Will Rocket utilize the creativity of others?

[triplesek 5]

DayZ Mod, created by Mr. Hall, has brought a fantastic and new way of playing FPS. It's not just about shooting a guy in the head anymore. Survival, looting, storing - all of these things have brought a new way of playing a first person shooter. His creativity and vision, through the ARMA2 engine, has spawned what we hope will be a great product in Standalone.

But will he use the creativity of others?

With the explosion of interest that came with DayZ, so came a lot of skilled individuals who created different variations of the mod to improve on the framework. We have seen a whole new array of features that ultimately are great additions to the mod, and in my opinion, I think Rocket should consider these things for Standalone.

One such thing is an idea DayZ Mercenary is playing with. Quarantine Squads.

Taken from their reddit page: We added Roaming Quarantine Squad Units throughout the map. While they have Rare Loot, there is a high chance you won't survive an encounter. Basically these are several units spread across the map and have one agenda, to find and kill you. They will be highly lethal and will carry proper military weapons. They roam the map in search to "clean" the breakout. These units will also kill zombies if found.

And to give you an idea of the intensity,

for a Youtube video on one such engagement.

Now I am personally of the opinion that DayZ's greatest experience is that of survival. The zombies - while at first a bit frightening - have now become more of an annoyance than anything. I understand Rocket's commitment to creating a better zombie experience within Standalone, but overtime I see this becoming the case once more. Does an AI variable that isn't dead belong in DayZ? Does this idea of Quarantine Squads have room to breathe? This is just a single example, of probably hundreds of ideas, that have been or will be tested within separate mods in ARMA2.

Lets not forget, also, about Rocket drawing inspiration from a successful title known as Minecraft. Will standalone have that same success? Ultimately Rocket will be facing the limitations in content that FPS generally has. After a while, an FPS simply gets old for your average gamer these days. Minecraft, though? The content is created by the players. So how then does Rocket build us a game that will be a classic for many years to come? I believe the start is by thinking way outside the box. Way outside. And drawing inspiration from others is always a good idea.

NOTE: This is not an elaborate post to advertise anything. I just started playing a new mod "mercenary" and saw an awesome feature that I hoped would make it into Standalone.

[Max Planck 7174]

Will he 'utilize the creativity of others'?

Yes.

Will he add npc's?

Not likely.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Max Planck

[triplesek 5]

Will he 'utilize the creativity of others'?

Yes.

Will he add npc's?

Not likely.

Zombies are NPC's without weapons, you know :P

[Rage VG 4033]

Zombies are NPC's without weapons, you know :P

In the realm of DayZ, people take NPC as a term for an AI Human/player. Basically, any actual NPC except zombies.

[Zarniwoop 1193]

And anyway I think they are removing the support that has to do with NPC survivors, so that the zombies can not zigzag and all that.

Putting it all back in would be a hassle just for 5 NPC people.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Zarniwoop

[philbottle 430]

Nice idea though it might be difficult to implement, maybe something to look at a year or so down the line.

It may be though, as you say, that the zeds on the standalone will be a completely different beast and more than a troublesome annoyance.

The content and experience will continue to be driven by players and this will determine the longevity.

I've only been playing the mod since November and I'm still finding new experiences simply from the random nature of what I encounhter in-game.

Thanks for a nice post though :)

[Maloney (DayZ) 26]

Of course he will. Maybe not excessively but he will. Its like he says, “But you can’t encourage creativity on one hand and beat it with a stick with another" I need to check out these DayZ mods. But yeah, as he says some third party additions to DayZ may interfere with his plans.

[p4triot 207]

Zombies are NPC's without weapons, you know :P

Technically, yes. But talking in manners of an MMORPG (and this is closer to a MMORPG than a FPS), zombies are just mobs.

We are the living human, so npc's featuring living humans has no place here imho. You want to add more enemies to the game, add hostile animals like bears, zombified dogs, different types of zeds (L4D style) and so on. But, never ever add humans alive, not as enemies and not as helpers (like shops or anything), ever. We are the humans here, I dont want a AI machine to do my job.

[philbottle 430]

We are the living human, so npc's featuring living humans has no place here imho. We are the humans here, I dont want a AI machine to do my job.

I'd never thought of it that way before but yeah I'd tend to agree.

[Never 237]

But will he use the creativity of others?

He has from Day one.

The mod was a pacthwork of other peoples mods and work in the first place.

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

Many of the features making it into the SA are a result of discussions on this forum and others, also the mod itself provided a great testing ground for the SA.

[taco241 393]

He'll utilize the creativity of others, unless said creativity sucks.

[triplesek 5]

I guess it was a bit of a lack luster question... I mean we are talking about Dean Hall here. He's a gamer at heart and he's going to do things the right way. I suppose my point was, will we see him taking ideas from other people and possibly adding them within the game as bonus content I suppose. Maybe better sounds, for example. ACE sounds in different variations of DayZ mods are really nice. I'm told there are other sounds packs that are even better.

I'd even like to see some mystery involved within the game. I'm not sure how many of you know about the Green Mountain "Radio Message." It's a hoax, of course, but very interesting to say the least. Could be used to further develop the experience...

Other ideas are better of course. Many are out there. I just hope he can find the balance between good and bad. Last thing we need is over-saturation.