"This is your story. play it our way"

[Bororm 1156]

So the latest status report is here and I was looking forward to it because I feel in general the team has taken a turn and are heading this game in a direction that worries me.  I'm a huge fan of DayZ, it seemed to be one of the truest sandbox games in a long time.  There's no ridiculous systems to punish you for playing how you want.  "This is your story" is their slogan, and Rocket was often quoted as saying he wanted to just give players the tools to do what they want.

 

Not dictating the player experience, not telling us how to play, not deciding what's right and wrong.  That is what a sandbox is and what I wanted DayZ to be.

 

I've noticed some bias from the team leaking into the development of the game for a while now.  When ever snipers were brought up they were quite scornfully regarded by some of the team in typical sarcastic remarks of "1337 snipex0rz" and what have you.  Sniper rifles kept being said to be developed and then pushed off till the "central economy" was in place.  That in itself isn't bad (making sniper rifles some what rare is great, gives you something to look for) but the reason behind it was very apparent to be that they just don't want people sniping.  Why is that a factor when AKMs and drum mags are out there in abundance?  This was the first obvious sign of the devs choosing a particular playstyle to discriminate against to at least some degree.

 

Then there's the latest patch with all it entails.  Some good some bad, I didn't personally see much issue in finding loot when I checked it out but obviously a lot of people have.  Here's a quote from the status report:

 

 

Balancing and adjustment will have to occur, as the intended experience is not to ensure starvation on the coast, but instead foster the ability to spawn, gather the basic supplies required to move inland, and thus begin the real DayZ experience - your story, your struggle for survival.

The emphasis is mine.  He contradicts himself in the same sentence.  Who is the team to tell me what the "real dayz experience" is supposed to be, when they've been saying all along it is my story.  Why is fighting or just playing on the coast suddenly an invalid way to play?

 

People who don't understand are just going to take from this that I'm whining.  That I'm upset because I can't pvp on the coast or whatever.  The truth is I haven't fought on the coast in ages.  I do like to pvp but I'm not only for pvp, I truly believe good pve compliments pvp and vis versa.  The best game I've ever played and imo the best game ever made is Ultima Online.  That was a sandbox experience, you could play however you wanted.  It worked because you could be a crafter perfectly happily, but still have to deal with pks.  Or you could be a pk but still need to trade with crafters.  Everyone had their role, that they chose, and played the way that was fun to them.

 

Another quote:

 

Some folks have expressed concern that the increasing difficulty in surviving and combating the environment would hurt player interaction. To which I say.. Sure, it will hurt player interaction if by player interaction you mean folks wandering up and down the coast, wearing pink dresses and chasing each other with fire extinguishers.

What's wrong with that?  If that's how some people want to play, then what's the big deal? (This is not how I played to be clear, but if people want to I don't care.  If I don't want to deal with them, I can go inland of my own accord.  If anything that's a way better motivation to get off the coast than suddenly deciding loot doesn't spawn there)

 

Saying any type of behavior is better than another, that any playstyle is more valid than another is exactly the opposite of what I want the devs of a sandbox telling me.  

 

It just oozes bias by the team against particular types of players.  It's changing things simply to try to avoid scenarios, while at the same time grossly ignoring the underlying motivations people have that do this sorta stuff.

 

 

 

Players who enter a village and have to make a hard decision - do I use what little ammunition I have to kill and steal from the survivors already in this town? Do I instead avoid the risk of death from attacking another player, only to potentially risk death by starvation or infected as I make my way around the town? Is the cost of expending my resources in either choice too great?

This isn't a decision to those types of people.  If I have 5 bullets and I see another player, I'm going to shoot him because I do not care if I die.  If I have no bullets, I am going to try to axe him.  Forcing me off the coast isn't going to change that, so why try to curve that behavior even to begin with, especially when it goes against the core principle they're trying to promote.

 

This is disappointing.  I still have hope for the game, but it's something I was afraid would happen when Rocket left.  Rocket may have had a vision of what he wanted this game to be, but I think he understood very well not to let his personal opinions influence his development.  That his way of playing wasn't the "right way."  This was especially evident when he said he'd only ever actually killed a single person in DayZ and felt terrible about it, yet he didn't do anything to try to curve that type of behavior.  The team can try to mask these decisions as just trying to make it more of a "survival" game but their bias oozes through, they can't hide that.  And don't get me wrong, I am impressed with all they've done but it would have just been nice if from the start they'd told us they wanted this game to be played their way.  To wait till now to tell us there's a "real" way to play DayZ just blows, quite frankly.

 

TL;DR: In an attempt to clarify/condense my thoughts.  I don't care about the game becoming hardcore survival, what I care about is the team trying to dictate my experience and the motivations behind changes/development.  Make loot (just as an example) rare because it should be hard to survive, not because you don't want people fighting on the coast.  Make sniper rifles difficult to find as a luxury, not because you don't want people sniping fresh spawns.  Don't try to curve behavior with mechanics.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

This isn't the game for you right now.

 

Maybe come back when modding starts.

 

Sheesh.

Edited April 9, 2015 by BioHaze

[tuthmes 49]

I smell a landmine or two here... =)

 

/duck and cover

 

lol

[Bororm 1156]

This isn't the game for you right now.

 

Maybe come back when modding starts.

 

Sheesh.

 

I am looking forward to modding now, when I wasn't before.  Though honestly I am probably looking forward to whatever Rocket is cooking up more so.  The game might very well become something I don't really want, the disappointing part is that it has taken a sharp turn in the middle of development away from what they've been saying it was all along.  It is fast becoming a "game" rather than a "sandbox" where the experience and goals are influenced by the devs rather than left up to the player.  I'm still hoping that Hicks and some of the others are just shit at expressing themselves though, and it won't be as bad as it seems.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Vanilla DayZ will have baseline parameters that must be overcome before you can begin "your story".

 

Real survival is truly tedious and requires unflinching attention to detail.

 

The real reward comes when you can truly say you are "thriving" which should really be the end game for every player, no matter how they play.

 

You would be the master of the elements, wanting for nothing, and could be free to play out your DayZ as you see fit.

 

The most rewarding things in my life always seem to involve the most work over the longest period of time.

 

I don't mind a game that reflects that.

[soulfirez 901]

 As written on steam from day 1 of sales.....

This is DayZ, this is your story.

DayZ is a gritty, authentic, open-world survival horror hybrid-MMO game, in which players follow a single goal: to survive in the harsh post-apocalyptic landscape as long as they can. Players can experience powerful events and emotions arising from the ever-evolving emergent gameplay. There are no superficial tips, waypoints, built in tutorials or help given to players. Every decision matters, there are no save games, no extra lives, every mistake can be lethal. If you fail, you lose everything and you need to play again from the beginning with nothing but your wits, and your two hands. Fight the hostile environment, where every other player can be friend or foe and nothing can be taken for granted.

 

Strange this is what they said about Dayz from the start and to me it seems they are only just now getting there. Gritty authentic and fighting in a pink dress with a fire extinguisher dont really go hand in hand but the funny thing is YOU CAN STILL DO THAT IF YOU WANT. Sure it will mean a pretty short life but then if you wanted to survive you wouldnt be doing that would you??

 

I see the words open world survival horror and you can do what you want but if what you choose is good for a laugh will that mean its a viable method to SURVIVE NO. But again you can still do it if your happy playing 30 40 min lives having a laugh at the coast. Me ill try to survive in the gritty authentic survival horror they said it would be rather than the garry's mod with zeds some people want it to be ( PS I LOVE GARRYS MOD i just dont expect dayz to be like it)

[Bororm 1156]

Vanilla DayZ will have baseline parameters that must be overcome before you can begin "your story".

 

Real survival is truly tedious and requires unflinching attention to detail.

 

The real reward comes when you can truly say you are "thriving" which should really be the end game for every player, no matter how they play.

 

You would be the master of the elements, wanting for nothing, and could be free to play out your DayZ as you see fit.

 

The most rewarding things in my life always seem to involve the most work over the longest period of time.

 

I don't mind a game that reflects that.

 

I don't mind if the game reflects that either.  And again, I'm not complaining about making the game hard or more survivaly.

I'm complaining about the motivations behind the changes.  If they want to create a better map flow, great.  The mod had great map flow as people went inland for high end military gear, then brought it back to the coast to shoot people.  Don't make less loot on the coast just because you're trying to get people to stop fighting there.  Give incentive to go inland, don't force people to and definitely don't tell me I have to because it's the "real dayz experience."

 

It's the bias from the team that I take issue with.  When sniper rifles aren't added because they don't want you sniping fresh spawns yet you can go spray them down with drum mags and shotguns.  I could care less if there were only 5 sniper rifles per server, it would be a goal I could work for, but for the motivation to be that there's only 5 so that everyone isn't out shooting people on the coast is just stupid.

 

What players do, and how they behave within the confines of the game should not have any influence on design decisions in a sandbox.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Bororm

[Mullraugh 1151]

I like how people use the "This is your story" slogan as an argument for KoS, yet 98% of them only KoS because everyone else and their dog is doing it. Not really your story if you're just copying the playstyle of other people eh?

Edited April 9, 2015 by mullraugh

[jubeidok 495]

I am looking forward to modding now, when I wasn't before.  Though honestly I am probably looking forward to whatever Rocket is cooking up more so.  The game might very well become something I don't really want, the disappointing part is that it has taken a sharp turn in the middle of development away from what they've been saying it was all along.  It is fast becoming a "game" rather than a "sandbox" where the experience and goals are influenced by the devs rather than left up to the player.  I'm still hoping that Hicks and some of the others are just shit at expressing themselves though, and it won't be as bad as it seems.

 

What is it you want to do that you can't do?

 

Just because something is a sandbox doesn't mean that one play style shouldn't be more effective than another. It doesn't mean that there isn't a wrong way play in order succeed. It simply means there is nothing stopping you from playing that wrong way and that you have to discover for yourself, through trial and error how to go about things the 'right' way.

 

People that don't take the survival aspect of the game seriously will and should die. This build was a move in that direction and I believe they will continue to move in that direction. They didn't remove pink dresses and they didn't remove the fire extinguisher, so if someone wants to play that way they can. They are simply saying if you do, don't expect to survive for too long.

[Bororm 1156]

I like how people use the "This is your story" slogan as an argument for KoS, yet 98% of them only KoS because everyone else and their dog is doing it. Not really your story if you're just copying the playstyle of other people eh?

 

I play this game however I feel like at any given moment.  Some times I KoS, some times I help dudes, some times I hunt, fish whatever.

 

If some one's "story" is that they like to run up and down the coast in a dress with a fire extinguisher, then great.  Who am I to say losing that style of play is a good thing, which clearly is the connotation of hick's quote above.  That playing on the coast is some how the "wrong" way to play.

 

Completely ignoring all the non-KOS reasons you might have to stay on the coast as well.  But no, get off the coast ya coastal scrubs.  The "real dayz experience" is only inland.

 

 

What is it you want to do that you can't do?

 

Just because something is a sandbox doesn't mean that one play style shouldn't be more effective than another. It doesn't mean that there isn't a wrong way play in order succeed. It simply means there is nothing stopping you from playing that wrong way and that you have to discover for yourself, through trial and error how to go about things the 'right' way.

 

People that don't take the survival aspect of the game seriously will and should die. This build was a move in that direction and I believe they will continue to move in that direction. They didn't remove pink dresses and they didn't remove the fire extinguisher, so if someone wants to play that way they can. They are simply saying if you do, don't expect to survive for too long.

 

Again my issue is them saying that's the wrong way to play.  Not "in order to succeed" but because it's obvious that they just don't like that style of play.  They're trying to curve a behavior that they personally don't like.  That way of thinking is not conducive to creating a sandbox.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Bororm

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

 

I play this game however I feel like at any given moment.  Some times I KoS, some times I help dudes, some times I hunt, fish whatever.

 

If some one's "story" is that they like to run up and down the coast in a dress with a fire extinguisher, then great.  Who am I to say losing that style of play is a good thing, which clearly is the connotation of hick's quote above.  That playing on the coast is some how the "wrong" way to play.

 

Completely ignoring all the non-KOS reasons you might have to stay on the coast as well.  But no, get off the coast ya coastal scrubs.  The "real dayz experience" is only inland.

 

 

 

Again my issue is them saying that's the wrong way to play.  Not "in order to succeed" but because it's obvious that they just don't like that style of play.  They're trying to curve a behavior that they personally don't like.  That way of thinking is not conducive to creating a sandbox.

 

Wrong, they finally added a tiny portion of the survival element that they've been talking about for many many months.  This is the direction the game has always been headed.

Edited April 9, 2015 by Caboose187

[tuthmes 49]

I Keep saying "Make the map bigger / add more critters / animals / a pond or 4 (streams ect)  Really just add more land..

 

 

. (CITYS) The Hero's / bandits get what they want, and  (NORTH AND WEST) The  hunter / Survival types / Work it out...

 

 

     (to be able to mod tho) not so sure I like this... Kills the MMO feel of it..

 

 

Meh..

 

Drow.

[Inception. 9443]

'1337 snipex0rz' =/= 'I dislike snipers and therefore they will not be implemented', necessarily. 

[boneboys 7988]

There are too many claims that amount to defamation here that cannot be ignored.