The Sad Panda

Well, if it's the same barn I'm thinking of, it sits right in the shadow of ... That Mountain. Strange things tend to happen in that neck of the woods

Yep I've had an Admin kick me while I was driving my freshly repaired pickup truck, then when i got back in the game him and his buddy executed me with their snipers. Good times

I just keep throwing my money at the screen, but nothing seems to be happening, On a for real note, $15 if the standalone releases with nothing but functioning zombies and players shooting players. Essentially Call of Zombiefield 8 $30 if the standalone releases with all of the current DayZ functions, but without good deal of the engine related bugs we have now $40 if the standalone releases with more survival mechanics than we currently have Now if the standalone alpha releases with underground bases already implemented, I may as well just give them my bank account info, because i probably won't be needing any of my money for the foreseeable future.

DayZ is a sandbox that lends itself well to PvP, but that's far from the entire game. I've got something silly like 120 hours logged into the game, and over the course of all my characters, I've had 0 murders. So while yes, I agree that PvP is an integral part of what makes DayZ what it is, it's far from the only thing that the game can do

@ BazBake Unless I've horribly misunderstood someone's post in this thread, I don't think anyone is asking for skills that enhance or modify your performance in a firefight, it's things like the application of medicine, preparing of food, construction of shelters, upkeep of vehicles, etc. A system that gives an edge during an actual firefight would be fundamentally un-DayZ. I don't think anyone is actually asking for + gun damage or + damage resistance skills, Now I do realize in the OP I stated that "Skills could even go so far as affecting combat, and could serve to negate stockpiled weapons in a way, but more on that in the next section. Anyway, with a skill system in mind, take a moment to reflect on what it would add to the depth of the game. Post your ideas, criticize it, tell me I’m crazy – post your thoughts and add to the discussion" and after re-reading it, with your previous post in mind, I realize that I worded that passage very poorly. What I was alluding to was that guns could degrade over time, and require that their owner perform maintenance on them. Never in a million years did I mean to imply that someone would be able to get something like a +10 aim stat that would make their bullets go straighter.or some nonsense like that. The skills that I suggest are purely to add depth to already existing survival mechanics, not to make player X better than player Y in a firefight, because player X has 300 confirmed kills, whereas player Y just spawned on the beach. Will be editing that passage to reflect that

You have to have all the windshields repaired or the chopper leaks fuel. Obviously there are other reasons fuel can leak, but the windshield glass is the one that seemed most un-intuitive and took my group the longest to realize >.<

I had missed this earlier, but I really like this point at least for the survival basics, like medicine, cooking, and hunting. I'm not completely sold on being able to repair a vehicle right off the bat though, perhaps it would require tinkering with smaller devices first

I should probably go back to edit the OP at some point, but I never meant to imply that all of these features should be put into the current DayZ (Arma II), but rather something to look at when the game is standalone, and the devs have the freedom to work at the engine level of the game, as opposed to just modding aspects of Arma II

First Point: If you want to define permanent character progression by measuring it completely by items that can be taken off and discarded at any point in time, then more power to you. Personally, I would like to have something that's actually permanent. Something that makes a character worth holding on to. Second Point: You're putting words in my mouth, I said "re-arm" not "have everything that I could possibly ever want in the history of everything" Re-arm can mean anything from an Enfield and a Makarov, or an M4 SD with a G17, which is easily in the realm of possibility depending on where you get to respawn at Third Point: The entire point of the thread is that the two subjects are linked together. Just from having a form of external storage, it lessens the effect of gear progression based characters, BUT having external storage opens up different forms of gameplay options (I'm sorry if it really offends you that much that people are using a sandbox in a different way than you do). Therefore it's in the best interest of the game to facilitate multiple preferences, while still keeping both mechanics in a functioning state. If someone wants to play Cherno Deathmatch 2012, the sandbox should allow it. Not everyone wants to play Cherno Deathmatch 2012 though, so it needs to facilitate more options than that, which is what sandbox games do in the first place. The suggestions that I make throughout the thread are meant to address this, allowing perma-death and storage mechanics to exist in harmony. In my opinion, they're far from unrelated. Fourth Point: I'm once again, acknowledging that storage mechanics can cause problems with Perma-Death. I haven't denied this a single time, I've simply stated that there are more productive solutions available than the complete removal of external storage. I've never once said that storage isn't a problem, but I have said that despite the problems, the mechanic is worth modifying and saving. Fifth Point: I don't acknowledge my argument is weak at all. I simply make an observation that in a real survival situation, hoarding isn't a completely uncommon behavior. I make note of why it should be allowed to exist (up to a point) in terms of gameplay. I'm also not sure how I'm giving ground at all on the subject, seeing as how I approach the subject from a mostly neutral standpoint. Acknowledging the merits of a different viewpoint is hardly making a viewpoint weak. Sixth Point: "Playstyle (n.): def. "shit I like to do." You're a funny guy. Despite your hostile attitude throughout your entire post, this actually made me chuckle. Let me make something clear. I've never been a bandit, I've never been a merchant, I've never been a medic, I've never been involved in large scale organized play, and I've never sat above a major city with a sniper rifle waiting to pick other players off.. But until the day when Rocket pops into the forums and clearly states "Ok, this is a form of play that we're not interested in including in the sandbox", then I will defend players rights to play whatever legitimate (Not hacking =P) playstyle they want. Seventh point: I made this post extra beefy just for you, since you are probably my biggest fan. I'd sign an autograph for you, but it seems I've run out of ink while writing this reply. Ohh well

Added two line TL:DR summary, just to give readers a chance to see the subjects of the text to decide if it's worth the read.

If I thought any of the questions or ideas in the thread were boring, I would have cut them from the finished draft. As for treating readers like idiots, I guess you have a valid point, although that's far from what I had intended. I tried to provide as much context as possible, for anyone who doesn't speak English as a first language (Maybe that's not the right way to go about it at all, I'm not an expert. The intent was pure though), while also acknowledging points in the text where I felt I could be losing the reader to a knee-jerk anger posting about a piece of content. I'm sorry I couldn't provide content for discussion in a style of your liking, perhaps you'd like to give it a whirl?

That post was written over the course of several days in my spare time. Why? Because I care, and a dose of intelligent discussion to counteract the sea of whine posts in the forums isn't a bad thing. I obviously knew it would only attract a certain group of people, that's why I started of by saying it was in the first place. This obviously isn't your type of thread, go find one that's more to your liking

DayZ: The state of death, and the great storage debate Ladies, gentlemen, and spaghetti monsters of all ages – welcome to the thread. Today I would like to address a few serious issues (and by extension, some of the issues they themselves cause) that exist in the realm of Chernarus, DayZ. Just to put everyone’s mind at ease, this won’t be a thread dedicated to the removal of perma-death, or allowing 135,167,876,345 items to be stored in a single tent or ural. Jokes aside though - death and storage, both being very integral yet opposite gameplay mechanics, need some revising for the overall health of the game. Fair warning, I will be going into detail with most of my reasoning’s, so this post will be very TL:DR, so if you’re not looking for a serious thread on game mechanics, I’d advice finding a different thread. For reference, MS word counts over 3,000 words to give you an idea of length I’d also like to point out, that I’m obviously biased on the issue, there’d be no point in me denying it at this point seeing as how I’ve posted my opinion on this in various discussions. However, I will be doing my best to step back away from my personal feelings on the issue, and analyze them from multiple angles, and as fairly as possible. With that being said, I apologize if I sway too far in either direction of the argument in my post here. Seeing as how this is a forum, you are all more than welcome to post criticisms of my ideas – you may even point out something that I’ve completely missed that adds a whole new dynamic to the discussion. However, just know that no matter what is said, no-one will convince me that having a REAL permadeath mechanic in the game, as well as external storage mechanics, is a bad idea. Shall we begin? > Perma-Death in the game, as it is right now, isn't actually permanent > While storage mechanics in the game can cause problems, the solution is not to create shallow gameplay by removing it, instead we should experiment with deeper gameplay mechanics that uses it in a fair way A not-so-permanent death Every day it seems there’s a new argument on certain aspects of death in DayZ, whether it be because players find it offensive that respawning players can re-gear at external storage, or by a quick run through Cherno / Elektro, or because the game’s “Perma-death” mechanic isn’t punishing in the least. I’ve given it some thought the last couple of days, and it’s occurred to me that DayZ doesn’t actually HAVE a perma-death mechanic. Think I’m wrong? Alright, that’s fine, but first I’d like you to do an experiment for me. 1. First off, I need you to find a tent and set it up. The location doesn’t matter. 2. Place all of your gear except a flashlight, bandage, and painkillers inside the tent. This includes any improved backpack 3. Run the tent over with a vehicle 4. Drive the vehicle into the ocean and get out 5. Stand on the coast and open your inventory Guess what, you just died. Huh? That can’t be – my character is still here. Nope, you just spawned on the beach my friend. Don’t believe me? Take another look at your inventory, you only have what’s given to new spawns. You don’t have any special skills or abilities; you’ve just a flashlight, some meds, and the clothes on your back. For all intents and purposes, you’ve died (except perhaps ghillie / camo you couldn’t take off, I won’t judge you for not placing it in the tent). Are you starting to see my point here? You can’t have a legitimate perma-death mechanic in a game without character progression. No matter how many times you catch a bullet in the skull, your character just respawns on the coast, and regardless of tent stockpiles or not, is only maybe 30 minutes – 1 hour away from being re-armed. “But Panda, my old character is face down in Starry’s tents! This is a completely new one!” Sorry to break it to you, but that’s not the case. You are in fact, controlling the exact same avatar that not 2 minutes ago had a bullet separate his brain from the rest of his body via an anti-material sniper round. If you want to prove me wrong, please take a screen shot of your old character’s skill sheet and post it here. Wait; there are no skill sheets in DayZ? Exactly It’s almost an insult to other games that feature “Perma-death” mechanics that we call death in DayZ permanent. No matter how many tears you shed about that bandit being able to grab another AKM from his tent and continue on his merry way after you put him down, or how much you wish people couldn’t stockpile medical supplies so you have more sniping targets in Cherno, you will never change the fact that in its current state, perma-death in DayZ simply isn’t possible. Now hold your horses there, I can already see you ignoring the rest of my post and heading straight for the quote / reply button. Calm down, I’ll explain. I’m not in any way shape or form against a harsh and punishing death mechanic. That’s right, read it again just to make sure you got it. I’m just stating the facts here guys, we can’t have a legitimate perma-death system in the game without some form of non-gear based character development. Most of what I see on the forums here is people screaming for the destruction of all things storage based – tents and vehicle inventories. I’ve come to offer an alternative that doesn’t completely destroy entire playstyles, while still (at least in my opinion) staying true to the authentic zombie survival gameplay that DayZ offers. Imagine if you will for a moment, a DayZ where all men and women are NOT created equal. Hang on, don’t form a protest rally and march on my doorstep just yet. Think about this for a second, if the zombie apocalypse (or infect outbreak, or whatever) happened right now, how many of you would be able to perform a blood transfusion in the field? I sure couldn’t, but perhaps a few of you could. Not everyone would be able to jump into the seat of a helicopter and pilot it either – are you starting to catch on here? Our characters lack the ability to learn in DayZ, mainly because they don’t actually need to learn anything. Somehow, some way, all these survivors managed to end up on the coast of Chernarus, possessing a good deal of knowledge on how to not only provide advanced forms of first-aid, but operate many different vehicles, gut and cook animals, and possess outstanding proficiency with every firearm they acquire. Does that seem right to anyone? There’s an opportunity here to not only add depth to the game, but also to give players a reason to somewhat abandon the KoS mentality that’s rampant in the game, as well as add actual meaning to death in the game. That sound interesting to anyone? I won’t bother listing off every single possibility that I can see this opening up, mainly because I don’t want to spend 4 more hours listing and elaborating on every one of them. I will though list a couple for example. What if morphine no longer cured broken legs, what if it only dumbed the pain so you could walk. What if, in order to run, you would have to splint your own leg – even then you’d go slower and with a limp. To mend your broken leg, you’d need to find a player that’s learned a good deal about medicine. Think about that for a minute, if every survivor on the other end of a sniper scope potentially had some special skills that could be used to further the snipers own goals, whether they be medical skills to apply a blood bag, or construction skills to set-up a better and more defensible nest (even if it’s just a decoy in the middle of a field), would that sniper continue pulling that trigger indiscriminately? Sure, some probably will, but I’d be willing to bet a good deal of them would at least try to see what the person has to offer. Skills could even go so far as affecting weapons, in it would require less parts to fix a broken weapon with the proper skills, and could serve to negate stockpiled weapons in a way, but more on that in the next section. Anyway, with a skill system in mind, take a moment to reflect on what it would add to the depth of the game. Post your ideas, criticize it, tell me I’m crazy – post your thoughts and add to the discussion, “Ohh emm gee, I saw that weapon on the ground and I TOTALLY pitched a tent” This brings me to the second point of my thread, to address external storage and what it brings to the table / detracts from the experience. Like I mentioned in the header of the thread, no-one will ever convince me that external storage has to be removed for the health of the game. Storage adds to the game in that it’s adding more options. No longer must your character magically be able to carry around three weapons, ammo, food, medical supplies, car parts, or other misc items that exist in DayZ. I can see the replies now, “HaHa! So there’s your true colors you #$%^ing carebear, GTFO!”. Yep, you caught me, you’d better believe that I want to hoard every single piece of loot that I can possibly carry. In fact, if this were real life, I’d probably be picking up things that I don’t even have a use for at the moment, just on the off chance that I’d be able to use them later. If I have the capability to keep my friends and family out of danger by bringing back more supplies than are needed, I’d do it 10 out of 10 times. I’m not delusional though, this is far from real life, and external storage DOES pose quite a few problems. First and foremost, it diminishes the power of “perma-death” mechanics, there’s no debate on that, it’s a fact. I’ve seen posts on the forums calling for a complete removal of tents and vehicle inventories just to make sure that no-one is able to hoard gear and re-gear immediately upon death. That’s not even a completely invalid way to look at things, although It is a little too destructive for my taste. Like I’ve stated in other threads, the complete and total removal of external storage would also destroy various play-styles. How will all the merchants and traders store their gear if external storage is removed? How will groups of players consolidate their gear to keep it readily accessible if a few members aren’t online? STOP IT! I can already see you in the reply box typing “Hurr Durr poor poor babies can’t escape death anymore QQQQQQQQ”. Now, because I’ve already seen you typing that message out, I want you to explain to me, in plain English, why it’s OK to destroy someone else’s playstyle, but not your own. What if tomorrow morning, Rocket were to come onto the forums and tell everyone that Banditry were at and end – you can no longer kill other players without a reason. That’s not very fair is it, it’s certainly isn’t good for the game. What if we removed medical supplies from the game, after all their entire purpose is stave off death, and everyone is so gun-ho to make the game more difficult right? Guess all the medics that play the game now are just SOL, but it’s ok because it’s going to help bandage the flawed death mechanic that we currently have, right? The way to increase difficulty in the game isn’t by making the game extremely shallow, rather it needs to be made deeper. Hoarding, from an authentic survival simulation standpoint, is not wrong in the least, but from a gameplay standpoint though it can pose some problems. As far as role-playing is concerned, it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination that players in the group who die and respawn, are just a new person joining the group to replace the loss of the fallen member. Naturally, groups want their members to be as well-equipped as possible, so obviously they will use whatever they have at their disposal. The problem comes with the fact that it leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth of other players that a fresh spawn is able to go from square one, to square ten in a matter of minutes because of weapons and supply caches that groups maintain. Now here’s the thing, we can’t allow supply caches to bypass an entire part of the core gameplay experience, but we also can’t punish players for simply being human – stockpiling supplies is just something that we do. Don’t believe me? Go to your refrigerator; is there enough food in there to last more than one day? What about your garage? Surely you don’t use all those tools, bottles of oil, grease, golf clubs, car parts, lawn chairs, etc. every day of the week, correct? No, but we keep these things around because we may need them in the future. A lot of people seem to look at tents like they’re just being used as a 1-up, a rainy day provision if you will. But you know what, that’s not how everyone else sees them. Personally, I want to use the things in my tent to prolong my current life, not reset my character in case something bad happens. Now I’ve been rambling for a while, so I’ll get to my point here: Why does “storage” need to be a blanket term for “extra life”? Obviously the Arma II DayZ mod has its limitations, which is why the inventory system we’re using now is somewhat of a mess. But, looking towards the future, why can’t we look into different forms of storage? Tents don’t need to be able to store everything in the game. Let’s look at a system like this Tents – still found in supermarkets and residential areas |able to store “Community” type items, such as Food, Water, Medical Supplies, and ammunition. That’s right, no gun storage in this one, but the items inside don’t disappear when any specific character is killed, they must either be packed up, run over by a vehicle, or destroyed with an axe in order to remove them. Now I’ve seen the arguments that state that tent proliferation will continue until a point is reached where the rate of tent construction is equal to the rate they’re being destroyed. However, if we restrict the things that can actually be stored inside them, and therefore limiting their actual usefulness, who knows if that theoretical point will even need to exist. Why can’t we experiment with it, is that not what we’re here to do? Gun Lockers – New item, must be constructed with scrap metal by a player skilled in construction (This is assuming that some form of character progression is added, remember that perma-death and external storage go hand-in-hand, and must be treated as such). This item is deployable, just like tents (or a place-able item inside the underground bases that Rocket keeps talking about), and would be the only form of storage that’s able to hold guns, military equipment (NVGs, rangefinders, etc.) and camo clothing (That’s right guys, not even vehicles could hold guns. I’m willing to talk compromises if you will). This would, in effect, make gun storage much more challenging since it would require a skilled craftsman to create. It also has the added benefit that gun stockpiles will be lost if only a single character was collecting them. Now you might be thinking, “But Panda, why would anyone not train up their craftsmanship to just make these, effectively making them common?” That’s a good point, but in effect they’d be making a tradeoff. Do I spend all my time trying to make a gun cabinet (and thus greatly increase the chance of death), or do I pick up some other skills first (like medicine, cooking, etc.) to make sure I can survive? Now I can also see a few people up in arms here (no pun intended) that I’m proposing a dedicated gun storage, which would in effect continue providing the extra life problem that we’re already having. Bear with me here. Assuming that in the stand-alone version of the game we’re able to attribute ownership of specific items to players, any items owning to a player who is killed, will be removed…in a sense. Instead of them vanishing into thin air, they will be converted (up to a cap of course) into spare gun parts that can be used to…wait for it…wait for it… Maintaining and repairing existing firearms, as well as helping characters increase their mastery of gun maintenance. That’s right, I’m proposing that guns and equipment degrade and break over time. That is, however, a subject for another time and another thread. But just let that linger in your mind for a while. Now I do realize that I’m contradicting myself here a bit. Earlier I mentioned how the removal of storage would hurt different groups, almost to the point of making the playstyle invalid. This change will essentially still do the same thing to one group – the traders. There’s never a perfect solution to problems like this, and it’s still a bit unfair to the traders who risk their lives every time they go and make a trade. Death during a trade mission would also mean that the stored guns back at their camp would be gone. The way to avoid this would be to expand the trading operation, and have different people in charge of different groups of guns. That’s really the best I can come up with. We’re still in Alpha of the Arma II mod, and when the standalone launches it’ll be in alpha too. Seems like as good a time as any to test and see if this actually works, we are, after all – experimenting. If it doesn’t work well enough, we go back to the drawing board. Industrial crate – constructed with wood by a craftsman (less skill required than for gun locker), for the purpose of holding excess industrial goods, such as car parts, scrap metal, and jerry cans. This would also be another form of storage that would not lose items on a specific character’s death. Fairly straight forward Go west, young man In closing, I’d like to remind everyone that the world of Chernarus is a sandbox, in which we get to explore, experiment, succeed, and on occasion – fail. I’ve came here today to provide constructive alternatives to the destructive ones that I see here on a daily basis. Maybe my ideas are right, maybe they’re completely wrong. The only way to find out is to do some experimentation. Like I said way back at the beginning, this is a thread for discussion on the matter. No matter what your opinions on the matter are, I promise that I’ll at least read them with an open mind. If you enjoyed the thread - tell your friends about it and have them share their opinions here as well. Hated the thread? Go get your friends and have them come argue against my points with you. It’s your turn, tell the world what you think about this important issue.

I want to be able to fingerpaint

Weren't you just in that other thread preaching the evils of all things tent related? >.>