bad_mojo (DayZ)

I'll admit choice is scaring me. This is the first time I've read Rockets words and felt scared of what it will mean for the future of DayZ. If he gives into the majority over this, is that attitude going to carry over into other aspects of the game? Two play styles as you call it, would be a terrible thing for DayZ. It would divide development focus and divide players. I believe the best thing for DayZ is for everyone to be held to the exact same standard, in the exact same world. Feel free to disagree, cause I know you do.

Hide character models that can't be seen from your characters eyes.

Why are the animals always in the same areas?

No way you can argue that looking over walls and around corners is a realistic way to portray stealthy recon in the arma engine. That would be true in a game like BF2 where the player models stick out, but it's possible to hide in plain sight in arma. Lay in a bush with Ghillie suit & SVD camo, you deserve that advantage. Climb a ladder and lay on a rooftop, not so much. Why not add the ability to craft a parascope or use a piece of broken mirror to look over and around things realistically from the first person perspective.

Enough with the pro choice propaganda! LET DAYZ LIVE! DON'T ABORT YOUR VISION ROCKET!

The under populated first person mod servers show that given the choice, the majority of players have gravitated towards the more informative(for lack of an agreeable term) of the two. I'm not worried that first person servers will be empty in the standalone if third person continues. I'm worried that DayZ will be a worse game because of it. Fuck choice, I want a good game.

Oh? So, the yet to be released DayZ standalone intends to let you look around corners and over walls? Strange how the first post of this thread includes so many quotes from Rocket implying otherwise. I use it in the mod, I've already said that. But, this isn't about me as a player, it's about me as an armchair game developer. From a design perspective, the unrealistic stuff you can currently do in third person view really influences the players behavior. It's similar to the kill notifications, score boards, nameplates, and other things that remove doubt from a players mind. If you don't have to walk 500m and check a dead body, you won't. If you don't have to check corners because you can see over the wall, you won't. A player learns the system and uses it as best he can. When I learned about DayZ from a thread on the Project Reality forums, I saw something different. I saw a game trying to put all those doubts back into a players mind. I saw a game where uncertainty causes emotion. Never knowing what's just around the corner, waiting to get you. I don't mind the discussion, and heated debate, but enough with the "you guys just want it your way!" bullshit. Using first person now in the mod on a first person server could NEVER be compared to the standalone going first person.

It doesn't matter if people have built their game around the faults in third person view. Nor does it matter if those faults can be countered by the use of tactics. It doesn't change the fact that Rocket (the developer) doesn't want these things to be in DayZ, so steps need to be taken to prevent them. Alt-f4 was also a tactic that many people used. It could also be countered by using the right tactics. Just because you don't call it an exploit, doesn't change what it is.

Why and how are you turning this into a tactics discussion? As a player, YES deal with the exploit. Use it, defend against it, sure. But, when we're talking about game development, living with an exploit is out of the question. You don't keep exploits in the game just to make it more difficult or easy for the player. That's just bad design.

Exactly what I was getting at. They don't truly enjoy the view, they just enjoy the perks that come with it. I'm guilty of it myself, when I play, I exploit third person. SAVE ME FROM MYSELF ROCKET!

First, they ARE exploits. Rocket himself made it pretty clear that third person view wasn't working the way he wants it to. Second, why would fixing the exploits in third person NOT make it a better game for people who play in third person view? If they truly prefer that view to first person, it wouldn't matter if they can't look over walls and around corners anymore....right?

I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's not about finding a server that suits my play style, it's about making DayZ a better game overall, regardless of what my playstyle includes or what I find fun. While I agree different hive servers would go a long way in making things fair, I still think work should be done on third person to make it less exploitable, even if I never use it myself. It's about making DayZ a better product, it's not about making it better for just me.

Pretty sure it's been confirmed that servers in standalone will also be run by the community, not BI.

I currently play on third person servers, yet I don't want it in the standalone, your points are invalid.

inb4 mirrors! (not that it's a valid argument, I can just tell that's what Ken will respond with)

How about this for a fix.... When you are in third person view, you can only see player models that are visible in first person. So, when you peak over a wall, you see nothing, but walk around the wall and the zombies/players appear. Of course seeing this happen would be immersion breaking for third person players, and extremely confusing to new players, but it would fix the exploits. This idea can be seen in the game World of Tanks, when in third person view you can see over stuff and around corners, but you have to get your commander/crew to spot the tank before it appears. (This isn't at all what I personally would want for DayZ SA. I would like to see third person removed, but if third person is staying, we gotta find some way to fix it.)

The problem I see with that is not everyone has a 40" display or multiple monitors, so when you give more field of view, everything gets smaller and harder to see clearly. I'm pretty sure with enough money thrown at the problem, you could replicate in arma what the human eye sees. But, I was more interested in what is different about Armas first person view? Why can people accept a game like COD having only first person view, but then write off FPV in Arma as unusable. What's different in arma? Can that be changed/improved? Would improvements be enough to get some people off of third person? If we need to see our wounds for the sake of gameplay, how can that be accomplished in first person view? If we're getting information that is required for gameplay in third person view, how can that information be given to us in first person view? Stuff like that.

Rather than trying to fix the problems with third person view, how about some ideas about how to improve first person view? I like first person view already, so I can't understand the issues people have with it, or how they could be fixed/improved. Like I said in my earlier post, if we're going to keep the option, BOTH views must play the same. It should be preference, not strategy which view you choose. Which isn't the case currently.

You might need trackIR to be really effective, but I'm sure people manage just fine without that even. I've landed in some pretty tight spots using first person with no trackir, and I'm very bad at flying in Arma, I've only had maybe 5 hrs in the air. I don't get your "can't tell where you are" statement tho. You're in the cockpit of the helicopter, you should get a good idea of where the helicopter is based on what you see out the front/side windows. Perhaps you can't see what is around you, but you should already know what is around you if you're trying to land there. No excuses. Edit:

What are you on about? Go watch some of Dslyecxis videos if you want to see how good a pilot can be in first person view. It requires you to do things a real pilot would do like find a good landing zone and plan your approach.

The reason first person servers are pretty much abandoned is because of a vicious circle. Players want to play with other players. So they are attracted to populated server. Over time, new players to DayZ overwhelmed the old population and the "easy" servers started to become the most popular. About a year ago, it became very difficult to find a first person server with more than 10 people in it. Since then it's gone even further down hill. Server owners want their server to be popular, so they adapt to what the popular servers are offering. For the last year I've played on third person servers, using third person view constantly. This isn't because I secretly like third person but want to appear all thug and hardcore on the forums. It's because I value having 50 players in the same virtual world more than I value the benefits of first person. It can be the most intense immersive experience ever, but if there's little to no threat of human contact, I might as well play single player. It's no longer DayZ to me. I started using third person view after having multiple instances where other people using third person view directly influenced my game. I would get spotted from around corners, or by people laying in the grass. I would lose track of friendlies due to my disorientation in first person, but they'd remind me how easy it was for them to see me in third person. After switching to third I had my life saved countless times by the exploitable view. And I wasn't even trying to exploit it, you just can't help it. When you enter a ATC tower and start to walk up the stairs to see someone with an AK pointed at the top of the stairs. I should have died by them, but the para-scope saved my life. Then there's the countless times I've stuck my body in a bush and watched people walk right past me. I think the thing I hate most about this discussion is the response about situational awareness or body in the environment feeling better in third person view. But, the thing is we're all restricted to the same view. Who cares if first person creates tunnel vision and makes it difficult to see zombies around you, who cares if you can't peak over the grass like you could in real life. Who cares about situational awareness. Who cares because we're all in the same boat. This isn't a game played against humans, it's a game played against other computers, we're all equally unaware of our situations. Expecting our real life situational awareness to translate into the video game is an unrealistic expectation and has never been done even with the most elaborate virtual reality setups. Third person view is like giving a blind man a flying drone that feeds images to his brain and saying he'll see just like everyone else.

High risk, high reward.

I hate that Rocket implies the standalone will require third person. He talks about leaving it up to the player to pick a first person only server, but when the game is built around having third person, who is going to run/play first person only? For example, if you can't tell where exactly you've been shot or are wounded in first person, relying on third person to solve this problem just reinforces an exploitable system. Are we first person advocates going to be at some kind of artificial disadvantage because we don't use third person? Shouldn't the game be changed so that you CAN figure out this stuff in first person view? I'm not totally against having third person view optional, but it shouldn't be optional just for the sake of pleasing first person players. The game should be the same in first or third. If one is simply better, there's no point in having the option.

When I hear a noise I want that noise to be coming from something real.

The problem is that a lot of people will expect full mod support in the standalone, and that's just not going to happen at launch. So will people play Rockets game if they can't change it to suit their needs? We'll see I guess.