lorka

Classes are problematic because they instantly disconnect the player from their character - do you really know about medicine? No? Then why do you have an advantage utilising it in the game? Because you selected a tick box when you started? Think about what makes Dayz so refreshing: all behaviour in the game is organic, wysiwyg - nothing is dictated to the player by the game's design. You're limited by your paranoia, resourcefulness and ingenuity, not by stats, or discreet class roles that shape your abilities even before you've set foot in-world.

What is so refreshingly terrifying about Day Z is that the fear is derived purely from game rules. Nothing but the music and zed texture map/audio give us traditional horror tropes. The constant nag of your stats, the tension of player trust and the risk of permadeath are what makes the game a horror. In fact, to call it a horror game suggests a reliance on those genre tropes. Day Z doesn't do that - it is just horrific. It doesn't need cosmetic indicators of fear for us to feel it. Save those for games where it needs to be artificially injected like Doom3 or Fear. There are already real effects brought on by stress - after my last surprise encounter with a bandit my (real) hands were visibly shaking as I drank some (real) water, staring at the 'you are dead' screen. My heart was racing. During the encounter, I know I could've got head shots instead of body shots if nerves hadn't got the better of me. If you're critically low on water (in the game), what do you do? Make rash decisions, take less time in cover - worry, basically. If you know where a lake is or you're near the coast, as in not worried, but the game gives you cosmetic indications that you are or should be, it poses an emotional disconnect Day Z has wonderfully managed to avoid so far. I'm not someone desperate to keep the game as it is, that suggestions are being made and heard is wonderful. The thing is, ideas like deeper environmental effects and dogs are 'real', mechanics. Mechanics that tell you how you should be feeling are not.