Filling Servers

[Zhang Liao 16]

As stated before currently DayZ survival favors empty servers. The lower the server population the lower the risk. Low server population turns high risk high reward areas into low risk high reward areas.

DayZ can only be what it is meant to be if servers are full. Having 100 pop servers is meaningless if their are 10,000 servers with 1 to 3 people on at a time.

How can this be mitigated?

Soft skills advance quicker on servers with higher average populations? By playing on a full server your character advances quickly. On an empty server boosting your soft skills takes forever! OMG!

Environment interaction takes longer on servers with lower average populations? On a full server catching fish in a fish trap way out here in the open like this doesn't take very long. On an empty server it takes a looooooong time. Dang.

Awesome loot spans more frequently on higher servers with higher population? NWAF would be a very dangerous place on a full server but chances are that what your looking for is there. Of course everyone that's tried to get it is dead. On empty servers the NWAF is not dangerous but chances are you qon't find what your looking for.

It is just taking the "High risk, High reward" idea and applying it to server populations.

Lets get some thoughts out on this subject please. I want to hear from the people that disagree and why? What could be some unforseen consequences?

[Conrad_The_Comrade 577]

I don't think it's too big an issue, and I believe most of those people playing on low pop servers are going to just go on a local/singleplayer game once it's added. I say just lower loot spawns with the less the population, if that can be done.

[Parazight 1599]

DayZ can only be what it is meant to be if servers are full. Having 100 pop servers is meaningless if their are 10,000 servers with 1 to 3 people on at a time.

Perhaps you think it's meaningless.  It's not meaningless at all to the people that desire to play with no one else.  Also, not meaningless to the people who profit off of having lots of servers.

 

Your suggestion seems to based off of the fact that loot is paramount.  It's not.  Player interaction is what drives this mmo.  High risk is its own reward.  High population servers already provide the best interaction and stories out there.  It's been stated before that one of the drives behind DayZ is brutal authenticity, not balance.  Your suggestion of leveraging loot against population goes directly against the core of the game.

 

Right now, many people loot up on low pop servers and then jump to a high pop server for player engagements.  Seems to work out just fine.  Promotes people spending money on new servers.  It's a great symbiotic relationship for those that enjoy that playstyle, and there are many that enjoy it.