So With All The Books In The Game, Here Is An Idea To Put Them To Use.

[Slyguy65 499]

Man- "Capitol idea my boy do tell me this idea" *Wink*

Me- "It would be my pleasure"

 

So, im sure all of you have found tons of books around the game but say...wow these are sooooo spectacularly...boring, and some have even went so far as to RP as book hermits....well.

 

How bout this instead, wouldn't it be pretty awesome if books were actually useful?

For example if you have ever played the sims, you could read books for 2 things, entertainment and knowledge.

 

I think it would be AMAZING, if books could be implemented in a similar way in DayZ. You see, people have these things, called physical health, but also mental health. AAAAAaaand YEP you guessed it, being alone in a desolate zombie infested wasteland with murderous psychopaths....does not help your mental health. One of my other threads depicts a sort of intuition system which is essentially an alternative to morality but would still depend on something akin to mental health.

(http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/162224-long-post-the-intuition-system-and-how-it-can-work-within-dayzsa-read-before-flaming/)

 

HOW BOOKS WOULD BE USEFUL

Simple, just like lack of food and water make your physical health go away, lack of mental interaction makes your mental health go away, now as we all know reading isn't something you can just do in 5 seconds, (same with pooping YOU LISTENING? PAY ATTENTION DEVS POOPING BETTER NOT BE A 5 SECOND ANIMATION). So naturally you would need to find a safe place and to read. Ideally I would like to see the books be like Bethesda game books; as in have excerpts from them to read to entertain the player.

"Well shit I'll just have my character look at the book then AFK BOOM I BEAT YOUR SYSTEM".

N-word Joe PLEASE. As if it would be that easy.

 

HOW BOOKS WOULD OPERATE (If they actually had stuff to read and not just a timed animation)

Scenario: You are in the woods you have a book and you are low on psyche, so you sit down open the book and begin reading, this particular book has 5 pages to "read" (different books have different amounts of pages and therefore more useful/useless). So you sit down and just have your character stare at the page, well guess what after about 2 minutes you soaked up all the useful mental juice from that 1 or 2 pages that your character has been staring at. Now you have to flip the page, to get the next bit of mental juice from the next page or set of pages. Now you could just sit there for the 2 minutes but why not partake in the immersion. Alright so you read all of "Around the World in 80 dayz" good good, now you can keep that book for later for when you are low on mental health BUT it WILL have diminishing returns, the more times you look at the same page the less psyche you get from it, also you can get "stuffed" with mental entertainment too so people don't just grind book reading.

NOW REMEMBER THIS IS DAYZ EACH LIFE IS JUST THAT ITS OWN LIFE, so when you die your accumulated book knowledge dies as well so you can then go read the same books without worrying about diminishing returns. BUT there in lays the double edged sword. Say you have been alive FOREVER, and you read all the books you can find...as many times as you can...uh oh...I guess that means you will just have to...DUN DUN DUUUUN...talk to people, or atleast hang around them or something dealing with interaction. Of course there are like 30 different books in the game and you wouldn't need to read a book as often as food I would say mental health can be filled at twice the rate and diminish at half the rate of mental health. Allowing it to add a layer but not be over cumbersome, so breath that sigh of relief hermits, not to mention if they add music or other forms of mental health items besides books.

 

WHY A MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM WOULD IMPROVE GAME INTERACTION

As stated above, its simple and requires really only 2 things to satisfy, books/entertainment item, and human interaction. This will do two awesome things that will make the game a better experience.

 

1. People will actually be more likely to interact and try to make friends with people creating a more tribe like society (keyword being society) in the game (the way clans and groups of friends are already doing, but this system gives the new players and such an outlet to find others instead of browsing forums for teams).

 

2. The system has an alternative for the anti social built in, as the topic title states you can just use books or any other type of entertainment item they decide upon to keep mentally healthy instead of talking to people (introverted preferences be praised).

 

SURPRISE

3. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY it gives players another "stat" or "system" to maintain and another layer of survival.

 

Side note: I think I saw record in the game too...so imagine being able to listen to music to also satisfy your sanity, then when radios are added...imagine being able to be your servers very own DJ who plays classical music 24/7 as people murder eachother and kill zombies. Not to mention being a DJ broadcasting music will help keep people sane (for those who have radios of course) so all you hero players out there would have something to strive for if you are seeking to help as many as possible. Also you all know it would be fun to go book collecting too see what each one has to say. It fits so perfectly with the loot addiction this game already has.

 

P.S ya the title as you may have noticed just scratched the surface of possibilities but the main point is to say how cool it would be to add a mental health system that reflects the physical health system where you need to manage it just like your food and hunger needs.

 

P.S.S I want actions such as boiling water, and especially pooping to TAKE TIME, like a minute or 30 seconds AT LEAST, because garsh darn it I wanna catch people with their pants down (literally) and or punch them in the stomach while they poop to see if it knocks them out or put fresh spawns under the person pooping and make them lie there for more than 5 seconds and FEEL THE SHAME THE DIRTY BROWN SHAME!!!!

Edited January 28, 2014 by Slyguy65

[TedZ 424]

So, basically, your character will have more knowledge, so i think this is a pretty good idea, i'd be-able to teach my character things about zombies and it'd say if something if close, like zombies, from their trails, scents etc

 

Beanz

[Animosh 3]

So how do they get around copyright laws with these books? I highly doubt they have permission to re-print them

If I can read+ poop at the same time then I will join your cause

Edited January 28, 2014 by Animosh

[Dreypa 98]

My friend and I both carry a Bible as a good luck charm. I took a spray of M4 to the leg once and survived due to the bible being in my pants and it ate the rounds. Ruined the bible but saved me from hemorrhaging. 

[gerbilschooler 229]

All the books in the game WERE fully legible before... don't know what happened

[Guest]

That is quite a clever concept, and I like it,

 

Inb4 no skills haters 

[Maia (DayZ) 93]

If I can read+ poop at the same time then I will join your cause

I really dont know how this isn't already in the game.

[Old_Crow_Whiskey 119]

I think this is an awful idea... Forced reading in a video game? Is this the sort of thing teachers talk about in the teachers lounge? There are plenty of good rpgs out there for this sort of gameplay, also plenty of good books to read should one choose to do so. I really don't see how simulating mental health has a place in this game when you already have perfectly good brains engaged in the myriad game mechanics, already cut throat and brutal.

[PoebusApolloHC 24]

I was hoping for a suggestion thread about being able to burn books to stay warm when you are holed up in a city. I was disappointed to see that it was about reading them. :blush:

[Dr. Goner 661]

I like it.

 

Plus I can now roleplay as sexy librarian. 

 

Also, it only takes me 5 seconds to poop. 

[Hosty 647]

I want my fire fuel books please.

 

I want to burn bibles.

[Otis.Driftwood 204]

I want my fire fuel books please.

 

I want to burn bibles.

 

That will be the use of books when they make fire in future updates. 

[Slyguy65 499]

So, basically, your character will have more knowledge, so i think this is a pretty good idea, i'd be-able to teach my character things about zombies and it'd say if something if close, like zombies, from their trails, scents etc

 

Beanz

weeeeeelll possibly but to prance around the idea of progression since its a hot topic im merely starting out with the idea of books keeping u sane by giving ur mind health

[Slyguy65 499]

to all the literal book burners out there ....ya obviously they can be used as tinder im talking about adding another layer to the game books are simply a medium to this suggested psyche system

Edited January 28, 2014 by Slyguy65

[Qritz 3]

I'm not a huge fan of the mechanic you describe because of how it would force players to read. That's just too big a departure from the nature of the existing game for most people to enjoy it.

 

Maybe if reading buffed you temporarily? As in reading satiated your mind which slows down your hunger and thirst for a short period. That way the devs wouldn't have to create a whole new mechanic and players wouldn't have to read just to survive. Afterall, you don't have to read in the real world if you don't want to.

 

Also how feasible would it be for people to submit their own short stories for publishing as in-game books? That would be cool.

[cj14 189]

If I wanted to read a book, I'd read a REAL book...this isn't reading simulator 2014 :( I think books are useless

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Books should , in my opinion like Qritz said, be all user -submitted stories (obviously reviewed by rocket and his team first ) and also they should be able to be used as fire kindling . Lastly which I've always thought about is the chance to find a "stash book " one with cutout pages with an item place inside. Such as a makarov (or fn45 if the book is big ) or maybe just regular items hidden in between pages . OR if rocket and his team wanted to create a bunch of treasure notes , there could be random notes left in books pointing to stashes of guns , ammo , food or water inside the house / building you found the book in .

[akafugitive 244]

I carry the Russian cheat sheet, it helps to read street signs.

[bobotype3334 160]

I'm not a huge fan of the mechanic you describe because of how it would force players to read. That's just too big a departure from the nature of the existing game for most people to enjoy it.

 

Maybe if reading buffed you temporarily? As in reading satiated your mind which slows down your hunger and thirst for a short period. That way the devs wouldn't have to create a whole new mechanic and players wouldn't have to read just to survive. Afterall, you don't have to read in the real world if you don't want to.

 

Also how feasible would it be for people to submit their own short stories for publishing as in-game books? That would be cool.

WHOAWHOAWHOANOOOOOOOO

Books do not prevent you from being hungry and thirsty, sorry.

You did give me a great idea about starvation eating paper and fabric, but no, no, no to books giving you food value.

[djporternz 644]

So how do they get around copyright laws with these books? I highly doubt they have permission to re-print them

All the books in game come from the Project Gutenberg collection. All of them are out of copyright and therefore in the Public Domain. Anyone who wants to can publish these books for private or commercial use. See here: http://www.gutenberg.org/

[ploulaf 89]

Leave DON'T DEAD OPEN INSIDE notes everywhere

[dekartz 315]

I'm very much against forcing or coercing players to interact with each other in a certain way (In DayZ at least). IE: Systems that tell players that if you don't join a group, you'll go crazy. Or something along those lines. And given some of the responses that you've received here, even fewer of them are willing to read books.

 

But I don't completely dismiss the idea of books having some intrinsic value other than kindling and/or toilet paper.

 

Perhaps tie some "endgame" crafting recipes to books? (even that seems a bit gamey) Something such as making gunpowder or smoke-bombs or something that it wouldn't simply be common sense but requires knowledge of chemistry or engineering or something along those lines. It would add value to the books and/or the players who have them (yeah, you could gun them down for the recipe-book but you run the risk of damaging it and it being useless anyway) but doesn't necessarily force players to look for and/or use them. High utility accompanied with astronomically low spawn-rates (that or needing multiple books on how to make certain things)

[rickenbacker 190]

Here I thought the first post was going to read "toilet paper" :). 

[glowfow@hotmail.com 55]

I think the books are fine the way they are, they are useful; you can read them. I wouldn't mind being able to put them in your hands and have a reading animation when you're reading it. I also wouldn't protest if you could move the window of the book around so it doesn't obscure your entire view.

 

Edit: also things like cookbooks, operating manuals etc. should be added to provide useful information rather than just a nice book to read.

Edited February 6, 2014 by JoostVoordeel