My ideas for a better Dayz experience (Mod & Standalone)

[blitz711 7]

Hello all!

I’ve been playing dayz for quite a while now and I believe it’s the future of mmo games. The potential it has is unlimited and thus I wanted to share some interesting ideas I had that could be implemented to either the mod or the standalone (or both). These ideas are one hundred percent according with the dark and realistic atmosphere that dayz attempts to incite! Let me know what you think of them!

Ideas:

1: Seasons

The implementation of a season system would greatly enhance gameplay. Dayz already contains a realistic day and night system along with a temperature system, why not include a season system with winter and summer? During winter you have to find and wear warm clothing so that your temperature won’t fall. If it rains or snows, you get soaked and you need to find shelter from the storm or change clothes in order to avoid hypothermia. Additionally, daytime is smaller and nights longer. During summer you need to find light clothing and hydrate more often. In contrary to winter, nights are smaller and daytime longer.

2: Survivor Crafting System

Society has fallen, some things are now hard to find. Fortunately, some of those things can be created by the survivors. Survivors are able to craft certain items like clothing and tools, these are not as durable as pre infection (factory made) items but can get the job done. Survivor made clothing can be made by collecting skins (leather) from animals and remnants of old clothing. This type of clothing is gritty, think of movies like the road and the book of eli. Tools include hatchets and some melee weapons (bows would be nice too). Also, another item survivors can craft is traps! Protect your base or any other location from threats by building and placing Rambo style traps! They can be used for either protecting locations, hunting animals or simply leading unsuspected people into your hands.

3: Drugs

You heard me right! Drugs! I can’t imagine an apocalypse without them. Bandit groups should be all over them as well. These drugs provide bonuses in things like stamina (and perhaps accuracy?) but come with a price, addiction. If your character gets addicted to them, you have to keep getting them or you will experience aversive effects. Aversive effects include dizziness, little stamina, shaking etc etc. Drugs should be hard to get unless you come in contact with bandit groups or find pre infection stashes. I think they are a cool feature that will provide interesting opportunities for interaction and trade amongst people.

4: Caves

Chernarus is a mountainous area, and some caves can be found within its borders. They are extremely hard to find and usually in not easily accessible locations. Most of them contain a water source (underground water?) and can also be used a shelter from extreme weather conditions. They provide a good hiding spot and a base for experienced lone survivors. However they are dead ends, and you can easily get trapped inside from a threat (bandits or zombies).

5: Bird Flocks

Chernarus forests are home to a variety of birds. Think twice before shooting in a forest, birds will get scared and fly away from nearby trees. Thus indicating your position to those careful enough to notice! For those skilled enough to kill them, birds can also be used as food!

6: Cannibalism

There is no realistic post-apocalyptic movie, book or scenario in general that doesn’t involve cannibalism in some form. For those desperate enough, cannibalism is an option HOWEVER you get significant drops in your humanity and you are in severe danger of contracting diseases. Moreover, other survivors don’t look lightly upon cannibalism and that makes you public enemy number one! Survivors, heroes and even some bandit groups will hunt down cannibals at sight.

7: The ability to lock doors

Since the standalone will contain a plethora of enterable buildings, you are now able to lock doors. Protect yourself or your valuables by locking them somewhere. Locks and keys can be found in supermarkets. Provided you find a locked door, you can use a key (provided it’s the right one and in your possession), use a lockpick (survivor crafted tool from idea 2?) to unlock it, or shoot it and break the lock. However since most buildings and thus doors are in heavily zombie infested areas, shooting it will give you a small window of time before all zombies gather at your location.

8: Zombification

If a zombie hits you, you may get infected (or not, it’s a matter of luck). Getting infected is a death sentence, you don’t die immediately but you definitely will in a matter of hours. You can use drugs and medicine to stall the infection from killing you but unfortunately there is no cure. Once you die, your character becomes a zombie npc. Moreover, even if you die from gunshots, if zombies eat from your corpse it also becomes a zombie npc.

9: A background storyline

After playing dayz for quite a while, you eventually realize that there is no point to the game. A background storyline would provide an interesting ‘quest’ for survivors and it would add to the atmosphere and realism of the world. The storyline isn’t something you have to deal with, it’s not presented from characters or in a particular order. As you travel around Chernarus you encounter scenes of events that are self-explanatory about what happened in the area. You might find a military check point that attempted to halt the spread of the infection but eventually got overrun, you might find mass graves or a refugee camp now infested from civilian zombies. You might find a car wreck in a forest with a blood trail implying its owners were dragged, you might find people hanging in their homes or dead in their beds. Eventually you build a rough idea of what happened, how the infection started, how people dealt with it, and eventually how it got spread all over Chernarus.

10: Electricity

You are able to restore electrical power to Chernarus for limited amounts of time (Think of it as a quest). Lights are restored across Chernarus, and certain areas previously inaccessible now become accessible for survivors and looters (Think of military installations and medical facilities with electric doors and elevators). However, due to the extended damage inflicted on the power system, restoring power is only available for limited amounts of time and may have implications like explosions and extremely aggravated zombies! etc etc. It’s an extremely hard and dangerous quest but the rewards could be so great that it’s worth the risk!

11: A digging system

This adds shovels and the ability to dig holes into the game. The purpose of digging holes is to hide items (think of the tent system but more discreet). HOWEVER buried items will be subject to fast degradation (a weapon that was buried may not function properly, food may go bad etc etc). Additionally, other people can find hidden objects and take them. Wherever there are buried items a little mound appears, provided you are equipped with a shovel you can dig! In order that this system isn’t abused by people and they bury a ton of stuff, depending on the size of the item you want to bury it takes a specific amount of time. The bigger the item you want to bury the more time it takes to dig, thus leaving you vulnerable to an attack.

12: Turf Wars

Clans, bandit gangs and survivor groups can ‘claim’ ownership of an area. This is achieved by planting flags with their symbols in the area they desire to ‘own’. Now don’t worry, this is purely cosmetic and intended for roleplaying etc. Claiming an area means that the specific area is ‘inhabited’ by a specific clan. This system could provide interesting opportunities for more organized play style for clans.

13: Vegetables and Fruits

Another food source, vegetables and fruits can be found across chernarus fields and forests. They don’t restore much health and they don’t fill the food bar a lot, but they can keep a survivor alive. On the downside, some fruits could be poisonous!

Edited May 12, 2013 by BlitzGreek

[The Friendly Bandit 137]

What a great, well-constructed, thoughtful post. I love ALL of your ideas. Beans for you.

Edited May 12, 2013 by The Friendly Bandit

[Blondie-dash 8]

6, 8, aren't really needed rest is fine though.

Edited May 12, 2013 by Blondie-dash

[mat9813004 8]

I like the idea of storylines but there should be several possible grand narratives, set by the server admin and the players won't know which one. The electricity idea is actually quite cool. Many good ideas there actually.

[Zarniwoop 1193]

Some very good ideas here 1,4,5,7,10 some not so good (been ruled out) 6,8,12 (12 not needed IMO) and some that have already been confirmed for SA 2,9,11.

Also I'm not quite sure about #3 (Drugs) since it feels like its just silly buffs like in mainstream MMOs. Also drugs like that would be virtualy impossible to find in a RURAL post soviet state.

Edit: About point #9: You will be able to find scraps of info on how the apocalipse came about and all that, but I dont think R is thinking of putting quests in the game, in the sence that it would kinda ruin the "Do what you like" thing.

Nice post though :P

Edited May 12, 2013 by Zarniwoop