Hello potential Project Zomboid speedrunners! I’ve gotten a lot of messages asking questions regarding this game’s new presence on Speedrun.com, so I decided to make a Q&A for some questions I am anticipating regarding Project Zomboid’s speedruns. If there are any other questions you have feel free to message me either right here on SRC or on Discord!

Additionally, I want to add here that while I have used Speedrun.com for quite a while, I have never had to make the page for a game this large. So I ask for patience and understanding as I attempt to make Project Zomboid’s speedrun page as good as I can!

Why has it taken Project Zomboid so long to be added to Speedrun.com?

For the longest time Project Zomboid was not allowed on Speedrun.com for a simple reason, it is a game without a clear objective/end. At a certain point the moderators of Speedrun.com decided that these types of games without an easily definable end were not a good fit for the website. And even though there are games allowed on SRC that also have no specific end goals, these were generally added before this decision was made so they were allowed to stay and Project Zomboid got left behind. 

So why is Project Zomboid being added now?

According to Meta (the SRC moderator who contacted me about Project Zomboid’s acceptance), the game was added because of “massive interest in PZ speedrunning.” And I was chosen as its first moderator because I “had the most well thought out explanation of why the game deserved a leaderboard and you have a lot of speedrunning & speedrun moderation experience.” If you’d like to see the arguments I presented to the SRC moderators: https://pastebin.com/jRYRQQwK

Who are you?

Hello, I am Jobee! I’ve been speedrunning for almost 4 years now in a variety of genres, but my favorites are horror games. I actually submitted Project Zomboid as a potential speedrun game 10 months ago, but like the many other suggestions for the game it got rejected. I was making a now scrapped YouTube video about Project Zomboid speedruns and thought I’d make a point to show Project Zomboid wouldn’t get added no matter what arguments you presented. 10 months later and here we are! I was very surprised to see PZ suddenly get added but I am very appreciative of the SRC moderators for reconsidering. I’ll admit that I am not going to be the most experienced person when it comes to Project Zomboid, but I am dedicated to making sure I can at least get the game’s page going so that the PZ speedrunning community has a good foundation to work on. 

Why did you create the categories that you did?

Each of the categories I have started Project Zomboid’s speedrun page with were carefully considered. There were a lot of ideas being thrown around by many people that may have sounded cool on paper but would likely not work well for SRC.

I’m sure many will be wondering why I included Last Stand Accumulator as a category, much less as the default one! The reason I made it this way is because one of my core arguments presented to the SRC moderators was that while the main mode of PZ didn’t have objective end goals, Last Stand Accumulator easily does in the form of completing waves. Waves are clearly a goal the game wants you to complete, and it even has a timer for how fast each wave is completed. As well, Last Stand Accumulator is just a genuinely fun side mode to speedrun and I think it makes for a good beginner PZ speedrun that teaches some basic ideas on how to speedrun the game, even if it’s in a separate mode from the main one. But mostly, Last Stand Accumulator was chosen as the default category because it is one of the only modes with true objective goals. 

Max skills was chosen as a no-brainer, it is the closest thing to a goal that the main mode of Project Zomboid gives you. I’m honestly not sure how practical speedrunning each of these skills will be, some will likely take much longer than others, but I decided to include all of them just in case. I also added it because it was a commonly requested category, and because I think this category will have the most dynamic gameplay and strategies that will actually reflect the common gameplay of Project Zomboid. I’d like to add here that someone did request a speedrun for maxing out every skill in one run, but I seriously doubt that this is possible. But if someone thinks they can do it in one complete video, go for it and I’ll add it!

Killing “X” amount of zombies and Bleach% were two other commonly requested categories, and have both been done before with video proof on YouTube. So adding these two were also no-brainers. 

And as for the “Ecstacy of Gold” category, I saw one person request it as well as a few videos on YouTube performing such a speedrun. I think it’ll be a great middle ground for people who want to speedrun something longer than Bleach% but not as long as getting to level 10 in an entire skill. As well, it acts as a way to speedrun getting to Louisville, which was another commonly requested category, since you can only acquire the “Ecstacy of Gold” in a specific location within Louisville. 

What about other categories?

I don’t want to overwhelm the leaderboard with too many categories to start with, especially if it ends up that those categories don’t even become popular. However, I am more than willing to add more categories. Specifically, if three people run the proposed category and send me (or another moderator more on that later) video proof, I will heavily consider adding it to the leaderboard. Some commonly requested categories I decided against because of redundancy, or for being too arbitrary, were Death%, Louisville%, and Car%. I considered adding Tutorial% but I’m really not sure how interesting that would actually be, but if enough people really want it I can add it for sure. Lastly, in regards to any category about surviving for as long as possible, it would be too easy to create a set-up within the game where you could live practically indefinitely without any difficulty, which would make the category unnecessary.

Can there be more Sub-Categories/Variables?

One of the games I moderate for is The Sims 4, whose board became so split up and convoluted that there are literally thousands of leaderboards. I think leaderboards should be as centralized and simple as possible, splitting up leaderboards is a very serious decision. I understand some people may dislike the use of glitches for example, which I have permitted because that’s the norm for Speedrun.com. I’m willing to reverse that decision, or split the leaderboards in two if necessary, but I want us as a community to be very careful to not spit things up too much. Like everything else, it will be discussed. 

Why no multiplayer?

Multiplayer is incredibly important to Project Zomboid’s community, so this is a fair question. I have several reasons for currently not allowing for multiplayer speedruns. For one, I don’t think any of the present categories are applicable for it. The only one I can really see is “Killing X amount of zombies” but I’m not sure if it would be worth adding. I think singleplayer/multiplayer subcategories should only be present on certain categories where it actually makes sense. There will certainly be discussions held regarding multiplayer speedruns for Project Zomboid, but for now there will be none. 

When will you add more moderators / Can I be a moderator?

Of course, no leaderboard should be moderated by one person, especially not one with as much potential as Project Zomboid. I’ve made all the executive decisions so far, but I want to find people who are willing to dedicate their time to discuss how this game should be ran. And as well of course, there will likely be many community votes when there is a disagreement. I’m not sure if I’ll make a Google Forms, but for now if you would like to be a moderator simply DM me so I can put you into a pool of candidates for consideration. I want to be very careful about who I choose, as things can get hectic if you choose the wrong people as your leaderboard moderators. You will be much more likely to be chosen if you:

• Already moderate other games on SRC
• Have considerable knowledge in Project Zomboid
• Have ran multiple categories and shown dedication to the game’s speedruns
• Are communicative and easily accessible

Will there be a Discord for Project Zomboid speedrunning?

The short answer is yes, but I am not sure yet if I will be the one to make and run it. I don’t have any experience running Discords, I’ll likely need to find someone who has expertise in making and running Discords to make it for the community. If you are up for the task and are already a moderator for the game please DM me and we can see about making the Discord. It may need to be a collaborative effort between several of us. 

Misc. Questions: Playstyles, Random Seed, Mods…

I chose the Apocalypse playstyle as the only allowed playstyle for PZ speedruns because it is the default and because the other modes either make the game easier or a sandbox. I really don’t see this rule changing. Random seed is the rule because it is the default, and I don’t think “Set seed” will become a subcategory because I’m not really sure if it will even change enough of the run to be worth splitting the leaderboards. I rarely mod my games and thus have little knowledge on PZ mods, so for now the most sensible thing is that no mods at all will be allowed on the leaderboards. This is something that can be discussed if needed.

Build 42 / Updates to the game

Project Zomboid is an ever changing game, and there will inevitably be a time where the leaderboards and rules will have to change because of an update, but we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. The only thing I know for sure is that when Build 42 is officially the latest most stable version of  PZ, all the new skills will be added to the leaderboards. And the reason Build 42 isn’t allowed to be speedran right now is because it would be too volatile and risky to allow runs for a build that is constantly changing. 

With all that being said, I hope I was able to answer all the questions you had. If there are any others you’d like to ask please DM me or comment in this thread. Thank you for reading.