DayZ in 2012 vs Now, and why DayZ was so much more fun for me in 2012. Tl;dr at bottom

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

First of all, this is just my own opinion, so please do not post rude comments if you disagree with me.

Also, I do understand that DayZ Standalone is currently in alpha. This post was mostly just some ideas / cool features that was in the mod, that I want to see in the standalone.

 

I was looking at old videos released in 2012, the year I started playing. This one in particular was made by Rooster Teeth, and was titled This is DayZ. I saw it a couple of months before I started playing the game, and this is one of the many videos that inspired me to install windows on my mac, buy ArmA 2 operation arrowhead, and play DayZ.

 

Heres a link: 

 

Here are a few features and ideas in DayZ mod (back in 20120) that caught my attention, mostly because it is so much different from today's ideas / version of DayZ.

 

First, the danger of firing your gun.

If you fire your gun, it will attract a lot of zombies, and back then, zombies were a giant threat. It wasn't exactly that they were tanky, but more that there were a lot of them. Theres an old picture from the dayz mod website of a giant horde of zombies roaming a city at night time. There have never been giant hordes that big. I do think that there should be a lot more zombies added. Just roaming around anywhere really... even just down a street. There is a part in the video where Burnie (the guy who is playing) teams up with a random survivor. Both of them are cautiously crouch walking down the street to the next town, as there are zombies everywhere, and if you attract one, then all hell breaks loose.

 

And heres another story(and if you are reading this far, thank you. This is probably when I decided to put a tl;dr in this post). The first day I started playing DayZ, i was teamed up with some friends who knew a lot about the game. They decided to pick me up at a town, and while randomly roaming around, I must of attracted 40 zombies who were all chasing me. This was one of the most fun moments i've ever experienced. They came in their car, saw me, and the next few minutes were "HOLY SH*T, GET IN. I'LL DISTRACT THEM. HOW MANY ARE THERE HOLY CRAP. F*CK THEY ARE GOING TO BUST OUR WHEEL". I sort of feel zombies aren't this dangerous any more, which brings me to point #2!

 

Point 2: Hordes and Zombies

I did bring this up in the last post, but this will elaborate a little more on something. Zombies shouldn't be tanky. What i mean is that they shouldn't withstand just 4 axe hits before going down. Just 1 should kill them. However, they should be fast, and hard to run away from. One thing I like about the standalone is the weight of your loot. If you are holding a gun and a lot of loot, you run slower. Zombies should be designed as the following: Slower then you when you barely have any loot, or just a side arm and a small backpack. However, when you have a rifle, and a big backpack, they should be a little faster then you. Therefore, you will either have to sacrifice some loot (and go back for it later), run into a forest and try to lose them, or fire your weapon (which will just attract more zombies, and even more hell will break loose). This adds to the chaos that I love.

 

Point 3: The Mystery

DayZ should mostly be mysterious. Mystery, stealth, deception > Guns blazing, hardcore action. Heres what I mean. Theres a point in the video (At 7 minutes, 15 seconds) where Burnie says "Heres what is great. There are little moments of discovery all the time in this game". I feel like these are gone. The mystery and excitement of finding a new town, or an abandoned lighthouse, etc. Unfortunately, there is really no way to just 'expand' the map. Maybe new maps can be made, with new towns, but I do understand that these take a very very very long time to make. As somebody who has been playing DayZ for almost 2 years, I know almost every corner and city in the map. I wish i didn't. I still wish I could explore North and find a small town that I never saw before, and then, explore a little north, and find a small farm with a barn, shed, and a field. And then, travel a little more north, and find a giant city or military area, all of which i had NEVER seen before. Well you get the point, but these moments of mystery are gone from the game. One thing I hated was the trailer of DayZ Standalone(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTezCMqMylE); the way too dramatic music, and don't even mention the ending. I think the trailer should've had no music, or just the ambient noise that you hear if you turn your music volume up in the DayZ mod. It should have been foggy, and just followed the story of a survivor walking through nowhere. It would have been dark and mysterious. You wouldn't know what was in the distance. Maybe it could dramatically end with him turning a corner while looting a town, you see his eye widen (from fear), and then it just cuts to dark. It's just mystery. No overly dramatic music. I hate that stuff. Oh yeah, i just got off topic. Anyway, add back crashed helicopter sites, and maybe some crashed plane sites to keep some 'variety' in the map.

 

Point 4: Items

I'll keep this short and brief. There are a lot of items in DayZ, but many of them don't really do much. Give them some nice uses. Add some nice camping gear for survival. Hunting gear, and also, tools for my next point:

Point 5: Building a house.

First, don't make this like rust, where you can build a wooden mansion. Instead, allow players to board up buildings. That is it. Modify existing buildings, but not make completely new ones from scratch. Items probably needed: wood planks (get from cutting down trees, so therefore, you need an axe too), nails (for boarding up the place), and a hammer (or sledge hammer... if you want to go over the top). One problem with this is that somebody could easily log out, go into a building, and then go back onto another server and break into a boarded up house. A couple of solutions: When you spawn in, you spawn within a radius of where you last spawned. Another is that you can't spawn inside a building, or within lets say 20 meters of a house that has been bordered up.

Boarding up a single building will also encourage people to stick to one server, and therefore, forcing them to play at night time, which is a very different DayZ.

I think that is it. If you somehow read all of this, thank you very much. TL;DR below this

 

 

TL;DR (Yes it is a long TL;DR. I'm sorry about that, but should only take 1 min to read)

DayZ 2012 > DayZ 2014

Firing your gun should be dangerous, as it attracts a lot of zombies. The bigger the gun, the more dangerous it is.

Zombies shouldn't be tanky, but there should be a lot of them who don't have much health (only 1 axe hit will kill them). Also, when you have enough gear, zombies will become faster then you, forcing you to fire your weapon or somehow hide to survive.

DayZ should be mysterious. The thrill of finding a new town or someplace you have never seen before is what makes the game so great. Maybe adding some crashed helicopters or planes will help (I also go on a rant about how much i hate the DayZ trailer and why)

Gives the new items in dayz some use, and add more camping / survival gear

I support the idea of building a base. However, you can't build something from the ground up. You can only board up an already existing building. Some ideas for preventing people from logging into buildings will help too. It also encourages night time play.

Edited October 7, 2014 by carbine781

[Ubernaut 297]

Hah, even your TL;DR was TL;DR.

 

Just kidding. I agree with pretty much all of this, so beans to you.

 

I am starting to believe one thing: DayZ may not end up being able to fulfill its ultimate promise. The concept has been introduced, though. I'm starting to think it may be up to another developer years from now to really nail down the Zombie Apocalypse. There's been several games that really came close, and succeeded in a lot of areas, but none to the magnitude that DayZ has, and still it falls short.

 

What I'm really looking for, honestly, is Project Zomboid in a gigantic 3D world like DayZ, with crucial things like vehicles.

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

Hah, even your TL;DR was TL;DR.

 

Just kidding. I agree with pretty much all of this, so beans to you.

 

I am starting to believe one thing: DayZ may not end up being able to fulfill its ultimate promise. The concept has been introduced, though. I'm starting to think it may be up to another developer years from now to really nail down the Zombie Apocalypse. There's been several games that really came close, and succeeded in a lot of areas, but none to the magnitude that DayZ has, and still it falls short.

 

What I'm really looking for, honestly, is Project Zomboid in a gigantic 3D world like DayZ, with crucial things like vehicles.

Yeah, my Tl;Dr was pretty long XD I had a lot to explain though.

I agree with the fact that DayZ really hasn't reached its full potential, and at this rate, it will take a very long time. It has a lot, and it could be very great, but Bohemia Interactive isn't putting as much effort into it as lets say Arma 3 (atleast I don't think...). If they don't make DayZ one of their top priorities, then some other game will pass DayZ by, and I don't want to see that.

 

Have some beans. I hope the devs see this post or one of my others. I don't know if they have, but I think it could help. I do know that they read these frequently, which is quite nice.

Edited May 24, 2014 by carbine781

[gibonez 3633]

The mod was a better game than stand alone currently is.

 

This is merely because it has the great arma 2 foundation. That being said that could change in the future for stand alone.

[Raoul9753 166]

I agree with most points, but you cant really compare a finished mod with a Standalone in Alpha.

 

You might notice that there are not many Zombies around right now? Thats because they are still work in progress.

Random agrro from the next town, Zombies run through walls...

 

1+2: First Zombies have to work as intended, then they can add more ways to aggro them. I am sure as soon as Zombies are working as they should, they will be more zombies in the cities and they will also agrro from loud noises. But atm this would mean that as soon as you fire a gun, Zombies would just jump through walls to your position... NO thanks...

 

3: The new patch brings a new big town, and sure it wont be the last. Plus... seriously, how many hours did you play? at some point you will have seen everything...

 

4: hunting gear, fireplace, all already on experimental. Right now we have more Items than good, but they will be toned down after Alpha, right now they want everyone to play with every gun, use every food, water, tool so they can know what works and what does not.

 

5. A house... dont know... tents would be better. its more realistic than random Survivors starting to build 3 floor mansions with pool...

Edited May 24, 2014 by Raoul9753

[scriptfactory 620]

What I'm really looking for, honestly, is Project Zomboid in a gigantic 3D world like DayZ, with crucial things like vehicles.

 

Even though H1Z1 is trying to be "hardcore" I have a feeling they are going for exactly this. Project Zomboid MMO. Have you seen the compounds/strongholds? It is an amazing idea. It seems players will be able to build a small stronghold and "upgrade" it by increasing the size and resources of their faction.

 

I feel like DayZ is a fundamentally flawed concept," he said, "and I've always recognised that. It's not the perfect game; it's not the multiplayer experience, and it never can be, [with] the absolute spark that I want in it."

 

The Day development team seems unwilling to center the game around groups/factions as they feel it would break immersion even though Rocket himself is a huge fan of Project Zomboid. I remember reading that this is exactly why he called DayZ a flawed concept, because DayZ is simply meant to be a sandbox and not much more. He seems ready to simply let the modding community implement these features instead of creating the game he actually wanted to make.

I wish he would just say "fuck it" and make a great post-apocalyptic, social multiplayer experience that is only based on the Mod and not imprisoned by it.

Edited May 24, 2014 by scriptfactory

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

 

. As somebody who has been playing DayZ for almost 2 years, I know almost every corner and city in the map. I wish i didn't. I still wish I could explore North and find a small town that I never saw before, and then, explore a little north, and find a small farm with a barn, shed, and a field. And then, travel a little more north, and find a giant city or military area, all of which i had NEVER seen before. Well you get the point, but these moments of mystery are gone from the game. 

 

That is not a problem with the game, though, that is your own personal problem. For most people playing this game without having played the mod they will indeed feel that sense of mystery and discovery.

 

As for the rest of your post, zombies and survival gear, they are working on it.

Edited May 24, 2014 by BadAsh

[FrostDMG 398]

Fantastic post, absolutely agree.

[weedmasta 784]

 

This is merely because it has the great arma 2 foundation. That being said that could change in the future for stand alone.

 

SA has the Arma 2 foundation too 8l

[Katana67 2907]

I agree with all but the last bit.

 

The developers are pursuing both barricading pre-existing structures, and player-placed construction. I'm more interested in the first one, but the second one needs to come as well.

 

However, there are some limitations.

 

One being, there's no real area of wilderness to hide a base or player structure in Chernarus+. This leaves us with two options. Add wilderness areas, or gear the player construction towards fortifying/securing existing cities/towns (not only structures).

 

I want players to be able to influence the terrain more so, and I think player-placed structures would be a good way of doing that.

 

Imagine rolling up to a small town, say Myshkino (my favorite one!). It's dusk, sun's going down. You're walking along a desolate logging road and come across an unmanned roadblock, a spraypainted sign reads "STAY OUT OR BE SHOT." You, being an intrepid survivor, go on anyway. You eventually come to Myshkino, which has been walled off and secured by a party of bandits.

 

What would you do? Would you try and infiltrate and steal their supplies? Would you try and get in touch with other survivors for an assault? Would you try the unwise route and attempt to barter/negotiate with them?

 

Giving players the power to influence the landscape of DayZ, is essential in my opinion. And I don't see that being possible without being able to actually control territory.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Katana67

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

SA has the Arma 2 foundation too 8l

But our weapons don't shoot with laser beam accuracy!!!!!!!!!

Edited May 24, 2014 by Caboose187

[Demonio (DayZ) 19]

[cut]Lot of useless ...[/cut]

 

So you are compairing a MOD with an EARLY ACCESS ... oh yes you are a mac player i undestand!

Edited May 24, 2014 by Demonio

[kircheschm 6]

First of all, this is just my own opinion, so please do not post rude comments if you disagree with me.

 

I was looking at old videos released in 2012, the year I started playing. This one in particular was made by Rooster Teeth, and was titled This is DayZ. I saw it a couple of months before I started playing the game, and this is one of the many videos that inspired me to install windows on my mac, buy ArmA 2 operation arrowhead, and play DayZ.

 

Heres a link: 

 

Here are a few features and ideas in DayZ mod (back in 20120) that caught my attention, mostly because it is so much different from today's ideas / version of DayZ.

 

First, the danger of firing your gun.

If you fire your gun, it will attract a lot of zombies, and back then, zombies were a giant threat. It wasn't exactly that they were tanky, but more that there were a lot of them. Theres an old picture from the dayz mod website of a giant horde of zombies roaming a city at night time. There have never been giant hordes that big. I do think that there should be a lot more zombies added. Just roaming around anywhere really... even just down a street. There is a part in the video where Burnie (the guy who is playing) teams up with a random survivor. Both of them are cautiously crouch walking down the street to the next town, as there are zombies everywhere, and if you attract one, then all hell breaks loose.

 

And heres another story(and if you are reading this far, thank you. This is probably when I decided to put a tl;dr in this post). The first day I started playing DayZ, i was teamed up with some friends who knew a lot about the game. They decided to pick me up at a town, and while randomly roaming around, I must of attracted 40 zombies who were all chasing me. This was one of the most fun moments i've ever experienced. They came in their car, saw me, and the next few minutes were "HOLY SH*T, GET IN. I'LL DISTRACT THEM. HOW MANY ARE THERE HOLY CRAP. F*CK THEY ARE GOING TO BUST OUR WHEEL". I sort of feel zombies aren't this dangerous any more, which brings me to point #2!

 

Point 2: Hordes and Zombies

I did bring this up in the last post, but this will elaborate a little more on something. Zombies shouldn't be tanky. What i mean is that they shouldn't withstand just 4 axe hits before going down. Just 1 should kill them. However, they should be fast, and hard to run away from. One thing I like about the standalone is the weight of your loot. If you are holding a gun and a lot of loot, you run slower. Zombies should be designed as the following: Slower then you when you barely have any loot, or just a side arm and a small backpack. However, when you have a rifle, and a big backpack, they should be a little faster then you. Therefore, you will either have to sacrifice some loot (and go back for it later), run into a forest and try to lose them, or fire your weapon (which will just attract more zombies, and even more hell will break loose). This adds to the chaos that I love.

 

Point 3: The Mystery

DayZ should mostly be mysterious. Mystery, stealth, deception > Guns blazing, hardcore action. Heres what I mean. Theres a point in the video (At 7 minutes, 15 seconds) where Burnie says "Heres what is great. There are little moments of discovery all the time in this game". I feel like these are gone. The mystery and excitement of finding a new town, or an abandoned lighthouse, etc. Unfortunately, there is really no way to just 'expand' the map. Maybe new maps can be made, with new towns, but I do understand that these take a very very very long time to make. As somebody who has been playing DayZ for almost 2 years, I know almost every corner and city in the map. I wish i didn't. I still wish I could explore North and find a small town that I never saw before, and then, explore a little north, and find a small farm with a barn, shed, and a field. And then, travel a little more north, and find a giant city or military area, all of which i had NEVER seen before. Well you get the point, but these moments of mystery are gone from the game. One thing I hated was the trailer of DayZ Standalone(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTezCMqMylE); the way too dramatic music, and don't even mention the ending. I think the trailer should've had no music, or just the ambient noise that you hear if you turn your music volume up in the DayZ mod. It should have been foggy, and just followed the story of a survivor walking through nowhere. It would have been dark and mysterious. You wouldn't know what was in the distance. Maybe it could dramatically end with him turning a corner while looting a town, you see his eye widen (from fear), and then it just cuts to dark. It's just mystery. No overly dramatic music. I hate that stuff. Oh yeah, i just got off topic. Anyway, add back crashed helicopter sites, and maybe some crashed plane sites to keep some 'variety' in the map.

 

Point 4: Items

I'll keep this short and brief. There are a lot of items in DayZ, but many of them don't really do much. Give them some nice uses. Add some nice camping gear for survival. Hunting gear, and also, tools for my next point:

Point 5: Building a house.

First, don't make this like rust, where you can build a wooden mansion. Instead, allow players to board up buildings. That is it. Modify existing buildings, but not make completely new ones from scratch. Items probably needed: wood planks (get from cutting down trees, so therefore, you need an axe too), nails (for boarding up the place), and a hammer (or sledge hammer... if you want to go over the top). One problem with this is that somebody could easily log out, go into a building, and then go back onto another server and break into a boarded up house. A couple of solutions: When you spawn in, you spawn within a radius of where you last spawned. Another is that you can't spawn inside a building, or within lets say 20 meters of a house that has been bordered up.

Boarding up a single building will also encourage people to stick to one server, and therefore, forcing them to play at night time, which is a very different DayZ.

I think that is it. If you somehow read all of this, thank you very much. TL;DR below this

 

 

TL;DR (Yes it is a long TL;DR. I'm sorry about that)

DayZ 2012 > DayZ 2014

Firing your gun should be dangerous, as it attracts a lot of zombies. The bigger the gun, the more dangerous it is.

Zombies shouldn't be tanky, but there should be a lot of them who don't have much health (only 1 axe hit will kill them). Also, when you have enough gear, zombies will become faster then you, forcing you to fire your weapon or somehow hide to survive.

DayZ should be mysterious. The thrill of finding a new town or someplace you have never seen before is what makes the game so great. Maybe adding some crashed helicopters or planes will help (I also go on a rant about how much i hate the DayZ trailer and why)

Gives the new items in dayz some use, and add more camping / survival gear

I support the idea of building a base. However, you can't build something from the ground up. You can only board up an already existing building. Some ideas for preventing people from logging into buildings will help too. It also encourages night time play.

Its only for you man kkk, dont need to post here man

[hannibaldaplaya 1095]

But are weapons don't shoot with laser beam accuracy!!!!!!!!!

 

Lol, so the M4A1 being only useful up to 100 meters and the new AKM only up to 200 meters is acceptable?

 

Haha, its obvious you have never shot any of these weapons in real life. Random dispersion is lazy, increase sway and make it harder to line up your sights, then you get inaccuracy, that doesn't use a dice roll.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

Lol, so the M4A1 being only useful up to 100 meters and the new AKM only up to 200 meters is acceptable?

 

Haha, its obvious you have never shot any of these weapons in real life. Random dispersion is lazy, increase sway and make it harder to line up your sights, then you get inaccuracy, that doesn't use a dice roll.

The weapons are fine.  Stop going full auto and expecting your shots to be precise

[hannibaldaplaya 1095]

The weapons are fine.  Stop going full auto and expecting your shots to be precise

 

You are assuming I fire in full auto?

 

The game makes it so that a 2-round burst in full-auto is super inaccurate compared to a 1-round semi-auto shot. This makes no sense. When a guy is fired in a burst, or fully automatic, it will fire rounds the same way it will in semi-auto. It doesn't make them curve magically, just because its full-auto. The only reason semi-auto is used for accuracy in real life is due to the fact that it can be difficult to control fully automatic, which is why burst fire is popular as it is easier to control and puts 3 rounds or so down range in one, accurate burst...

 

The weapons aren't fine.

[randomspawn 215]

Even your title to the post was too long. Here is something to consider. Is it fair to compare a the mod to this early alpha state?

 

I don't think it really matters after you consider that. If that doesn't make sense, then ask yourself: is this the final state of the zombies? or hit detection? or anything else. 

 

If you go by the roadmap, almost everything in this game currently is going to be totally revamped. I don't necessarily think it will all happen, but they say it will. If they come 75% of the way, it will be a very good game. If they stop at 40%, the game will be very short lived. Even if it fails, it will be laying the foundation for stuff that comes in the future. Maybe it will be BI, or Dean's studio, or a totally new studio. But one of them will be able to see potential this genre has, and find a very good to excellent way to represent it in game form.

[FrostDMG 398]

Its only for you man kkk, dont need to post here man

No need to quote entire OP you know.

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

I do understand that the standalone is at an alpha state. Although I am addressing problems, that doesn't mean that I don't think they will be fixed in the future. If anything, this post was mostly just a list of ideas that I would like to see in the standalone when it is completed.

[Sparkplug (DayZ) 3]

Cool I like your thinking. :thumbsup: I pretty much like it now but, I hope they don't turn it into something it's not. If you have ever seen the movie the road it should be like that but with zombies. Everytime I hear that awaaak chills run up my spine. :o I too had the mod version but even with Dayz commander it was hard to find severs. Thats the only complaint I would ever have about this wild and crazy game if that started happening again.It took so long to find a decent server that I just gave up and deleted it. So far I have been able to find a good server and have been staying with it.

[dannsair2 (DayZ) 16]

I agree a bit but just wait until the standalone is in full release then it will be time to compare the mod and standalone.

[carbine781 (DayZ) 131]

Bump because why not

[scriptfactory 620]

I can't believe this post was made almost 6 months ago. I was expecting "more" from the game by now. This is probably why I shouldn't create unrealistic expectations about DayZ development.

Edited October 7, 2014 by scriptfactory

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

I can't believe this post was made almost 6 months ago. I was expecting "more" from the game by now. This is probably why I shouldn't create unrealistic expectations about DayZ development.

 

Correction, it was posted 4½ months ago. And we now have camping and hunting gear. Constructing buildings from scratch will most likely (and should not) be in the game. And most importantly (because I suspect many mod players dissapointed by the SA are unawarely experiencing this), you just have to face it, you will never regain the mystery of the first months of playing the mod, it simply has to do with those "first time" experiences. If a mod player wanted to relive some of that, they should not do early access of SA, but instead wait until full release.

 

And yeah, the zombies are being worked on, but the horde thing is definitely connected to optimisation work, so it will probably take some time.

[comikz 218]

I read it all, I agree with most of your points, but as much as I HATE saying it and I really do HATE chiming in with the "Hurrdurr Alphhurrr" crowd, that's what it is...

 

I think DayZ is a long way from being a finished product and even then I believe it won't be "Finished" because there will always be something that needs to be worked on or fixed, and with the newer survival games that will be coming out, mainly H1Z1, I pray that DayZ's devs really put the pedal to the metal and keep their playerbase here and not running like a horde to a different game because of what this lacks.