(I am no longer modding Minecraft, and all of my MC projects can be considered EOL indefinitely. Some of them may be continued in some capacity as their own games. See the Discord for more info. They have open licenses, so feel free to fork them or whatever else the license allows. No need to ask as I won't answer DMs on Curse anyway).

This page should be viewed in browser! The Curse launcher does not support spoiler text, which will make the description absurdly long and difficult to navigate.

For bug reports, please use the Github issue tracker! Issues reported in the description will be ignored. Make sure you check the "Issues & Fixes" section below first. The most common problems (and solutions) and known bugs are listed there. If you need in depth help, it is better to join our Discord. I don't often check my Curse pages outside of uploading updates.

This modpack is rated PG-13 for gore, violence, language, and other mature themes.

Are you a player that still enjoys 1.12? Or a dev still making content for it? Come join the "1.12.2 Modding Coalition!"

Why this modpack exists:

This modpack was born from my frustration with trying to find a good "Zombie Apocalypse" modpack. The packs available on Curseforge at the time I started development either didn't purely focus on zombies, or didn't properly utilize the mods commonly used in "apocalypse" packs (such as the most common one: Lost Cities). So I made my own.
The goal of this modpack is to create a zombie survival experience that immerses the player in a convincing post apocalyptic atmosphere in a world that feels convincing. The pack has been carefully crafted to give players both moments of heart racing action, and moments of peace. The key to proper horror is occasional horror.

General gameplay & Modpack type:
(An optional TL;DR of the general gameplay theme of this modpack, if you want additional details).

Dawn of The Dead is not for the feint of heart. I do not believe in difficulty for the sake of difficulty; but this is a hardcore pack and definitely not for players that do not wish to face a challenge. "Hardcore" is overused these days to label modpacks as difficult, but this modpack is in fact played in "hard" mode with a pseudo-hardcore mechanic that gives players a limited number of lives.
This modpack is a story based pack akin to a single player campaign that players will have to engage with to progress. If you are not fond of story packs, then this might not be for you. Players are more or less guided through the game by interactions between their quest book and NPC quests.
The game world uses a method I call SAM-Worlds, where the world is semi static, using a set seed and semi randomized structure generation.
DoTD also follows a somewhat realistic design process, where if you realistically wouldn't be able to do something IRL, you probably won't be able to in-game. Exceptions are made to avoid tedium, but some examples include not being able to craft things that would require a factory assembly line (instead finding these items as loot).
Gameplay has a mix of base building, traveling the world, and looting cities and structures on supply runs. Many aspects of the pack are built to make supply runs necessary no matter what stage of gameplay you are at, to maintain that "apocalyptic scavenger" feel.
The last main unique feature of this modpack is the presence of NPC. The world will feel alive, since it won't just be inhabited by you. Many NPC have full dialogue trees, quests, factions, etc. Some can even become followers, so you can wander through abandoned cities with a group of survivors, even when playing singleplayer!
This modpack is essentially a total conversion that turns the game into a zombie apocalypse campaign (supports co-op mode. Multiplayer mode planned).

(Players that do not read the Prologue will likely be confused, as the story starts assuming you know what's covered in it. I recommend reading it).

Prologue:

Nalova; the bustling capital of the United Eastern Alliance. News reports have been running for a few days now about cases of what is thought to be a new strain of flu, but officials are assuring the public that it's nothing to worry about. That it's treatable. A week passes and the reports keep rising. People begin to wonder what's going on as a small detachment of militia is deployed to the area, but the government assures the public again that everything is ok. Sudden waves of military begin entering Nalova, and a quarantine is announced. Word starts to spread that soldiers are shooting the sick, and public outrage erupts against the government. Then the bombs begin to drop, and on that day, everything changed.
That was 6 years ago.
It is now 2012. A quarantine zone several hundred kilometers across now cordons off the eastern end of the continent, sandwiched between the ocean on one side, and a wall on the other. Several cities and towns have fallen over the years to the infection scientists now call the Lyssa-8; a fast mutating fungus that takes over its hosts brain functions and makes the infected highly aggressive.
Food shortages and power outages threaten to break the precarious order the UEA government has established. Several power plants and prime farmland were lost to the quarantine zone when the military were forced to expand it due to breaches that lead to outbreaks near the border. Despite their best efforts and frequent bombing campaigns, the infection keeps slipping through year after year; causing more towns and cities to join the "Red Zone." The military is now at its limit, unable to provide enough manpower to properly maintain the border wall stretching hundreds of kilometers across the country side. Running low on munitions and supplies after ten years of fighting the infected, the government is beginning to consider declaring the East lost to the infected and attempting a sterilization campaign through the use of nuclear weapons. Factions within the UEA have been able to hold them back so far by reminding the heads of state that thousands of survivors still reside within the Red Zone, and that radiation has proven ineffective against the fungus in experiments. But their influence wanes by the day as the fear of a world wide outbreak looms.
Researchers are now working around the clock to try and prevent a second apocalypse, carrying out various experiments with infected and the few hundred civilians who have been found to be immune. While the experiments glean useful data into the behavior of the infected, they all fail to turn up a cure. They are all missing a key component. One biologist who is immune to the fungus theorizes that the answer to a cure lies within Nalova itself, where it all began; at ground zero. Their desperate attempts to get approval for the mission are all turned down, until a small faction within the government agrees to fund their mission.
They claim to be the "Vyadan Union;" a faction trying to uncover the truth about the Lyssa-8, and one of the few still trying to find a cure. Having to be undertaken in secrecy so that nobody stops them, they are unable to provide the scientist with many resources. They're only able to airdrop supplies and guide them by radio after the initial airlift. The Union warns that it will be dangerous and the chance of success is low. But the scientist, determined to find answers, agrees. This is the last chance to find a cure. The last chance to save humanity from the brink of extinction.
You are that scientist...

Placeholder Features.

System requirements:

(The below numbers are as a benchmark, and any equivalent hardware works. Computers running hardware below the minimum will not receive support from us. The recommended specs are more for running shaders than anything else. If you don't plan on running shaders, something in between the minimum and recommended is more than enough).

Minimum Specs:

CPU: Intel(R) Core i5-5200u (2.7 GHz).
GPU: Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500.
RAM: 6GB (2600 MHz).

Recommended Specs:

CPU: Intel Core i5-9600 (3.2 GHz or higher).
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060 (6gb).
RAM: 8GB (3200 MHz).

+ 2GB of disk space.

RAM and JVM arguments:

This pack requires that you allocate 5-6Gb to Minecraft. If you need you can allocate up to 8-10Gb, but do not allocate more than this. TL;DR Minecraft does not do well with too much RAM. Also make sure you leave a few gigs for your system to run. E.g if you only have 8Gb installed, don't allocate more than 6. Seriously can't stress this enough.

JVM arguments:
This is the thing that helps your game run a little better. You should be using Aiker's flags, the industry standard. Below is the values you should copy into your launcher's "JVM flags" box. In the Prism launcher this is located in the 'settings > Java' window.

Copy the following:

-XX:+UseG1GC -XX:+ParallelRefProcEnabled -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=200 -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:+DisableExplicitGC -XX:+AlwaysPreTouch -XX:G1NewSizePercent=30 -XX:G1MaxNewSizePercent=40 -XX:G1HeapRegionSize=8M -XX:G1ReservePercent=20 -XX:G1HeapWastePercent=5 -XX:G1MixedGCCountTarget=4 -XX:InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent=15 -XX:G1MixedGCLiveThresholdPercent=90 -XX:G1RSetUpdatingPauseTimePercent=5 -XX:SurvivorRatio=32 -XX:+PerfDisableSharedMem -XX:MaxTenuringThreshold=1 -Dusing.aikars.flags=https://mcflags.emc.gs -Daikars.new.flags=true

Optifine:

This modpack requires Optifine_HD_U_G5. Versions below G5 are no longer supported. Do not download it yourself. It should automatically download the first time you launch the game (see installation instructions). If it did not install properly, you can download it here: Optifine
If Optifine didn't install properly, odds are the other externally grabbed resources didn't either. At this point you should simply re-install the pack, or you can grab the files manually by following the steps in the "Issues & Fixes" section below (faster).

Launcher & Java:

This modpack is not fully supported by the Curse launcher due to Curse sometimes forcing archaic versions of Java. If you encounter the bug that prevents you from changing the Java version the launcher uses, you must use a third party launcher. This modpack requires Java version 8_371. I recommend using Prism as it can install Java versions for you. If you happen to use a third party launcher that doesn't do this, you will have to install Java yourself.

Client installation:

Step 1:
Install the pack through your preferred launcher.
Step 2:
Launch the pack, and insure you have an internet connection before you launch it for the first time. Some external mods and resources are downloaded automatically on launch.
Step 3:
Go into your resourcepack menu and ensure all the resourcepacks are enabled, and in the following order (they must be enabled, in this specific order):
DoTD Official

Cod Zombie Sounds

Tissou's Zombies

Tissou's Mutant Zombies

AudioCraft
Step 4:
Configure your settings. The pack ships with a preset configured to be somewhere between "performance" and "fancy." If you don't know what the settings in Optifine actually do, refer to the footnote at the bottom of this modpack page or don't touch them. Enabling the wrong settings will cause bugs.
Step 5:
Enable a shader if you choose. If not using shaders, skip this step. This pack includes several shaders that have been extensively tested and deemed compatible. The ones included were my personal preference, and a list of compatible shaders can be found in the footnotes at the bottom of this page. Unlike settings, the shaders ship with a maximum graphics preset. In the shaders folder there is a "presets" folder that includes 3 settings files with a prefix label (e.g MEDIUM_blahblah...). These are available for users that do not wish to tweak the settings themselves. Simply delete the configuration file in the shaders folder for the shader you are using, copy over the corresponding preset file from the "presets" folder to the shader folder, and rename the file by removing the prefix from the file name (the "PRESET_"). LOW has almost the lowest possible settings, MEDIUM the default settings the shader normally installs with, and HIGH enables/ increases most of the graphics settings (The default the pack ships with). Do not use the internal presets from the shader config menu. This pack uses custom color and other values for the shaders. There are also a number of alternative color settings (I recommend "Bleak") for people that don't like the pack's default, but these only come in HIGH quality sets, as I am not going to create 18+ settings files. You can manually adjust those if you need.
Step 6:
Enjoy the apocalypse :D

Server installation:

(Make sure your client and server versions match! Check the "version scheme" section at the bottom of the description for more info).
Step 1:
If your server host provides a one click installer and supports this modpack, simply browse the available modpacks and click install. If it does not, you will need to install an SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) application to connect to your server remotely and upload the files. I recommend using Cyberduck, but others like Filezilla etc work fine as well. Instructions for how to connect and use an SFTP client are usually included in the Docs of your server host.
Step 2:
Start the server and wait for the console spam to stop. There should be a prompt asking about which profile you wish DefaultWorldGenerator to use. Simply enter "defaultworldgenerator-port 1" into the console. If you wish to play the invasion mini game, enter "2" instead. If you wish to play Open World mode (PvP), type "3." (2 & 3 not yet implemented).
Step 3:
TBD...

Known issues & fixes:

Crashing when clicking on the 4th page of the creative menu:
This is a bug with Vic's Modern Warfare. Optifine fixes this, which is automatically downloaded in release versions. If Optifine did not install properly or for some reason you decide not to use it (I recommend you use it), you can also fix this by going to your forge config and changing "B:allowEmissiveItems" to false (his may cause certain textures to not look as they should).

My game doesn't launch and just crashes immediately or after loading for a bit:
You may be using an incorrect version of Optifine. This pack only supports Optifine version HD_U_G5. You may also be using an outdated version of Java. Please use Java version 8_371 or newer.

Game freezing when trying to resize the window while starting or entering a world:
The various loading screen mods can occasionally freeze the game if you attempt to resize the game window at the aforementioned times. Either resize when the client first starts loading, or resize after you have reached the main menu.

Known Bugs (Do not report these):

1: NormalASM prevents crashs to desktop and would normally allow you to continue playing. However trying to re-join a world often causes an infinite load screen that requires force quitting Minecraft. Caused by BetterQuesting.

2: BetterQuesting rarely randomly crashes the game, usually while in the inventory. Not sure why this happens, still looking into a fix.

3: NPC followers will often go off and do their own thing when engaged in a combat state or when investigating, due to DynamicStealth taking over their AI. Just wait for them to kill their target and they'll start following you again/ teleport to you. If low on health, they may also abandon you and flee. Either follow them and wait/ heal them, or consider them dead. If it becomes enough of an issue I'll fix this at the cost of gameplay... but for now, NPC are intelligent and don't just mindlessly follow you.

4: The name of a keybind when you hover over them in the controls window flashes the mod's name but doesn't display it properly. This is a known issue with Controlling and Optifine. A fix is unlikely. The text hover box for highlighted text in chat is also slightly higher than where the text actually appears on screen.

The dev team:

placeholder.

Footnotes:

Shader compatibility:
The following is a list of shaders that have been tested and deemed compatible with this modpack (yes this means popular ones like chocapic, sues, etc don't work). If you find a shader that works, let me know and I'll add it to the list. For me to consider a shader "supported" it must have no visual bugs whatsoever, and have no issues with any mod shader or render effects such as aiming down the sights of a gun or headlights of vehicles. The current supported shaders include:
-BSL shader.
-Sora's shader.
Manually installing external resources:

If you didn't have an internet connection the first time you launched and don't want to reinstall the modpack, you can follow these instructions to manually install the missing resources:

Step 1:
Download Optifine from here if you haven't already: Optifine

Step 2:
Download the Nutrition mod from here (you will only need the file "nutrition-1.12.2-4.9.0"): Nutrition

Step 3:
...N/A