Thoughts, suggestions & wall of text.

[DarkRaven (DayZ) 9]

Since so many have asked me my opinion on DayZ, or they would have if I actually knew anyone. But at least all those youtube fanbois I would've had if I had been making movies, or the bloggfollowers I surely would've had by the thousands, had I bothered with bloggs. It is now time, thanks to my friends (If I had any), to do a wall of text.

DarkRavens thoughts, rants & suggestions.

1. Character Creation.

Basicly, what you do when you first start a game.

a) Character customization.

Change your face and basic looks, add to profile so that you can respawn the same after each death. Or make more than one look and switch between profiles. It doesn't have to be THE SIMS or anything advanced, even just chosing heads and gender as we do now would be enough I suppose. Still, if a game like EVE Online can bother making an advanced character creator when you barely ever see the toon. Why not add something similiar here?

B) Pre-Zombie Background.

Odear, this topic might be weird. What I mean is, what did your character do before the zombie invasion? Maybe have a few choices, again addable to your profile so you dont have to pick new everytime, such as police/farmer/driver/engineer. Add a few MINIMAL bonuses to things that fit your old profession. And a startkit for fresh spawns, nothing fancy.

A few things such as these might look abit nerdish and roleplayish, still would add flavor and more realism. Nothing that would give you a class or be unachievable by other players. Just for the first day alive.

2. Servers.

As of late alot of new pve servers have started appearing. As well as some roleplayers. This is basicly a survival game in a sandbox world, anything goes and everyones gamestyle should be accepted. That said. I hate pve'ers, more on why in my RANTS part further down.

a) Pvp vs Pve.

Easiest part would be to do like World of Warcraft, horrible I know. But to sepperate the PVE from the PVP servers. Rp can be done on either. It's extremely important to remove the PVE crowd from the PVP crowd IF we're to allow nonpvp servers. Why, you may ask. Simply because on a nonrisk server you can gear up easily and then head to a pvpserver to "pwn". Even though this is partly doable today with serverjumping to empty servers to gear up, it's not something that should not be promoted.

B) Safezones, safestorage, insurance & extra lives.

These are things that should never be allowed. Ever. They've ruined so many other games. Everything should be lootable, destroyable and everyone should be killable. And if possible I would even suggest skipping any sort of human npcs.

3. Skills.

This is again something that might cause rage. BUT! I am not aiming for a mmobased skillsystem of fiftytwelve layers. I'm simply suggesting that everyone grow abit per day and from using things. Skills should of course be resetted when you get killed, making survival and teamwork essential. Simple skills. such as for example;

#Cooking which increases as you cook food, not to create impressive boost & buffing foods but simply to make food more 'filling'. Canned foods being the basic with a base foodgain per consumed unit but the more you cook, the better your skill gets and the longer the food you cook keeps you full.

#Driving, the further you've driven and increased your driving skill the less fuel you spend & the faster you can move your vehicle.

#Shooting, makes the sights shake a wee bit less the more used you get to your weapon.

#Stamina, the longer you've sprinter the more stamina you get and the faster you can run.

This would make surviving long a goal.

4. Realism.

Well, DayZ needs to be harder and more complex. In my humble opinion.

a) Injuries.

Taking Fallout as an example. Broken arms, legs makes it impossible to use some weapons or to aim. A headshot might cause a concussion which makes you read your compass wrong, blurry vision or even hallucinate. "Was that a real player moving or..?". Eating uncooked food might be a necessity when starving, but there's a chance you'll start throwing up. Try fighting whilst bent over puking. Colds & fever like we already have, maybe draining stamina making it impossible to run far. Everything should have a cure of course. Not instant though.

B) Pks/Bandits vs Heroes.

Well, this is a hot topic. Everyone loves to hate bandits and alot of the bandits declare that IN A REAL ZOMBIE APOC EVERYONE WOULD BE ASSHATS WHO KILLED ANYONE THEY SAW FOR FUN. I dont know if they would, I dont know if I would cause I cant picture anything as silly as this happening in real life. I do know that rioting and what not occur when there's no law, so who knows. That said. Different skins are not really a good way of showing this and there's really no good way of showing if a person is an asshat, if there were people wouldn't be getting tricked irl would they? Even so, maybe implementing EYECOLOR (Eyes are the mirror of the soul, and all that). Abit Supernatural style maybe, or Dune in a way, your eyes go darker and darker for every 'sin' you've commited 'till they're completely black. Same for heroes, but going white. Thus the only safe way to find out is using binoculars or snipersights. Nomore prewarnings due to skins. Also, whilst why not involve some sort of psychological effects from turning to the darkside? Paranoia, making your character see ghosts or what not. Twitches making accedentally firing guns happen, against all treatable of course. And similiar things for the heroes, making hurting innocents extremely punishing and what not.

c) Death.

Always permanent. Removing any skills you've gained, leaving everything you own on the corpse.

4. Loot.

The things we want, just spread out over the land. Lootspawn timers are way to comfortable as they are and should be increased making only a few respawns a day, especially when it comes to highgrade areas such as current NEAF. Food & weapons are way to plentiful.

a) Mechanical parts.

A function I'd hope to see in the standalone would be the possibility to scavenge from existing vehicles, strip tires & parts from one working vehicle and put on another. Also wrecks ingame should be lootable, grab tires and parts from them instead of having parts spawn in sheds. As well as being able to drain fuel from vehicles back into jerry cans.

Items would be the standard tires, engine parts, scrap metal, fuel tanks but add stuff such as car batteries (for powering up a spotlight or something such maybe?). Oh. And add Harleys as vehicles. Dirtbikes might be fun but not my thing. Add generators to electrify fences, walking dead style.

B) Medical loot.

Medicine, bloodbags, pills, needles and what not. Maybe add drugs as well with temporare positive effects but nasty sideeffects when they wear off and creates addictions. And so forth.

c) Clothes.

Maybe divide up the clothes to be chest, legs, hands, feet & head. Giving people the ability to somewhat modify their looks. Make sure to add trenchcoats, everyone loves black trenchcoats.

d) Food.

Canned food should be limited and only used as the most basic item, giving one unit of food but instead not grow bad. Whilst cooked food are superior, it would spoil with time. Making hunting and scavenging important again. Also, why not include beer and alcohol? Make it ruin your aim as a sideeffect, just add it.

e) Weapons.

I'm not a gun nut, so cant really go into details of which weapons should be added, removed or what not. But! Being able to use your knife should be added, as well as hitting zombies with your fists/kick them or at least shove them out of the way. Weapons could do with having attachments though, such as silencers and what not making you able to edit & customize your gun as you want it. Again, making survival more interesting than just randomly running around shooting stuff. And add some more melee weapons. I know swords seems silly but there's plenty of museums & collectors out there, and being able to slice & dice zombies with a katana/broadsword does seem like fun. Hunting bows would be nice as well.

d) Bags & Storage.

The bag system that's currently implemented is all good & fine, maybe start without any bags. Add belts though, making you able to carry only as much ammo & tools in your belt as it allows.

5. Personal thoughts.

a) The Game. (You lost it).

It's a game that wants to be hardcore, one of few games where a misstake can cost you everything. I love it. Starting over after having been killed for the twentieth time is just as fun. Less food and less ammo would give more of a survival feeling though. Maybe actually add the chance of getting the zombie desease, curable or at least held in check by some medication. Making hospital runs & trades important.

B) Why I hate PVE.

As asshatty as pvpers can be, just as whiny pve'ers can be. I would love to say that pure nonpvp servers would be a good thing. But they're not. A pve'er will never be satisfied and through the course of my 20+ year gamerlife they've ruined so many games that I feel nothing but hostility towards them. "NO RISK BUT MAXIMUM GAIN" seems to be their mantra and every limitation should be removed in their name.

#"Better loot in a pvpzone cause of the risk? NOWAI THAT IS UNFAIR!" Games such as EVE Online and Ultima Online used to offer better rewards if you risked going into a pvpzone to get resources from there. Ultima Online folded but EVE Online is still holding onto their morals.

#"Not being able to keep my stuff cause I die? NOWAI THAT IS UNFAIR!". Ultima Online was one of the first mmo's I played, if you got killed you lost everything. Untill pve'er started their war, first they introduced a pve only zone and then they forced insurance that meant you spent some gold to be able to keep your stuff after death.

I have so many many many many many many many more examples of things like this, worldpvp from WoW, the whole fiasco called Guild Wars 2.

Time after time, making a good & hardcore game into a carebear heaven. That is why if possible I would ban any pure safezone ideas if I could.

c) Profanity & Harassment.

After my open hatred towards the carebears this might be a strange thing coming from me. Still, let everyone play as they want. But give warnings & bans for harassment. Making fun of female players is just stupid, cursing or using profanity against people in general is just childish but also a crime in many parts of the world.

At times gamers makes me feel ashamed for my hobby, especially many young gamers (Sorry for generalizing) doesn't seem to be able to take internet anonymiousity in a good way but start acting out. Read http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ as an example of how not to act.

d) There is no cake.

No matter how good a game is, how great an idea is or how splendid a dream might seem.

Everything that can be abused will be abused.

People will always have different opinions.

Moment 22 is always active.

This WAS the shortened version.

TL:DR.

Game good, make it harder.

[Feral (DayZ) 622]

I read through it and yes, I regret it. I would spare others that pain...

Nothing new or original here whatsoever

edit - not strictly true, this is new and original - 'anonymiousity' :rolleyes:

Edited November 22, 2012 by wabbit

[DarkRaven (DayZ) 9]

Odear, that bad huh?