History YMMV / ProjectZomboid

* MisaimedRealism: While the game was originally sold on its SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome approach to zombie fiction, over its lengthy development, variety of factors made at first glance the game "realistic" turned out to not be so real in the end. Particularly, anything that relates to "survive on your own, without modern society and amenities" quickly falls apart:

* MemeticMutation: A certain dedicated player decided to track accomplishments of his personal life along the development of the game, to mock the glacial pace of progress going. Thus each of his regular posts consisted of [[OverlyLongGag ever-increasing list]] of his life goals being fulfilled: he managed to finish college, find a girlfriend, find new job, find new girlfriend, marry her, move to different place, find another job, eventually have a son, get promoted, ''years later'' said son entering elementary school... always with the punchline of "and Project Zomboid is still in development". Even if the story is (probably) a full-cloth fabrication, it reached a meme status within the players' community.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: The game went through a lengthy development time, with the trend of zombie survival games dying out by each passing year. One of the main worries expressed is that by the time of a full release, the game will be promptly ignored.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: The Life and Living meta. At the start of the game, the player can tune in on the eponymous TV channel to get free skill points. Virtually every playthrough starts with the player keeping up with a tight schedule so they can consistently watch the show. The devs eventually acknowledged this and promised to implement video tapes that could do the same thing, freeing up the players to do more things in the first week.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: The Life and Living meta. At the start of the game, the player can tune in on the eponymous TV channel to get free skill points. Virtually every playthrough starts with the player only sticking to their immediate area so they can consistently watch the show. The devs eventually acknowledged this and promised to fix it by implementing video tapes that could do the same thing, freeing up the players to do something else in the first week.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: The Life and Living meta. At the start of the game, the player can tune in on the eponymous TV channel to get free skill points. Virtually every playthrough starts with the player sticking to their immediate area so they won't miss the show. The devs eventually acknowledged this and promised to fix it by implementing video tapes that could do the same thing, freeing up the players to do something else in the first week.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: The Life and Living meta. At the start of the game, the player can tune in on this TV channel to get free skill points. Virtually every playthrough starts with the player sticking to their immediate area so they won't miss the show. The devs eventually acknowledged this and promised to fix it by implementing video tapes that could do the same thing, freeing up the players to do something else in the first week.

* TierInducedScrappy: The electrician occupation. It's outclassed by the engineer in every possible way. Whereas the engineer has both bonus to electrical and access to homemade traps, the electrician only offers two extra electrical points compared to it. The electrician's main selling point is that it allows the player to operate generators, but any occupation can already do that with a skill book. Generators are also of dubious usefulness throughout the whole game, so an entire occupation based around it is next to useless.

* TierInducedScrappy: The electrician occupation. It's outclassed by the engineer in every possible way. Whereas the engineer has both bonus to electrical and access to homemade traps, the electrician only offers two extra electrical points. The electrician's main selling point is that it allows the player to operate generators, but any occupation can already do that with a skill book. Generators are also of dubious usefulness throughout the whole game, so an entire occupation based around it is next to useless.

---> "Hey everyone. I'm sorry but Knox Talk is tapping out. We want to be with our families. Good luck everyone. Thanks for calling in. Maybe we can do it again some day."

* GunsDoNotWorkThatWay:All four types of gun in the game are somewhat difficult to use, because they are actually quite realistic: you have to take time to carefully aim your shots, instead of just pointing a bullet hose at zombies. As in real life, it's difficult to move and aim ''at the same time'', and more difficult to aim at moving targets. A high panic level will also make your accuracy worse. On top of this, zombies are attracted to the sound of gunfire, so you ''need'' to keep running around when using them, to avoid getting ambushed from behind. Mercifully, though, guns can fire down from buildings in this game mechanic, as in real life, so the ideal situation is to only use long-range, slow-to-aim rifles from the safety of a secure rooftop. A common complaint about the game is that "guns are useless", but that's only if you jump in using your run-and-gun instincts from FPS games, instead of learning how to use them on their own terms - the problem is that there ''isn't'' an in-game guide to guns, and their website doesn't do a good job of explaining it:
** '''Shotguns''' - easiest to use, and also the most powerful. Don't require too much aiming skill to do at least some damage: ''unlike'' the other three gun types, they deal area-of-effect attacks. You'll probably hit ''something'', even if moving around, but you'll still want to stand still and take aim when you shoot, to make sure each shot counts. Watch out, though, because it's also the noisiest gun by far - equal to honking a car horn, it will draw in zombies from far afield in a way that pistols won't.
** '''Pistols''' - the most common gun type. Pistols and their ammo are also the only one of the four types that commonly spawns on zombie corpses. Unlike the shotgun, you need to take careful aim, much as you would aim a melee attack with an axe: due to gameplay mechanics, the best targeting "sweet spot" is to hover your cursor slightly ''in font'' of a zombie's head (think of it like leading the target in real life). Don't lead them too much, just about another cursor's width in front of their face. Pistols have decent range, about to the edge of the game window when zoomed in to maximum. Unlike the shotgun, you can't just fire blindly, but take time to aim ''each'' shot: basically, hover your cursor slightly ahead of a zombie's face, keep it in that relative position while counting to three, and then fire. It's a bit of a learning curve, but not ''too'' difficult to get the feel for using it. Expect to kill maybe 10 to 12 zombies for every box of 30 bullets you open up.
** '''Rifles''' - The Hunting Rifle and Varmint Rifle are largely similar (Hunting deals more damage, Varmint has a faster reload time). They have different ammo, but use the same removable upgrades. They are ''very'' difficult to master properly, even at a high aiming skill. Basic aiming is similar to the pistol - aim slightly ahead of them. The big problem is that the in-game guide makes ''no attempt'' to explain how the rifle scope system works: you can use open sights, a 2x scope, a 4x scope, or an 8x scope. In real life, a scope labeled "8x" means that it can be zoomed to focus on anything from normal ''up to'' 8x magnification. The game's "8x scope" is ''stuck'' at 8x magnification, so that leaving it on will make your gun "far-sighted": realistically, if you try to shoot a rifle with a scope stuck at "200 feet" at a zombie only 20 feet in front of you, you're going to miss. If you don't use any scope, the basic open-sights rifle has loosely the same range as a pistol. For the far-sighted 8x scope to be effective, you need to zoom out the game window as far as it can go.
*** This is where things get annoying: zombies are attracted to the sound of gunfire, usually resulting in multiple zombies coming from multiple directions. They don't ''stay'' out at "8x" distance once you start shooting, but close in on your position. Thus after a few shots, the 8x scope has made itself ''obsolete'', as the zombies close to pistol range. Rifles, however, don't have the same rate of fire as the pistol, and attempting rapid fire makes them even less accurate (much like trying to fire a rifle that quickly in real life). Aiming is similar to the pistol but more difficult, and should only be attempted when standing completely still, preferably from a rooftop: hold your aim about one cursor's width in front of a zombie, while counting to three, then fire. Then wait until you've ''finished'' reloading before starting again (only start counting after the reloading noise has finished; it's a bolt-action rifle, not a semi-auto pistol). Spend time practicing the range at which different scopes are effective (each one having an ''exact'' effective distance away from you, no farther and no closer).
*** Rifles weren't really included in the game for shooting zombies, but for use against ''human'' enemies in multiplayer, when it actually does become a very useful sneak attack at long range (human enemies ''do not'' rely on swarm tactics from all directions).

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBrBCZoOLfs&feature=related/ Main Menu music]]
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAEw_qH-DVI/ Maybe We Can Win This]]

---> "Hey everyone. I'm sorry but KnoxTalk is tapping out. We want to be with our families. Good luck everyone. Thanks for calling in. Maybe we can do it again some day."

--> "Hey everyone. I'm sorry but KnoxTalk is tapping out. We want to be with our families. Good luck everyone. Thanks for calling in. Maybe we can do it again some day."

----

* AwesomeMusic:

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: The game went through a lenghty development time, with the trend of zombie survival games dying out by each passing year. One of the main worries expressed is that by the time of a full release, the game will be promptly ignored.

* AwesomeMusic: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBrBCZoOLfs&feature=related/ Main Menu music]]

* PortingDisaster: An extremely minor case as the game runs perfectly fine and controls can be remapped, but the default controls were clearly not designed with anything other than a desktop PC in mind, as without changing the controls, the game cannot physically be played on certain [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Macs, laptops, and Mac laptops]]. In order to attack, you have to hold right click while left clicking, which cannot be done on most track pads, and the alternative button you can by default press instead of the right mouse button is control, a button that it's extremely difficult (and requires special software) to disable as the "turn left clicks into right clicks" button on macs, meaning it's impossible to attack that way on a mac either.

* PortingDisaster: An extremely minor case as the game runs perfectly fine and controls can be remapped, but the default controls were clearly not designed with anything other than a desktop PC in mind, as without changing the controls, the game cannot physically be played on certain [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Macs, laptops, and Mac laptops]]. In order to attack, you have to hold right click while left clicking, which cannot be done (comfortably or sometimes at all) on most track pads, and the alternative button you can by default press instead of the right mouse button is control, a button that it's extremely difficult (and requires special software) to disable as the "turn left clicks into right clicks" button on macs, meaning it's impossible to attack that way on a mac either.

* PortingDisaster: An extremely minor case as the game runs perfectly fine and controls can be remapped, but the default controls were clearly not designed with anything other than a desktop PC in mind, as without changing the controls, the game cannot physically be played on certain [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Macs, laptops, and Mac laptops]]. In order to attack, you have to hold right click while left clicking, which cannot be done on certain track pads, and the alternative button you can by default press instead of the right mouse button is control, a button that it's extremely difficult (and requires special software) to disable as the "turn left clicks into right clicks" button on macs, meaning it's impossible to attack that way on a mac either.

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAEw_qH-DVI/ Maybe We Can Win This]]

* AwesomeMusic: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBrBCZoOLfs&feature=related/ Main Menu music]]