Emergence in DayZ; What is it? Is it good? KOS'ing?

[emuthreat 2837]

Poems will only be accepted for extra credit if formatted in Iambic Pentameter.  Sorry for any inconvenience; I do not make the rules.

[Parazight 1599]

I don't think that killing in DayZ is a bad thing, it's just that the prevalence of killing absolutely everyone you see as soon as you see them is a trend that people seem to get tired of pretty quickly. It can in and of itself lead to other emergent trends, but these resulting trends tend to involve very little player driven interaction, which is what we require for the formation of larger communities that can actually have an impact on greater chernarus.

Well, I suppose you have to hope that players will join other hives once in a while and explore alternate trends/playstyles.

 

 

More, how do you encourage emergent playstyles to create time sinks?  Time sinks make or break a mmo.  With .57, I've switched playstyles more from pvp orientated to hermit style because barrels are the new hype.  Playing with barrels is a huge time sink.  Okay, so despite the changelog, barrels are non-existent right now. Not that that really matters, I guess.  Barrels have indirectly gotten me back into hunting.  

[FlimFlamm 509]

Poems will only be accepted for extra credit if formatted in Iambic Pentameter.  Sorry for any inconvenience; I do not make the rules.

THE LIMERICK MASTER-RACE CANNOT BE HELD BACK!

[FlimFlamm 509]

Well, I suppose you have to hope that players will join other hives once in a while and explore alternate trends/playstyles.

 

 

More, how do you encourage emergent playstyles to create time sinks?  Time sinks make or break a mmo.  With .57, I've switched playstyles more from pvp orientated to hermit style because barrels are the new hype.  Playing with barrels is a huge time sink.  Okay, so despite the changelog, barrels are non-existent right now. Not that that really matters, I guess.  Barrels have indirectly gotten me back into hunting.  

 

Modularity/customization and adaptability give rise to all sorts of new time consuming tasks. That the barrel can have so many different functions makes it perfect to adapt to multiple playstyles. Once basebuilding and vehicle modularity come into existence then we are going to see the most endless time sinks that the history of DayZ has ever seen. If the DayZ devs want to create endless emergent content then customizable and adaptable items and features are the way to get it. The way barrels will become an integral part of vehicle maintenance and food/liquid storage should prove quite interesting. Raiders won;t be able to cart everything off unless they have an entire V3S for the barrels of fuel and food. And nobody is quite sure what that barrel of red-ish liquid is...

[emuthreat 2837]

I'm prone to agree.

But I can now clearly see;

off-topic we be.

 

EIMI, E. MU

[emuthreat 2837]

 The way barrels will become an integral part of vehicle maintenance and food/liquid storage should prove quite interesting. Raiders won;t be able to cart everything off unless they have an entire V3S for the barrels of fuel and food. And nobody is quite sure what that barrel of red-ish liquid is...

Can't wait for implementation of pickled bandit.

[FlimFlamm 509]

I wonder what kind of spices would go well with pickled bandit meat... Afterall if we're going to go to all the trouble of pickling and preserving our food we might as well put in a bit more effort to make it taste yummy!

 

I've been thinking more and more about a morale system and what might make it interesting, and well prepared food as a comfort item and morale booster seems as one of the standout concepts. Pickled bandit meat should keep you alive, but you're probably not going to look forward to it after the end of a long day of heroism.

[robophant 102]

You touched on the failure of in-game walkie talkies. There is a really good reason why they failed. Teamspeak, Steam chat, Skype, etc. are all safer means of communicating with your squad. Since it's highly unlikely that BI would be willing or able to stop players from utilizing VOIP services outside of the game, I don't see how this issue can be helped. They can add as many options for in-game communication as they want, but I don't see any of them being much more effective than the walkie talkies.

 

Your post is, overall, very informative and interesting to me as a student of game theory, but I doubt very many are going to take the time to read it. Cool post though. Have beans.

I have to disagree.

Walkie talkies are one of the best features since you wont know everyone on a 50plyer server. Right now there is no way to talk to ppl other than in direct or via teamspeak. Walkie Talkies will enable players to communicate over greater distances without them knowing each other or each others location. Frankly one of the best items in game.

Unfortunately nobody uses them atm.

[FlimFlamm 509]

the ongoing issue with walkie talkies is that their range is useless and operating them is an ultimate chore for a payoff that everyone needs access to; communication!

 

radios could indeed become one of the best items...

[FlimFlamm 509]

I see what you did there...

 

Yeah, a bullhorn would be awesome; can't even settle for planting a radio to scare people nowadayz.  I wonder what kind of emergent gameplay would come from slingshots and firecrackers.  It would be kinda like throwing your voice, but with gunshot-like noises.  When we've locked down a field with a 4+ member squad, it is fairly easy to triangulate someone's position, knowing the exact position of all our players, and reporting on who heard the gunshots and who didn't.

 

 

BULL HORNS CONFIRMED!!!!

 

http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/226196-chris-torchia-on-twitter-for-all-you-blowhards-soon-you-can-blow-harder-so-much-pun-dayz-trello-update-httpstcojfkxswq43y-httptco/#entry2278167

[msadler 5]

On that note, this forum is becoming more and more emergent every day.

/wrist

And a side note to that...It also brings out more tweekers that have nothing better to do.

[Old_Crow_Whiskey 119]

BULL HORNS CONFIRMED!!!!

http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/226196-chris-torchia-on-twitter-for-all-you-blowhards-soon-you-can-blow-harder-so-much-pun-dayz-trello-update-httpstcojfkxswq43y-httptco/#entry2278167

If the bullhorn has an always on mode we could see some really interesting offensive and defensive capabilities emerge. Set a trap with a bullhorn and a walkie talkie, or by putting a bullhorn next to a running engine. Use them to amplify the sounds of a gunfight. Use an array of them as part of a defensive perimeter to amplify the sounds caused by intruders.

User created signage is an essential but missing communication piece at the moment. Anyone know if there are plans for signs or graffiti?

[Grimey Rick 3417]

And a side note to that...It also brings out more tweekers that have nothing better to do.

Tweaker, or more commonly, tweeker: an individual who uses methamphetamine

I don't get it.

[deadjuice 64]

That was an awesome article, Flimflam. This is an great discussion going on here, thank you guys for starting this. Some of the most interesting and well thought out stuff I've read on the forums yet.
I have very little to say, as there is already so many good ideas going around. I really really hope the developers are reading all this. 

One of my most favorite ideas here is for increased range of walkies, so that they can be used as a [better] form of global chat. It's such a sensitive fragile situation to try and communicate with other players face to face in a game like this, even when everyone is unarmed.
There are very very few scenarios, where opposing groups of players run into each other, start communicating as human survivors to other human survivors in a dangerous world like this, and not have it go south from there, due to paranoia or opportunism.

If walkies where used a lot more, it could help with this.
You can be on the edge of town, and send a callout for X town, stating my intentions and appearance, and hopefully getting into contact with the local survivors.

 

 

Some military vehicles could be outfitted with radios as well, like the V3S. Aircraft pilots just love radios because they can talk to each other when they encounter one another!

 

Emergent trucker slang. 

[FlimFlamm 509]

-snip-

 

Thanks for the input and the support!

 

I'm quite glad that a good number of people found this thread interesting/informative, it took me quite awhile to compose my thoughts on the subject and I reckon it was worth the time!

 

I'm currently trying to come up with a way of formalizing and defining the overall system that is DayZ by listing all of it's major parts and paramaters. By separating out parts and paramaters I hope to gain a clearer picture of exactly how game-play is impacted by individual parts/paramaters and their various combinations/interactions. Up until this point I have really only needed to talk about certain aspects of the system rather than try to try and appraise or define the entire specific DayZ, and it is proving much more complicated then the general analysis that complexity science has so far inspiried me. (where the philosophical theory of emergence and complexity then needs to be actually applied in practice to specific systems in order to transition into bona fide science).

 

I'm thinking that once I have come up with a satisfactory assay I'm going to take all the good things from this thread and another dealing with a related topic and compose a massive thread in the suggestion section that will likely be the forum equivalent of a nuclear bomb :D.

 

P.S

 

"I got two bogies in the prig, horn the squad and twirl the cage!"

Edited June 22, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[xalienax 621]

Thanks for the input and the support!

 

I'm quite glad that a good number of people found this thread interesting/informative, it took me quite awhile to compose my thoughts on the subject and I reckon it was worth the time!

 

I'm currently trying to come up with a way of formalizing and defining the overall system that is DayZ by listing all of it's major parts and paramaters. By separating out parts and paramaters I hope to gain a clearer picture of exactly how game-play is impacted by individual parts/paramaters and their various combinations/interactions. Up until this point I have really only needed to talk about certain aspects of the system rather than try to try and appraise or define the entire specific DayZ, and it is proving much more complicated then the general analysis that complexity science has so far inspiried me. (where the philosophical theory of emergence and complexity then needs to be actually applied in practice to specific systems in order to transition into bona fide science).

 

I'm thinking that once I have come up with a satisfactory assay I'm going to take all the good things from this thread and another dealing with a related topic and compose a massive thread in the suggestion section that will likely be the forum equivalent of a nuclear bomb :D.

 

P.S

 

"I got two bogies in the prig, horn the squad and twirl the cage!"

it's one of the odd things about 'sandbox' games. I think one would struggle to every properly quantify or measure the full experience that is dayZ simply because of the one element that the developers and the code can't ever fully account for- that players themselves. Look to EvE Online (a sandbox MMO now in it's second decade) for a prime example. Many re-active changes have been made over the years simply because the players themselves have found ways to use the mechanics of the game the the developers never imagined. Altho much simpler in mechanical terms, dayZ is much the same. 

[deadjuice 64]

Thanks for the input and the support!

 

I'm quite glad that a good number of people found this thread interesting/informative, it took me quite awhile to compose my thoughts on the subject and I reckon it was worth the time!

 

I'm currently trying to come up with a way of formalizing and defining the overall system that is DayZ by listing all of it's major parts and paramaters. By separating out parts and paramaters I hope to gain a clearer picture of exactly how game-play is impacted by individual parts/paramaters and their various combinations/interactions. Up until this point I have really only needed to talk about certain aspects of the system rather than try to try and appraise or define the entire specific DayZ, and it is proving much more complicated then the general analysis that complexity science has so far inspiried me. (where the philosophical theory of emergence and complexity then needs to be actually applied in practice to specific systems in order to transition into bona fide science).

 

I'm thinking that once I have come up with a satisfactory assay I'm going to take all the good things from this thread and another dealing with a related topic and compose a massive thread in the suggestion section that will likely be the forum equivalent of a nuclear bomb :D.

 

P.S

 

"I got two bogies in the prig, horn the squad and twirl the cage!"

 

Go for it man. I wish you had even more support, I seriously think your "Essay" talks, are going somewhere good in explaining things on a level that talks to games that aren't just DayZ, but also the games like it, and have brought out a number of questions and answers that need to be for this game to develop.

Your trucker PS is fucking great. I  can't even begin to decipher it. I'd guess it means:

"I got two aggressive geared players in this town [Prig = particular town that you passed?]; warn your friends, and drive around it!"

[Bororm 1156]

Look to Ultima Online if you want more insight into a true sandbox mmo, and the first real one at that.  A lot of the spirit of the game carries over into games like DayZ, and you can see similar themes in player behavior between the two.  In fact, a lot of people seem to think these sandbox survival games are something new, but they're basically just a resurgence of the original direction of mmos before they branched into being essentially theme park rides as they're often described.

 

I think if there's any one thing that DayZ should get praise for, it's showing the gaming industry that people still want that type of experience.  I think it was Rocket's best trait that he understood the concept of giving players tools to create their own experience, rather than creating experiences for them.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Bororm

[FlimFlamm 509]

Go for it man. I wish you had even more support, I seriously think your "Essay" talks, are going somewhere good in explaining things on a level that talks to games that aren't just DayZ, but also the games like it, and have brought out a number of questions and answers that need to be for this game to develop.

Your trucker PS is fucking great. I  can't even begin to decipher it. I'd guess it means:

"I got two aggressive geared players in this town [Prig = particular town that you passed?]; warn your friends, and drive around it!"

 

You were close :)

Prig is player slang for pirigrodski (correct pronunciation "peer-ee-grod-ski" I think), a town in-between cherno and electro. Horn the squad basically means notify the group/friends (maybe even with the new bull horn that is coming :) ). Twirl the cage refers to the group helicopter. Twirl the rotors to get ready for takeoff, and why they call it a cage I'm not sure. Perhaps because it feels like a flying death trap/cage, or perhaps because this particular group sets out with tranquilizers in order to capture and enslave people and force them to farm for their freedom. Human history actually has a ridiculous amount of this happening; forcing people to work particular plots of land built empires. (Could you imagine how awesome it would be to be brought inside of a large fortified base as a prisoner and kept within an enclosed area and forced to farm a certain amount of goods for the promise of freedom?). Slavery in reality isn't cool, but in a video game where dominating the zombies, the players, and the land is the name, then even if you're the one being enslaved it should be a downright thrilling experience. Plotting an escape or prisoner revolt would be such a unique and enjoyable experience. Not sure why I'm rambling on about all this; twirl the cage means get the heli in the air :) .

It's been taking me a long time to organize my thoughts and take my analysis further. The fact that there is so much to talk about when it comes to emergence is befuddling to someone trying to make a digestible, useful, and persuasive thread on the subject.

Lately I've been mulling over the notion of trying to categorize various types or sorts of emergent game-play as a strategy of simplifying the subject for practical reasons. For instance, hicks just announced a single player mode for DayZ, which caused me to think about what kinds of emergent game-play would currently be possible or might be possible in a single player setting.

The way the environment interacts with itself can drive emergence; Zombies can chase cows around for instance, leading to certain parts of the map accumulating large amounts of cows. Or if the way zombies interacted with one another and the land had some sort of logic to it, then the resulting patterns could result in emergent zombie behavior, like aggregation inside large buildings for shelter, the natural formation of roving hoards, or a kind of natural dispersion/attraction to certain areas. In minecraft for example, the terrain itself was emergent, but aside from that the way mobs interacted with one another sometimes produces interesting results. Creeper behavior was very intriguing, they would get stuck in holes and you would not expect them. Sometimes skeletons would have duels with other skeletons or monsters and large fights could break out. Fires could break out with catastrophic results from lightning. The EvE driven emergence in minecraft made it so that you didn't even have to do anything for something interesting to potentially occur, you just had to turn the game on and you were getting novel content of some kind. Given that single player is confirmed, I'm thinking that environment driven emergence is something that will be important for keeping chernarus a fresh and dynamic and therefore interesting place. It's very important for single player that the world is an interesting place in this way, but it can also simply add to or enhance the online experience.

Where I'm at so far in my analysis is that I can distinguish between three kinds of emergent game-play:  EvE , PvE,  and PvP driven elements.

How does the game interact with itself; what content emerges?

How do players interact with the game; what content emerges?

How do players interact with eachother; what content emerges?

These I think are good questions for delineating the most basic forms of emergent game-play, but there is still the issue of these basic emergent aspects of game-play interacting with each other and giving rise to new forms of complexity. This is the hierarchy of complexity that is typically found within very complex systems. How players interact with the environment for example can impact the way the environment interacts with itself or each other which might give rise to the emergence of a whole new phenomenon. When players label something "sniper hill" it is a good example of hierarchical emergent game-play taking place.Players interacting to the environment tend to exhibit trends in the locations they visit which depend on accessibility and loot prevalence (risk reward). Once a clearly beneficial location is identified or emerges as a trend in player traffic, some players then decide to camp a nearby hill with a sniper. The very trend of them camping that hill is dependent upon the way players are interacting with the environment on a basic level, and then how players are interacting with one another. Once a hill earns a reputation as a "sniper hill" smart players will learn to avoid or to flank it, which is a kind of pvp player trend that can only emerge with the emergence of more basic things like player traffic patterns (PvE). The more layers of emergent phenomenon there are, the more difficult things are to try and predict. This is a good point to re-state the original strategy I tried to voice in the OP, and that is that we cannot and probably should not try to force and predict the end result of game-play; as others often say part of what made DayZ great was that players were given tools and resources without instructions, and were able to create content on their own. In this regard I think that focusing on the most basic forms of game-play from a design perspective is what must be done. To ensure that there is a diverse and adaptive set of parts and parameters capable of producing lots of basic emergence I think is all that we can do in an effort to arrive at the much more interesting forms of emergence that take the shape of vast hierarchical networks of all kinds of interactions.

 

Single player will have no emergence that is driven from player v player interaction, and any hierarchical forms of emergent gameplay that involve or depend on players interacting with one another simply will not exist in single player, which is why the PvE and EvE forms of emergence are going to need to be heavily focused on (which is probably a good thing to promote diverse content in general, which may enhance the PvP aspect of things as well.)

I literally can just keep writing about emergence and DayZ and never stop, so I'll force myself to end it here for now, at least until I get a bit further with my strategy of making a suggestion thread about it and having it not be a thousand page tome.

Edited June 29, 2015 by FlimFlamm

[xalienax 621]

I really like reading these mini essays on theory :)

 

Personally, i think trying to analyze portions of a complex system in isolation is a flawed strategy tho. Sort of a "more then the sum of it's parts" situation. I don't believe you cant truly measure or discuss fully a mechanic or set of mechanics without fully including the context.

 

on a side not, the PvE/PvP Distinction imho is at least somewhat arbitrary in the sence that by partaking in many PvE activities you are already engaged in PvP and vice versa...

 

ex. 1: A person Looting (typicaly viewed as a PvE activity) picks up and item needed by another player. Is this not PvP At the most fundamental level? your are Vs. another player for a set amount of available resources in a given area.

ex 2: A player kills another player in a large city. this is typically viewed as PvP, But in the context that is dayz 2 arguments can be made that;

A.) The other players are part of the environment you exist in (quite possibly the most dangerous part of it)

-and-

B.) That person that was killed may have been actively hunting other players, as such you have effected PvE with a "PvP Act" which sort of ties back into my original theme, These elements don't exist in isolation and cant be discussed in a vacuum.