Szticks

The social aspect of the game will probably make adifference when it comes to endgame and longevity of the product. If you can band together, claim territory and create your mark on the world that will make people stay with the game, I suspect. Say for instance if it was possible to start up the Elektro power plant. It would ofcourse have to take an enourmous amount of time and hard work, getting supplies and crafting the necessary equipment. So you got power in Elektor, now what? Zombies walking into pole tears down powerlines, which would require dangerous expeditions into the wilds to fix them and what not. Rivaling gangs both from within and outside the Elektro community fight for control of the plant, or to destroy it. If this game is to survive(pun intended) for any period of time it needs to have ways to make your own mark on the world, and ways for others to tear those marks down in order to create conflict. In essence it needs its own story to play out. Because we all come back for a good story, especially if it's your own.

To paraphrase Justin Halpern (or his dad really). "Thirty years from now the President of the most powerful country in the world is going to be some little shit who sat at his computer and hurled insults three feet away from his mommy's tit like it was no big deal."

This. I also spawned with a completely empty inventory. That hurt a bit.

Anonymity doesn't turn people into Asshats. The asshatness/asshattery needs to be present in the first place. I would think anonymity increases the character traits that are already there. The wiki you link to seems to suggest that.

Yeah, I shot someone and felt kinda bad about it until I in turn got shot by someone else. I guess Karma put me back to square one, feels kinda good.

There are so many things I enjoy about this experience. Granted it's buggy but that's expected from an Alpha. Last night I was out scouting with a few friends and ran into the littel logging camp just beside peak Kustryk. I was suddnely stricken by the fact that Rocket and his team placed that camp there just for me and my friends. You know, something out of the ordinary in the middle of nowhere. We stared talking about how the place looked, why burly russian woodcutters would leave a can of soda and some ammo in their outhouse. And what they would use the chem flares for. It makes me wonder what other surprises Rocket has left for me out there on the map. What I worry about, though, is the longevity of the game. I would love for this game to be around for a long time and still feel relatively fresh and interesting. As it is now the gameplay is rather shallow, to be perfectly honest. I know it's Alpha and obviously all the features haven't been added yet. What I want is for one thing more long term goals. Goals that require teamwork. What if you could get the Powerplant in Elektro working. It would take an enormous amount of resourses, too many for one person to gather. Once you get it running it will provide some sort of benefit to the regoin, or perhaps the whole map. Maybe power lines break and can be fixed but you'd have to grab a few people and some resources to do it. Perhaps you could fortify an entire town and make it safer. To enter the safe town you'd have to pay the people in charge a few cans of beans or some clips but you'd get a warm bed and a chance to trade with fellow survivirs. Some players could make a living being traders, others could gather stuff for them. Add in zombie attacks and other gangs wanting to take over. Maintenance of the settlement would of course require a big group of people, else the town falls back to it's zombie infested state. I would also like to see more possibilities to combine items. Right now you use a woodpile and a box of matches to get a fire on which you can cook meat. I'm sure more stuff like that could be made. Perhaps even possibiliteis to tamper with weapons and other equipment to make it more personal. I know these things are really tough to implement and would probably require Rocket and his team to increase, but it would certainly keep me playing and make my experience much more interesting.

I think this is what is going to save this mod, perhaps game in the future, for the long run. Perhaps there can be different levels of progress on different servers. Maybe even friendly(?) competition between servers. What made Star Wars Galaxies great in my mind was that you were able to impact the world you lived in. In that game by creating houses and cities. Creating real safe towns in Day Z would be really interesting. Long term goals wise. The looting, doging zombies and avioding other players is fun, but will eventually grow old for everyone I suspect. Edit: For spelling

I'm thinking I can see a pattern here. No offense to young people but there seems to be a age related divider in this mod. Post-WoW: People who need the game to entertain them and create content for them, else they get bored. These people think PvP is some sort of Endgame. Pre-WoW: People who have played games like, Star Wars Galaxies (the original one) and Ultima Online where you basically needed to create your own reasons to login. The typical Sandbox type games. These people would tend to try and create things in the game that have a lasting impression on the world. Organisations, bases, different ways of playing the game, etc. Of course this isn't the way it is for everyone but generally I think it's true.

In a sandbox type game you are required to create your own content. Within the boundries of what the game allows of course. WoW, with quests and raids and planned out progressions, is the complete opposite of a sandbox.

Slow paced? Indeed! Right now I'm crawling from NW airfield towards Berezino. 6k meters to go. Why? I broke my damn leg in a door at the airfield and I need Morphine. I still love this mod though.