dannyboyle

That would be great. If Bohemia developed a ragdoll physics system with advanced locomotion where the character hand goes to the wound automatically, be it a gunshot or a cut, I'm not referring to the players, I'm referring to an infected person or human AI, you could perfectly do that. Both entities would benefit from this, both real players and those controlled by AI. In medical terms, what you say can be done, is real, but the bad thing is that using your hand is dangerous, as you would be at risk of contracting a bacterial infection, which could require antibiotics if you become infected. You have to keep that in mind when making a design like this ¿Are your hands clean? ¿Have you washed or disinfected them with alcohol or bleach? It would even be great to be able to get infected with blood and become infected (zombie) if your hands are dirty with infected blood, for example, if you have crawled on a floor with blood on you, you are stained, then if someone hurts you while you are stained, you have a chance of becoming infected, you can even infect someone if you hit them and they have open wounds. I think this would be going too far, but it would be great. As I specified in the Infected redesign, a manual cutting mechanic where you control your hand would be great to be able to heat a knife over a fire, hold it up, and use it to hold it to an open wound and close it, as well as sterilize it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oSbxpmMHBE Looking down would be simple if the game only had first-person perspective, but the game also has third-person perspective, which complicates things considerably. It would be nice if you could drag your hand to the wound in the character menu, like you do with a weapon. The first-person camera could perhaps have that more direct interaction.

If anyone knocks you out they should be able to finish you off with a shot to the head if they want, you are clearly in a position of inferiority. I don't like second chances, not with infected or humans. If someone leaves you alive, it's because they want to. I don't see anything wrong with the possibility of being knocked unconscious on the ground, because it's needed for good game play and it happens in the real world, but I see it as very difficult if a player really wants to kill you, and if a player knows that this mechanic exists, they should make sure to kill you if they really know that it happens. I think any player should have the option to perform a QTE finisher to kill a player if they are close, such as by stepping on their head, shoveling them in the head, etc. Another thing is if you are far away and there are infected people and you think that the other player is dead from a gunshot because he has fallen to the ground and you cannot stay there any longer because the infected are going to come for you and the situation arises that the person falls unconscious and then fortunately survives, but if you have that person centimeters away and you have him on the ground you must be able to end his life cruelly to make sure that he will not have the option to get up, just as if you also want you can leave him tied up without clothes. The chances of surviving if there's an infected nearby who wants your flesh, or a player a few inches away who wants you killed, should be almost slim, very very slim. In short, it's fine for players to be able to knock you out, but during the moment of unconsciousness you won't be able to do anything, and they will know that you breathe, this way they can decide what to do with you, if they want to kill you, if they want to tie you up, if they just want to rob you and leave, if they made a mistake. Something I do like about PlayDead is the concept seen in MGS V of crawling among corpses and pretending to be just another corpse. You can introduce areas where there are several dead bodies, for example inside a hospital, and if players enter you can lie on the floor and pretend to be a corpse like them. Obviously you can do this anywhere, but you will attract less attention where there are more corpses since the players will not check them all. This mechanic could be tied to another breath-hold button where it would show if you were breathing, as you would try to hold your breath and become completely inert. Like in MGS V, you lie on the ground, then press triangle to enter playdead mode. Once in playdead mode, you can hold your breath with square. Playdead mode can be executed in a variety of positions. Various animations could be created to fit the infected. You should also be able to execute this animation while lying face up, prone, and even sideways. You should also be able to interact with environmental elements like a wall or sit in a chair and play dead. When you wake up from unconsciousness, you could easily wake up in playdead mode, as you mentioned, with the option to hold your breath. You decide whether to get up or not, but obviously other players will see that you're breathing in your chest physics if you can't hold your breath. You could develop skill by holding your breath. But obviously it can't be eternal, because it's impossible, you'll be seen to be alive if you can't hold your breath. Playdead mode wouldn't really be that complex, maybe you could just have a button to enter ragdoll mode and let yourself stay as you want, but of course, for that you have to have a minimally decent ragdoll. This is an example of what I mean with Garry's Mod If you end up unconscious from a gunshot or a brutal beating, you will not be able to control your breathing and it will be faster than normal. The only way to control it well is to play dead, being in good health from the start and having a decent ability to hold your breath.

I'm not a fan of micromanagement, maybe sometimes, but we're not going to deny that DayZ is an extremely complex game based on micromanagement with survival gameplay, its core is micromanagement and doing everything manually. I think micromanagement isn't the problem because that's what DayZ is all about. I also don't see anything wrong with forcing players to do things, DayZ forces you to eat and do many things in your daily life, that's the core of the game. Now, while you micromanage, you don't wait; you combine things, take advantage of the opportunity to improve others, prepare others. It's not the same as going to bed, stretching out, and waiting a few minutes; that's literally wasting time. Imagine if you have four hours to play, and of those four hours, you spend 20-35 minutes doing that. Well, that's dangerous. If in 4 hours you can make that process only take 3 minutes, I don't see it as a problem, or if you can camouflage it with other processes. I think it's possible to achieve something organic with server hopping, and if you don't hop, there are consequences, such as not recovering enough energy for the next server. And by energy, I don't mean sleep—sleep should be another indicator—I mean energy, the ability to run, lift weights, carry weight in a backpack, etc I think the best option is two servers that simulate 24 hours, 12 each. If you don't jump to the next one, you'll have to do it out of fatigue, no matter what; the character will get tired at some point. Let's say each server lasts 4 or 3 hours, well, after 3, you should be tired; a player would never make it to the full 4 hours. CORE CONCEPT: ENERGY/FATIGUE-BASED SERVER HOPPING Two servers: Server A (Day), Server B (Night) - third needed to Each simulates 12 hours of real life in-game time, 2 real hours per server, 2h DAY 2h NIGHT. TOTAL = 4 hours per day It could be SERVER A DAY 8 am to 8 pm / SERVER B NIGHT 8 pm to 8 am If real life is Awake time in game = 16 (66.67%) hours in real life Sleep time in game = 8 (33.33%) hours in real life In 4 Hours game system per day: Awake time in game =2.6668 - 3 game hours (Possible hours of real-time gameplay) Sleep time in game = 1.3332 game hours (The player would not experience that in real time, it would simply be simulated in the server change that is advanced in time, as if 8 hours had passed.) Obviously, the 12 hours would last 2 real life hours, but you could stay on the server for longer than those 12 hours/ 2 hours, and so could the other players, but at some point tiredness would force you to jump to the other server that is 8 hours ahead. Every 3 hours in game you need to go to sleep, you can last 3 hours into the server but no more, if you don't jump the server will force you to do so by making you fall unconscious, no matter where you are. You'd see sunrises and sunsets if you stretched the hours, the servers stretch out over time but will always force the player to tire out so that he sleeps and jumps to the next one. If a player stays in the same server too long (beyond the “natural” cycle), their character fatigues in ways that directly affect gameplay: speed, stamina, carry capacity, etc. at the "next day". By the third hour or earlier the player would need to go to sleep or pass out and there would be a change of server, the fourth hour would never arrive, as the player would pass out before then and end up on the other server. If the player does not sleep at the agreed time, 2.6 hours, this will affect his energy for the next day, so the best thing would be to sleep every 2.6 hours or a little bit earlier, extending it to 3 hour would mean that there would not be a complete recovery, and falling unconscious would be even worse, it could even cause health problems. Such a design is interesting because the player should be able to better manage what they do before going to sleep, if they are being chased by a horde, if they are at an event, etc. Players who recently join the server could be given a tiredness adjustment so they can jump to the next server, helping them blend in with the rest of the players. It makes no sense for a player to join a server that runs from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. at 8 a.m. and be able to last a long time alone on the server; they will be given more tiredness so they jump like the rest of the players. For 8 Hours game system per day: Awake time in game =5,3336 - 6 game hours (Possible hours of real-time gameplay) Sleep time in game = 2,6664 game hours (The player would not experience that in real time, it would simply be simulated in the server change that is advanced in time, as if 8 hours had passed.)

Sleeping in multiplayer games is a very complex task. It's a design I thought it could be done, but I don't know if it's possible in DayZ. In a single-player game you simply go to sleep and time speeds up and then you wake up, but in a game with more players on the map it's much more complex to do something like that. I mean, it would be great, but there are just things that aren't possible in games because they're games and they're meant to feel satisfying and engage players. I thought of several things, and I'm sure there are better ideas: 1/ REAL-TIME SLEEP (3–10 MINUTES AFK) Put the character to sleep and the energy recharges quickly, in 3-10 minutes, you take advantage of it in real life to go stretch your legs and have something to eat or drink, pet your dog, etc... This can be dangerous, because not everyone has a lot of time and maybe those 3-10 minutes, which will be several times, is wasted time. People have to work, study, make dinner, etc... Not everyone has a lot of time. I think this is what you want, but I'm sorry to say this is not possible, only on mod hardcore servers, time is gold, if you are young you will understand some day. This could be solved a bit but without sleeping, being in restoration points, being inside houses without enemies would improve stamina and tiredness, when you are well, maybe if you sit on a bed to change the inventory it improves faster, but I don't think it would be satisfactory to sit in a bed for a while waiting for nothing. This way the player would make inventory changes or crafting at energy restoration points, but would not sleep just waiting, in fact the game actually works a bit like that. -Micro-resting: Doing light tasks (like sitting, reading a map, crafting) slowly restores energy without needing to sleep. -Stimulants and energy items: Caffeine, drugs, or other items could delay sleep at the cost of side effects like tremors, hallucinations, or crashes. -Safe-logout sleeping: If you log out inside a locked house or a protected camp, your character “sleeps” and regains energy upon rejoining, depending on how long you were offline. 2/SYNCHRONIZED SLEEP AMONG PLAYERS The other option is to have all players agree to sleep, which happens at night, and force them to go to sleep. That would break the night; you'd miss out on nightlife. Nightlife isn't my favorite because it's usually poorly designed in games, but if it's designed well, it can be very different and entertaining. What you could do is have everyone try to sync up to sleep at some point, but that would be crazy; people wouldn't agree at the same time. There could be a sort of poll where if more than one player wants to sleep, they force alll the rest to sleep until the next day. I'm not saying we should conduct a survey, I'm saying we should see who wants to sleep and let the majority decide whether they want to sleep or not. This could be chaotic and frustrating for many players, both those who want to sleep and those who don't. 3/CONTROLLING MULTIPLE CHARACTERS You manage multiple players, I really like this one, but the DayZ concept doesn't contemplate that, but I do like it, I think Bohemia should contemplate a design like that for DayZ. You have different characters, you recruit them, you meet them throughout the open world dynamic events and you can switch. Well, there it's simple because while one rests, the other can be doing things and it makes for a great, incredible design with many more aspects. I definitely think it's something worth considering in DayZ, but as I say, that would change the design of the game and it wouldn't feel like you're just surviving. I valued this concept for Red Dead Online if it had been a survival game where characters die and you recruit new ones. Here you would have a character resting but you could immediately switch to controlling another one. I thought of many designs here, so that those characters could also be controlled by friends, like a group of survivors, but I think that would change a bit what DayZ is, although it would be interesting, you wouldn't be able to swap if you were too far away from the characters and much more. 4/SERVER-HOPPING TO SIMULATE SLEEP Switching servers, you go to sleep, and there are servers with different time zones, you just spawn on another server where time has passed. I think this is the way that best suits DayZ. I definitely think it's the best current design for the type of game that DayZ is right now. There could be three servers with an 8-hour time difference that completes the 24-hour time zone, and you could jump between those three servers, or two with 12-hour time difference. I love this design because I thought about it with the idea of the in-game days passing very slowly, almost in real time, since I hate games where day and night go by so quickly that you can't enjoy them. This way, you can choose the time of day you want to play and this lasts for a long time. You can't sleep whenever you want, but when you reach a certain level of tiredness, you can sleep. It's a bit like Kingdom Come Deliverance or RDR2 but you have to jump between servers. The difference between KCD and this is that you won't be able to go at the exact time you want; you'll be tied to the time difference of each server, but that would be a good simulation and more satisfying than anything. You could sleep anywhere, but obviously that would affect how much you get sick or how much energy you recover. I definitely think a system like that would be groundbreaking in a game like DayZ. It wouldn't be like real time, but time could pass more slowly so we could better enjoy the moments we prefer or need. Point 4 seems interesting but also presents problems. In vanilla, it can work with official servers, but if you have a 50 players community server, that would greatly divide that community due to fewer players, you would be dividing a small community into two or three servers. But in reality, a good modified server would benefit a lot from something like this because it would have a larger volume of players and would distribute them. Server overload could be avoided by prohibiting sleep, although it would be a bit artificial. Another problem is that, for example, if you want the game to evolve with online story and narrative, as I proposed with the seasonal design, it would be more difficult to manage the content events that occurs in the game, but in DayZ's current design, which has no content but only gameplay, it is simpler. I say it would be complex because there aren't any issues with players. The problem is if you have an NPC on one server, they won't be there for other players on another, which is crazy in that aspect of the design. If there's an event triggered by a woman in the middle of a forest waiting for you to jump to another server, that same woman would have to be there, in that case things would get way too complicated. 5/REAL IN-GAME SLEEP (PERSISTENT CHARACTER ON SERVER) This is a design I thought of, it's very experimental, time passes very slowly and if you put the character to sleep, he sleeps for 8 real hours in-game, real hours of the game, not of life. Meanwhile, you can play with another character on another server, while that sleeping character stays asleep for 8 hours in-game server and other players can find you and kill you. The character is controlled by AI, and can defend himself in some way. Once those 8 hours have passed in-game, the character disappears from the server until you log in again and have already slept. This concept is a little crazy. Another solution is to have players see time differently than you do, but that would limit the design of night and day, you wouldn't be able to make certain animals only come out at night and stuff like that, or that at night the detection systems are less effective due to the lack of visibility. As you can see, it's not easy to do something like this. I definitely prefer point 4, changing the server to another time. It's much more realistic; in fact, this way you can control jetlag, either that or the restore points part.

When you open the inventory you don't see anything, it's as if you had done what you said, but you could add the animation that at the same time you open the inventory the character bends down and pretends to check the backpack, then you can add some delay in reinstatement. By this I mean you wouldn't notice any change, you'd just see the other player crouching down checking his backpack, but it would be pretty much the same, which I don't see as a bad thing about, visually is more realistic. Then there are the quick-change slots, but they're supposed to be slots where you have weapons at hand, perhaps slower and more realistic animations, with more delay, but in general there you don't have to take anything out of the bag. If you're referring to leaving the backpack on the ground and then looking at the inventory, that could be done with large backpacks, it would be a good idea, but not with all of them, because a light backpack can be turned sideways, bent down, and search. As you can see, this backpack is very large and you might need to leave it on the ground and look for it. This backpack is smaller and perhaps you could do the first thing I said, simply if you open the inventory the character crouches down and opens it automatically. It would be a way to play with its playability, you can carry more material, yes, but it has its drawbacks, and the one that carries less is more agile and lighter, it would adjust more to a balanced real gameplay than if all the backpacks had the same process.

No one has said that 100% realism is necessary in a game, that would be a mistake and impossible in many ways, but not in others. For example, when we talk about impact physics in realistic games, I don't think anyone will deny that we all want realistic physics with vehicles when we hit a human body or a wall, breaking it, or we want to see realistic explosions, realistic dismemberment, realistic graphics, realistic falls, realistic water, realistic animals, etc... But nobody wants to have to pee often. In fact, the funny thing is that DayZ is very realistic in those tedious aspects of life. It takes it very seriously even though it's adapted to a game: eating, cooking, dressing, having to stay warm, drinking, etc. The only thing missing is sleeping, something that's difficult to implement and that I once I tried to think of a design. In a single-player game it's easier because you just go to sleep and can speed up the time and wake up with your energy recharged, but in a multiplayer game you can't do that because there are more people playing; you can't speed up their time. The only solution I found is for everyone to go to sleep at that time, for everyone to agree to sleep, but that would be very difficult. Another way would be to force players to sleep for 5 or 10 minutes every few hours when they see they can take a break. It's always good to take a break, go get some water, eat something, stretch your legs, but of course, you would force them to do that, it's a difficult thing. Another way could be to control different characters, switch between them, and when one falls asleep you can choose another who isn't asleep. In fact, the design wouldn't be bad like that, but it would be different from being a single character. As you can see, in this case, realism is difficult, and even looking for a semi-realistic adaptation that might work is also hard. In the end, these games in their world do have to be realistic because a large part of their grace is in the simulation, in making that world feel real, the problem is what affects the player, a player does not want to play DayZ in a faction of a settlement as a guard of a wall and spend a large part of the hours of the game watching that same point and waiting, that's what NPCs are for, you want adventure, moving over the map, manage things, survive, discover, experiment, have fun, you do not want to do the work of an NPC. I say this because there are people who believe that these games should not have NPCs, I mean humans, and I think it is necessary because NPCs, in addition to enriching the world of these games, can be part of the automation of aspects that players do not want to do as we progress in the game, for example, automating crops, or automating livestock, automating surveillance, etc. Now, back to the topic, in other aspects, adapted realism is always welcome, for example, the physics I mentioned: animals that move and attack in a very realistic way, rain that floods areas, fire that spreads, realistic birds moving and resting in posts or street wires, drowning if you spend too much time in the water and run out of stamina—it's an interesting kind of realism that works in this game. Your clothes get wet if you fall into the water, a shot to the head kills you if you're not wearing a helmet, a shot to the heart kills you, all of that is realistic and acceptable in DayZ, I don't think it's crazy to look for realistic touches in a game like this, but obviously a game is never going to be reality and things have to be adapted to make the experience fun and satisfying. In fact, I haven't said anything that is far from satisfying, stealth in a game is satisfying, being able to regulate the speed to regulate stealth is not something that makes the game feel bad, or for example, improving the jumping mechanics and making it satisfactory doesn't seem bad to me either, in fact I think that in a game one of the most important things is character movement, making it feel organic and natural and not robotic and square, and currently DayZ has pretty bad controls, especially jumping. Just like adding stamina to the grip when climbing places and things like that, if you're tired the character refuses to climb and that conditions you, but obviously there are things like the ones I mentioned before that are difficult to implement, like going to the bathroom or sleeping, I'm not saying it's impossible, I said that it is complex to make it satisfactory, while other realistic things are easier to implement while being faithful to reality, or trying it. For example, in a multiplayer game, permanent death can be handled much more satisfactorily than in a linear narrative story-based game. Even in multiplayer, losing characters is actually quite satisfying. However, in single-player, it's more complex because you generally have a story with a narrative line, and if you eliminate the main characters it doesn't make as much sense. It can be done, but at very key moments in the story and with one character, you can't do it constantly.

No, it's not just that, you ask for real movement and a keyboard doesn't give real movement because generally nobody uses keys with pressure, everyone uses keys without pressure. A controller's joystick enables organic movements that a keyboard can't or makes much more complicated, and you'll never achieve the same surgical synchronization. A simple example: with a joy stick you can adjust the speed at which you move, directly influencing stealth. On a keyboard, you have to create a specific button to enter stealth mode. The character's turns with a keyboard are more abrupt and lack real sensitivity because there are four buttons, and there's no sensitivity. This often results in stealth only adapting when crouching, and not when walking slowly upright, when stealth should be functional when walking slowly upright as it doesn't make any noise with your steps. The reason for the keyboard adaptation is because mechanics like this one, which involve synchronizing the camera's right joystick with the movement joystick, the left one, are not used, or have been abandoned, because they would have to be adapted to the DPAD keys in tank mode and that would take up buttons and would not be as realistic, as in the old Tomb Raider. Even the joystick could be programmed to create a jumping mechanic based on the character's acceleration, joystick thrust, and even the distance at which you take a run and then press the jump button. However, on a keyboard, this isn't possible because the w key isn't sensitive when taking a run. The re-routing is fine if you want to play PvP, in a COD-like game, which is what you're complaining about, but in a game like DAYZ, you lose realistic mechanics and realistic movements in exchange for better mouse aim, something I don't think is as important in a game like DAYZ, since DAYZ shouldn't focus on being a PvP game; aiming should feel difficult, not like an arcade shooter. And believe me, I've played games like Red Dead Online, and by the end, I'd play without autoaim, without a reticle, and without a HUD, with a controller, and I'd kill a lot of players. After playing for a long time, I'd get so bored that I sought out that more realistic and imprecise experience, and it was much more satisfying than seeing the reticle. In fact, I think the reticle is also a bummer. I think it's nicer for the player to have to imagine the dot in the middle of the screen and develop the skill to aim, but this is my personal preference, and it's something easy to enable and disable on a server. It's up to each individual.

No, it's not just that, you ask for real movement and a keyboard doesn't give real movement because generally nobody uses keys with pressure, everyone uses keys without pressure. A controller's joystick enables organic movements that a keyboard can't or makes much more complicated, and you'll never achieve the same surgical synchronization. A simple example: with a joy stick you can adjust the speed at which you move, directly influencing stealth. On a keyboard, you have to create a specific button to enter stealth mode. The character's turns with a keyboard are more abrupt and lack real sensitivity because there are four buttons, and there's no sensitivity. This often results in stealth only adapting when crouching, and not when walking slowly upright, when stealth should be functional when walking slowly upright as it doesn't make any noise with your steps. The reason for the keyboard adaptation is because mechanics like this one, which involve synchronizing the camera's right joystick with the movement joystick, the left one, are not used, or have been abandoned, because they would have to be adapted to the DPAD keys in tank mode and that would take up buttons and would not be as realistic, as in the old Tomb Raider. Even the joystick could be programmed to create a jumping mechanic based on the character's acceleration, joystick thrust, and even the distance at which you take a run and then press the jump button. However, on a keyboard, this isn't possible because the w key isn't sensitive when taking a run. The re-routing is fine if you want to play PvP, in a COD-like game, which is what you're complaining about, but in a game like DAYZ, you lose realistic mechanics and realistic movements in exchange for better mouse aim, something I don't think is as important in a game like DAYZ, since DAYZ shouldn't focus on being a PvP game; aiming should feel difficult, not like an arcade shooter. And believe me, I've played games like Red Dead Online, and by the end, I'd play without autoaim, without a reticle, and without a HUD, with a controller, and I'd kill a lot of players. After playing for a long time, I'd get so bored that I sought out that more realistic and imprecise experience, and it was much more satisfying than seeing the reticle. In fact, I think the reticle is also a bummer. I think it's nicer for the player to have to imagine the dot in the middle of the screen and develop the skill to aim, but this is my personal preference, and it's something easy to enable and disable on a server. It's up to each individual.

If Bohemia introduced skills it could be balanced, and characters with skills would gain more value, may make PvP not as important as players might need each other. The skill could allow you to create a makeshift bow, for example, but have a poor hand or break it on the first or second shot. The issue of introducing skills is something I've thought about a lot and would have to be done very well. I thought I'd start a thread about it ¿Can everyone create a bow? ¿Or can everyone create it equally? I think that if there were skills, it wouldn't matter if you were the best DayZ player; if the game tells you that you don't have that skill, you'll have to adapt to the game with that lack. Perhaps a scaling system could be created where as you create and use that skill, it increases without you realizing it. And even if you stop doing a certain thing, you lose that skill over time; it deteriorates, but without number level indicators or any of that crap typical of RPG games. Also, for example, a weapon like an axe looks ugly if it breaks, because it's solid object and was made but someone who is a profesional, I'm not saying it can't break, but you know what I mean. I hate what happens in Zelda BOTW, where objects break senselessly, but a handmade bow could be perfectly fine if it breaks easy if you use it too much; you could unstring it or break the wood. I think that the hand made bow is an object that can be balanced very easily by making use of breakage because since it's something handmade, it's normal for it to break. In the skill system, I think everyone should have the opportunity to make a bow, but if you have very little skill, perhaps when trying to do so, it would break while you were doing it, and perhaps you wouldn't succeed until the sixth or eighth attempt, and that would also drain a lot of your energy due to stress, to that I would add that you would lose materials, getting materials could also be exhausting, such as cutting wood, polishing it, etc. It should be said that in the skill system the player would always know what he is good at, he would know it, since it would be assigned to his profile, through a contextual description, guiding text, no levels with numbers or level bars. Arrows could also be a problem to craft, for example, if you have low skill you could even hurt yourself crafting them, , you could cut yourself and it would be worse. Without a skill system, it can still be balanced; it simply breaks after the first or third use. You can use the randomization system I posted in another thread, and on top of that, you'd lose materials, energy, etc. It can be easily balanced. It wouldn't be like creating the bow and shooting to everything,

Yeah, I know that is the dayz forum. I think Bohemia can incorporate some of this randomess elements, it's really not something complex to incorporate, some are simple spawns or values, for example: -A bird falling from the sky is a spawn of an object falling from a certain height using gravity physics, in this case a bird with health value to 0. -A helicopter that stops working is simply an engine that is shut down with no way to restart, engine value to 0. -An infected dying from collapse is simply setting its health value to 0 as if you had shot it enough to kill it + ragdoll physics. -A tree falling unexpectedly is simply activating its falling physics. -A bear that decides not to attack you is simply AI acting with passive mode, just like a deer or a goat escaping from you. -An infected attacking another infected is just AI targeting someone else. None of these systems require rewriting core mechanics — mostly they leverage what's already possible via scripting in DayZ or similar sandbox environments. Perhaps the most complex aspect is knowing how to manage this randomness so that it doesn't occur constantly and appear artificial. For example, a random event could be triggered every hour or two on the server by selecting a random player. When the time comes, it picks a player, then checks where the player is and what interactive elements are around them. It randomly selects one and executes it—sometimes the player won’t even realize something happened. Thunder would perhaps require using an effect and giving coordinates on the map to that effect during the storms, if the coordinates match the player, he dies, it doesn't seem like a complicated system to me, to be honest. As you can see, it's nothing sophisticated, low development cost and high gameplay impact. Anyone who makes mods with scripts can create something like this with many elements.

"Roll the Dice" introduces hidden probability-driven systems into the game engine, making the world simulation feel more organic, less scripted, and increasing emergent unpredictability. It emulates the dice-roll mechanics of tabletop RPGs, but without visible UI or stats, keeping the simulation immersive and grounded. -Core Mechanism: Hidden Probability Engine -Each object, action, and environmental factor has probabilities attached. -These probabilities can be modified by contextual variables: weather, terrain, time, proximity, behavior, etc. -The dice roll (probability calculation) occurs silently in the engine and decides outcomes. -These events don't break realism—they're believable, rare or common depending on situation, and organically affect gameplay. ROLL THE DICE SYSTEM INTRODUCTION Roll the dice is a probability-based system. This system aims to improve the organicity of the situations within the open world DayZ videogame by adding randomness to the elements of the game, giving a perception of more realism and imperfection in the world simulation. The system basically works with a mathematical probability algorithm and several detection systems determined for each situation, like the thunder system of RDR2 but expanded to many more areas and enhanced. The system affects objects, NPCs, weather and other elements that you want to incorporate. Is like rolling a dice to calculate consequences, each surface, object, character, or perseverance over time can have a probability that may end in an outcome. It is about adding unpredictability, not knowing what can happen, based on a dice probability system that the player does not see, all that probability happens in the game engine, as if it were a classic role-playing game where you roll dice to see if something happens or not. This system can be taken as far as the engine allows, and obviously the players are not going to see dices like in Disco Elysium, the dice is not visible, the probabilities are not visible to the players, nor are there any dice. RESUME: The game engine introduces a system of variables that makes world situations more likely to occur or not, something natural that happens in life, but not in many games that are mathematical and fixed, everything is square and not organic, this introduces organicity. Several examples to make it easier to understand: SURFACES: surfaces could be conditioned with probabilities such as falling or breaking, these probabilities could increase other data elements, with rain or how many times a player has stepped on an area. -Each surface in the game could have a probability based on the real probability of slipping and falling to the ground. Cement, mud, dirt, ice, each surface will have different probabilities of slipping and these probabilities can be affected by other elements like acceleration, how much we run, if there are holes or stones on the ground, we are close to them. The random NPC fall, together with the physics engine and collision detection could also cause the NPC to take a hit and get hurt. Whether or not harm is done could also be assessed by the probability system, taking into account the type of surface and the body area. In this RDR2 gif you can see an enemy NPC running towards us and slipping, this isn't in the vanilla game, this is a game modification that makes that happen. It must be said that the probability of slipping on concrete is very low, and we may hardly see it. This could affect the infected, to generate more realistic situations, although it could also be implemented in the player. It would be very funny to see how an enemy goes for you to hit you, it's a mud surface and the algorithm determines that the fall is triggered. These falls of two-legged characters could be simply triggered if the physics engine was good at handling raggdolls, this generates a much more real dynamic feeling. -A cracked wooden floor in a house could break if players pass over that spot multiple times, this value will be random and once delivered it will be fixed, it could also break if several players are in the same spot in that place due to the weight, although this would not require any probability. -Ice in a season when it's no longer cold could break if we step on it. OBJECTS: the probability system can also affect objects, -Weapons can explode when used based on wear + usage. -A pine cone can fall on us from a pine tree if we walk through a forest where there are many pine trees, the probability could be triggered if a player or NPC enters a detection area, wind increases the probability. -A tree in poor condition can fall. Different asset trees in poor condition would be crafted and these would have the possibility of falling without the players knowing.The probability could be triggered if a player or NPC enters a detection area. -If you are carrying a physical map or radio, falling into the water could mean that the map may break, or part of it, or the phone may stop working, depending on the time spent in the water and the depth. -Wooden ladders could break when climbing and fall due to poor condition, or a metal ladder on a high antenna could also come loose in part. NO PLAYABLE CHARACTERS: npcs could have a wide variety of probabilities, from having a heart attack, spraining an ankle, tripping, endless possibilities. HUMAN NPCs: DIALOGUE NPCs: This can also affect dialogue. If you have NPCs with interactive dialogue, what you say could sometimes be determined by probability. For example, an NPC might forgive you for losing an item you were supposed to return, or he might simply attack you for losing it, which would create a sense of real unpredictability. INFECTED NPCs: -Infected become distracted randomly and attack other infected briefly (AI confusion). -If you have been infected by scratches from being hit by an infected person it would also be a probability. -They can die and collapse, have a heart attack, a blood clot, organ malfunction, not having eaten, or having an infection. ANIMAL NPCs: The same thing with NPCs would happen to animals, they could have more realistic randomness systems where they have unpredictable behaviors. -A dead bird could fall from the sky onto someone's head/car. -An animal may appear dead or die when you see it due to natural causes. -A bear might attack you or run away. -Bee swarm near a hive (can be triggered by player proximity or a change in weather). CLIMATE: the climate would also be influenced by this probability system -Weather such as a storm could cause an object to become detached, a sign could come off and could hurt someone. -The wind could make you drop your cap and have to fetch it. -Rain could flood an area, or not. -Lightning in a storm could strike a player, especially on high mountains or under trees, It could also fall if you are on a metal antenna. VEHICLES: vehicles can also have variables like these. -Randomly catching fire. -Engine stalling. -Steering breaking -Flat tire. -The car horn might stop working, or the radio. Door gets jammed and takes longer to open, we can exit through the passenger seat. I'm not saying DayZ has to have all of these things, but I think some of them could be implemented and over the years the system could be improved and made better. The system would not be constantly calculating probabilities because that would cost a lot of resources, probabilities could be activated by entering the interactive elements area or by the random activation of the probability system, always with random timings based on data from the objects. Additionally, a probability system creates a better impression of AI in animated elements since they have unpredictability, and unpredictability is the key to making a player feel that a game seems real, without abusing it. It would make players feel that random things can happen to them or their environment, unplanned by surprise as happens in life. Not everything would depend on your control with the controller, there would be things that you could not control and that would happen sporadically. I could go on because the creativity with a probability system is infinite and would give a lot of organicity to the games, I know that games use probability for some elements, but not in this way, and if they do it is in very specific elements.

I think the biggest problem is that the game controls two points of view, first and third person, and it is difficult to program and balance for both. I think that's a much bigger problem than having the game on consoles, since the PC version also has controller compatibility, so there's no point in using that argument, On the other hand, a controller is the same as a mouse and keyboard, even better in some ways, except for aiming, which is more clumsy, but I like it better this way, it's like you have to be more experienced. I suppose what you're asking for is for the character to move like in The Last of Us 2 or RDR2. I wouldn't mind that, to be honest, but to achieve that, the entire animation system would have to be changed, and I doubt they'll do that in this version of the engine, but who knows. I also prefer more human-like and heavy-duty movements. But without a doubt, if I were to design the game I would definitely prefer it to be more realistic, more organic. Anyway, I think the animation design is because it's old and was done as best as it could be at the time, and Bohemia still has a lot to improve, you just have to see how weird it looks to jump fences or jump for that matter, if I want to jump from one ice platform to another it feels very fake and is almost impossible, there is no leg cushioning, it's obvious that DayZ is not like that from what you say, it's like that because it's a half-abandoned game and Bohemia is not Rockstar or Naughty Dog at the moment, they don't have the best animators or the best programmers.

🔲INTRODUCTION For this redesign I was inspired by the universe of 28 Days and Weeks Later, which is what Dean Hall was unconsciously inspired by and is what has made DayZ a success, just like The Last of Us, since Neil Druckmann was also inspired by that concept, although he opted for a design with a variety of monsters as it is usually done in most games. DayZ should not be like that, it should not base its design on monsters, just runners. I think 28 days later should be the canon to be inspired by, we should forget about George Romero and Zombies, or games with a wide variety of monsters. Yes, Romero was a pioneer, but his idolization during the last 20 years has made the infected genre not evolve and misunderstood, Romero has been a stick in the wheels for the past two decades. THE REDESIGN OF THE INFECTED "The intention behind this redesign is to sketch out a concept that makes the infected more believable — so that players feel they truly have to fear for their lives and check every nook and cranny before turning a street corner, before entering a house, before stepping into an open field, before going into a building. Each infected feels unique and different." 🔲1¿WHAT ARE THEY? First of all, designers or developers, let's not call them zombies, calling them zombies could lead to the concept of treating them as such, like George Romero's monsters. DayZ succeeded because Dean, without realizing it, was inspired by 28 Days and Weeks Later without fully understanding that universe, and we have to keep this in mind: they shouldn't be treated like dead people who have come back to life, they should be treated like living beings, real human infected with a rabies-like virus that has no cure, a virus has invaded his central nervous system, turning them into primitive and violent beings that act as vectors of the virus, its only function is to spread the virus and multiply. They must not evolve from that primitive state, they only hit and bite, they must never grasp objects or perform intelligent human acts, we must never humanize them, only some primary functions should be maintained. In the game they could be referred to as Zeds, Zombies, Monsters, Runners or Infected by NPCs if there was a narrative with non infected NPC characters arround the DayZ world, because there is a popular culture since 80s and some NPC characters would narratively associate them with Romero’s monsters, but the game lore always has to make it clear that they are not dead, they are infected humans with the same vulnerabilities of a normal human, they have not come back from the dead and can die at any time like any other human being 🔲2.PHYSICAL APPEARANCE They should always look human, they should never look like big monsters or with strange elements, they have to look like humans, like us, dehumanized humans, humans who behave like rabid animals with a blank and empty stare. They should not show pale skins as it happens in DayZ, in the current state of the game, who look like they have flour on their face, that is an association that is made with the zombie and should be eliminated, since the dead zombie does look pale because it's something dead, and can be seen in classic zombie movies, remember, they are not dead beings. The body and face degradation depends on their living conditions, whether they have eaten and drunk well, how long they have been infected, whether they have suffered injuries or health problems, and whether they have slept or not. As time goes by, it is more common for them to suffer scratches, wounds, malnutrition, dark circles, bruises, deterioration of teeth and gums, infections and rotten tissues, lack of tissues in some areas, etc... In fact they should be difficult to differentiate between normal humans and infected humans, to the point that we can always doubt, at least at a certain distance. They should not wear hats, as these would fall off when they have impulsive movements, putting hats on them is ridiculous. Some may have visible wounds, but not all, some may have bruises on the face due to attack by others, fights with wild animals or falls, not all of them have to have blood on their clothes or be in bad condition.They cannot present very serious wounds such as dismemberment or the lack of a large part of an area of the body because they would be dead, although it would be good if there could be a case of someone with a serious wound but who ends up dying if we chase him. We can cause those wounds, but they don't live long with those kinds of wounds. His gaze must be cold and empty, soulless, without humanity. A degradation system could be created that affects all models equally. 2.1 GENDER / AGE / MORFOLOGY The danger of the infected should be based on their size, weight and agility as normal humans. Because monsters should not be introduced, the gender and age of the infected should be taken into account, the introduction of children and teenagers of different gender and sizes should be necessary. I know that children have always been a taboo subject in video games, Bohemia has to make an effort to introduce them and be brave, in Days Gone it was done. Introducing children only enhances the simulation and gives more variety and depth to the game. A hazard system can be designed based on these factors, where each factor may increase the skill stats, one or two factors may increase stamina, one factor may decrease it, another factor may increase QTE grapples, this can also be tied to the damage system.The fat infected, corpulent people, in melee will have more chance of knocking us to the ground into struggle Quick time event (QTE), where pressing the button will be much more complex to get rid of the infected, its strength must be felt in the QTE.. The small ones attack from the torso down and are difficult to see. The size of the infected affects the probability of death: 2.1.1▶️INFECTED MORPHOLOGY TYPES Morphology also has to be taken into account, because humans have different types of morphology, and this must have a key function in the game, the difficulty of facing the infected will be in it, for example, children will be very agile but running will not be able to catch us because we have longer legs, they do not. Body types and physiological traits will affect infected behavior, speed, strength, and resistance. ⏩STRONG/GOOD BODY SHAPE: Infected stronger body types are more likely to trigger quick time events, and their struggles are harder to escape. It’s often better to avoid them, trap them, or lure them into enclosed spaces. They run a lot and have a lot of stamina, they will hardly stumble, they are infected with good muscle mass and in good condition. Strong doesn't mean superhuman, it means fit humans who were energetic and had an active life, mainly men with good muscles. ⏩NORMAL BODY SHAPE: are infected people who led an active life, but not one that was intensive in terms of exercise. They run less and tire faster than those in good shape, they are dangerous but in fights (QTE) there will not be such a hard fight. ⏩BAD BODYSHAPE: they are not very corpulent people, they are people who did not usually exercise and have little muscle mass. They run less and they get tired sooner than normal body shape ones, they are easier to control in a QTE fight. ⏩CORPULENT/FAT BODY SHAPE: infected with bulkier body types are more likely to trigger quick time events if they catch us, and their struggles are harder to escape. They run but slower and get tired sooner. Corpulent infected can be lethal, they have more mass and can throw us to the ground, it is better not to have close contact with them. Some are difficult to kick and should not be approached; it is better to avoid them or use a more distanced approach. Running slowly doesn't mean walking like a slow zombie, they just run and get tired faster. 2.1.2▶️INFECTED MORPHOLOGY PER HEIGHT TYPES Height is usually more closely linked to age, their danger system should be related to height, although I will specify this later, the longer their legs are, the faster they can run. 2.1.3▶️INFECTED MORPHOLOGY PER AGE TYPES We’ll encounter infected that are children (ages 8–13), teenagers, young adults, adults, and possibly elderly individuals. A system could also be created where the length of the legs could determine their speed. ⏩CHILDREN (8-13) Bohemia should make a conscious effort to include child infected, avoiding industry dogmas. Their inclusion adds a powerful emotional and thematic weight due to the stigma attached. There must be infected children: I know it is a controversial topic in games but you have to break that barrier, Days Gone did it, infected children exist in the world and play an important role, they are dangerous because they go to the legs and it is more difficult to see them coming, also, being smaller it is more difficult to target them.They are monsters, they have become, they are no longer children, and they are dangerous. Adding children would help break the barrier and give the game a unique identity. -Attack from the waist down — targeting legs, hands, feet. -Due to their small size, they’re hard to see coming, requiring low melee targeting, difficult to shoot due size. -High stamina but slow speed due short legs. -Rarely able to open doors or break windows. -Silent, their low weight makes their steps not so loud. -They drown more easily in the water because they are not tall enough to touch the ground. -They are able to fit through small fence holes and other places that other larger ones cannot. You can design environments on the map that they can interact with, such as narrow walls, holes in walls, basement windows, etc. -Weak to melee. ⏩TEENAGERS (14-17) Bohemia should make a conscious effort to also include teenager infected, avoiding industry dogmas. Their inclusion adds a powerful emotional and thematic weight due to the stigma attached. -Typically attack from torso upwards, targeting arms and shoulders. -High stamina, speed moderate due short legs but faster than kids, some run more than others. -Capable of opening doors. -They can break house windows -They still fit over some holes. -Weak to melee. ⏩EARLY ADULTS (18-29) -High stamina and high speed due long legs, high endurance. -Capable of opening doors. -They can break house windows -They can break house windows ⏩MIDDLE ADULTS (30-40) -High stamina and high speed due long legs. -Capable of opening doors. -They can break house windows ⏩LATE ALDULTS (41-56) -Moderate stamina and high speed due long legs, high endurance. -Capable of opening doors. -They can break house windows ⏩ELDERS (57-83) -Very low speed and very low stamina, only near spaces. -Very weak to melee. -Very easy to colapse and die. -Strange to see, most of them died because weakness. 2.1.4▶️GENDER TYPES Speaking of adults, the only difference here is that, percentage-wise, in the statistical system, women will always be less likely than men to have better stats under the same conditions. For example, a woman in good physical condition can run more time than a man in poor condition, but it's very difficult for a woman to run more time than a man in good condition. In children, there would be no differences between genders; the statistics would be similar. There could be some randomness, but in general, they would be very similar. 🔲3.BEHAVIOR AND BIOLOGY -They always try to run, none of them will be as slow as a zombie, some will tire more than others, but they will all run desperately if they can. The only thing that could stop them from running is leg damage, a shot in a joint in their leg that would make them limp, they would still try to run but they would fall. -Infected respond to sound and movement, they pursue anything that moves: humans, vehicles, animals, or even other infected (until the scent registers). -They don’t reproduce; they don’t have children because they don’t know what it means. I wanted to add something related to sexuality, but I think it’s unnecessary. ▶️THEY REPEL EACH OTHER DUE TO ODOR They do not attack each other, as infected individuals emit a distinctive chemical odor through their sweat glands and specialized dermal pores. This odor acts as a biological identifier—essentially a repellent marker—allowing them to recognize others of their kind. While they may initially react to movement or noise, their olfactory system quickly distinguishes the scent, causing them to disengage. The odor is believed to be a metabolic byproduct of the virus, possibly synthesized through alterations in the endocrine or lymphatic systems. These systems, known to be disrupted by the infection, may play a key role in modulating this unique biochemical signature—though the exact mechanism remains poorly understood. Humans cannot replicate the odor. The repellent scent is secreted in real-time during specific physiological responses, functioning similarly to pheromones in animals. It is a volatile compound emitted through sweat and skin pores, triggered by internal cues only present in the infected. Attempts to mask human presence or “blend in” using infected fluids have proven ineffective and extremely hazardous. The viral agent remains highly active in bodily fluids, and any contact with open wounds, mucous membranes, or the eyes can lead to immediate transmission. This has made direct handling of infected materials extremely dangerous and has rendered any mimicry strategies virtually impossible. ▶️THEY ARE STILL BIOLOGICALLY HUMAN, WITH BASIC VITAL FUNCTIONS Despite their extreme behavioral changes and altered physiology, the infected remain biologically human. -All fundamental vital functions are still active—meaning they can bleed out, suffer organ failure, or die from dehydration and starvation. They can be killed through conventional means, particularly by targeting the brain or heart, losing an arm would cause them to bleed out in a short time. -They urinate and defecate on themselves. If you see urine or feces indoors, you’d better be cautious. Since the infected urinate and defecate on themselves, entering areas with waste will trigger a strong stench, which the character will react to verbally (e.g., “Ugh!”). However, the smell doesn’t guarantee what’s inside — there could be infected, a dead body, or maybe nothing at all, perhaps the infected managed to escape.The presence of odor is purely atmospheric and part of the lore, not a gameplay mechanic with fixed outcomes. The smell can be used in dark, enclosed environments to add more terror and warn the player that they may have trapped something very large, a horde. -The infected suffer, if we shoot them in a leg they will agonize in pain and scream in pain and may writhe on the ground, they still have nerves. -They do not grab objects — their behavior is animalistic, acting on pure instinct and base survival drives. -Infected move their heads side to side and then lock onto a target — there’s a reaction time before they attack. -They also sense cold and heat because they have nerves and sensitivity like us. In winter they might be shivering, so they may instinctively prefer warm places when it's very cold, such as the interiors of houses, industrial warehouses, garages, bunkers. This could fit with the seasonal system I proposed where they could be in more different places during the time of year. 3.1 THEY SLEEP The infected must sleep, these still retain basic physiological functions because they are real humans, one of which is sleep. They will generally sleep inside open houses or in places where there is not much light when they are sleepy. So players entering a house will have to be careful if there is an infected and if it is dead, as it may be sleeping. They sleep, they do not have schedules, but they stretch and sleep, they may look dead, sometimes they huddle in closed places. You have to be very careful because they can get up from the ground very quickly, look for shadows or indoors when they are sleepy. They can lie on walls, stretch out on the floor, accumulate indoors forming hordes, you have to be very careful, waking them up in a group is not a good idea. An infected person sleeping on the floor of a house. The infected retain basic physiological functions like any human — among them, sleep. It's not unusual to see them resting in the shade during morning or afternoon hours, or piled up inside buildings taking a break. They may look dead, but no — they're just sleeping. Stealth should be used to check if they're alive or dead. You could throw an object from a distance to wake them up, or sneak up and stab them in the head to kill them and avoid surprises. We should open the doors slowly, we can even knock on the door before entering. Infected sleeping inside a house, the glass door could be broken by them and they could pass through it. They usually sleep at night, though they don't follow a fixed schedule — they can fall asleep or wake up at any time, sometimes they accumulate during the day in dark, unlit indoor places like houses, dark tunnels, etc... It's not about putting all of them to sleep — it's about using terror creatively. Filling a building with them and forcing players to cross it in fear, making a place seem calm when it's actually infested — with many of them hiding inside. In another area, they don’t need to be asleep — it’s just another tool to vary the design and keep things unpredictable. An infected woman sleeping inside a sewer drain, they could be anywhere. The player must enter the house, watch for an infected and kill it with stealth, you can also stick knives in the head of a corpse to see if it was alive. -The sound of rain wakes them. In general, they're drawn to white noise, as they associate it with hydration. It's common to see them step outside, staring at the rain in awe, mouths open. -The noise of cars and other vehicles wakes them up — playing music makes it even worse, causing them to chase the vehicle. -Doors should be opened cautiously. It’s also common to see them resting on the floor, on stairways, and between building levels. If we go up slowly, we won’t wake them. We need to pay attention to the surfaces we step on and how we step on them — wood creaks just like broken glass on the floor, for example. We must stay aware of where and how we walk. A horde of infected sleeping inside a cell. One has woken up. It's a matter of seconds before the rest wake up. Some may already be dead. An instakill option should be available when they’re lying down and we strike their head with a crowbar, sledgehammer, or other blunt object — even a stomp. If the infected is lying on the ground, we can stomp on their head. As we approach, a stomp animation prompt appears — pressing the square button makes us stomp repeatedly. If we release and press again, a quick-time microscript is triggered where each press results in another stomp to the head. This could be a mini-game requiring timed inputs for successive stomps. Infected individuals can be found resting in the shade leaning against the outside of a house, or accumulating inside a house because the sun bothers them. They can sleep alone or in groups. Not all of them are resting, they do not have schedules, they just do it when they feel the need for it. Their strength to chase you, their stamina, will vary depending on whether they are very tired. The concept is inspired by the sequence in 28 Days Later when the protagonist enters a church and sees several infected sleeping. A similar system can also be seen in Days Gone, where the Freakers (infected) sleep in caves during the day. 3.2 THEY EAT NON INFECTED HUMANS AND ANIMALS They also eat, they are scavengers, they can eat animals or humans that have not been infected. If you kill a human before they get infected they are no longer infected, that's why humans also serve as bait. Without blood pumping the infection cannot reach the central nervous system, nor does the virus multiply generating that strong odor that repels them from other infected people. Infected feed by biting flesh from humans or animals, many humans die from the bites before becoming infected, especially if they are bitten in arteries or areas essential for living. An infected person eating human flesh from an uninfected human. You can see them distracted eating carcasses of humans and other animals arround the map. Infected eating dead deer. If they see an animal they will try to chase it, but if they see you they will go after you. 3.3 THEY DRINK WATER The infected drink water, when it rains they gawk at the sky with their mouths half open. At that moment we can take the opportunity to infiltrate a house or something, they are more distracted, but not all of them. An infected woman drinking rainwater with her mouth open and looking at the sky during a storm. During this moment, they’re distracted, but even a minor noise will instantly redirect their attention. They do it by instinct, they feel pleasure when they feel the water entering their mouths, that's why they stare at the sky while it rains. At that moment they are a little distracted and stealth works better, but they will be satiated at any moment and will stop looking at the sky. Once hydrated, they will lose interest in the rain. A group of infected people staring at the sky with their mouths open, trying to hydrate themselves with rainwater. In principle they don't drink in rivers or from other places. They also hydrate by eating meat, with blood. This is one of the most difficult decisions, because drinking is very necessary, more than food, but drinking from puddles or rivers would kill many of them. The idea of them sucking on a puddle or on the bank of a river doesn't seem bad to me, but it doesn't seem very realistic to me either, although I like it. It's something I would consider implementing. Perhaps many of them get sick because of it, because they drink from those places. Perhaps we could add to the lore that the virus kills most of the external pathogens ¿Don't broad-spectrum antibiotics do this? ¿Why couldn't a virus do this to survive? It may have mutated and become stronger by developing resistance and killing external agents such as viruses, bacteria, and parasites, perhaps not all of them, but many of them, enough for the infected to adapt to the new world. If this were added, the infected would crouch on the ground with their knees resting on the ground, their hands also flat on the ground, and would try to suck the water with their tongues. They don't fill their hands with water and drink from their hands, no, they drink directly with their mouths, they bend down and bring their head close to the river, lake or puddle, etc... Just as an animation and system where they crouch down to make it look like they're eating corpses, they can do the same at points where there is water. While they're drinking water, they're distracted, so we can go behind them and kick them with our leg or kill them with a stealth kill. 3.4 THERE IS NO ZOONOSIS Animals don't become infected if they are bitten by an infected human; the virus hasn't mutated to do so, but some predators like wolves or bears that devour the carcasses of infected individuals could infect us if they bite us, their teeth carry infected blood. They generally don't eat infected food because it smells too strong and unpleasant, but some do so out of necessity. For example, we might go somewhere and see an event of a wolf eating a corpse on the ground, its bite would be lethal, we would become infected if it bites us with 100% probability, that would make each situation different. At that moment we would know that this wolf is not the same as a wolf somewhere else that is not eating a human infected body, better not to bother him and leave him eating, other wolf would perhaps only give us some simple wounds that we could heal with bandages. A wolf devouring infected, its teeth are loaded with infected blood, its bite is lethal to a healthy human. If the game had seasons, I made a thread about the design of seasons in DayZ, perhaps in a season there could be some case of Zoonosis with a specific species and that could be part of the season, but in principle it would not be something common in the game, I think this is a card that should be played very well in the narrative. 3.5 THEY CAN'T SWIM They can't cross a deep river and if they fall into the deep water they will probably drown, they are not good swimmers, they wave their hands but swallow water and drown, rivers are a good spot to mislead them. -They can chase you in shallow areas, but if they fall into the deep water they will drown. -They can fall into the water if they are pushed, for example with a kick with the foot. It would be interesting to design a system where the current of water, for example a river, could drag them to the banks and then flee, if they don't drown first. Here you can see how an infected person is drowning because she can't touch the ground with her feet and the current is so strong. The drowning system could be determined by the time they can hold out without reaching depth, and this could be related to their physical condition, age, morphology, and health. It would also be interesting to design rivers or lakes with irregular depths, with holes, where they could fall in and lose contact with their feet. In this image concept you can see how the depth can change at any point in the river. Water should also influence the acceleration of the infected and any element with AI, including players. If they run in shallow water, the force of the water will prevent them from running as fast; it will slow them down, and reducing their stamina. It would be interesting to create a system where the river current can drag you if it has a certain force and covers you up to a certain level, at least your legs, even if your feet touch the ground. 3.6 REACTION TIME Before attacking you, the infected have a reaction time. When they hear a sound, they turn their heads and stare in silence before attacking. Their gaze is cold and empty, soulless. They simply turn their heads and stare before starting to run, the attack time could vary depending on each one (randomness system). -If they see a lot of movement, they don't have that kind of slow reaction time. When they see very fast movements they don't stop to process it; they simply run, chasing whatever's moving. They can chase other infected people who are running or any other object—a car, an animal, etc. -If they're eating some kind of carcass and are hungry, they might not get distracted or look away, but if they detect you, they'll look at you, quickly turning their heads. They'll stare at you frozen, they might look at the carcass and then back at you, and then lunge at you, or they might keep eating, it's unpredictable (random system). If you stay too long or get close, they will go for you. An infected stares at a player while they are eating a dead animal, deciding whether or not it is worth attacking or continuing to eat. I think the game's animation team should do a great job of turning their heads and bodies and looking at the players, terrifying them, like spasms, as if they were shaking, as if they were scared but they are not scared, they just turn quickly from the spasm, they stare at you and then they start running towards you. 3.7 THEY FEEL PAIN AND DIE LIKE US They have a nervous system like us, they are more insensitive and aware of it, but they have nerves and if those nerves are affected they will also suffer pain like us. If they suffer dismemberment they will die, they are infected humans, they are not undead, they will end up bleeding to death sooner or later. Death after dismemberment could be assigned by a random value from the randomness system, death could occur in less than a minute. They also do feel pain. If we shoot them in the kneecap they will fall to the ground and put their hands to the area agonizing in pain, they will scream like any other person would. An infected person puts his hand to his neck and agonizes in pain before dying from being shot in that area. Shots to the head and heart should be instant kills, shots to major organs as well. In other areas they will not feel as much pain at first, they can withstand damage better. A fat infected person with a lot of body fat might be more resistant to pain and bullets in certain areas of the body, but a shot to the head or heart would be certain death. When they prowl around, they may scratch their wounds or touch them with their hands. Hitting them with forceful and solid melee objects in places like their heads could cause trauma, a stroke; these are very delicate areas; they are not superhuman. One blow to the head and they might start shaking and then die a few seconds later from a brain stroke. A hit to the torso could also cause organ damage. If the infected person doesn't have much fat or muscle mass, they would put their hands to the area and die within seconds. They can feel temperature. If they’re cold, they will seek enclosed spaces to shelter themselves. If it’s too hot, they’ll move to shaded areas or indoors as well. 3.7.1 DAMAGE STATES Infected individuals can have various states of damage depending on what type of damage they have received or developed. ⏩Limping Infected ("limpers"): Infected people who limp are infected people who have suffered damage to the joints of their legs, mainly in one of them, they can stumble much more easily than others as they try to run. Leg damage can range from the foot to the knees and even the hips. If they fall to the ground because they stumble, they can crawl, and even get up again. Those infected with broken or dangling arms will be unable to get up from the ground or will have a harder time getting up if they fall. ⏩Malnourished Infected ("Starvers"): malnourished infected are those who have not eaten or drink in a long time, they crawl on the ground and are very thin, they cannot catch anyone because they have no energy, they are really about to die. ⏩Diseased Infected ("Rotters"): like humans, they can develop viral and bacterial infections due to poor hygiene and wounds. Those infected with a disease sweat profusely and tremble a lot, they may tremble while standing or lying on the ground, touch painful wounds, and can still attack, but they tire more quickly when running and can easily fall or even collapse and die while running. ⏩Blinded Infected: Some infected individuals may become blind due to multiple factors. These infected individuals will only be able to follow noises and may stumble more easily. There are very few of these, and it is very rare to see them. A frontal blow to their face with a blunt object could leave them blind, or make them blind and dizzy for a while. The blood in their eyes could also make it difficult for them to see well or caus glaucoma = blindness. ⏩Crawler infected ("crawlers"): due to their poor condition they crawl, perhaps they have suffered damage to both legs or both arms, perhaps their health is very deteriorated due to lack of food and due to an illness, bleeding, trauma, etc... If it is damage to the legs they could crawl faster than those who are dying from some type of illness or bleeding. An infected crawling towards a player. I think Bohemia should develop a better system for damage control on bodies, taking into account the main joints, as these would directly influence their mobility capabilities after taking damage. Joints should also be able to be damaged by objects; for example, hitting an infected person on the leg with a shovel could destroy their kneecap, or hitting an arm with a shovel could bend it. An infected woman cannot stand up because her arm is twisted and her leg is twisted. A state of damage should also be added where they tremble and agonize on the ground, either because something hurts or because of an illness. Some infected people may have severe injuries but will not live long. Well, going to a house and hearing a noise from someone, and not being attacked, they're just dying on the floor. An infected person in agony on the ground due to an infection. 3.7.2 ADDITIONAL PROTECTIONS Infected individuals generally don't wear protective gear, but some may wear it: -Some police officers may wear Kevlar bulletproof suits, so torso shots are more difficult, as are stabbings. -Some riot police may be wearing vests and helmets, so shooting and hitting the head with sturdy objects are more difficult. (Not all of these infected are wearing helmets; some have dropped them.) -Some military personnel also wear body armor that is difficult for bullets to penetrate. -Some civilians may also wear a vest. It's not common to see these types of infected individuals; they exist, but they're not common. -Infected players who transform might also wear protective suits or helmets. 3.8 THEY SOUND LIKE HUMANS The sound design of their voices has to be adapted to reality; they don't have to sound like monsters with very deep ogre voices or demon voices; they have to sound like wild animals but with the anatomical characteristics of a human, like rabid humans. Sometimes it's as if they sound like they're gasping for air. 🔲4.RUNNING STAMINA AND SPEED Yes, all the infected run, they are runners. Here we need to differentiate two things: ⏩STAMINA: this is how long an infected can maintain chasing us. The infected have their own individual run stamina, different from each other's, and not being able to chase us without tiring, that would improve things a lot. The infected running stamina level should be similar to the player's running stamina, they have an advantage if there are more of them, because one might get tired, but suddenly another might appear from other side and that one might not be tired but you might be. On the other hand, if a horde chases you at the same time it might be that all of them start to get tired at the same time as you and therefore you would perhaps have the possibility of fleeing, it would all depend on at what moment the infected that are appearing have started to run. A simple design change like that could greatly improve things and bring much more realism, players could escape from them more easily if they manage where they go, if one is chasing you and you see more in another area you don't go there because you know that when you get there you will be tired and they won't, and there will always be the doubt of whether at a certain moment you will find one who is not tired and you are due to bad luck. ⏩SPEED: the speed is how much an infected person runs, the speed at which an infected chases you — how many kilometers per hour. Their speed could deteriorate depending on their stamina level and other factors. These statistics would be conditioned by morphology, age, and gender, and would also have certain random variables that could give unexpected results, with the idea that not all players feel what each infected person is like, that they could all be unpredictable. Weather conditions could also influence these factors, including the time of day. For example, a hot area in the middle of the afternoon would cause more exhaustion than early in the morning, when it’s still cool. This would force Bohemia to work on a good run acceleration and deceleration system that all of its games could benefit from, and this would also influence players and other types of NPCs like animals or humans. I think running animations would greatly improve the feeling of players experiencing the game more satisfying if they were fleshed out in more depth. I think it is a base of the game because the main enemies' function is to run and chase us and that is what they will see the most, feeling it organic, realistic, varied and different would be very beneficial. The objects that the infected carry also affect these variables, for example, a backpack with many objects, although it usually has little effect since they cannot carry much either. The infected could also have a conditional variable related to sleep or fatigue. 🔲5.HORDE SYSTEM Hordes are large gatherings of infected, seen in open fields, urban areas, or inside buildings; these hordes can move across the map, the hordes can move with sounds, be it a car radio blaring, a gunshot, etc.. They also gather by vision, if they see things moving, a player, an animal, another infected, they will simply follow by inertia, one will follow another. -Many hordes are generated by the game engine, they can appear (spawn) anywhere on the map without the player knowing their exact location. -Hordes form in response to sound stimuli: gunfire, vehicles, music, alarms, etc. or by seeing elements move. -Players themselves can create and manipulate hordes by using noise — honking car horns, playing music, or revving engines or moves. -Every sound emits a radius of attraction, drawing infected from the surrounding area. -If a horde catches you, 4 infected or more within a perimeter of half a meter around your body, it should be instakill, like in Days Gone. The goal of DayZ should always be to avoid close contact with the infected, and if there is a confrontation, it should be one-on-one or two-on-two. Large groups of infected should be dealt with with the help of other players, preferably with ranged firearms, or by using environmental elements, locking them in buildings, moving them and removing them from areas making noise (a car with loud music), etc. -Hordes of infected can cause birds in the area to move elsewhere, which could alert players that something is happening nearby. -The infected have stamina when running and will tire as they chase you, so they won't be able to follow you over long distances unless you stop and wait for them to regain their stamina. This is also a way to prevent large hordes from forming for long periods of time and to make the infected scatter. This prevents you from creating large groups or taking them very far with a car. If you want to survive a horde and you are accompanied you can always shoot your partner in the leg, they will go to infect him. 🔲6.PHYSICS Decent ragdoll physics -Realistic vehicle impact and crushing physics need to be improved, realistic runovers. -Realistic falling from heights, realistic gravity. -Random stumbling based on terrain type. -Dragging bodies, either by hand or with rope. -The current of the rivers can drag them while they drown, and can take them to the shore, realistic float. -GORE: realistic dismemberments, a real damage system that affects the infected and can be used for the rest of the entities. -Realistic fire, their bodies catch fire and burn. -Infected individuals can break fragile windows in homes and enter through them, or even grab us if we are standing near them while they are being broken. -Infected can break vehicle windows and grab us (QTE). -The infected are very clumsy on uneven ground. If they chase us and we jump off a high place, they'll most likely not jump, but simply fall in ragdoll mode. This can be applied to high walls or uneven dirt terrain, then they would get up and continue chasing us. PHYSICAL OBJECTS AND THROWING OBJECTS I think it would be interesting to try to achieve a series of physical objects throughout the map that the player could grab from the environment—objects of all kinds—and that they could throw or even use to hit people. A bit like the concept of Dead Rising but smaller and less exaggerated. Obviously, those objects should be scattered throughout the environment. Objects like bricks, stones, a radio, a stone figure, a candlestick, a flower pot. 🔲7.COMBAT DESIGN Fights against infected should be more realistic and satisfying, but more dangerous. Realistic means that a well-delivered hit kills, you don't have to hit 10 times to kill. 🔲7.1 RANGED / DISTANCE COMBAT ⏩FIRE WEAPONS ⏩THROWING WEAPONS I think it would be interesting to try to achieve a series of physical objects throughout the map that the player could grab from the environment—normal objects of all kinds—and that they could throw or even use to hit people. A bit like the concept of Dead Rising but smaller and less exaggerated. Obviously, those objects should be scattered throughout the environment. Objects like bricks, stones, a radio, a stone figure, a video console, a PC screen, a candlestick, a flower pot, iron, a corpse, It would be interesting if there was a drop button between melee and throwing, where if you are at a certain height you can drop the object and gravity can kill whoever is below. Throwing objects from a certain height can cause more damage if they are heavy. Grabbing a flower pot or or a brick and dropping it from a certain height on top of an infected's head, and throw it from a balcony below. These items should affect the ragdoll physics, throwing a brick at an infected person's head should cause them to stagger or even fall to the ground and have spasms. Grab objets: You can grab objects in the scenarios if you are close to them, in third person it would simply be being close to the object and press the X button to grab, in first person it would be focusing the center of the camera on the object. Throw objects: you simply aim with a button, on a controller it could be the trigger, while with another button, the other trigger on the controller, you can throw the object a certain distance. The more you press the trigger that throws the further you can throw the object when you press the throw button. For example, you aim with the left trigger, once you have the target you press the right trigger, you see how the character's arm tenses, when you think you have tensed enough you release the trigger and at that speed the object will be thrown. Hit with objects/melee: this is to hit with objects, the right trigger could be used simply, this way you can use the objects to hit, or another button, the square. Release/drop: to drop the object you could simply press a button, like the X(xbox) and then release, and the object would fall to the ground. In first person mode it would be more accurate to see where the object will fall. MANUAL RELEASE / DROP: Here it would be interesting to create a game system where if for example you press the X button (drop button) and move the right joy stick (camera stick) you can move and extend your arms dynamically (if you grab the object with two hands because it is large, like a computer screen), or your arm/ hand, if the object fits in one hand (brick). With this system, you could extend objects in space. For example, if there's a balcony, you could stretch your arms so the object fits over the railing and let it fall. This mechanic ( manual arm moving system) could be used for other types of interactive actions, for example, with weapons, we could better control the cutting area, we could cut a tree or a piece of wood more realistically. It would be like entering a more manual and surgical mode, for example, to amputate the arm with an axe of a companion who has been bitten, you would extend the axe and hit a hit button at just that point. 🔲7.2 MELEE COMBAT For MELEE combat I think the best references are Dead Island 2 and TLOU2 (third person and QTEs), melee combat should blend: ⏩DYNAMIC REAL-TIME COMBAT Combat controlled directly by the player. In melee combat, I would give relevance to the kick with the leg and the push with a weapon to repel enemies. I really love the leg kick system in Dead Island 2, I find it crucial for DayZ 2, Obviously, this has to be related to a system of staggering the infected person, where they lose the ability to react for a few seconds. A button would also be necessary to dodge enemies, backward, sideways, forward, the button would react to the direction we select. ⏩STRUGGLING QTE (Quick time events) Sequences, mainly of struggle, enabling quick time events for cinematic kills or counters. A QTE sequence could involve an infected grabbing the player, triggering a button-mashing or quick input sequence (struggle). Failing it results in being bitten, scratched, or struck. -If a quick time event (e.g., an infected lunges at the player’s leg) is executed correctly, it can result in a finisher animation, such as the infected getting their head stomped or another form of execution. -If two infected engage the player simultaneously and are within range, it can trigger a death or infection sequence, or tackle the player to the ground, initiating another struggle QTE script. -A teammate can intervene, interrupting the QTE by shooting or hitting the infected during the sequence. QTEs animations can be tied to interactive elements such as windows, walls, vehicles, objects: -House windows could trigger a QTE if an infected person is nearby and detects us, and they could break the window and grab us. For example, if an infected person hears us talking to a teammate through the microphone's sound field detection, they could come to the window. -If we are on top of a car, a QTE could be triggered where an infected person grabs us by the leg and throws us to the ground, the roof of a car would no longer be safe. -If we are in a stopped car, an infected person could break the window and grab us. Some finishers could be anchored to elements of the environment, for example, if we are near a wall a finisher could anchor itself to a wall with an animation where the infected ends up with their head crushed against it.The finisher can also do the same thing but on the ground. Children and teenagers tend to target the player’s legs, hips, or hands, if not dealt with quickly, the player will likely get bitten on the leg. 🔲8.INTERACTIVE ENVIRONMENT ELEMENTS -There is a car on a hill and there are infected below, be able to take the handbrake off and have the car fall down the hill and kill several, let the player have a lot of interaction with the environment and let it be varied, such as gasoline or electrified water. Players can push vehicles without gas or batteries by releasing the handbrake and making them fall down slopes so that they run over several infected. -Getting several infected into a pool, going out the other side and grabbing an electrified wire and throwing it into the pool. ⏩DOOR INTERACTION -Infected can open doors with handles/knobs if they haven't been locked with a key or latch. -Door opening is determined by a probability algorithm. -If the player stops moving behind the door, the infected may stop trying. -Knob-type doors have a much lower probability of being opened than lever-type handles. -The chance of the infected opening a door is influenced by several factors, including player movement and vocal activity. -If the player remains completely still and silent, the infected will eventually leave, drawn away by ambient noises elsewhere. Do not allow the infected to open all the doors. For example, doors with cloth that have a 1% chance of being opened, doors with handlebars that have a 68% chance. Infected do not know how to open doors, if they open them it is by mistake with their primal urges. It is necessary for players to calculate the timings when closing doors and to take them into account. Develop animation scripts to be able to interact with the doors in different ways, for example, if you come running to a door you can open it suddenly by pressing a button but if you keep it pressed the character does the open animation, goes through the door and closes it. Set up a perimeter around each door that detects if an infected is stepping on it so that when you do the close animation, if an infected is stepping on that perimeter there will be a struggle at the door to close it, while if it is outside you will close the door. The more infected there are in the perimeter, the more difficult it will be to close the door with a Quick time event of pressing a button as fast as possible.Give the option with a specific timing to be able to abandon the struggle and run away before they push you totheground The doors of buildings and houses aren't open; most are closed and locked. Not all are equally easy to open. Some can be opened with a foot kick, but others can't. Others require a lockpick (mini-game), the original keys, or a medical X-ray. Still others can't be opened directly; they can only be opened from the inside, jumping from one balcony to another, or with an explosive, If we use an explosive on the door, it will fall backward. It would also be interesting to be able to break some walls, non-load-bearing walls, to access certain rooms, with an explosive or a sledgehammer. For example, if there is a horde on the other side of the door and we have blocked it, we can break a wall and exit through another door, or search for resources until they leave. Doors can be locked with objects, for example, a cupboard next to the door can be pushed in, or if they have a lock, we can lock it. 🔲9.STEALTH SYSTEM -Car oil filters can be repurposed as makeshift silencers for firearms. Their effectiveness degrades with use — roughly three shots before they become ineffective. It must be one of the most important resources if you find firearms. -Music attracts infected -Infected people can hear players if they speak into their microphone and do not adjust their near field. -The player can make noises or whistle using a microphone, with manual decibel control. -Floor surfaces have sound-producing elements that can alert the infected by perimeter detection, such as creaking wood and broken glass. -Forcing doors, opening windows, or forcing car doors or trunks would also have a detection perimeter that could alert nearby infected individuals. -Lying on the high grass would reduce the detection of infected people. -Players can hide in bushy areas so that the infected don't know where we are. -Players can hide under the cars, but the infected could also reach down and grab us by the leg and bite us or pull us out. -Players can hide in closets in houses. -Infected can lose sight of us if they lose sight of us, and they might get confused and not know where we are. If there are groups and one doesn't lose sight of us, the other could follow, but if a single infected person loses sight of us, he would become confused. -Players can lean against the back and front of vehicles if there are no teammates in the seat next to them. This would improve stealth by making the infected pass by if the car is stopped and we're inside, or a player could hide in any car. For example, if we're inside a car, we can stretch out and wait for the horde to leave. -Players can lean sideways in the back and front of vehicles if there are no teammates in the seat next to them. This would improve stealth by making the infected pass by if the car is stopped and we're inside, or a player could hide in any open car. For example, if we're inside a car, we can stretch out and wait for the horde to leave. If we're waiting on the street for a friend to come down from a building, we might lean back to avoid an infected person scaring us by breaking the car window and grabbing us. The hearing status of the infected could be determined by their age and some randomness that determines a deterioration of the sense, so the detection systems could be conditioned by this. Suppose the sound we produce generates a fixed circle that simulates the extent of the sound over the environment. The infected person would have their detection circle, but it would be larger or smaller depending on their hearing status. DISTRACTION MECHANICS -Players can use environmental tools to distract infected — for example: -Throwing flares or other objects -Sound plays a major role: every sound generates an audible radius, which can attract infected to specific locations 🔲10.RANDOMNESS SYSTEM -Each NPC infected is assigned randomized variables upon spawning (running stamina). -The infected can trip and fall through a probability-based algorithm. Chance should play a role in the simulation. 🔲11.GAMEPLAY FEATURES ⏩QTE / QUICK TIME EVENT STRUGGLE SEQUENCES -The infected can smash the side window of a car and grab you in a quick-time event struggle sequence. They can do the same with house windows, which is why it's better to seek higher floors that place us outside their hearing range. -Infected can also be found sleeping inside cars — these are recently infected individuals who turned while inside the vehicle. -They can also be found in trunks, providing jump-scare moments. These were people locked inside before they turned. Opening a trunk with an infected inside can trigger a quick-time event involving a grab/struggle microscript. They may also be found already dead, with a chance of loot, or tied up — they were restrained before turning. The tied ones can be carried and used as weapons, or chained to a post. -Dead or injured animals found in the world might be infected — eating their raw meat could cause infection. -Whenever possible, infected corpses should be incinerated to prevent contamination of wells or rivers. Water can also be disinfected by boiling. It's a good system to eliminate risk. -Bodies can be loaded/unloaded, similar to Red Dead Redemption 2, and can be stacked into trucks for later incineration. ⏩ACTION–REACTION Infected will respond to the stimulus that alerted them — whether it’s a noise, a sound, a decoy, or the player themselves. They have a reaction time before attacking, just like human enemies. Facial animations should be refined — how they stare with hollow eyes, how they tilt their heads before charging. We need varied reaction animations to give the world a sense of realism and unpredictability. Currently, they all react the same way. -Infected can crawl under surfaces to chase the player, navigating through tight spaces on the ground. -They don’t jump over high walls, but if enough infected gather at a point (e.g., a metal fence), they can bring it down through sheer force. Some may be crushed or injured by the horde itself.-Infected may leap from balconies or windows to reach a target. They might die from the fall — or land on a player, potentially killing the player while surviving the impact. 🔲12.INFECTION SYSTEM There is the issue of infection which I think is important to address, how long does it take for a human to get infected. The infection of an infected person to a non-infected character, whether it be us or an NPC, should have an evolution process and an important playable implementation to take into great consideration, details of its design are given in this section. The virus spreads toward the central nervous system at varying speeds, depending on the wound type and location. -A bite = you’re screwed. It starts a countdown — you will turn, no matter what. -If you only received a scratch or bumps you may not be infected or you may be, scratches carry a lower probability of infection via blood or fluids, but it’s not impossible, the player never knows if he has been infected until severe symptoms begin. -The spread of the infection depends on the area of the bite, a bite near to the neck results in almost near-instant transformation because it's near from brain. -The number of bites, the more bites a player has received the earlier it will become, many bites or blows can kill you too, before you turn. (randomness system) -Amputation of a limb is a real option for survival, teammates can amputate limbs (legs, arms, hands, feet) to prevent the virus from reaching the CNS, There is a time limit to do it and it must be fast. -Certain medications can slow viral spread, buying time — but transformation is still inevitable. Antifibrinolytics clot the blood and can delay the process for a while. Symptoms of infection are: Tremors, dizziness, and vomiting. Eventually, you'll end up vomiting blood because the virus has an anticoagulant effect that causes bleeding, and you'll turn in seconds. If you are in front of another player at the time of vomiting, you could infect them if you vomit in their eyes. -Players can control and play as infected if they want, they can become and control them. If a player becomes infected, they unlock a gameplay mechanic: they can bite other players and infect them. -The virus only transmits human-to-human. Although infected may attack animals, the virus has not mutated to infect other species. Should the infected kill? Yes, and infect players and turn them into infected. Even give the opportunity for players to control infected or let the AI control them, just for fun, as an infected player controlled by a real human can be much more unpredictable. Maybe a player knows he's going to turn and attacks the group of people around him out of revenge. ¿ARE THE PLAYERS IMMUNE OR ARE THERE IMMUNE ONES? Players are not immune to the virus and can become infected and transform, as I mentioned before. It's true that if there were seasons, narrative depth, there could be some case of immunity to play with the narrative—an NPC who is immune and we have to take to a base without them dying—but in principle, there wouldn't be any immunes. Immunity is a very clever narrative card that must be played very well, just like zoonosis, it should not be something that permanently affects the world. 🔲13.PLAYER CHARACTER EDITOR = INFECTED CHARACTER GENERATOR Many developers create complex character creation editors, such as the one in Dragon's Dogma 2, where normal players can customize and create their custom characters, they can create their own characters in a very deep and detailed way. If Bohemia were working on a good character editor, they could also use it to randomly generate random infected, there might be some created with more love, but it would be interesting if most of them were generated by this good random character generator system, this way, the infected would never feel repetitive because they would always vary in different ways. In addition, a degradation system should be added, where each infected can also have a unique degradation that can be adapted to that random generation. For example, a facial wound can be adapted to any age of the infected during its generation due an procedural system adaptation of the wound to the character, or a leg wound. It is necessary to take into account the damage states, age, morphology, and gender of the infected when generating them and creating their statistics. The gaming community could create and publish these infected characters in the workshop, and Bohemia could use their profiles/values—the ones they like best and best fit the game—to create a good dataset of well-made infected humans for the vanilla mode. In this way, over time, most infected would be generated through a data set of good pre-made presets created by the community and not randomly, since random generation could also generate strange characters with very extravagant aspects that would not fit very closely with reality. Because the character creator has to give freedom, this tool always has to be limited to offering realistic infected and not aberrations, height and other aspects will have limitations adapted to this, obviously in some scenarios some users could make authentic aberrations, but there always have to be some limits. It's interesting that some infected humans show some deformity, whether from trauma or birth, a curved eye, severe starvation, a crooked jaw, or something like that, but what we don't want is to go around the world and find infected people who look like monsters, like Shrek or infected people who are very deformed like a stick insect, extremely bizarre creations need to be avoided by Bohemia Interactive in order to have a good adaptation of the game's vision in its vanilla mode. Community-generated infected could only be used for publishing in the workshop and for use on modified servers, modified servers could use bizarre infected ones created by the community, Bohemia is the one that would choose the ones that best fit in the official vanilla mode. That generation and dataset could also be used to create non infected human characters, both for human NPCs and for players. For example, I'm not a big fan of manual character customization because I prefer to play, in my case I prefer a random generator with good presets, although I understand that some people really like creating. The character editor for vanilla mode would have to be more restricted from the workshop editor to prevent players from using characters with extreme aberrations. Only Bohemia would offer a wide dataset of different and varied characters that have extreme customizations. 🔲14.THINGS TO AVOID Here I explain the things to avoid when designing infected humans so that the IP is not distorted in the long run: -All infected walking like monkeys, this is something that has been around for a long time in Dayz but it is horrible. The infected shouldn’t crouch like monkeys on all fours — that needs to be changed, relating them to monkeys is not good design. I understand that this has been around since ARMA 2, I think, but the concept has to mature; sometimes you have to let go to be reborn. This has happened with many games, Red Dead Revolver concept has nothing to do with Red Dead Redemption. -Humanized infected, infected that grab and throw objects, speak, and perform acts of intelligence with a certain logic; this must be avoided. -Infected mutants or those with unique powers, the screamer, the fat one that explodes, the one that walks on walls, the one that throws acid, the one that walks on all fours like a spider and is faster, those should be avoided. It is necessary to focus more on designing hostile animals and good AI for hostile NPCs, as well as good AI for infected runners, hordes and good design, good interaction with the environment and with us instead of adding rare monsters, adding monsters can end up distorting the game and diverting resources to more important things It is not something I am closed to in the future, some very specific and very well designed surprises, but not now. -Ridiculous weapons, like those in Dying Light 2 or Dead Rising and Dead Island 2, melee weapons with electricity or that shoot fire and weird things, I'm not talking about a flamethrower. The game should feel real, with real objects like normal farm axes and normal mundane items, like right now. The game just needs to improve the gore and melee to feel satisfying. Everything related to zombies: -Emaciated infected people who are still alive, missing half a head, an arm, a torso, a leg—remember, they're normal humans and can't live long in that state. The gore is necessary, and it can take them a minute to die under certain circumstances. -Infected emerging from under a grave in the ground. -The eyes glow, especially at night. It's something some zombie games have and it's horrible; it's pure fantasy and feels fake. -Infected with pale skin, reminiscent of the cliché of trying to look half-zombie, and looking like they've eaten a bag of flour, that's something to avoid. 🔲15.MISC -Players can leave a warning on doors using chalk or spray paint to notify others. -Rappelling from buildings could be an interesting mechanic for trapping infected. One player lures them inside, rappels down, and another closes the building doors. It could also be used to escape from or infiltrate buildings, especially apartments whose doors are barricaded from the inside (with furniture or other means) — perfect for scavenging or exploration. -Towing vehicles, with the possibility of getting stuck in mud. 🔲16.SOME MOVIES AND SERIES TO GET INSPIRATION I have always differentiated two genres, the infected genre and the zombie genre, the only difference is that the infected are not beings that return from the dead, they are infected living beings, obviously a zombie can also be an infected like in Resident Evil, but it is more of a fantasy element without realistic sci-fi arguments to back it up. 🔲28 X LATER Danny Boyle TRILOGY | 2002 - 202x | INFECTED There's not much to say, this IP changed a lot of things, DayZ and TLOU come from here whether we like it or not, and probably the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake would not have existed without the first film. 28 days later (2002)| Excelente | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/ 28 weeks later (2007)| Excelente | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463854/ I love this sequence and it would be awesome to be able to do this with helicopter blades someday using the physics engine. 🔲RAMMBOCK / SIEGE OF THE DEAD (2010) | INFECTED | https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film581747.html This movie has a lot of DayZ vibes, even though it only takes place in one neighborhood. The concept I like most is that in order to move around the building, you have to break through walls, wait for the infected to relax and leave the landing, etc. I've always dreamed of a slower-paced design like this, where if there are a lot of infected people and you're in the city, you have to resort to those things: descend from one balcony to another, checking if the next one between floors is safer. 🔲APOCALIPSIS Z (2024) | INFECTED https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film485650.html It's a novel adapted into a series, it's good, I'd say they seem infected in the series, it's a good reference. 🔲DEAD SET (2008) | INFECTED | https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film413740.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7bUbpt5Xb0 It's an old series that's very good, although it mostly takes place on a television set, in a kind of Big Brother setting. 🔲THE NIGHT EATS THE WORLD / LA NUIT A DÉVORÉ LE MONDE | ZOMBIES https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film283836.html This film is very good, the concept of a city enclosed in a building and breaking the ground to move from one floor to another also fascinates me, or how it tries to move from one building to another. I say this because it would be interesting to consider the design of DayZ, which is different from starting a game in a rural area or far from the city, as it is from starting in a building in the middle of a city with a lot of infected people. It would be interesting to make it feel very different to cross each street and all that. I would really only take 28 Days and Weeks Later and RAMMBOCK as reference. AVOINDING SOME FILMS AND SERIES I would add more like the Black Summer series, although it actually has many plot holes, Les affamés, It's a very good movie but I don't think it adds much to DayZ, It's a bit like The Crazies 2010, I also think this one is great but they are infected who don't act rabidly. Devil’s Playground is good but infected sometimes act like if they were superstrong. Obviously I'm going to avoid any kind of slow zombie movie, I'm avoiding korean films like Train To Busan or Alive. I like Bird Box, it has nice ideas but infected play another role. The Girl with All the Gifts is nice but infected has another role too, World War Z has a concept that has nothing to do with DayZ (There is a coop video game that captures the essence of the film quite well). REC 1 and 2 are nice as setting. La Horde is a very good film too. 🔲THE WALKING DEAD SERIES | MUMMIES The Walking Dead are slow and ugly zombies, they look like mummies, but it has good stories and characters, although the last seasons I saw bordered on fantasy, I ended up leaving it, and that's even though I used to read the comics, I think that the last thing I saw from this IP was the first season of Fear The Walking Dead. You can get interesting things from these series for narrative, acting characters and stories, but not as a universe to design the infected. 🔲DAWN OF THE DEAD REMAKE 2004 | ZOMBIES https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film473237.html Here they look infected, but they're actually zombies; they die and then turn. Romero commissioned the film after seeing the success of 28 Days Later, using such a small budget. They copied the formula with runners. It's a very good film, but you have to ignore the part about the dead coming back to life. You can take their actions and movements as a reference; the settings are also interesting. What I like most is the prologue in the urbanization. 🔲TO THE LAKE (2019) | INFECTED | https://www.filmaffinity.com/us/film457177.html It has two seasons, it's a very good series but they are not aggressive infected, they don't bite, is just like a flu virus, but the setting to pose and develop stories, take inspiration is very good. What I don't like so much are the chapters with cults since they are a bit cliché. Later perhaps I will open a thread dedicated to the genre and its evolution, but here I want to focus more on the redesign of the infected in the game. 🔲17.SOME VIDEO GAMES TO GET INSPIRATION 🔲DAYZ | INFECTED | Obviously, it's worth mentioning that DayZ's survival foundations must be respected. Dean's military survival approach is also a big part of its success, and it must remain that way. 🔲THE LAST OF US GAMES | INFECTED | From here, what I emphasize most is the gameplay, the melee, the gunplay, the AI, the diving and swimming, the ability to climb onto surfaces, climb up and down ropes. I think it's difficult to achieve something like that, but it should be the goal. The design of the runners, the infected inspired by 28 Days Later, is also a great reference. I don't like the type of design of a world eaten away by vegetation and very degraded for DayZ, but I think it's also interesting to see the placement of vegetation in more paved areas and things like that, plants growing up walls. 🔲DEAD ISLAND 2 | ZOMBIES | What I emphasize most here is the melee, QTE and gore, their interaction with the environment is interesting, how they keep hitting a window without being able to cross it. Or how they crawl on the ground if we hurt their leg, or if it was already hurt. I would mention Zombie U and many other games, but I think it's not a good idea to give too much importance to zombie games because many things have been done wrong and it can distort the concept of DayZ. The Dead Rising concept of being able to grab any object to defend yourself is interesting, but DayZ already has that a bit, so maybe it should be enhanced a bit more and the throwing of objects improved as well. WORK IN PROGRESS

I'm opening this thread so we can share our opinions on DayZ's nature and vegetation systems, what you like and what you don't like, I don't mean animals, this can refer to trees and plants, snow, ice, water, skybox and different biomes, cultivation and sowing. I've always loved DayZ's vegetation systems, the way the grass or branches move, how well-defined the leaves are, how the tree trunks shake in the wind, I think it's one of the best I've seen. One thing that terrifies me about the future of DayZ is that the vegetation won't get as much love as it has in old DayZ. I like the vegetation in ARMA Reforger, but I don't get the same feeling as I did with DayZ. DayZ Sakhal snow storm In my opinion, I think the vegetation design in DayZ is almost perfect, it could be better, everything could be improved, but it feels very good, I think it's a great attraction of the game on a visual level which greatly improves immersion. The snow fall effect of Sakhal is also very good, and the snow on the ground also feels uneven, rough, textured, it doesn't feel flat, maybe a system where the snow accumulates as it snows and then melts would be great. Something I don't like is the flat ground textures, I know it's something of an engine limitation, but I've seen areas of the game that are better cared for than many others.One thing I love about Unreal Engine 5 is that it has allowed devs to completely eliminate flat ground textures, something I think is a current problem in many proprietary engine-based video games, and Enfusion is one of them. In most games if you look between the grass you will see that the ground is obviously flat, there is no depth. In this image you can see the texture is flat and even too square, lacking variety or organicity, when in reality there should be more detail like rocks and the plants covering the entire area, since it is land, it is better to leave it alone with the texture. Cobblestones could also have been placed to separate the road from the dirt area. The effect of flat textures isn't as annoying when there's a lot of grass because the grass covers it up, the design of the fields is excellent, the main problem is in restricted areas, riverbanks, roadsides, weeds in the middle of asphalt or cement. The leaves on the forest floor in ChernarusPlus help a lot to improve that ugly feeling of flat textures in the grassless clearings. I loved the detail of this stream from ChernarusPlus, It seems silly but whoever did it put a lot of dedication into it It is very well created, it has its flat textures but combines bushes, the stream bed, volumetric rocks of different sizes, trees, herbs of different heights and varieties, varied flat ground textures. This stream really surprised me with its level of detail. This is the love and detail that should be in the game, if a smaller map is necessary, so be it. I'd like to post YouTube videos, but the forum won't let me embed them. I'm getting an error message, whether I'm using a mobile or fiber optic network.

The truth is, the thing about communist hackers and the attack on the United States and the FBI sounds like trolling, If you don't want cheaters you can play on console or create a private server and play in a community with people you know. Another solution could be to create a closed operating system for PCs with encryption keys backed by the TPM module and create a motherboard with firmware protections, in addition to that limiting the use of peripherals on that system, if I were a large company like Microsoft I would have tried it knowing that multiplayer on PC is a mess and that many people would install it just to avoid that problem and enjoy playing, a dual-boot system, This way the PC could perhaps even have crossplay with console players. In addition to that, the system could consume much fewer resources even for playing single-player games, but its real function would be to play multiplayer games, I don't see any other way, virtualize, I don't know, it would have been tried already.