MR DELICIOUS

How so?

Ever fought someone in a helmet? It's very easy to take them down, as their peripheral vision is impaired, their is a large weight on their head which makes all neck movements twice as momentous, and they aren't agile at all. You really need to think of the punching in game as a guy running up to a dude and not literally only punching, but assaulting them with all the means they possess (until they're able to animate fluid brawling animations in game).

That contingent of players need to learn the fuck how to play. If you get killed by a dude with his fists, you are doing so much wrong that you don't deserve to live. This game doesn't get "balanced" like all the swirling contents of the cesspool that are "AAA" titles. If you're geared and near me when I spawn I'm going to knock you the fuck out, because you're that shit. In real life, a survivor with no weapon will either run away, or try to drop the enemy with their fists. Additionally, can you possibly see how this breaks the realism of the game? How this breaks so many more parts of the game? The only way a game can be "balanced", is if it's based on real life, as this gives the whole design a standard to be based on (otherwise, the second you change something, something else becomes "unbalanced" - see WoW, Battlefield, CoD/any multiplayer game ever). You can knock people out with one punch in real life, so that's how it stays in game.

TLDR for those who don't want to read my essay: It's basically a list of real life features (sports fields, aircraft crashes, cinemas, quarries etc.) that should be added to the game in order to make the map engaging and realistic. There are also suggestions for each entry as to how you could make it interesting from a game design perspective. This is a cross post from the general discussion. I've played for the game and mod since release and have seen it comes leaps and bounds. I think the cities look fantastic now - much more fleshed out and better urban planning. The cars, kiosks, gas stations etc all feel and look great. However, I feel that while it's nice to navigate purely via pre-outbreak existing features (towns, forest, airfields), it would do a lot for my immersion and gaming experience if there were some interesting feature locations to reflect a pseudo backstory in the world. What I really mean by this, is using interesting topography and land features to tell a story, and allow players to tell a story. My other objective here - my main objective - is to make this world feel lived in. At the moment, it feels about halfway towards anything resembling a real human world. This serves a couple more features on top. 1. There will be a myriad of objectives for all players now. While one player might run to get a gun from a military camp, another might try to advance the aesthetics, transport or communication of their character. 2. The atmosphere and character that the following will create will go towards creating incredible memories/anecdotes and amazing content for both players, streamers and content creators. Instead of being killed by a guy in a motorcycle helmet at x town, you could be sniped from a ferris wheel, beaten to death on a soccer pitch etc. 3. The character of the game will become incredibly unique - both telling a story of what has happened, but also adding to the stories of the players. Rocket has said throughout development that he wants players to decide everything. No NPCs, etc. I completely understand that, and agree. The following features are not NPC gimmicks, but reflections of events that transpired before the player arrived (in the same vein as the abandoned military camps). As we've seen in zombie/apocalypse fiction, the static nature of human progression and development often mean things that would otherwise be temporary (a car crash) become a static landmark. Instead of meeting how players normally do in Day Z (which is like an apocalypse hasn't happened) at map name features, they would meet at interesting landmarks. Here are a couple of ideas I was throwing around: * Heaps of cars abandoned on a highway, similar to The Walking Dead - lots of food/clothing/vehicle spawns This could easily be on the road between Chern and Balota Airstrip, or more interestingly up near NWAF (now the furthest place from spawn. * Empty, huge refugee camp - this could reflect the final stage of the outbreak. An incredibly gory, bloody refugee camp north of the NWAF (a currently empty area). It could very well be built around a small town. This location should fill people with dread. It could also be a good medical/food/equipment drop. * A 747 wreck site deep in the black forest or above NWAF (massive amount of fuel to loot, lots of mixed loot with some high yield mil spawns) - lots of zombies there. The best idea would be to have a 500m explosion zone that is littered with parts and the ground blown back by the drag as the aircraft hit the forest, so the player must follow the path of destruction before finding the downed boeing. Having the wreckage spread out would also add an element of terror. Imagine being a bambi and coming across a plane seat in the forest, then following the wreckage until you find the body of the plane (and 50 zombies to boot). * A now empty creepily fortified house (similar to the one in the book of Eli) with a dug moat - something a player could take over and roleplay from. The house could be north of NE airfield. * A failed nuclear reactor northwest of Zelenogorsk (perhaps it's super deadly, radiation sickness within 500 meters of it) similar to Chernobyl. You need specific gear to go near it - anti-radiation pills, geiger counter, hazard suit etc. that can only be found in a military research/medic center. If Rocket wanted to go crazy, he could make the Nuclear reactor able to be put into meltdown, or for a player to be able to mend meltdown. * Radio station. It would be great to have a radio network you could broadcast throughout an area (through speakers in cities and from car radios). The radio station could be somewhere relatively central, with a power line up to a hill. You could have to repair the power line in order to start broadcasting. It would be a great place to troll other players from (create your own radio show, play music, talk through or whatever), or to organise a meetup, or to organise an attack, or to basically fight over. * I personally would like it if Balota airfield was converted into a civilian airport, with the hangars/barracks replaced with a civilian terminal. It would add a great sense of history to why the military camp/checkpoint was beside it, and would also explain the proximity to Chern. Would be a great place for civilian cessna's to spawn. It would also be fun to fortify a Soviet airport terminal. * Inland railway. People have already spoken at length about handcarts, but it'd be great to be able to start up an old diesel engine in Berenzino port and use it as a group transport. You could have to fuel it with an insane amount of petrol. * Have orchards actually spawn their relative fruit on the ground. * An ashen wasteland and lots of burned cars (similar to the one in Iraq) to signify the militaries drastic response to the outbreak. Again, big craters, dirt, downed trees and carnage would go a long way to creating a unique landmark for players to meet at or visit. I feel like the current map doesn't reflect the carnage of military + zombie outbreak. Creating vast differences like scorched earth would go a long way towards this. We already have the ruined village south east of Novy Sobor, why not add to it/really scar it up. * Motorbike/Bike shop. There could be two or three on the entire map, and it could resupply the necessities for keeping a bike (and obviously be a bike spawn). * Clothing shop. Sure, a lot of people in the apocalypse like to play as serious Sam, and wear only survival gear, but I'd like to kit my character out so he best resembles a freak. You know, ill fitting tee shirts, short shorts, sandals, mickey mouse ears, that sort of thing. You could put 3-4 of these clothing shops around, and the spawns could be very, very rare for the more crazy looking things. I'd also throw the masks into these shops (and maybe have wearable bandanas be the going look for bandits). It would mean that as opposed to every player running straight to get guns at mil spawns, a lot of people would search these shops for cool looking gear, or certain things to roleplay a character. * Manor House. In a similar vein to 28 Days Later, a manor house with a wall/grounds would be a really nice break to the otherwise untamed wilderness. Manicured lawns inside the relative safety of the wall, and then the manor itself would provide a great base, and a great landmark. * A wall. I can imagine the armed forces attempting to erect a wall to try to contain the zombie outbreak. It wouldn't need to be complete at all (because it failed), but perhaps 300m-1km long. It could be a cool military spawn, as well as adding some flavour to the game, and a landmark. I want to make clear that it wouldn't be a functional wall, it would be merely a landmark, mil spawn area and point of interest. https://encrypted-tb...gdagDUEFDg7i0ow * A shopping center. It would look like a proper Soviet era shopping center (I've provided an example below), and would typically be in a city large enough - like Zelenogorsk or Chern, or perhaps a NW city. It could have a plethora of different item spawns, and could be easily fortified. The car park could feature as a good civilian vehicle spawn (with the possibility to spawn an army issue vehicle). It would be good if the exterior was slightly damaged already, or graffitied. http://us.123rf.com/...all--centra.jpg * Rolled oil tanker. You could have some skidmarks, a broken barrier, roll marks and then a giant oil tanker down in a ditch. People could stop by it to siphon fuel for their vehicles. * Theme park. This could be great for atmosphere. It could be somewhere east of Zelenogorsk in the flat open lands. A nice ferris wheel people could snipe from, a chance to find Hoxton masks and clown/mascot suits, soda, .22 rifles and there could be a PA system that when turned on, broadcasts a very creepy funfair sound through the nearby city. People nearby would be very freaked out to hear it start up. There are also a heap of reference images to use for this. * Mine field. This could be a fantastic addition to the game, as one of the first things the military could have done was try to area deny the zombies. A stretch of land with pressure triggered mines (much like the North/South Korea DMZ) could be an amazing feature in the game, as you either pick your way through it, or go around it entirely. There could be barbed wire and signs up warning of the danger ahead. I imagine myself being chased by bandits and picking a path I've memorised before as I run through it. I also think it would be relatively easy to implement as it would be some already implemented signs of wreckage/craters, signs, and Arma trip mines (reskinned). You would only really need 2 for every 25m square, and then spread that out so that it's a 1km square area. * Sports arena - perhaps a melted ice hockey stadium. You could even put a military camp inside. I think it would be a great location to fortify, and if it's open topped, it could potentially be a spawn point of a military huey (thinking 28 days later evac). * Monument. A big war monument (to the second world war) placed on a significant hill in the countryside would present a formidable vantage point/point of interest. The Soviet's built a whole heap of them, and it would be good to see a large structure to this effect. Similarly, you can imagine bandits and the like transforming a monument of peace into a place of death. http://upload.wikime...ký_památník.jpg * Zombie horde. A horde of 50-100 zombies that roamed a path until disturbed. Would present a formidable challenge to any player who stumbles into them. * Cinema. It would be nice if a couple of the big cities had a silver screen, old-style theatre. Looting them for soft drink/food etc would be fun, and it'd be a cool location to fortify. * Logging camp. Would be great to have in the northern reaches of the map. The top could be a great spot to fortify, and there could numerous things - fuel, industrial parts, perhaps a giant tree felling vehicle with a buzz saw. * Mine. Directly north of Olsha (to utilise the port nearby), this could provide a great place to fortify, explore, as well as loot for explosives. Plus, soviet mines are atmospherically fantastic. * Quarry. This could be in the far north west part of the map, much beyond the NWAF. It could provide a great environment to find explosives, fortify, land helos, find big trucks, etc. Also a great topical point of interest. You could also broadcast over the quarry PA system. * Soccer field/archery range/gun range/golf course. It's pretty common for each village to have a soccer field in rural Europe. It would be a pretty simple thing to add and just give some texture to the game. You could have players find arrows and bows at the archery range, and rifles at the gun range. You wouldn't have to have many of these (you don't want it to be unrealistic), but it'd fit in with what many of the population did with their leisure time. Golf clubs could be a melee weapon, and there could be a chance for a golf cart to spawn. Of course, you don't want it to be too ridiculous, but I think a golf cart would actually make for a novel sight in the game and would be quite a handy vehicle in a zombie apocalypse. * Substantial inland river. I mean a river that would travel far inland and is wide enough to allow moderate sized vessels to traverse it. It would be fantastic to divide the land up (create chokepoints at bridges), as well as allow for players to use boats to move inland. It would also create some amazing firefights as bandits attack boats from the shore. In addition to this, it would be great if a town could be built across the river, with a couple of bridges across the water, similar to something like the following: http://2.bp.blogspot...Nov2011+002.JPG * Bridges across valleys/rivers. I don't mean footbridges or tiny little bridges, I mean big, two lane stone arches that could cross steep areas of valley around the three valleys or elsewhere. You could have barbwire and wrecks on it - a former military checkpoint, and it'd add some interesting height difference to the inner parts of the map (where there are no tall structures besides green mountain). You can imagine bandits establishing a toll/check point or fortifying it. Incidentally, can we please have the ability to blow up bridges in order to ambush convoys or effectively deny areas? https://encrypted-tb...lIE19lDceej8Pmg * Goat trails/cliffs. Topographically, it would be really nice to see some proper clifftop roads similar to the roads that cross through the alps. I'm well aware that the southern areas of the map may not support this, but I don't see why the northern reaches couldn't be comprised of alp roads and sheer cliff faces. It'd be great to create checkpoints and for zonal control. It would also create a natural end to the north of the map. http://www.ski-epic....ad1280x1024.jpg * University/school. Apart from obviously stealing faculty cars, it could be cool to have a large atrium library - the big old school types where you could find books etc. It could also be good to have a big empty indoor swimming pool to fortify. * Last but not least from me, I'd love to see a city in comparable size to Chern/Zelen up in the NW corner of the map. It would balance the entire map out, and create a real sense of distance within the current map. The idea of running from spawn to this city would make the map seem huge, with so many interesting things to encounter along the way. You could add the arena/funpark/radio station to this city and all of a sudden it's a big hotspot for high intensity encounters. There are hundreds of unique features that would go a long way towards creating an incredible experience. Please add yours below and I'll continue to compile the list.

Updated OP with more entries.

Updated OP.

Yeah, nothing massive, but something like this: http://jp.olympia-reisen.ru/assets/images/novosibirsk%20guide/Novosibirsk%20in%20the%20past/Airport%20at%20Soviet%20times.jpg

Updated OP with the new additions. Keep the good suggestions coming guys.

Nice ideas. I've added them to the OP.

I want to check in with Foursquare. Probably have about as many users after the apocalypse as it did before.

Hey guys, I've created a new post in the Suggestions forums. It can be found here: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/162663-how-to-make-the-map-more-engaging/ Cheers.

The guy's a hacker. The problem is that he's hypocritical in his treatment of hackers. That's why people don't like him. He's a talented videographer and has charisma to boot, but the way he plays (mostly with godmode) compromises the game for non-cheating players. There's hours upon hours of video of him hacking, plus his incredible "luck", plus his weird denials and aggressive takedowns of videos explaining how he's hacking. The easiest thing would either have been for him to admit it, apologise and explain that it makes his videos that much more entertaining, and then move on and not hack. Or, he could have just provided a couple of uncut videos - a videographer like him (with such a calibre of professionalism) would have hard drives upon hard drives of footage. Simply providing the uncut version of the most questionable of his encounters would have ended all accusations. He didn't do that. In any case, modded debugs, the strange cutting around certain "action" points (him getting fatally shot and skipping away), him always beginning with military gear that is nigh impossible to find, the rediculous firefights he keeps surviving (which is possible, but the frequency he does it is questionable), and most of all, the actual admin logs of him being banned from a server for hacking (the hacking actually features in the video that got him called out) - where he kills 6 guys with an M14 while using god mode. And the fact that if you've ever seen hacking footage, his mimics it exactly (flashing temperature icons etc). Then, to make things worse, his later videos feature him shopping over the icons that show him on god mode etc. Add on top of this the fact that he hasn't been playing SA (perhaps due to the hilarious fact that he's most likely been VAC/BattlEye banned) gives me a strong feeling he hasn't stopped. If the guys that naturally good in the mod, then he should be able to create as vivid a footage in the SA.

The thing is, you wouldn't be banned for your cheating on Arma2 OA. You're getting banned for your cheating on Arma 3. I'm sure you can see the logic here. If you've cheated in Arma2, and Arma 3, chances are you going to be on *** with the best of them trying to work out how to fuck up this game. Pretty sure that's how the devs see it, given the amount of time and money they had to spend cleaning up all the fucking mess cheaters make in Arma. I appreciate you're annoyed about spending $30 on a game you can't play, but at this stage I think you're going to have to start a new account entirely.

#PLUSONE #KEEPITGLIKEGVODZNO #BITCHESBEQUIET

Happy to team with you mate, however, I'm Australian. If you're anywhere else the lag will make it difficult. Currently we have a group of 4-5 playing together and we'd take you on.

I definitely wouldn't call it an obvious competitor either - due to the fact that they missed exactly what they should be competing with! I suppose my point put best is that the AAA devs still don't understand that Day Z is popular BECAUSE you have to do such difficult and menial things as find food and eat. They still believe that it's about shooting, and playing an "apocalypse" genre game. I would bet money that if they made the Division as brutally difficult as Day Z is, in the New York context, with the fancy serverside structures of a AAA title, with really nice gun mechanics, in first person, they'd have a new WoW on their hands. If Day Z can get 1 million players on an engine that is often incredibly difficult to navigate, plagued (previously) by hackers, in a context foreign to a North American market (obscure Russia, of all places), with incredibly floaty mechanics, then a AAA title could triple that. But they won't at the moment, because they still don't understand what makes Day Z so addictive or popular. Believe me, any big games company CEO worth his salt should be groaning at the success of Day Z right now, and quickly working out how to recreate it for themselves (and I know internally at Ubi that The Division is their answer to Day Z).

Fortifying is the thing that I'd do in a situation like a zombie apocalypse. Get a good spot and make it mine - lay tank traps, wire etc and turn what was a previously banal civilian structure into a fortress. Also adds some colour to the game world.

Lol at that first video. He's running into the most KOS zones in the game (military spawns) and approaching armed players (generally only approach people to be friendly when you have the upper hand) and STILL he isn't insta-dying. The guy is retarded. The entire point he's trying to make completely fails. Then he spend ages being a fucking douche and running in front of people and constantly spamming chat, and they STILL don't kill him. "I could have beaten them with my fist!" No shit sherlock. Of course you could. They could have also insta-killed you. I imagine this dude being that fucking annoying guy in real life who is always starting shit and never owning it, constantly having a chip on his shoulder and always looking for a fight that isn't there. He's the guy who goes to the gas station, buys a Mars Bar, gets 20 cents worth of wrong change and walks away until he's out of ear shot talking about how he could have beat the shit out of the minimum wage gas station clerk.

Do you motherfuckers realise how obviously guilty you look when you come on here and make an account specifically to plead your innocence?

The Division is an obvious AAA competitor. They began development almost the week Day Z took off (back in early April 2012). Obviously they're looking to capture the softcore side of the market. The funniest thing about seeing the AAA competitors, is that they think Day Z is attractive because of the genre (apocalypse/outbreak) and make a game that's softcore/forgiving in that genre. I don't think they've quite got their heads around the idea that Day Z is popular because of the punishing reality/brutality. Nobody gives a fuck about another boring shiny zombie game. They care about realism and the fact that the sandbox has a direct and very real impact on your future within the game. Something I've never understood is that with any other media type, there are numerous flavours of depth. You can watch a Michael Bay flick - which will be super popular, and you can watch Band of Brothers/28 Days Later and they will be super popular too. However, as opposed to us having more brutal, punishing games, we only ever have Michael Bay triple A titles, even though games like Day Z prove that people crave a punishing environment.

Updated the OP list.

Zelenogorsk has two barracks, a jail, a supermarket, heaps of general store buildings and sheds, and a military camp south of it, Green mountain (a military jail building) just north of it, and Vyborg military base a little further north than that. Best of all, there are very few players on that side of the map.

Because you sound like a bitch. You have five pages of reasons why nobody agrees with you.

It would be great if there was some kind of unique hospital - either inside a university or research center, or refugee camp or NW city. A doctors office is also a great idea though. I should point out that there's currently a hospital in the military camp north west of Balota.

I've been thinking pretty hard about creating a fix for all the people determined that banditry should end. I've seen a lot of suggestions that would essentially break the freeflow nature of the game. Here is my suggested fix to lower banditry levels: fixed, proper names. The best thing the dev team could do is to lock player names within the game, and to force them to have actual names. When players are able to change their name instantly over Steam, it allows them to escape a previously bad reputation. Facing a player called "420bLAzin" is also incredibly immersion breaking. When I played vanilla WoW (before the content became multi-server), I knew most of the players on my server due to their reputation - tied to their name or guild. It made the world instantly hierarchical and have a sense of history to the place. You would follow the actions of players in the top guilds, or the vendors who ruled the auction house. It also made the world very competitive, and the relationships very important, as the amount of players was finite (10k). You actually had to protect your reputation. The second much of the commerce/raiding/pvp became cross-server, the entire feeling of WoW changed for the worse. People would join raids and not contribute, as the anonymity meant that their actions had no lasting impact. In vanilla, if someone sabotaged or ninja looted on a raid, those actions would have lasting impact. If the devs made this a thing in Day Z, I guarantee you'd see banditry drop and cooperation begin, as players who are killed by a bandit previously would show them little to no mercy when they have the upper hand. This would also greater reflect the real life situation of the apocalypse and the organic relationships and reputations of real life. It would also allow anti-bandit task forces to form and hunt certain players across servers.