No surrender

[leopolo 0]

Providing an option to be neutralized completely removes any sense of immersion from a game that is supposed to provide an authentically sensational experience. Here's why:

Once you open the can of worms that is non-lethal diplomacy under [intense] pressure, you have to take into account the social nature of human instinct: submission of one's physical form is a very intimate act: one meaningless in a video game where the sole attachment the player is supposed to have is to their body.

 

In a game with check points and a story, the player becomes attached the character's character; Imprisonment in such games provides something that can drive the plot and engage the mind. In an open world survival game, the obvious solution to every engagement is to indicate surrender. after all, if the game's combat is at all balanced (which it should be), there is just as much of a chance that one combatant is killed as the other. However if one avatar surrenders immediately, they have enormously increased chance of survival: the other player is faced with the following possible actions and consequences that demonstrate how any competitive player would take advantage of this system:

1) Not trusting: Open fire from a distance: they aren't anywhere near point blank range and find it difficult to kill the yielding player before they return fire now that hostility has been established. The same as if surrender weren't an option.

2) Not trusting: Leave: nothing happens. Would be the same if the the mechanism weren't in place.

3) Trusting: Approach: the non-yielding player approaches the kneeling player, there is a third player (and possibly a few more) already allied with the supposed submitting player. As the non-submitting player draws near they are picked off easily.

 

These scenarios are not problematic in themselves. The following scenarios are problematic and are from the perspective of the naive gamer looking for a hardcore experience:

1) Confusion: As our optimistic hero approaches a surrendered person, he is faced with confusion: if he is smart he will realize that this very well could be a trap. He compares the situation to real life. He has been playing the game for a couple days and has a fairly powerful gun. If reality were in the state of "zombie apocalypse" the only reason anyone would make such a gesture of open surrender is that they are indeed acting in desperation or that they wish to seek a mutually beneficial companionship. While ambush is still a possibility and the man submitting could be only doing so under the force of gunpoint, there would be no reason for our hero's fancied version himself to consider this because he most likely has never crossed paths with such despicable criminals himself, because had he, he would most likely be dead.

 

Coming back to the reality of virtual reality, he decides to trust them. He remains confused because he is aware that he would have approached the other player even if they hadn't been able to surrender given a lack of option, if they did not open fire.

2) Glee: A victim. He doesn't have a gun but he might have other precious loot.

4) Hopelessness in the product of DayZ: The point of the game is to die: if you can't die there is no thrill. Another more subtler gratification of the game is to kill. If you allow yourself to be handcuffed by strangers robbers during the apocalypse...well, you wouldn't have lasted this long.

 

PS

In the "frontier" stage of the apocalypse socialization is the death of the individual.

[rossums 2190]

I don't see what point you are trying to make.

The whole 'ambush' scenario is definitely something that happens in real life and has been used for centuries.

Oh, look at the poor merchant with his cart at the side of the road, wheel broken, should I help him?

It could be an ambush, he could genuinely be stuck, he might only want to rob you - either way, the entire point of the situation is that the 'enemy' appears to have surrendered and have willingly put themselves in a vulnerable position - that's where the skill and ability to deduce what the situation REALLY is on the part of the player is involved.

[Mos1ey 6301]

I don't see what point you are trying to make.

 

This.^

 

I genuinely don't understand the point that you were trying to make.

 

RE: 'If you allow yourself to be handcuffed by strangers robbers during the apocalypse...well, you wouldn't have lasted this long.'

 

Anything is better than death, so if you're outnumbered and outgunned surely the option to be restrained and robbed is better than being shot. No?

[Gwraspe 318]

have some beans mZLY

[enforcer1975 1111]

The whole 'ambush' scenario is definitely something that happens in real life and has been used for centuries.

 

One thing i can read out if this is a player faking a surrender trying to lure in his "enemy" and communicating with his allies via voice program so they know when he gets close enough to shoot which brings us to another topic here in the forum. IRL it would be obvious if you were to communicate with someone, even if you had a full duplex radio that kept your hands free you would see a person talking to his device and you would become suspicious.

And of course it's just a virtual life and i can go back to my corpse anytime to pick up my stuff because my friends are guarding it.

Edited September 19, 2013 by Enforcer

[Cormyr 39]

OP, you realize all you really did was explain why it is an interesting addition to the game? hell yeah fake surrenders should happen! haha

[wild_man 4442]

I try read but my brain don't manage to find some point :huh:

[Karmaterror 982]

Surrender would be great imo. Endless possabilities for how it could be used and its very realistic. If a guy with a gun comes up to you irl and tells you to surrender or be shot....im sure you would lol.

 

As for the fake surrenders, and the communication with teammates....ok so talking away in TS is a little un-realistic however irl there would be so many ways you could indicate to your team to fire....a twitch, tilting your head, ect. If it was a fake surrender for an ambush then I assume your squad would have eyes on and read the situation from distance. The ambush could be achieved without any voice software.

 

Then for the people telling others to surrender, they could instruct the other person to say "go into the red brick house and surrender" then the ambushers plan would be totally screwed, and they would have to adapt or just abort and have the "bait" run for the hills.

[leopolo 0]

If you're going to have balanced combat, diplomacy isn't viable. Apocalypse develops from the point of the incident where it is most chaotic, social ties don't influence probability of survival immediately. Most of the population is going to die anyways and it is mostly chance as to whether any citizen survives. The beginning is the "New World," or colonization. Like in the colonization of the very initial colonization of the Americas, individuals had very similar overall chances of success as those of families and organization. Notably in history this period is the longest. During the apocalypse, this period is the shortest. People don't need to learn how to survive off the land, they need to worry about the logistics of equipment. While the basic requirements of the body in antiquity will remain constant, the skills required to satisfy them are dramatically reduced.

 

Given the threat of zombies, robbers, and murderers (not mutually exclusive), defense is the most important resource. Without weaponry people can't survive. They can't raid towns for food, they can't protect themselves from marauding bandits, etc. Since weaponry is vastly available and impossible to independently fabricate (compared to the past), the world is immediately divided into the armed and the weaponless in a matter of days after the initial panic. Once this hierarchy is established, the colonization stage fades into the "frontier stage," where three groups exist. Two, the family and the criminal exist from the "old world." Among these preexisting groups the rate of the survival of each party member is dramatically reduced compared to the new group, the individual. These people can have been from anywhere in the old society. This is the world of DayZ, this is the character the game must serve to.

Edited September 19, 2013 by leopolo

[enforcer1975 1111]

As for the fake surrenders, and the communication with teammates....ok so talking away in TS is a little un-realistic however irl there would be so many ways you could indicate to your team to fire....a twitch, tilting your head, ect. If it was a fake surrender for an ambush then I assume your squad would have eyes on and read the situation from distance. The ambush could be achieved without any voice software.

 

Forcing the mike to open in game every time you talk in any voice program or everytime something is sent via mike without the ability to turn it off like in ACRE would counter this trick. Just how would you make them add this into the game and how big would the outcry be from the people losing their only advantage?

Edited September 19, 2013 by Enforcer

[Karmaterror 982]

So in ACRE if i pressed the TS chat key it activates direct chat ingame? I honestly think that would be awsomes, sure people would cry at first, but if its universal then its completely fair. It would mean being a lot more carefull when executing a "fake" surrender, and a lot more planning (for a team doing it anyways).

 

Isnt having the team of friendly players with you just as much an advantage as being able to communicate with them.......VOIP is just a bonus :P

[enforcer1975 1111]

There are different buttons, one for radio and one for local chat. If you press your TS button you speak locally, if you press the radio button you speak locally and the voice is also transmitted to everyone in range who is on the same channel.

[colekern 1364]

I still don't understand your point. I don't know about you, but surrendering whenever you're outnumbered and outgunned seems smart.

[enforcer1975 1111]

I still don't understand your point. I don't know about you, but surrendering whenever you're outnumbered and outgunned seems smart.

 

I don't know if you meant me but surrendering in a game where life has literally no value except the gear there is no real meaning in surrendering, you just start over again...angry is what most players would think.

And beeing outgunned or outbumbered doesn't mean anything either...if you are along they take your stuff and will most likely kill you anyway just for fun. Or if you are part of a team you just call them via any kind of communication if they are close enough and ambush them yourself. A lot of things will never happen in a game as they do IRL. A lot of players just live out their fantasies in game because they can't just go out killing people on the streets if they had a weapon IRL because it would have consequences...that's the major difference between DayZ and RL.