Radio/Walkie-Talkie/MMO-style friendlist for friendlies.

[DaynNightGaming 2]

I stopped playing Day Z a long time ago because I felt it lacked meaning and almost everyone was playing the game rather as a slow-paced deathmatch rather than as a survival simulation.
I believe it is that way because there is simply close to no reason at all to be friendly other than for your own personal morality, something which loses it's meaning when it always puts you at a disadvantage.

However, I have come up with an idea, which at first glance may seem to be straying further but after some thought; closer to realism of a real zombie apocalypse.
 
In real life the single most important logical reason to be friendly is as the name implies; to gain friends in a world otherwise hostile and dangerous.
In the game this sort of thing doesn't really happen since firstly, many servers don't allow you to see names and faces are not unique and most times unrecognisable because of graphics and clothing.
And secondly and most importantly: The timespace of the game makes it very hard for in-game friendships to work since the world is very large, people log out, switch servers and meeting someone twice is so rare that the maximum use of friendships would be to exchange items, items you can get just by killing the player.

So my idea is if you find someone friendly, you 2 and only you 2 can exchange a pair of walkie-talkies/radios with eachother which allow you 2 to talk to each other from anywhere on the map, allowing the organization of operations, rescue missions, trades and alertion of threats. Turning the otherwise neutral and short encounter with another player into the acquisition of a global ally.
This would also be at its most immersive without global chat.

I have come up with 2 variants of this feature which either could be set in stone or customizable depending on server type.

Hardcore/Immersive mode:
You either lose your walkie-talkie and your friend if you or your friend dies, adding to the immersion of permadeath so that if your friend dies; you will probably never ever hear from them again.

Normal/Gamey mode:
Or you keep your friends when you die, so that you can permanently have each other in an MMO-style friendlist. Allowing you to see if they are online and what server they are playing on.


Extra sub-features:

Color customization: for you to customize your friend list so that you can choose what colors your friends are wearing, which of course only you can see, so for example if your friend is wearing a white cap you can customize it to appear green/blue/yellow/red/whatever to you.

Message types: Making so that I can either choose to send private messages to one friend, or mass-messages to all or selected friends.

Grouping: maybe a feature of it's own that surely must have been suggested before but if me, friend 1 and friend 2 were to all exchange radios we would be able to create our own chat room, just to move Skype and other (Voice) chats in-game.



SO MY SUGGESTION AND EXTRA SUGGESTIONS SUMMARIZED:

Core suggestion:
Ability to add people you meet as friends for private and global communication.

Variants of suggestion:
Hardcore: You permanently lose friends if either of you dies.
Normal: You keep your friends in an MMO-style friendlist.
Could possibly be determined by server type.

Extra sub-suggestions:
1. Customizable colors for friends only appearing from your perspective.
2. Message types between private messages and mass-messages.
3. MMO-Style group chats.


Thanks that's all. HUBA. HYU. WHUBB.