small, which meant Bloat or Kami Zombies didn't have much of a distance to reach you. (Same went for Brute Zombies), and finally nobody liked Zombies raining from the sky, since Zombies could easily climb to the ledge above and drop down on your head.

This is where a not-so-secret teleporter is located and also the timed door bunker.

If you didn't guess it before, this big brown door (with a doorknob decal placed on it) is the secret teleporter. When a player touched it, the teleporter took them to another not-so-secret location.

Players exited onto the Yellow Pad, this was a one way trip and was mostly used for escaping. Players would run, fall or jump onto the teleporter then after arriving here run over to another defensive location or just run around the map. 

The timed bunker had a timed door which would only open every so often. (In this case it was 2 minutes) Inside the first part was a bench (which you could sit on) and also two barrels, which can be pushed to block the door or windows. Bullet Zombies and Fast Zombies were small enough to fit through the windows if the player controlling them timed their jump well.

The second room had 3 windows and a door. The door could be blocked off by barrels, while the long window near the door could only be used to shoot through. The second window to the right of the door, was wide enough to allow Fast Zombies or Bullet Zombies to enter if they timed their jump perfectly (although it was quite hard to do). The last window was at the back, this gave survivors an escape route and also vision of the ground below.

A front view of the Wizard Tower

The Underground Zone also had a few additions to it. This is a picture of the ramp in the storage room.

A wall was placed here to stop Zombies falling off if they were blown away with the Windforce or Hairdryer. 

A ramp was added to the side to allow Zombies that couldn't climb to get up.

Outbreak Survival! [Mystery Update Day 1]

The Mystery Update was a series of updates revealing a new thing each day.

 Day 1 announced the release of the Medic Weapon set.

A new VIP which gave the player a healing weapon as well as two Medkits, which when thrown on the floor generate a healing circle that heals players if they stand in it.

Tons of drastic changes and new additions were made to the map

The first of which was the inclusion of a quick way for Zombies to travel to the Underground. All they had to do was enter the Zombie door, which was the transparent green brick with the face on it.

Then they drop down the hole until they reach the main station area. Truss parts also allowed for Zombies to climb back up quickly, although if you were a fast zombie type it was quicker to climb the stairs.

By dropping down you end up here at the Underground Zombie spawn. The Underground spawn was added because players found it took too long if they died to travel from the Town spawns all the way to the Underground.

What the Zombie spawn looks like from the outside. It was placed very close to the staircase, meaning that players now had to be alert when travelling down them, just in-case of ambushes.

A new GUI was added to the game as well. This GUI provided information regarding the rules, various Zombie types, updates and how to play tutorial. The GUI was opened by clicking the "Open / Close Help GUI" button, which was located to the left of the screen.

A picture showing the GUI layout whilst displaying the welcome page.

The Zombie info page. This page displays the stats, abilities, strengths and weaknesses of each Zombie in the game. The page also featured a short Bio for each Zombie, as well as the time it was unlocked and what you needed to type in the chat to become one.

Some other area changes included this location in the underground. At first there was only two ways to get here, one being very hard to get to, the other being blocked off by a timed door that unlocked every so often. This still made it too hard for players to reach this spot. So a third pathway had to be created.

Third pathway led from the back of the other scaffolding defence area to here.

This part also changed, the third pathway was placed to the left of this, while this area was encased with walls. This was because it was very hard for Zombies to get up here, and when they did the Human would just jump off and run away. This created frustrating gameplay and had to be changed. After the change players could still jump down, but they had to come forward which usually made them easier targets for Zombies.

The pathway was also made wider since Zombies took too long crossing the narrow beam, which made them die often. Kami Zombies or Bloat Zombies (later to be added) were very useful at this location, if the Humans got stuck inside, the explosion damage would hurt many of them allowing other Zombies to finish them off easily.

The Brown House also had a small change added to it. A bannister going from one window, allowed players to walk across to the other window.

The bannister led to this small room which could only be reached by walking across it.

The room from the inside. The window in front is the one where the bannister is.

The other window to the right had a platform outside it, which players could climb a green drainpipe onto the roof.

This is what the roof was like. It was a desirable place for Windforce and Ghostwalker users. As well as big groups of Humans.