Choosing a map
In general, there's a few key factors that determine how good a map is for a game like nZombies and CoD Zombies. While they are not necessary in nZombies, they ultimately make for a better playing experience, despite most of them only adding to the difficulty. The key points to notice when picking a map are:
- Tight corners, close quarters
- Medium or larger size, multiple rooms
- Good atmosphere
- Dead ends/optimal spawn-points
There are some things that cause maps to be generally unplayable in terms of nZombies. This is not something limited by the gamemode, but rather with the Nextbot system in Garry's Mod. Don't be discouraged though! Some of the tools nZombies brings can potentially make these maps playable (somewhat) anyway. The map parts that could potentially break the map in terms of nZombies are:
- Maps with water you need to cross
Nextbots cannot swim in Garry's Mod yet, and will rather just walk across the bottom. You can get around his by blocking off the swimming areas so players can't get there. Zombies will also despawn if they are completely submerged, as to prevent them getting stuck forever.
- Maps with ladders
Nextbots cannot climb ladders as of now. As a result, players can use them to get away from Zombies, or to places they can't even get to even by walking the long way around. They can also just stay on the middle of the ladder if it is tall enough and not be able to be hit. To prevent this, block off ladders with invisible walls and props. If the map is completely separated by ladders (such as ttt_magma), you may be out of hope. Zombies will however despawn if they can't get to players, so if you got spawn-points on both sides of the ladders, you may be able to get them to spawn there.
- Maps with completely separated areas (only connected by things Zombies can't use, like elevators)
This goes under the same as ladders. You will have to avoid these areas or place spawn-points on both sides. In some rare cases (such as the elevator in the Map Script of ttt_kosovos Breakout) there are intentionally no spawn-points on the other end. Zombies will just stay up on the main floor until the players come back. Just remember to force players back so they can't stay there forever.
Just like in CoD Zombies, the difficulty of the map lies a lot in how tight and close quarters the map is. If you have played some of the different Zombies maps throughout Call of Duty's history, you have probably noticed that, despite the maps becoming generally larger and more feature-rich over time, they have actually become tighter with smaller corridors or just debris blocking many of the otherwise big open rooms. Take for an example Der Riese, one of the earlier maps from World at War. It had many open areas where it was easy to run around the zombies such as near the Bowie Knife. Then look at Nuketown Zombies from Black Ops 2. In this map, all the otherwise open areas in the center had been blocked by huge chunks of rock. The same thing is seen in the backyards of both houses.
An overview of the map ttt_kosovos, one of the maps with an official config.
There are typically not many extremely good laid-out maps that work perfectly for this, but in the nZombies Creative Mode, you have the option of placing props yourself. Props can make rooms that are otherwise open very close quarters if placed right. There's a very important detail to remember when doing this though, and that is that you likely have to edit the navmesh for the zombies to walk around these props. This means that you both have to spend the time making this navmesh, as well as add it to your workshop addon when you get to that point. It is also worth noting that navmeshes will overwrite other navmeshes on the same map! This means that when you later play it in sandbox, NPCs will walk around the same holes you created, as if the props were there. However once you upload the addon to the workshop, players will be able to disable them in the Addon menu, making the Navmesh file not load, and the original one load instead. For help with creating and editing a Navmesh, see this page.
The Nuketown Zombies map turning otherwise open areas much more close-quarter with debris.
One of the main thing about Zombies is the progression that comes with buying new rooms and areas after killing enough zombies to be able to afford it. For this reason, small maps work less well than larger maps, where you have space for more exploration and progression. You do not however want extremely large maps though, as that can be too many rooms to be able to have an overview over. That being said, you cannot pick a too big map as you can just limit the playing area with props, effectively making the map smaller.
The map ttt_casino_b2 which has a good size. The top-right corridors are blocked off and used as zombie spawn areas.
Of course, you will want the map to be optimized and playable in Garry's Mod by itself to give a good experience, regardless of the gamemode.
A good atmosphere doesn't necessarily mean a run-down, post apocalyptic setting. It can be a fine sunny day if it fits the map. The kind of atmosphere you'll want to avoid though are the silly ones. Maps like Mario-based maps won't fit the theme of undead soldiers. You'll want something a bit more realistic, at least in the sense of setting.
ttt_rooftops_2016_v1, a map that is very good looking.
With all that said though, you also have tools to help with the atmosphere. Firstly you have all the props you can place. If you want a map to look more run-down, place cabinets that have fallen over or a lot of Fire Effects. You can change the general brightness and look of the map with the Color Correct Editor. The Fog and Special Fog Editors edit the way the fog is rendered in normal and special rounds respectively. The Sky Editor allows you to override the skybox on the map and turn it into any other texture or color. These editors work just like the ones in Sandbox where you have to hold C and right-click the entity to edit its properties. With all of these together, it's possible to make a day-time map look like night.
Making ttt_67thway_rework_b1 look like it's night time.
For maps to work well you will need actual places zombies can spawn. Optimally, you'd want barricades blocking the area and not just some spawn-point inside the playing area. However Garry's Mod doesn't have many maps or gamemodes that use random rooms or areas like these, which can somewhat limit the selection of maps.
zs_subway, a map that has many small rooms suitable for zombie spawn-points. Two rooms are highlighted in red in the picture above.
It doesn't necessarily have to be rooms, but areas that make for good spawn-points. These make the map more interesting than one in which all zombies just spawn inside the playing area, and there are next to no barricades. Because of this, many maps won't work so well, especially maps such as those from Counter-Strike that are designed to not have many camping corners.
Maps such as those from CSS will not work well, simply because there are no good spawn-point areas, or they are too far apart.
Once you have picked your map, you are ready to arm it for nZombies. Install the map into Garry's Mod like you would any other map, then load it in in the nZombies gamemode. Once that is done, continue on to the tutorial on how to use Creative Mode.