Squatthrust

In that same line of thought, I've come up with a rough idea. Have three different 'levels' of classification for people. Memorization - This would be purely on an individual level, with one person seeing another. This would afford him the ability to nametag the person memorized (provided the player was close enough). This would not, however, give the ability to transfer the memory to someone else. Squad - This would act like memorization, except requiring the consent of the other person involved. This would be used for friends that are playing the game at the same time, and would allow for different in-game benefits. Things such as sharing map markers, a unique radio frequency, syncing GPS's, etc. I think some minor graphical adjustment to squadmates would be good as well, so as to prevent friendly fire. Photography - This would involve the person taking a picture of someone, in the same way they memorize them. The photograph would allow the player to transfer the identity of the photographed to other players, or put onto wanted/propaganda posters. It has all the advantages of memorizing the person, except it (obviously) requires a camera. 1, and 2 I think could be easily implemented into the mod, as much of its functionality is in the ArmA engine already. 3 might be more of a hassle, but then again I don't have any experience in modding ArmA, nor do I have detailed knowledge about its engine capabilities.

I think this really comes down to just different things that we both want to get out of a system like this. When I think of a persistent identity and memory system I think that identity is what becomes the important factor. People going into trading towns and seeing propaganda posters with a picture of Dr. Wasteland with suitable text, something like: "This man is your friend, he fights for you" right next to a bounty poster with a sinister bandit and a reward for him dead or alive. Just approaching the story idea from a different angle really. The persistence after death would allow people to build up a suitable reputation, and transfer to other fellow survivors in a venue such as propaganda posters for good guys and wanted posters for bad guys would add a new dynamic to the game. This would allow the value of other players to be solely determined by the other players. If you're a notorious enough bandit, then people may recognize you from posters. Of course these posters would have to be drawn by someone who originally saw you and may require some new, possibly higher-end items (ink, paper, and of course time), the idea of bounties and being able to know the people who will try to help you or hurt you or even make some beans off of providing you a service is something I'd really like to see. The future implementation of diaries that Rocket has talked about would also help for bounty services/trophies for bandits. That way if you did just kill the notorious bandit when he freshly spawned on the coast, people wouldn't really think highly of it, but if you had his records of surviving for a couple months doing bandit things, then the bounty reward could be issued or even raised depending on how bad he really was. One other question I have though is what about when the person who's being identified dies? Would all those who have him identified simply lose that entry, or would they still recognize him? I'm more supportive of the completely persistent identity, but I'm curious of what you think of that side of it. I think it's the more important side of things to keep persistence on. Since wanted posters can fill you in even if you forget the identity after your death, if the identity itself is eliminated, then it would make it more difficult to implement them, especially with life expectancy the way it is.

Well the obvious response to this is: what constitutes a survival attempt? Or rather, how many people actually try to survive? Does someone who just spawns on the coast, runs into Cherno to grab a rifle and enlist in the south coast bean wars until they perish count? Statistically I would say most likely, but I really wouldn't consider that a survival attempt. I'm of the opinion that survival in Day Z is currently way too easy, and maybe that's a minority opinion, but the current survival system is at the very least something worth looking into. I was speaking moreso about strangers in-game' date=' rather than people you've met outside. It would be foolish to acknowledge that there weren't benefits to having people on your side, but to meet someone in-game presents a much greater risk than reward. I'm pretty much with you 100% on that, except for one thing. I think identity should persist after character death. Right now life expectancy hovers not too far above half an hour, and you can expect that figure to hold true if you want to be of the helpful variety, so with identity completely resetting after death, I think the system would be too subtle, and identity to ephemeral to really make an impact.

Five star idea. I'd take it a couple steps further though, maybe add in a distinction for those that helped you, could be a green coloring. Also throw in some sharing abilities for groups, like having map markers seen only between members of a group, syncing up GPS's so that other members will show up on it, communicating with radios on a unique frequency, etc. There's one thing you didn't mention though that's central for your idea to work, persistent identity. If people can just change their names and faces at the drop of a hat, the whole system wouldn't really work. I think names and faces should be tied to GUID so that people can't just hop off the server and change their name to avoid being outed as a bandit/murderer/thief/traitor/whatever, or so that people with good reputations can't be impersonated (at least not easily).

So how do those tribes form in the first place? They couldn't possibly be just made up of family because if it was only family there's no way there would be a diversified enough gene pool to sustain the human population. Just staying with family and friends isn't a good option for survival. There's strength in numbers' date=' and anyone in a real scenario would realize this. Now that you mention psychology, there's a whole host of psychological mechanisms in place to prevent killing of other humans. There's a reason murder is not only illegal, but socially taboo. There's a reason people have had a chance to form societies, humans are fundamentally social creatures, there's no getting around that. People don't just kill for fun unless there's something horribly wrong with them. Yet you haven't mentioned any of those studies? The only study you are referencing, The Stanford Prison Experiment, is not even remotely close to a survival scenario, nor does it support your point. What it actually was is proof of the concept of deindividualization, or the idea that humans take on a kind of 'group morality' when they lose their self-awareness and sense of individual responsibility. So rather than behaving as they would as an individual, they take on the dynamic of the group, regardless of what that group is. The guards took on guard roles, forgetting their individual roles as participants in a research study, but the inmates also took on their roles as inmates, willingly subjecting themselves to abuse all the while not trying to stop the study. As for cognitive dissonance and coping mechanism, if anything they refute your point. The murder taboo is something that's fundamental to human psychology, as it is with most every other animal. So killing when it is not necessary for an individuals survival would create the grief and anxiety of cognitive dissonance because it's a conflict with the murder taboo. Coping mechanisms are what mitigate this dissonance. It's the reason soldiers in war refer to their enemy not by name, but by a simple 'them'. Nonetheless, murder does affect people negatively. Look at the suicide rates of Vietnam war veterans (you can check out http://www.suicidewall.com/ for good statistics on the subject) But honestly, I don't even know why I should have to explain this to you, it should be painfully obvious that people don't kill other people for ridiculous reasons. The proof is that I can walk down the street, go to the grocery store, go see a movie. The fact that society exists is evident that even in the survival scenarios that our ancestors had to face, people didn't just randomly slaughter other humans. They fought only when it aided in their survival, which meant mostly tribe vs. tribe competition, not mindless rampages. So stop trying to say everyone would become mindless, maniacal, remorseless killers as soon as the dead started running around.

How would you even police that? Have guards checking every nook and cranny of the town constantly while it's in operation' date=' while at the same time watching for outside attack/snipers? Keeping in mind that more people = more difficulty coordinating, it just doesn't seem viable. Not to mention the absurdity of having to police exploits. I suppose I can't really argue against the idea that you'd have instant revenge. I just can't honestly see someone cooperating in that situation, not with the mod and the community as it is now. As to knowing that he can't be trusted, how would you know that? The only way to really identify some random stranger is by voice, and that assumes he uses direct chat. Anyone can change their name and appearance in game at will, and if a stranger shares his out of game info with you (Steam, Skype, TS), odds are he wouldn't shoot you in the face immediately after.

And what's to stop him from just shooting you in the face? Sure, logic dictates that one person doesn't stand much of a chance against a group, but paranoid people aren't renowned for their logic. There's just not any reason to trust a stranger or even a group of strangers.

No, I suppose you're not, but wouldn't you say that in Night of the Living Dead the cooperation against the zombies is an important part of the movie? I mean, it would be a pretty short and boring story if they all just killed each other on sight. Would you also say the part in 28 Days Later where Mark meets Selena is important? If she just killed him immediately, the movie would be terrible. Likewise, the ending of The Road (not going to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it) is also important to the story. The point is not to institute some arbitrary punishment for any playstyle, but to make it so that not just the PVP playstyles have some viability in the game. Bandit hunting is great, but it's a lot like hunting ghosts with no persistent identity and disconnecting/server hopping the way that it is. Helping random people in the wasteland is great, but as soon as they get a gun, you're more likely going to be shot and killed than anything. I'd like to see a game where people can be wasteland medics and still play for more than a half hour, where people can hunt bandits who aren't ghosts, and where people can disrupt the previous two (while being at risk for becoming a target themselves of course).

Really? So as soon as the dead get up' date=' everyone just forgets how to build, forgets how to cooperate, forgets how to do everything that keeps society going? Why don't you show us your dual PhDs then? Since you seem to know that everyone would just kill anything that moves at the outset of the apocalypse, couldn't hurt to at least have some credentials to make your point seem more believable.

Except survival times have nothing to do with whether or not people shoot each other on sight. There's a dozen different reasons that it could be climbing, and neither of us have real time server data.

What's a raido?

YES, along with lower spawn rates for everything (especially weapons).

YES, I don't think it'll make a difference with the DM problem, but I'd like to be proven wrong. This is an experiment after all.