I Proclaim a Humble Opinion

[DKR 104]

After a quick synopsis of my recent encounters in the SA, I'd like to give my opinion on the future of DayZ.

 

> Held up 2 players, dropped an axe on the ground several meters away. Told them on the count of 3 to run after the axe and kill the other. Only one would survive. Ironically, the guy with only his fists knocked the axe guy out and won. I let him go with some gear.

 

> Met numerous bambis trying to punch me for no reason. I assume they're having fun or attempting to coerce strangers to take their life so they get a better spawn.

 

> Witnessed another bandit forcing two players to fist fight. He murdered both of them and I hid under the bridge by Solch as he walked overhead to the south.

 

> Met numerous survivors, most of them panicked or pleaded with me to not shoot them, which I did not. A few even tried to attack me with only their fists even though I was geared up with a helmet and M4.

 

======

 

I have formed an early, albeit premature, opinion on DayZ standalone from my personal experience. I must admit that while my opinon is generally positive, I still understand the concerns of many about the game's future.

 

DayZ vs DayZ mod >

First off, let's stop calling it DayZ Standalone. The game is called DayZ and we should reserve the additional descriptor for the mod. The word Standalone was a nifty addon word designed to differentiate it from the mod, which, in my opinion, has been rendered redundant since the Standalone's release. Ahhhh...even I can't stop calling it the Standalone. Okay, from here on out, the SA is just DayZ to me.

 

With the mod's support for private servers, survivors struggled through a wide range of experiences. The Shoot on Sight mentality was born early but not out of random chance. I concluded early that the SoS mentality was simply the predictable consequence of a game lacking real PvE, which was promoted even further by the militarization of private servers.

 

The problem wasn't that SoS was required, necessary, or even advantageous in the beginning. It BECAME advantageous to shoot on sight because PvE did not exist and you could do everything in the game by yourself. You didn't need anyone's help to loot Cherno. You could walk in, loot 4-5 buildings, aggro only 3 zombies, evade them easily, and literally walk out with an Alice Pack, 6 cans of beans, 4 sodas, an Ak-74, and various medical supplies. PvE was too easy, which ended up being boring, which led to a natural inclination to promote combat by attacking other survivors. With the lack of PvE, it wasn't just unnecessary to team up with someone, it actually became advantageous to kill others. It was SO easy to loot places that you'd be dumb to just LET someone take half of it. Kill them. Take it all. Eventually...the other guy adopted that same paradigm...and so now...no one needs anyone, so everyone kills someone.

 

That's the mod. Fast forward to the Stan--...wait. I mean fast forward to DayZ. Yes, its only in Alpha. Yes, the zombies aren't finished and they're not too terribly threatening. Yes, a lot of folks are just shooting on sight. Yes it's rather easy to loot places.

 

But...

 

Disease, starvation, dehydration, sickness, and environmental effects are all ramped up and brought to the forefront in an epic attempt to make DayZ about survival and not just combat. Just WAIT for crafting, camping, and the various updates throughout the game. You will NEED someone's help to "walk into Cherno" and loot buildings because now...every building is enterable. There are more zombies (planned to be) and other players can be ANYWHERE....in any building...on any floor. You'll need backup!

 

All of the little worthless towns and villages that served merely as ambient set pieces are now a destination. Vanilla DayZ will be, in my opinon, the pinnacle of surivor games when it's finished.

 

The problem comes in when all of us "get used" to the private servers and all of their mods, and 25 barracks on each airstrip, and military loot in every other building, and we all spawn with M16s and camo gear and a map.....I have nothing against private servers, I actually LOVE the customization they provide.

 

======

 

I'm only saying this....in my first 20 hours of the Stan--ahh damnit! In my first 20 hours of DayZ I have met, conversed with, helped, and been helped by more players than the entire 1 1/2 years of playing the mod. I'm not saying the SoS mentality has disappeared...I'm just saying that I think Dean Rocket Hall has done some great things to blur the lines between a Hero and a Bandit. I also believe that future updates will bridge the two polarized play styles.

 

PvE is going to make a big appearance in this game. Expect a wide range of players, play styles, experiences, and motives. While the mod has proven to be a success, I can understand the hesitation to "go all in" emotionally on this game. I, however, have complete faith in the Standa---- god damnit.

 

.....In DayZ

Edited January 9, 2014 by DKR

[hannibaldaplaya 1095]

The fists are overpowered and neeeeeeeeeeeeeed fixed. Its so trollish and unrealistic. Oh, I punched you in the back of the head and you're knocked out cold despite your ballistic helmet! Makes sense, right?

[meat pie 632]

dayz the mod has tos of things that standalone (I cant stop calling it that its to soon) has,more guns,cars and what not are all things standalone does not have.

 

so I am going to keep playing both

[Hetstaine 10852]

Just call it 'the sa'..it's easier ;)

 

Let me sum up my experience so far.

 

The king is dead, long live the king.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Hetstaine

[Karmaterror 982]

I think its good that the survival aspect is coming to the forefront more. I remember way back when Rocket said he wanted to make a survival simulator. But that they added the zombies to make it more "mainstream". So it makes sense that those features should take priority. Personally i wouldnt mind if we could only find pistols in Dayz lol, i would prefer not to have all these military weapons and make it focus more on plain survival.  

[Hurricane43 61]

Great OP. Nice read and agree with you see the rooadmap with the things being listed it is going to be oone heck of a survival game indeed. To gather camping, crafting, gardening things during the day, and loot buildings to make ends meat, then venture off to a small town for the night and try to survive that extra day with disease elements and such along with the ramped up zombies is going to be one helluva treat. I am already at 95 hours and enjoy it immensly, We didnt talk about hunting in the woods either...

Edited January 9, 2014 by Hurricane43

[Chungmugong 5]

I think the OP brings up a lot of great points. Well said, Player vs. Environment is definely the sorely missed aspect in the mod. That's not to say teaming up doesnt have ANY advantages... it certainly does have some. However, as you said, the mod is entirely survivable (and thrive-able? is that a word?) solo, to a fault.

I'd hate to see DayZ force us to team up, a la WoW. There should be plenty of room for Lone Wolves. But, creating MORE incentive and reason to reach out to fellow survivors wouldn't hurt a damn bit. What makes DayZ great is the random encounters: packs of bandits that take over a town, packs of heroes helping mainly themselves, helpful ones, the lone (but lawful) survivalist, the psychopath; all great roles to be played.

What I see over and over (and argued against) was people whining about KoS. But i don't know if they are REALLY whining about KoS so much as grievers. While there will always be grievers, I think the one thing that spawns grievers more than anything is boredom. That's why you see a lot of it now, but I think it will level out quite a bit as content and challenge (not artifical "I'm hungry every two minutes") increases.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Chungmugong

[DKR 104]

I think the OP brings up a lot of great points. Well said, Player vs. Environment is definely the sorely missed aspect in the mod. That's not to say teaming up doesnt have ANY advantages... it certainly does have some. However, as you said, the mod is entirely survivable (and thrive-able? is that a word?) solo, to a fault.

I'd hate to see DayZ force us to team up, a la WoW. There should be plenty of room for Lone Wolves. But, creating MORE incentive and reason to reach out to fellow survivors wouldn't hurt a damn bit. What makes DayZ great is the random encounters: packs of bandits that take over a town, packs of heroes helping mainly themselves, helpful ones, the lone (but lawful) survivalist, the psychopath; all great roles to be played.

What I see over and over (and argued against) was people whining about KoS. But i don't know if they are REALLY whining about KoS so much as grievers. While there will always be grievers, I think the one thing that spawns grievers more than anything is boredom. That's why you see a lot of it now, but I think it will level out quite a bit as content and challenge (not artifical "I'm hungry every two minutes") increases.

 

Well said, great points.

 

I, too, enjoy Dean's paradigm of "not forcing players to adopt a specific playstyle". Lone wolves, bandits, heroes...etc all have a place in the zombie apocalypse.

[serenityrick 218]

Great read and great points.

 

I'm really excited for more zombies and generally tougher PvE in general.

 

Right now we got it pretty easy. Water is disease free. Can't get infected. Food is plentiful. It's easy to sweep an entire village in like 15 minutes..

 

Once it takes like an hour to scavenge a small village by crawling around in fear of aggro-ing the entire "undead" populous, having to worry about boiling water to not get sick.. stock piling anti-biotics and vaccines to stop from dying from horrible infections, I think this game will really come into it's own even moreso than it already is even in it's alpha state.

 

The key really is the zombies though. If they are just as inconsequential as in the mod then I'll be pretty disappointed. I invision getting cornered and swarmed by dozens of them if I'm not being careful. unloading my handgun and desparately trying to reload bullets into spent magazines while they keep piling into a building I'm in would be hectic and awesome. In the mod you could easily outrun them and lose them. 

 

To make them dangerous and feared I think the first thing they need to do is limit your sprinting/running.. And then make a Zed's top speed somewhere between a player's Jog and Running.. so that if you can't lose them when you get tired of sprinting, you have to fight them off or die. It would force people to be much more careful around towns and more importantly promote co-operative gameplay for more than just co-op banditry. 

 

Finding a can of beans and soda would be much more meaningful if you have spend much of your night sneaking around and shitting your pants when a zombie turns to face you. Coming up with an escape route incase you do aggro them will also be key.

Not to mention that if they were that dangerous in numbers, people might be less likely to shoot on sight as shooting your firearm would alert a mass of zombies to your location.

[Renji121 11]

guys, just chill out, drink a soda, and die from instabetes, like i did at green mountain, also Dayz will just keep having a KoS Mentality because they want to defend them selves instead of communicating, also the pve aspect of sa is not coming for a VERY long time.

[xX_fr0st-w0lf_Xx (DayZ) 343]

OP you fascinate me. Along with everyone else that things koss will be cured in time. because it won't and never will be. I don't want you to have expectations of PvE enviroment be crushed, so I'm telling you flat out.

 

Kos is here to stay and will only get worse as time goes by.

 

why?

 

because people don't kos because of the lack of survival, people kos because it's fun and there is a lack of things to do. If you add things to do people will kos while they are doing these new things.

[DKR 104]

OP you fascinate me. Along with everyone else that things koss will be cured in time. because it won't and never will be. I don't want you to have expectations of PvE enviroment be crushed, so I'm telling you flat out.

 

Kos is here to stay and will only get worse as time goes by.

 

why?

 

because people don't kos because of the lack of survival, people kos because it's fun and there is a lack of things to do. If you add things to do people will kos while they are doing these new things.

 

I appreciate your perspective. I actually think you just may be right. But let me just pick something out of my OP that...I dunnno, maybe you missed. Maybe not. I'll pluck it out and put it down here in bold for you.

 

"I'm not saying the SoS mentality has disappeared...I'm just saying that I think Dean Rocket Hall has done some great things to blur the lines between a Hero and a Bandit. I also believe that future updates will bridge the two polarized play styles."

 

I was quite clear with my opinion, or at least I thought. I think they'll be a range of playstyles, rather than 95% SoS bandits and the rest heroes. Key words there are: blur and bridge.

 

SoS, or KoS as you put it, is absolutely fun! But I'm confident that in time...there will not only be new motives and reasons to NOT SoS, but also new playstyles entirely that we haven't even discussed or thought of yet!

 

Again, SoS won't disappear. Never said that, in fact, never implied it. Its just my opinion that there will be an influx of more friendly players, considering both the new features of the game and the new players to the game will add depth to playstyles...rather than just absolutely everyone SoS...there will be some in-betweeners, if you will, and more friendlies.

 

I think.

Edited January 9, 2014 by DKR

[Scootch 19]

i would prefer not to have all these military weapons and make it focus more on plain survival.  

 

I 2nd that & tend to play somewhat rp style. I only really gather the type of stuff that would be in my RL neck of the woods instead of playing GI Zombie.

Also pretty sure if there was an apocalypse and I saw someone running through the woods with a motor cycle helmet on they'd be the first I'd shoot.

[emory 0]

I'm really hoping that certain additions are made to promote teamwork. Two things I hope for: tons of zombies that respond very well to sound (it'll make you think twice before starting a firefight) and town construction. Not like building towns, but fortification mainly. A good example of what I mean: Woodbury from TWD. I'd love to have a town like that, kinda like trade cities in the DayZ mod.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Bit

[DKR 104]

I'm really hoping that certain additions are made to promote teamwork. Two things I hope for: tons of zombies that respond very well to sound (it'll make you think twice before starting a firefight) and town construction. Not like building towns, but fortification mainly. A good example of what I mean: Woodbury from TWD. I'd love to have a town like that, kinda like trade cities in the DayZ mod.

 

Good ideas!