Day Z, the post apocolyptic zombie survival game

[madd0ct0r]

well, I'm looking at it as a proxy for social order.

So, ideally, it'd be an emergent gameplay tactic that's superior to being a bandit. At the moment, trying to make contact is felt as too risky, so shoot on sight.
You know the other person is thinking the same, so you need to shoot first.

[weemadando]

It's interesting to see the devs take on where it's gone. They have tried numerous systems to implement a "humanity" meter of sorts (from the early bandit skin to the heartbeat noises when viewing other players) but the fact is that as it stands, killing others is more rewarding than not killing others 99% of the time. They're keeping on throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, but considering that it's still only 3 months old as an alpha and there's a fairly epic changelog and new features and concepts each patch I'm not that worried. I do agree with the devs though that there shouldn't be any reward or punishment for killing others - aside from perhaps some form of "notoriety" which may attach to you. And like I've said, they've tried a few ways to make that work...

That said, it's rare that I encounter the issues personally. It seems most of the Aus/NZ servers are populated more by the "survivor" than "bandit" players and cooperation, or at least a "live and let live" attitude.

[Stark]

Its one thing to say that you aren't concerned that the developers clearly have no idea how to reach their goals/stop things they don't like/encourage things they do like.

Its another to not notice that these concepts are already working in other games, so 'throwing shit at a wall' is just not necessary unless their only source of ideas is fat gonzo roleplayers on their forums. Frankly, expecting 'notoriety' to work in a game populated solely by players is like a flashback to 2002.

I'm curious if they actually think spawning loot (and I guess useless zombies) to continue each server indefinitely is actually a good idea. I recognise that literally the only progression in the game is trawling for loot, but if this wasn't the situation a server would naturally reach an endstate where everyone was dead/everything looted and used/etc and you'd just restart. We all know why this isn't done, of course.

[Vympel]

I think its telling that whenever people talk about their experiences with the game, talking about the zombies is well down the list compared to "this cheating cunt / asshole player fucked me."

[PeZook]

I'm curious if they actually think spawning loot (and I guess useless zombies) to continue each server indefinitely is actually a good idea. I recognise that literally the only progression in the game is trawling for loot, but if this wasn't the situation a server would naturally reach an endstate where everyone was dead/everything looted and used/etc and you'd just restart. We all know why this isn't done, of course.

Hm. They could have some sort of endgame thing/goal, where you'd have to construct an airplane/boat to get off the island ; With the amount of available loot balanced in such a way than only one boat was possible to construct, and you'd have to work in groups to accomplish it. Hence, a race between competing groups to secure enough resources to make one. Once somebody finishes a boat, they leave, are declared winners and the server restarts.

Or something else similar.

[weemadando]

I still like the idea of having a "quarantine" faction who sweep through at random times taking out large targets - based on population, vehicle density etc. Note, this isn't an infantry force, but maybe a hind or Frogfoot that rolls over, maybe preceeded by a drone so you have a chance to hide before it goes down.

Another feature that could add an end game is radios. Having to get a radio or get to a radio tower to get coordinates for an evac that you then need to clear and hold. Something like that?

That said, Rocket seems to like the idea of a world without hope where survival is the only goal. And it's pretty fun as is (without an "end game"). The idea of persistent loot is interesting, but I can see it causing bigger issues as people hoard and newer players or respawns are shit outta luck. Could be a fun experiment for a patch though.

[Losonti Tokash]

You could also adjust loot spawns so they automatically spawn less in high populated areas to represent them being picked clean. Would reduce the effectiveness of clans just parking in a town and logging in to take all the loot as soon as it drops.

[PREDATOR490]

Or... just throw in some of the domination style mod features.

Players able to build actual buildings like watchtowers, MG nests or FARPs.
There is another mod that allows people to accumulate money through points which is then used to 'buy' stuff like vehicles, advanced weapons and equipment. It also features a trading system with players able to transfer their cash to one another.

Combine that and you have the incentive to group up so folks can 'buy' rather than scrounge. I would welcome getting some ACTUAL Arma 2 firepower in Dayz. Wether that be MRLS, Hinds or MEVs.


When you have servers with 60 - 70 people on at the same time it would be impressive to see even a few of them cobbling together a fortified base complete with Armor and air support to keep fuckers away.
The bigger groups would obviously be fighting over the runways if they ever want to get some A-10s in the air.
Alternatively, just make AI bases that spawn randomly around the map which are manned with proper troops. People who raid them effectively get a nice little base for a while with a sizeable amount of decent military hardware not commonly found.

[Zaune]

There's already talk of searching out loot to build a generator so that groups can bring the streetlights back up, why not have seeds and fertilliser spawn in certain places so there's a possibility of creating something to actually defend? You could even provide extra incentive to create and fortify some farms by capping the total amount of food that can spawn so that everyone on the server has to play the long game.

[Stark]

I still like the idea of having a "quarantine" faction who sweep through at random times taking out large targets - based on population, vehicle density etc. Note, this isn't an infantry force, but maybe a hind or Frogfoot that rolls over, maybe preceeded by a drone so you have a chance to hide before it goes down.

Another feature that could add an end game is radios. Having to get a radio or get to a radio tower to get coordinates for an evac that you then need to clear and hold. Something like that?

That said, Rocket seems to like the idea of a world without hope where survival is the only goal. And it's pretty fun as is (without an "end game"). The idea of persistent loot is interesting, but I can see it causing bigger issues as people hoard and newer players or respawns are shit outta luck. Could be a fun experiment for a patch though.

It's almost like you can't read. The idea that random death problems would be solved by more random death is frankly fascinating, though.

And building things will just make the game Citizen Kabuto and turn looting (the only activity that drives the game) into 'avoid the super clan bases'. Remember Ultima Online? The best part about the game is how long it can go before the simple problems get solved, not 'make TEH bazez' which will obviously somehow stop everyone shooting on sight. :v

[weemadando]

The idea of having a third faction in my mind is to have an occassional threat that is so serious that cooperation is essential to defeating it. And with the risk of trying to take down a quarantine sweep comes the reward of possibly recovering some of their goodies. Again - there's no guarantee that it works, but why not try and see what happens?

As for random death Stark - the next release will apparently introduce beartraps that people can set. You know, just in case you thought that the game wasn't arsehole-ish enough.

[Stark]

If you mean an NPC faction, you've just run into the problem that player interaction sucks. You could use regular NPCs as the core of some kind of scoring or emergent reward system too, but that's just avoiding the player problems too. And frankly, spawning more guys that players will kill and take even more Alice backpacks is just reinforcing the sole loot drive rather than adding anything.

Are the devs or player base against any direction from the game or situation?

[weemadando]

The creator is very firmly in the camp that it's an "anti-game" where he gives players freedom and they decide what to do with it, rather than there being a directed path, progression or story.

That's why the pitch was shot down by every publisher he went to.

[Mr Bean]

The idea of having a third faction in my mind is to have an occassional threat that is so serious that cooperation is essential to defeating it. And with the risk of trying to take down a quarantine sweep comes the reward of possibly recovering some of their goodies. Again - there's no guarantee that it works, but why not try and see what happens?

As for random death Stark - the next release will apparently introduce beartraps that people can set. You know, just in case you thought that the game wasn't arsehole-ish enough.

First off Bear traps lovely, how long until I can use a hatchet to chop down tree's to make punji sticks then poison them with blood from zombies, how long until I can tear up zombie clothing to make trip wires for grenade traps. Hell lets go all the way with this, I want to be able to use all those extra guns and set up tripwire guns for when people open doors without asking.

Speaking of ideas I've seen hundreds of them, the biggest two things everyone asks for is the ability to construct makeshift defenses and 101 ways to make zombies attack other players or some ability to heard them easily.

[Stark]

The creator is very firmly in the camp that it's an "anti-game" where he gives players freedom and they decide what to do with it, rather than there being a directed path, progression or story.

That's why the pitch was shot down by every publisher he went to.

Yes, well he's clearly an idiot.

But I was talking about (for instance) simple tools like friends lists, formal teams, non-loot rewards (benefits, xp, whatever), NPCs, that sort of thing; 'gamey' elements, which I wouldn't be surprised if RP fatnerds are against. Such tools don't require a story or 'forcing' players to do anything (ps without guidance everyone will just kill everyone, and that was obvious in 1998), but would provide other directions for progression than 'camp loot spawn for alice backpacks' or 'collect alice backpacks' or 'grief noobs at zero threat with alice backpacks'.

If there's nothing to do, nothing to achieve, and the only real sense of progression is picking things up... what do you EXPECT to happen?

[weemadando]

You realise that the mod is in alpha, barely 3 months into that and a lot of that stuff (friends lists etc) are limited by the base game? As it is, they're completely reworking the ArmA inventory management system and other mechanics (lighting etc) to make them actually work.

Maybe once they've got the mechanical side working we'll see more changes to the gameplay.

[Stark]

Yeah, gonzo RPer's don't care about mechanical problems. I already know that. I'm specifically asking whether the devs or vocal playerbase would even accept such things, because it looks to me that he's so stupid he thinks 'hands off' means 'oh noes impossible to solve problems solved in literally the first generation of MMOs'. Useless and demonstrably broken ideas like 'notoriety' are inferior to other solutions, and I'm just curious if decisionmakers are even open to those solutions.

[weemadando]

Most players would like to see changes that let there be a bit more consequence to killing another player - whether or not it's an in-game thing. People have talked about everything from gradual skin changes to represent moving from survivor to bandit to murderer all the way through to crazy stuff like having psychological effects from killing another player (which are cumulative so eventually the act of killing another player might result in you losing control of your character for a minute or craziness like that). And then there's the meta game stuff - having the heartbeat is one (when your cursor goes over another player you get an audible heartbeat, the faster it's going, the more people they've killed). I like the idea of having "warnings" in game, be it graffiti or some other marker that the game places or other survivors can place (like in Dark Souls or whatever) saying: "warning - bandits ahead" or "do not trust Zak" or similar.

Whether or not any of this will work without an actual mechanical penalty for murder is questionable though.

[Stark]

I think the skin thing was a good idea. I understand they removed it because it didn't work properly?

But to be honest I think most of the ideas I've seen are way too simplistic and obvious (like reading someones 'morality' by mousing over them, which is both hurting the game and easily sploitable). Raising the risk of pvp should be a simple matter (well, once they remove the loot that massively prejudices the game against noobs anyway) directly, but this might be seen as 'against' the idea of 'freedom' or whatever. I don't understand why a faction display might be acceptable but pvp mechanics aren't, but I think the game needs a point so I'm in the minority.

[weemadando]

Yeah, the skin had the issue of people getting one after killing in self defense. But the bigger issue was that anyone with the skin was usually shot on sight by everyone.

I'd like there to be a "point" but I think that it could be a continual series of missions as the game rolls on. So say you get a radio and then you receive broadcasts on that to check out some random coordinates which lead you to another set of coordinates. The idea behind it from my point of view is to prevent people from just camping NWAF or other high value locations and encourage people to travel to less populated locations (coordinates could be generated based on server traffic and player locations) and additionally - by randomising the locations you minimise the chance of people just setting up ambushes at quest sites.

Not sure what it could all be in service of at the end, but it's at least a way of modifying player behaviour in a relatively unobtrusive way.

[Stark]

Its so obvious I didn't want to mention it, but even the pvp can be framed around objectives (assuming ARMA has decent scripting, which I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't). That can be delivered in vague ways through semi-meaningless radio chatter or specific quest-style objectives drawn from what's happening in the game, but its better than 'do laps collecting alice backpacks'.

Camping should be solved by simply preventing loot from spawning in hot areas, ie areas where people frequently visit or log out. Keeping the population mobile is definitely essential; even some artificial thing like 'sector xyz will be exploded by b-52s in 5 minutes' would prevent live camping, but I think a bigger issue is people who log in for 20 seconds to clean out a loot spawn and then log out again.

Since all this has been said before, I have to assume people are just blind.

[weemadando]

The server hoppers are an issue they're trying to figure out, but half the time I'm a goddamn server hopper because the logon issues are still persistent.

I think that server hopping (and the alt+f4 to avoid death) crowd can be fixed by having logout timers and re-login timeout periods, but they have to get the server side infrastructure working properly first to avoid penalising everyone further (waiting for character to create, waiting for server response, receiving data etc).

[weemadando]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012- ... a-for-dayz

Interesting video where he talks (just this past weekend) about plans for the future. End game content is there as a short term goal. And the fact that the whole thing was only meant to be a small scale proof of concept test for a future pitch and it somehow leaked out and exploded.

The Q&A is interesting to hear his views on topics. And for the neckbearding.

[Stark]

Yeah, but a real death penalty is counter to the idiot devs intents. :v

It's been suggested to me that better inventory would encourage less hoarding and more item cycling; if you had to ditch your pack like in JA2 for mobility and/or could drop items when knocked down, attacked, etc, individual items should become less important and items would naturally be found where people leave them before they die or where they barely escaped.

I doubt this would have much currency with players who simply lap the map search for alice backpacks. :v

PS holy cow what a moron. Its EXACTLY like he's never played any games!

[weemadando]

Best response thus far:
"Zombies are so fast because the pathfinding is shit, so they can catch up again after they run in the wrong direction. When we can fix the pathfinding, we'll fix their speed."