DayZ Devblog 15th February 2013

[Private Evans 1303]

With a couple of acoustics and a decent mic we can entertain the post-apocalypse 24/7. (or maybe 12/7) (or 4/5?) (occasionally)

DJ-Chabowski and his incomprehensible accent. ;)

Green Mountain Radio Station

[apocalypsemaow 27]

150 Peeps on a server!

[Michaelvoodoo25 3120]

I will play as an explorer, mapping as I go (well until 2 days after release, when the maps flood the web)

Learn all the areas and prepare for a world of being alone!

[Kill8ox 28]

When?

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

When?

When what?

[ibux (DayZ) 22]

as far as I understand a simple radio system will be most likely part of the revised chat system ...

hunting for batteries for it to work could be fun ;)

[terrvik 2409]

When what?

Don't be silly. Then!

[thelonelyone 103]

Idea: When you broke a limb, you'll have to put a Bandage and wait a few hours for it to regenerate.

[Michaelvoodoo25 3120]

If you ever feel up to it, I'd love to help you find some parts for that. That is, if you don't already know how to build one.

As soon as I start buying parts, ill PM you, been a while since I built one so no worries there ( DDR 2 had just come out), like riding a bike .

Cheers

[joe_mcentire 2074]

may I?

DEAN and his funky gang should definately check this out: http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com

It has all sorts of derelict/abandoned buildings/areas/vehicles also sorted for every continental area!

a must to check out, when trying to get ideas for postapocalyptic scenarios

[OutlawXGP 29]

You know I been playing DayZ from the very start of the mod and when I come into these forums and read some of the community ideas it really worries me.

What I mean is that I see people asking for features such as "Quests, NPCs and (End game Content) Seriously this is not a MMORPG is a MMO to some degree yes but it's a survival FPS game. if you really want NPCs quests or safe zone there are plenty of MMORPGS out there to play.

I really hope that rocket and his dev team do not change the formula that made this game great, which is the open survival game where you make your own journey not some NPC telling you what to do, also the fact that your always at a risk of getting killed just adds more thrill to playing it.

[Hetstaine 10852]

You're married aren't you??

I couldn't help but laugh at this.

I was married once. It's no laughing matter :D

[NiceJoJo 5]

I totally want quests where you kill 20 zombies and then the NPC teleports to you and gives you a ginormous batlle axe! And a shield!! That would be sweet!!

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

I totally want quests where you kill 20 zombies and then the NPC teleports to you and gives you a ginormous batlle axe! And a shield!! That would be sweet!!

Yeah, we should turn friendly fire off, too, and have safe zones outside every town where the bartender can give you quests for some 1337 l00tz! Why is rocket even making this game, I much prefer the cut of SirGay's jib!

[gesundheitk 420]

Yeah, we should turn friendly fire off, too, and have safe zones outside every town where the bartender can give you quests for some 1337 l00tz! Why is rocket even making this game, I much prefer the cut of SirGay's jib!

Then after that, there should be a big sign in Cherno that states 'HAVE FUN AT WARZ, CALL 1-800-GET-ROBD'.

[Hetstaine 10852]

Get over it rocket. It's a trade off... The game is bigger than you or your personal feelings.

You either use NPC's, mission generation and leveling systems, or you will be hard coding new features into the game for the rest of your natural life just to maintain interest and as a mechanism to controll player killing and hacking from bored players.

Don't use NPC's and you risk DAYZ De-evolving into nothing more than another PvP platform or worse, another BC3000AD in a few months when the newest game is released and people get bored.

You can make your NPC's as unobtrusive and behind the scenes as you want. It could even be that one of the in-game challenges is to track down an illusive NPC based on rumor and hearsay of their existence... could make a very interesting 'easter-egg' hunt. All that is needed is a dynamically changing and programmable in-game mechanism to steer and encourage/invite the players to go in a direction or choose an option you deem most preferred, while making it appear as if you are not. This is a job well suited for an NPC verses an expensive computer programmer with yet another update/patch.

Most people do not enjoy being told what to do at first, but sadly most people need to be told what to do in the end... and then learn to enjoy it after having considered all the alternatives.

:emptycan:

[iashford 73]

I don't mind quests as long as they are built in organically. For example, going into a house and finding a letter saying 'I buried blah blah in such and such place'. It doesn't even have to contain loot, moreso just pieces of a puzzle for the overall storyline of dayZ. Even finding signs/letters saying people went to this camp because it was suppose to be an evac point, but you get there and it's just remains of an overrun place with better loot.

Personally, I don't mind the IDEA of NPC's, but considering arma/dayZ is very simulatorish and clunky, I can't see it meshing well. If the game was more arcadey and/or fluid, rescuing families or stranded NPC's could work. But as I said, given dayZ's experience and feel, I can't see it melding well at all. There's also the setting to take into consideration. If this is set far along into an apocalypse where civilisation has fallen, you won't be running into many people. If it was set in an initial outbreak or a couple of months along, then it could work. But I just don't see it fitting.

I do NOT want to see levelling or safe zones. Terrible idea that goes against the idea of SA. If levelling was built in where it's almost unrecognisable, such as becoming faster at bandaging or giving blood transfusions due to doing it frequently, then that could work. But hell no to having features of the game locked out to me because I haven't bandaged 10 people. It crosses the line of becoming grindy and robotic.

If you want a safe zone, go build a house in the middle of nowhere by yourself, cause that's as safe as you should ever get.

[dallas 5195]

Why dumb down something that's beautifully complex.

I quest all the time.

Find 1 tent.

Aid stranger with bloodbags.

Find 4 Stanags.

Loot NWA and live to tell about it.

[Lupatchi 143]

im presuming they are expanding the map more west or north (debug planes)

not just throwing random towns in.

[attorney1977 311]

AI? NPC's?

They just spent the past few weeks/months removing all of the "human AI" from the standalone. They would have to put it all back in to have AI characters, unless of course they wanted to use the zombie AI for the human NPC's.

Player 1: "These NPC's just run towards you in a straight line shooting.

Player 2: "Yes, they should zig-zag like real people"

...

[gesundheitk 420]

At first, I was thinking of the addition of NPCs would be nice, but people are right. Adding NPCs to the game is a mistake, and remove the core reasons why I chose to play this game in the first place. It gives you freedom, doesn't point you anywhere, and all your choice is based on other player interaction.

If this game adds NPCs, I'm not going to protest buying it, but I think it would hurt a lot of what DayZ stands for.

[Lupatchi 143]

human npcs probably arent a good idea, dogs on the otherhand.

I can see in some cases (origins, salvation city)

how it may work, but for chernarus?

nup.

[Red_Storm 0]

Looking good :D

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

I'm 68% sure Rocket mentioned an expanded Chernarus and 80% sure a (roughly) 30% increase was mentioned. This was a while back so things could have changed. Either way I've been under this impression for quite a while. I think he said this around the same time he first mentioned increasing the amount of players per server.

NPCs like those found in other games, no thanks. Quests and all that nonsense, nope. Some type of event/resource/epeen that draws the various clans/squads/groups of a server into direct conflict with each other could be interesting. Right now we just hunt each other for fun and little bits of loot, ammo, or maybe a vehicle is the reward. NWAF, NE, Cherno, Elektro, Starry is where most pvp action is going to be found and that rarely changes. Some type of npc/scripted event could create random hotspots similar to how chopper crashes do now (if you're willing to camp them).

Rocket shot down the idea of scripted events a while back but one that was proposed was that of a plane going down. A plane flies over Cherno for example, engines on fire, billowing smoke and an S.O.S. goes out. The plane goes down west of Zelen. Those with radios might hear the transmission and start hunting for the site. Players that saw it might head off in whatever direction it was moving. Word spreads, groups start converging, and all hell breaks loose. NPC survivors are getting chased and munched on by zombies, gun fire is ringing out, npcs are getting dropped in the crossfire, your TS is going ape shit, there's smoke, fires, and debris everywhere, a cow is on fire, there's movement in all the tree lines and you can't identify targets, dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria. Add some npc extract or kill squads coming to the crash and you have a recipe for some serious drama that no one is going to forget. And then, leave the wreck there on the server so players can tell their noob friends how they were there that day, and it was glorious (even though they were really at work and missed it all).

In this

example the area around the crash suddenly becomes a new pvp hotspot where no one immediately has the upper hand. Make the timing of these events random and make them rare and it wont feel as boring as 'collect 10 zombie heads, get banana' type quests or npc interactions.

For the record, I'm not a pure pvp player. I just wouldn't mind if it was spiced up a bit with something interesting. Lonewolves and survivalists could still benefit from npc events in the form of loot and the shifting of the pvp players from the most common pvp hotspots.

[Private Evans 1303]

if people are willing to use more ingame communication and to play more creative we will not need any scripted events or npcs. For example people could use ingame communication and trade their stuff ingame instead of posting it on the forums...we could even organize markets.

.