Permanent Death

[vfig 33]

Disclaimer: what I'm proposing is probably completely unworkable given the current server hosting situation; it's no doubt well outside the scope of the mod; and it will definitely be unpopular with anyone who likes to play with their friends or clanmates (which includes me, btw). This is a crazy idea, but I find it fascinating to think about, so I'm posting it. You will probably hate this idea.

DayZ death is not permanent in any particularly meaningful way. Once you've been playing for a couple of weeks, you'll very likely have a tent or a vehicle (or both) with extra gear stored in it, or even several such camps, especially if you've been playing with a group.

So when you die, you lose only what you were carrying at the time. You might lose a couple of sweet items, but it's a relatively brief run to any part of the map to gear up back at your camp and carry on. And you know where all the deer stands and so on are along the way for a chance of more loot as you go.

That's not death, that's just a small setback. Death should cost more. Every player should be scared stiff of dying in DayZ, not because they might lose their precious NVGs, but because they might lose everything they ever had.

1. Your character is permanently tied to a single server.

2. You are automatically assigned to the server, you do not get to choose it.

3. When you die, and respawn, your new character is on a different server.

4. Deer stands and tents (like those at Berezino and Stary Sobor) are at randomised positions, different on each server.

With this, when you die, that's it! You start afresh. You can't run back to your camp, hook up with your buddies, or loot your old body, because your knowledge of all of those died with your previous character.

You can't just do your habitual deerstand/Stary Sobor/Berezino run, because you won't know where the deer stands and military tents spawn. You will have to explore to find them. (Ideally the entire map would be unique to each server, but that's completely infeasible).

You can't rely on having known friends you can trust from outside the game. If you want to team up, you have to make friends with other characters on that same server, and build trust with them. When you die, you will lose those friends forever. If your friend dies, he or she is lost forever, and your character will never see them again.

That is permadeath.

[Maderas 12]

I like to play with my friends, though. It's a huge draw to the game for many people, I don't think I would have nearly as much fun playing it by myself.

And before anybody claims I just enjoy the ezmode loot from our camp, we don't have a camp. We all died and had to start over yesterday for about the hundredth time.

[DatBear 0]

Well some of those points are nice. But I think it can only happen much later, like in the beta or even on the real release. I would freak out on this in the alpha with all those bugs.

But if I die and can't get back to them or be picked up by them, shall I suddenly look for new friends and switch the TS server?

[doom4mr 135]

there was at least 2 more posts like this, and there was a solution for this: someone will come to you and kill you so if you die in game you die for real...

this is the best solution for all those "extreme realism seekers"

[phoboss 224]

terrible idea is terrible...

but not because you lose everything (you could achieve that by deleting all tents and vehicles upon death), but because there is no where in hell i'll let a matchmaking system chose my server for me. thats what kills multiplayer games. and also because you cant play with your friends, which is one of the main components of the game.

sorry your idea is just terrible.

[enablerbr 0]

As far as player tents. I think they should despawn on the players death. No idea how vehicles work in DayZ, in terms of ownership.