ParanoidBob

Hi everybody, please allow me to quickly introduce myself so you have some idea of where im coming from: I'm a fan of the zombiegenre (movies, max brooks books and the walking dead comics and so on) and only some 6 months ago I became aware of the game genre of the zombie-mmo. Great right? No...my first contact was with the WarZ. :-( I wont go on about that horrible abortion of a game because its simply not worth wasting time on. Aaaand moving on: Despite my earlier experiences im still a big believer of the zombie mmo in general, in fact, before I was even aware of the game genre Ive been already thinking out some concepts and ideas. To be clear: I have not and did not play DayZ because I only found out about Dayz when the standalone was already in the works. Been reading the tumblr page and it's refreshing to see that there are devs out there who are genuinly commited to produce an awesome epic game without setteling for less. Now my suggestions can be implemented later on in the standalone's existence, also I read Rocket saying he and other devs read these forums and they are still thinking about endgame content etc. I will ad each idea in a different post to avoid a wall of text. Here we go:

It's funny to see how there's always some rearguard of purists..hehe the SA is moving towards a mmo concept. I think things like instances etc cant be avoided in the long run. There has to be some sort of endgame or goal to persue, if commercially speaking you want to survive. Like it or not. Good news is: you can be creative in how you create the 'en\dgame'.

The hoard, or a similar event would be cool if it's intrusive/big enough for players to have to drop whatever it is they are doing and team up/ run for the hills, whatever. To break outta the routine. Could only be monthly event or so. One trippy idea for sucha event, around holiday season: The ISS spacestation crashes into the gameworld and players can race for its wreckage to find xmashats and awesome laserguns that only work during the holidayseason. hehe.

scratch that, just checked the specs and on my comp armaII will be a horrible lagged experience. :-( (getting new motherboard and a decent graphicscard later down the year) getting it now is not an option.

oh thats not so bad! I'll check it out! btw, two questions: 1: I heared its a beach installing the mod and accessing a server, is this true? 2: Isnt it a very strong rumor that the releasedate for the sa will be in mid-late april?

Ladies and gentlemen, I just found my calling!!! :-p. No unfortunately I havent (said that twice already! :P), here's why: I came across this type of genre when I first read about an upcoming zombie mmo in an open and persistent world...but it was the WarZ. Only after losing 23 euros to that ukrainian snake ( guess ''he winner'' ) I heared and discovered DayZ. By then the standalone was already on it's way so I just wait for SA to come out instead of buying the armaII game and then downing the mod. Im a bit on a budget as im travelling soon and also want/need to build a new comp for when RomeII is coming out in october this year.

No you got me right, I did mean a more guided chain of objectives etc. However I did not realise so many are opposed to this. How about you create the possibility to lets say, find a blueprint for a 'bulletmaker' so you need such and so basic materials you need to locate and find? It's less npc-y that way right? I was under the impression the devs were thinking of an endgame. Some ultimate goal or whatever.

Oh..I'm starting to get the idea it was a bad idea to post this as I am clearly missing something..

Thanks for the feedback! About point 1: I dont know what to say as I haven't played it in the early days, in fact not at all. I've been watching other peoples adventures via youtube though. If lots of dayZ players feel npc's would suck how about a set of..'blueprints' that give hints to what to do and what next step in abilities/options this would grant? Maybe thats better? point2: Yeah ofcourse sirens would, but there's an entire horde there already so it doenst matter that much, they are already in a do or die situation. But yeah why not, scratch the sirens and make it shortwave radios. Im okay with these kinda changes as like im not experienced with the game, but I would like to see these sorta gameconcepts, the specific details I'll leave up to the more experienced players. ;-)

oh almost forgot the weirdest idea I had: Among those quests/challenges/whatever the npcfaction can give you should be one weird one: a list of things from the 'old world' back when things were normal are to be collected, they are worth a reward. Start out with a laptop. Mp3 player and batteries. Surfboard. and eventually big things you cant carry by yourself: a pinballmachine. You will need to team up with a group: two guys are lifting the pinballmachine, the rest protects them from zombies and/or bandits. Should make for some hilarious gameplay. It's a bit wacky but hey..

The endgame content- special achievement First of all let me say: this should take extremely long and be difficult as hell. So let's say there's this background storyline, zombieplague, survivors, encampement being build, over time it fights of hordes and evolves having more buildings and....eventually..a laboratorium with (npc) scientists working on a cure for the undead virus. Eventually after a chain of meeting crazy difficult objectives this vaccin might be obtained, you get a special something something and the server resets. The end? Not at all. Over time you can create these different storylines, not unlike with L4d where each level plays a bit like a movie on its own. This one is just set in the same world. This time it's an encampement and salvation lies in eventually reaching the level where they can produce a vaccin. But overtime you can add scenarios with a submarine, a salvable plane, a...whatever you and me can come up with. I hope you get the idea. The 'quests'should be unintrusive for players who want to keep playing the way they do right now. Or you could have scenario enabled servers and normal ones.

The Horde. Yes. I said it. Every now and then a kickass horde migrates over the map, like a swarm of locusts eating everybody who is unlucky in their way. Maybe every two days a horde spawns and follows a rough trajectory to other side of the map, yet they can change their direction when they notice prey. But after a 3 to 4 hour timeperiod they will vanish. Now these encampements I mentionned earlier could sometimes be in the path of the horde, sirens will sound and players who dont want to lose their progress/access to more advanced technologies etc better drop what they are doing and rush to the camp to fight off the horde. You could ofcourse make this a random weekly event or plan it. (strictly for gamecontent reasons) I can imagine that this can be tons of fun: fanatic grinders fighting off the horde while trololol bandits try to snipe of off the walls! hehe

Rebuilding: classic theme in any zombiestory: survivors who hold out and try to make a safehaven in a hostile world. At a certain point the world should have a campement controlled by a faction (later on maybe different factions that have camps with different moral allegiances), the factions have a currency (maybe a point system or however you wanna fill that in, not important to me) which can be obtained by...doing quests (im sorry but its still a mmo, dont chuck every aspect of what makes a mmo a mmo outta the window). You got a couple of simple jobs you can do: raid a nearby garage/hospital/policestation and get object X. In time these encampements evolve, depending on each server, they get new buildings, perhaps even better defenses. How does this create gamecontent? Simple: you create a dynamic where players ( and ofcourse also bandits) have a hub, maybe stash some items, and over time, as the encampement grows and evolves can pay visits to hospitals obtain either skills or technologies in a techshop etc. BUT it should be organic: the encampement can grow, but also decrease! Lots of people= lots of meals for zombies...which brings me to idea no2.