Use those books to build a better Chernarus

[huggalump 10]

            I’m sure the DayZ forums see a million of these a day, so I’m going to get to the point. This is more than just a DayZ backstory. This is building the world of Chernarus. It will be easy to implement and it will improve the player experience.

 

The Plan

 

            Add more books and papers. Most of these pieces will be interesting but irrelevant. However, every so often the player will pick up a piece and be surprised to find information that’s actually relevant to the world around him.

 

The Why

 

            There’s a critical problem in the foundation of DayZ’s gameplay: there’s no long term goal. Once you have food and a gun, there’s nothing else to care about. You’ve won. It’s over. This leads players to hunting other players not due to survival, but due to lack of goals. It breaks the spirit of DayZ.

            My plan would add another element of things to find in the world. I imagine players trading information they’ve learned about what’s happened. They try to piece together the information and misinformation, just like they would in real life. A player starving and looking for a can of beans will skip right over these written pieces. However, for a player who is fed and armed, who has been roaming Chernarus for hours without seeing a soul, these written pieces will give a human connection as he listens to the words of the author.

           

The What

 

            Attached to this post are samples of what a player could pick up and learn about the outbreak in Chernarus. There will be many more pieces, both relevant and irrelevant to the world of Chernarus. There have to be enough irrelevant pieces so it feels special when the player finds a piece that sheds light on the world around him. Also, I’m sure you’ll notice that I’m far from being professional with photoshop. I just taught myself a bit so you could have something pretty to look at while reading.

            I leave the origins of the zombie problem vague. Confusion drives the fear in a zombie apocalypse, so I do not want a concrete backstory. Players will read one piece, think they understand what’s happening, then pick up another piece which contradicts the first. For example, Peter Young will have a theory, but then players will also find many other pamphlets from Peter Young and realize he’s insane. Esther has a theory, but it contradicts Peter Young’s and the Editor of the local newspaper. This is building an immersive world, not telling a backstory.

            Finally, the pieces I’ve attached are all pre-infection or as the infection is breaking. There could be an entire other category of pieces that come from post-infection. For example, Kurt Paine, a pop-rock star famous for charity who travels to Chernarus looking to help. He’s not Bono, but I could see why you might make the connection. Anyhow, things don’t end well for him. This may be pushing it, but it could even be possible to add a unique, single-spawn item of Paine’s signature guitar into the world. Players would fight over it and share stories of how they once managed to carry it for a full two hours.

 

The End

 

            This is low risk and high reward for the DayZ team. It’s low risk because this will be easy to introduce into the game, it will not change DayZ’s gameplay, and it will not hinder DayZ’s development roadmap. It’s high reward because it adds an entirely new element of items to find for the player who is past the desperate hunt for food. And most importantly, it’s high reward because it pushes the player’s experience that much closer to feeling real.

 

 

[JiJi (DayZ) 223]

I like the concept.

But carefull : it's a sand box and open game, with not fixed background - so it does not belong to us to tell to others what happened.
Each should be free to imagine what,when,where,how events occured.

So I think it should not really be factual narrative, or otherwise assumed subjective and so inaccurate to let users interpret it (and build their own version).

The other issue IMO is the language (just look town names on road signs). I don't say all should be written in Russian or slavic language, but if in English it should have a reason (international newspapers, embassy/tourist notes, leaflet U.N. / W.H.O. , etc etc ).

I know, it is very restrictive :|
(that's why I only tried image in my "Polaroid Discoverable Mementos" thread)

[DemonGroover 8836]

I like the idea of their being snippets of information about what happened and how.

[BeefBacon 1185]

Right, but what's the reward? I get the guitar thing, I think there was something similar in the mod with the gold AK, but what reward would 'piecing together the mystery' yield? You seem to completely disregard the metagame where players will learn the full story within a week of such a feature being introduced. It's the same with the in-game maps. They're worthless because people can either already find their way around or they just use an online map. Within the first week or so those maps might have been useful, but you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone using them now.

 

It's a neat idea, but it's fluff. i don't oppose its implementation any more than I oppose the books already in-game, but I think you're overestimating the impact it will have.

 

However, if these papers were randomly selected or, rather, these papers were selected based on a pre-determined story selected by the sever then it might be more interesting. Let's say the server decides that the zombies are a failed experiment. Papers hinting that zombies are a failed experiment would spawn in the world. If the server decides that zombies are, I don't know, the literal walking dead then the appropriate papers would spawn.

 

Now what would make these things actually valuable would be if these papers, much like maps, could be combined to somehow point the way to something interesting. A randomly spawned loot cache, for example, or a unique vehicle or weapon. That would be interesting.

[sgtpotatoes@gmail.com 30]

Contradictory accounts are a great idea.  The confusion allows for a lot of headcanon, gets folks interested in finding out for themselves.

 

Now what would make these things actually valuable would be if these papers, much like maps, could be combined to somehow point the way to something interesting. A randomly spawned loot cache, for example, or a unique vehicle or weapon. That would be interesting.

This is also intriguing!  An item set-dependent unique spawn with randomized references to specific towns or landmarks could be a HUGE motivation for exploration and group play.  You never know when you're going to run across the final piece, and have to rush as fast as you can to the final spot before Johnny Newspawn happens upon it.  

[huggalump 10]

Thanks for the comments and support!

 

First, I absolutely agree that I don't want there to be a concrete backstory. I want it to remain open ended and in confusion. Players pick up one piece that gives one theory, then pick up another piece with a contradictory theory. This is less about giving a back story and more about making the world feel immersive. 

 

Secondly, BeefBacon was asking what the item value of these pieces would be. There isn't any. I don't like the idea of finding pieces that lead to loot. This isn't about loot. This is about making Chernarus a more believable way. There already are a ton of fluff items in the game. It would be extremely easy to take some of these fluff pieces and have them actually tell a relevant story with my idea.

 

That being said, if the team decides they would like to have a piece or two that directs the player to loot, that's absolutely a direction they can go. It's just not my focus.

 

 

I like the concept.

But carefull : it's a sand box and open game, with not fixed background - so it does not belong to us to tell to others what happened.
Each should be free to imagine what,when,where,how events occured.

So I think it should not really be factual narrative, or otherwise assumed subjective and so inaccurate to let users interpret it (and build their own version).

The other issue IMO is the language (just look town names on road signs). I don't say all should be written in Russian or slavic language, but if in English it should have a reason (international newspapers, embassy/tourist notes, leaflet U.N. / W.H.O. , etc etc ).

I know, it is very restrictive  :|
(that's why I only tried image in my "Polaroid Discoverable Mementos" thread)

 

 

Also, your polaroid idea is fantastic! It seems to be a very similar idea to mine, just on the visual side. I think they'd be great companion projects :)

Edited April 27, 2015 by huggalump

[huggalump 10]

There's been some good suggestions on how to implement it into the game. Are there any suggestions concerning the writing?

 

thanks :)