Removing Side Chat was good for the game, for Survivors.

[Jolmer 0]

So I notice a lot of people have been complaining about the removal of side chat.

I've been reading a few interviews with Rocket where he talks about how he want's the people to have to talk to each other using the Direct Channel, and to really immerse themselves in having to communicate face to face with the unknown. Ive been playing on a hardcore server with this enabled lately and have had two of the most gripping experiences ever because of this. True emergent gameplay moments that really stuck with me.

The first was pretty nice actually. A friend and me running through the woods and we happen upon a camp with 4 tents. He has a DMR so he scopes in and sees a dude sitting by a tent and an obvious friend of his running off into the woods to the north.

Now we like to play as survivors and we try not to kill people unless we have to so he was all "Hey let me just pop this guy its too risky". I was like "Hell no his buddy is real close and will come back and besides that makes us worse than bandits to do it just because were scared."

So I had him keep his scope on the guy and I proned real close and queued up my direct chat mic. "Hey buddy!" I say. He starts to panic and goes to run off and my friend tells me this through our Ventrilo. So I say "Now don't go running off I got a friend in the hills with a sniper on you." He stops dead in his tracks. Like dead. Doesnt move at all. So I say "Now we don't like to kill people but we will if we have to. Can you talk?" All of a sudden his mic breaks in and hes like "Hey man yeah were cool dont shoot me man, were cool."

So I say, "Allright Im coming through the trees to meet you. No funny business or my friend on the hill will brain you." Just then I had a thought. What if he doesnt believe me? What if he thinks im lying about my friend on the hill? What if hell kill me the minute I go through those trees? Can I trust him? I figured my friend would just get all the loot from two corpses and the tents so I put my gun on full auto and walked through with it lowered.

We ended up having a nice chat. My friend came down and we all got along pretty well. He let us grab a few supplies and we were on our way.

The moral of the story is, this is great stuff. That was such an intense moment deciding what to do there. We could have killed him and went on looting everything he had. He had a 24 slot bag on him and me and my friend only had 20's for example. We took the high road, talked it out and ended up making a buddy in the process. With side chat things like this simply arent as easy to come by. You've all see the CHkillroy videos im sure by now and the confrontations and talks he has with people really make that experience. I assume this is what Rocket wants. And there are the kinds of things you can look forward to using the Direct Channel.

It really just makes the game better.

---

Another experience I had was maybe 30 minutes after this in Vybor. Me and me buddies like to head there because of the high yield school building right next to the grocers. So after looting the store were almost done in the school.

Were on the balcony near the ladder to get to the roof when all of a sudden I hear a soda can crack open. Im like "SHIT someone else is around here!" to my friend on ventrilo. Hes on the roof you can tell. Must have logged in there like a lot of server hoppers do. We retreat to a room on the third floor and point our guns to the door.

Now this having been only 30 minutes after meeting that other guy I decide to try and talk this out again. So I say "Hey buddy, I heard you crack that soda can up there. Theres two of us down here and were friendly but I dont feel comfortable leaving town right now known youre up there. It would make me feel better to meet you face to face before deciding what to do next."

Silence.

We hear a little shuffling on the roof.

I try talking again. We spend like 5 tense minutes or so in that room staring at the door before it becomes clear this guy doesnt want to talk. Im getting worried. Im telling my friend in ventrilo I dont know what to do. I dont want to just rush out the door and blast the guy because who knows what he has. I dont want to risk my friends life just because I THINK this guy might be hostile.

Right as im thinking all this we hear a loud gunshot. I mean loud. Lee Enfield loud. My friend goes down, a fountain of blood coming from him. Then I hear the footsteps. This guy is right in the doorway. He didn't believe me when I said there were two of us! I put an entire mag of M4A1 into him and dont stop until I hear the flies. Then I rush to my friend and go to bandage him because hes bleeding bad.

In our ventrilo hes like

"600, 500, 400, 300, 200, 100, oh shit it stopped." I saved his life with literally 100 blood left. I jam all the meat and cans of food I have in his pack, and he eats up getting his blood to a meager 3000. We loot the corpse and take his side arm and ammo, food, hes got bandages and medicine but only an enfield. It becomes obvious to me he was a server hopping bandit who had just logged on for the first time in the day.

My point again is that direct communication makes this game so much better. Instead of being like "Whos in Vybor?" in a side global chat channel we need to face check, risk our lives to get what we need and somtimes we make friends other times we nearly get killed but it makes the game so much better. So much better.

I am hoping this emergent gameplay is only expedited by future design decisions and gameplay features.

---

I wouldnt mind you guys sharing your experiences here with talking to other players. It might give Rocket some insight on how the decision to remove side chat has had some positive benefits to some of us.

[Latros 1]

Nice :) I like seeing the good and bad of the playerbase in your two stories :)

I had a good experience yesterday with Direct Coms only as well Ill share aswell:

Started a fresh spawn yesterday near Electro found a shotty on my way into town and was sprinting through town yelling for any friendlies... I come to the church and I see the doors closed I ask if anyones inside.. no answer, I open the door and see a guy I tell him im friendly and coming in I lower my gun walk inside and say hi hes not talking so im feeling sketchy so as I turn to leave he fires a Xbow bolt and misses I see it wiz by me and into the wall lol.. he tries to run out the door and I kneecap him with the double, loot him while hes bleeding toss a smoke inside and run out and leave him for the Zombies :)

A lil bit later I head into the Station and yell up if any friendlies in the tower I get a answer and we talk and wait on his buddy to show who had a entire town of Zs on him... we kill alot and run low on ammo and one of them goes down and the other falls off a roof.. no ive gone from 3 people back to being Solo.... I mournfully check there corpses for any gear I can use and move on now low on blood myself, as Im heading for a vantage point to overlook town and decide my next move I see two guys running by and this is where my story starts :)

I see them and they have not seen me, I yell out to them and they freeze and start spinning around, I tell them friendly etc.. and I need help low on blood and need a transfusion, they come over cautiously and I hand one a blood pack to give me, and we talk, they are new to the game and headed inland and I ask if I can tag along, so off we go a party of three now all talking in direct, we share/crossload supplies and off we go, we get a few minutes north of Electro near the DAM when all of a sudden sniper shots ring out from across the valley dropping one of them we have nothing but shotguns and pistols so we make for the woods and wait.... a couple minutes later we brave it back to gather the fallen buddies gear and then await him a few minutes away, we all link back up 10minutes later and head to ROG castle and gather some supplies and keep pushing inland, and had a great experience. Was nice helping out some new players they did not even know how to use the backpack yet so was giving advice and pointed along the way.

Not sure if any of this would have been possible without the direct Coms working.

[Jolmer 0]

I made the choice to try and communicate with people both those times instead of just going brain dead and shooting on sight like the majority of cowards enjoy doing. It works sometimes. Others it doesnt.

[Virfortis 111]

I try it and it never works. In my personal experience, it's a no-win situation. I know OTHERS have had a working experience with Direct, but I most certainly haven't, and somehow doubt I ever will.

[Jolmer 0]

You just need to not try it alone. If you are alone and run into someone in the woods it might be a good idea to avoid them. Right now its all about gear and loot and people are super protective of it. When other goals are implemented as Rocket has talked about.... more team based end game stuff people will come together I am sure.

It would be sick to be able to clear a town and provide services to survivors etc. Who knows where the game can go when people try to communicate a little.

[Rabbican 1]

I remember spawning near Balota Airfield once, running toward the med camps and and deer stands only to get caught by a zombie while proning, as I make my way in via the main gate while zombies are in tow.. I hear "you can make it man", via direct. He continued to encourage me on as I went up to check the deer stand across from the one he was holed up in.. No gun no luck. I get a zed to spawn near me and Argo, and my usual SOP would have been to kill that man with a makarov... But I told him via direct that I would run all the zombies out for him". So I did and he survived I got ko'd bu a zombie potshot while opening a gate. In the days of side. Just VoIP I would have just ran a horde of zombies on top of him. Either I am getting soft or no side chat is a good thing.

[SoulShaper2 243]

I so agree man, met up with someone in a hot spot but thanks to direct coms i was said "listen, i could have shot you but didnt, im friendly and walking in don't shoot"

He didnt and i gave him a side arm to show friendship (wasnt an idiot tho it had no ammo) and we head north, We then argo through a wall and i open fire and kill a ton of zeds only to see more direct chat asking if were friendly and i say yes, he walks in kitted out with nice guns etc and could have killed us easy but didnt. thanks to direct chat its easier to team since the whole world doesnt know where you are going!

[Jolmer 0]

It makes the game more interesting. The whole kill or be killed aspect is still there and sure some asshole might just kill you on sight but I feel like if more of us just tried to talk for a second things might be better for the community as a whole.

[Virfortis 111]

You just need to not try it alone. If you are alone and run into someone in the woods it might be a good idea to avoid them. Right now its all about gear and loot and people are super protective of it. When other goals are implemented as Rocket has talked about.... more team based end game stuff people will come together I am sure.

It would be sick to be able to clear a town and provide services to survivors etc. Who knows where the game can go when people try to communicate a little.

When people communicate, we call it cooperation. When the internet communicates, we call it Xbox LIVE.

DayZ would make the ultimate Arcade experience. Not Arcade as in gameplay, but arcade as in bringing people together in the REAL world to play this virtual one. Fountain drinks...pizza...yeah I missed out on the arcade era...

Thanks, online multiplayer :dodgy:

More to the point: It's hard to find friends when they shoot you on sight.

[Jolmer 0]

Like I said before when there are more end game goals and things that bring people together coupled with this face to face talking youll get some real teamwork going. Not just groups of european bandits hiding in their tent cities dipping down into cities to kill anyone they see.

[septuscap 42]

The trick to this is to simply approach the random from a position of strength. You're 10x more likely to get out of it alive.

Too many people just wander out in the open yelling "FRIENDLY IN CHERNO???" (in side chat no less) and then actually wonder why they die.

[Diemaco (DayZ) 0]

Totally agree with OP. I experienced similiar things happening with direct comms. It's flipping awesome!

[redreversed 2]

The trick to this is to simply approach the random from a position of strength. You're 10x more likely to get out of it alive.

Too many people just wander out in the open yelling "FRIENDLY IN CHERNO???" (in side chat no less) and then actually wonder why they die.

Yeah you're completely right.If I get the jump on someone but I don't shoot, they trust me not to shoot because I already could have easily.

[Jolmer 0]

It can be.

[Steve McAwesome 6]

yeah nobody wants to say things in side chat that give away your postion to the entire server. it's annoying having to be vague and dangerous to shout 'HEY GUY IN CHERNO CHURCH, FRIENDLY?' disabling side chat fixes that. in my experience so far it's also encouraged cooperation when the people around you actually talk