Completely random spawns

[Salty seadog 125]

Hello survivor's and bandito's,

Wanted to make a thread to see where people are in relation to this, but I really feel that one of the best possible changes that could be made to DayZ, is to spawn players absolutely anywhere on the map, and in different clothing/health/starting equipment.

I feel the biggest area for improvement in the game is the flow of players, and use of the full map, and I think something as simple as this would really go a long way to utilize the the whole of Chernarus.

Every time I play DayZ, I want to explore, but no matter where I go, I never see anyone else. It inevitably plays out one of two ways, 1) Stay in a spawn town as a freshie, and try to punch someone for gear, or 2) Run to NWAF or do a chopper run, get sooper geared, and run back to a spawn town and hunt bandits. Maybe get lucky and see someone at NWAF.

Surviving, travelling and diverse player encounters all come a very far second place over the spawn town TDM that goes on, and I just though, even for one patch, could we try out a random spawn system and just see what everyone thinks after a few weeks? Provided it wasn't a monumental task to ask of the devs.

So I just wanted to see what you guys think, do you think it would be worth a shot, just to try it out?

[pilgrim* 3513]

  

     You spawn in "spawn towns"? - hell, I always spawn in the middle of nowhere - its a long time since I even spawned on a beach.

     I think everyone should spawn at random anywhere - in their underwear, with a bar of soap and some kind of skin infestation.

 

[eno 1049]

20 minutes ago, pilgrim* said:

  

     You spawn in "spawn towns"? - hell, I always spawn in the middle of nowhere - its a long time since I even spawned on a beach.

     I think everyone should spawn at random anywhere - in their underwear, with a bar of soap and some kind of skin infestation.

 

With a bar of soap? s'plain. 

[emuthreat 2837]

I'd like to see the spawns happen in a belt about 1 km across, offset 2 km on center from the coastline.  It would also be important to me, that there be some kind of mechanism to prevent the game from spawning anybody within 500 meters from an existing camp.  But as I was typing that, I thought about the possibility of strategically planting tents and barrels on a server to exclude much of the possible spawn zone, resulting in a server where everybody spawned in the same town; so now I'm not so sure.

The one thing I do know, is that the coastal spawn points are one of my least favorite parts about the game.  However, I don't think that will be changing in the vanilla version, as they have already invested time into distinguishing the different loot spawn regions.

Perhaps the random starting load outs will be something we see more of in the future.  Hicks seemed to like the idea of more diverse spawn conditions when it was discussed a bit last summer.

Edited March 30, 2016 by emuthreat

[eno 1049]

14 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

The one thing I do know, is that the coastal spawn points are one of my least favorite parts about the game.  However, I don't think that will be changing in the vanilla version, as they have already invested time into distinguishing the different loot spawn regions.

I thought the coastal spawn principle was meant to simulate you actually being the survivor of one of the shipwrecks on the coast and washing up on a foreign shore. Of course that wouldn't explain some of the inland spawns but that was really the only "story" I've ever found relevant to the game concept. Splashing someone down in the middle of some foreign soil while in the throes of an infected / zombie infestation where no locals exist at all is a mired concept and really takes away from any sort of model from which to build. 

Edited March 30, 2016 by eno

[emuthreat 2837]

Why would the ships have wrecked on the coast of a quarantine zone, weeks after the majority of the population succumbed?  It makes more sense to me that survivors have been in hiding for weeks, and used up all of their stored resources.  Having traveled to the coast to find that there are no more healthy people or seaworthy ships, you are now stuck trying to survive the hostile world.

For people on the other half of the globe, it may not seem like such a foreign place.  It would make more sense then, if the coastal spawns were a result of someone trying to get back home to Chernarus, having been away for the outbreak.

[Salty seadog 125]

Well, they are both good arguments as to why you spawn near the coast, but i'm more concerned about the mechanics it promotes. If you spawned absolutely anywhere possible, I mean like 1000's of possible spawn sites, it makes it impossible for anyone to camp an area killing freshies. (Ideally, it would be cool to see some props spawn in with you, and that disappear once you leave the props "bubble", like a wrecked cessna and you spawn with broken legs and very injured, parachute in as a prisoner with cuffs on, on a boat just off shore and you're very thirsty and cold, outside a car thats ran out of gas, in scrubs in a hospital low on blood, in military gear with a pistol thats has one bullet left, in a prison cell with cuffs on and locked door but you have a lockpick, lost in the woods... the list goes on) You should also spawn as a random charachter in whatever clothes, I feel at least this much would help the player feel an attachment to your character instead of spawning as the same dude who just died, I would feel far more invested if something like this was added in, im not sure what sort of work this would create for the devs, but hopefully not an unreasonable amount considering all the props needed (par the cessna) are in the game already.

It would make player encounters far more natural, instead of the forced babmi slayer mode around the spawn towns. It would utilize the full map, and properly spread the players out, I think that reason alone is worth at least trying it out. If they went one more step further, they could spread some military locations out a little, as to keep people moving to all corners, obviously keep the tisy as the biggun, but simply removing some tents from NWAF and mishikono and popping them down at an odd place or two would work great.

I do love this game, but its the single biggest reason I stop playing and move to something else after just checking patches out (although im rockin a semi for .60, cant wait to see the new renderer!). Im all for PvP, but why is 90% of every server at electro and the the rest of the map/ survival mechanics wasted when its just a TDM, it could be so much more.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Salty seadog

[emuthreat 2837]

1 hour ago, Salty seadog said:

Well, they are both good arguments as to why you spawn near the coast, but i'm more concerned about the mechanics it promotes. If you spawned absolutely anywhere possible, I mean like 1000's of possible spawn sites, it makes it impossible for anyone to camp an area killing freshies. (Ideally, it would be cool to see some props spawn in with you, and that disappear once you leave the props "bubble", like a wrecked cessna and you spawn with broken legs and very injured, parachute in as a prisoner with cuffs on, on a boat just off shore and you're very thirsty and cold, outside a car thats ran out of gas, in scrubs in a hospital low on blood, in military gear with a pistol thats has one bullet left, in a prison cell with cuffs on and locked door but you have a lockpick, lost in the woods... the list goes on) You should also spawn as a random charachter in whatever clothes, I feel at least this much would help the player feel an attachment to your character instead of spawning as the same dude who just died, I would feel far more invested if something like this was added in, im not sure what sort of work this would create for the devs, but hopefully not an unreasonable amount considering all the props needed (par the cessna) are in the game already.

It would make player encounters far more natural, instead of the forced babmi slayer mode around the spawn towns. It would utilize the full map, and properly spread the players out, I think that reason alone is worth at least trying it out. If they went one more step further, they could spread some military locations out a little, as to keep people moving to all corners, obviously keep the tisy as the biggun, but simply removing some tents from NWAF and mishikono and popping them down at an odd place or two would work great.

I do love this game, but its the single biggest reason I stop playing and move to something else after just checking patches out (although im rockin a semi for .60, cant wait to see the new renderer!). Im all for PvP, but why is 90% of every server at electro and the the rest of the map/ survival mechanics wasted when its just a TDM, it could be so much more.

Those are all great ideas, but I'm not sure if it would fit the "loreless" style of the game that vanilla seems inevitable to become.  I like the idea of your prop-based spawn flavoring, but too much dispersal of spawn points could create some persistent basebuilding-related issues. I would have severe reservations if a group of players on a private hive could abuse suicides to conduct a systematic sweep for player camps by means of randomized and dispersed spawn points. Without having to use any resources beyond the first fifteen minutes of sprint health, an organized group could scout and overpower half of a private server in a day.  That should definitely not be made possible by any means in the vanilla 1.0 release.

[Salty seadog 125]

11 minutes ago, emuthreat said:

Those are all great ideas, but I'm not sure if it would fit the "loreless" style of the game that vanilla seems inevitable to become.  I like the idea of your prop-based spawn flavoring, but too much dispersal of spawn points could create some persistent basebuilding-related issues. I would have severe reservations if a group of players on a private hive could abuse suicides to conduct a systematic sweep for player camps by means of randomized and dispersed spawn points. Without having to use any resources beyond the first fifteen minutes of sprint health, an organized group could scout and overpower half of a private server in a day.  That should definitely not be made possible by any means in the vanilla 1.0 release.

That's definitely a good point, I do plan on building Fort Knox in a very good spot I have, and I would be peeved if some freshie just rocked up after spawning in, and started punching my walls. Would it really be that much of a concern though? Sure, once in a blue moon, someones gonna get a that one in a million spawn, but I dont see it being a viable tactic. Consider they upped the respawn timer to 1-2 mins, and then consider most of the time you will statistically spawn more often outside of towns, that means you will have to spend time getting your bearings, then finding a town, then looking for a ledge or something to kill yourself with, then waiting to respawn. For me, I would rather just run into (or drive/cycle) spots where I suspected bases, it just seems far more viable. Hell, wait till the choppers in, thats going to be 5 trillion times more useful for that sort of tactic, and thats gonna make it into the game.

Im just not convinced the cons outweigh the pros. The Devs have made this great effort to make the game feel as realistic as possible, no hud, and a big effort has been made to make it all very interactive without the need for immersion breaking menu's, and to try make it this semi realistic experience. Then you have this outdated mechanic, firmly planted in the past, that breaks the immersion of the whole experience, at least for me. The mod was great, but this game aims to further the idea and improve upon it, so keeping this mechanic in because that's how it was in the mod, doesn't seem like a step in the right direction, out of fear of being different. 

I just want a game where player encounters could happen around any corner, *errr* just like real life, meeting players heading in different directions for different reasons, having to scout towns in fear of gangs that lie in wait, stumbling across friendly hunters who are willing to share a steak and a story at some random hunting ground, taking fire in the most random places, running into groups who might help you find your first can of beans, whatever. But this game is not that, and in my 630 hours playtime I have run into one person not at a spawn town or NWAF, I understand its a bold ask, to start poking at things like this so late in the game, but I think its the biggest, if not only major flaw this game is suffering from.

I do agree they dont need all the different scenarios & different heath, just thought it might be a neat idea to go along with it if the devs had the time!

[emuthreat 2837]

I'm all for the different scenarios and different health, but I firmly believe that spawns need to be dispersed throughout more neutral areas, but also respect potential base building concerns.  A good middle ground for me, would be to spawn people in the smaller interior towns such as Krasnostav, Olsha, Khelm, Orlovets, Dubrovka, Shakova, Dolina, Mysta, Polana, Guglovo, Orlovets, Kozlovka; you know, towns with just basic resources.  As long as spawns are in populated areas, and open fields, it seems like a great way to mix up the player movement.

But again, there is the zonal loot spawn aspect of the CLE being developed as we speak.

[pilgrim* 3513]

8 hours ago, eno said:

I thought the coastal spawn principle was meant to simulate you actually being the survivor of one of the shipwrecks on the coast

There weren't any shipwrecks on the coast at the time: back when the game came out.
You "washed up on the beach" - no one knows why, you don't know why.
Then players complained about the beach spawn, so spawns were included inland to spread the gameplay. Good move
That knocked on the head the "you crawled up out of the sea" theory

I think it is GREAT there is NO backstory - When the game starts you ARE in a foreign country, you HAVE no gear, you MUST survive.
The only backstory is a desperate mess of inventions by stressed hallucinating survivors, foaming-mad generals, crazed infected journalists, and hysterical dying military historians who can't accept that human reason, sense, order, history, and geopolitics have GONE

If you want a backstory just imagine you cant remember who you are and you have no idea why you are here and there seems to be a bunch of dangerous ex-humans staggering around
Or if you want a great backstory, just imagine you're a Special Ops Elite killer who HALO'd in and knocked yourself out in a tree and before you recovered the goblins ate your gear.
But don't believe any of those "official" propaganda backstory lies you hear on these forums.

As Robert Altman said
What happens after the end of a fiction does NOT exist
What happens before the beginning of a fiction does NOT exist

So - say for instance - you wake up nowhere at all, you have no cloths plus a skin condition, you are clutching a bar of surgical soap.
-Wow - why? you will never know - So you are in the game - now survive or die

 

                                      Who cares how you got dropped in the game? - the game STARTS here

                                

 

 

xx pilgrim

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by pilgrim*

[pilgrim* 3513]

9 hours ago, Salty seadog said:

Every time I play DayZ, I want to explore, but no matter where I go, I never see anyone else.

When you explore, why do you want to see anyone else ?

[Salty seadog 125]

1 hour ago, pilgrim* said:

When you explore, why do you want to see anyone else ?

Not sure if trolling...

 For the same reason as everyone who plays multiplayer over single player, player interaction. Because playing with people will always be more challenging, funny, entertaining, unpredictable and rewarding than playing with bots or alone . You wouldn't load up battlefield and just have a nice leisurely stroll around the map, completely alone, for a handful of hours then just go to bed. Same way that walking around Chernarus anywhere outside of spawn towns and NWAF/mishikono, provides a similar experience. Its the looming threat of players around any corner that could be your best friend or pack of ruthless cannibals, that to me is this games strong suit, and thats why I would love them to try out completely dynamic spawns, at least for one patch, and just see how it impacts the gameplay, it might even convert a few skeptics. 

 

3 hours ago, emuthreat said:

I'm all for the different scenarios and different health, but I firmly believe that spawns need to be dispersed throughout more neutral areas, but also respect potential base building concerns.  A good middle ground for me, would be to spawn people in the smaller interior towns such as Krasnostav, Olsha, Khelm, Orlovets, Dubrovka, Shakova, Dolina, Mysta, Polana, Guglovo, Orlovets, Kozlovka; you know, towns with just basic resources.  As long as spawns are in populated areas, and open fields, it seems like a great way to mix up the player movement.

But again, there is the zonal loot spawn aspect of the CLE being developed as we speak.

 

I do see your point about the CLE, and tbh, even if they were only willing to go as far as your suggestion, I think it would be a great improvement and id be all for it. I'm still convinced fully random spawns would work out the best, but anything that can take the players out of spawn towns and spread them around the map is a welcome idea.

[pilgrim* 3513]

7 hours ago, Salty seadog said:

Not sure if trolling...

 You wouldn't load up battlefield and just have a nice leisurely stroll around the map, completely alone, for a handful of hours then just go to bed.

Same way that walking around Chernarus anywhere outside of spawn towns and NWAF/mishikono, provides a similar experience.
Its the looming threat of players around any corner that could be your best friend or pack of ruthless cannibals, that to me is this games strong suit, and thats why I would love them to try out completely dynamic spawns, at least for one patch, and just see how it impacts the gameplay, it might even convert a few skeptics.

yo Salty

You want to take the players away from the PvP high-action, death-a-minute, "spawn towns" and scatter them around the country so you will meet more players when you are out in the distant corners of the map?

OK... well..

Point is - there are NOT any "spawn towns" there are just various scattered spawn locations and many of them are within running distance of big towns (and one are two are real close to big towns)
And a lot of players RUN to get to those towns - if they ran the other way for half as long they'd be in the wild country (like you), but they don't.
And a lot of players who think they are too far from towns suicide until they get closer.

If you want to explore - go solo explore far off places but don't EVER assume there's no one around.. you will die.
If you want to interact (kill, goof with no-pants-and-a-bible, be a bandit, or run around laughing or dissing) stay on the COAST - if you want to PvP deathmatch go to the "spawn towns" you talk about.
If you want to explore AND hang with players, join a team or a RP server..

And NOPE I wouldn't load up Battlefield and expect a huge map, where anything can happen, including solitude, agriculture, hunting, sudden death, chance meetings, starvation, teams of armed raiders, navigation by the stars, hidden camps, fishing, zombies, stampeding cattle, sunrise and sunset, half-repaired vehicles .. If I loaded Battlefield I'd find a fight in a half-minute, right? And if I loaded DayZ I know where to find a fight. And then sometimes a fight drops on you when you don't expect it at all.

If you want "the looming threat of players around any corner that could be your best friend or pack of ruthless cannibals" then stay on the coast. (if you go inland to the high loot places you meet players but won't make any "best friends"). Find a quiet place inland, stash some stuff, hunt, cook, get gear - then go down to the coast to make friends. Comparing DayZ to Battlefield is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

:) xx pilgrim

Edited March 30, 2016 by pilgrim*

[Luc Tonnerre 174]

Everybody should spawn in/on a small raft which allows to navigate to a certain extend and will start to capsize (render unusable) as soon as the bottom touches the ground (like 10m away from the shore). That way it would make sense in terms of plausibility (At least better than just "waking up") and would allow players to choose where it would be save to go ashore.
After the player left the capsized raft it will kind of fall apart (and despawn). Imagine one of Bear Grylls life-saving "death rafts" which always seems to fall apart while he is still miles away from any coast :D

Edited March 30, 2016 by Luc Tonnerre

[eno 1049]

13 hours ago, emuthreat said:

Why would the ships have wrecked on the coast...

Really? Not sure why any ships ever get in wrecks... on any shoreline- the fact that it was after the "issue" was just the version of the story I'd heard and to be quite honest I didn't mind it. Either way... but of all the things to ask why I'm surprised a ship running aground or foundering out at sea is intriguing. 

[emuthreat 2837]

1 hour ago, eno said:

Really? Not sure why any ships ever get in wrecks... on any shoreline- the fact that it was after the "issue" was just the version of the story I'd heard and to be quite honest I didn't mind it. Either way... but of all the things to ask why I'm surprised a ship running aground or foundering out at sea is intriguing. 

Well shipwrecks along the shoreline is perfectly normal, but it is the timing that concerns me.  What would ships full of people be doing along the shorelines of Chernarus weeks after the infection?  Did they not hear about the shitstorm happening ashore?  Is it an aid ship, and if so, why have they wrecked?

That's my concern with the concept of being shipwrecked on the coast of an area that is most likely a quarantine zone, and had been that way for weeks.  What the hell are they doing there?

[eno 1049]

That's the thing though- how many people are we talking about? A hundred tops per map? Small cruise ship or ferry sinks in eastern europe going somewhere else? Hundred people adrift and wash up on shore randomly like debris from Malaysia Airlines 370. 

Doesn't even have to be a wreck... just a simple sinking. Doesn't take much imagination to see where its plausible that not every ship chooses when it sinks and where and at what time and regardless of whether the nation nearest the event happens to be in the middle of whatever they want to call this- zombie apocalypse or infestation or infection.

Anyway- clearly you're not a fan of it... I literally could care less about it but it's the story I'd heard and it was well within the realms of possibility given the other entirely unrealistic things that are possible within the game's framework.

Edited March 30, 2016 by eno

[chris12138 0]

15 hours ago, eno said:

I thought the coastal spawn principle was meant to simulate you actually being the survivor of one of the shipwrecks on the coast and washing up on a foreign shore. Of course that wouldn't explain some of the inland spawns but that was really the only "story" I've ever found relevant to the game concept. Splashing someone down in the middle of some foreign soil while in the throes of an infected / zombie infestation where no locals exist at all is a mired concept and really takes away from any sort of model from which to build. 

This guy gets it.

[pilgrim* 3513]

25 minutes ago, chris12138 said:

This guy gets it.

It does Not matter how you get there - totally not important, meaningless, irrelevant

 

Spoiler

Short History of DayZ (game)  = the inland spawns were introduced to move play away from the beaches
You can't however dump new players totally in the far-off wastelands, they have no idea how to deal with that - so there was a compromise to spread spawns out
Someone said once long ago  "you start on the beach"
But now you don't, so the invented shipwreck "backstory" is blown

Why you appeared at your spawn point ? - you can INVENT for yourself There is NO reason INSIDE the game.
- you were shot in the head and lost your memory, you escaped from an asylum or a medical facility, the infection wiped your brain but you survived, you zapped in from another universe there are hundreds of them and they all look like Chernarus (I swear, I've seen them), someone put a bag on your head and flew you 6 hours by helicopter, you're a test case to see if your inoculation works, you're a paparazzi reporter who got lost, you're a backpacker tourist who got robbed by semi-zombies, you're a tax inspector who fell asleep on a pick-nick and when you woke up there was an apocalypse going down, you are a standard dumb guy who is suddenly in the middle of a bad day.
Why do you CARE how you got there? - that's just made up stuff that has Nothing to Do with the game mechanics and what you have to do next..   It is invented made-up fantasy stuff strictly OUTSIDE the GAME.
To invent a reason why you are in the game and then change the game to fit your reason is crazy.

If you agree NEVER to use Teamspeak, then maybe I'll start being slightly interested in this "backstory/immersion" stuff. Not till then.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by pilgrim*
I like to use bold, so?

[chris12138 0]

13 minutes ago, pilgrim* said:

It does Not matter how you get there - totally not important, meaningless, irrelevant

 

Hidden Content

 

 

Ok, you're right. If the shipwreck thing were set in stone one would be soaking wet when you spawn.

[eno 1049]

16 minutes ago, pilgrim* said:

It does Not matter how you get there - totally not important, meaningless, irrelevant

 

Hidden Content

 

 

Sorry- I disagree. If someone wants to get into the mood then they can conjure up a reason. Not important to you... fine. Some think differently. 

[pilgrim* 3513]

7 minutes ago, eno said:

Sorry- I disagree. If someone wants to get into the mood then they can conjure up a reason. Not important to you... fine. Some think differently. 

Yeah - the mil-sim dudes and the PvP fans who need Teamspeak to even play - they really MUST get into that immersion mood of  <<Shit where am I? I am a lone survivor with my tents full of gear stashed up-country, so I'll must suicide now to join up with my mates before it gets boring>> they need backstory otherwise they can't get that lost survivor IMMERSION sensation while they're chatting.

If you REALLY DO need a reason to regain consciousness somewhere in Chernarus with an Official Canon Reason why you are there - Then you must ask someone else (but not yourself) to INVENT one for the players to use. I guess this would be Brian Hicks ?  

Unfortunately the Backstory has to include how the players are wearing headsets (implants?) connecting them to everyone they ever knew who is on this map ( AND on a few other copies of Cherarus that look just the same). And the implants let them talk to dead people too (that's cool!)
I guess we could all be members of some telepathic HALO team that got scattered by freak winds (hey, has that been done already?) with artificial brains that work after your body's been blown to crap.

When I respawn I just pretend I'm "there" and have to DO stuff to survive.I don't worry too much about the past, My survival skills tell me thinking about the past is not good for me and it takes away my edge.

Ask Brian for an ex cathedra  statement on How Did I Get Here?. There really is NO other way to know.

xxp

[emuthreat 2837]

I thought the point of it was that the official development actively refuses to invent any canon for the game; hence the "this is your story" tagline.

I never meant for it to get this contentious.  I just got the impression that "Day Zero" was the day we all wake up on the beach.  Day Zero meaning the first day that any vestiges of civilization have been so far removed as to warrant the abandonment of previous timekeeping measures.  The power's been out for weeks at the very least, and anyone left alive has lost too many days and nights running from the sick ones to have any real concept of what day it is.  Or with the shipwreck theory, you have drifted for many days into the coastal quarantine zone, effectively preventing any chance of rescue.

If I had to take my pick of origin lore, I would have to go with the sci-fi multiverse theory.

Spoiler

 Survivors washed ashore from their capsized re-entry pods, which had automatically splashed down in the fail safe landing zone of the Black Sea after a mysterious failure of communications upon completing the first manned orbit of Jupiter.   What we do know, is that the orbital dark period should only have lasted a few days between losing Earth LOS and establishing comms with MRSN.  The Mars Relay Satellite Network had a mission life of 20 years on the plutonium-fueled beta-decay battery systems, but we never got a hail.  Once we had restored earth line-of-sight, initial communication attempts were unsuccessful. The Lunar Mass-Abatement Project--to counteract the rising tides from glacial melt-- should have been completed before we passed Mars on the way out, but the polar dust flumes still did not appear to be enclosed.   The closer we got to Earth, the more we started to notice the lack of artificial light on the night side of our little blue planet.  All on board timekeeping instruments appear to be working correctly, but the remaining artificial satellites of earth are reading that over 22 years had passed.  We all expected to come back a few minutes younger, from the relative difference of our speed during the Jovian pass, but this was orders of magnitude greater than our craft would have been able to withstand.

Whatever the cause, the mission was only supposed to last four years and seven months, but the apparent precession of the Martian orbit means that our calculations were either off by 60%, or that two Jovian years had passed in an instant.  The Trojan Earth Return Supply Craft was not in place at Mars L_5; even if we had been in the correct orbital position to intercept it, there was no relief waiting for us on the way back.  We have been on half-rations now for over 9 months, and missing out on the gravity-assist from Mars on the return trip had cost us precious Δv.  The Earth is dark and quiet.  We can only pray that we will splashdown near a ship or the shore; the remaining 3 kg of food won't last us more than a week.  We had to reduce the rotation of the Tauric G-habitat to save fuel, and reduced exercise times to less than half of the mission sustainability minimums; we have grown weak in this last year of drifting back to our dead planet.   If Ruben from mission control is still alive, I'm gonna kill him.  He absolutely refused to allow an emergency fishing kit on board, citing mass budgets; but at least we have plenty of flares for nobody to see.

 

Edited March 30, 2016 by emuthreat

[pilgrim* 3513]

11 hours ago, emuthreat said:

I .//.. emuthreat's convoluted sequences of long words in structures predicated for the bafflement of 'good old normal' forum users ..//..

OK emuthreat so you favor the "alternate earth" theory and not the "alternate timeline" theory, that's orthodox.
I guess Hawking and Spock could argue it out. The DayZ theoretical and ONLY "semi-official" backstory takes (the easy way out) Tom Clancy approach (ie don't give a damn as long as the technology is ok and the Hero is in it). though trends in mainstream steampunk and speculative/militaristic "future history" indicate a move against this bland approach. Or let's pretend the backstory makes sense as exemplified in Star Wars VII ( a lip-service trope). .awkwardly agregating fragmentary references and spurious parallels so that the more sense made by any non coherent splinter the fewer fans can agree with any discrete alienated part of it.
Usually - however - a quick survey of current (worldwide, literary and Hollywood) popular Dystopian and Post Apocalyptic fiction shows us that the mass of media consumers accepts there is no particular a priori reason and (deeply) no interest in how the dramatic narrative focus "came about".. it "just is".. Witness the arguments still ongoing over the Mad Max franchise. Bottom line - we all know the human social construct is crap - now crap has happened (the premise, unquestioned because inevitable) - and (roll the film) here is the survivor-hero.. He must be the person who could have stopped the crap by his upright and sane (therefore fringe) mentality, unlike the destructive normality, and can now get on with surviving the aftermath - as he is uniquely placed to do.
This being the necessary case, the less we know about his previous life the better, as knowledge makes it more difficult to avoid the (rationally present) core taint of complicity with the massive and widespread human stupidity that caused whatever disaster and destruction we are now a "victim" of. ie Hero as non-victim, by definition. But any past knowledge of the Hero's pre-apocalypse action marks him with the Cain-brand that destroyed his own and all other lives and society itself. (we are not going for Christ-as-Hero, ok? - perish the thought, let's take the Jungian road)
If that is the case, he has already NOT survived in the meaningful sense, which destroys the Hero premise. He must be an antihero carrying the seeds of destruction, remaining by chance after his own personal and his own-kind's deliberate (if not rationalized) destruction of human values and institutions.
But game-players want to enter into the Hero mythos, not identify with a surviving villain who is known consciously/unconsciously to have fucked up before the start of the game. (vis the popular disappointment in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, where the vicarious observer cannot identify with the central character).

this MEANS - you have to ask Brian Hicks WHO you are, and then accept that (like it or not)
or
Decide for yourself.
If you decide for yourself there is no reason anyone should agree with you. In fact to the extent that YOU decide, they shouldn't.

xx pilgrim

 

REFS (thre are plenty but here's one) :   http://www.paforge.com/files/articles/pa_essay1.pdf 
                                                                http://postapocalyptia.tumblr.com/
                                                                or read Brandy Danner - 'Dark Futures: A Guide to Apocalyptic, Post-Apocalyptic, and Dystopian Books and Media'

:)

 

Edited March 31, 2016 by pilgrim*
Know Yourself