petward

True, but again, it obviously isn't the focus of the mod. Easter egg territory is perfect for this. As far as wiki goes that is going to happen with any and all entertainment in the modern age. this would not defeat the purpose at all. Simply make it more applicable online. It would still be interesting finding it in game. Not to mention I don;t know many people that would go out of their way to spoil secrets like that for themselves...

Exactly! That's the kind of stuff that helps make the world believable and interesting without shoving the story down the player's throat.

I don't remember enforcing "rules" to my thread... Sorry if it came across that way, that was not my intention. I merely wanted to clarify your post because, going to be blunt here, didn;t make much sense to me.

... Not to be rude, but did you even read the whole post? And if you're regarding the character backstory then I have to say that is something I would be okay with them not implementing, but I believe if they went about it in a VERY GENERAL way as I explained then it wouldn't hurt the "create your own story" gameplay. I'm sorry, but that completely contradicts what you just said... Plus I'm totally against any type of laid-out goals/objectives. There should only be the ones you set yourself.

Yeah, not one of my more significant suggestions, but I felt it needed to be thrown out there , as Rocket himself has said this is the "experimenting phase". Obviously there are more prevalent things to worry about, but most of them just involve too much conjecture and "what if"'s that it is almost beyond being constructive. they do give ideas to developers, which is always a plus. Actually, one of the things I intend on suggesting is a way to implement the Underground City system. It has been talked about a lot, but I've never seen someone REALLY expand on it like I've done here. Anyways, thank you for your feedback :).

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that these are simply suggestions meant to encourage intellectual discussion regarding said suggestion. Also keep in mind that these do not necessarily have to strictly apply to the ArmA 2/3 engine. However, I do invite you to utterly rip apart, berate, and effectively challenge the features I have proposed... if you dare. Now, on with the show! Introduction: I had a bit of a backstory suggestion before in my Skills Suggestion thread, but I felt like I needed to expand on it. I've learned a little from making that suggestion. Some of those things include: 1. Some people on the forums are idiots. 2. Rambling makes things a lot less clear. 3. And that I should cite my intentions before going into detail to avoid confusion and to appease people from point 1.Now, this suggestion revolves around the backstory, world building, and immersion in DayZ (Obviously.). This is a very simple idea and there are other's like this on the forums, but I wanted to make one that had essentially all of it in one, organized thread. So without further ado I will move on with this. Intentions: If you read anything in this thread, read this! 1. Build upon subtle immersion by using backstory elements. 2. Create an increased attachment to your character by adding a VERY GENERAL reason for appearing on the coast. 3. DO NOT CREATE A STORY LINE. Only a backstory. 4. Keep the players in the dark until they find things in the world that hint at the backstory. 5. Atmosphere must be maintained.The main goal of this is to increase immersion, enhance the atmosphere, and further cement the world. With these thing in mind I will continue on into more detail. Character Backstory: I felt like I needed more of a reason to cut my wrist every time some douchebag shot me as I tried to rob the hospital. In layman's I want to become even more attached to my loot character. To solve this I suggest making a sort of "character creation" intro. Revolutionary, I know. As simple as this would be to implement it would increase the immersion aspect as I realize that is Prime Directive 1. The first way is to have a very general backstory that only tells how you managed to wash up upon the beach. Example:After a storm capsizes your boat you were trying to escape on you find yourself washed ashore with nothing but a flashlight, bandages, and a few painkillers. With your hope for escape from the devastated Chernarus on the bottom of the ocean and your lack of companionship the familliar land of Chernarus calls to you, challenging you to survive... Yes I know it's terribly written. It's 4 am here, fuck off. Something like that would give players a very general identity to how they washed ashore in thier general location. Note the word general. The tactic behind this type of intro is to give the player as little info as possible so that they can craft their own adventure (Prime Directive 1.5, maybe 1) to the fullest and feel like they aren't playing a game about survival, but actually becoming the character. The biggest question I had when I thought of this would be how to get this information to the player? Not through a fucking pop-up message, a-la fallout style, that's for sure. No, what I had in mind is a journal-like menu system... Journal System: After arriving on the beach a player experimentally hits "X" and it causes his character to pull out a tattered, old composition book out from his pack (Maybe a pen/pencil as well.) The explanation from above shows up, scribbled onto the page (Possibly have character write it into journal when it opens.). A very simple addition that isn't an immersion breaking UI. There are many, many functions for a journal system. A lot of them have already been posted on the forums. For the most part these suggestions revolve around the general act of being able to write (Freely!) in a journal and if you happen to die your killer/random survivor would be able to pick it up and read of your adventures. Thread 1 Thread 2 A picture of what it may look like... except with words of course... But there is also another function for the journal I would like to suggest... Which leads to my next point... World Building: This, like the character backstory, is very finicky in terms of what does work and what won't work. I have written quite a lot in my short time on this planet (That doesn't make me a writer, but I understand basic writing skills and have analysed enough entertainment to know what is good and what is bad.) and I believe this is one of the few areas I feel confident in when talking about game development. Writing a story is a balancing act, depending on the style of story you are writing.... Actually let me re-phrase that. Storytelling is a balancing act, depending on the style of story you are telling. This is simply saying that how much you show the reader general sways from genre to genre and is paramount in keeping a good flow that entertains the target audience. The ENTIRETY of the story/world should be built and structured, but how much is reveled to the reader should be limited depending on the genre/type of story you are weaving. For instance, romance. The world/setting/characters/plot should be structured to the fullest. However, the reader/viewers should only be viewing the plot and characters. That is not to say that the setting and world shouldn't be hinted at, it's pretty inevitable that it will at some point. It simply means that the plot/characters should be fleshed out the most leaving the world/setting to sit in the background. If we can agree on anything it is that DayZ is a post-apocalyptic setting. The world has gone to shit which has then hit the fan. Themes involving horror, survival, betrayal, trust, companionship, fear, and loneliness prevalent. For most post-apocalyptic literature the most fleshed out part of it is generally the character/over-arching plot. The reasons why the world went to shit and what the current state is is obviously hinted at, but, like a romance story, the stay predominantly in the background, giving the characters/plot a solid base to work off of. So why this the general way post-apocalyptic literature plays out? While you have some stories like "Alas, Bablyon" where the world/setting is rather in your face, that is really only because the plot itself plays around the central apocalyptic event depicting how it was before, during, and after. However, most are not like that. Most present the story many years after the event, depicting only the aftermath and it's effects. So, again, why is this the general way it plays out? Well that is because of the themes that are generally inside post-apocalyptic stories. I will not repeat the themes as I have already listed them, but when you look at them you don't immediately attach them to an action movie that involves kicking the zombles back to hell or whatnot. The themes attach themselves to stories revolving around small groups or even only two characters. Take for instance "The Road". A Boy and his father trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world (Sounds similar doesn't it?). While the story has to give hints about the world/setting to give a good foundation, the characters and their development are what drives the story. How they adapt to survive and whether or not they commit acts of murder or stick to their morals. This is the basis for the DayZ experience. Creating your own post-apocalyptic story revolving around a small group or even one player. The catchphrase "This is your story." proves that. Now FINALLY onto my suggestion. Subtlety... Subtlety. Subtlety! SUBTLETY!!! This is what makes a post-apocalyptic experience amazing. The subtle hints at what once was always hits hard and puts the situation into perspective. I will give a detailed example of this in another game. Fallout 3. The player can find audio logs left behind from the recent or distant past. The most interesting ones were the ones that depicted life before the bombs dropped or what happened during them. The one that sticks out in my mind is the keller family holotapes. To make a long story short a military guy got a code to get into a bunker and gave one to each of his family members so that they all had to show up to get in. For each family member there was a holotape recording the their number and showcasing why you find them dead in front of the bunker's doors. While there was a nice weapon as a reward the way it was implemented was subtle and very intriguing. More so than some of the main quests. Not only was it entertaining to follow, but it immersing, further expanding the horrors of what happened when the bombs dropped and painting a clearer picture of the bombed world. What I feel DayZ needs to match this type of immersion is essentially the same thing. Scattered notes,audio logs, and other memorabilia of a time before or during the events that started the infection. These can easily be showed in the journal when obtained or simply used as an item itself. These would be a nice sort of... collectible that could be implemented. However, more than that they would help with immersion and help make the world more realistic. With my intentions from before still in mind these pieces of lore/story MUST be subtle,incomplete,and not take away from the story you're creating yourself. It should only serve to add to the game. So completely forgot this example when writing this, so here it is: http://soundcloud.co...dio-logs/tracks This is an amazing example of what you could possibly find. Though I don't like how close it is to the players present time, but that's just me. I made the actual suggestion itself short and concise... because... it didn't take much to explain. If you've stuck with it this long then well done! However, I felt that the explanation of the DayZ themes and stuff was needed to make sure we understood what DayZ was and is generally trying to accomplish. I hope this has helped the developers in any way possible and that they are good ideas/suggestions. God forbid that I give you a bad idea that you for some reason implement and it ruins the mod... As for you other forum lurkers feel free to rip this shit apart until I go cry in a corner. And to Rocket thank you for creating such a wonderful mod. I speak for everyone when I say that you have created something that has given me many memorable experiences in gaming.

No, you're right, what real-life is like is "I replaced a tire ten times and I've noticed I can easily patch up the tire itself instead of replacing it due to my experiences dealing with changing tires." That is what I hope this skills seems like. However, I agree that trying new things also boosts experience in any given field. Though I don't know how well that would translate into a game enviorment. I think I may have worded that weirdly... I'm a little tired given that it's 5:30 here... What I meant was that the difference between new Survivors and Vets. should be purely PvE and only situationally an advantage. General gameplay mechanics should not really be touched. This involves damage, health, that sort of things. The things that would make the Vets harder to kill. Take for instance stealth. A survivor would have no percentile decreases in the amount of sound/visibility they generate, but a Vet would have a slight decrease by 40% making them more apt at sneaking past the zombles. And I stick by what I said about the increases being almost inconsequential. I want to keep the Loot Based Leveling. I want the skill system to be primarily a very SUBTLE, balancing system that is completely secondary. Anything more would negatively influence gameplay, drives in game, and the DayZ experience itself.

I agree, keep in mind that the skills are mostly just to show off how the system would work in terms of progression with a few general ideas sprinkled here and there. Any stat system will fell gamey. Hell, the new addition of the visibility counter and the whole debug monitor feels gamey. So, in short I agree. Training is also a viable option, but I do think that when you do things constantly and enough times you should get better at doing said thing. That is just how real-life works and I see no reason why it shouldn't be implemented as well if they also did training. I'm actually glad you mentioned the backstory as I am writing another thread/suggestion about the very topic :). As for making the starting survivors worse at things I agree. However, these disadvantages should be absolutely minimal. See my list of intentions for reasons why. Anyway, thank you for your feedback. One post at a time we can create a better DayZ. :End Inspirational Message:

Not that I don't love the theorycrafting on the subject, I just feel like this is leading the discussion a bit off track. HIGHLY recommend making this idea a thread of it's own instead of burying it under a completely different suggestion.

To those interested in a Skill System, but not a Class System: Here. Now enough with selfish promotion. I for one am completely against the idea of classes. Does not fit into the... style? of DayZ.

That would certainly be realistic. Definitely a good suggestion. However, it is not necessarily the way it's implemented that I'm most worried about. What worries me the most with this is the whole concept of it. I believe the very "unofficial" way that grouping is implemented in DayZ now is exciting, authentic, and fun. Keep in mind this is assuming your meeting someone in game who you become "friends" with (We all know how that turns out...). When you add any sort of "official" party system it makes it so that you have their username. This sounds very trivial, but it ruins the... mystery behind the person. Ok, going to stop that abruptly because I've had somewhat of a stroke of brilliance. Or maybe I just stopped being stupid. Anyway, assuming the "official buddies" thing was an item. Not a UI thing or something. It does not save to profile or anything. Now what if, like all the rest of your items, it was removed once you died. All information gone from that person and blah, blah, blah. Maybe make it a pseudo item so that it cannot be saved in tents and shit. Now this would make him shooting you in the back still a very real danger. I don't know, I feel like this post is stupid and I'm just being very tired at the moment...

Ha, the sad thing is I played BF3 for a while and never noticed that. Regardless, that is very interesting. Definitely something to look at to implementing. Only problem would be the "grouping/party" bit. I for one am against any type of... official party system in DayZ. Like adding people through a UI or whatnot. It would have to be only on you. This would make things pretty fiddly. Combine that with the system up above and you may have a winner. I like where this discussion is leading :).

This has been suggested A LOT. However, I can never see ti being implemented like this for the same reason bandit skin's were taken out. It's un-realistic. You can't know someone's past/history by simply looking at them. I don't care how many acid tablets you take. It's impossible. Not only that, but there is the question of how in Rocket's name you would be able to implement that differentiation between Murder and Self-defense. I know almost nothing about programming and stuff, but I am positive that something like that is almost impossible. Please kick me in the balls if I'm wrong. In a perfect world where a game engine COULD tell the difference then that would obviously be the best way to add skill points (or something else) to the Survivor/Bandit trees. Unfortunatley our world is far from perfect. I'm going to be honest here, I personally love the idea of my character revolving around gear and loot. Ever since games like STALKER I have been in love with the realism it entailed and the different, but comparable depths it added to the game. I like the idea of not having to worry about my cooking level or woodcutting (Runescape reference...). I love having to worry about what's in my bag and how I should be hoarding and using it sparingly. It made me feel immersed in the world. Now I get to my point. Having to worry about what you have in your bag and on-hand is a realistic worry. Having to worry about a invisible skill that you have to is not. That is not to say that never happens. When your in a zombie apocalypse you are going to be worrying about what you have to survive rather than the skills you can work up to use those items more effectively. However, it can be a secondary worry and be completely realistic. Personally, I believe that the fact that it is Gear-Based make me feel like I AM the character. Not playing as one. If the game suddenly turned stat focused it would change my perspective. Because my mind works the way it does I would no longer feel like my character. I would be worried about working up my skills in a very... "gamey" way. Not only that, but Rocket himself has said many times before that he wants the mod/game to stay Item Based. I know it sounds incredibly hypocritical considering what I have posted before, but that is why my system is the way it is. Provide balance and immersion while staying in the back of the players head/in the background. Phew... Thank you for the feedback and sorry if I sounded too critical.

I'm glad I took the time to actually read this. While it is different beast than my own post on the subject, it is the same base concept and still has some of it's own merits. However, I do have a few points of advice. The Resistant, and the Weapon skills all break a pretty important point in DayZ. The balance between New Survivors and Veteran Survivors. The makes it so that Veteran survivors are harder to kill than fresh survivors. In my opinion the balance between the two should always be there. That is to say both are on equal... "getting killed" grounds. Now this is a somewhat more personal, but I personally do not like the idea of picking something from the start, as in the "background" of your character. Sure you were obviously someone else before the plague, but that should be reflected in your actions, not in your starting loadout. This is why I'm against classes or loadout features. Although it would help with people grouping up it would not fit into the idea of DayZ. Again, this point is pretty opinionated. Other than that a lot of your ideas are extremely similar to mine. It's like your inside my head O_o. I especially like the throwback to the fallout 1/2 skill system. I like percentages... I laughed at how mean your medicine and survival skills are. I can only imagine the river of tears as people fail to use that morphine.

Updated the original post to make intentions and goals clearer to those that don't read between the lines so well.