Experimenting with scenarios

[Swi1ch 39]

Preface; this is less of a hard suggestion, more of light theorycrafting. Ways to add a flavour of direction to DayZ that complement its core values of harsh difficulties and paranoia.

I should also point out I would never consider having something like this as a standard DayZ implementation; it would be for clans or groups to try out for a change of pace or general experimentation.

The original idea was the thought of trying to escape Chernarus. You need to repair a boat, and in order to do so you would need to collect the needed parts and the 'winner' would get better spawn gear or something like that.

Now, obviously that's a horrible idea with all sorts of potential problems. There would be no incentive to betray other players, unless the reward was split in which case people would only betray at the last minute. There would be issues with players deliberately acquiring the needed items and logging off etc etc, a terrible idea. The anti-thesis of what (I believe) DayZ is about.

So a better idea (although, not perfect). There is a device in the world that repels zombies (ZRD). It emits sub-sonic pulses that stops zombies getting close to the player who carries it (Or whatever reason, bare with me). Upon server restart and game start, one player at random spawns with the device. Everyone else spawns with a locator; at a set interval, say 10 minutes, the ZRD emits a ping that sets a note on every players map at its location, with a time stamp (A reason to have a watch!). If the player dies or logs off the device is dropped to the floor and continues to tick over to its next ping, that will be marked on the map as 'dropped'. The player could also manually drop the device.

So the purpose of this? It adds a light goal and scenario to the game. It encourages both co-operation and betrayal; The player in control of the ZRD can reap the benefits of looting unmolested, but he knows that players will be hunting him, and thus needs to decide whether the risk that a player might betray him is worth having the extra manpower around when the hunters arrive. For the hunters themselves, it will obviously be easier for them to overpower the device holder if they have a larger group, but they then have to worry about betrayal from each other too as the device is so valuable. As the device pings the map as just 'dropped' regardless of whether the holder died, logged off or manually dropped it means tension around rushing to pick up a dropped device as it might be a trap. It wouldn't undermine the core ideals of the game, as survival is still a challenging priority. There would still be no 'end' to the game, it would be pure sandbox and players could choose to ignore the device entirely without compromising on their regular gameplay. The biggest benefit is that this doesn't implement any sort of time limit, something that most goal oriented ideas have and suffer from.

Anyone have any similar ideas? I feel DayZ is a breeding ground for cool scenarios that fit with the nature of the game.

I know there's a tonne of flaws with this idea, and the 'realism' aspect sticks out a bit, but I'm more interested in promoting discussion.

[Sabata (DayZ) 1]

I welcome any suggestion that adds some depth without restricting gameplay options. I wouldn't like this to go completely ignored.

What if the ZDR was more effective as long the same player controlled it? I mean like adding a slight experience based factor. As it happens with everything loot based, the option to kill the user and steal its stuff becomes too obvious.