MasterZ

Cherno would be my ideal map if the cities were made roughly twice as big as they are now. I know the actual map is based on a real life locations but surely that doesn't matter.

This is why I'm more in favor of above ground bases. They can deteriorate, other people can move in etc, other people can attack it.

Why is everybody wanting super short nights? You all do realize that the standalone is going to have better night lighting because rocket himself thought that a pitch black screen isn't very fun to look at. Whatever the new scale is, I want night and day to be about the same in length, not including dusk and dawn which should take both 1 hour.

I would agree with you but... Rocket made it kind of obvious he's going for the infected variant and not the undead variant. They have blood, bodily functions, need food and drink to survive (hence they attack you). Shoot them in the chest or in the arm, they bleed out, they die. That's how these infected zombies work and I quite like it. So no, I don't want faster zombies that can only be killed by headshots. I want more zombies, shitloads of them. They outnumber you 100 to 1 and detect you fairly easy. That's hard.

Saw stuff like this in The Walking Dead and all I can say is, that's pretty interesting.

Too be perfectly honest, and I did flesh out the idea kind of well, I'd rather he drew inspiration from it. I'm making a lot of assumptions after all. I don't know how zombies will spawn, how loot will spawn, how he plans to balance the game and what not. I'd like to see Rocket implant outside base building, or at least something more than just underground holes. This is one of many ideas that could make outside base building work and I'm sure Rocket can get a good idea from what I wrote down. Also I think that building underground bases is a bit too advanced for just the average person to do, realistically speaking.

Uhm, not to sure what to say to that. Maybe we should get a coffee sometime? Wait, I don't even like coffee that much. Glad you like the idea. We really need to make the zombies harder and more dangerous.

I don't believe I said anything along those lines, maybe read again? It seems natural to me that you would try to avoid zombies to your best ability, knowing fully well that if you screw up you get maybe 40 of them chasing your jummy behinds. Using a melee weapon to kill zombies and maybe a pistol to take care of those few you can't avoid inside houses, that's what it boils down to. Besides, there are more things to loot than just bullets, something you seem to think is the only item of importance inside big cities. Inside cities you might find mid-range gear from military that was inside the city at one point. Food, drinks, advanced medical supplies such as antibiotics and bloodpacks. That and some parts for underground base construction and vehicle maintenance. We are talking about stand-alone you know, not the mod in which bullets are the only thing you really need to look for. Yes, many ideas floating around here are good and if we can all devote some time to get these ideas more active than rocket will surely read them and at the very least gain some inspiration from them. I also agree with you on the whole duping situation, when all those hax and bugs get out of the game and loot gets balanced properly we might get a really hard game on our hands.

The only reason players can 'hack' is because they can trick the client into doing certain actions. The easiest way of handling stuff like that is by making servers do all of the work, this way those 'hackers' can't use their fancy commands and get free stuff.

When I first played the game, just like any other person I was paranoid about just anything. I relied on what little I knew about zombies from series and one thing hit me like a brick. Big cities usually have insane amounts of zombies in them, avoid them at all costs. So as a beginner I completely avoided big cities in the beginning, but the reality is that big cities are extremely easy to get inside of, to loot and get out of with mid-high end loot. (Unless there are maybe 5 snipers camping around.) I was somewhat disappointed. I propose the following: We know for a fact that the standalone will have a lot more buildings enterable. (question 41) We know that they are optimizing the game incredibly by merging zombie models that are made out of a 8 sections into one section which makes them a lot easier on the graphic cards. (question 66) We know zombie spawn mechanics and AI will be overhauled. (question 67 and 58) The loot spawning system will be entirely replaced. (question 45) - Let's increase the amount of zombies in cities by a factor of 4. - Let's spawn zombies inside buildings more often. - Let's spread out the useful loot in cities a lot more so players can't find everything in just 2-3 buildings. - Let's make the best loot available in the city only spawn in the center of the city. - Let's clutter the roads more with stranded cars so that navigating the streets inside cities becomes harder. This should apply to Cherno, Electro, Stary and Berezino. Smaller towns will not have as many zombies and become the main place for starters to loot. Effect: Instead of NW airfield being one of the few end-game locations and every other location, mainly the big cities becoming the place of interest for starting players.. Small towns become the place where beginners want to head out to, in order to get some basic weaponry, gear and what not so they can potentially work together to loot the big cities which are now on par with NW airfield in difficulty but more so because of zombies rather than players. (This might promote cooperation between freshly spawned players and create beautiful friendships.) Right until they come across one military grade weapon and fight each other for it.

Yeah fair enough you too, I tweaked it a little bit in the original post. To be completely fair it's more of a concept that Rocket can build upon or take inspiration from if he reads it. I know he's kind of busy right now so I'd like the thread to stay alive for a couple of weeks if possible. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

That actually sounds like a lot of fun. They really are, I actually for the idea from watching other zombie series and movies recently. It made me really want something like this in the game. Yes, that is a legitimate concern, I share with you. I assume for smaller bases it would be easy to go undetected for quite some time depending on it's location. Bigger bases would be a lot more trouble to defend when people are not online however, so it might be a nice idea to invest in meeting some people from a different timezone that could help guard the base at different times. Maybe clans can work out something by meeting up on the forums and working together in shifts or maybe there can be an ingame guild/clan function, something that people are already interested in, that will improve this.

I love the future plans for building bases underground but when looking at zombie movies, series and games I see a lot of base construction by using already existing buildings and materials. These are often frail and there is always the possibility to being overrun by either other survivors or zombies. I would love to see this kind of base construction much more, boarding up doors, windows and other passages to create a small area of perceived safety that could end if you end up unlucky or neglect your defenses too much. Don't worry about this being suggested before, the main concept of building bases has been suggested numerous times but my own suggestion of handling it is unique and seems to fit well within the standalone of DayZ. It's a long read but I can assure you it's well worth it. Creating a Base First of all let me tell you that constructing and maintaining a base should be a hard and long, potentially never ending task. But at the same time it should be easy to get into and most importantly a fun mid-endgame activity to let people do something else than banditry. You should be able to choose to do it on your own, but expect your base to be small. You should also be able to work together and make a bigger base, potentially as big as 4-6 houses connected. This is possible because Chernarus+ will have almost all buildings enter-able. Step 1: Getting construction materials. The first thing survivors will need to do is gather enough materials. The basic materials should be planks, boards,nails and scrap metal, items which should be easy to find laying around in sheds or near industrial buildings. Aside from these building materials one also needs a toolbox that by default includes all necessary tools for basic construction needs. Step 2: Finding a suitable location and create a basic base. Now that you have some planks, boards, nails and a toolbox you can start working on your own little base. You'll have to find a suitable location and what better location is there then to secure already existing buildings and streets? I shall immediately reply with none. Securing existing buildings and streets will be a lot easier than building walls out of scratch. You'll most likely end up securing a house first, you board up the windows to prevent anybody from crawling through them and you block off all entrances you deem unnecessary. You keep at least one entrance however and reinforce it properly. Congratulations, you just finished securing your first area and have created a zone, an important mechanic I will get into later. Step 3: Expanding your territory. Now that you have a small base you can gather more materials, expand the territory your base covers and fortify your defenses where necessary. Get more wood to create big barricades to block entire streets, possible add some gates so you and others can enter freely. (Gates can only be opened from one direction (inside) or by the person that build it.) Be very careful though, there is a delicate risk/reward system in place. This is done by zoning and is a very important mechanic I shall explain. Mechanic: Zoning Once you barricade and enclose an area this will create a zone. This zone can be as big as an entire city and brings both benefits and dangers with it. Loot and zombies within the zone: A zone will create a perceived save zone for a (group of) player(s). Zombies will not spawn within these zones at all because you fortified all possible entrances. At the same time there will be no loot spawns within zones following the same logic, other 'survivors' can't get in and drop random items they don't need. As is my logic behind how loot 'refreshes' itself. I can already hear the people of this forum scream: but save zones should not exist! Allow me to calm everybody by repeating it's a perceived safety. Potential threats and dangers. The total amount of zombies shall not decrease, the bigger your zone where zombies can't spawn, the higher the amount of zombies that can spawn around the base. You build those barricades for a reason, you want the zombies and other players to stay out. By building a base you will have to deal with zombies attacking your base as well as worrying about bandit groups finding your base and wanting to maybe take it over or loot your belongings. That's why I called bases a perceived safety, and mentioned a risk/reward system. You can build a base and defend it along with other people. But in exchange for this save zone, the bigger it is the more attention it will attract and the more defending you'll have to do. This delicate mechanic will allow people to create nice bases that need to be defended but will prevent people from creating bases that are too big because defending and maintaining the base gets harder the bigger you make it. Maintaining/Upgrading a Base Building and expanding to create a base to your liking isn't everything, As explained with the mechanic of zoning it's necessary to prevent attackers from taking down your base. Step 4: Upgrading barricades. Those basic wooden barricades you made aren't everything, a few zombie attacks or players with melee weapons can break it down in no time. This will breach the zone, something you don't want. Going out you'll focus not only on getting wood to fix barricades but you'll also keep your eyes open for metal sheeting, more scrap metal, wiring kits and tank traps. Any material that can be used to improve the durability of your barricades and keep your base save for longer periods of time. Cover the outsides of your wooden barricades with metal sheeting using your handy toolbox and scrap metal. This will increase the durability of your barricades and keeps them intact for much longer. It will also give players a lot more trouble. You can add more than just a few metal plates too if you like but if that isn't enough you can also use the wiring kits to spread barbed wire right in front of your walls or even on top of them. This will hurt zombies, slowing those potential attacks but will also slow down hostile survivors as they have even more crap to breach through. Step 5: Upgrading the base. By now we are delving deep into base building and this goes way beyond the capabilities of just one person. If you want to seriously expand and upgrade your base you'll need a group of people working together. You and your (new) buddies created this zone for a reason, not just safety from hostilities but also a place of storage, relaxation or maybe you want to grow it out to become a trading post. You can always use sandbags outside your walls to provide cover for the few friends that defend your base but maybe you want more. With enough materials on the ground people can build deer stands to provide whomever is guarding, chests for storage that you can label accordingly. Potentially have a chest for storing weapons, maybe you want a large container for ammunition or maybe a place to store all those delicious beans. (Effectively replacing tents to a degree.) But this isn't the end of the line just yet. Step 6: Generators It's possible to find generator components and build a generator that runs on gas that will power certain parts of your base. Together with some wiring you'll be able to wire up lights that make the inside of your base seem more friendly but more importantly you can install lights on barricades that show the surrounding area so you can see enemies coming from far away. If you want to do this is entirely up to the group, it might be nice to see more of your surroundings but you might also end up creating a beacon for every survivor and zed in the area to come pay a visit. Defending a Base/Abandonment Like I mentioned before, you need to defend your base because otherwise you'll be dead in no time. It's save only when defended properly. Zombie attacks. The bigger the base, the more zombies will be directly around your base. They wont immediately attack the walls like a bunch of rabid monsters. Zombies attack the barricades when they spot live survivors within the zone created by the base, otherwise only a handful will occasionally start hammering the walls and sometimes walk away again. When this happens you need to kill the zombies, go out with some construction tools and fix up the mess that is made, otherwise the barricades might break and your zone ceases to exist. It's hard and dangerous work and this shows why more people are necessary the bigger the base becomes. Player attacks. Just like zombies, players can attack the barricades with melee weapons or start taking apart barricades using their tools (the later being slower but will salvage most materials that were used). Keep an eye out for these bandits and take them out before they do significant harm. This too shows that it becomes hard very fast when you go out of your way to create a bigger base. Bandit groups will be naturally attracted to bigger bases, make sure you have plenty of people to guard it. Abandonment Zones wont exist forever for obvious balance reasons. When no players are within the zone it takes maybe 12 hours until the barricades start to deteriorate on their own, this is to simulate zombie activity when no players are nearby. After roughly 48 hours of no player activity within the base some barricades will break down entirely and the zone ceases to exist. What follows is that barricades deteriorate at an increased pace, zombies can once again spawn normally and loot will also spawn normally. The same happens when players or zombies destroy barricades and cause breaches while players are inside. As long as players are inside, the zone will persist but as soon as all players leaves the zone ceases to exist and what I explained in the paragraph above will occur. This is to give people (either old occupants or the new occupants) to fix up the breaches without zombies and loot spawning inside their precious base. Server Hopping A glaring issue is that people can leave the server, join another server, get to where your base is and login to the server with the base. You would assume people could use this to get inside but this is an issue I already thought of. When a player enters a server on a location where a zone is appointed, they will be given a notification that lets them leave the server or let them spawn roughly 500 meters away from the zone. Unless the player logged out from the server while they were already inside the zone for at least 2 minutes without being in combat (shock), in that case they will spawn within the zone as normal. The Outcome (TL:DR) People can build bases using already existing infrastructure by build barricades to close of entrances to houses or streets. This creates a zone that keeps them save for as long as the barricades exist but the bigger the zone becomes the more zombies attack and the more dangerous it becomes. A single person can only manage to maintain one house being barricaded, no streets or stuff like that. It would be hard enough on him to get just the doors and windows boarded up while also patching it up. The more people you have, the bigger your base and thus the zone can become. Appoint a few people to guard the place and let some others loot. This might end up in a few trading outposts guarded by 10-15 people where people can come freely and trade stuff with each other. Or maybe a big raid on a camp of bandits. Maybe a camp of 'heroes' that works as a base of operations to help out people. The possibilities with this are endless and it's only possible because the standalone will have most buildings enterable. If you read the entire thread, thanks. If you liked it, show your support. If you read the entire thread and disliked it, tell me exactly why.

Agreed, but I would like to find corpses and examine them to see how they died. - He seems to have several bullet wounds, he died by another player. - He seems to have several bite and scratch wounds, he died by zed attack. - His body is frozen, he died by being told a bad joke.

Isn't the mod already called DayZMod? The standalone could just remain being called DayZ.