judge@manx.net

I’m currently building one of these IRL. Made from scrap and completely self-powered; easy to construct but devilish to operate. Some of the components are already available in DayZ; sourcing them would not be an issue. The challenge would be finding the best places to use the device (elevation; interference; using wire fences as antennae, etc) and fine tuning it to pick up whatever signals are still active in Chernarus. Perhaps a suitable reward could be finding pre-recorded Morse Code signals that broadcast coordinates to valuable caches.

With more enterable buildings coming in a future iteration, it would be cool to have lockable doors or storage cabinets. Whether the keys would be universal or specific to certain locks is up for debate, but it could a preferable (or more risky) alternative to tents. Obviously they would need to be very rare to prevent stockpiling (perhaps being lootable from certain zeds) and would be part of the players inventory and, therefore, at risk of theft.

I'm still a noob, about 10 days in; the only people who could learn from my blog are the ones who haven't played yet!

Journals could also be collected like dog tags to incentivise players to use them. It could be incorporated into your humanity somehow if you're carrying a load of stories from past survivors.

This is an awesome idea. Capturing experiences in-game would keep the immersion full on. I would also like to be able to link my journal to my in-game map, so annotations you make on locations can be indexed and cross referenced without every player on the server seeing them; unless they stumbled upon your corpse. Imagine the guilt of reading the journal of another survivor you'd downed and realising he was actually a decent guy.

I know we already have road flares and chemlights, but I would like to be able to drop my flashlight with the beam still on. Would this be possible?

Okay, so… Many thanks for your constructive comments guys; you’ve helped to keep my feet on the ground. I think I’ll go with the general consensus and just keep a collection of stories to blend into a progressive narrative. Pt.2 is now online. I’ll shortly be uploading pt.3, in which I have my first full-on confrontation with the indigenous population of Chernarus, enjoy a brief encounter with another survivor, and consume a can of sardines in a privy. [ps. Is this thread on the right board?]