deathdanish

More player interaction should be happening. And not just one on one interaction. Groups should have to interact from time to time. Right now food, water, medical supplies, weapons, and ammunition are all plentiful enough to keep dozens of players stocked for days. Injuries and maladies can all be cured by anyone nearly instantaneously. Anyone can become self-sufficient. Large groups of Zed can be taken out by a lone player, or simply avoided. These four things are the largest barrier to player interaction, aside from the obvious PK issue. If resources were more scarce, injuries were more serious, players were more specialized and less "jack-of-all-trades", and Zed were more threatening, you'd see larger and larger groups forming with the common goal of simple survival -- rather than the goal of killing other players. Once survival was assured, most of the server would likely be under the same banner. Player killing would likely be frowned upon, because that player has likely helped a lot of other players on that server at one point or another, even if only briefly. If larger group content were added (like the ability to construct, furnish, power, and supply larger encampments) you'd see actual cooperation. Of course that is only a theory. But you can't prove of disprove a theory without experimentation -- and I see a distinct lack of experimentation going on with this mod lately. Isn't this an alpha? Isn't this the time to be attempting radical changes and seeing how they pan out?

I think the choice to introduce more content in the hopes of decreasing player boredom, hence reducing the amount of player killing, is naive. Content cannot be released faster than players can complete it. The players that are bored right now will finish any content and be bored again - meaning they'll either quit, or much more likely, they'll revert to player killing. He refers to the mod as an experiment. I think the experiment has produced results: give players a weapon, and the option to kill other players, and they will kill other players -- sometimes without even knowing why. Video game culture has instilled the notion of death=failure. The only way to safeguard yourself from death is to kill other players. Shoot first, or you will eventually lose the game. The design of the game has forced it to become deathmatch with zombies. Any emergent gameplay produced is really owing to the sandbox nature of the game, not any design, mechanic, or thematic decisions. He wants to elicit emotions based on the authentic nature of your experience. I guess emotions can be pretty split between desirable emotions and undesirable emotions. Right now the only desirable emotions elicited by the game are excitement and accomplishment. The undesirable emotions include frustration, jealously, mistrust, dislike, anger, etc. He thinks excitement is cheap and the sources of accomplishment are both few and fleeting. Anyone can create a masochistic experience -- so really I wonder if he is proud of what he has created apart from the technical hurdles overcome. "Death should be traumatic." The notion of harsher death penalties just emphasizes the importance of the shoot first mentality and puts the value on your own life, and that of your squad, unarguably above that of other players. He seems to flip flop between toting the mod as an alpha, as an experiment where new ideas should be implemented and tested -- and as an environment that must be handled with care as to not upset its testers. DayZ started off with implementing pretty radical changes, seeing how they worked, and tweaking or reverting. Right now the experiment seems to have stagnated -- it is not producing any new valuable results. It needs new input, more experimental groups. "Once you've mastered survival... the only other challenge is killing players." Well, first of all, killing players isn't very challenging. Choosing NOT to kill other players is truly challenging. The majority of players will almost invariably take the path of least resistance to beat the game and avoid failure. Again, killing players is the safest way to assure continued momentum.

Really my original idea was more about world building,rather than player to player communication - that is, relating a narrative to players that go out of their way to discover a means by which to uncover information. Rocket has stated that he has a vision, or at least is working towards that state, of what exactly happened, why it happened, and what the repercussions are outside of day to day survival for those left uninfected. Right now the game does primal needs very well. Food, water, primitive shelter, and the means to defend those things. Rocket wants to move the game beyond that primary need system, while still retaining their necessity, and retaining the prevailing sense of danger and caution (this is taken from recent interviews, within the last week). As far as a radio station ruining immersion - well, just read the above. There should be something more than just primary living, for players that want it, and are looking to get more out of the game than collection, exploration, and deathmatch. This wouldn't be a mandatory, on all the time, everyone can hear it anywhere, kind of thing, I like Grezvany13s idea of an effective range. Perhaps you could only hear the station during certain times of the day (short daily broadcasts at 5pm server time, for instance), within a certain range of a broadcast tower, with a working radio attached to some sort of static (non-mobile) power supply. Perhaps these towers are Zed hotspots, or are near high-value, high-traffic areas. You have to actually put yourself at risk to find out more about the world, rather than sitting pretty near your camp sniping bandits/survivors (which is fine, but you'll never really know what is going on elsewhere). As for a radio station of this ilk being impossible on Chernarus... well, at first it looked like any kind of emergency medical aid would be impossible. Then Dr. Wasteland and his field medics showed up. People thought there would be no sense of law or a police force to defend and protect. These kinds of organizations are popping up. Right now there isn't any form of trade or currency. That could happen in the near future. It is not out of the realm of possibility to believe there is an underground (literal or figurative) group of people who make it their mission to collect and disseminate information to survivors on Chernarus.

This is exactly where I got the idea. I was tired of listening to my usual musical fare, as it didn't mesh well with the gameplay of DayZ. I remembered using mods like CONELRAD and Existence 2.0 that really enhanced the immersion of these other post-apocalyptic scenarios.

So I've been listening to a few interviews lately and noticed how intent Rocket is on world building in ways that do not interfere with the core gameplay of DayZ. He mentioned finding notes scattered around the world. Notes are fine, diaries, newspaper clippings, things like that. But text can only impart so much I think. It would be extremely interesting if the team (or industrious players) were able to put together something like a radio station to listen to while playing DayZ. It could have music, but much more importantly it could have a DJ that could comment on events (either real or fictional) that have happened recently. Maybe play clips from a fictional news reporter, executive officials, the UN, military commanders, etc. It could have guest features (Dr. Wasteland?). It could give tips to players on where to find food and water, how to avoid Zeds, maybe even admonish the actions of bandits and encourage teamwork and cooperation. Perhaps have a segment that relates wasteland stories, comedic or tragic, that have been sent in by "listeners". The radio could be either in game -- through the use of actual radios that you can find, piece together, and power -- or externally available and playable through any mp3 player. If it were available in game it would create an interesting dynamic both in terms of acquisition and because of how sound works in the engine. Anyway this is just the product of about 20 minutes of thinking and typing. More than welcome to hear others opinions, suggestions, criticism, etc. And sorry if this has been suggested before, couldn't find anything like it on Reddit or within the first few pages. Edit: The big hurdles here would of course be time and money -- Rocket will likely want to retain his rights (I would too if I were him) and this idea would likely require either huge grassroots funding or the help of a big production studio. If the station has too few clips, things could get repetitive very quickly, perhaps ruining immersion for players -- i.e hearing about the same bandit raid in Stary that left 20 dead, over and over and over for weeks. This was my main gripe with the default radio stations in the Fallout games. Then again, recording a large number and variety of clips would take the talents of many actors and finding the right DJ could prove troublesome. If the station included music there would be the question of distribution rights for licensed tracks or payment for sound artists, composers, etc. if it were decided to create and use original music.