Matches and lore elements (hear me out)

[bibbish 49]

Hey all, 

 

Okay so here is my idea for the items in DayZ, probably SA doing a little more than just helping us survive. I think the environment and things you pick up should tie us into the 'back-story' of the game. It would be a difficult balance because the most important part of the story is the adventures we have, alone or with friends, but being able to find out just a little about how the virus started would be enjoyable, I think it would add to the meta game.

 

So you know how we already have those military camps which randomly spawn in the woods, and we also have deer stands and crashes? Well I think sometimes we could get cues from the game to indicate a point of interest. I do NOT mean you log in and a pop-up appears saying HELI CRASH AT THESE COORDINATES! We'd have to work on looting a bit harder than that.

 

Items which could immerse us could include:

 

• Radio. That fake (  :(  ) post where someone claimed the radio went off in game and gave the coordinates of deer stands got me thinking. What if this really could happen, radios would be rare and would have a rare chance of going off with some such information when picked up. The code could be morse code, words, numbers, a foreign language or just a location clue. You'd need to write down the message in your in game log or outside the game to remember it. If you work out what the message is you could proceed to the base/crashsite/camp/overturned vehicle, whatever to find a rare piece of loot and a note or document giving a bit of the lore for those who are interested.
• Matches. Currently if you get matches, a knife and a hatchet some have argued that you can live in the woods for ages. If matches ran out though they would be much more valuable. Ways of making fire could include 'book of matches', like those you find in hotels, reasonably common, up to 6 matches in a book but often not many left when you find them. 'Small box of matches', like those you find in a bar, less common, up to 15 in a box. 'Regular box of matches', up to 30 in a box, but often spawn with far less in them, quite rare. 'Disposable lighter', not many 'uses' left, very rare. 'Metal lighter' and 'Lighter fluid', extremely rare items acquired as a matter of pride but also because they last the longest. Now, going back to the 'book of matches' - they could SOMETIMES have something written on the back, a clue to where to find stashes and points of interest that I mentioned above, giving this seemingly normal item an exciting twist.
• Maps. Maps would simply have a small chance to have something written on them when you found them. Leading to... who knows.
• GPS. Would have a very small chance to beep or to have some saved co-ords on it again leading to a point of interest.
• Compass, maybe someone has scratched something interesting onto the back of it. I think changes like this would encourage survivors to 'examine' the items they pick up, this option would need to be in the UI though.

I did a couple searches on the forum, I couldn't see any similar topics but apologies if this has been said before. If it has point me in the right direction, I would be interested to read it. Also I think players could stumble across stashes and secrets without these prompts, however they would be difficult to find. Maybe the info above wouldn't appear on items if the stash had already been looted and the notes/documents already taken by another player, however if not everything had been looted and more than one player was prompted to go to the same place, well that would lead to some interesting encounters.

 

So what do you guys think? Currently I think players roam the landscape looking to make friends, kill, survive and repair vehicles but what if the game gave you subtle motivations too?

 

Thanks for reading,

 

bib 

 

[joe_mcentire 2074]

All my yes. i would love to see "artificial" content and signs of (former) life besides content "created by the players". I can see where Dean is coming from with his idea that all content should be solely based and created by the gamers themselves but this is like Communism, it only works in theory. add cassettes to use with radios where you could hear some 80's music or last moments of ppl (use some from the dev-team or the community) talking onto them...

[Bludy 324]

i like the idea of consumables being consumed..the least of mathces is 20 i believe and a standard box has 100.

i'd appreciate also lore elements not necessarely loot related though

[Korsbaek 1778]

Add cassettes to use with radios where you could hear some 80's music

 

Aaw. Hell. Yes!

[bibbish 49]

I forgot about cassettes, yes I suppose any recordings would be on pretty old school media formats. Perhaps some of the documents I mentioned could be newspaper clippings of bizarre events (people wouldn't have understood that the zombies were infected at first and would probably have just considered them murderers).

 

 

I can see where Dean is coming from with his idea that all content should be solely based and created by the gamers themselves but this is like Communism, it only works in theory. 

 

I like the Communism analogy. Whereas we can rely on the community to build bases, have clan wars and have great stories to tell about encounters and any weird occurrences (which I think should somehow be part of the game too, but that is an entire other thread) I feel that isn't quite enough. The richer the former world the better, I'd love to see it in an its (awful) glory.

[bibbish 49]

i like the idea of consumables being consumed..the least of mathces is 20 i believe and a standard box has 100.

i'd appreciate also lore elements not necessarely loot related though

 

Fair enough, they could do a lot with the environment. Not sure what, that's a big thing to think about but I'm sure lots of suggestions will come up.

[h3l1x 327]

Matchbox/matches and the whole -content in a box/package- subject has been discussed already and I did find it via searching for "matches". It's here. Specific quote on matches and generally fire making approach inside spoiler.

 

So, I've put some thought into it and here is my complete proposal.

 

First of all we have to take into consideration that we are talking about 2 different instances of objects. Main inventory items (antibiotics, painkillers) and toolbelt objects (matches). For the main inventory items I'm pretty sure it's not that hard to use the same code/system that flares or glowsticks use, having let's say an X amount and using one at a time. The problem lies with toolbelt objects, which as far as I understand work differently than main inventory items (I could be wrong though).

 

So my suggestion is to remove matches from toolbelt, and place them into the main inventory, so they can also behave like flares and glowsticks. And replace their slot in the toolbelt area with a quite rare (much rarer than matches)  firesteel/firestriker (random video of usage) which doesn't have limited uses and also is a true tool, thus fitting excellenty there. This way we'll have 2 ways to make a fire, matches that we need to save and use with caution, and the firestriker as a high tier tool (think of gps). Of course matches should be multiplied in the loottables since they're already kinda rare. Another difference should be the fact that you wouldn't be able to light a fire under rain with matches, but you would with the firestriker. Also adding the option to light a fire with a flare should be implemented, since it's completely logical.

 

To recap, 3 ways of making fire.

 

1) Flares = easy to find, take place in your main inventory, only 10 per slot/pack (even better they could be tuned down to 5 per slot), work under rain too.

2) Matches = hard to find, take place in your main inventory, 50 -give or take- per slot/box, don't work under rain and also failchance, don't know at what percentage but about 1 in 5-10 matches should break/not light up.

3) Firestriker = hardest to find, takes space in your toolbelt inventory, unlimited uses, works under rain.

Edited September 14, 2013 by h3l1x

[bibbish 49]

Excellent find h3l1x, thanks for that. I couldn't think of what the firesteel was called. I've seen on TV a guy in the Arctic or something use something which works in a similar fashion all be it the device looked different. I think it was a camping tool. Giving flares more 'use' would be excellent.

 

Because flares have more value they could be rarer, with chemlights used more often as a light source and to distract zoms (they'd have to up the amount zoms are attracted to chemlights), I think the way zoms go wild over smoke grenades is pretty perfect at the moment, but I digress. 

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

I agree. I think this game needs a more rich environment. I'm thinking tunnels through mountains, underground areas like sewers, long lines of wrecked vehicles on the highways, that sort of stuff. Plus old medical quarantine equipment, as well as zombiefied medical workers, soldiers, journalists, non-immune survivors who carry ragged packs with supplies (and maybe even helpful notes which can lead the player to points of interest or randomly generated stashes or camps) in them.

 

On that, I'd also like to see the occasional randomly generated camp in the woods. There might be some supplies, maybe a few of those infected survivors, ect. Similar to how helicopter crashes are generated in the game now, which is a clear violation of rocket's dogma about everything being player generated. I like that I'm not given objectives, and therefore everything I do is of my own prerogative. But it is not an excuse to underdevelop the environment. I want a world that's filled with context about the situation that I am in, so I can explore it. Otherwise, it's just Chernarus with zombies, which eventually reduces itself to "free for all deathmatch." It should bear the look and consequence of a landscape ravaged by human disaster.

Edited September 14, 2013 by SalamanderAnder

[bibbish 49]

I agree. I think this game needs a more rich environment. I'm thinking tunnels through mountains, underground areas like sewers, long lines of wrecked vehicles on the highways, that sort of stuff. Plus old medical quarantine equipment, as well as zombiefied medical workers, soldiers, journalists, non-immune survivors who carry ragged packs with supplies (and maybe even helpful notes which can lead the player to points of interest or randomly generated stashes or camps) in them.

 

On that, I'd also like to see the occasional randomly generated camp in the woods. There might be some supplies, maybe a few of those infected survivors, ect. Similar to how helicopter crashes are generated in the game now, which is a clear violation of rocket's dogma about everything being player generated. I like that I'm not given objectives, and therefore everything I do is of my own prerogative. But it is not an excuse to underdevelop the environment. I want a world that's filled with context about the situation that I am in, so I can explore it. Otherwise, it's just Chernarus with zombies, which eventually reduces itself to "free for all deathmatch." It should bear the look and consequence of a landscape ravaged by human disaster.

 

I really couldn't have put it better myself.

[creeperbane 26]

I would love to have the highways clogged with broken cars some fixable some totaled.  The clogged streets would give someone legitimate reason NOT to take a car.