McGristle

The aim of this post is to suggest a game mechanic to introduce a couple aspects of survival that I think haven't been touched on: mental and emotional distress. No game I have played has come close to conveying these through the screen. However, the Sims does a great job of showing us how important it is for humans to socialize. Socializing keeps us sane. When people get scared - they want to talk (you see it in a movie theater all the time watching a scary movie). All the "bad guys" who are bean-fighting on the coast have no reason to stop bean-fighting. Socializing could be that reason. A meter on the lower-right of the screen will represent this. Staying within earshot (5m, 10m, 20m...?) of another player makes the meter go up. This is to simulate you socializing with another person. Talking, sharing stories, giving advice, and other things like that will happen naturally when folks stay in close proximity to one another to raise their social meter. The more people around - the faster it increases, promoting sticking together and sharing information. Murders give a negative modifier to the speed at which this increases. Talking to someone who has murdered another human is strange. They don't see the world through the same eyes as a non-murdering person does. This affects their ability to socialize with regular folks. So a player with 0 murders regenerates their Social meter at 100%. A player with 50 murders regenerates their Social meter at 75% (-.25% per murder). When your Social is below 50% you will do what crazy/brilliant/un-socialized people do - you talk to yourself. Talking to yourself is disturbing, annoying, and/or hilarious depending on your point of view. It could also affect gameplay by making noise. Matter of fact it will certainly affect gameplay by making noise. To get rid of this you need to Socialize and stop being crazy. End result is that the gun-toting maniacs will sound like gun-toting maniacs. It has the added benefit of giving the players an audible warning when there is a mass murderer doing his thing on the beach. It will also promote teamwork, trading, and bean-collecting by giving the pacifists a reason to get together. Hell, it may even bring the maniacs together to fix their social meter. THOSE will be some crazy stories. So, bad guys, have fun socializing with your murderous pals. It will take a long time for any of you to trust one another (slow regeneration because they are all mass murderers) but you'll find some common ground eventually. Meanwhile, the bean-searchers are merrily chatting it up all the way North, into the forest.

It doesn't punish PvP at all. It just shows you the consequences of your actions. Murdering hundreds of innocent people will change your character.

There's plenty of impact. Babbling to yourself could increase your audible profile making it harder for you to sneak past zombies.

Thanks to you both for the feedback.

Ok, I can see where you are coming from with that. But that goes both ways. My character is hungry although I just ate. My character is cold - but it's 96 degrees in the desert where I live. I know it's easy to be immersed in this game but it's still a simulation. I'm not trying to break the fourth wall with this suggestion. I'm just saying that the mental and emotional effects of a worldwide disaster like this game's setting are generally not explored in most forms of media (excluding books and certain films like The Divide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Divide_(film) ). This being a simulator for military operations and now zombie apocalypses would be the perfect space to explore the mental and emotional effects that people would be experiencing. A social meter is just my suggestion for implementing it into the game.

Well then I guess it shouldn't go away when you respawn then. Eventually all of those batshit crazy bean-warriors will become batshit crazy and we will hear them laughing and talking to themselves before they have a chance to shoot us.

A couple aspects of survival that I think haven't been touched on yet are mental and emotional distress. Unfortunately no game I have played has come close to conveying these through the screen. However, the Sims does a great job of showing us how important it is for humans to socialize. Socializing keeps us sane. When people get scared - they want to talk (you see it in a movie theater all the time watching a scary movie). All the "bad guys" who are deathmatching on the coast have no reason to stop bean-camping. Socializing could be that reason. Using a meter on the lower-right of the screen you could introduce this. Staying within a certain proximity (5m, 10m, 20m...?) of another player makes the meter go up. This is to simulate you socializing with another human. Talking, sharing stories, giving advice, and other things like that will happen naturally when folks stay in close proximity to one another to raise their social meter. The more people around - the faster it increases, promoting sticking together and sharing information. Murders give a negative modifier to the speed at which this increases. Talking to someone who has murdered another human is strange. They don't see the world through the same eyes as a non-murdering person does. This affects their ability to socialize with regular folks. So a player with 0 murders regenerates their Social meter at 100%. A player with 50 murders regenerates their Social meter at 75% (-.25% per murder). It can never drop below 10% and here's why: when your Social is below 50% you will do what crazy/brilliant/un-socialized people do - you talk to yourself. Talking to yourself is disturbing, annoying, and/or hilarious depending on your point of view. It could also affect gameplay by making noise. Matter of fact it will certainly affect gameplay by making noise. To get rid of this you need to Socialize. So, bad guys, have fun socializing with your murderous pals. It will take a long time for any of you to trust one another (slow regeneration because they are all mass murderers) but you'll find some common ground eventually. Meanwhile, the bean-searchers are merrily chatting it up all the way North, to the forest.

Silent majority here. My first and only other post was about Chocodiles. I come from a generation that liked to play games - not complain about them. I am having fun playing this game. Keep up the great work!

All of these tasty treats are inferior when compared to Chocodiles! So good that Hostess had to take them off the market for making kids obese. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocodile