Correct me if im wrong but..

[thefriendlydutchman 160]

Shouldnt there be more deers than before the apocalypse instead of less, I mean they can easy outrun zombies, and now the leading causes of deer deaths are gone (people hunting, cars etc) and there are no predators, shouldnt there be way more animals, I rather have them like camouflaged well or something because at the moment the forests are so empty that noone will even try hunting deer as its almost completely dependent on luck, so add some more I guess

[Whyherro123 2283]

Shouldnt there be more deers than before the apocalypse instead of less, I mean they can easy outrun zombies, and now the leading causes of deer deaths are gone (people hunting, cars etc) and there are no predators, shouldnt there be way more animals, I rather have them like camouflaged well or something because at the moment the forests are so empty that noone will even try hunting deer as its almost completely dependent on luck, so add some more I guess

 

If you want to examine the "apocalypse" realistically? In all seriousness, no.

 

If the "background lore" (of which there is actually very little) pays any attention at all to realism/authenticity, then it is far more likely that civilization collapsed over a period of weeks, if not months, instead of the "classical zombie apocalypse" timeframe of "overnight".

 

Very few diseases in real life have a 100% mortality rate, and those that do tend to be buttfuckingly obvious. Such as it probably was in Day Z. Sure, people did get sick and "reanimate" from the "zombie disease" (remember: as per the devs, the "zombies" in-game are still living people, and as such, require food, water, shelter, etc), but more people probably just straight-up died from it. And, there are some pretty isolated villages in South Zagoria. It is eminently possible that the people living in these isolated villages never even got exposed to the "zombie disease", and instead got killed as a result of some other disease, an accident, or bandits. This becomes even more likely when you realize that South Zagoria was heavily quarantined.

 

Or, even those who got the disease (and either "reanimated", or just straight-up died), probably didn't die right away. Even if they only remained alive for a couple of days, those are days when they needed to eat, needed to take medication, and needed to keep warm. This included all of the other people who remained isolated from the initial outbreak, only to die from any other source. So, they had two choices:

1) go to town, and look for stuff there. Anyone who has lived through a natural disaster or even through some nasty weather can tell you what happens to stores when there is "trouble"; 1) the shelves get stripped clean and 2) the employees don't come in

2) go to the woods. In actuality, there is plenty of food available in the fields and woods of South Zagoria. Plants, animals, etc

 

" So, mom is sick, and we need food. I can walk an hour to the nearest village (no gas for the car), that I know has been stripped clean, or I can grab Grandads old rifle and see what I can shoot".

 

When there is no law-and-order, and the stores have been emptied, it means it is now open season, and SCREW the limit. Anything that is stupid enough to be shot goes into the pot, young animals, female animals, etc. Hell, kill more than one, who knows when the stores will be open again? Any idiot with a rifle (and there are A LOT of firearms in South Zagoria....) can go out and kill as many animals as they feel like. This kills off the population very quickly.

 

Oh, and don't forget; the larger the animal, the longer gestation tends to take. Rabbits can grow their population quickly (hence the term "breeding like rabbits") in basically a month, but deer and other animals tend to take longer, a couple of months at least. So, couple the facts that their population just got massacred, and the now-low population density, and you end up with the remaining deer having a more difficult time reproducing (more space "in between" individuals, fewer individuals of reproductive age, etc).

 

Really, I would expect there to be fewer deer after an "apocalypse" compared to before it. Not permanently, but a year or so, until more deer get born and others migrate in from outside the region.

 

Oh, and just because there aren't predators in-game  (YET) doesn't mean they "technically" don't exist. Remember: the "infected" are still living human beings, and as such, require food, water, shelter and sleep. We don't see them do these things in-game, but that doesn't mean they don't "do them".

 

Oh, and the most likely predator we should find in Day Z? Not wolves or bears. A feral, rapidly-undomesticated dog! A wolf in all but name, and (unluckily for them, and for us), lacking the intelligence of wolves to be afraid of humans.

[Rags! 1966]

When there is no law-and-order, and the stores have been emptied, it means it is now open season, and SCREW the limit. 

 

This effect on deer populations is based entirely on how many people are actually left alive by whatever plague or virus that occurs. If a scenario like DayZ occurred and left 10% of the population still alive and kicking, there would have to be an astronomical cervine genocide of unfathomable proportions for it to negatively impact the total Bambi population overall. 

 

Plus, we have to consider how many of those survivors would actually hunt at all...and of those that would actually go out and hunt deer specifically, whether or not they are actually capable of killing it, which I would wager most people are not. 

[Goknub 1]

If you consider the world as a "realistic" outcome of whatever happened then the lack of deer could simply be down to a lack of time to breed up numbers.

 

Looking through the buildings you find almost no contents, not in a "picked over by survivors" way but in an "virtually everything" way. Couple this with the lack of vehicles and it could more accurate to assume that the majority of the population has actually been evacuated rather than died of disease. The level of decay would also indicate that not too much time has passed since the human population left.

 

This would leave insufficient time for a native animal population of any kind to expand by the time our survivor rocks up on the beach.

[pillock 850]

There need to be more deer. And boar. and rabbits. And hopefully wolves and bears and perhaps game birds in future. Feral dogs would also be great.

 

As I understand it, the numbers we see now have nothing to do with "realism", in terms of population effects on hunting. It's to do with the game not being able to handle very many of them at present due to performance considerations. It's the same issue as the zombie numbers.

[SMoss 2101]

Shouldnt there be more deers than before the apocalypse instead of less, I mean they can easy outrun zombies, and now the leading causes of deer deaths are gone (people hunting, cars etc) and there are no predators, shouldnt there be way more animals, I rather have them like camouflaged well or something because at the moment the forests are so empty that noone will even try hunting deer as its almost completely dependent on luck, so add some more I guess

The reason for the current scarcity of wildlife in Chernarus is not so much related to a design decision. A high number of AI takes a toll on server performance which is why the amount of wildlife has been cut down, same as has happened with the amount of infected. Once server performance issues are addressed, the amount of both infected as well as animals will increase and over the course of development their numbers will be tweaked.

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

Like Pillock it. I suppose the animals will get complete overhaul some time in the future. Right now I fail to reliably hunt down any kind of game, even when going from water to water.

[q.S Sachiel 470]

How many deer were there before the zombpocalypse?

[thefriendlydutchman 160]

If you want to examine the "apocalypse" realistically? In all seriousness, no.

 

If the "background lore" (of which there is actually very little) pays any attention at all to realism/authenticity, then it is far more likely that civilization collapsed over a period of weeks, if not months, instead of the "classical zombie apocalypse" timeframe of "overnight".

 

Very few diseases in real life have a 100% mortality rate, and those that do tend to be buttfuckingly obvious. Such as it probably was in Day Z. Sure, people did get sick and "reanimate" from the "zombie disease" (remember: as per the devs, the "zombies" in-game are still living people, and as such, require food, water, shelter, etc), but more people probably just straight-up died from it. And, there are some pretty isolated villages in South Zagoria. It is eminently possible that the people living in these isolated villages never even got exposed to the "zombie disease", and instead got killed as a result of some other disease, an accident, or bandits. This becomes even more likely when you realize that South Zagoria was heavily quarantined.

 

Or, even those who got the disease (and either "reanimated", or just straight-up died), probably didn't die right away. Even if they only remained alive for a couple of days, those are days when they needed to eat, needed to take medication, and needed to keep warm. This included all of the other people who remained isolated from the initial outbreak, only to die from any other source. So, they had two choices:

1) go to town, and look for stuff there. Anyone who has lived through a natural disaster or even through some nasty weather can tell you what happens to stores when there is "trouble"; 1) the shelves get stripped clean and 2) the employees don't come in

2) go to the woods. In actuality, there is plenty of food available in the fields and woods of South Zagoria. Plants, animals, etc

 

" So, mom is sick, and we need food. I can walk an hour to the nearest village (no gas for the car), that I know has been stripped clean, or I can grab Grandads old rifle and see what I can shoot".

 

When there is no law-and-order, and the stores have been emptied, it means it is now open season, and SCREW the limit. Anything that is stupid enough to be shot goes into the pot, young animals, female animals, etc. Hell, kill more than one, who knows when the stores will be open again? Any idiot with a rifle (and there are A LOT of firearms in South Zagoria....) can go out and kill as many animals as they feel like. This kills off the population very quickly.

 

Oh, and don't forget; the larger the animal, the longer gestation tends to take. Rabbits can grow their population quickly (hence the term "breeding like rabbits") in basically a month, but deer and other animals tend to take longer, a couple of months at least. So, couple the facts that their population just got massacred, and the now-low population density, and you end up with the remaining deer having a more difficult time reproducing (more space "in between" individuals, fewer individuals of reproductive age, etc).

 

Really, I would expect there to be fewer deer after an "apocalypse" compared to before it. Not permanently, but a year or so, until more deer get born and others migrate in from outside the region.

 

Oh, and just because there aren't predators in-game  (YET) doesn't mean they "technically" don't exist. Remember: the "infected" are still living human beings, and as such, require food, water, shelter and sleep. We don't see them do these things in-game, but that doesn't mean they don't "do them".

 

Oh, and the most likely predator we should find in Day Z? Not wolves or bears. A feral, rapidly-undomesticated dog! A wolf in all but name, and (unluckily for them, and for us), lacking the intelligence of wolves to be afraid of humans.

So even though there is atleast 3 cans of beans in every house in most villages from coast to north, you expect people to go hunting?

Also we know almost nothing about the lore, yet you make tons of assumptions (although were very fun to read, you should write a book :D)

 

Also when did you see a survivor hunt in dayz, like at all I once saw my friend shoot a deer thats all

 

At the moment it seems like if the deer situation is going to stay like it is now forever, than they are useless to the game as it is so random to find one that it is just not worth looking for them.

 

How many deer were there before the zombpocalypse?

Well if you look at the amount of forest ground in Chernarus, than think about the fact that the state got open borders to parts of Ukraine and Russia (what I mean by that is animals can travel from Russia to Chernarus without a problem) I would say plenty, espacially since there are deer stands everywhere, which kinda shows that deer hunting was popular > which needs allot of deers to be able to be popular

 

 

If you consider the world as a "realistic" outcome of whatever happened then the lack of deer could simply be down to a lack of time to breed up numbers.

 

Looking through the buildings you find almost no contents, not in a "picked over by survivors" way but in an "virtually everything" way. Couple this with the lack of vehicles and it could more accurate to assume that the majority of the population has actually been evacuated rather than died of disease. The level of decay would also indicate that not too much time has passed since the human population left.

 

This would leave insufficient time for a native animal population of any kind to expand by the time our survivor rocks up on the beach.

Well although it is a good point there is one thing that debunks that unfortunatly, Broken down cars, rusty, even the interiour is fucked up on some cars

So I don't think we can really use that as a good point of information

[Whyherro123 2283]

-snip-

1) Where are you finding "3 cans of food in every house"? While food is indeed plentiful (too plentiful), I didn't think it was that plentiful...

 

2) I am basing "my lore" both on how the real world works, and what little we know about the in-game world. The second bit amounts to "zombies are still living people", and "it has been, at most, less than 2 years since society shat the bed". That second bit, in turn, is based on the fact that gasoline and medications are still effective. 

 

3) Plenty of people hunted in Day Z, especially in the earlier patches when 1) there were actual animals and 2) canned food wasn't fucking everywhere

[PongoZ 127]

In reality the deer close to people like that would disappear in the first week after the laws disappeared. Lots of guns and peoples actual morality exposed without the constraints of society. Deer only exist now anywhere near people because of the law, same as fish and every other wild resource. 

[Whyherro123 2283]

In reality the deer close to people like that would disappear in the first week after the laws disappeared. Lots of guns and peoples actual morality exposed without the constraints of society. Deer only exist now anywhere near people because of the law, same as fish and every other wild resource. 

 

Pretty much. The deer that survived would be the smart ones, or the ones already far away from human centers.

[pillock 850]

Pretty much. The deer that survived would be the smart ones, or the ones already far away from human centers.

 

Doesn't matter.

 

I want more wildlife to wantonly slaughter.

[emuthreat 2837]

So even though there is atleast 3 cans of beans in every house in most villages from coast to north, you expect people to go hunting?

Also we know almost nothing about the lore, yet you make tons of assumptions (although were very fun to read, you should write a book :D)

 

Foodlootz have been artificially increased to offset the scarcity of the animals, due to the AI resource issues being addressed currently.  SMoss actually answered that for you already.

 

Also when did you see a survivor hunt in dayz, like at all I once saw my friend shoot a deer thats all

 

Mostly, we be hunting opportunistically.

 

At the moment it seems like if the deer situation is going to stay like it is now forever, than they are useless to the game as it is so random to find one that it is just not worth looking for them.  Unbased speculation.

 

Well if you look at the amount of forest ground in Chernarus, than (then) think about the fact that the state got open borders to parts of Ukraine (Now Russia) and Russia (what I mean by that is animals can travel from Russia to Chernarus without a problem) I would say plenty, espacially since there are deer stands everywhere, which kinda shows that deer hunting was popular > which needs allot of deers to be able to be popular

Lotta duck blinds where I live. Duck hunting used to be lots more popular; so much so, that there are now 30% as many ducks as there were 90 years ago.

 

 

Well although it is a good point there is one thing that debunks that unfortunatly, Broken down cars, rusty, even the interiour is fucked up on some cars

So I don't think we can really use that as a good point of information

 

You see  a few dozen beat up vehicles, maybe 20% of vehicles  that were left after the evacuation (many in junkyards), and you call out their poor condition as being evidence of years of apocalypse decay?

 

 

1) ...

 

2) I am basing "my lore" both on how the real world works, and what little we know about the in-game world. The second bit amounts to "zombies are still living people", and "it has been, at most, less than 2 years since society shat the bed". That second bit, in turn, is based on the fact that gasoline and medications are still effective. 

 

3)...

It could be no more than a year, based on the level of building cleanliness.  Without human presence, any unattended house would show signs of rodent infestation within a few months, regardless of temperate or tropical climate.  We would see furniture shredded and soiled if SHTF any more than 6 months prior to our arrival 'on the beach.'

Edited October 29, 2015 by emuthreat

[DemonGroover 8836]

Without the protection and care of humans farm animals would quickly die - source, Life After People documentary.

I would imagine wild animal numbers would climb initially but would soon be brought under control by wild dogs, wolves etc. There would be some equilibrium, it wouldnt turn into a deer park overnight.

Not to mention that zombies would no doubt kill some of them as well.

[Rauchsauger 94]

Without the protection and care of humans farm animals would quickly die - source, Life After People documentary.

I would imagine wild animal numbers would climb initially but would soon be brought under control by wild dogs, wolves etc. There would be some equilibrium, it wouldnt turn into a deer park overnight.

Not to mention that zombies would no doubt kill some of them as well.

 

 

Given that cows have to be milked or they will die that is true.

But why would the infected get any deer? They cannot ambush since its only *groan* *rage* *run*.

With ambush out of question and deer being faster than humans they have little chance to get any.

 

*edit*

or does that mean there will be infected animals? (10/10 would play that)

Edited October 29, 2015 by Rauchsauger

[Whyherro123 2283]

Given that cows have to be milked or they will die that is true.

But why would the infected get any deer? They cannot ambush since its only *groan* *rage* *run*.

With ambush out of question and deer being faster than humans they have little chance to get any.

 

*edit*

or does that mean there will be infected animals? (10/10 would play that)

Humans are actually quite good at running (more like jogging, really) long distances. It was, and still is, a viable hunting tactic, to just literally run animals down, until they couldn't run anymore , because they got exhausted or overheated. It is called "persistence/endurance hunting".

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursorial_hunting

 

While many animals are faster than humans in the short term, few animals can move faster than we can long-term, over miles and hours. Our bidpedal method of locomotion, coupled with our ability to sweat and breath deeply while jogging, let us keep a steady pace for a long time. Most animals can't run fast for long periods of time without getting exhausted (example: Cheetah, although that might be an extreme case), and even if they could, they would overheat, because most animals either 1) don't sweat very effectively, or 2) cool off by panting, which can't be done while sprinting.

 

One of the few animals that can practice endurance hunting alongside humans are wolves, and their descendants, dogs. Take a guess as to why they were some of the first domesticated animals? :D On top of being intelligent enough to learn hunting tactics with humans, they could keep up with us over long distances, and both parties were made more "effective" for it. 

 

Oh, and the "infected" can't ambush right now because their AI is so simplistic, it isn't even funny. Isn't the "zombie AI" being/going to be worked on further? If so, let them actually use "tactics" like ambushing and "gang-tactics". I would pay to be jumped on by a "zed" from an alleyway......... That came out wrong. I would like it if they could actually be dangerous in that fashion, instead of the current "DERPSCREAMCHARGE" thing they have/had going on.

 

Oh, and "most" diseases can't go across species very well. That is why it was a big deal when Avian and Swine Flu were around, because they actually did manage to cross the species-gap while remaining even slightly virulent. Most diseases, when they cross species, usually amounts to little more than a sniffle and some flu-like symptoms (Granted, that statement is what I gleaned from a Undergraduate Immunology course, so take it with a grain of salt)

[pillock 850]

Humans are actually quite good at running (more like jogging, really) long distances. It was, and still is, a viable hunting tactic, to just literally run animals down, until they couldn't run anymore , because they got exhausted or overheated. It is called "persistence/endurance hunting".

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursorial_hunting

 

While many animals are faster than humans in the short term, few animals can move faster than we can long-term, over miles and hours. Our bidpedal method of locomotion, coupled with our ability to sweat and breath deeply while jogging, let us keep a steady pace for a long time. Most animals can't run fast for long periods of time without getting exhausted (example: Cheetah, although that might be an extreme case), and even if they could, they would overheat, because most animals either 1) don't sweat very effectively, or 2) cool off by panting, which can't be done while sprinting.

 

The thing about that is that you need to be able to track the animal when you lose sight of it. Because you will: a deer can get about half a mile away in the time it takes to say "Bugger, he must have seen me."

 

It'd be awesome if some kind of animal (and people!) tracking methods were included in DayZ. But it also requires that the animal AI is given some kind of stamina mechanic, or else endurance hunting would just consist chasing a deer around forever and ever.

[UKA Harrysoon 67]

There should be, but it's been stated that DayZ is set at the beginning of the apocolypse.

[Whyherro123 2283]

There should be, but it's been stated that DayZ is set at the beginning of the apocolypse.

Where, exactly, has that been stated?

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

Where, exactly, has that been stated?

 

I can't provide any links but I read many times here that we actually live days after the apocalypse. However, I find several things in Chernarus inconsistent with that statement, off the top of my head:

 

1) the charred buses in numerous towns which are clearly corroded (at least that's how I remember that). What, they were just standing there and corroding for months before the outbreak?

 

2) first and foremost, the broken fences around military sites. It's not true and not believable that such places would be run down because of the general situation. Poor country or not, you don't just crawl under a fence right behind some barracks. Authoritarian regimes don't care about money here, people may literally die in famines and the military would still be one of the last elements actually working (more or less). Think North Korea - one of the poorest countries in the world can field the 4th biggest army in the world. Of course it's backwards, but that's not the issue here - fences and concrete walls would be in fine condition.

[Deathlove 2286]

but would soon be brought under control by wild dogs, wolves etc.

But we first need to establish there are even wild dogs and wolves in the game even. lol

[RagedDrew 209]

The wildlife population isn't based on anything other than server performance (I'm sure it's be been said before, I've not read through the topic) Once the game progresses through it's development these numbers will most likely increase.

[thefriendlydutchman 160]

Humans are actually quite good at running (more like jogging, really) long distances. It was, and still is, a viable hunting tactic, to just literally run animals down, until they couldn't run anymore , because they got exhausted or overheated. It is called "persistence/endurance hunting".

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursorial_hunting

 

While many animals are faster than humans in the short term, few animals can move faster than we can long-term, over miles and hours. Our bidpedal method of locomotion, coupled with our ability to sweat and breath deeply while jogging, let us keep a steady pace for a long time. Most animals can't run fast for long periods of time without getting exhausted (example: Cheetah, although that might be an extreme case), and even if they could, they would overheat, because most animals either 1) don't sweat very effectively, or 2) cool off by panting, which can't be done while sprinting.

 

One of the few animals that can practice endurance hunting alongside humans are wolves, and their descendants, dogs. Take a guess as to why they were some of the first domesticated animals? :D On top of being intelligent enough to learn hunting tactics with humans, they could keep up with us over long distances, and both parties were made more "effective" for it. 

 

Oh, and the "infected" can't ambush right now because their AI is so simplistic, it isn't even funny. Isn't the "zombie AI" being/going to be worked on further? If so, let them actually use "tactics" like ambushing and "gang-tactics". I would pay to be jumped on by a "zed" from an alleyway......... That came out wrong. I would like it if they could actually be dangerous in that fashion, instead of the current "DERPSCREAMCHARGE" thing they have/had going on.

 

Oh, and "most" diseases can't go across species very well. That is why it was a big deal when Avian and Swine Flu were around, because they actually did manage to cross the species-gap while remaining even slightly virulent. Most diseases, when they cross species, usually amounts to little more than a sniffle and some flu-like symptoms (Granted, that statement is what I gleaned from a Undergraduate Immunology course, so take it with a grain of salt)

Actually zombies only have tracking abilities of I think 100 meters? since a deer can do that fast and easily the zombies would have zero chance of hunting them down, espacially since zombies make a ton of fucking noise and are badly camouflaged

[thefriendlydutchman 160]

The thing about that is that you need to be able to track the animal when you lose sight of it. Because you will: a deer can get about half a mile away in the time it takes to say "Bugger, he must have seen me."

 

It'd be awesome if some kind of animal (and people!) tracking methods were included in DayZ. But it also requires that the animal AI is given some kind of stamina mechanic, or else endurance hunting would just consist chasing a deer around forever and ever.

Actually, since  a zombie can only track for like 50-100m (not sure how much to be honest, never payed attention ingame to that) and a deer can go further than that distance in a short time the zombie would have no chance of hunting deer down, espacially since zombies make allot of noise, also zombies are extremely dirty, which makes it difficult for them to sweat (as it would with humans which they are infected humans)  also they can barely keep up with the cows, so they would never be able to keep up with deer

 

 

There should be, but it's been stated that DayZ is set at the beginning of the apocolypse.

One word for you. Rusty Cars