Atmosphere through Dynamic Events

[dorn956 43]

So we all know that atmosphere is created through various aspects in the game creation world. Ambient props, decals, ambient sounds, ambient animations, dynamic events such as zombie attacks, player encounters, helicopter spawns, etc etc...

 

[Discretion warning -- this get's a bit graphic]

This created the atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic setting that denotes the will to survive and the instinct to kill or be killed. However, I feel like there's a huge lack in sentiment and story. Of course, yes, the game is in alpha and I'm sure this is to be expected and fixed in the future. Allow me to offer my two-cents here and say that I have a good suggestion that I'd love to start a discussion about to fill this gap.

I placed a discussion thread on dynamic corpses of Z and non-Z humanoids that are temporary world-containers. They start out as dynamic props that hold generated loot based on location/body-type and allow the players to find gear within them. 

Quick e.g.: Out in a forest > find a log cabin > find a dead lumberjack (maybe he isn't infected? theory of a cure / immunity to the infection?) > he has plaid clothing on, one of those fuzz cap thingies, big ol' wellies, and a crude axe on him. 

He's a lumberjack who lives in a cabin and has an axe. That's sort of what you'd expect to find in a log cabin in the forest right? Instead currently when we go into a log cabin in the forest we find raincoats and fruits, just some basic household stuff you could find anywhere. But there's no story to that!

 

So here's the gist: I think it would be great for the ambiance to tell a story. A dead body in a suburban home with a bullet entrance and exit wound in his head and a gun in his hand, and also a bloodstain on the wall behind him. What can we deduce from this? Suicide, as it looks like. We never know for sure because we weren't there, but that's the story we see from our point of view.

Then there's the idea of the log cabin. We gotta expect to find hunting rifles and woodcutting hatchets in there!

Every area of DayZ would have a type of dead body, type of expected destruction, and more.

 

Like Elektro. There are broken windows on nearly every first floor house, and every store. This shows there was panic and looting that happened during the apocalypse. But there are little to no bodies left.. Why is this? There's no way everyone got out alive in that kind of panic. You would expect to find at least ONE dead body that isn't a naked fresh spawn, right?

 

How about a dead helicopter pilot in the chopper spawns?

An "alive" zombie bus driver in a bus that's stuck in his seat by the seat belt? (Bus is crashed into a tree, clearly a bloodstain on the steering wheel where the bus driver hit his head and had a concussion and died, also a a bloodstain on the forehead of the model for the zombie bus driver)

A dead fisherman floating by the side of a dock in the water still wearing his raincoat? Shot in the back of the head off the dock?

 

Let's hear some more ideas about scenarios you could encounter and how bodies and decals could tell a story!

[Whyherro123 2283]

The "zombies" in-game aren't actually zombies, but living humans infected with a degenerative brain disease. Everything that would kill a human will kill them.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

[ToySmokes 116]

17 hours ago, Whyherro123 said:

The "zombies" in-game aren't actually zombies, but living humans infected with a degenerative brain disease. Everything that would kill a human will kill them.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Even though they aren't zombies, Dorn has a point, and they are good ideas

[Funkmaster Rick 373]

I suspect that many of the things you're talking about are meant to be provided by other players, once the systems are refined enough to allow it.

[BIIdiots 5]

Well that's all good, but from the initial idea the stories come from the players..  The setting and conditions are given, and you are on your own.  We don't spawn as a team, or at the exact same spot on the map.  There's some good stories out there.  Finding your own without  a director leading you through a predetermined story is basically what the game is about.

Farcry was pretty much ruined by all the Hollywood crap after 2.  The scripted events went from beyond overboard to get the hell off my hard drive.  Make a movie or a game.....

But having read a little more on your ideas.  Little events that promote immersion and atmosphere are always good.  Just as long as they aren't gimmick events. 

The bodies left have been collected by the military and put into piles.   

Edited June 26, 2017 by BIIdiots
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