Survivorman (DayZ)

I think looking at incentives is the exact way to go. First I hypothesize that there's two main ways to play this game: A "realistic PvE" approach: "I want to survive, and cooperate if possible, but I will kill you if I have to." And the "realistic PvP" approach "I want to survive/grief and I will kill you to obtain my goals(one of which may be simply to see what color your blood is), preferably with a bit of backstabbing first" One of the incentives for playstyle one is a strong social capital in the community. In the beginning this was the case, both due to the bandit skin, but also because there where so few players, people recognized your name and where wary on sight. People still used approach two, but with only a small percentage using this approach, number one was still dominant. At the moment the social capital of the community is in decline. Why shouldn't it be, we're all selfish beings. Three things happened: The community exploded, Deer stands provided military grade weapons, and the bandit skin disappeared. I cant give you the numbers, but I can say that even the "friendly" Nordic servers are now taking a turn for playstyle number two. Those who want to try to survive as long as possible will avoid other players, travel more or less with radio silence and for every bullet to the head slowly drift towards playstyle two. Playstyle two on the other hand will enjoy a boom. Risking your hard earned AK isn't so bad when you know there's tons more out there now. Probably on a fresh corpse. And the amount of victims prepared to hesitantly trust you has increased with the survivor skin and tag being permanent. Now I'm not pro or con PVP. It should definitely be a part of the game. But I don't buy the whole "If it actually was a zombie apocalypse you'd spray and pray at any given opportunity". If you died, you'd be dead. If you survived, you'd build relationships to people who would recognize you. Social capital would thrive or most likely you would be gunned down in the name of justice. Society hinges on you needing the people around you to better your life or survive, and it would apply here as well. I like your ideas, and I think they are some of the better incentives for cooperation I've heard so far. There's also the argument that making PvE harder will force people into cooperation, but that's only true if the desire of the player is to survive. If a player just wants to grief (which should be allowed) they will probably not be particularly deterred.

So... how do you suggest we fix it? Item degradation over time' date=' player corpses not being 100% lootable, less bonkers guns in the deer stands? EDIT: I really don't like the idea of not allowing people to team up with friends. ArmA 2 is always better with friends, especially since my friends know how not to attract hundreds of zombies and get me killed. [/quote'] That's the question. I do like my game theory, and we've got a prisoners dilemma here, but the payout for cooperation is too small compared to the risk. There's a few things to consider: The bandit skin offered a semblance of factionification. You didn't know who to trust, but you knew who defiantly not to trust. Its hard to think of a better or "fairer" way to implement a similar system, without possibly a more advanced humanity. Pure factions is one, but then we're talking major changes to the game, and not minor fixes. I do dream of a day where players can create or are put into factions, build towns and war over resources in the Zombie apocalypse, but we're far from it. I guess I'd start with a tag (like regular servers) but only visible 20 or so meters away, so you could at least identify who you're seeing without using time to type it out. A functioning local chat system so identification without blowing cover could be possible, and the potential for temporary grouping with a 10 second grace period when someone leaves the group before they can start machine gunning your bum. Then there's people recognizing you/small community. Almost impossible to reverse a trend created by 100.000 players. A humanity score thats visible to the world would help this I guess. A set server, like in Wow or other MMOROMGTHISISSTEALINGMYLIFERPG's seems implausible, as a steady number of people is needed to create the excitement and risk that the bandits actually do provide. I have some dreams when it comes to incentives, but at the moment I don't see how they could be realized. Incentives: At the moment the incentives to group are small, and the incentives to slay are big. With deerstands dropping much the same as Stary Sobor or a fire station, you can get Grade A equipment without relying on your friends, or even risking much of banditry. Some have mentioned harder Zombies. That certainly is an incentive to cooperate if you want to survive, but for the non survivors/Bandits it adds little. The ability to mend jeeps and choppers seems one of the biggest reasons to get a bunch of friends together (as well as survivability). I'd dream of a system where building survivor towns (completely raidable by bandits etc, and which again fits nicely with the faction system mentioned before), and possibly bonuses for hanging with friendly people with good humanity/People with a humanity close to yours. So, my answer is long and not really implementable. A more advanced humanity system, factions, buildings and generally harder monsters on one side, and the utter joy of smashing all of that to bits on the other. And all of it miles away from the game we enjoy today. But then again, its Alpha, and there's alway room to hope and voice your dreams.

I cant help but look at this from an economic aproach. Incentives are what fuels our playstyle, and the incentives have changed. First I hypothesize that there's two main ways to play this game: A "realistic PvE" approach: "I want to survive, and cooperate if possible, but I will kill you if I have to." And the "realistic PvP" approach "I want to survive/grief and I will kill you to obtain my goals(one of which may be simply to see what color your blood is), preferably with a bit of backstabbing first" One of the incentives for playstyle one is a strong social capital in the community. In the beginning this was the case, both due to the bandit skin, but also because there where so few players, people recognized your name and where wary on sight. People still used approach two, but with only a small percentage using this approach, number one was still dominant. At the moment the social capital of the community is in decline. Why shouldn't it be, we're all selfish beings. Three things happened: The community exploded, Deer stands provided military grade weapons, and the bandit skin disappeared. I cant give you the numbers, but I can say that even the "friendly" Nordic servers are now taking a turn for playstyle number two. Those who want to try to survive as long as possible will avoid other players, travel more or less with radio silence and for every bullet to the head slowly drift towards playstyle two. Playstyle two on the other hand will enjoy a boom. Risking your hard earned AK isn't so bad when you know there's tons more out there now. Probably on a fresh corpse. And the amount of victims prepared to hesitantly trust you has increased with the survivor skin and tag being permanent. Now I'm not pro or con PVP. It should definitely be a part of the game. But I dont buy the whole "If it actually was a zombie apocalypse you'd spray and pray at any given opportunity". If you died, you'd be dead. If you survived, you'd build relationships to people who would recognize you. Social capital would thrive or most likely you would be gunned down in the name of justice. Society hinges on you needing the people around you to better your life or survive, and it would apply here as well. Ofcourse this isnt easily translated into a game. Now, not everyone agrees with me, but there's two things I urge the trigger happy to consider: If everyone shoots everyone, the griefing is way smaller, and you'll soon find yourself lying on the beach in a pool of blood as often as not. Other games do the whole Deathmatch in a sandbox map better than thisone. The boom of players might very well bust if the game becomes that shallow. Will this change anything? I don't know. Am I in the wrong game, a carebear and should I run cry to my mommy, possibly. Am I going darkside anytime soon? Nah, I have BF3 or GW3 to fall back on. Much cooler weapons.