Abundance is Realism

[jqp 9]

Good topic!

Thank you, I'm glad you like it. :)

 

 

It doesn't have to be "sudden", tho. Let's look the following scenario:

1) An airborne virus is spreading real fast. 1 week of incubation time. Scientists realize too late what is happening.

2) 1 week of worldwide severe illness, only 1 out of 10K is immune. Infrastructre can't be maintained, food chain is breaking down, people are running out of food.

3) "Zombification" or death.

In this scenario, most food would be gone.

Small quibble, IIRC, incubation time is the period after a person is infected, but before he starts showing symptoms. There'd be no supply chain problems until after the incubation period came to a close. A quibble that has no real impact on your argument, obviously.

Terminally ill people's appetites tend to drop off real quick. Maybe they'd eat half the food, but that would still leave a ton of food lying around (e.g., 15,000 days worth, instead of 30,000). Most of the dying wouldn't consume much food. And the x days of food on the shelves is a real quick and dirty rule of thumb. I have 1-2 months of food, and I'm barely even a prepper in that regard. Truth is people would run out of food at very different rates. The supply chain wouldn't just grind to a halt right away, either. Authorities would do everything they could to make the food supply chain one of the last things that stops working. And while the supply chain would eventually grind to a halt, there'd still be a ton of food left in trucks that were on their way to delivery, in factories waiting to be loaded onto trucks, etc. Btw, I'm quite familiar with my local grocery store. They simply do not turn over their entire inventory in a few days. Sure, a wave of hoarders could clear their shelves quickly, but hoarded food does not evaporate.

And again, this doesn't put a dent in the wild game population, unless the virus is a plague on all mammals, in which case we have a zombie squirrel horde to worry about. In fact, now that I think about it, rodents that could infect people with a bite would be the end of human civilization. Way too many small lil critters to defend against.

Like I said before, balancing all of this stuff and keeping it plausible is hard. At one extreme looms the Inescapable Doom of Humankind level Apocalypse, and at the other cringes the Sissy Apocalypse. One must be careful to avoid either extreme. The first is too nihilistic and pointless to be enjoyable for many people, and the second isn't challenging enough.

 

 

But you're right - everything else would still be there in abundance. There's thousands of cars / survivor now. No matter how much stuff some survivors may hoard, there's still shittons of stuff left for everyone. Having only a dozen or so vehicles on a server is imo way too unrealistic.

You make a good point, one we've been ignoring by focusing so closely on food; durable goods. There'd be a huge stockpile of guns and ammo lying around, for starters. Tons of outdoor/survival gear, too (it may be a niche market pre-apocalypse, but surely more than 1 in 10k people in America and Europe are backpackers, climbers, survivalists, etc. Meaning, their outdoor/survival schwag, and all the outdoor/survival schwag vendors have in stock, will be laying around for the taking).

Funny aside: if some DayZ player looted my house, he'd cream himself. 2 ARs with 8 mags, red dot optic, decent ammo cache, 9mm + ammo and mags, complete INCH bag full of outdoor/survival gear and clothing, a half-dozen knives, a month or two of food, etc. And I'm a totally junior league prepper.

 

ETA: Stephen King's The Stand points out one of the biggest problems in the wake of a massive die-off by virus: all the decaying bodies in houses. Huge health hazard.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Morlock

[jqp 9]

In terms of gameplay, I think my point in all of this is that I don't enjoy games with too much grind. Sure, I should have to worry about food, water, meds, guns & ammo, shelter and clothing, security, etc. I just don't want to have the difficulty of meeting basic survival needs blown out of proportion and turned into a grind that will deny me the opportunity to simply stop and smell the post-apocalyptic roses. Constantly fighting off an absurdly accelerated hunger mechanic just isn't my idea of a good time. I don't want DayZ to be that type of survival game. I think this game is bigger than that; a player who has mastered the game's skill set should be able to rise above a constant razor's edge battle to simply survive - he should be able to do a bit of thriving, too.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Morlock

[jqp 9]

Fortunately, if this guy is right, the game's design is in the ballpark of what I'm talking about:

 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/06/im-a-survivor-dayz-standalone-thoughts/

 

Plenty of people who were veterans of the original DayZ mod had been wondering whether the magic of the original experience had survived the making of a standalone game. I’m pleased to report that not only has it survived, but there’s new magic, too. Rocket and his team know what they are doing, and the changes they’ve made have created some tense and terrible moments in this new game. The realism it strives for is simultaneously unreal and dark, and creates some of the most awkward and sinister roleplay situations I’ve experienced in any game.

Surviving is back. And it is horribly compelling.

 

Initially there’s a concern that survival aspect of the game forces you into “vole person” territory: eating and drinking continually, just to stay alive. This can be hard to get past at first, but the truth is that once you’ve done a bit of scavenging, and become used to collecting water, the actual eating and drinking becomes a rhythm. Learning to eat and drink as soon as you are hungry gives that aspect a back seat, at least once you’ve managed to get some supplies together. It’s the heartbeat of the game, a heartbeat that drums pretty fast when you don’t find what you are looking for.

 

This aspect of course provides additional reasons for the players to encounter each other in tense, unpredictable situations. The most common of these is probably the encounter at the water pumps. We all need fresh water, and so more often than not you’ll meet at these places, getting a drink or filling up a container. I’ve encounter numerous players this way, and most have moved on, not wanting conflict. Will someone kill me for this plastic bottle? (Not if my buddy is standing behind me with an M4.) There have been people laying in wait at these locations, too: hyper-patient bandits simply hoping for some loot. It’s already fascinating to see people experimenting with approaches: from full bandit to the cautious, fleeting survivor who keeps to himself.

 

Patience, of course, is something that DayZ demands. It is one of the most slow-paced action games imaginable. It’s possible to spend hours without seeing another human being, as Chernarus’ hills and forests spill away into endless rolling vistas that you find yourself hiking across, just to explore that next town. It’s all too easy to find yourself miles from anywhere, and in bad shape. Perhaps ending up back on the coast with a blank slate would be the best option, but the truth is that this is a game that is all about the journey. While that journey grips you, this is one of the most rewardingly threatening games available.

[hellcat420 212]

Well, in murica where food is s very abundant, cities are estimated to have roughly 3 days worth of food in them. Accurate or not, after some kind of apocalypse food would disappear quickly from cities. So no, food should not be abundant. Non food items would be abundant but food would not.

[joe_mcentire 2073]

Well, in murica where food is s very abundant, cities are estimated to have roughly 3 days worth of food in them. Accurate or not, after some kind of apocalypse food would disappear quickly from cities. So no, food should not be abundant. Non food items would be abundant but food would not.

ppl seem to underestimate the fact that we refill our supplies on a daily basis. what would happen if that would stop?

[jqp 9]

Well, in murica where food is s very abundant, cities are estimated to have roughly 3 days worth of food in them. Accurate or not, after some kind of apocalypse food would disappear quickly from cities. So no, food should not be abundant. Non food items would be abundant but food would not.

*Whoosh* goes the thread. :)

[Beizs 186]

Tinned food shouldn't be rare at all. That's kind of a given, in all honesty.

 

Guns shouldn't be uncommon either. Civilian weapons are widespread and many people own more than one gun. Military weapons would be less common but, frankly, with so many military bases, they wouldn't be realistically rare. Guns aren't exactly easily destroyed, either.

 

Tools, again, are sturdy and very plentiful. In an area like Chernarus, there would be an absolute bounty of things like splitting axes, machetes, hacksaws, hammers and more.

 

Clothes are also ridiculously rare in game. They don't get ruined anywhere near fast enough to be as rare as they are now and the average person probably has over ten full outfits (and a couple pairs of shoes).

 

Ammunition is a little easier to argue for scarcity, as it'd be used up a lot during the early stages of the apocalypse and (I don't know whether this is right, as I live in the UK, so this is an assumption) not many people stock literally thousands of rounds at home.

 

People say that we don't know how long it's been since the apocalypse. Well, it's clearly no more than a year, otherwise everything would be seriously overgrown and animal populations would be booming. As the infected are humans, not undead, they'd have probably died out to a large extent. So, couple months? Makes sense as a lot of stuff is still in places you'd expect it to be (which, in my opinion, is silly - loot should be plentiful, but only if you happen upon a stockpile, with less useful stuff spread evenly around - stuff that people wouldn't stockpile), implying not much looting has taken place. After a couple of months, with about 1% of the population still alive, even, there'd still be a ridiculous amount of canned goods and clothing. The tools and weapons would still be plentiful, though probably largely stockpiled.

 

But even ignoring that, the amount of wild plants you can eat and things like apple trees and berry bushes being very common, as well as the wildlife, it would, realistically, be incredibly easy to avoid starvation. And again, no amount of time is going to deplete the world of clothing to a point anywhere near what it is in DayZ. Hunting with modern tactics and modern weapons is easy. Same goes for fishing.

 

People would also look after their guns, as they'd be so freaking useful, preventing depleting numbers there.

 

So... Again, the only thing that would realistically become depleted would be ammunition and, I guess, gasoline, though you can use ethanol in petrol engines and vegetable oil in diesel engines.

 

The only way anything other than ammunition and traditional fuels would be rare would be if it had literally been years. It clearly has not.

 

However, from a gameplay perspective, unless they could literally increase the number of infected fivefold and get them to a point where one can spell your end if it catches you unaware, the game would just be far too easy to be fun with a realistic amount of loot. In a zombie apocalypse, there would be only two things to worry about, realistically. Zombies, and other people. However, with the zombies a big enough threat, a good number of the people you meet would be friendly.

 

So, Tl;Dr - Scarcity is literally the opposite of realism in DayZ. However, from a gameplay perspective, at least for now, it's necessary. If zombie numbers could be largely increased and they were more effective, realistic loot would be okay for the game. It really just boils down to that.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Beizs

[Dagwood 680]

This game takes place in rural Eastern Europe. Most of the population likely took their food and other useful belongings with them when they evacuated. If this game took place in the US or some other highly industrialized part of the world, I would agree with you assessment. But it does not. Most people in rural communities, especially farmers or others that make their living off the land, have trucks or other utility vehicles that can haul a lot of cargo. They wouldn't leave behind excessive canned food and weaponry, they would take it with them.

Furthermore, if food is made to be plentiful, as might be the case in a real life scenario, why include it in the game at all? So we can watch our avatars eat for the sake of immersion? Food, drink and the whole nutrition system is relevant because sustinence is scarce. If it wasn't, why bother including it?

[Beizs 186]

This game takes place in rural Eastern Europe. Most of the population likely took their food and other useful belongings with them when they evacuated. If this game took place in the US or some other highly industrialized part of the world, I would agree with you assessment. But it does not. Most people in rural communities, especially farmers or others that make their living off the land, have trucks or other utility vehicles that can haul a lot of cargo. They wouldn't leave behind excessive canned food and weaponry, they would take it with them.

Furthermore, if food is made to be plentiful, as might be the case in a real life scenario, why include it in the game at all? So we can watch our avatars eat for the sake of immersion? Food, drink and the whole nutrition system is relevant because sustinence is scarce. If it wasn't, why bother including it?

People wouldn't take bags of tinned food if they were being evacuated. They'd take the essentials. People who live off the land create large stockpiles of food and such so that in case of a famine etc, they have plenty of non-perishables to survive. Even without that, farmers store and treat food for consumption throughout the year because a lot of their harvest happens only once a year. In this kind of area, non perishable food would be even more common than an industrialized area.

 

It would take literal years to deplete this kind of area of all of the stockpiled non perishables with a survival rate as high even as 10% (in which case, it's not an apocalypse. It's cleared up in a few weeks). Lower that survival rate and you have enough food to sustain people for far longer than they need worry - by that point, they'll be farming and hunting like professionals.

 

From a gameplay perspective, however, as I stated above, it would only make sense for abundance to exist (as it would in real life) if the zombie populations were increased and a single zombie could kill you if it caught you unaware, which requires the implementation some kind of grappling mechanic and a much better melee system in general.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Beizs

[hellcat420 212]

People wouldn't take bags of tinned food if they were being evacuated. They'd take the essentials. People who live off the land create large stockpiles of food and such so that in case of a famine etc, they have plenty of non-perishables to survive. Even without that, farmers store and treat food for consumption throughout the year because a lot of their harvest happens only once a year. In this kind of area, non perishable food would be even more common than an industrialized area.

It would take literal years to deplete this kind of area of all of the stockpiled non perishables with a survival rate as high even as 10% (in which case, it's not an apocalypse. It's cleared up in a few weeks). Lower that survival rate and you have enough food to sustain people for far longer than they need worry - by that point, they'll be farming and hunting like professionals.

From a gameplay perspective, however, as I stated above, it would only make sense for abundance to exist (as it would in real life) if the zombie populations were increased and a single zombie could kill you if it caught you unaware, which requires the implementation some kind of grappling mechanic and a much better melee system in general.

It would not take years to deplete the food unless 99% of the population instantly vanished into thin air all at once. Edited August 15, 2015 by hellcat420

[Beizs 186]

It would not take years to deplete the food unless 99% of the population instantly vanished into thin air all at once.

 

Have you ever seen a theoretical disease outbreak model for a zombie apocalypse? It'd spread fast, especially because the infected actively seek to infect others.

 

A large part of the population would be wiped out incredibly quickly. Especially in higher population areas, where there would be more food stockpiled.

 

People wouldn't have to vanish in to thin air all at once. But in the first day or two of a zombie apocalypse, the majority of the population would be infected, especially if the incubation period was long enough to travel between towns/cities before turning. You'd be talking 99% in a week or so, assuming incredible (and near impossible) quarantine measures were not put into place almost immediately. A quarantine, however, as the region DayZ is set is apparently under, would speed up the infection rate in that area as people would be trapped in with the infected,

 

So yeah. There would be plenty left over. Especially in farming communities, which Chernarus is full of.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Beizs

[hellcat420 212]

Have you ever seen a theoretical disease outbreak model for a zombie apocalypse? It'd spread fast, especially because the infected actively seek to infect others.

A large part of the population would be wiped out incredibly quickly. Especially in higher population areas, where there would be more food stockpiled.

People wouldn't have to vanish in to thin air all at once. But in the first day or two of a zombie apocalypse, the majority of the population would be infected, especially if the incubation period was long enough to travel between towns/cities before turning. You'd be talking 99% in a week or so, assuming incredible (and near impossible) quarantine measures were not put into place almost immediately. A quarantine, however, as the region DayZ is set is apparently under, would speed up the infection rate in that area as people would be trapped in with the infected,

So yeah. There would be plenty left over. Especially in farming communities, which Chernarus is full of.

Have you seen how quick grocery stores get emptied when a big snowstorm is inbound? Try a couple of hours. How will it get resupplied with no trucks coming during a major disaster? Do you know where the closest distribution center is to you? Cause most people don't. And farms don't keep huge stockpiles of food, because they need to make money selling said food. Subsistence farming is where any amount of food stockpile would be, but that in the current world is almost a thing of the past. There are a lot of farms around where I live(not corporate factory farms), and none of them have big food stockpiles. Edited August 15, 2015 by hellcat420

[Beizs 186]

Have you seen how quick grocery stores get emptied when a big snowstorm is inbound? Try a couple of hours. How will it get resupplied with no trucks coming during a major disaster? Do you know where the closest distribution center is to you? Cause most people don't. And farms don't keep huge stockpiles of food, because they need to make money selling said food. Subsistence farming is where any amount of food stockpile would be, but that in the current world is almost a thing of the past.

 

Just because the store is empty doesn't mean the food is gone. Do you think people eat literally everything in one go when they're buying for rations? I think that obvious places to loot, such as grocery stores, military bases, etc should actually have less loot and a lot of stuff should be found in caches in homes. Clothes, materials and tools etc should be spread out randomly, as people aren't going to take literally every piece of clothing or every tool they come across. But food, etc, would have been looted, but not necessarily actually consumed. That sort of thing should be less common to find, but it should pay off more as you find an entire cupboard filled with tins or something.

 

If I went to a shop at the beginning of a zombie apocalypse and took all of the food from it, but then died the next day, that food isn't gone. It still exists and if someone finds it, they're going to be set for a very long time for food.

 

In a poorer climate like Chernarus, farmers absolutely keep stockpiles of food. They just split it based on what they can sell and what they can keep. Hell, I live in Wiltshire in England, which is quite a rich county, but is absolutely full of farmers. I went to a village school where half of the kids came from farming families. They stockpiled food, because it's easier (and significantly cheaper) to just keep some of the food you farm than going out and buying it. Obviously things that perish faster tend to get sold almost entirely, while things that can be stored easily are stocked before they are sold.

 

Right now, I have fully stocked cupboards. If I didn't buy anything else and rationed what I was eating, I could survive for over a month with a household of five people... Out of the food in my house alone. Now, imagine that 90% of the population (again, that's actually a small number for a zombie apocalypse scenario) died off within a week or two. That leaves 90% of households with 2 or 3 weeks worth of food just sitting there. Obviously some houses would have started with more than others, and some will have rationed worse, but as an average, that's how it goes down. So now that remaining 10% have enough food available for at least (with an original population of, say, 100k households, leaving 10,000 households to loot the empty ones) 2 weeks from their own stores and 18 weeks on average from looting, totaling 20 weeks of food.

 

That math may be completely off, by the way. I'm half asleep. But it's a lot - and it's a very low estimate. Under mathematical algorithms for the spread of the infection, two weeks is slow. 10% survival rate is very high.

 

If you decrease that survival rate to 1%, leaving 1,000 households out of 100,000, you're talking 200 weeks - nearly four years - and even 1% is high. In a quarantined zone like Chernarus, assuming there's no 'common' gene combination in the area that creates an immunity to the infection, you're looking at, tops, 0.1% after two weeks. I'm sure you can multiply by ten.

 

Edit: The Math

 

(F*P)*T/P

 

F = Average food supply per household, in relation to time (1 month supply will be the average here)

P = Starting population (100,000 households will be the base here)

T = Time increment for average (month in this case) divided by time passed before reaching minimal population (1 week before 10%? 0.75. Two weeks? 0.5)

P = Minimal population. Realistically, this would go down over time, or up, if the infected were wiped out and civilization started again. For the sake of simplicity, we'll assume that the number sits at the same level from after the initial infection period (one or two weeks, depending on optimism) right up until the stocked food runs out, assuming there is absolutely no other food eaten in this timeframe (and ignoring eventual spoilage, as we get to more realistic numbers).

 

Most optimistic (in relation to death toll)

 

1 month average survival per household * 100,000 households = 100,000 collective months.

100,000*0.5 after two weeks = 50,000 collective months.

50,000/10,000 (10% remaining population) = 5 months per household (20 weeks)

 

Very Highly optimistic (in relation to death toll)

 

1 month average survival per household * 100,000 households = 100,000 collective months.

100,000*0.75 after 1 week = 75,000 collective months.

75,000/10,000 (10% remaining population) = 7.5 months per household (30 weeks)

 

Highly optimistic (in relation to death toll)

 

1 month average survival per household * 100,000 households = 100,000 collective months.

100,000/0.5 after two weeks = 50,000 collective months.

50,000/1,000 (1% remaining population) = 50 months per household (200 weeks)

 

Optimistic (in relation to death toll)

 

1 month average survival per household * 100,000 households = 100,000 collective months.

100,000*0.75 after 1 week = 75,000 collective months.

75,000/1,000 (1% remaining population) = 75 months per household (300 weeks)

 

Mildly Optimistic (in relation to death toll)

 

1 month average survival per household * 100,000 households = 100,000 collective months.

100,000/0.5 after two weeks = 50,000 collective months.

50,000/100 (0.1% remaining population) = 500 months per household (2000 weeks)

 

Fairly realistic (in relation to death toll)

 

1 month average survival per household * 100,000 households = 100,000 collective months.

100,000*0.75 after 1 week = 75,000 collective months.

75,000/100 (0.1% remaining population) = 750 months per household (3000 weeks)

 

The main variable in the calculation is the initial month average, which could be drastically different. However, I feel that, with proper rationing, a month is actually quite conservative. But even at highly optimistic levels, you get to a point where survivors start to see canned goods start to spoil. There would be plenty of food a couple of months in, even with a ridiculously low death toll.

 

Obviously this is based on a plateau in population lasting for as long as the food would last. This would not be the case, as the survivors numbers would continue to fall and probably completely fail within the timeframe of even the highly optimistic, save the very few outliers who outlive the infected.

 

 

Also, while writing this, I had this weird moment of clarity in which I realized that optimism is truly based on the perspective you are looking at. From a certain standpoint, the most optimistic in terms of death toll looks to be the least optimistic in terms of how long you could live off of non-perishables in a survival situation.

 

That's the most complex maths I've done since leaving school. Hah.

 

This math will also indicate roughly how much other stuff will be around too. Remember, however, that starting numbers for other things (guns, clothes, ammo, tools) tend to be lower, but they deplete at a much lower rate. So yeah.

Example. Say 1 gun average per household (some have none, some have many). 100,000 households goes down to 1,000. Now you have 100 guns per household. Each person has 5 full outfits. Now they each have 500 full outfits. 2 pairs of shoes? 200. And this is using the 1% min population... Which is, again, pretty damn optimistic.

 

When you break it down, even ammunition isn't going to be particularly rare. Say each household starts with an average of 50 rounds of civilian grade ammunition. 50*100,000 is 5,000,000 rounds. In two weeks, during the infection period, the average use is half of that. That's actually a hell of a lot, when these people are supposedly holed up just burning through their food. 1% survival rate, which, again, is very optimistic, leaves every household with 2500 rounds of civilian grade ammunition. Single shot rifles/pistols? That'll last you a long ass time. 0.1%, still quite optimistic, though could actually be realistic in a true apocalypse scenario, you got 25,000 rounds.

 

Please. Do tell me about how scarcity is realistic.

 

EDIT: Quick paper on modelling a zombie outbreak. https://loe.org/images/content/091023/Zombie%20Publication.pdf. This one is fairly optimistic compared to others I've seen, but backs me up as being a pretty damn optimistic guy. In the first model, you see an incubation period of 24 hours. After the first time unit, infections begin to take place (implying 1 time unit is roughly 1 day) and by 4 days, non infecteds are below 1%. The longest it takes (ignoring the cure example) for it to dip below 1% is 8 days under any model. Even with a cure from day 1, the population drops to >10% within 7 days, leaving 30 weeks worth of food for the survivors based entirely off of non-perishables. With this paper as evidence, the one I labelled as 'fairly realistic', unsurprisingly, is the most realistic, though still rather optimistic.

 

The quarantine example is looking at a quarantine whose entire population is zombies and infected, while the non-quarantined area is an area where only healthy are, which gave the longest survival time (quarantines eventually fail then the infection is sped up). However, Chernarus in its entirety was quarantined, trapping the healthy in with the infected. This would likely see a faster infection rate than even the first, standard model, which saw it drop to ~1% or less in 4 days. It also implies that the quarantine, realistically, would fail, leading to the rest of the world being infected also in a matter of weeks.

 

Final note

Using the most realistic, though still rather optimistic model with unrealistically low starting points to display just how silly scarcity really is.

 

100,000 households * 1 weeks worth of food per household = 100,000 total weeks worth of food for a single household.

100,000 * 0.5 (3.5 days in) = 50,000 total weeks worth of food for a single household. (at this point, according to the standard model, we're at 5% population).

50,000 / 5,000 remaining households = 10 weeks worth of food for each household

 

Half a day later, however, the population is below 1% - so we'll use 0.1% as it goes on for the rest of time... So...

 

5,000 * 10 = 50,000

50,000 * 0.7 (3.5 days divided by half a day, pushing it to the four day mark) = 35,000

35,000 / 100 = 350 weeks, or 6.7 years worth of food per surviving household after four days. We'll round that down to account for the 1% to 0.1% period, leaving 6 years worth of food for each household. Using an incredibly low estimate of starting food. This is the absolute realistic minimum.

 

Let's apply this to ammunition now.

 

10 civilian grade bullets average per household * 100,000 = 1,000,000 bullets

1,000,000 * 0.5 (average 5 bullets fired per person in the first three days) = 500,000

Skip the next two steps as they cancel each other out.

500,000 * 0.7 (average 30 bullets fired per person in this last stretch of large scale infection) = 350,000

350,000 / 100 = 3,500 civilian grade bullets per household, ignoring any military caches or gun stores. This is with a measly average of 10 bullets per household. 3,500 single shot rifle shots.

 

Clothes?

 

5 full outfits per person * 100,000 people = 500,000 full outfits total.

500,000 * 0.8 (Every single person has one full outfit ruined in the first three days) = 400,000 full outfits

400,000 - 5000 outfits (Every single person alive has one full outfit ruined in the next day) = 395,000 full outfits.

395,000 / 100 = 3,950 full outfits per survivor after five days.

 

Guns?

 

0.1 civilian guns per houesehold average (come on, that's really low - the Czech Republic has 16.7(?) registered civilian guns per 100 people and Chernarus went through a civil war just before the infection) * 100,000 households = 10,000 civilian guns

10,000 civilian guns / 100 = 100 civilian guns per household

 

Okay. Hope you get the picture now.

 

TLDR:

According to mathematical models for predicting the spread of a zombie apocalypse, using very low estimates for starting resources, a low, slow death toll and a starting population of 100,000 households, after five days, each household (assuming an even distribution of wealth) would be left with an available:

 

6 years worth of non-perishable foods.

3,500 civilian grade bullets.

100 civilian grade guns.

 

With a starting population of 100,000 people, each who owned 5 full outfits total and over accounting for damaged clothing, each person would be left with 3,950 possible full outfits.

 

Abundance is realism, though it wouldn't be good for gameplay unless zombies become a REAL threat. However, realistic loot levels after a zombie apocalypse are so high they literally could never be achieved in this game, due to server limitations.

 

In a real zombie apocalypse, you real worry isn't starvation. It isn't thirst. It isn't the elements. It's not even the people. It's the zombies. That's why it's called a zombie apocalypse - and fairly simple mathematics backs this up.

 

EDIT: Checking maths and editing stuff. Overall, seems to hold up except for a couple typos ('10' instead of '100', etc). Please note, the Czech Republic currently has 16.7 registered civilian guns per 100 people. Chernarus just went through a civil war, so the number would probably be far higher. However, assuming current statistics, that means 16,700 guns in the 100,000 model, leaving 167 guns per person, not even household.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Beizs

[too-easy 56]

I want to pick up the "guns argument".

I don't know the weapon laws in the land DayZ takes place, but if it's anything like in western Europe, then there wouldn't be many guns at all.

Americans tend to think that it's normal to have multiple guns at home.

Well, it's not!

[Grimey Rick 3417]

This just in:

 

TC hasn't even played DayZ, yet his diagnosis of its current state sends the forums into an outrage. Astounding.

[Beizs 186]

I want to pick up the "guns argument".

I don't know the weapon laws in the land DayZ takes place, but if it's anything like in western Europe, then there wouldn't be many guns at all.

Americans tend to think that it's normal to have multiple guns at home.

Well, it's not!

 

It's post civil war. There were militia all over the place before the zombie apocalypse, according to the story. Guns would be plentiful. It's also full of farming communities, and rural areas, many of whom would own guns for hunting purposes and protection purposes due to their remote location making the police virtually useless.

 

Also, the sheer number of guns the military and police have, even in places like the UK, with a significantly reduced population (as there would be after a zombie apocalypse), it's really, really a non-factor.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Beizs

[soapy33@live.com 24]

This just in:

 

TC hasn't even played DayZ, yet his diagnosis of its current state sends the forums into an outrage. Astounding.

Your signature speaks the truth

Edited August 15, 2015 by Barks

[too-easy 56]

This just in:

TC hasn't even played DayZ, yet his diagnosis of its current state sends the forums into an outrage. Astounding.

And I'm wondering how many accounts he has on these forums.

[boneboys 7988]

This just in:

 

TC hasn't even played DayZ, yet his diagnosis of its current state sends the forums into an outrage. Astounding.

Times are hard, people are desperate, food supplies are running low.

A horse, a horse ! My kingdom for a horse!

[jqp 9]

Gun Ownership Map (no idea of source):
http://i.imgur.com/QDF3vWA.png

Stats for a few high-ownership countries:
Country: Firearms per 100 people (source: deseretnews.com):
Iceland: 30.3
Germany: 30.3
Austria: 30.4
Canada: 30.8
France: 31.2
Norway: 31.3
Sweden: 31.6
Uruguay: 31.8
Iraq: 34.2
Saudi Arabia: 35
Cyprus: 36.4
Serbia: 37.8
Finland: 45.3
Switzerland: 45.7
United States: 88.8

So, while European countries may not match the US in ownership rates, the continent has 9 of the top 15 countries!

Edited August 15, 2015 by Morlock

[nl 986]

Gun Ownership Map (no idea of source):

http://i.imgur.com/QDF3vWA.png

Stats for a few high-ownership countries:

Country: Firearms per 100 people (source: deseretnews.com):

Iceland: 30.3

Germany: 30.3

Austria: 30.4

Canada: 30.8

France: 31.2

Norway: 31.3

Sweden: 31.6

Uruguay: 31.8

Iraq: 34.2

Saudi Arabia: 35

Cyprus: 36.4

Serbia: 37.8

Finland: 45.3

Switzerland: 45.7

United States: 88.8

So, while European countries may not match the US in ownership rates, the continent has 9 of the top 15 countries!

A list can also be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

I am surprised that in my country (The Netherlands) there are still 3.9 firearms per 100 people. In the Russia region it varies from about 5 to 9 firearms per 100 people. So I would estimate Chernarus would have about 7 firearms per 100 people. These numbers do not take into account the number of military weapons, only those owned by civilians. They are estimates and I am not sure if they also estimate illegal guns or just registered firearms.

[Beizs 186]

A list can also be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

I am surprised that in my country (The Netherlands) there are still 3.9 firearms per 100 people. In the Russia region it varies from about 5 to 9 firearms per 100 people. So I would estimate Chernarus would have about 7 firearms per 100 people. These numbers do not take into account the number of military weapons, only those owned by civilians. They are estimates and I am not sure if they also estimate illegal guns or just registered firearms.

Yep. Now factor in the fact that in this kind of situation you're probably talking about 0.1% of the population or less surviving for any noteworthy period of time and that suddenly goes up to 70 per person.

 

Even the Netherlands would be left with 39 per person. Here in the UK, you're talking 66 per person and this is a place that is considered tight on gun controls. Factor in military and police guns and that probably goes up well past 100.

 

Also, the Czech Republic is at 16.3 per 100 people. Think that's worth noting for Chernarus' statistics. Could be talking 163 civilian, registered guns per person in this kind of situation. Factor in the civil war aspect of the story and heavy police/military presence in the region and I'd not be surprised if it was 200, 250.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Beizs

[roguetrooper 201]

Abundance is only realistic for "some time" (whatever this may be) after breakdown of the civilisation. At first there is more stuff than there are consumers (survivors). Since nothing is produced any more, the will be a turning point.

[Beizs 186]

Abundance is only realistic for "some time" (whatever this may be) after breakdown of the civilisation. At first there is more stuff than there are consumers (survivors). Since nothing is produced any more, the will be a turning point.

 

Read my longpost a couple up. Even with food and ammunition, it's really not realistic for there to be scarcity for a couple years at the very least, frankly. If you don't have time for the longpost, it's summed up in a TlDr, though the actual maths and crap backing it up is fairly important imo.

[hekeetsu 86]

Abundance actually is realism. But it would not make good gameplay. Instead, why not make another "gamemode" where let's say there are 40 people. At the start places are full of stuff. But here's the trick: nothing will respawn. No zombies, no loot and NO PLAYERS. So the first ones to get to a town will get the loot and stash it in a forest and the ones that come later starve. And they don't respawn. Would be kinda like battle royale but bigger scale and takes longer time.