How the North has Changed

[Whyherro123 2283]

Those same people are too busy concerning themselves with loot they'll eventually lose (and cry about losing) to explore other aspects of the game and find out what about the experience is really compelling to them.

I can't wait until actually realistic (read: difficult and time consuming) survival and medical mechanics are implemented, and for all the KoS-fanboys that wave their assault-rifle-shaped erections around to start crying. I'll boil their tears to make safe drinking water.

[Dagwood 680]

Nobody has mentioned zombies. In a class 5 zombie outbreak, the wilderness would be the place to hide. This is where the remaining humans would retreat to find relief from the undead.

Decreasing the wilderness area essentially gives us less places to escape the undead. Black Forest and the south eastern "mountains" provide the most significant wilderness area. However, they are both near spawn points and aren't as isolated as the west and north were in the mod.

IMO the developers have a vision for how the map will flow and how players will move around the map. I won't pretend to know that vision, but I imagine it involves more nomadic gameplay and less cluster fucking in the same 4 locations on the map. Adding a ton of extra villages and decreasing spawn rates is a step in this direction. Kids will cry, quitters will uninstall, and the hardcore shall endure.

[Irish. 4886]

I think once they add predator animals to the woods, a lot of us will want less woods.

 

*walks into treeline to eat and bandage after frightful bandit attack.. gets eaten by bear. 

[Noble Savage 116]

For me it's the complete lack of variety, it's early days in the alpha process so what's the rush to fill the map with towns?

 

FIRST - let's get every building and every room on the map enterable. these doors at the top of stairwells that lead nowhere lol, we have lock picks and the ability to smash doors in with our fists, get those rooms sorted.

 

Let's have at least another 10 or 12 building models to help give some of these towns/villages a bit of individual character. Mix it up, don't feel like every town must have every house on the menu.

 

You heard of paint??? ok, so we got a ton of the same houses, why not give them a variety of paint jobs, edit a line of code and turn a green house into a brown house or whatever, randomize door and window frame colur schemes...use your imaginations guys....

 

THEN start thinking about where you might want to add settlements, it's this mad crazy rush to fill the map with the same 12 or so building types that makes no sense, with all those resources and the much feted team of artists at your disposal? come on lol, GET THEM CREATING and STOP REPLICATING!

Edited December 18, 2014 by Noble Savage

[Whyherro123 2283]

I think once they add predator animals to the woods, a lot of us will want less woods.

 

*walks into treeline to eat and bandage after frightful bandit attack.. gets eaten by bear. 

Which is why you sleep in a tree, and prepare all food away from your campsite.

 

People seemingly have this idea that predators have this hate-boner for humanity, that they are just waiting for us to relax our guard, and they want nothing more than to kill and eat us. This idea could not be any more incorrect, and was (and sadly, is) the reason why so many predator species in Europe and North America were next-to wiped out.

 

What are the predator species we are most likely to come across in Chernarus? Wolves and bears? Wolves want nothing less to avoid humans, and will only become aggressive if you intrude upon their territory. And aggressive, in this case, means following you and trying to scare you away. If you provoke an actual attack, they are probably more terrified than you are.

 

Similarly with bears. Most bear attacks occur either because they smelled food/etc at your campsite, came to investigate, and you startled them, or you got between them and their young. 

 

The thing is, most animals (not only predators) actively seek to avoid potentially dangerous confrontation as much as possible. Predators don't go on murder-sprees just because they can, because they know that their prey can, and WILL, fight back, and they don't want to get hurt. If you get attacked by an animal, it is literally the final and worst option available to the animal, and it means you literally ignored EVERY other option to defuse the situation. These options include making themselves known, setting dominance (staring in particular. NEVER try to stare down an animal confronting you.), and actively following you in effort to scare you off and get you to leave.

 

Plus, there is the territorial concerns. South Zagoria has about 225 square kilometers of area, and let us assume that only about 70 square kilometers of that is ocean. That leaves about 150 sq kilometers of area for animals to live, INCLUDING cities and human development. Let us lowball the area claimed by a wolfpack and a SINGULAR bear as 100 square miles (wolves, and the area is given for a wolfpack in the 48 lower US states http://www.wolf.org/learn/basic-wolf-info/wolf-faqs/#h), and for a bear is between 70 (female) and 300-500 (male) square miles per individual. http://westernwildlife.org/grizzly-bear-outreach-project/faqs/#a6

 

This works out to be 260 square kilometers for a wolfpacks territory, and between 181-1295 square kilometers for a female - male bear. So, we could have 1 wolfpack for the whole of South Zagoria, maybe a female bear, and not likely to come across a male one.

 

So, even if predators were likely to attack humans, we wouldn't be likely to come across one.

 

Really, the most likely aggressive animal we would come across would be packs of angry, hungry, rapidly-undomesticating dogs. Good eating on one of them!

Edited December 18, 2014 by Whyherro123

[Irish. 4886]

Which is why you sleep in a tree

 

Bears climb trees  :|

[Whyherro123 2283]

Bears climb trees  :|

Not for shits and giggles. Why waste all that energy to get a VERY unappetizing (humans are actually not likely to be eaten by predators. We are really bone-y, and don't have a lot of fat, especially compared to "prey" species.) meal, when they could just eat the stuff we left around? I have seen no bear bags nor boxes in game.

 

Animals aren't stupid, and aren't going to go for the human when there is easier, more appetizing, or less dangerous potential meals around. Humans are death on roller skates from an animals POV, even if all we have is a pointy stick.

[Tatanko 5591]

edit a line of code and turn a green house into a brown house or whatever

See, the thing is, it's not anywhere near that easy. Neither is creating a new town, which requires countless hours of placing items and buildings, then adjusting, then adjusting some more to make sure everything is correct and that objects don't clip through each other, the terrain doesn't clip through buildings, etc. It's way, way more work than you're making it out to be. Building Chernarus is not like playing with Legos or Minecraft.

The map team also has plenty of ideas for unique locations, buildings, etc. once their principle map-building is complete. They've very nearly finished adding all the new areas to the map, and they aren't simply going to quit their jobs when that's done. Have patience.

[St. Jimmy 1631]

If you want to look how real life Chernarus and north looks like https://www.google.de/maps/@50.7594106,14.1110129,6784m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

The layout is pretty close to real life currently. Maybe that town between Tisy and Krasnoe shouldn't be there and area between Berezino and Svetlo is way more crowded in real life are the probably the biggest difference in North.

 

I'll say they're now pretty close to the "final" layout. Maybe adding a bigger Kamenka is the last thing before some more unique stuff will happen.

Edited December 18, 2014 by St. Jimmy

[rickyriot 1009]

Bears climb trees  :|

 

I believe they also shit in the woods.

[zeotrope 76]

Having read this entire post I have to agree with a lot of what was said. But as stated earlier on and it's a point I could not agree more with is the repetition of the recycled buildings we see in each and every town. Sure there have been improvements to how towns are laid out and how they sit in the countryside. But overall it's like groundhog day with each town we visit. Saying that. I can certainly tell the difference between Elektro and Cherno. 

What I would love to see even if it was only subtle in the beginning would be that each town contain unique buildings; buildings that are only found it a particular town. Buildings that tell a player that they are indeed in a new location and would serve to draw you in for exploration.....rather than just a dash for cash loot fest. 
 

I understand in-game objects need to be duplicated and generic looking buildings are indeed used for this purpose. It's the other type of building I would like to see being uniquely used. The building that are unusual and stand out from the rest. These should be used sparingly. 

My 3 cents.

[Katana67 2907]

Yes, long said it, but the wilderness is being not-so-slowly marginalized... by a lot. Anyone willing to dispute otherwise is, I'm sorry to say, high off their ass.

 

I fear a large chunk of what I enjoyed about the mod, mainly solo-play stealing hidden vehicles and looting tents in the wilderness, will be lost in favor of "another city over the hill" repetitive gameplay.

 

Luckily, the western bit of Chernarus has been largely... Oh wait, nevermind, I take that back. They put a MASSIVE military camp outside of the one quaint town left, Myshkino. Therein creating yet another clusterfuck-y nexus for people to converge on that's smack dab in the middle of the only wilderness we've got left.

 

And before anyone says "Oh, player interactions only happen in cities dummy therefore we should have only urban areas," they just don't. Sorry. I have encountered plenty of folk, structures, and things in the wilderness. That, and wilderness is the canvas... not the attraction (i.e. game mechanics). Adding attraction to the wilderness is the problem, not the wilderness itself.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Katana67

[solodude23 649]

Yes, long said it, but the wilderness is being not-so-slowly marginalized... by a lot. Anyone willing to dispute otherwise is, I'm sorry to say, high off their ass.

 

I fear a large chunk of what I enjoyed about the mod, mainly solo-play stealing hidden vehicles and looting tents in the wilderness, will be lost in favor of "another city over the hill" repetitive gameplay.

 

Luckily, the western bit of Chernarus has been largely... Oh wait, nevermind, I take that back. They put a MASSIVE military camp outside of the one quaint town left, Myshkino. Therein creating yet another clusterfuck-y nexus for people to converge on that's smack dab in the middle of the only wilderness we've got left.

 

And before anyone says "Oh, player interactions only happen in cities dummy therefore we should have only urban areas," they just don't. Sorry. I have encountered plenty of folk, structures, and things in the wilderness. That, and wilderness is the canvas... not the attraction (i.e. game mechanics). Adding attraction to the wilderness is the problem, not the wilderness itself.

Myshkino MB is tiny compared to the entire west side of the map (updated 0.52). The other day I made my way to Kamenka and then Pavlovo MB before heading straight west and then north towards Myshkino. The woods felt nearly endless and I kept thinking that I may had passed the base without realizing it (I rarely travel by sprint, nearly always jog). Every now and then I would catch just the slightest glimpse of the edge of a town towards the east. Once I got to the military base I had a small gunfight before heading north until hitting Sinistok which was quite the journey all over again without seeing a single soul or building. Point here is one "massive" military base to the west doesn't wreck the entire western wilderness; however, I wouldn't be upset if the base were removed either - especially once the military base in the northwest corner is added.

 

Regarding your comment about running to people in the wilderness, I could not disagree more. I nearly always play on full servers (or as full as possible) and the woods are my method of travel 95% of the time. I only have around 300 hours in-game but I've never ran into anyone in the woods with the exception of one guy and that was in the woods outside of NWAF (which really doesn't count anyway). That being said, I do not think there should only be urban areas, but I still find there to be plenty of wilderness to the north and to the southeast along with the area between Cernaya Polana, Khelm, and Devil's Castle.

 

Yet I do understand that the player population will someday increase and in the future players may gravitate more towards the woods as persistence, advanced animals, vehicles, etc. are improved and the woods become more important to everyone besides hermits like me. I do hope that the wilderness itself is improved with more undergrowth/foliage someday because as it stands the woods don't really provide much concealment. Not sure how possible this is though; I'm just hoping that this may be possible in the future as the engine is altered/improved.

Edited December 20, 2014 by solodude23

[Whyherro123 2283]

Yes, long said it, but the wilderness is being not-so-slowly marginalized... by a lot. Anyone willing to dispute otherwise is, I'm sorry to say, high off their ass.

 

I fear a large chunk of what I enjoyed about the mod, mainly solo-play stealing hidden vehicles and looting tents in the wilderness, will be lost in favor of "another city over the hill" repetitive gameplay.

 

Luckily, the western bit of Chernarus has been largely... Oh wait, nevermind, I take that back. They put a MASSIVE military camp outside of the one quaint town left, Myshkino. Therein creating yet another clusterfuck-y nexus for people to converge on that's smack dab in the middle of the only wilderness we've got left.

 

And before anyone says "Oh, player interactions only happen in cities dummy therefore we should have only urban areas," they just don't. Sorry. I have encountered plenty of folk, structures, and things in the wilderness. That, and wilderness is the canvas... not the attraction (i.e. game mechanics). Adding attraction to the wilderness is the problem, not the wilderness itself.

Which is why you go to the wilderness area I mentioned above; a giant square from Koslovka to Tulga, and Black Forest to Pusta.  A giant area about 1/3 of the map, and in a week and a half, I have yet to see a single player. 

 

The rest of the map is either river valley or grassland plateau, areas that, if they weren't settled, I would take umbrage with the map designers. Those types of terrain are prime real estate for farming, animal husbandry, and industry.

 

Look for my rationale for the settling of the west and north above. The map devs aren't just doing it arbitrarily; the development actually makes sense based on human settlement.

[Katana67 2907]

 

Myshkino MB is tiny compared to the entire west side of the map (updated 0.52). The other day I made my way to Kamenka and then Pavlovo MB before heading straight west and then north towards Myshkino. The woods felt nearly endless and I kept thinking that I may had passed the base without realizing it (I rarely travel by sprint, nearly always jog). Every now and then I would catch just the slightest glimpse of the edge of a town towards the east. Once I got to the military base I had a small gunfight before heading north until hitting Sinistok which was quite the journey all over again without seeing a single soul or building. Point here is one "massive" military base to the west doesn't wreck the entire western wilderness; however, I wouldn't be upset if the base were removed either - especially once the military base in the northwest corner is added.

 

Regarding your comment about running to people in the wilderness, I could not disagree more. I nearly always play on full servers (or as full as possible) and the woods are my method of travel 95% of the time. I only have around 300 hours in-game but I've never ran into anyone in the woods with the exception of one guy and that was in the woods outside of NWAF (which really doesn't count anyway). That being said, I do not think there should only be urban areas, but I still find there to be plenty of wilderness to the north and to the southeast along with the area between Cernaya Polana, Khelm, and Devil's Castle.

 

Yet I do understand that the player population will someday increase and in the future players may gravitate more towards the woods as persistence, advanced animals, vehicles, etc. are improved and the woods become more important to everyone besides hermits like me. I do hope that the wilderness itself is improved with more undergrowth/foliage someday because as it stands the woods don't really provide much concealment. Not sure how possible this is though; I'm just hoping that this may be possible in the future as the engine is altered/improved.

 

Think of it as a spiderweb, sure there's a nice center to it... but there's tons of pathways to the center of the spiderweb.

 

Having a nexus, a high-value military loot area, in the wilderness... draws everyone from across the map to that area. Therein reducing the isolated nature of the entire area, because it's become a highway. It's less about the size of the area itself, and more about the fact that people will be traipsing across previously untouched forest just to get to that area (not to actually inhabit the forest).

 

Unsure if you're talking about the mod or the Standalone, but in the mod, I encounter folks in the woods constantly. Because that's where people hide valuable things. Trouble is, there isn't that robust of a "hide valuable / craft valuable things" infrastructure yet in the Standalone.

[harteman 155]

I find something being there better than nothing being there, because it gives all players a reason to go to that area.  I see it as balance.

[NinjaTurkey 255]

I never played the mod but I am familiar with the original chernarus map from playing Arma 2 and I agree with you OP, they have fucked up the North, and not just the North.

 

Too many samey identikit towns with samey identikit buildings, no variety, no imagination, no 2 towns feel different in any way, it's just lazy house spamming across the countryside. Someone at BIS is clearly obsessed with towns.

 

The beauty of the original Chernarus was in the wilderness areas, getting lost then the relief of spotting a farm or a small village, we have to walk for no more than 2 minutes now before we stumble upon yet another village or town, it's a bit crap to be honest. Someone needs to have a quiet word in the devs ear and advise them that vast swathes of wilderness are needed in order for players to experience all that the game has to offer, like making camps, realistic hunting and trapping and living off the land. DayZ should be about much more than just looting the same 11 building models over and over and over again.

 

In my opinion the game would benefit from a drastic settlement cull, 12 towns and villages should be binned.

Yes the buildings are the same. Maybe they will create more later on to replace them. But to call the towns samey is wrong. The towns look great (far better than those that already existed). They look lived in and once populated. Cherno and Elektro to me always looked too empty. Chernarus is now looking like a populated region. Which will hopefully lead to large zombie hordes later on.

[igor-vk 909]

Nobody mentioned that grass is taller and there is more different types of plants than in old cities. Once persistance and zombies work properly, you will be able to make stashes in those new small villages and farms. And maybe hide vehicles (if they can fit in those storages). I guess no one will search every barn or shed when chased by zeds. I like new look of North West, but I have to explore it.

[hekp 223]

Not the latest patch addition but

I really love the environment of the abandoned military base N of Severo, E from the cave i believe. That overgrown vegetation makes it look...perfect.

I really hope we get to see more of such locations.They trully look abandoned and give a really nice authentic feeling to it

 

 

 

Nobody mentioned that grass is taller and there is more different types of plants than in old cities

I really need to check it out :)

Edited December 21, 2014 by halp

[Jex 1104]

I think there is enough of wilderness on map and you are just too lazy to explore. Old dayz mod map was smaller, it ended where the north highway is now. How many of you were on north edge of map in SA? Or in North west corner?

 

No -oh dear me did you not read the post I made? I was always exploring the entire map, on foot most of the time and the map is the same size.

 

Not really. I've been spending a decent amount of time in the "wilderness" I mentioned in my above post, and I have yet to see another player for the week or so I have been playing. 

 

Avoid the cities and "high loot locations" (Veresnik, Green Mountain, Pavlovo MB, Myshkino tents, etc) and you probably won't find another player, because they are all clusterfucking over "good" (snort) loot in cities and military bases.

 

There isn't really any wilderness left. The thing that made the map edge interesting is that beyond that it went on forever (and had more hills). You're certainly not going to find a safe place to put your camp either because now 50% of the wilderness has been taken away, and player numbers are going to increase, the wilderness areas are going to be prime estate and even then, the places you can hide something are ridiculously few.

 

Having read this entire post I have to agree with a lot of what was said. But as stated earlier on and it's a point I could not agree more with is the repetition of the recycled buildings we see in each and every town. Sure there have been improvements to how towns are laid out and how they sit in the countryside. But overall it's like groundhog day with each town we visit. Saying that. I can certainly tell the difference between Elektro and Cherno. 

What I would love to see even if it was only subtle in the beginning would be that each town contain unique buildings; buildings that are only found it a particular town. Buildings that tell a player that they are indeed in a new location and would serve to draw you in for exploration.....rather than just a dash for cash loot fest. 

 

I understand in-game objects need to be duplicated and generic looking buildings are indeed used for this purpose. It's the other type of building I would like to see being uniquely used. The building that are unusual and stand out from the rest. These should be used sparingly. 

My 3 cents.

 

Elektro and Cherno are easily identifiable because they were the original cities and were done better.

[St. Jimmy 1631]

One thing that made DayZ mod feel like there were no town close to each other was the view distance limit and fog. In Standalone you can have 3000m and 1700m object view distance so you can see towns very far away and you really know where you're because of the landmarks. In mod it was very different because view distance was only about 800m-1200m depending on weather.

 

I don't miss the old north because I din't even use tents in the mod. Building a camp in some "safe" place isn't my thing. There's still enough forest left for me where I can cook my meat.