Les and Bear would be ashamed...

[kwhy (DayZ) 6]

The one thing that kind of bothers me right now with DayZ is here we are stranded on a large body of land and we feel the need to have to travel into towns to survive while 90% of the surrounding forest is being wasted other than finding a safe place to get away and camp.

I think the survival aspect could really be improved upon and a whole other aspect of game play could be introduced if more real world survival tactics were added to the game.

I'm talking about living off the land, eating bugs, bark, digging holes, making traps, shelters, ect..

Killing zombies is fun for food, but with the 1.7.1.1 hotfix that limited food supplies really pushed me to the idea that there should be something other than beans, sardines, and meat. I personally like the idea of canned food being scarce if we had a few other options.

I'm no Bear Grylis or Les Stroud but I do know if I was in this situation I might adapt to eating bugs, plants, tree bark, or whatever else survivalists do instead of relying on finding canned food or risking death every day sneaking around zombies.

Now maybe from a gaming aspect the developers really don't want us to stay in the woods, but from a survival aspect who the heck wouldn't stay in the woods about 99.99% of the time? So maybe move the threat of zombie pacts to roam more into the woods over time.

I remember this question on an SAT test from high school. The old dig a hole in direct sunlight, put a container in the hole, stretch a bag over, put a rock in center, and weigh down the surrounding parts with rocks. After time condensation builds and will slowly drip into your container. Thus you get water over time.

Maybe with specific items something like this could be crafted and placed on the ground and then it would just be matter of waiting a certain amount of game time for water.

1 can/ bucket/ canteen + 1 bag + shovel (or something to dig) + rocks/cans/small objects = full can of water in X amount of game time.

Maybe make it so you can't move the item once placed, but can reuse it so this makes players still have to rely on going to town to find certain items or coming only back to this spot.

How about traps for small animals. Heck traps for large animals.

bait + wood + knife (sharpen sticks) + rope / wire / twine = small animal trap. And each type of bait the player tried might have higher / lower chance of drawing an animal to it. Require that no players or zombies be in the area and after X amount of time roll the dice based on type bait used, weather conditions, animals in the area, ect...and then the player might return to find a rabbit caught, or maybe nothing at all, or maybe even a zombie gets caught in the trap by mistake. how cool would that be?

What about boiling water? There doesn't seem to be any running streams in game (or at least I haven't found any) so how safe would it be to fill your canteen at a pond or even an infected area's well.

check out this site...

http://www.survivaloutdoorskills.com/purifying_water.htm

read up on the 2 cans urine / saltwater technique with fire.

so

2-4 empty soda cans + knife (cut the cans in half or make tops) + some sort of tubing/pipe + fire + salt water / urine = water

maybe we should be able to capture water from the ocean, but drinking it without doing certain techniques would be fatal.

all that is just the tip of the iceberg and I'm sure tons of cool ideas could come out of it, heck I bet a whole survival guide could be made and sold separately if these type of dynamics were in game.

[nomorechillies 11]

game needs to be fun, not survival realism imo

[bas_tera@hotmail.com 3]

My thoughts exactely op,

Here, i have à similar thread running if you want to contribute.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=15849&pid=156435#pid156435

[Gaidoon 19]

How about eating Garbage or eating dead zombies?

[Strategos (DayZ) 190]

Less bear Grylls he's a ponce, Ray Mears knows what he's talking about :p

[Strawcrow 10]

You can live off the land, my friend and I have been alive over 20 days. and we have only been back to the coast once and it was not to a big city. I never get near any big city on the South coast. That is for new players and people who just want to kill others like it is any other shooter. Sometimes it is kill other players or be killed, or you kill them before they get you, or maybe to get their gear; but the amount of folks who wish just to be sport killing, well I am just glad they stick around the Electro Cherno area for the most part.

We eat mostly boar, cattle, sheep and goats..... those rabbits are really fast lol, seriously they just do not give as much food as other animal is why I do not eat them.