@Rocket - Please Read (Ideas for creating Fulfilling & Enriching game features to the DayZ Experience)

[adcamo (DayZ) 18]

Reddit Thread: http://www.reddit.co...ing_fulfilling/

I'll start off by saying DayZ is a great game. I'm sure Standalone will be well worth the wait. I'd like to contribute a few ideas for enriching the gameplay experience, having it make sense within the DayZ world, without making it too much like an MMO.

Being able to put "odds & ends" together to make useful items.

Examples:

• Empty Whiskey Bottle + Gas Tank = Gas Filled Bottle + Rag + Matches = Molotov
  
• Shoe Laces or String + Wood + Grenade = Trip Wire Mine
  
• Shoe Laces or String + Wood + Empty Cans = Trip Wire Alarm System
  
• Axe to harvest limbs and branches from nearby bushes & trees + String = Makeshift camo to cover your vehicles & cars at your campsite
  

What I think will make this system of putting items together VERY Robust, and enticing for players... is having hundreds of combinations available to make a large slew of useful items. Let the community figure out these combinations on their own.

Ultimately, if you provide the ability for items to be put together in random configurations that create items or effects that aren't expected, it will add volumes of content to the game.

• Add various items together to create in-game games like checkers or chess (I really love this one, imagine being able to over time carve game pieces, and or a board, then actually play these games with your friends at your camp.)
  

-- I can't stress enough how much enjoyable content just having in-game games would add to the game outside of the standard survive or kill/be kill parts of the game. Because in a real survival scenario, once you've learned to survive, humans will try to create some of their familiar human comforts back into their life..

• Add various items together to create moonshine..
  
• Add various items together to make musical instruments
  
• Add various items together to customize your vehicles
  
• Add various items together to make your own drinks (teas, juices etc..)
  
• Add various items together to make traps
  
• Add various items together to make war paint, or tribe symbols
  
• Create Signs out of paper or wood
  

The list of possibilities goes on and on. This would really round out the DayZ experience for myself and many others.

Edited January 2, 2013 by adcamo

[Dancing.Russian.Man 1631]

I'm impressed. Nothing here that makes me want to disagree with you.

Have my all my beans!

[malau 11]

Seconded. (I hate the title of the thread though, threads entitled "Rocket please read...." usually get short shrift in here.)

[adcamo (DayZ) 18]

I'm impressed. Nothing here that makes me want to disagree with you.

Have my all my beans!

I am amazed that I was able to unwittingly have someone agree with me that wants to disagree with me!

[m.w. vindicator 880]

I would carry a guitar around to play even if it took up three inventory slots.

If they added playing cards and chess into the game i would throw my money at the screen!

[m.w. vindicator 880]

Broken glass should persist. If anything stepped on it, there should be a distinct audible sound.

[GeneticFreak 23]

Piles of wood + Jerry can = Torch (real torch, not that noisy, smoky flare)

[colekern 1364]

Rocket has already stated that he would like to see a crafting system. This thread would be useless, if it weren't for the fact that stated exactly the scale you want to see it in.

having hundreds of combinations available...

Couldn't agree more.

[plrsniper 87]

I disagree with the title "@Rocket - Please read" as it doesn't say anything about the contents or the suggestion and instead is just a big "I WANT ATTENTION" sign that normally involves poorly thought out ideas.

I also disagree with the reddit part.

The rest i can agree with though!

[ididi9 (DayZ) 53]

Some of what you said seems a bit far fetched. Why would anyone want any new drinks? So your saying you should implement alcohol drinks which in fact would make the player more dehydrated and be useless as well as making them drunk and unable to do stuff...

[kaiga12 22]

kill rabbits, skin them, eat them, make a hat.

[pmjkerr 76]

Well done OP, a worthy thread for the devs. I sincerely hope they manage to spot it in the crowd.

If they added playing cards and chess into the game i would throw my money at the screen!

Now thats a freakin idea! You know what I used to adore, the card game they had in FF8 on the PS2. I spent many many hours simply playing that mini-game within the massive RPG itself.

Ordinary playing cards and a currency system would be wonderful (texas hold em ftw!).

Edited January 3, 2013 by pmjkerr

[adcamo (DayZ) 18]

Some of what you said seems a bit far fetched. Why would anyone want any new drinks? So your saying you should implement alcohol drinks which in fact would make the player more dehydrated and be useless as well as making them drunk and unable to do stuff...

I'm simply asking you to look past the survival aspect for a moment. People who tend to survive a long time will want to have their characters entertained. That could be anything from sitting around a campfire with your buds, with your own handmade guitar, and a full bottle of whisky for a change, to sitting back in some building you've commandeered playing your daily game of checkers with your best bud. So in this instance, making your own drinks is just an idea to add a bit of variety and depth.. take it with a grain of salt.

[WiFiN 55]

That's exactly the way I want to see crafting. Creating something useful out of shits and sticks.

I'm simply asking you to look past the survival aspect for a moment. People who tend to survive a long time will want to have their characters entertained. That could be anything from sitting around a campfire with your buds, with your own handmade guitar, and a full bottle of whisky for a change, to sitting back in some building you've commandeered playing your daily game of checkers with your best bud. So in this instance, making your own drinks is just an idea to add a bit of variety and depth.. take it with a grain of salt.

Exactly! I even spent about an hour playing games in Assassin's Creed III no matter they were singleplayer. If cooking will take time, spending it playing guitar, singing along (lol, yeah like every time we go to the LZ in a chinook in Arma2) or playing chess would be awesome. By the way, guitar can be made the way to was done in Spacestation 13 where notes were read from a txt file on your PC and played then as a tune - this way we'll heve different tunes all the time.

[Bat (DayZ) 230]

well crafting will be implemented in standalone, maybe not in the foundation release, but at least it is part of the long term plan. it will be awesome :)

[adcamo (DayZ) 18]

I'm simply asking you to look past the survival aspect for a moment. People who tend to survive a long time will want to have their characters entertained. That could be anything from sitting around a campfire with your buds, with your own handmade guitar, and a full bottle of whisky for a change, to sitting back in some building you've commandeered playing your daily game of checkers with your best bud. So in this instance, making your own drinks is just an idea to add a bit of variety and depth.. take it with a grain of salt.

i was trying to think of a way to incorporate user songs

[tatortodd22 12]

I love your suggestions, and would like to add some of my own, which I hope you edit into the main topic so that the team also notices these, instead of having to read the whole thread.

One thing I would suggest is to make the pre-Z world more alive (so that it feels that something actually was lost, and make an impression on those players who want to bring civilization back). Diaries and such are a good solution to this, but there are more ways too:

-News reels on tape or film for the player to find, and play on a projector in an underground base.

-Items like journals, dogtags, etc. Could be buried for humanity points.

-Musical tracks on CDs or MP3 players to play in your base's stereo or PA system, in your car radio (can be used to lure zombies), or even broadcasted on a radio system across Chernarus. Just simple tunes made in your own studio could give the player a different feeling in their world or base. For instance, a player who wants to play a psycho bandit could have Russian opera music playing throughout their gory base. Things like car horns and old bicycles are novelties and make a game (even a simulator like DayZ) more enjoyable to the player, and gives them an attachment to the game in one of those "This is awesome!" moments, such as the first time I rode a bicycle through Cherno in a ghillie suit and NV goggles, ringing the bell. A GAZ driving by blasting East European polka would be one of those moments.

-Different music could be found in different loot areas:

-Russian and Eastern European music could be found in residential areas, while American rock and or rap could be found in military zones (that I assume are American, being that the Humvees and Hueys seem American made. This implies that American soldiers (either in the UN or US armed forces) brought their music to the infected Russian countryside.

-Have paranoid NPC's who reside in safehouses in some towns. Their safehouses have some decent, or high quantity loot for your survival, and you can choose how you retrieve these useful materials:

-Offer the NPC aid, an item, or a favor. For instance, the NPC could announce from the door "You can come in, only if you bring me enough food for another week so that I don't have to leave!" Then they allow you inside to grab a useful item or two while they cautiously keep their gun pointed at you.

-Raid the house via grenade breach or destruction of the house. (running in would basically guarantee a shot to your head)

I like your idea of making the game more fulfilling, and I feel that restoring those bits of civilization such as helping a stranger, playing some music, or honoring the dead would add to that more than a crafting table. I'd say crafting, vehicle repair, and base building are "satisfying", while rebuilding society (or your bandit tribe) is more "fulfilling". And that's a great idea giving heartfelt fulfillment to players for their actions, but this is the zombie apocalypse. There also has to be a lot more tragedy. Here are some suggestions to make the game more despairing.

-Sometimes, your dogs and friends can be infected by zombies when knocked out, instead of just killed. Then, when they awake, they're freshly infected, and thus more capable than the usual infected you encounter (maybe faster, stronger, or able to detect you better and lead other zombies to your location like the clowns from L4D2), and you must shoot your friend or pet before they kill you. Antibiotics could cure them before they wake up though.

-I know you guys are working on making zombies a larger threat, and here are some ways to build suspension, paranoia, and that feeling of impending doom. Make cars inaccessible to zombies, but instead of awkwardly waiting outside your car, they beat and scratch the windows gradually until broken when they can attack you. Gives windscreens more priority and importance. Also, doors can stop zombies but they slowly beat down the door as a horde. Zombies that attack you from behind can grab you, hold you, and start clawing or biting your defenseless self, and a friend must save you from their hold.

And to allow for more immersion/realism, I personally request a radio system, whether static or with the toolbelt radio. Having to rely on the forums medic thread or the side chat in game REALLY breaks immersion and realism, providing you with help you'd normally not have. This makes the game a bit harder and scarier to face when you don't always have access to help until you get a radio to contact others (and you never know who else is listening to your broadcast).

I feel adding these features would complement the experiences that I love in DayZ and make it better, and more realistic in terms of a simulator. Please do not say "That idea was dumb." in response to these ideas. These ideas are pitches to the development team to consider when trying to enhance the experience. If you disagree with my suggestion, simply say why, whether you believe it would be better if implemented in some other way, or should not be considered at all. Bear in mind the technicalities that I mentioned (like how to help the NPC) are simple examples and shouldn't define the main idea proposed. See you guys on the wasteland, and let's help make this game incredible.

Edited January 4, 2013 by tatortodd22