Replacement for "Hide Body" option

[Publik 404]

Spawned from this, which links to a post Rocket made mentioning a "hardcore" hive that has "Hide Body" disabled. I'm of the opinion that if DayZ has a different difficulty, it shouldn't be a "hardcore" mode. Hardcore is default, if people want to play on the pussy hive the devs should add easy mode later. I'm also of the opinion that hiding problems with separate hives is another shitty move that doesn't address anything. Instead of finding a way to fix a feature, there's talk from Rocket of just pushing the problem in the corner and pretending it doesn't exist. Like 3PP:OFF servers, it's a lazy and boring non-fix.

 

As such, instead of just turning off "Hide Body", why not actually FIX IT???

 

Here's the solution:

• Able to drag bodies.
• Bodies decay after a day or so and persist through server restarts. Bodies begin to attact bugs/flies after an hour or so, and being around them leaves you with a chance to become diseased. The chance to become diseased increases with time left unburied. Rotting bodies could cause vomiting and other status effects if left for too long. Items on the body (clothes mainly) will become more and more damaged as the body rots. Corpses could also attract zombies.
• Shovel in hands -> Dig Shallow Grave. Drag body near Shallow Grave and select Bury Body. Grave remains for a half a day and can be dug up, revealing a corpse that can be inspected for cause of death and possibly looted. The longer a body remains in a grave, the less info is revealed when inspected and the more items are lost, if it is lootable. There is a slight chance that being near a shallow grave can cause sickness/disease. Digging a Shallow Grave costs energy/water (from food). A Filled Shallow Grave appears as an area of disturbed dirt.

• Shovel in hands -> Dig Grave. Drag body near and you can Bury Body. Grave remains for 1/4 of a day and can only be dug up with another shovel. The corpse decomposes faster, the grave is harder to see, and it will not cause sickness/disease. The grave costs more energy to dig than a Shallow Grave.

For those wondering how "hard" this would be to do, here are some of the possible requirements for it and where they could possibly be reused:

• Bodies are dummy AI that replace a player when killed and can be dragged as if unconscious.
• Bodies can apply status effects to players nearby. Could be reused for stuff like contaminated water/ground or for shit, ground or thrown.
• Zombies can be attracted to things like corpses/shallow graves (could be reused for "points of interest", like street lamps that turn on or loud noises like a generator being started).
• Shallow/Deep Grave is a placeable object that either deforms terrain below it or can cut through the terrain. If cutting through terrain, could reuse for underground building. Placing the object could be reused for simple base/structure building, like placing sandbags or barbed wire.

 

Edit: For atmosphere/RP:

Sticks can be added to a grave as a grave marker. Paper/pen can be added to include a name/last words type thing.

 

What this adds for roleplayers: This is fairly obvious. If you kill a man you can bury him, hold a little ceremony, etc.

What this adds for bandits: Piles of corpses to show how large your "magazine" is, bait, viral warfare. If you don't take care of the bodies they could scare off your prey, so it adds an extra step in the process and freshens things up. It would also serve as a warning to others if, for example, the streets to Elektro were lined with shallow graves. You could also set up a toll road and use the graves as a means of scaring your victims.

What this adds for the Hardcore/Realism crowd: Bodies don't just magically sink into the ground. There are consequences for killing someone, and one of those consequences is you've gotta bury the guy.

What this adds for everyone else: Not a whole lot. If you kill a man in self defense and are traveling around, you don't really need to bury them, but someone might find the body and track you down for revenge.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Publik

[Damnyourdeadman 1045]

It would be funny if we see theese graves on a concrete floor...just saying.

Add a function where the undead can be attracted by the player corpse is a must,and also make it possible for them to destroy a corpse (gorge it up),but i don't think that would be accepted,because all the gear would be lost too or completely broken.

 

Edit:Maybe make coffin as a player made item,put the dead corpse inside and then take it to the desired location.Left click on the coffin and click the feature "set up grave",and then your grave like structure appears,with the corpse's name.Also make it do-able for players to leave notes-items(flowers,candles or anything else) inside them.If a player wishes simply to get rid of a body,I say give the option to burn it.The smoke will attract other players,and possibly zombies.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Damnyourdeadman

[Publik 404]

It would be funny if we see theese graves on a concrete floor...just saying.

Add a function where the undead can be attracted by the player corpse is a must,and also make it possible for them to destroy a corpse (gorge it up),but i don't think that would be accepted,because all the gear would be lost too or completely broken.

They'd probably need to make sure it's on dirt lol. They can tell that in code somewhere, since vehicles behave differently on dirt and you make different footstep sounds. As for zombies eating the corpse, I'm not really sure if they're that kind of zombie. Even if they would eat the corpse, who cares if people accept it or not? If zombies try to eat the body, let em. Just means if you kill someone you better be quick about looting their corpse lest the zombies get there first.

[frosti 2165]

I hide bodies only so the guy I killed can't respawn, go to his corpse and get his weapon back.

 

Maybe add option "ruin all items" and voila, body can stay there but with all items ruined.

[gangrenetvp 74]

I like the whole mechanic of the body, decomposition, and burial...

I'm still of the opinion that servers should have the 3rd person option though.

[Awruk 216]

I can't understand why you can't drag/pick up bodies. I remember playing Arma 2 tutorial and I'm pretty sure you could pick up wounded comrades and take them to safety. What the hell?