Community:DeadzoneZackZak/Deadzone

Deadzone was a post-zombie-apocalypse survival game created by DeadzoneZackZak, featuring a variety of guns and survival items which players could utilize to survive in both PvE and PvP scenarios. The game was inspired by the open-world zombie survival game "The Infestation: Survivor Stories" created by Hammerpoint studios. It is commonly criticized for being a copy of the popular Roblox game "Apocalypse Rising", and the not so popular game DeadMist. Deadzone was released on January 1, 2013, and has accumulated nearly 5.3 million place visits by users, as well as receiving close to 54,000 favorites.

DeadZone II
DeadzoneZackZak announced his plans to create a revival and revamp of DeadZone, entitled DeadZone II. The planned release date was set only few months after a short announcement which described the changes, saying "... it will feature very realistic cars, new and advanced animation systems, comprehensive weapon and attachment methods and other stuff that I can't fit into this blurb." He reasoned that DeadZone I had too many glitches and bugs to be recoverable, and that he wanted to rework multiple of the game's major mechanics. Roblox never saw its release, as Deadzone was stolen and passed around the site, causing DeadzoneZackZack to abandon the platform, stating that he would be finishing Deadzone II outside of Roblox.

Having left the platform, he has since renamed the project to Unturned, announcing on his website that it would be published on Steam. Upon its release, Unturned garnered a large amount of positive feedback from the wider gaming community outside of Roblox.

Critical reception
The critical reception of Deadzone was generally mixed to positive. Deadzone received critical acclaim upon its release. Many players praised the game's realism, citing the map's diverse terrain, the fluid and realistic animations, as well as the collection of survival items found within the game such as bandages, pills, clothing, backpacks, and more. A noteworthy feature the game hosted was a fresh and intuitive movement system. Players were able to traverse the map in a multitude of ways such as crouching, crawling, walking, and sprinting. At the time of its release, such a variety of options for player-mobility was relatively innovative, and played a large role in the game's popularity.

Despite its positive reaction from a lot of players within the Roblox community, the game has also received a fair amount of criticism. The buildings in the game were often criticized as feeling "too simple" and the vehicle system within the game was occasionally described as unrealistic, as a car only needs one can of fuel to run. Many players expressed their disappointment that the game lacked a system to create groups, and that there were relatively few creative options for those who wanted to play the role of bandit.

Technical Difficulties
Deadzone's scripting was fairly advanced by the standards of its time. This often put a large strain on the older Roblox servers, causing them to give out unpredictably. This, combined with the constant evolution of Roblox's code and the company's decision to completely replace the OGRE engine in mid-2014, rendered many of the game's bugs irreparable. Deadzone servers often experienced harsh connectivity issues and players were often ejected from sessions they had put serious time and dedication into. These back-end issues of the game lent themselves heavily to exploiters as time went on.

Near the end of its lifespan, Deadzone became overrun with malevolent players who took advantage of the weak points in the game's aging scripts. Some of the most notable exploits were: levels of health too high to kill, the ability to kill players who were within the safe zone, and the power to completely wipe out a player's bank storage.

Many users believed that certain updates made near the end of the game's life were to blame for weakening the game's security, thus bringing on the sudden influx of cheaters, although this has never been proven.

Dispute with Apocalypse Rising
Many often compared Deadzone to the highly popular game of the same genre, Apocalypse Rising. Due to their similarities, an intense rivalry was sparked upon the release and near-instant popularity of Deadzone. An active hostility was frequently reinforced by both the fans and the creators respectively. Gusmanak, the creator and owner of Apocalypse Rising, posted various images mocking Deadzone. Zolarketh, the co-creator of Apocalypse Rising, stated that he lost his respect for DeadzoneZackZak once he changed the name of his game to "Deadzone: Rising Above the Apocalypse". Various third-party sources cynically compared the two games, adding fuel to the already-high tensions between the two communities.

Fans of Deadzone often reason that it has a more realistic map and more efficient game-play than Apocalypse Rising. Apocalypse Rising's fans often rebuke this claim, and have frequently accused Deadzone of stealing several models from their beloved game. Many neutral players have argued that Deadzone and Apocalypse Rising differ too greatly in both game-play and realism, and are thus not comparable. The varying terrain in Deadzone versus the flatter terrain in Apocalypse Rising is a common example players use to support this belief. It is rumored that DeadzoneZackZak asked ZolarKeth and Gusmanak if they wanted to help update Deadzone, but that both ZolarKeth and Gusmanak declined.

On April 1, 2013, DeadzoneZackZak pulled a prank in which he renamed Deadzone to Apocalypse Rising. Due to this, DeadzoneZackZak was temporarily banned from Roblox, generating a lot of controversy among the game's fans.

The Death of Deadzone
Although it had a strong start, the game was rarely updated or improved, and experienced a sharp drop in active players only a few months after Deadzone's release. It is likely this was due to the growing popularity and much more frequent updates of its competitor, Apocalypse Rising. Deadzone's player count was surpassed soon after the release of Apocalypse Rising 5.0.0. It unfortunately never recovered its place.

Deadzone's final update was released on July 10, 2014, providing minor bug fixes and balancing the stats of a small number of guns. By September 2014, it appeared DeadzoneZackZak abandoned the game, completely halting any further updates. Around this same time, an uncopylocked version of Deadzone surfaced which many players took advantage of by copying and editing the game to their own tastes, with various users re-posting the game completely unchanged. Due to this, DeadzoneZackZak announced that he would be permanently leaving Roblox.

Deadzone was officially closed on December 25, 2014.

Revival(s)
With the original game gone, some people turned to Apocalypse Rising, however many 3rd party parodies and remakes of Deadzone started to crop up.