The thrill of the kill? Transporting psychological aspects into game mechanics

[Sixteen18 15]

As a sociology grad student I try to stay away from these threads not to spend 6 hours writing a wall of text, but I would like to mention something that makes the OP argument flawed.

Human minds today are very fragile, most people have grown complacent and any kind of change has detrimental psychological effects. If we were suddenly placed in a situation like DayZ most people would be in a cynical, depressed and even suicidal behavior. It would not be like Resident Evil where randoms pick up a gun and go shooting zombies. In fact shooting a zombie would be just about as difficult as shooting a human, our natural impulse would tell us not to do it. The reality would just be too difficult to comprehend, the most likely outcome is that humans would either go completely insane or go more towards animal behavior than what we have in our current society. Survival of the fittest, those that are stronger and more skilled at survival will have no interest of joining up with people who will slow them down or increase the chance of them getting killed.

So yes, people would form groups with those that are similar to one another in skill, but these groups would shoot each other on site because they are literally competing for survival via scavenging. Killing humans would not have any realistic impact on their psychological well being with how screwed up everyone would be already be from killing zombies and seeing society collapse.

Conclusion: It's not the game's fault that people always shoot each other on site, its the people's. Face it, it's the internet and most people will not group with random others. Look at any MMO today for proof.

[KingRobbolo 0]

As a sociology grad student I try to stay away from these threads not to spend 6 hours writing a wall of text' date=' but I would like to mention something that makes the OP argument flawed.

Conclusion: It's not the game's fault that people always shoot each other on site, its the people's.

[/quote']

Can't help but find resonance with you here buddy. I come from a psychological background and have massive problems with the OPs argument. I appreciate the time and effort he put in to stimulating such rewarding discussion, but his claims about the human psyche and assumptions about group behaviour are completely unfounded.

It gets a little easier to swallow for the lone-wolf bandit style player. However, I play this game to kill people, I also play this game cooperatively with others. It's all about group membership. I have a group of players I play with, we look after each other, we fight for each other, we die for each other. However, anyone that is not a member of my group is getting shot. Not only is that how I've experienced a lot of DayZ so far, but it holds a lot of water psychologically.

OP claims humans are social animals, and that's true, but not with everybody. We all have ingroups and outgroups. And pretty much every terrible thing done in human history (and continuing to get done to this day) can be explained via how one group associates themselves with another. That's how we train armed forces in the modern era to reduce the psychological effects of war. It's very easy to distance yourself from others when you can separate and demonise an outgroup, while praising and reinforcing your own ingroup.

In this respect, in a real apocalypse, I find it would be far too easy to band together, form an ingroup attitude with the certain people. This would exclude everyone else to your outgroup and you could do terrible things to them while not suffering all of the vastly complicated psychological side-effects you mention.

Ofcourse this is a very simple and reductionist approach to looking at a complex problem. But in terms of gameplay, and how I play the game, it's psychologically fine.

Also, if moves were made to change the game mechanics in regards to killing players, it throws up more problems than solutions. What happens if your merry band of survivors gets in a firefight for some reason with another group of players. In that situation you would want to fight, to protect yourself, and to protect the group from outside hostiles. How would acquiring attributes that diminish your combat ability help achieve that goal? That's an example where trying to fix this "murder problem" would have counter-realistic psychological results.

I can't help but feel OP's argument, and this entire thread, is more geared towards solo players. But not everyone plays the game solo. For those that do, you can still have an ingroup of one.

[Sixteen18 15]

As a sociology grad student I try to stay away from these threads not to spend 6 hours writing a wall of text' date=' but I would like to mention something that makes the OP argument flawed.

Conclusion: It's not the game's fault that people always shoot each other on site, its the people's.

[/quote']

OP claims humans are social animals, and that's true, but not with everybody. We all have ingroups and outgroups. And pretty much every terrible thing done in human history (and continuing to get done to this day) can be explained via how one group associates themselves with another. That's how we train armed forces in the modern era to reduce the psychological effects of war. It's very easy to distance yourself from others when you can separate and demonise an outgroup, while praising and reinforcing your own ingroup.

That is the major point in this whole argument imo. People will always create groups that will inevitably be in conflict, even if their reasons are superficial. This is why we have so many countries in the world, even though most of them are unable to properly sustain their populations and are full of poverty, corruption and insecurity. In DayZ control of resources would be the central priority of every group and sharing them with others is in no way an option. In today's world countries can't just openly start wars due to international political pressure (although it obviously still has happened very recently). In a world with no government shoot first would be the only law.

[sempifer 1]

someone has to much time in hands..... get a girlfriend dude.

oh, i dndt read btw kthxbai.

[wufnu 0]

someone has to much time in hands..... get a girlfriend dude.

oh' date=' i dndt read btw kthxbai.

[/quote']

Maybe it's what he likes to do. You may find this hard to believe but some people not only enjoy making games but they even *gasp* spend time thinking about them. The next time you have an amazing game experience, or enjoy something that someone else spend hundreds or thousands of hours working on, something that made your life better, be sure to tell the people that made it to "get a girlfriend". Your assumptions betray your current usefulness to mankind.

[gutowski_m@op.pl 0]

Maybe something similar to the system in "Amnesia"' date=' "Dark Corners Of The Earth" or "Eternal Darkness": experiencing horror (murder, zeds, infection, pain...) damages your psyche in various ways, which impairs your vision and at some point hurts you physically. You can increase your mental health by lighting a fire, or other "reassuring" actions including alcohol as temporary measure (including addiction and the disadvantages), drugs or maybe a "conversation" action or so, between players. There won't have to be hallucinations or crazy stuff like that as a punishment, just a basic and perceivable uneasyness in the player's character's movement and aim, that reflects their trouble coping with the situation.

[/quote']

This.

[Polak (DayZ) 14]

I have died so many times because of people who shot you without asking... Now if i saw someone, I gonna kill him.

I guess I'm a bandit now..

[Soldier of Failure 14]

Amazing thread. I approve of this.

Also, sempifer, Im willing to bet your "girlfriend" is just a blowup doll. Hate to burst your bubble, but blowup dolls are NOT people.

[Knautscher 4]

@ Sixteen18 and KingRobolo:

Thank you for your well founded replies, I really appreciate that. Personally, I study sociology and psychology myself as a part of my course of study, but I'll admit that those studies are not as in-depth in their nature as your respective fields of study appear to be. They mainly deal with aspects of cooperation, in- and exclusion of highly different people and behaviour within groups in a working society. This is probably the reason why I did not think of ingroups and outgroups, but was biased towards overlapping social contexts within an existing society, which of course obviously is not the case in DayZ.

[...]It would not be like Resident Evil where randoms pick up a gun and go shooting zombies. In fact shooting a zombie would be just about as difficult as shooting a human' date=' our natural impulse would tell us not to do it. [/quote']

Exactly, it is not like Resident Evil, yet this is what everybody does ingame: Grab a gun, start shooting everything that moves. That could be changed. You will never reach the player, but the character he plays should behave in a more realistic manner: scared, anxious, probably out of his mind. You'd have to master more than aiming a gun at someone.

The reality would just be too difficult to comprehend' date=' the most likely outcome is that humans would either go completely insane or go more towards animal behavior than what we have in our current society. Survival of the fittest, those that are stronger and more skilled at survival will have no interest of joining up with people who will slow them down or increase the chance of them getting killed.[/quote']

I assume DayZ to take place some time after the initial riots of the falling civilization died down (quite literally) and that ethics and moral do not simply vanish over night, if you have been socialized with them. This does not mean that they stop you from doing anything, but they still stand in conflict with "killing for fun", which was my main goal to adress. So even if they don't stop you during a difficult situation, they can affect you after, once you get time to think about your actions. Of course most of the time the survivor is on edge and will not reflect on his actions, but he will at some point.

Also, why there'd undoubtedly be a decrease in civilized behavior, I doubt everyone would go insane or revert to living like an animal instanly. Would you not go to look wether your friends are alright? Would you not try to talk to people to help you, or if they need help themselves?

But of course these are only my thoughts and assumptions, as you rightfully pointed out, and since they are based on a small selection of the broad variety of aspects of sociology and psychology, there is a good chance they are not as detailed as your, more professional views on this.

[...] Killing humans would not have any realistic impact on their psychological well being with how screwed up everyone would be already be from killing zombies and seeing society collapse.

Mh' date=' you mean it can never get worse? I don't know about that, but as I said: I am not in your position, you know more than I, presumably.

Yet, being screwed up from the madness around you is something I would like to see being represented ingame. The player obviously isn't irritated by what he sees, but the character he plays should be.

I know you wanted to avoid writing a text wall, but I'd be highly interested what brought you to your conclusions.

Also, if moves were made to change the game mechanics in regards to killing players, it throws up more problems than solutions. What happens if your merry band of survivors gets in a firefight for some reason with another group of players. In that situation you would want to fight, to protect yourself, and to protect the group from outside hostiles. How would acquiring attributes that diminish your combat ability help achieve that goal? That's an example where trying to fix this "murder problem" would have counter-realistic psychological results.

True, I think I maybe focused too much on the negative aspects of killing.

I can't help but feel OP's argument' date=' and this entire thread, is more geared towards solo players. But not everyone plays the game solo. For those that do, you can still have an ingroup of one.

[/quote']

My ingame experience so far is, that groups can hardly form ingame right now, as you are usually shot on sight. Now while I read and support your arguments for in- and outgroups and the presumably low effect on the psychic health in this alread hellish scneario, neither type of group can form in DayZ right now.

You either have an established group with your friends already, or you don't. There's no "making contact" as lonesome survivors would probably try to at some point. This and the "hunting" aspect of other players is what I do not believe to be a realistic represantation.

Conclusion: It's not the game's fault that people always shoot each other on site' date=' its the people's. Face it, it's the internet and most people will not group with random others. Look at any MMO today for proof.

[/quote']

I'm afraid that might be true, but I still refuse to give up on this game during alpha. It's not aiming to become some blurry, colorful MMO (where people aren't emotionally invested as well), but rather trying to be a as realistic as possible representation of an apocalyptic scenario.

The problem of the internet is it's distance. You're hardly responsible for anything you do and you don't care about the consequences of your actions. DayZ has the potential to become better than the average online multiplayer game.

My point was that something has to be done about "killing for fun", which is okay if some do it, but simply annoyingly absurd when everyone does it. This however is also linked to exploits (serverhopping to avoid death, to loot high end gear without danger etc.) and can possibly be solved in another way. This was just my take on it.

Right now, I think, there is an imbalance between playstyles. Banditry takes less skill and is more rewarding than simply surviving. The goal however is to succeed at survival either way.

People who PK for fun (e.g. shooting an unarmed noob from miles away) like to complain that they don't want to be forced into a certain style of gameplay, but they expect others to accept that.

In short: you're probably right, I don't know. I do not have the same educational level and specific knowledge that you two seem to possess, so I can not really argue with you. I'd love to, but I can't.

However I would like to hear more about your views on this.

Well, I thought the discussion of these aspects was worth a shot and maybe it inspired someone.

[SillySil 295]

To make it realistic players would need feelings, a conscience. We don't have it right now. We don't think that killing other players for no reason is wrong though most of us would think that killing people for no reason is wrong.

So to make it realistic you'd need to add something we lack right now. Conscience. However, in real life feelings would be the penalty itself for mindless killing. In a video game you'd need to add some kind of penalty for being "bad". What would that be and somewhat make sense? ALCOHOL AND DRUGS! Make those with bad conscience addicts! They would have one more thing to stack and look for. And they wouldn't find it on non-bandits. So not only that would encourage more bandit on bandit fights but also would make them think if they have enough drugs to calm their nerves before pulling the trigger.

[slonlo 43]

One player based solution is to be always try to be the one that sees the other guy first.

Three times I've come upon someone from behind that didn't know I was there. The first time I was not very nice. Followed him for a bit, into a shed with only one exit, and axed him to death. I felt bad about it later.

Another time I had two guys come up on me when I was in a hangar (I had layed down in a shipping container while I ran to the bathroom). They were outside inspecting a body that I didn't see when I came in. I didn't know if I just missed it if they silently killed him. So I shot the first guy in the head. Guy #2 spun and ran at me (potentially he thought I was a sniper and he was going for cover) so I dumped the mag in him. He hit the ground yelling "Dude stop stop!" I felt REALLY bad after that one.

My last close encounter was similar, but I learned from my past mistakes. I spotted a guy entering a barn I had just left. I was across the road in a bush with my AK-74 ready. He was holding a handgun. But I yelled to him and he responded. I had the drop on him, but I don't WANT to kill people. I don't like being killed and I have some in-game conscience now. So I told him I was on the way to meet a friend, I didn't want a partner, and made him stay put until I was out of sight. All three examples could have (and probably would have) ended with me being killed, but I had control of the situation. I just wonder how many encounters are like my first, just plain malice, or like my second, just plain scared out of their wits.

Either way, any mechanical way of controlling behavior is counter productive. I would LOVE it if it would work, but I don't think it will. Way too many variables. But I think if those scared people will just call out before shooting all will be well. Bandits will shoot anyway. Just don't trust ANYONE and make sure you have control of the situation before revealing yourself. If the guy has a gun raised at you, kill him. But if you ARE friendly, you aren't going to shoot someone in the back.

Basically, don't rely on game mechanics solutions. Start the solution yourself. Don't be naive... EXPECT that guy to spin and fire on you, but if YOU want the chance, give it to others. You shouldn't expect other to do the same, but eventually friendlies WILL run into each other.

/Michael Jackson - Man in the Mirror

[septuscap 42]

Some PKs like to argue' date=' that only laws and the police force hold us back from tearing each other apart. The truth is, that laws and the police force have unanimously been implemented by the majority of people, to protect them from the very few individuals who are incapable (e.g. due to lack of empathy) to live in harmony with them.

[/quote']

Go into any ghetto and try and convince them that everyone gets along. When you don't have security & safety, ethics fly out the window. And while we are definitely social animals, we very quickly differentiate our tribe/group from OTHERS/OUTSIDERS. Those poor survivors getting shot up? They're being killed by GROUPS of bandits with little to no care for outsiders. They will never betray their group, and there is in fact the exact social/psychological relationship you describe in your post.

As for strangers encountering other survivors:

Wild West Server (does all the work for you, go interact "meaningfully")

Wasteland Medics

Freeside Trading Co, join survivors, trade, help set up a city

Survivor Checkpoint between Cherno and Elektro

These are a few of the more unique things being done. There are also numerous anti-bandit clans, survivor clans, clans that help new spawns with morphine/blood/food/soda/water, solo players who avoid players via stealth, etc.

And if you must meet strangers in-game, do it like you would in a real zombie apocalypse. You wouldn't just walk up to a guy with a gun and yell "HI THERE FRIENDLY?"

Keep some degree of cover while you initiate conversation. Have a friend on overwatch in case the situation goes bad. Test the waters; turn your back and use alt-look to see where he's aiming, chat him up and see if his responses lag like he's also talking in some VOIP (with his REAL group), see if he's trying to lead you into a trap.

Granted, there could be more features implemented to help survivors make cities, establish communication via radio, leave "posters" in-game advertising player cities, friendly clan protocols, meeting points/times for friendlies, etc. so you don't have to meta, but joining the right server + TS really isn't asking too much.

[Kommissar Pinky 11]

bump, good post, people should read.

[Undeadsteak 16]

Lol. To the individual claiming Day Z is an accurate representation of a zombie scenario; you're nuts. Working in a group is always more advantageous. Bandit groups would exist and thrive. Sole bandits would not. And that's pretty realistic anyways. Different groups of humans warring against each other with their own self-interest in mind has made up most of the world's history. The key word being groups. Lone wolf mentality is silly. Most people would much rather team up with a guy with a gun and accomplish things as a group than try to shoot him. This is a game. People like the adrenaline rush from the PvP. I certainly do. If this was my actual life' date=' fuck no I wouldn't be engaging in firefights for fun. And anyways, you'd probably be more likely to kill a guy over his beans than over his gun in real life. Nobody would go, "Oh, a better sniper rifle. Let's take him out."

[/quote']

Naaaaaah... Ppl aren't nuts.

At least I am not.

I am just defending my oppinion, bud.

Even rocket said that this game was meant to be a simulation, a reallistic one, of a Zombie Apocalypse, aswell as Arma2 is a reallistic simulation of Army's situations. Im not telling anyone to play the way I play, but this game isn't a deathmatch, just like it is becoming right now. In some servers the game is more like Deer Hunter, where a few well armed guys go hunt other players through the major cities.

Oh, this wasn't directed at you. It was directed to the individual claiming that current-day Day Z is representative of how real-life would turn out. I'm sure Rocket's vision is for Day Z to be a simulation of real life, but I don't think it's ever possible, and the current state it's at is definitely not how real life would go.

[CaptainPlanet (DayZ) 23]

This game satisfies my blood lust.

[SwiftSpear 2]

I really agree with you. The only thing, as a game designer, these problems are not at all the fault of players, it's entirely the game design that's responsible for the current situation. In nearly every way it encourages murderous behavior and punishes peaceful behavior. It's just not very psychologically functional in it's current state.

[Sixteen18 15]

[...]It would not be like Resident Evil where randoms pick up a gun and go shooting zombies. In fact shooting a zombie would be just about as difficult as shooting a human' date=' our natural impulse would tell us not to do it. [/quote']

Exactly' date=' it is not like Resident Evil, yet this is what everybody does ingame: Grab a gun, start shooting everything that moves. That could be changed. You will never reach the player, but the character he plays should behave in a more realistic manner: scared, anxious, probably out of his mind. You'd have to master more than aiming a gun at someone.[/quote']

I do believe that solo survivors would try to form groups before they start killing each other on sight, although obviously sometimes they would get shot in the back by their new "friend" due to greed and lack of empathy. I just don't see how to correctly implement this into the game without breaking it. There are already so many advantages to being part of a group, but large majority of players still go around solo not even trying to make groups. If the game is changed to make solo survival much harder it would turn many people away, just like in MMOs people expect to be able to do just about everything solo and not waste time looking for a group. I guess they are trying to keep the stereotype that online gamers are antisocial alive.

The reality would just be too difficult to comprehend' date=' the most likely outcome is that humans would either go completely insane or go more towards animal behavior than what we have in our current society. Survival of the fittest, those that are stronger and more skilled at survival will have no interest of joining up with people who will slow them down or increase the chance of them getting killed.[/quote']

I assume DayZ to take place some time after the initial riots of the falling civilization died down (quite literally) and that ethics and moral do not simply vanish over night' date=' if you have been socialized with them. This does not mean that they stop you from doing anything, but they still stand in conflict with "killing for fun", which was my main goal to adress. So even if they don't stop you during a difficult situation, they can affect you after, once you get time to think about your actions. Of course most of the time the survivor is on edge and will not reflect on his actions, but he will at some point.

Also, why there'd undoubtedly be a decrease in civilized behavior, I doubt everyone would go insane or revert to living like an animal [i']instanly. Would you not go to look wether your friends are alright? Would you not try to talk to people to help you, or if they need help themselves?

But of course these are only my thoughts and assumptions, as you rightfully pointed out, and since they are based on a small selection of the broad variety of aspects of sociology and psychology, there is a good chance they are not as detailed as your, more professional views on this.

Major changes in society have always faced resistance from people, but ultimately the ones that adapt to the new system will win. When Soviet revolution happened in 1917 and communists took control of the country there were still thousands if not millions of people who supported the old monarchy. To avoid another revolution the communists systemically executed and permanently imprisoned these supporters until their movement completely died out in the 30s.

The change of society in DayZ would be that now the people with combat and survival skills would be the most powerful, rather than the ones with money. These people (Hunters, soldiers, experienced criminals) will not suddenly decide to be heroes and save humanity by assuming leadership roles (although a few might). As I've mentioned before, this would turn into survival of the fittest. If a group scavenged a city and didn't find anything useful and then see a guy running through a forest with a rifle and a huge backpack I doubt they would ask him nicely to share with them. While it is debatable, I believe for many killing people to take their gear would become a straight forward survival mechanism. Just like today criminals rob houses and sometimes kill the inhabitants because they think crime is their only option to get decent money. While some would try to maintain their humanity by going with the old ways, they would be at a disadvantage compared to groups who adapt to new extremist ways.

[...] Killing humans would not have any realistic impact on their psychological well being with how screwed up everyone would be already be from killing zombies and seeing society collapse.

Mh' date=' you mean it can never get worse? I don't know about that, but as I said: I am not in your position, you know more than I, presumably.

Yet, being screwed up from the madness around you is something I would like to see being represented ingame. The player obviously isn't irritated by what he sees, but the character he plays should be.

I know you wanted to avoid writing a text wall, but I'd be highly interested what brought you to your conclusions. [/quote']

My statement is a little broad, psychology clearly has a lot of variation from person to person. However, what I base this statement on is the history of how Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder affects soldiers. According to current statistics PTSD affects a larger ratio of soldiers who have been to Afghanistan and Iraq than those who served in Vietnam, Korea and even WWII. While obviously in those times the records of PTSD were not as efficient as today, there is plenty of evidence that PTSD really establishes itself when a person is placed in a state of complacency. That is while in a combat zone the soldiers are constantly focused on survival and with constant surges of adrenaline they are able to perform at their full potential without being dragged down by psychological problems. When their tour of duty ends and they go back home, PTSD really starts to surface. Since they are no longer constantly in danger they start thinking back to all the people they killed and the horror they experienced. This becomes a daily routine and even appears in their dreams, slowly making them lose grip on their regular life due to the combat experiences stuck in their head.

The reason this occurs to many soldiers during their tours of duty in Afghanistan is because it is not a conventional war, one day they might get in a firefight and kill someone, then have a month of no engagements leading them to the same complacency they would experience by heading back home. During Korea and Vietnam wars fighting was much more consistent and soldiers pulled through by always remaining focused due to lack of downtime (although there are other mental issues that can occur, specially due to fatigue). In DayZ it would be a very similar scenario to front line WWII soldiers, they would always be under pressure and always focused on one thing - survival. Thinking too much about what is happening would send anyone into severe depression. This doesn't even have to be just thinking about humans you've killed, thinking about how the entire world is basically destroyed and just about everyone they knew is dead is likely to be just as traumatizing to a person.

Conclusion: It's not the game's fault that people always shoot each other on site' date=' its the people's. Face it, it's the internet and most people will not group with random others. Look at any MMO today for proof.

[/quote']

I'm afraid that might be true' date=' but I still refuse to give up on this game during alpha. It's not aiming to become some blurry, colorful MMO (where people aren't emotionally invested as well), but rather trying to be a as realistic as possible representation of an apocalyptic scenario.

The problem of the internet is it's distance. You're hardly responsible for anything you do and you don't care about the consequences of your actions. DayZ has the potential to become better than the average online multiplayer game.

My point was that something has to be done about "killing for fun", which is okay if some do it, but simply annoyingly absurd when everyone does it. This however is also linked to exploits (serverhopping to avoid death, to loot high end gear without danger etc.) and can possibly be solved in another way. This was just my take on it.

Right now, I think, there is an imbalance between playstyles. Banditry takes less skill and is more rewarding than simply surviving. The goal however is to succeed at survival either way.

People who PK for fun (e.g. shooting an unarmed noob from miles away) like to complain that they don't want to be forced into a certain style of gameplay, but they expect others to accept that.

[b']In short: you're probably right, I don't know. I do not have the same educational level and specific knowledge that you two seem to possess, so I can not really argue with you. I'd love to, but I can't.

However I would like to hear more about your views on this.

Well, I thought the discussion of these aspects was worth a shot and maybe it inspired someone.

If we are going to be realistic, bandits WILL have advantage over survivors. They don't play by anyone's rules and now there is no law enforcement to stop them from doing whatever they want. Bandits are also very likely to be people who have had experience with fighting and/or killing people before the apocalypse and they are less traumatized by it than regular people are.

What I do think needs changing is to somehow encourage people to form groups rather than go on solo suicide runs. While I don't have a magic solution to fix it, I think rocket should invest time into testing various ideas. No doubt that some or many of them will fail and forums will be bombarded by complaints, but that's the only reliable way to make progress. A few things that I personally think should be tested:

- Make sniper rifles much more rare or remove them completely. Yes, Dayz is supposed to be realistic but it still has to be kept reasonably balanced. We don't have tanks spawning for a reason. Sniper rifles are just too game breaking and encourage solo bandits.

- Make zombies more dangerous, improve the use of distractions. Like have zombies spawn inside some buildings and the only way to loot them is to either kill them or have one person distract the zombies while others loot. Also increase the range from which zombies hear gunshots, firing a gun in Cherno should be more dangerous not just because of other bandits hearing it.

- Increase direct communication range to ~300 meters. Takes away some realism, but it is too difficult to properly communicate with people in close quarters in a game.

- Make food and water more rare. Allow people to share food and water, ie 1 soda can be used by two people at the same time.

- Make a "Morality" attribute. By consistently spending time close to other survivors you gain a boost to stats, such as increased endurance (longer sprint time), increased maximum blood, decreased hindrance during low blood, reduced chance to pass out, break bones or bleed and increased hold breath duration for scope aiming.

[BathSalts 4]

I was in a situation a couple of days ago' date=' where myself and another player started the tenuos dance of figuring out if each other was friendly..After a brief time we figured it out and i even gave him some needed painkillers. We went into a town and started scavenging.. I tend to be very stealthy and avoid Zombie contact, he was not as careful and we found ourself on a 12 / on 2 situation where he was not helping me take down zombies. I figure because he was conserving ammo.. After the z's were down he proceeds to scavenge nearly everything.. Needless to say I bolted and ditched him, as he put me in more danger than i cared to be in.. I get the feeling he was waiting for me to get taken down so he could scavenge me as well...

Point being..even if you find a friendly, are they always in your best interest??.... Ive been alive on my own for quite a while, I have had to kill two players that shot at me first(one with an ax).. Im wondering if there are any good players out there..I would love to play with other players, as the tension created by the came , surviving on your own, is actually kind of exausting..

[/quote']

.....

I know exactly what you're talking about...and I have the same playstyle, drop me a line on steam, same name

[Bitey 10]

Good post. BUT ... In a postapocalyptic world people will be scared, they will make unlogical, impulsive decisions. They will kill other people when they see they have weapons. Because its the weapons and what you can do with it that scares them.

[Scerun 227]

I've never been convinced by psychological drawbacks in the game untilI read this.

It was remarkably well put and made a great deal of sense

[SillySil 295]

Good post. BUT ... In a postapocalyptic world people will be scared' date=' they will make unlogical, impulsive decisions. They will kill other people when they see they have weapons. Because its the weapons and what you can do with it that scares them.

[/quote']

Yes they would intentionally go to populated areas get on a rooftop or a hill and kill everyone they see without looting their prey, right.

No. Deathmatch has nothing to do with reality. You wouldn't shoot people on sight. You'd avoid them and shoot only if threatened.

[zumb.sasha@googlemail.com 8]

Dude when you walk into house and face a survivor, Its him or you. Today i've seen 2 guys looting Berezino I could of take them out with DMR but I changed my mind and went for shop loot. When I was coming out I've seen them and run back into shop. I ended up getting killed with AKM and loosing DMR and Kobra.

[SergeantTeddy (DayZ) 1]

My everyday life is consisted of staying home, I get my adrenaline from this game, While being shot at, Shooting at someone, hearing shots in the distance, its all very exciting to me.