The War on Wilderness - Reclaiming Myshkino

[Katana67 2907]

With the advent of .49, we have seen the displacement of the Balota miltiary complex to Myshkino. I had previously assumed that this displacement would take place between Balota and the newly revealed "Tisy military base" in the NW corner of the map. However, I was wrong.

 

It is perhaps presumptuous of me to be taking issue with how the developers are improving the map. But I can't help but notice several things.

 

1. The wilderness left on Chernarus has now been further marginalized by the western north-south axis of high-end military structures.

 

2. The placement of a military base near Myshkino slices a high-traffic path right through the core of this wilderness which, to reiterate, is already shrinking.

 

3. The placement of a military base near Myshkino offsets the north-south axis of high-end loot locations further westward (almost to the border of the map).

 

4. One of the few small villages remaining (most of which are now substantial full-on towns or cities), Myshkino, is now a high-value location.

 

Now, to reiterate my points from my "Save The Trees" thread, it seems that the wilderness is not being expanded... or even preserved... but is being actively marginalized. This is a negative aspect of the map development for many reasons. Chief amongst which, is a lack of variety in terms of player structure/storage/vehicle locations (thereby forcing them into urban centers). But moreover, it makes the map more homogenous. It's now just a series of pretty-much-the-same towns, punctuated by the occasional high-end military location. Rather than an organic, varied, landscape.

 

Plus, I am personally biased to Myshkino. So there's that.

 

So what do I think should happen? One of two things. Either have one less high-end loot location, because the Tisy military base will be a factor (and is already pretty dern close to the border). Or, displace the Myshkino base somewhere north of Lopatino (along the road).

 

EDIT - To be clear, I am certainly not against change. I embrace it. Just not this particular change.

Edited September 18, 2014 by Katana67

[Grimey Rick 3417]

Or, just get rid of it. I still feel that one city of tents is more than enough for the map. ;)

[JPWiser 251]

Or embrace it, I think with all the possible loot locations with higher pop Counts on servers it's going to get cray cray anywhere you go.

I'm kind of indifferent about this issue...

[Helix2000 128]

move tents around, change the map up, by all means, but just stop creating new towns. 

[GhostDivision (DayZ) 22]

This may not exactly relate to the topic (with which I agree btw), but I think that the military base should be in the middle of a forest, instead of a huge clearing it is in. For once, almost every location in Chernarus is in a big open field, it would require players to be far more tactical if they couldn't simply survey the area from hills overwatching the camp to see if anybody's there. Secondly, these big open high loot areas (for example NWAF of the mod) attract people who've nothing better to do than to snipe those foolish enough not to check the hills...

[gibonez 3633]

Or, just get rid of it. I still feel that one city of tents is more than enough for the map. ;)

 

I like this.

 

Even with it removed there are still way too many military spawn loot locations around the map.

[Katana67 2907]

This may not exactly relate to the topic (with which I agree btw), but I think that the military base should be in the middle of a forest, instead of a huge clearing it is in. For once, almost every location in Chernarus is in a big open field, it would require players to be far more tactical if they couldn't simply survey the area from hills overwatching the camp to see if anybody's there. Secondly, these big open high loot areas (for example NWAF of the mod) attract people who've nothing better to do than to snipe those foolish enough not to check the hills...

 

The Tisy military base (I've checked the area, and the map on which it was first indicated) is situated in the woods. Which I'm fine with, the Tisy base makes sense to me.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

I feel like I am never in danger of getting lost in the wilderness anymore and I feel like tents and vehicles will be even harder to hide as the wilderness shrinks.

 

I do agree with you on most of your points but here is a possible 2nd point of view:

 

Personally, I try to remind myself that this game is working towards an entirely different set of rules and balances and some changes may shift things one way or another before it's complete.

 

Eventually, if loot in general is much much more rare (central loot economy), and high pop servers tend to have 75+ players at a time, and raw survival becomes more difficult, maybe having more military locations and less wilderness will work out...?

Edited September 19, 2014 by BioHaze

[kakysas666 191]

Or better yet, MAKE TENS DYNAMIC EVENT. So that after every restart they moved around all over the map. :) Brilliant idea, isn't it? I don't need no medal.

[Katana67 2907]

Eventually, if loot in general is much much more rare (central loot economy), and high pop servers tend to have 75+ players at a time, and raw survival becomes more difficult, maybe having more military locations and less wilderness will work out...?

 

I'm not necessarily (though I could make the argument for it) saying that the type of gameplay they're creating by focusing on urbanized, or military/high-end locales, wouldn't "work out" or be fun. I'm saying, they're missing out on a huge aspect of otherwise worthwhile landscape archetypes for playing (i.e. the wilderness) which bear their own unique types of gameplay. That and you can have high-end miltiary locations, copious ones, and have a distinct and isolated wilderness. They just have to be separated to a degree.

 

First, the central loot economy is only a small piece of the overall gameplay puzzle. It would be counter-intuitive for military locations to not have some level of preferable loot spawning consistently (thus being attractive, and thus attracting a greater amount of the 75+ server population). Likewise, it doesn't guarantee an item would be rare. They can set the limits at 10 SVDs per hive or 1000. All the central loot economy does, is allow the developers to control the amount of resources that they want to be limited to some degree.

 

Second, high population servers only buttress the argument for a broadened and more remote wilderness, because there are more people crowded into more condensed/linear spaces.

 

Third, I agree about the raw survival part. If this is made more difficult, then it might be slightly less likely that we'll be encountering people in the first place (in certain instances, though, it can be argued that it would increase player interaction out of necessity).

 

But my main concern with the marginalization of the wilderness (in addition to the reduction in overall gameplay archetypes), is with things like tents... player storage... vehicle storage... and player structures.

 

Simply put, I don't want these things to be solely the concern of urbanized areas. I want storage/construction to be something that can be applied to the freeform wilderness, effectively. And I just don't see any of that being effective, if the wilderness is both minimized geographically and cluttered via population increases (whether outright [see player counts] or pathing [see attractive locations]).

Edited September 18, 2014 by Katana67

[shutupwalter 46]

If you're gonna add all these new cities, atleast give us more wilderness. Seriously, once basing stuffs are implemented, I'd like to make my own campground in a remote part of the woods. Can't exactly do that if there's no forests, eh?

[ebrim 998]

If player movement starts seeing restriction at some point then this will seem like less of an issue. Currently with each player having the ability to sprint almost infinitely at like 35kph the distances in the game, including wilderness ones become less. I'm assuming that most vehicles when implemented will not be very well suited to going off-road and if they are even less suited to going at high speeds through woods. We'll see more traffic being directed then in more linear fashion between towns, at much higher speed, making the wilderness in essence much larger to a more slow-moving population. I worry more about potential player structures in the future polluting the landscape than I worry about Myshkino's new neighbor or a few more small towns.

[Katana67 2907]

If player movement starts seeing restriction at some point then this will seem like less of an issue. Currently with each player having the ability to sprint almost infinitely at like 35kph the distances in the game, including wilderness ones become less. I'm assuming that most vehicles when implemented will not be very well suited to going off-road and if they are even less suited to going at high speeds through woods. We'll see more traffic being directed then in more linear fashion between towns, at much higher speed, making the wilderness in essence much larger to a more slow-moving population. I worry more about potential player structures in the future polluting the landscape than I worry about Myshkino's new neighbor or a few more small towns.

 

Less of an issue? Sure. But not by any significant amount.

 

If a location is attractive, it will be a destination. Players will go there in droves, no matter how fast they can run.

 

Likewise, I only worry about player structures "polluting" the landscape when there's not enough landscape...

Edited September 19, 2014 by Katana67

[triplebullet187 5]

I don't mind the base really but like OP said. I would like more focus on the wilderness instead of throwing in more towns and what not. I mean we spend a lot of time in the woods so why not make them have their own set of structures and or things out there for us to explore, at least more so than what we have now. 

[Evil Minion 943]

I am not really sure about this. Its hard to argue dynamics in this state as key elements are still missing:

1. A fix/nerf to server hopping
2. A more advanced loot economy/slower overall progress
3. A proper day/night cycle (with proper nights that are dark and cannot be cheated away)
4. Vehicles
5. Base building

Maybe we do need more wilderness, maybe we don't. But I know for sure that we need smarter animals - if they had a line of sight greater than 3m it would help.

[boneboys 7988]

Old Evil has gone off the track a bit...

Oh well.

The new camp is a trap, open fields and no where to hide..

 

[Deathlove 2286]

Maybe the developers are realizing ppl are getting more board with the wilderness than towns and thats why they are trying to get ppl to spread out all over the map. Everyone is pretty much centralizing where all the high end spots are anyways. No reason to go into the middle of nowhere at the moment.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Deathlove

[DEOVONTAY MCSLANGA 149]

They really just need to add more wilderness proportional to the new cities and stuff they add.

 

It would also be cool to have some true wilderness closer to the center of the map. It's a bit boring that the only real forests are in the north and west edges of the map.

[DEOVONTAY MCSLANGA 149]

Maybe the developers are realizing ppl are getting more board with the wilderness than towns and thats why they are trying to get ppl to spread out all over the map. Everyone is pretty much centralizing where all the high end spots are anyways. No reason to go into the middle of nowhere at the moment.

 

Wow that would be a really insightful post if you had bothered to take into account...

 

Player made buildings

Permanent player storage

Vehicle storage

Everything that made the mod fun

 

Obviously the devs should hone the map to what people are doing in a less than half finished game right?

[Deathlove 2286]

They really just need to add more wilderness proportional to the new cities and stuff they add.

 

It would also be cool to have some true wilderness closer to the center of the map. It's a bit boring that the only real forests are in the north and west edges of the map.

More unique landscapes with dips, rock structures, possible caves, canyons, much larger chain lakes inland, etc would help diversify this in allot of ways to as well instead of the cut straight path of hills, open fields and very poorly developed streams of water.

[Deathlove 2286]

Wow that would be a really insightful post if you had bothered to take into account...

 

Player made buildings

Permanent player storage

Vehicle storage

Everything that made the mod fun

 

Obviously the devs should hone the map to what people are doing in a less than half finished game right?

Wow maybe you should see it from both angles of players before just assuming. Half of the players want pvp and half of the players want pve. I could careless which happens to be honest but you will not find ppl going to to many areas if they start taking stuff away. Expanding the woods but offering greater landmarks of interest and unique features of the land would help things seem less boring for the average pvper as well.

[Katana67 2907]

While I don't really care for such black and white divides like "some people want PvP, others want PvE" (I want both, crazy right?)... I think you raise a good point.

 

Offering a robust wilderness that can actually be a destination unto itself would benefit both PvE and PvP by giving broader utility to the wilderness. Whereas now, this utility is non-existent.

 

The simple addition of player construction to what we have now would not be complete, as storage/construction sites would be confined to a relatively small area of the map (thereby making them all the more easy to find). There is, of course, the eventuality that player construction can be geared toward urban areas. But that's where I make the case that it shouldn't be confined to only urban areas. It should be viable in the wilderness as well. Which, I don't see happening if the wilderness is made smaller and has fixed high-value locations.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Katana67

[DerDuderich 149]

Well the problem is that this so called "player made environment" feature will NEVER work. In any game.

 

Just take a close look at "sandbox" games that already allow players to build buildings and structures. You'll then observe two things:

 

1. Player exploiting the system
   The first half of players will for example build rediculously high "sniper towers" right in the middle of big cities, block the entrance to important loot buildings or build stuff under water. Or - good example - take minecraft: People will take great pelasure in destroying other players buildings, build a giant penis and so on. To sum it up: Instead of using the system as it was intended, after 30 minutes all the 12-year-old kids will get bored and start a competition "Who can build the most stupid building right in the middle of Cherno". Now what happens is: Those buildings completly destroy the atmosphere the game and the "sandbox gameplay" becomes a sandbox in kindergarden where everyone behaves like a 5 year old.
2. Players hiding from each other
   The other half of players will build cool buildings, but because they are afraid of the first half of idiots, they will try to hide those buildings deep in the "wilderness", at the borders of the map.

What's the result:

 

Stupid buildings in cities, cool buildings FAR FAR AWAY in the forest and the rest of the map is nothing but empty and boring.

 

This is exactly the problem why devs are currently NOT talking about "base building" but about "barricading". They will hopefully never allow people to build their own buildings because that would destroy the game.  

 

And this is why we need a cool map with many different diverse locations...

[Karmaterror 982]

Maybe....just maybe as they carry on adding, they may subtract. Would be nice to loose a few older towns in beta to give back some of the wilderness. Also would make the map less and less like the A2 version. Im hoping for massive forests popping up when they finish all there new stuff :)

[ChainReactor 922]

Skalisty Island ( the bigger one, close to Kamyshovo ) is still a nice place to go. Until the devs build a kickass prison there that spawns top-tier military loot. :P