Grumpy (DayZ)

Uh, considering that once you've got basic gear and supplies, you're looking at your character having a full ruck sack, a rifle, load vest with a bunch of mags and smoke grenades and whatever, a sidearm, a hatchet... That's like, thirty or forty pounds of gear, at least. Please, please, put on an Alice pack full of food, water, medical supplies, ammo, a tent, and post a video of you "realistically" jumping over a fence at full run. Hey, maybe it could be used for mocap, too. Also, if you're nice, we could start a fundraiser for your friggin' hospital bill. Seriously, is the John Woo front flip they added not enough? Though, I will agree, having a more smooth "climb over objects" button would be helpful.

It'd have less potential for abuse. You wouldn't be able to do it on command, and it only happens while you're sick for a legitimate reason. If you're going to not force people to poop normally, why not make it vomiting instead? it makes more sense than getting sick and suddenly having to poop. With vomiting, the player would have less leeway for abuse. Unless you add bulimia to the game, I guess.

Don't get me wrong guys, I'm not going to rage quit the game because it involves ew, pooping. Seriously, I work in a medical field. I've had to change diapers on paralyzed people before, it doesn't really freak me out. From a realism standpoint, I definitely understand the point. Like I said, in situations where society has broken down in real life, cholera specifically and being careful where people defecate has been a serious problem. Hell, I was at a weekend airsoft match once where a whole group of "special forces operators" got serious cases of the runs because they didn't clean their mess kits (though that was probably something less awful than cholera.) I really do like the disease spreading aspect of that, and it adds an extra degree of realism and tension to the game. Sure, you're thirsty, but is that water clean? However, like someone else said earlier, I don't think many gamers are really ready for this kind of mechanic. That's not a statement on OMG the children, they'll be corrupted! Immature players (regardless of age) of course already know everyone poops, that's kind of the problem. The issue is that, much like the "penis factor" it's only a matter of time until someone starts abusing it. All it would take would be a couple of youtube videos, before DayZ gets known as "That game where you can knock someone out and then poop on their immobile body while they watch, and the game won't even let you quit to avoid it!" A lot of people take that kind of thing seriously. It could generate a lot of negative press. Maybe some people will join because of reverse intent, but a lot of people will join specifically to troll. While I don't think it'd kill the game, keep in mind, Day Z is not some huge game like COD that can just shrug off criticism and keep chugging. While downloads of the mod have been seriously impressive, a major hit to sales or publicity at this point could do a lot of damage to the mod. I really love DayZ, and I love the direction the devs are taking it. A game that doesn't even pretend that you're special, and doesn't pull a single punch... it's really kind of refreshing when every single game out their leads you by the hand while telling you how much you're the uber special chosen one. I very, very much want this game to succeed. Hell, I think it could change the tone of gaming development for the better. Anyway, TL;DR, I think by changing the transmittable disease symptom to vomiting, you could save a lot of potential trouble without limiting the scope of the game.

It's really weird to be typing this out, but I honestly think that putting pooping in the full standalone is pretty much one of the worst ideas I have ever heard. I wasn't going to type this out, but one of the animators mentioned that the devs were mocaping defecating, so now I'm worried. Don't get me wrong- I really like the idea of transmitting diseases, getting a severe disease and having it impair you seriously, worrying about contaminated gear and water- that's all really cool. Cholera would also be a serious problem in a post-apocalyptic situation (and has proven to be so when society breaks down), but this is one of those times when a little leeway from pure realism might be taken. I think replacing the defecating with having to vomit or something when you're sick would be a much better mechanic, from a lot of perspectives. First of all, what are we going to have? A poop meter? Could your character die from constipation if you don't go visit the bushes often enough? Will your character involuntarily poop if the meter gets full? Are we going to have to worry about alerting a bunch of zombies because you crapped your pants? Plus, I don't think player bases will handle this well. It could easily be that DayZ becomes known as "The game where you can poop on people." I don't think it would be productive to get that kind of attention- especially if some media group decides to run with it. Anyway, I just think it's a horrible idea. That was officially the weirdest forum post I've ever written.