What, exactly, is the point of this game?

[quobble 175]

Yet another person that doesnt understand what a true sandbox game is...

 

http://www.allmystery.de/dateien/vo54860,1246345100,Spongebob__Imagination_by_kssael.png

Edited December 31, 2013 by =GS=Quobble

[nereus77 59]

well considering we have no effect on the world around us this is not a sandbox just an open world pvp deathmatch...so i guess the point of the game would be cherno/balota circlejerk and thats all it looks like it will ever be.

 

sandbox means we can build and alter the world around us...hence the term SANDBOX(you know like what kids play in and make castles)

it really makes me face palm every time you or rocket goes this is a sandbox when it is clearly not a sandbox its just a pvp deathmatch with an open world

Eh, the game isn't finished yet. Its alpha, ie the very basics work. No bells and whistles have been added. In no way can you say "that's all it will ever be" without seeing the finished product.

 

Look we don't even know what will be possible in the finished product. Building bases, more challenging survival mechanics, advanced medical system, agricultural and subsistance farming.... Its an ambitious project that needs time to develop.

[xX_fr0st-w0lf_Xx (DayZ) 343]

There are three prerequisites for winning DayZ

1. Find a Mosin

2. Find a long range scope

3. Find a good camping spot.

Congrats you have won Day Z.

The mentality of 85% of players  on dayz.

 

And you can't blame them. 

[Etherimp 1323]

The mentality of 85% of players  on dayz.

 

And you can't blame them. 

 

 

No.. but you can blame their parents.

[nickholder85@gmail.com 19]

It's up to you how you play it, no quests or anything, you make up your own narrative and play how you like. At the moment my 'quest' is visiting all the towns to find out what loot is about, how to get to places and learning the map. I like meeting up with strangers and encounters with bandits.

 

A huge amount of features aren't even implemented yet such as vehicles, hunting etc so it will only get deeper the further into development it goes.

 

Just...use your imagination..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTn7xtVsE6U

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

Well you know that old saying: If you're bored then you're boring.

[OMGitsSexyChase 41]

So... I bought DayZ Standalone over the holidays.  And, I must say... it's got some really great highs and some pretty bad lows.  I know it's in Alpha and all, so my question here isn't really related to that.

 

My question is... what's the point exactly to this game?  I can't really figure out what I'm supposed to be doing or trying to do.  I mean, even after a week of playing, I've pretty much figured out how to keep my character alive, make them healthy, find some guns and stuff, etc... I've died a few times along the way.  I've gotten into some PvP exchanges.  But... am I missing something?

 

Maybe the thing I'm looking for just hasn't been implemented yet, seeing as it's an Alpha and all.  But I'm really struggling to understand what the grand scheme is.  Am I supposed to be trying to make it to some Heli-vac or am I supposed to find some buddies to rebuild civilization?  I mean, what's the end goal going to be?

 

I ask this, because the way these servers are set up really kind of boggles my mind.  You've got this huge map, which is great, but then you have BF numbers in them.  And they don't seem to be persistent.  And even if they were, is 40 players really enough to make any sort of persistence within the server something to want to build in?  I mean, I could move my entire clan into the game and take up all of that server space.  This doesn't seem to be enough to give us that MadMax, Walking Dead, post apocalypse, zombie infestation sort of experience.

 

There has to be more to this planned than just eating, drinking, dealing with bandits, and dodging zombies.  Because the more I think about how awesome this game could be... the more I realize if that's all that is planned, then it appears to be a totally wasted opportunity.  I'm already sort of bored with this rinse and repeat setup.  I mean... if that's all there is... then I've technically beaten this game several times already.

 

 

 

 

You clearly play by yourself, grab some friends and take up banditry, mug some people and Enjoy the finer things in life like making someone drink disinfectant, or eat a rotten banana

Edited December 31, 2013 by OMGitsSexyChase

[VahidkinG 192]

i think what makes the game better , is the things i write below  : 

 

• a ranking system or something that show the best survivor
• a gorup or clan system
• Clan Wars and base building 
• More pve

Edited December 31, 2013 by VahidkinG

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

Uhg. Ranking. People have such antiquated ideas about video games.

[SolidOwlPL 37]

 

i think what makes the game better , is the things i write below  : 

 

• a ranking system or something that show the best survivor
• a gorup or clan system
• Clan Wars and base building 
• More pve

 

 

 

This guy. This isn't LoL.

 

This is a survival game - let's keep it that way.

[xX_fr0st-w0lf_Xx (DayZ) 343]

No.. but you can blame their parents.

No you can blame the lack of things to do in the game at the moment. 

[Zascha-Geriko 6]

well considering we have no effect on the world around us this is not a sandbox just an open world pvp deathmatch...so i guess the point of the game would be cherno/balota circlejerk and thats all it looks like it will ever be.

 

sandbox means we can build and alter the world around us...hence the term SANDBOX(you know like what kids play in and make castles)

it really makes me face palm every time you or rocket goes this is a sandbox when it is clearly not a sandbox its just a pvp deathmatch with an open world

 

I'm going to have to agree with Soulesseye on this one.  This game doesn't really come off as a Sandbox right now, and nothing I have read in the "things to come" thread has lead me to believe it is a Sandbox either.

 

It does kind of feel like Open World PvP Deathmatch, though.  In fact, it feels like I'm playing Arma 2, except I gotta eat and stuff.  Hopefully this will change at some point in time... but anyway.

 

I think the reason I'm having trouble figuring out what the point is, is because just like in Deathmatch, there is no point.... except to kill the other guy.  I think the reason why I can't find a solid point... is because I'm looking for there to be a point... when there is no point actually designed into the game.

 

You guys are sort of mixing up what a video game Sandbox actually is.  A Sandbox is not a game where you can have whatever objective you want.  A Sandbox is a game that has many potential objectives that you can experience at different times and ways in whatever order you want, as opposed to a Themepark, that has a very directed on-rails experience.  They are different in execution... but the thing they both have in common... is that they both have objectives in the first place.

 

"Surviving" is not an objective to base your video game on.  You do that by default in all games.  You can't say, "The objective is to not see the Game Over screen."  That would be dumb.... and pointless.... and its kind of lazy design if you ask me.

 

You can't call a game a Sandbox just by saying you can do whatever you want in the game.  I can do whatever I want in any game.  But my decisions don't describe the game.  This game isn't a Sandbox.  At least not right now.  Maybe the aim is for it to be one in the future, perhaps when it isn't in Alpha.  But again - nothing I've read about the game or have experienced the game has lead me to believe it is anything but PvP Deathmatch with some eating and drinking.

 

Which would be fine... I suppose.  It's just I was kind of expecting this to be... more.

Edited December 31, 2013 by Zascha-Geriko

[The Aquatic Land Walrus 565]

Also, finding a can opener.

I find way too many can openers. In fact, I have a full backpack full of food.

3 cans of beans

2 cans of spaghetti

1 can of tuna

1 can of sardines

2 full bags of rice

2 full boxes of cereal

A canteen

2 sodas

3 bananas (Fresh)

3 apples (Fresh)

1 kiwi (Fresh)

Mosin with 1 bullet, and a bayonet

Medkit

2 can openers. Suck it.

[Gerandar 212]

The point of the game is to survive sadly many only enjoy grieving other ppl atm and this probably wont go away till some standards besides death matches get put in.

 

the only way they are going to stop me from shooting everyone I see is to make it so my bullets dont hurt other players. short of that if I see someone I shoot them and I expect the same treatment from them.

[frosti 2165]

 

What, exactly, is the point of this game?

 

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear lamentation of coast care bears.

[thaiauxn 0]

OP is struggling with an existential crisis... his screen is grey and fading, the lights are all going out in the world even when we're healthy! What is the point! He has stared into the abyss, and it inspired in him nothing!

 

-5 to health regen.

[jjw100 34]

Firstly, none of us are actually playing the DayZ game. We are alpha testing an early access title.

 

This game is going to include many of the features of the mod. The old mod site described the game as 1. Scavenge. 2 Kill bandits/zombies 3. Survive. Really, that's it. That is all there is to this game.

 

But I like the Lego analogy, because if you get bored in a sandbox game then You. Have. No. Imagination. Someone may ask what the purpose of a box of Lego pieces is, confused because there is no instructions or clear goal like if you opened the box to board game like monopoly for example.

 

There will never be a 'goal' or 'objective' to the game. Just survive as long as you can with the tools the game gave you. 

 

Now you may be thinking "That sound really boring, it's really easy to survive in the alpha right now and zombies are no threat or even fun to kill." And you would be right to an extent.

 

Here are some features the mod had which added long term goals to survival to make projects to work towards during survial to make it more challenging and fun.

 

*Tents/Stashes - Use these to stock pile gear, hide them in the forest and return to them after you get killed to re-supply quicker. That way you are not just playing for your current character, but your future characters too.

 

*Vehicles/Helis - These used to be quite time consuming to repair and refuel. Repairing a vehicle from a broken state to fixed provided me hours of fun in the mod as I or my squad would run around trying to get all the right parts together after discovering it.

 

*High end gear - The mod had rare and high end items that kept a player searching around (ghillie suits, e-tools, Range-finder, NVGs, high-end guns/ammo)

 

So, once that stuff is implemented to the Alpha it will give us a lot more to keep us busy. Once you have everything listed above comes the real challenge of how to stay busy or how to keep from being bored in this game. Now of course once you have all this stuff you have to hold onto it right? And there will be plenty of people that are going to find your camp and try to raid it. If you have stockpiled tonnes of gear and holding onto it you must be playing on a low-pop server.

 

The people that say "I have all the high end gear and can survive so I have essentially 'finished' this game, I'm bored, what do I do now?"  have no imagination and are missing the point of a game like DayZ.

 

Here are some things which have kept me busy having fun in the mod once me and my squad had bases/gear/vehicles/helis:

 

*Start a war or feud with another group, raid their base. This kept me and my team entertained for weeks until the other group got tired of us dominating them and left the server lol

*Try to go all hero style and offer help to newbies. Give them rides, give them supplies. Patch them up and send them on their way.

*Hunt bandits (more challenge/fun than hunting newbies) go looking for groups of bandits preying on newbies. Sniper hill in elektro used a be a good place to check 

*Start a Coast Patrol or Cherno Police Force group and restore order to chernarus for a few hours

*Start a bandit group and create chaos for a few hrs.

*start a trading or medical post for a few hrs. protect it from bandits.

*take over a military base for period, seeing how many people you can fend off

* do silly stuff. eg gather a massive train of zeds and have someone run them over in tractor.

*work in a team, use a 'bait' player to gauge peoples intentions, then have your snipers hit them if they turn hostile. 

*rig a car-bomb onto a car then leave it parked somewhere where people will find it and wait. used to do this on DayZ Caribou

*go all predator on people. stalk them and whisper over direct "i see you" then watch them freak out.

*use satchel charges.

*use your imagination

 

and maybe if you can afford it go play the mod or some of the arma3 spinoffs like breaking point while DayZ SA gets fleshed out.

[wgaf 251]

To highlight man's inhumanity to man. 

[lipemr 160]

well, the OP just discovered the characteristic that made the mod shatter in more than 15 sub mods, the lack of end game.

Well, you can always play autistic and immaginate things ingame, but at the end of the day, dayz vanilla is boring as hell, i only play it for nostalgia.

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

well, the OP just discovered the characteristic that made the mod shatter in more than 15 sub mods, the lack of end game. Well, you can always play autistic and immaginate things ingame, but at the end of the day, dayz vanilla is boring as hell, i only play it for nostalgia.

 

Dude, shut the fuck up. Nobody likes you. I don't appreciate your use of autism as some kind of joke, and your overwhelmingly negative posts are getting tired and old. If you're really so fucking sad about losing $30, give me your paypal account and I'll transfer $30 bucks to you. Fuck.

Edited January 1, 2014 by SalamanderAnder

[MystoganXIX 78]

This is a mainly a zombie survival game is it not? Pretty much the main idea or goal of zombie survival game is to... you know, survive.

 

Designing a game around the objective of survival is not "lazy" or pointless. The only reason people at the moment may see it that way is because it isn't actually all that hard to survive. (Excluding deaths caused by other players)

 

Generally games that revolve around the objective of survival make it difficult to achieve that objective, but due to this being alpha and all, I guess we wouldn't discover as many bugs if we're too busy being torn apart by insanely difficult zombies. I'll expect that survival will be much harder and likely steal alot of attention away from the deathmatch aspect of this game when the finished product is released. When people are worried about being swarmed with zombies (that don't die from 1 bullet), they likely won't run around shooting at anything that moves anymore.

 

In my past few days of playing this game, I only died to zombies twice. Once was the first time I spawned in. (Spawned right near a zombie and discovered that its pretty much impossible to kill a zombie in a fistfight) And the other time was when I was so injured from fighting other people that I just decided to feed the zombie... seeing as how I was almost dead and had nothing of value. Annoyingly enough, I actually had to search around to find the damn thing. Wouldn't surprise me if there are more players than there are zombies on populated servers atm.

Edited January 1, 2014 by MystoganXIX

[wisper 61]

Hey SalamanderAnder, can I have $30.00 too? I promise, I'll be real negative from now on :p

Not my suggestion, but I can't remember where I read it, to give credit: Have 6 billon zs and a server-wide countdown that includes all players' z-kills. Forget about surviving, let's see if humanity can survive :)

[wgaf 251]

To show the necessity of the leviathan. 

Edited January 1, 2014 by HCHellCaptain

[Lancer 2-2 14]

I think the question we need to ask if can the engine handle what we want it to do?

 

I mean those of us saying the point of the game is to "survive" and "make it as you will" are more than likely ex-mod players or still are.

 

The problem I foresee is with the game engine, can the ArmA engine really be updated to compete with modern zombie survival games or massive player based games such as Dead Rising 3 or (I'm thinking in terms of large maps with hundreds of players) Planetside 2. Then you have up-coming Witcher 3 which looks to be set in a large, beautiful open-world and I have to ask if the ArmA engine can handle the DayZ we want or need.

 

I don't think we can really just market the mod, new players who paid for a game generally look for an introduction, a story of some sort with an aim, goals, objectives and eventually an end game.

 

Now I can see an introduction movie can easily be added, coming up with a story to introduce you to the world and what has happened is also easy.

 

But what about player goals/objectives, how can we communicate them more clearly?

Also an End Game must be carefully handled, we don't want players achieving it, getting bored and quitting thinking there is not point to the game anymore.

 

Also can the DayZ engine be updated to the point where it can be added to?

 

I'm thinking expansions, so maybe a year or more after the games full release we could see an expansion which basically opens up the map south or east adding in a whole island or expanding the map North or West adding more inland territories for players to spawn/explore keeping the game feeling new, fresh... I mean whenever I got bored of the Cherno map I would join a Namalsk server etc..

 

At the end of the day, DayZ is... what you make of it. Basically a survival game where you try to keep your character alive as long as possible.

One thing I liked in the mod which I am hoping to see return is whenever you logged in some text would appear stating which day it was... this is important in seeing how well you are doing and annoying every time you died and saw... Day 0...

 

I just hope that the ArmA engine can handle this development and it won't just end up being a paid for mod.

[Al Bobo 53]

I have survived 5 days now. I have basically the best gear you can find at the moment. M4 with acog, bipod and other stuff, ballistic helmet, best military clothes, ammo box full of ammo, protector case, all kinds of pills and medical items, saline bag etc. Only need to find a bulletproof vest and I'm all set. My next "mission" is to go in a big city to loot food and get out alive. Then I will read a book under a pine tree for some time. Then...? Maybe I go make some freshly spawned guy happy by giving him a magnum (without ammo) and stalk him to see how he behaves and shoot him if I don't like what I see :P

 Surviving in DayZ is like a bell curve; first you are willing to take risks since you don't have nothing to lose, then when you are just geared up you play it safe and finally when you want to create more content to yourself you start to take bigger and bigger risks until BANG!

 

Edit: at least best items imo, MystoganXIX :D

Edited January 1, 2014 by Al Bobo